When Burlington planning board chairman James Kirkpatrick saw a dozen or so audience members clustered in the meeting chambers Monday night, he said he assumed the board was in for a lively – and potentially long – meeting, since most times its neighbors opposed to a particular rezoning project who turn out for such meetings.
Instead, Kirkpatrick expressed surprise, and delight, that in fact most of the audience members were there to support the rezoning of a portion of their subdivision, Mackintosh on the Lake, the city’s largest residential development.
Developers from the Venn Terra company, headed by Shawn Cummings, outlined a proposal to rezone about 35.7 acres in the Mackintosh on the Lake subdivision.
Cummings has already undertaken to develop several other portions of the subdivision, which had fallen on hard times for years following an initial burst of construction after the subdivision was first announced in 2003.
One of the last undeveloped portions of the original subdivision is the one he was asking to be rezoned this week. It was a request that is rather rare at planning board meetings – for a less dense, rather than more dense, zoning designation.
[Story continues below graphic of Mackintosh on the Lake layout, with excerpt of area affected by rezoning.]
Venn Terra’s engineer Todd Lambert said that the terrain of the remaining undeveloped portion of the subdivision contains steep slopes, is heavily forested, and adjacent to an internal lake that makes lot configurations difficult. “It would be very difficult to develop,” he explained to the planning board.
Lambert and Cummings explained that the intention is to combine the property up for rezoning with another adjacent area, already rezoned as medium density residential, which would allow the combined properties to have larger lots with wider frontages.
By changing the zoning classification of the parcel under consideration from conditional mixed use residential to medium density residential the “density” would go down slightly from 5 to 4.85 units per acre.
Lambert said there would be an increase in lot size of 80 percent, going from 5,000 to 9,000 square feet, with 65-foot wide frontages. When Kirkpatrick began asking whether members of the audience wanted to speak, he was surprised by the show of hands of those in favor, rather than opposed, to the project.
Cummings and Lambert noted that the company had scheduled three neighborhood briefings for area residents to outline its plans, which were attended by about 30 residents.
Only one resident voiced any concerns at Monday night’s planning board meeting.
Cummings said had volunteered to the Mackintosh on the Lake home-owners’ association that he would consider putting a dog park on the land.
But that amenity wasn’t a plus from the vantage point of one neighbor who lives near what he supposed would be the location of the future dog park, even though a precise location has not been arranged.
Ultimately, the board voted unanimously, 6-0, to recommend the rezoning to the city council.
Smaller rezoning also recommended
The planning board had also voted to recommend a much smaller rezoning project at 1259 Railroad Street, at the corner of Railroad and Queen Ann streets.
It, too, drew nary an objection, nor a speaker of any variety, other than the property owner, Henry Segovia.
He explained that he hopes to build a duplex or triplex on the .87-acre lot.
The small lot currently has a “split” zoning – with part of the lot designated for high density residential and another portion for heavy industrial. Segovia’s request is to convert the industrially-zoned portion of the property to high density residential.
The planning board voted 6-0 to recommend his request to the city council.
