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Date: 4/23/2015
WILBRAHAM – At an April 15 public forum, residents expressed concerns with a pair of proposed zoning changes on the Annual Town Meeting warrant.
The first proposal requests a 14.5 acre parcel of land at the rear of 601 Main St., the former Bennett Turkey Farm, be rezoned to allow for single family residential use.
At the request of the property owners, Anthony Carnevale and Glen Garvey, the Planning Board is recommending the rezoning proposal, according to documents provided at the open forum.
Carnevale said he is interested in developing the front 10 acres of the property into an 11 lot subdivision consisting of housing. Pending approval, he would also donate six acres to the town, three of which would be buildable.
“We came up with a few different plans [for housing] and then we realized we’re in a split zone,” he explained.
The developers plan to build homes at a minimum size of approximately 25,000 square feet, he noted.
Garvey said the town could keep the six acres as town property or potentially allow the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District to use it for Minnechaug Regional High School, which it abuts.
Most of the lots are in compliance with the current zoning, he added. A total of four lots require rezoning for the housing project to move forward.
“It looks to me like the six acres that you’re offering to give is essentially a bribe,” Charles Clark, a resident of 594 Main St., said.
Planning Board member Tracey Plantier responded by stating “it is a very common thing” for developers to take a piece of the land and give it to a municipality.
“It just feels like the permeating factor in Wilbraham right now is to be suspicious of everything,” she added. “So, that’s why I was smiling when you said this was a bribe. I like to operate on the idea of assuming positive intent of people.”
Democratic selectman candidate Anna Levine asked how much additional traffic would be created by the housing development, to which Carnevale said he did not know.
Planning Board Chair Jeffery Smith said the Senior Center Feasibility Committee examined the potential six acres for a new senior center and eliminated it from its list of sites.
“There’s also potential that the town may not want the parcel,” he added. “I can’t speak on the town’s behalf, but we’ve had people try to donate land for open space back to the town and the Open Space Committee and town have said, ‘We don’t want that land. You keep that land.’”
The second public forum centered on a zone change proposal that could allow for the development of retail shops on Main Street.
Smith explained that the proposal would allow retail shops and food service establishments on Main Street, but only with the approval of the Zoning Board of Appeals.
John Soja, an attorney based on Boston Road and one of the owners of the acreage, is seeking the zone change in order to develop a retail shopping plaza near the intersection of Main Street and Burt Lane. It would consist of three quarters of an acre. The shopping plaza would be “35,000 feet at the most.”
Soja owns three buildings – 466 and 468 Main St. and 6 Burt Lane. The two Main Street properties have been vacant for two years, but have been upkept.
“It’s time to look in another direction,” Soja said. “We were thinking of putting another bank branch up there and we were all set to do that until one of the former members of the Planning Board, [Frederick] Fuller, came to us.”
Fuller told Soja that the Vision Task Force survey was examining the area for retail use and during a previous Town Meeting a similar zone change was proposed, but ultimately struck down, Soja noted.
“We have had interest from people to go in there and put in gourmet coffee shops, restaurants [and] little gift shops,” he added.
The current buildings would need to be demolished if the zone change were approved in order to construct a “colonial style” retail shopping plaza, Soja said.
“There’s nothing planned as of now, we’re simply waiting to see what is going to happen at the Town Meeting,” he added. “It could go in either direction. We could put up an office complex that has a bank [under the current zoning] or we can explore and perhaps put up something that’s more in lines of neighborhood shopping.”
Levine said she “had several concerns and questions” regarding the zoning, including an area near Crane Drive being vacant. She described it as an “eyesore.”
“The reality is that the businesses [near Crane Drive] are having so much trouble keeping afloat and now we’re proposing competing with them and these are town institutions,” she added.
The article also calls for the creation of a new zoning definition, “Cottage Food Operation,” appropriate to those who prepare low-risk food products such as baked goods in a home kitchen for sale.
The definition would require that home-based food operations maintain a valid residential kitchen permit from the Board of Health and comply with the requirements of the Massachusetts Department of Health. A special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals would not be required.
Planning Director John Pearsall said currently the zoning bylaw does not address small home-operated food businesses such as these.