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Date: 3/31/2021
NORTHAMPTON – At the Northampton Planning Board’s March 25 meeting, the board opened a public hearing for a site plan for an automobile service change to a fueling facility at 138 North King St.
To start the hearing, Ryan Scrittorale, an engineer with Alfred Benesch and Company, explained the plan includes six fueling stations along with a kiosk and canopy.
“We are proposing to install a 312-square-foot kiosk with six fueling dispensers and an associated canopy. The portion we are reviewing now will have bi-directional traffic throughout the site. We closed off the cross-connection access to the property to the north to provide safe travel throughout the site,” he said.
Scrittorale added that the site will partially run on solar as part of a bigger partnership with Nexamp through Big Y.
Steve Oleman, the project’s traffic engineer, said the group could not do a traffic impact study for the site because of the COVID-19 pandemic limiting travel.
“Normally we would do a traffic impact survey for a development such as this. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated shut down and limiting of travel, the surrounding roadway’s impact has been significantly reduced so we could not do a full study,” he said.
As part of the permit, Scrittorale said they were requesting a waiver for the typical lighting requirements as set forth by the city.
“We are asking for a waiver on the lighting regulations. The regulations set a maximum foot candle level at 5 feet. Industry standard for fueling operations and canopies is roughly 50-to-60-foot candles. In order to design with the intent of your regulations we decided on a maximum of 25-foot level, this is a relatively low lighting level for most uses like this, but it will provide the required safety lighting for the customers,” he said.
Larry Webster, the engineer who put together the gas station’s photometric plan, said the higher lighting is designed to create a comfortable transition for customers beneath the canopy.
“If you look at our photometric plan, it transitions from a max of 25 feet under the canopy to around 6 feet by the time you get to the kiosk, and then drops off rapidly beyond that. It is designed within the site to be a comfortable transition,” he said.
Planning Board member George Kohout cited previous experiences working with companies to use lower light levels and said it would take some convincing for him to agree with the permit waiver.
“I was also on the Planning Board when the Big Y plaza was developed, and we went back and forth with them about their lighting. We worked hard with the Hess gas station about their light levels. We kind of got to a place where you come to a gas station and get out of your car, you have plenty of lighting to do what you need to do with 5 foot candles,” he said.
The board unanimously agreed to continue the public hearing to its next meeting on April 8.