Planning Board Deals with Illegal Parking and other Complaints Around Town

The Winchester Planning Board met Thursday at 7 p.m. to discuss constructions and permits around Winchester.

Winchester residents of almost 30 years, Marie Belding and Patricia Callinan of 18 Bacon Street have filed a complaint against the owner of 16 Bacon.

According to Belding, her neighbor has placed an addition on his house and also built an accompanying driveway. Due to the raised land conjoining the houses after the addition, any rain water drains right onto Belding's property.

"He doesn't even live there, said Belding, referring to her neighbor. "He just wants to update the house and sell it. Since he doesn't live there he doesn't understand."

Belding and her friend, Callinan, hoped to push the Board to act on their behalf and remedy the situation by perhaps having the town place a retaining wall to divert the flow of water.

"This guy is coming in and ruining my land, my pool is also flooding," Belding said.

The Board recommended several legal avenues Belding and Callinan could examine including contacting the selectmen, but they won't help them settle the problem.

Other items discussed included a release of an agreement for a project on Cobblestone Lane – the Board hopes to release a partial amount of the money involved in the project despite a "laundry list" of items that need to still be completed on the project. However, the Board was firm on the idea that a full release of funds won't be completed until the outstanding work has been finished.

Another issue dealt with a Floodplain "no rise" letter dealing with 620 Washington Street – the Board expects this issue to be taken up at the Board of Selectmen meeting next Monday.

A member of Precinct 8 questioned who enforces the development agreements of Winchester and agreements on the former Immaculate Conception Church in particular. The complaint is that an attorney bought one of the lots that abuts the former rectory and is using it for parking for his practice. This violates several zoning laws including the development agreement that states that the lot is to be used for single or two family homes and that commercial parking is not allowed.

Lastly, the 1021 Main Street development agreement was discussed. Board members talked about the difficulties involved with the "patchwork quilt of statutes," according to Town Counsel Wade Welch, which raised the larger issue of who and how development agreements are issued by the town.

According to Welch, it seems that the current laws are a hodge-podge of guidelines that developers have been skirting or residents have had issues with, much like in the Bacon Street troubles talked about earlier in the meeting.

One other lesser item the Board briefly covered was working to establish a contract to review road design, traffic calming and cul-de-sac ban/limitation related to sub division regulations.