Stockbridge Conservation Commission Approves Interlaken Road Phase One Stormwater Permit

STOCKBRIDGE -- April 28, 2026, Stockbridge Conservation Commission unanimously approved a phase one stormwater management plan for a development at 35-37 Interlaken Road, while extended public debate over groundwater safety and project-sequencing rules stretched the April 28 meeting well past its routine agenda. Project engineer Jim Scalise told the commission that his USGS StreamStats analysis confirms the site drains to the Stockbridge Bowl, not to Lake Averic, the town's drinking water supply, and that approximately 20 monitoring wells on the property document adequate separation between proposed stormwater ponds and the water table. Commission consultant David Cameron explained that Stockbridge's local stormwater bylaw, the sole regulatory basis for Tuesday's vote, is "far, far more restrictive than state or federal guidelines," and that the Wetlands Protection Act has not been triggered because no resource areas are implicated in phase one. Public commenters Kate and Anita, both appearing remotely, pressed the commission on whether it could lawfully rule on a phased project and whether limestone bedrock could create subsurface pathways to the drinking supply; Cameron responded that project sequencing is not prohibited by state law and that a comprehensive notice of intent covering the full development will be filed separately. On a separate matter, a motion to rescind the commission's prior decision on parking area size in a Westdale Road conservation restriction, which would have reverted a permitted parking allowance to 0.25 acres as originally recommended by the Laurel Hill Association and the Stockbridge Land Trust, was withdrawn after members said the Land Trust and Laurel Hill need to confer directly before the commission acts.