By Dolores Sauca Lorusso

At its first meeting since the annual town election results were finalized, the Hull Redevelopment Authority elected new officers and agreed to wait until September to schedule additional public forums on its draft Urban Renewal Plan.

On Wednesday, June 28, longtime chair Bartley Kelly nominated Dennis Zaia to become chair; Zaia nominated newly elected member Daniel Kernan to be vice chair. Adrienne Paquin, also elected this spring, is now the clerk, and Kelly was named treasurer. That position previously was held by state appointee James Tobin, whose recent death has created a vacancy on the five-member board.

Earlier this year, the HRA held public hearings to solicit comments on options for developing the property. Kernan suggested that the authority members reposition the workshops going forward.

“Right now, is an opportunity to pivot…let the community know there is not just one plan anymore, we will come up with alternatives,” Kernan said.

Zaia said “pivot potential is an opportunity to learn more,” adding the board needs to “further distill” what was captured at the previous public forums.  

“We don’t want to lose the information; they were great public sessions” said Kernan. “But we weren’t asking the right question; we were asking about the current plan… [We] needed to ask what they would like to see on the land.”

Zaia agreed. “We may have asked one question predicated on the fact the draft plan was the draft plan and we wanted feedback; the question might have been: What can we do, even if not on the plan?”

The HRA will use its next two meetings on Monday, July 10, and Monday, July 17, as working sessions.

“Many alternatives were presented…we need to take the list of ideas from the breakout sessions at the high school and consolidate into categories,” Zaia said. “Then we will start to see which ideas have greatest viability.”

Paquin agreed about consolidating the list based on the feedback the board has received so far. “There is no point in more meetings until we have options to bring to the town, and we need more time to research and explore other options,” she said. “Two working sessions are a great start; there are so many options that haven’t been looked into.”

Consultant Steven Cecil updated the group, which included more than 25 residents attending the Zoom meeting, that Keller Williams is using the draft ideas as a starting point to complete a financial feasibility study to provide some “solid financial information” in the next few weeks.  “In the midst of the ongoing community participation effort, it came out that the fiscal impacts of whatever is involved is key,” said Cecil, adding the group has been keeping residents informed via the website, a page in The Hull Times Summer Guide, and biweekly information boxes in the newspaper.

“A lot of ideas and information has been put on the table; now we are validating from a dollars -and-cents standpoint…then [we] need to vet ideas and strike a balance to find something that fits and accomplishes the goals at hand,” said Kelly.

The HRA encourages citizens to submit their “pitches” for the HRA land to its website, hra02045.com.

“The avenue to public input is the HRA website; we encourage people to do research and submit ideas there…the public forums will help prioritize what works,” said Kelly.

Paquin will coordinate the addition of functionality to the site so that images will also be able to be uploaded.

“As the plan advances, there will be opportunity for community input at each stage,” said Cecil. “[We] invite citizens in the meeting today to think about the ideas robustly…you all came to the meeting, so you must have ideas.”

Pamela Marlowe of Old Colony Road said she agrees the HRA should collect additional “pitches” from the public. She said that when the forums were held in February and April, a lot of citizens were “not informed and some didn’t even know what the HRA was. We had a lot less information…now that we are more informed, ideas may be different than what people had back then.”

Kevin Locke of Nantasket Avenue said he was “flummoxed” because there are a lot of projects in town and there “does not seem there is a clear strategy…Paragon Dunes, HRA plans and aquarium; can’t build without first looking at how it fits the plan. What do we want to accomplish?”

Kelly described the master plan as one giving an overall view of the town; however, it was narrowed to the beachfront because those areas needed the most planning. He added to make a “better development process,” the Nantasket Beach Overlay District was created.

“Zoning dictates what is developed, and the town can’t compel private property owners to do anything with their property…Paragon Dunes is going through the process allowed by law,” Kelly said.

Cecil further explained the master plan for a town creates infrastructure to set an overall framework, but it “doesn’t compel the town to comply; it is just there to provide guidance.”

Paquin pointed out that the link Town Planner Chris DiIorio posted in the Zoom meeting chat went to a Community Development Plan document dated 2004, making it nearly 20 years old.

“The master plan needs updating, and it is what provides the identity of a town, what we want it to look like,” said Susan Mann. “How can the HRA move forward without the identity of the town? There are frustrated citizens who do not know what direction the town is going in.”

Zaia agreed the town needs a “well composed” master plan to direct how the town can move itself forward. However, he made it clear the “master plan is not in our realm of purview.”

“The town has suffered and identity crisis for 30 years since we tore down Paragon [Park],” said Kelly. “If the town wants to update the master plan, it should do it, but it shouldn’t sideline what we [the HRA] are doing…we are working our part of the puzzle, and we will help with other pieces of that puzzle as we always have.”

One piece of that puzzle is the plan for a two-way road system, which will restore the flow of traffic to nearly what existed before the HRA land was taken by eminent domain.  

“Anything with roads is a town project…the two-way roads are an integral part of the HRA because it improves traffic flow; diffusing the traffic instead of funneling it to one bottleneck,” said Kelly.

In response to a desire by new HRA board members and citizens alike to understand the full scope of the two-way roads and how they are linked to the HRA land, a presentation by consultant Kevin Dandrade of TEC will be arranged for an upcoming HRA board meeting.

“It’s not a rush to get someplace,” Zaia said. “We are trying to do something that works for the community as a whole.”

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