On April 5 at 7:00 pm, public hearings will be held during the Mattapoisett Planning Board meeting to vet changes to the existing Flood Hazard Bylaw and a new bylaw governing the installation of solar arrays. The Planning Board is preparing these two bylaws for the upcoming May Town Meeting.
Planning Board member Janice Robbins has been a prime mover in bringing the two bylaws to the full board for review and discussion.
During the March 15 meeting of the board, Robbins said that the Flood Hazard Bylaw was essentially unchanged except for mapping changes required by updates at the state level. She said that the coastal areas remain but that more areas were added, encompassing wetlands and other locations previously not noted.
The Solar Bylaw has been in the making for more than a year, with Robbins once again driving that initiative. Robbins has studied bylaws that other communities have incorporated into their regulatory standards and attended seminars covering a variety of solar-related topics.
As was noted during the board’s reopening of the site plan review for a proposed solar array planned on Randall Lane, solar projects currently in the pipeline will be grandfathered.
Regarding the Randall Lane project planned by SunRaise Investments, Eric Las of engineering firm Beals + Thomas said that based on comments from the town’s peer-review consultant, BETA Engineering, as well as comments from abutter-contracted G.A.F. Engineering and board members, slight modifications to the solar field are now planned and the total project is now reduced from a 7.7-megawatt array to a 7.6. Las also mentioned that a continued hearing with the Conservation Commission is planned for next week.
Las said that changes to regulations by the Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program had delayed the finalization of the plan of record. He said those changes affect the required mitigation based on resource-area disturbance and are a factor in moving the array slightly and reducing the number of panels.
On the topic of staging the construction, Las said that was primarily the construction team’s responsibility, not his firm, but that he could prepare narrative directives for that process.
Robbins asked if a study of the existing entrance roadway, Randall Lane, had been completed to ensure its viability during construction and if the roadway meets directives from the Fire Department. Las confirmed that is the case and that offsite storage of materials for staging purposes would mean using smaller vehicles to ferry materials to the site.
Chairman Tom Tucker asserted that the use of the historic stone bridge, even by smaller vehicles, is off-limits, with Las confirming that the bridge is “off-limits.”
The project was extended until May 17; no continuation date for the public hearing was noted.
In other business, the board approved site plans submitted by Bill Madden of G.A.F. Engineering, representing applicant Stephen Randon, for property located off Randall Road named Cranberry Cove. A list of waivers for the single-lot subdivision was approved. Those waivers included elimination for the need of 4-foot utility strips along the roadway, no sidewalks, use of a hammerhead turnaround versus circular, and the development of a maintenance trust. Also decided was that the roadway would be paved versus packed gravel and that an operation and maintenance plan for Cranberry Cove be put in place for drain features and the roadway. Madden also said that language was added to the plan noting that the roadway would remain private into perpetuity.
The project was approved by a majority, with Tucker opposing it due to his opinion that the site consisted of a “pork-chop” layout.
The next meeting of the Mattapoisett Planning Board is scheduled for Monday, April 5, at 7:00 pm.
Mattapoisett Planning Board
By Marilou Newell