Gloucester Daily Times
The engineers of Annisquam Woods, builder Michael Carrigan's 28-unit cluster development proposed for 32 rural acres of rough terrain east and high above Washington Street, are going back to the drawing board - with their erasers.
Their assignment, arranged Monday night, was to eliminate Annisquam Woods' southerly connection to the outside world - to little Tufts Lane and then the nearly impassable Bennett Street that merges with Dennison Street north of Goose Cove.
The deletion of the Tufts-Bennett connection will leave the eight duplexes and 20 homes in the development with a single travel route in and out from the north - from Hutchins Court and its connection to Revere Street and its connection to Washington Street just north of the Annisquam Village Church.
In their current state, those roads are already "narrow and overgrown (with) curves and hills that are a challenge in bad weather," noted Lt. Joseph Aiello, the Police Department's road safety expert.
But improvements to Hutchins Court and its intersection with Revere Street were essential parts of Carrigan's original Annisquam Woods submission. With the elimination of the alternate way in and out of Annisquam Woods, all vehicles would be forced onto Hutchins Court.
Carrigan and his traffic engineers always assumed most drivers would use that route, but Aiello believed otherwise and foresaw Annisquam Woods adding traffic to Tufts Lane and the southern connectors, especially with Bennett Street scheduled for modernization.
As designed and scrutinized by the Planning Board since July, the tie to Tufts Lane was to have required construction of a massive land bridge across a steep ravine. It would have interrupted a wildlife and drainage corridor between the Dogtown wilderness and Langsford Pond.
It was this element that the organized opposition, the wildlife advocates of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the open space advocates of Essex County Greenbelt, as well as the Planning Board, considered Annisquam Woods' Achilles heel.
At the start of the review process this summer, James Groves, spokesman for the Annisquam/Bay View citizens group, called the connection "the largest private cement bridge on Cape Ann."
Carrigan said the bridge would have spanned perhaps 500 feet and required enough "fabric-covered blocks" to hold a two-lane roadway as much as 25 feet above the hollow favored by the full roster of Cape Ann wildlife - minks, otters, turtles and deer - on their way to and from Langsford Pond, according to the Audubon Society. A hole was to have been left in the bridge's base to let the critters through.
"We're encouraged by the alteration," Audubon's Jeffrey Collins said.
Aiello said his greater concern was the increased traffic volume on Tufts Lane and Bennett Street. With the decision to eliminate that option, Aiello said, "clearly (Carrigan) has addressed most of the issues (with traffic)."
The idea for the deletion came weeks ago from Planning Board Chairman Paul Lundberg. Carrigan's lawyer, Michele Harrison, described it as a "somewhat provocative question lobbed at us at the conclusion of the last meeting," but she seemed enthusiastic to add to the project's appeal by subtraction.
"Now," she told the board, "with the elimination of the connection (to Tufts Lane) we have a wide open corridor."
In an interview, Harrison conceded the Tufts Lane bridge was the project's political, if not conceptual "weakest point. We gave them what they wanted; now we're not using Bennett Street," she said.
The organized opposition cried foul.
"It's admirable to try to create a better plan," said Frederick Geisel, the engineer retained by the opposition. "Our criticism is how it was done."
Opponents urged the board to require Carrigan to start the vetting process all over again.
Instead, the board gave Carrigan until Jan. 22 to reconfigure the project without the second point of access from Tufts Lane and Lundberg advised the opposition it would be better served addressing the substance of the proposal rather than obsessing on process.
Still, Annisquam Woods is hardly out of the woods.
Groves' analysis of the change conceded it would yield more open space and put less earth under pavement, but he countered those comments with concerns about "a major compromise of fire and health safety" with the elimination of the second access road.
In its place, Carrigan proposed a series of unpaved public safety spurs inside the development, but Groves and other opponents pointed out the difficulty in maintaining unfinished roads.
Carrigan also faces a possible deal-breaking analysis of the capacity of the notoriously undependable STEP - or septic tank effluent pump - system employed in Annisquam, Bay View and Lanesville to handle waste from the 28 homes he hopes to build. The original proposal called for 30 homes.
Another pending report - an analysis of the water pressure implications of the development in an area of the city with chronically poor service - could give the board pause.
With or without the second access road, Planning Board members' comments Monday lingered on the location and in Lundberg's words "the adequacy of the existing street system, not just the feeder roads," and the need for a large group STEP system on site.
"The STEP system is a disaster we all inherited," the board's Michael Rubin said.
"Is having one big STEP tank OK?" wondered Lundberg.
Board member Henry McCarl, a retired geology professor, reiterated his "concerns about the topography" of the site and its suitability for development.
"How much cut and fill?" he wondered. "It's not a bad project, but it's in a bad location. The topography (for a cluster subdivision) is horrible.
McCarl called Carrigan's agreement to eliminate the second access road "an important improvement," but he added, "I don't know whether it will erase my concerns."
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