Fat Cactus Parking Fix Up Falling Short

After failed repeated attempts to meet with them, the Lynnfield Conservation Commission says the owners of the restaurant have not fully complied with the commission’s order to close access to a designated bordered vegetated wetlands (b.v.w.)  area adjacent to the restaurant’s property.

A bordering vegetated wetlands acts as a buffer zone that provides a natural protection around a wetlands area. Anyone who wants to build next to or use the land immediately adjacent to a b.v.w. needs to have their use of such an area reviewed and approved before they can proceed with their projected use.

The conservation commission can approve or reject the request for the use of a b.v.w. Often the approval comes with an order of conditions that restricts the use of the land to protect it and its adjoining wetlands.

Earlier this year, a Lynnfield resident reported that the restaurant had enlarged its parking area into the protected wetlands perimeter next to its building.

The eatery leveled an area of bordering vegetated wetlands and covered the surface in white gravel and installed a dumpster, but did not have on file with the town of Lynnfield, an order of conditions to allow the parking and dumpster encroachment. 

A bordering vegetated wetland is a perimeter area of wetlands protected against human encroachment of any type. An approved order of conditions has to be filed with a municipality before it can alter the conditions and use of a b.v.w.

The conservation commission arranged several meetings with the restaurant’s owners and their attorney to address the violation. 

The restaurant and its representatives have missed every meeting, only once sending an employee who did not have the qualifications to address the problem at hand.  

As Attorney Thomas Mullen, Lynnfield’s town counsel said, “A restaurant manger did appear at one meeting, but lacked the authority and expertise to enter into a substantive discussion.”

Since their last meeting, the restaurant has made an attempt to close off the area. 

The restaurant owners have “put a few metal pipes about 2 inches in diameter upright in the ground to close off the area, but two of them are already knocked over. They do not look very effective,” said Conservation Commission agent Betty Adelson.

The commission reviewed pictures taken of the area and agreed that the restaurant's response to their encroachment is not acceptable. “We want a more continuous barrier along the whole area to keep it closed,” agent Adelson said.

The commission will talk with attorney Mullen one more time about contacting the restaurant’s owners, Naked Real Estate, LLC of Delaware, about protecting the b.v.w. area in dispute.

Barring any success, the commission will want to take more substantive action to resolve the problem. That could include a $300 a day fine for every day the restaurant has not been in compliance with the environmental regulations it has violated going back to at least March, 2011.