Pepperell Planning Board advances board candidate, continues Mason Street hearing to April

PEPPERELL -- March 17, 2025, Pepperell Planning Board unanimously recommends Sean Dory for a vacant seat and opens a contested hearing on a 26-home expansion at Maple Leaf Village. The board voted to forward Dory, a mechanical engineer with school-board experience in Arkansas, to the Select Board for appointment to fill the open full-member position. The main business of the March 17 meeting was a public hearing on a proposal by Maple Leaf Village LLC to add 26 manufactured homes, priced from the mid-$100,000s to $315,000, to the existing 84-unit, 55-and-older community at 6 Mason Street. Chair Al Fadhan challenged the application's special-permit framing outright, saying the common-driveway classification "makes no sense" under town regulations, and flagged what he called a weak point in the stormwater design that accounts for post-construction impervious area in the new phases but not the pre-existing wooded cover being removed. A resident of 9 Shirley Street cited traffic, a 30-year deed restriction on land adjacent to the proposed Phase 3 area, and the routing of all new units through a single Shirley Street access point; the Invasive and Native Plant Advisory Committee told the board the submitted landscaping plans fail to meet design standards adopted 18 months ago. The hearing was continued to April 7.