A young business owner in Chichester will learn Thursday if the violations of his site plan are enough to convince the planning board to take action against him or give him more time to make amends.
Calgary Mackenzie, the owner of CM Truck and Trailer Sales, at 46 Dover Road, admitted he’d broken the rules about land boundaries, wetland buffers and lot size, but he appealed to the board’s empathy and pleaded for a second chance, minutes from a planning board meeting last month reveal.
“You need to do what you need to do,” Mackenzie told the planning board, according to the minutes. “Any consequences, fines I need to deal with, that’s on me. But I want to let you guys know that I have made mistakes, I am going to fix the mistakes. We are only human.”
The planning board approved Mackenzie’s site plan in December of 2018. Since then, however, town officials have grown concerned that the young owner, just 24, was disrespecting authority and the rules. Mackenzie had already been told he wasn’t following protocol. On Feb. 17, the board held a public hearing to consider revoking his site plan.
Among the violations cited by the board included Mackenzie expanding his operation onto a residential neighbor’s property by building a large earth berm and a detention basin. Trailers are being parked on areas that were never authorized to be filled in, according to the site plan.
The wetland and its buffers were covered by parking areas or erosion stones. Retaining walls that weren’t included in the plan were built that restrict water flow into a town-owned drainage pipe, the board said.
Tom Houle, a planning board member, said the issues with Mackenzie surfaced for simple and obvious reasons.
“It was just him not paying attention to proper procedures,” Houle said by phone. “He does what he wants. This never would have happened if he had followed the rules.”
At its meeting, board members inquired if Mackenzie had knowingly skirted the rules when he extended the north side of his business onto nearby private property.
Michael Williams, the planning board’s vice chair, was especially blunt, questioning how it was possible that Mackenzie didn’t realize he was branching his business out too far, yet he failed to approach the board about these violations.
“If you come here for a plan on one parcel of property,” the minutes read, “and you extend that without asking to amend that plan beyond what you tell us, I have a hard time believing that you thought that was okay.”
Mackenzie’s attorney, Pat Panciocco out of Bedford, described her client as a young businessman who needed more seasoning and pragmatism. That’s why he mistakenly used someone else’s land for storage.
“He thought it was storage and really didn’t think it through,” Panciocco said in the minutes. “He’s 24. It’s kind of the way I have thought about it.”
Neighbor Megan Rothermel expressed how the company’s behavior affected her life, saying she moved to town to enjoy her backyard.
In time, though, Rothermel got an up-close view of big trucks and trailers, parked illegally.
“This is our home, where we have to be all the time,” Rothermel says in the minutes. “We have not had any issues besides this.”
Mackenzie declined to comment when reached by phone. An employee relayed his message, saying, “We have nothing to say.”
In the minutes, Mackenzie held the planning board responsible for some of his problems, saying officials never returned his calls, or they gave him bad information.
He cited planning coordinator Kristy Jobin and Richard Bouchard, who serves the board in an ex officio capacity.
But the board countered, saying Mackenzie had already known he was breaking the rules and did nothing to change, despite the fact that he was warned that he needed to pull his boundaries back, to the lines that were agreed to in the initial proposal.
“The appearance from the town’s perception is that when you were spoken to, it appeared that instead of working with the town, you continued to move forward and develop the property further,” board chair Stan Brehm says, according to the minutes. “This has been drawn out.”
Meanwhile, Mackenzie and Panciocco will learn Thursday night if the young businessman gets another shot. Mackenzie wants to blend with Chichester’s commerce and help to build it.
He also wants a break.
“You guys all see it as some young punk that doesn’t listen, his way or the highway,” Mackenzie said in the minutes. “That’s not who I am. I haven’t been able to (sleep) for the last eight months worrying, am I going to lose my business, am I going to lose everything I have worked for?
“So, whatever you guys want to do, it’s up to you. That’s all I have to say.”
The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Chichester Fire Department.