By Adam Swift
The debate over potential fish processing facilities in Chelsea is not over.
At a lengthy planning board meeting last week, the board voted that it would not recommend that the city council approve the zoning amendment that was initially proposed by District 7 City Councilor Manuel Teshe. The amendment would “prohibit enclosed seafood processing, seafood packing and packaging, seafood loading and seafood distribution from operation within 300 feet of a residential use.”
The amendment was introduced by Teshe following debate and neighborhood protests against a proposed food processing facility at 100 Justin Drive from Boston Provisions. A portion of the facility at the former Signature Breads plant would have included seafood processing.
Several planning board members stated that they believed there was ambiguous wording in the zoning amendment, that it was not broad enough, and could be considered spot zoning.
However, while the board voted against recommending the amendment as written, it did state that the council has the option to review, rewrite, and repropose the amendment at a future date.
The lengthy public debate on the amendment included a number of the Admiral’s Hill residents who rallied against the Boston Provisions facility on Justin Drive speaking in favor of the amendment. There were also a number of residents who spoke against the amendment, stating they believed it would stifle economic growth in the city.
Planning board staff noted that since the Zoning Board of Appeals ruling denying the special permits for 100 Justin Drive is currently being appealed, that the proposed zoning amendment would likely not apply to that active proposal. Several board members also expressed frustration that the debate over the zoning amendment regularly drifted toward the 100 Justin Drive issue and not the proposed amendment itself.
“What the amendment is essentially trying to do is to create a wider buffer between the location of proposed enclosed seafood processing facilities and any existing residential buildings, trying to separate potentially incompatible uses and protecting existing neighborhoods’ character,” said planning and land use administrator Will Cecio.
Cecio said the amendment was focused on one narrow use that also requires review and public hearings.
“Chelsea is a small city, the amendment does limit the number of industrial lots that can be used for enclosed seafood processing, which doesn’t necessarily align with the city’s goal to protect and welcome industrial uses,” said Cecio.
Teshe spoke to the amendment, stating that he proposed it mainly to amend a mistake that he said was made by the council when it initially voted on allowing seafood processing facilities in industrial zones by special permit.
“I don’t want to bore you with the dynamics of what happened in the council … the bottom line is one of the reasons why we notify abutters whenever there is a project is coming is because we want to know what the input is from the people being directly impacted,” said Teshe.
Teshe said his initial vote on the seafood processing zoning amendment was based on the belief that there would be no negative impacts on the neighborhood. Once there was information that a seafood processing facility was going to be put on Justin Drive, Teshe said that is when neighbors rallied with petitions and showed up at public hearings to protest the plan.
“We don’t need a history lesson on this, we’ve had multiple meetings about this, and also, just so you know, they did contact the owner of the building, not the residents of the building,” said Planning Board member Mimi Rancatore. “I appreciate this, but can we speed this along, because I definitely do not want to listen to the history of the proposal again.”
Teshe said he wanted to lay out the reasoning for the zoning amendment proposal.
“You look around you, and I would say that 99 percent of the people who came out in support of this amendment are people that are directly impacted by this project,” said Teshe. “One of the other things, I don’t want to mislead you; this does not mean that Chelsea does not like industrial business, because you can see we have zone a very vast portion of the city of Chelsea just for industrial use.”
Teshe said he had no interest in making sure the zoning amendment happened other than making sure that the city has a responsible and transparent government.
“I’m saying that if this had gone through the proper channels, and it had been approved at the time properly and everyone was properly notified, I would have no trouble, and I would have had no concern in taking the vote,” said Teshe. “But it did not feel good after I took it and found out that the folks that were going to be impacted by this did not support it.”
Planning Board member Eric Czernizer asked if there was any consideration put into including other industries into the revised amendment with the buffer zone.
“Fuel storage, at that site, totally fine, and electrical substation, totally fine, self storage, fine, scrapyard, totally fine,” he said. “It just seems that your proposal is targeting a specific industry that isn’t a polluting industry.”
Czernizer said many of his reservations about the zoning amendment were due to its narrow scope.
Board members Nick Valentine and Regina Taylor also called into question the wording and intent of the zoning amendment.
“It’s obvious that we are all talking about a particular situation here, and that was the impetus for this proposed (amendment) on some level,” said Valentine. “I think the thing that gives me some pause here is that this feels not data driven. I understand what the impact would be to Admirals Hill, but there are some questions about what the impact would be to the other areas of the city. It’s a small city, so it is not a non-negligible amount of space and property owners that are now essentially … forced to have a new encumbrance on their property.”
Taylor said there was an aspect of the amendment that called into question the impartiality of the zoning process.
“It is essentially putting into place to deny one particular business a right to exist within the city,” Taylor said. “If the councilors did not do their due diligence on researching this project and looking into and attending the meetings and reading the packets that were distributed about this business, that’s a different problem than wanting to outright create a zoning amendment that basically doesn’t allow an entire business proposal to exist.”
Several of the Admirals Hill residents who opposed the Boston Provisions project spoke in favor of the zoning amendment.
Breakwater Drive resident Marlene Jennings noted that when neighbors first realized there were plans for the Justin Drive facility, they got in touch with City Manager Fidel Maltez and held a community meeting with him and one of the principals from Boston Provisions.
“There was not one person on that call that wanted this particular type of business in this residential area,” said Jennings. “That didn’t mean we didn’t mean we didn’t want it, we wanted it in someone else’s neighborhood, we didn’t want it in our neighborhood. We didn’t realize the impact that statement would have because it had nothing to do with oh, not in my neighborhood, but your neighborhood is okay.
“That is not what we meant at all; we knew that there were different zones in the city of Chelsea that would be able to accommodate the amount of trucks, the pollution, the noise that we did not want to have in a residential vicinity.”
Craig Murphy noted that the proposal could have come up in any neighborhood in the city, and that the zoning amendment would protect the entire city.
Former City Council President Roy Avellaneda noted that the zoning amendment would not eliminate the seafood processing use in the city, it just makes sure they are not located within 300 feet of a residential use.
“I think that is a fair compromise to allowing whatever proposed economic benefits – and one can discuss the pros and cons of it all – but it would allow and still not be a negative impact, and I believe there will be a negative impact,” said Avellaneda. “I also grew up in Chelsea, and I had to see and work on lots of conflicts. You have to really understand that this sort of use that brought this all up is because it’s the border that we are worried about.”
With proper master planning Avellaneda said there would be a buffer of commercial use between residential and industrial uses.
“You wouldn’t put industrial next to residential for this very reason of these conflicts,” he said. “However, the history of Chelsea development is what it is. You can more than welcome any prohibition of anything that is environmentally dangerous and so forth, but you still have all the uses grandfathered in.
“So go ahead and do it, but we’re still working with the past sins.”
Avellaneda also noted that Baldor Specialty Foods, which is a direct competitor to Boston Provisions, has operated in Chelsea for more than a decade.
“They’ve located three different times; Second Street, Spruce, and then they built their facility on Eastern Avenue and no one said peep, because that is an example of the proper location of that kind of business,” said Avellaneda. “This whole neighborhood just came out and said look, you can have it, but it’s not right adjacent to residential, and I don’t think that’s so hard to comprehend.”
District 4 City Councilor Tanairi Garcia said she supported the zoning amendment because it was about doing what is right and being fair and accountable.
“What’s frustrating and honestly disheartening is how this administration is treating the people who are speaking up,” said Garcia. “It feels like those opposing this project are being treated as a nuisance, like the voices of 950-plus residents, taxpayers, and families don’t matter, and that’s unacceptable.”
Chelsea resident and Chamber of Commerce Director Jennifer Hassell spoke against the zoning amendment.
“I feel that there are already procedures and policies in place that will help protect us where this amendment does not have to be passed,” she said. “We need to be responsible, and with that responsibility is making sure that we are appealing to all types of businesses.”
Hassell noted that there are already a number of struggling businesses in town, and that Chelsea needs to do more to address that.
“Bringing bigger box companies into the community is going to help those businesses,” Hassell said. “They are also going to help the community-based organizations that are always knocking on our business owners’ doors asking for help, asking for donations. Most of the businesses in the community are being tapped out.”
Hassell noted that the particular area on Justin Drive is already zoned for industrial uses.
“This seems personal, and we need to make it not personal,” she said. “Some of my best friends live in Admirals Hill; I respect the tenants in Admirals Hill, the residents, the homeowners. So this isn’t anything personal, but at the end of the day, you live on a waterfront at low tide, and what exactly is the aroma up there?”
Hassell noted that the proposal would have brought jobs and opportunities for Chelsea residents, especially those who might not be able to go to college.
District 1 Councilor Todd Taylor said one of the reasons he attended the planning board hearing was because he wanted to hear more about what the zoning amendment would mean for the whole city, and not only Justin Drive.
“I think that it is very important that when we make zoning amendments that they are carefully thought out and crafted, and not a knee-jerk reaction to something that people don’t like,” said Taylor. “I don’t think that is how the city of Chelsea should do business.”
Taylor said that he believes that what residents want in their neighborhoods matter and that there could have been discussions earlier about what was proposed. But, he said there is a procedure for advertising the proposals and amendments, and that people have to pay attention and show up to the meetings.
“When there’s a public hearing and nobody shows up for the public hearing, that’s a problem,” said Taylor.
Taylor said he also wanted to clear up some misinformation he had seen citing that all 11 city councilors were in favor of the seafood processing zoning amendment proposed by Teshe.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Taylor. “The vote that was taken was a procedural vote to give this an airing to see what this is actually going to mean. Now, I didn’t get the information tonight that I was actually looking for.”
Taylor said he believed the zoning amendment needed to be better vetted and that he could not have made a decision based on the information that was presented.