The City Council discusses the Burnett Road moratorium during its meeting on Sept. 4.
Reminder Publishing screen capture by Tyler Garnet
CHICOPEE — During the City Council meeting on Sept. 5, the council discussed a favorable Zoning Committee report that would disallow any further business, commercial or industrial development on a section of Burnett Road.
It reads that no development would be allowed on Burnett Road from the Ludlow/Chicopee line to the intersection of New Lombard Road and Burnett Road and any appurtenant street for a period of one year commencing on April 1, 2024, and ending on April 1, 2025, except by special permit.
Looking at the city’s zoning ordinances, 275-66 titled Burnett Road was originally added in 1999. It states, “The purpose of this section is to regulate new development on Burnett Road and appurtenant streets due to the negative impact of increasing traffic and until such time as the city takes measures to manage traffic in the area.”
The City Council voted to extend the moratorium 11-1 for another year after multiple members expressed that Ward 6 City Councilor Sam Shumsky has been working hard on the problem since being elected nine months ago and they would like to see where he goes with it.
Ward 4 City Councilor George Balakier said this topic has been discussed with a “spirited” conversation amongst the Zoning Committee at their last meeting where they also gained insight and perspective from the Planning Department and legal counsel.
He explained, “We also had the ward councilor, who also serves on committee, working with planning and they seem to have some definitive plans regarding this because as I mentioned this has been going on for a while and we need to come to some sort of conclusion because there’s I think three properties that potentially could be developed.”
Shumsky said this issue has been going on for 25 years and he experienced a lot of the traffic problems on Burnett Road while growing up.
He said, “Speeding is out of control. It’s like that anywhere else you go but there are solutions that we can look at to this problem to try and help mitigate it. We’re looking at different solutions and it takes time so I’m asking the council to please support me in supporting this special permit for another year while we work to find solutions. This issue predates me and Councilor [Timothy] Wagner. This was filed by my predecessor who is now our city clerk, Keith Rattell. There’s a good history to this. One of the things I’ve done differently is I sat down with our planning director and working with engineering because there needs to be a permanent solution. This moratorium, the original states for what this was for traffic concerns. None of those have been addressed for the last 25 years.”
Wagner said he is all for finding solutions but was against voting for this ordinance because he does not think it is helping traffic and is hurting the city.
He explained, “The one thing I think we can agree on, and no one can dispute that, no one could come up with a solid argument that this was impacting speeding. This is doing nothing but hindering business development. I mentioned in that meeting that we’ve lost out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in business tax revenue. We will continue to do so over the course of the next year. It defies logic frankly that this was put forward again and that people acknowledged that it isn’t doing anything but have said they will vote for it anyway. This is not good public policy and it hasn’t been for 25 years and arguably it’s illegal.”
According to the city’s zoning ordinance and special permit requirements, all special permit applications shall be accompanied by a traffic study or Transportation Impact Assessment.
Shumsky talked about this requirement and said “One of the things with the special permit, I don’t know how many of you go down Burnett Road every day, the way the special permit works is that it’s going to require a traffic impact assessment or study for any new business that comes into Burnett. It’s not hindering business per say. It’s trying to see how much it would impact the traffic flow on that area.”
Ward 9 City Councilor Mary Beth Pniak-Costello had a question after this ordinance was discussed months ago in a different ward and it was voted down because “it was not legal.”
She said, “So if this goes into effect for one year and somebody else from another ward comes and says ‘hey we’ve got problems with traffic, we’ve got problems with pedestrian safety, we want to follow the same example as they did in Burnett Road,’ and that doesn’t pass, would the city be liable for a discrimination suit because one ward got this particular request for 25 years and another ward did not.”
The city attorney said he can’t say if the ordinance is illegal because it has not been challenged and does not know if it is a discrimination case or not.
City Councilor at-Large Jerry Roy said that this ordinance does not eliminate businesses from building on this property.
He said, “It’s nothing that’s closed through development. Somebody can still apply for something out in that area for a special permit.”
In recent years, a Tesla dealership was proposed to build the first Western Massachusetts dealership on Burnett Road but backed out after a long and costly permitting process after months of meeting with the City Council and making revisions to the site plan.
The potential dealership and service center received unanimous support from the City Council in a 12-0 vote, along with a special permit last year. Neighbors expressed concerns about a potential increase in traffic on Burnett Road, which is home to the Pride gas station, McDonald’s, Motel 6, Bowlero Chicopee and Mercedes-Benz of Springfield.
At the Sept. 4 meeting, multiple City Council members expressed they want a solution to be presented by next April.
