In Plymouth, Tom Wallace of T & K Retail, LLC, is asking the Planning Board to change a covenant, a binding agreement, in order to increase density on Bump Rock Road. There are those who are not happy with this request.
Bobbi Clark has more on the story:
Malcolm McGregor Chairs the Planning Board:
“It’s a request to sub-divide a lot into 7 additional lots, which is part of a covenant. This subdivision would break the covenant, which has been in place since 1986. The original covenant was to divide this into a small, fixed number of lots, with large open space to protect the environment.”
McGregor says a general covenant remains in place for 30 years, however…
“…all the conditions in the covenant were put on by Planning Board approval and the Planning Board approval lasts forever unless the Planning Board changes it.”
Changing a binding agreement like this could set a precedent effecting existing covenants with developers and there are quite a few of those, says Planning Director Lee Hartmann:
“We’ve approximately 80 such covenants that protect open space in various developments throughout the town and those 80 protect about 4,700 acres of land.”
And protecting the town is a concern of Fire Chief Ed Bradley:
“The original agreement was so many homes and we’ll give you all these waivers. Now they want to change that and increase that, and instead of having 3, they want to build 7 on the lots that they currently own. There is no water down that road, so there’s no hydrants. That would mean that we would be trucking-in water by tankers. It goes against everything for public safety as far as we’re concerned, and we’ve asked the Planning Board not to approve it.”
The Planning Board would have to vote unanimously to approve a change to a covenant. The Board meets Tuesday, the 9th via Zoom at 7 PM.
