NORTHAMPTON — A Bedford company has won approval from the Zoning Board of Appeals to construct 10 dual-use solar canopies at Highway Auto Salvage’s site off Route 5, one of the gateways to the city.
The canopies will serve as a carport for the salvaged cars at the longtime business at 182 Mount Tom Road, which is often one of the first impressions of Paradise City for people coming into Northampton from Holyoke and Easthampton.
Developers with Parallel Products Solar Energy told the ZBA in recent meetings that the result will mean an aesthetic improvement over what’s currently there — and the board agreed after they saw a rendering of the project at its Feb. 12 meeting.
“The fact is, this is a huge improvement to this site, in my opinion,” said Chair David Bloomberg, and his peers agreed before casting their votes in favor of a discretionary permit at the meeting.
The canopies will range in height from 17 to 25 feet. But they will be setback from the road 50 feet and will be located behind both a berm and the train tracks that run parallel to Mount Tom Road.
“You’re not really going to see much of the top of the canopies,” said Scott Dagget, project manager for Farland Corp., which represented Parallel Products Solar at the meeting.
The developers added that the project will fit in with its surroundings, and will complete the “industrial” look on Mount Tom Road. In addition to the look, the development will also be beneficial since it may open up other uses for the site if the salvage yard were to stop doing business, they said.
“The perspective that you get here is one of an industrial site, and you have trains coming up and down Mount Tom Road, a railroad line, overhead power lines … so we feel like this is beneficial from the standpoint of fitting into the settings,” said Phillip Cavallo, vice president at Parallel Products.
Michael Mineau, a real estate attorney for Parallel Products, said that the salvage yard has been clearing out some of the vehicles to make way for construction of the canopies.
“During this process, which I hope the board can appreciate, the owner of the property has removed a significant number of vehicles from the site, so there has been a pretty significant effort already to clean up the site and make it more orderly, [and] aesthetically pleasing to anyone passing by,” said Mineau.
Parallel Products specializes in developing and constructing rooftop arrays, and has completed projects in several other Massachusetts communities.