No Ledge Found at 1 Rockwood Terrace

By Lauren Bennett

On April 30, the Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) approved a proposed project at 1 Rockwood Terrace to erect a single family home on the lot, but due to serious concerns from the neighbors, the proponents were instructed to conduct a thorough design review with the Boston Planning and Development Agency, as well as deal with the issue of potential ledge and keep the neighbors informed. In a recent email to abutters, project proponents announced that they found no ledge on the property.

At various community meetings as well as at the ZBA hearing, several neighbors expressed their concern about possible ledge on the property and said that the proponents had so far “refused” to do tests to see if there was ledge and they were worried about damage to their properties.

The proponents promised the ZBA that they would do the tests and cooperate with the neighbors, and in email correspondence to neighbors on May 1, Christopher Tracy of O’Neill and Associates said that “We will be doing test pits on the ledge in the coming week and will share those results with the neighborhood before taking a next step.” On May 6, Marc LoPilato of LoPilato Construction Corp. emailed Tracy with the results of the test pits, which Tracy forwarded to the abutting neighbors. ”We dug six test holes this morning. One on each corner of the proposed foundation and two in the middle of the proposed basement,” LoPiloto wrote. “We were able to achieve a depth of over eight feet on every hole and encountered no ledge. Each hole was approximately four feet wide by six feet long and over eight feet deep.  Each hole was dug deeper than needed as a precaution to ensure we did not encounter ledge or water. The material we encountered was one foot of top soil/ loom under that was gravel. Based on my excavation subcontractors professional opinion there is no sign of ledge within the scope of our proposed work. Also, there was no sign of water when we dug down eight feet, which is great considering the wet spring we have had. Some neighbors were outside and witnessed that it was easy digging and we were

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