Rochester’s Planning Board Tuesday continued its two outstanding hearings to its next meeting after reviewing new information both good and bad.
It’s hearing into the special permit for a new Eversource Energy substation at 214 Rounseville Road yielded news that the company is cooperating with the abutters to answer their concerns about the development of the site. Eversource representative Dan Higgins reported that he has spoken to the abutters in response to town consulting engineer Ken Motta’s suggestion that the company seek the viewpoint of the neighborhood.
Higgins said the neighbor at 212 Rounseville Road wants Eversource to get rid of all the existing trees there and put in other plantings that that resident might prefer. The owner at 204 Rounseville Road also has some concerns that Eversource is looking to address.
Board chairman Arnold Johnson instructed Higgins to submit a new landscaping plan once his work with the neighbors is done. Fellow Eversource representative Heather Sykes asked the board to approve the project on the condition that the company would continue to work with the abutters. The board did not agree to this but instead Continued the hearing to February 11.
Next, because of a problem with abutters notices, the board continued to that date its Definitive Subdivision plan hearing regarding dividing a 28-acre parcel at 386 Snipatuit Road into a two-acre lot. The plan here is to create frontage on Snipatuit Road containing an existing home and two new lots with frontage on a new roadway to be named Peter Crapo Cartway. Johnson said not all abutters received hearing notices originally. Letters to the correct number of abutters were only sent out the day of the hearing, he said. For this reason, the board moved for this continuance.
In other action, the board reviewed a Notice of Intent to convert agricultural, Chapter 61A land at Forbes Road and High Street into non-chapter uses and voted to recommend to the Select Board that the town not exercise its legal right to purchase the property.
Neck Road Solar representative Hank Ouimet reported progress on plans to erect adequate screening for the solar installation being built on that road. He said he is willing to agree to a 14-foot-high fence on top of his berm on Neck Road but that the structure needs to be built of horizontal wood sections not in the form of solid stockade. He said a Federal program granting him permission to combine a solar farm and an agricultural use there wants what is grown there to have sunlight at the right times of day. A fence with lateral slat openings would accomplish this purpose. Johnson said he was amenable to this plan and agreed with Ouimet’s suggestion to begin by putting up a ‘test fence’ of that material.
The Rochester Planning Board’s next meeting will be Tuesday, February 11 at 7:00 pm at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way.
Rochester Planning Board
By Michael J. DeCicco