To the Editor,
Most recently this past summer and into the fall, a reported land clearing and construction project was initiated on land off of East Mountain Road in Ward 6. It has been designated parcel zero East Mountain Road. It is located behind Susan Drive. The land clearing is extensive.
As the land clearing and removal of tree stumps and other construction activities has progressed, alarmed land abutters and home owners questioned the owners procedures in obtaining the required federal storm water permits, planning board review, and conservation commission approval in terms of preserving endangered species, preserving wetlands and streams, and adhering to the requirement of having a storm water management plan on site and installed in order to prevent water drainage problems that are created and impacting abutters properties. That is, how is this land owner going to keep his rain water from draining onto other people’s property when all of the trees are removed and the earth is churned up, and how are the animal species going to be protected. All of these answers and permits are required before ANY construction or land clearing operations are started. The land owner ignored all of this and has no permits.
No one from the city knows. The land owner has made no attempts to adhere to any of the Federal, State and Westfield permitting requirements. Nothing! This has been going on for two or three months and has been reported to ward representation at the city council. The abutting land owners have been ignored while the city goes through the legal process of issuing a cease and desist order against the land owner, and the land owner has refused to let anyone representing the city onto the property.
As a Ward 6 resident for thirty four years, this past week I attended a Conservation Committee meeting to talk about this very issue. Thirty (30) Ward 6 residents also attended and stated their displeasure with the city about the lack of enforcement. Markedly absent was any city council representation from Ward 6.
To his credit, City Councilor at Large Mathew Emmershy was there and participated in the discussion on the record. He did a creditable job describing the issue and offering his efforts to fix this. There was no DPW board of director’s members, no storm water utility representation, and no Ward 6 city council representation. This meeting occurred on Tuesday October 22.
This past Saturday October 26, an article in The Westfield News described a too little too late effort by the current Ward 6 Councilor to insert himself into a discussion that has been reported for two months and nothing has been done. Suddenly after all of the work has been illegally completed by the land owner, the Ward 6 councilor surfaces and gives us an update on the process and progress that has been illegal since it started.
As the residents at the conservation committee meeting described on the record, the destruction to this property has affected hundreds, maybe thousands of animal species, storm water drainage patterns for hundreds of residents have been changed, hundreds of trees have been removed, there are now redirected storm water flows with no erosion protection, and has endangered abutting land owners to flooding and erosion on their properties, with, in my opinion, no action or representation from the ward 6 representation…..until this past Saturday with a short newspaper article.
Jeff Neece
Westfield
