TOWN OF
PLANNING
BOARD
Minutes of a Meeting of the Planning Board held on
PRESENT: SAMUEL SOLOMON, CHAIR
ELI
HAUSER
PETER
O’CAIN, ASST. TOWN ENGINEER
Business
Transacted:
I.
Meeting
called to order.
FORM A PLANS
None.
SIGN REVIEW
None.
II.
TOWNSMAN IV
The Board informed Mr. Iverson that Town Counsel
researched the issue of whether or not the Board could grant any further
extensions after the eight year time period for subdivision build out had
passed. It was Town Counsel’s opinion
that the Board could not grant any further extensions, both under its own Rules
and Regulations and under the State Statute.
Therefore, Mr. Iverson would have to refile
that part of the subdivision. The Board
cannot create a bond nor release lots in a subdivision that has technically
expired.
____________________________
Administrative
Assistant
Minutes of Meeting Page Two
III. HUNTER’S RIDGE
The Board informed the applicant that it had received
a letter from the Fire Chief. The Fire
Chief requested that there be two means of egress from this subdivision due to
the large number of houses and that there be sprinklers in each of the
homes. Mr. Solomon asked if the
applicant was going to install call boxes.
Mr. Merrione said that the last time they spoke with the Fire Chief, he indicated they were not necessary as people don’t
really use them any more. However, he
said he would do whatever the Fire Chief and Board required. Mr. Solomon said that if the Fire Chief did
not require them, neither would the Board.
Mr. Faria brought the Board
up to speed on what they have been doing since their last meeting with the
Planning Board. They have met with Peter
O’Cain in Engineering, with the Conservation Commission, with the consultant Earthtech and Board of Health. There have been no substantive changes to the
plans. They meet with ConCom tomorrow
night and hope to finalize things with them.
Mr. Faria explained that
because the septic system is a shared system, it needs DEP approval. In this regard, they have already made all
the changes the consultant suggested, and the Board of Health has sent
endorsement letters to the DEP.
Therefore, the preliminary approval from the Board of Health is in
place.
The applicant is meeting with the Conservation
Commission tomorrow night. Mr. Faria has met with Greg Meister of ConCom and with Earthtech. Mr. Faria feels they have met all the ConCom’s
requirements and he is hoping the ConCom will vote on this tomorrow night.
As regards the landscape plan, Mr. Faria
provide a copy of the plan to the Board. He said they will grade in the buffer and
will replace plantings and enhance it after construction. Mr. Solomon said that the Board wanted to
make sure that the buffer is replanted and the abutters protected. Mr. Merriken added
that he would like to have the Board
Minutes of Meeting Page
Three
come out and walk the property and let them know if there
is anything else the Board would like to have them do. Mr. Solomon responded that the Board would
defer to the Tree Warden who has much more experience in plantings than the
Board members do.
In response to abutters concerns about possible water
problems pre and post construction, Mr. Solomon responded that given the
information received from the drainage calculations, that the Town’s consultant
has thoroughly reviewed, there should not be any water problems. The design here should lead to less water
coming off the site than does now. Mr.
O’Cain added that in theory this plan should work. There will actually be more water intercepted
with the drainage designed than is being stopped now.
The resident at 41 Lantern Lane said that she had had
her septic system replaced six years ago, inspected by the Town and it has
again failed due to too much groundwater coming onto her property. She wanted to know what assurance the Town
was going to give her that the system would not fail again, given that there
will be over 50 homes in this subdivision that could create more water problems
and she is very concerned it not affect her. She wanted to know if the Board was going to
require the applicant to put an insurance binder in place to protect the
abutters from any water damage after the subdivision is built and the developer
is no longer around as had been mentioned at an earlier meeting. Mr. Solomon explained that the drainage
system gets reviewed by the Town Engineer, the consultant that was hired by the
Board, the Board of Health and in this case, also by DEP. This system is getting much more review than
in a conventional subdivision. It was
not within the Board’s purview to require the applicant to post a surety for
things that might happen some time in the future.
The resident at
The Board then went over the review letters prepared
by Earthtech and by Mr. O’Cain and had the following
comments/suggestions:
Minutes of Meeting Page
Four
Parking be allowed on only
one side of the street – make this a part of the deed or association by-laws.
·
Storm separator
units need to be maintained and cleaned out annually. Should also be made part of the association
by-laws with a requirement that the date of said cleaning be filed with the
Town DPW.
·
A stormwater protection plan be
provided.
·
(3m7) needs to be
addressed on the plans and in the design.
·
As a condition of
approval, the applicant will clean out all the detention basins at the end of
the construction.
·
Have a plan in
place to insure that no water problems arise during the construction phase.
·
A letter be obtained from the Fire Chief indicating his preference
regarding the call boxes.
Mr. Wayne Godlin inquired if
the Board’s expert brought up the fact that there were basins at the front of the
parcel which were very close to the groundwater divide. If the leaching field for the basin is in or
close to the groundwater divide and has not been disclosed or discussed by the
Board of Health or the ConCom, it should have been and the applicant is
negligent in not including this in his hydrogeologic
study. If in fact there is groundwater
that runs through the middle of the leaching field, you will have leaching
running downstream into Car Mill Pond.
If the Board votes to approve this plan having this information, it will
not properly be representing the Town of
Mr. O’Cain responded that if this was correct
information, he would have to check if there was any conflict with Title V
regulations regarding this. He also
informed Mr. Godlin that the DEP is currently
reviewing this application, so Mr. Godlin should
provide the DEP with this information as quickly as possible so they can review
it prior to making their finding.
Minutes of Meeting Page
Five
Mr. Meister of ConCom did confirm that they would be
taking this subdivision up at their meeting tomorrow night and they will look
at this new information at that time.
Otherwise, the applicant has indicated that they would correct whatever
is required. They were pretty far along
in the process at this point.
At this point, Mr. Solomon solicited Board
comments.
Ms. Maniscalco said that while she was in favor of the
concept of this subdivision, there were still some issues that needed to be
decided:
---outstanding issues with ConCom.
---while the preliminary review by the Board of Health
was favorable, she would like to hear from them regarding the new information
presented tonight regarding groundwater.
---work within the buffers.
---groundwater separators by detention basins 1 and 2
and require yearly clean out.
---cleaning up all the drafting issues on the plans.
---setting pre-construction
requirements and stabilization during construction.
---addressing potential water issues to abutters
property.
---retaining wall.
She added that the Board would work diligently to
protect the natural beauty of this area.
While this subdivision required a number of waivers, it is much better
than a conventional subdivision. She is
concerned that a 40B not be built here which would greatly impact the
infrastructure of the Town. The Town
does need affordable and age qualified houses and this subdivision is in the
spirit of what this Town needs. As far
as the traffic pattern is concerned, she feels it is a no brainer
that the entrance and egress should be from
Mr. O’Cain said that the issues he was concerned about
were which way the traffic was going to flow – entrance and egress; and does
this subdivision meet the intentions of the CSD.
Mr. Cohen said that he would be flexible with the
traffic flow with whatever the Board voted.
He is leaning toward the entrance and egress coming from
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Six
choice. He would also be upset as these abutters are
to see a subdivision of the land
around him if he
lived on
5,000 sq. ft. per lot take up less space
than a 25-lot conventional subdivision with 20,000
sq. ft.
lots. The fifty-one 2-bedroom units have
about the same number of bedrooms as
twenty-five
conventional 4-bedroom homes. Also, the
beech tree grove is being preserved.
He also feels that if this does not go
forward, you probably have better than a 50/50
chance that this parcel with go to a 40B subdivision where
the Town has very little control
over what the
developer can do. A 40B would be much more dense than this proposal. He
is inclined to
vote in favor of this subdivision and work out a decision that would protect
the abutters as
best as the Board can.
Mr. Hauser said that he checked his notes and he had
suggested quite a bit earlier that the applicant look into getting some
insurance for possible water drainage damage.
However, our regulations do not require a developer to do that. He said that North Main Street was probably
the way to go for access and thought it might be a good idea to move the
Bradley driveway to the new subdivision street rather than going out on to Main
Street if Mr. Bradley so agreed. He also
felt this subdivision was much better on this property than the traditional
subdivision, as well as providing the Town with some age qualified housing. Conventional
would have no buffer whereas this development provides a 20’ buffer to the
property line with landscaping. He also
mentioned that the Board cannot arbitrarily make up regulations to fit abutters
needs, that the regulations give developers guidelines to work within and it is
not up to the Board to say that we do not like this so we will do it another
way. The amount of cut and fill is a
valid point and it may be necessary to have more discussion on this. The landscape plan needs to repair the land
so that it comes back to some semblance of what it was before
construction. He noted that this
developer has made a serious effort to work with the Town Engineer and the
Board to address the Board’s issues and concerns.
Mr. Solomon said that the Board has to make a legal
decision based on the Zoning By-Laws and the Rules and Regulations of the Town
and has to act within that capacity. Any
person who owns property has the legal right to develop that property within
those guidelines and the Board has to work within those guidelines also. The Board also has to compare the effects of
the conventional subdivision vs. a CSD subdivision. It is his opinion that the CSD subdivision
makes more sense than the conventional.
The Board will issue a special permit to the applicant under which it
has more control to get what it wants, like providing
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Seven
more buffers than would be permitted under the
conventional plan. However, since there are issues that still need to be addressed, he feels the
Board cannot make a decision on this subdivision tonight. Those issues need to be straightened out, and
the new information provided this evening needs to be looked into. Hopefully, more information will be available
by the next Planning Board meeting and perhaps a decision voted.
III.
OTHER BUSINESS
KING PHILLIP
ESTATES – The Board received numerous
letters from citizens in the Town and from representatives of three Native
American Tribes indicating concern about the historical nature of a part of
this parcel. They were requesting that
the Board require a 600’ buffer from the historical and/or ceremonial part of
the land.
Mr. Solomon explained that the decision had already
been made and voted at the last meeting and the Board could not change that
decision. Also, the applicant made it
clear in no uncertain terms that if the Board were to require a 600’ buffer
they would not accept that and would continue with the court case for the 12
lot subdivision. That would be more
detrimental to this site as they would pretty much go in and obliterate
everything on the site to get the 12 homes in.
The Board required the 100’ buffer as a means of getting some protection
to the area. Everyone on this Board is
sensitive to the archeological and historical value of this site, but the State
has not seen fit to protect it.
Mr. Cohen added that the Housing Appeals Court very
often finds in favor of the developer and not the Town, so he strongly suspects
that if the Board revisited this decision, the applicant would go forward with
the 40B. This subdivision was brought
before the Board as an alternative to the 40B filing and the Board has to make
a decision as to which would be better for the Town and feels that the three
lot subdivision would be less detrimental to the site than the 12 lot. The 100’ buffer the Board fought for is much
better than nothing, which is what the developer wanted.
It was suggested that the Tribes might be able to
appeal the Board’s decision once it was filed with the Town Clerk, or bring a
separate court action.
Minutes of Meeting Page
Eight
The Tribe leaders asked the Board for its support in
trying to get this property designated as a ceremonial site. Mr. Solomon answered that the Board would
like nothing better than to defeat this subdivision if it had the power to do
so. The Board had originally disapproved
a preliminary two lot subdivision on this site as it felt it was not a viable
subdivision. The applicant then went and
filed the 40B subdivision for 12 lots.
At this point, everyone was in agreement that three lots would be better
than twelve, and that is the plan the Board had to act on. At this time, there was nothing more the
Board could do without compelling information.
Mr. Cohen added that he did not think the Tribes could
appeal a decision of the Planning Board.
He thought it could only by an abutter or another Town board. If there is some kind of
federal law to stop this, that might be the Tribes’ only hope.
IV.
There being
no further business before the Board, the meeting was adjourned
at