Weston Planning Board Unveils 68 Mitigations for 180-Unit Route 20 Development

WESTON — June 12, 2019 — Weston Planning Board presents 68 negotiated mitigations for a contested 180-unit 40B development at 751 Boston Post Road. Chairman Tony Flynn and development consultant Mark Romanowicz walked a packed public session through a working group product that took roughly three months and an estimated 800 hours of collective effort to produce, identifying 60 local concerns and pairing each with tentative mitigation measures including a dedicated school bus pickup area, a 5-to-15-foot site elevation reduction, deed restrictions on roughly 48 acres of open land, and commitments to the town's Merriam Fund and rail trail. Landscape consultant Karen Sebastian called the proposed buffer planting — 98 white pines, 52 white spruce, and 30 green giants planted in single-species rows — undersized and lacking variety, and the board pressed for more naturalistic screening. Residents pushed hard on traffic, with one describing 25-minute morning commutes covering 3.5 miles to Route 128, and traffic consultant Jeff Dirk confirmed a state traffic signal at the Route 20 access point would not meet volume warrants. The board was set to finalize its written comments to the Zoning Board of Appeals at a closed session the following evening.