Kingston Conservation Commission asked to approve developer’s wetland delineation
Ex-state rep shopping around for “cranberry bog” plan for the site — why isn’t this part of developer’s application?
Land was supposed to be offered by Sysco to Plympton & Kingston before it could be sold to developers; did this happen?
Update: July 25, 2022 letter from Community Land & Water Coalition to Kingston Board of Selectmen – see below
A shell corporation along with the sand and gravel industry consultant GAF Engineering/Bill Madden is starting the permitting process for 35 acres of strip mining on Indian Pond in Kingston. This land is mostly pristine uplands and wetlands on the Pond.
Under the shell corporation name of “P.K. Realty Trust” Plympton Sand & Gravel has presented a wetlands “Request for Determination of Applicability” to the Town of Kingston. This is the first step toward development. G.A.F. Engineering’s application says no project is proposed at this time. In the meantime, the developers have been shopping around for a plan to build a cranberry bog on the location where the hill is.
Who is P.K. Realty Trust, anyway? Filings with the state show corporations with this name based in Malden and Southbridge. What is their relation to the people shopping around the cranberry bog for this site?
There is a “cart path” on the site. Often these are spaces used by Wampanoag Indigenous people from time immemorial. They should not be destroyed recklessly.
If the landowner wants to develop this land it can be done in compliance with zoning and in a way that does not destroy the environment, wildlife, the aquifer and historic characteristics of Kingston. Fake plans like a “cranberry bog” on top of one of the region’s highest hills are a ruse for sand and gravel mining.
BEWARE!
G.A.F. Engineering is the same firm that submits mining (“earth removal”) plans for AD Makepeace strip mines disguised as cranberry bogs. G.A.F. has submitted AT LEAST FIVE fake cranberry bog project plans for AD Makepeace in Carver and Plymouth. In order to get a strip mine permit under local bylaws in Carver or Plymouth the landowner has to prove the earth removal is “necessary and incidental” for an end use. The “end use” has to fit the land’s zoning designation. Most land in the region is zoned residential/agricultural. To get a strip mine permit it has to claim the “end use” is one or the other — Decades later there is no bog but the sand and gravel is gone.
Here are the FIVE fake cranberry bog projects G.A.F. Engineering designed for AD Makepeace so it could to strip mining and sand and gravel removal:
59 Federal Road, Carver: 85 acre strip mine for 18 acres of bogs. See the devastation on this June 14, 2022 drone video. Does this look like “agriculture” to you? Makepeace did all the mining for the Borrego Solar project you see in the video WITHOUT A PERMIT claiming it was using all the sand to for its bogs. Who is kidding who?
Hammond Street, Carver: 27 acre strip mine for bog reservoir presented to Carver in 2019 — reservoir not built.
46 Federal Road, Carver over 50 acres strip mined for 19 acre bog — G.A.F. submitted the same plans twice in 10 years and the bog STILL is not built as of 2022 and strip mining is ongoing
Frogfoot Brook area, Plymouth: 217 acre strip mine for a 130 acre bog, plans submitted in 2012, bog not built, strip mine on going. Drone video here.
The PK Realty Trust plan is another cranberry bog ruse. How many times are local boards going to fall for this hoax?
The RDA is here.