Select Board bars residential from Hawthorne RFP, 3-2, over the chair's objection

← All news · August 4, 2026

All five members oppose housing at the town-owned Hawthorne property. They split on whether to ban it outright or score it down, and the ban won after public comment ran heavily against residential and two Town Meeting members questioned the board's right to write the RFP at all.

Swampscott’s Select Board voted Aug. 4 to remove residential use from the long-term request for proposals for the town-owned Hawthorne property at 153 Humphrey Street, choosing a hard ban over Chair Katie Phelan’s call to keep housing as a scored-down fallback.

Mary Ellen Fletcher moved “to eliminate residential use.” The motion carried 3-2, with Fletcher, Vice Chair Danielle Leonard and Wayne Spritz in favor and Ted Dooley, who joined remotely, and Phelan opposed.

The split was not over whether housing belongs at Hawthorne. All five members said it does not. “None of us want to see residential use here. Just to be clear,” Phelan told the room after the vote.

The fight was over whether to prohibit residential outright or leave it in the RFP as a heavily disfavored option — and it produced the reorganized board’s first fracture over a major land-use decision. That choice now shapes the town’s attempt to lease, not sell, the oceanfront site, while residents and Town Meeting members continue to press for a larger role in the process.

The 3-2 count and member lineup come from the Item’s reporting. The meeting’s automatic captions record only Fletcher’s motion and then “it passes,” with no audible second, roll call or tally. No official minutes have been posted; the board’s July minutes are also still missing. The lineup should be treated as press-attested until the town posts the record.

The 3-2 majority chose a residential ban

Leonard argued that residential should be the one firm limit in the RFP. “I wouldn’t have a hard stance on parking… on percentage of open space. But I think this one area is where we have to take the hard stance. No — no residential. The rest of it, have at it.”

After the vote, Phelan credited Leonard with the recommendation that residential be the board’s only fixed parameter. Fletcher, who made the motion, rejected the warning that a ban could weaken the market response. “the market isn’t necessarily important to the 15,000 people that live here… I’m not fearful of us not getting any responses.”

The captions carry no speaker labels, so the individual method quotes are matched to speakers by content and by Phelan’s on-record credit to Leonard. The substance is clear, but the precise attributions are reconstructed.

Dooley and Phelan wanted a fallback

Dooley and Phelan said a hard ban is the riskier path to the same goal. Dooley, who said he had opposed housing at the site “during the campaign,” pointed to comparable oceanfront RFPs in Wickford, R.I.; Nantasket in Hull; Waterford, Conn.; and “a couple in New York” that demanded high public access with no way to make money and drew “zero or one response.”

Residential, he said, is what makes a project financeable: “You are always going to have an easier time getting underwriting when you include residential in a mixed-use facility. Always and every single time.” He said he was not arguing for housing. “I am not advocating and I do not want that land for residential.”

Phelan framed the question as one of board duty. “our job to sit on this board is to have a contingency plan,” she said, a plan B. Scrutinize residential heavily, she argued, but “we’re not going to prohibit it… And if that includes residential, prove it.”

Dooley cited a $100 million school bond

Dooley tied his caution to future town borrowing. The town, he said, will have to “bond for $100 million” for a new middle school “in the next five to seven years.” That is a future borrowing need, not yet a voted project.

If a residential-free Hawthorne proposal cannot attract private financing, the town could have to subsidize the site itself, an amount put in the range of $10 million to $15 million. Dooley argued that a ban could leave the town paying for the result it wants.

Board members who favored the ban said any subsidy decision would go back to Town Meeting, “giving the power back to town meeting,” as one put it, “which is what a lot of people spoke to tonight.” The exchange is unlabeled in the captions, but it came from the majority side of the room.

Public comment opposed housing and process

Public comment ran heavily against residential. Of the residents who spoke about Hawthorne, only Brian Watson of Oak Road argued to keep a mixed-use option open, urging the board to “think in terms of the grays, not the absolutes” and reminding it that “the town has agency, too.”

Tania Lillak, who chairs the Open Space and Recreation Plan Committee, made the parks-as-investment case. Tonia Bandrowicz, who chairs the Conservation Commission, spoke for the five-committee coalition pressing for open space. A former Planning Board member, in a written comment, asserted that a developer had a signed agreement to build 64 luxury condominiums on the site before the town bought it. That was a commenter’s claim, not established town history.

Two Town Meeting members questioned the board’s authority to write the RFP at all. Laura Lao, of Precinct 3, said “the select board should not have the power to create an RFP without town meeting review.” Miriam McDermott, of Precinct 6, said the process “vacates town meeting’s role.”

Their objection sits alongside a live question in town about who controls Town Meeting’s business, the same tension this paper examined in the warrant-gate coverage. It was not settled by the residential vote.

The RFP keeps lease and open-space priorities

The vote fixed residential use as prohibited in the RFP. It also reaffirmed that the property will be leased, not sold. Dooley noted that Town Meeting would have to approve any sale “even if we did want to do it, which we do not.”

The board directed staff to make open space the leading site-use scoring priority now that residential is gone. Leonard called it “disingenuous not to put open space as the number one item.” Financial capacity and timeliness will also be scored.

The board also reached consensus, without a vote, that buildings should sit toward Humphrey Street and open space toward the water.

Still open are whether to demolish the former Hawthorne-by-the-Sea building or reuse it, parking, and two of the RFP’s nine scoring dimensions: environmental sustainability and walkability. Fletcher said she was open to a banquet or restaurant reuse, with demolition hinging partly on preserving an ocean view from the street. The board took no hard stance on parking and did not reach sustainability or walkability before moving on.

The church parcel remains unnamed

Board members referred repeatedly to “the church property” as a factor shaping demolition, views and open space. In closing comments, Leonard asked for an update on “the fundraising effort and the potential deal,” but no one explained on the open record what the parcel is.

Prior coverage identifies it as 187 Humphrey Street, the St. John’s church parking lot next to the Hawthorne building, an acquisition the town has discussed in executive session since May. The board is planning the site around it in public without naming it.

The RFP itself is not written. Staff will draft it and bring it back, the board said, for at least two more public rounds, “at least twice, probably more,” with Spritz pressing for a genuine two-way public hearing rather than a comment window. Residents who want to weigh in on demolition, parking or scoring weights will have at least two more chances.

Sources