The Rochester Planning Board Tuesday night approved the waivers required for the owners of the “Arch at the Meadow” performance and event venue to change their layout.
Owners Glenn L. Lawrence and Laurie Whitney-Lawrence wish simply to move their driveway to their home lot, instead of its current location, in order to straddle the business and home lots.
But even that required the Planning panel to waive the need to address four town regulations in order for the Lawrences to move forward with their proposal: stormwater-protection regulations, the bylaw section on landscaping regulations and the rules for parking and lighting.
Before motioning to approve the section on parking, Planning Board Chairman Arnold Johnson said a condition needs to be included that will ensure the petitioner will return to the board if ever he or she plans to pave any surface there.
Before motioning endorsement of the lighting section waiver, Johnson said further lighting plans would also have to come before the board for approval. He then noted the project’s final draft approval would be ready for the board’s next meeting on September 27.
The Planning Board also endorsed the Buzzards Bay Coalition’s progress on its project on Marion Road. The panel approved the Notice of Work permit to clear street trees there as part of the coalition’s Scenic Roadway permit application, after the coalition representative reported the agency had both removed and replanted trees there.
The Planning Board recently complained that around two years ago, the coalition had cut trees on 55 acres that it owned on Marion Road without allowing the board to review the project details. What has been done since on the property now owned by Elliot Farms, LLC is an improvement, board member Michael Murphy admitted at the time. “But documentation to us is still needed,” he said.
Next, the board voted to conduct a site visit of the Clearway Energy Corporation solar project at 453 Rounseville Road because of construction-work progress. They will meet at the site on Tuesday, October 4, at 4:30 pm.
The next meeting of the Rochester Planning Board is scheduled for Tuesday, September 27, at 7:00 pm at Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School library and by Zoom.
Rochester Planning Board
By Michael J. DeCicco