It’s been six years. What’s another couple of weeks?

On Tuesday, the City Council was set to vote on Northland Development, a proposal for a development in Upper Falls that aims to add more than 800 apartments to the city’s housing stock, complete with a public splash pad.

But then, Ward 4 Councilor Randy Block stood up and “chartered” it, meaning he pushed it to the next meeting as the city’s charter allows. The chartering option can only be used once, and the matter must be brought to the floor again at the next meeting.

So what happened?

The project entered the approval process in 2019 with a plan to build a mixed-use commercial and residential development on 22 acres in Upper Falls, and it was granted a special permit. The voters then affirmed the approval in a 2020 referendum. But the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation crisis that followed sent construction costs through the stratosphere, and developers started changing plans.

Northland came back to the City Council last year asking for its special permit to be amended, with office space removed and replaced with more housing, because office space was now in low demand with the normalization of remote work.

The Land Use Committee held public hearings, at which many supported the project changes and others worried the project wouldn’t have enough parking.

“It was noted that the City Council focuses specifically and directly on the amendment to the special permit, not a reopening of the special permit that was permitted in early 2019,” Land Use Chair Councilor Andrea Kelley said.

The process included market analysis, peer reviews and input from traffic consultants, and Northland agreed to increase its traffic demand management payment from $200,000 to $500,000 with a maximum cap of $1 million.

Northland is also bringing back the shuttle bus from the original plan that was going to be cut with the changes.

On Tuesday, the Northland project changes came to the full City Council for approval.

Then came the block. Randy Block, that is.

“When I first learned the details of the revised plan, I had three major questions I wanted answered,” Block said as he rose to speak.

The first question is about when the office market demand might return. His second question is about the fiscal impact of the new plan compared with the old plan.

“The fiscal impact of the original plan had a positive impact between $1.9 and $7 million annually. With the elimination of the office space, I expected this number to decrease, but I wondered by how much.”

Block acknowledged that the developer and the Planning Department answered his questions with analysis from independent consultants that showed the demand for office space was lower than before and the city would see less of a fiscal benefit from the new plan.

“The conclusions were a disappointment, but they were consistent with general information regarding the office space market,” Block said.

But the impact to the city’s finances is still unclear, he said. An estimate says the development will bring $1.8 million annually, which is almost as much as the original version was expected to bring, despite having less commercial space and potentially more school children living there.

Analysis of the changes focused on the Saco-Pettee Mill building and not impact of the project as a whole with the changes, Block added, which left him wanting more information.

“I want to acknowledge that [Deputy Planning Director] Jennifer Caira wrote to me this afternoon saying the reduction in the project’s size would reduce tax revenues by about $600,000, but she maintained that the project would nonetheless yield about $1.8 million annually to the city,” Block continued. “This conclusion does not seem logical to me.”

Block said he also wants more information about traffic expected from the development than the traffic analysis provides.

And he disagreed with Kelley about focusing on the amendments and not the project as a whole, especially since other housing developments have gone up nearby in the time since Northland was first approved.

“It is my hope that by chartering this item, the Planning Department can work with Northland and the peer reviewers to bring us a better plan,” Block said before sending the Northland vote into limbo until the next City Council meeting (in early May).

You can watch the whole meeting online.

Editor’s Note: Attorney Alan Schlesinger with Schlesinger & Buchbinder, represents Northland and is also on the Newton Beacon Board of Directors.