Pepperell Planning Board Takes Form-Based Code Concept to the Street in Railroad Square Tour

PEPPERELL — June 27, 2021 — Pepperell Planning Board joins urban designer for Railroad Square walking session focused on form-based zoning and sidewalk revival. Alan Khazei, Director of Economic and Community Development for the Town of Ayer and a 30-year New England downtown revitalization practitioner, led Planning Board members on a roughly 90-minute field tour of Railroad Square and the Nashua River corridor on June 27, discussing form-based codes that would set building height minimums of two stories and maximums of three, require ground-floor window glazing between 60 and 90 percent of the facade, mandate projecting sidewalk signage, and prohibit mirrored window films. Khazei called the existing 12-foot commercial sidewalk — currently deteriorating asphalt — potentially "catalytic" if reconstructed and identified MassWorks as an appropriate grant vehicle, adding that undergrounding overhead utility lines at the same time is worth exploring. A board member noted that sidewalk improvement had already been flagged in the town's Local Rapid Recovery Program. Khazei described the large concrete sluiceway serving the downtown hydroelectric plant as the primary barrier to riverfront activation and said the town's commercial tax base — roughly six percent of total tax revenue against 94 percent residential — makes concentrated downtown investment a fiscal necessity.