A proposal to build a business park on 34 acres off Hedges Pond Road in Cedarville is scheduled to come before the Planning Board for review on Wednesday, Sept. 11, but supporters and opponents are already weighing in on what would be a significant project in a part of town where commercial development has been relatively sparse.
Advocates say the project aligns with the town’s goals of expanding the tax base and creating jobs, while opponents say it’s the latest example of strip mining for sand that will degrade the environment and threaten the region’s water supply.
The developer, Standish Investment Group, proposes a four-building complex off 71 Hedges Pond Road that includes a 176,000-square-foot warehouse with multiple loading docks, a 75,000-square-foot recreational facility (sometimes labeled on the plans as two hockey rinks) and two 20,000-square-foot buildings suitable for wholesale operations, currently noted as a lumber yard on the documents.
By comparison, the Amazon distribution center on the Plymouth-Kingston border – visible from Route 3 – is 145,000 square feet, and the Market Basket supermarket in Plymouth is 79,000 square feet.
Eric Pontiff, the principal of Standish Investment Group, said there are no definitive agreements with companies to buy or lease any of the four buildings proposed, but he has “met with a couple of different entities who have expressed interest with those uses. Once we have the site plan approval, we will get deeper into those discussions.”
Pontiff is also the managing partner of E.J. Pontiff, a regional development firm that has built homes at Redbrook in Plymouth and grows cranberries on 110 acres of bogs in Plymouth and Carver.
The Hedges Pond Road site is now heavily wooded, rolling hills, so to create a level tract suitable for the buildings and infrastructure the developer plans to clear-cut most of the land and remove 350,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel.
After excavating and regrading, approximately eight acres around the new buildings would be replanted with a mix of trees, shrubs and grasses. A 50-foot buffer along Hedges Pond Road would be left as is, to screen the commercial park from view.
Meg Sheehan, an attorney and coordinator of the Plymouth-based Community Land & Water Coalition, is marshalling opposition to the plan. “The project should be stopped at all costs,” she said.
The CLWC has long advocated to protect the region’s groundwater aquifer, which is the sole source of public drinking water in Plymouth, Carver, and portions of Kingston, Bourne, Plympton and Wareham.
Sheehan said the region’s abundance of sand and gravel is critical to filter rainwater and snow melt as it percolates down to recharge the aquifer. That same sand and gravel, however, is a valuable resource mined for use in construction projects and to make concrete, prompting widespread mining projects in the area, Sheehan said.
The CLWC is asking state and local officials to place a moratorium on all sand and gravel operations in southeastern Massachusetts, so the environmental impact of that activity can be studied. The group brought a petition with more than 1,400 signatures asking for a moratorium to Governor Maura Healey’s office on Aug. 20. It plans to deliver the same petition to the Plymouth Select Board on Tuesday night.
“We can build within existing topography. There is no reason to flatten hills and dig massive holes to site these buildings,” Sheehan said. “This project is just a ruse. It’s a sand and gravel grab, let’s face it.”
But Robb D’Ambruoso, attorney for the developer, said Sheehan’s assertion “is inaccurate and untethered from reality.” Extensive engineering was done on the site and the current plan is appropriate and environmentally sound, he said.
“The site is more than 30 acres, so the amount of material to be removed is relatively small, like a grain of sand on a beach,” D’Ambruoso said. “The process of earth removal is limited and transient. But then you have this new business park building the tax base and providing jobs for generations to come. That’s the real benefit for the community.”
The site was owned by the town for decades and managed by the Conservation Commission for open space and conservation purposes. In the fall of 2018, Plymouth Town Meeting voted unanimously to re-zone a portion of the land to create the Cedarville Village Enterprise District and allow for light industrial and commercial uses. Town Meeting also voted unanimously to empower the Select Board to facilitate development of the site.
What followed was a joint effort of the town and the Plymouth Foundation, a private nonprofit corporation established in 2001 to promote economic development in Plymouth and surrounding communities.
The town sold the land at 71 Hedges Pond Road to the foundation for $1, with an agreement that the foundation would market the land for development, and when sold, would pay the town $2 million to be earmarked for road improvements at the intersections of State, Hedges Pond and Herring Pond roads.
“This is a case of new money helping to solve old problems,” said Stephen Cole, executive director of the Plymouth Foundation. “We are following the town’s charge on this project. It was a unanimous vote by Town Meeting to make this site available for economic development, and the sale will provide funds to address an important traffic issue.”
The foundation’s asking price for the property was $4.2 million. The agreed sale price with Standish Investment Group has not been disclosed, but it is enough to pay the town $2 million, Cole said. The sale of the land is contingent upon Standish Investment Group getting approval from the town to build the park as proposed.
“The community wants this site developed. That’s what the 2018 Town Meeting votes were all about,” D’Ambruoso said. “So, in this case, Eric (Pontiff) is actually the hand of the town – a developer who has the experience and the ability to make this vision a reality.”
The Planning Board meets at Town Hall at 7p.m. on Sept. 11.
Michael Cohen can be reached at michael@plymouthindependent.org.