Pepperell Conservation Commission Denies Hall Street Amendment, Issues Main Street Restaurant Permit

PEPPERELL — September 13, 2022 — Pepperell Conservation Commission denied a request to amend an existing order of conditions for a landscaping business and approved a range of conservation actions at its September 13 meeting. Engineer Jack Visniewski sought to have proposed changes at 2329 Hall Street — including replacing bituminous pavement with porous pavers, swapping an earthen berm for a retaining wall, and removing buffer-zone trees — treated as a minor amendment rather than a new notice of intent filing, arguing the changes were "functionally equivalent" to the original approval. Commission members disagreed, with member Pat Swain Rice noting amendments are typically reserved for scrivener's errors, not reimagined site layouts within the 100-foot wetland buffer; the denial was unanimous. Separately, the commission issued an order of conditions for a restaurant project at 81 Main Street, approved a Nashua River Watershed Association plan to plant 16 native trees and shrubs along the Nashua River behind the Albert Harris Senior Center under a U.S. Forest Service grant, and voted to recommend the Select Board accept a donation of the parcel at 189 Brookline Street — a wetland- and floodplain-rich lot in a municipal water supply recharge zone — as conservation land. A complex driveway-and-wetland dispute at Chamberlain Way was left unresolved pending a commission site visit and a future notice of intent filing, and a wetland delineation hearing for 24 Bancroft Street was continued to October 4 after DEP issued comments just hours before the meeting.