Ten minutes before the meeting started, every parking lot outside Barrington Middle School was filled with cars, as hundreds of residents piled into the auditorium for the planning board’s review of the proposed 344-unit housing development on Tuesday night, Feb. 3.

The lot near the front door of the school was overcrowded, with cars parked along the snow-banked edges. The large main lot was at capacity, and the small teachers’ lot at the back of the school was packed also. Residents had started to get creative with their parking spots.

The large turnout — the 400-seat auditorium was nearly filled with residents young and old — was treated to a slow-motion presentation by the property owners’ development team, which included attorney Bill Landry, Shineharmony Holdings Inc. President Charlie Kalocsay, and a few engineers.

Landry spent time detailing aspects of the state’s affordable housing laws; Kalocsay shared details of housing from towns where he has lived (Rye NY, South Carolina, and Annapolis, Md.); and engineer Suanne Santos offered a history of Barrington College. The team did not complete the presentation and failed to have anyone from the project’s design firm, DPZ, in attendance.

The pace of the presentation drew some comments from Barrington Planning Board Chair Roni Phipps, who, at the end of the three-hour meeting, referenced the board’s 90-day deadline to complete its review of the “Belton Court Village” development application. 

Phipps, at the beginning of the meeting, told the large crowd of residents that they would not be able to share their comments that night. She said the developer’s presentation would be first, the planning board’s comments second, and, finally, the residents would be allowed to talk. 

Despite the instructions, residents, at times, offered comments from their seats on Tuesday night. They corrected Landry when he mis-spoke about the density limits included in the state law; they jeered when the development team spoke about the impact on schools and the possibility of increasing the number of units included in the project; and they also accused the developers of stalling and dragging their feet.  

Mark Hanchar, a member of the school building committee and former member of other committees in town, said the pace of the presentation was deliberate. He said the team representing Shineharmony Holdings, Inc. was intentionally proceeding slowly. 

“I think the big problem people had was this whole idea that they didn’t find out about the Technical Review Committee (meeting) so the public could show up,” Hanchar said, referencing the TRC meeting in January. “This was never announced until the very last minute that there would be no public comment (at the Feb. 3 planning board meeting).

“The average person who attended tonight doesn’t come to these meetings very often, doesn’t know how to act. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in these meetings in other towns — this meeting was reasonably well-run and you got less static than I’m used to.”

Barrington Town Planner Herb Durfee said he was pleased with the turnout. 

“The more people that are here to participate in the process, great,” Durfee said. “From my perspective, I wish we could immediately start out with the public comment stuff, but we have to necessarily hear the applicant and all that, so I know there are some frustrations with people that were here, but it’s great to have the people here and I hope they continue to participate and be active in it. I know the planning board really wants to hear the public comment. We just need to get through a couple steps before we can get into that process.”

Durfee offered his explanation for some of the public’s response to not having an opportunity to comment at the planning board’s meeting.

“I think the frustration lies in probably 95 percent of the people here are not aware of how the development review process needs to unfold itself. Again, applicants need to be provided the opportunity to introduce, give an overview, put their expert witnesses forward, and applications that are of this magnitude warrant a good chunk of time in order for the applicant to get their stuff across,” Durfee said, following the meeting. 

“We tried to have the handout to just sort of explain, this is the process. But a lot of the people who are in here have never been involved in a development review before. It’s not unnatural, but it’s unfamiliar from that standpoint.”

Following the meeting, Landry said the development team was not trying to stall the process.

The meeting was continued to March 3 at 7 p.m. Officials said the location was to be determined.