Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 2/15/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — Trying to force an apartment project in the face of neighbor opposition would be “nothing but adversarial,” Rich Sypek acknowledged on Feb. 6, just minutes before asking to withdraw Pyramid Co.’s request for a zone change that would have allowed it.
The parliamentary moves at the Town Council meeting weren’t that simple, though. Pyramid came into the meeting hoping to keep the public hearing open for an additional 60 days, which Sypek said would give them time to develop a traffic plan and host community meetings to change neighbors’ minds.
An auditorium full of neighbors, on the other hand, clearly wanted the Town Council to take a definitive “no” vote on the zone change now. With Pyramid withdrawing without prejudice, the company could come back with a similar proposal in the future for the nearly 18 acres it owns at the corner of Highland and Whitney avenues.
It could also propose something neighbors may want even less: instead of the 162 “high-end apartments” it had been planning, a housing complex with a substantial low-income housing component.
Before the Town Council voted against the 60-day delay, Sypek had warned that rejecting the project “will leave Pyramid with no alternative but a 40B development,” which he said nobody wants.
Chapter 40B of state law allows developers to circumvent local zoning laws if they build subsidized affordable housing units in a town where fewer than 10 percent of housing is classified as affordable. West Springfield, like most suburban towns, falls well short of that threshold.
District 4 Councilor Daniel O’Brien, who represents the Highland-Whitney neighborhood, said he was “diametrically opposed” to the original project, and Sypek’s comments about Chapter 40B only made him less sympathetic.
“I do not respond well to threats — 40B is a threat,” O’Brien said. “Don’t threaten me with something that you know is just not the right thing to do.”
O’Brien, echoing some of the comments neighbors had made at a Jan. 17 public hearing, noted that Pyramid had tried to develop this land before, and had faced the same opposition. Then and now, neighbors worried about an increase in traffic along Highland and Whitney avenues, which connect Route 5 to the Holyoke Mall, which Pyramid owns. He said Pyramid should have known what neighbors’ concerns were and addressed them before making its latest proposal.
“Tonight they want an extension to provide information that could have been provided six months ago,” O’Brien said. “If you had adequate, good information, you would have put it forward first.”
Councilor Michael Eger, however, said he would have been willing to grant Pyramid an extension, in part because a 40B project could be much worse.
“I would prefer a nice project that we approve, that we negotiate,” he said. “I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, and time.”
Eger, along with councilors Brian Clune and Sean Powers, voted in favor of extending the public hearing, but the other four councilors present voted against it. Council President Edward Sullivan cast the tie-breaking vote.
By closing the public hearing, Sullivan said, the council obliged itself to take a vote on the zone change immediately. Before that could happen, Sypek asked to withdraw the proposal.
After the vote, Sullivan said “we wouldn’t have any say” in the details of an affordable housing project. A member of the audience asked if the town could force a 40B developer to install sidewalks on Highland Avenue — something Pyramid had promised as part of its apartment plan, which would have been subject to special permit review by the Planning Board.
“Oh, no, no, no,” Sullivan replied.
Though Pyramid, as owner of the land, was the petitioner asking for the zone change, it would not have been the developer of the apartment complex. The proposed developer was Sterling Properties of New Jersey, which Sypek said has completed 22 projects.
The parcel at 711 Whitney Ave. is currently zoned Residence A-2, which would allow single-family homes but not apartments. Pyramid had asked for it to be rezoned Residence C.