Bartlett St. runs a few hundred feet towards the border with Marlborough near where developers are working to build a new subdivision.
By Sara Brown, Contributing Writer
NORTHBOROUGH – The Northborough Planning Board granted an extension to a developer looking to build a four-lot subdivision near Algonquin Regional High School in order for them to get proper documentation to move forward in the process.
The Gutierrez Company has previously appeared before the Planning Board. In those interactions, board members have expressed concerns, saying that the Gutierrez Company has failed to show ownership of all the land included in its plan.
Part of the plan has builders working over the Wachusett Aqueduct, which the Commonwealth of Massachusetts owns, according to the Worcester Registry of Deeds.
The Massachusetts Water and Resources Authority (MWRA), which manages the aqueduct, issues “8m permits” to allow “other entities to build, construct, excavate or cross” MWRA land.
The Wachusett Aqueduct snakes into the woods near the Marlborough/Northborough border. Developers pushing to build a subdivision in the area are currently working with the state to get permission to build over part of the aqueduct.
The applicant, however, does not have such a permit. As such, the Gutierrez Company is currently pursuing either a “Form C” application signed by the MWRA or a letter from the agency indicating that it is aware of their application and does not oppose it.
“They have not said no, but they have also not produced a letter,” Attorney Mark Donahue assured the board.
“We are working through the bureaucracy,” he added.
After briefly clarifying with Donahue that the papers the Gutierrez Company is seeking are, indeed, the documents they asked for during their last discussion of this project, the Planning Board agreed to extend the deadline to June 15 for the Company to get its proper paperwork to the town.
