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The Fairhaven Select Board voted unanimously on Monday to authorize an external investigation into how the town allowed a 16-parcel subdivision to bypass the town’s permitting process.
The project, known as the Hiller Avenue and Timothy Street subdivision, is currently under construction. Developer Robert Roderiques is building 16 homes in an 11-acre area off Sconticut Neck Road, just south of Route 6, according to submitted plans.
The subdivision plans were automatically approved in August, without any formal review, because the town failed to hold a Planning Board hearing on the project within 135 days of the plan submission.
Neighbors of the project were outraged at the town’s failure. They say construction and tree removal for the project has flooded their yards with runoff.
“I wholeheartedly support an external investigation,” said Select Board member Natalie Mello. “I think that’s what the townspeople expect and deserve.”
Town Administrator Keith Hickey, who was hired in July and began working for the town in October, said the town is embarrassed.
“I want to apologize for town staff not doing what should have been done,” he said at Monday’s meeting.
The “lion’s share” of responsibility appears to be on town Planning Department staff, not the Planning Board, Hickey said.
The Select Board’s vote on Monday night authorizes Hickey to enter the town into a contract with an external investigator, who will be tasked with determining the “sequence of events” that allowed for the project’s automatic approval.
The estimated cost of the investigation is $6,000, Hickey said, though he expected the cost could be as high as $10,000. The town could use money already set aside in a $25,000 fund for legal costs relating to the subdivision, or from another town reserve account, he said.
Hickey said he couldn’t provide an estimate for the length of the investigation.
Officials said the investigation couldn’t be done internally. Hickey couldn’t do the investigation because he needed to be focused on the town’s budget, which faces a multimillion-dollar deficit, Select Board members said.
“We cannot distract him from that right now,” Select Board Chair Charles Murphy said.
The town’s lawyers also couldn’t do the investigation because they were involved in the planning discussions and “may have made a mistake,” Hickey said.
Select Board member Andrew Romano said he wanted to be sure the final report could be released to the public. Hickey responded that even if some personnel information had to be redacted, he expected that the report could be made public and would provide a clear enough picture of what went wrong.
Why the Select Board authorized the probe
The Planning Board voted unanimously to request the probe near midnight the evening of Nov. 18. The vote came at the end of a tense five-hour meeting, including an hour of executive session where the board met with the town’s lawyer in private.
After the executive session, the board and its lawyer told an agitated crowd of roughly four dozen people that there was very little the town could do to change or halt the project.
That disappointed a group of outspoken abutters who showed up to the Planning Board meeting hoping the town could still stop the development. Some of them said the town has betrayed and misled them.
“Something dirty happened,” said Jennifer Carter, an abutter who says her yard has been perpetually flooded because of runoff resulting from construction.
Fairhaven’s Planning Board originally denied Roderiques’ plans in 2020. The board had concerns about stormwater runoff and tree removal, and the project’s proximity to nearby wind turbines and a sewage treatment plant. Roderiques appealed the denial, but a county court upheld the town’s decision in 2024. A state appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision in July and the state’s supreme court declined to take the case.
Roderiques submitted plans a second time in March, while that appeal was still active. Things went differently this time around.
Emails obtained by abutters indicate that town officials were aware of the plans and discussed it with the developer and his engineer, but didn’t put it on the Planning Board’s public agenda. Those officials included the Planning Board’s former chairperson Cathy Melanson, Vice Chair Patrick Carr, and former Planning Director Bruce Webb. Abutters say documents show Select Board member Keith Silvia and then-Interim Town Administrator George Samia also were in on the discussions.
Carr, the vice chair, wrote in a May 12 email to Webb that “we have 135 days to put this to a public hearing and the clock is ticking.” But the hearing wasn’t scheduled before time ran out.
Under state law, projects can receive “constructive approval” if the board doesn’t act within 135 days after the plans are submitted. Once the applicant has taken out a mortgage on the property, the board can only rescind or modify the approval with the consent of the applicant and mortgagor, Fairhaven Town Counsel Heather White said at the Nov. 18 meeting.
Roderiques, through his lawyer, did agree to some stormwater management measures at the meeting. But the developer did not agree to halt the project.
Melanson, the board’s former chair, was not reelected in the April town election. She did not return The Light’s call seeking comment on Monday.
Planning Board member Diane Tomassetti succeeded Melanson as chair but resigned in October.
Four members of the board staged a walkout at a September meeting because Tomassetti didn’t honor their request to have the town’s lawyer present. Tomassetti said at the meeting that she hadn’t received such a request, but emails show she denied the request.
Tomassetti declined to comment for this story.
Webb, the town planning director, has also resigned in recent weeks. He could not be reached for comment.
Roderiques did not return The Light’s call seeking comment on Monday.
Some abutters say they aren’t necessarily opposed to a subdivision on Roderiques’ property, but they are appalled at the lack of a public process and the specifics of the constructively approved plan.
At the Nov. 18 Planning Board meeting, abutters said that the clearcutting of trees and shrubs in the subdivision has caused flooding on their properties from stormwater runoff. They also said the tree removal took away a buffer that blocked smells from the nearby wastewater treatment plant. They also shared concerns about the traffic a 16-lot subdivision would create, and its proximity to wind turbines.
Abutters shifted their focus to demanding an internal investigation after officials said the project couldn’t be stopped. The Select Board’s decision on Monday night was a victory for them.
“Obviously, I’m thrilled that there’s going to be an external investigation,” abutter Rachel Thomas said. “It’s gratifying.”
Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org
Although the subdivision received “constructive approval”, the cutting and clearing requires a Federal permit. Also, any work within the wetland buffer zone also requires Conservation Commission approval.
As far as stormwater design and compliance, the State’s regulation does not get ignored by this local oversight.
Finally, acceptance of the application while an appeal was still in progress may not start the 135 day clock.