Rochester’s Planning Board began its meeting Tuesday with a project favored by Highway Surveyor and Tree Warden Jeffrey Eldridge.
The panel granted a Special Permit for Eversource’s work to clear and prune street trees to improve electrical service and accommodate upgraded wires on a scenic highway on property along Rounsville, Cushman, Robinson, and Braley Hill Road as Eldridge attended the hearing to lend his support. Eversouce engineering representative Kyle Barry explained the company needs to be prune trees and cut down decaying trees around new utility wires. Eldridge said the cutting includes neighbors themselves requesting that trees be cut. Next, upon the petitioner’s request, the board extended to July 31 the Special Permit and Site Plan Review hearing for the proposal from Logging Swamp Solar dba ReWild Renewables to install a solar panel array on 49 acres in the area of 600 Snipatuit Road, located within a Residential-Agricultural District and partially within a Groundwater Protection District.
Board Chair Arnold Johnson noted this date extends beyond its next two meetings and the hearing will probably be extended again.
The board then approved the Site Plan Review application to build a 20,000 square-foot commercial building for ten contractor bays with associated access drives, parking areas, utilities and storm water management system on the west side of Cranberry Highway. The project’s engineering consultant Bob Rogers noted the Conservation Commission granted the project a positive Order of Conditions last week and asked for a positive decision on the project from the Planning Board. Permit approval was granted without further discussion.
Following this vote, the board advanced the Definitive Subdivision and Common Driveway Special Permit application for 34 Dr. Braley Road by motioning to craft a “draft decision” that will be reviewed by Town Counsel in time for approval at the board’s next meeting. The plan here is to create two house lots, one with a single-family home and another for a single-family home and agricultural building, specifically for cranberry farming, on a 14.4-acre parcel at 34 Dr. Braley Road. Preceding this vote, Johnson led the panel in approving the waivers the applicant Dawn Allen was requesting. Allen received approval to waive the requirement that such a road have underground electrical utilities because there are already overhead utilities and a waiver to the requirement the road be wider because it is an existing road. The board, however, also placed the condition that should this road be paved, the applicant would need to return to the panel for a permit modification.
Lastly, the Special Permit and Site Plan Review application hearing for the construction of a floating and ground-mounted solar array with associated battery energy storage system at 53 Dexter Lane drew the most attention and time before ultimately being continued to the board’s July 22 meeting.
The plan here is for three floating solar panels on bog lakes and three panels on upland that are all part of an existing cranberry farm known as “Great Bear Farm.” Project representative Stacey H. Minihane reported Tuesday that the three floating panels are on a “human-made” reservoir in the northern part of the 200-acre property. These will be bottom-anchored in the reservoir and all the panels will be fenced in. Planning panel member Ben Bailey repeated his objection from last week’s Conservation Commission meeting (of which he is a member). The DEP allows floating solar arrays only on man-made water, and the northern reservoir is an extension of a brook there. “Your plan is a violation of state law,” he said.
Even stronger objections came from direct abutter Lena Finch of 70 Parlowtown Road, who read a letter stating her and her husband Robert’s opposition to the plan and their request to the board to deny the permit. She detailed their concerns about the project’s impact on their property values, the disruptive visual impact, including solar panel glare, the noise and construction disruption, and the environmental disruption. “This is not just a nuisance,” she said, reading from her letter. “It will directly interfere with how we live, work, and enjoy our home.”
She later read aloud, “It’s a disruption to the ecological function of a sensitive and irreplaceable landscape… I respectfully urge the Planning Board to deny this proposal in its current form.”
Johnson responded that the board cannot outright deny such a permit because solar projects are protected by state law. He then set required homework for the developer before the next hearing date. He said he wants to see stakes in the ground as tall as the height of the panels. He wants site lines to be measured from the project property to the abutters. He wants to see better aerial pictures of the site. Board member John DiMaggio said the developer should produce a landscape plan with screening rather than request a waiver of the landscaping plan requirement.
In related action previous to the hearing, the board approved the contract for field engineering to start the project’s peer review.
Rochester Planning Board’s next meeting will be Tuesday, July 8 at 7:00 pm at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way.
Rochester Planning Board
By Michael J. DeCicco