By Amy Batista, Special Writer
The Zoning Board heard about the potential traffic impacts of the Kingdom Church project on July 22.
The application is for a 51,017-square-foot church with 254 parking spots at 2367 Kuser Road. The applicant is seeking a use variance, various waivers and preliminary and final site plan.
To accommodate nearly 60 residents and church congregates, the Zoning Board held the meeting in the Nottingham Ballroom.
Traffic Engineer Elizabeth Dolan from Dolan & Dean Consulting Engineers LLC in Martinsville testified on the applicant’s behalf about the traffic impact the project would have.
”I have reviewed the site plans as they have been revised and modified,” said Ms. Dolan. “What is proposed is a church with 1,000 seats in the sanctuary with one point of access along Kuser Road.”
She said the church driveway would align with Veterans Park on the other side of the street and would have both a one-lane egress and a two-lane egress.
”We are also proposing a roadway widening so that we can accommodate the left turn lanes into our property as well as the park property across the street,” she said, adding that the applicant would widen the roadway and make the improvements.
Zoning Board member Anthony DiStephano asked how long the left lane would be.
”It would be about 150 feet going into our site,” Ms. Dolan said.
”So really we are talking about less than 10 cars that can fit,” Mr. DiStephano said, adding that there’s not going to be enough room to fit many cars into the left-hand lane.
Ms. Dolan said the traffic counts were initially performed in 2011, with people stationed along Kuser Road at Veterans Park driveways to “continuously count the volumes passing by the site and the activity going into and out of the park.” She also said counts were taken in June.
”We performed the counts on a weekday evening from 4-6 p.m. on Thursday, June 23 and we wanted to isolate the evening peak hour or the evening rush hour, if you will, because even though the church isn’t going to generate much activity during that period it’s the busiest peak hour of the road.”
Another traffic study was performed on Sunday, June 26 from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. just to the west of the subject location, she said.
”We had a person physically located in the vicinity of the subject property,” she said. “They counted eastbound and westbound vehicles on Kuser Road and then they counted left turns into and out of the park and right turns into and out of the park.”
The counts are performed every 15 minutes to isolate four consecutive 15-minute intervals that amount to the peak hour traffic, she said. The evening peak hour was from 4:45-5:45 p.m. and the Sunday peak hour was 1-2 p.m. She said church services would be taking place earlier in the day.
”A church is somewhat unique in that it has an off-peak trip generation in that it is generating peak activity on a Sunday or late Wednesday, where as the permitted uses are all generating traffic during typical rush hour,” she said.
Ms. Dolan also provided an estimate of the future driveway volume that the church would produce during those peak hours.
”Using the number of seats we calculated roughly 300 vehicles entering and roughly 300 vehicles exiting during the busiest Sunday peak hour,” she said, adding that it was based on successive church services when one service is ending and another is about to begin.
She said in a worst-case scenario there would be “610 driveway movements” during the busiest hour on a Sunday and 43 on Wednesday evening.
Ms. Dolan mentioned the possibility of having to hire police officers to direct traffic.
”We know that we are going to have busy departure activity, which is why the applicant is looking into having a police officer if appropriate during those periods on Sunday,” she said.
Ms. Dolan also provided her opinion of whether the church would have a greater or lesser impact on the peak hour traffic conditions at the Kuser Road intersection than other permitted land uses in the area.
”It’s a very good land use,” she said. “The church is not going to generate any significant volume during the week day morning and evening peak hours when the traffic on Kuser Road is at its highest.”
She said office or industrial uses would impact the Monday through Friday morning and peak traffic hours on Kuser Road.
”I don’t believe it will have a negative impact on the traffic conditions,” she said.
Ms. Dolan also noted that the church has made arrangements for additional parking space.
”The applicant has gone and made an arrangement with 2554 Kuser Road just down the street, which has 200 additional parking spaces available if needed and they have four shuttles that would fit approximately 15 people per shuttle that can then travel between the parking and the church property if needed,” she said.
She said one parking space has been created for every four seats in the church.
”It’s a 250-seat requirement for the 1,000 seats,” she said, noting that the applicant is proposing 254 parking spots.
Michelle Donato, an attorney representing Kuser Community Association, spent approximately an hour cross-examining Ms. Dolan and discrediting her data.
”In using the trip generation data from the ITE (Institute of Transportation Engineers) manual, doesn’t the manual caution in terms of using the trip generation estimation when there is a limited sample of data points available,” said Ms. Donato.
Ms. Dolan agreed that the manual does state that.
”Isn’t it true that the manual also indicates the need to collect multiple trip generation data to either validate the use of the trip generation data manual for local use establishing a new rate,” Ms. Donato said.
”Not necessarily need, it’s encouraged,” Ms. Dolan said. “In the absence of any additional data the typical standard procedure is to use ITE trip generation data.”
Ms. Donato proceeded to show Ms. Dolan the introduction to the ITE manual and asked her what it said in regards to local trip generations.
When Ms. Donato asked Ms. Dolan if she attempted to determine what types of trips are generated from the Kingdom Church’s existing church, Ms. Dolan replied no.
”Despite the fact that the ITE manual indicates the need to look at existing and local volumes you never bothered to look at the local church that would be relocating to this place,” Ms. Donato said.
Ms. Donato said there are 13 data sets in the ITE manual and there are different types of houses of worship.
”When you used this information did you use actual trips generated based on these data sets,” Ms. Donato said.
”I applied the trip data to the number of seats,” Ms. Dolan said.
When Ms. Donato asked her if she calculated an average, Ms. Dolan said yes.
Ms. Donato asked her how many data points she saw on the piece of paper in front of her.
”There is one data set on the 1,000 seats,” Ms. Dolan said.
Ms. Donato said there is a “very significant difference” in number of trips for the same sized church.
”So when you average you really aren’t taking the worst-case scenario are you,” Ms. Donato said. “If you average, you are taking the two numbers and you are averaging them.”
Additional hearings on the application will continue to be held at the ballroom. The next hearing on the application is scheduled for Sept. 30.