EASTHAMPTON — The public on Tuesday night had its initial chance to weigh in on plans for a massive multimillion-dollar redevelopment of the old Tasty Top site that could dramatically alter the Route 10 corridor in the city.

Though some residents expressed environmental concerns about the agricultural portion at the rear of the 33-acre parcel and others worried about increased traffic along the busy thoroughfare at the front of the site, most who spoke were in favor of the project and lauded the developer’s efforts to create affordable housing.

Nearly 60 people attended a Planning Board meeting, with roughly one dozen of them offering up comments on the plans for the estimated $26 million to $30 million mixed-use residential and commercial center at 93-97 Northampton St.

Frank A. DeMarinis, owner of the property, which is registered to Tasty Top Development LLC, indicated that all the comments generated at the meeting and through letters to the Planning Board would be addressed at the next public hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 3.

“We want to do a very holistic approach and address all of them at the same time,” he said.

DeMarinis, who owns Sage Engineering & Contracting Inc. of Westfield, purchased the Northampton Street site from Dennis Courtney for $2.2 million on April 11.

The proposed development, tentatively being called “Sierra Vista Commons,” will include 188 apartments — 54 of which would be affordable — spread across nine, 18-unit buildings, and two mixed-use buildings with ground floor retail or commercial and apartment units above — 12 units in one building and 14 in the other.

Other plans for the site include an approximately 9,000-square-foot Roots Learning Center, a 7,000-square-foot Roots Gymnastic Center, two sit-down restaurants, and two 13,600-square-foot mixed-use warehouse buildings.

The project is slated to be constructed in four phases over a five-year period. During the first phase, the Roots facilities and an access road to the back of the parcel with wetland crossing will be constructed.

The second phase, which includes the construction of three affordable housing apartment buildings, particularly appealed to affordable housing advocates like Jacqueline Brousseau-Pereira, who serves on the city’s Affordable & Fair Housing Partnership.

“I’m so excited about this project, I can’t even begin to say how happy I am. When I saw this in the paper, I was thrilled,” she said. “I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of it. The phased-in approach, the mix of retail spaces and affordable housing, it just feels like a perfect project for Easthampton.”

The project’s proximity to public transportation was also very favorable, she said.

Others advocates like Gwynne Morrissey, chairperson of the Economic Development & Industrial Commission, and Easthampton Housing Coalition Coordinator Kiam Jamrog-McQuaid, also supported the project.

“This project has the potential to bring much-needed affordable and market-rate housing to our community, which will help to alleviate the pressure on the housing market and allow more people to stay and thrive in Easthampton,” Jamrog-McQuaid said.

Environmental concerns

Other residents weren’t as enthused with the plans.

Lifelong resident Sam Nelson described the proposal as “worse” than the previous plans to build a Stop & Shop supermarket in 2010. He expressed concerns for where the affordable housing apartments would be placed.

Nelson said that he has walked the back portion of the property, which has historically been used for agricultural purposes, since he was a child. Throughout his lifetime, he has continually walked the area to take in the creek and what he described as vernal pools.

This spring, he brought concerns forward to the Conservation Commission that someone had been filling in the vernal pools with vegetation and had built a bridge over a creek on the property.

“The phase two and phase three portions of this project cannot be allowed to happen. That land is wet,” he said. “What are we doing to our town? I’ve seen this town completely change since I was a kid. There’s almost no wild land left. None. When I was a kid, Northampton Street was almost all trees.”

In an interview with the Gazette, Conservation Agent Cassie Tragert said that an investigation of the property in 2005 had shown that the pools were considered an “isolated vegetative wetland,” and not jurisdictional to the commission under the Wetlands Protection Act. That means they don’t get the same protections that other wetlands receive.

“It is possible that they could have been determined to be vernal pools, but they had already been filled, they had not been flagged as potential vernal pools by the state, and after consulting with the state Department of Environmental Protection … (those pools) are going to stay non-jurisdictional,” she said.

Tragert did confirm that the Conservation Commission had determined through a peer review performed by Stockman Associates in Adams that a violation of the Wetland Protection Act had occurred due to “the removal of vegetation and ground disturbance (associated with the installation of a crossing) to the bank, land under water bodies, and the 100-foot buffer zone associated with a tributary to the Manhan River without the review or approval of the commission.”

The commission issued an enforcement order in June and requested that the property owner halt all activity on the bank, land under the water bodies and 100-foot buffer zone.

Tragert said that while it is unclear whether the violation had been committed by the current property owner or previous one, the commission is still requiring restoration.

“It seems possible that there can be restoration for the newly discovered wetland area in the agricultural field and certainly for the crossing. It involves removing the crossing and any associated fill and then putting in plantings and destabilizing the area, and allowing it to revegetate,” she said.

Tragert also noted that discussions regarding the enforcement order as well as the developer’s application were still ongoing.

Several members of the Pascommuck Conservation Trust also voiced environmental concerns.

Gerrit Stover, a longtime volunteer conservation adviser for the trust, submitted a five-page letter that included concerns for the loss of 25-plus acres of “high quality farm soils,” as well as the trust’s interest in protecting and preserving important open space, farmland and other natural resources like the Manhan River.

Traffic

Several residents spoke of long wait times and struggle to turn onto Route 10 from driveways of existing businesses, as well as what is to come with the future Starbucks site next to the property, which is currently under construction.

For the time being, Planning Board members held off on deciding whether they would require a peer review in addition to the traffic study already submitted by the applicant.

As part of the application process, the developer is seeking a site plan approval for its proposed mixed-use commercial development in the highway business with smart growth overlay zoning district, a site plan approval for its multifamily dwelling proposal which includes 15% affordable housing units, and a special permit for multiple buildings in a multifamily housing development.

At the end of the public hearing process, the Planning Board will vote on all three applications and issue three sets of findings, which may include conditions to portions of the project.

In the meantime, the project will again be discussed at a public hearing on Jan. 3, and members have indicated that they will not be voting on the proposal at that meeting.

Emily Thurlow can be reached at ethurlow@gazettenet.com.]]>