CHRISTOPHER M. CREAN
WESTFIELD – Two public hearings will be conducted this week, by the Planning Board tonight and the City Council on Thursday to consider an overhaul of the city’s water protection (Zone II) overlay district zoning regulation. Both meeting start at 7 p.m.
The amendment came out of the City Council’s Natural Resource Committee, chaired by Mary O’Connell, in response to new requirements from the state Department of Environmental Protection, which is issuing new guidelines and maps for zone II recharge area protection.
The proposed zoning amendment would expand the current restrictions to an entire parcel of land if any portion of that parcel is over the Barnes Aquifer recharge area. Any development of those parcels would require a special permit review process by the Planning Board.
ROB LEVESQUE
The proposed amendment would also allow development of commercial property in the recharge protection zone through the special permit review process.
The present language prohibits commercial development on commercial parcels of less than two acres. The revised ordinance would allow commercial development on parcels less than two acres in size by a special permit.
The revised code will prohibit development of self-storage facilities in the Water Resource Protection area and restricts impervious areas to 65 percent of the total lot.
A commercial development on North Road at the site of the former 49er Lounge at 1056 North Road has been stymied by the fact that the lot has only 1.6 acres of land available. Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Crean spoke recently in support of the project because the property, located near the Holyoke city line, has been an eyesore for several decades.
Levesque, of R Levesque Associates, Inc., said the problem with the lot, located at the intersection of North and Old County roads, just across North Road from the intersection of East Mountain Road, is that it does not meet the two-acre requirement under the current Water Resource District zoning.
Levesque said his clients would like to construct a 7,300-square-foot building which will house a Dunkin Donut shop and two additional stores. The property is located within the Barnes Aquifer protection area and is zoned for Business A uses.
Levesque said that 1.6 acre lot is four times the area needed under Business A zoning.
Levesque did not formally apply for relief from the zoning which prohibits commercial building lots of less than two acres, but did discuss the possibility of petitioning the ZBA for a variance.
Typically the ZBA prefers applicants to exhaust all other options before applying for a variance because state law strictly defines what constitutes a hardship which would allow the board to grant a variance.
The language of the current zoning code does allow exemptions for development of residential lots of less than two acres, but not for commercial property. The proposed amendment would extend that exemption of the commercial A property as well.
