Rockland Trust and its customers will have to wait until at least mid-November to know if one of its ATM drive-up/walk-up kiosks will be built in the Plumb Corner mall parking lot.
After hearing and voicing multiple objections to where it is being placed, the Rochester Planning Board continued its October 25 public hearing into the site-plan-review and permit application for the ATM’s construction to November 10.
Bill Madden of G.A.F. Engineering, Rockland Trust’s design consultant, described the project as a 7×13-foot kiosk on an 8×19-foot concrete foundation that will take up two parking spots to the side of the landscaped island in front of Friends’ Marketplace. While the kiosk is being built, the site will be enveloped in a construction fence and a straw compost waddle that will control runoff, Madden said.
Planning Board Chairman Arnold Johnson started the objections by noting the proposed work area “won’t work for the 53-foot trailer trucks that cannot make the swing to cut around there for deliveries.”
“Why place it there?” board member Chris Silveira asked.
Madden and Rockland Trust representative Stephen Carroll said they toured the plaza with mall owner Sophia Darras and agreed this was the spot where she wanted it placed. The company’s ATM currently inside the village mall building is being relocated, Carroll said in a previous meeting, because of the awkwardness of having to walk through the Countryside Day Care facility to service the equipment.
On Tuesday night, Carroll said Rockland Trust would like to begin construction as soon as possible and open the ATM for business by the end of the year.
Johnson said, if that’s the case, Rockland Trust needs its own snow-removal plan because its location stymies where plow operators clear and deposit the plaza’s snow.
Friends’ Marketplace manager Rob Ciardi complained the kiosk is being built “right in front of store. We are the busiest business in the plaza,” he said. “The construction will be a big hindrance to our customer parking and coming to us.”
Ciardi said the location is also a safety issue, suggesting that motor vehicles are likely to back up into ATM customers and other cars. Meanwhile, he said, there are dead spots elsewhere in the mall parking lot.
Planning Board members proposed moving the kiosk to the other side of the landscaped island, farther away from the area of the market. That way, the construction can still utilize the same underground, utility-connection plan.
Carroll said the plaza owner had picked this spot as the one she would accept for the relocation. Madden and the board agreed a written draft of the new location would need to be completed and sent to Town Planner Nancy Durfee and the plaza owner for their approval prior to the next meeting.
The board changed its regularly scheduled meeting day from Tuesday, November 8, to Thursday, November 10, after the members realized that November 8 is Election Day, and they cannot legally meet that day. Per usual, the November 10 public meeting will be held at 7:00 pm at Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School Library.
Rochester Planning Board
By Michael J. DeCicco