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The following is excerpted from the Gloucester Daily Times, Thursday, May 19, 2005:
Developers get extension
in large-scale housing plan
By Ben Hellman
Staff writer
ROCKPORT — The state Department of Environmental Protection gave another extension to the developers of Woodland Acres despite objections from the Rockport and Gloucester conservation commissions and other wetlands protection groups.
President Ronald Reagan was in the White House when developers first proposed the 43-acre, 75-unit project, situated off Stockholm Avenue. The new 2008 deadline to complete the project will stretch it into its 20th year.
If the state had denied the extension, developer Peter Ogren would have had to restart the permitting process. That would have forced him to live up to tighter regulations than those that were in place in 1988, when the project was first approved.
DEP official Elizabeth Sabounjian wrote in her decision that leaving the site partially excavated for the time it would take to get new permits could hurt the wetlands more than it would help the project along.
Woodland Acres is the largest proposed housing development in Rockport and has received three extensions in recent years, each a blow to local conservation commissions who wished to see it shut down. This last extension came after the DEP announced it would not give the project more time.
Because of its size, the project required DEP and Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office approval, which superseded the Gloucester and Rockport conservation commissions.
Roads were graded and four houses were built, but the project was put on hold when developer Michael Feldman died in a 1998 accident. The project has sat untouched since then and in 2003, the DEP gave the new developer, Ogren of Hayes Engineering, an extension, that ended n January.
Sabounjian wrote in the 2003 extension, "The department will not entertain or grant any further extensions for this project."
Planning Board member Eric Hutchins said the continued extensions make deadlines meaningless. He has objections to the development for environment and infrastructure reasons.
After the Planning Board gave the original approval to build, the area was later identified as a habitat for spotted turtles and other wildlife. The access road, Highland Road, is too narrow to accommodate the traffic from 70 more homes, Hutchins said.
"The level of impact of the many units on those roads are tremendous and something to worry about," Hutchins said.
The Rockport Conservation Commission will still have opportunities to review the construction of houses on specific lots, but Hutchins said that does not alter the impact of the total size of the project.
"A wetland surrounded by a parking lot is going to become a dead wetland fairly quickly," Hutchins said.
Marmion Way resident Patricia Pierce has opposed the project since 1999. In 2000 she petitioned the Planning Board to rescind its approval and later went to court to appeal the board's decision.
"The main issue here for me is the whole 50-acre site is priority habitat," Pierce said. "There will be no trees or birds, there will just be houses."
Hutchins said residents have become complacent about the project because it has sat untouched for so long.
"The fireworks are going to go off one day," Hutchins said. "The bulldozers are going to arrive again. It's another round coming."
The Massachusetts Audubon Society and the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions also wrote letters asking the state to deny the extension.
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