The applicant for the 60-unit Ricketts Pond Estates 40B development walked into its twelfth hearing with a revised plan that reconfigures every lot in the subdivision — a structural change designed to neutralize the central objection raised by the Board of Health’s hydrogeology consultant: that the project violated state nitrogen-loading limits by roughly a factor of two. The Zoning Board kept the hearing open, scheduled three additional sessions before its May 29 statutory deadline, and began voting on the long list of waivers the applicant has requested from local subdivision and site-plan regulations.
Ricketts Pond Estates, LLC is seeking a comprehensive permit under M.G.L. Chapter 40B to build 30 duplex buildings — 60 ownership units, 15 of them affordable — on roughly 24 acres straddling the Plympton-Carver line off Ricketts Pond Drive. The project has been before the Zoning Board since fall 2025 and has consumed a dozen hearings. The May 7 session was the first since the applicant, working through engineer Brad McKenzie of McKenzie Engineering Group and hydrogeologist Peter Dillon of Geoscience, submitted a substantially revised set of plans, identified as Revision 5.
The redesign responds directly to a March 24 report from Scott Horsley, the hydrogeology consultant retained by the Plympton Board of Health. Horsley, a hydrologist who has taught at Harvard and Tufts and served on advisory boards for MassDEP and the EPA, concluded the project as previously designed would generate roughly 1,049 gallons per acre per day of wastewater across the developed footprint — well above the 440 gallons per day per acre limit in Title V for nitrogen-sensitive areas, and above the 550 gallon threshold that applies when enhanced nitrogen-removal technology is used. Horsley’s lot-by-lot analysis showed loading rates ranging from 624 to more than 2,200 gallons per acre per day.
Rather than litigate Horsley’s methodology, the applicant changed its strategy. Dillon told the board the revised plan eliminates the previous design’s reliance on “credit land” — an 11.28-acre open-space parcel that had been used to dilute the nitrogen calculation for the whole subdivision. Instead, lot lines have been redrawn so every individual lot stands on its own under Title V’s per-lot loading formula, either at 550 or 660 gallons per acre per day, with enhanced nitrogen-removal technology installed on each septic system. “Title V basically gives you two options,” Dillon said. “One is to do aggregation of flow, and then the other is to meet the nitrogen-loading limits either by land size or land size plus treatment.” The applicant chose the latter.
The visual effect of the change is striking. Several lots on one side of the proposed roadway are now roughly twice as wide as in earlier versions. Others extend back through narrow “panhandle” corridors solely to capture enough acreage to satisfy the loading formula. McKenzie said the same 30 buildings will be constructed, with the same bedroom count — six three-bedroom units and 54 two-bedroom units — but some structures have shifted on their lots and several pairs of duplexes will now share a common 20-foot driveway. The roadway design, stormwater facilities, and infiltration basins are unchanged.
Board of Health representative Jared Anderson said the underlying conditions on the ground had not changed even if the numbers on paper had. “They’ve generated acres on paper, but the actual conditions have changed very little,” he said, urging the board not to decide before Horsley could respond and before a pending Notice of Project Change with MEPA — filed by a private party — was resolved. The applicant’s attorney, David Henig of Galvin and Galvin PC, pushed back hard. “We would be strongly opposed to waiting until something is done with MEPA,” he told the board. “It’s going to be a condition of approval that we have to comply with state law.”
The chair indicated the board would keep the hearing open to allow Horsley to respond to Dillon’s letter and to give the board’s own consultants — GEI Consultants on hydrogeology and JDE Consulting on civil engineering — a chance to review the revised submission. The board also acknowledged an arrearage on its 53G consultant account of roughly $14,000 to $15,000, most of it owed to GEI, which will need to be replenished before further peer review proceeds.
Plympton Fire Prevention Captain John Sjostedt, who described himself as the chief’s designee under Chapter 148, examined the new plan during the hearing and flagged several issues. He questioned whether vehicles parked along the new 20-foot common driveways could block emergency access to rear buildings, whether the spacing between adjacent buildings — McKenzie estimated 15 to 20 feet — was sufficient for fire exposure, and whether the new configuration would allow proper ladder-truck placement. Sjostedt said he would submit written questions to the board after reviewing the plan in detail. McKenzie noted buildings can be shifted on individual lots when septic and grading plans are finalized.
The hearing recessed shortly after 7 p.m. to allow the Board of Selectmen to convene in the same room for a separate hearing on an earth-removal permit. When the Zoning Board resumed, it returned to the comprehensive permit and continued working through the waiver list.
The board began voting tentatively on waivers from Chapter 350 (subdivision regulations) and Chapter 340 (site plan regulations), reserving final votes for a later meeting. The board indicated it was prepared to grant most requested waivers, in many cases with conditions recommended by peer-review consultant JDE: a partial waiver for plan-scale requirements (1-in-60 for the 40B plan set, 1-in-40 for construction roadway plans), waiver of the requirement for a second sidewalk, waiver of the standard 100-foot tangent between reverse curves, waiver of the 500-foot dead-end-street limit (the proposed road will run roughly 2,780 feet), and waiver of street-light requirements in light of Plympton’s dark-sky bylaw, with each lot to have a hardwired, photocell-controlled lamppost instead. The board provisionally granted the fire-protection waiver pending Chief consultation. Waivers tied to Title V — separation distances, advanced treatment technology, and wetlands — were held until the next hearing.
Resident Rebecca Lipton raised concerns about red-bellied turtle habitat on and around Ricketts Pond, arguing the species nests in the sandy soils that have been mined from the site. McKenzie said the site is not listed in the Natural Heritage atlas as priority or estimated habitat for rare or endangered species. Town counsel Carolyn Murray noted that state agencies, not the Zoning Board, would address protected-species concerns.
The board worked through the applicant’s request for a waiver from Plympton’s earth-removal bylaw. Counsel Murray noted the bylaw already exempts earth removal “incidental to” permitted construction. Henig said the applicant wanted clear authorization to remove excess material as needed to grade the site for the approved plan, without a separate permit process. The applicant agreed to delineate a “limit of work” line on a revised plan, with no removal or disturbance beyond it, and to accept conditions on hours of operation and truck traffic similar to those imposed in other Massachusetts 40B projects.
Ricketts Pond Estates, if approved, would add 60 ownership units — 15 deed-restricted as affordable to households earning up to 80% of area median income — to a town that, as of MassHousing’s December 2024 review, had a Subsidized Housing Inventory of just 4.99%, leaving Plympton 53 units short of the 10% threshold that protects communities from 40B overrides. The development’s path through the Zoning Board has been shaped by a fight over whether 60 septic systems and 25 private wells can coexist on roughly 24 acres above the town’s Groundwater Protection Zone without compromising drinking water. The applicant’s decision to redraw lot lines rather than continue arguing the science is a procedural pivot — but whether it actually changes the hydrogeology on the ground, or simply changes the math on paper, or did it even need changing, is the question the board will have to answer in the next three weeks.