LYNNFIELD — A determined group of Lynnfield residents has kicked off the new year with a campaign to stop a local developer from building an apartment complex on the site of the former Bali Hai restaurant on Moulton Drive.
“Stop the Bali Hai Project,” a Facebook campaign created by Moulton Drive resident Barbara Auterio and Locksley Road resident David Trefry, made its online debut on Wednesday. During its first two days online, the group picked up nearly 160 members.
“We posted it to the Sherwood Forest group page and got about 50-60 in less than a day and then posted it to the ‘Lynnfield Community Group’ page about a day later,” said Trefry, a lifelong resident and 1975 Lynnfield High graduate. “With 3,900 members, we expect a lot more people to join.”
The group states its mission as being “dedicated to fighting the Land Court’s decision on granting the approval of the special permit given to build a 23-unit apartment building at the site of the Bali Hai.”
The Massachusetts Land Court ruled in December that the Lynnfield Zoning Board of Appeals decision denying developers Matt and David Palumbo’s application for a special permit was improper and ordered the board to issue the permit.
Town Counsel Thomas Mullen stated on Friday that “the Board of Selectmen decided not to pursue an appeal.” The deadline for filing an appeal is Monday.
“We won, (the developers) lost at the Planning Board. We won, they lost at the Board of Appeals, so it just isn’t fair that the town is not appealing it and walking away from it,” said Auterio. “This opens the door. What’s next? Rip down the 99 and build apartments? Rip down the little strip mall on Main Street and build apartments? Knowing how many people are against this, you’d think the town would want to take a second look at this.”
In the Land Court decision, Judge Robert B. Foster wrote, “the (zoning) board’s finding in the decision that the project would be substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the restaurant use was unreasonable and arbitrary and capricious. The decision must be annulled, and the special permit requested by the LLC issued.”
In reaching its decision, the court stated that the “board’s denial of the special permit must be upheld if the facts could be rationally interpreted to show that the project would be perceptibly more harmful to the immediate environs and close neighbors of the property than the restaurant use was, or will, be.”
The court noted that the town had argued in its post-trial brief that many aspects of the apartment project would have detrimental consequences to the community but the court rejected all of the town’s arguments, in most cases saying there simply was not enough evidence to support the town’s claims.
“Did the judge come to Lynnfield and do you think he knows anything about the neighborhood?” Auterio said. “We already have people flying down Moulton Drive night and day and this will only make things so much worse in terms of traffic and water running into Suntaug Lake and loss of water pressure. Property values are going to keel over.”
Trefry said he was part of a group that successfully fought two projects that proposed housing complexes, including an initial proposal by the Palumbos for a 32-unit apartment complex.
“A bunch of us in the neighborhood were involved at the Planning Board and zoning board hearings that shot down the plan, and then shot down the scaled-down 23-unit plan,” said Trefry. “I remember asking the Palumbos what they would do if the ZBA shoots them down, and Matthew said they would go to a restaurant, as they wouldn’t do much to do that, but then it turns out they went to the Land Court. We were successful in stopping them before in 2018, so we hope that we will get a lot of people going again to talk about the fact that we don’t want an apartment complex going in there.”
Trefry said he was thrilled at the thought of having a restaurant in his neighborhood.
“I’ve lived here all my life and go back to the days when it was the Sun O China restaurant before it was Bali Hai. I’d love to have a restaurant there again. I used to go there (to the Bali Hai) all the time and I’d love to be able to walk over there and get a drink and some dinner again.”
“Stop the Bali Hai Project” doesn’t agree with the court’s finding that an apartment complex isn’t a more detrimental use than a restaurant.
“The claim that a 23-unit apartment building is not more detrimental to the neighborhood than the restaurant is absurd,” a group Facebook post said.
“We, the residents of Lynnfield, Mass., are demanding the town appeal the decision and fight to keep bid builders out of our small town. Once a single special permit is granted to change the land use, it will open the doors to all builders and allow them to obtain special permits as well. Before you know it, our town will be a big city.”
Anne Marie Tobin can be reached at [email protected].