The July 13, 2026 Amesbury Planning Board meeting approved two brick-mill conversions about half an hour apart. Later the same night, the board took up a smaller historic renovation at 201 Elm Street. According to the transcript summary posted on the Unofficial Amesbury meetings site, members were reluctant to permit sales or occupancy there until the required historic restriction and stormwater verifications were recorded.
That hesitation is the friction buyers of converted-mill homes run into. In Amesbury, a historic building becomes housing through a deal. The city waives zoning rules the building could never meet, and in return the owner commits to preserving it, restricting some units, and documenting all of it before the next step can happen. The conditions in the decision determine how many parking spaces the building has, how many units carry affordability restrictions, and how much paperwork stands between a mill and a closing.
The permit is built to bend the rules
Section XI.J2 of the zoning ordinance, the Historic Preservation Special Permit, was amended by ordinance 2024-086, which the City Council approved on September 24, 2024. The summary says the amendment was meant to allow residential and mixed-use reuse of historic structures in the Commercial, Office Park and Central Industrial districts while encouraging designs that match their traditional style, scale and character.
The filed text gives the Planning Board broad authority. It "may grant waivers from any provision of Section XI.J2.2.b if it finds that the proposed redevelopment... shall not result in overburdening of the site, and meets the historic preservation purpose and intent." The board reviews height, massing, floor plans, open space, parking and character-defining features against the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation.
Nineteenth-century mills cover nearly their entire lots and were never designed with parking. Without a waiver process, most could not legally become housing.
Two mills, two very different bargains
The July 13 approvals show how differently the trade works depending on a project's size. Both passed 5-0 with two abstentions.
| 9 & 9RR Oakland Street | 29 Water Street | |
|---|---|---|
| Building | Three brick mill buildings in the Carriage Hill complex, plus a new garage structure | An 1878 brick mill |
| Applicant | 9 Oakland Street Amesbury, LLC | 21 Water Street Realty Trust |
| Homes | 124 units: 14 studios, 69 one-bedrooms, 32 two-bedrooms, 9 artist live/work studios | 6 one- and two-bedroom condominiums on upper floors |
| Commercial | About 3,939 sq ft of ground-floor retail | None; ground floor for mechanical and storage |
| Affordability | 12 restricted units, reduced from 15% to 10% | Payment in lieu of an affordable unit |
| Parking | 153 spaces, about 1.23 per unit, against a 1.5 requirement | Waiver granted |
The unit mix follows from the buildings. Of the 124 Oakland Street homes, 83 are studios or one-bedrooms. That is what deep mill floor plates and fixed window bays produce once they are divided into apartments. When the Newburyport Daily News covered the first hearing in November 2025, architect Stefano Basso of SV Design told the paper that "structurally, it's in pretty good shape," while adding that a conversion would need significant lateral bracing.
What the city gave up at Oakland Street
The Oakland Street waiver request lists the trades. According to the applicant's June 2026 waiver filing, Amesbury ordinarily requires 15% of units to be affordable. The Planning Board can lower that to 10% for a qualifying historic-preservation project. At 124 units, the difference is roughly six homes.
Lot coverage was waived too. The project narrative uses 50% as the Lower Millyard Overlay District benchmark, and the project covers about 87% of its 54,890 square feet, leaving 13% as open space. That figure includes a public plaza of roughly 1,730 square feet in front of the retail.
The site's industrial history shaped the stormwater plan. The project's Licensed Site Professional advised against infiltrating the full recharge volume because of past volatile organic compound contamination, which could migrate to downgradient properties. The project therefore infiltrates only in the courtyard and parking areas and requested waivers from the full recharge standard.
In return, the city gets the buildings themselves. The filing includes a draft preservation restriction, and the Amesbury Historic Commission had already found the structures historically significant, which made them eligible for this permit.
Parking became the condition with a price on it
Of all the waivers, the parking reduction drew the most debate. The zoning ratio of 1.5 spaces per unit would have required 186 residential spaces. The plan provides 153 in total, and the surface stalls are shared with the retail. For retail customers, the applicant points to municipal lots and on-street spaces within 300 feet.
According to the transcript summary of the July 13 meeting, a police memo led the board to require a parking management plan and a utilization study after the building is occupied. The applicant objected to an open-ended obligation, and the board amended the decision so the developer's total financial responsibility for any off-site parking mitigation the study triggers cannot exceed $10,000.
That cap matters to anyone buying on a nearby Carriage Town street. If occupancy shows the 153 spaces are too few, the study will measure the shortfall, but the developer's share of any fix tops out at a fixed amount.
Payment in lieu sets a different clock at Water Street
The filed ordinance text requires a qualifying project to restrict at least one unit or 10% of its units, whichever is greater, so even six condominiums owe one affordable home. 29 Water Street settled that one-unit obligation in cash. At the June 22 meeting, the applicant proposed a payment of roughly 4% of unit sales after credits. Board members debated when the city would collect and how to protect against related-party sales below market value. By July 13, staff recommended a formula of about 4.5% of fair market value with credits for three units, and members said the city needs a formal policy for these calculations.
Because the payment is tied to fair market value, the sale prices of those six condos feed directly into what the city receives. That explains the board's attention to protections against artificially low prices.
How each project moved after the vote
The two projects have moved at very different speeds since July 13.
- 29 Water Street. On August 6, the Technical Review Committee approved its Construction Management and Mitigation Plan. The applicant described demolition and scaffolded site work, with interior completion targeted for spring. On August 24, the Planning Board endorsed the mylars and covenant and waived the erosion-control bond in favor of a city license agreement.
- 9 & 9RR Oakland Street. The project file's last activity is the July 13 vote, which came eight months after the first hearing on November 10, 2025. The city's July 2026 building permit register lists no permit for the address. Under the applicant's materials, the affordable units must be restricted, using a Local Initiative Program regulatory agreement template, before a building permit can be issued.
A six-unit building with a cash payment has fewer documents to record than a 124-unit building with twelve deed-restricted homes, a preservation restriction, and a post-occupancy parking study. Under this permit, a larger project has more conditions to satisfy before its next step.
Short FAQ
Will the Oakland Street homes be rentals or condos? The approved filings describe unit types and affordability terms. They do not settle the form of ownership. The 2025 newspaper coverage described the units as apartments.
Where do these projects sit relative to downtown? Oakland Street is in Carriage Town, on two parcels in the Central Industrial district inside the Lower Millyard Overlay District. 29 Water Street is a downtown mill building.
Have other Amesbury buildings used this permit? The 201 Elm Street renovation discussed on July 13 involves a recorded historic restriction, and the Unofficial Amesbury project index lists other historic-preservation files, including 80 Haverhill Road and 45 Main Street.
This post is general information about public records. It is not legal, tax or financial advice, so confirm how any permit condition or deed restriction affects your purchase with a real estate attorney.
If you're considering a unit in a converted Amesbury mill, or a home on a street near one of these projects, The Barnes Team can go through the decision's conditions with you and price in what they mean before you write an offer.
