Potential Development of Benny's Plaza

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“Benny’s Plaza” is a 7 acre site on Court Street just north of Downtown Plymouth. Its name comes from the former Benny’s Department Store which closed in 2017, when it was purchased by its current owner, the Carpionato Group, a real estate development company. Now, Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, a Boston real estate firm, wants to redevelop the property. They have signed a purchase and sales agreement for the site, the terms of which have not been disclosed.

The prospective owner of the site has presented a conceptual idea to the Town for 200 to 240 market-rate apartments contained in 2 four-story buildings. However, the site is currently zoned for “commercial” use by the Town, meaning that residential uses are not permitted. 

In order to allow for any apartments on the site the zoning would first have to be changed to a use that permits residential buildings. The owner of the site has placed a citizen’s sponsored article on the Town Warrant for Fall Town Meeting asking for the following zoning change: 

"ARTICLE 30: Citizen’s Petition: Amend Zoning Bylaw 

To see if the Town will vote to amend its Zoning Bylaw, Section 205-10, General Commercial, and the Use Table and footnotes thereto, by modifying Multi-Family use by Special Permit conditions in that portion of the General Commercial District (GC) within 2,500 feet of the Downtown/Harbor District (DH), by modifying the conditions set forth in Footnote 1 of the Use Table by adding new subsection (d.) as follows, or take any other action relative thereto: d. By Special Permit - Multi-Family Dwellings in the General Commercial District (GC) may be allowed by Special Permit on land which has any lot line within 2,500 feet of the perimeter of the Downtown/Harbor District (DH), and notwithstanding the provisions of subsection a., such Special Permit shall not be subject to the conditions set forth in subsections a.ii. and a.iii. above." 

So instead of asking Town Meeting to rezone just this particular piece of property they are asking to change the entire zoning bylaw to allow for residential construction by special permit on properties within 2,500 feet of the area designated as the Downtown/Harbor District. However, in practical purposes, this is the only parcel that would be affected by such a zoning change.

Having submitted a warrant article for a zoning change, the proponents now must first come to a public hearing (meaning comment from the residents will be permitted) before the Planning Board to present their proposal. The Planning Board will offer Town Meeting an advisory opinion regarding the proposal, but the final determination will be made by a vote of Town Meeting Members at Fall Town Meeting. 

If Town Meeting rejects the zoning change, then the proposal in its current iteration cannot proceed. However, even if Town Meeting approves of the proposed zoning change, the owners of the site would still have to obtain a special permit in order to proceed. The special permit would be needed not only to allow residential use in that area, but also for any height variances (the current zoning limits the height to 35 feet without a special permit). That would again require a public hearing before the Planning Board for an advisory opinion, and then another hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals which makes the final determination. Additional hearings may also be held before the North Plymouth and Plymouth Center Steering Committees for their advisory opinions.

A recent challenge the Town has been facing with proposals such as this one is that if they have been denied the developer has then proceeded with a similar project under General Laws Chapter 40B. That is a state statute which allows a developer to circumvent Town zoning in exchange for agreeing to make a certain percentage of the units “affordable”. While this may sound like a beneficial tradeoff, he state definition of affordable housing is problematic for Plymouth as it is based on 80% of the area median income (AMI) of people living and working in the Boston/Cambridge area. For a family of four, that number is $147,000 per year. As a result, “affordable” housing is not really affordable to those in Plymouth.  There are however some additional factors to consider in this particular instance:

First, the concept presented to the Town by the proposed developer is for only 10% of the apartments they intend to build to be affordable, which is the most the Town can require under our Inclusionary Housing Bylaw.  If the developer chooses to build under 40B, then it will be required to make at least 25% of the units affordable.

Second, the Town maintains a Subsidized Housing Index (SHI) which it provides to the state. If the developer constructs a housing development under a special permit only those units designated as affordable are included in the SHI. But if the development is undertaken pursuant to 40B, the Town gets credit on its SHI for all of the units, not just those that are designated as affordable.  This is significant since the addition of a certain number of affordable housing units in a single year allows Plymouth to be exempt from further 40B projects for up to 2 years.