Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 2/22/2023
EAST LONGMEADOW — The East Longmeadow Planning Board listened to arguments for and against a potential warehouse at 330 Chestnut St. This was the second public hearing on the matter, continued from a September 2022 meeting.
New Jersey-based East Longmeadow Redevelopers proposed a warehouse for up to four tenants at the Chestnut Street property, located in the industrial garden district. The 532,000-square-foot building on the site would be replaced with a building just shy of 563,000 square feet. The project would include 100 bays for trucks to load and unload and 150 parking spaces for trucks and tractor-trailers. Spaces for passenger vehicles would also be included to accommodate the warehouse’s workforce.
Traffic study
At the Planning Board’s last hearing on the proposed project, the board ordered an independent review of the traffic study completed by Jeffrey Bandini of McMahon Associates, a transportation engineering firm. Rob Levesque of R. Levesque Associates, a land design and civil engineering firm, said a supplemental traffic study was completed based on concerns voiced by residents and the board. The town’s chosen civil engineering firm, VHB (Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc.), conducted the peer review. Levesque said further “minor” changes to the plan were adopted after “back and forth” with VHB.
VHB Senior Project Specialist, Transportation Engineering Van Kacoyannakis told the Planning Board that the study done by McMahon Associates was “consistent” with industry standards and “professional” in nature. He said that because the tenants have not yet been selected, hours and days of operation cannot be known and therefore, traffic routes are “unclear.” To address these gray areas, Kacoyannakis recommended a post-construction monitoring program. Any issues that came up in that monitoring, such as traffic flow that does not match projected rates or increased vehicle accidents at the rail trail, would have to be addressed.
Planning Board member George Kingston said the “baseline” traffic data used by McMahon Associates was gathered in 2019, when the existing facility was inoperable. Kingston had previously called the study “fatally flawed,” because it contained a comparison of warehouse traffic based on the size of the existing building and the proposed one. Additionally, he argued that the property’s prior use as a manufacturing facility meant that the study did not give an accurate depiction of traffic increases.
Kacoyannakis agreed that any traffic generated by the proposed facility would be new traffic, but he also said the McMahon Associates information included all vehicle trips and data had not been omitted.
Attorney Michael Pill, who has been representing the Fields at Chestnut Condominiums Trust, a condominium complex that abuts 330 Chestnut St., introduced Robert J. Michaud, managing principal of MDM Transportation Consultants, as an expert on traffic studies. Michaud said McMahon Associates used data associated with the generic warehouse land use code when calculating the number of trips that the warehouse would generate. Bandini explained that some codes were not appropriate because the size of the building did not match the uses, while other uses generated fewer trips than the data McMahon Associates used. Despite this, Michaud contended Bandini should have used the code that would generate the highest number of trips to account for all possible tenants.
Michaud mentioned Amazon twice as a possible tenant for the warehouse. Planning Board Clerk Russell Denver noted that there was a large Amazon facility in Windsor, CT, and a smaller one in Holyoke and asked Michaud the likelihood of the company placing another facility in the area. Michaud said Amazon has a variety of facility types but acknowledged it would be “not typical” to place a warehouse so far from a highway exit.
Intersection
Planners use level of service criteria to rate intersections on a scale from “A” for the most efficient to “F” for the least efficient. Denver asked about the current rating of the intersection of Shaker Road and Chestnut Street as opposed to what the rating would be with the warehouse in place. Bandini explained that without the warehouse, the intersection is an “E,” with cars stopped between 55 and 80 seconds, while the addition of the warehouse would bring it to an “F,” and wait times above 80 seconds. However, he said changes to the traffic light timing, light visibility and intersection striping could mitigate this and bring the rating back to an “E.”
Planning Board member Peter Punderson posited a situation in which four or six trucks come to the crossroad at the same time, jamming the intersection. He estimated 400 trips per day with the facility running at “maximum capacity,” a term used in the McMahon Associates traffic study. Bandini said that when he used the term maximum capacity in the study, it meant the most efficient workflow and “what seems reasonable for the site,” rather than every bay filled at all times. Punderson pushed back on that assertion and said Bandini was trying “candy coat it.”
Levesque noted that Punderson’s estimated 400 trips per day over an eight-hour day would be fewer than one truck per minute. He also said professional truck drivers are not going to squeeze into an intersection. “That’s not traffic science, that’s fear,” Levesque told him.
Road conditions
Planning Board Chair Jonathan Torcia asked about mitigating the road deterioration of Chestnut Street due to an increased flow of large vehicles. Levesque said there was a 300-foot zone on either side of the property in which trucks would slow down to make the turn into the facility, reducing the damage to the asphalt. The applicants have also agreed to monitor road conditions.
Kacoyannakis offered a generalized assessment that the residential neighborhood west of Shaker Road on Chestnut Street would not see as many trucks as the industrial section of Chestnut Street to the east of the intersection. However, without measuring the thickness of the asphalt, “we really can’t tell you what mitigation needs to be done.” It may range from a “mill and overlay” to a full reconstruction of the road.
Environmental impacts
Pill’s expert on environmental impacts was Timothy Keeney, a former commissioner of environmental protection in Connecticut and Rhode Island. He is also the first selectman in neighboring Somers, CT. Keeney spoke about the health and environmental impacts of diesel exhaust. He said up to 1,500 trucks per day might use the facility, although when Denver asked him to site the source of his data, Pill’s team admitted the number was a loose estimate.
Denver questioned Keeney’s assertion that trucks idling “24/7” could cause a “hotspot” of respiratory ailments in the area. Denver pointed to 310 CMR 7.11, a state regulation that prohibits vehicles from idling for more than five minutes unless “engine assisted power is necessary,” such as to keep food cold in freezer trucks. Nonetheless, Keeney suggested a “pollutant assessment plan” be required, as well as future monitoring of air quality. Kingston asked that an air quality baseline be measured to judge any future pollution levels.
Residents opposed
Residents spoke against the project during the public comment period of the hearing. Christina Cooper said 900 vehicle trips stated in the McMahon Associates traffic impact study that was posted to the town’s website was “horrifying.” Her husband, John Cooper, drew on his childhood in southern California and said there would be smog, more time spent in traffic, increased accidents where the rail trail meets Chestnut Street and lower property values. He asserted that the property should be rezoned to prohibit industrial uses.
Resident Bob Silverstein expressed concern over delivery drones and noise from “backup horns.” Director of Planning and Community Development Bailey Mitchell said the Federal Aviation Administration regulates commercial drones. Torcia added that violations of the town’s noise ordinance are under the purview of the Building Department, rather than the Planning Board.
Roland Bolduc, a truck driver and resident, said trucks do not leave on a schedule, but rather as soon as they are ready, increasing the likelihood that several trucks would leave the property at once. He also asserted that trucks would park at the facility for their mandatory 10-hour rest periods and run their engines the entire time. This would be in violation of the state’s anti-idling regulation. Punderson thanked Bolduc for his “real-world perspective.”
Resident Gerald Celetti asked, “What’s the fix if they’re wrong,” about the number of trucks utilizing the site. Several others echoed his comment and worried about what to do “once the horse is out of the barn.”
Denver challenged resident apprehension about traffic in the area, asking why the board did not hear traffic concerns when a mixed-use overlay district was considered for the site two years ago. Resident Ronald Berger said the overlay district would have resulted in more cars using the street, rather than large trucks.
Torcia recalled residents complaining about the potential for mixed-use overlay districts to attract more families and crowd the schools. “Let’s not gloss over” the residents’ “not-in-my-back-yard mentality,” he remarked.
Town Council President Ralph Page, speaking as a citizen, said that it is impossible to know how busy the warehouse would be until the tenants are identified. He said it could be busy or it could be similar to Cartamundi, where there are many loading bays, but few trucks at any one time. Page said the warehouse was “an allowed use in an allowed zone,” and that mitigating future impacts was key. He suggested money be set aside to address any future issues. He added, “Things change, and we got to be prepared.” In response to this, Torcia said an owner-funded account is being considered as a condition if the project is approved.
Levesque sought to assure the Planning Board by citing the town’s zoning bylaw 450 subsection 9.3, which states that any tenant would have to come before the board for a site plan review. Punderson responded by reading another passage from the bylaws that states “intrusive” projects can be denied.
The board will next consider the issue at its March 21 meeting.