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.