AMHERST — Municipal review of a $40 million mixed-use development that would alter the landscape of North Amherst begins Thursday night.

The North Square at the Mill District project would bring a large amount of housing to a portion of Cowls Road that since the 1940s has featured a sawmill and other aspects of W.D. Cowls’ lumber industry.

The Zoning Board of Appeals will begin reviewing the comprehensive permit for the development at 6 p.m. at the Town Room at Town Hall.

Beacon Communities of Boston is developing the project that includes 130 apartments, mostly one- and two-bedroom apartments, with 26 apartments set aside for households earning less than 50 percent of the area median income. The project also includes 22,000 square feet of retail space. The developers intend to build on 5.3 acres of land owned by W.D. Cowls.

The project is advancing because the state Department of Housing and Community Development approved Beacon’s request that it be eligible for low-income tax credits. Even though Amherst already exceeds the state’s mandated 10 percent threshold of affordable housing under the state’s Chapter 40B affordable housing law, town officials have supported moving the Beacon forward as a means of continuing to promote housing for people of all economic means.

North Square has also won support from Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, whose president, Julie Marcus, wrote in a letter in September that it would increase tax revenue and create new jobs.

“This type of smart growth exemplified by the North Square at the Mill District development is exactly what is needed now in Amherst to ensure a viable and vibrant economy into the future,” she wrote.

But the project has critics, including people who live in the neighborhood where there could be out-of-scale buildings that can only go up if a series of waivers are granted. These waivers include exceeding the maximum 35-foot height, with buildings rising to as high as about 61 feet.

Darcy Jameson and Dara Kovel, Beacon’s development director and president of development, respectively, and architect David Chilinski, president of Prellwitz Chilinski Associates of Cambridge, will present the plans.

The Zoning Board has additional meetings scheduled for the North Square project on Dec. 8 and Jan. 5, both of which will begin at 6 p.m. at Town Hall.

Meanwhile, Atkins Farms Country Market, at 113 Cowls Road, is requesting from the Planning Board to reduce the number of parking spaces at its site from 50 to 29 to accommondate the Beacon project. The Planning Board will hold a hearing on that request on Dec. 7 at 7 p.m.

Mollye Lockwood, vice president of Real Estate and Community Development for W.D. Cowls, said in an email that these changes, which also include moving the entrance to the parking lot, will only be done if that project is approved.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.

]]>