In today’s Newburyport Daily News, February 16, 2006, Douglas Locy, the Chairman of the Planning Board, writes in a Letter to the Editor that Newburyport may now get a chance to have a Design Review Board (DRB.) Both the Newburyport Planning Board and Newburyport’s Planning Director, Nick Cracknell, have been actively working towards this goal for a couple of years.

Mayor John Moak met with the Newburyport Planning Board and suggested that a DRB be created to advise them. Now with Mayor Moak’s support, Mr. Locy says that a “zoning amendment to create a DRB could be submitted to the City Council and open to public hearing by this April. This proposed five-member DRB would likely consist of a registered architect, a landscape architect, a developer, a member of the Historical Commission and a member of either the Planning Board or ZBA (Zoning Board of Appeals).”

I think this is a very positive development and it would be a great for the City of Newburyport if a DRB could be implemented.

Mary Eaton, Newburyport