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Date: 6/30/2021
SOUTHWICK – The outcry against the proposed Carvana project picked up steam last week as some boards discussed opposition to the project and opponents protested outside of Town Hall.
The Historical Commission met June 21 with no indication that Carvana would be in any way a part of the discussion. During the meeting, however, Commission Chair Lee Hamberg brought the subject up, and said he has received more emails about this project than any other project in Southwick. He mentioned that there had been a proposal in 2003 to place a cell phone tower in the area of 686 College Hwy., where Carvana wishes to build a facility. The Historical Commission at the time voted to designate the property as a Heritage Landscape.
An agreement was then reached to instead place the cell tower on the back of the property, but Hamberg said the Heritage Landscape designation remains to this day. In June of 2009, the Department of Conservation and Recreation made the same determination that 686 College Hwy. is a heritage landscape. Hamberg said that because of that determination, any development of the property should be as visually non-intrusive as possible.
“We need to support a project that accounts for the agricultural heritage of the town,” said Hamberg.
Commission member Jim Putnam said that he does not think the Historical Commission should get involved in the issue. “I mourn every time we lose a good farm in this town, but this is not a working farm,” said Putnam.
The commission ultimately did not make a vote in favor of or in opposition to the Carvana project.
In other action, the Southwick Historical Commission voted unanimously to provide $15,000 in funding to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission’s (PVPC) project to get the Hampden/Hampshire Canal on to the National List of Historic Places (NLHP).
The PVPC has been approaching the Historical Commissions of Southwick, Westfield, Russell, Southampton, Easthampton, and Northampton to help them map out the currently lost sections of the canal. The canal had once spanned from New Haven, CT, to Northampton in the 1800s. Financial troubles on the part of the canal’s owner led to the canal being shut down and converted into a railway that ran the same route. The railroad was also shut down because of financial troubles, and it eventually became a walkable rail trail that ran the same distance as the canal, but not in the same location. Over time, some parts of the canal have been lost due to degradation, though some parts of the infrastructure remain. The PVPC wants to map out the lost parts of the canal to get it put on the NLHP. “They have been getting GPS data on different sections of the canal,” said Commission Chair Lee Hamberg.
He said Southwick has funds available because of a memorandum of agreement from 2004 in which a company had wanted to install a cell phone tower in a scenic area in Southwick. After negotiations between the FCC and the Historical Commission, a $25,000 grant was put in deposit in Southwick, and those funds have never been used.
Westfield and Southwick Historical Commissions met on the same night. Westfield Historical Commission Chair Cindy Gaylord said that $15,000 was less than she had thought Westfield would have to pay for the study of the canal. She said that she had attended a meeting in Easthampton in which they voted unanimously to provide $15,000 for the project.
“We are next, and we are hoping the three other communities will as well,” said Gaylord. She said the PVPC is going to meet about the project on July 15. Westfield’s Historical Commission has not voted on the funding yet.