HADLEY – With parking at Esselon Café remaining a sticking point, the Planning Board again continued the public hearing regarding the site plan for the former Hadley Garage property located at 97 Russell St. to its next meeting on Sept. 7.

The property in question abuts Esselon and is owned by the café’s owner, Mark Krause, and at the Aug. 17 meeting, Planning Board Chair James Maksimoski and member Joseph Zgrodnik reiterated concerns they raised at the previous meeting about continued problems with Esselon customers parking on the street along the Town Common.

Krause’s redevelopment plan includes space in the old garage building for Steve Lewis Subraru and Action Ambulance, which serves the town in a reserve capacity, and the removal of another garage structure at the south end of the property. The site plan also features a redesigned 48-space parking lot with three curb cuts onto Route 9, which Attorney Tom Reidy of Bacon & Wilson PC said has been approved by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Eighteen of the parking spaces are reserved for tenants of the building. An additional two spaces are currently allotted specifically to Esselon Café, leaving 27 available spaces that Krause intends to offer as additional parking for Esselon customers.

In response to the parking criticisms raised at the previous meeting, Reidy noted Krause had placed additional signage at Esselon warning customers not to park on the Town Common and directing them to use the Hadley Garage lot as overflow parking. New signage, pending approval, would be larger and direct customers to the overflow parking as well. Temporary markings delineating parking spaces were placed on the lot as well and would remain until it the property was reconfigured.

Maksimoski, however, called the Esselon parking issue a nonstarter when considering approval for the Hadley Garage property. He and Zgrodnik asserted Esselon is in violation of its site plan approval, which they claimed requires all parking to be contained on-site and argued Esselon management and staff have not done enough to alleviate the issues.

“The Planning Board’s concern obviously is a little bit the parking on the common but the main concern is the fact of the violation of the site plan – there was an overflow. You’re supposed to contain your own parking on-site and that is the main objection,” Zgrodnik said. “It has nothing to do with the town or towing or putting up signs. It’s his responsibility to maintain the parking for his business on-site. And it just so happens that what was supposed to be a temporary addition to us as presented became a permanent addition and that’s where the square footage of the site that is presently occupied by Esselon has increased, therefore the parking is a little tight.”

Maksimoski added, “Basically what it is, it’s [an] Esselon problem, they are Esselon customers and I appreciate the signs – I saw them out there, there was definitely improvement – but when I went by today, there was still half a dozen cars on the common and there was empty spots in the parking lot.”

However, Town Moderator Randy Izer argued the site plan requirements state that space for parking must be double the area used for business. He stated it was his belief that there was more than double the parking available for that site, even with the mentioned addition.

“Because he has enough parking on-site, I don’t see how he’s violating the zoning bylaw,” Izer said. “Now, granted, he’s busier than any business in this town and so people want to park on the common, but he is not encouraging them to do that. He is trying his best to not have them do that. He and Tom Reidy and I have talked about this and in this day and age if you expect him or some of his employees to go out and stand on the road and tell people they can’t park there, somebody’s going to get run over, somebody’s going to get punched, somebody’s going to get shot. So I don’t think that’s fair.”

Maksimoski said that while the square footage may allow it, the layout of the lot exacerbates the overflow issue at hand. “Although he may have proper parking area, it may not be properly laid out,” he said. “As far as the opinion of ‘Someone’s going to get shot, going to get hurt,’ I don’t want to even hear that at our meetings. I want to hear facts. The fact is he is in violation; that’s the fact.”

Planning Board Clerk William Dwyer also clarified that the zoning does not require parking to be contained on-site, but rather must meet size requirements.

Dwyer later said that while Esselon had received initial site plan approval with satisfactory parking, however, the subsequent addition brought them closer to the threshold according to the zoning bylaw. The incorporation of what Dwyer described as “garden dining” pushed the business past that threshold, however, he noted that the bylaw did not consider outdoor dining as part of the business space at the time. That portion of the bylaw was amended later.

Dwyer additionally noted that Esselon’s property contains enough space to expand the parking, although it would force a reduction in available outdoor dining space.

Reidy reflected Krause’s sentiments that while the café was not the subject of the public hearing, it was his desire to respond to the feedback he had received at the previous meeting on the Town Common parking issue. However, Reidy said, there is only so much the property owner could do.

“To me, it’s the town – it’s probably the Select Board posting or towing or saying something about parking on the common. Mark’s doing his part on his property and then he’s trying to get people parking on this property over here,” Reidy said, suggesting town-level measures such as signage and enforcement at various points throughout the meeting

Maksimoski and Zgrodnik both objected, however, stating the parking problem was an Esselon issue.

“To put the burden on any other entity is not right. It is the burden of the original applicant,” Maksimoski said. “They are in violation of site plan approval of contained parking on their property. They need to correct this, not somebody else. I don’t care to listen to ‘Well, it’s very difficult to do.’ Maybe. It may be very difficult to do, but it’s a self-created issue. Nobody else created this problem.”

Later in the hearing, Select Board member Joyce Chunglo, who serves as the board’s Public Safety Department liaison, stated her opinion that the board had not done its due diligence to prevent parking on the common, with limited signage designed to maintain visibility for buses on West Street.

“If the Select Board has not done that, then that should come before us so that we are not having Esselon take the blunt of the whole thing about this parking thing,” she said.

Maksimoski responded at that point that signage would be of “tremendous assistance” to Krause. Board members suggested restricting parking up to 200 yards from the property on either side of the street with signage on the east side. Chunglo brought the matter to the Select Board at its Aug. 18 meeting, suggesting it could be an agenda item on Sept. 1. Krause also appeared at the Select Board meeting to voice support for the signage.    

“I just want to make it known that our common is very beautiful and I just want to ensure we properly put signs up but also take into consideration the historic value of the common,” Krause said. “There’s just nothing like this around and as a resident here, I certainly don’t want to be sitting in my living room looking at a ‘no parking’ sign, but I also don’t want to see a bunch of cars parked in the common. On the other hand, the common is a recreational area and should be used for its purpose, so all of these things are important to consider when we’re posting signs on the common.”

Signage or not, however, Maksimoski remained steadfast that before he would support the site plan, Esselon would have to display marked improvement in controlling parking on the common.

At one point, he proposed approving the parking lot at 97 Russell St. but holding off on allowing use of the building until customer parking was contained on the Esselon property. He suggested giving Krause six to eight months to illustrate the café was capable of doing so.

“If you don’t want to go with that, I wouldn’t approve this at all and you’d have to go to court to appeal it if you wanted to and that’s going to be a disaster on both of us,” he said. “I’m not making a threat here, I’m just saying that I want the parking contained on your property.”

Reidy audibly laughed at Maksimoski’s statement and later said the proposal did not make sense for any of the involved parties.

“You deny a business, a restaurant business, that is actually successful after COVID, it is doing to look terrible for the board and the town,” he said. “I’m not sure you guys care about it, frankly, but it’s going to be terrible. You know what lawsuits are like, I know what lawsuits are like and it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t solve the problem and it just wastes people’s money.”

Fire Chief Mike Spanknebel also spoke at the meeting and appealed to the board to approve the use of the building to allow Action Ambulance to move in.

“If there’s any chance the Planning Board can somehow figure out a way to allow this to happen, this is a critical resource for our area,” he said. “This ambulance, it backs up ours. So, if our ambulance is out on a call and has to go to Cooley Dickinson [Hospital] or Baystate [Medical Center], that’s what’s covering the next medical call coming in. That ambulance also goes if we have motor vehicle accidents if we have multiple ambulances there. We are probably still four months-plus away from getting our ambulance up and going – we haven’t received it from Northampton yet, so we have a bit of time before we are going to be able to do that. So this is a pretty important priority.”

Speaking as a resident of Bay Road, Spanknebel spoke highly of Krause and his support for the community and the Fire Department. He also noted that some of those parked on the common do visit Esselon but then take their purchases back to the common. He also noted that parking on the common is not exclusive to Esselon customers.

Maksimoski said, “I’m not going to sit here and approve it just because we need the ambulance … We have nothing to ensure that it’s going to be done properly just because we have site plan approval. So get the parking off the common, period.”

Dwyer opined that use of the 97 Russell St. building would not need to be delayed, noting some businesses had already received waivers to begin occupancy.

“I think in all, the uses proposed for the 97 Russell structure will be less intense than its use as a commercial garage back in the day,” he said.

He suggested approval of the site plan for the Hadley Garage site as presented. He did say he wished to see greater effort from Esselon management to prevent parking on the common. He said additional enforcement from the town might be possible, but expressed doubt in the desire from the town of Police Department to conduct a “ticket blitz.”

Addressing the plan for 97 Russell St. specifically, Mark Dunn voiced safety concerns, specifically traffic flow given the number of curb cuts allowing traffic to enter from Route 9.

“I think that they should look at their design in terms of safety because incoming traffic there is not safe for anyone trying to go west [in front of the building] within the site,” he said, later adding that if Esselon patrons cannot safely access the additional parking, they would likely continue to opt to park on the commons. Dwyer, however, said he believed there was a higher likelihood that the parking would be used if it was made more attractive, as the site plan suggests. He added he has observed that most of the traffic for Esselon enters via West Street and proceeds left through the parking lot. With clear signage and “educational efforts,” he said, the additional parking at 97 Russell St. could work.

Maksimoski suggested additional lighting near the middle of the parking lot on the property in the interest of public safety and security.