By Christopher Haraden 

The Hull Redevelopment Authority this week held the first of several facilitated discussions about the reuse of its 13-acre property. While no decisions were made during the nearly three-hour meeting, a majority of the members said they favored deleting housing from the list of development goals in the draft Urban Renewal Plan. 

Dozens of residents attended in person at Hull High School and over the Zoom platform on Monday night, although this session did not feature input from the public. The HRA’s next meeting on August 26 also will be only for member comments. 

HRA members discussed their visions for the property, and all agreed that some form of open space should be included in the final plan. Three of the five – Chair Dennis Zaia and members Dan Kernan and Adrienne Paquin – said they favored removing housing from the plan; Bartley Kelly thought it should remain, and Joan Senatore said she had not made a final decision. They also debated the definition of the term “development,” ultimately deciding that it did not automatically mean housing or large buildings but could include parks or other amenities not currently on the site. 

“If we are looking to remove the housing component, it could be a sea change,” Kelly said. “We [need to have] a give-and-take as a board to be sure that whatever we do is positive for the economic development for the town of Hull.” 

During the past year, the authority has solicited ideas from the public about the use of the property, and all five members have ideas for the Urban Renewal Plan, which is the guiding document for future development. An independent facilitator hired by the HRA led this week’s discussion and is scheduled to continue in that role later this month. 

Douglas Thompson, retired from the Consensus Building Institute and adjunct professor in the graduate program on dispute resolution at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, conducted the session. He previously was in Hull in March to participate as a mediator for the No Place for Hate Committee’s annual Feast of Conversations, and introduced himself by noting that as a youth, he had worked at both the Ocean Lunch and Joseph’s on Nantasket Beach, and remembered the long-gone Al’s Spaghetti House as a favorite place to eat. 

“This meeting tonight is designed to allow the five of us to interact with Mr. Douglas Thompson, who is a facilitator,” HRA Chair Dennis Zaia told the crowd. “People who are here are those who want to hear what we have to say … we will not be accepting or listening to comments from citizens [tonight] but we thank you for being here.” 

Zaia said that Thompson will be invited back in October for two additional meetings that may feature public discussion of the draft development plan. 

Thompson said the first meeting’s goals were to “confirm a reasonably accurate understanding of key points,” agree on the task ahead, and conduct a “diagnostic assessment” of where members stand in relation to each other’s opinions. He described the August 26 meeting as “more difficult” as members will “work through the differences.” 

The redevelopment authority was formed in the 1960s under a federal program to revitalize urban and suburban neighborhoods. The HRA’s original footprint – designated Town Center No. 1 – encompasses the land between the beach and bay from Water Street to Phipps Street; at one time, the authority planned to expand its territory into three additional districts that stretched southward to the site of the former Paragon Park. 

Much of the HRA land has been vacant since the 1970s, when homes and businesses were taken by eminent domain by the authority and bulldozed, burned, or relocated in anticipation of development proposals that never materialized. The HRA has been working for the past several years to create a set of guidelines for future development. 

A 2023 version of the URP envisioned several uses for the property, including a boutique hotel and buildings with ground-floor retail and residential units on the upper floors. For the property north of the DCR parking lot near Monument Square, options included affordable housing or beach parking and event space. The HRA stepped back from that plan and has embarked on the current process to rework the URP. 

“One of the most important components in what we are trying to do … is to understand that his urban renewal plan is a tool that, in my opinion, will be instrumental in helping the Town of Hull, not necessarily the HRA, put together pieces that are in the notebooks [of past planning documents],” Zaia said Monday night, characterizing the URP as being “beyond zoning.”  

“It is a device that will help decide what will happen with this piece of land [and] encourage, or force, all the town’s boards and committees to work collaboratively so that we can decide how that property should be used,” he said. 

“Each member of the HRA has gotten a lot of feedback in the past year about what the HRA should do,” Kelly said. “And we can talk around the table and nibble around the edges, but I think … the reason we have set this up, is to get down to brass tacks and see what does each of us think about the direction we should go in? What do we agree on? 

“I’m not saying it has to be apartments. I’m not saying it has to be a hotel… or a convention center,” Kelly continued. “But it has to be something. Status quo is not an option.” 

“We all do want open space in some form. I don’t want to do status quo. I want to do more,” Senatore said. “Some type of improvement in the land. Open space that people can enjoy … but some type of economic development.” 

Thompson led the board members through the list of Project Goals and Objectives on page 10 of the current draft URP (posted here), and asked each for feedback on whether to keep, eliminate, or modify each item.  They also discussed the town’s plan to narrow the width of Nantasket Avenue as it passes through the HRA site and return Hull Shore Drive Extension to two-way travel. The proposal, which has received federal design funds, also would remove the two southbound lanes on Nantasket Avenue and open additional space for park land on the bay side.  

“I love all the small improvements that we have made,” Paquin said about the overall plan. “The HRA is older than me. We need to do something, and the draft URP is the best way to do something. The HRA was never supposed to be a landlord. It was never supposed to be a parking business. We were supposed to achieve a goal and then disband. If we can get there, I would love to vote this authority out of existence.” 

“I don’t think we need to sell any of the property. I don’t think we need to build any buildings,” Kernan said to cheers from some in the audience. “The economics of that area are already dependent on the lot being open.” 

At several points during the meeting, Zaia had to admonish the crowd – many of whom held signs with messages such as “Don’t sell public land” and “No homes in flood zones” – for outbursts or attempts to interject comments into the discussion. Occasionally, HRA members expressed frustration with each other during the discussion, but members generally characterized the facilitated discussion as a success. 

“I was personally pleased at how many things we actually agreed upon,” Zaia said. 

A video of Monday’s meeting is available on demand at hulltv.net. The next meeting on August 26 will be held at 7 p.m. in the second-floor exhibition room at Hull High School and over Zoom.

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