No residents came to speak at the Jan. 15 meeting of the Planning Board about the proposal to split a lot on Gainsborough Road in half.
The property is located on Gainsborough, about 1,200 feet East of Seven Locks Road.
Planning staff had initially had some disagreement with the developer, the Tamara Corporation about how to define the neighborhood.
“The applicant recommended a larger area which included some smaller properties,” said Dolores Kinney of Park and Planning.
In order to subdivide a property, the developer must show that the new lots will be in keeping with the character of the neighborhood. Typically the planning board likes the new development to be near the average lot size.
Defining the neighborhood then becomes important since depending on where the line is drawn, different lots will be included and the average can be skewed. The neighborhood the developer wanted to use included a number of houses with smaller lots.
However, even excluding those smaller lots, the new property falls roughly in the middle of the neighborhood in terms of lot size.
The lot is currently about 66,000 square feet and will be split into two lots, about 33,000 square feet each.
The Board debated little about the proposal. “We also have consideration of using our scarce commodity of land and increasing the housing stock,” said Commissioner John Robinson.
There is currently one house on the lot. It will be torn down to accommodate the two new houses. Joav Steinbach, a representative of the developer said they hope to start construction in the summer and the new houses will likely be between 4,200 and 4,500 square feet.
—Ari Cetron