EASTHAMPTON — An energy firm is seeking a special permit to construct a 250-kilowatt solar array over the existing capped and closed landfill within the wastewater treatment plant property.

The city’s Planning Board will hold its first public hearing with the company, Solect Energy, of Hopkington, on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

According to the firm’s application, Solect Energy is proposing the installation of a solar array over the former sludge lagoons at the northeastern side of the 17-acre parcel at 10 Gosselin Drive. Plans describe the array as having nine rows and a total of 774 modules that will cover 17,549 square-feet or .403 acres of the property.

The overall project, including rows of separation with existing vegetated strips and gravel entrances, will take up approximately 33,000 square feet or 0.76 acres, and will cost approximately $1.09 million.

Borrego Solar Systems of Lowell constructed a 2-megawatt solar array on the capped landfill on Oliver Street in September 2011. A solar array also was proposed for the Loudville Road capped landfill in 2009, but according to previous Gazette reports, residents were vocally against it.

Tasty Top development

In addition to the public hearing for the proposed solar array, the Planning Board also will host its second hearing on an estimated $26 million to $30 million redevelopment of the former Tasty Top site into a mixed-use residential and commercial center.

Construction for the project will be completed in four phases over a five-year period, and currently includes 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, according to the proposal. 

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.

Tasty Top Development LLC, which is registered to Frank A. DeMarinis, owner of Sage Engineering &  Contracting Inc. of Westfield, submitted an application for this proposed development to the city’s Planning Board on Nov. 28. Tasty Top Development purchased the Northampton Street site from Dennis Courtney for $2.2 million on April 11.

At the Dec. 20 hearing, about a dozen residents offered up comments on the proposed development, tentatively being called “Sierra Vista Commons.” Outside of the meeting, residents and community groups have submitted letters of concern for the proposal, including the Historical Commission and Pascommuck Conservation Trust.

In the commission’s Dec. 19 letter to the Planning Board, members note that a portion of the 33-acre property that is considered for development borders remnants of the Hampshire and Hampden Canal and requested that developers preserve that section and refrain from parking heavy equipment, storing soil and limiting construction activities. The commission also suggested installing historical markers and opening that area to residents for recreational purposes.

In response, Bryan Balicki, project manager from Furrow Engineering in Westfield, stated in a Dec. 27 letter that revised plans submitted to the city identify the remaining section of the canal and list the area on plans as a “Do Not Disturb” area. He also indicates that the developer is agreeable to the commission’s suggestion on opening the space for recreation and installing historical markers.

Similarly, Balicki responded to the five-page letter submitted by Gerrit Stover, a longtime volunteer conservation adviser for the trust. Among Stover’s concerns was that no historical or archeological survey or records search was performed, “even though most of the site has lain undisturbed except for farming since the 18th century.” Much like the Historical Commission, Stover cited concerns for the canal, as well as concern for potential Indigenous presence.

“The known hunting area located at Park Hill just to the northwest, the location not far downstream of the native village of Pascommuck (displaced by the colonial settlers of Easthampton), and the site’s easy water access to the Connecticut River all increase the likelihood that this site was significant,” he wrote.

In his Dec. 27 response, Balicki said that the project has been reviewed by the Historical Commission and that the location of the canals have been added to the revised plans.

In an interview with the Gazette, Marty Klein, a longtime member of the Pascommuck Conservation Trust’s board, said he appreciated the responses and changes were made, including moving buildings away from areas that the trust considers to be “critical environmental areas,” but felt that there is still more to find out about the project.

“The trust is a dedicated group of concerned citizens who are working together and independently to challenge the developer to come up with something that will make a positive statement about us. This is the gateway to Easthampton and the last commercial area before you hit housing. We deserve something that is going to make a positive statement about the city,” he said.

Klein, who called the proposed development’s name “ridiculous,” said that he and the trust support building up the city’s affordable housing stock, but question if the site is the best fit with its potential environmental impacts as well as the already heavy flow of traffic through the Route 10 corridor. He also urged residents to pack the room on Jan. 3 even if they don’t intend to comment as their presence is important on such a large scale project.

“We need to challenge the developers to create something here that people in the future will look at and say, ‘What a wonderful place’ and not, ‘What the hell were they thinking?’” he said.

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