Here is the 'garage' built in apparent violation of many bylaws. The new Boylston Buildling Inspector can block occupancy or more.....

                          

                               


                             
   

It's Simple. There need to be places where, in the midst of everyday stress, one can find peace and relaxation. We all need beautiful places for mind and spirit. Quiet places. Places we can pass on to our children and grandchildren.

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Rocky Pond in Boylston, Massachusetts, is one of those places. Located just minutes from Worcester and the rapidly growing high tech Marlboro-Northboro area, it's a gem. Totally spring-fed crystal clear drinkable water. An abundance of wildlife. Just a handful of small residences and cabins. Very, very few polluting power boats. Part of the Assabet/Concord watershed, just a stone's throw from the Tower Hill Botanical Garden and Wachusett Reservoir, and adjacent to agricultural lands locked up in new agreements between farmers and the state. It is a treasure that people care a great deal about and enjoy year round. Living but a few minutes away, it has been our quiet place for 16 years. That quiet was disrupted in June, 2002, when we witnessed for the first time the beginning of destruction. We were surprised and horrified. You will be, too.  Go to our Destruction Photos page to see some of the early carnage, which has continued..

Rocky Pond is threatened by suburbanized development which must be stopped, and stopped now. This is not just because it is 'development' but because the trail to development includes the betrayal of a life-time conservationist who donated tracts of land to protect the Pond, a conservation foundation that somehow has failed to conserve (and protect and maintain its pond property), and a small-time neophyte developer who has alienated his neighbors by encroaching on their property, obtained many variances which will threaten the land and water, skirted, if not broken, the law and put Rocky Pond on the road to aesthetic catastrophe. And, as documents archived here reveal, all had been, until April 2006, aided by small town officials who have turned a blind eye to resident concerns and gave the developer everything he wanted. Writ large, this is the kind of environmental meltdown that has so despoiled much of the American landscape. Read more about Gertrude Falby, the stalwart who gave so much to help preserve Rocky Pond. Click here.

Our goal here is not to narrate the story or to get involved in providing our legal interpretation. Participants in funding and providing information to this site want to use it to make evidence in the case available to the world -- to help Rocky Pond and maybe some other land and water under threat. We want to learn lessons and encourage immediate steps to stop further dubvious construction and destruction. 

There has been a history vandalism at Rocky Pond, some of which has been directed at those who oppose new and probably illegal development there. Fortunately, the Boylston Police have become proactive in investigating these events and it has at least temporarily stopped. For a look at vandalism in 2004 click here and for photos click here. An abbuter opposed to proposed development who has been involved in protecting the pond and his property from development activities, and won his right to construct a fence by a court decision, reports that his fence was virtually destroyed by vandals in the middle of the night late in the week of May 1, and then used to block his driveway.  Here are photos provided by an area resident:

This was an appalling, cowardly and dangerous act, taken just days after this resident won his case in court.  The property owners are both quite ill -- one being a quadrapalegic -- and require frequent EMS support. To download and read the court decision to which we refer click here. In it you may also see a legal carelessness and set of cozy relationships which waste taxpayer dollars and the time of its citizens and the courts.

At the end of the day,  urgent action is needed.  Population growth in this part of the world is rapid and pressures on the pond -- for recreation as well as development -- will continue.  We need to save Rocky Pond for the enjoyment of this and future generations. And, we need to protect the property and rights of those who seek to protect it. Boylston is not some hick town in Faulker country. It can afford to protect this simple place.

Now that the tide may be turning against questionable development, wouldn't it be great if the town would step in and purchase the remaining shoreline. That would protect Rocky Pond forever!

Please bookmark this page. Our old address, SaveRockyPond.org no longer is available thanks to a change in ISP servers.  These changes also mean that we have to do a lot of site revisions. Please use your 'back' button as much as possible when you have reached the end of pages. Thanks.