SOUTH DEERFIELD — A dozen residents from the Plain Road East and Mill Village Road neighborhood came before the Planning Board Monday night to express concerns about the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Regional Dog Shelter’s proposed building.

The Friends of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Regional Dog Shelter, the nonprofit formed to raise money for the shelter’s services, have applied to construct a roughly 7,000-square-foot building with indoor and outdoor kennels, larger dog runs and parking for staff, volunteers and visitors off the cul-de-sac at the end of Plain Road East. The nonprofit acquired the land in March 2024 for $135,000 and it is seeking to expand the shelter’s space and increase the services it offers.

According to the application, the shelter has outgrown its current site in Turners Falls — about 1,570 square feet of functional space — and its building is in decline, with deteriorating walls, insufficient insulation, chipped floors and a roof that has suffered several major leaks over the years.

While the residents in the neighborhood said they support the shelter’s mission and the work it does for Franklin County, they emphasized there are numerous issues with the proposed site for the shelter, with the size of Plain Road East being the biggest concern, which residents emphasized at a Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals site visit on Feb. 28.

“I’ll keep it short and sweet: It’s the road. It’s not built for something like this,” Plain Road East resident Mike Worden said during the public comment period for the site plan review. “I like everything [the shelter does] … but I don’t have to tell you guys anything, you saw it.”

Shelter proposal

Carlos Nieto, a Berkshire Design Group principal and landscape architect, and shelter Director Leslee Colucci presented the proposal, in which they highlighted the stormwater management plans, light and noise pollution and how the shelter will operate.

Nieto explained much of the 13.47-acre site, which is in the industrial zoning district, will remain as it is and the shelter will be constructing an access driveway at the end of Plain Road East to enter the facility. The building will be on town water and the shelter will be tapping into the existing water main and installing a new fire hydrant, which it will maintain, at the entrance of the driveway.

With the parcel’s shape as a flag lot, residents asked if it was possible to create a driveway from where the parcel meets Routes 5 and 10, but Nieto said much of that area is wetlands and it would extremely difficult to get permits, as well as extremely expensive.

The shelter will be constructed so the outdoor dog areas are facing away from Plain Road East in order to reduce the volume of barking and all lighting is designed to reduce light pollution in the neighborhood, as fixtures will be less than 16 feet tall and pointed downward. Lights also will be dimmed or turned off at night, according to Nieto.

“It won’t be very intrusive lighting. As you can see, it all stays within our site,” Nieto said, as he presented the photometric plan. “We are minimizing the amount of light we are using.”

Traffic impacts also are expected to be minimal and are likely to be less impactful than the 107 daily trips estimated in the application, as Nieto said the calculations used a light industrial-use model and treated the occupancy as if every single staff member and volunteer would be on site at once.

“What we did is go as conservative as possible … we also based ourselves on total capacity, meaning every single person that has been mentioned, [in the presentation] all at once, which is not really how this operation is going to be,” Nieto said. “I can attest that those numbers are going to be between 20 and 50, rather than 107.”

Laying out the operations plan, Colucci, who has run the shelter for the last 13 years, said the facility usually brings in around 200 dogs a year, which is “very, very small” compared to other operations in the region, and the busiest part of the day is from 8 to 9 a.m. when staff and volunteers arrive and let the dogs outside. By 6 p.m. all dogs will be inside for the evening and staff and volunteers will have left the facility.

Colucci said there will be noise when the dogs are outside, but those periods will be short and the building is designed to minimize noise.

“This is sort of like a playground, when the dogs are outside … they’re going to bark,” Colucci said, emphasizing “it’s not going to be hours on end of barking. We’re going to do our due diligence to keep the barkers inside.”

Nieto said the ambient noise of the site, which abuts Interstate 91, is about 60 to 65 decibels and while a peak dog bark can top out at 90 decibels, that sound level is near 45 decibels when 300 feet away from the source. The nearest abutter’s home is about 300 feet away from the proposed building.

“Our expectation, again, it’s not like you’re never going to hear a bark,” Nieto said. “The amount of noise you’re going to hear by the time it gets to the neighbor’s property, the noise is going to dissipate. It will be lower than the ambient noise. It’s not going to be intrusive.”

Finally, Colucci, who is a deputy sheriff, addressed a neighbor’s concern about inmates working at the facility. She said at most, they have two inmates working at the facility, and typically it is only one who comes three times a week. The inmates, who are all women and supervised under pre-released conditions, undergo an extensive review before they begin work and the shelter has never had an issue with inmates working at the Turners Falls site.

Resident concerns

While the width of Plain Road East is the chief concern of the neighborhood’s residents, some also said they were worried about pedestrian safety, flooding and the potential change to a quiet, residential area.

“I’m very, very disturbed about what’s happening here … My partner has a disability, he rides a three-wheeled bike and he uses that road many times a day taking our dog out,” said Plain Road East resident Kamala Bouche, who added she believes the shelter is a “wonderful organization.” “I do not feel that this is appropriate for a dead-end, quiet residential road that has elderly, disabled people, children using that road on a regular basis. It’s not going to work, it’s going to be a disaster.”

“We all care about one another, we’re all invested in each other’s health and happiness, we all love this road,” added Denise Sheehan, a direct abutter across from the proposed entrance to the site. “I’m really opposed to it — don’t get me wrong, we all love animals … It’s going to change the whole dynamic of our whole community.”

Linda Shea, a Mill Village Road resident and the president of the Mill Village Condominium Association, echoed concerns about pedestrian safety on the narrow road and implored the Planning Board to consider how large vehicles, like fire engines or trash trucks, would have a difficult time getting down Plain Road East if there was another car coming from the opposite direction.

Planning Board Chair Denise Mason noted the Department of Public Works will likely be painting a yellow line down the center of the road and trimming trees and shrubs alongside it. She also indicated the town will put up “no parking” signs alongside the road.

“We got that loud and clear,” Mason said of the concerns about the width of the road. “I did say it would be nice if there was space for an additional pullout on the side of the road, so they will be addressing that.”

With residents’ concerns to address, as well as an opportunity for the shelter’s representatives to collect their thoughts and information, the board opted to continue the hearing to April 7, with the intention of bringing on a peer reviewer for the application. Mason also said she’d like more feedback from the police, fire and highway departments.

“This is exactly what we want, is for people to care and show up. This is exactly the process and how it’s supposed to work, so thank you for being here” Planning Board member Emily Gaylord said to the residents. “There’s a lot of questions, some are very good ones, and so, I think our mandate is to get those questions answered. I totally support a peer review.”

Prior to the Planning Board’s next meeting, though, the shelter’s proposal will come before the Zoning Board of Appeals on March 20 for a public hearing on a special permit. Interim Franklin County Sheriff Lori Street is expected to be speak at that meeting. The project also came before the Conservation Commission for a determination of applicability last week, which the board said was not needed.

Documents for the project can be viewed on the Planning Board or Zoning Board of Appeals’ calendar pages on the Deerfield town website at this link: bit.ly/4kn3UAq.

Chris Larabee cna be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.