The Derry Conservation Commission directed Chairman Margaret Ives to sign off on two site plan reviews, with the condition on one that she walk the site before the documents go to Planning Board. At its Monday night meeting, the Commission discussed site plans for Parcel ID 05-074, 23 Lane Road, and Parcel ID 08079, 14 Tsienneto Road.
The Tsienneto Road plan was presented by Chris Nickerson, a representative of owners Tsienneto 14, and Luke Hurley of Gove Environmental Services of Exeter. An office building is planned on the rear lot of 14 Tsienneto Road, behind the current medical offices. The owners received direction from Conservation to look at the possible impact on wildlife, particularly turtles.
Hurley said he had visited the site and looked for turtle habitats. The site doesn’t have a lot of wetland, he said, but there is some seasonal flooding. Several hundred feet downstream of the proposed building is a grassy open area, “and if turtles were laying eggs, it would be there,” he said. The possible laying area is behind the Center for Life Management, Nickerson said.
Hurley’s solution for keeping the turtles out of the construction site was to erect silt fences around the site. For any project, it’s necessary to put up silt fences to control erosion, he noted. “That’s the best recommendation I can make for now,” he said. Commission member Riccardo “Ric” Buzzanga objected to the extra fences. “Those are a lot of silt fences you’re going to have to take down,” he said.
Hurley said the construction company would pull the fences as soon as the work was done, but Buzzanga was not convinced. “It’s a waste,” he said. “A turtle is not going to come down to the area and go 60 feet around a silt fence.” Ives said she preferred the plan with the extra silt fences to protect the turtles, and thanked Nickerson and Hurley for the research they had done.
Buzzanga made a motion that the Commission approve the original plan without the extra silt fences. Ives, Marianne Paige and Paul Doolittle voted against returning to the original plan. Beverly Ferrante, Richard Tripp, Jim Degnan and Buzzanga voted in favor of it and not adding the fences. The Lane Road plan was presented by Tim Peloquin, principal of Promised Land Survey, and involved re-subdividing a parcel that had been subdivided once, then consolidated into one parcel.
“The current owner wants to subdivide it back,” he said. Peloquin said the piece has the “frontage, acreage and high density soil to divide.” Peloquin said there would be no wetland impact. There is a small wetland in the back of the larger lot, and a wetland traverses the parcel, he said, but all construction would be in the front of the lot.
Ives expressed concern that land belonging to the Forest Hill Cemetery abuts to the rear. Peloquin said the property is part of Forest Hill but is undeveloped, and is for possible future expansion. “I was all set to sign this, but now I’m wondering if we should walk it first,” Ives said. The Commission voted unanimously to allow Ives to sign the plan after she walks the land this week.
