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Hubbardston adopts reorganized zoning table after floor amendment limits farm-equipment showrooms in residential and town-center areas
Summary
Town meeting approved a planning-board-led rewrite of Article 4 (zoning uses) to convert a pyramidal text into a table; during floor debate members adopted a friendly amendment removing by-right showroom/sales-room commercial use for farm equipment from residential and town-center districts, and the article passed with a two-thirds vote following extended discussion about solar and battery-storage footnotes.
Town meeting voted to replace the town's existing Article 4 uses with a reorganized, table-based format intended to make zoning uses easier to read and apply. Planning Board Chair Christopher Monroe told members the rewrite preserves prior uses except where legal counsel suggested otherwise and converts the bylaw to a clearer table.
The floor then debated several use categories and footnotes. A resident moved to change "sales rooms and yards for farm equipment" from allowed to not allowed in residential and town-center districts; after discussion and a brief rebuttal noting agricultural resale protections, the amendment was adopted as a friendly amendment and carried by voice vote. Supporters said the change protects residential areas from commercial-scale showrooms; opponents noted that incidental private sales (a homeowner selling a tractor on their property) remain permitted by law.
Speakers also raised questions about where large-scale solar photovoltaic installations and grid-scale battery energy storage systems would be allowed; planning-board presenters noted those topics were referenced to separate articles, design standards and existing footnotes. The planning board warned relitigating those pass-through articles would be inappropriate and noted the Attorney General has issued guidance affecting local energy bylaws.
A motion to call the question (end debate) met the two-thirds threshold. The article as amended received a two-thirds vote with seven recorded opposed and was adopted.
Practical effect: the rewritten table reorganizes the zoning-use text to be more readable and explicitly disallows by-right farm-equipment showroom/sales-room commercial uses in the residential/agricultural and town-center districts per the adopted amendment; other use interpretations and design standards remain governed by the separate footnoted articles and the planning board's adopted language.
