Zoning board deadlocks after heated public hearing on Acceleration Engineering’s plan for 11 Summer Street

The Bellingham Zoning Board of Appeals failed to reach a final decision on a special-permit request for 11 Summer Street after a multi-hour hearing on operational details and neighborhood impacts.

Applicant Lehi Dix, who identified himself and his firm Acceleration Engineering during the hearing, described plans to install a lightweight high-impact shock test machine and to operate a small engineering and prototyping shop. He told the board the facility would be largely quiet and self-contained, that deliveries would be courier-sized rather than tractor-trailer, and that staff would likely number five to seven people. “We will not have anything to cause any sort of pollution,” Dix said in response to neighbors’ questions about chemicals and runoff.

Neighbors and abutters pressed the board on several front-line concerns. Residents emphasized the site’s tight streets and limited on-site parking, chronic delivery and parking congestion during past uses, and a history of floodplain conditions behind nearby houses. Ronald Gamash, who said he has lived on South Park/Summer Street for decades, warned the board that “the building sits in a floodplain” and argued that permitting higher-spec manufacturing standards could increase long-term environmental risk. Justine Cruz Cortado, who lives adjacent to the site, said she was skeptical the proposal “is a good fit for our neighborhood,” citing driveway blocking, potentially intrusive parking and steady noise she says would affect her household.

Dix and his team responded with a series of mitigation offers: limits on the number of on-site parking spaces, a commitment to contained machining with water-soluble coolants collected and removed by third-party vendors, a proposal to remove or obscure windows that directly face an abutter’s yard, and an offer to explore off-site municipal parking if necessary. He also noted prior uses of the property (motorcycle repair, earlier machine-shop activity) and said he would remediate existing oil-stained slabs as part of renovation work.

During deliberations the board discussed several conditions it could attach to any approval: fire-marshal sign-off, proof the property had not been abandoned for more than two years, a strict limit on parallel parking spaces in front of the building, and a cap on employees (the chair suggested no more than five on-site). A motion to approve the special permit with those conditions failed to reach the supermajority required for a special permit (four of five members). Board members then debated a motion to deny; the roll call produced a stalemate. The chair said the board retains up to 90 days to issue a written decision and may revisit the application at a future meeting.

The public hearing is now closed; the board did not adopt final findings or conditions that night. The stalemate leaves the application in an indeterminate status: the applicant may ask the board to vote again at a future meeting or withdraw and refile. In its discussion the board repeatedly cited missing specifics it wanted on exact parking layouts and prior permitted uses; several members also suggested a site visit and additional input from the fire marshal and relevant town departments would be helpful before a final vote.