EASTHAMPTON — The roughly 100 people who showed up Tuesday night to share their thoughts and listen to updated plans for a proposed $26-$30 million mixed-use residential and commercial center at the former Tasty Top site off Route 10 will have to wait another month.

The Planning Board approved a request from the developer of the prominent site to continue a public hearing until Feb. 7, but not before some members cautioned representatives for Frank A. DeMarinis of Tasty Top Development LLC not to make a habit of the practice. The request to continue the hearing came a few hours before the public hearing was set to begin.

Jesse Belcher-Timme, chairperson of the Planning Board, encouraged project engineer Luke Showalter to better estimate the amount of time necessary to have everything submitted.

“I hate to drag people out here who all want to say and share their thoughts on it and frankly, at this point, we don’t really have a full picture of what the current proposal is because you haven’t come back [with] information yet. So I just want to make sure that’s clear,” Belcher-Timme said. “I personally think that this one makes sense (continuing the hearing), but I don’t think we want to be doing this regularly because there’s a lot of people who want to be involved every step of the way, and they have to come out every night when we have a meeting.”

The proposed development, at 93-97 Northampton St., tentatively being called “Sierra Vista Commons,” calls for 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 apartments 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.

In their letter requesting a continence, project manager Bryan Balicki of Furrow Engineering in Westfield said his team was still addressing comments from the last Planning Board meeting, as well as from the Conservation Commission.

“Our traffic consultant has scheduled an additional day of traffic counts at both intersections on Northampton Street,” Balicki wrote. “That work is scheduled to take place this week. It was necessary to wait until the holiday weeks have passed as they may not provide accurate representation of the average traffic.”

Balicki also wrote that the team was continuing to address stormwater management comments received at the last Conservation Commission meeting in advance of that board’s meeting on Monday.

Anticipating significant public interest, the Planning Department posted the applicant’s continuance letter on Facebook and wrote a caption indicating that the board would vote to approve the request and wait for more complete information, as is common practice.

In spite of that, more than 60 people attended the meeting in person and nearly 40 people attended online.

DeMarinis was not at the meeting, but Showalter told the board that the team only requested an extension when they realized they needed more time to provide all of the information requested.

Board member Christopher Cockshaw suggested that the applicant get more than one additional day of traffic counts for a clearer picture of data points.

Belcher-Timme added that the board was leaning toward having a new traffic study performed — at the expense of the applicant — and encouraged as much credibility as possible in the current traffic study.

Planning Board member Daniel Hartman called the applicant’s traffic study that was previously presented “constricted” and suggested expounding to a larger study area.

Belcher-Timme assured those in attendance that they would have a chance to be heard next month.

In other Planning Board news, members voted Belcher-Timme to remain as chairperson and James Zarvis to remain as vice chairperson.

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