Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 8/9/2023
LUDLOW — The Planning Board met on July 27 to continue its discussion on a proposed self-storage facility that has received resistance from the community.
The proposal includes adding a development with six storage containers located at 590-596 Center St. in the Agriculture Moderate Density Overlay District, where self-storage facilities are allowed with Planning Board site plan approval and a special permit.
Residents have complained at two recent meetings about the hours of operation, noise, traffic and aesthetic of the facility in their backyards.
The public hearing was closed after its last meeting, making the July 27 meeting a discussion amongst the board.
The Planning Board went through different special permit criteria and checklists along with required site plan content to see if the project satisfies all these areas.
Planning Board Chair Raymond Phoenix added, “My personal inclination is based on how all of this has been trending in the whole process, we kind of figure out the direction that we think this is going, we start roughing out where we think its deficient, if its deficient and then based on that we see about having Doug work with town council to make sure the motion we make is an appropriate one for what we are looking to do.”
The Planning Board took approximately 20 minutes of their meeting going over each item of the checklists and required content.
Out of the 50 items discussed, 17 items were flagged for further discussion.
Items that were considered questionable by the board had to do with environmental stress, contributing to diversity of services available to the town, adding little traffic congestion, air pollution and excessive noise, scenic views from public ways and potential noise and glare disturbances.
“That is where we are at. We condensed things from around 50 items to 17 that we still have that we are looking at for conversation,” Phoenix added.
The Planning Board had other appointments on the agenda and decided to move the rest of their discussion to their meeting on Thursday, Aug. 24, at 7:30 p.m.
They also agreed to carve out 45 minutes for the discussion.
According to Massachusetts General Law, the Planning Board has 90 days from the public hearing to act on the special permit.
The board said they have until Oct. 12 to make a decision or else it is automatically approved.
“We still have time,” Phoenix added. “When we have that next meeting, we will have that list of the items that have been called out so that we can focus on trying to get through that.”