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Date: 10/2/2023
EASTHAMPTON — At the Easthampton Planning Board’s Sept. 19 meeting, the board continued a public hearing over the proposed Tasty Top Development on Northampton Street. During this meeting, the applicants proposed a new plan that would include adjusting Mountain View Street to align with the entrance of the site.
Per the latest plans for the development, the site, which runs from 93 to 97 Northampton St., includes 10 apartment buildings with a total of 188 units along with three mixed-use commercial units, a restaurant pad site, a bank site, one retail space, a Roots Learning Facility and a Roots Gymnastics facility.
As part of the meeting’s new information for the project, Luke Showalter, an engineer with Furrow Engineering, explained that Tasty Top Development owner Frank DeMarinis had purchased two properties across the street to be able to shift Mountain View Street to meet the site entrance.
“The applicant would expand the right of way easement further out onto the new property, which would result in the Mountain View shift 30 feet to the south,” he said. “The project site entrance was also shifted and reconfigured, it moved 65 feet to the north, and this would line up directly across from Mountain View Street.”
Showalter explained that the site for the bank was also adjusted for the shift in entrance.
“This new entrance plan would alleviate all of the major concerns, the side entrance would be aligned with Mountain View Street in a typical four-way intersection, property owners would retain access rights to Mountain View at the new location. There would be no need to alter any of the land owned by other parties,” he said.
With the shift, Showalter explained that the entrance would have less of an impact on the Starbucks that is slated to open on the street.
When asked by board Chair Jesse Belcher-Timme about additional waivers being submitted for the project, Showalter said that the third and final one would be submitted within a week following the meeting.
Richard Bryant, an attorney from Stantec, the firm conducting the traffic peer review of the site, explained that they had been meeting with abutters about concerns for the project, after that was proposed at a prior meeting.
“We’ve had some very good discussions and we’re pointing in a direction that is very positive. The applicant was going to give and say he would reconsider the access location and focus on the other side of the road. They said they would consider adding some paving along their frontage to the newly aligned roadway,” he said.
Bryant said that one remaining issue with the plans currently was the left turn lane coming out of the site.
“What is still not quite there in our opinion is the stacking of the left turn lane on the site. The transitions into that turn lane are a bit substandard and from an operations perspective, that turn lane is undersized, you’re going to be stopping through traffic,” he said. “From a safety perspective someone may end up on the wrong side of the road or in the wrong lane.”
Bryant recommended moving forward with a further elaborated version of the plan presented with the shift for Mountain View Street.
DeMarinis explained that some of those final issues would be ironed out as part of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Highway Division review.
“It’s something that we would be addressing during that process. I think we have shown we are moving forward with everything right now and Mass Highway is going to have the final decision on that,” DeMarinis said. “I really think anything we’re doing right now is just kind of guesswork.”
Belcher-Timme explained that the board has to “endorse a proposal” that it feels comfortable with.
“Our peer reviewer is saying there’s more that needs to be done to get a safer proposal. MassDOT is going to have the final say … and I think we’re trying to find the best proposal we can make so that we can put that decision with MassDOT to hopefully find a way to make that work or not,” he said.
Board member James Zarvis said the project was getting “really close.”
“That’s time well spent, getting it a little bit closer. I think one more plan — basically with this design but adjusting as Stantec recommended, the left-hand turn, I think it’s wise,” he said. “I also think we are really, really close and I appreciate the applicant’s work getting us there.”
DeMarinis said that he would “go back to the drawing board” before the next hearing, which was not slated for the next Planning Board meeting on Oct. 3.