Ordinance committee delays vote on Brockton Fairgrounds overlay as developers and city negotiate sequencing, infrastructure and safety

The Brockton City Council Ordinance Committee on Jan. 8 heard hours of testimony about a proposed Fairgrounds Overlay District that would rezone about 66.685 acres of the Brockton Fairgrounds for mixed-use development, including residential, commercial and light industrial uses. After extended discussion about sequencing, public-safety safeguards and infrastructure, the committee voted to postpone further action until Jan. 22 and asked the city solicitor, planning staff and the developer to meet and produce amended draft language.

The proposal under discussion would add a new section to the city’s zoning ordinance creating the “Fairgrounds Overlay District” for parcels totaling roughly 66.685 acres. Developer representatives, led by Andrew Flynn, and their attorney, Jim Burke, urged the committee to adopt an overlay and move meetings and negotiations forward quickly so the project could reach financing and construction phases. “We approach the Brockton Fairgrounds with a sincere degree of humility, responsibility, and stewardship,” Flynn told the committee. Burke said the developer group has already invested in predevelopment work: “we've already spent over half $1,000,000 in soft cost getting to this point.”

Why it matters: Councilors and city staff said the site’s location near major highways and adjacent to the high school make it uniquely valuable for expanded tax revenue and job-generating industrial space, but they also warned the site is complex and that zoning alone will not address all infrastructure and public-safety needs. City planning staff and the solicitor told the committee that a…