BRIDGEWATER — Residents opposed to another hotel being built on Lake Nippenicket in Bridgewater held up signs in protest.
The standout last week, conducted along Route 104, is the latest in decades of advocacy against further development.
The proposal at immediate issue is a five-story, 100-room hotel for a parcel between Lakeshore Center and a nearby warehouse. In January, the town’s Planning Board approved the site plan.
Bridgewater’s Conservation Commission must still approve a “wetlands notice of intent.” It’s a pressure point that opponents of the hotel seek to leverage. The Monday, May 20 rally was designed to increase awareness of a Conservation Commission meeting originally slated for May 23. The hotel project, however, is now scheduled to be heard at the June 13 meeting of that board.
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What hurdles remain for the hotel?
Separately, there’s a state environmental review process that’s still underway under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act. The state’s secretary of energy and environmental affairs ruled in November that the developer’s 1,759-page draft environmental impact report meets legal standards. However, Secretary Rebecca L. Tepper asked for changes before accepting a final environmental report. She nodded to the piecemeal nature of development, which has been going in fits and starts since the 1980s.
“[T]he project has continued to be built out over phases, thereby precluding an effective review of the cumulative impacts of the entire development,” the secretary wrote.
Ten years ago, the developer won permission to build what is now a four story, 96-room Marriott Residence Inn.
Tepper also urged the developer to improve its plans to reduce greenhouse gases. For instance, that could mean heating and cooling the hotel with electricity via heat pumps instead of burning fossil fuels.
A call to the developers, the Bridgewater-based Claremont Companies, controlled by the Carney family, had not been returned at press time Wednesday.
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Apartment complex, lakeside restaurant nixed
Claremont Companies scaled back from an earlier proposal to build a lakeshore restaurant and a 225-unit apartment complex for people 55 and older. The state said fresh approvals will be needed if the developer wants to build those projects in the future.
The proposed hotel has also changed. To reduce its footprint by nearly 2,800 square feet, the developer added a fifth story.
What do opponents of hotel say?
Opponents have organized as the Lake Nippenicket Action Focus Team, complete with a detailed website. Among their concerns are:
- The whole area is within the Hockomock Swamp “Area of Critical Environmental Concern.”
- Members of the group also argue that previous commitments bind the developer to a 200-foot natural buffer between the project and wetlands.
- Further, they say the plans encroach on a 100-foot buffer zone where the 25 feet nearest the wetland should not be touched at all.
- They also decry plans to remove trees and raised concerns about water quantity and quality.
The draft environmental impact report includes dozens of letters from project opponents.
Concerns over archaeological sites
Another objection to the project is that it would intrude on two archeological sites. One includes a stone tomb. However, the developers signed an agreement that included the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head/Aquinnah. The deal called for cataloging the sites, erecting a fence around one and removing an unmarked feature to another location acceptable to the tribes.
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