By Theresa Knapp

The Holliston Planning Board has closed the hearing for ADESA Boston’s second attempt at building a 585-car overflow parking lot off Lowland Street. 

The board closed the hearing on Feb. 17 and will schedule a date for deliberations once it receives all final reports and responses to questions posed during the hearing. 

ADESA is a nationwide wholesale car auction house. “ADESA Boston” is located at 63 Western Avenue in Framingham. The proposed project in Holliston would be a 585-space parking lot that would serve as additional storage space for cars awaiting auction in Framingham. 

Board and public comments centered around drainage, lighting, traffic, noise, air quality, and water quality. 

Peter Barbieri, attorney for ADESA Boston, said there were a few updates since meeting with the board in January, one of which was a reconfiguration to establish a left-in only and a right-out only from the site. There had been a concern that trucks exiting the site onto Lowland Street would cross over the center line. 

Traffic engineer Keri Pyke with Howard Stein Hudson in Boston acknowledged it was still “very close” to the center line. 

The applicant detailed the types of traffic that would occur on the site each day: 68 percent of trips would be by employee cars, 21 percent would be by two-car carriers trucks, and 11 percent would be by nine-car carrier trucks. They said several part-time ADESA employees would be brought by van to the site, between 10 and 12 people per hour, to then drive cars back to the Framingham site.  

The town could see 176 trips on an average day with a full lot when at full capacity though Barberi said this is the overflow lot so it would likely not be full, at least not in the near future. 

Planning Board Chair Karen Langton noted the town’s traffic consultant had a concern about car carriers staying on designated routes when a GPS system will default to sending them on the fastest route which often is not a truck route. 

Pyke, the traffic consultant, said “The plan is for them to use Route 16 and Route 126 to come to the site via Whitney, Jeffrey Avenue then onto Lowland to the site…The trucks will be given those routes…They are instructed to stay on those routes to get to and from the site.”

Langton reiterated her concern. “Vendor movement is something that is out of your control and it is something that our engineer did identify.”

The applicant’s noise consultant, Greg Tocci of Cavanaugh Tocci in Sudbury, explained the sound barrier had been updated to include seven foot high panels along the southeast property line. 

According to Tocci’s presentation the “sound levels are very short transients lasting 1-10 seconds” and could include: 

• Car carrier noise sources: Car off-load, car on-load, ramp slide, tre strap ratchet, truck acceleration, truck backup alarm, truck idle, truck pass-by, and 

• Truck noise sources: Tire strap ratchet, town truck backup alarm, tow truck pass-by, and truck slide. 

The list does not include car alarms which Select Board member Jason Santos said should be on the list. “I’m trying to imagine 600 cars in a parking lot on a windy night and a pure tone source such as a car alarm has not been evaluated.” 

During public comment, Pat Hafford who lives on Lowland Street (not far from the proposed operation), expressed concern over constant noise events that last 1-10 seconds. 

“A few small things, repeated over and over and over, are really an unbearable nuisance.” 

For more information, including when the next hearing will be, visit www.townofholliston.us/planning-board