Ordinance committee recommends Fairgrounds Overlay District after weeks of negotiation

BROCKTON, Mass. — The Ordinance Committee on Monday recommended an amended zoning ordinance to create a Fairgrounds Overlay District covering parcels identified in the proposal, advancing a major redevelopment plan for the former fairgrounds site.

The committee, chaired by Shirley Azack, voted to accept changes drafted by the city’s legislative counsel and law department and to substitute those edits into the ordinance, then voted to recommend the ordinance as amended to the full City Council. The discussion centered on how much land the overlay will cover, how many housing units are allowed by right, design standards and procedural guardrails for site plan review.

The move matters because developers have discussed investing between $600 million and $1 billion in the site. "There are 66 acres of land available to fairgrounds. We have a very qualified developer who's willing to invest between 600,000,000 and 1,000,000,000," said Councilor Philip Griffin, Ward 3. Mayor Robert Sullivan said he supports the proposal and described the property as “the most important piece of property in the city of Brockton.”

The ordinance as presented during the meeting includes language that would: establish the Fairgrounds Overlay District as an overlay on the underlying C-2 zoning for parcels identified by parcel IDs 026-116 and 029-045; permit residential development up to 1,500 dwelling units by right (with any units in excess of 1,500 requiring special permit); require site plan review; set certain dimensional standards and design rules; and require a development agreement between owners/developers and the City prior to issuance of building permits. The ordinance text read into the record also listed prohibited uses (for example, petroleum refining, manufacture of explosives and other heavy industrial operations) and technical standards for parking, buffers and green space.

Developers’ representatives, including attorney James Burke and Andrew Flynn of Cooper Mill Development, said they have been working closely with the city and that the developer submitted a redline with a small number of changes. Burke told the committee, "We will not stop talking to the city. We will not stop talking to Attorney Bridges and Attorney Verdi," and that the developer hoped to begin work "by the second quarter of this year" if the process proceeds.

City staff and counsel explained several points the committee discussed: a draft in the packet initially referenced approximately 66.685 acres; work in recent weeks focused on a narrower overlay area described in the packet as roughly 46.56 acres; the ordinance borrows form-based design language used in a recent Thatcher Street overlay; and site plan review and development agreements are proposed as the primary regulatory tools.

Committee members pressed for clearer procedural limits to avoid open-ended delays in site plan review. The committee agreed to language — supported by the developer and city staff — that site plan review “shall proceed expeditiously with time being of the essence and without any unreasonable delay,” and set a working time target of 90 days from application to decision as part of the administration/approval discussion.

Other substantive points left for later resolution or for the City Council and planning board to finalize included: the green-space minimum (law department language proposed 25%; the developer proposed lower percentages and discussed compromise figures such as 20%); parking ratios (the ordinance language read called for a minimum of 1.5 parking spaces per residential unit; the developer proposed lower minimums such as 1.25); building height for mixed-use areas (the draft set a maximum of seven stories or 85 feet in mixed-use zones abutting West Street); limits on surface parking (draft limits surface parking to no more than 30% of required parking); and whether mixed use should be limited to West Street or permitted on other edges of the site.

Committee members and the developer repeatedly said they had narrowed a long list of open items in recent weeks and would continue to negotiate technical standards before the City Council’s readings. "We really want everybody to be aligned," Andrew Flynn said. Megan Bridges, the city solicitor, and legislative counsel Shannon Resnick were repeatedly acknowledged for producing the current draft in response to developer comments.

Formal committee action at the end of the meeting included a motion to accept the law department's edits and substitute them into the original ordinance and a subsequent motion to recommend the amended ordinance favorably to the full City Council. Both motions were seconded and approved by voice vote. The committee also agreed to continue resolving outstanding technical items — including conditional approval criteria, parking and green-space percentages — during follow-up meetings and in advance of public hearings and City Council readings.

The ordinance now proceeds to the City Council for the required public hearings and readings; the committee did not set final numerical limits for several design standards and explicitly left them open for further negotiation and public input.