SOUTH DEERFIELD — Despite recent site plan revisions to a proposed Cumberland Farms at 31 Elm St., it could receive the Planning Board’s OK as soon as next month.
Members passed a motion to continued the proposed gas station’s Public Hearing next month, hinting that the site plan is close to finalization, during a board meeting last week.
The Zoning Board of Appeals had requested the revisions. Original plans called for a two-way entrance on Elm Street, and a right-in entrance on Routes 5 and 10, which hasn’t changed.
The revisions moved the two-way access down Elm Street toward the railroad tracks, adding a right-in entrance on Elm Street.
“They proposed two. There was concern about traffic safety, and they came up with an alternative plan,” Planning Board member Henry “Kip” Komosa said. Komosa is also on the town’s Selectboard.
Preliminary designs outline a 4,700-square-foot convenience store, two 20,000-gallon tanks, eight gas pumps, and 26 parking spaces.
If approved, the current Cumberland Farms in the center of town would close and move across from Yankee Candle. The town would make more than $20,000 in taxes per year, from $4,000 to about $25,000.
“With this modified plan, we’ve seen a lot of this, we’re pretty much OK with it,” Planning Board Chairman John Waite said, before suggesting to “continue this Public Hearing until the next meeting to make sure this is the final plan.”
During the hearing’s public comment section, residents raised traffic safety concerns. In response, the board requested formal comments on the project’s safety from the town’s police chief. Pat Smith, land use planner with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, noted a traffic study conducted by Cumberland Farms. Smith conducted a review of the project.
Erin Fredette, project manager with McMahon Associates, which provided the study, said the gas station would have “minimal impact” on traffic.
“Our traffic study takes both the traffic that’s already on the roadway and the traffic we anticipate will be on the roadway,” Fredette said.
Fredette noted the study was based on the project’s original site plan, but said, “from a traffic analysis perspective, things don’t change that much.”
“Because it’s a state highway, the department of transportation is involved as well,” Waite added.