Medford Conservation Commission Continues Arlington Street Rebuild Hearing, Demands Flood-Storage Analysis

MEDFORD -- January 5, 2022, Medford Conservation Commission continued both items on its January 5 agenda without taking final action, citing unresolved questions about flood storage, riverfront alternatives analysis, and tree preservation. The commission, chaired jointly by Heidi Davis and Lindsay Colburn and meeting remotely under COVID emergency provisions, heard a full presentation from Eagle Brook Engineering's Ben Minnix on a proposed demolition and two-unit rebuild at 32 Arlington Street, a site within the 100-year flood plain and the Mystic River's 200-foot riverfront buffer. Minnix said proposed impervious area would decrease slightly from 3,402 square feet to 3,326 square feet and that the design produces no net loss of flood storage, but commission members Heather Champney-Anderson and Alexander Panjac pressed for a formal alternatives analysis, a shaded cut-and-fill plan, and an evaluation of whether the large front-yard tree, tentatively identified as a black locust, could be preserved without compromising flood storage contours. The hearing was continued unanimously to January 19. A separate certificate of compliance for 19 Winford Way, pending for roughly 14 years under an order that has passed through three owners, was also continued unanimously until the current owner produces the original Engineering Alliance plan set.