A judge this week denied a request by a group of residents led by environmental lawyer Meg Sheehan to stop construction of a 34-acre business park on Hedges Pond Road in Cedarville. Work has been underway since spring.
In a six-page ruling, Plymouth Superior Court judge Brian Glenny rejected a request for a preliminary injunction that would have halted work at the site pending the outcome of the lawsuit the residents have filed against Plymouth Select Board members, Standish Investment Group – the developer behind the project – and the Plymouth Foundation.
Glenny did not agree that permits for the project issued by Plymouth town boards violated the law.
The ruling, issued on June 25, suggested that if the plaintiffs proceed with the case, they will likely be unsuccessful since the judge found their key arguments unpersuasive.
“The plaintiffs have not shown a likelihood of success on the merits where there is ample information that the property was properly conveyed to Standish (the developer) and Standish received proper approvals prior to initiating construction,” wrote Glenny.
Standish Investment Group, owned by Eric Pontiff, is developing a four-building complex at 71 Hedges Pond Road. It bought the 40-acre parcel from the Plymouth Foundation in 2022 for $3,450,000.
Plans call for the complex to include a 176,000-square-foot warehouse with multiple loading docks, a 75,000-square-foot recreational facility with two hockey rinks, and two 20,000-square-foot buildings suitable for wholesale operations. Pontiff said the site will include a lumber yard.
In April, 17 plaintiffs, including Sheehan’s group, the Community Land and Water Coalition, filed suit against the town – including Select Board members – Standish, and the Plymouth Foundation to try to stop the development of the Cedarville site they claim is an historic Native American cultural site that should be preserved.
They alleged that the land should have been designated for conservation and public uses and challenged the transfers of the land.
Sheehan, along with dozens of supporters, appeared in Plymouth Superior Court on May 2 to ask the judge to issue a court order halting work at the site.
On Thursday Sheehan said she was not surprised by the judge’s ruling since courts “rarely grant preliminary injunctions to stop development projects.”
“We are quite stunned, however, that the judge states our lawsuit complaint and legal memorandum provided no substantive information concerning the “circumstances of the conveyances, what individuals or entities participated in such conveyances, or any legal documentation memorializing such conveyance,” Sheehan wrote in an emailed statement.
“We included all the deeds and Town Meeting votes, so there is nothing more we could have provided,” she wrote.
The Community Land and Water Coalition will continue with the case, Sheehan said, though she wasn’t speaking for the other plaintiffs.
“We will continue to pursue accountability and appropriate mitigation for the tragic loss of the Cedarville Conservation Area,” she wrote.
Pontiff declined comment.
Plymouth Town Manager Derek Brindisi said town officials were not surprised by the judge’s ruling.
“We expected this outcome and have been able to demonstrate that there have been no violations in the sale of 71 Hedges Pond Road.”
Select Board member Dick Quintal said lawsuits like this one against the town are “very expensive to defend and take up a lot of staff time. They take away from other things.”
In his ruling, Glenny sided with Pontiff, who said he visited the property before buying it and found no evidence that the land was “designated as open space for conservation purposes” — he said he found no hiking trails, or parking lots indicating the property was for public use.
In addition, he wrote, Pontiff’s lawyer reviewed “hundreds of pages” of documents and did not find any restrictions on the use of the property.
“The record before this court indicates that multiple comprehensive title searches were conducted and multiple Plymouth municipal departments concluded that the property was not encumbered or limited in its use such that Standish should be precluded from construction on the property,” the judge wrote.
Glenny said a finding for the residents suing would mean reversing decisions of multiple town boards.
“The practical effect of ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor would be a determination that these municipal entities all committed an error of law when they made such findings,” he wrote.
In May another group of residents, led by Sheehan, filed a second lawsuit in an effort to kill the development. Sheehan filed that suit in Plymouth Superior Court on behalf of four Plymouth residents challenging the zoning permit issued to the Standish to develop the property.
The latest suit asks a judge to review a Plymouth zoning board decision refusing to “stop sand and gravel mining that is destroying the Cedarville Conservation Area.”
The mining operation, Sheehan argued, violates earth removal regulations of the town’s zoning law.
That case is still pending.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.