ROCHESTER — The Planning Board dealt with two cases that had to do with road width at its Dec.10 meeting, and when the two cases led to confusion decided to meet with law enforcement officers and the Conservation Commission to resolve the issue.

First Judy Niemi appeared before the board with a question on a private way or cul de sac on a piece of land she owns. She had purchased the land from James Moraux, who went through a lengthy Planning Board process to create a two house subdivision.

However, he did not build the road to the required width, something that recently came to light when a tree fell on wires and ignited a fire, and the fire department had a hard time accessing the property.

Planning Board members asked Niemi take the existing 14 foot wide road and widen it to 16 feet, to improve emergency vehicle access.

“Couldn’t we do it at 15 feet, so I wouldn’t have to take down all of the trees? They are gorgeous trees,” Niemi said.

Planning Board Chair Arnold Johnson suggested that she might be able to just trim the trees rather than taking them down, but held firm on the 16 foot width.

A later case for a solar development on Old Middleboro Road that is currently going through the permitting process, also involved road widths, as the company, Solar MA Project Management, proposed upgrading the road to account for the wear and tear of trucks during construction.

Austin Turner of Bohler Engineering, who was presenting to the board on the project’s behalf, explained that the Conservation Commission had asked him several times not to widen the road at a few points. Those were points where wetlands came right up to the road, and the commission was concerned with destroying wetlands to widen the road.

One Planning Board member, Gary Florindo  was not too concerned with the width in limited sections, since “you can see from one end to the other along that stretch of the road,” and it’s  “not going to be a bottleneck” for first responders.

However John DeMaggio was more concerned with consistency.

“We just told [Niemi] ‘you have to maintain 16 feet,’ and I’m not comfortable turning around and saying” it doesn’t matter, DeMaggio said.

Another board member, Chris Silviera, thought that the board should grant relief in both cases.

“We need to talk to one, our public safety people and then get our conservation people and say ‘hey, what are we doing here with our width and our swale?’” Johnson said.

The Planning Board did not resolve Turner’s question, but promised to speak with the Fire and Police Chief and invite the Conservation Commission to their January meeting to discuss the issue.