WESTFIELD – The Planning Board voted Tuesday to issue a special permit to a city resident seeking to remove of soil from his property.
Adam Roberts, of 176 Prospect Street Ext., petitioned the board for a permit to remove between 2,000 and 2,500 cubic yards of soil from the rear of his property. Roberts said, at a public hearing held Tuesday, that he is leveling an area with future plans to build a structure on the level area to be created by removing the soil.
“Right now there is a steep bank,” Roberts said. “I would like to put a pole barn up in the future.
Roberts said the excavation will be “in the shape of a horseshoe because I want to leave a buffer between my property and the house behind mine.”
The Kane Brothers subdivision is located behind Roberts property.
Planning Board Chairman Pro Tem William Onyski asked Roberts how he came up with an estimate of between 2,000 and 2,500 cubic yards of earth that would be removed. Roberts said that he is working with a local contractor. JL Raymaakers of East Mountain Road calculated the cubic yardage to be removed.
Roberts said the soil removal process would take between three and five days to complete.
Onyski said that typically a plan with detail is submitted as part of the application process.
“I’d like to see something more definitive,” Onyski said. “You can’t really check (compliance) against what has been submitted with your application.”
The Planning Board attached seven conditions to the special permit, requiring that the excavation be completed before Nov. 1, 2013 and that the earth removal work be done after 8 a.m. and that work stop by 5 p.m.. The board prohibited excavation on Sundays and holidays.
The board also prohibited mechanical screening of the soil on site and removal of additional trees larger than six inches.
The slope created by the excavation cannot exceed a 2-to-1 pitch and must be stabilized with loam and vegetation.
Roberts said he has scraped the topsoil off the area to be excavated and will reapply that loam to the area after the excavation is completed.
There were no other residents of that area at the public hearing held in the auditorium of the South Middle School. Roberts said that he has advised his directly abutting neighbors of his plans and none objected to the Planning Board.
