'Stonewalling' Approved by Planning Board

Above, Christopher Palladino participating remotely in the Planning Board meeting.

The Planning Board met Monday night, July 11 at 7 pm in the Council Chambers. The first item on the agenda had to do with the Scenic Roads bylaw, namely 58 Daniels Street where the owner wished to remove approximately 30 linear feet of old stone wall, buried and not visible. The Scenic Roads laws was put in place in the 1990s as unbridled development and –specifically the rampant removal or theft of old stone walls began to rapidly transform the town into what critics at the time felt was a faceless suburb.

After intense lobbying, several roads, Daniels Street being one, were designated as scenic. Removing stone walls was generally prohibited unless certain conditions were met, usually a comparable restoration. In this instance the applicant, Christopher Palladini, offered to restore 90 linear feet along the driveway. While the Board was pleased with this Clerk Beth Wierling, emphasized the importance of using the same kind of stone and recommended scaling back to 50 or 70 linear feet to ensure retention of the traditional stonewall look. In the end, the board gave their go-ahead with the condition that the as-built drawings indicate 30 or more linear feet of replacement wall.

"Friendly" 40B Discussion

With the 230 East Central “Taj Estates” and the 585 King Street project both continued, the Board next went into a discussion of “Friendly” 40B Developments, an initiative that the town administration is sharing with boards and seems interested in adopting.

The 40B law dates back more than 50 years and always aimed t make it hard for town to exclude affordable units. Typically, it has been a contentious process. The “Friendly” version is a Local Initiative Program and it allows towns to establish a more cooperative “check box” approach, which many of the possible sources of contention are reduced and in exchange, a prospective developer agrees to certain conditions, for example keeping density lower.

The Conservation Commission was previously briefed on the topic and the matter will be put before the Town Council as well. While the meeting didn’t seem to reach any conclusions, where were concerns expressed about loss of control and, indeed, a quick “google” of Friendly 40B implementations in other communities seems to show a mixed bag.

And, while the matter isn’t (yet) included in the Franklin for All Initiative spearheaded by Metropolitan Area Planning Council in an effort to substantially increase density in Franklin -- it could be baked into that at some point.

During the meeting the Board also approved a Final Form H for 461 West Central St.