WESTHAMPTON — A one-day motocross event first held in 2024 is seeking a return to the woods of Westhampton, drawing pushback from residents worried about noise, traffic, permitting and environmental protection concerns.
Westhampton resident Aaron Bauer is seeking a special permit to hold the event on Sunday, June 28. While the race would be hosted on his land in the woods off Route 66, he is not the lead organizer and promoter of the race. The property is listed on the application as 0 Main Road, though the event takes place in the woods between 360 and 384 Main Road.
A public hearing Tuesday night gave Bauer a chance to explain the event before a crowd of about 50 residents. While some in attendance said they had no problems with the plan or simply wanted more information, the majority who spoke said the 2024 event disturbed their weekend due to the noise and traffic. Others expressed concern that the land where the racing would take place sits atop a water protection district.
The 2024 race received pushback from abutters and residents, and while the race was planned for 2025, it never took place. “We put on this event two years ago with no problems,” Bauer said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Bauer called the 2024 race a weekend of fun and a family event. He said the race promoter, P27 Offroad, could not attend the meeting but that they did everything that the Select Board asked of them that year.
Bauer said racing only occurred on the day it was planned for, the race course was setup on Friday evening and there were campers who arrived on Saturday to stay the night on-site. Bauer’s wife, Leslie Fountain, said races didn’t start before 8 a.m., and in 2024, there were 250 racers and 422 people total. Of the riders, 83 were under the age of 12 riding on non-motorized bikes.
“It’s all out in the woods. We never found anything on the track that would have been environmentally dangerous,” Fountain said. “We walked it afterwards to make sure there was no trash. Everything was cleaned up.”
Fountain said while pro riders do show up, a big part of the race is to give children a day of fun.
“We’re not there to disrupt anybody’s lifestyle, we don’t want that at all,” she said. “But this is something that we did for those littles (kids) that were cruising around on their little electric bicycles having the time of their lives.”
Bauer said there were porta-potties on-site, they took care of all trash and there were no open fires. He also pointed out that similar events happen in neighboring communities such as Worthington, Huntington and Southwick.
Planning Board Chair Jennifer Milikowsky explained at the meeting that the building inspector deemed Bauer would need a special permit to hold the race this year, since it is a one-day event and the majority of the property overlays a water supply protection district.
While it was a single day in 2024, people questioned if a special permit was adequate for this type of land use now that it has become a recurring request.
It was further discussed that there was a previous article considered for last year’s annual Town Meeting warrant, that would have created more defined guidelines over one-day event permitting. The article was removed from the warrant but can still appear in the future.
Resident Chris Dunn, who works for a water supply district, said he has been in races before and in Westhampton, there are already people who go through the water supply district on dirt bikes and snowmobiles, and there hasn’t been an issue with the water supply.
Additionally, Bauer said there was a Massachusetts Environmental Police member who inspected the 2024 race, saying they found no issues.
Many residents, however, raised concerns that different oils from the dirt bikes could affect the water supply, with multiple wells around the property.
In a separate email to the Select Board that is filed as part of application on the town’s website, Matt Smith, who supervises the water supply source for Holyoke Water Works, stated the event would be dangerous to the drinking water supply.
“Such an event could have severe consequences on our surface water drinking source, including but not limited to erosion, contamination, and trespass,” Smith wrote. “HWW [Holyoke Water Works] is very concerned that if such an event is permitted the impact on our watershed and drinking water source could be detrimental to the future of our water supply.”
Resident Mike Stacey said it’s unclear how the event will affect the environment.
“Holyoke Water Company claims the land’s water table is at risk of damage,” Stacey said. “Wells may be poisoned by leaking. These bikes break down and (when) they break down, the oil comes out, gas comes out.”
Stacey is one of two veterans at the meeting who said the noise coming from the event in 2024 impacted their post-traumatic stress disorder. They, along with one other resident who was not at the meeting, are being represented by a lawyer Catherine Mis.
Mis explained that Westhampton bylaws are contradicted with the event since it is commercial use of agricultural and residential land. Bauer also said there were camper vans last year on-site, and Mis said based on her reading of the bylaws, this requires additional permitting.
“Even if the board were to give him a permit for commercial recreation and operating a campground on the area of this land that is zoned agricultural/residential, that would only be a very small part,” Mis said. “There would also then be the matter of the water supply protection overlay district.”
John Bridgman said he watched the race last year and the event was “very quiet and very clean.”
“We walked up over the hill, we saw them racing for a few hours, very well run,” said Bridgman. “The ambulance was there, the medics were there and stuff like that. I really saw no problem.”
Resident Bill Tracy, the former town moderator, said he has listened to both sides of this argument for a year and a half now and the biggest issue with the event is that it “pits neighbors against neighbors.”
“That’s what I feel really bad about. I love this town, I love all the people in it,” he said. “What we need to be able to do is get some dialogue here so that we don’t have to have winners and losers.”
The public hearing will be continued to the Planning Board’s Thursday, Feb. 5 meeting at 7 p.m.