SUNDERLAND — The 9,100-square-foot Dollar General being proposed for the corner of Route 116 and Clark Mountain Road will next be discussed on Sept. 24, following concerns from the Zoning Board of Appeals with the stormwater and drainage report for the site.
During its last hearing on Aug. 27, the board voted to have the chair and the town administrator seek quotes for a peer review of the report.
The proposal comes from Calito Development Group, a Torrington, Connecticut-based construction and management group. Rob Levesque, the project engineer, outlined the stormwater and drainage plan for the 3-acre property, highlighting the hooded pipes to trap roof water and the 1% slope of the parking lot asphalt that is designed to lead floatable materials such as trash and petroleum into a catch basin framing the asphalt.
ZBA Chair Steve Krol voiced concerns regarding the maintenance and oversight of the stormwater and drainage system.
“It sounds like this thing is going to require some maintenance schedule that is fairly rigorous,” Krol said, asking Levesque who would monitor the system to prevent runoff from impacting neighboring properties.
Levesque responded that the discharge would not be monitored manually, but the 1% slope of the asphalt and catch basin would prevent the runoff from leaking onto other parcels. He noted the design is based on state Department of Environmental Protection standards.
“This is pretty standard stuff,” Levesque said. “This is what you would see in any commercial parking lot.”
According to Conservation Commission member Nancy Pick, who said she reviewed the plan with her fellow commission members, Cliffside Apartments sources its drinking water from three 600-foot-deep bedrock wells. Despite Levesque claiming the property of the proposed Dollar General sits outside the perimeter of these wells, University of Massachusetts Amherst hydrogeology professor David Boutt, who lives in Sunderland, raised his hand to disagree with this claim.
According to Boutt, the perimeter of the bedrock wells intersects with the northwest corner of the proposed store’s property. He suggested a groundwater monitoring analysis be done to reveal the proposed filtration basins’ impact on the wells.
If the store is built, Pick said residents of the apartment complex would be “potentially drinking [Dollar General’s] runoff.” She asked if Levesque or Michael Pill, the attorney representing Calito Development Group, had spoken with Cliffside Apartments. Levesque said a conversation with management at Cliffside Apartments stretches beyond the scope of their responsibilities.
The ZBA hopes the peer review will help answer these questions concerning runoff leaking onto surrounding properties and overlap with the perimeter of the nearby wells.
“A lot of this is great to me, but the common sense part of me says that I fear that the water that is going to get discharged into the ground is going to be compromised by this use,” Krol said. “What happens when maintenance falls down and something happens?”
Krol said a peer review would hopefully allow experts to weigh in on these potential issues with the necessary knowledge that the ZBA lacks.
“We don’t have experts on the board that can look at this thing and say, ‘That doesn’t sound right,'” Krol said.
ZBA Clerk Stuart Beckley agreed with Krol’s suggestion, adding, “I agree that it’s not our expertise.”
Levesque said he and Pill “stand by” their stormwater report, but welcome the review if it may lead to fixes and eliminate doubts.
“All of these questions that you’re asking — we’re talking about hypotheticals — kind of go away when the peer review happens,” Levesque said.
Pill recommended that the peer reviewer attend the continued hearing on Sept. 27 to field questions from the audience and ZBA.
Krol said he will work with the Planning Board and the town administrator to seek quotes and proposals from different organizations to peer review the stormwater and drainage report for the proposed Dollar General.
Questions from residents
After the ZBA passed the motion to have a peer review done, public comment filled the last 10 minutes of the meeting.
Sunderland resident Susan Triolo asked if the facade of the building would “maintain the character” of the town, to which Levesque replied that the store would mirror the exterior of other Dollar General stores, featuring a flat roof, plain siding, and yellow and black “subtle signage” above the entrance.
Hilda Bailey, owner of the Banchan Korean Deli in Sunderland, asked Levesque about Dollar General’s interest in the town. “Why Sunderland?” she inquired.
Levesque said the question falls outside his role as project engineer, but added that he believes the town’s demographics and traffic counts attracted the developer.
Resident Carrie Kline asked the ZBA to consider “a public hearing to hear the public.”
“We’ve lost about half of the public that came to speak because we are almost two hours into the meeting,” Kline said. “The public hasn’t spoken.”
Krol said the board allows for public comment in each meeting after a “back-and-forth” between the ZBA and Calito Development Group representatives. He also stressed that public comments must relate to the discussion at hand in the hearing.
“We’ve got to have some sort of order in these hearings,” Krol said. “This is your time to talk, and our next hearing will have another.”