CHICOPEE — Pilot Travel Center, a gas station and convenience store that has been at the center of residents’ concerns and embroiled in recent litigation, has returned to stake a claim on an open lot on Burnett Road.

The company filed an application with the municipality, including license applications for gas storage and gas stations, according to documents stamped Thursday morning. The proposed location remains the same – 357 Burnett Rd, next to a Pride Travel Center.

“The application is identical to the one that was filed two years ago,” said Tom Murphy, the attorney representing Dinesh Patel, the Springfield developer of the project. Patel owns the land where the travel center will be built.

In 2022, the plan was to build a gas station with 16 pumps for vehicles, a seven-position refueling area for tractor-trailer trucks, a Wendy’s restaurant and other amenities such as a convenience store and truck showers. The plan, according to a copy of the request received by The Republican, has not changed.

The proposal has been and continues to be highly contested among Ward 6 residents, particularly those who live near Burnett Road.

“Pilot brings additional truck traffic to this already very busy major road,” said Gene Przybylowicz, a longtime area resident. “There have already been several accidents here in the last three weeks.”

Located off the Massachusetts Turnpike and Interstate 291, the trucks already have a tough time turning into outside parking lots like the one near the Pride Travel Center.

“Tractor-trailers take up a lane and a half to turn,” Przybylowicz said.

In 2022, after receiving a unanimous “no” vote. from the City Council — which cited concerns about increased vehicle accidents, traffic backups and general public safety — Pilot Travel took the fight to court — a case it lost in May.

A Hampden Superior Court judge ruled that the City Council’s decision to reject the company’s application for the two licenses had “a rational basis and was not arbitrary or capricious.” residents hired a lawyer to support them in court.

A month later, the company filed an appeal. The state appeals court upheld the Superior Court’s decision on Oct. 21, dismissing the case “with prejudice and without awarding costs or fees to any party.”

“It amazes me why they would file another application,” said Glenn LaPlante, a resident who lives off Burnett Road.

Murphy, the attorney representing Patel, says his client is “trying to do the right thing in the community.”

“The project they are proposing will reduce traffic substantially,” he said, explaining that the company is conducting a traffic impact study to analyze the area. “Not only will it have an annual property tax of $720,000, but it will also create approximately 70 full-time positions and 20 part-time positions.”

The company, Murphy and Patel hope this change with the City Council will yield different results.

Pilot Travel Center, a Tennessee-based corporation with locations in the U.S. and Canada, could not be reached Thursday evening.

On Nov. 6, a neighborhood meeting was held that involved Sam Shumsky, who is the city councilman for Ward 6, residents, Murphy, Patel and an engineer from Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc., a consulting and design firm in Watertown, after rumors that the company was going to make another application to the mayor’s office.

The meeting, he said, gathered only a few of the area’s residents because of the short notice. “(Murphy) told me we could schedule a second meeting to get more people to talk about their concerns,” Shumsky said.

LaPlante believes there were ulterior motives for the lack of attendance.

“It’s like they wanted as little people as possible to appear,” he said. “I only knew three or four days before it happened.”

Murphy explained that since the application is the same as before, it will just need to be heard before the License Commission and City Council for approval.

“The public will have space to speak about their concerns about the travel center at these two hearings,” he said.

The City Council initially, according to the lawsuit filed in Hampden Superior Court, granted essentially the same licenses to Chicopee Inn Inc. in December 2018 for a larger development on the same property that included two restaurants, a coffee shop and a 10-pump gas station.

The company abandoned the project when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Dinesh Patel, the company’s chairman, and Rohit Patel, the secretary, continue to own the land.

“We’re not against project development, don’t get me wrong,” Prezbilowitz said.

But with a change of heart, “people feel like they’ve been lied to — it’s like a ‘bait and switch,'” LaPlante said.

When this application is before the City Council and the Licensing Commission, residents are ready to speak out against it.

“We are prepared to fight this in court if necessary,” Przybylowicz said. “This truck stop will only bring more traffic and more pollution.”