Hamilton Planning Board elects Mitchell chair, pushes 40B developer to redesign Asbury Street project

HAMILTON — May 18, 2021 — Hamilton's Planning Board reorganized and pressed a 40B affordable housing developer to redesign a proposed Asbury Street building at its May 18 meeting. Members unanimously elected Rick Mitchell as chair and Marny Crouch as vice chair, replacing outgoing chair Brian, and voted to recommend Amol DalPost to the Board of Selectmen as a full voting member, filling a seat vacated by the resignation of Dan Hamm. The board then turned to Harbor Light Community Partners' proposal for 45 units across four acres at an Asbury Street site, with member Bill Wheaton calling the roughly 50,000-square-foot, three-story structure an "airport motel" that bears no resemblance to Hamilton's single-family character, and suggesting the same density could be achieved through smaller, dispersed structures such as quadruplexes. Andrew DeFranza of Harbor Light said engineering constraints around soils and wastewater drove the current massing but that Harbor Light was studying a rotation and height reduction, and agreed to return with schematic alternatives before the project advances to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Two Asbury Street abutters, Lydia Schuduffska and Julia Reuben, offered visual presentations showing the building's projected scale relative to their homes.