Hatfield Planning Board Approves Common Driveway for Three-Lot Conservation Farm Development

HATFIELD -- July 16, 2019, Hatfield Planning Board unanimously approves common driveway permit, sealing a farmland conservation deal. The board voted to grant a special permit and site plan approval for a 223-foot common driveway at 0 North Hatfield Road, the final local hurdle before a closing scheduled for July 19 in which Kestrel Land Trust was to purchase the roughly 22-acre Slawski farm, convey a conservation restriction to Hatfield's Conservation Commission, and sell three residential lots to applicant Ian Modesto of Mikey LLC, all funded in part through Community Preservation Act money approved at a January 2019 special Town Meeting to match the original $430,000 purchase offer. Mark Walmsley of Kestrel Land Trust told the board the three-lot configuration "was a creative way to make it happen," noting that the alternative was a potential 20-lot subdivision. The permit was conditioned on deed language barring vehicular use on the Straits Road rear portions of Lots 2 and 3 and prohibiting all structures on those frontage strips. The board also voted to spend up to $1,000 from its existing budget to retain planning consultant Jeff Lacey of Shutesbury to fix legal deficiencies in a tabled open-space development bylaw.