Pepperell Commission Continues Senior Living Hearing, Cites Stormwater Design Gaps

PEPPERELL — August 6, 2019 — Pepperell Conservation Commission continues senior living facility hearing, orders stormwater redesign. The commission voted to continue to September 17 a public hearing on a Notice of Intent filed by Michelle Wright for a three-phase assisted living complex at 42-46 Mill Street, after engineer Steve Marsden of Marsden Engineering presented plans that commissioners and a same-day letter from the state Department of Environmental Protection found insufficient. DEP directed Marsden to increase the required recharge standard from a half-inch to a one-inch storm event and to add a level spreader, citing the project's proximity to the Nissitissit River as a discharge near a critical area. Commissioners also flagged missing hydro-CAD routing diagrams, undocumented 24-hour detention calculations, test pit locations absent from the plans, and a proposed extended dry detention basin that cannot be used near a critical area — directing Marsden to convert it to a constructed wetland design. Post-development impervious surface will reach 1.133 acres, nearly four times the pre-development 0.286 acres. Abutter Amy Quinton, an environmental consultant living across the river, told commissioners she had received no prior notice and called the Nissitissit "one of the most pristine streams around."