After months of public hearings where residents aired apprehensions about dust, noise, traffic and water health, the Mason Planning Board approved a plan for a sand and gravel pit on Brookline Road — but not without conditions aimed at mitigating those concerns.
Following its meeting on Sept. 16, the board approved the plan in a 4-1 vote, allowing for the excavation of a 67-acre property — largely wooded and undeveloped, aside from a single-family home — by the Onyx Corporation, an excavating contractor based in Acton, Mass. The work must be done only three acres at a time, according to the town’s zoning ordinance.
Vice Chair Katie Boots was the only nay vote.
Before the vote, the board heard one last time from abutters and representatives of surrounding towns. Neighbor Ryan Harkanen said he was concerned about the traffic.
“I worked really hard to have a home. It is going to be a disaster,” Harkanen said, according to draft minutes of the meeting.
Alan Rosenberg, chair of the Brookline Planning Board, also spoke about ongoing concerns regarding dust control, impact on the aquifer and truck traffic.
People reiterated these concerns many times over the course of the months-long hearing on the excavation pit. When approving the application, the board imposed conditions, some aimed at mitigating these concerns.
Before beginning operations, Onyx must obtain the proper state and town permits, as well as provide a $60,000 surety to cover the reclamation of three acres of land, should Onyx fail to fulfill that obligation. Every two years, the Mason Select Board will get the opportunity to review and adjust that amount.
Funding is only required for three acres because Onyx is only allowed to excavate three acres at a time, per the zoning ordinance, and must restore those three acres to their natural state within a year after excavation of that section is complete.
Onyx must also install a dust-monitoring device on the eastern edge of its property and provide quarterly reports to the Mason Select Board on its readings.
The Mason Select Board and Brookline Select Board will collaborate on an inter-municipal memorandum of understanding and a yet-to-be-determined road bond to cover potential damage to the road due to the project.
In response to traffic concerns, the board mandated that Russell Hill Road and Cleveland Hill Road in Brookline will not be used as an alternate truck route and that trucking hours will be limited.
The board set hours of operation for the site from Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday hours will be subject to approval by the town administrator and road agent for each week Onyx wishes to operate.
Planning board Chair Dane Rota said there needs to be a balance between the residential uses and industry in the area, according to minutes.
John Durkin, Onyx’s operations manager, said he was amenable to limiting hours. He said the company doesn’t plan to operate every Saturday, and when it does, those would typically be maintenance days. He said he was willing to limit trucking to five days a week.
“I am here to play ball,” Durkin told the board, according to minutes.
Trucking must cease half an hour before the site operations. There will be no operations or trucking on federal holidays, and the number of loads taken off-site per day is limited to 50.
Before the board could reach a final vote, they made several smaller decisions regarding waivers of rules requested by Onyx. The board granted three of them, including allowing excavation within 150 feet of two neighbor’s residences, including Harkonen’s, to allow for sight-line improvements to the curve of Brookline Road across from Campbell Mill Road. The board decided there was no reasonable alternative to performing the work, which is about 140 feet from Harkonen’s home.
The board denied other waiver requests, including one that’s been a frequent topic of discussion: a request to dig ponds for water access, which violates the town’s requirement to leave at least four feet of original material above the seasonal high-water level at the site.
Onyx had planned several ponds, some temporary, to be used for dust suppression and restored after the project, as well as a large permanent pond.
In previous meetings, the board had discussed alternatives, including bringing in water and digging a well, citing concerns about the ponds being a potential source of water contamination.
Durkin said his company preferred a pond due to the uncertainty of what a well could perform and the need to power a well, but the board unanimously denied his request.