Public Getting Another Chance to Speak Out on 'Palmer Pointe'

A public hearing on the master plan for the proposed affordable-housing development at Sowams Nursery in Barrington's Hampden Meadows neighborhood continues at tonight’s Planning Board meeting.

The meeting starts at 7 pm in the Council Chamber in Town Hall.

The continued hearing will follow one other item on the Planning Board agenda – a small subdivision proposed for Maple Avenue. It will then pick up where it left off last Thursday after about three hours of mostly technical details of the 48-unit rental development – roads, sewers, wastewater runoff and traffic – and another hour of public comment.

Tonight’s session will focus on public input, said Planning Board Chairman Mike McCormick, even though there has been significant opportunity for neighbors and other residents to respond to the “Palmer Pointe” proposal for low and moderate-income housing since it surfaced last year at other meetings and sessions.

Public feedback to date has been decidedly opposed to the development, which is proposed by the nonprofit East Bay Community Development Corporation – the operator of the 47-unit Sweetbriar development in Bay Spring and almost 200 other apartment units in Bristol and Warren.

Leading the opposition has been a Hampden Meadows-based citizens group known as CODDER 02806 – Committee Opposed to Detrimental Development and for Environmental Responsibility.