Rochester’s Planning Board Tuesday reviewed more details of the Site Plan Review application for a 15-acre, self-storage facility at Kings Highway and Route 28 and learned the project’s biggest problem may be what public water will be available for it.
The petitioner, JPF Development’s engineer William Madden, told the board that along with a small office at the front entrance of the fenced-in operation, the smaller self-storage building will be 45×160 feet and include 32 storage units, and the larger structure will be 30×180 feet and house 180 storage units.
He described the project’s plans for 1,300 feet of roadways to and between the buildings, an on-site septic system for the bathroom facilities that will be installed in the office and water filtration trenches to protect wetland areas near the site.
But he emphasized that a water-service connection will be the project’s biggest problem once all other town approvals are complete. Wareham expects to extend its water line to that area for the MBTA station and 40R housing developments planned for the area. But it is not certain when that will be available or what the town will have to do to connect to it.
Madden cautioned that a public-water connection of this kind will be new to town officials. It may require an easement onto the facility’s land that the town will have responsibility for. “How big an easement will be needed? How will the town pay for it, manage it?” Madden asked. “This will all be new to you.”
Noting that the main need for public water at the site will be for fire-protection services, Planning Board members proposed parking a tanker truck filled with gallons of water for that purpose.
Madden did not respond directly to this idea. Instead, he said he is in the middle of reading the comments made by the town’s consulting engineer, Ken Motta of Field Engineering, in his review of the project and wanted a longer lead time than the very next meeting to be ready with final plans.
Planning Board Chairman Arnold Johnson said Madden and the board should work through the project’s list of waivers first, then concentrate later on the water issue. Nonetheless, he motioned to continue the hearing to the board’s next meeting on Tuesday, November 14.
In other action, the board granted a request for a one-year extension of the General Special Permit and Mattapoisett Ground Water Protection District Special Permit for a large-scale, solar-energy installation planned for 0 Cushman Road.
However, the board continued until November 14 the public hearing on the Cushman Road solar project after Town Planner Nancy Durfee noted the published public hearing notice did not mention the Protection District Special Permit portion of the application.
The Rochester Planning Board set its next meeting for Tuesday, November 14, at 7:00 pm at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way. The board decided it will meet the following month on December 12.
Rochester Planning Board
By Michael J. DeCicco