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Date: 3/8/2021
HOLYOKE – The Holyoke Planning Board heard more comments and continued discussion regarding the construction of a Dunkin’ near the Log Cabin on Easthampton Road.
Rob Levesque, of Levesque Associates, said he had met with the DGR City Council subcommittee the night prior to the Feb. 23 planning board meeting. “We did have an extensive meeting regarding the project itself and the changes from the previous approval we received in 2018,” he said.
Levesque said there was “a lot of discussion related to traffic and related to site planning.” Ultimately, he said a motion was made to recommend approval to the council with three conditions. One of the conditions, he said, was a letter from the Planning Board to the committee “to make sure I was tied to the Planning Board, any Planning Board decisions.” Additionally he said another condition was for the city’s engineer related to traffic for “a lookback provision” for a year after the project was completed, or sooner if needed.
The site plan presented to the Planning Board was slightly different than previous ones, Levesque said, as the Endangered Species Program wanted “to reduce our footprint down to what’s existing asphalt.”
“That did change our plan from our previous submittal to the City Council and our previous plans that were going forward approximately a year and a half, two years ago,” he said.
When the location of the entrance of the project was brought up, Levesque said they had chosen to have an independent entrance and had taken into consideration a lot of different factors when deciding where to put the entrance. He said they not only considered the traffic onto Easthampton Road, but also the stacking of cars as they exited. To do this he said they’d taken a look at several other Dunkin’ locations in the area to know what they’d be able to accommodate during peak hours in the morning.
“Generally speaking, we found from a general operations point of view, during those hours we were able to accommodate the cuing at the drive through lane, and we would be able to accommodate the queuing at the drive through lane without a vent in a normal function based on the vehicle trips, based on the store, based on the transactions that happen at those stores,” he said.
Levesque said despite COVID-19, the number of transitions happening at Dunkin’s were the same, but the drive through lane has been getting more use at locations. He added, however, that he was aware that there may be times that traffic gets backed up in the drive through. However, he added that they’d taken steps to ensure this happened as seldom as possible
“The beauty of this site is we’ve been able to separate the drive through traffic, we have a bypass line lane, those are two main focuses we have when we’re designing a site. We also have a separate lane and a separate location for parking separate from the drive through,” he said.
Additionally, he said there were “four spaces” at the end of the drive through where they could ask people to wait if absolutely needed. While this wasn’t typical, it did happen from time to time, he explained.
Planning Board members noted concerns from the public around traffic and also addressed concerns of their own One of the concerns from councilors was surrounding the “culture” of the area as it was close to the entrance for Mount Tom, which serves as a popular hiking spot.
“I have a lot of concerns, mostly because of the culture of this area so with the parking spaces, what I see is all the hikers parking, getting their coffee and going about their business hiking. Parking on the side, parking in the Dunkin’ Donuts, parking across the street, which is going to cause more traffic,” one Planning Board member said. She said while they had tested for blind spots she was worried about distracted driving, especially in the winter weather and was worried that it would result in a situation similar to what drivers experienced at the Dunkin’ on Northampton Street in Holyoke.
Levesque said while he welcomed hikers and hoped they would stop in to purchase a coffee, the parking situation would need to be monitored as there was limited parking for Dunkin’ customers. He said signage to discourage long term parking was a possibility as well.
“This has been designed with the Delaney’s Market in mind. This is not a big Dunkin’ because of the Delaney’s Market taking up some of the space,” he said. “This is not a downtown location.” Levesque added that he expected the majority of people to use the drive through and felt confident that they could accommodate parking for Dunkin’ customers.
Ultimately, the Planning Board voted to consult with the city engineer for an evaluation of potential traffic issues and/or solutions. The board also voted to extend the public hearing to their March 9 meeting.
The March 9 meeting will be covered in next weeks Reminder as the meeting occurred after press time.