Planning Board approves Lakeville hospital redevelopment plan

Robert Barboza  Correspondent 

Published Apr 5, 2021 

LAKEVILLE — After months of public hearings during the town’s multi-departmental review process for large scale Development Opportunities District (DOD) projects, the Planning Board formally voted on April 1 to approve site plans and a special permit for the proposed redevelopment of the Lakeville Hospital campus as a warehouse and distribution center.

Commercial property developer Rhino Capital is proposing to tear down the seven abandoned buildings in the hospital complex and build a 402,500 square foot building to be leased to as yet unknown tenants. According to submitted plans, the building would be sited just over 400 feet from Main Street, and be outfitted with 128 loading docks for tractor trailer truck deliveries and shipments.

The 5-0 approval vote on the special permit application came despite continuing neighborhood opposition to the redevelopment proposal, and the efforts of the 300-plus members of the Lakeville Residents for Responsible Growth, which recently asked the board to deny Rhino Capital the special permit needed for the project to go forward.

The Planning Board also approved a handful of waivers from zoning regulations requested by the developer, allowing a 45-foot building height, impervious coverage of 58 percent of the building lot, and the erection of an eight-foot noise-dampening fence in the setback of a buffer zone along the border of an abutting residential neighborhood.

Another waiver will allow the facility to start operations with only 298 of 504 allowed employee and visitor parking spaces; the remaining 206 parking spaces will be built only if there is a clear demand.

The approvals came with pages of official “findings” from the town, declaring the Rhino Capital proposal met the planning, design and construction standards for large scale project plans in the DOD zone; furthered the health and safety of the public by ensuring hazardous materials on the site would be cleaned up; and would produce a reasonable impact on the community for the scale of the project.

Planning Board Chair Mark Knox said that Rhino Capital had been “diligent” about incorporating peer review consultant recommendations, official input, and public suggestions into the revised plans to help improve the project and reduce impacts to the community.

For example, the corporation “did extensive (site) grading, planting, and fencing changes” to reduce noise impacts on neighbors, Knox noted. An accompanying list of project conditions includes limited hours of operation, a requirement for low-noise back-up alarms on tenant-owned trucks and equipment, and bans tractor-trailers from using streets in surrounding residential neighborhoods.

Among the demonstrated benefits to the community is the removal of asbestos and other hazardous materials from the abandoned hospital complex; the demolition of the deteriorating eyesore structures; and the clean-up of a solid waste disposal site on the property, Knox concluded. At the end of that work, the town will get a first class development that will boost its commercial tax base, he added.

To make sure that the hazardous materials on site are cleaned up once and for all, 30 years after the state abandoned the property, the Planning Board boosted the suggested $1 million bond for the clean-up work to $3 million. Two million dollars will be posted as a surety bond; the other million dollars will be cash escrow held by the town until the work is completed.

The waste clean-up and demolition work will be limited to 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturdays. Work will be banned on Sundays and holidays.

Those were among the highlights of the list of more than 50 separate conditions the board attached to the special permit, dealing with all aspects of the redevelopment plan – everything from a ban on refrigerator trucks idling on site to the drafting of a five-year maintenance plan for landscape plantings.

“We gave our best efforts to do what’s best for the town,” Knox said of his board’s drafting of the conditions for permitting, construction, and operations.

Planning Board member Barbara Mancovsky, who succeeded in her bids to get the clean-up bond increased, and tractor-trailers banned from using Rt. 79 or residential side streets, said the approval was “a very difficult decision” for her and other board members.

She said she was very troubled by the environmental issues that have resulted from 30 years of neglect, and felt the Rhino Capital project was the town’s best option to get the site cleaned up as quickly as possible. There has been a lack of other options for redevelopment presented in the 11 years since the Sysco Foods distribution center proposed for the site was voted down by residents, she noted.

Fellow member Michele MacEachern said the board tried to address all resident concerns about the project as well as it could; she suggested that it will bring many good employment opportunities for local residents, and should provide economic benefits to other businesses in town.

Member Jack Lynch said the board worked very hard on the long review and permitting process, and especially praised Knox’s contribution of long hours to spearhead both of those efforts.

Long-serving member Peter Conroy read a prepared statement indicating the board recognized the “valid concerns” of residents, but felt “something has to be done with this site” to prevent greater health and safety problems from developing there.

“If we would deny this permit, the structures will continue to deteriorate, and we would have no idea when something else will come along... and what that might be,” he said.  The warehouse operation “may not be the perfect fit” for the site, but it might be the most viable plan for re-use of the property the town has seen in decades, he suggested.

Several residents of surrounding neighborhoods took one last opportunity to express their opposition to the redevelopment project before the Planning Board took their April 1 votes.

Lakeville Residents for Responsible Growth spokesman John Jenkins told members of the Planning Board in the virtual meeting that the group will contest the approvals if they were granted. The proposed trucking and warehouse operation was less favorable than the mixed use development townspeople voted for when creating the DOD regulations, Jenkins suggested.

The resident group asked for a non-binding town-wide referendum vote on the plans, expressing its willingness to pay the costs of the special election for that referendum vote if necessary.

Abutter Dick Scott felt that residents should have a chance to preview the long list of conditions for the project, and offer town officials additional input. He expressed doubts that low-noise back-up alarms from the truck terminal would not be heard on his property, and asked how the town would enforce its noise restrictions.

Resident Daniel Ferreira said he expects traffic issues, including “absolute gridlock” on that part of Route 105 from the warehouse site to the Middleborough line. He felt a public referendum should have been held on the matter by town officials.

Middleborough Planning Board member Jack Healy again asked his Lakeville counterparts to be included in a traffic routing agreement between the developer, the future tenant, and the two towns, limiting tractor trailers to direct routes to and from I-495, and banning truck use of other roads to reach Route 44 and Route 28.

It was agreed that Middleborough officials would have a seat at the table when the town met with the future tenant to discuss traffic control matters.