Pepperell Planning Board Unanimously Adopts Eight of Nine Master Plan Chapters

PEPPERELL — September 23, 2020 — Pepperell Planning Board adopts eight chapters of its 397-page Master Plan and defers the implementation chapter to October 5. The board convened a special session Wednesday outside its regular schedule to give sustained attention to the document, estimated to represent more than one full person-year of combined staff and volunteer effort. Three of the five board members — identified in the transcript only as Chuck, Joe, and Joyce — also served on the Master Plan Advisory Committee that produced the plan with technical assistance from the North Middlesex Council of Governments. The board voted unanimously to adopt chapters covering land use and zoning, economic development, transportation, housing, open space, natural and cultural resources, and facilities and services, with two wholesale text changes: replacing "Board of Selectmen" with "Select Board" and updating references to the Senior Center to reflect its current name, the Albert Harris Center, per a comment by former committee member Dick Fountain of 48 Wheeler Street. The implementation chapter was deferred after Chuck proposed replacing the plan's original multi-member committee structure with a streamlined three-person oversight team — one Planning Board member and two Select Board-appointed citizens — with accountability embedded in each responsible board's existing workflow and budget implications to be identified for the fiscal year 2022 cycle.