Housing proposed off Route 2 in Leominster draws fierce opposition – The Boston Globe

Some also feel misled over state money that was received in 2021 to open up an industrial land that is now being used for the apartment complex.

Halloween decorations featuring skeletons holding signs that said, “Save our wetlands,” were strung up near the proposed site at 86 Orchard Hill Park Drive.

When site plans recently went before the city’s planning board, residents urged officials to slow down the project and conduct a developmental impact study.

On Monday, the planning board, after making a few tweaks, approved the project’s site plans. The next step is a public hearing before Leominster’s Conservation Commission on Nov. 18.

“There is no downside to pumping the brakes,” Liz Michaels, who lives on nearby Harvard Street, told the planning board at a meeting late last month. “Let’s make sure that the choices we’re making for the future of the city and this neighborhood are really responsibly done.”

Forrester Village is designed to sit on nearly 18 acres and would include nine buildings, three to four stories tall. The original 308 units have been reduced to 294. Plans call for a swimming pool, clubhouse, fitness center, dog park, and parking garages.

The project is located near the Route 2 interchange in the eastern part of the city. It is situated between Harvard Street and the Orchard Hill Park shopping plaza that is home to a Target, Best Buy, Kohl’s, and an Olive Garden restaurant.

Wood Partners, a company based in Atlanta, is developing the site. It has a local office in Lexington, and operates other developments in Massachusetts, according to its website.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a letter read to the planning board at its Oct. 20 meeting, Chelsea Madison, who lives on Harvard Street, expressed worries about traffic.

“This project will bring more than 300 new vehicles to an area that is already busy and difficult to navigate,” Madison’s letter said. “More congestion, more blind spots, and more danger for anyone walking, jogging, or even pulling out of their driveway … that is the definition of a direct impact.”

City Councilor Susan Chalifoux Zephir, an especially vocal critic of the project, sees it as a “huge residential development” that is being “dumped here.”

“It’s a perfect storm of a developer being able to manipulate the system to maximize his profit,” she told the Globe in a telephone interview.

The real rub, according to Chalifoux Zephir, is that the city received a $2 million state grant four years ago to extend a section of Orchard Hill Park Drive on the premise that an industrial complex would be built, bringing an estimated 300 permanent jobs to the community.

Now, the industrial site sits vacant and the extended roadway is going to be used to provide a rear entry and exit to the apartment complex, something that was not mentioned in the grant application, Chalifoux Zephir said.

A copy of the grant application provided to the Globe by the state confirmed the city did not check any box on designs for a housing use on the application.

Leominster, a city with a population of 43,000 in Worcester County, by all accounts is in the midst of a housing crisis, same as the rest of the state.

“Housing is absolutely a need and a priority,” Chalifoux Zephir said. But this project is designed to be a “high-end complex” and will be too expensive to satisfy the local need, she said.

Greg Lisciotti, a developer born and raised in Leominster, owns the shopping plaza and the proposed industrial site. He also owned the parcel being used for the apartment complex before he sold it to Wood Partners.

Lisciotti said the industrial development and the apartment complex are two distinct and separate projects that share a border.

“That industrial building is a completely separate parcel and separate project, end of story,” Lisciotti said in a telephone interview.

Lisciotti said he has been marketing the industrial parcel in search of a warehouse or manufacturing tenant for a couple of years but has not been successful in finding the right one. He said he’ll keep looking.

As for the apartment complex, the planning board required peer reviews by an engineering firm and traffic specialists, Lisciotti said. Both were conducted and approved, he said.

The statewide housing shortage has driven Governor Maura Healey to delineate housing production as a number one priority, Lisciotti said.

A zoning change at the beginning of the year in Leominster provided for “slightly increased” density and eliminated conflicting sections of the city’s zoning ordinances, Lisciotti said.

As for the wetlands, as required by law, a scientist surveyed the area, identified and mapped the wetlands, and certified his results with the city’s conservation commission, Lisciotti said.

The residents calling for a development-impact report are misinformed, he said. Such reports only apply to subdivisions, which create new lot lines and require new roads to be built, he said.

“We aren’t subdividing anything,” Lisciotti said. “This is a site plan review.”

Nothing about the project has been rushed, he said. The project first was proposed in March and the site plan was approved Nov. 3.

“There’s been no baiting, and there’s been no switching,” Lisciotti said. “This has been a separate parcel since the day I bought it nearly 20 years ago. I’ve been very thoughtful and have not been rushed in developing it.”

Despite being a major proponent of the project, Mayor Dean Mazzarella said he empathizes with the concerns he’s hearing from the neighborhood.

“There’s clearly some neighbors who are upset,” Mazzarella said in a telephone interview. “If it was next to me, I would want the best possible project, I would want a good buffer.”

But there’s a process for that, he said.

“Put your concerns together, in writing and bring them to the planning board and conservation commission,” he said. “They are the public bodies, that is the process. That’s their job, to vet, to hear the people, and look at the facts.”

Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.