Neighbors,

With today’s Planning Board Agenda upload for the September 10th meeting, we’ve now learned that the Chelmsford Mall topic will not be discussed next week and is delayed again, this time until Wednesday, October 8th.

The included letter also informs us that the site plan for the proposed development has changed. One of the restaurant pads (modeled as a Starbucks in previous meetings) will be changed to a credit union with a drive through. This is certainly good news for minimizing the traffic impact, however it’s an incredibly odd choice given the Jeanne D’arc credit union already existing quite literally 50 feet away, and the Eastern Bank on the other side of Feng Shui.

Additional reason for the delay is that they’re still waiting for the results of the town DPW engineers to review the traffic study, as well as the peer review by another engineering firm selected by the Board.

We can assume the two lane drivethru pad previously discussed is still a part of the plan, and given the most common restaurants that use two lane drivethrus are McDonalds, Burger King, and Chick-Fil-A, we can assume a high-traffic fast food client like this will be targeted for the remaining restaurant pad. We should still be vigilant about the potential impact even a single large fast food restaurant could have on afternoon rush hour traffic and garbage accumulation on 110 and nearby roads.

In my opinion, neighbors should plan to petition the board to nix the drivethru aspect, and instead encourage the developer to build a sit-down or counter-serve restaurant, which would reduce traffic and be more likely to attract a local business to the site rather than a huge chain. There has to be a middle ground to developing this unused parking lot, that adds value to our town rather than devaluing it like fast food does.

The original email from Winstanley Enterprises’ lawyer to the Chelmsford Planning Board requesting an Oct 8th continuation of this topic can be read here.