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Prospect Park discussions continue with Planning Board

Date: 10/15/2008

EAST LONGMEADOW Concerned abutters, a property owner and developer and the Planning Board met again last Tuesday to further discussions on the proposed Prospect Park.



Don LoMascolo, owner of D&C Properties at Baldwin Street and Glendale Road, first came before the Planning Board for a public hearing on the development of his land in November 2004. LoMascolo is the owner/operator of Prospect Builders, which provides fire and flood restoration services. He plans on storing mobile trailers on his site which can be transported to homes damaged by fires so families will have a place to live until restoration is complete. No one would be staying on the Baldwin Street property.



The hearing on the development was continued from Sept. 2. Since that meeting, Sgt. Richard Bates with the East Longmeadow Police Department had completed a list of police recommendations for the site. The report recommended exterior lighting on all four proposed buildings and over the parking areas and locations for dumpsters. It also asked for a full traffic study to be conducted.



Gary Weiner of Ecotec Environmental Associates, who is working with LoMascolo on the development, said a traffic study had been submitted to the Planning Board the morning of the meeting. He summarized the study, stating traffic counts were taken on Maple and Baldwin streets from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. for a week. With an estimated 38 additional vehicle trips in and out of the business park in the morning and 27 in the evening, the study concluded a two percent increase in traffic flow during peak hours.



That increase poses a potential problem for an area already swamped with traffic, according to Kevin Kervick of Edmund Street. "If you go down there and use common sense, you'd see it's [the development] a square peg into a circle," he told the Planning Board. "Two percent is a lot for a system that's already at 100 percent."



Residents also wondered what LoMascolo's arrangements for moving the trailers onsite would be, and how that movement would affect traffic.



"We could go weeks without moving a trailer," LoMascolo replied. "At the most, it would be one a day." He added he has not had an incident with any tractor trailer driver since taking over the business in 1986.



Kervick added that the town has a moral obligation to its citizens, not a business, and that the town needs to look at the immediate impact Prospect Park would have on its surrounding neighborhood.



Weiner had said at a previous meeting a three-foot berm would be built with arbor vitae planted along the top to obstruct the view of the proposed buildings. Phil Abair of 5th Street requested a berm somewhere between five and 10 feet tall, because many of the abutters have properties that have a higher elevation than LoMascolo's land.



"All I'm asking for is a little privacy and to maintain my quality of life," Abair stated.



In addition to taking into consideration the requests of abutters, D&C Properties also had a visit from the Department of Environmental Protection on Friday.



Michael Przybylowicz, vice chair of the Planning Board, motioned that with the new information presented by the traffic study that the hearing be continued to the board's next meeting. The motion was approved, and the hearing will continue on Oct. 14 at 6:30 p.m. in the Town Hall Hearing Room.