Newburyport Planning Board Denies Country Club Estates Permit Over Legal Standing Question

NEWBURYPORT — January 7, 2026 — Newburyport Planning Board unanimously denied a Country Club Estates site plan on legal standing grounds and approved a battery storage facility at 23 Lowe Street at its January 7 meeting. The board found, on advice of city legal counsel, that the condo association of the trust was not the proper party to apply for a special permit on the Woodman Way property, voting to deny the application without prejudice after two neighboring Clipper Way residents raised concerns about a trustee certificate more than 12 years out of date. In the same session, the board unanimously approved a just-under-5-megawatt battery energy storage system proposed by NextGrid at 23 Lowe Street, a wholesale lumber parcel, following Conservation Commission approval the prior evening; the system will charge off-peak and discharge daily from 2 to 8 p.m. under a clean peaks contract. The board also granted a unanimous minor modification to allow a master-suite addition above the garage at 11 Clipper Way within the Country Club Estates special-permit development, where architect Ben Williams of SBI Architecture demonstrated that comparable dormers already exist on two neighboring homes. Planning Director Andy Plotkin closed the meeting with a briefing warning that the city's water treatment plant output capacity — not groundwater supply — may cap new residential permitting at roughly 100 to 200 additional units citywide until a capital plant upgrade is completed, a finding he said will shape the ongoing Story Avenue corridor rezoning exercise.