HANSON – Acceptance of the private road known as Alden Way must go back before Town Meeting to clear up an issue regarding an amendment to the acceptance plan, Select Board told a number of the private roadway’s residents attended the Tuesday, June 27 meeting.
Residents at the May 1 Town Meeting voted to accept Alden Way among a list of private roads as public ways.
“In taking that next step to doing the takings that we need to do in order to make sure that we’ve got access to those properties to do the things that we would need to do as a public way, we’ve run into some technical difficulties,” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said of the citizens’ petition for the May Town Meeting.
Jane Medeiros oan associate of Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff, said the Town Meeting vote did not reference one or more of the correct plans.
“I’m not sure if they layout vote of the Select Board [knew of an amendment made to that plan],” Medeiros said. FitzGerald-Kemmett stated they had not known.
“This is a technicality,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “It is a technicality that we intend, as a board, to correct at the next Town Meeting. … We cannot unilaterally decide to do that. Anything having to do with public ways, or takings, or any of that, all have to be decided – as it should – by Town Meeting.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said Feodoroff wanted the board to inform the residents they are aware of the issue, and that they intend to place, as a Select Board article, on the October Town Meeting warrant.
“It’s good that the missing plan was noticed right away and will be corrected promptly,” Medeiros said, explaining that residents should want to avoid a situation years, from now, when a surveyor might go out to check property lines only to find “what’s on the ground is not in the layout that was approved by the town and recorded.”
“My understanding is, what was approved is not exactly where the road is,” she said. “There was a modification.”
“Your plans are fine,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said of one resident’s question as to whether modifications to the plan were properly made prior to Town Meeting. “But what isn’t fine is the article that was presented to Town Meeting – what we accepted were the old plans before those changes were made.”
Then as the law firm tried to figure out what needed to be taken as right-of-way from each of the respective homeowners, it was discovered that the lines of demarcation for the roadway were different from what Town Meeting vote on in May.
“Your deeds, your plot plans … are all accurate,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. The resident further said residents were told there would be no land-takings.
“This has all been about land-taking,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “In order to make this road public, there has to be land-taking.”
“We’re trying to fix it for you, so it gets totally fixed.” Board member Ann Rein said. “If it’s not fixed totally right now, it’s going to come up again and again.”
Member Joe Weeks said that, by sponsoring the new article, the board can also make sure it is vetted prior to Town Meeting to ensure no more clerical errors are included. The board had no standing to vet a citizen’s petition before it went before Town Meeting in May.
In other business, pond management responsibility was discussed, stemming from a discussion at the Conservation Commission since its not in that body’s jurisdiction and is a town resource, Selectman Ed Heal said.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said it’s a “weird thing” as it is not a wetlands issue and there can be Board of Health components, too. While past town meetings have allocated funds for pond management, it does not seem there are clear jurisdictions for it.
“But it doesn’t seem there’s anyone whose sole responsibility is to manage the ponds,” she said.
Conservation Commission Chair Phil Clemons said he believes it is true that most Hanson residents like the fact that there are so many ponds in town.
“I think it’s also true that we can’t trust the ponds, lakes or whatever term you wish to use, just to take care of themselves and be fine,” he said. “There’s too many people, having too many impacts over too many years and decades for that to be true anymore.”
Water quality, largely affected by plants, are issues that have been addressed in different ways by area communities, with Hanson mostly been paying attention to what has been done elsewhere.
“We’ve had the luxury of not having to do a whole lot, but we think those days are pretty much past,” Clemmons said.
Since the Wetlands Protection Act and Rivers Protection Act, the work load of Conservation Commissions and agents has increased.
“Despite our ambitions and things we actually have done in some cases already it probably is not realistic to expect the Conservation Commission to also assume pond management.”
He suggested it might be time to look at things done in other communities, with the need to build up a methodical approach, comparing it to the way a physician analyzes the symptoms of illness.
“There definitely has to be interplay with the Conservation Commission,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said to Clemmons’ agreement.
She asked Town Administrator Lisa Green to think about the issue and think of ways the town might address it and organize around it, reporting back in the fall.