Next Swampscott Elm Place Apartment Forum Set For Tuesday

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Developers of a proposed 120-unit apartment building with both affordable and market-rate housing at Elm Place will have a second public forum in five weeks with Swampscott residents on Tuesday.

This forum will be held in person in conference room B129 at Swampscott High School from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. A spokesman for WinnDevelopment told Patch that organizers were working on a livestream, live broadcast or recorded broadcast option that those who cannot attend the meeting in person can view.

The meeting is planned as a follow-up to the June 10 forum where revised plans for the complex near the train station were unveiled. The revised plans called for a "New England coastal" design to replace the original "modern" design to be more in line with the rest of the town's architecture, graduated heights to make the building appear less imposing within the neighborhood, with slightly fewer apartment units and more proposed dedicated parking.

Tuesday's forum will address feedback from the June 10 meeting and answer additional questions and concerns from residents about the project.

The complete presentation from June 10 virtual forum can be found here.

Under the June 10 proposal, the height of the building — originally designed to be five stories — was reduced from 60 feet to 45 feet with different parts of the building varying in height to give it a softer appearance from neighboring sightlines. Developers said the overall size of the building was reduced 17 percent from the original proposal.

Parking was increased from a ratio of .84 spaces per unit to 1.03 spaces — or from 84 overall spots to 108.

The new proposal calls for 120 units — a decrease of eight from the original proposal — with 49 of them rented as "affordable" to help the town satisfy its 40B requirement. The new allotment would be 77 one-bedroom apartments, 24 two-bedroom apartments, 13 three-bedroom apartments and seven studio apartments.

The original plan called for 64 "affordable" units.

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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