"Engine House" Mixed Use Development Revs up With Planning Board Monday Night

Monday night at 7:05 the Planning Board will hold a hearing on the site plan for The Engine Yard, a mixed-use multi-story development proposed for the footprint of the former Bullukian Oil company, a well-known local heating oil dealer.

The site, along narrow (and in one section, one-way) Alpine Row and Alpine Place, both crowded with historic homes dating back to the 19th
and early 20th century, was the site of an oil spill in the early 1990s. Since the streets were reconstructed a few years ago, some residents have complained of flooding from water that no longer drains properly from the road.

In a July 22 letter to Planning Board Chairman Anthony Padula, Beta Group, a consultant hired by the developer, wrote describing the project:

“The project site includes a single 1.32± acre parcel (#279-181) located at 40 Alpine Row in the Town of Franklin (the “Site”). The Site is located within the Downtown Commercial zoning district and is developed with an office/warehouse building and garages...

... The project proposes to redevelop the Site, retaining the existing southern building and constructing a multi-story residential and commercial structure and an attached single-story commercial building. Associated Site features will include a drive-under parking area beneath the residential building, a concrete patio, a new layout for the parking area, a basketball court, sidewalks, landscaping, and new sewer and water services. The existing garage buildings will be demolished. Stormwater management is proposed via infiltration pits and water quality units, with runoff conveyed to these features via new deep sump catch basins.

The property is listed in the MassDEP database under two release tracking numbers (RTN): 2-4010321 and 2-4010467. Available documents indicate that two releases of fuel oil occurred at the property circa 1994. A permanent solution is considered to have been achieved at the Site.

In conversations with neighbors early Saturday afternoon, some were unwilling to comment (one was a resident in a house owned by a planning board member). Those willing to talk did so only on condition of anonymity. One resident further down Alpine Place simply shrugged and said “what can you do?” But a long-time resident, who owns a home opposite the project cited the town’s refusal to address drainage problems on the street and the likelihood of those problems worsening with the Engine Yard. He claimed that test wells he saw drilled on  theh site  to check for underground pollution were only made on the edge of the site and, therefore, likely do not convey a true picture. He, too, believes nothing can be done and that the project has, in effect, already been approved. And, he said, he now plans to put his home on the market before it loses its value.

Another resident, who grew up on the street, said the neighborhood always gets the short end of the stick, citing a long-ago incident a century back when the predominantly Italian nature of the area at the time supposedly prompted the town to NOT rebuild a bridge that once connected Milliken Avenue and Hillside Road (the whole stretch was called Alpine Row on old maps) to keep them thoroughly segregated on the “other side of the tracks.”

Finally, an owner-occupier on the street, did express sympathy for the project but said he objected strongly to the balconies “over the street” in the architectural renderings and the modern look of the building which he said is at odds with the rest of the neighborhood.

The planning board agenda and documents related to the project can be found at the Planning Board web site.