HATFIELD — While residents who live near a landscaping company in North Hatfield are filing complaints with town officials about its operations, it’s uncertain whether the business is out of compliance with the site plans and special permit approved two years ago.
“These concerns and complaints that are being entertained, for a building that was still under construction, in my opinion are irrelevant,” Jack Henderson-Adams, who runs Western Earthworks LLC from 186 North Hatfield Road, told the Planning Board and Building Commissioner Jim Hawkins at a meeting Wednesday, Sept. 9.
The discussion was prompted by written complaints from West Street residents Virginia and Dean Martell filed with the town on June 16 and Aug. 11, while another abutter, Sandra Widelo, wrote a separate complaint Sept. 9.
The Martell complaints centered on lighting on the property and whether the business is in compliance with the Planning Board’s request that the lights be shielded and pointed downward. The site includes a flood light near a 2,000-gallon fuel tank, and a small light over the front door to the main building.
“A lot of what you see (in the Martell complaint) is construction activity while he was building it,” Hawkins said. But for more than a year Henderson-Adams has been operating the business with a certificate of occupancy, he said.
In its May 2024 decision, the Planning Board also stipulated Henderson-Adams have a screening plan to promote a visual buffer before any construction work started.
Hawkins said there is an opportunity for Henderson-Adams to add more trees to the site.
Henderson-Adams said he has already planted 65, 5- to-6-foot-tall Green Giant arborvitae, and numerous other random trees that have been brought back from work sites.
There were also questions about whether the fuel tank has been permitted by the fire department. Nearby is a motion sensor flood light so that workers can fuel up trucks during overnight hours.
Henderson-Adams said a question is what shielding means, as some of the lights are to help with loading trucks early in morning before daylight, with employees arriving as early as 3 a.m. to pick up materials and fill their trailers.
Planning Board Chairwoman Stephanie Slysz said officials may need to look into whether the business is meeting development performance standards outlined in town zoning, and is in compliance with the decision that allowed construction of a 7,500-square-foot building to replace an existing barn, and for on-site storage of materials, such as stone or aggregate, brought to work sites.
Slysz said the board should ask for an update in writing and to make a formal response to those who have filed the complaints.
But Jimmy Tarr, the vice chairman for the board, said he worries that the complainants didn’t come to the meeting, instead only making their concerns known in writing.
“I only see the next door neighbor, who’s being accused of all these things, to explain his situation,” Tarr said.
Henderson-Adams said his business employs 35 workers and he intends to expand, and wants to be in Hatfield after moving from Florence.
He questioned why the neighbors have so much concern for what he is doing when an elderly man was allowed to continue living in squalor in a dilapidated and condemned home in the vicinity.
“The biggest concerns in listening to these complaints is I’m going to grow my business, and we moved to town because we want to grow,” Henderson-Adams said.
