Residents Protests Continue Over Pine Oaks Village Development

 HARWICH – In the third session of the comprehensive permit application for the 242-unit Pine Oaks Village project planned for North Harwich, development size and traffic conditions continue to dominate discussions. 

The message at the July 9 hearing remained clear from residents in the vicinity of the 33-acre development near the intersection of Queen Anne Road and Main Street: the project is too big and the roadway infrastructure cannot handle the volume of traffic it would generate. Residents were also dissatisfied with the two-day traffic assessment from which the proponents’ traffic study was generated.  

“People have been paralyzed, mained and killed on Queen Anne Road,” said area resident Sherry Stockdale. “Every intersection is rated failed.”

For the second straight session, the appeals board focused on traffic conditions, traffic studies, the need for more details, and adjustments to the project related to traffic flow conditions.

 Vanasse Associates, Inc, which conducted the traffic study for project proponent Pine Oaks Village Homes, Mid Cape Church Homes, Inc., has agreed with the town’s traffic study consultants that the study needs to expand to look at the Main Street/Depot Road intersection, and to extend the review of the Queen Anne Road/Pleasant Lake Avenue intersection assessment to include the Route 6 interchange ramps.

One of the major concerns of the town’s peer review firm was conditions at the site of the development, especially the location of a daycare center proposed along Queen Anne Road and the parking and drop off locations for students and school buses.

The developer’s consultant, Rich Claytor of Horsley Witten Group, presented a number of changes to the project to meet the traffic review’s safety concerns. He said the daycare center would be relocated away from Queen Anne Road and attached to the proposed community center within the development. Parking adjustments for these changes would also be made.

 A decision was also made that the daycare center would be used only by the children living within the development, thus eliminating traffic from students living outside the development.

Claytor also provided a detailed description of changes to accommodate better turning lanes for fire department equipment and changes to improve public school bus pick up and drop off locations.

 But neighbors were more focused on external traffic conditions. Donald Montgomery lives at the corner of Queen Anne Road and Main Street, an intersection he said is very dangerous. He said he saw five crashes in five years. He said there are backups at the stop sign on Queen Anne Road 10 to 20 vehicles deep, and with the hill behind that stop sign oncoming traffic does not know there are vehicles stopped there. The industrial traffic starts at 4:30 a.m. and it can be difficult for 80,000 pound trucks to stop, he said.

“That’s extremely dangerous,” Montgomery said.

 Appeals Board Chair Brian Sullivan raised the question in the previous hearing about language in the comprehensive permit law that the board must weigh “extreme data” in the decision making process. There is no clear definition for “extreme,” he said, asking the town’s traffic review engineer, Michael Santos of VHB, Inc., to address the interpretation of “extreme.”

“I don’t believe this project will be that extreme to allow you to deny it,” Santos said, although he added that “there are some issues that need to be addressed.”

Santos said there are capacity issues at Queen Anne Road and Pleasant Lake Avenue, geometry issues at the Queen Anne and Main Street intersection, and pedestrian issues along Queen Anne Road that need to be addressed.

“I wouldn’t consider it an extreme impact,” said Santos. “It’s not outside what other residential projects might have.”  

“I think our peer reviewer couldn’t answer the question,” said former select board member Michael MacAskill. “But I think that the young man that was paralyzed from a car that pulled out in front of him on the road while trying to get across in busy traffic…I’m pretty sure he could tell us all what’s extreme. The other person that died on the motorcycle on Queen Anne Road, I’m sure his family could also explain what extreme is.”

Sullivan also asked Santos whether the two-day traffic assessment upon which the study is based is a standard practice. For a residential project this size it falls in line with industry standards, Santos said.

But a number of speakers said the project is proposed in the wrong location, and affordable housing needs to be where there are services and public transportation. The project proponents are trying to put a square peg in a round hole, said Guy Trembicki.

Given the need for more time for Vanasses Associates to expand the traffic study, the board, which was planning to discuss stormwater drainage issues in the next meeting, agreed the focus would once again be on traffic at the Wednesday, Aug. 6 meeting, to be held at the cultural center at 204 Sisson Rd. at 6:30 p.m.