Latest news with #WetlandsProtectionAct
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Conservation director responds to concerns raised by local businesses
WESTFIELD — Conservation Director Anna Meassick said people are confused about the city's new wetlands protection ordinance that was approved by the City Council in May, and the rules and regulations that will apply to the local ordinance that are currently in draft form and inviting comments until July 7. 'There is a deep misunderstanding of what we're trying to do,' Meassick said. Meassick and Wetlands Compliance Officer Julia Hampton were in their office on June 10 putting together a complete set of documents relating to the new ordinance, including agendas, minutes, peer review conversations and notes in response to a public records request. The Conservation Commission meeting that had been scheduled that evening was cancelled due to a lack of quorum. She said in 2022, the Conservation Commission first started talking about making minor corrections to the local ordinance, but it was put on hold. She said the language in the previous ordinance was very 'gray,' and there were no rules and regulations on how to apply it to such areas as the 50-foot no disturb zone. 'When alteration is absolutely unavoidable is the only time you can do work in the no disturb zone' was added in 2022 to the previous ordinance. She said public feedback at the time was, 'if absolutely unavoidable, don't do the project,' Meassick said, adding, 'We can't just say no with no legal justification. We needed to make it less gray without being prohibitive.' Meassick said it's about setting standards to do the work. 'If you can meet the standards, you can do the work. The local ordinance didn't set the standards.' She said at the same time in 2022, the paragraph about the Commission setting the rules and regulations, which she said is common to all local ordinances, had been deleted. Asked why change the local ordinance, Meassick said the state Wetlands Protection Act doesn't protect all resource areas, such as vernal pools, which are only protected if they fall within a resource area. She said under the Home Rule Authority, cities can set rules and regulations that are stronger than those of the WPA. Intermittent streams, vernal pools, isolated wetlands, ephemeral pools, and land subject to flooding if smaller than a certain amount of square feet are not protected under the WPA, but local protections around them are common across the Commonwealth. She said Westfield always protected vernal pools, for example. 'Most important in the new ordinance is establishing a 100-foot buffer zone as its own resource area,' Meassick said. 'It's not that it's all protected. We can set rules and regulations to go with it that aren't already in the act.' She said the state has a 100-foot buffer zone, but it is not considered a resource area, so currently Westfield reviews projects in buffer zones by how they impact the resource areas they are protecting. Meassick said the Conservation Commission has been working on rewriting the new local ordinance since June 2023, and the item was listed on every agenda until it was completed. It then went to the City Council for review in the Legislative & Ordinance Committee for four months, which went over the ordinance line by line. Prior to going to the City Council, Meassick sat in a peer review for five months with Tighe & Bond. 'I worked with Tighe & Bond once a week for three hours over the course of five months before even giving it to the mayor,' Meassick said. She said before the peer review with Tighe and Bond, the ordinance was written by the commission, including now retired longtime members David Doe and James Murphy. 'Anything I do is at the direction of the commission,' Meassick said. The City Council had a public hearing on the new ordinance at the end of April with no public feedback. It was approved by the council on May 1 and signed into law on May 6. 'The revision of the ordinance was on the agenda for two years. There was plenty of opportunity for public feedback. Suddenly, there is a huge problem regarding intermittent streams,' Meassick said. She said intermittent streams are not protected by the state WPA, but are protected in many local ordinances. Regarding the charge that the ordinance would regulate a stormwater swale, she said it does not. 'The definition of a stream says it has to flow from a resource area,' she said, adding that in the draft rules and regulations, it specifically states that intermittent streams do not apply to stormwater swales. 'The ordinance that is currently approved is not very different from the previous city ordinance,' Meassick said. She said the only resource area that was added to the previous ordinance was 200 feet from intermittent streams. She said there is confusion from the public about the 200-foot protection area, and the department wants public feedback on how the draft regulations that are currently proposed will impact people. 'If something is truly undoubtedly a hardship, we want to modify that,' she said. Another claim is that the city added a new, separate permitting system. Meassick said they didn't add a permit, but created a local version of the state permit in order to streamline and add clarity to the process. 'One of the things I felt was the most important was to add an administrative approval process. Under the former local ordinance, it didn't exempt projects that were usually exempt under the state act. We created an administrative approval process to streamline it so people who want to do minor projects, such as fencing, cutting a tree or pathways, don't have to go through the local permit process anymore, which they would have had to do under the old ordinance. Instead, Julie or I can just sign off on it, Meassick said. 'We're trying to make it easier and clearer for the public on what they have to do because we haven't had regulations before. The previous local ordinance had no regulations — there was no clear way to apply it locally,' she said. 'Just saying no was bad. You need to justify it somehow.' Meassick said the rules and regulations are the 'nitty gritty' of the ordinance, giving the example of the state's WPA, which is seven pages, and its rules and regulations, which is hundreds of pages. She said they are two separate documents. Meassick said the Conservation Department is seeking constructive feedback. Why would it be a burden, how will it negatively impact projects, instead of inflammatory comments such as catastrophic for our business. 'What we want to know is how,' she said, adding, 'The majority would be more appreciated as constructive criticism. We appreciate their feedback.' The public comment section for the rules and regulations of the Wetlands Protection Ordinance may be found at Meassick said she has only had one comment submitted to date. 'There is nothing wrong with the way the ordinance is written. The ordinance sets the baseline,' Meassick said. She said the wording is typical and was compared to 21 other communities in the state. They also extensively referenced the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions handbook, guidance and literature by law, and modified it to fit Westfield. 'Our ordinance is science-based. It does not undermine property rights, due process and fairness. Yet again, we would greatly appreciate someone showing us how it does those things,' Meassick said. She also encouraged people to apply for projects at this time so the Conservation Commission can review their projects under the new ordinance, and give them feedback. 'The goal is never to be prohibitive, it's to regulate and protect our resources,' Meassick said. Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Contractors, business owners raise alarm over city's new wetlands ordinance
WESTFIELD — A group of area contractors, developers and business owners, alerted by Rob Levesque, owner of R. Levesque Associates, urged the Westfield City Council to revisit the changes made recently to the city's wetlands ordinance by the Conservation Commission that they claim will take thousands of acres of developable land off the map. The requests were made during public participation at the June 5 City Council meeting when Levesque and several other business owners came to the podium to ask for the review. 'As a land consultant and owner of property and as a business that represents properties, we are very concerned with the new wetlands protection ordinance,' said Levesque. He said more than 125 people signed a petition, and several others wrote letters to the mayor and City Council on the issue. John Raymaakers, a local business owner of J.L. Raymaakers & Sons, said as a taxpayer, the new ordinance would stop one of the larger projects that is in the final stages that would bring hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue into the city. 'The problem for our city, for all of you, has been tax income and deficit. Our schools are being hurt. This is just another step to hurt us as a town. I'm all for protecting the environment, all for that. I don't see how this change affects anything but hurting our town,' he said. 'As a contractor, this hurts my business tremendously, and stops projects that I've spent countless hours of time on with Rob, with the owner, with clients. I just fully disagree with this and I'd like you to take that into consideration,' Raymaakers added. Also speaking was Robert Goyette, owner of Heritage Homes and Charles Pignatare, owner of Liberty Manor. Goyette said he was there about the overreach of the wetlands protection ordinance. 'We as a company own a significant amount of land in town. As stakeholders, we had zero say in this — I was made aware of it by Rob — it impacts us significantly, to the millions. Thank you for hearing us, and I appreciate you revisiting it,' he said. 'I'm definitely begging you guys to review this. I'm in the construction business with the Scarfo family for 54 years. This is one of the worst,' said Pignatare. 'This is one of the worst situations I've seen us getting into, but hopefully we're able to do it correctly.' Councilor Dan Allie asked a question of Levesque through the chair of which specific portion of the ordinance they would like to see changed. Levesque said there are a number of items that have changed, some of major concern. 'I believe a list of the items that have changed would be very eye opening for the City Council. I know it's hard when you get a document and frankly, if you're not reading wetlands protections documents every day like we do, you don't realize what it necessarily impacts or doesn't impact. We all want to protect the wetlands in a proper way and there's science based performance standards that are in place to do that under the Wetlands Protection Act and under the previous ordinance, which we've never had a problem with,' he said. 'We understand this is a very significant overreach and it's not just what we spoke about in the petition, but there are other aspects related to enforcement and control that this gives to the Conservation Commission that are pretty aggressive,' Levesque added. Councilor Rick Sullivan raised a point of order saying since the item was not on the agenda, he would make a motion to add it to the agenda at the next meeting and refer it to the proper committees. After the meeting, Levesque explained what he considers the problems with the new ordinance. He said the biggest thing is jurisdictional overreach. He said the council drastically increased the jurisdiction of the Conservation Commission by thousands of acres in the city by passing the ordinance, which gives the power to the commission to create regulations that the City Council won't have a vote on. 'The ordinance gives Conservation a blank check so essentially they can write whatever they want for regulations,' Levesque said. He referred to the last paragraph of the petition signed by more than 125 business owners which reads, 'Our community deserves thoughtful, science-based environmental protections that do not come at the cost of property rights, due process, and fairness. The current course of action by the Conservation Commission and specifically the Director of Conservation threatens to undermine all three.' Levesque also referred to a letter given to the City Council from Green Miles Lipton Attorney Michael Pill, which he said claims the ordinance was done erroneously. 'This new ordinance, which amends the City's Code of Ordinances related to the protection of wetlands, imposes extensive new jurisdictional and procedural requirements that raise serious questions about its legality, practicality, and equity. Ordinance No. 1773 exposes the Conservation Commission and the city to potential litigation that would be a waste of time and money for everyone,' according to the letter. Another letter from Ryan Ratledge, CEO of the Pioneer Valley Railroad Company, an 18-mile short-line railroad, headquartered in the city of Westfield, referred to their significant concerns about the expanded authority now being applied to intermittent streams. Ratledge said the PVRR provides a real service for several Westfield customers, such as Lowe's, James Hardie, ProAmpac and A. Duie Pyle, among others; and owns property slated for industrial development projects that he said will bring jobs and grow the local tax base. Ratledge requested a balanced review of the recent amendments to the Westfield wetlands protection ordinance, and said the current course of action by the Conservation Commission would impact their ability to recruit industry and have adverse effects for their business and the community as a whole. After the meeting, Levesque said he normally doesn't get involved in this way. 'You've never really seen me get involved, but this is so egregious — thousands of acres and millions of dollars in future revenue. The last ten projects that I've done, if those regulations were in place, they probably would have killed them,' he said. 'All of our projects in Westfield are on hold until this gets resolved,' Levesque added. Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Landowners hit with massive fines after illegal land clearing on private property: 'This type of behavior … will not be tolerated'
Unauthorized land clearing on a property in Nantucket, Massachusetts, has landed the perpetrators with a hefty fine. In Wauwinet, half an acre of mature vegetation was chopped down without the necessary permit, leaving local residents and the local Conservation Commission furious. "This type of behavior, which is blatantly in disregard for the Wetlands Protection Act and our local regulations, will not be tolerated," Seth Engelbourg, chair of the Conservation Committee, told the Nantucket Current. Engelbourg went on to describe the destruction of trees as one of the most "egregious violations" he had ever encountered, per the Current. The organization voted to fine the property owner $300 a day until a suitable restoration plan is presented. With the fine being backdated to the date an enforcement order was issued on February 6, the bill started racking up. By early March, it had reached tens of thousands of dollars. "[The fine is] still going to be a small amount of money," Engelbourg said. "It might only end up being in the thousands [of dollars] compared to the value of the land that was destroyed is, but we still need to do it." Unfortunately, it's often the case that those who sign off on such destruction aren't concerned by financial penalties as long as the work gets done. In fact, this might be easier than having to go through the necessary bureaucracy associated with making these plans happen. But the area has now lost a historic natural habitat that would have been essential for biodiversity, which makes for a healthy ecosystem and helps to secure human food supply. What's more, the trees would have improved the health of residents by absorbing and trapping harmful airborne toxins while also providing natural shade and cooling. This can reduce the risk of heat-related illnesses when temperatures creep up. Letters were sent by locals to the Conservation Commission, outlining the anger the clearing had caused. Do you think America does a good job of protecting its natural beauty? Definitely Only in some areas No way I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "I have seen the extent of the damage, and I am frankly appalled that such an action would be undertaken in a designated conservation area," one person said. "The Wauwinet neighborhood and individuals island-wide and beyond are distraught over this extreme environmental degradation," another letter read. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
