After another continuance of Matt Zuker’s 78 Wareham Road, LLC, public hearing (to July 15) sent some Marion residents home frustrated, the Marion Planning Board had little to conduct in the way of business at Monday night’s public meeting.

            But following routine approval of an invoice submitted by the SITEC engineering firm for its peer review of the since-approved expansion of the Fieldstone Farms grocery store on Route 6, Chairman Andrew Daniel sought to outline goals for the Planning Board in FY25.

            Alluding to the Select Board’s interest in a Fall Town Meeting that would presumably address Marion’s membership in Green Communities and its accompanying participation in the state’s changing Stretch Building Code, Daniel identified a potential opportunity to piggyback with some of the Planning Board’s interests.

            One of those is a long-discussed, Short-Term Rental bylaw, and another is a Battery Storage bylaw like the one recently adopted by the Town of Rochester to address its many solar farms.

            “We need to put something on the books,” said Daniel.

            Member Eileen Marum asked if Daniel’s intended timeline is for the Fall Town Meeting. Daniel confirmed that timeline and, while qualifying his remarks by noting he has been told a Fall Town Meeting while not definite is “more than likely,” he would like to promptly get to work on these items “but not on a night with three applications.”

            “We should track our progress,” said Marum, suggesting the board document its correspondence and efforts to get these subjects into Town Meeting articles.

            One of Daniel’s stated interests as the board’s new chairman is avoiding lengthy meetings, most of which this spring have lasted well over two hours.

            Upon paging through information from the last couple of years, Vice-Chair Alanna Nelson added to Daniel’s list. “I know it was a Select Board goal to review the site-plan-review process,” said Nelson, also noting Department of Public Works engineer Meghan Davis’ recent attempt to get the Planning Board to engage the state’s interests in a stormwater bylaw.

            Daniel said a contract with a consultant has been established and that “she’s aware of our concerns,” a reference to some members’ resistance against stormwater regulations any stricter than what is required at the federal and state levels.

            His case originally opened in August 2023, Zuker has since requested several continuances but was expected to keep Monday’s appointment with the Planning Board until approximately two hours prior to the meeting, according to Daniel.

            The long-awaited vetting of a Special Permit and Major Site Plan Review for Zuker’s proposed, townhouse-style, residential complex off Route 6 near the Wareham town line (Map 7, Lots 24, 25, 27, 28C and 29) was made possible after a second attempt by the town to gain a two-thirds vote at Town Meeting for a zoning change to Residence E was successful.

            The next meeting of the Marion Planning Board is scheduled for Monday, June 17, at 7:00 pm at the Police Station.

Marion Planning Board

By Mick Colageo

            An old shed of an incalculable age helped seal the deal, as Rochester’s Conservation Commission Tuesday approved a Notice of Intent application to permit installation of a gravel driveway, stone patio and walkway and landscaping and to include work within the 100-foot buffer zone of wetlands at 96 Wolf Island Road.

            Previously, the commission had raised concerns about an existing shed on the property 25 feet from the wetlands “no-touch” zone, and the members recently conducted a site visit to see if the structure was an obstacle to granting the permit.

            Project engineer Bob Rogers of G.A.F. Engineering said Tuesday the only town records available show the shed was renovated in 1988, but no other indication of its age exists.

            “The shed is definitely older than 1988,” acting Chairman Ben Bailey answered, noting its rotting siding and shingles.

            “Clearly the shed is old enough to be grandfathered in,” Commissioner Michael Gifford said.

            Commission members concluded the shed could easily be grandfathered into the project being permitted and unanimously endorsed an Order of Conditions for the work.

            The commission also agreed to the next step in the Herring Run restoration and maintenance project, the commission’s plan to clear the sometimes-clogged, herring-run area from Hartley Farm Pond to the start of the Rochester Boat Race.

            Herring Inspector David Watling said the town needs to measure the cubic yards of dredging material that has to be moved to clear the run. Bailey said he and board member Bill Milka will be able to take the measurements themselves. The two set an appointment to do so at the start of the herring run area on June 7.

            Bailey said the plan is not to remove the dredging material but to perhaps use it to build a berm on the other side of the bank.

            Watling later reported good news on the herring run itself.  He said he counted 9,353 herring in the run this year. He noted he counted 4,500 herring last year.  So this is twice as many as was in the previous count, he said.

            In other action, the board granted a three-year extension of the Order of Conditions set on July 20, 2021 for the Snipatuit Road solar project.

            Bailey updated the board on its approval at the last meeting of the wetland resource boundary limits for an address on Gifford Lane. He said the Request for Determination of Applicability (RDA) that the project petitioners applied for should have been an Abbreviated Notice of Resource Area Delineation (ANRAD) instead, according to advice from the Department of Environmental Protection.

            The filing of a RDA allows the applicant to side-step fees, but the work involved still requires town officials to conduct the delineation research. Rochester’s fee for such work is $2 per linear feet, ConCom members said. On that basis, the applicant would have paid approximately $1,000 for the appropriate permit. The commission resolved to henceforth require an ANRAD for such a project.

            The next Rochester Conservation Commission meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 18, at 7:00 pm at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way.

Rochester Conservation Commission

By Michael J. DeCicco