It appears that the Zoning Board of Appeals is now set to reject in all respects the appeal, sponsored by Friends of Rockport and some of our members, of the Planning Board approval for the 20 Central Street Hotel project. We are deeply disappointed by the ZBA’s decision and believe that the ZBA erred in some of the same ways that the Planning Board did in its initial review. We should say that we all very much appreciate the contributions of time and effort on the part of the ZBA members, who are lay members of the community and not real estate professionals. We also understand that some members of the ZBA may have been reluctant to publicly state their disagreements with the findings of the Planning Board, irrespective of their private views on the merits of the Friends of Rockport’s appeal.
We have now turned our attention to the citizens’ initiatives which were certified by the Town Clerk and placed on the 2020 town meeting ballot as Article 3 and Article 4. As a reminder, these Articles limited any hotel in downtown Rockport to 20 rooms and required a traffic study before any approval could be given. While you, the voters, voted to enact both of these Articles, the town has steadfastly refused to give any indication about whether it intends to enforce these ordinance changes in the case of the hotel project. The town is not even willing to participate in a court action seeking clarification on whether these ordinances apply. We can only speculate on why the town does not appear to want to have the applicability of these ordinances definitively determined by the court.
In order to provide more clarity on this matter, which we believe would benefit everyone involved in this project, the Friends of Rockport has filed an action in Superior Court asking for adjudication of the matter as well as an injunction to block issuance of the building permit until the developer has complied with the petitioned amendments. At issue is the fact that despite everyone’s best efforts Covid-19 caused a delay in the town meeting from the scheduled June 9 date to August 18. The developer is arguing that since August 18 is more than 45 days from the Planning Board approval on June 16, state law precludes enforcement of the ordinance changes in their case. The Friends of Rockport contend that had the Town Meeting not been postponed due to Covid, the Articles would have been in force even before the Planning Board’s Notice of Decision, and that the Covid related delay should not enable the developer to avoid the will of the people.
As of this afternoon, the Knox County Superior Court has granted the temporary restraining order and directed the town not to issue a building permit and the developer to cease any activity at the site until a hearing can be held. In the order, the Court noted that “the Plaintiffs [Friends of Rockport] have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of the case”. To be clear, the Friends are not seeking to derail the hotel project. Most of us would welcome an attractive, appropriately sized hotel in our downtown. We just want it to conform to the restrictions that were approved last year by a substantial majority of the voting residents of Rockport – which it currently does not. It appears that the Court is likely to agree with this view.