A much-anticipated planning board hearing on a rezoning request made by Concord Orthopaedics may be delayed another month.
Concord Ortho is asking to change a residential zone on Pleasant Street into an institutional zone, which would allow for medical uses that are currently prohibited.
The planning board was scheduled to hear and possibly make a recommendation to the city council on the request Wednesday. But Concord Ortho has asked to postpone the hearing until next month, according to the agenda.
“We will ask the Board to vote to postpone it,” City Planner Heather Shank wrote in an email Monday. “I anticipate that it will be postponed to July.”
The rezoning request was originally delivered to the city Jan. 30 and referred to the planning board by the city council in February.
Concord Ortho has said it and other medical practices need room to expand, and the Pleasant Street area sandwiched between two institutional zones – encompassing Concord Hospital on one side and St. Paul’s School on the other – is the logical place.
The practice bought a home within the zone on 33 acres at 297 Pleasant St. last year where it hopes to build a 20,000-square-foot surgical center.
The neighbors of that parcel, whose properties are zoned for medium-density residential uses, say that the rezoning would disrupt the quality of life in the neighborhood and eventually lead to residences being replaced by higher-impact uses.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at
@NickBReid.)