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Date: 4/17/2023
LUDLOW — The Planning Board approved three articles regarding amendments to zoning bylaws to be sent to Town Meeting.
The Planning Board hosted a public hearing at its April 13 meeting to discuss proposed amendments to the town’s zoning bylaws.
Over the last couple of months, the Planning Board has been working on amending a bylaw to allow self-service storage containers.
“We have been shoehorning it in under warehousing because we have been trying to be a bunch of nice people and allow it in under something,” Planning Board member Raymond Phoenix said, “The alternative tactic we could have taken is to just say we don’t have anything in the by-law allowing it. We are going to have to contemplate it, come up with a bylaw.”
He added that the Planning Board was trying to be accommodating and have businesses come to town “instead of waiting for town government to catch up.”
The proposed revisions will include adding self-service storage facilities to land use classification adding parking guidelines to the special land use regulations and defining a self-service storage facility.
The revisions will be separated into three separate articles at Town Meeting on May 8.
The first article will see if the town will vote to amend zoning bylaws by adding self-service storage facilities by site plan and special permit approval in Industrial A and Industrial C.
Their reasoning for this article is that self-storage facilities would be allowed through site plan approval and special permit in Industrial A and Industrial C and by site plan approval from the Administrative Review Committee in the and the Mill Redevelopment District.
Their second article deals with parking requirements and that the self-service storage facility will need one parking space for each 2,000 square feet of gross floor area.
The Planning Board said that parking requirements for self-storage units need to be stated in the zoning bylaw.
The third article involves adding the definition of self-service storage facilities to land use classification because there is currently no definition.
The definition will read: Facilities also known as temporary storage or person storage businesses which rent space, be it within a permanent builing or in “cargo” boxes, for the temporary or long-term storage of personal items. These businesses generally have leases agreements with customers and have hours of operation during which customers may access their stored items.”
The Planning Board looked at zoning bylaws from 12 surrounding communities of similar size to help construct their revisions.