Selectmen Thomas O’Toole said the lawsuit appealing the Conservation Commission’s denial of a new access road for the Crocker Pond Recreation Area was “just to buy time,” and the suit has been dropped.

The Superior Court in Worcester showed the case was disposed of by a settlement without costs and waiving the right to appeal as of Tuesday, May 20. O’Toole, who was elected to serve as chairman at the beginning of the meeting, said the board went into executive session on Thursday, May 8, to discuss the matter and at the time voted to not continue with the appeal.

“It was really just to buy some time on that front,” he said.

The town was suing the commission in Superior Court as an appeal of their denial of a proposed access road for the Crocker Pond Recreation area. The town’s only option to appeal the decision was through the Superior Court as dictated by the town’s wetland protection bylaw. The town had also set an appeal with the Department of Environmental Protection for the appeal of the commission’s denial of the road based on the state Wetlands Protection Act.

“We wanted to find a solution,” O’Toole said.

O’Toole said filing the suit was necessary because the appeals process was going to end.

The Selectmen decided the cost of the lawsuit, in addition to the $20,000 to $30,000 for the review by the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office, was just going to be too much money, he said.

The proposed road would start on Route 2A/State Road East (near TRW) and run close to the discontinued Depot Road at a nearly parallel path to the railroad tracks, before cutting toward the pond near the Frog Pond and entering the parking lot from the north.

O’Toole said dropping the lawsuit basically ends plans for any development of a secondary road access to Crocker Pond. He said this means the recreation area will remain a place for summer use only, instead of creating an area that could be open in the winter as well.

The bridge off South Ashburnham Road, which is the entrance to the area, is owned by Westminster resident Robert Francis, who also retained ownership of the nearby dam.

O’Toole, who had served as the board’s representative at many of the meetings with the commission, said there could have been more cooperation and conversations between the commission and the town’s developer to make the process go smoother and prevent it from getting to this point.

The commission determined the project did not meet the standard of a limited project as defined by the state Wetlands Protection Bylaw because of the bridge on South Ashburnham Road.

The commission, according to the denial, rejected the project because "the proposed work cannot be conditioned to meet the performance standards set forth in the wetlands regulations." 

The decision also lists a number of other issues the commission had with either the presentation of the plans or the designs themselves, including that they believed more than 17,000 square feet of wetlands would be disturbed by this project. Another is that the commission did not want to grant the town a variance for its own bylaw stating there needs to be a 25-foot setback from a water body.

The Selectmen filed an appeal with the state Department of Environmental Protection in January after the Commission rejected the plans for a proposed road. That appeal has also been dropped.