PLYMOUTH – Neighbors say they have seen heavy equipment working on Hedge Road in North Plymouthon part of the large parcel of mostly vacant land that stretches from Route 3A to the sea. Piles of dirt, they say, are being dumped and moved about the property.
An engineer for the owner, meanwhile, has appeared before town officials in an effort to determine what portion of the 18-acre property is fit for development.
No plans have surfaced and a representative for the owner, Eight Mates LLC, says nothing is imminent.
A few years ago, the owners proposed turning the property just south of the Cordage Commerce Center into a maritime college campus, complete with dormitories.
Mark Manganello of LEC Environmental Consultants appeared before the town’s Conservation Commission in January to request the board make a determination on what constitutes wetlands on the property.
The land is made up of a dozen separate parcels, including 39 Hedge Road, 333 Court St. and 1 Sandri Drive. It stretches northeast from the wooded lot beside St. Mary’s Church parish hall on Court Street to the shore.
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The land includes parcels on both sides of Hedge Road, which connects Court Street to the waterfront. The southern side abuts a portion of Seaside Trail, the bike path in North Plymouth. The northern side includes a warehouse complex on Sandri Drive and a narrow strip of access to the water.
Manganello told the commission that he delineated wetlands boundaries on the property in 2016 for the campus proposal, and returned again last fall for an updated survey. He said he needed a machete and saw to reach some parts of the land, but the wetlands have not significantly changed.
The request for wetlands delineation is a planning tool that allows property owners to confirm the wetland boundaries before getting too deep into any design, he said. Once confirmed, the wetlands determination would be valid for three years on any project plans.
The town has continued the case indefinitely until an independent engineer can survey the property at the owners’ expense.
Neighbors wondering
Manganello said he does not know what the owners are considering, but neighbors attended the virtual conservation commission meeting to express concerns.
Eric Dykeman lives across from the property on Hedge Road and wanted to know why the engineer said the land had already been “significantly disturbed.” Two property owners on the south side of the lot were concerned about more recent disturbances.
Prince Street resident Diane Rogers sent commissioners a message saying that earthmovers have recently been filling in some of the area with new gravel and changing the natural topography of the land.
Jim Hunt, who owns two houses on Cordage Street, said he also has seen large piles of dirt and fill being dumped and moved around on the property. He said he used to have panoramic views across the bay to Saquish and Clark’s Island, but now the view is obscured by trees that have grown on piles of dumped dirt.
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Hunt also complained that the property has become a dumping ground, with parts of school buses and other vehicles as well as mattress and household garbage littering the lot.
The commission expressed concern that work might be underway without their knowledge and asked for reassurances that it did not extend into wetland areas. Commission Chairman Bruce Howard also recommended that the owners contact neighbors and let them know what they are planning.
Housing a possibility
Town Planner Lee Hartmann said the owners have not approached the town with any proposal. Hartman said the land is zoned for multi-family housing. A housing project was approvedthere in the 1980sbut was never developed.
The college campus plan, informally shared with the North Plymouth Steering Committee in 2016, was never officially proposed to town planners.
At the time, representatives of Eight Mates said the land was owned by the Sheehan family, which runs the L. Knife and Son distributorship in Kingston.
Michael Brophy, the corporate facilities manager for the Sheehan families’ companies, said Thursday that the owners have no plans for the property and are simply updating the wetlands designation, which would have expired three years ago.
Further, Brophy said, the work that neighbors recently saw was just the owners doing a courtesy for another neighbor.
“Right now there is not a concrete plan of what we’re going to do with the site. We just want to know what we can do, and it doesn’t look like the wetlands have changed very much in six years," Brophy said.
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