Pepperell Commission Clears Wheeler Street House Site, Requires Natural Heritage Review

PEPPERELL — June 19, 2018 — Pepperell Conservation Commission clears stalled Wheeler Street home project after 15-year delay. The commission voted unanimously Tuesday to issue a negative determination of applicability for a proposed single-family home, septic system, and well on a roughly 26-acre back parcel at 7 Wheeler Street, finding the work falls outside the jurisdiction of the state Wetland Protection Act and the local Pepperell Wetlands Bylaw. Engineer Jack Visniewski of Cornerstone Land Consultants, representing property owner Paul Joyce, presented an as-built survey of a private driveway completed in 2005 that had never received a certificate of compliance — also approved unanimously Tuesday — after the 2008 economic downturn froze house construction indefinitely. The commission attached one condition to the determination: Visniewski must send a letter and site plan to the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program for review, and no construction may begin until a response is received, a requirement driven by expanded priority habitat mapping since the project's original 2003 approval. Members also agreed that silt fence must be installed at the 100-foot wetland buffer line near the proposed septic field before work commences.