Home Depot applicant responds to EOEA ‘demand for scrutiny’
Published on August 30th, 2006
WOBURN, MA - While neighborhood activists heralded the state’s decision, the proponents for a proposed Home Depot along Fallon Road characterized the Executive Office for Environmental Affair’s (EOEA) demand for additional scrutiny of the project as a minor setback.
In a 13-page decision rendered on Aug. 16, and released in the Mass. Environmental Policy Act office's twice-monthly Environmental Monitor publication last Wednesday, EOEA analyst Robert W. Colledge, Jr., dismissed Peabody-based The Richmond Company's request for an abbreviated environmental review.
Specifically, the applicants, who have proposed constructing a 133,000 square foot Home Depot and adjacent, three-story, 15,000 square foot office park at 225 Fallon Road's former A.W. Chesterton site, had sought permission to complete just one Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIA), bypassing the need for an initial draft version of the document.
“I guess the state found it would be more appropriate to have a two-tiered review. I can’t say it was unexpected, as we were cautiously optimistic,” said Burlington attorney Mark Vaughan, who represents the petitioners.
“I don’t feel that any of the issues raised in [EOEA] certificate are items we can’t satisfactorily address,” Vaughan added. “I don’t think this will necessarily cause a long delay, because I think we can quickly respond. But we’re not going to set any unrealistic timeframe.”
Praising the state decision, Joseph Teneriello, the founder of Citizens for the Ethical Development of the Fallon Road Area (CEDFRA), argued the EOEA’s mandated analysis will prove what abutting neighbors have contended all along: That the area is unsuitable for a big-box retailer.
According to the Park Street resident, who regularly interacts with other project opponents through his www.fallonroad.org website, he was especially satisfied with the state agency’s comments on project-associated traffic and the proposed roadway mitigations to offset that impact.
Vowing to continue the fight against the Stoneham Crossings proposal, Teneriello, like many Park and Marble Street area residents, believe that the 133,000 square foot Home Depot would be a short-sighted redevelopment of the 16.2-acre, commercially-zoned parcel.
“We’re satisfied that they’re going to have to delve into traffic issues like they should. We’re quite concerned with having a retail center in an area of town where the infrastructure wasn’t built to accommodate that type of project,” the CEDFRA founder commented.
According to Vaughan, while he understands that project-associated traffic is a major issue for abutters, he does dispute the contention that the Stoneham Crossings proposal would have any impacts on the surrounding Fells Reservation.
The EOEA decision, at the urging of both the Mass Dept. of Conservation and Recreation and Fells Reservation activists, has required specific analysis of the Home Depot’s potential to have a detrimental impact on the nearby parkland.
“This site is on the other side of Fallon Road and there is 16 acres of fully-paved, imperious surface and development between us and the Fells,” Vaughan argued. “So we still maintain that this redevelopment is not going to have any adverse impact on the Middlesex Fells.”
Colledge has further ordered that the project proponents provide a detailed description of the permitting process with each local and state agency in regards to roadway alterations and mitigations, submit a timetable for those improvements and proof that a commitment has been made to those changes, and prepare a plethora of studies and plans for limiting developmental impacts to wetlands, residential abutters, traffic patterns, the Fells Reservation Parkways, drainage trends, and natural habitats.
Mandating a wide-ranging scope of additional documentation, the EOEA decision includes demands for an analysis of a no-build alternative, preferred alternative, and reduced impact alternative to the proposed Stoneham Crossings project.
According to Vaughan, the petitioners have already prepared redesigned plans that significantly cut-back on both the amount of impervious parking surface at the site and planned alterations to wetlands.
Created at the request of the town’s Conservation Commission, that redesign reportedly slashes in half the amount of planned alterations to wetlands at the site, and further calls for significant decreases to the parking area at the property.
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