On December 12, Rochester’s Zoning Board of Appeals extended to January 2025 its hearing into the signage for the ExtraSpace Self-Storage facility proposed for County Road after raising alarms about the exact look of those signs.
Project representative Joseph Sanda told the board the developer is seeking a special permit to allow erecting six signs on the property. The biggest of these will be a 37-foot-long by 4-foot-high sign proclaiming the company name that will face the Route 495 south bound exit approaching Exit 2 to Rochester.
The first sign will be placed at the beginning of the property, Sanda said. Four others will direct customers who have entered the two-story facility. The only proposed sign above the 50 square-foot size limit allowed in town bylaw is the 164-square-foot sign that will face Route 495 in order to draw customers to the facility.
“For advertising purposes because the property doesn’t have great visibility,” Highland Development Managing Partner Adam Hird explained. Project engineer Phil Cordeiro added, “the signage size is in line with the size of the building.”
Board Chair David Arancio led the response that the panel wants to see exactly what those signs and the building lighting will look like before approving the special permit. “How much lighting noise will be generated by the sign?” Arancio asked. He noted he didn’t want to set a bad precedent, allow a sign special permit that a neighboring business would also want. “I would like to see an actual example of this company’s signs,” he said. “Where could I travel and look at an example, or a drawn rendering.”
Board member Richard Culter added that he too would like to see drawings with a colorized rendering of the sign. Board member Donald Spirlet asked, “If the company has its own color, how can we reasonably deny for that reason?” Still, Arancio reiterated, “I am looking for a colored rendering of this sign.” Board member Michelle Upton said she would like to see a more subtle sign than some self-storage facilities use for what might be some people’s first introduction to the town of Rochester.
The board continued the hearing to January 9, 2025. Hird agreed to return on that date with a colored schematic of the signs and lighting intensity calculations, and he said he will see what color options the ExtraSpace Self-Storage company allows for its signs.
Hird elaborated in a later email to the Wanderer that Highland Development Ventures, together with its venture partner The Davis Companies located in Boston, have completed the development of 17 self-storage facilities totaling 2.2 million square feet in markets including Walpole, MA, Stamford, CT, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island, NY, Southern NJ, Chicago, IL, and Milwaukee, WI.
In other action, the board granted a variance to side setback requirements for the construction of a 16×24-foot storage shed at 324 High St. In November, homeowner Stephen Cobb requested the zoning panel approve a variance to place the shed in his front yard, a move not allowed in town bylaw. On December 12, Cobb reported he had moved the proposed shed to his side yard and received a Conservation Commission permit to encroach on the wetlands border there. The resulting variance approval included the condition that he build the shed no more than 23 feet into the setback limit.
The Zoning Board of Appeals’ next meeting will be Thursday, January 9, 2025, at 7:15 pm at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way.
Rochester’s Zoning Board of Appeals
By Michael J. DeCicco