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Date: 6/29/2023
EAST LONGMEADOW — The East Longmeadow Planning Board reversed its May 2 decision to approve a warehouse at 330 Chestnut St. The board reopened the public hearing on the matter June 20, after town employees expressed reservations regarding certain conditions that had been placed on the project.
Two written public comments had been received prior to the meeting, including one from an attorney representing residents of the Great Woods residential development, located off Shaker Road. Lawyer Michael Pill, representing residents at the abutting Fields of Chestnut Condominiums, expressed outrage that neither he nor the lawyer for the petitioners, East Longmeadow Redevelopers LLC, had been contacted by the attorney previously or seen those comments.
“I have a lot of reservations... I’ve never seen a project in which we redirected traffic,” said Planning Board Chair Jonathan Torcia, referring to a condition which required all traffic leaving the warehouse to turn right out of the property, toward the intersection with Shaker Road. Traffic would also have to enter from the same direction as the vehicles exiting, eliminating traffic past residences on Chestnut Street.
Torcia said his “real concern” was that “it will impact residents on the other side of the street... we represent the entire community.” He also expressed unease about “setting a precedent.” He stated that he would oppose the project if that condition remained in place.
Planning Board member George Kingston said he opposed redirecting traffic because it was “unwieldly.”
Town employees were invited to express their concerns to the board. DPW Deputy Superintendent Mark Berman said the trucks would be more likely to pass through the rotary at Center Square if sent one way down Chestnut Street. Planning Board member Russell Denver asked Berman if he felt that this would be a negative for the entire town. He said that it would, and pointed to wear and tear on the roads and potential shortcuts through neighborhoods. Planning Board member Peter Punderson said he disagreed that traffic would go through the rotary.
Police Chief Mark Williams said he agreed with Berman and added, “I do have concerns about emergency access and safety, and I do think it affects the whole town.”
Fire Chief Paul Morrisette said trucks will be in town longer because they will have to travel a more circuitous route. He said he was also concerned that one-way traffic spikes, called for in another condition, will cause traffic incidents.
Planning and Community Development Director Bailey Mitchell expressed the opinion that the town should have asked VHB, the engineering consulting company it had contracted to peer review the developers traffic study, to perform a traffic study that included forcing traffic one way out of the site. Until that was done, he said there was no way to know the impact “one way or the other,” but he posited that it would “create a bottleneck” at the intersection of Chestnut Street and Shaker Road.
“Mr. Mitchell, I respectfully disagree with you,” Denver told him.
East Longmeadow resident Mary Hurley, who lives at the Fields at Chestnut, said the department heads were speculating and that the town should not prioritize the condition of the roads over residents’ quality of life. She also said truck traffic is a public safety issue.
Other residents said they were concerned with air quality and traffic. Neil Williams said the town would be “ruined.”
Sherry Williams, who had just recently found out about the proposed project, asked how people can vote in a referendum on the project. Torcia told her that was not the process in East Longmeadow, but people could file an appeal in Land Court.
Mitchell explained that the site plan review process begins with determining if a use is allowed in a given zone. Torcia added that the Planning Board is governed by the bylaws of the town. If a project is allowed in a given zone, the Planning Board is allowed to impose “reasonable conditions.” If it is challenged, a judge will decide whether the conditions are reasonable.
Torcia said his primary objection was that the traffic restriction would only affect some residents. “Do you want this board to make a decision that will affect some residents over others?” He said that people, including others on the board, may not agree with his opinions. “That is how democracy works,” he said. He urged people to “step up” and apply for the open positions on the board when he and Kingston exit at the end of the month.
Robert Michaud, the traffic engineer hired by Pill, said the right turn only out of the site would not “solve all ills,” but it would help. It would be difficult to enforce a requirement that vehicles approach the site from the intersection with Shaker Road, he said, but signage could enforce the direction in which they exit. “A partial restriction is better than none,” Michaud said. He also said the developer was willing to fund improvements at the intersection of Chestnut Street and Shaker Road.
Frank Fitzgerald of Fitzgerald Law, the lawyer representing East Longmeadow Redevelopers LLC, said his clients were “pleased to exercise their as right use” and willing to accept the conditions laid out by the board. He said there was a meeting between the redevelopers and the board of directors for the Fields at Chestnut.
Dan Roulier, president of the board of directors for The Fields at Chestnut, said his board is only concerned with traffic exiting from the warehouse and want them to turn right, away from the housing development. If that were to be enforced, he said the warehouse will be “great neighbors.” Referring to the protestations from the residents of the complex, Roulier said, “What we did here was not personal, it’s business.”
Morrisette explained that the meeting took place on June 16 and that he, Williams and Berman were asked to attend via Zoom by Town Manager Mary McNally. The Planning Board had not been aware of the meeting. Torcia said the town should always have a seat at the table because it is the entity that has to enforce the rules.
Mitchell said the department heads’ biggest concern is that no traffic study has been completed that considered the right turn requirement. He added that the site plan does not include a configuration for that condition.
After the public hearing was closed, the Planning Board voted 3-2 to modify the condition regulating the direction of traffic in and out of the site to only require trucks leaving the facility turn right. Denver voted against this change because he said the board had “lost track” of residents living on Chestnut Street, who would “get the brunt” of traffic impact. Torica voted against the amendment because he sought to eliminate it altogether for reasons he previously stated.
A condition that would have required one-way traffic spikes at the exit of the site be timed to the traffic signal at Chestnut Street and Shaker Road was eliminated. Berman had commented that the town has never allowed a third-party, such as the warehouse, to tie into the town’s traffic light system, which could potentially allow for hacking.
When the board took a vote on affirming the site plan approval with the amended conditions, Denver voted no. He said he was “not comfortable” supporting the project without all of the original conditions in place. He emphasized that Williams and Berman specifically stated that the project, with the conditions as they are, would affect the entire town, which is a viable reason to deny the site plan approval. Punderson commented that that was the reason he had voted no on May 2.
Just as he had with the amended condition, Torcia voted against affirming the site plan because the right-turn condition was in place. He again stated that the condition would set a precedent. Punderson countered that requiring a right turn only had already been set with the M&T Bank at Center Square. Kingston motioned to drop the condition, but that vote failed.
Because the board failed to affirm the conditions from May 2, a vote was conducted to reconsider approval of the project. That vote failed unanimously and the site plan was denied.
Fitzgerald proclaimed that the vote was out of order because no notice of the vote was given, and a new public hearing had not been conducted after the board voted to reconsider its previous decision. “This vote means nothing,” he said, adding that his client still had a valid approved site plan from May 2. When asked if the developers would appeal the denial in Land Court, Fitzgerald told Reminder Publishing that a decision had not yet been made.
Deer Park Drive
On another controversial project, the Planning Board voted 4-0, with one abstention, to approve plans for a recycling business at the end of Deer Park Drive. The project had first been proposed at the April 18 Planning Board meeting and was vehemently opposed by residents of Enfield, concerned about the facility causing pollution of Crescent Lake in Connecticut.
Lawyer Joshua Levine, representing property owners William Arment and Charles Arment, Jr., presented several documents that addressed questions raised at previous meetings.
Levine said a request for a determination had been submitted by the Conservation Commission with a negative determination, meaning no steps were needed to protect the wetlands. John Furman, Springfield office manager for VHB, the engineering company on the project, told the Planning Board that there is no construction impact in the 50-foot and 100-foot buffer around the wetlands. Instead, he repeated a previous assertion that the project would improve the stormwater conditions for Jawbuck Brook Reservoir by raising the site and allowing rainwater to pass through infiltration basins, which currently do not exist.
Enfield resident Laurie Parker asked if the engineering report submitted to the Planning Board by Enfield residents had been considered. Mitchell explained that would have to have been submitted to the Conservation Commission, as it is a separate body than the Planning Board, prior to the determination being made.
Furman countered points made in that engineering report. Specifically, he noted that under Massachusetts law, there was no 200-foot buffer zone at this location because the waterway is not considered a river.
Levine also provided photos dated back to 1990 of the land being farmed with some areas covered in brush, but no trees he said. He added that this was provided to “put to rest” an argument by some Enfield residents that the Arment brothers were now or previously had been clear cutting the property.
Finally, Levine said the track refurbishments were underway beginning in 2021 from East Windsor north to the state border with Massachusetts. The use of railcars at the recycling center will be a “boon for business, environmental boon and it will save a lot of wear and tear on our streets here in East Longmeadow,” Levine told the Planning Board.
Parker commented that a state representative from Connecticut had told her that the lease on the railway would not automatically be renewed.
Denver referenced concerns that he had regarding the description of the roadway in the documentation for the project. Furman said that the traffic study has had a number of updates including changing the description from industrial to note that there were various uses including offices and a daycare.
The project was approved after the board added conditions limiting the hours of operation from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., capping the number of trucks per day to 60 plus eight tractor trailers until the train is running and then requiring that the owners appear before the board once the train is operational to review the traffic situation.