An amended order of conditions for 3 Pops Lane (Pops Lane Holdings Trust) drew objections from an abutter and prompted the Nantucket Conservation Commission on Oct. 2 to require additional conditions before finalizing the permit.

Brian Madden of LEC Environmental Consultants represented the applicant. Madden said the revised plan scales back an earlier, larger project from 2024: the dwelling will be retained rather than demolished and the structural footprint in the 100-foot buffer has been reduced from about 5,117 square feet in the earlier approval to roughly 2,174 square feet under the revised plans.

Local abutter Sarah Hendrickson, who said she and her husband own adjoining property at 341 Madaket Road, urged the commission not to treat the filing as a minor amendment and called for a new notice of intent under the commission’s 2025 wetlands regulations. Hendrickson pointed to what she described as missing buffer information on the plan and new features that place the pool and pool equipment inside the commission’s 100-foot buffer zone. She told commissioners the revised plan “is missing the 75 foot buffer zone line, so it’s not clear if the pool or a portion of the pool might even be within the 50 to 75 foot buffer zone.” She also requested that the applicant retain an independent expert to opine on environmental impacts, and asked that the commission consider hiring its own independent reviewer.

Madden and the commission’s chair responded that the revised filing was submitted as an amendment to an existing order and, under current practice, amended-order requests are evaluated under the regulations that applied when the original order was approved (pre-01/01/2025), meaning the new 2025 wetlands regulations do not automatically apply to an amendment filing. Madden said the applicant filed the amendment to allow the commission to adopt additional pool conditions in light of the pool’s revised location and that the limit of work had not changed.

Commissioners discussed jurisdictional differences: work inside the 100-foot buffer allows the commission to impose more stringent maintenance and operational conditions on a pool than work outside the 100-foot buffer, while work inside the 75-foot and 50-foot zones triggers different prohibitions and mitigation requirements. Commissioner Arjun Turcotte and others said standard pool conditions (drainage controls, prohibitions on discharge into jurisdictional areas, maintenance and inspection requirements and time-of-year restrictions for chemical treatment) would likely be sufficient.

The commission first closed the public hearing on the amendment by roll call (5 in favor, 1 opposed; Commissioner Linda Williams recused). Later in the public meeting the commission approved the amended order of conditions with additional standard pool conditions and a requirement that all plantings be native species with no cultivars; vote on the amended order was unanimous among the voting commissioners present. The commission also clarified it has the discretion to require a new notice of intent if the substance of an amendment materially changes the scope of work.

Hendrickson’s comments and the commission’s discussion mean the filing will be subject to additional, explicit pool conditions in the final order and that the applicant will be required to provide clearer buffer delineation on the revised plan of record. The commission noted the option for the abutters or the commission to request independent expert review if warranted.

This item was handled as an amended order of conditions (not a new notice of intent) and remains subject to the commission’s standard follow-up conditions and final signature processing.