The Zoning Board of Appeals approved Swampscott’s largest affordable-housing project in February, clearing 41 rental apartments for seniors and older adults with a veteran preference on the VFW site at New Ocean and Pine streets. Five and a half months later, no official minutes exist for the vote.
The Feb. 10 unanimous vote granted the project’s comprehensive permit under Chapter 40B, the state affordable-housing law. As of July 29, the only public record of that decision is a Swampscott TV video.
The permit is not the end of the town’s role. Before the project can be built, Swampscott still has to move a culvert under the site, replace a Pine Street water main or allow a temporary tie-in to the old one, and secure the grant money it expects to use for the work. The town also has to handle a roughly $1.5 million ground-lease payment tied to the project, including a disputed record of whether the money was already committed to refurbishing the veterans space at 89 Burrill Street.
Veterans Crossing
The project, called Veterans Crossing, is a three-story building on the two parcels at 10 New Ocean Street and 12-24 Pine Street. The current Veterans of Foreign Wars post will be demolished.
The applicant is BBH Community Development LLC, the development arm of B’nai B’rith Housing New England, the nonprofit developer that redeveloped the Machon School in town. Its team invoked the Machon work repeatedly as the model for how it would protect abutters during construction.
The site is coastal and flood-prone, but the applicant told local boards the building requires no basement excavation and limited ground disturbance. A prior demolition at the site was evaluated, and the VFW building was found free of asbestos-containing material. Project lead Holly Grace of B’nai B’rith presented with attorney John Smolak and engineer Jacob Lemieux of Hancock Associates.
Two February approvals
The project needed two local approvals. Both came in February.
On Feb. 10, the Zoning Board of Appeals granted the comprehensive permit by a unanimous 5-0 vote of Chair Heather Roman and members Marc Kornitsky, Michelle Graham, Anthony Sanchez, and associate member Susan Sinrich, seated for the petition. It was the board’s last meeting before the statutory deadline to act, a point Roman returned to when neighbors asked why the board could not wait for more information. The hearing had already been continued twice, from Jan. 20 to Feb. 3 to Feb. 10.
On Feb. 24, the Conservation Commission issued its Order of Conditions for construction within land subject to coastal storm flowage, DEP file #071-0363, also unanimously. The commission added conditions barring invasive plantings, requiring an integrated pest-management plan, and requiring stormwater-system maintenance in perpetuity.
Those were the two discretionary local approvals. Building permits still lie ahead, and the ZBA hearing made clear that they depend on work the town has to do first.
Culvert and water main
The building cannot go up until the town moves a culvert that runs under the site. The culvert relocation is a separate town project, to be designed and bid by the town. Its final design is not complete. A building permit cannot issue until the work is done.
The second obligation is a water main. Peer-review engineers flagged the existing 6-inch main on Pine Street as “severely tuberculated,” with a history of breaks, and uncomfortable serving a building that would draw roughly 4,500 gallons a day where the old use drew about 250. The board’s Condition E6 requires the main to be replaced with an 8-inch line before the town issues a certificate of occupancy. The town’s engineering reviewer noted that an 8-inch main is state guidance, not a statutory mandate.
The town’s plan is to pay for both through a grant. Marzie Galazka, the community and economic development director, has pursued expanding the existing MassWorks grant, already allocated to the culvert, to cover the water main. The state’s HousingWorks Infrastructure Program has said the expansion may be eligible, though no award is in hand.
If the grant comes through, the culvert and the main become one project, with one bid and one construction season. Town Administrator Nick Connors said the water-main segment was already on the Department of Public Works’ priority list before this project. He said zero-percent state revolving-fund loans are the fallback if the grant does not materialize.
Neighbors focused on the fallback inside that fallback: if the town’s work lags, the permit lets the developer temporarily tie into the old 6-inch main to get a building permit. Roman said she did not like that option. “I don’t want it tied into the six-inch pipe,” she said, calling it “a last resort for a temporary situation.”
Ground lease money
The town owns the site, so the deal is structured as a 99-year ground lease. The base rent, described on the record as roughly $1.5 million, is treated by law as proceeds from a sale of town land and flows into a segregated account, the town’s counsel explained at an April 15 Select Board meeting. It is not free capital. Spending it requires a Town Meeting appropriation.
The outgoing Select Board wanted that money spent on refurbishing the veterans space at 89 Burrill Street, the former REACH Arts building, where the town plans to relocate the VFW post. The rehab is currently estimated at about $600,000, the Facilities Department’s number. In their final weeks, departing members pushed to lock the ground-lease proceeds to that use through a segregated account and a warrant article aimed at December 2026, rather than let the money dissolve into general capital. Former Deputy Town Administrator Tom Younger was consulted on the sale-of-real-estate mechanics.
That commitment rests on a vote members remember but staff cannot find. Asked to confirm the earmark, town staff searched the December 2024 minutes for the language committing the money to a separate account and could not locate it. Connors told the board staff had reviewed the relevant minutes and the exact language was not there.
Neighbor objections
Pine Street abutters raised objections to the driveway, traffic, noise, infrastructure, and timing. The board mostly answered that its authority was limited.
Under a 40B comprehensive permit, the ZBA’s approval subsumes all other local permits. The board cannot order the DPW or other town officials to do what neighbors asked, which is why the final permit says only that the board “understands it is the intention of the town” to finish the culvert and water-main work before construction. This is the same limit this paper described in ZBA appeals show narrow local route for zoning disputes.
Alysha McCarthy of 9 Pine Street said the traffic study looked only at the new driveway’s side of the street, not the abutters’. “There was a crash in front of my house today,” she said. Roman answered that traffic studies rarely find a significant impact, and that “the fear of the unknown of what the impact could be is usually greater than what the actual impact of development is.”
Steve Gadman of 11 Pine Street objected to the driveway’s placement and to rooftop mechanical noise. “I’ll believe that when I see it,” he said. Gadman noted that the board itself had said the entrance should not sit near the adjacent cannabis store. The board replied that state noise limits are not waivable under 40B and that any later relief would require a formal modification.
Cesar Mejia of 27 Pine Street asked why the board would approve the project before the culvert’s final design was done. Roman’s answer was the clock.
On the town’s side, Connors committed to a project hotline and open line to residents. “We’re here to work with you… not just wash our hands,” he said. Galazka promised weekly on-site construction meetings, as at Machon, and a town project page.
No minutes for the deciding vote
The town posted its Jan. 20 and Feb. 3 ZBA minutes months late. For the Feb. 10 decision itself, no official minutes have been found or posted anywhere in the public record as of July 29. The only account that exists is the video the town’s cable channel recorded.
The missing ZBA minutes match a broader record problem this paper documented in the town website’s vanishing committee records. In this case, the gap covers the town’s largest housing decision and sits beside a second gap: the unproduced record of the vote meant to protect the ground-lease money.
Sources: Zoning Board of Appeals, Feb. 10, 2026 — caption-derived record from Swampscott TV video -QJQ60nQJrI (no official minutes exist); ZBA minutes Feb. 3, 2026 and Jan. 20, 2026 (Condition E6, water-main and culvert record, MassWorks/HousingWorks expansion, applicant team); ZBA committee file zoning-board-of-appeals/_committee.md (panel, roster, no-minutes finding). Conservation Commission minutes Feb. 24, 2026 (Order of Conditions, DEP #071-0363). Select Board April 15, 2026 (h4iiDoNKOQU) — ground-lease / sale-of-land-proceeds framing and ~$1.5M figure, town counsel on the record; Select Board April 27, 2026 (btO9I3hWOh4 and analysis) — the $600K estimate, the outgoing board’s earmark, and staff’s inability to locate the December 2024 language. Canonical “89 Burrill Street” spelling from official Select Board minutes April 8, 2026 (FY27 capital plan) and June 3, 2026 (Municipal ADA grant), the 2026 spring Town Meeting warrant, and prior coverage. Prior coverage: 2026-07-22_vanishing-committee-records.md, 2026-07-25_zba-narrow-door.md, 2026-05-13_fy29-override.md. Names and roles verified against data/committees/ rosters and data/people/.