Doing this. Look away for one second. Good evening everybody. It is seven o'clock and we are calling the Tuesday, April 15th, 2025 on planning board meeting to order, uh, first on the agendas, public participation on any matter, not subject to a public hearing. Does anybody have, um, anything they want to talk about that's not on the agenda? Next is review and approval of previous minutes. We have one for, um, April 1st. I'll make a motion to accept the minutes from April 1st.
Second. All those in favor? Aye. Um, we are changing our format very slightly. We're going right into public, um, public hearings, and anything has to do with an a and r will hold till after the public hearing as I do, um, every meeting. I'll just read this off quickly so we're all on the same page. Next on the agenda is our public hearings. Today we have zoning, uh, special permits and or site plan approvals. After the applicant's present, their proposal board members will begin asking their questions. We will then invite the public to ask questions of fact.
We will have a separate time for the public to speak in favor of or speak against. When we recognize you, please come to the microphone, give your name and address, and direct all questions and comments to the board, not the applicant. The purpose of our public hearings is to allow board members to collect evidence and testimony supporting or contradicting the published legal findings. We are required to make, to approve or deny an application. We cannot act outside the bounds of the zoning ordinance, nor the stormwater ordinance were also sought. Please understand public hearings are not a community
referendum nor a town meeting. We ask you to keep comments, civil and positive remembering, we are all neighbors working to move Westfield forward. While you are free to express your opinion, ultimately and legally, the board can only deliberate on the findings of fact, not on yours or our personal opinions. First on the agenda is a continuation, Irena and family LLC for special permit site plan, storm water permit per zoning ordinance section three dash 1 33 5 and six dash 10
and four dash one 10 to develop a motor vehicle sales facility at 1 98 Lock House road zone, industrial A for this hearing, the chair recognizes Rich Deloy as a voting member for Phil McEwen and recognizes Dylan Sweeney as a voting member for, um, John Bowen via the Mullen Rule. Is the applicant here? Applicant's Here. Welcome. Good evening. Is this Mike on? I can't tell. I can't tell either. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Uh, good evening. For the record.
I'm Rob Levek from our Levek Associates, although also with me this evening is Cole Modesto from our office, who was here in my stead at the last public hearing. And Mr. Ska, who's the project proponent for the, uh, the proposal at 1 98 Lock House Road. Um, as you're aware from the last public hearing, there were a number of items that, uh, needed to be addressed related to buffering and some other questions that the board had as well as the public had. So since the last public hearing we had take, we have taken the time to go through the site plans
and specifically look at, uh, some of the requests from the planning board. So if it pleases the board, I would go through that this evening. Briefly, I do have an updated color plan to my left, and I believe there's also a color plan, uh, to my right on the board if it's probably easier for everyone to see that go over to the smart board. So what you have before you, um, just to orient everybody, lock house road is to you the right of the plan. Um, the existing, we'll call it house is right here. The existing garage building is right here.
So the proposal is to include an addition of this house slash office. This would be an office for the retail sales. Um, these would be additional garage areas. This would be an addition to the existing structure. Um, and these would be outbuildings in association with the proposed use. We're proposing two curb cuts. Previously on the plan, you saw that the curb cuts, um, specifically the northern curb cut was closer to the adjacent property line. Um, there was concerns and, and, uh, questions related to that. Uh, so what we did is we moved that curb cut down since the last public hearing
to accommodate two twofold. Uh, we've added an eight foot stockade fence to this point here. From that point back, we have a six foot stockade fence. Uh, we've also provided an arbor providee hedge that we're proposing along that line. And then lawn area to keep all the access, uh, away from the adjacent property owner and properly screened from the adjacent property owner to the north. We also, in the last plan, had two dumpster locations. Um, we reduced that down to one and also brought the access. Like I said, down, there was some concerns, I believe, uh,
with regard to RV parking last time. So what we did, and we had the room in front, so we utilized the parking area in front to accommodate 30 foot spaces. So as you are aware, part of the operation is, is proposed to have rv. Uh, right now they're travel trailers in general that I see there. Um, but those types of, um, vehicles would be for sale, um, and repair as incidental to those, to the sails of that. So kind of the lighter gray area that you see in front is kind of front of house, so to speak.
If you think of a restaurant with the front and back. So the back of the house is completely enclosed with stock gate fencing along the north. Uh, we have the rail line on the west, which has the, uh, stock, I'm sorry, uh, a chain link fence and then along the southern boundary as well. Um, to the south there is a residential property, but there is a, uh, significant right of way, um, power line, et cetera that runs through both properties. So Stormwater Basin is located in the back. Um, I know there were some questions. I'd be happy to, uh, to respond to any of the questions last time related to stormwater
or any of those other, um, questions regarding recharge, et cetera. So, um, be happy through the chair to answer any questions the board may have. But generally speaking, we believe we've addressed, if not all the items, uh, most of the items that were in question last time, and we have information on the use, there was question related to I believe, uh, whether or not the owner would be living there. So they would like to live there at the very least temporarily. Um, in order to do this project, they're, they wanna try to free up some funds, um, as part of that they would be willing to live here.
Um, and then as they, the operation gets going, um, they potentially would move, um, move on at some point, but they would like to, if it's available, they would like to utilize the existing house there temporarily, at the very least. I have a question. What's the purpose of the two, uh, different sizes, height of, of the, uh, fence, the eight feet down to six feet? Um, would that visually Look better to be all one height? Um, good question. So upfront, we thought that that area was potentially more impacted both potentially by noise, um, as well as any sort of visual, um, you know,
something that they could see from the neighboring property. So an eight foot fence is probably about, um, six feet high, so it's probably about that high. So it'll screen a little bit more, uh, cut down a little bit more noise. Um, and then we drop in the back where, you know, the backyards are both kind of, you know, underutilized, kind of just a nice grassed area and, and trees. So, but this would shield the living quarters next door, directly shield the living quarters next door. And that was the goal. Might save a little bit of money too, having the lower Yeah, they are, they are more cost. The eight foot fence is more costly, but we felt it was appropriate upfront. Okay,
Thank you. Yep. Rob, the, uh, the, the five new buildings are, are gonna be, are they gonna be doing construction at the same time, all five of Them? No, I would not anticipate that. Um, this is gonna One or two and then slowly a couple. Yep. Uh, and, and there's probably no guarantees that they all ever get built. Um, kind of a grassroots operation to be, to be fair. Gotcha. Thank you. What's the primary buildings being built? So I believe phase One. So if you're gonna do this in phases, what would, what would be the anticipated phases? Phase one's gonna, Uh, name and address please.
This is Ben Ska, Ben Osh owner. What's your address? Uh, 1 1 6 OMI Street. So I'll, I'll, do you want, so the attached building there, there's an existing garage here. This is the attached building that we one Yes. Page. This one. And, and office is gonna be primarily What? So to have An operational office adjacent to the existing structure as well as this garage area here, which would be an extension Of the existing garage. Anticipate a phase two. Do you know if In a perfect world, when you would, uh, Can you repeat the question?
In, in a perfect world, what would phase two be? What building would be next and when? Um, I believe this one. Okay. As part of phase one though, um, I think it's fair to say that the enclosure and the fencing and all of that stuff and the improvements, the stormwater base and all of that would need to be provided. Um, that back portion probably doesn't need to have, you know, unless he's utilizing it, wouldn't need to be built out. But the stormwater basin and some of those controls would be, so we can, you know, we could, uh, as a condition of the permit, we could certainly, uh, define a phasing plan
and what would be included in phase one and in subsequent phases. Anybody else? Any questions from the public? Please raise your hand, please come forward. Kristen Meow. 27 Mosley. Um, I'm concerned about the fence, a six foot fence as you come down the driveway of the adjacent property, um, because you don't see the topography with these maps, but it's sort of high up and it comes down as you come up to lock house. But the neighboring property has a hill with the trees on it.
And so what I don't understand from what is being shown is what the line of sight for oncoming traffic onto lock house road will be. Um, as you're on the driveway for, what is that, two 10 when you come out. And so could the line of sight be discussed please? And I might have more questions after. So thank you. Jake, can we go to the grading plan? So I put a copy of the grading plan, which is sheet C four on your shared drive. Mm-hmm. So just to give you some perspective on,
on the contouring or the elevations on site. So the grade out at the roadway is an elevation of two 30, so right out at the roadway, um, the area in back is 2 37, um, and then it drops down to about a 2 34. That's all existing grade. So it climbs a little bit, uh, gradually up. So it kind of climbs quicker here, uh, adjacent to the, the home next door. Um, that area adjacent to the property or basically where the fence would be going, um, will not be regraded.
Our driveway will be cut a little bit into the slope to make sure that the grades that we can get into the site and we're not bottoming out or anything like that. Um, once we get to this existing garage, that will be pretty much the consistent grade with what's there. Now that pad, that slab won't be changing. Um, so from the grade here, which is, I'll call it two thirty six, roughly 2 36 in here, the adjacent grade over here is just about a foot higher. So that eight foot fence. And if, is it possible, Jay, we could go back
to the layout just so I could clarify. So just if you, if you think about that for a second, the transition is back here. So from here to here, that fence will be eight feet and it won't transition until it's basically at the high point and starts to drop down. So it should screen, it is back far enough. The house is about right. And about here, I dunno if we have an aerial or if it's possible to look at the GIS And they're gonna put in below, so have to come up. So this is the existing building that's the little, um, the office area, so to speak, the little residence and office.
So the house is over here. So the idea is that that fence would basically come back to about here. So screen that whole front area, there's a, looks like an out building and back there. So the idea is that that's kind of at the high point where it starts to slowly drop, not drastically, but climbs quick, kind of to a high point about here, and then slowly drops. So the eight foot fence brings you to that point. And then in the backyard it's a six May follow up. I'm sorry, what? May I follow up? Yes. Um, so my question is, right, so I drive a Honda pilot, right?
And so when I have been there, I park over here and then I come back and I come down. But because of where these trees are when I come down, I have to start looking for cars up here, right? Because that, right, because I have to see when they're coming before I go down the driveway, because when I come down the driveway, they're on top of me before I control that. And so if there's an eight foot fence, even in a Honda pilot, how am I gonna tell when the cars are coming? Like where is the fence, the line of sight from? That's my question. That like, oh, I'm sorry, sorry. Yeah,
it's way back from the right of way. We're not allowed to bring the fence into the right of way. So the edge of pavement is typically about 10 to 12 feet from the edge of pavement to the right of way itself. And then we're inside that. So that's closer to the backyard, so to speak. So it's, it's in here. Um, these trees in front are proposed to be removed as well, so that should help for with sight distance as well. So May I have another? Yeah. Um, are we, are, is the plan still to have cars parked here and if so, how high will they be?
Um, so their proposal is for display vehicles, um, and, and parking for the office. So if we could go back to the layout plan, if that's possibly appreciate your help. Um, so we have parking spaces here. We also have proposed, uh, uh, ev ready spaces. They're basically are a mandate from the state that they be, um, you know, battery operated cars could be provided with, with charging stations. Those are also up front as well. Um, from here on, we have,
and not necessarily has to be RV parking spaces, but we've extended the distance of those spaces for, for, uh, distance of 30 feet so that this could be, um, you know, traveler trailer or RV display area. So the idea is that there's some parking for the office, generally speaking, the only other area here is display. So I dunno if that answers your question. So display and parking. Well, I just, my, my concern is to know that it will be safe to pull out of the driveway adjacent,
even though there are either trees or if trees are removed, RV parking, that would be there. Um, and also if that's an ev charging station, can we make that the maximum possible distance from any residents, please? They're ev ready spaces. So they're not actually anything installed other than conduit. There's no mandate for actually installing the, um, the, the units themselves. Um, and they're arguably supposed to be in the parking area adjacent to office buildings, et cetera. So there's kind of a mandate from the state. Um, that said, there should be no change.
There will be no change, arguably an improvement, but no change other than the removal of these trees along the frontage, which are an obstruction to the site distance looking to the south. So you can rest assured that the fence is far enough back from the property that there won't be any obstruction. And we can make sure that they see that it could be a condition of the permit. We can stake that out so everybody can see where that is. But it's back from the right of way. And again, the edge of pavement is way out here. So if you were to scale this off my plan, it's probably about 15 or 16 feet back from where the edge of pavement is.
So a car pulling out of the driveway adjacent would be right about here. So no problem seeing anything from that driveway To improve. Actually, May I have another? Yes. Um, so if these ev things had to be near the office, they'd still be near the office here, right? 'cause that's the office. Is this the office? Sure. So if it were equidistant from both residential neighborhoods and therefore the maximum distance, if anything, were to say light on fire, right?
It would be as far away from both houses if it were in the middle. Is that a thing that, what happened? I'm sorry. Is that a thing that could happen? Yeah. So it's probably gonna be, it would be nine feet farther. Yeah. We could move them. Not, I, I don't think it matters. Um, I don't expect anything to blow up. Again, it's in, it's a conduit in the ground. There's no actual requirement at this point for installing the EV chargers. And There's, there's no wires in there, correct? Correct. It's just Correct. Just capped conduit. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. Thank you.
Anybody else with questions? So can I just clarify, um, so there's something in the ordinance about not having a fence higher than three feet within the front yard. So First 20 feet or so in the property here. Um, I think it's been in consistently interpreted whether that applies to a fence along the side property line or it's meant to apply to the front. So just for the board's information, Can you say that again please? So the ordinance reads in the case of a front yard, so that's the first 20 Or so feet into the property here,
no opaque fence shall be higher than three feet. So they've got eight feet up to the front property line, which is within the front yard. But again, it's along the side lot line not in where the ordinance intended it to apply to across the frontage as opposed to the side. It's not clear. I guess you could read it either way or technically you would read it that it would need to drop down to three feet along that front part. But I don't know that that's always been the interpretation of the building. That
Would have to down, Uh, whatever the setback is in this district, which is 20 feet front yard industrial A Looks like 20 feet. Uh, yes, it looks I would say 20 feet. Um, if that, if that's, so just to give Perspective As to where that is. Sorry, speaking to the mic here. So this line is dash line is the front setback. So it would re, if that was an interpretation, it would have us bring this fence back to this point.
So we could go, you know, eight feet from here to here and then drop down to meet the requirement. If that is in fact a requirement, um, I would probably omit it in its entirety only because if there's a concern, I don't think a three, if you're sitting in your car, right? Mm-hmm. I'm sitting in my car and there's a three foot fence depending on little, you know, details. You're driving a Ferrari versus a a truck, um, you could potentially have, you know, an issue seeing it. So I would just bring it back a little bit, um, and then go with the eight. At some point, there's no sense in the three foot fence,
it's not gonna screen anything. And, and you could, you'd still have the shrubs there. So how many feet of that fence that We could bring it back to the 20 foot setback, if that was the interpretation? So that would be 20 Feet that you, uh, it's not a total of 20 feet reduction's, not know it would be Looking at it 10, uh, It's about 20 feet actually, because if the setback Yeah, it would be 20 feet. Be about 20 feet. Yeah. Sorry, If I understand the situation right now, you have a fence that's going 20 feet farther than a questionable ordinance. Okay. Meaning how you, how you read the ordinance. Okay.
And you would eliminate the 20 foot fence or you would keep the 20. If you eliminate the 20 foot fence, you save some money. If you keep it, the neighbor gets privacy. Is, am I understanding this situation correctly? That's correct, yeah. I guess the other alternative would be to install a three foot fence. Mm-hmm. But that, for that first 20 feet, yeah. So I, I, I, to me, I, I'd like to hear what the neighbor would like. Yeah. Two, I'm a little Confused on what you're talking about. The three foot fence goes up my driveway, then it stops and the eight foot starts. It's okay. Gerald? Yes. Where, so your, your, your house is about
Here. Okay. Right, Right. Okay. So as, see the dash line here, that is 20 feet back from the line. So you have the edge of pavement, which is here about 16 feet or so to the property line, and then you know those trees. Mm-hmm. So the fence would start at the first, just before the first tree. Okay. And it would come back to here and it would be eight feet as we have it proposed, or what they're, what these folks are saying is do this dash line or extend that up that first, this portion here, which is about 20 feet, would either need to be lower
or they would've to make an interpretation. That eight, an eight foot fence there is, is not problematic. So an Eight foot fence, I don't want an eight foot fence, but I wouldn't mind a three foot, but then you start with the eight foot. But I want the eight foot to go the whole length here, and then he can do whatever he wants on his Property. So three here and you want eight, the rest Correct. All the way to my backyard. So I can't see, can you hear me through this? Yes. I, So that's what I, Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Um, back to, back To Rob. Sorry, do you have a question? Jason Leach, two 10 lock house road. Do you have a question?
Yes, sir. Okay. Um, on, on this building here, on this building here, this is actually, this would be the property line in between the two homes? Correct. Okay. So this building right here is, uh, sounds like a river 16 feet from the property line, correct. To the back of the building. Uh, would that be correct? Mm-hmm. Yes, that's correct. Okay. So I mean, this is a workspace. This is a workspace. This is my home. So what happens? Oh, I'm sorry.
What happens on, uh, what happens with, with, with the, uh, you know, the, the, uh, how you say the, the, the privacy of the, of the noise that's gonna go on as far as, you know, being that close. Yeah. Thank you Chair. Um, so a couple things. Um, so just to reiterate what, um, what the neighbor had mentioned first, they would like a three foot fence back 20 feet. And then for the arrest of that length, eight feet instead
of cha transitioning down to the six. I don't see that that's a huge change. And I think it's reasonable request. So, um, I think we would be okay with that. Um, as far, you know, with that input fence, that should provide additional screening, which is good. The building itself will act as screening. Um, the building's about 60 foot wide as dimension. Um, so there are two, or I'm sorry, there are three trees proposed in the back. Um, there's no other specific screening proposed other than the eight foot fence. Um, because we anticipate that all of the activity will be on the south side of the building
and all these doors. So the only thing we should really end up having on the backside of the building would be typically a man door and a, and a pad. So like a three foot man door, something like that. For egress only. Correct. Um, but no activity, no storage, no nothing is proposed. This is just lawn area. So in a perfect world, you're screened by the fence and the building itself. So in between this is still gonna be grass. Yes, sir. In between the, the property line and the back Of the building? That's correct. All this, all this area would be grass in Here. Loaned in seeded. Yep. Okay. Now, um, another question.
Uh, how's it gonna, how's it gonna work out? I apologize. Technically we're supposed to ask, you supposed to ask through here, chairman, and then, and then that's okay. It is silly procedural thing. Yep. Go ahead. Ask us. Okay. Okay. So my house sit up a little higher. So if we sit on our deck, pretty much if you stand up, you're still gonna see across the eight foot fence. Mm-hmm. Okay. Which, not a problem. I agree with the fence. It sounds like a good idea. Um, but it is just basically, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to smell it. I don't want to see it. Okay.
So how can we, how can we work on that situation of my only peace time is Saturday and Sunday? It would have to be through plantings. That's all. Also, I believe under the special permit, the planning board would have the opportunity to condition hours of operation. That is correct. Um, so that's, you know, so there's really kind of two components to this. I think I said front of the house, back of the house. I think that's a fair assessment. So front of the house is kind of more of like the retail component, right? Get it cleaned up retail component.
Um, the back of the house is where a lot of the work will be done. It's gonna be, the good news is it'll be done inside buildings. Um, that said, um, perhaps the planning board would want to potentially condition the operation in the front separate from some of the activities that would take place in the back. So some of those supportive or accessory activities like repairing vehicles for sale, those types of things, prepping them, that kind of thing. So if there was a restriction on the hours of operation for that, um, or any sort of exterior work that would be to me, logical. Um, but still allow them to operate in a, in a fashion
where the front of the house can operate when people want to buy things. Right. So it might be a little bit on the weekends, those types of things, because we all go to look at cars on the weekends. We might look at an RV on the weekend, but we don't want somebody banging dents out of a, of a fender or something like that. So, um, so that's just a suggestion. And you know, I think we could talk about that if we get to that point. You mentioned the, uh, the trees coming down. I was, I was out there and, uh, one of the things I noticed is that, that the northern drive, that northern, uh, entrance way,
exit way, uh, if you're gonna be pulling out of there, uh, you, it's almost impossible to see the road as you pull out on the right with those trees where they're at. So if, if they're definitely coming out. Well, there has been. So just to clarify, there has been some discussion. Those trees are directly on the neighbor's property, just a few feet off. I believe they've talked, I don't want to speak outta school, but I believe they've talked about the removal. Um, certainly if, if it's practical and amenable to the neighbor, it would be logical to remove. They're, they're mature
pines that are getting kind of nasty. Same thing with the ones in front. Um, well, we don't want to cut more trees than we need to. Those are probably A hazard. Yeah. The ones in the front are the ones that I'm speaking of. Yeah. Yeah. It, you just, you really have to pull your, your car out to, uh, to see that road. Okay. So there's a row, there's a row of trees really right on the property line, but I did, is it accurate to say, just gimme a thumbs up or a thumbs down? Is it accurate to say you guys talked about removing those? Okay, I'm talking about the ones on lock house road. Same ones. It's the two, the two big pines. Yeah, Those are gone. Okay, good.
Thank you. Yeah, we have to go through a, um, through the tree Warden, but yes. Gotcha. That's the plan. Can I speak again? Excuse me? Can I speak? Yes. Ask, do you have a question? Yes. My question is to this gentleman here on Jay. Yes. Is there an accordance that has to be eight feet or can you go taller? You would need a special permit from the board of appeals to go taller. Okay, thank you. Okay. Any questions from the board? Nope. I, I will state up front. Um, two things. Um, I think this is much better. I am not in favor of the three foot fence up front.
I think that is more of a hazard than a, than a help. Okay. I would rather eliminate the three foot fence and keep it eight feet all the way to the back. And I like to restrict phase two to the smaller buildings. And my feeling is the phase one goes up, we have a bunch of construction, and then a year later we, we have continued construction. Okay. And if we can do the two big buildings all at once, any other construction is away and shielded from the neighbor's house. That is, um, that is so
that way there they get all the construction out of the way early. Um, and then any other smaller stuff can be done whenever they want to do it. I would just be worried about the proponents of financial ability to do the big buildings all at the same time. Um, that's, you know, that's obviously a concern. Um, if that was the case, then we would probably want to come back and let you know why. Okay. And then you talked about split hours. Okay. Right now I think they said 7:00 AM 7:00 PM Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM 12:00 PM Saturday.
Do you propose different hours Read the retail component? Do you, um, we're talking about the retail Component. We're talking about if you're talking about split hours, I'm assuming you're talking about maintenance and you are also talking about sales. Well, I think to these folks point, and correct me if I'm wrong, it would make sense to limit the repair component of this to the weekdays as much as possible. Okay. And then if there's a retail component on the weekends that it be, you know, reasonable. Okay. Yeah. I never do
Anything on the weekends. So using the charger. So, so usually Sales not, not a repair, not only Minutes. So perhaps the, the hours that you suggest for the retail component mm-hmm. And then the hours you suggest, but only during five days during the work week. Mm-hmm. For the other component. Okay. How about a little bit, um, stopping a little bit earlier on the Maybe five o'clock or something? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's reasonable. I don't know If the people you know, would want to be working later than that anyways. I don't know how that business runs, but I think, you know, 7:00 AM
to 5:00 PM gives them plenty of time. Am I That's Reasonable. That's reasonable. Okay. For you. I'm just thinking about the noise component for the neighbors. When I come home at five or six at night, I am not wanting to hear a lot of noise going on next door. But I, I also think during the trade off should be, um, under, you know, they are automobile, they are motor vehicle sales. The sales sales is different. Right. So, but on Saturday, okay, if they're just selling cars Yep. There's no reason not nine to five. It's a reasonable time as well. Absolutely.
No reason to shut down early. But Even seven o'clock at night during the week for the sales, it's fine. As far as I'm concerned. I'm just talking about the, It all seems very logical. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Wanna specify that again? Okay. Monday? Yes. Jay, what was The, uh, consensus on this? Jane, what's the consensus? Monday Through Friday for the repair? Um, seven to five and then for the retail seven to 7 92 Friday and then seven to Noon on Saturday? Is that what you said? I I said nine to five. Nine to five on Saturday. Yeah. I don't have a problem.
I don't, I don't see anybody going to buy a car at 7:00 AM it Day. Okay. Oh seven And nothing on Sunday. What? And nothing on Sunday. And nothing on Sunday. Well, he just said that they're in church on Sunday. Yeah. Yeah, I heard that. Yeah. Great. Does that work for you guys? Okay. How do you guys feel about No, three feet in front? What about a, like a transition? You gonna do that or you just gonna go Straight? No, I would recommend it. They have a transition section. Yeah. Yeah. So we could go through. So bring it from Lower to eye. It would aesthetically be a Lot more. Mr. Chairman, I can make sure it's, we can, it will definitely not be in the driver's eye.
Okay. We can, we can keep it back. So if they would like the three go, three transition to the eight. Yeah. And then eight all the way back to the corner. Will the board, they said they can do it. Willow the board. Can I ask the neighbor a question? Sure. Why do you want the three foot fence up by the road? Is there a it's Aesthetically or a three foot fence? The three foot and the, and the front part before the eight foot starts. Is there a reason you want that there? I, um, I don't care. Longs there's, well you can't put any, um, bushes there
'cause they're gonna grow up too high. Right. And then I definitely won't be able to see. Right. But if there was a little fence, you know, it doesn't have to be there. No, but I just thought maybe it would look a little better for him and for me. Okay. That's what I was wondering. Yeah. Kind of this that. Yeah. Not really serving. No, that's where visually it's going to look a little bit neater. Right. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Any signage We are showing, we've updated a plan. We sent it to Jay late today. Uh, just to show a pylon where we would, they would need to detail that out for the building department. But we did show a pylon.
Um, go back over here. It's a little unclear to be honest with you. Reading the sign regulations where it can go. So we kept it outside of the setback and there's this hatched area right in the middle, um, where we could put a pylon sign there. It, it's very unclear. I think the consensus is usually a five foot setback Right There. So it could go closer. But because this is an open area here that won't have any traffic directly adjacent to it, that was the logical location. So that's where we're showing it. And I think that would probably not need to change
Illuminated. I'm sorry, not Illuminated. Uh, that has not been determined. It's gonna be spinning. Yeah. Little RV spinning with blinking lights. Perfect. So Often you are you talking often you make them come back when they don't have the sign design? Because When you say illuminated, are you talking I'm talking light or You talking neon? Internally lit. Internally lit. That's what I was asking. Based on the hours of, well, I don't want to, I i, if there's no restrictions, I would assume they would've want illuminate and then there's a Dimming hour. Mm-hmm.
Well, by ordinance it's gonna be off by 11. Unless you want to set it sooner, but, um, well, that's all likely guess. Yeah. And science, They just have to come back. Yeah. But the ordinance is pretty generous with sign size. So usually you want to see it before it goes up. Yep. So it's often the condition to come back. Conditions. Yeah. If there was a condition about the architecturals and the sign, we would certainly not object. Okay. All right. Anybody wanna speak in favor of or speak against?
Please come to the microphone. Show another question. Sure. I just thought of it. Uh, again, Christella 27 Mosley. Uh, is it possible for the board to condition? I know the last time we met, uh, there was a discussion about, um, cars being salvaged and repaired, uh, and sold, which is fabulous, right? Reused. Recycled. But, um, could it be conditioned that any electric vehicles have any, um, battery components removed before being brought to the property for repair? Um, because damaged batteries can be very, uh,
dangerous and we don't want them near residential locations. So that, I'm just wondering if the board can condition that one issue. That if we're gonna salvage an ev if we're gonna work on an EV that isn't, um, that is in some way damaged that way. Not like I got a flatter a fender bender, but like a, that we would not have multiple damaged batteries on the property, uh, to damage the area. Thank you. So right now, uh, Mr. Voki does not do any, um, battery operated vehicle repair. Um, but we understand the concern.
So, um, perhaps a prohibition on that. And if he wants to start doing that, he would have to come be back before the planning board if that, if that's appropriate. Yeah. Good. No independent shops work on, on EVs? I wouldn't think so. It's, it's a, I don'ts A trick to one independent shop that works on an ev. Right. Okay. Anybody wanna speak in favor of speak against you in, um, proposal, please come forward In favor. Two Tenhouse Road. Um, I just have another question that I haven't heard anybody mention anything yet. Is, is, uh, about the lighting?
I mean, I mean they say something about a sign, The light lighting on the building, the lighting on the sign, all, all Over to show us pretty cars and all that stuff. So the lighting will comply with the, uh, city ordinance. It will be dark sky compliant and it'll be zero lumens at the property line. Okay. It doesn't mean you will not see the light. What it means is it will not be illuminating. Your, your no different than you can see a streetlight, a streetlight from a mile away. Doesn't mean it's illuminating where you are are now. Okay.
But that's the city ordinance and we don't waver on that. Okay. Thank you. And, Uh, and they will come, they will be coming back before us when they want to put a sign up. Okay. So you'll get a notice on that as well. Well, it's usually the administrative. Okay. So he that we don't get notices or That So Administrative On this one. Is it? Well, the too late for questions. Yeah. What's that? When when they come back for the sign, we don't send out notices. Okay. Oh, okay. You come back for a time. There will not be a notice. My apologies. All right.
Anybody wants to speak in favor of speak against, please come to the mike. Just One more thing about the lighting. So by ordinance, lighting has to be off by 11. Um, unless the board wanted to condition an earlier time. 11. 11, Excuse me. You have to condition earlier. What about people who go to bed at seven or eight at night? 'cause they've gotta go to work for four. It can't run till 11 o'clock. It's gonna shine right into my house. A bright lit up sign that says, you know, I don't know, Benjamin's car sales. Let's just say it's just not fair to the people
me that are right next door. And I'm not against him. I told him this. I'm, but I am against some of the things you guys approve. Right. Okay. So, and if I'm not gonna be notified when the sign comes up, I can't come and listen to what's going to be said about it. So I have to do it now. 'cause I'll be in the wind. Thanks. Thank you. I'm just confused talking with the lights on the sign For the Lights on the building too. All of them. But the sign, okay. Yes. I think there could be, uh, I think it's reasonable to request
because of the adjacent property owner, um, that we reduce that to maybe 10 o'clock. Uh, is that better? That's fine. And, um, and then beyond that, um, limited lighting just for security purposes, you know, in the Right. That's all Right. So, just, just to be a little clearer. So the sign by ordinance, the sign has to be off by 11 unless you wanna make it earlier and the other lighting has to be off when the business is not operating except for security claim.
Except for security. Mm-hmm. This is just a thought. If The business is closing At seven, Um, the purpose of having a light on past nine, advertising the business on a road like a lock house road that just has local traffic that knows it's there anyways. It's not like South Hampton Road where people travel up and down and, and be seeing the business. You know, when it's not open and saying, oh, I'm gonna go there. Everybody's gonna know that it's there. So I really don't see the purpose of having that sign on past nine o'clock. I agree. Just my opinion. I I think that's logical. You Think that's possible?
Thank you. So the sign will go off early and the ordinance dictates that the lights go off and the business goes off except for security lights. That's the ordinance. So the bus. So just, I'm just thinking of the business close. I wanna be as practical as possible. Yeah. So if the sign goes off at nine, perhaps the lights go off at nine because you know, the business may close at seven. Mm-hmm. But you know, people you know are leaving or milling about or whatever on their way out the door. Um, does it make sense? Does nine o'clock make sense for everything?
So you can do that. That'd be a waiver that you can issue the lighting ordinance. How do guys feel about that at 9:00 PM is What you're saying to have the lights on after open hours, After business time? If you think of the summertime right? You're not really gonna have any lights on. It's really just the winter. Yeah. It's only gonna be winter, Right? I mean basically the lights will never go on in the summer. Right. It's just, just when people could have a slip and fall on the way out late, you know, something like that. If you want to tie it to the, to the hours of operations, not a showstopper. It just seems logical to leave it on a little bit longer than if they're closing
at seven in the winter. Mm-hmm. Um, anybody else want to speak in favor of, speak against, um, what is the proposal for this phase two? Again, I don't want construction going on continuous for five years. That's not fair. That's not good for the neighbors. That's my opinion. That's only my opinion. Can I ask the planary question? Sure. If we were to say, have a timeframe for completing phase one in that, that second large building had to be completed within that timeframe or not for a period of time.
I don't Ben, do you think you're gonna have the resources to build that second building? So what I'm thinking, like, uh, if that's gonna help. So I will try to do a slabs for all buildings and we just left the job for a small buildings, just a frame For a Two Years or something. So just to give you some perspective. So if we finish the site and he does the slab for the second building in phase one. Yep. Right? The, the erection of the building itself is, is weeks less than weeks. Like, and then he, then they're working
inside. So like Morton Buildings, Rob Morton Building type. Yeah. That type of, yeah, like a Butler, Morton, Morton Star type of building. Those, those types. That makes sense. So then that way there's no heavy equipment. Then they come for the second building. They would come for say a week, erect the building, then it's all closed up and then they would be working inside. That's the building with the, the large overhead doors. So that like if you do the RVs or whatnot, I think you had a picture of that photo around so much. That's correct. Similar that, Yep. Alright. Something like that. Yeah.
I don't know that I'm clear on what you think you wanna do about phasing. What's that? What is it the board wants to do about phasing? About the phasing? They're gonna force slab. Okay. Well, I mean in terms of how you'd want to condition it. Alert and condition, if I understand this correctly, we're gonna condition them having to pour the slab in phase one and then they can erect the building whenever they, you know, they can, they have extra time to erect the building at that point in time after that. So all slabs are phase one? No, just the large building.
It would be the two large buildings. So phase one would include the addition to the existing garage, the office building expansion and the Repair Facility slab for the repair facility at the northwest right corner. All the other buildings could potentially be done later. They, they could be done later. Uh, how about you ask them to submit a phasing plan? Submit a what plan? Submit a phasing plan. Okay. Is that Fair? That's great. Okay. It makes a lot of sense. We can submit that with the architecturals and the signage at the same time, hopefully.
Okay. We have a draft condition. You may wanna refresh it 'cause I've been adding, adding things that people talk. I have it as 7:47 PM 7:51 PM 7 51 7 50 1:00 PM Special permit site plan approval storm water management permit, subject property 1 98 lock house road draft conditions. The site shall be developed and maintained in the court. One. The site shall be developed and maintained in accordance with the submitted site plan entitled proposed motor vehicle, uh, sales facilities sheets
C one through C six and D one through D six, dated 2 20 25 with the most recent revisions dated 4 10, 25 and 4 15 25. As prepared by R Levek Associates signed and sealed by Robert m Leve, RLA or fleet crl pe and with the photometric plan sheet L dash one as prepared by Illuminate dated 4 10 25 as may be amended herein. Plan, plan revisions a fence to be eight feet along the entire northern lot line except
the front first 20 feet where it shall be three feet plus a transition. Section B shall large RV parking spaces a paper and digital PDF copy of the site plan incorporating any modifications herein conditions shall be submitted to the planning office prior to making application for a building permit for commencing the subject site construction. Just if I can stop you there. So that RV parking that was kind of talked about last time did, didn't really really hit on it at this hearing. I think Rich was asking about
We uh, Mr. Chairman, we incorporated that into the front. Yeah. Is That, is that the discussion we were talking about? Yeah. Didn't you already incorporate that in Front? Yes sir. That's a leftover from the last draft. We can take that out. You can take that out. Yeah. If it's on the plan. Okay, then D shall be eliminated. Am I good to go? Yep. Two house side shields to minimize the but's view of the lighting element shall be installed and maintained on each of the three light pools along the residential lot lines.
Three, prior to applying for any building or signed permit, the applicant shall appear before the board with elevations illustrating the proposed appearance of the new or expanded structures and any signage details. The board reserves the right to require a formal amendment to this approval to consider impose or amend any conditions deemed warranted by this new information. Okay. We're adding a phase phasing plan With that. Yes. Repair hours, four repair hours, um, will be 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday
and sale hours will be seven to seven. Monday to Friday, nine to five on Saturday, no Sunday operations. Uh, five, um, sign lighting will be off as of 9:00 PM um, display. Okay. Um, sign lighting and site lighting is off at 9:00 PM Correct? That is what we agreed to, correct? Mm-hmm. Okay, so five J five should be sign lighting and site lighting is off at 9:00 PM except for security lighting. Yes sir. Yes. If the project is phased, uh,
stormwater must be fully constructed in the first phase. Um, and then the applicant will be submitting a, um, phasing plan as well. And there is a prohibition on EV work. There should be no ev work at the site. Okay. So Jay, in, in the phasing plan, we have to make sure that we reference that. Um, it's pouring slabs for um, it's pouring slabs for the two big buildings.
Well they're gonna come in with it and at that time we can Deal with specifics what they proposed. I think the last, the last one we discussed not having um, like tore apart RVs at least in plain view. And then there was another one no more than two RVs at one time. I don't think we Can Restrict that. That's a discussion. I'm not sure we can restrict what they can put up there. I think, I think it was in plain view. I think that was the Well I think we should be able to restrict the, The Having an RV there to be used for parts. Yeah, well yeah, we, there should be,
we should have a restriction on um, torn apart RVs that they can't be seen site, anything like that. All that stuff has to be Yes, that, that we should have a restriction on that. So couple things Mr. Chairman. So, um, that makes a lot of sense. So I would think back of the house would where it would be beyond the fence out Of sight outta mine? Yeah, out of sight outta mine. That, that's where any sort of repairs happen. Um, the area in front should be for display RVs and display vehicles only other than people coming
to park for the facility. Um, and then I believe they will have to get a license from the license commission with the site plan submitted to the license commission who will then approve them for a certain number of sales vehicles. So that's also another layer of control that the license commission, I believe will an enact, We don't want to end up with bringing an RV is they're going tear it apart. Strip leave a Hal there, You know, definitely don't want that. That's Exactly Right there. Right now that's basically cut in half and the kitchen sink and all that. So I agree we don't not want see that
and it's not behind any building. It's seen from the road. Yep. Want salvage yard in the front? Yeah, I'm sorry Cheryl. What they said, basically they're saying they don't want a salvage yard in the front. That's right. So something like all disassembly work to be Limited to the rear of the building Inside, Inside or in the back yard. I dunno. I think you could not Be in plain view. Probably the west best way to say it would be behind, not Visible From the street behind the expanded building. So behind, behind the,
the garage addition. Behind the Garage rear of the site and not visible from the street. Yeah, right there. That's Here. No, that that's great. Just, just a quick question 'cause where, where the, the house is or the office, you have that huge like, like a hill. Mm-hmm. And then you have the, um, campers in the back. 'cause you really can't see those campers unless when I, when I drove in you couldn't see unless I drove in further because you have that hill. So that's where they're gonna end up being in that. 'cause that hill's not changing. Correct. Uh, if anything, we're cutting it,
we're cutting the back area a little bit behind the building. So we'll have a little bit of a right area nestled and back where they can hide the, so where the Hill is now, where, where the house and stuff. Is that staying because that's high enough or you can't really see behind it? That's, That's all staying and we will be a little bit lower than that in back behind the building. Okay, I gotcha. So that will be basically be hidden. Yes. Okay, thank you. Yep. So can I just clarify on EVs, so it's no repair work, but they can sell it? Yes. No repair work.
So if someone buys their ev there, you come back, it's an issue you can't work on. I'm sorry, say that louder please. If he sells an EV to someone in whatever front wheel comes out, he can't fix it. No, no. EV work. If the wheel comes off on an ev, it's getting flat edited. Just an example of Bottom. I mean There's a repair work that doesn't necessarily involve battery. Excuse me. I have one question. So these EV stations are only to charge the cars? Yes. Are people allowed
to go there at 12 o'clock at night and walk around And charge Their cars and charge their cars? I mean, you're asking. Okay. Um, well right now, right now there is no charging units going in there. There's only an empty pipe conduit from the, probably the office house. Okay. Underneath the ground. And it'll just terminate there. So at some time in the future, if they want to put a charging station in there, they can. It's, it's basically being required on all new construction.
To answer your question, yes, people can drop their car there, plug it in, and then have somebody pick them up or they can walk around, but they're not gonna do it at that location. There's enough downtown areas where they will do that then they will bear. If anything, if anything it would be, it's only people who would probably be working within quarter mile. Okay. So, alright. Any other things we want? I actually have one. Um, we, in the last meeting we had discussed, uh,
about no painting That they Can't No what? No painting of vehicles. Painting of body work. Oh, that's prohibited. That's prohibited. So The, the definition Of what he's getting a permit for, prohibits that. Yep. I just wanted on the open. Absolutely. It was brought up last time. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Do I hear a motion to close the public hearing? I'll make a motion to close the public hearing. Second. Um, any other discussion? Do I hear a motion on the special permit approval? I haven't voted on the last motion. Oh yeah. Um, all those in favor
closing the public hearing? Aye. Anybody opposed? Okay. Do I hear a motion on special permit site plan approval storm water management permit as, um, conditioned and amended subject property 1 98 lock house Road. I'll make a motion to accept it. I'll second. Okay. Rich? Yes. Bernie? Yes. Cheryl? Yes. Dili? Yes. Um, Ray? Yes. Jane?
Yes. And I'm a yes. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. So just a little housekeeping on that vote. Uh, Dylan was here at the first hearing. What's that? Dylan Was here. Yeah, He was here, but he was not, he technically misses the meeting because he was not a participant at the time. Yep. That's how I've been instructed. Okay. He's not mm-hmm. He's not a Participant. What? I just didn't, he wasn't a voting part. He wasn't a voting member at the time. So by definition, he missed the meeting even though he was sitting in here. So
You've never done that before. I know. And I haven't been told to do that until this year. So What would make him participate? Say that again? How Would he participate? Just not being He. He mul, he mullins in because he doesn't have to read, he doesn't have to watch it on tv. He was participated. He was here watching the whole thing. Well, The Mullin certification is that it was not in attendance and had to view a video transcription. Or video or transcription. We've never muled someone who's been here for the hearing. What I've been told On the video, We might, we might need some if,
if either way we might get some clarification. It's either gonna be seven to nothing or six to nothing. Six to zero. Okay. But that, that's what I've been told. And I went through a bunch of scenarios. Um, and, and that was, that was told that if they're here, they can mullen in. Mm-hmm. But they technically Mullen in, they can just step in. Well, they, but they technically missed the first meeting and so They're here. Okay. Okay. Talk after.
Next on the agenda is, uh, next on the agenda is Community Action Pioneer Valley, Inc. For a site plan approval, storm water permit for zoning ordinance section four dash 1 46 dash one 10 and four dash one 10 to develop an educational childcare facility at zero Southampton Road Parcel 63 dash R 16 zone business being water resource. So this hearing is the third. Um, it's the SEC meeting on the third week.
So Dylan Sweeney will sit in for John Bone. Sorry, Mr. Chairman. Uh, good evening for the record. I'm Rob Leve from our Leve Associates here this evening representing, um, the folks for the childcare facility, community Action, pioneer Valley, Inc. Um, this property is kind of an interesting property. It's, it's located up on Southampton Road in Falcon Drive. Um, the police is the board. I'll go back to the smart board and work from there. So, uh, Madero Way is here. Falcon Drive head towards the airport. Um, Ray Makers is working on a
site, I believe it's right here. Um, so this is the subject property. So it's on South Hampton Road and Falcon Drive. Um, it's a nice piece of property. It's all Sandy up there. Um, they are looking to do a childcare facility for Head Start. Uh, pretty straightforward building and site, uh, design, possibly Way up. Sure. So this is the same property you were just looking at. Falcon Drive to the north, uh, to the west, uh, Southampton Road in Madero Sway. Um, so there's a proposed 15,800 square foot
childcare facility. It's gonna be a pretty straightforward rectangular building. Um, not shown on our plan is the area, uh, which is on the south side, which will be for, uh, the play area. There's a number of classrooms that essentially, uh, will filter out into the play area that's located on the south side. Um, we're coming off of Falcon Drive with a curb cut specifically because, or at the request, um, of the proponent, they, they certainly didn't want, um, traffic on
and off the mass DOT right away if they could help it. We did at one point have a curb cut and we did look at poten, potential pedestrian connections. But based on the concerns and the buffering requested by the proponent, we want to maintain a buffer around the property so that, um, there is limited visual and, um, noise impact to the facility itself. On our plan, and based on some of the comments from your planner, we have made some minor revisions. One was the entrance to the building. We kind of reconfigured that so that we weren't, um,
running into a planter that would kind of, uh, be, uh, at the access point to the facility. We've also reduced the amount of parking, so we still accommodate for it in the stormwater, uh, basins. Um, but we're banking that parking, uh, as assuming it pleases the board. We bank that parking. So all of these parking spaces along the north side, we have, uh, vetted that with our client and they're fine with banking those parking spaces and of omitting that, which wouldn't change the circulation pattern, which is an account, uh, counterclockwise fashion.
While the comment from your planner is logical with regard to kind of angled parking, um, in general, uh, angled parking is a little bit trickier to get in and out of. Uh, I don't personally love it. So I, when I have the ability to, uh, access perpendicular parking with a 24 foot wide drive vi even though we're showing a one-way traffic pattern, we'd like to do that. Um, there was also another suggestion to your planner, which we did utilize, and I think it's a great suggestion. Gonna hatch this area on the way in to direct traffic around the counter-clockwise motion.
So there was a question about operations. So folks would come in, um, I'm sorry. Children would come in either by bus, which they have their own little fleet of buses, which would be parked over here. They'd either be coming, coming in by bus or dropped off. Uh, the dr the entry area is here. So there's a drop off area. Typically with this, these age, uh, students, they're accommodated into the building. So it's not, we don't expect them to be filtering through the parking lot into the facility. This has been vetted through Head Start as well as their architect studio, MLA who's been working in specifically works on
childcare facilities. So, um, pretty big landscape buffer on the, on the top. Um, the landscaping around the building will be, uh, done by the landscape architect that will be doing the play scape. So we will kind of enhance that. We'd anticipate that we, they would be enhancing that even beyond what we show. Um, we can go to the grading plan, just show you real quick. So we have two stormwater basins, one in the north and one in the south. Um, they are to accommodate the, the parking lot runoff here and the, the, the roadway access coming in as well
as the roof runoff from the childcare facility itself. Um, again, those meet all the stormwater management standards that are required under the local ordinance and the mass DEP standards that came out in 2008. Um, I'm trying to think what else I can tell you. I can get into the details of the drainage system if you'd like, but we did get review from Joe Kitner and he signed off. We've made some minor revisions for him. Um, and he signed off for the engineering department. So I believe we're in good stead. I do understand there's some aquifer related, um,
what's it special permit? Uh, I'm sorry. There's a, a timeframe. 35 day timeframe. 35 day review Period. Yeah. So I don't know if we can close, uh, or if you can vote, but maybe in a perfect world if you were satisfied, maybe we could close and I wouldn't have, you wouldn't have to listen to me again and then you could just vote later. But, um, whatever the board thought was appropriate. Um, but again, I think it's fairly straightforward and I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Can I, I'm just curious if, um, is the address actually gonna be changed to Falcon Drive since the actual entrance is
facing Falcon Drive? Because it doesn't seem to make sense that it's saying South Hampton. Yeah. When you can't get access to that, but the front of the building is facing, it Seems logical. I don't think they, I don't think it's part of their desire to, uh, have an address on South Hampton Road. It would be appropriate to have a Falcon Drive address. That would make sense to me. Um, I know the engineering department is in charge of that, so once we get through the approval process, I would assume they would assign that. But yeah, Falcon Drive does seem logical. I'm also glad that you reduced. I was like, when I seen 88 parking spaces, like whoa,
it just seem a little excessive. So how many, I'm glad it's been reduced down. Your banking it, so how many is actually there now? Lemme just give you that answer. I mean, I, I'll be honest with you, I didn't count it the new part, but I'm thinking around 50. I think it's 60 something. 60 something. I'm sorry. Six. I'm sorry. 65 spaces are shown now. Okay. With 25 spaces banked. Okay. So they still meet the minimum, right? The zoning ordinance minimum. So the, the bank spaces are not required spaces there. Right. Surplus
And then the will. Okay. So is there also gonna be just curiosity? 'cause this is also the second part. If you're gonna put a sign in, um, is that sign gonna be on Falcon? Because that would probably tie into like an address. Yes. The actual form address, the sign would be on, uh, on the Falcon Drive frontage per the interpretation of your planter. We would like it, uh, in a suggestion from your planner moving it closer to the street. We'd like it a little bit closer than we showed. Um, again, the, the setback requirements were a little, uh, funky. So yeah, if we can go within five feet of the front setback,
we would like to do that and we're showing a sign there, we would just adjust. Um, and that would be submitted as part of their, uh, sign package. I don't know how much signage they really need. Probably a little bit of signage on the building itself so they could submit that separately with the architecturals. This is the head start that's moving from down on South Hampton up and It's my understanding. Yes. Yeah. And then the last question I have and I'll, but if is this gives enough room if there is a fire or emergency that they have ample room. 'cause you'll have one way in. They're both sharing it just to make sure that, I don't know
how wide that entrance is, but, um, that's part of that question is to make sure that if there's a fire truck that needs be, get in there. Yep. So absolutely. So all emergency vehicles can get in the driveway. Access is 24 feet wide, which is consistent with your normal subdivision road width. So pretty, pretty good. 24. Um, and then moving around the parking lot, we ran the truck turning movements. Um, and we can get all emergency vehicle and fire apparatus around, uh, the parking lot. Okay. We do, we did have provisions if we needed to for a gravel access around the outside the,
the southern side of the building. But, uh, we don't believe based on, uh, the, uh, fire department or the NFPA requirements, uh, we believe we meet those. So again, Fire was okay with the plan? What's that? The fire department was okay with the plan. I just heard that. Yeah. Thank You. And it's a single story building too. Gotcha. Thank you. Yep. You're Welcome. What's, what's the age and how many of the kids or kids are gonna be there? I don't know how many kids are gonna be there and I believe they're elementary. Um, head starts usually Preschool. Preschool? Yeah. I'm sorry. Preschool. That's what I meant. Yeah. So preschool. Sorry.
Okay. I'm not sure how many children Is there a total of six? Ion two. Okay. 120. And this is secondhand. I apologize. 127 students total. Potentially. Good. Wow. They're really expanding. I think they're starting with 90 See, cold knows stuff. I have one question. The, uh, western side of the property, will you see well from South Hampton Road? Will you be able to see that building completely? Will that lot? Well, no, they don't. That will stay wooded.
Yeah. So they don't want to, and actually we met with the landscape architects that are gonna be designing the playscape area in one of the, uh, they're, they want to do a, a tree survey and try to save as much as they can. The only, uh, caveat there is that a lot of times when you clear if it's white pines, again, if you clear 'em and then you have that rough edge with the lollipop pines, so to speak. Um, but there, there's some mixed deciduous stuff there. So in a perfect world it'll be a, uh, they want to save as much as they can. Gotcha. And we'll, we'll tighten up wherever we can without
still having fall hazards, you know? Yeah. That kind of thing. Thank you. Yep. Any questions, comments from anybody? Still here? The only fencing's gonna be around the play yard. That's correct. Okay. So if the kids get loose out of the play yard, they're free to go. That's, that's, yeah. Yep. Loose razor wire. Yeah. And the stormwater basins are at a four to one slope. Very, very subtly sloped with dry wells in the bottom, uh, with a infiltration trench.
Uh, so that these things are gonna, you know, the goal, these things are gonna be bone dry. Are there any gates on that fence that fencing around The back? Yes, there Are Gates. There would be gates and those would be controlled by the, the staff. We don't have a draft. Um, I can get you a draft decision if you want, but we have to wait per ordinance. The court shall defer its final action until you get comments from the various folks we sent it out to. Or 35 days have elapsed and it's probably only been about 15 days or so.
So, um, if you want a draft decision, I can pop it into the folder. Can I just ask one more question, Todd? Yeah. Just, uh, it just hit me 'cause I forget, but on snow where, you know, if we get a lot of snow, where are they plan on putting in? Uh, it could be store, I think there's ample parking still. Um, so it could be stored in the park. In a perfect world, they could store it in the parking area. Um, I would expect no more, uh, normal storm, storm events and actually probably multiple storm events
could just be plowed to the side. Like you would typically happen. Stockpiling could happen if it needed to happen, uh, could happen in the bus parking area. We could utilize On the outside, you're saying? Yeah, they could utilize that. Maybe move a bus, um, temporarily, you know, or I think they have more space. I'm pretty sure they have more spaces than buses currently. There's kind of expansion potential, but yeah, there's, there should be ample space to store it. We do have the bank parking, but again, um, and that would be lawn area, so probably prefer to store it on the, on the hard surface. Alright.
And they do understand that they can't use like the salt and stuff like there, right? Yes. Okay. Yep. Thanks Rob. Yep. There's a decision on this share drive now if you are interested in proceeding. But again, uh, her ordinance was supposed to wait 35 days. Uh, the, in the play, Excuse me, in the play yard, are you gonna have well, playscapes and that sort of thing in there? Yes. Yeah. Very, very detailed. Playscape plans will be provided. Um, they're working on those now. Um, certainly be happy to provide you. It's kind of, it's gonna be cool what they do in there.
They, they got a lot of cool ideas, um, so we could share them when they're available. But, um, you know, play scape, uh, play scape, surfacing, um, maybe different aspects of play. Um, you know, kind of a, they talked about a naturalistic environment. They try to use less, at least the, the other facility that we did in Springfield recently, they tried to use less, um, synthetic materials and more kind of natural, uh, back to back to the earth type of stuff, which is kind of neat.
So, um, but we'd be happy to provide it when they, when they finish it up. Well, it looks like you're coming back here on the sixth. Yes. I don't know if they'll have that specifically, but, um, yeah, we'd be happy to come back, uh, and, uh, close it out. Any other questions we need before you come back on the sixth? So it's mostly just a matter of waiting out the clock because mm-hmm. It's unlikely we'll get comments from any of the people we send it to. Um, there was a question on number seven, our 88 parking spaces regularly necessary. Yeah. We reduced those, right? Okay. Yeah. We reduced to just the minimum required. Mm-hmm.
By eliminating that, that, that northern row and banking those, and I definitely wouldn't be offended if you guys decided to close the hearing and not make me come back. I have pickleball to play. You. They know That you were already like a 5.0. You can miss a couple. Look at 35 and May 6th. It's the May 6th, Right before, oh, I thought it was the fifth. It's right before. So it's the fifth, correct. The 35th day, I think is the fifth. Or we could have margaritas Fifth. The fifth is when it runs out. I'll close the sixth is when our meeting is, You can send cold. What'd you say? The fifth is when it runs out, the clock runs out.
Oh, the sixth is when our meeting Is, yes. This one extra days. Jay, if we close the public hearing, can we reopen it if necessary? No, we need to need to re advertise. Have to re advertise. But you could vote later. You could wait to Vote. But in theory, so if the water commission decides to comment on this, then then your hearing will be closed and you can't take in new information. Okay. It's Worth a shot. Sorry. Uh, it, it's even worse for me. It's my anniversary. So hold. Oh. All right.
Looking for a motion to continue. May 6th. I'll make a motion to continue this hearing to May 6th. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Have good Night. Good To see you. Next on the agenda is other business. I'm sorry. Uh, yeah, we don't have any a and r. So we're onto other business, um, contemplated zoning amendment to add professional and personal services has allowed uses in industrial a for example, hair and nail salons, physical therapists, physicians,
chiropractic therapists referred from city council. So yeah, counselor dean's here. I know we talked about this briefly conceptually a couple weeks ago, but maybe he can shed a little more light on what being sought. And I did put the old zoning from 2007 on your share drive, and that's, that one says like an industrial A, it says anything that's in business B. So it had that layered effect that, that went away shortly after that. So the idea is to kind of bring some of that back into the ordinance.
Mr. Chair, board members, good evening. Uh, hopefully I won't take too much of your time up. Um, Brent being 94 Ridgecrest Drive, obviously also a member of city council. Um, I brought this to the council and then into the zoning, uh, zoning planning and development. So that's where it sits in our world. Uh, we're looking, I'm looking to, uh, pull some of the uses that were back in maybe 2007 j give or take, 2008 that were in, uh, industrial A now currently sitting in, uh, commercial A. Um, so we're looking to pull some
of those back into industrial a the less aggressive uses within the zone. Um, what I've found is, even though for the last few years anyway, um, there's been some requests about filling some of the space out there with some of these, I I've been saying less aggressive uses for that particular area. Um, and with the hospice of kind of building that tax space and filling the vacant space that is already existing. Um, I'll, I'll give you an example. Uh, there, the last one that just approached me that's kind of spawned me to, to, uh, to come up here and
and talk with the council, um, is there's like a vacant old, um, woodworking business right next to the Utz building on Root Road. There's a, uh, hairdresser there that's looking to go into that spot. Now, this was a few months back. I haven't had that conversation since. So I'm, I'm not sure where that particular thing has gone. Um, but it, it, it, it just made me start thinking that there are plenty of those spaces out there. And because of my job, I, I do a lot of western mass and a lot of northern Connecticut. Northern Connecticut actually does this pretty well.
There's a lot of Enfield, a lot of Windsor, Windsor locks where you'll find these, uh, I don't wanna say industrial parks, but smaller parks where then they'll also have, um, some medical facilities like dentist offices, medical offices. They'll have physical therapy places. They'll be hairdressers, nail salons. So the smaller businesses that we've seen on the service side, and, you know, looking back and talking with Jay a little bit and, and he shed some light on kind of when this shift happened. Uh, and to be honest, I, I really don't remember.
I, I was off the council in oh 8, 0 9, um, so I'm not sure exactly why we pulled a lot of these uses out of, uh, industrial a, um, I, I personally think, 'cause I've been around a little bit, is that we were really trying to push a lot of these businesses in our downtown. I think we were trying to build that section up. As you can tell, that hasn't really happened. Um, so, uh, you know, and then thinking about budget issues and how we're trying to raise revenue and utilize as much space as possible without really taxing,
taxing, not so much money, but taxing the environmental uses that we see in industrial a we, we see a lot of those businesses. You guys see a lot of those businesses potentially coming here. And there's always those debates on what we can let happen here or not. Um, yeah, there's an aquifer issue, but there's also the truck traffic issue and that, that sort of thing. Um, there is some movement when it comes to the real, uh, uh, spaces around that roots athletic facility. Um, although took some time to get, uh, permitted, uh, there's, um, a caption audience there. So people always are dropping their kids off.
And that was one of the conversations I had about, uh, this, uh, hairdresser that wanted to move in that particular area. So, uh, we're looking for some input. Um, I'm not saying that we need to move everything back in, but if you look at the list, Jay said you might have it in front of you. There are things out there like medical and dental clinics, they use, some of these words that they use are, you can see how old some of this stuff is. Um, barber shops, beauticians, um, you know, so that, that's the kind of service stuff that I'm looking to move forward. I, you know, do I think there's gonna be a bank branch there? No. Do I think there's gonna be this deluge of restaurants?
No, but, um, maybe we can handpick some of those. Although I, I'd like to see a BuyRight use, but I completely understand if there's some special permit that needs to happen in some kind of, uh, public hearing process to make these things move forward. Uh, and also we'd have to schedule a public hearing, obviously, to get the public's input on this particular issue. The thing that kind of worries me about doing something like this is you're gonna take an industrial building out there and somebody's gonna come in and buy the building up or lease it and then do like they did,
like they've done in the old mills up in South Hampton and bust them up and just dump a lot of these little small businesses that are floating in and out all the time. Mm-hmm. You know, I don't know if we want do that in our industrial areas, you know, if they're gonna, or do we want in any other thing is they're gonna build a strip mall type thing in there. You know, do we want those in the middle of our industry area? You know, those are the thoughts that I have. I just, you know, I'm not sure if it's a good fit to do something like that. I understand the reason to get the, the businesses there, but I, I just don't know if it's a, it's a good fit
because of the way they have to set these businesses up. You know, you're gonna take a, a building, take a building like, uh, like the, the old digital building. Somebody bought that up. You could put it, it has, it's got low ceiling, so it's not a good warehouse type building, but you go in there and you break it up into 50 or a hundred little small shops, and then you gotta get a shopping center up there. You got a mall kind of thing. Is that what we want to do with our industry area? I, I just don't know if that's a good fit or not in my mind. Did we do something similar to this at Berkshire Industries? They kind of subdivided that building up.
Yeah, There's that, uh, marijuana testing place that was in there. There's a Brewery in there. Brewery. Yep. I don't know what else is in there. I just know that it's, Yeah, Berkshire was NIA, I forget who's in Berkshire, the actual main building. I, I forget who bought that, but it did get split up a little bit. It got split up. Yeah. But it's one way of utilizing empty space instead of letting it sit there. And interior. Yeah. The, the, the commercial tax base in the city, I think is very low. And, and, and really try to build that back a little bit at a time, I think is smart. Um, you know, that's why maybe it is a special permit kind of situation where we can kind of regulate what
that hap how that happens. I don't see someone, you know, although it's digital in industrial A I'm not sure. I don't think it's digital. A, is it? Okay. So, um, again, we're, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to find the less aggressive uses for the property. Um, there's a lot of vacant space out there. Uh, there's, there's a lot of vacant land out there too, but I'm, I'm anticipating stuff that's already existing and filling, even if somebody's successful, like, uh, PG Technologies or, uh, seal, right? Or, um, even FW we, like, if there's a section
adjacent to it that's attached to that building, that's a vacant space, which one of those do have, they have no way of really renting it out. They have no use for it themselves. So there is some, uh, interest into generating revenue on that side. And this way, if it's the Smallers, you're not gonna see the truck traffic. You're probably only gonna see the people that are up there already to utilize a lot of this space too. So the traffic would be a lot lower. And to be honest, I, you know, we gotta get our head around the economic development of the town. Um, and industrial A has always attracted the more the, the aggressive uses.
And, um, we're just trying to figure out a way to fill that space. They do something similar to this up in Indian Orchard. They have the mills sitting out behind, uh, off of, um, main Street on Indian Orchard. And those mills are, um, utilized by a variety of different businesses. Some of them are like HVAC storage areas. Yep. Okay. Which is clearly industrial. A and then they have, part of that building is, um, for artists.
Okay. Mm-hmm. Um, and then there are other small, like you said, retail shops in there. Like, um, Yeah, I've seen some Salons or anything like that. Yeah. But it, it's, they do something similar to that right there. And, and it works well. Yeah. I've been out there a number of times, Well, the same thing with the mill on, on Mill Street here in that field. They've really done a nice job here filling that space. Yeah. It, it, it took a long time to do that. I think they finally, you know, found their niche a little bit. Um, although they're feeling some pain right now with the bridge work, but, you know, is what the
Bridge has been getting worked on since we were In middle school. I, I think so. I think so. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. Holyoke does the same thing too. Bridal Shops and everything inside there. I'm a walking zoning map, if that's a zone business. A I, I know it is, but I'm just saying the concept of the mill where they put these different businesses in there, they have that double one cafe, which is a huge success and the, um, brewery in there. Mm-hmm. I think it is. Yeah. Yeah. And then have, I've never been in there, James. Oh, I'm never been there myself. That's why I think of the name. Yeah.
Um, and in the office building to have any businesses, You know, so we're definitely looking for input. You know, this is a, a longer process. I, I would love to have this wrapped up before summertime, Mr. Planner. But, um, it's, uh, 'cause we understand like all our schedules start, you know, we start canceling meetings and stuff like that. So, and we do have to have a public hearing. Yeah. My initial thought was, uh, along these lines is to take commercial aid uses, which you've got in front of you, which are kind of smaller scale things to kind of plug some of these holes. They're not gonna be
a Walmart going in or something like that. Um, and probably saying something like anything, anything allowed in commercial A would be allowed in industrial a and either it'd either be by right or by special permit. That's probably one thing you might wanna consider what the threshold would be for how those would be permitting if you took that route. Brent, are you thinking by right or by special permit? I mean, I think, I think a, a majority of these could be by, right? But there's also a handful of 'em that you probably want to have a little bit more control over and,
and do a special permit. You know, do I want to, you know, I mean, do you really need to know, you know, if someone's gonna use that wood, what WoodWick building for a hairdresser, I'd leave that to up to you guys and the council, we can debate that too. But, um, ideally by Right. Would be something that I would like. But I understand the climate out there. So special permit would be the fallback. I mean, they are smaller scale issues. Um, So I don't think the use itself would be a concern. The only concern might be how it fits into the other industrial neighborhood. Well, my, my only thought was hairdressers, they use a lot
of chemicals and those are all going into the, you know, drainage system, whether it be, you Know, yeah. But wherever they are, they're gonna do That. Yeah. And there might be some other usage that we're not thinking about also. That's not part of the zoning. Now If it were aquifer, it would, it would be special permit. Mm-hmm. Anyway. Anyway. So Are you looking for a recommendation? You looking We can put this on our agenda and discuss it. Well, I mean, we're discussing now, so I think he's just looking for some direction. Um, one, well I proposed taking
that commercial A list. So A, is that reasonable? And B, is it a special permit issue or would it be a BuyRight type of use that add in? They can already do restaurants and banks and industrial A by Right. Which I'm not sure why. But See, I, I tend to flavor the special permit just 'cause I'm, I'm very conservative on some of this stuff and I really like to make sure
that we know what's happening and what's going in there to start with. We can always change it later if it seems to be working very well. But initially I think the special permit's probably better 'cause we're dumping, we don't know, even if we opened up the list like that, you know, again, we could end up with strip malls to proposed and, you know, taking a, a beautiful piece of manufacturing facility, which if everything goes away, the country's trying to, we're gonna have more manufacturing coming in here. So you hate to give up your big manufacturing facilities
to be chewed up like that in an industrial area. You know, a lot of the mills they've taken over and converted that way, which have worked very well, are not, they're in the old industrial area, which was anywhere you wanted to put it. Like downtown Westfield. We had industrial, we had HP Smith down there. We had all the wood manufacturers and the, the needle company. And those have been converted over. Which is fine because that type of business fits in the area, you know, and you go to most of your industrial areas outside of the city and not just this city anywhere,
because I've gone all over the country with 'em and that industrial area at six o'clock at night, unless they're 24 7 operations, or even if they are 24 7 operations becomes a wasteland. There's just nobody there. People don't go there after five, six o'clock at night. You know, other than people who are going into work, anybody else would go in there is is just not going. So it that kind of prohibits some of these businesses because they're not going to have the walking traffic through there to draw people in. So that's gonna hurt. Where if you take an old mill building
and you convert it over, that's already in an, in an area that's got a lot of traffic around it because that's where they built the old mills right. In the middle of town. So I think a special permit would work well if you're gonna do it. Uh, I just don't know what, you know, where they, how well it would Be, How well it would move forward with where our industrial, our biggest industrial areas are. And again, I, I hate to see if slew, you know, like the old, old old Oak County building, if somebody'd bought that,
that would've, that could have been divided up very easily. 'cause the way it was set up into different areas is there's actually three or four buildings inside of there with walls that was divided because I used to work there, so bought it, being bought by the company that did it. And now we've got another manufacturer and another industrial place in here where if they'd have gone in and started dividing it, we've lost it. So I think that's why the professional permit makes some sense. Uh, we can look at the property and see if it fits. And two years down the road, if everything's looking just ducky in, in all sunshine, well we make a change.
Jerry, if I understand you correctly, you're gonna take industrial A, which includes any use allowed in business B districts not requiring a special permit. It used to Include that. It doesn't anymore. That first line has been taken out. That first line's been taken out. Okay. So that was 2007, 2008 that changed. Okay. So Back then you, you could have put a hairdresser in or a, or a retail store. But now I wanna hear you say beautician Or beautician. Okay. So, But now you can, You're proposing commercial a neighborhood. Okay. I I I would think you would have
to strike one, eight and nine. Any use allowed in resident C because we don't Want Yeah, it'd be just non non-residential use. Yeah, non-residential. And then I have no issues with two through seven at all. Okay. And I have no issues with two through seven by Right. I really don't. I mean, there's nothing. I also, like if I, if I may, Mr. Chairman, I, I, I don't want to get into like people's business plans if their businesses are successful or not. That's not our job. At least I, at least in, in my opinion, um, you know, if they decide to put something in, you know,
they hopefully do the homework and the business is successful. Uh, it's really not, you know, we're not requiring business plans for these people to, to, to create a, a business opportunity. So, You know, but all of these here are small enough. You're talking a retail store with a floor area, not in excess of 750 square feet. That's a really small store. Okay. Retail store, a custom store such as bay, um, jewelry store. Okay. That the article made sold at the premise. Okay. Constitute not more than 40% of the gross. Okay.
A bank self-service, laundry, medical or dental clinic. Maybe we wanted to put, um, a special permit on that just to control, um, the discharge of any medical waste or anything like that. But even then, um, so I, I'm, I'm fine with this. Absolutely fine with this. I, I'm fine with it too. 'cause if, if you look at it this way, a lot of these empty warehouses, when they divide these up, you're paying by the space,
if I understand this correctly. Mm-hmm. They're renting by the space. But a lot of times these where these owners, the warehouse digitals the old digital Yeah. Is one of 'em. He's been the owner for a long time of that particular building, if I'm correct on that. He's been an owner for a very long time. People have come in and out of that building, renting for a short term. Yeah. Long term whatever. I worked there, um, when it was called Excel. But they also, if say you manufacturing comes back, they have that opportunity to move people back out, to bring it back to where they want.
At least in this perspective, you're not leaving space empty and just sitting there idle. That's what I, I I don't like buildings just left empty and, you know, I think that's what you're saying too, bill, correct. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So one, one thing you could add just thought of is maybe this is limited to existing buildings, so you're just moving into spaces. You're not taking up industrial land to build a beautician shop or Something. You using space inside? I'm not using existing space. You don't mind that either? No. No. I mean, personally,
if there's developable land in Westfield, I'd like to save that for some premier tax Companies. I kind of like that. Yeah, I like That idea too. Mm-hmm. I would just ask like if there's any, if they would have to build an addition out a little bit to make it a little wider or something, how would that work? I, I'm just spit balling here, but I would say it probably doesn't happen 90% of the time, but if there needs to be some renovations done just to fit Yeah, we could try to word something like that, accommodate that.
But I agree open land is too vital to, especially in that neck of the woods And um, uh, solve a problem. The strip model Constructed, Correct? Mm-hmm. So I'm hearing a consensus kind of commercial a by right uses in existing buildings. I haven't heard your existing Buildings. Look, you said you liked one through seven, but What about eight? Yeah, nothing residential? No. One, eight and nine can't be used. Okay. Because it's a residential, right? One, eight and nine. They're all, they all talk about residential. Okay. Two through seven are, you know, retail store. Um, yeah, no, no, I understand. I just,
I Didn't want to see some apartment buildings end up in the same Place. Nobody's doing Business. No, I agree with you. I, this is a great clarification. So Yeah, I mean the deluge of this, he's having work, so. Okay. Dylan? Yeah, Phil. Yeah, I'm okay with it. We good? Yeah. Yeah. Is that enough for you? That's great. No, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Well, thank you doing this. Yeah. Uh, thank you. I, you know, it's just, it's something, you know, that I've seen working
and then a couple of residents for the last couple of years. It's kind of not residents, I should say business owners. Is that, Um, councilor Fanon, you sat through all of this. Do you have anything you want to contribute, add anything? Yeah. Um, asked because obviously industrial is mostly more I here to see what proposal is and um, I was in support of moving some of these passive businesses to invest. Okay. Councilor Finn is also chair CPD. So we'll talked about this on the council.
Okay. I mean, she, she's a counselor. She sat through all of this. Yes. She deserves the ability to speak. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda is other business possible amendment to correct, confirm or change the zoning district that areas believe to be historically depicted in error on the zoning map. On the zone map, we have three of them, 2 56 Union Street shown as industrial A believed to be rural residential RC one at the corner of Cleveland Avenue
and Cycle Street believed to be commercial A and RC one in the vicinity of Ridgeway Avenue believed to be residential C. We talked about this at the last meeting, but um, I believe what we needed to post it, correct? Yeah. You, you talked, I brought it up. Uh, we talked about formally just putting through a map amendment to the proper channels just to confirm or adjust these to either match the map or match what they're supposed to be. Um, but I don't think the last agenda MI item was specific enough, uh, to allow you to have made that decision.
So this would just kind of have that discussion again. But I did include in the sheriff file several documents that kind of support, um, the questions. I don't know how much detail you want to go into it, but it appears, um, if you look at the maps, it seems pretty clear that at some point when the maps were translated into GIS, um, there were a few errors made that 1990s, uh, never changed. Um, we did kind of update the GIS recently
and I caught a few others that were clearly clear, clearly errors that were adjusted. Um, these are less clear. I can't have direct proof, but it's, it's, you can infer pretty closely. I think if you look at the materials, how they ended up where they are. And I did bring some old maps from the eighties. Uh, if you, again, I don't know how detail you want to go into to it, but, um, basically the three areas are summarized and if we wanna rezone 'em, what should they be? Um, the Ridgeway AB area should be purple residency.
Do we have an RRC one? No, I mean we have the district. It's meant to, if you're gonna create an apartment complex, you'd go and rezone it and then do it that way. So when, if you look at the old maps there, when they redid them, everything rc they labeled RC one throughout the whole city and then there was a correction later, but they had missed these two or missed this one and it's just remained RC one ever since. And it doesn't make sense since it was already a developed neighborhood. Yeah. That one there makes perfect sense to go to rrc,
Which it, I think technically always was, You know, the second one down Cycle Street. Um, now That's a little confusing 'cause you say you should go go to ca, which is light green. I don't see light green or Around it. No, there are, it's a commercial, a district. I think there was probably a, maybe a beautician in that corner and there was a middle there or something. Um, and if you, I got the old map there that shows it as ca commercial A and somehow it got reclassified as RC one. So that is actually in commercial aid.
But does it make sense at this point maybe just fold them both into the adjust surrounding zone so that uh, the magenta goes up the one lot that's part of that industrial property. It's all the same lot and then the single house becomes residency. Well the purple. Yeah, that, that makes all sense in the world And get rid of that spot cohesive. So that would be a rezo. Yeah, that one makes sense. And then the last one we talked about on Union Street, I know it happened, the property, the zone across the street, they,
they missed the, it's hard to explain. You can look on the maps, but they misaligned the maps and they showed it lining up with the industrial across the street, but it was actually one lot over and uh, just got caught up into that. So I've got the 1966 ordinance that shows the two other properties were rezoned that those five acres, two industrial, but the 2 65 was never part of that. So, So what's the tan across the street from 2 65? Rural residential business B Business Business B.
Business B. Yep. Okay. Oh, bbb. It looks like RR To me. Yeah. So the two at the very top where we're recently rezoned, you may have remember that one And see that one here should go, should go to rural residential as far as I'm Concerned. Well, I think that's what it is, but the fact that it's been shown so long as industrial and the fact that pretty much everything around it and across the street is now non-residential, I think it makes sense to affirm the zoning map and, and just call it industrialized. And that's kind of what we talked about last time. Did we have a special permit on 2 65 Union Street
at one point a couple years Ago for a marijuana shop? Yeah. Would that have effect? Would this have affected that special Permit? I think so. And there's a memo there from that I wrote way back when, when that came up. Okay. And that potentially So a real wrench into the works. Yeah. If that was never actually industrial aid. Thank you. So yeah, it should be fixed. Just you gonna change it to what I think the way it shown industrial aid. Okay. That's my suggestion.
Uh, for the record, the owner of 2 65 Union Street, Clifford Leway was notified on April 4th of this meeting. Okay. I I haven't heard anything of you. I have not. Okay. And I'm sure he thinks it's industrial a 'cause that's how it's been shown for Yeah. 30 years. Mm-hmm. Um, obviously the marijuana people did too. 'cause that's when the map shows. Um, so again, it really, I think upset the apple cart to go back to rural residential.
So if the forward's an agreement with, with those, uh, Ridgeway to RC Cycle Street, split that and get rid of the spot zone and then Union Street has shown we can do that as a math amendment sometime. Just housekeeping really? I think I'm in favor. I'm in Favor. Me chair. No, No. I just have questions on the, uh, the Ridgeway Avenue one. Um, let me give you some background. Um, you know, prior to zoning
my uncles and father owned, like everything you see there and you know, my father built a house there on Ridgeway and all that's there is single family homes. Um, that purple piece I think was changed later on. I think that was C one originally. And the reason I think they made it C one is, so if somebody wanted to put in a condo unit or something like that, uh, the C one would allow for that.
But when you change it to residency, then you can put in like higher density to families on Ridgeway Avenue. Um, Well I, you Know, I, maybe it's the right thing to do, but I don't think it's the right thing to do without notifying the people that live there. Oh, they would get notified when we have a Hearing. Th this is just the preliminary thing. It's just a Discussion if you want to pursue it. Okay. All right. Then all the abutters would owners and abutters would get notified. Okay. Um, I'll show you the map and explain,
but yeah, I don't think it was ever RC one and RC one does allow single to multifamily. Um, but it's not meant to kind of cover an existing neighborhood. So, um, we'll put that on the to-do list, give you in a few months. I noticed there are three rezonings coming through the city council this next meeting. So we don't have enough signs to handle those. And this, so you Don't have enough What we put signs out if
there's a public hearing notice. Okay. And there's three other rezonings plus these, we don't have enough. So maybe we'll just hold this till a few months. Where do you put the signs On or about the property? Oh, I was gonna say we have a brand new digital Sign Out there. No, little you have to go by. Yeah. Stick in ones and say when the hearing is and all that. Gotcha. So, so They can see It. It's not a critical issue because it's been this way for 30 years, but when the time comes and we have enough signs, we'll we'll put it forward.
Okay. We good. Last on the agenda is energy facilities citing board notice of adjudication, request for comments and public comment hearing April 29th, the proposed battery energy storage facility at Madero Sway. So I think this could be on the agenda. You did get that notice, um, of a second hearing on this project. It's a different kind of a different reviewing entity. I think it's more or less the same people, but Yeah, I, I think, you know, the fact that we're, we're
so much against this thing going into place, we should probably repeat what we sent sent before to this new, new hearing function just to get on record with 'em. Uh, you know, unless we wanted to rewrite something. But the one we did last time was pretty straightforward. I think it should, you know, to get it on record to show that we're still against it and that we really don't want this down here. So it's, uh, again, to push our what little weight we have toward them and tell 'em No,
It's Strictly a Zoom meeting now. Well, yeah, but they're gonna keep, it's, it is a zoom meeting, but the, the records will all be there. Yeah. There's a comment period. So there's the hearing itself on the 29th, which you on your own, but whether the board wants to submit another comment letter I think Is A discussion. And that's, we can do that till May 13th I think. So if you want to do a comment letter, we can review one at the next meeting if they already have you. Obviously the first letter, This leads an interesting question. Um, is the city against
all of these facilities or this monstrous facility at this location? So, and, and the reason why I asked this question is I'm watching Agawam put small ones in and I'm watching West Springfield put small ones in, you know, five megawatts. Um, okay. And, and they're putting these in. Um, they're, they're small. They're really small. Okay. I mean, they're not any more or less lethal than, but they're not, they're not gonna burn for the next, you know, they're not gonna have a, a burn
that you count in the half life as opposed to a couple hours. Um, and, and so that leads to the question is, and, and I think this goes towards the city, I mean, goes towards what we tell the state. Okay. You know, are, is this board against all of these or this one unit at this one location because um, you know, could we put a five megawatt one somewhere else in the city where it's not over the aquifer and it's not affecting the public? Wouldn't he be in favor of it? Okay.
You know, so, so we did, I mean there is a pending zoning ordinance mm-hmm. Which came before you to regulate this. Um, so that's kind of news since the last, your last letter that's still in committee, it's probably going to die because I don't think, uh, the council wants to do something much more elaborate. Um, which means we may not have a zoning ordinance in place, which means the state would likely, if they were to grant the exemption of the zoning, they'd say, well,
Westfield doesn't have an ordinance, so we're giving you an exemption. Um, and that latest discussions is that ordinance would maybe set these out into different tiers based on how big they are. And maybe there's different permitting or locations, maybe something by Right. Some by special permit. Um, so that's kind of in the early stages, whatever that city ordinance ends up looking like. And probably be a few months before that, whatever get adopted. So I guess one of the arguments is
locally we're working on a zoning mm-hmm. Regulation. So we are opposed to the state granting a zoning exemption, let us make a local decision. So if you're gonna comment on this specific project, that might be something you have in, in your letter that kind of gets to your, your point of where there's different, different things may be more appropriate than others. But, but this notice is just for this specific project. Right. So, Well, I think I should be, at a minimum, I should be at least on that zoom meeting.
Um, and I'm strongly contemplating putting my name in to at least Speak And say, Hey, no, we don't want this. Nobody wants this. You Know, which is why I turn around and ask the question, is the city against all of these or is it just against this monstrous unit? Okay. Um, yeah, Son, I'd have to think about What's that. That's Said, I'd have to think About, Well, in, in, in the town of Agawam is putting them in a residential, um Right.
Abutting a residential district, literally putting it amongst the houses, but it's small. It's really small, Small, like a pump station, Five megawatts. It's, I dunno, I dunno how big the thing is on five megawatts. I, I look at 'em and say, okay, how long are they gonna burn for? Yeah. Okay. Well at least Westco is putting all their eggs in one basket, I guess That's right. If we're gonna build it, build it big, go big or go home. Yeah. So, or just don't build it Or just don't build it. Right. So Say that again. I
Especially build, it couldn't be a worse place to put, Couldn't be a worse place to put it. It's gonna affect everything up in the north Island. I think Ridgecrest or Farley have or something. Yeah. Fall. I hear you there. I'm just sit next to you. I can tell you that There's so much love. So I fall into the camp of we don't want it, period. Uh, these things are just, I don't think the technology is there. Uh, The, these lith lithium ion batteries just scare the hell out of me. Even in that we're stuck with 'em in all our phones
and all, you know, there's just been too many instances where they've gone south, you know, with, without any, you know, with no, no way to stop it. You know, they, they lost a container ship out in the ocean because batteries and cars lit off and they couldn't do anything about it. Let it burn to it San you know, there's just, there's too much as far as the technology goes, there's just too much that, uh, I'm not sure if we've got a handle on it yet,
and I'm not ready to put that in our city. We rush into this stuff and then it turned, you know, everybody was gung-ho on nuclear power, but, and it, it worked very well. But the after effects weren't thought out very well. I think this fits into the same category. You know, they do a job, but the after effects we've gotta live with forever. Nobody has any answers. And the indications are, they're not good. You don't need anything else from us. I mean, I don't think we're gonna be putting
in a letter, another letter. We haven't, you said we have until the 13th, right? May 13th. I think the comment period ends on the 13th. So Yeah. If you wanted Yeah, if you wanted to do another letter, we can talk about it next week. If not, then we'll just, we'll move On. So for the next meeting, let's think about whether we wanna put in another letter. That's the way I look at it. I am planning on getting on the Zoom meeting at least at a minimum to watch it. Okay. Um, Oh, do you want me to draft something similar to the last letter? Sure. And we'll, we'll throw in
that zoning amendment language as well. Sure. That'd be great. Anything else we wanna talk about or do we wanna go home? I'll make a motion to adjourn. I hear a second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Set the new precedents here.