Revised Site Plan v3

Sep 27

Written By

At the September 27, 2021 Millbury Planning Board Meeting, the engineer for the proposed Rice Pond Village project located at 17 Rice Road in Millbury, Massachusetts, James Tetreault of Azimuth Land Design, LLC, submitted revised proposed Rice Pond Village Site Plan of Land (v3) that contain the following changes:

Reverted the site plan back to the original road configuration with a single entry and exit point on Rice Road aligned with the end of Thomas Hill Road;
Reduced the number of condominiums from 52 down to 46 units, however, Lot 4 was added back into the mix, so there will be two lots for either single-family or multifamily homes one east of 11 Rice Road and one west of 19 Rice Road; and
The placement of duplex condominium buildings were shifted slightly.

Many of the neighborhood and Millbury Planning Board concerns remain unaddressed in the latest revision of the proposed Rice Pond Village project plans. Additional concerns with these current version of the plans, include, but are not limited to:

Locate a bus shelter on Rice Road near Thomas Hill to protect school aged children from weather;
Make the sidewalk design compliant with the Town of Millbury's Design Standards to enable the sidewalk to be used year round and add ADA-compliant ramps at regular intervals along the sidewalk as there is over 600± feet of sidewalk have no ramp access;
All plans submitted to date show a dog park, but no community-building amenities, such as: benches along the sidewalk for seniors to take a break, a gazebo, promotion of physical activities like cycling or running, etc.;
A suggestion was made to slightly rotate three of the duplex buildings (units 11/12, 13/14, and 29/30) to orient the centerline of the building to be perpendicular to the road and have the driveway centered on the party wall between the units to permit unobstructed access to each unit;
11 Rice Road's shed has not addressed in proposed encroachment resolution land give-aways (east side of 11 Rice Road's property);
The engineer should insure that a standard mail delivery vehicle can make a U-turn in the internal intersection to avoid having to drive throughout the proposed Rice Pond Village project to continue their route;
Each driveway's length should be sufficient to ensure that no vehicle parked outside of the garage to provide unobstructed traffic flow by foot or vehicle on the sidewalk and private roadway;
There is a wide disparity of visitor parking spaces in condominium projects, specifically Stratford Village has 48 units and 26 parking spaces (0.52 visitor spaces/unit), Wyman Farms (in Shrewsbury) has 26 units and 16 visitor parking spaces (0.62 visitor spaces/unit) and the proposed Rice Pond Village project now has 46 units and only 15 visitor parking spaces (0.33 visitor space/unit). Why are there so few visitor parking space being provided on this proposed project, when Wyman Farms currently under construction by Steven F. Venicasa provides almost double this ratio of visitor parking spaces?;
Additional visitor parking spaces should be added in the areas between Units 8 and 9; and between Units 24 and 25, as these parking spaces will be needed for residents, visitors, to shift vehicles for winter snow removal operations, and for contractors and service providers;
Add a continuous fence along the backs of the existing properties on the odd numbered side of Rice Road or a fence at each end of the pond to prevent condominium residents and visitor from wandering onto neighbor's property to address neighbors privacy concerns;
Provide pull-out areas on the property, the likely space for this would be on the northerly side of the private road loop across from the proposed parking space, to accommodate a large 4 door pickup truck with large landscape trailer with the ramp down to park unload and load out of the travel lane; and
Stop signs should be installed at the exit to the proposed Rice Pond Village project site within the Rice Road Right of Way, on Thomas Hill Road at Rice Road, on Aldrich Avenue at Rice Road, and on Aldrich Avenue at Thomas Hill Road.

Some of aforementioned concerns were verbally mentioned in the public hearing by neighbors, while others were provided in writing to the project engineer, James Tetreault of Azimuth Land Design, LLC.