Beverly Neighbors Voice Concern Over Proposed Trask Lane Development

BEVERLY, MA — Beverly residents in the Trask Lane area of the city are raising concerns and hopes for the downsizing of a proposed six-building, 440-unit housing developing set to come before the Planning Board on Wednesday night.

Corcoran Trask Lane LLC proposed The Commons at Trask Lane on a 12-acre section of a wooded 77-acre area of land near the Beverly Golf and Tennis Club in 2017 and recently revised the proposal after a favorable state Land Court ruling, according to an August report in Banker & Tradesman.

The 501,000-square-foot project would be divided into two sites, each containing residential buildings ranging from 73 to 83 units. The project would set aside 45 units for households earning 80 percent or less of area median income, according to the report.

"We don't support this project," Patrick Knight, a lifelong Beverly resident who lives in the Cherry Hill Condominiums on Duck Pond Road, told Patch. "This development will directly impact everyone living on Trask Lane. It will also have a major impact on the city of Beverly's municipalities, including the school system resources and budgets, police and fire department resources and budgets, waste management, and home insurance rate increases throughout the city."

Knight said he reached out to Patch on behalf of a neighborhood coalition to alert city residents that "there is literally no room in our neighborhood to support a project of this magnitude" and that "the plan will affect a large portion of Beverly, just our surrounding area."

A traffic study said the development could bring nearly 2,200 vehicle trips to the neighborhood each weekday with Knight warning of "major traffic impacts to Route 128 and on and off ramps to Routes 1A and 62 (not to mention Trask Lane itself)."

"We hear and understand that there are concerns over access and traffic, and we look forward to continuing to work with the city to address them," said Peter Mahoney, EVP, Development for John M. Corcoran & Company, told Patch in a statement on Tuesday.

According to the Beverly Planning Board page on the city website, the proposal includes plans for 882 surface and garage parking spaces, an extension of Trask Lane, common walkways, four monument signs, utilities, drainage infrastructure and stormwater management facilities.

The development was on the agenda for the Planning Board on Wednesday night. The Planning Board meeting is scheduled for City Council Chambers at Beverly at 7 p.m. with a stream scheduled for BevCam here.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)