Liquor license hearing and complete streets program discussed at meeting

Sept. 27, 2017 | Payton North
payton@thereminder.com



LONGMEADOW – The Longmeadow Select Board met on Sept. 18 and decided whether or not to grant a liquor license for a new Longmeadow business and discussed the complete streets initiative, which includes potential new roadway projects for the town.

Liquor License Hearing
At the former location of Hu Ke Lau in Longmeadow, a new restaurant is looking to move in.  The owner of the future Republic restaurant, Jeanette Norman, along with Attorney Daniel Kelly presented their case to the Board for a liquor license.  Norman, a Longmeadow resident, runs several other restaurants in the area.

“The applicant next to me [Norman] is no stranger to the restaurant business.  This will be their fourth restaurant that they run, they run three other restaurants in the area.  They have the opportunity to have already opened and successfully managed three other restaurants, none of which have ever had any issue with the ABCC [Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission] of the state and the ones in the Connecticut area have never had any problem with the Connecticut branch of the ABCC,” Kelly said of Norman.

After presenting their case and giving the Board time to review their application and additional materials, including a poster board with a blown-up layout of the proposed restaurant, the board expressed some concerns.

Chair Person Thomas Lachiusa questioned whether or not the building commissioner and Fire Department signed the certificate of inspection, as generally inspections have been completed prior to requesting a liquor license.  Kelly stated that there wasn’t anything to inspect at the future restaurant location, as construction has not commenced.  Vice Chair Mark Gold then interjected, voicing his concern that the application is premature.

“I mean, I’ve been doing this for seven or eight years and generally when we get applications we have that inspection by our building commissioner and we do have a more of a complete entity, so it just seems to me that this is a little bit prior to what I thought,” Gold said.

Gold continued to question what the name of the restaurant was, as on three different forms there were three different names, Republic on an application, Woodfire on a drawing, and Artisan Pizza on the lease.

“We’ve got three different applications with three different names, that’s what I’m saying, from my perspective until all this stuff meshes, and I know it sounds bureaucratic but that’s what liquor license’s are about,” Gold said.

Acting as peacemaker, Select Board member Marie Angelides ensured Norman that she recognizes the stock Norman would be putting in the town.

“I think these are things that can be worked out, this is a huge investment you’re making in the town and I can understand them [Norman] wanting to be sure that this board is going to grant a liquor license before this type of investment is put in this place.  I think it’s a wonderful project you’re bringing to town and I appreciate it and I think we should work with them in regard to doing business,” Angelides stated.

Norman confirmed with the board how important the town is to her and the type of restaurant she was planning to run.

“My family lives in this town, my son goes to the Longmeadow School system, so my reputation is in this town and that means a lot.  We certainly are going to spend an exorbitant amount in making quite a large investment into the town where we live and love to be here.  I know when people hear about a liquor license they have concerns, it’s not a late-night crowd, it’s not anything of that vain whatsoever,” Norman said.

As the hearing came to a close it was decided to move forward with no determination so that Norman and Kelly could come up with more information regarding the outdoor patio square footage, the correct address, consistency with the names on applications, as well as potential parking issues.

Complete Streets
    Matt Chase from Vanasse Hangen Brustlin (VHB) joined the Select Board for a discussion on the complete streets program. Town Engineer Andrew Krar joined Chase and offered background information on the three tiers of the complete streets program.

“A couple years ago, the Select Board adopted a complete streets policy which is a requirement of the complete streets program which is what we’re working on right now and that policy is in our bylaws.  That is the first tier of the complete streets program, there’s three tiers.  The second tier, which we’re going to discuss tonight, is the preparation of the complete streets prioritization plan, and we’ve retained VHB engineers to prepare that plan.  The costs were covered by the MassDOT, they gave us a grant of $44,000 to prepare this,” Krar added.  “A lot of work has gone into it, a lot of collaboration between myself, the DPW, Steven [Crane] and the police department as well.”

Chase noted that the first step VHB took was developing base mapping, which is the process of understanding the existing conditions of Longmeadow streets, finding out where crashes occur, noting speed limits, and more.  

“We use that information just to identify whether there might be gaps in sidewalks or the ability to resolve somewhere there might be a high crash location and things like that,” Chase explained.

He continued to note that VHB completed field observations while the Longmeadow Department of Public Works (DPW), the Police Department, Engineering Department, and Town Manager’s office put together their own lists of issues and opportunities in the town.  The groups then convened over several meetings to identify projects that could be completed in the town.  Following those meetings, VHB was able to come up with a plan.

“What we did, is we ended up taking all of this data and created an extensive spreadsheet, we didn’t want to make it too complicated so we came up with a threshold to look at these projects in a manner that ranks them in an order of readiness.  What can be constructed easily without environmental permitting, where there’s traffic concerns, and we developed with a matrix,” Chase explained.

The general idea behind the list created by VHB is that the projects were not listed in order of most important to least important, but by readiness to be completed along with a cost projection for each project.  

The next step in the process for the town is that if MassDOT approves the plan, the town must follow up with a list of projects they’d like to pursue with the amount of money the state grants the town.  Chase noted the state will grant up to $400,000, some towns receive less than that, however.

Chase listed the top three projects for the town to complete, which were ranked by what could be easily constructed, by readiness or with low cost.  The first project was on Williams Street by Grassy Gutter Road and Merriweather Drive, where the recent fatality occurred.  Chase suggested doing enhancements for the pedestrian crosswalk for the intersection.  Town Manager Steve Crane later noted that the enhancements to that intersection were already a top priority before the fatality occurred, and is not out of reaction.

Additional projects included intersection and roadway improvements on Williams Street by the Community House, the Bliss Road sidewalk on the South side of Longmeadow High School.

Gold questioned if there had been any town or public input as to what projects should be completed.  While Chase said they hadn’t had a public outreach meeting, they did try to solicit public perceptions.

“These projects were all vetted by the DPW director, the Town Engineer, myself, the Traffic Sargent, the Chief of Police and a few others.  As you might imagine, we get public feedback continually, we hear from residents all the time on issues of safety, we have a very strong sense of what the community’s priorities are,” Crane reassured.

There were a total of 60 projects listed by VHB in the complete streets plan, and an additional 50 that the group decided not to include.  Chase stated that the 60 projects are of the highest priority.

“It’s kind of a shame that we don’t once every two weeks or every second meeting have Andy [Krar] come in and talk about one plan and just put some slides up to let everybody know that there’s a lot of stuff behind the scenes so we can kind of dispel this rumor that we’re not doing advanced planning.

There’s millions and millions of dollars worth of identified projects right now in the database, this just represents one,” Select Board member Richard Foster said.  “We are making monumental changes on the way we do business in town.”

“The complete streets has been a very valuable tool for the town and the state has backed it up with dollars,” Crane added.

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