Edmands Rd less of a ruin to the neighborhood. Over a year ago the involved
parties were ordered to put in plantings that would help to improve the
moonscape that the clear-cutting left. By the time that was ordered/ready to
be acted on, it was too late in the season for the plantings to survive.
So rather than recommence the order early this planting season, the Planning
Board let it slide yet again. We abutters had to push the PB to take action
but at this point it is not on the agenda as a public meeting. As a result
the neighbors are denied the right to speak at the meetings! Since the
project is still in litigation, both parties have had to appear before the
Board. For the initial meetings, RCS said that they would not pay for this.
The landowner reluctantly took some steps that were insufficient and then
removed the plantings when they were informed they were not what had been
specified by the PB.
At last night's Planning Board meeting, 10/25/18, the latest deadline for
the work to be finished (and the latest deadline ignored with no
consequence,) the landowner refused to do the work; RCS said they will take
responsibility as long as they can work out an access agreement with the
land owner. (These decisions were arrived at the day of the scheduled PB
update.) But they also laid the groundwork to say that it is already too
late in the season for some of the required plant types (i.e. evergreens) to
be put in. So the neighborhood is yet again being punished for the failure
of the PB to take timely action: it has been almost a year and a half since
the work stopped, leaving this disaster, and our right to even be heard
publicly has been quashed. I can't even begin to imagine the games that the
landowner and RCS have been playing to get us to this point.
This is unacceptable. There are no public updates of where the litigation
stands or how long it might go on. In the meantime the neighborhood has had
to endure a year and half of living with that unsightly mess. While the City
Solicitor and PB threatened rescission of the RCS permit as a logical
consequence for the regulations being ignored several months ago, that seems
to have been taken off the table and not discussed at the PB meetings. No
other consequences (monetary or otherwise) have been suggested. They seem to
be afraid to do their job.
I have sent a similar email to the Mayor's office.
Carol Levin