Permission sought to blast ledge on Old Winter Street land

An architect’s sketch of the planned Plaut house and surrounding land.

The Planning Board will decide at its next meeting on September 23 whether to approve a detailed blasting plan that owners of an Old Winter Street property submitted after neighbors complained about the noise from rock hammering.

Workers on the wooded property were drilling and hammering ledge to dig an underground water and utility line to the planned future home of Timothy and Madeleine Plaut. The board gave approval in May for some clear-cutting plus replanting as well as the house, but workers paused the hammering after a neighborhood outcry. The Planning Board asked them last month to submit a plan for blasting, which the owners’ representatives say will be much less noisy and take less time, and to look at alternatives to the planned trench.

“We heard loud and clear about the disturbances that were being caused… but we’ve concluded there’s no viable alternative to eliminate the need for trenching” and town water, Jen Stephens of Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design said at the board’s September 9 meeting, adding that soil characteristics on the property make a well unfeasible. Twice-daily blasting plus minimal hammering will take five to seven days, but if approval for that is not forthcoming, it will take two to four more months of hammering, she said.

The blasting company is required to notify property owners within 250 feet of each blast and offer an inspection before and after the blasts to verify any damage from vibration. The Plauts extended that to 11 homes within 500 feet on Old Winter Steer, Winter Street, and Silver Hill Road.

A view of the middle segment of the proposed Plaut house.

“As long as we stay within the [required] limitations, it’s highly unlikely that cosmetic damage would occur to the weakest construction material” such as horsehair plaster, said Matt Shaughnessy of Maine Drilling & Blasting, adding that the firm carries a $10 million liability policy.

But some were still worried. “People have clearly had very bad experiences” with Maine Drilling & Blasting, said Old Winter Street resident Chris Murphy, citing internet research he had done. “My main concern is that if something does come up, I will have no recourse.”

Anecdotes about potential damage “make people nervous… you don’t know what to believe,” Planning Board co-chair Lynn DeLisi said.

At the September 9 meeting, the Plauts (in absentia) also requested changes to the approved site plan to allow a larger driveway turnaround for fire trucks and a relocated septic field that’s necessary because of poor soil conditions in the original location. Architect Colin Flavin showed renderings of a three-part house that’s “designed to be harmonious with the natural environment in which it sits.” The house is designed in the Midcentury Modern style. Flavin’s firm has also designed renovations to Modern houses on Moccasin Hill and Tabor Hill Road as well as a new house on Weston Road.