Planning committee recommends rezoning along Northeastern Boulevard to Highway Business

The Nashua Planning and Economic Development Committee voted June 16 to recommend final passage of ordinance O26‑013, amending the zoning map to reclassify parcels along Northeastern Boulevard and Industrial Park Drive from PI (industrial) to Highway Business, Chair Derek Tebow said.

Sam Durfee, deputy planning manager for the City of Nashua, told the committee the change would shift a primarily industrial‑use area toward commercial uses and align with the master plan’s vision for the corridor. "This piece of legislation ... does change the zoning from existing PI ... to Highway Business," Durfee said, adding that the shift would allow restaurants, retail and other commercial activities and would extend an existing Highway Business district slightly into adjacent PI parcels.

Committee members asked whether any residential properties would be affected; Alderman Patricia Klee and Durfee confirmed homes lie across the street and the parcels in question are not residential. Members also queried whether the proposal would require a traffic study; Durfee said traffic and site‑specific impacts are evaluated in the later site‑plan process, not at rezoning.

Durfee told the committee that a bank currently operating as a conditional use in PI would be a permitted use in Highway Business and thus more conforming. "They become more conforming as a use," he said when asked about Santander Bank.

No members of the public testified for or against the ordinance during the hearing, which the chair closed at 7:04 p.m. The committee then gave the ordinance first reading and, after brief discussion, voted by voice to recommend final passage to the full Board of Aldermen; the chair announced "the ayes have it." The committee’s voice vote was recorded in the meeting minutes but no roll‑call tally was included in the transcript.

Next steps: O26‑013 will go to the full Nashua Board of Aldermen for final consideration.