HOLYOKE — At a tense meeting on Tuesday, the Planning Board denied a developer’s plan to raze the vacant John J. Lynch School and build a shopping center in its place.
The 3-2 decision to reject the site plan put forward by The Colvest Group, of Springfield, effectively ends a process that began when the City Council approved the sale of the property to Colvest in May 2018. The school has been vacant for 10 years.
The City Council rezoned the property at 1575 Northampton St. in October 2018 to a “highway business” zone, and Colvest has submitted several plans for the site since then. Colvest had agreed to buy the property from the city for $250,000, pending review.
Colvest can submit new plans for the site, but that may not happen. Colvest President Frank Colaccino was in the relatively small audience at Tuesday’s meeting, and sat clearly disappointed as the five Planning Board members voted.
“I’m not going back there,” Colaccino was overheard saying to someone in the hallway after the vote, gesturing back into the room where the Planning Board meets. When the Gazette asked for his comment on the decision, he declined.
Some residents of the neighborhood had raised concerns during public hearings over the impact they said Colvest’s project would have had on the area. Traffic was a particular concern, and the Planning Board had requested that a separate, independent traffic study be completed as a peer review of a traffic study Colvest had commissioned.
For the three board members who voted against the project — Mimi Panitch, Gustavo Acosta and Kate Kruckemeyer — traffic and neighbor concerns weighed heavily on their decisions, they said.
Panitch was the first to open up discussion of the site plan. She said that the board has some discretion over what it can consider when making a decision on a plan. One of the issues they must consider, she said, is whether the plan before them is the safest of plans.
“We have never had any opinion from anyone that goes to whether this is the safest design,” Panitch said. And when it came to neighbors’ concerns over traffic and danger for pedestrians, Panitch was sympathetic. “I also have seen examples in the real world … of things that were clearly approved by traffic professionals where the locals knew best.”
Part of the project that drew scrutiny at a Nov. 26 public hearing on the plans was a proposed entrance to the shopping center on Route 141. With traffic merging onto that street from Easthampton Road and Interstate 91, some city residents had raised concerns about an entrance being located close to that intersection.
Panitch’s comments were immediately followed by member John Kelley, who noted that there were also neighbors who supported the project. He said that the traffic engineers had approved the “sight lines” that vehicles would have when approaching that entrance. He added that the Planning Board was “going down a slippery slope” in considering whether a project is the safest of all conceivable projects.
“It’s been looked at by enough people,” he said. “More than I’ve seen in other projects.”
Acosta said that plans to have “another ATM” located on the property didn’t mesh with the character of an area that represents a significant gateway to the city. Colvest had received a special permit to put a drive-through bank teller on the property.
“I never felt the design was compelling enough that it would fit in in harmony with the environment,” he said. “It just doesn’t fit in.”
Chairwoman Eileen Regan said she had mixed feelings about the project.
“I don’t necessarily feel that it is the safest flow that there could be,” she said of the traffic. “But I do feel that we have had adequate input from professionals who are working with data that … has been compiled according to the rules and regulations that the state has set out. I feel that we do have great discretion, but it is a slippery slope. And I feel like, given all of the information that we have gotten, that we don’t have anything to vote ‘no’ on.”
With four members indicating that their votes were split, the plan was already unable to receive the four-vote supermajority needed for approval. Kruckemeyer spoke next, expressing her opposition to the site plan.
Kruckemeyer said that the traffic issue had left her “profoundly troubled,” and that many of the shops in the area are still accessed by pedestrians. She also said that the site plans would cut off the development from the neighborhood rather than integrate it.
“This is not good urban design,” Kruckemeyer said.
The board then voted, with the no’s carrying the day 3 to 2. The room sat in uncomfortable silence after the decision before Colaccino, the Colvest CEO, stood up and walked out of the room, followed by almost all of the audience.
Those in the room seemed on edge, with a few grumbles coming from Regan and Kelley. The next agenda item was a special permit request from Colvest to build two buildings on the property, which was also voted down 3 to 2.
As the board continued the rest of the meeting, however, a plate of Christmas cookies was passed around, immediately lightening the mood.
This story has been updated to indicate that site plan reviews require a four-vote supermajority for approval.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.