A Long Day for Bedford Planners

Some days, it seems, there simply are not enough hours. Take the extended day members of the Bedford planning board put in this past Tuesday.

Normally, the board would meet at 8 p.m., in an air-conditioned room in the town's Cherry Street office building, for a couple of hours' discussion of other folks' land-use plans. Instead, under the sullen skies of a muggy August morning, members gathered at 9 a.m. in the parking lot of the ShopRite complex on North Bedford Road.

The board was there to review plans by drugstore giant CVS to open a store in Bedford Green, as the ShopRite complex is known. Members walked much of the center's eight acres, tucked into the southwest corner of Route 117 at Green Lane.

They looked at the width and sightlines of a proposed single driveway for traffic entering and leaving at Green Lane, the center's principal access. It would replace two access points that now serve the center. They discussed parking lot lighting, the future of existing tenants like Molly Maid that would be displaced by a CVS and the addition of parking lot pedestrian crossings.

Later, the board presented the center's developers, Diamond Properties of Mount Kisco, with a laundry list of recommended reviews. Among them:

• Examine the relationship of the proposed single Green Lane driveway to the Saw Mill River Parkway and Metro-North railroad tracks and whether it's wide enough to accommodate tractor-trailers.
• Continue to address parking needs by considering spaces behind the buildings.
• Provide more pedestrian crosswalks.
• Obtain input from the Bedford Fire Department.

Despite the critique, Planning Board Chairman Donald Coe told Diamond's representatives, "Basically, I'd say the board looks favorably on your proposal." The board took no final action.

Later that evening, the board moved inside for its regularly scheduled meeting. A full agenda included the proposed move of Splash Car Wash from its current location at 527 North Bedford Road, on the west side of Route 117, to the former Carvel site, across the street and north, at Valerio Court.

Splash representatives had presented a proposed site plan at the board's July 27 meeting. On Tuesday, however, the board said Splash must provide additional plantings, a detailed plan for storm-water runoff and a firm estimate of the amount of well water the car wash would consume. The board held off action, pending further review.

Even after the agenda had been exhausted, the day's work was not finished.

During the meeting, Key Bank asked to modify the exterior lights at its Bedford Road site. So the board, which had begun its day more than 12 hours earlier in one parking lot, found itself under night's darkness in another.

Board members were critical of the current illumination. Deirdre Courtney-Batson pronounced the bank's nighttime glare an example of what the planners do not want as they redraw the town's lighting code. More specifically, fellow member John Sullivan singled out the ATM's central fixture as the "most obnoxious light in the town of Bedford." The board delayed action on Key Bank's request, pending additional information.

Some days, it seems, there simply are not enough hours.