The purpose of this letter is to address the conduct of the Planning Board at the Jan. 16 hearing on the application of Winstanley to build a warehouse on Falcon Drive.
The project is the construction of a 524,000-square-foot distribution warehouse on property owned by Target Corporation. There is no end user identified for the site, which will pave over an additional 1.2 million square feet of land. The project parcel sits partially on the Barnes aquifer and is entirely subject to the regulations of the Water Resource Protection District, which prohibit paving surfaces and construction of buildings greater than 2,500 square feet. The Barnes aquifer supplies Westfield’s drinking water. The applicant, Winstanley, has filed for a “special permit” to allow this huge project.
After a lengthy hearing on Jan. 16 at which the neighbors established that Winstanley misled the Planning Board on multiple issues, including its relationship to Amazon, and provided more than sufficient evidence that the traffic report they submitted is deeply flawed and many board members expressed serious concerns, William Carellas, chairman of the board, from his chairman’s chair and without board consultation, commenced a condescending, patronizing and demeaning lecture to the citizens, homeowners and neighbors of the proposed project present.
