![]() ![]() “So we’ve reworked the plan in a way where the site can actually grow incrementally over time.” “ concern that we’ve heard is this fear of everything happening at once, and we were previously working with a plan that didn’t allow for a very efficient phasing,” Packard said. Her comments touch on a view shared by many developers and community planners around Maine: that not all so-called NIMBYs are created equal. “I would not consider that safe for children to be playing outside or people of any stripe to be living there,” said Chapman, who lives a mile from the shipyard.ĭeveloper Jen Packard doesn’t agree with much of the criticism that’s come The Yard South’s way, but through a series of public workshops and community engagement meetings this year, she said she has actually found some constructive feedback in early pushback. A Thornton Heights project in South Portland was also a brownfield redevelopment that turned an old, contaminated church and school into 42 affordable housing units that opened this year.Ĭhapman and the “No Yard South” group aren’t convinced that the remaining contamination from the rest of that 30-acre lot won’t still adversely affect residents living on The Yard South’s 3 acre parcel. Other stories of brownfield remediation include the mills that are getting turned into apartments around Maine, such as the proposed housing project at the former Lockwood Mill in Waterville. But if the 3-acre parcel is cleaned up to state standards, it will be fit for habitation, Madore said. Cleaning up this site will be important to residents and the waterfront whether it becomes housing or not. A 2020 environmental site assessment of the site found petroleum-related contaminants and metals in its groundwater and soil, respectively.īut there are brownfields all around Maine being redeveloped under federal and state oversight, noted Jamie Madore, an environmental engineer who has worked with the city. That has spooked some residents like Chapman who don’t believe housing should be built on the historic shipyard. On the environmental front, however, a great deal of clean up does need to be done at the proposed site of The Yard South, which is a brownfield, a site the federal Environmental Protection Agency has found to have contamination that might hinder redevelopment. Department of Housing and Urban Development.īut in opposition to The Yard South project, more than 650 South Portland residents signed a petition on election day in November, said Cathy Chapman, the spokesperson behind the movement formed this year. Overall, South Portland has issued more than 400 building permits since 2020, according to data from the U.S. Nevajda cited the redevelopment of South Portland’s former public works yard, Avesta’s Westbrook Street project and the Thornton Heights Commons project as just some examples of new city housing. “I would not describe the South Portland community as oppositional to housing,” said Milan Nevajda, the city’s planning director. With some exceptions, those observations hold up when examining a wide range of developments proposed over the past few years. Thistle was speaking about resistance to affordable housing projects. “What commonly happens is communities figure it out, and housing gets built,” said Scott Thistle, a spokesperson for MaineHousing, the state housing authority. That allowed for the residential and commercial developments that the current developer, PK Realty Management, are proposing just one lot over. Despite the complaints, that parcel of the shipyard was ultimately rezoned 25 years ago as a mixed-use area. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |