Stop & Shop Expansion Talks Focus on Noise Issues

The Westfield Planning Board held its fourth public meeting this year on Wednesday night to address Stop & Shop’s application to expand its Westfield supermarket and parking area.

The more-than-three-hour meeting served as a continuation of testimony from Stop & Shop’s sound expert, Stephen Szulecki, and cross-examination by Ron Gasiorowski, who represents Westfield resident James Hughes–an objector to the proposed expansion.

Stop & Shop’s attorney Howard Geneslaw submitted additional material into evidence, including a supplementary noise report from Szulecki and a letter stating Stop & Shop’s intention to amend their application and seek relief from the 1983 Mayfair Supermarket resolution.

Gasiorowski, of Gasiorowski & Holobinko, in Red Bank, brought the resolution to the Board’s attention during last month’s meeting. Among its conditions, the resolution prohibits truck deliveries after 5:30 p.m. and the loading and unloading of trucks in any place other than under a canopy.

Geneslaw and Szulecki submit the conditions are no longer relevant or applicable since the proposed sealed loading docks and sound walls included in the expansion would eliminate noise the resolution seeks to remedy.

“From those perspectives, I think we see that the circumstances under which the requirements were put in place in the resolution in 1983 are being addressed through the changes that would be put in place,” Szulecki said.

When the Board met in May, Szulecki, an environmental and occupational noise consultant and vice president of The Noise Consultancy, LLC, in Flemington, prepared a noise report that was entered into evidence during the meeting and testified as Stop & Shop’s sound expert. He has since prepared a supplementary noise report to address concerns brought up by Gasiorowski during last month’s meeting.

During May’s meeting, Gasiorowski questioned the credibility of Szulecki’s data and asked if Szulecki could provide a singular record containing the data he input into the acoustical model used to create his noise report. Szulecki addressed this in his supplementary report by providing a compilation of the data used in the model, though Geneslaw had previously argued that it was not Szulecki’s duty to provide this documentation.

Szulecki also addressed in his supplementary report and testimony the rationale behind receptor locations, particularly as it relates to commercial properties. He previously described receptor locations as areas that residents might recreate within their property lines where sound would be propagated–based on the laws of physics–from the noise source.

Expanding on this, Szulecki testified on Wednesday that key to choosing a receptor location is whether or not the location would accommodate an “affected person.” According to Szulecki, state and local noise codes define an “affected person” as an owner, tenant, or employee who has registered a noise complaint with an authorized enforcement agency.

Szulecki further submitted that the two-story masonry building to the east of the expansion, a commercial property, is not a type of facility with an affected person, thus no measurements were taken for this area.

Since last month's meeting, Szulecki added Hughes' residence, which he cited as 240 Massachusetts Street, into his analysis. He testified that the residence is nearly two miles away "as the crow flies," and that it is inconceivable that there could be any acoustical impact on him, nor could he be considered an “affected person.”

Gasiorowski cross-examined Szulecki at length about noise and safety concerning truck deliveries and garbage disposal, as well as the validity of Szulecki’s data.

When Gasiorowski suggested the expansion would increase noise at the receptor locations, Szulecki responded there will not be an expansion of noise. “The physical expansion is not related to the issue of nuisance,” he said.

The Board concluded the meeting around 10:45 p.m. following Gasiorowski’s cross-examination and questions from the audience. The hearing will continue during the next regularly scheduled planning board meeting on Monday, July 1, at 7:30 p.m., with testimony from Gasiorowski’s traffic, sound, engineering, and planning experts.