TO: Franklin Conservation Commission
FM: George Russell, AICP
Conservation Agent
RE: Agent’s Report
DATE: October 13, 2015
1.0. Projects
1.1. 438 West Central St., NOI Amendment: As per the direction of the Commission, the applicant has presented a packet of reports submitted to various agencies as this project was developed and built. Although the specific stipulation of submitting reports to the Commission was not met, the applicant did in fact submit voluminous documentation on the project. There is no practical way to go back and recreate reports that would not be years “old” and therefore useless. Thus, it would be in everyone’s best interest to vote to delete the stipulation to require prior missing reports and require reports from this date forward. I recommend that the reports still be required given the proximity to the resource area and if in fact more construction is to take place.
If the amendment is approved, I would suggest that the request for an extension of the orders of an additional year (the local by-law only allows one year at a time), or until 9/15/16, be approved.
During a pre-meeting field inspection today, I observed filling of the resource area on the SW corner of the site. This fill, which is both dirt and vegetative debris is on the stream bank and is cover existing vegetation. I believe the Commission has two options: (1) deny the amendment and the extension and issue an enforcement order as outlined in option 2 or (2) approve the amendment and issue the enforcement order to have the fill evaluated by a wetlands scientist and submit a report and a restoration plan and do not approve any additional work on site until the violation is corrected.
1.2. 1 Helen Circle, RDA: I have conducted a site inspection, talked to the property owner. I would recommend that as submitted the RDA be approved with special conditions 20, 28, 34 and 44.
1.3. 674 Pleasant St. NOI: Based on input from the start of the hearing, I have requested additional information from the applicant; see the letter below. If approved, it is my recommendation that the owner remove all items from jurisdiction that could leak fluids onto the ground (e.g. the tractor mentioned in my letter). This could also involve the trailers shown on site since we do not know what is in them.
No revised plans have been submitted. I believe the applicant’s engineer will be bringing revised plans to the meeting and these plans have not been reviewed. I would recommend that if revised plans are brought to the meeting and in keeping with Commission policy, these plans not be accepted and the hearing continued to allow review of the material.
In addition, the following special conditions should be attached to any approval: 20 (With the provision that this be done for any “new work” such as moving the trailers), 22, 27-30, 33, 34, 37, 40, 44 and 46-50.
1.4. Villages at Oak Hill Amendment NOI: This hearing was continued to allow for a site visit by some of the Commissioners.
2.0. General Business
2.1. Minor buffer Zone Activities
None
2.2 Permit modifications/extensions
2.2.1. 11 Thomas: This is a request for a change to an MBZA, something that has not come up before. The change is minor, but would need to be approved by the Commission. Given that there is no recording involved, and thus no title issues, I believe the Commission would be on firm ground to approve the change.
2.3. Certificate of Compliance
2.3.1. 3 Chilmark: There are some minor deviations from the original approval, e.g. a small decorative retaining wall, and some items that were approved but have not been built, e.g. the garage. A site inspection would indicate that the minor plan deviations are not significant and do not impact the resource areas. Therefore, I would recommend the release be granted.
2.4. Discussion items
2.4.1. ESS Group will be making a presentation to the Commission on the ecological study of DelCarte.
2.5. Minutes
2.6. Violations:
3.0. Chair and Commission Comments
4.0. EXECUTIVE SESSION
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