Design Review Board Considers Fast EV Chargers for North Pleasant Street Parking Lot
Level 3 charging station similar to the ones proposed for the North Pleasant Street Parking Lot. Photo: amherstma.gov
Report on the Meeting of the Design Review Board, September 23, 2024
This meeting was held over Zoom and was recorded.
Present
Erika Zekos (Chair), Karen Blum, Pat Auth, Karin Winter, and Lindsay Schnarr.
Staff: Jacinta Williams (Planner), Stephanie Ciccarello (Sustainability Director)
Amherst has seven level 2 dual-port electric vehicle stations, but does not have any fast-charging stations. Sustainability Director Stephanie Ciccarello presented a plan to intall two level 3 Chargepoint charging stations in the public parking lot behind CVS to the Design Review Board (DRB). The fast chargers would be located in the northwest corner of the lot, closest to North Prospect Street. The town received a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to fund the charging stations.
According to the plan, the existing guardrail at the north border of the lot will remain. One of the two charging spaces is required to be ADA accessible. The area being used for the EV charging will be repaved, and yellow bollards are proposed to protect the electrical equipment. Current parking regulations limit the amount of time a car can be parked at an EV charging station to four hours. Ciccarello proposed that the time limit at the fast chargers be two hours. Parking services would be responsible for enforcement.
DRB Chair Erika Zekos questioned why the ADA spot was located so far from the entrance to the parking lot and the businesses on North Pleasant Street, but Ciccarello replied that the utilities are located at the west side of the parking lot. Karin Winter asked why each charger had only one charging port. Chiccarello said that a second port could be added to each charger, but that would decrease the charging power of both ports, so that charging would take about twice as long. Therefore, she did not think there would be an advantage to adding more charging ports.
The most controversial aspect of the design was the plan for yellow bollards to protect the electrical equipment. Ciccarello said that silver bollards were available, but that the town electrical inspector preferred the yellow color as being more visible. She was unsure if any other colors were available. The DRB voted 5-0 to recommend that the bollards be silver. They also recommended that the town evaluate the lighting near the chargers, although it appeared from the map that a light pole was close to that location.