11/18/2004 CONSERVATION COMMISSION Minutes

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doing, and he maintains that if we were to accede to this plan, we might as well put the condition in anything that we condition that it's mutable to change and they can come back and get anything they want. , • Bob said but you're still going to have a 35 ft. buffer. Ms. Turano-Flores said she knows the 35 ft. buffer is Bob's major concern, and she did some research. The properties on either side were approved prior to the 1997 coastal bank regulation on coastal bank layerings. However, further down the road there is a 2004 application on the LeGrippe property where a patio was approved within 10 ft. of the coastal bank. She also had three orders of conditions that she introduced at the last hearing for the Gargiulo property that approved either fences or landscaped patios within the 35 ft. buffer. Those are 17-21 Ocean Bluff Drive(the McNamara property) approved in 2000, 23 Ocean Bluff Drive (Deborah Grady) approved in 2001, and 25 Ocean Bluff Drive (Stephen Lang) approved in 2001 where the residence was within 23 ft. of the top of the coastal bank, but the patio was within 15 ft. of the top of the coastal bank. It was later agreed that the patio came to 32 ft., and McNamara's defense of the lawn came within 30 ft. of the coastal bank. So in terms of consistency, there has been a history. Bob said, "As you said yourself, counselor, every case is different, every new case sets a precedent, and I would maintain that if we went out to the Gargiulo area, you would note a significant amount, unlike the other lots, of existing Pennsylvania sedge worth preserving. Although the revegetation has not succeeded thus far in the area originally occurred, there is no reason we should abandon that. So I strongly recommend a denial." Ms. Turano-Flores said, "The Pennsylvania sedge obviously can be incorporated into the design. The units are not opposing what you see on either side of it. We're trying to get as much natural vegetation species as we can for a seating area that will sufficiently hold up a table and chairs, or direct the activity to two locations where they are not trampling on whatever is there, and on the ground providing the habitat that Michael talked about where they're increasing the bio mass that's growing inadvertently, and we'd have as much natural species as possible to provide some herbaceous ground cover that's even better in serving the regulations. They would be willing to do that. She [Mrs. Yun] wants to hit home that her house in Westerly is natural, she appreciates the natural setting, and has tried to come up with a plan that achieves her family's needs while serving the regulations." Bob asked if we have an overlay of this plan versus the original permitted plan submitted a few months ago by Gargiulo. He would like to see the work limit of what we approved earlier to protect the sands plains grassland. He said there are two points here: 1) Is what they are proposing worth it in terms of what they are proposing versus what we had, and 2) We can argue about precedent, but once again we are consciously(or maybe unconsciously)obviating our 35 ft. zone setback. He didn't think the decision should be made tonight. He said the mitigation formula is intended for unnatural landscapes like lawns. It wasn't meant for mitigation within an already natural buffer zone, where they were supposed to have revegetated. The question of biomass where you are trying to maintain sands plains grassland is a misleading concept. Don Schall said his opinion is that the area of Sand plains Grassland present is insignificant. So . what you are saying is if anything less than 50 to 25 acres, we can kiss it off. 6