Lifebridge expansion plan reworked again to utilize proposed zoning overlay

By Michael McHugh at The Salem News

SALEM — Lifebridge North Shore and Harborlight Homes have once again revised their plan to expand the shelter on Margin Street with the creation of about 60 new studio apartment spaces, an additional 20 beds, and improved services — this time through the city’s adoption of a 40R Smart Growth Overlay District.

The goal of the project is to expand the shelter to provide the formerly homeless with a more humane shelter experience than the current congregate model that places 50 bunk beds in a large, open interior space with shared facilities and little privacy.

In addition to improving the space with partial walls separating each bed, the extra permanent supportive housing through studio-apartment spaces would provide each resident their own bathroom and kitchenette.

The plan has been significantly scaled down from the original five-story, multi-faceted renovation project that would have incorporated other abutting properties and entirely demolished the St. Mary’s Italian Church property for the purposes of 36 units of elderly housing with an additional 51 new studio apartments.

While the previous iteration of the project planned to preserve the front façade of the church facing the street, the current plan proposes to keep the entire structure, but add new wings to the left and right.

The new studio apartments would be placed in the new left wing of the church, while the church and wings to the right will be used for Lifebridge programs, beds and offices.

Also, strong neighborhood opposition resulted in Lifebridge and Harborlight dropping the idea of reconfiguring the High Street Park and Christopher Columbus Society, and the more involved construction work it would require.

“The preservation of the church building, which was something that was really important to folks in the neighborhood as well as Historic Salem, is something we worked really hard to figure out — and I think we have,” said Harborlight Executive Director Andrew DeFranza, who would be the developer of the property.

At a recent meeting to discuss the proposed adoption of a 40R Smart Growth Overlay District for the block of buildings encompassing Lifebridge’s operations, residents and abutters once again spoke in opposition.

“We’re against this proposal because of the ‘c’ words; community, crime, and chaos,” said Nathan Ritsko, who said he spoke on behalf of the McIntire Neighborhood Association.

“On community, everyone who lives in Salem deserves to have a safe, clean neighborhood without trash, needles, and human waste strewn about,” he said. “On crime, in the last four years our own Salem PD has responded to over 6,200 incidents related to the homeless population …

“On chaos, anyone who has seen the needles at Riley Plaza, the encampment behind Wendy’s, or the trash strewn around Essex Street, knows that the homeless population strikes chaos in the heart of our city. This proposal would make these problems significantly worse.”

The proposed overlay would allow for denser housing in this neighborhood, as well as address other issues of concern, DeFranza said.

“If you want to deal with stuff as nuanced as parking requirements, height setback requirements, mixed income, and all those things — you can fit them into a 40R overlay,” he said. “You essentially get to write the rules locally for what you want to be allowed inside of a 40R.”

“With 40B,” he added, referring to state-designated affordable housing, “It’s initiated by the developer, but 40R is controlled by the city.”

“It’s really an overlay of zoning that would allow for the type of density that we need to accomplish the goal of renovating and adding to our shelter and creating that many apartment buildings,” Lifebridge Executive Director Jason Etheridge said. “It’s also a great way to work in concert with the city, as the planning department is very involved in it.”

Under 40R, the state provides financial incentives for having these zoning ordinances approved by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, ranging from $10,000 to $600,000 depending on the current land use of the district and the percentage of net new units that the ordinance may potentially yield.

An additional $3,000 will be paid to the city for every bonus unit that gets a building permit within the zone.

A companion law, Chapter 40S, also provides “school cost insurance” to address the gap in the rising average cost of educating the children from a 40R district generated by the development. Also, the city would get more favorable consideration when applying for discretionary grants from state agencies.

While 40R is not the only potential means by which zoning could be changed to accommodate the dense housing, DeFranza said, it would allow for greater benefits to the city and establish more explicit parameters for the development, in comparison to other avenues such as 40B.

“Forty B has two main problems with it,” he said. “The city is already over 10% affordable units, so we could sit with the zoning board and say, ‘We want to do X,Y, and Z,’ but it would be appealable. So if the zoning board said no, then we wouldn’t have any avenue.”

“The second problem is that it brings no income to the city, where 40R does. In the same way, you could just go for a general zoning change, but then that benefit to the city of 40R funding would be eliminated. So if we’re going to rezone anyway, we may as well use a 40R.”

They could also try to use the Dover Amendment and exclude the project based on an educational or disability use, both of which are viable in this case, DeFranza said.

“But we generally don’t like to go that way because then we wouldn’t have to comply with anything,” he said.

Lifebridge says it will ask Harborlight for preference for both Salem residency and homelessness at these new affordable units.

The plan seeks to complete construction in phases, allowing for certain parts of the shelter to be relocated to other parts of the building while they are under construction, with the goal of not disrupting services.

“There’s no part of this that would have us closing our doors and saying, ‘Everyone go away for a year and then come back,’” Etheridge said. “We would want to make sure there’s little to no interruption to services as we build these different components.”

The next step for the proposed overlay is a joint public hearing with the City Council and Planning Board, followed by a referral to the Planning board for a recommendation, then a vote from the council.

If it passes, a request for final approval would be made to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.

“There’s more to be heard, and there’s more to tell,” Etheridge said. “I know there’s a lot of different narratives out there that this is a done deal, or that people aren’t talking about it.”

“I just want to make sure that people know we’ve been talking about it for a while, there is a process, and for anyone to say it’s been done in a silo is not true.”

For more information about 40R/Smart Growth Overlay districts, visit imaginesalem.org. Materials will also be available for review at the planning department, at 98 Washington St.