LAKEVILLE — Nearly a month after closing the public hearing on the proposed Wake Robin Inn redevelopment, the Planning and Zoning Commission began its deliberations last week over the course of two special meetings devoted solely to the controversial project.
Over four hours of discussion helped the Commission to establish its position at this stage in the process, about a month before its statutory window to render a decision expires on Nov. 13.
By the end of the Oct. 9 meeting, the commission’s five voting members were split in their inclination towards approval or denial, with Secretary Martin Whalen and Regular Member Bob Riva indicating a favorable view, Vice Chair Cathy Shyer and Chair Michael Klemens leaning towards denial, and Regular Member Allen Cockerline expressing reluctance to suggest a vote before further conversation.
“We have more questions that have not been answered,” Klemens said.
“I think we’d all agree to that,” replied Cockerline.
The fundamental nature of those questions is: is the project still too big? And how does the Commission quantify “too big?”
This marked the second time the Commission has sat down to weigh the merits of an expansion proposal for the Inn. The applicant, Aradev LLC, had withdrawn a previous application in December 2024 after four of the five voting members indicated they would likely deny it. Since Aradev resubmitted a revised application this spring in response to feedback from P&Z and Salisbury residents, many neighbors have remained vocal in their continued opposition to the project, both during the public hearing and through community organizing.
Last week several commissioners expressed their gratification with Aradev’s responsiveness to the feedback and the thoroughness of the revised application, though the overall size of the development remained controversial. Cockerline praised the new proposal’s stormwater management plan in particular, which he described as “beyond anything I could’ve imagined.”
He also said it would note a marked improvement to the Inn’s current condition which he characterized as “functionally obsolete.” It should have been renovated 20 years ago,” he said on several occasions over the two meetings.
Klemens said that the application is “much better designed this go around, but still large.”
Shyer took a harder stance, one that echoed the sentiments conveyed in many a neighbor’s testimony during the public hearing. “The bottom line is, this is a big development,” she said. “It’s as big as the last one.” While the new plans have downsized the room count and building footprint from 2024’s application among other alterations, many residents have claimed that the currently proposed expansion is, in terms of impact, nearly identical.
Klemens closed in on a sentence in the town’s zoning regulation 803.3 that addresses impact on neighboring properties in the case of a special permit application as fundamental to the Commission’s deliberation. The clause states that the development may not “cause undue concentration of population or structures,” which Klemens said that, while a tricky thing to define, is the crux of the matter: “I think that’s been the heart of the whole thing. It’s the size; it’s the increase.”
Shyer suggested traffic as a potentially quantifiable metric by which the Commission could determine if the redevelopment is proportionally inappropriate for the location. Before the next meeting, which is scheduled for Oct. 16 at 7 p.m., the Land Use Office will seek data on how ingress/egress by Inn guests and restaurant goers will affect, by percentage, the number of cars at busy Lakeville intersections.
P&Z’s attorney Charles Andres was asked to seek out case law where “undue concentration” has been used as a basis for special permit denial. He said that the language, having appeared in the first national zoning enabling laws in the 1920s, is antiquated and has been phased out of many regulation books. He agreed that examples of its use in the special permit context will be helpful in pinning down such a vague concept.
