West Bridgewater Conservation Commission Sends Bryant Farms Back to Drawing Board on Road Design

WEST BRIDGEWATER -- April 7, 2026, West Bridgewater Conservation Commission continues Bryant Farms subdivision hearing after engineer rules out Bryant Street drainage pipe on elevation grounds. At the April 7 meeting, the commission directed applicant Charlie Macy's engineer to redesign the proposed access road to enter from Bryant Street and present a wet basin sizing analysis before the April 21 continued hearing, stepping back from an earlier design that would have disturbed approximately 3,000 square feet of 50-foot wetland buffer to bring the road in from South Street. The engineer argued that the Bryant Street elevation, roughly 66 feet above sea level, the same as the receiving wetland, makes gravity drainage physically impossible without a retention basin, and estimated a Bryant Street alignment would cost about $700,000 more in road construction than the South Street route. Attorney Jim Burke, representing Macy, said denying the buffer waiver while prohibiting a wet basin would render the bulk of the property undevelopable. A neighbor at 156 Bryant Street urged the commission to ensure no additional stormwater reaches a culvert near her home that already floods. The commission also unanimously authorized a 53G independent stormwater peer review for a separate proposal to replace the former Tight Lines building at 194 South Main Street with a new mixed-use commercial structure for Happy Forest Realty Trust, continuing that hearing to April 21 as well.