Last updated August 8, 2026
At the May 21 hearing, Board members asked the developer the right questions about the trails and pedestrian connections it had dropped from the Forest River Residences. The Board’s own chair said a hillside path was “challenging, but doable” and that pedestrian access was squarely within the Board’s authority.
On July 23, 2026 the Board closed the public hearing and approved the Winn Phase II decision 7 to 0. The Loring Avenue trail connection is on the approved plans, and the decision separately requires the developer to redraw the parking lot corner to make room for a better walking route. This page is the record of the questions that got us there.
The good work
When Winn’s Phase II came before the Board on May 21, 2026, the developer presented a plan that had quietly dropped the woodland trails from its winning proposal. These members did not let it pass, and their words are now on the public record. Salem owes them a genuine thank-you: not for taking anyone’s side, but for doing the review thoroughly and taking the public’s access seriously.
Graham Wing
Board member
“A missed opportunity for folks getting out to walk around.”
He raised the eliminated trails directly, and made the key point the developer can’t answer: part of the proposed trail sits outside the wetlands. So “the wetlands make it infeasible” cannot explain dropping it.
Kirt Rieder
Chair · landscape architect by profession
“Challenging, but doable.”
A landscape architect by profession, he told the developer’s “no way to affordably build a path across the hill” was wrong, he is “fairly confident the landscape team are able to do this.” And that pedestrian access “is in their wheelhouse” under site plan review, the Board’s authority to require.
Sarah Tarbet
Vice Chair
“Isolated and vehicular-centric… undercooked.”
Called the upper-campus pedestrian experience “lacking,” and asked the question that matters: how does the public actually walk up from Loring Avenue? A development this size should answer it.
Source: City of Salem Planning Board, Minutes of May 21, 2026 (continued public hearing on WinnDevelopment Phase II, 8 & 9 Harrison Road and 262 & 266 Loring Ave). Quotations are as recorded in the official minutes.
The developer’s answer
Asked about the trails it drew to win the land, WinnDevelopment’s Steve Senna did not engage the substance. The record shows a pattern of deflection:
“It was aspiration that would be difficult and costly for an affordable housing project.”, on the trails, which he said were “developed in 2023.”
“Late in the game… several meetings in”, suggesting it was too late to raise the missing trails, though the chair noted he had raised it at the very first meeting.
The RFP visual “was aspirational”, pointing back to the proposal’s own trail map as if it were never a real commitment.
But the record cuts the other way
The Board’s own chair, a landscape architect by profession and not an opponent of the project, said the opposite on the record: the hillside path can be built. And Mr. Wing established that part of the trail is outside the wetlands, where the affordability-and-wetlands excuse simply doesn’t reach.
“Aspirational” is the word a developer uses for a promise it would prefer not to keep. Site plan review is the moment the Board can turn the promise back into a requirement.
What “not feasible” means here
It does not mean it cannot be built. The Board’s own chair said the trail across the slope can be built, and is within the Board’s authority to require. So when the developer says “not feasible,” the record shows it means a cost they would rather not carry, not an engineering limit.
Source: City of Salem Planning Board, Minutes of May 21, 2026. All quotations as recorded in the official minutes.
The leadership this moment asks for
When the developer said the hillside trail simply could not be built, the Chair did not reach for the easy “not our purview.” A landscape architect by training, he looked at the same slope and said plainly it was “challenging, but doable,” and squarely within the Board’s authority to require.
That is the kind of civic leadership Salem remembers. It is also what changed the outcome: weeks after the Chair said it out loud, the developer stopped calling the connection impossible and put it back in its filing.
Why it mattered
Winn’s Phase II alone adds up to 145 homes; the full Forest River Residences, across both phases, adds up to 485. Hundreds of new neighbors will walk straight onto the existing Forest River trails. That is exactly why the pedestrian and multi-modal connections matter more here, not less, a development that intensifies use of public trails should be required to strengthen the connections to them.
Under site plan review, the Planning Board can attach conditions to its approval. That is the lever the chair pointed to when he said pedestrian access “is in their wheelhouse.” Unlike a simple yes-or-no, the Board can say yes, on these terms, and one of those terms can be the accessible trail and multi-modal connections the developer drew to win the land.
The standard isn’t “a path.” It’s accessible, for all ages and abilities.
This is the heart of it, and it should be written into the condition in plain words: the trails, connections, and overlooks must be accessible to people of all ages and abilities, usable by a resident in a wheelchair, an older neighbor with a walker, a parent with a stroller, not a steep, narrow path only the able-bodied can manage.
That standard isn’t something residents invented. The public bid for this land required real public access, and the developer’s own winning proposal promised “a series of accessible footpaths” and “an inclusive space for residents and the wider community.” Accessible was their word. The condition should hold them to it, and say so explicitly, so it cannot quietly shrink into a token path later.
What residents asked the Board for
How it landed
At the July 9 meeting the applicant told the Board it had no new materials and was working with planning staff on a draft decision. The hearing was continued to July 23 for that purpose, and on July 23 the Board closed the hearing and approved the decision 7 to 0.
The Loring Avenue connection is on the approved plans. The decision also requires the developer to widen the southwest corner of the parking lot to accommodate a better walking route, so residents are not pushed into cutting across the pavement. The broader trail network and the overlooks were not required. The written accessibility standard residents asked for does not appear in the decision.
Thank you to the members who got it right
No resident prompted the Board to raise the missing trails. Members did it on their own, and kept doing it across ten hearing dates from March to July. That is volunteer public service, done on weeknights, and it is the reason the Loring Avenue connection is on the approved plans instead of quietly gone.
The email campaign to the Board is closed. Both permits are approved and there is nothing further to comment on. One ask remains, and it belongs to City Hall.
Still open
The City awarded $66,148.66 in Community Preservation money to repair it in June 2022. The bridge is still closed. The petition asking Salem to finish the job is delivered at 100 signatures.
Add your name
Sign the Petition
At 100 signatures we deliver it to the City: keep the promised trails and access.