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5/8/2008
CUMBERLAND - The 100-room hotel proposed next to Anthony Drive, at the corner of Mendon Road and Route 295, will generate 892 cars during a 24-hour period, a traffic engineer told a Town Council subcommittee considering the plan Monday evening.
During the peak morning and evening hours, that would be one car per traffic signal cycle, according to the expert, Michael Desmond.
Desmond was part of a five-man development team, headed by attorney John O. Mancini, that met for three hours with the Town Council's Ordinance Committee and about 20 residents from surrounding neighborhood streets for an informal talk about traffic patterns, buffers, security, noise and blasting issues.
The site is the vacant land that's roughly opposite Albion Road and extends south to the highway.
Councilor Kelly Nickson Morris, who is an attorney, chairs the council committee that also includes members Mia Ackerman and Bruce Lemois. Also attending was Planning Director John Aubin, whose Planning Board is recommending against this project.
Residents, fearful about living beside a four-story hotel described as the first 24-hour-a-day business on Mendon Road, raised objections that ranged from how drivers will maneuver in and out at this divided section of Mendon Road, to whether tall buffers of vegetation will block the sunlight on adjacent backyards.
Their concerns come at a time when town officials are eager for new economic development.
Indeed, Councilor Lemois started off the meeting by saying he's giving careful thought to one of the biggest decisions of his freshman term on the council.
"My decision will not come quickly," he said. "The process we go through is very public and very open. We're going to take this very cautiously and methodically."
At the close of the session, Councilor Morris said the committee needs more information about the traffic numbers that she and Councilor Ackerman said were surprisingly high, while Lemois - reacting to neighborhood comments - was seeking crime statistics from nearby hotels in Lincoln.
The subcommittee will meet at least one more time before forming a recommendation for the entire Town Council, Morris said.
Should the council approve the hotel project, the Planning Board would oversee many of the design and construction issues.
The developers here, Douglas Vaughn and Earl Marsh of Lincoln, are asking Cumberland's Town Council to take two steps in approving this: Change the Comprehensive Plan's future land use map to reflect a limited commercial use for this three-acre site rather than medium density housing, then change the zone from R-2 two-family housing to C-1 commercial.
The hotel chain has not been identified but Holiday Inn Express was referenced several times. Mentioned, too, was Comfort Inn and Hampton Inn. The hotel will not include a restaurant or conference center and developers estimate it will average 65 percent occupancy.
A suggested rendering shows the bulk of the hotel nestled toward Route 295 with the parking lot abutting Anthony Drive.
According to the plan, an 8-foot earthen berm surrounds the north and east edges where houses are located. Engineer Michael Caito said they would be planted with tall evergreens to assure the hotel "will not be seen by any of the neighbors."
Ledge, that covers much of the three acres of land here, will be blasted and the lot leveled to no more than a 3 percent grade, developers said.
Neighbors say this land contained a farm and an apple orchard years ago.
As the anxious neighbors and eager developers conversed Monday, the only flare up came when attorney Mancini repeated for a third time that if the hotel isn't approved, the land will be developed for other uses.
A 30-unit condominium project was turned down last year by the town and is under appeal. A commercial strip with a bank has also been mentioned.
He accused the crowd of being "disingenuous" in saying they preferred the 16 to 18 duplexes permitted by the current zoning code over the hotel.
"You say you're not in favor of C-1 and are in favor of R-2, but you're really in favor of open space. It isn't zoned for open space. We will develop it," he said.
Marilyn Ross, a three-year resident of Anthony Drive, rose to object.
"You don't know what we want. We have nothing against R-2. We would gladly welcome neighbors and fellow citizens of Cumberland but we could not welcome a hotel."
Repeated Mancini, "Something will happen to this land. We have the right to do so within state regulations and your statutes. It's not practical to believe nothing will happen on this parcel. The impact of construction will be the same whether it's housing or hotel."
Discussing the traffic, Desmond said the state Department of Transportation must approve traffic plans here where he said 17,400 cars pass by daily going an average speed of 35 to 40 miles per hour.
Accidents have been few in this area over the past three years, he said after reviewing police reports.
He sited the entrance at an existing curb cut opposite a break in the Mendon Road island. It's just about the place that Mendon Road narrows to one lane on the northern side. He said the DOT may require a wider island cut but is unlikely to approve a traffic light.
Mendon Road resident Manuel Nunes, a Cumberland police officer, was a youth in 1973 when his parents bought the Mendon Road house that he now owns.
Nunes says he has no doubt that the hotel is largely to accommodate visitors to Twin River and noted shuttle buses travel between Twin River and the Marriott Courtyard on Route 116 in Lincoln. "It's going to be a casino crowd," he said.
Developers have said the hotel occupants will largely be in town on business with places like Amica and Fidelity or Bryant University.
