Conservation Commission: 54 South Street Certificate of Compliance - 2026-04-30

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3-flash-preview from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The Commission approved a Certificate of Compliance for a residential project on South Street and discussed upcoming invasive species management and city-wide permit audits.

0:09 54 South Street Certificate of Compliance (DEP #2150230) — Approved a Certificate of Compliance for a residential addition within the riverfront area following a review of as-built plans and site plantings. The Commission confirmed that the implemented landscape plan met the original order of conditions.
14:51 Approval of Minutes — Tabled the approval of the previous meeting's minutes to the next session to allow for additional review.
15:33 Staff Reports and Project Updates — Staff announced a upcoming permit file audit by a new intern, a pending filing for invasive species cleanup at McDonald Park, and the annual municipal rain barrel sale. The Commission also discussed a reported accumulation of debris near the state police barracks slated for removal.

[Denis MacDougall]: Good evening, welcome to the Medford Conservation Commission meeting. Tonight we have a request for a certificate of compliance. DEP file number 2150230 for 54 South Street. They've requested a certificate of compliance for the redevelopment of an existing lot and single family dwelling at 54 South Street with the construction of an addition attached to the existing single family dwelling within the 200 foot river run area. Also known as Mr. River.

[Chair Heidi Davis]: Okay, great. And so, pardon me for not being totally up to speed. I got home early this morning from Arizona. By the way, I got an invite from Dennis for a meeting hearing, starting at 330. And I was like, what?

[Denis MacDougall]: 330? 330, yeah. It was a lot of panicking on my part, because I was like, no, wait. I looked at everything that I sent to y'all, and I'm like, no, it's 630. And it took me so long to figure out that it adjusted, which is kind of good to know. I never knew that, that if someone's in a different time zone, when you send a meeting invite, it adjusts it to the new time zone.

[Chair Heidi Davis]: Yeah, it was. We both realized it around the same time, but it was disconcerting. So remind me, is there an ASVIL for this?

[Denis MacDougall]: Hold on a second. Yeah, they submitted with, I think I'm just going to open it up and Are you seeing?

[Denis MacDougall]: Okay. So these were the final aspects submitted by the applicants consultant.

[Denis MacDougall]: Yes, I'll pull that up as well. That I'll just read. Actually, can you see that now through the screen share? Yes. Okay.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: There's also, Dennis, an April 17, 2026 letter that I think speaks more to the request.

[Denis MacDougall]: And did you do a site inspection? I did. I got a few times and I went again just recently to take some more photographs as well. So I can go share them. I'll just quickly stop the share and then I'll move on.

[Denis MacDougall]: She had some photos from last year too, so I'll just show those first ones quickly. This is the front of the property. This is.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: We're still just looking at your file folder. Oh. Not the big.

[Denis MacDougall]: Oh, maybe it doesn't come in that way. Sorry. I'll jump back out. Buh-bye. These are the plantings from last year. OK. Thank you. I don't know if this will switch. If it doesn't switch, let me know, and I'll tell.

[Denis MacDougall]: Those were plants in the front of the property, so. They look like perennials. Yeah.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: Are they the? I don't know, was it one of the ones proposed in the landscape plan?

[Craig Drennan]: Yes. Instead of just looking at these, would you be able to confirm that they planted per what we approved?

[Denis MacDougall]: Yes, I can do that, yeah. Like we went over the one he planted, I'm sorry. He submitted a list of the ones that he was getting from his plant or riverfront area.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: So am I correct that the September 2024 landscape plan has been implemented?

[Denis MacDougall]: Yes. And that's, I believe, what the... Yes, the revised landscape plan dated September 24th, 2024. That was the one that was used.

[Chair Heidi Davis]: Any questions from the commission? Commission, excuse me. Any other questions?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: I guess, and I think this is just because we were a little confused on the enforcement. So the original order of conditions asked for 750 square feet of planting areas. And I guess we didn't increase that at all for the tree, but we added an extra tree.

[CAS00002494_SPEAKER_07]: Dennis, sorry, the image you showed it, perhaps I'm looking at a plan wrong, but it seemed like that planty bed was on the other side of the building. The first one I showed? No, the second one that had what... Oh, it might have been, yeah. So they just flipped it to the other side? I'm trying to look.

[Denis MacDougall]: Sorry, I'm just trying to call it. That one was... just trying to orient myself on the property a little bit. Let me just share this one. I can show you where that other tree was that I showed. It was in the backyard, basically, along the property line. Sorry, I just need to check to make sure they're individually. So this is looking at the house directly. So there's these two trees here, and then the other one I showed was in the backyard behind this fence, still within the 200-foot riverfront area, or just about on the edge of it.

[CAS00002494_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, the planting plan, I believe, shows a planting bed in front of the building in the area behind the transformer, shown in this image.

[CAS00002494_SPEAKER_07]: I think the image you showed earlier of that planting bed has it on the north side of the building. on the other side of the walkway.

[Denis MacDougall]: Okay, I'm showing this. So the first photo I showed was looking down this way at these plantings on the front of the house. The second one I showed was out back behind here, including this tree, I think. Pretty sure that's where that was. I might have just taken an extra photo, just an incorrect area. But then the last one was looking here, looking this way along the fence line of the house, which is where the two trees were there.

And that's where the transformer is there. Can you pull up that picture of the plant?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: The April 17th letter does show that bed that Eric's looking for.

[Denis MacDougall]: I'm just not sure, which bed are you talking about then on the plans? Because there's the 1 here, the 1 here. Those are the two main ones.

[CAS00002494_SPEAKER_07]: It is in front of the building closest to the transport.

[Denis MacDougall]: I had a few other photos, and Jeremy actually sent some too, so I don't know if his might actually show it a little bit better. This one here, yeah, you're talking about like the sort of over here?

[CAS00002494_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but you had another picture that was along the facade of the building that showed the planting.

[Denis MacDougall]: That was, all right, let me, I realized that was at a different angle. That was the front of the, because there's the two houses, that was the house on the right that I showed showing that one.

[CAS00002494_SPEAKER_07]: OK, so there is a planting bed behind the transformer? Yeah.

[Denis MacDougall]: There is, yeah. It's just, it's, you kind of can't really see it behind here. It's like underneath the windows here going across to the right. OK. It's just.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: I was just going to show a better photo that there are plants.

[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah. Thank you. I always sort of get a weird creeper vibe if I'm just out by myself in front of the house taking photographs of it. And you just, sometimes if there's nobody around, like the applicant isn't around.

[Craig Drennan]: You need high vis and then everything is fine. As long as you're wearing high vis, nobody blinks.

[Denis MacDougall]: You know, I should actually do that. I have them here. I have like a hard hat and like a vest. And if I just do that, nobody will really say boo. Well, they might ask like, what are you planning on doing around here? But that's fine.

[Chair Heidi Davis]: You can say we're going to take it by eminent domain. There we go.

[Denis MacDougall]: Don't worry, we won't start construction until 7.30 every morning.

[CAS00002494_SPEAKER_07]: I don't have any further questions. Does anybody else? No. I'll make a motion to issue a certificate of compliance.

[Denis MacDougall]: I myself as a man. All right. And again, I still have not figured out how to prevent my camera from zooming in and out occasionally. And so it's infuriating. And I really wish I could figure out how to stop it. And I've asked, and nobody really knows. Nobody knows how it started, and I don't know how it's going to finish. But the only other thing is I did send you the meeting minutes from the last one if folks want to comment slash questions. I'm going to recuse myself because I haven't read them.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: Dennis, just before we... Is it typical that the applicant doesn't come in to present the request for a certificate of compliance?

[Denis MacDougall]: I don't like it, but... No, but yeah, it's not unusual, I'll say that. I mean, we've had... 30-year-old orders, people ask for a certificate of compliance, and they don't come in. So it's, you know. Oh, my God. Yeah, we get a few of those every now and again. That's one of the things, actually, my intern, well, the intern that we're, I think I've mentioned that we're actually getting an intern specifically for ComCom, and she's also working on the Energy Festival, but one of the things that I want to have her do is go through all the old files and see any ones that have not gotten a certificate of compliance, and then maybe we can go try to get some more done for projects around the city which i think will help people out as well because i think some people don't even know that they never got one so i think that might be handy um next meeting or what's coming up yes okay thank you heather so um we have a filing that has come in from mr river watershed and they came a few years ago for invasive species cleanup work along McDonald Park and through Culbership Park. And they're now going to do a second one, which will include the new Culbership Connector area and down around there. Because when they got the first one, they kind of stopped where the Culbership Connector begins. So they want to, they figure it's easier to sort of do that and get that in instead of, and it's an RDA, so the last one was an RDA. So that's come in and I actually just got a call today from someone from DOT who are expecting to submit an NOI. They wouldn't tell me what it was for. But it was a young kid, so I think he was a little cagey. He wasn't sure what he could write. But I'm expecting to get that in the next few days. So I'm expecting, so the anticipation would be to have a hearing on, let me pull up, I'm pretty sure it would be the 20th, May 20th.

[Denis MacDougall]: No, sorry. It was a weird, it was, we had some issues with getting phone messages today because the person who normally does it was one of the newer folks, interns that were trying to show how to use the phones. And they just heard it was someone from DOT and just transferred the phone to me. So I didn't actually get a name. And then the person said it very quickly and I didn't have a pen on me. And I was just like, ah, and he was very, he was just sort of asking dates. So yeah.

[Chair Heidi Davis]: Sorry. There's four of you that have all of you review them, except for me.

[Denis MacDougall]: OK. I see some head shaking. So I see head shaking in multiple directions, but at least a few of them are going left or right.

[Denis MacDougall]: We can do that at the next hearing. That's fine. And then there'll be this meeting and that one. So we can just do them both. OK.

[Denis MacDougall]: The other thing I'll say is, because we are actually in Medford community media, we're just going to put it on that. Our office is selling rain barrels once again, so if anyone is interested in purchasing a rain barrel, please go to the city of Medford office of planning, development, sustainability, and there's a link there if you wish to purchase. So you have another week or so to purchase them and they will be delivered to Medford high school on May 13th.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: Great. Dennis, I have a question for you. Have you seen the pile of muck next to the state police barracks in the parking lot near McDonald Park? Yep. So what is the plan there? I have seen trucks there. What is the plan?

[Denis MacDougall]: I saw the guy who was in charge of all the park cleanup about a week or two ago. And I asked him about it. And he said, we're going to send in some you know, excavators and some trucks to get it out.

[Denis MacDougall]: That is the plan. I mean, it is. The one good thing is that whole park was repaved a few years back, so it's a fairly at least contained area, thankfully. But yeah, no, that is the plan.

[Denis MacDougall]: Oh, did they really? I haven't been down there in a bit, sorry. I'll take a drive tomorrow just to go by and look at it again, because that's where I've been. I think the last time was when I was over at 99 River Beach Parkway, so I'll look.

[Chair Heidi Davis]: Great. Well, if that's all the business for tonight, I would appreciate a motion to close the hearing.

[Denis MacDougall]: Aye. And let me just thank you all. I appreciate you for doing this. It was very kind of you all. So I will see you all in about three weeks. OK. Awesome.