Westborough Planning Board approves Post Road residential special permits and site plans, grants five waiver requests

The Westborough Planning Board voted on March 3 to grant special permits and approve full site plans for the Post Road Residential north and south parcels, clearing the way for a multifamily development that drew public scrutiny over traffic, sewer capacity and accessibility.

The board granted five waiver requests for the north parcel — allowing five stories instead of the four-story limit, reducing the required open space, lowering the parking ratio to 1.4 spaces per unit, permitting access from Route 9, and modifying the affordability requirement — and then adopted findings and approved a special permit for the north parcel. The board later voted to grant parallel waivers, findings and approvals for the south parcel. Where vote tallies were recorded, the votes on waivers, findings and decisions were unanimous (5–0).

Why it matters: public commenters and staff said the project will be large and will interact with limited town infrastructure. Resident Kevin Barry testified that, based on his review of submitted plans, the project would include about 566 bedrooms and “would utilize approximately 40% of the available multifamily sewer allocations,” and he urged the board to require additional peer review of traffic analyses. DPW input and traffic mitigation were recurring themes for board members and staff.

Board conditions and traffic mitigation Jenny Jingris, town planner, explained that staff and the applicant had revised decision language to address department comments. The applicant agreed to enter a payment agreement before issuance of a water and sewer permit and to handle detailed shop drawings during the building-permit and utility-connection permitting stages rather than within the zoning decision itself. The board also discussed hours-of-construction rules, proposing that the director of planning administer certain exceptions for operations near residences.

The applicant committed to fund and initiate a corridor feasibility study of the Milk Street corridor — defined by the board as the area from Park Street and Milk Street to Oak Street and Milk Street — including 10% concept plans. Jenny said the planning board will own the feasibility study and will be given an opportunity to comment during its development. That study is intended to inform potential grant applications (for example, MassWorks) and any later infrastructure work.

Accessibility, building code and enforcement Board members debated whether to include a specific percentage of ‘‘wheelchair‑accessible’’ units in the planning decision in addition to the ADA and building-code requirements. Fred Lonardo, community development director, said the building code and Architectural Access Board standards set requirements for door widths, counter heights and the number of accessible units and that those details are typically enforced through the building-permit process: “the building code is dictated under the architectural access board and there’s specific requirements for door sizes, counter heights, the number of units that have to be accessible.” Board members said they would confirm the recorded commitments for type A and type B accessible units and rely on the building permit and architect review to ensure code compliance.

Public comment and staff concerns Kevin Barry (8 Indian Pound Road) urged the board to require a peer review of the traffic study and to consider the multi‑year schedule for regional improvements at the Route 9/Milk Street cloverleaf, saying construction and any mitigation could take years depending on MassDOT funding. Lisa (board staff/department commenter) and other staff flagged that some DPW and engineering questions about traffic scope remained in staff memos and asked that those be resolved; the board noted that many technical details will be advanced at the permitting and building-review stages.

Next steps and applicant timeline Applicant representatives confirmed they would pursue state permitting and indicated a target to start construction in 2026 depending on state approvals and economic conditions. The board recorded motions granting waivers, making findings and approving the special permits and full site plans for both the north and south parcels, and instructed staff to ensure the payment agreement and feasibility-study terms are captured in final decision documents.

Votes at a glance - North parcel waivers: granted (motion recorded and carried; tally recorded as unanimous where provided). - North parcel special permit and site plan: approved (votes recorded as 5–0). - South parcel waivers, special permit and site plan: approved (votes recorded as 5–0).

The board’s decisions include conditions and direction to staff to coordinate outstanding technical clarifications with DPW and the building commissioner. The board closed the public hearings for both parcels and recorded the approvals and conditions in the March 3 draft decisions.