HOLYOKE – On Jan. 26, the Holyoke Planning Board reopened the continued public hearings of the site plan review of a Dunkin’ drive-thru and a Delaney’s Market in front of the Log Cabin at 500 Easthampton Rd.

It was explained at the Jan. 12 meeting that the Dunkin’ would offer a drive thru service with two, one-way lanes while the Delaney’s Market model would feature a walk-in retail with no drive thru, and pedestrian access would be built to connect the lower parking lot to the upper lot adjacent to the Log Cabin along with a crosswalk in the area of the drive thru and a small patio.

Rob Levesque of R Levesque Associates said, “What we don’t want to do is we don’t want to waste anybody’s time while we’re still resolving some of the outstanding issues with both Mr. Burkott and Mr. Peirent, so what we were able to do is communicate with them last Friday morning. We clarified a number of issues and also discussed some of the specifics related to the traffic memo.”

Board Secretary Mimi Panitch addressed that traffic is going to be critical to this project.

“Given the content of some of the memos so far we might really benefit from hiring a traffic engineer to help us work through the issues presented here,” Panitch stated. “It may be time to start thinking about that rather than potentially blindsiding the applicant two weeks or four weeks from now.”

In response, Levesque told Panitch they have studied three different Dunkin’s similar traffic patterns and similar trips on the existing roadway. In addition, they have already hired a professional traffic firm, McMahon & Associates. The board is going to work out a couple of dates in order to determine what the best date would be for them to visit the site so they can have a better perspective of what that footprint is up there and have a feel for the traffic. At that point in the meeting, the board made a motion to continue the public hearing on Feb. 23 at 5:30 p.m.