Developers reconfigure Ellen’s Way, abutters not pleased
BY PETER B. BRACE

The developers of a 19-lot subdivision at 120 Miacomet Road have reconfigured their plans in answer to abutter complaints, but have received little appreciation for the effort.

At the Dec. 11 Planning Board meeting, Ellen’s Lane, Bluefin, LLC attorney Bill Hunter and his team of engineers detailed his clients’ — Daniel Lugosch and Billy Cassidy — new cluster subdivision layout that sites the 19, single-dwelling lots on 28 acres in a lazy question mark shape farther away from the northern lot lines of residents on Pond View Drive.

The new design, while not including the abutterrequested access road change to South Shore Road, did move the lots and, consequently, their septic systems, farther away from Miacomet Pond, also as requested.

Bluefin is also filling in the gravel and sand pit on the property and committing to return all native plantings on the open space portion of the property to their natural states as quickly as possible. Additionally, alternative treatment septic systems will be used for each lot.

But none of these actions seemed to appease the abutters who continued to complain that the cluster was still too close to some of their properties and the pond.

Sandy MacDonald of 10 Pond View Drive is one of those whose house would be closest to the southernmost lots on Ellen’s Lane, and despite Hunter’s assurances that there would be 125 feet between the back of her house and the nearest house on Ellen’s Drive, MacDonald is still feeling cramped.

“This plan is barely an improvement on the first plan,” said MacDonald. “We were told that moving the houses away from the pond would protect it. This doesn’t really move them very far away.”

Some of the abutters suggested flipping the development to the north so it is built where former property owner (and Planning Board Chairman) Donald Visco’s sand pit still remains.

“I have met with the abutters now twice,” said Hunter. “I was led to believe that they wanted to see the subdivision swung away from Miacomet Pond. We have done that.”

Though MacDonald is pleased with this new open space plan for the northeast corner of the property, she hinted that Bluefin did this more to appease Visco whose son, Stephen, lives on Rachel Drive just to the north.

“There’s pretty much an agenda in this plan and there’s an abutter who’s recused himself, but this plan very clearly is to the benefit of this abutter,” said MacDonald.

But Hunter disagreed, saying his clients would not be rearranging the cluster configuration again, not only because they had already done so at the behest of the abutters, but because of their open space plan. Only 5.6 acres of the 28-acre lot will have houses on it with a conservation restriction placed on the other 22.4 acres.

“We have no interest in the Visco property and the Viscos as a family,” said Hunter. “I feel obliged to say this again because it is an embarrassing situation I find myself in with respect to my clients. We have no contingent interests, no current interests; the Viscos have nothing to do with this. We are not protecting anybody on this side. The decisions that are made within the four corners of this lot are decisions made by my clients in their best interests. To the extent they can accommodate the abutters, they are doing that. And I think, frankly, they are doing it in a very accommodating way.”

The board asked that Hunter and his team return to the Jan. 8 Planning Board meeting with more information on the landscaping plan and more specific traffic numbers.

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