Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.

Easthampton Conservation Commission chooses firm for Tasty Top peer review

Date: 5/16/2023

EASTHAMPTON — During their meeting on May 8, the Easthampton Conservation Commission officially tasked Southborough consulting firm Beals and Thomas with executing a peer review of Furrow Engineering’s new Tasty Top proposal.

The peer review will include a review of the project’s stormwater management system, phasing plan and construction plans, to see if it complies with Easthampton’s Stormwater Ordinance as well as the Wetland Protection Act.

This decision of a peer review comes after months of public comment and concern about the environmental impacts of the proposed project at the Tasty Top location from 93-97 Northampton St., which includes a gymnastics and daycare facility, 10 three-story apartment buildings with 176 apartment units, two restaurant pad sites, two mixed use retail and office buildings with 26 apartment units above, one retail building and two commercial storage buildings.

During a Planning Board hearing on May 2, Easthampton resident Mary-Lou Dodge said this project is doing little to help slow the ongoing climate change crisis.

“The plan is by its nature going to degrade the local climate by removing about four acres of trees on that site property,” said Dodge. “I’m just recommending that somehow this be done in a much more reduced manner.”

The hope, according to City Planner Jeff Bagg, is this peer review will address some of these environmental concerns that people have brought up over the course of the last several months. Protection of groundwater, water supply, flood control, prevention of pollution and protection of wildlife habitat are all relevant items under the jurisdiction of the Wetland Protection Act.

The Stormwater Ordinance, meanwhile, deals with the prevention of the discharge of pollutants, prevention of erosion, calculations of pre-development and post-development runoff, as well as other environmental nuances.

“There’s a wide range of information that is before the Conservation Commission at this point,” Bagg said during the May 2 Planning Board hearing.

The hope is for the peer review to be finished by the Conservation Commission’s July 10 meeting for a presentation.

Readers may visit Reminder Publishing’s website for past coverage of this project.