Essex Planning Board Continues OSRD Hearing, Must Vote on Preliminary Plan by June 21

ESSEX — June 4, 2025 — Essex Planning Board continues Essex Park Road open space development hearing, faces binding June 21 deadline. The board reopened and then continued — after running out of time at 8:33 p.m. — the public hearing on a 36-lot open space residential development proposed by Will Scooter of the Moore and Cameron Group on an 84.5-acre parcel at the end of Essex Park Road. Concurrent with the hearing, the board is racing a June 21 statutory deadline to complete a separate preliminary subdivision plan review; failure to act by that date would constitute automatic approval under Massachusetts subdivision control law, forcing the board to vote on June 18 alongside a newly scheduled public hearing for a mixed-use project at 44 Main Street. Essex Fire Department representative Dave Perrine raised unresolved questions about whether the proposed emergency access drive to Turtle Back Road could support apparatus exceeding 60,000 pounds, and publicly stated that "the conventional plan is much more user friendly to the fire service." Town planner Valerie Massard, attending remotely, clarified that the 15 percent impervious surface cap in the Water Resource Protection Overlay District must be calculated against the full pre-subdivision parcel, not individual lots, and that a water quality special permit should be filed concurrently with the OSRD application. Resident Peter Ferriero of Rocky Hill Road cited the adjacent hazardous waste site at 7 Essex Park Road and declared the project "not good for the town of Essex" and "not good for the river." The board voted unanimously to nominate Nick Ellis to the Board of Selectmen for reappointment to the Board of Public Works.