Newburyport Planning Board Sends Two Major Development Cases Back for More Design Work

NEWBURYPORT — February 4, 2026 — Newburyport Planning Board continues two contested land-use cases to March 4, citing unresolved tree, massing, and design concerns. At the February 4 meeting, the board unanimously continued the Caswell Development special permit and definitive subdivision application for a four-lot courts-and-lanes project at 18 Highland Avenue, with members pressing applicant attorney Jake Cablin and engineer Steve Sawyer of Millennium Engineering to shift interior lot lines westward to spare additional mature trees, increase rear setbacks on lots two and three, and commit to a maximum ground-floor building area per lot. Six Arlington Street neighbors testified, with Natalie Nash calling for a certified arborist review and tree-preservation conditions, and Glenn Casey invoking the 1979 Zoning Board of Appeals variance that required the property's greenbelt zone to remain "undeveloped." The board also continued Institution for Savings' request to amend its 2022 special permit for a rooftop radiator at 93 State Street — installed at 10 feet 10 inches, approximately 28 inches above the approved envelope — directing the bank's attorney, Michael Pill, to return with full engineering drawings for a proposed radiator relocation to the building's 1980s addition, along with documentation of a previously evaluated low-profile replacement unit. Two Prospect Street neighbors called the radiator relocation the only acceptable solution.