Pepperell Planning Board advances four zoning articles toward November town meeting

PEPPERELL -- July 20, 2026, Pepperell Planning Board sets September public hearing target for four fall town meeting zoning articles. At the July 20 meeting, Town Planner Jason Koziell told Chair David Ganong and members Sandra Hottnett and Sean Dorey that a statutory 65-day clock, triggered when Koziell notified the Select Board on July 8, requires at least one public hearing by approximately September 11, leaving the board three scheduled meetings to finalize draft language. The most consequential of the four articles would cut the minimum lot size in the Urban Residential district from 40,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet, reduce minimum frontage from 150 feet to 50 feet, and compress side yard setbacks from 15 feet to 5 feet, with Koziell arguing that roughly 80 percent of lots in the district already sit near the proposed minimums. The board also voted unanimously to nominate Associate Member Hottnett as the town's NEMCOG representative, pending charter verification, and spent more than an hour reviewing Section 5 of the subdivision regulations, flagging provisions on ledge outcroppings, invasive plant inventories, and adjacent-property survey requirements as legally questionable or unenforceable.