MARSHFIELD — Oct. 1, 2026 — A motion for Marshfield’s Advisory Board to recommend a citizen petition repealing the Brant Rock Village Overlay District failed Thursday at a joint session with the Select Board, where a developer’s representative described a $25 million mixed-use building planned under the overlay’s current rules. The repeal, Article 9, goes to the Oct. 19 Special Town Meeting.
The Full Story
The joint session reviewed all nine articles on the Oct. 19 Special Town Meeting warrant. The Advisory Board voted after public comment; the Select Board took no votes on the articles, which Town Meeting will decide.
Article 9 would repeal the overlay from the zoning bylaw and remove its boundaries from the zoning map. It writes no replacement; the underlying B4 business district would stay in place. Speaking for the petitioners, a supporter said the overlay was not working because projects kept needing variances, could allow close to 100 condominium units, and should be repealed first and then replaced with a new bylaw.
Paul Halkiotis of Gates Road, who wrote the overlay bylaw 15 years ago and now represents Frasca Development, said the development team put the former Haddad’s property under agreement this week and plans a mixed-use building that complies with the current overlay. Halkiotis said the building would cost $25 million and that a preliminary fiscal analysis projects taxes on the property rising from about $20,000 a year to $245,000 after completion. Zoning changes belong with the Planning Board, Halkiotis said, and the usual tool is a moratorium, not a repeal.
If you like what you see now there, this bylaw will guarantee that it’ll stay the same.
— Paul Halkiotis, representing Frasca Development 2:21:05
David Kelly of Ashburton Avenue, recently elected president of the original Brant Rock Village Association, said the association’s seven-member board voted unanimously to send a letter asking the Planning Board to recommend that Town Meeting reject Article 9 and instead amend the bylaw.
Town Planner Karen Horne said the Planning Board holds its public hearing on the article Monday night and has not yet discussed it. She said she would have preferred that the petitioners work with planning beforehand rather than repeal the overlay outright, and did not expect a replacement article to be ready in January for the April warrant. No plans for the former Haddad’s site have been filed, a speaker said later, and they would get no zoning protection because they would have needed to be filed before Sept. 17. Carving that parcel out of the repeal would amount to spot zoning, the speaker added.
Petition backers say blocking new filings is the point. Late in the meeting, Steve Lynch, who said the Zoning Board of Appeals had voted down an earlier Brant Rock project, said that if Town Meeting passes the repeal, no one can apply for a permit under the old overlay while a better bylaw is written.
That’s why we needed just to get rid of the zoning completely and then start over. So it wipes everybody off the books.
— Steve Lynch 3:14:13
Two Select Board members split. Eric Kelley backed the repeal and a Select Board committee to write something more refined, calling the property an eyesore. Chris Rohland questioned scrapping an entire overlay district and favored a narrower fix.
