Left In Lowell

This little tidbit was in the Lowell Sun yesterday (I hate it that they don’t update the website til the afternoon - I usually take my trip around the web in the morning, and then I have to remember to go back there in the afternoon.)

In the article, it’s mentioned that Councilor Rodney Elliot is questioning a permit issued up in Pawtucketville:

City Councilor Rodney Elliott is unwilling to accept Building Commissioner Joseph Guthrie’s contention that the permits he granted to a controversial Pawtucketville neighborhood development are legal.

“The more I look at the zoning code and the more I drive by that location, it doesn’t make sense to me,” Elliott said of the project at 5-7 Wright St. during Tuesday night’s council meeting.

“I know Mr. Guthrie has indicated it meets all the criteria, but it can’t possibly do that,” he said. “That development clearly is not what we want, and I don’t think the permit was issued correctly.”

Okay, good on Elliot, too bad the council seems to have lost all control over development before horrible things happen to the city, but at least this is a start. Here’s the part I found interesting, which a reader mentioned in comments the other day…

The issue dates to May. Paul Mercier, a local real-estate agent and the son of Mayor Armand Mercier, purchased a 12,000-square-foot corner lot at 33 Woodward Ave., which is located in an area of the city zoned for two-family homes.

A buildable lot need only measure 6,000 square feet in such a zone.

Mercier subsequently received Planning Board approval to subdivide the property into two 6,000-square-foot lots, one of which contained an existing duplex, and sold the vacant lot to O’Neill.

No, no image of impropriety in the development deals made in this city. Nothing to see here, move along.