WARRANT ARTICLE 48 PASSED AT THE 2021 STERLING ANNUAL TOWN MEETING, SO SIMPSON’S 68 HEYWOOD ROAD EARTH REMOVAL PERMIT APPLICATION IS ILLEGAL

The Sterling Select Board, now acting as the Sterling Earth Removal Board under Sterling’s Developer-Promoted, Crony-Crafted new Earth Removal By-Law, has scheduled a 15 September 2021 Public Hearing on Simpson’s/Sterling Real Estate Development, Inc.’s Application for an Earth Removal Permit to take 18,000 cubic yards of sand or sand and gravel from 68 Heywood Road. SEE https://www.sterling-ma.gov/calendar

HOWEVER, THE STERLING SELECT BOARD HAS ABSOLUTELY NO LEGAL AUTHORITY TO GRANT THAT APPLIED-FOR PERMIT BECAUSE WARRANT ARTICLE 48 PASSED AT THE 2021 STERLING ANNUAL TOWN MEETING.
SEE ARTICLE 48, pp. 44-45– https://www.sterling-ma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif1266/f/uploads/2021_atm_final_warrant_june_7_2021_003_0.pdf SEE 2021 Annual Town Meeting Minutes– https://www.sterling-ma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif1266/f/uploads/2021_atm_minutes.pdf

By its terms, Article 48 eliminated the former, highly questionable, Sterling Protective (Zoning) By-Law “Variance” provision, Section 6.2.2.2.a.4, that had allowed the Sterling Zoning Board of Appeals to grant ‘earth removal’ ‘use’ “Variances” in areas of the Town Zoned Rural Residential & Farming (RR) and Neighborhood Residential (NR). Article 48 substituted the term “Quarrying or Mining” for the former term “Earth Removal” and now PROHIBITS in areas zoned RR and NR “Quarrying or Mining,” meaning “earth removal for the purpose of extracting soil, loam, sand, gravel, clay, rocks, minerals, or other earth material, including establishments engaged in operating sand and gravel pits and in washing, screening, or preparing sand and gravel for construction or industrial uses, but excluding grading of a lot in preparation for the construction of a structure…for which a building permit…has [already] been issued by the town.”

“Quarrying or Mining” is now permitted ONLY in those areas of Town zoned “Light Industrial (LI).”

SIXTY-EIGHT (68) HEYWOOD ROAD IS ZONED RR– https://www.sterling-ma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif1266/f/file/file/part15.pdf –SO THE SELECT BOARD CANNOT, LEGALLY, EVEN ENTERTAIN SIMPSON’S EARTH REMOVAL PERMIT APPLICATION. Simpson was not conducting any earth extraction operations at 68 Heywood Road when Article 48 passed–the Sterling Zoning Board of Appeals having shut his previous extraction operations there down because of abuses–so Simpson cannot claim ‘grandfathering’ either.

CONCLUSION: Sterling’s 2021 Annual Town Meeting voters finally bit Sterling’s biggest SNAKE in the ass. YEAH!!!

J.G.