Planning board gives conditional preliminary approval to Street Legal car-storage club with shared parking easement and traffic conditions

The Tiverton Planning Board on Thursday granted conditional preliminary-plan approval to Street Legal LLC's proposed car-storage and private-club facility at 0 Progress Road, authorizing the project to proceed provided several written conditions are satisfied.

Attorney Daniel Riley said the project previously received master plan approval and that the owner had updated water and wastewater will-serve letters after the North Tiverton Fire District and the fire marshal set the maximum building occupancy at 563 persons. Project engineer Chris Duhamel said the building would house roughly 166 stored cars inside (stacked systems) and includes a member lounge and an approximately 700-square-foot outdoor deck; overflow parking on the same ownership is intended to serve Longplex event traffic and would be governed by a recorded shared-parking easement.

Duhamel described the team's traffic rationale: the car-storage club is a low-weekday-trip generator because regular use is private membership storage, and larger "brand experience" or showroom events are occasional and likely to occur outside weekday commuting peaks. Using comparable ITE assembly rates, he estimated peak-hour arrivals for a 563-person assembly at roughly 39 vehicles (a conservative upper estimate of 60 vehicles); he also documented more than 600 feet of available sight distance at the proposed Progress Way driveway.

Board members and staff nevertheless required additional written traffic documentation: a stamped, signed letter addressing existing traffic conditions on Progress Way/Fish Road, internal circulation, sight-distance analysis and the interaction of event parking with Longplex. The board also required a firm stormwater operation-and-maintenance plan reviewed and approved by the town engineer and DPW, and the recording of both the lot merger and the shared-parking easement before final approval. Riley said the applicants have applied for the subdivision/lot merger and will record the easement prior to final-plan approval.

Riley said the Town had asked the State Traffic Commission to consider a traffic signal at Industrial Way and Fish Road but that the commission, based on current and projected traffic through 2030, did not find a signal warranted at this time; the commission is keeping the matter open while additional developments are evaluated. The board made positive findings of fact required for preliminary approval and voted unanimously to approve the plan with the enumerated conditions.