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Date: 1/31/2023
EASTHAMPTON — After requests for a continuance at the Easthampton Planning Board’s Jan. 3 meeting and the Conservation Commission’s Jan. 9 meeting, Tasty Top Development appeared before the commission during its Jan. 23 meeting to provide updates to the site and discuss an enforcement order on the project.
The Tasty Top Development, as presented at the Planning Board’s Dec. 21 meeting, will run from 93 to 97 Northampton St. and is set to include 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.
To start the update at the commission’s Jan. 23 meeting, Luke Showalter, an engineer with Furrow Engineering, provided an update on some of the changes made to the project as the development works through feedback received at previous meetings.
“We’re currently working to complete our response to the comments we received from the commission as well as comments we received from the commission, as well as comments from MassDEP [Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection]. we’re still working out the details of the design, but we are confident that we have addressed all comments and concerns that were raised,” he said.
As part of the redesign, Showalter said parking was reduced by 169 spaces, which he said, “increased green space throughout the site and it also enabled us to move some of the residential buildings about 15 to 20 feet further away from the steep slopes on the site.”
He added that the revised erosion control plan will include “erosion control blankets and other slope stabilization measures.”
Following the previous meeting, Showalter said additional soil tests were conducted across the site.
“Soil samples from all the test kits were sent out for testing and particle size analysis which will help to determine true infiltration rates. We’re still waiting on the test results, but we should be seeing them very soon,” he said.
Showalter said part of the revisions includes a revised stormwater plan.
“We worked out a design that lifts some areas of the site to allow for the required groundwater separation needed for infiltration within some of the basins and we are confident that the revised stormwater design will comply with all MassDEP and all Easthampton stormwater ordinance requirements, including groundwater recharge, used runoff volumes and phosphorous removal,” he said.
Showalter added that the new stormwater plan would be submitted ahead of the next commission meeting and requested a continuance to the next meeting.
Following the discussion about changes to the site design, the commission also continued its discussion around an enforcement order on the site.
According to the enforcement order, which is viewable on the city’s website, it was initially issued in June 2022. It states that at the commission’s June 13 meeting, it was determined that a Wetlands Protection Act (WPA) violation occurred “due to activities which include, but may not be limited to, the removal of vegetation and ground disturbance (associated with the installation of a crossing) to bank, land under waterbodies and the 100-foot buffer zone associated with a tributary to the Manhan River without the review or approval of the commission.”
As a result of the enforcement order, Sage Engineering was issued a cease-and-desist order after the crossing was built to prevent any work in that 100-foot buffer zone.
Daniel Nitzche, a senior wetland scientist with GZA GeoEnvironmental, detailed some of the ways the project would be remediating the issues in the enforcement order with the removal of vegetation. He explained that they will be planting 18 shrubs and 12 trees. He said they will also be mulching over the area in question.
Because the project is still up in the air, commission Chair Julianne Busa said restoration needs to be a consideration as the project moves forward.
“This matter is distinct from the project that is proposed on the site, which is not approved and not guaranteed to move forward either because of permitting or because we just don’t know ultimately that the proponent will move forward with the project so I want to make sure that we’re including anything that is appropriate for restoration assuming that that project may or may not ever happen,” she said.
When Busa asked about restoring one portion of the site, Nitzche said they could put down conservation seed and mulch in the spring. The restoration will also include two years of monitoring and replacement of the vegetation as needed.
While it was agreed upon to remove the bridge noted in the enforcement order in the fall, it has not happened yet.
“The new bridge design is just slightly downstream of where the temporary bridge is right now, so they need the temporary to get the equipment on the other side in order to work from both sides to build the footings and the bridge gap over the top of it so it’s a full span. When they’re done, they’ll remove that bridge and restore everything according to plan,” Nitzche said.
Busa noted that the order was not being followed.
“We had an agreed upon restoration, it has not been carried out, they are not in compliance with their enforcement order and I would like a better explanation than that as to why,” she said.
Nitzche said he would get a response as to why the order was not being followed.
The Easthampton Conservation next meets on Feb. 13, but the Planning Board is scheduled to continue its Tasty Top Development public hearing at its Feb. 7 meeting.