Page 4 THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – Friday, July 12, 2019 Doggy daycare disturbs neighbors By Mark E. Vogler Law Offices of Terrence W. Kennedy 512 Broadway, Everett • Criminal Defense • Personal Injury • Medical Malpractice Tel: (617) 387-9809 Cell: (617) 308-8178 twkennedylaw@gmail.com 8 Norwood St. Everett (617) 387-9810 www.eight10barandgrille.com Kitchen Hours: Mon-Thurs: 12-10pm Fri-Sat: 12-11pm Sunday: 1pm-10pm Lunch Menu! Enjoy our Famous $10 Served Mon. thru Fri. ‘til 3:30 PM Choose from 16 Items! Grilled Rib Eye Steak! Only $22.00 includes Two Sides Every Friday FRESH HADDOCK DINNER Prepared Your Way! Includes two sides Facebook.com/ advocate.news.ma Now Featuring our BREAKFAST PIZZA & OMELET MENU Saturday & Sunday Only Served until 3:30 PM derson Vieira took the selectmen’s advice last week and decided to seek a continuance on his application for a special permit (S-2) that would allow pet grooming and doggy day care. There is already neighborhood opposition to the doggy daycare component of his plan to open up a business in the two-floor building at 565 Lincoln Ave. “I’m not going to support doggy daycare. I’m not comfortable putting a doggy daycare in that neighborhood,” Board of Selectmen Vice Chair Jeffrey Cicolini said during the hearing for Pet Cute Grooming, Inc. “Parking would be an isE sue. I think the neighborhood would be in an uproar,” he said. Selectman Scott Brazis expressed similar reservations about the business. “It’s a very SPEED LIMIT | from page 1 deem important,” Town Manager Scott C. Crabtree said Monday during a public meeting where the TEC report was presented. Another dozen streets where speed limits were approved previously by selectmen over the years since the 1960s also would not be affected. “You can’t change those,” Crabtree told about 40 people who gathered in the second floor auditorium at Town Hall. The 85th percentile of speed The TEC study’s recommendations mirror the decision by the MassDOT earlier this year to deny the town’s request to reduce the speed limit to 25 mph on three major town roads. The state ruled at the time that the town’s application lacked a study and proper documentation. MassDOT also warned the town that studies done by the state could result in increasing speed limits based on the 85th percentile speeds observed. MassDOT determines speed limits based on the speed at or below which 85 percent of motorists travel. The 85th percentile speed is the national standard for establishing safe speed limits. Several residents in the room expressed dismay with the study’s findings. “So, we should advertise ‘Go to Saugus and drive faster,’” said Bob Davis, one of the organizAUTHOR OF THE REPORT: Elizabeth Oltman, TEC Inc.’s Director of Transportation Planning and ITS, prepared a traffic engineering study for special speed regulations. Her study on special speed regulations recommends maintaining existing speed limits on six of Saugus’s major streets. ers of the neighborhood group Citizens For A Safer Saugus, which has been advocating a town-wide 25 mph speed limit. “There are 33 towns and cities in the state of Massachusetts that now have town or citywide speed limits of 25 mph,” Davis said. “How are they able to do that? Can we just enact a 25 mph speed limit townwide?” Davis suggested that the town should be doing more to get lower speed limits adopted. “Forget the 85 percent thing, go to the 25 mph speed limit … you’re working for us, aren’t you?” Davis said. Crabtree said he understood why residents could be confused by the town’s inability to obtain a reduced speed limit. “It’s hard to understand because there are two different things going on,” Crabtree said. The town has the disadvantage of past Boards of Selectmen going back years and “tinkering” with various requests by citizens lobbying for certain speed limits, according to Crabtree. “Everything that the selectmen in the past since the 60s have voted under the regulatory authority cannot be changed by a town-wide 25 mph change, so it will have no SPEED LIMIT | SEE PAGE 1 congested neighborhood. I listen to the people who live in this town … It’s just not the right fit,” Brazis said. Many of the neighbors who commented on Vieira’s proposal didn’t seem to mind the grooming aspect of his proposed business. But they didn’t like the idea of 25 to 30 barking dogs that might create noise and odor problems in the area, in addition to possible encroaching on area parking space. “Parking is a huge issue,” Board of Selectmen Chair Debra Panetta said. While selectmen suggested that Vieira’s business might be more appealing to the neighborhood if he just concentrated on grooming and eliminated the doggy daycare, they said he would need to consider the financial viability of such a move. Brazis wondered what Vieira would do in the building with the second floor no longer being used to accommodate doggy daycare. “From what I hear from the neighbors, two grooming stations would be okay,” Brazis said. “Is it feasible for you to have two stations?” he said. Brazis said Vieira needs to do more homework. Several members said it would be risky for Vieira to go forward with a vote, given that Selectman Mark Mitchell was absent from the meeting. With four-fifths vote required for a zoning variance, Vieira would need a unanimous vote for his special permit. And if his proposal were to fail, he would have to wait for two years to bring the proposal up again. “I would strongly recommend that you continue this,” Panetta said. The hearing was continued to next month, when selectmen meet at 7 p.m. on Aug. 14 in the second floor auditorium at Saugus Town Hall.
5 Publizr Home