The Amherst Planning Board gave final approval Thursday for two large office buildings on Wehrle Drive, although the plans met with skepticism from neighboring residents.
Arista Development Co. plans to build a 400,000-square-foot office park at 2360 and 2370 Wehrle Drive. Residents questioned the potential effect of blasting on nearby homes and the impact on Wehrle Drive traffic of an emergency access road at the north end of the development.
Jeffery D. Palumbo, an attorney for Arista, told residents that the access road would be added to the project, though some residents remained unappeased.
"I just wonder why everybody thinks this is so great," a Canterbury Wood Court resident told the board. "I don't think it's so great at all."
Palumbo, however, assured residents that the access road would be open only to emergency vehicles and closed to regular traffic by a locked gate.
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In addition, Palumbo said the plan would incorporate wide roadways with breaks in the median to allow access for fire and other emergency vehicles.
A five-acre property north of the access road would remain vacant, he said, though some residents suggested Thursday that it be donated to the town.
Residents also were assured that blasting at the site probably would not crack the foundations of nearby homes. Palumbo described the process as safe and said it had been used innumerable times in the town.
Town ordinances would require the developer to compensate homeowners for any damages.
Another resident expressed concern about radon leaking into basements as a result of the blasting. Donald Owens, a soil scientist on the project, said the bedrock might contain low concentrations of radon, which would disperse quickly and not pose a threat.
Other critics, meanwhile, have opposed the project because it would wipe out one of the last remaining wooded areas in southeast Amherst.
In other action Thursday, the Planning Board approved site plans for a 214,000-square-foot office building at 2190 Wehrle Drive to be built by Aquest and Niskayuna, and plans to complete the Hampton Hill Villas subdivision off Bellingham Drive.
e-mail: hmcneil@buffnews.com