WESTFIELD – The Planning Board, meeting for the first time in two months as the board was reconstituted with new members, voted Tuesday night to approve modifications to two projects.
A plumbing supply company, now located on Neck Road, recently purchased property at 199 Servistar Industrial Road to relocate its business to the industrial park.
Vellano Brothers Inc., of Latham, N.Y., has a number of distributions centers that provide plumbing supplies to municipal water departments and contractors. The company requested a change to the site plan to allow installation of a fenced area for storage of PVC pipe, fittings, and hydrants. The storage area has a gravel surface and is located new to a wetland resource area.
The Planning Board approved the original site plan in 2005 to allow construction of a commercial condominium. Suite A was occupied by American Canvas, which sold that property to Vellano for $425,000, while the Suite B is currently occupied by Sage Engineering & Contracting, Inc., which presented Vellano’s petition to modify the site plan.
Robert McCarthy, the attorney representing Vellano, requested the Planning Board to act quickly on the petition because of language in the sales agreement requiring the deal, contingent upon the board’s approval of the modification, expired in December and the fact that the board had not met for two months.
Bryan Balicki, P.E. of Sage, said the use of the building proposed by Vellano is the same use exercised by American Canvas, including administrative space, manufacturing space, storage and a small retail component.
“The only change to the site is a six-foot chain-link fence to secure the storage area,” Balicki said.
Members of the Planning Board expressed concern that a broad definition of the storage area and materials allowed could be problematic if the property changes hands again.
“I don’t want to have a plan with a big area defined as storage, if the company sells that property,” Philip McEwan, elected chairman of the board Tuesday night, said. “We can write in a condition exclusively for piping and fittings in the storage area.”
McEwan also said that a condition to prohibit the storage of motor vehicles in that area could be added.
“It’s not paved and next to a resource area,” he said. “There is a parking area that is paved with an oil containment system.”
Board members discussed the approach to approving the site plan amendment and decided to maintain all of the conditions and findings from the 2005 decision, then add new conditions limiting storage to municipal pipe and associated products, and limiting long-term parking to the paved areas at the site.
The board voted 7-0 to approve the amendment with the additional conditions to the site plan.
The second hearing pertained to a subdivision off Reservoir Road where the infrastructure, streets, sidewalks and utilities have been installed and six lots of the 40-lot subdivision sold.
The contractor, Cowles & Cowles, LLC, requested the board to approve modifications to the existing stormwater management plan.
That modification includes doubling the size of an existing stormwater basin and adding a swale to channel water toward the basin. The modification also includes installation of 30 leaching galleries in the stormwater basin, and 18 leaching galleries in the swale. with an eight-inch overflow pipe connecting the swale to the stormwater basin.
The Flynn Meadows Road subdivision is located in a former gravel pit. The drainage problem is most acute during the winter months when the surface soil is frozen, preventing infiltration of stormwater into the ground. The leaching galleries and leaching swale were added to the stormwater management plan to address that problem.
The Planning Board added conditions that will require the subdivision homeowners to maintain both the swale and the stormwater basin. The modifications were completed last summer.
