North Andover Conservation Commission Continues Foster Street Floodplain Case, Clears Compliance Backlog

NORTH ANDOVER -- June 10, 2026, North Andover's Conservation Commission cleared a dozen compliance items but deferred a contested Foster Street addition over unresolved floodplain data. At the June 10 meeting, the commission approved full or partial certificates of compliance for four properties, including a corrected partial COC for 315 Candlestick Road and a long-overdue full COC for the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District pump station on Riverview Street, and approved five small project permits spanning a fence replacement, deck replacement, native plantings, hardscape, and a collapsed above-ground pool. The Foster Street case, involving homeowner Frank Columba's proposal for two new garages, a driveway expansion, and a rear addition within the 100-foot buffer zone and FEMA Zone AE, was continued when members said they lacked enough topographic data to confirm proposed structures fall outside the 100-year flood elevation; engineer Bill Dufresne agreed to return with cross-sections tied more closely to the FEMA datum. A resident from 606 Foster Street told the commission that eight to ten inches of rain already floods the street to two feet. The commission also issued a new enforcement order requiring relocation of a shed at 125 Blue Ridge Road to a compliant location by July 1 and continued a years-running Massachusetts DEP enforcement order on the Holt Road landfill to July 22.