Planeville boards press Hatch Materials on safety, sewer and traffic for proposed temporary World Cup housing

Planeville — Officials from five town boards and department heads pressed Hatch Materials and its consultants on March 10 about a proposal to convert the company’s property at 80–82 Washington St. into short-term trailer housing to serve World Cup visitors in nearby Foxboro.

Town Planner TJ Torres, speaking at the joint information session, said the meeting’s purpose was fact-finding: “the FIFA World Cup is coming to Foxboro this June and July,” he said, and the town needed to understand how temporary lodging proposals might fit the town’s permitting framework and public-safety needs. The session was explicitly framed as an information-gathering meeting; formal deliberations and permit decisions will be handled later by each board.

The applicant’s attorney, Michael Levenson, told the assembled planning, health, conservation and zoning boards that the revised concept would place about “191 potential units on the property with an additional 66 parking spaces,” using towable fifth-wheel trailers and shuttle service to Gillette Stadium. Levenson said the applicant was preparing designs intended to meet both planning and health-board requirements and that the project’s short timeline was driven by the stadium events.

Why it matters: With the World Cup drawing large numbers to the region, the proposal would concentrate a high number of visitors on a single parcel in a…