Select Board Signs Warrant for Resident-Petitioned Special Town Meeting on Monday, March 11

ANDOVER, MA – The Andover Select Board met on Monday, February 12 in the School Committee Room at the Andover Public Schools Administrative Offices. The Select Board voted to sign the warrant for a resident-petitioned Special Town Meeting to be held on March 11, approved an amendment to the Land Disposition Agreement for 11 Lewis Street, and attended to several administrative matters pertaining to elections being held in March.

Special Town Meeting  
The Select Board signed the warrant for a Special Town Meeting that will be held on Monday, March 11 at the Collins Center for the Performing Arts at Andover High School. The warrant will contain three articles, all submitted by private petition of residents.

The initial petition for a Special Town Meeting was filed with Town Clerk’s Office on January 30, 2024. Under Massachusetts General Laws, the Select Board must call a Special Town Meeting for within 45 days after receipt of the petition. Therefore, the Select Board was required to schedule the meeting to occur by March 15. Monday, March 11 was selected based on availability of space and to provide time for necessary actions, including the review of articles by pertinent boards and committees and publication of a Finance Committee report.

The full warrant for the Special Town Meeting can be viewed online.

A joint meeting of the Select Board, Finance Committee, School Committee, Conservation Commission, Commission on Disability, Planning Board, and DEI Commission was held on Wednesday, February 14 at 7:00 PM at the Wood Hill/High Plain Auditorium to provide an opportunity for the boards to review and consider issuing recommendations on the three articles.

Addition information regarding the Special Town Meeting and the articles that voters will be asked to consider will be published by the Town in the coming weeks. The Finance Committee Report will be mailed to all households in early March. 

11 Lewis Street LDA Amendment

The Select Board considered and voted to approve an amendment to the Town’s Land Disposition Agreement (LDA) with Minco Development for the Old Town Yard property at 11 Lewis Street.

The amendment does not change the terms of the agreement. Rather it replaces the Plan of Land included in the document as an exhibit with an updated plan that reflects a series of actions that Town Meeting will be asked to consider at Annual Town Meeting in April. These actions relate to the discontinuance of portions of Lewis Street and Buxton Court as public ways, certain confirmatory takings, and accepting the previously relocated Buxton Court as a public way.  The LDA signed in the summer of 2023 contemplated these changes – the first amendment was therefore an expected part of the development process.

The Select Board previously approved the LDA with Minco Development in June of 2023. The agreement will enable Minco’s development of the roughly three-acer site at 11 Lewis Street, referred to as the Old Town Yard. The proposed development will include 163 residential units, community amenities, and retail space.

Under the timeline established in the LDA, the outside closing date for the sale of the property is June 2026 and may be significantly sooner depending on the pace of multi-stakeholder permitting. Minco will be required to begin construction within 60 days of the closing, and to complete the project by August 2029.

In providing an update on the status of the project, Deputy Town Manager and Town Clerk Austin Simko noted that, while there is a long road ahead for the project, Minco has been ahead of schedule in certain aspects as it pursues permitting for the project.

Other Notes

• The Select Board voted to authorize the Town Clerk to designate alternate polling locations in the event that an emergency were to arise and prevent voting at a designated polling location on election day. The measure comes as a result of a process being led Deputy Town Manager and Town Clerk Austin Simko with the Town’s Emergency Management Working Group to establish emergency protocols for elections, consistent with guidance from the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office. The Select Board establishes polling locations when signing the warrant for elections. This measure would give the Clerk discretion to move voting to an alternative polling place if a designated location is not usable or safe due to an emergency.
• The Select Board signed the warrant for the March 5 Presidential Primary. The warrant can be viewed online.
• The Select Board signed the warrant for the March 26 Annual Town Election. The warrant can be viewed online.

The full meeting can be viewed online through AndoverTV.