21-04-2025
Southampton developers submit new application for self-storage facility on College Highway
SOUTHWICK — The Southampton developers who withdrew a request for a special permit to build a nearly 60,000-square-foot self-storage facility at 662A College Highway in February has applied once again for a special permit to build a scaled-down version of the project.
'We are confident that the proposed plan addresses the requirements of the Site Plan Review and Southwick's zoning bylaws and look forward to presenting this site plan to the [Planning] Board at the next meeting,' wrote Chris Chamberlain on behalf of Jim and Ellen Boyle, the Southampton developers seeking the special permit to build the facility.
Chamberlain is a principal engineer for the Berkshire Design Group, which designed the facility originally proposed by Boyle.
The new permit is fundamentally different from the first Boyles's first request, which drew negative comments from Planning Board members and Fire Department Chief Richard Stefanowicz.
Last year during one of several public hearings held on the Boyle's request to build the 59,000-square-foot facility, Stefanowicz called the site plan, a 'bad plan' that compromises 'public safety.'
The general complaints from the Planning Board for the first permit request was that the proposed facility would be too big for the 3.17-acre parcel the Boyle's own on College Highway, which is between O'Reilly's Auto Parts and the former Southwick Episcopal Church that is being renovated into a recreational marijuana dispensary.
The new proposal heeded the concerns of the board and Stefanowicz and submitted a plan to build two buildings on the property with a combined square footage of 35,416 square feet.
The special permit application doesn't specify the individual square footage of the self-storage facility and the second building that will serve as an office for the facility but does indicate the storage building will be two stories in height.
The Boyles had wrestled with the Planning Board for months during its first request for a permit trying to meet the board's expectations which came to head in February 2024, which was when board members and Stefanowicz pushed back on the proposal.
For nearly a year, the public hearing, which had remained open since May 2023 when the Boyles first applied for the permit, they requested the public hearing remain open as they considered changes to the design of the facility.
In January, Town Planner Jon Goddard said that the Boyles had been meeting periodically with him to 'brainstorm certain modifications.'
'Several meetings ago, he came in with a building that was fundamentally different in scale…to manage some of our concerns,' Goddard said at the Jan. 7 meeting
With that reduction in the scale of the building, Goddard said the Boyles saw an 'opportunity' rent space to small contractors for storage of their tools and materials.
During that meeting, Goddard and former Planning Board Chair Michael Doherty agreed that if the facility began renting space to small contractors was a change in the use of the property.
'My concern is that regardless of scale it adds another use,' he said at the time.
Goddard said that it may appear 'really simple' that the two uses might fall under the same 'umbrella' of the town's zoning bylaws.
But the town's bylaws 'spells it out very clearly these are separate uses,' he said.
It's not clear in the special permit application if space in the facility will be rented to small contractors.
The first public hearing on the new permit application will be held on Tuesday, April 29 at 7 p.m., in the Land Use Room in Town Hall.
