Plympton Planning Board defers action on solar site landscaping violations to next meeting

PLYMPTON -- March 17, 2026, Plympton Planning Board defers solar landscaping enforcement while 21 shrubs sit dead at Main Street site. The board met March 17 and reviewed long-overdue 2025 fall inspection reports for two solar installations, one on Lake Street and one at Main Street and Mayflower, after the chair sent a compliance letter threatening to draw on the projects' landscape bonds. The Main Street and Mayflower inspection showed 45 healthy plants, eight sick, and 21 dead, with photographs showing the shrubs submerged in standing water. "I don't know what they did with it," the chair said of the late report. "They probably waited for us to ask." The project owner's email disclosed the ownership group is also replacing its management company, raising further uncertainty about follow-through on promised replanting. The board agreed by consensus to take up compliance deadlines and possible bond action at its next meeting, when absent member Joanne, who must recuse from the Lake Street vote as an abutter, can participate. The board holds both landscape and decommissioning bonds on both solar projects.