Planning Board Hears One Building, No Relief Request for Finnerty's Site

Developers for 150 Main St., also known as the Finnerty's site, met with the Planning Board Tuesday night for a public hearing on a new, one-building plan for the Cochituate corner.

Wayland residents Matthew Levy and Jesse Adelman, the developers, already have Planning Board approval for a two-building development on the site. In March, however, they withdrew their special permit request related to parking and signage relief after learning they would need Zoning Board of Appeals approval to construct outdoor seating at the planned restaurant.

Town Planner Sarkis Sarkisian explained that the developers could pursue their remaining special permits through the ZBA since they needed some zoning approval for their project anyway.

In the meantime, Levy and Adelman submitted a request for Planning Board approval to construct only one building, a CVS, on the site.

"We are not looking for any special permits," attorney Ann Sobolewski told board members Tuesday night at the hearing for the new plan. She explained that the proposed one-building project meets all setback and parking requirements and would be constructed entirely on commercially zoned property.

"Generally speaking, this project is more compliant than Finnerty’s was with the zoning bylaw," Sobolewski said.

The plan calls for a single building with a gross area of 13,941 square feet and a single-lane drive-through for the pharmacy. As drawn up, the plan places the building on the far west side of the site, with parking on the corner of Main Street and West Plain Street.

Several colonial architectural elements from the originally approved plan were carried over in this new plan. Do to a scheduling error, develoeprs have not yet met with the Design Review Board on this new plan, but are scheduled to do so on April 30 at 6:30 p.m.

The propsed drive-through, Sarkisian said, would be allowed by right as an accessory use to the property. "I've discussed this with counsel," Sarkisian said, "and he agrees it is accessory use to have the drive-through in place."

According to Wayland's bylaws, the new plan requires 103 parking spaces, all of which are accounted for on the site.

Sarkisian and the Planning Board indicated they would like to approve a special permit that requires fewer spaces as they believe Wayland's bylaw requires excessive parking.

"The Town of Wayland zoning bylaws, unfortunately, do not work in our favor in terms of village design," Sarkisian said.

But Sobolewski said the developers are not seeking a special permit for reduced parking even though the Planning Board indicated it would be willing to approve both a plan without the parking reduction as well as a plan with the special permit for reduced parking.

Several residents raised questions about reducing the size of the building or putting the building, rather than the parking, on the corner. Planning Board Chairman Kent Greenawalt responded that the board has little power to make changes to the proposed plan given that it meets all of Wayland's bylaw and zoning criteria.

"We’re now seeing the development that they can do by right," Greenawalt said. "I beg of any of you to show us in our bylaws where we would force this building to be a smaller size, where we would force it to sit at a different area on the site. It’s kind of neat that you think we have these awesome powers, but we don't."

The Planning Board didn't issue any opinion Tuesday as the developers still need to appear before the Design Review Board.

Additionally, there is some debate about how much mitigation is needed to the Main Street, East and West Plain Street intersection now that the size of the development has been reduced.

The town's traffic engineer has requested that the same mitigation measures be taken as recommended under the earlier plan, but Sobolewski said the new plan would generate much less traffic and therefore should require less mitigation from developers.

The hearing will resume May 7 at 7:35 p.m., during which developers are expected to address the traffic discussion and a DRB opinion should be available.

The documents submitted for the new plan are available on the Planning Board website.