After two contentious meetings this month, the Planning Board voted May 21 to allow the division of the Capobianco property on Still River Road into two lots. The new 23-acre lot would have frontage on Willard Lane, an idea that greatly displeases the road’s current residents.
While the current property borders Willard Lane, its owners have not used that road, instead accessing Still River Road via a long driveway. This means that any traffic to the new lot, which will not have access to Still River Road, would be additional traffic on Willard Lane. Additionally, residents fear this split is the precursor to a larger housing development on the new lot, with resident Ted Maxant saying, “We all know what’s coming next.” Engineer Bruce Ringwall, representing the Capobiancos, countered by stating that no plans for future development had been announced and that the property’s division into two lots would be an important step for flexibility regardless of what happened in the future.
The situation of Willard Lane itself is very unusual; it is a private road located on public conservation land. The road was once on private land and was maintained by the residents who used it. The residents have continued to maintain it at their own expense even after the land it is on became conservation land. The unusual status of the road has had two impacts on the decision-making process. First, because Willard Lane is a private road, it is not required to meet the same standards as the town’s public roads, meaning it was unclear whether it could be safe enough to provide frontage, given the requirements of the town’s emergency vehicles. Secondly, given its quasi-public status, it was unclear whether it legally counted as a road and might therefore be unable to count as frontage.
Opponents of the lot division emphasized both of these points to Planning Board members at a May 7 meeting. Following that meeting, board members consulted Town Counsel Mark Lanza and Town Planner Bill Scanlan, who agreed that a private road on public land could count as frontage as long as it was being actively maintained by a private entity (which Willard Lane is). Board Chairwoman Erin McBee assessed the road itself to be in comparable condition to many of Harvard’s public roads.
At the May 21 meeting, board members voted to approve the lot division. Three members of the five-member board were present, resulting in a 2–1 vote in favor of the division. But due to the nature of the issue, a majority of the total members of the board (three out of five) was needed to decide the issue in either direction, so the vote failed to produce a decision. However, the division of a lot is what’s known as an approval-not-required (ANR) process, and Planning Board regulations stipulate that if the board fails to decide against it, an ANR is automatically approved 21 days after being officially submitted. Those 21 days ended May 6, so the division can proceed as though the full board had decided in favor of it. All board members present expressed misgivings about the project, with McBee stating that she had only voted in favor because the board is legally required to approve divisions as long as legal criteria are met, and she thought she did not have the discretion to vote against it. However, before any building or further division of the land can proceed, further approvals from the board must be obtained, meaning that the long-term future of the lot remains undecided.
