MARY L. O’CONNELL
WESTFIELD – The Planning Board voted Tuesday night to continue its public hearing for a proposed amendment to the city’s water protection (Zone II) overlay district zoning regulation.
The board took that action to further investigate questions raised during the 90-minute session, questions raised by the board members, as well as citizens speaking during the hearing.
The Planning Board will provide a recommendation to the City Council, which will conduct its own hearing tomorrow night, and could propose changes to the proposed amendment.
The zoning change will “tighten” the existing zoning regulations and expand the footprint of the city’s aquifer protection zoning regulations.
The focus was on the Barnes Aquifer which is a source of drinking water for Westfield, Holyoke, Southampton and Easthampton, but the city has several other aquifers including the Great Brook Aquifer and the Little River Aquifer, both of which also provide drinking water, and the Southampton Aquifer. Westfield draws about half of its drinking water from aquifers.
One change is that a parcel of land, with any part of that property over the aquifer, will fall under the revised ordinance.
The Barnes Aquifer Protection Advisory Committee, comprised of members from communities overlaying the aquifer, applauded the “elements that strengthen protections for Westfield’s drinking water supply in the Barnes Aquifer” but also raised a number of concerns and proposed language changes to clarify “triggers” which would initiate a special permit review process.
Those triggers include the area of impervious surfaces. A special permit would be required if the impervious surface exceeds 2,500 square feet, a typical house and driveway, of 15 percent of the entire lot.
Another concern raised by BAPAC, members of the City Council, Planning Board members and several residents speaking at the public hearing is the change which would allow commercial construction on lot of less than two acres, as currently required.
That one issue, which was also supported by members of the City Council and speakers at the hearing, may be the lightning rod of the proposed zoning amendment.
That element was included in the proposed amendment because of a desire by the Sardinha family, which owns several Dunkin Donuts stores in the city, to construct a new facility at the former site of Ricky’s 49er Lounge. A 1.6-acre lot on the corner of North Road and Old County Road, just across from East Mountain Road.
Ward 4 Councilor Mary O’Connell, Chairwoman of the Natural Resource Committee, which has worked on the amendment for nearly a year, said the zone change to allow commercial construction on less than two acres of property triggered the proposed amendment.
“Woody (Charles) Darling (of the Water Resource Department) came to me four or five year ago to modernize the aquifer protection ordinance, but there was no will in the (City) Council to do that at that time,” O’Connell said. “The proposed (Dunkin Donut) project was the spark to change the ordinance.”
