Neighbors aflood with fears                         3/16/00
Plans for a riverfront complex include complicated contingencies in case the building floods.
By Ethan Forman
Eagle-Tribune Writer
ANDOVER — The state Department of Environmental Protection plans to visit the Powder Mill Square project site on Stevens and Main streets today.
   Fearing sewerage could flow into the area if the Shawsheen River floods, residents appealed the Conservation Commission's lengthy approval of the project to the DEP in January. In response to the Jan.20 appeal, the DEP scheduled a site walk today at 11 a.m.
   Residents fear the project being developed by Northpoint Realty Development Corp. of North Andover could worsen flooding. For the past year, they have questioned traffic, flooding and the housing component of the project.
   Part of the $25 million complex would sit in the Shawsheen River's 100-year flood plain. In fact, attorneys for the project helped draft a rewrite of the town's flood-plain bylaw so that it would con- form to federal standards.
   Today, the site, owned by the Wood Ayer Limited Partnership, 15 South Union St., Lawrence, contains an abandoned medical center, a large parking lot and three abandoned homes across from the Shawsheen Plaza on Main Street. It's the third development proposal the site has faced in recent years, including a failed proposal for a Walgreen pharmacy.
   Under the proposal, a medical office building and 72 luxury senior citizen condos, as well as affordable housing units, would sit on 5 acres bordering a mill dam on the Shawsheen River. The development would sit on a two-level, 308-space underground garage.
   In fact, the bottom floor of the garage would be designed to flood if the river should reach flood stage. The medical office building, proposed to be staffed by Holy Family Hospital personnel, would have to be evacuated if that were the case, Director of Planning Stephen Colyer said.
  The project would also include holding tanks to contain sewerage from the apartments until flood waters subside.
   In their appeal to the DEP, the residents state their cellars flooded in 1994, 1996 and 1998.
"This project is designed to have a major negative dollar impact and health impact on our community, a medical building with an underground parking garage that floods with polluted and contaminated flood water," said the appeal, filed by Peter M. Hadley of 8 Joyce Terrace. When reached, Mr. Hadley declined comment. The project's attorney, Robert Lavoie, could not be reached.
   The appeal said the development would hurt the Shawsheen River and the developer has not adequately measured flood channels below the site. Residents have asked the town to dredge the river and the dam's basin, to no avail.