Perhaps in response to the steel box that is Bernardston’s marijuana-growing facility at 87 Northfield Road (Route 10), townspeople at Annual Town Meeting approved a new bylaw that requires commercial developments be designed “with character that is in harmony with the town, through careful design, siting and landscaping in all zoning districts.”
Now Heirloom Collective has a new neighbor, Dollar General, sited along the same high-profile southern approach to Bernardston’s historic central village. We don’t know if its design was approved before Article 33 was adopted at Annual Town Meeting on May 8 or not. But it would be a useful exercise for the Planning Board to review how Dollar General stacks up against its new guidelines so that the next project along what bodes to be a commercial strip can best meet its vision for this developing gateway.
Article 33 addresses, among its many rules, these business and industrial design standards: tree belt, front buffer planting, parking lot landscaping, entrances, facades and exterior walls, glazing, roofs and eves, and materials. Here are just a few of those standards and whether Dollar General appears to meet them:
Parking lot landscaping: One shade tree per 15 parking spaces sized 2.5 inches caliper upon planting. (Check.)
Islands shall primarily contain vegetation such as shrubs, ground cover, grasses, flowers. (Check.)
Entrances and entryways must have one clearly defined, highly visible customer entrance, featuring no fewer than three of the following: canopies or porticos (check); overhangs (check); peaked roof forms (check); display windows (sort of).
Glazing: Windows shall be recessed and should include visually prominent sills, shutters, or other such forms of framing. (Check, if you accept faux windows.)
Roofs and eaves: Variations in roof lines and roof features should be used to add variety to and reduce the massive scale of large buildings and shall have no fewer than two of the following features: Parapets concealing flat roofs and rooftop equipment (one triangular pediment); Overhanging eaves (check); Three or more roof slope planes (maybe.)
Materials: Predominant exterior building materials shall be durable, high quality materials and include, but not be limited to, brick, wood, native stone, tinted, textured and concrete masonry units. Facade colors shall be low reflectance. (Check. A combination of exterior cladding mimics the look of traditional clapboard and cedar shingles in shades of gray.)
Outdoor lighting fixtures are pointed downward, a dark-sky-friendly choice of lighting. (Check; not in the bylaw, but should be).
The new bylaw also encourages features such as engineered rain gardens, outdoor benches or seating, a water feature, clock tower or other focal feature or amenity that enhances such community and public spaces.
Worthy of discussion is whether faux windows count as windows, and whether a triangular pediment passes for a roof line.
It would be useful for the Planning Boards of other county towns to review their own bylaws to see if they include business and industrial design standards. (see Bernardston’s here: bit.ly/2GVQxWZ)
Without them, you may end up with a steel box on your streetscape. With them, you can negotiate the look of your new commercial neighbors.