Conservation Commission votes down Home Depot project
Published on January 31st, 2007
STONEHAM, MA - Declaring that the project failed to meet the standards of a local wetlands bylaw, the town's Conservation Commission narrowly sank a proposed Fallon Road Home Depot last Wednesday in a tie three-to-three vote.
Failing just one vote short of the required majority, the planned Stoneham Crossings project would have been constructed along Fallon Road, located in south Stoneham near Marble and Park Streets along the Winchester line.
The applicants, commercial real-estate firm The Richmond Company, reportedly purchased the 16.2 acre parcel from the A.W. Chesterton Company last spring for $7.4 million. Last summer, the Wilmington real-estate company filed a proposal to construct a 133,000 square foot Home Depot and three-story, 15,000 square foot office park at the site.
The applicants, through their attorney Mark Vaughan, indicated this week that they will likely bring the project back before the commission. The Fallon Road proprietor further intends to continue its deliberations on the Planning Board level for a special permit, despite last Wednesday's denial.
"After speaking with my client, I am optimistic that if need be, we could modify the site design to satisfactorily respond to the remaining concerns that were expressed by the Commission," said Vaughan on Monday morning.
"However, at this point, we need to review the Commission's decision to better understand the concerns of the three members who voted against [this], and then assess our options," the Burlington-based Riemer & Braunstein lawyer furthered.
In an almost unheard of move, the Conservation Commission stalled its vote on the project for close to an hour-and-a-half, despite appearing to be on the verge of deciding on the notice of intent after waiting nearly 45-minutes for a sixth member to arrive at the meeting.
Just prior to that second delay, several audience members pleaded with Conservation Commission Vice-Chairman David Oberhauser to wait for fellow member Jim Juliano, Jr.'s arrival.
Had the Conservation Commission, which had already stalled its deliberations for close to 45-minutes at that time, not waited for Juliano, the Stoneham Crossings project would have had enough votes to pass by a narrow three-to-two margin.
Juliano, who had initially requested that the matter be postponed when contacted on his cell-phone at 8:30 p.m. last Wednesday, was told by a fellow member that the Conservation Commission would not ask for a continuance.
When the sixth member finally arrived nearly an hour-and-a-half after the scheduled discussion on the Fallon Road Home Depot, he cast the deciding "no" vote on the notice of intent, which blocked the proposal from going further.
"It's a half-hour beyond when he said he' be here. So we will proceed with the order of conditions," responded Oberhauser at approximately 9:45 p.m., when several residents requested that the matter be delayed further into the night. "Unless the applicants have an objection, I don't see what other option we have."
Conservation Commission Chair Robert Conway, who would have represented a seventh vote, recused himself from the process half-way into the public hearings, due to his employment in the Town of Winchester's planning department.
Winchester officials, including members of that neighboring municipality's Planning Board, had raised several concerns related to project-associated traffic and potential contamination of drinking water resources located close to the site of the proposed redevelopment.
Deliberating on two separate sets of regulations, one promulgated by the state and the other by the Conservation Commission, the town board, in a four-to-two vote, ruled that the petitioners had satisfied the requirements under the Mass. Wetlands Protection Act.
However, the group was deadlocked on whether or not the applicants fulfilled the requirements detailed under a more strict town bylaw, which was approved by Town Meeting just two-years-ago.
Specifically, the Stoneham Wetlands Bylaw prohibits anyone from disturbing a 25-foot buffer zone established between a wetland or associated resource and a potential development, unless it can be proven that no alternative can be presented avoiding that need.
In yet another unusual development, Conservation Commission members refused to cite the particular reasons for denying the notice of intent after they concluded, without so much as a word of deliberation, that the project did not meet the town's bylaws.
"I haven't heard any statement relative to the denial," said Vaughan, who appeared a little peeved when Oberhauser declined to offer that explanation, instead telling the attorney that the reasons would be available in written form the next day.
According to a copy of that denial, obtained this Monday in Town Hall, the Conservation Commission was primarily concerned with the applicant's intent to disturb over 7,000 square feet of land within the 25-foot buffer zone established by the Stoneham Wetlands bylaw.
In addition, that explanation further referred to repeated requests for the petitioner to present some type of alternative design that limited that impact.
"The Applicant has proposed to fill 11,200 square feet of resource areas, including 3,977 square feet bordering vegetated wetlands and 7,223 square feet of the 25-foot no disturb zone," the decision reads.
"It was the Applicant's burden, pursuant to [the bylaw], to demonstrate that there were no alternative design proposals that could have resulted in avoiding resource area impacts," the statement adds. "The Applicant did not meet that burden."
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