Plympton Planning Board Identifies Setback Violation in Brook Street Solar Application

PLYMPTON — August 5, 2025 — Plympton Planning Board flags a zoning setback violation and a failed stormwater basin in the proposed Brook Street Solar Phase 3 application. The board's consulting engineer, John Chessia, presented a roughly 20-page review letter at the August 5 hearing identifying approximately 20 deficiencies in the plans submitted by Brook Street Phase 3 Solar, LLC, including a failure to meet the town's 300-foot property-line setback requirement — a hard zoning standard — and a non-functional infiltration basin from an earlier solar phase on the same property that is already causing flooding on the adjacent cranberry farm. Abutter Kim LeFleur, of 72 Brook Street, told the board the existing drainage failure floods her farm's access road and retention pond and that unpermitted gravel removal on the property — for which only a cease-and-desist was issued — left the site in a condition that she said makes proper stormwater management far more difficult. Applicant representative Zach Farkas accepted the findings, saying "there's nothing in the letter that we can't accomplish," and offered proactively to place the failed Phase 2 stormwater basins under Phase 3's maintenance jurisdiction and to explore a stormwater bond modeled on conditions used in Cushnet. The board continued the hearing to September 2 at 6:30 p.m. and confirmed a site walk for August 23 at 10 a.m.