Zoning board upholds planning-board denial of Wall Street’s Blackstone Street roadway plan

The Bellingham Zoning Board of Appeals voted on Aug. 6 to deny an appeal filed by Wall Street Development Corp., leaving in place the planning board’s denial of development‑plan approval for improvements to Blackstone Street.

Owner Lou Petrosi, representing Wall Street Development, told the board the roadway is a long-standing private way and that an ANR plan on record and the subdivision-control law mean the planning-board regulations should not apply. “The roadway, historically, was created back in the 18 hundreds,” Petrosi said in presenting the project history, and he argued that the ANR plan and prior approvals limit the planning board’s authority. Town counsel (counsel to the zoning board) countered that the submitted roadway easement alters lots shown on the ANR plan and that altering lot frontage to create a road brings the proposal within subdivision controls. Counsel told the board the planning‑board denial turned on the plan’s alteration of those lots and outstanding engineering and drainage concerns.

Residents at the hearing raised environmental and public-safety worries. George Lille, a local neighbor, said the audience’s main concern was “the effects on the aquifer and the the water that’s up there,” noting springs that feed Lake Kiawatha. Other speakers cited steep grades, inadequate cul‑de‑sac radius and the potential for increased traffic. The board admitted the planning‑board file into its record before deliberation.

After discussion of legal jurisdiction and unresolved engineering matters, a majority of members said they were not prepared to overturn the planning board’s decision. The board made a motion to deny the applicant’s appeal of the planning-board development-plan denial; the motion carried, leaving the planning board’s denial in place. The board directed the applicant to return with engineers’ responses and clarified that conservation/stormwater permits remain under other agencies’ purview.

The denial is procedural in that it upholds the planning board’s findings; the applicant may seek further relief in court or resubmit after addressing the cited deficiencies.