Appearing remotely before the Mattapoisett Planning Board during their June 1 meeting was local developer Scott Snow. He requested that the board members approve an amendment to an existing covenant for the Eldridge Estates subdivision located off Prospect Road. The covenant maintains that the roadway would be completed prior to any construction of homes in the subdivision.
One pre-existing home had to be relocated because it was situated within the approved roadway design. However, Snow appealed to the board members to grant him permission to place the now temporarily relocated home on a permanent foundation before doing the roadway construction.
During the course of the discussion, several board members questioned why Snow simply didn’t construct the roadway, thus the home could be permitted with a permanent foundation and other permits necessary to complete its construction. Snow explained that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, he had been moving slowly but that he wished to give the subcontractor who had moved the home to the temporary structure his equipment back sooner rather than later. “(The subcontractor) is paid in full. If I have to move the house twice, it will cost me another $10,000,” he pleaded.
Snow urged the board to “help” him saying, “You are here to help people, not hurt them.” When pressed to simply build the road, Snow conceded that “mistakes have been made.” He said, however, that conversation regarding potential modifications to the roadway and the drainage system were for another meeting at another time.
Chairman Nathan Ketchel took a straw poll of the board members. All three members denied approval with Ketchel being the dissenting vote. Snow’s petition was thusly denied.
The board also finalized wording on a decision to approve NextGrid LLC’s solar array project off Bowman Road. There was some discussion regarding the bonds for storm-damage repairs. The main issue was whether or not NextGrid LLC had agreed in a public hearing to a $70,000 bond or what had been recorded in the public forum, a $45,000 bond.
For clarification, Ketchel allowed Daniel Serber of NextGrid LLC to explain how those two sums were arrived at and which of the two was what, he, in fact, had agreed to in the public hearing. Serber stated that the $45,000 sum was what had been discussed with the Zoning Board of Appeals and in the final decision approved by the Planning Board. Another bond totaling $44,000 for decommissioning costs was also mentioned, bringing the total to $89,000 in surety bonds.
Mike Huguenin, President of the Mattapoisett Land Trust, was also on the call and said that the $75,000 figure had been provided to the Planning Board in written documents from the MLT. Planning Board administrator Mary Crain said, “It was never raised in the public hearings, never expressly discussed.”
In the end, Ketchel said that the public meeting was closed during the last session. The board concurred, leaving the bonds as written into the final agreement, a total of $89,000.
Also considered were future legal fees that the applicant’s counsel had questioned. Mattapoisett’s legal advisor Jonathan Silverstein said it was, “…not unusual. This is a standard and defensible condition.” That language was left in the final decision. The board members voted unanimously to accept the decision.
Regarding two sidelined projects, the building of a new Master Plan and the reorganization and rewriting of bylaws, Ketchel asked that Southeast Regional Economic Development District’s Grant King, director of Comprehensive Planning at Southeast Regional Planning and Economic Development District, be invited to the next meeting to restart the Master Plan process. Crain said that some 14 residents had volunteered to help in crafting the new Master Plan. The board was unified in setting aside a separate day and time to engage with those willing to participate in the process.
The zoning bylaws, an equally massive project agreed by all, will be discussed more comprehensively at future meetings. But the board also agreed they needed the assistance of a consultant to get that project completed.
The next meeting of the Mattapoisett Planning Board will be posted at mattapoisett.net.
Mattapoisett Planning Board
By Marilou Newell