Marion Planning Board members Norm Hills, Eileen Marum, Jonathan Henry, Alanna Nelson, Tucker Burr and Andrew Daniel and administrative assistant Terri Santos gathered on Tuesday night at the Police Station and were joined remotely by Planning Board member Christopher Collings and Town Planner Doug Guey-Lee for a brief public meeting.
On an unofficial request from the Department of Public Works, the members voted to once again continue (to October 3 at 7:05 pm) the public hearing on changes to the Subdivision Rules and Regulations regarding use of the Hybrid-Y instead of the Hammerhead configuration for dead-end roads under Section 300-2.1 through 300-6.1 of the Rules and Regulations.
If approved, the hammerhead design will not be allowed as a construction option for dead-end roads in Marion but will be succeeded by the Hybrid-Y favored by the DPW.
While the matter is only one that happens to be holding up several other bylaw revisions needing the board’s package vote to proceed, the Hybrid-Y has drawn special interest not only because board members disagree as to its (and the hammerhead design’s merits) but because of the recent history of Fieldstone Lane.
Residents of Marion Village Estates failed in an effort in 2021 and 2022 to get the town to absorb their subdivision road as a town property that would benefit from town services such as snow plowing. The town recommended against the measure, citing the hammerhead design as being problematic and exacerbated by a landscape slope. Voters turned down the measure at Town Meeting.
Meanwhile, Daniel, a Marion resident who works as the Town of Rochester’s Facilities manager, has been outspoken in his opposition to the elimination of the hammerhead design and has buttressed his argument with poor reviews of the Hybrid-Y used in rare cases in New England.
On Tuesday night, Hills told the members, the October 3 continuance would be when the board “gets this hammered out.”
The next meeting of the Marion Planning Board is scheduled for Monday, September 19, at 7:00 pm.
Marion Planning Board
By Mick Colageo