The public hearing closed on October 15, so the board, meeting remotely for more than three hours, took no public comment. Board counsel Brian Winner of Mead, Talerman & Costa said he would circulate a revised draft by the close of business Friday, October 30, and share it with the developer, MP Properties IV, LLC. The Ledger’s page on the project has the background, filings and history:

The testing dispute

Condition 58 concerns the outfalls where the site’s stormwater system discharges to the pond on the north side of the property and to Bogastow Brook on the south. An earlier draft required the developer to test at those outfalls for a list of contaminants, including PFAS, at least once a year. Karen Sherman, the former town planner who is consulting on this project, said the list came from the town’s stormwater consultant, CEI Engineers, and mirrors what the town must test for at its own outfalls under its federal stormwater permit.

The developer struck that list. In its place it proposed to comply with whatever testing any statute, regulation or bylaw requires and to report the results to the board. Dembitzer said that if no regulation requires testing, the substitute does nothing, and she called it “a sneaky lawyer thing.” She said she would vote no on any decision that did not include testing. Peabody said removing the condition entirely “probably doesn’t make a lot of sense,” and Clerk Vladimir Nechev agreed with him.

Peabody then let the developer’s attorney, Jonathan Silverstein, speak briefly on a legal point, though the hearing was closed. Silverstein called the suggestion of sneaky lawyering “unfounded and frankly offensive.” He said that many state rules, among them the safe drinking water regulations, the septic code and the state’s hazardous waste cleanup rules, carry testing requirements that spell out what triggers a test, how it is done and what limits apply. His objection was to costly testing “without reference to any standard, without reference to any regulation,” which he said is “not imposed on any other development I’m aware of in the town.” He said the developer’s environmental consultant had only been able to review the condition that day.

The board asked Winner to redraft condition 58 by naming the state and federal testing programs that apply to the site and what each requires, and to show the members where those overlap with CEI’s list. Peabody said the board needs to know whether anything the consultant recommended goes beyond the regulations and, if so, why it was recommended, before deciding how far the condition can go. Winner has repeatedly told the board that each condition must rest on a regulatory requirement.

Protecting the Zone II

Dembitzer pressed throughout the evening for the decision to reflect that the whole site lies in the Zone II area that feeds the town’s wells. Winner agreed to add a finding near the front of the decision acknowledging the Zone II and stating that the conditions are meant to protect it. She also asked that the limits on fertilizer, pesticides and rodenticides in condition 57, which the Conservation Commission supplied for land near wetlands, apply to the entire property. She asked as well that the decision cite the state’s Groundwater Protection List of pesticides, which Winner said he had not seen but would review if she sent it. That list is part of a state regulation, 333 CMR 12.00, which bars anyone from applying a listed pesticide in a Zone II without an integrated pest management program approved by the state Department of Agricultural Resources.

The board made several smaller changes along the same lines. The winter maintenance plan must use best efforts to “reduce or eliminate” salt, and testing of imported fill will now also cover crushed stone and septic sand. Outdoor cleaning products must be EPA Safer Choice certified “or more protective.” Pet waste bag stations will be installed around the site, and the property’s management company must receive a copy of the decision so it knows the restrictions.

Why exactly 250 units

Dembitzer pointed out early in the meeting that the project’s size sits exactly at a line in the state’s 40B rules. In a town with between 5,000 and 7,500 housing units, which staff confirmed includes Holliston, a comprehensive permit for more than 250 units counts as a “large project,” and a zoning board that follows the required procedure can deny a large project and have that denial upheld on appeal. At 250 units, the Lowland Street project falls just short of that line.

The other open items

Traffic. The draft requires traffic and parking monitoring after the apartments are occupied. If set thresholds are crossed, the developer pays up to $25,000 toward the recommended fixes, and the board wants that raised to at least $50,000. The developer proposed striking a condition that would have made tenants pay for parking separately from rent. The remaining transportation conditions call for a transportation coordinator, a welcome packet on transit and walking options, a first-month transit pass subsidy for new residents and electric vehicle charging.

Construction hours. The board leaned toward barring work on weekends, bank holidays, Holliston school holidays and July 4, possibly allowing interior work on Saturdays as the board did for Concord Street Apartments. It asked Winner to match the language of its earlier comprehensive permits.

Sidewalk. The draft has the developer contribute up to $150,000 toward a sidewalk on Lowland Street if the town applies for a state MassWorks grant within three years of the permit becoming final. Town staff suggested dropping the reference to MassWorks, since the town has found infrastructure money elsewhere, and members want the three years to start from a later milestone, such as a building or occupancy permit. Winner said the money must stay tied to a sidewalk that serves this project and cannot become a general fund.

School bus stop. Sarah Scott, the town’s director of planning and community development, said the site is outside the walk zone for the K-8 schools. The draft requires a sheltered bus stop to be designed but built only once the school department confirms in writing that it will serve it. Dembitzer wanted it built unless the developer shows a bus will never stop there. The board removed the words “within the project,” leaving the location open, possibly at the entrance as Sherman suggested, and held the rest.

The undeveloped land. The developer has accepted keeping the land it will not build on in a predominantly natural state for passive recreation, under a management plan, but not a permanent restriction recorded at the Registry of Deeds. Winner said no one had identified a regulation that would let the town bind the land for all time, while noting that the permit itself runs with the land and binds future owners.

The sewage plant permit

Condition 62 bars any building permit until MassDEP’s groundwater discharge permit for the on-site sewage plant is final, and requires the developer to copy the board on its correspondence with MassDEP as it happens. It also responds to the long-running disagreement between the town’s peer-review engineer and the developer over how the stormwater and treated wastewater interact underground. Under the condition, the board and the developer may each send MassDEP a written statement on that question “to ensure the subject does not evade review.”

What happens Monday

Winner listed the items still open for November 2:

• a finding on the Zone II and the purpose of the conditions

• condition 58 and the outfall testing, with related references to the state’s cleanup and MassDEP rules

• the traffic mitigation cap

• construction days and hours

• the winter maintenance plan

• the sidewalk contribution and its timing

The school bus stop was also held. After those, the board will vote on the developer’s requested waivers, which members were asked to review before Monday, and then on the decision itself. Two of the three votes carry it. The developer agreed in writing on September 24 to November 4 as the filing deadline, and if the board misses it, state law treats the permit as granted. The board also held over its October 15 minutes because not all members had read them.

This report is based on the recording of the October 28 meeting. Minutes had not been posted at the time of writing. Agenda · Recording · Extension and decision deadline letter · 333 CMR 12.00 · 760 CMR 56.03

From the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved.

Town Hall

★ Zoning Board of Appeals, October 21: Board deliberates on the Lowland Street comprehensive permit, leaning toward approval with conditions (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved) :

★ School Committee, October 22: Schools’ FY28 budget vote must come by March 18; Town Meeting is May 10, 2027 (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ School Committee, October 22: Draft 2027-28 school calendar has first day September 1 and last day June 16 with no snow days (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ Planning Board, October 22: South Street 40Y district: staff work plan, eight starter homes, due in November (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ Zoning Board of Appeals, October 21: Lowland Street permit talks resume October 28 at 6 p.m., ahead of a November 4 deadline (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ School Committee, October 22: High school adds ESL literature course, raising EL teacher from .6 to .8 FTE (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ Zoning Board of Appeals, October 21: Draft Lowland decision sets 30-day review for final plans and earlier pre-construction meeting (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ Sewer Commission, October 19: Sewer district is opt-in for limited downtown properties, not a town-wide system (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

Around Town

Five Holliston High juniors teach adults from across the country at a national conference (Holliston Reporter)

Overnight street parking ban runs from November 1, 2026 through March 31, 2027 (Town of Holliston)

Dog park group seeks signatures; no town approval, site or funding yet (Friends of Holliston Dog Park)

Highway Department seeks a Tree Supervisor and is taking applications now (mma.org)

Fire officials urge residents to check smoke and CO alarms when clocks change this weekend (Holliston Reporter)

Holliston schools launch English Learner Parent Advisory Council, with first meeting in December on Zoom (Holliston Public Schools)

Fire and EMS logs for October 16 to 22 show frequent medical calls and several alarm checks (Holliston Reporter)

Holliston beats Norwood 20-14 in Tri-Valley League Large football game (facebook.com)

Holliston School Committee member David Keim sits down with host John Cronin on cable access (hcattv.org)

Honor Society students collect canned goods door to door for the Holliston Pantry Shelf (myfmtoday.com)

Happenings

Tuesday, October 27

• Leave a bag of canned goods on the doorstep: NHS collects for the Food Pantry, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

• Board of Health weighs groundwater protection bylaw changes at 7 p.m. Zoom meeting

• Envisioning Future Holliston Committee, 7 p.m.: 1999 Master Plan and FY27 strategic plan items on agenda

• Conservation Commission, 7:30 p.m. on Zoom: 100 Linden Street spillway and park hearing at 8 p.m.

Wednesday, October 28

• Fire Chief Cassidy reads at fire-themed story time, Children’s Room, 10:15 a.m.

• Zoning Board deliberates on Lowland Street comprehensive permit at 6 p.m., remote only

• Holliston High School holds Opportunities Night for Grade 8 and HHS families, 6 to 7:30 p.m., HHS Auditorium

• Opportunities Night for Grade 8 and high school families is at the HHS Auditorium, 6 p.m.

Thursday, October 29

• Registration is open on the Advantage App for Patriot Place trick-or-treating, 4:30 to 7 p.m.

Sunday, November 1

• Overnight parking ban begins: no on-street parking 1 to 5 a.m. through March 31

• Butterfly Garden reunion planned at Our Lady of Fatima Shrine

Got a question about town business? Reply to this email.

★ = built by the Ledger from public records. Drafted with AI, checked by a person.

Decisions

Town Meeting, Monday, October 19 (from the meeting recording)

• Articles 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10, consent agenda: approved Articles 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 together as a consent agenda: a new Permitting Coordinator title in the town’s job classification plan and five amendments to the Consolidated Personnel Bylaw (unanimous). Recording, 0:11:54

• Article 1, General Stabilization Fund: transferred $150,000 from free cash to the General Stabilization Fund (passed). Recording, 0:37:01

• Article 2, Pension Stabilization Fund: transferred $250,000 from free cash to the Pension Stabilization Fund (passed). Recording, 0:37:39

• Article 3, capital expenditure fund: transferred $3,040,544 from free cash to the Capital Expenditure Fund, after amending the motion to name that fund in place of the General Stabilization Fund (passed). Recording, 0:39:12

• Article 7, personnel bylaw vacation sections: indefinitely postponed Article 7, the amendment to sections 9, 10 and 11 of the Consolidated Personnel Bylaw (passed). Recording, 0:41:29

• Article 11, capital budget: appropriated $1,272,030 from the Capital Expenditure Fund, $100,000 from Water Enterprise retained earnings and $1.8 million from the Water Enterprise infrastructure account for vehicles, equipment, building work and water mains. Recording, 0:45:17

• Article 12, Community Preservation projects: transferred $219,000 from the CPA General Reserve and $115,000 from the CPA Historical Preservation funds for the Stoddard Park engineering study, central fire station window and stucco work, and senior center sensory garden (passed). Recording, 0:50:43

• Article 13, fire station solar array: transferred $421,500 from Article 22 of the May 2024 Town Meeting to buy, temporarily relocate and reinstall the Central Fire Station solar array and repair the roof (passed). Recording, 0:55:28

• Article 14, Miller and Placentino roof studies: appropriated $900,000 for a feasibility study and design of a partial roof replacement at Fred Miller Elementary and $450,000 for the same at Placentino Elementary (passed). Recording, 0:58:06

• Article 15, opioid settlement fund: dissolved the Opioid Settlement Stabilization Fund and moved the remaining money to a special revenue account (unanimous). Recording, 1:00:41

• Article 17, Groundwater Protection District bylaw: approved the Groundwater Protection District zoning bylaw amendments as printed in the handout (123–25). Recording, 1:06:16

• Article 18, Constitution Village streetlights: requested that the Select Board work with the Town Manager, rather than the Finance Committee as first moved, to identify a funding source and financing plan for streetlights on Constitution Village roads (passed). Recording, 1:45:44

Zoning Board of Appeals, Wednesday, October 21 (from the meeting recording)

• Special use permit, 1286 Washington Street: approved a special use permit for Martins Cleaning and Painting, Inc. at 1286 Washington Street for administrative office use and indoor storage, with added conditions of no parking in the rear of the building and no outdoor storage (unanimous). Recording, 0:07:27

Planning Board, Thursday, October 22 (from the meeting recording)

• Scenic Road application, Prentice Street: approved the scenic road application to move part of the stone wall and remove two small trees for a driveway entrance, with the brush cleared from the wall and the moved stones used to fill gaps or extend the wall (unanimous). Recording, 0:14:51

• South Street 40Y zoning work plan: appointed the town planner to lead the South Street 40Y zoning district project and prepare a more detailed work plan and schedule for the board’s November meeting (unanimous). Recording, 0:43:01

School Committee, Thursday, October 22 (from the meeting recording)

• ESL literature course at the high school: approved a new ESL literature course at Holliston High School, taken alongside regular English classes and starting in the second semester (unanimous). Recording, 1:14:43

Election Day

Holliston votes in the state election on Tuesday, November 3, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Holliston High School gymnasium, and today, Saturday, October 24, is the deadline to register to vote in it, according to the town’s notice.

Early in-person voting is at Upper Town Hall, 703 Washington Street, through Friday:

• Saturday, October 24, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

• Monday, October 26, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

• Tuesday, October 27, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

• Wednesday, October 28, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

• Thursday, October 29, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

• Friday, October 30, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The town has posted a ballot questions cheat sheet that it asks voters to print and bring to the polls, and the Secretary of the Commonwealth posts the 2026 ballot questions on the state’s election site. You can check your registration online, and the Town Clerk’s office takes questions at (508) 429-0601.

Coming Up

Saturday, October 24

• Last day to register to vote; early in-person voting at Town Hall, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

• Goodie bags go out at 9:30 a.m. at the library’s Halloween Trick-o-Treat

• Kids read aloud to therapy dog Molly Bird at the library’s Children’s Room, 10 a.m.

• SEPAC Trunk or Treat set for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 235 Woodland Street

• Pink Granite Pedalers bring their ride back to Holliston trails

Sunday, October 25

• HNN’s Great Pumpkin Trail Walk fundraiser, for ages 0 to elementary school, runs 10 a.m. to noon

Monday, October 26

• Early voting at Town Hall weekdays through Friday, October 30, from 8:30 a.m.; open until 7 p.m. Tuesday

• School Communications Subcommittee votes on newsletter at 7:30 p.m. Zoom meeting Agenda

Tuesday, October 27

• Board of Health weighs groundwater protection bylaw changes at 7 p.m. Zoom meeting Agenda

• Envisioning Future Holliston Committee, 7 p.m.: 1999 Master Plan and FY27 strategic plan items on agenda Agenda

• Conservation Commission, 7:30 p.m. on Zoom: 100 Linden Street spillway and park hearing at 8 p.m. Agenda

Wednesday, October 28

• Fire Chief Cassidy reads at fire-themed story time, Children’s Room, 10:15 a.m.

• Zoning Board deliberates on Lowland Street comprehensive permit at 6 p.m., remote only Agenda

• Opportunities Night for Grade 8 and high school families is at the HHS Auditorium, 6 p.m.

Thursday, October 29

• Registration is open on the Advantage App for Patriot Place trick-or-treating, 4:30 to 7 p.m.

Sunday, November 1

• Overnight parking ban begins: no on-street parking 1 to 5 a.m. through March 31

• Metrowest Symphony opens its season with Beethoven’s Fifth at Framingham State, 2 p.m.; seniors $10

• Butterfly Garden reunion planned at Our Lady of Fatima Shrine

Monday, November 2

• Small business owners can meet SBA and state officials at Town Hall, 5 to 7 p.m.

The Holliston Ledger reports from posted agendas, minutes and meeting recordings. Items marked “from the meeting recording” were written before the board approved its minutes and may change when it does. If something here is wrong, reply to this email, and the correction will run at the bottom of the post and in next week’s edition.

The public hearing closed on October 15, so the board, meeting remotely with all three members present, took no public comment and could not accept new information. The developer, MP Properties IV, LLC, could not speak either, although its attorney, Jonathan Silverstein, was listening and had sent written comments on the draft that afternoon. The Ledger’s page on the project has the background, filings and history:

Two members leaning toward approval

Peabody opened by saying the board had been working toward an approval with conditions and had never drafted a denial. He asked whether anyone thought that was the wrong direction, because, he said, this was the time to change course if the board was going to.

Dembitzer said she remained skeptical because the site sits in the Zone II area that feeds the town’s wells, noting that connecting to the regional MWRA system would cost $60 million or more, if the authority would take the town at all. She said the developer had answered residents’ fears mostly by saying MassDEP would take care of them or that the board could not consider them. She then listed what she wants kept away from the wells, among them leaking cars, de-icing chemicals, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and rodenticides, firefighting foam, pet waste and PFAS, the long-lasting “forever chemicals,” including those used in building materials. She also asked who would make sure, years from now, that tenants were not pouring chemicals down drains or changing oil in the parking lot.

Peabody said MassDEP’s review of a project this size, together with the conditions in the decision, should protect the town against much of what Dembitzer described, and that a flat denial could leave the town with no control over the project at all. He did not hide his own view of the location. “I actually think it’s crummy to have multifamily in an industrial park,” he said. Nechev said he leaned toward approval with conditions, and Peabody noted that two of the three votes would decide the matter. Nechev added that even if Dembitzer stayed a no, having her press her concerns would make the conditions stronger, and when he called hers “the no position,” she offered another name for it: “How about the skeptical position?” Nechev agreed. She had said at the outset that she had not made a decision.

What the town can and cannot require

Board counsel Brian Winner, of Mead, Talerman & Costa, explained what a denial would have to rest on. The board would need to point to evidence in the record, such as expert testimony the developer never rebutted, showing that a local concern for health, safety or the environment is more likely than not to be real and outweighs the regional need for housing. He said a decision cannot rest on apprehension about what might happen. If the board denied the permit and the developer appealed, he said, the state Housing Appeals Committee could issue its own approval with its own conditions, leaving the town an advocate rather than the decision-maker. If the board approves with conditions, the developer can appeal any of them, and other parties who say an approval harms them can appeal to Superior Court, where the case is heard anew. Whatever the board decides, the permit’s conditions run with the land and bind any future owner.

The limits of a land-use permit came up again later in the evening. When Dembitzer worried that the way tenants use the property could still put contaminants into the groundwater, Nechev said the board has no ability to restrict tenant use in its conditions. “Oh, well, that’s a big problem then,” Dembitzer said, and asked whether that meant the management company could spray pesticides on the landscaping, or tenants could wash cars and change oil in the parking lot. Winner said the permit regulates the use of the land rather than the personal conduct of the people living there, but that its conditions run with the land, so any activity the permit prohibits is one the permit holder must answer for, and the draft’s limits on pesticides and fertilizers come later in the decision.

The same question arose over the part of the site the developer does not plan to build on. A condition in the draft requires that this land stay undisturbed, and an earlier draft would also have restricted it permanently to passive uses. Winner said the developer accepts the first part but not a permanent restriction, which Silverstein wrote is a requirement “not imposed on market rate developments and is not required under any local requirement or regulation.” Winner told the board it can impose only conditions that rest on rules the town actually has. “So what we can’t do is manufacture regulations and conditions. We can only impose ones that exist,” he said. Without a recorded restriction, the developer could later apply to the board for a modification to use that land. The board left the question for next week.

The same principle shaped a discussion of fill. The developer plans to raise the site about seven feet on average, mostly with fill brought in from elsewhere, and Dembitzer wants that fill tested against the chemicals the Water Department says should be kept from the wells. Winner said any such standard has to come from MassDEP’s rules for Zone II areas, and he will report back on what they require. Peabody said he did not think the board could go beyond what MassDEP requires.

What changed in the draft

The board revised several findings before reaching the conditions. Members agreed that one finding should state that a residential project at this location and density is not consistent with neighboring development patterns, which Dembitzer tied to her request for a sidewalk so residents can walk to the rail trail and on to school, and Peabody to later conditions on traffic calming and trucks. They struck sentences saying the developer had worked in good faith and been cooperative, which Winner said are not legally required. Dembitzer had objected that the town’s peer reviewer asked for more analysis of how the stormwater and wastewater systems interact and the developer declined to provide it. They also removed the word “non-discretionary” from the description of the board’s later review of final plans.

Most of the first 20 conditions are standard requirements for the plans the developer must submit and for how construction is run, covering drainage, stormwater, architecture, lighting, tree clearing, as-built plans and upkeep. One of them, the construction mitigation plan, would require trucks to travel in and out of the industrial park by way of Whitney and Washington streets, and would bar blasting unless the developer comes back to the board for a modification. Winner said the conditions written specifically for this project come later in the draft, among them one on whether the stormwater and the sewage discharge work together, one restricting pesticides and other chemicals, and one providing a place for children to wait for the school bus. The changes the board made on October 21 were these:

• Plan review (condition 2): the board and its engineer will have 30 days from a complete submission to confirm that final plans conform to the decision. Silverstein had proposed 14 days, and Sarah Scott, the town’s director of planning and community development, had suggested 45.

• Construction practices (condition 11): at Dembitzer’s request, the construction plan must explain how construction vehicles will comply with the decision’s restrictions, such as on petroleum leaks. Town staff also asked that the decision require a copy of the federal stormwater permit for construction and show the erosion and dust controls on the plans.

• Signs (condition 12): the signage package must now include the developer’s monument signs at the entrances, whose number and setback are among the requested waivers.

• Pre-construction meeting (condition 13): at the request of Karen Sherman, who assists the board, the meeting must take place at least 30 days before any site preparation or construction begins. She said waiting until foundation work would be too late on a site where contaminated and excess material has to come off early.

• Landscaping (condition 14): at Dembitzer’s request, the landscaping plan must explain how the developer will comply with the decision’s limits on pesticides, rather than staying silent on them.

• Wetlands (condition 23): Peabody asked that no permits of any kind, not only building permits, issue for work in wetland areas until the state wetlands approvals are final, and Winner will rewrite it.

Scott will also check with the building commissioner on how occupancy permits should be sequenced if the buildings are finished at different times.

Washington Street office approved

Earlier in the evening the board approved a special permit for Martins Cleaning and Painting, Inc. to use 1286 Washington Street, a former car dealership, as an office and for indoor storage of non-hazardous painting, cleaning and carpentry supplies, tools, ladders and equipment. The permit allows no retail sales, manufacturing, vehicle repair or storage of flammable or hazardous materials. Sherman cautioned that an unpaved area behind the building should not end up holding vehicles or equipment. At Dembitzer’s suggestion, with Nechev pointing out that a storage ban alone would not cover parking, the board added conditions barring parking in the rear of the building and all outdoor storage.

What happens next

Winner will revise the draft with the evening’s changes and keep talking with Silverstein. The board meets again on Wednesday, October 28, at 6 p.m., starting at condition 21. Still ahead are the special conditions on the sewage plant, stormwater and pesticides, the undeveloped land, a vote on each of the developer’s requested waivers, and the final vote. Anyone can listen, but the board cannot take public comment. The developer agreed in writing on September 24 to November 4 as the deadline for filing the decision, and if the board misses it, state law treats the permit as granted.

This report is based on the recording of the October 21 meeting. Minutes had not been posted at the time of writing. Agenda · Recording · Extension and decision deadline letter · Waiver requests

Correction, October 27: An earlier version of this article misstated the context of two remarks by Vice Chair Elizabeth Dembitzer. She called the permit’s limits on tenant conduct “a big problem” in response to Clerk Vladimir Nechev, not board counsel Brian Winner, whose explanation came afterward, and she proposed “the skeptical position” as a description of her stance after Nechev called it “the no position.”

From the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved.

Town Hall

★ Board of Health, October 13: Held a public hearing on proposed cigar pricing and oral nicotine pouch limits; the regulations stay unchanged for now (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ School Building Committee, October 14: Committee defers vote on adding non-voting student, teacher and public safety seats (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ School Building Committee, October 14: Feasibility study budget breakdown requested by MSBA; next meeting November 17 (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ Economic Development Committee, October 14: EDC asks members to pull permit data on by-right versus special permit projects (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

School Committee approves superintendent’s goals, hears RAMS ranks in 91st accountability percentile

★ Economic Development Committee, October 14: EDC to start outreach for a business directory built on a Google form and QR code (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ Conservation Commission, October 13: Continues the Linden Street park and invasive-removal plan to October 27 for a site visit (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

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Around Town

Firefighters’ relief association seeks $10,000 for Holliston Firefighter Keith Knowles and his family (Holliston Reporter)

Water bills due Tuesday, November 16 at 7 p.m.; $10 late charge after that (Holliston Reporter)

Quarterly water bills are mailed Friday, October 16 (Town of Holliston)

Medway beats Holliston 3-1 in field hockey (x.com)

Early voters head to Upper Town Hall, 703 Washington Street, for in-person voting (Town of Holliston)

Fire and EMS logs for October 9 to 16 show ambulance calls, alarm checks and two water main breaks (Holliston Reporter)

Holliston beats Nashoba 3-1 in high school roundup (sentinelandenterprise.com)

Holliston cross country teams fall to Hopkinton in regular season finale (tvlsports.net)

Holliston boys soccer loses 1-0 at Hopkinton on Monday, October 19 (tvlsports.net)

Holliston girls soccer edges Hopkinton 1-0, MetroWest Daily News photos show (x.com)

Holliston Cultural Council is accepting grant applications for local ideas (Holliston Town News)

VFW Post 8507 launches student essay contests, with entries due Saturday, October 31 (Holliston Town News)

Holliston Pantry Shelf asks residents to think about Thanksgiving giving now (Holliston Town News)

Happenings

Tuesday, October 20

• Library’s Tuesday Matinee shows “Remarkably Bright Creatures” at 12:30 p.m.

• Select Board preps for Town Meeting at 6 p.m. session in High School Library

Wednesday, October 21

• No registration needed: Little Builders Story Time at the library’s Gilman Room, 10:15 a.m.

• Red Sox historian Herb Crehan talks World Series history at the library’s Gilman Room, 6:30 p.m.

Thursday, October 22

• Planning Board hears the 385 Prentice Street Scenic Road application at 7 p.m. on Zoom

Friday, October 23

• Dance Party with Stacey Peasley in the Gilman Room at Holliston Public Library, 11 a.m.

• Family fun and line dance event at Placentino-Miller Cafetorium, 7 p.m.

Saturday, October 24

• Goodie bags go out at 9:30 a.m. at the library’s Halloween Trick-o-Treat

• Kids read aloud to therapy dog Molly Bird at the library’s Children’s Room, 10 a.m.

• SEPAC Trunk-or-Treat runs 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.; admission is $5 per child, $25 family cap

• Pink Granite Pedalers bring their ride back to Holliston trails

Sunday, October 25

• HNN’s Great Pumpkin Trail Walk fundraiser, for ages 0 to elementary school, runs 10 a.m. to noon

• Great Pumpkin Trail Walk is Sunday, October 25

Got a question about town business? Reply to this email.

★ = built by the Ledger from public records. Drafted with AI, checked by a person.

How each article came out

• Article 1, General Stabilization Fund: $150,000 from free cash, passed

• Article 2, Pension Stabilization Fund: $250,000 from free cash, passed

• Article 3, Capital Expenditure Fund: $3,040,544 from free cash, passed after an amendment correcting where the money goes

• Articles 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10, personnel bylaw updates: approved together as a consent agenda, unanimously (two-thirds needed)

• Article 7, vacation accruals for town employees: indefinitely postponed

• Article 11, capital budget: $1,272,030 from the Capital Expenditure Fund and $1.9 million from water accounts, passed on a voice vote (two-thirds needed)

• Article 12, Community Preservation projects: $334,000 in Community Preservation money for three projects, passed

• Article 13, Central Fire Station solar array: $421,500 reallocated from a May 2024 appropriation, passed

• Article 14, Miller and Placentino roof study and design: $900,000 and $450,000 from amounts approved in October 2025, passed

• Article 15, opioid settlement fund: fund dissolved and its balance moved to a special revenue account, unanimously (two-thirds needed)

• Article 16, sewer district bylaws: report heard, with no vote on the bylaws

• Article 17, Groundwater Protection District: passed 123-25 on a hand count (two-thirds needed)

• Article 18, Constitution Village streetlights: amended, then passed as a request to the Select Board

The capital fund and the accounting error

Select Board Chair Damon Dimmick opened the evening by explaining what went wrong. The Capital Expenditure Fund pays for the town’s and the schools’ larger needs, such as vehicles, equipment and building improvements, and Town Meeting approves every dollar spent from it. Dimmick said the Town Manager found this summer that, starting in fiscal year 2022, the amount reported to Town Meeting as available to spend from the fund had been calculated incorrectly. He called it “an administrative reporting problem” and said the Finance Committee and the Select Board, which rely on the figures they are given, should not be faulted for it. The town notified the state Department of Revenue’s Division of Local Services and took its guidance, and independent auditors have looked at the error, he said.

Finance Committee Chair Ken Szajda explained what the error meant in practice. Money that Town Meeting appropriates from the fund stays in it until it is spent, so the fund’s cash balance includes money already committed to approved projects, and the unencumbered balance is what remains free for Town Meeting to spend. That unencumbered balance, he said, turned out to be more than $758,000 below the policy minimum, which the Select Board’s comments in the warrant put at $1.5 million, or 2% of operating spending. “The good news is it all seems to be a mistake,” Szajda said. “The bad news is it shouldn’t have taken four years for us to find it.” He said the committee expects a report on the root cause and corrective actions, and that he has told the Town Manager the investigation should also look at why the auditors the town pays every year did not find an error that large.

The amount that went into the fund changed on the day of the meeting. Free cash was certified at $3,440,544 at 4 p.m. that afternoon, well above the $2.1 million the warrant had assumed. Szajda noted that the Finance Committee must give voters its recommendations seven days before Town Meeting, and that for the second year in a row it has had to change them on the floor because the free cash figure came in so late, which he said, speaking for himself rather than the committee, he found unacceptable. The committee’s printed recommendation had been to put $2,309,670 of free cash into the fund and take another $1 million from a 2025 appropriation for the public works project. With the higher figure, the committee voted before the meeting to put all of the free cash left after Articles 1 and 2 into the fund instead, leaving the public works money untouched; the certified amount, less the $150,000 and $250,000 in those two articles, comes to exactly $3,040,544.

When Article 3 came up, the motion as read sent the money to the General Stabilization Fund, and voters approved Szajda’s amendment correcting it to the Capital Expenditure Fund before passing the motion, which Szajda said restores the fund to compliance with the town’s financial policies.

The two smaller transfers passed without discussion. Article 1 put $150,000 into the General Stabilization Fund, the town’s main savings account, which Szajda said brings it to 14.5% of the budget, within the policy range of 12% to 18%, and he tied that to keeping the town’s AAA bond rating as it prepares to borrow for several large projects. Article 2 put the usual $250,000 into the Pension Stabilization Fund, bringing it to just over $2 million; Dimmick described the fund as protection for the budget against rising pension costs, which he noted must be fully funded by 2040.

The groundwater bylaw

Article 17 amends the town’s Groundwater Protection District, the part of the zoning bylaw that limits land uses in the areas that feed the town’s five public wells. In the warrant, the Select Board described the amendments as adding seven restrictions, covering animal feedlots, dry cleaners and laundries, laboratories, automotive businesses, storage of 250 pounds or more of herbicides or pesticides, metal plating and finishing, and painting and wood preserving, and applying to future changes in land use. The amendments came out of more than 18 months of work by a subcommittee of the Envisioning Future Holliston Committee, and the Planning Board, after hearings on October 8 and 14, voted unanimously to recommend them with revisions that were printed in a handout given to voters at check-in.

Those revisions matter most to businesses. Barbara Peatie, who presented the Planning Board’s report, said the board changed some of the new prohibitions so that a business can continue if it meets protective requirements. The text the town has posted, dated October 15, allows six of the newly listed uses (dry cleaners and laundries, laboratories, automotive businesses, pesticide storage, metal finishing, and painting and paint stripping) where the site meets MassDEP’s stormwater standards, the business has coverage under the federal stormwater permit for industry and keeps a pollution prevention plan, and any industrial wastewater goes to a sewer, a holding tank or a state-permitted discharge, never to a septic system or storm drain. Pesticide storage, metal finishing and painting must also be kept in weatherproof buildings with impermeable floors.

Several residents asked about the effect on business. Mark Ahronian asked whether anyone had studied whether the changes would hurt small businesses, and Sara Zarrelli said the maps suggested most of the town’s industrial areas would be affected, which could effectively end the town’s ability to host those kinds of businesses, and asked what that would mean for the tax base. Peatie answered that most things can still be done if they are done safely and that the building inspector will identify what each permit requires. The Planning Board’s written report, which the moderator read, said the board had engaged a peer-review engineer to set stormwater standards that are established best practice and do not place an undue burden on businesses and property owners. No one offered an estimate of the effect on tax revenue.

Ed Daniels, who said he has lived in town since 1978, urged a no vote. He said the bylaw would cost the town the ability to attract good business neighbors and would hurt the few businesses already in those areas, at a time when, by his figure, residents carry about 87% of the tax burden and the town faces a new highway department and a high school project. He argued that those businesses are already regulated by MassDEP and the EPA, and that the state’s source water assessment for the wells points instead to older septic systems and roads close to the wellheads, which the town could address in other ways, such as salting those roads less. “I urge you to vote no on this bylaw,” he said.

Keefe Bailey spoke in favor. He said all five of the town’s wells are classed as threatened under state guidelines, and he pointed to the 250-apartment proposal at 194 Lowland Street, describing its on-site sewage plant as a giant septic system that would send waste into the Zone II area around Well 5, the town’s largest. The developer and MassDEP’s review describe a treatment plant whose discharge limits DEP will set in a permit the developer has not yet applied for, and the Ledger’s 194 Lowland Street page has the details. Bailey said the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, the regional system that supplies Boston, should not be counted on as a backup, and that “you better darn protect what you’ve got,” because fixing a contaminated supply costs far more.

Select Board Vice Chair Tina Hein offered context on both points. She said the subcommittee was formed in response to residents’ concerns about water during the search for a site for a new public works facility, and that a 2023 MWRA study estimated it would cost Holliston about $60 million in infrastructure to connect to the authority’s system, and then only if the town were accepted. She also said she was confident that “any existing business today is grandfathered” and is not affected by the amendments.

Homeowners’ questions got direct answers. Szajda asked whether switching to geothermal heat, which means drilling into the ground, would count as ordinary upkeep of a home, and Peatie said the building commissioner had told her closed-loop geothermal systems raise no issue. He also asked about oil tanks in basements; Peatie said she believed existing basement tanks are fine, and Sustainability Manager Amelia Landau added that a part of the bylaw the amendments do not change already exempts petroleum stored for home heating, even below ground. Asked by Leslie Randall Dooley whether other towns have similar rules, Landau said the new prohibitions borrow their language from about 10 comparable towns whose bylaws the state has approved.

Nicole Smith raised a problem with the text itself. She said the version she had read online showed only strikeouts, with no additions marked, so she could not tell what had changed. Peatie said what was online was an earlier version, that the Planning Board made its changes on October 14, and that the revised text would be posted once it passed, because there had not been time to put it online before the meeting. “It would be nice to have the most updated version online for those of us that aren’t printing everything out,” Smith said. As of October 20, the town’s wellhead protection page links a copy of the amended text dated October 15 (amended text, town page).

The vote took a hand count, during which voters seated in the section reserved for non-residents were asked to move so their hands could be counted and that section was recounted. The final tally was 123 in favor and 25 opposed, 148 voters in all. Like other bylaw changes, the amendments go to the state Attorney General’s office for review.

Readers following 194 Lowland Street may wonder whether the amendments reach that project. At the Planning Board’s October 14 meeting, Sarah Scott, the town’s director of planning and community development, said that in general an application is protected from zoning changes once it is filed.

Capital budget, preservation projects and school roofs

Article 11, this year’s capital budget, appropriates $1,272,030 from the Capital Expenditure Fund for public safety, school, public works, facilities and technology purchases, along with $100,000 from water enterprise retained earnings for lead and copper service line replacements and $1.8 million from the water infrastructure account for water main replacements, which Dimmick said are mostly mains that break often. The fund’s share includes two police cruisers and an administrative vehicle ($207,100), $300,000 for exterior doors on the Woodland Street school campus, $175,000 for Chromebooks and a one-ton dump truck ($121,000), among other items.

A resident asked why the administrative vehicle costs $5,000 more than a cruiser. A town official explained that because Holliston is a state-designated Green Community it must replace vehicles like for like, so the administrative vehicle, which is already electric, has to be replaced with another electric vehicle to keep the town eligible for Green Communities grants, which are paying for projects at the fire station and library this year; the warrant lists the new vehicle as a hybrid. After a motion to end debate passed, the moderator declared the article carried on a voice vote; it needed two-thirds.

Article 12 spends Community Preservation Act money, which comes from a local property tax surcharge and state matching funds rather than the general tax levy, on three projects: an engineering study of Stoddard Park for accessibility, erosion control and infrastructure ($94,000), window and stucco restoration at the Central Fire Station ($115,000), and a sensory garden at the senior center ($125,000). The warrant printed the total as $209,000, while the three projects add up to $334,000, and the mismatch led to a few minutes of confusion on the floor. Szajda moved to change the motion to $209,000, Fire Chief Michael Cassidy did the arithmetic aloud, and Szajda withdrew his amendment once the original motion was read back: $219,000 from the Community Preservation general reserve, which covers the park study and the garden, and $115,000 from the historic preservation reserve for the fire station, for $334,000 in all. That motion passed.

Article 13 moves $421,500 from Article 22 of the May 2024 Town Meeting, money already approved for roof work, to buy the solar array on the Central Fire Station roof, take it down and reinstall it, and repair the roof. The array sits on the roof under a 2018 power purchase agreement whose terms, the Select Board said in the warrant, would bring more than $100,000 in charges if the panels were temporarily moved during roof work. The board said the town can instead buy the array for $111,283, about the same cost, and keep the full benefit of the power it produces. The article passed with no questions.

Article 14 appropriates $900,000 for the Fred Miller Elementary School and $450,000 for the Placentino Elementary School, both at 235 Woodland Street, for a feasibility study and schematic design for partial roof replacements. The October 2025 Town Meeting approved the project as part of a larger list, and the motion lets the School Committee use those previously approved amounts; the Select Board said in the warrant that it came back as a separate article because the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Accelerated Repair Program, from which the town is seeking a grant, requires a standalone vote. Any costs above the grant fall to the town, and the article passed without discussion.

Personnel bylaws, the opioid fund and the sewer report

The six personnel bylaw articles approved together at the start of the meeting, which govern non-union town employees, include adding a Permitting Coordinator title to the town’s classification plan at no added cost, raising personal days from two to three a year and counting them by fiscal year, and extending bereavement leave to parents who suffer a pregnancy loss. Article 7, which would have changed how town employees earn vacation, moving from a single grant each July 1 to monthly accrual from the date of hire with more weeks for longer service, was indefinitely postponed, which sets it aside for this meeting. The Select Board’s comments in the warrant said the current system makes some new hires wait as long as a year for their first vacation and has cost the town job candidates. Dimmick had said at the start that a motion to postpone the article was coming, and no one explained the reason when it came up.

Article 15 dissolved the Opioid Settlement Stabilization Fund, created by the October 2023 Town Meeting, and moved its balance into a special revenue account, as a 2023 state law now allows. According to the warrant, money in that account can be spent for the purposes the settlement agreements allow without a further Town Meeting vote, and the article passed unanimously.

Under Article 16, voters heard a report from the Sewer Commission and voted on nothing else. Stacia Gelineau of the commission said the town is developing a small opt-in sewer district for a limited number of eligible downtown properties, not a town-wide system, pairing upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant on Woodland Street, where the first phase of work is complete, with a new collection system that the commission aims to put out to bid before the end of 2026 and begin building in 2027, subject to funding and readiness, and hopes to pay for entirely with grants. The commission adopts its own bylaws without a public vote, and it is asking for comments on its first draft, which it will post online and make available at the library and downtown, before it considers them, which it hopes to do by the end of the year. Its next meeting is Thursday, November 19, at 6 p.m.

Constitution Village streetlights

Article 18, a citizens’ petition, asked the town to put streetlights on Constitution Village roads. The petitioner, Kalyana Pingali, said the petition had 24 signatures from registered voters and documented support from 50 households, and that “Constitution Village has been living without streetlights for approximately 10 full years.” The motion as the moderator read it asked the Select Board to work with the Finance Committee on a funding source and financing plan; Pingali read a version naming the Town Manager instead, which the moderator treated as an amendment, and voters approved the amendment and then the amended motion. The moderator reminded voters that the vote is a request, since Town Meeting cannot order the Select Board to act. Dimmick had said earlier that the Select Board voted that same evening for a broader effort to identify missing streetlights across town and plan for them in the next budget cycle.

What the Finance Committee sees ahead

Szajda said state aid came in about $50,000 above the committee’s model, but that inflation is still above target and diesel rose 77% in September, an increase no one planned for in May. He said he understood that the sidewalk projects on Goulding, Norfolk and Central streets, paid for by an override voters passed several years ago, are trending well over their estimates, and that the committee will want to hear the Select Board’s plan for the overruns, noting that the tax increase for those projects is not yet on tax bills. The town also faces possible borrowing for the public works facility, which is already approved, for Holliston High School depending on its feasibility study, and for a share of a Keefe Regional Technical School project now in the state school building process. He urged growing the town’s yearly capital allocation again in fiscal 2028, since the town is spending more than $4 million a year on capital needs. The committee now turns to the fiscal 2028 budget and meets virtually on Tuesdays, and the next Town Meeting is May 10.

Also from the Select Board

Dimmick said the town took ownership in August of 20 Cross Street, the site Town Meeting approved in 2023 for a new public works facility, and that the EPA will do a targeted brownfields assessment of the site at no cost to the town, with results expected before the end of the year that will show when, how and where a facility can be built. The town’s DPW project page says the Land Court awarded the town the property on August 12, and that the Select Board paused the project on April 27 pending further due diligence. Dimmick listed the board’s priorities for the coming months as simpler business permitting, affordable housing, open space and clearer communications policies.

This report is based on the recording of the October 19 meeting and the posted warrant. Minutes had not been posted at the time of writing. Warrant · Recording · Groundwater bylaw page · Amended groundwater text, October 15 · New DPW facility page

The Zoning Board of Appeals closed the public hearing on the 250-apartment proposal for 194 Lowland Street on October 15, after 13 meetings since February, and has since met twice to deliberate. On October 21 two of its three members said they lean toward approving the project with conditions and the third said she remains skeptical, and on October 28 the board finished its first pass through the draft decision and the waiver list without a vote, leaving open the condition the chair called “probably the most critical component of the entire decision,” which would require the developer to test the stormwater leaving the site for contaminants. The board meets again on Monday, November 2, at 6 p.m., in what the chair hopes will be its last session, and it has until Wednesday, November 4, to file a decision with the Town Clerk approving the permit, approving it with conditions or denying it; if it misses that date state law treats the permit as granted. Anyone can listen to the deliberations, but now that the hearing is closed the board cannot take public comment or new evidence. Fall Town Meeting passed amendments to the town’s groundwater protection bylaw on October 19, though town planning staff have said zoning changes generally cannot reach an application already filed.

As the hearing closed, the town’s engineering reviewer still could not make a positive finding on the sewage system, the Conservation Commission had said it could not support the wetland waivers as documented, the Board of Health had questions it said were still unanswered, and the developer maintained that the sewage plant is MassDEP’s to judge. The town’s project page holds near 90 filings with no summary, and the discussion has run through the Zoning Board, the Board of Health, the Conservation Commission, the Planning Board and the Select Board, so this page gathers all of it in one place, issue by issue and meeting by meeting, with links to the records.

What happens next

• Deliberations continue Monday, November 2, at 6 p.m. Remote only, on Zoom (meeting 856 494 793, password 13579) or by phone at 1-646-558-8656 (agenda). Town Counsel is to send the members a revised draft decision by the close of business Friday, October 30. Still open are a new finding on the Zone II, the testing of the stormwater outfalls, the cap on the developer’s payments toward traffic fixes, construction days and hours, the winter maintenance plan and the timing of a sidewalk contribution, and after those the board votes on each waiver the developer has requested, possibly in groups, and then on the decision itself. The chair hopes it will be the last session, and it is the only one scheduled before the deadline.

• Decision due November 4. The developer agreed in writing on September 24 to this deadline for filing the decision (letter), and any later date would need its written consent. If the board misses it, state law treats the permit as granted.

• Appeals, within 20 days of the filing. The developer can take a denial, or conditions it says would make the project financially unworkable, to the state Housing Appeals Committee. Others who say an approval harms them can appeal to Superior Court, which hears the case anew.

• State permits, after any approval. The project would still need a MassDEP groundwater discharge permit for its sewage plant, an order of conditions from the Conservation Commission under the state wetlands law, and MassHousing’s final approval.

Where the board stands

The board has not voted, but at its first deliberation session on October 21 the members said where they stand (recording). Chair Jay Peabody said the board had been working toward an approval with conditions and had never drafted a denial, and asked whether anyone thought that was the wrong direction, since this was the time to change course. Clerk Vladimir Nechev said he leaned toward approval with conditions, and Peabody noted that two of the three votes would decide the matter. Vice Chair Elizabeth Dembitzer said she remains skeptical because the site sits in the Zone II that feeds the town’s wells, and she listed what she wants kept away from them, among them leaking cars, de-icing chemicals, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and rodenticides, firefighting foam, pet waste and PFAS. Peabody said MassDEP’s review, together with the conditions in the decision, should protect the town against much of that, and that a flat denial could leave the town with no control over the project at all, though he said of the location, “I actually think it’s crummy to have multifamily in an industrial park.”

At the second session, on October 28, the discussion turned on one condition (recording). Dembitzer said she would vote no on any decision that did not require the developer to test the outfalls where the site’s stormwater empties into the pond and Bogastow Brook, and Peabody, who called that condition “probably the most critical component of the entire decision,” said removing it “probably doesn’t make a lot of sense,” a view Nechev shared.

Town Counsel Brian Winner told the board what a denial would have to rest on: evidence in the record, such as expert testimony the developer never rebutted, showing that a local concern for health, safety or the environment is more likely than not to be real and outweighs the regional need for housing, rather than apprehension about what might happen. If the board denied the permit and the developer appealed, he said, the Housing Appeals Committee could issue its own approval with its own conditions, leaving the town an advocate rather than the decision-maker. If the board approves with conditions, the developer can appeal any of them, others who say an approval harms them can appeal to Superior Court, and the conditions run with the land and bind any future owner.

The members first described where they were leaning at the September 24 session, when the hearing reached the end of the developer’s second extension and Winner asked them for a straw poll (minutes, recording). Winner laid out the order in which the board would have to think it through: first whether the project could be approved as filed, which he said the peer review suggested it could not; then whether conditions could make it approvable; and only if no condition could, whether to deny it.

Peabody said he was inclined to work toward an approval with conditions. He said the board has been thorough, that he believed the developer was a responsible one, and that the board has never approved a comprehensive permit without conditions, and he described the choice as one between conditions the town writes now and losing control of the outcome on appeal. Dembitzer said that if she had to vote that night she would vote no, because she found the town engineer’s concerns valid and was frightened by the project’s closeness to the town’s wells, but that it would be irresponsible to rule out a condition she had not seen. She said she would not oppose the project somewhere else, and that she would want a sidewalk to the rail trail as a condition. Nechev said he leaned toward exploring an approval with conditions rather than a flat no.

On that basis the board voted 3-0 to continue the hearing to October 15, with the 40-day clock for its decision running at the same time, and asked Winner to draft a decision, including conditions on the sewage and stormwater question, for the members to see before deciding anything. The draft went to the developer on October 9, and the developer’s markup came back at about 6:07 p.m. on October 15, too late for the board to read before the final session.

What happened on October 28

The Ledger’s report on the second deliberation session has the full account:

Over more than three hours the board finished its first pass through the draft decision, from condition 21 on, and then the waiver list, where Winner had drafted answers to the questions members raised on October 15, without taking a vote (agenda, recording).

The longest discussion was over condition 58, which would require testing at the outfalls where the site’s stormwater system empties into the pond and Bogastow Brook. An earlier draft listed contaminants to test for, PFAS among them, at least once a year, and Karen Sherman, the former town planner who is consulting on the project, said the list came from the town’s stormwater consultant, CEI Engineers, and mirrors what the town must test for at its own outfalls under its federal stormwater permit. The developer struck the list and proposed instead to do whatever testing any statute, regulation or bylaw requires and report the results, which Dembitzer said would do nothing if no regulation requires testing, calling it “a sneaky lawyer thing.” Peabody let the developer’s attorney, Jonathan Silverstein, speak briefly on a legal point though the hearing was closed, and Silverstein called that suggestion “unfounded and frankly offensive,” saying the state’s drinking water, septic and hazardous waste cleanup rules all set out what triggers a test, how it is done and what limits apply, and that the developer objects to costly testing “without reference to any standard, without reference to any regulation,” which he said is “not imposed on any other development I’m aware of in the town.” The board asked Winner to redraft the condition by naming the state and federal testing programs that apply and what each requires, and to show where they overlap with CEI’s list, so the members can see whether anything the consultant recommended goes beyond the regulations and why.

Dembitzer pressed through the evening for the decision to reflect that the whole site lies in the Zone II, and Winner agreed to add a finding near the front saying so and stating that the conditions are meant to protect it. She asked that the limits on fertilizer, pesticides and rodenticides in condition 57, which the Conservation Commission supplied for land near wetlands, apply to the whole property, and that the decision cite the state’s Groundwater Protection List, part of a Department of Agricultural Resources regulation, 333 CMR 12.00, that bars applying a listed pesticide in a Zone II without a state-approved integrated pest management program (regulation); Winner said he had not seen the list and would look at it. The board also changed the winter maintenance plan to use best efforts to “reduce or eliminate” salt, extended the testing of imported fill to crushed stone and septic sand, required outdoor cleaning products to be EPA Safer Choice certified “or more protective,” added pet waste bag stations around the site, and required that the management company get a copy of the decision.

Condition 62 bars a building permit until MassDEP’s groundwater discharge permit for the sewage plant is final, requires the developer to copy the board on its correspondence with DEP as it happens, and lets the board and the developer each send DEP a written statement on how the stormwater and wastewater systems work together, “to ensure the subject does not evade review.” On the land the developer will not build on, the developer has accepted keeping it in a predominantly natural state for passive recreation under a management plan, but not a permanent restriction recorded at the Registry of Deeds, and Winner said no one had identified a regulation that would support one, though the permit itself runs with the land and binds future owners. He also offered to add safeguards in case the developer later decides to blast, which the draft treats only as a change it would have to bring back to the board.

The rest of the session went to traffic, construction and walking. The draft requires traffic and parking monitoring after the apartments are occupied, with the developer paying up to $25,000 toward fixes if set thresholds are crossed, and the board wants that cap raised to at least $50,000; the developer has proposed striking a condition that would have tenants pay for parking separately from rent. The board leaned toward barring construction on weekends, bank holidays, Holliston school holidays and July 4, possibly allowing interior work on Saturdays as it did for Concord Street. The draft has the developer pay up to $150,000 toward a Lowland Street sidewalk if the town applies for a state MassWorks grant within three years of the permit becoming final; staff suggested dropping the MassWorks reference, members want the three years counted from a later milestone such as a building or occupancy permit, and Winner said the money must stay tied to a sidewalk serving this project. On a sheltered school bus stop, Sarah Scott said the site is outside the walk zone for the K-8 schools, and the board removed the words “within the project” from the condition, leaving the location open, and held the rest. Dembitzer also pointed out that at 250 units the project falls just short of what the state’s rules treat as a large project, explained below under “How a 40B works in Holliston.” The board held over its October 15 minutes because not all members had read them.

What happened on October 21

The Ledger’s report on the first deliberation session has the full account:

. Over about three hours the board worked through the findings and the first 20 conditions of the draft decision, from a version that included written comments the developer’s attorney, Jonathan Silverstein, had sent that afternoon. It agreed that one finding should say a residential project at this location and density is not consistent with neighboring development, which Peabody said would support later conditions on traffic, trucks and sidewalks, and it struck sentences saying the developer had worked in good faith and been cooperative, after Dembitzer objected that the town’s peer reviewer had asked for more analysis of how the stormwater and sewage systems interact and the developer had declined to provide it (agenda, recording).

Most of the first 20 conditions are standard requirements for final plans and for how construction is run. The board gave itself and its engineer 30 days from a complete submission to confirm that final plans conform to the decision, where Silverstein had proposed 14 and Sarah Scott, the town’s director of planning and community development, 45. It moved the pre-construction meeting to at least 30 days before any site work, because contaminated and excess material will come off the site early, and at Dembitzer’s request it asked that the construction and landscaping plans explain how the developer will meet the decision’s limits on petroleum leaks and pesticides. Peabody also asked Winner to rewrite the wetlands condition so that no permits of any kind, not only building permits, issue for work in wetland areas until the state wetlands approvals are final.

Three exchanges showed the limits of what the board can require. Winner said the permit regulates the use of the land, not the personal conduct of the people living there, although anything the permit prohibits is the permit holder’s to answer for, and Dembitzer replied, “Oh, well, that’s a big problem then.” The draft keeps the land the developer does not plan to build on undisturbed, and Winner said the developer accepts that but not a permanent restriction to passive uses, which Silverstein wrote is not imposed on market-rate developments or required by any local rule. “So what we can’t do is manufacture regulations and conditions. We can only impose ones that exist,” Winner said, and without a recorded restriction the developer could later ask the board to modify the permit to use that land. Dembitzer also wants the fill brought in to raise the site tested against the chemicals the Water Department wants kept from the wells, and Winner will report what MassDEP’s rules for Zone II areas require, though Peabody said he did not think the board could go beyond them. The board left the undeveloped land and the fill question for next week.

What happened on October 15

The Ledger’s report on the final session has the full account:

In brief, the town’s peer-review engineer, Stephen Cabral of Crossman Engineering, said he is still not convinced that the stormwater and wastewater systems will work together, while the developer, represented by Mike Scannell of Marcus Partners, held that the remaining question belongs to MassDEP. Scannell said the developer has deliberately held off applying for DEP’s groundwater discharge permit, the stage at which the treatment plant itself is designed, until it has a local permit. Almost all of the residents who spoke opposed the project at this location, most because it sits in the Zone II for the town’s wells. The board walked through the requested waivers without voting on them, discussed conditions it could attach to any approval, among them oversight of the fuel cleanup by the town’s environmental reviewer, copies of the state monitoring results, limits on pesticides and fertilizer, and a restriction keeping the unbuilt land undeveloped, and then voted 3-0 to close the hearing (agenda, recording).

The proposal

MP Properties IV, LLC, a development company tied to Marcus Partners of Boston, wants to build 250 rental apartments, 63 of them income-restricted, on a 42-acre former sand quarry on the east side of Lowland Street that the town zones for industry. DCAB, LLC of Holliston owns the land, and the developer controls it through a purchase agreement. MassHousing, the state agency that screens these projects, found the site eligible on November 25, 2025, which opened the way to the local hearing (MassHousing letter).

• Buildings: four four-story apartment buildings up to 61 feet tall, set around a one-story amenity building and a green, with detached garages along the edges of the site (architectural plans, site plans)

• Affordable apartments: 63 of the 250, for households earning up to 80% of area median income, which MassHousing put at $132,300 for a family of four, at proposed rents of $2,171 for one bedroom, $2,577 for two and $2,941 for three. The developer’s attorney told the board on October 15 that up to 70% of the affordable apartments could be reserved for local residents when the building first leases up, subject to state approval.

• Market-rate apartments: 187, at proposed rents of $2,838, $3,250 and $3,975, which MassHousing’s appraisers found to be above comparable local rents

• Parking: 425 spaces, about 1.7 per apartment, in surface lots and garages

• Land: 42 acres, 18.5 of them buildable, with about 23.5 acres of wetland or flood hazard area along a pond to the north and Bogastow Brook to the south. The developer says the site’s grade would rise about seven feet on average, mostly with clean fill brought in from outside, that the mulch berm along the road would be tested and hauled away, and that the land it cannot build on would be left natural.

• Sewage: a private treatment plant on the site, discharging up to 48,060 gallons a day of treated wastewater into underground leaching fields (MassDEP letter)

• Water and access: town water from Lowland Street, and the existing driveway plus a second one for emergency vehicles

• Schedule: about 17 months from the start of site work to the last occupancy permits, by the developer’s tentative estimate (schedule)

Industrial uses sit across Lowland Street to the west and along Jeffrey Avenue and Everett Street to the north, and the Marilyn Street neighborhood lies beyond the brook to the south. When the town commented to MassHousing in October 2025, it described the site’s history of contamination, limited cleanup and repeated enforcement problems, and said it hoped a responsible project could put that history behind it (town comments). The developer laid out the plans at the first hearing in February (presentation).

How a 40B works in Holliston

Because fewer than 10% of Holliston’s homes count as affordable under state rules, Chapter 40B lets this developer ask the ZBA to set aside local zoning and other town rules, and a state panel, the Housing Appeals Committee, can overrule the board if it denies the permit or attaches conditions the developer says would make the project unworkable. The state’s inventory counts 269 of Holliston’s 5,544 year-round homes as affordable, or 4.85% (state inventory). In a rental 40B like this one the state counts every apartment toward that figure, not only the 63 restricted ones, so by the Ledger’s arithmetic this project would bring the town to about 519 units, or roughly 9.4%. The same board approved a smaller 40B this spring, Concord Street Apartments, about 50 units at 180–206 Concord Street, and a Planning Board member said on October 14 that the two projects together could bring the town to 10%, the point at which a zoning board’s denial of a later 40B is generally treated as consistent with local needs. The project’s size also sits at a line in the state’s rules, as Dembitzer pointed out on October 28: in a town with between 5,000 and 7,500 housing units, which includes Holliston, a comprehensive permit for more than 250 units counts as a “large project,” and a board that follows the required procedure can have a denial of a large project upheld on that ground, so at exactly 250 units this one falls just short (760 CMR 56.03).

The ZBA acts in place of every local board, so it can waive the zoning bylaw, the town’s wetlands bylaw and Board of Health regulations, but it cannot waive state law, which means the project would still need an order of conditions under the state Wetlands Protection Act, MassDEP’s groundwater discharge permit for the sewage plant, and a building permit under the state code. If the developer appeals, the Housing Appeals Committee asks whether the board’s decision is “consistent with local needs,” weighing the local concerns the board relied on, such as health, safety, the environment and design, against the regional need for affordable housing, and whether any conditions leave the project unable to earn the limited profit the state allows a 40B developer. The town’s 40B page links Town Counsel’s presentation on the process.

Holliston has been through this before. In 2011 the Appeals Court upheld a state order that the ZBA issue a permit it had denied to Green View Realty, holding that a board may deny a permit by identifying a local concern, such as health, that compliance with state standards does not adequately address and that outweighs the regional housing need, and finding that Holliston’s board had not made that showing (decision). The Board of Health, and on October 15 several residents, have pointed to Reynolds v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Stow, a 2015 Appeals Court decision that draws on the Holliston case. It revoked a permit for a 37-unit elderly housing building after the trial judge found the project more likely than not to push nitrogen above 10 parts per million at a neighbor’s private well, even though it met state standards; the Stow site, unlike this one, had no public water. Winner told the board he would brief it on the Stow case, cautioning that it is one case in a large body of 40B law.

How the board handled Concord Street offers a guide to what deliberation looks like. It closed that hearing on March 24, after Town Counsel walked the members through a draft decision with its findings, conditions and list of waivers, and at a single session on April 9 it voted the requested waivers in groups, waiving the town’s wetland and stormwater bylaws only as to their procedural requirements, plus the wetland bylaw for one access drive and mailbox area, refusing to waive fees, and then approving the decision as counsel and staff had drafted it (March 24 minutes, April 9 minutes).

The developer’s attorney, Jonathan Silverstein, has argued the other side of that standard. At the September 24 session he said the peer reviewer had not identified any bylaw, regulation or written standard that the stormwater system fails to meet, and that under the state’s rules a denial must rest on a local concern tied to a local requirement the project does not satisfy, not on a general concern about risk.

What the developer has asked the board to waive

The developer describes most of these as customary for a 40B. These are the ones that bear most on the issues below; the full list runs ten pages (waiver list, revised through September 1).

• Industrial district uses: allow 250 apartments where apartment buildings are not permitted

• Building height: up to 61 feet and four stories, where the limit is 40 feet and three stories

• Pond setback: build inside the 200-foot setback from the high-water line of a natural pond of 20 acres or more

• Private sewage plant: allow one inside the Zone II that feeds the town’s wells, where zoning prohibits them

• Groundwater Protection District: skip the special permits required for sewage flows over 15,000 gallons a day and for private treatment works; the developer estimates about 47,470 gallons a day from 434 bedrooms, to be reviewed by MassDEP instead

• Flood Plain Overlay District: raise the ground with fill so the buildings sit outside the mapped floodplain, where the district bars new buildings, filling and excavation

• Town wetlands bylaw: meet only the state Wetlands Protection Act, in place of the town’s 50-foot no-disturbance zone, 100-foot buffer and stricter riverfront rules

• Board of Health wastewater rules: the town requires five feet between leaching fields and groundwater, monitoring wells the board approves, an operator on site three hours a day, a one-year operating guarantee and no part of the system within 100 feet of wetlands; the developer asks to defer to MassDEP, which requires four feet of separation and sets monitoring and financial guarantees in its own permit

When the board walked through the list on October 15, members also asked about two entrance signs set one foot from the property line, where the rules allow one sign set back 10 feet, light poles with a 22-foot mounting height, where the limit is 15 feet, and a waiver of the 10-foot separation between buildings and accessory structures, which the developer’s engineer said covers retaining walls and dumpsters, not buildings. The board will vote on each waiver during deliberations, after the conditions, and Town Counsel will add a column to the waiver list recording each decision. On October 28 the board briefly reviewed the list, where Winner had drafted answers to the members’ questions, and it plans to vote on the waivers on November 2, possibly in groups.

The questions before the board

Most of the hearing has turned on water: what the on-site sewage plant could mean for the wells that supply the town, how rain and treated wastewater will move through the same ground, and how much of the site floods. Traffic, a sidewalk to the rail trail and old fuel contamination fill out the list. On each point below, the developer’s consultants and the town’s reviewers are named so you can see who is claiming what.

The town’s wells

The site lies inside the Zone II recharge area for three of the town’s public wells, 05G, 06G and 07G. The closest, 05G, is about a mile southeast, and MassDEP estimates that treated wastewater would take about 1.6 years to travel through the ground to it; because that is under two years, DEP will hold the plant to its stricter limits for discharges close to drinking-water wells (MassDEP letter, earlier DEP comments).

The Board of Health, writing to the ZBA on September 25, said it was not trying to duplicate DEP’s role but wanted a complete record before the hearing closed. It said it had seen no analysis of how much nitrogen or nitrate would actually reach the town’s wells after traveling through the aquifer, asked that the record spell out what the treatment plant and stormwater systems are not designed to remove, naming PFAS, pharmaceuticals, solvents and detergents, and recommended enforceable monitoring, reporting and cleanup provisions backed by a financial guarantee, while noting that it was not presuming harm would occur (Board of Health letter).

The developer’s answer is that MassDEP alone regulates a plant of this size. Its consultants say nitrogen limits will be set in the DEP permit based on the travel-time analysis, that the state has no numeric limits for PFAS or pharmaceuticals and the ZBA cannot impose treatment requirements of its own, and that the plant will provide more treatment and oversight than ordinary septic systems, under a permit renewed every five years (response log). It has proposed a condition that no building permit for the plant issue until DEP grants the discharge permit, with copies of its DEP filings going to the ZBA and the Board of Health (developer’s September 23 letter), and Scannell said on September 24 that the developer would share its DEP filings but would not give the board a final sign-off. DEP has approved locations for three monitoring wells, one uphill of the leaching fields and two downhill, and requires baseline sampling before any discharge begins, and Crossman said on October 15 that monitoring is typically required for the life of a plant. Condition 62 of the draft decision bars a building permit until DEP’s discharge permit is final and requires the developer to copy the board on its correspondence with DEP as it happens.

Asked by a resident on September 24 whether the plant was sized for typical rather than peak flows, Cabral said the developer used the maximum-day, per-bedroom rates that DEP and the town require and sought no waiver of them, and that he was satisfied on that point.

In deliberations the board has turned to what the decision itself can require. On October 28 Dembitzer said she would vote no on a decision without testing at the outfalls where the site’s stormwater empties into the pond and the brook, which the developer opposes beyond what regulations already require. Winner agreed to add a finding that the whole site lies in the Zone II, and Dembitzer asked that the draft’s limits on fertilizer, pesticides and rodenticides apply across the property and that the decision cite the state’s Groundwater Protection List of pesticides, as described above under “What happened on October 28.”

Rain and treated sewage in the same ground

The longest-running technical dispute is whether rainwater soaking into the ground from the parking lots’ underground infiltration systems, on top of the groundwater mound beneath the sewage leaching fields, could slow the flow of treated wastewater away from those fields. By the developer’s figures, the leaching fields alone would raise the water table by up to 2.71 feet nearby and a 100-year storm would add 0.73 feet, for a combined 3.44 feet. In an October 6 memo its hydrogeologist, GeoHydroCycle, modeled 2-, 10- and 100-year storms and found the water table under the leaching fields rising 0.4 to 0.8 feet, peaking two to six days after the storm begins, with groundwater still draining toward the pond and the brook and no backup into the system (GeoHydroCycle memo). The developer’s engineer, Carlton Quinn of Allen & Major, told the board the stormwater systems were designed on top of the wastewater mound, with the groundwater beneath them raised a foot or two to account for it.

Crossman wrote on September 21 that stormwater mounds would alter flow around the leaching fields for one to four days after a large storm and that the developer’s own exhibits showed half or more of the modeled flow path could be temporarily obstructed, and it said DEP’s review had not considered the stormwater systems (Crossman memo). At the September 24 session Cabral told the board that in 40 years of peer review it was the first time he could not support a project because of a technical concern he did not think had been addressed, while saying he believed it could be addressed with more analysis. In its October 13 reply, which the town has posted as its final review, Crossman agreed the flow would never be fully blocked and that partial diversions would pass within one to three days, but argued that GeoHydroCycle’s method of adding the two mounds together assumes wastewater keeps moving freely away from the fields in every direction, which Crossman says the modeling itself shows will not hold for a few days after a large storm, because by its count six infiltration systems surround the fields. It recommended a more detailed analysis and said it still could not offer a positive finding on public health, safety and welfare or the environment (Crossman final review).

The two sides also disagree about whose question it is. The developer says the stormwater system was never in doubt and that how well the sewage plant performs is for DEP alone. Cabral said on October 15 that he sees it as more a stormwater question, which the town reviews, than a wastewater one, and Winner told the board on September 24 that the two systems are coupled, so that while DEP alone issues the discharge permit, the board can judge whether the town’s stormwater bylaw has been met. Each infiltration system has an overflow pipe that empties into the pond or the brook in a major storm, after treatment that Crossman says meets state standards. On October 21 Winner told the board that a special condition later in the draft addresses whether the stormwater and the sewage discharge work together, and when the board reached that part of the draft on October 28, condition 62 let the board and the developer each send MassDEP a written statement on how the two systems interact, “to ensure the subject does not evade review.”

Flooding and wetlands

About 23.5 of the 42 acres are wetland or flood hazard area. The developer plans to raise the building sites with fill so the buildings sit outside the floodplain, which requires creating equal flood storage elsewhere on the site, and filed revised flood storage calculations on September 24 (calculations).

Which flood map applies has been disputed. The developer’s survey and plans rest on FEMA’s 2010 flood maps, under a wetlands boundary determination the Conservation Commission approved in January 2025, while FEMA’s current maps took effect July 8, 2025. Crossman’s August 27 review said the town’s floodplain zoning, which bars new buildings, filling and excavation in the district, is defined by the 2025 maps, and reported its understanding that Town Counsel had told the developer in a meeting that this part of the bylaw applies to the project, in which case building or filling below the current flood elevation would need a waiver, with mitigation required even if one is granted (Crossman review). The developer treats which map governs as a legal question for it and the town to settle (developer’s reply), but the Conservation Agent told the commission on September 15 that the developer had agreed in August to provide compensatory flood storage based on the 2025 maps, and Crossman said on September 24 that it had not yet confirmed that mitigation was in the plan set the board would act on. DEP’s review of the groundwater model found the sewage discharge would raise the water table 0.1 to 0.2 feet at the edges of the wetlands along the pond and the brook and leave the small perched wetlands on the east side untouched.

The Conservation Commission, in a September 17 letter written by Conservation Agent Tyler Skrzypiec, told the ZBA it has difficulty supporting the developer’s wetland bylaw waivers as documented, because they lack the alternatives analysis, mitigation plans and expert evidence its regulations require for any waiver, and because the revised waiver list reached it the day before a meeting. It reported that an isolated wetland of about 4,703 square feet, protected only by the town’s bylaw, appears to be filled under the developer’s flood storage plan, and said a waiver there would leave that wetland with no protection under town or state law; on October 15 the developer’s engineer said the plans do not fill it. The commission also pointed to rare-species habitat mapped next to the property and downstream on Bogastow Brook, and to the effects of site lighting and mosquito control on the birds and bats that feed near the pond, and asked that any permit note that a Notice of Intent under the state law will still be required (Conservation Commission letter, agent’s earlier comments). On October 15 the developer’s attorney said the commission’s documentation requirements do not apply to waivers under 40B, and Winner said a waiver does not exempt the plans from review.

Old fuel contamination

The site has a known petroleum release from former underground fuel tanks. According to the Board of Health, about 2,000 cubic yards of soil were dug out and more than 200,000 gallons of groundwater treated, and a final cleanup report was filed in August 2015. Test pits dug for this project in 2025 and 2026 turned up strong petroleum odors, and the developer’s environmental consultant, Haley & Aldrich, concluded the contamination is confined to about 324 square feet, five to ten feet down, that a small removal is planned and that the wastewater discharge would not move it, which DEP accepted on condition that any new information be reported.

The town’s environmental peer reviewer, Coneco, wrote on August 27 that a January 2025 test pit found gasoline compounds and MTBE above state reporting levels, which started a 120-day reporting clock, and that because the removal had not been done and the release had not been reported, the site was out of compliance with the state cleanup rules. Coneco recorded the developer’s plan to do the removal or report the release within 120 days of taking ownership (Coneco review); Scannell told the board on October 15 that the developer would be legally obligated to remove it within 180 days. The Board of Health has asked whether the contamination analysis accounted for stormwater and wastewater soaking in together, and the developer says a June 18 memo from Haley & Aldrich did. On October 15 the board discussed having Coneco oversee the cleanup, and the developer agreed to share its report. On October 21 the board required the pre-construction meeting to take place at least 30 days before any site work begins, at the request of Karen Sherman, the former town planner who is consulting on the project, because contaminated and excess material has to come off the site early.

The town’s water supply

On September 24, DPW Director Sean Reese told town planners that MassDEP’s draft water withdrawal permit would cut what Holliston may pump beyond its grandfathered 1.41 million gallons a day from 0.27 million to 0.04 million, or 230,000 fewer gallons a day, a cut the town is appealing but expects to see in some form. He wrote that this project and a proposed 50-unit project on Concord Street could push the town past its permitted amount, which would trigger DEP enforcement, and that an outside consultant’s study of the added demand would take a few more weeks (Reese email). This spring Reese had told the Select Board the town could meet the project’s anticipated pumping needs (CitizenPortal summary).

Traffic and walking

The developer’s traffic study projects 1,136 vehicle trips on a weekday, with 92 in the morning peak hour and 97 in the evening. Lowland Street is about 24 feet wide with no sidewalks or shoulders, and most drivers on it stay under 35 mph. Whitney Street’s approach to Washington Street already rates F, the lowest grade, in the morning peak, and the study projects the wait there growing to about two and a half minutes with the project (traffic study). At residents’ request the study was extended to Woodland Street and Fawn Road, where state records show no reported crashes from 2022 through 2025, and the town’s traffic reviewer accepted the developer’s proposal to move the Fawn Road stop sign forward to improve sight lines (Crossman traffic review).

The clearest open disagreement is over a sidewalk along the roughly 1,300 feet of Lowland Street between the site and the Upper Charles Rail Trail, which Crossman expects residents to use to reach the elementary and middle schools on Woodland Street. Crossman estimated two simpler designs at $400,000 to $500,000, against an earlier estimate of more than $2 million, and noted that the town’s 2021 pedestrian study did not flag Lowland Street, though no 250-unit project was planned at the time. North of the rail trail a sidewalk already exists, finished by the DPW in December 2023 along the stretch the Select Board renamed Fawn Road that month (minutes), so the gap in dispute runs from the site to the trail. The developer has declined for now, citing a July 7 statement by Crossman’s own traffic engineer that sidewalk extensions were beyond the scope of a project like this, and at the September 2 hearing its attorney argued an off-site sidewalk could make the project financially unworkable.

In a June 4 letter signed by Chair Ben Sparrell, the Select Board strongly recommended that any permit require sidewalks from the site to the rail trail and the town’s sidewalk network, citing the Complete Streets policy it and the Planning Board adopted in 2020 and the town’s Climate Action Plan, and asked for better sight lines at Jeffrey Avenue and Lowland Street, where a berm blocks the view (Select Board letter). MassHousing had also urged better walkability and a safe school bus stop. Dembitzer said on September 24 that she would want a sidewalk as a condition, and Peabody said on October 15 that the board is considering mitigation, including a sidewalk or a contribution to a sidewalk fund. The draft decision has the developer contribute up to $150,000 toward a Lowland Street sidewalk if the town applies for a state MassWorks grant within three years of the permit becoming final, and on October 28 staff suggested dropping the MassWorks reference and members asked that the three years run from a later milestone, while Winner said the money must stay tied to a sidewalk serving this project. The draft also calls for a sheltered school bus stop, to be built once the school department confirms in writing that it will serve it, and Sarah Scott told the board on October 28 that the site is outside the walk zone for the K-8 schools. It also requires traffic and parking monitoring after occupancy, with the developer paying up to $25,000 toward fixes if set thresholds are crossed, a cap the board wants raised to at least $50,000.

Fire access and schools

Fire Chief Michael Cassidy reviewed the June plans and wrote on July 2 that if the project is approved, his department will work with the developer to confirm that the driveways and access points can handle its trucks’ turning radii (memo). The town had told MassHousing in 2025 that the layout seemed to limit access all the way around the building closest to the pond. MassHousing noted that the effect on school enrollment, which residents raised, falls outside what it is allowed to review.

What the other boards have said

The ZBA issues the one local permit, but the sewage plant needs a state permit of its own, the wetlands work needs a state-law approval from the Conservation Commission, and several town boards have taken up the project at their own meetings.

MassDEP permits the sewage plant and its discharge. It approved the developer’s groundwater study with conditions on June 11 and invited a full discharge permit application, which the developer says it will not file until it has a local permit, and the plant cannot be built until that permit issues.

The Board of Health would normally govern the plant under its own wastewater rules, which the developer asks the ZBA to waive in favor of DEP’s. In February the board noted that the plant falls under DEP’s jurisdiction but that it could comment to the ZBA, and flagged the fuel contamination DEP had reported (minutes). In April the town’s health director, Scott Moles, told the board he had concerns but could not judge how serious they were without the plant’s design, and said he would like the stormwater and the nearby waterway tested, as is done at the Reworld waste facility in town, formerly Covanta (minutes). In August the board discussed a draft of its first letter to the ZBA, with Vice Chair Peter Liffiton urging that it go out soon because of ongoing criticism of the board’s lack of participation (minutes); it wrote on August 14, August 20 and September 25, and Liffiton and member Audrea Szabatura pressed the groundwater questions at the September 2 hearing (ZBA minutes). At its September 22 meeting, a member said the developer’s answers had left several of the board’s questions open, on the ground that the Board of Health has no authority over them, and the board was told its earlier letter had already gone to the DEP staff reviewing the project.

The Conservation Commission issues the order of conditions under the state Wetlands Protection Act, which the ZBA cannot waive. It confirmed the site’s wetland boundaries in January 2025 (minutes). On March 3 the developer gave the commission an early look before any formal filing: Scannell said about 31 of the 42 acres would stay undisturbed, with building concentrated on about 11 acres that were mostly already disturbed, and that the buildings would be all-electric, while commissioners objected to garages planned along the pond, and one said the plan did not respect the town’s wetland bylaw, particularly its 50-foot buffer (minutes). On March 31 the commission agreed to put its concerns in writing, noting residents’ worries about wells, including in Sherborn (minutes), and the agent’s comments went to the ZBA on April 22. At its September 1 meeting the Conservation Agent reported that the developer had moved two garages farther from the pond, though the waiver list still asked to waive most of the town’s wetland protections, and said the commission could hire its own environmental peer reviewer when the project comes before it. On September 15, while drafting the letter it sent two days later, commissioners called the project larger than anything the board had faced, and raised mosquito control, the pesticides it would bring, and light from four-story buildings beside the pond and wetlands. On September 29 commissioners were urged to attend the October 15 session, when the waivers were reviewed.

The Planning Board has no role in the permit, but its staff has tracked the hearing in their updates, and on October 14, during its discussion of the groundwater bylaw amendments going to Town Meeting, a member asked how the changes would affect the Lowland Street project. Sarah Scott, the town’s director of planning and community development, said an application is protected from zoning changes once it is filed, and Barbara Peatie, who ran the meeting, noted that a 40B can bypass local rules in any case. Town Meeting passed the amendments 123-25 on October 19, and they go next to the Attorney General for review (amended text); no one raised them at the board’s October 21 deliberations.

The Select Board has no vote on the permit. It approved the town’s comments to MassHousing in October 2025, described below under “Before the hearing,” and on May 18, 2026 it directed letters, sent June 4, urging the ZBA to require sidewalks to the rail trail and asking MassDEP how it permits and monitors sewage plants in Zone II areas (minutes, letter to the ZBA, letter to DEP). Residents, Liz Theiler most often, have pressed the board through the year to take up the water question; in April Chair Ben Sparrell agreed to put water quality and the project on future agendas, and in July Vice Chair Tina Hein asked the town manager whether more agenda items on the 40B would be appropriate (April 27 minutes, July 13 minutes).

The Water Department supplies the water and runs the wells, and is studying the added demand while it appeals a proposed cut to its state withdrawal permit. The subcommittee drafting the town’s wellhead protection rules has raised the broader worry: at its October 8 meeting a member said the parking and rooftops proposed for Lowland would cover a fair amount of aquifer, and town staff presenting the amendments told the Planning Board on October 14 that the groundwater protection zones cover about a quarter of the town and that the Lowland Industrial Park is the only one of its industrial parks inside them. At Town Meeting, where the amendments passed, Select Board Vice Chair Tina Hein said a 2023 MWRA study put the cost of connecting Holliston to the regional system at about $60 million, and then only if the town were accepted, a figure Dembitzer also raised on October 21.

The Fire Department will confirm truck access with the developer if the project is approved, and MassHousing must give final approval before construction; its eligibility letter is good for two years.

The ZBA itself has three members: Chair Jay Peabody, Vice Chair Elizabeth Dembitzer and Clerk Vladimir Nechev. Its reviewers are Crossman Engineering for civil, traffic and groundwater questions and Coneco for the site’s contamination, Town Counsel Brian Winner of Mead, Talerman & Costa advises the board, and Karen Sherman, the former town planner, is consulting on the project.

Earlier proposals for the site

The apartments are at least the third proposal for the old quarry in a decade. The Planning Board turned down every earlier one: the owner’s plan to sell and truck out stockpiled fill in 2017, and an auto auction’s overflow parking lot in 2020 and again in 2022, after a Land Court appeal sent it back to the board. In 2020 the ZBA also upheld a zoning violation against the owner. In its denials the Planning Board pointed to heavy trucks on residential streets near the rail trail and noise reaching the homes across Bogastow Brook, and in 2020 to the risks of an industrial use inside the Zone II.

• 2014 and 2015, dumping and composting. The Conservation Commission, the building inspector, the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and the Board of Health issued violation notices between November 2014 and May 2015. On June 2, 2015 the Middlesex Superior Court, in Town of Holliston v. Brumber, issued a preliminary injunction barring the owner from processing compost or removing material from the site (Planning Board findings, 2017).

• 2015, the owner’s first application to process and remove the material. The Planning Board could not act after its chairman stepped aside and a member had missed a session, and the owner withdrew the application without prejudice on December 3, 2015 (minutes).

• 2016 to 2019, the Brumber special permit. The owner, Michael Brumber, sought to screen and sell about 35,000 cubic yards of compost and fill he had brought to the site without permits, with up to 80 heavy trucks a day over five months. The Planning Board denied the special permit 5-0 on February 2, 2017. Its findings, printed in that night’s minutes, cite the residential neighborhood next door, the trucks’ risk to pedestrians, children and rail trail users, untested fill inside the Zone II, and noise in an industrial park where, the board found, the owner’s operation at 157 Lowland Street already exceeded state limits (minutes with findings). The Land Court upheld the denial on February 21, 2019 (decision).

• 2019, removing the stockpiles. In November 2019 the Board of Health was told the owner had a 90-day agreement with the Conservation Commission and the ZBA to remove the material, with police details to manage traffic and noise (minutes). A June 2020 Planning Board memo says the material was removed in 2019 under a settlement agreement with the town.

• 2020, the owner’s appeal of a zoning violation. On May 4, 2020 Building Inspector Chris Canney issued a notice of zoning violation, citing uses on the site, among them outdoor storage of materials and equipment, that need special permits the site does not have, and that month the Planning Board also cited the owner for building earthen berms without a land disturbance permit. The owner appealed to the ZBA, arguing the town was imposing restrictions it did not impose on similar properties nearby, and on June 24, 2020 the ZBA voted 4-0 to deny the appeal, finding the notice a reasonable reading of the bylaw (appeal, Planning Board memo, ZBA minutes).

• 2020, ADESA Boston. The Framingham car auction sought a paved lot of about 5.23 acres to store some 500 cars awaiting auction, plus a security building, on the 43-acre site. The Planning Board denied it 5-0 on December 3, 2020, along with its stormwater and land disturbance permit, finding the trucks, noise and diesel exhaust would significantly alter the neighborhood, that limiting haulers ADESA did not control to a truck route would be ineffective, that the trucks would threaten pedestrians, schoolchildren and rail trail users on a road with no sidewalks, and that refueling, vehicle fluids and de-icing in the Zone II could not be reliably limited (decision). The town’s annual report for fiscal 2021 lists a Conservation Commission order of conditions for “a parking lot for used car storage on Lowland Street” (report, p. 80).

• 2021 to 2022, ADESA’s appeal and second application. ADESA appealed the 2020 denial to the Land Court. At a joint closed session on September 27, 2021, Town Counsel laid out three paths, one of them a by-right version of the project under a used-car dealer license from the Select Board, and the Planning Board voted 5-0 to rehear the application on remand (minutes). The second application, for what ADESA’s attorney called essentially the same lot, now for 585 cars, added a redesigned driveway, a sound barrier and an offer to give the town the 37 acres it would not use. The rehearing ran from January 13 to February 17, 2022 (Local Town Pages), and on April 28 the board denied the application again by unanimous roll call, along with its stormwater permit (minutes).

• 2022, the town’s search for a new public works yard. In August 2022 the town administrator told the Select Board that 194 Lowland had recently been brought forward as a possible site for a new DPW facility, one of several the town was weighing (minutes).

Those denials rested on findings the Planning Board must make for a special permit under local zoning, which a 40B permit can waive, so the ZBA’s decision turns instead on whether local concerns outweigh the regional need for housing. Several of the concerns are the same ones the ZBA has heard this year: traffic on Lowland and Woodland streets with no sidewalks, the rail trail about 1,300 feet away, and the Zone II. The 2019 Land Court decision describes 194 Lowland Street alone as a 15-acre site, while ADESA’s application and the current one both cover “0 & 194 Lowland Street,” two parcels totaling about 42 to 43 acres. Brumber’s company, DCAB, LLC, bought the land from Barbara and Judy DiCarlo in 2017, while his Land Court case was pending, and still owns it.

Before the hearing

The water question that has dominated the hearing was already loud in town before the developer filed. In 2025 the town weighed a site on the other side of Lowland Street, at 157–165, for a new public works garage, one of four parcels offered in its search that spring (minutes), and neighbors, several of whom later took part in the 40B hearing, told the Select Board in August that oil and fuel from a public works yard’s trucks and equipment would put at risk the aquifer that feeds the town’s wells (minutes). Yard signs reading “Save our Water” went up around town (Board of Health minutes), and on September 29 the Select Board chose to rebuild on Arch Street instead, with member Tina Hein saying water quality had come to the forefront during the Lowland Street discussion and would be addressed as a separate issue (minutes). Lowland Street had come up before: when a resident asked in March 2025 whether the town had looked there, Sparrell said a property on the street had been considered in 2022 but its cost at the time made it undesirable (minutes), and 194 Lowland was among the sites raised that year, as the section above notes.

The apartment proposal came into view the same season. The Conservation Commission had confirmed the wetland boundaries at 0 and 194 Lowland Street in January 2025, and MassHousing scheduled a site visit for September 10 (Economic Development Committee minutes). On September 8 Winner walked the Select Board through the 40B process, and the board heard that Holliston, at about 4.8% affordable, had three 40B proposals in view: Geoffrey Park, Concord Street and Lowland Street (minutes). On October 6 the Select Board voted 3-0 to send MassHousing the town’s comments, which Town Manager Frank Gervasio drafted to cover the environmentally protected area, traffic, density, sidewalks, infrastructure and the preservation of the industrial park (minutes, the town’s comments). In November DPW Director Sean Reese suggested that MassDOT, which is planning a redesign of the Washington and Whitney Street intersection, assess the project’s effect there (minutes). MassHousing found the site eligible on November 25, Gervasio told the Select Board in December that the ZBA hearing could begin as early as February (minutes), the developer filed on January 20, and the hearing opened on February 11.

The hearing, meeting by meeting

The public hearing ran through 13 meetings from February to October 15, all held remotely on Zoom, and the developer agreed to extend it three times; deliberations began on October 21and continued on October 28.. Newest first, from the board’s agendas, minutes and recordings, along with the filings and other boards’ meetings that fed into it (ZBA agendas and minutes):

• November 2: Deliberations continue at 6 p.m., in what the chair hopes is the last session, with votes on the waivers and the decision (agenda)

• October 28: Second deliberation session. The board finishes its first pass through the draft decision and the waiver list without a vote, Dembitzer says she will vote no without testing at the stormwater outfalls, and Peabody calls that condition “probably the most critical component of the entire decision” (agenda, recording)

• October 21: First deliberation session. Peabody and Nechev lean toward approval with conditions and Dembitzer remains skeptical, and the board works through the findings and the first 20 conditions without a vote (agenda, recording)

• October 19: Town Meeting passes the Groundwater Protection District amendments, 123-25

• October 15: Final session. Crossman and the developer remain at odds over stormwater and the sewage plant, almost all of the residents who speak oppose the project, the board reviews the waiver list without voting, and it votes 3-0 to close the hearing (agenda, recording)

• October 14: At a Planning Board meeting on the groundwater bylaw amendments, staff say zoning changes cannot reach an application already filed

• October 13: Crossman replies to GeoHydroCycle in what the town posts as its final review, still without a positive finding on the sewage system

• October 9: Town Counsel’s draft decision goes to the developer, which returns a markup on October 15

• October 6: GeoHydroCycle memo on storm mounding under the leaching fields

• September 29: Conservation commissioners are urged to attend the October 15 waiver review

• September 25: Board of Health sends its updated groundwater letter

• September 24: With the hearing at the end of its extension and 26 people attending, down from 50 or 60 earlier in the year, Crossman says it cannot recommend approval, the developer says the question is DEP’s, the members give a straw poll, and the board votes 3-0 to continue to October 15 with the decision clock running (agenda, minutes, recording); the same day, Reese warns about the town’s water withdrawal permit

• September 22: The Board of Health discusses the developer’s answers to its questions and its letters to DEP

• September 21: Crossman memo on stormwater and wastewater mounding

• September 17: Conservation Commission tells the ZBA it cannot support the wetland waivers as documented, after discussing the letter on September 15

• September 2: Session; Crossman presents its peer review, the developer’s attorney disputes the off-site sidewalk, Town Counsel explains what makes a condition “uneconomic,” and Board of Health members press on nitrogen and PFAS; the developer extends the hearing to September 24 (minutes)

• September 1: The Conservation Agent reports that two garages have been moved farther from the pond

• August 27: Crossman civil review and Coneco environmental review

• August 19: Session; the developer updates its plans and waiver list (minutes)

• August 11: The Board of Health drafts its first letter to the ZBA (minutes)

• July 28: Session; the developer offers a 30-day extension (minutes)

• July 14: The Board of Health takes up a resident’s request for stormwater testing at the site (minutes)

• July 7: Session on drainage modeling, floodplain mitigation, the Woodland and Fawn traffic analysis and a sidewalk to the rail trail; the developer agrees to study a sidewalk to the rail trail, and the town planner reports it has approved the scope of an environmental audit of the site (minutes)

• July 2: Fire chief’s access memo

• June 11: MassDEP conditionally approves the groundwater study

• June 9: Continued at the developer’s request without discussion (minutes)

• May 18: Select Board directs letters to the ZBA and MassDEP, sent June 4

• May 14: Session

• May 5: Session on site plans, stormwater, the revised traffic study and groundwater mounding; the board seeks added groundwater and contamination review, which the developer agrees to fund (minutes)

• April 22: Session; revised site plans entered (minutes); the Conservation Agent sends the commission’s first comments (comments)

• April 14: The health director tells the Board of Health he has concerns but needs the plant’s design to judge them

• March 31: The Conservation Commission agrees to send the ZBA written comments

• March 24: Session on DEP permitting, added soil borings and the traffic study (minutes)

• March 3: The developer presents the project to the Conservation Commission ahead of a formal filing

• February 24: Session; the board directs staff to hire Crossman as peer reviewer, at the developer’s expense, and decides MassHousing’s technical assistance would not meet its needs (minutes)

• February 11: Hearing opens with the developer’s presentation (recording)

• February 10: The Conservation Commission discusses the project the night before the hearing opens (minutes)

• January 20: Application filed

• November 25, 2025: MassHousing finds the site eligible

• October 6, 2025: The Select Board approves the town’s comments to MassHousing

• September 10, 2025: MassHousing visits the site

• September 8, 2025: Town Counsel explains the 40B process to the Select Board

• January 7, 2025: The Conservation Commission confirms the site’s wetland boundaries

Residents who have spoken or written during the hearing include Liz Theiler, Karen Apuzzo-Langton, Ellen Trolland, Cherie Hafford, Mary Beth McGaw, Keefe Bailey and Alex Check.

The filings, by topic

The town’s project page lists all 88 filings, newest first, with no summary. If you read only five, read the MassHousing letter for the project and the town’s early concerns, the waiver list for what the developer wants set aside, MassDEP’s June 11 letter for the wells and the sewage plant, the Board of Health’s September 25 letter for the open groundwater questions, and Crossman’s October 13 review for where the town’s engineer landed.

The project

• MassHousing site approval, November 25, 2025

• Waiver requests, revised through September 1, 2026

• Architectural plans, August 31 and civil site plans, September 24

• Developer’s presentation at the first hearing

• Tentative phasing schedule

• Hearing extension and decision deadline, September 24

• Town department comments to MassHousing, October 6, 2025

Wells, groundwater and the sewage plant

• MassDEP conditional approval, June 11 and MassDEP letter of comment, March

• Board of Health groundwater letter, September 25

• Crossman supplemental review, September 21 and final peer review, October 13

• Developer’s response to Crossman, September 23 and GeoHydroCycle memo, October 6

• Developer’s response log to the September 2 hearing

• DPW Director Reese on water withdrawals, September 24

Flooding, wetlands and contamination

• Compensatory flood storage calculations, September 24

• Crossman civil peer review, August 27 and developer’s reply, September 24

• Conservation Commission letter, September 17 and Conservation Agent comments

• Coneco environmental peer review, August 27

Traffic, access and town letters

• Traffic impact study, September 2025 and Crossman’s fourth traffic review, June 30

• Fire chief’s access memo, July 2

• Select Board letter to the ZBA and to MassDEP, June 4

Law and background

• ZBA agendas and minutes and the town’s 40B page

• State subsidized housing inventory

• Zoning Board of Appeals of Holliston v. Housing Appeals Committee (2011)

• Reynolds v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Stow (2015)

• 760 CMR 56.03, the state’s 40B rule on local needs and large projects and 333 CMR 12.00, the state’s Groundwater Protection List rule

Sources and method: this page is built from the filings on the town’s project page, the posted minutes of the Zoning Board, Board of Health, Conservation Commission, Select Board and other boards from 2025 and 2026, earlier minutes and decisions, court records, and the Ledger’s transcripts of meeting recordings. Where minutes have not yet been posted, accounts of meetings come from the recordings, which are linked.

Decisions

Board of Health, Tuesday, October 13 (from the meeting recording)

• Cigar definition and minimum cigar pricing: failed to adopt the new definition of cigar and the proposed minimum prices for single cigars and packs of two or more, so the tobacco regulations stay unchanged for now (failed). Recording, 1:09:36

Conservation Commission, Tuesday, October 13 (from the meeting recording)

• Prentice Street 12A order of conditions: issued an order of conditions, with conditions on bounds and their perpetual maintenance, for the notice of intent at 12A Prentice Street (3–0). Recording, 0:45:36

• Prentice Street 12B order of conditions: issued an order of conditions for the notice of intent at 12B Prentice Street (3–0). Recording, 0:47:00

Planning Board, Wednesday, October 14 (from the meeting recording)

• Prentice Street subdivision (ANR): approved the plan dividing one lot on Prentice Street into two, after the applicant corrected the frontage and depth requirements shown on the plan (unanimous). Recording, 0:03:02

• Groundwater protection bylaw hearing: closed the public hearing on the groundwater protection district bylaw amendments (unanimous). Recording, 1:11:55

• Groundwater protection bylaw, report to Town Meeting: recommended that Town Meeting adopt the groundwater protection district bylaw amendments, but without the animal feedlot definition and prohibition and without ‘landscape refuse’ in the solid waste definition, and with new prohibited uses Q through V allowed if suitable technology protects groundwater (unanimous). Recording

School Building Committee, Wednesday, October 14 (from the meeting recording)

• Communications working group lead: appointed Christy as lead of the communications working group (unanimous). Recording, 1:35:44

Zoning Board of Appeals, Thursday, October 15 (from the meeting recording)

• 1286 Washington Street special permit hearing: closed the public portion of the hearing on a special permit application for a painting and cleaning company office and storage use at 1286 Washington Street (unanimous). Recording, 0:12:37

• Lowland Street comprehensive permit hearing: closed the public portion of the hearing on the comprehensive permit application by MP Properties for LLC for 0 and 194 Lowland Street (unanimous). Recording, 3:14:42

Coming Up

Saturday, October 17

• Free flu and Covid-19 clinic runs 9 a.m. to noon at 235 Woodland Street

Monday, October 19

• History Book Club welcomes new members at the library, 10:30 a.m.

• Holliston varsity soccer travels to Hopkinton for a 4:30 p.m. conference match

• School Committee preps for Town Meeting at 6 p.m. at the high school library, may vote on presentation Agenda

• Finance Committee meets at 6 p.m. to finalize Town Meeting recommendations at the high school Agenda

• Holliston Town Meeting convenes Monday, October 19

• Holliston faces Hopkinton in conference volleyball

Tuesday, October 20

• Library’s Tuesday Matinee shows “Remarkably Bright Creatures” at 12:30 p.m.

• Select Board preps for Town Meeting at 6 p.m. session in High School Library Agenda

Wednesday, October 21

• No registration needed: Little Builders Story Time at the library’s Gilman Room, 10:15 a.m.

• Red Sox historian Herb Crehan talks World Series history at the library’s Gilman Room, 6:30 p.m.

Thursday, October 22

• Planning Board hears the 385 Prentice Street Scenic Road application at 7 p.m. on Zoom Agenda

Friday, October 23

• Dance Party with Stacey Peasley in the Gilman Room at Holliston Public Library, 11 a.m.

• Holliston Panthers face Norwood Mustangs in varsity football at 6 p.m.

Saturday, October 24

• Goodie bags go out at 9:30 a.m. at the library’s Halloween Trick-o-Treat

• Kids read aloud to therapy dog Molly Bird at the library’s Children’s Room, 10 a.m.

• SEPAC Trunk-or-Treat runs 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.; admission is $5 per child, $25 family cap

• Pink Granite Pedalers bring their ride back to Holliston trails

Sunday, October 25

• Great Pumpkin Trail Walk is Sunday, October 25

The Holliston Ledger reports from posted agendas, minutes and meeting recordings. Items marked “from the meeting recording” were written before the board approved its minutes and may change when it does. If something here is wrong, reply to this email, and the correction will run at the bottom of the post and in next week’s edition.

The applicant, MP Properties IV, LLC, was represented by Mike Scannell of Marcus Partners. The project’s state eligibility letter, posted on the town website, describes four four-story apartment buildings with 63 affordable units on a 42-acre site, of which about 18.5 acres are buildable. The project is before the Zoning Board of Appeals under Chapter 40B, the state law allowing a developer apply for a comprehensive permit from the zoning board and request waivers from local bylaws and regulations in exchange for setting aside a share of affordable units within the development.

Chair Jay Peabody said that between the earlier sessions and this one, the board had heard enough to decide. “So I’m of the belief that this is a complete record pursuant to which we as a board, I think, can close the public portion of the hearing and move on to the next piece of this,” he said. He added that he did not expect more detail from the applicant and did not think the developer would agree to another extension: “So I have no reason to believe we need to continue, nor do I think the developer is going to ask us or allow us to.”

Stormwater, wastewater and the state’s role

The main unresolved technical question involves the on-site wastewater treatment plant, which would discharge treated water into the ground. The plant is surrounded by stormwater infiltration basins that send rainwater into that same ground. Stephen Cabral of Crossman Engineering, the town’s peer-review engineer, said a large storm could temporarily raise the groundwater under those basins by up to eight feet. He said that mounding could change how groundwater flows around the wastewater discharge area, and that the applicant’s analysis had not yet answered that to his satisfaction. “I’m not here stating that the system is going to fail and it will not work,” Cabral said. “As the town’s consultant, I’m just stating that I’m not yet convinced that the potential impacts have been fully addressed.” He said more technical analysis was needed.

Scannell said the stormwater system had been designed with the wastewater mound already taken into account. He said the remaining question concerns how well the treatment plant performs, which makes it a matter for the state Department of Environmental Protection rather than the town. Cabral noted that any wastewater system handling more than 10,000 gallons a day goes to the state for permitting. Scannell said the company received the first of two state approvals, a hydrogeologic approval, in July; the MassDEP approval letter posted on the town’s website is dated June 11. It has not yet applied for the second, the groundwater discharge permit, because that step is costly and the company wanted its local permit in hand first.

Peabody said the board’s draft decision, which he described as a starting point and not a signal of approval or denial, tries to give the town a role in the state review, “to get a seat at the table as it relates to the DEP process going forward.” The site also has existing contamination, which Scannell said the company will be legally obligated to remove within 180 days of taking ownership. The town’s environmental peer reviewer, Coneco, wrote in August that the developer planned to remove it or report it to the state within 120 days of taking ownership. Peabody asked whether the town’s environmental consultant could have some oversight of that cleanup. Scannell said the company would share the information, which becomes public record once it is filed with the state, and would send it to the board’s licensed site professional.

What residents said

Almost all of the residents who spoke during public comment opposed the project at this location, and the reason they gave most often was where it sits: in the Zone II recharge area for the town’s public drinking water wells. Some said they were not against new housing in town. Liz Theiler pointed to a petition on PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals, and asked that the plant’s discharge be tested for them. She and Allison Quinn urged the board to read a 2015 court decision on a 40B project in Stow, which Theiler said found that Chapter 40B does not override local protection of water resources. Town counsel offered the board a summary, cautioning that it is one case in a large body of 40B law.

The case is Reynolds v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Stow, decided by the state Appeals Court in September 2015. Stow’s zoning board had granted a comprehensive permit for a 37-unit elderly housing building and had waived a local water-protection limit on sewage discharge. The trial judge found it more likely than not that the project would push nitrogen above 10 parts per million at a neighbor’s private drinking water well. The Appeals Court revoked the permit, finding that clean groundwater for local private wells was an important local health concern that compliance with state standards did not adequately protect. The Stow site had no public water or sewer service. The opinion draws on, and distinguishes, an earlier Appeals Court case involving Holliston’s own zoning board, Zoning Board of Appeals of Holliston v. Housing Appeals Committee (2011). That case held that a board may deny a comprehensive permit by identifying a health or other local concern that supports the denial, is not adequately addressed by compliance with state standards, and outweighs the regional housing need. In the Holliston case, the court found the board had not made that showing. Vice Chair Elizabeth Dembitzer, who had printed the Stow decision, noticed the Holliston citation during the meeting.

Other residents asked about pest control and rodent poison on a site of this size, about traffic and road salt on Lowland Street, about who would be responsible if something went wrong years from now, and about the lack of sidewalks for children walking to school. In response, Cabral said monitoring of a system like this is typically required “for the life of a project,” for as long as the facility operates. He said the applicant will need a detailed operation and maintenance plan covering sanding, salting and snow storage, and that the stormwater design meets the state stormwater handbook. He also said the infiltration basins have outlet pipes that would discharge to the pond on the north side of the site and the brook on the south side during major storms. Because the site is in Zone II, Cabral said, the board could reasonably add conditions limiting pesticide and fertilizer use, adding, “I would not rely upon DEP to do that.” Peabody said the board had already held about three hearings on traffic, with consultants on both sides, and that it is considering mitigation, including a sidewalk or a contribution to a sidewalk fund.

A direct abutter on Lowland Street asked the board to require that the buildings step back on her side, that there be no balconies facing her property, and that an engineered, planted earth berm restore some screening. She noted that the project will raise the ground level significantly. Scannell said the grade will go up about seven feet on average, mostly with clean fill brought in from outside, that the mulch berm along the frontage will be tested and removed, and that the land that cannot be developed will be kept naturalized and undisturbed.

Waivers and the draft decision

The board walked through the applicant’s list of requested waivers from local rules but did not vote on any of them, and Peabody said each would be taken up during deliberations. Among them, the applicant’s engineer, Carlton Quinn of Allen & Major Associates, Inc., asked for two monument signs, one at each entrance and one foot from the property line, where local rules allow one sign set back 10 feet. He also asked for light poles with a 22-foot mounting height, where 15 feet is the local limit. Peabody said the decision would call for the maximum number of affordable units with as much local preference as the state allows.

The applicant’s lawyers sent back their markup of the board’s draft decision at about 6:07 p.m. on the day of the meeting, and neither the board nor town counsel had reviewed it yet. Town counsel said he would share the applicant’s redlines and circulate progress drafts as the board works.

What happens next

The board will begin deliberating on Wednesday, October 21, at 6 p.m., and Peabody said he expects it may take one or two more sessions after that. “It is open to the public,” he said. “We cannot take any additional public input, but if somebody wants to sit and listen to us chat, they certainly have that right.” The decision must be filed with the town clerk by November 4.

Readers following the groundwater bylaw amendments at Monday’s Town Meeting may wonder whether they would apply here. At the Planning Board’s October 14 meeting, a board member asked how the amendments might affect “the 40B apartment complex coming in to Lowland area.” Sustainability Manager Amelia Landau said the amendments do not change the bylaw’s existing rules that bear on housing, which any proposed project would still have to follow. Barbara Peatie, who ran the meeting, said 40B projects bypass local rules. Sarah Scott, the town’s director of planning and community development, added, “I’ll also just note that in general, as soon as someone submits an application, then they are protected from any zoning changes.”

Also on the agenda

The board also voted 3-0 to close the hearing on a special permit for Martins Cleaning and Painting, Inc., which is moving from Ashland into the former car dealership at 1286 Washington Street. The company said it would use the space as an office for two employees and to store tools, with no retail sales and no hazardous or flammable materials kept on site, since paint and cleaning supplies go straight to job sites. It said up to about four branded vans may be parked there overnight. Peabody said the permit would apply to this tenant only. The board expects to decide on it at the October 21 meeting. After the decision is recorded there is a 20-day appeal period, so Peabody told the applicants to expect 30 to 40 days in all; their Ashland lease ends at the end of October. The board also approved the minutes of its September 24 meeting.

This report is based on the recording of the October 15 meeting. Minutes had not been posted at the time of writing. Agenda · Recording · MassHousing eligibility letter · Reynolds v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Stow, 88 Mass. App. Ct. 339 (2015)

Article 17 itself asks Fall Town Meeting to tighten the Groundwater Protection District, the part of the town’s zoning bylaw (p. 60) that controls what can be built and run on the land feeding the five public wells, by adding commercial feedlots, dry cleaners, auto businesses, chemical labs, metal plating, paint shops and large stores of pesticide to the uses barred there. Town Meeting takes it up Monday, October 19, at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium, and as a change to the zoning bylaw it needs a two-thirds vote. A subcommittee of Envisioning Future Holliston wrote it, and that committee sponsors it together with the Select Board and the Planning Board.

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What the article would change

The bylaw already keeps a number of uses away from the wells, including landfills and junkyards, most businesses that handle hazardous waste, underground storage of toxic materials and unprotected storage of road salt. Article 17, as printed in the warrant, adds seven more to the list for Zone II, the main recharge area for the wells, and through it to the two stricter zones closest to them:

• commercial animal feedlots, unless inside a structure built to keep runoff from escaping

• dry cleaners, laundromats and other coin or commercial laundries that clean on the premises

• commercial chemical or bacteriological research and development labs

• commercial businesses that sell, service, fuel, wash, lease, rent, repair, solder or weld “automotive vehicles, machines, and equipment”

• storage of 250 pounds or more of herbicides or pesticides on one lot, unless kept in a weatherproof building with an impermeable floor

• commercial plating, finishing, etching or polishing of metals or semiconductors

• commercial painting, wood preserving or paint stripping

The Select Board’s summary counts the same seven. The feedlot limit joins a 2013 rule that already bars storing animal manure in Zone II unless it’s inside a structure built to keep runoff from escaping, and Article 17 defines a feedlot as a commercial operation keeping 25 or more livestock per acre to prepare them for slaughter.

The article changes several definitions too. One describes “automotive” as anything “of, relating to, or concerned with motorized vehicles or machines,” so the auto entry above is worded to reach past car dealers and repair garages to businesses dealing in other motorized machines and equipment. Another defines petroleum products and leaves out propane, butane and liquefied natural gas. A third lengthens the definition of solid waste, which now covers garbage and rubbish, to take in scrap materials, junk, refuse, inert fill, landscape refuse and asphalt grindings, and that matters because the bylaw already bars disposing of solid waste other than brush and stumps in all four zones. And the article drops the word “liquid” from the existing ban on storing petroleum products in Zone II, which keeps its exceptions for household use, heating and emergency generators.

What the Planning Board wants changed

The board closed its public hearing on October 14 and voted 4–0 to recommend that Town Meeting adopt Article 17 with three revisions, which its staff planner restated just before the vote (Recording, 1:08:09):

1. Drop the feedlot limit. Strike “animal feedlots or” from the Zone II prohibitions, and the new definition of a feedlot with it, which would leave the 2013 rule on manure storage as it stands.

2. Take out “landscape refuse.” Keep the rest of the longer definition of solid waste, but without landscape refuse, so that the existing disposal ban doesn’t reach piles of yard waste.

3. Allow the six new business uses with safeguards. Let the dry cleaners, labs, auto businesses, pesticide storage, metal finishing and painting uses in items q through v operate in Zone II if they use technology that keeps stormwater and other material on the site and out of the groundwater.

Members pointed to sealed holding tanks, often called tight tanks, which collect a building’s runoff and spills so they can be pumped out and hauled away, and the owner of an auto body shop on Jeffrey Avenue, one of the businesses on the subcommittee’s list, told the board his shop has collected its rainwater and everything from inside the shop in holding tanks since 2021 (Recording, 0:39:26). The staff planner said the exact wording would need Town Counsel’s review, because state law limits how far a zoning proposal can change once it has been advertised; she said loosening a proposal is generally less of a problem than tightening it, and the board kept the safeguard to the six new uses rather than extend it to every Zone II prohibition (Recording, 1:00:37). Just before the hearing closed, a resident asked who would make sure such systems keep working, saying the town doesn’t have the staff to monitor them, and the board closed the hearing without taking up the question (Recording, 1:10:45). (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

James Read made the motion and David Thorn seconded it, and Courtney Black and Barbara Peatie, who ran the meeting, voted with them (Recording, 1:14:38). Jason Santos was absent but sent an email, read into the record, saying he supported the limits on auto businesses, dry cleaners and metal plating, opposed any new restriction on agriculture or landscape debris, and would support the bylaw without those two (Recording, 0:15:52). The staff planner said she would write the board’s report to Town Meeting from the discussion and send it around to members. (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

Where the zones are

The district is drawn in four zones, working outward from the wells, and the bylaw spells out each one:

• Zone I is the 400-foot circle around each public well, land the town owns or controls.

• Zone IA is a zone Holliston created for itself, the area each well draws down when it pumps at full capacity for five straight days.

• Zone II takes in the Hopping Brook, Jar Brook, Lake Winthrop, Dopping Brook and Bogastow Brook aquifers, other thick water-bearing sand and gravel, and the land the state has mapped as feeding the wells in a long drought, which it models as 180 days of pumping at the full rate with no rain.

• Zone III is the land beyond Zone II that drains into it.

The new limits apply in Zones I, IA and II, since each stricter zone inherits the prohibitions of the zones around it, and not in Zone III. Zone III gets one change: a commercial or industrial business there that makes, stores, transports or disposes of toxic or hazardous materials already needs a special permit when that is its principal activity, and Article 17 extends the requirement to businesses for which it is an incidental one. The subcommittee’s slides put the protection zones at 26 percent of the town’s land and 1,064 homes. The official maps, drawn in 1996 and approved by the state Attorney General in 2000, are on file with the Town Clerk and the Building Inspector, where an owner can check whether a particular lot is inside, and where a map line and the bylaw’s written description of a zone disagree on a property, the written description controls.

The town’s project page shows the protection zones shaded on a map.

The five wells, numbered 4 through 8, are off Washington Street, Central Street, Brook Street, Mohawk Path and Maple Street, and together they pumped more than 400 million gallons in 2025, according to the town’s 2025 water quality report. The state lets Holliston pump up to 1.16 million gallons a day, the facilities director told the Select Board in February (minutes). The same report shows no contaminant over its state limit last year, with quarterly readings for the six PFAS chemicals the state regulates ranging from 4.58 to 10.1 parts per trillion against a limit of 20.

Who would be affected

The Select Board’s summary says the new limits are meant for future changes in how land is used, and that existing permitted uses, along with businesses outside the zones, are not affected. The subcommittee’s slides list 22 businesses inside the zones that would continue under the new rules: nine that store pesticides, eight auto businesses, three paint or printing businesses, one laboratory and one metal manufacturer. According to the slides, no feedlots, dry cleaners or laundromats operate in the zones now.

How that protection works comes from the zoning bylaw’s general rules in Section I-C, which Article 17 doesn’t change. A use that is lawfully in place, or that holds a building or special permit issued before the town first published notice of the Planning Board’s hearing, isn’t subject to the new limits. The Zoning Board of Appeals can let an owner change or extend such a use by special permit if the change isn’t substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood, and in Zone II an expansion also turns on whether it would be substantially more detrimental to the water supply. A protected use that is abandoned or goes unused for three years loses its protection, although the Zoning Board can restore it by special permit. The town’s project page says the limits “will only apply to permitting changes in land use” and that parcels with existing permits “will not be affected.”

Selling one of those businesses came up at both Planning Board sessions. Town Counsel Jay Talerman told the board on October 8 that a sale doesn’t end a business’s protected status, which carries over to the new owner, unless the business’s original special permit says it can’t be transferred (Recording, 0:48:31). On October 14 the owner of the Jeffrey Avenue auto body shop said he hadn’t known about the hearing until a friend told him, that his shop’s special permit isn’t transferable, and that he worried the change would put off buyers when he sells, and the sustainability coordinator said the subcommittee had mailed invitations to its August question-and-answer session to every affected business it could find, some of which came back undeliverable (Recording, 0:06:45). (from the meeting recordings; minutes not yet approved)

For homeowners, six of the seven limits are written for commercial businesses, and the seventh, on pesticide storage, starts at 250 pounds on a single lot.

A resident raised the proposed housing development at 194 Lowland Street when the Select Board took up the wellhead bylaw on February 25, according to the board’s minutes, and MassDEP says that site lies in the Zone II of three town wells (letter). Article 17 wouldn’t apply to that project, because it is before the Zoning Board of Appeals as a Chapter 40B comprehensive permit, which state rules judge against the town’s bylaws as they stood when the application was filed in January, and housing isn’t among the article’s new limits in any case. The project’s water questions are being decided in that hearing and in MassDEP’s review of its wastewater discharge permit.

How it got to the warrant

Holliston has had a Groundwater Protection District in its zoning bylaw since 1983, and in more than four decades only three permits have been denied under it, according to the subcommittee’s slides. The subcommittee, which the Select Board appointed with members from sustainability, planning and conservation, compared Holliston’s rules zone by zone with those of 11 towns it considers comparable, among them Hopkinton, Medfield, Millis, Natick and Sherborn, and drew the new limits from their bylaws, the town’s project page says. Its slides give two kinds of reasons: new information about contaminants and other towns’ recent revisions, and public concern, citing what they call the top priority in the survey for the town’s Strategic Plan, to “protect and conserve the Town’s water to preserve it for future generations,” along with the discussion over where to put a new DPW facility.

Article 17 amends that bylaw. The wellhead protection plan MassDEP recommended in 2002 would be a separate document, and [add the DPW’s answer on whether the town has one, or that it hadn’t answered by publication]. The sustainability coordinator told the Planning Board on October 8 that the bylaw is meant as “the first step in many,” and that the group hopes next to bring in the Water Department and the Board of Health, seek state money for a study of the town’s aquifers, and take up the septic systems at the homes in the zones (Recording, 0:20:41). (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

The record, in order, with the bylaw’s own history drawn from the notes printed with it in the warrant:

• October 1983. A Special Town Meeting adopts the Groundwater Protection District as Article 20.

• 1996 to 2000. Whitman & Howard draws the district’s maps in 1996. The May 2000 Annual Town Meeting revises the bylaw under Article 35, and the state Attorney General approves the maps on September 21, 2000.

• February 26, 2002. MassDEP issues its Source Water Assessment and Protection report on Holliston’s wells (report, pages 614 to 626 of the Central Region file). It ranks the recharge areas for four of the town’s six wells at the time highly susceptible to contamination, listing an auto body shop, an auto repair station, a machine and metalworking shop, an industrial park and hazardous materials storage among the high threats inside them. It recommends that the town develop a wellhead protection plan, which it describes as a way to coordinate community efforts, identify protection strategies and set “a timeframe for implementation,” and that it form a wellhead protection committee, noting the town had neither.

• October 2013. A Special Town Meeting amends the bylaw under Article 19, including the rules for house lots in Zone II and the limit on manure storage.

• December 2017. Researchers from Clark University and Boston University, working with three Holliston residents, publish a peer-reviewed study of the town’s very shallow aquifers, which they rate highly vulnerable to contamination. It documents metals and solvents reported in the groundwater at several sites, and of the wellhead protection plan the 2002 report recommended, it says “none seems to have been developed” (study).

• October 20, 2025. At Fall Town Meeting, during a $508,766 article to study treating the town’s water for PFAS, a resident says a state environmental report about 20 years earlier had recommended a wellhead protection plan for Holliston that was never carried out (minutes), although Article 17 itself doesn’t mention PFAS.

• January 20, 2026. Marcus Partners files a Chapter 40B application with the Zoning Board of Appeals for 250 rental units, 63 of them affordable, on 42 acres at 194 Lowland Street (presentation, MassHousing letter), and the Zoning Board opens its hearing on February 11 (agenda).

• February 25, 2026. The town’s sustainability coordinator tells the Select Board the subcommittee has no draft language yet and is aiming for the October Town Meeting, and in public comment a resident asks about the bylaw and reads a statement about 194 Lowland Street into the record, according to the board’s minutes.

• June 11, 2026. MassDEP conditionally approves the groundwater study for 194 Lowland Street’s wastewater discharge of up to 48,060 gallons a day for 425 bedrooms, finding the site inside the Zone II of Wells 5, 6 and 7, about a mile from Well 5, and requiring its stricter effluent limits.

• August 12, 2026. The subcommittee presents its proposal at a public question-and-answer session (agenda).

• August 19 to October 8, 2026. The subcommittee meets five more times, going over the public’s comments at its August 19, September 24 and October 8 meetings (agendas for Aug. 19, Sept. 2, Sept. 3, Sept. 24 and Oct. 8), and posts its August 19 draft and its October 1 draft online.

• September 10, 2026. The Planning Board discusses the amendment as a possible Town Meeting article (agenda).

• October 8, 2026. The Planning Board opens its public hearing and continues it to October 14 (agenda).

• October 14, 2026. The Planning Board closes the hearing and votes 4–0 to recommend Article 17 with three changes to be offered at Town Meeting (agenda). (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

• October 19, 2026. Town Meeting takes up Article 17 at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium.

What it takes to pass

State law requires a two-thirds vote of Town Meeting to change the zoning bylaw (M.G.L. c. 40A, § 5). The same law says Town Meeting can’t vote to adopt a zoning change until the Planning Board has given it a report with recommendations, or until 21 days have passed after the board’s hearing without one. The board voted its recommendation when it closed the hearing on October 14, and its staff planner said she would write the report for Town Meeting.

Town Meeting can adopt the article, reject it, or amend it and adopt it. It takes up any amendments, such as the Planning Board’s, before the article itself, and the article, amended or not, still needs two-thirds to pass. If Town Meeting rejects the article, the same proposal can’t come back for two years unless the Planning Board recommends it in its final report. If it passes, it takes effect as of the vote once it has been published, though the state Attorney General’s office reviews it afterward and can disapprove parts of it.

Where the boards stand:

• Planning Board: recommends adoption with its three changes, 4–0, with one member absent. (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

• Select Board: the warrant prints no recommendation; its comment says it approved the article for the warrant.

• Finance Committee: none, since it makes recommendations only on financial articles, according to its report in the warrant.

If Town Meeting turns it down, the subcommittee’s slides say it would look for a compromise with the Board of Health, the Water Department and the town’s economic development officials.

How to weigh in

• Town Meeting is Monday, October 19, at 7 p.m. in the Holliston High School auditorium, 370 Hollis Street, where registered voters can speak and vote (warrant).

• The subcommittee takes comments by email at Envisioningfuture@holliston.k12.ma.us.

• The subcommittee’s October 1 draft shows every change to the bylaw, with new text in bold italic and deletions struck through. The warrant prints the article too.

• The subcommittee’s August 12 slides list the 22 businesses and the comparison towns.

• The Planning Board’s hearing is on the record: the recordings of October 8 and October 14, and the agendas for October 8 and October 14.

If you spot something wrong here, reply to the email or leave a comment, and the correction will run in the next issue with the date.

I use AI to transcribe meetings and to help pull details out of town documents, and I check every figure against the source before publishing; everything in this post links to where it came from.

The bylaw, adopted in 1983 and amended since, restricts how certain materials are handled in the groundwater protection district around the five wells that supply the town’s public water. Amelia Landau, the town’s sustainability manager, who staffs the subcommittee that drafted the amendments, said the district covers about a quarter of the town’s land area and that the aim is to improve water quality and protect the town’s water for future generations.

The board recommended three changes. It would strike the proposed definition and prohibition of animal feedlots, which the draft defines as commercial operations keeping 25 or more livestock per acre to prepare them for slaughter. It would remove the words “landscape refuse” from the definition of solid waste. And the six uses the amendment would newly prohibit in Zone 2, listed as Q through V in the draft (dry cleaning establishments, commercial chemical and bacteriological labs, automotive businesses, storage of 250 pounds or more of pesticides or herbicides, metal plating and finishing, and painting, wood preserving and paint stripping), would be allowed where suitable technology addresses groundwater concerns. Barbara Peatie, who ran the meeting, said a tight tank, a sealed holding tank, would be one such technology, and the board left the exact wording to be checked with Town Counsel.

Steve Proia spoke for Authentic Auto Body at 7 Jeffrey Avenue and said he had learned of the hearing from a friend because the town had not notified him. His concern was that buyers of his business, whose special permit does not transfer, might be scared off or pay less for it. He said his shop collects rainwater from its gutters, and everything from inside the shop, into holding tanks that were installed in 2021, so nothing can run off toward a well. Asked whether allowing those uses where such tanks are in place would solve his problem, he called it “a very happy medium for everybody.”

Landau said a mailer sent July 27, inviting businesses to a public question-and-answer session in August, went to every affected business the group could find, that Proia’s shop was among them, and that some mailers came back marked return to sender. She said the group had tried email early on but got immediate bounce-backs from some addresses on file and did not use it for outreach. She said she had also tabled at the farmers market for 12 weeks, reaching more than 150 people, and reached about 150 more at Celebrate Holliston, and she offered to work case by case with business owners, though she said she cannot give legal advice on selling a business.

Board member Jim Read said he had asked officials at Town Hall, including the building commissioner, how the bylaw would affect a business sale, and was read the town’s non-conforming use bylaw, which says the Planning Board “may” transfer a special permit at a sale. “What caught my ear was may. Not will, not must, but may,” he said. Peatie, citing what town counsel told the board the week before, said that whether an existing permit can be transferred depends on the conditions of approval set when it was issued, that nothing in the amendments changes that, and that existing businesses remain grandfathered.

Santos sent an email that Sarah Scott, the town’s director of planning and community development, read aloud. He supported prohibiting automotive businesses, dry cleaners and metal plating or coating in groundwater protection areas but opposed any restrictions on landscape debris, residential or commercial, or on agricultural activities such as feedlots, noting that the town’s own landscape dump on Marshall Street appears to sit close to or within a protection area, and he said he would support the bylaw without those two items. Landau replied that landscape debris is not part of the proposed amendment and that he may have meant fertilizer or manure, both of which are in the original bylaw and come from the state’s model language.

Resident Ellen Troland of Maryland Street asked who would monitor any technology installed to meet the standard, given that the town does not have enough staff to do it. She said that if the water supply fails, residents will not be able to sell their homes either, and she urged residents who value the water to attend the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting the following night.

Earlier in the meeting the board voted 4-0 to approve an Approval Not Required plan dividing one lot on Prentice Street into two. The plan brought to the board the week before had listed the wrong minimum lot frontage and depth for the district, which made the lot look non-conforming, and the applicant corrected the plan and resubmitted it.

Scott said she would write the board’s report to Town Meeting the next day, share it with board members for corrections, and expected a quick turnaround.

From the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved.

Town Hall

Town Meeting is Monday, October 19th in the Holliston High School Auditorium., 7 p.m.; arrive 15 to 25 minutes early

★ Sewer Commission 2, October 8: State denies the full $4.7 million MassWorks request for the sewer project (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ School Committee, October 8: Reviews 2026 MCAS results: all schools meet state ratings, English learners decline (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ Planning Board, October 8: Groundwater bylaw would add seven prohibited uses; 22 existing businesses may be affected (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ School Committee, October 8: Approves acceptable-use policy change covering AI and enhanced technology tools (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ Envisioning Future Holliston Committee Wellhead Bylaw Subcommittee, October 8: Grant reapplication planned; RFR expected to open in February and close in March (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

★ Envisioning Future Holliston Committee Wellhead Bylaw Subcommittee, October 8: Wellhead bylaw: pre-existing uses can be grandfathered, including on sale (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

Around Town

Monday holiday pushes trash and recycling pickup back a day, starting October 12 (Town of Holliston)

Holliston Panthers football defeats rival Hopkinton Hillers in first TVL League game (tvlsports.net)

Schools superintendent seeks more volunteers for PTO, HEF and other groups; Site Council meetings are open (Holliston Reporter)

Holliston High School posts AI deepfake guidelines tied to Massachusetts law (hhs.holliston.k12.ma.us)

Bates College Class of 2026 includes Holliston graduate Sophia Cocchiarella, psychology major (Holliston Reporter)

Newcomers & Neighbors seeks Thanksgiving donations for Holliston Pantry Shelf and others (Holliston Reporter)

Shirley B. Gifford, 98, formerly of Holliston, dies; private service, burial at Lake Grove Cemetery (Holliston Reporter)

Happenings

Tuesday, October 13

• Farmers market at 24 Water Street is open from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

• Board of Health hearing at 7:05 p.m. on limiting nicotine pouch sales to adult-only tobacco stores (town site)

• Conservation Commission meets by Zoom at 7:30 p.m.; hearings on two Prentice Street homes follow (town site)

• School Committee communications panel votes on newsletter at 8:30 p.m., online only (town site)

Wednesday, October 14

• Economic Development Committee meets at noon on Zoom to discuss Master Plan and bylaws with Town Administrator (town site)

• School Building Committee meets at 6:45 p.m. in Town Hall Room 105 or on Zoom, with public comment (town site)

• Planning Board, 7 p.m. by Zoom: hearing resumes on Groundwater Protection District by-law change (town site)

Saturday, October 17

• Free flu and Covid-19 clinic runs 9 a.m. to noon at 235 Woodland Street

Friday, October 23

• Holliston Panthers face Norwood Mustangs in varsity football at 6 p.m.

Saturday, October 24

• SEPAC Trunk or Treat set for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 235 Woodland Street

Tuesday, October 27

• Board of Health meets remotely at 7 p.m.

Sunday, November 1

• Metrowest Symphony opens its season with Beethoven’s Fifth at Framingham State, 2 p.m.; seniors $10

Monday, November 2

• Business owners can meet state and federal resource agencies at Upper Town Hall at 5 p.m.

• Small business owners can meet SBA and state officials at Town Hall, 5 to 7 p.m.

The Select Board voted 2–1 on Monday, October 5, to remove the master plan continuity bylaw, Article 18, from the October 19, 2026 Town Meeting warrant, and then unanimously approved the rest of the warrant for signature and accepted the Circuit Breaker Senior Means Tested Exemption at 100% of the state benefit for fiscal year 2027. The School Committee on Thursday, October 8, unanimously approved the superintendent’s goals for 2026-27 and an amended acceptable use policy that adds language on AI. The Board of Health holds a hearing on Tuesday, October 13, at 7:05 p.m. on limiting nicotine pouch sales to adult-only tobacco stores.

Decisions

Select Board, Monday, October 5 (from the meeting recording)

• Senior means-tested tax exemption, fiscal year 2027: accepted the Circuit Breaker Senior Means Tested Exemption at 100% of the state benefit for fiscal year 2027, as the Board of Assessors recommended (unanimous). Recording, 0:55:27

• Master plan continuity bylaw (Article 18): voted to remove the master plan continuity bylaw article from the October 19, 2026 Town Meeting warrant (2–1). Recording, 2:22:13

• October 2026 Town Meeting warrant: approved the October 2026 Town Meeting warrant as presented for signature, letting the town manager and town counsel make non-substantive edits (unanimous). Recording, 2:40:00

School Committee, Thursday, October 8 (from the meeting recording)

• Superintendent’s goals for 2026-27: approved the superintendent’s goals for the 2026-27 school year (unanimous). Recording, 0:29:26

• Acceptable use of digital resources policy: approved the amended acceptable use of digital resources policy, adding language on AI and enhanced technology tools (unanimous). Recording, 1:20:56

From minutes the town posted since the last edition

Finance Committee, Tuesday, September 15 (from the minutes)

• Capital Subcommittee vacancy: elected Sandra Graham to the Capital Subcommittee to fill the vacancy left by a member no longer on the Finance Committee (6–0). Minutes

Finance Committee, Tuesday, September 22 (from the minutes)

• Association of Town Finance Committees dues: authorized payment of $235.00 for Association of Town Finance Committees (ATFC) dues (7–0). Minutes

Coming Up

Tuesday, October 13

• Farmers market at 24 Water Street is open from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

• Board of Health hearing at 7:05 p.m. on limiting nicotine pouch sales to adult-only tobacco stores Agenda

• Conservation Commission meets by Zoom at 7:30 p.m.; hearings on two Prentice Street homes follow Agenda

• School Committee communications panel votes on newsletter at 8:30 p.m., online only Agenda

Wednesday, October 14

• Economic Development Committee meets at noon on Zoom to discuss Master Plan and bylaws with Town Administrator Agenda

• School Building Committee meets at 6:45 p.m. in Town Hall Room 105 or on Zoom, with public comment Agenda

• Planning Board, 7 p.m. by Zoom: hearing resumes on Groundwater Protection District by-law change Agenda

Saturday, October 17

• Free flu and Covid-19 clinic runs 9 a.m. to noon at 235 Woodland Street

The Holliston Ledger reports from posted agendas, minutes and meeting recordings. Items marked “from the meeting recording” were written before the board approved its minutes and may change when it does. If something here is wrong, reply to this email, and the correction will run at the bottom of the post and in next week’s edition.

• Article 3, where the Finance Committee recommends putting $3.3 million into the Capital Expenditure Fund, $1.2 million more than the warrant’s estimate, to rebuild a fund that fell below the town’s minimum after an accounting error

• Article 11, a $3.2 million capital budget, about $1.3 million of it from that fund

• Article 12, three Community Preservation projects, including $125,000 to expand and renovate the Senior Center’s outdoor space with a sensory garden

• Article 14, a second vote on the Placentino and Miller school roof project, which the state requires before it will share the cost

• Article 17, seven new limits on land uses near the town’s five public wells, among them businesses that sell, fuel, wash or repair cars

• Article 18, the Constitution Village citizens’ petition for street lights

Where the money comes from. Articles 1 through 3 would use all of the town’s free cash, the money left over when the last fiscal year closed, which the Finance Committee expects to be $2,709,670 once the state certifies it: $150,000 to the general reserve, $250,000 to the pension reserve and $2,309,670 to the Capital Expenditure Fund, along with $1 million moved from money Town Meeting set aside for DPW facility design in May 2025. Article 11 spends $1,272,030 from the Capital Expenditure Fund, $100,000 from the water system’s retained earnings and $1.8 million from its infrastructure account; Article 12 spends $334,000 in Community Preservation money; Article 13 redirects money Town Meeting set aside for the Central Fire Station in May 2024; and Articles 14 and 18 don’t name an amount.

The Capital Expenditure Fund, which pays for vehicles, equipment and building work, is the money story at this meeting. The Select Board’s message says an independent review traced a reporting discrepancy back to fiscal 2022 and found the fund about $750,000 below the target in the town’s financial policies, and the Finance Committee’s report puts the fund’s uncommitted balance at $758,918 below the policy minimum. In May, Town Meeting put $2,125,611 into the fund and approved $3,455,000 in spending from it. The Finance Committee’s recommendations would leave the fund at $2,812,103, about $1.28 million above the minimum, and the committee warns that without the additional buffer it recommends, the fund would be left “near its policy minimum and ill-prepared to handle an unanticipated expense.”

Two things you may have heard about aren’t on the warrant. The Select Board’s message says a new DPW facility is still in the works: the town has owned 20 Cross Street, the site voters approved in 2023, since August, and is waiting on a federal brownfields assessment expected by the end of the year. And a proposed master plan bylaw that was on the draft warrant was removed by the Select Board on October 5, according to the Finance Committee’s chair (from the meeting recording).

How the votes are counted. Town Meeting decides most questions by a majority of those voting. State law sets a two-thirds threshold for a few kinds of votes, and two of them can come up here: changing the zoning bylaw, which is Article 17 (M.G.L. c. 40A, § 5), and borrowing, which would apply to Article 14 if the motion borrows the money (c. 44, § 2). The warrant doesn’t print the vote each article needs, and the Moderator announces it before each vote.

Articles 1 through 10: reserve funds and personnel rules

Article 1: General Stabilization Fund

• A yes vote: moves $150,000 of free cash into the town’s main reserve, which the Select Board says held $10.96 million on July 1 and would end at $11.11 million, or 14.49 percent of this year’s budgeted spending, inside the town’s policy range of 12 to 18 percent.

• Cost and source: $150,000 from free cash

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends $150,000 from free cash, unanimous

Article 2: Pension Stabilization Fund

• A yes vote: moves $250,000 of free cash into the fund Town Meeting created in May 2021 to pay down the town’s unfunded pension liability, taking it from about $1.92 million to about $2.17 million. State law requires pension systems to be fully funded by 2040, and the Select Board says both systems Holliston pays into are about 60 percent funded.

• Cost and source: $250,000 from free cash

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends $250,000 from free cash, unanimous

Article 3: Capital Expenditure Fund

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: puts money into the Capital Expenditure Fund. The warrant estimates $2,100,000 from free cash, which the Select Board says would leave the fund at about $1.60 million after Article 11, above the $1.5 million minimum (2 percent of operating spending) set by the town’s financial policies. The Finance Committee recommends more (below).

• Cost and source: $2,100,000 from free cash as printed; $3,309,670 under the Finance Committee’s recommendation

• Vote needed: majority. Last October, Town Meeting redirected the same May 2025 DPW money on a voice vote, and in September the Town Manager told the Finance Committee that the state Department of Revenue had agreed with Town Counsel that a majority was enough for the 2025 DPW articles (minutes · town site).

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board. The Finance Committee unanimously recommends $3,309,670: $2,309,670 from free cash plus $1,000,000 from Article 19 of the May 2025 Town Meeting, money set aside for feasibility, engineering and design work on a new DPW facility. Its report says the deposit would bring the fund back into compliance with town policy, pay for Article 11 and leave a buffer for unexpected needs, ending at $2,812,103, about $1.28 million above the policy minimum.

• Background: The report says the committee learned after the May Town Meeting that an accounting error had made the fund figures it was given by the town’s finance team inaccurate, and that the fund’s uncommitted balance turned out to be $758,918 below the policy minimum; the committee says it looks forward to the Town Manager’s and Select Board’s findings on the cause and the fix. At the committee’s October 6 meeting, members agreed Town Meeting should be told plainly that no money is missing, and chair Ken Szajda said “things weren’t properly binned in the buckets.” He called the $1 million transfer temporary, since the DPW money won’t be spent until the town cleans up the property for that project, and said he hoped to put it back before the DPW needs it (from the meeting recording).

Article 4: New job title in the Planning Department

• A yes vote: adds the title Permitting Coordinator, grade 400, to the town’s job classification plan, so the Administrative Clerk who supports the Planning Department can take that title. The clerk’s job is already grade 400, so the Select Board says there is no cost, and it calls the change part of a larger effort to define the role’s responsibilities.

• Cost and source: none

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee, which recommends only on financial articles, made none

Article 5: Personnel bylaw, definition of immediate family

• A yes vote: adds a definition of “immediate family” to the town’s personnel bylaw: father, mother, a relative living in the same household, father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister, brother, spouse, child, grandparents and grandchildren. The Select Board says it mirrors the town’s union contracts, and Article 9 applies it to bereavement leave.

• Cost and source: none stated

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

Article 6: Personnel bylaw, background checks

• A yes vote: rewrites the bylaw’s background check section so that job candidates can be required to undergo a sex offender registry check (SORI) as well as a criminal record check (CORI), with the Town Administrator still deciding whether a check affects the hiring decision. The Select Board says the change is meant for positions with potential unmonitored contact with vulnerable people.

• Cost and source: none stated

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

Article 7: Personnel bylaw, vacation

• A yes vote: starting July 1, 2027, full-time employees would earn vacation month by month from their date of hire instead of receiving it each July 1, at two weeks a year for up to 5 years of service, three weeks for 6 to 10, four for 11 to 15 and five for 16 or more. In the text being struck, three weeks start after five years and four and five weeks both after twenty, so the new schedule also reaches the top two levels sooner. Carryover stays at 10 days, and departing employees are still paid for unused vacation they have accrued.

• Cost and source: none stated in the warrant

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

• Background: The Select Board calls the current policy out of date and not competitive, since an employee hired in July doesn’t receive two weeks of vacation until after the first year of work, and says the town has lost highly qualified candidates in recent months as a result.

Article 8: Personnel bylaw, personal days

• A yes vote: raises personal days for permanent employees from two a year to three and grants them by fiscal year instead of calendar year, with 1.5 days credited on January 1, 2027 and then 3 days every July 1 starting in 2027. Unused personal time would expire at the end of each fiscal year. The Select Board says three days is comparable to nearby towns.

• Cost and source: none stated

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

Article 9: Personnel bylaw, bereavement leave

• A yes vote: rewrites the bereavement section, up to five days at full pay at the department head’s discretion, to use Article 5’s definition of immediate family, and extends it to parents who suffer the loss of a pregnancy. The new definition names “a relative residing in the same household” where the current one names “domestic partner” and “significant other residing in the same household.”

• Cost and source: none stated

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

Article 10: Personnel bylaw, Town Manager

• A yes vote: replaces “Town Administrator” with “Town Manager” throughout the personnel bylaw and updates the position description, to match the Town Manager Act passed by the state legislature and the October 2024 Town Meeting.

• Cost and source: none

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

Articles 11 through 15: capital spending, preservation, the fire station, the school roof and the opioid fund

Article 11: Capital budget

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: spends $3,172,030 on the items below and lets the Select Board trade in or sell old equipment toward them.

  • Schools ($605,000): Woodland Street campus exterior doors, $300,000; Chromebooks, $175,000; Middle School dishwasher, $50,000; high school supplies for a schedule change, $50,000; science curriculum updates, $30,000

  • Public Safety ($287,030): two police cruisers and a hybrid administrative vehicle, $207,100 ($135,000 for the cruisers and $72,100 for the administrative vehicle, per the Finance Committee); fingerprinting system, $40,000; structural firefighting gear, $39,930

  • Public Works ($202,000): 1-ton dump truck, $121,000; sander body replacement, $51,000; grounds equipment, $30,000

  • Facilities ($128,000): a Chevy Blazer EV replacing a Nissan Leaf, which the Finance Committee’s list assigns to the Building and Assessors offices, $52,000; door access controls at 1750 Washington Street, $37,000; wastewater treatment plant SCADA controls, $24,000; door access controls at the library, $15,000

  • Information Technology ($50,000): wireless network access points

  • Water ($1,900,000): water main replacements at Concord and High streets, Northway (the Select Board’s comment says Norland Street), and Goulding Street and Adam Wheeler Road (Lane in the Finance Committee’s report), $1,800,000; lead and copper service line replacements, $100,000

• Cost and source: $3,172,030, of which $1,272,030 comes from the Capital Expenditure Fund, $100,000 from water retained earnings and $1,800,000 from the water infrastructure account

• Vote needed: not printed in the warrant; the Moderator announces it before the vote. Last October’s capital budget, paid from the same fund, passed on a voice vote (minutes · town site).

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends the full list, unanimous, and its report notes that the $1,272,030 from the capital fund is below the committee’s usual October spending level

• Background: The service line money is for federal lead rules that require the town to dig down and confirm that every water service connection is free of lead and galvanized steel. The Select Board says 50 excavations are done and 3,038 public-side services of 5,018 connections still need one, the next EPA deadline is November 1, 2027, and more money will be requested. On October 6 the Finance Committee chair passed along the DPW director’s account that the town tests its water for lead routinely and has no lead problem, and that the digging is required wherever a line’s material isn’t on record (from the meeting recording). The water mains cover about 2,500 feet of 8-inch ductile iron pipe at locations chosen for frequent breaks, leaking or broken valves, and repeated service disruptions.

Article 12: Community Preservation projects

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: spends Community Preservation money on three projects:

  • an engineering study of ADA accessibility, erosion control and horizontal infrastructure at Stoddard Park, $94,000

  • window and stucco restoration at the Central Fire Station, $115,000

  • a sensory garden at the Senior Center, $125,000

• Cost and source: $334,000: $94,000 and $125,000 from the Community Preservation general reserve and $115,000 from its historic resources reserve. The warrant prints the total as $209,000, which leaves out the Senior Center project, but the Finance Committee’s recommendation and its fund table both use $334,000.

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Community Preservation Committee; the Finance Committee recommends all three, unanimous, describing the Senior Center project as the expansion and renovation of outdoor space there

• Background: At the Finance Committee’s October 6 meeting, Frank Chamberlain of the Community Preservation Committee presented the Senior Center money as contingent on the center’s septic system passing a Title 5 inspection. He described the Stoddard Park study as the first phase of a longer project that could add a paved walkway to the beach, a splash pad, a retaining wall to keep sand out of the lake, and eventually new changing rooms and restrooms. The fire station money would restore the stucco and the historic front windows on the 1930 portion of the building, with the rest of the windows to be replaced through a Green Communities grant the town already has. For the garden, he said about $90,000 of the cost has been identified, roughly $38,000 for plants and $52,000 for hardscaping including a new patio, with the rest for irrigation, a pergola and benches, and that the Senior Center says it can maintain the garden with its own budget and volunteers (from the meeting recording).

Article 13: Buying the solar panels on the Central Fire Station

• A yes vote: lets the town use money from Article 22 of the May 2024 Town Meeting to buy the solar array on the fire headquarters at 59 Central Street from the company that owns it, take it down while the roof is replaced, and put it back up.

• Cost and source: an estimated $421,500, moved from the May 2024 appropriation; the Select Board gives the purchase price as $111,283

• Vote needed: not printed in the warrant; the Moderator announces it before the vote.

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends reallocating $421,500 from that 2024 article for the roof repair and the solar array purchase, unanimous

• Background: The town signed a power purchase agreement in 2018 with a company that built and owns the array. Town Meeting set aside $300,000 in May 2024 for the roof, which the Select Board says is “in dire need of repair,” but the agreement would charge the town more than $100,000 to disconnect and move the panels during the work, and that has held the project up. The Select Board says buying the array costs about the same as keeping the current arrangement and lets the town keep all of the energy savings. At the Finance Committee meeting, members said the $421,500 is what remains of two fire station lines in that 2024 article, $300,000 for the roof and $135,000 for improvements including windows, and that it would now cover the roof and the solar purchase because a grant covers the windows (from the meeting recording).

Article 14: Placentino and Miller roof, second vote

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: provides money, spent under the School Committee’s direction, for a feasibility study and schematic design for partial roof replacements at the Miller and Placentino elementary schools at 235 Woodland Street. The article states that any cost beyond what a state grant covers is the town’s alone.

• Cost and source: no amount stated. The article allows the money to be appropriated, borrowed or transferred, so the amount and its source will be in the motion made at the meeting.

• Vote needed: two-thirds if the motion borrows the money, since state law requires two-thirds to authorize debt (c. 44, § 2); a majority if it uses money the town already has

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends favorable action, unanimous; the warrant prints no School Committee position

• Background: Last October, Town Meeting approved $1,350,000 for the flat sections of these roofs as one line of the capital budget (minutes · town site). Since then the Massachusetts School Building Authority has invited Holliston into its Accelerated Repair Program, which pays part of the cost, and the Select Board says the authority requires its projects to be approved in a standalone article, so the project needs a second vote in that form.

Article 15: Closing the opioid settlement fund

• A yes vote: closes the Opioid Settlement Stabilization Fund that Town Meeting created in October 2023 and moves what is in it to a special revenue account. The Select Board says a state law signed in December 2023, and later Department of Revenue guidance, allow settlement money to be kept that way, and that money in such an account can be spent “without further appropriation, at the direction of the chief executive officer,” only on what the settlements allow: prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery. Town Meeting would no longer vote on how it is spent.

• Cost and source: none; the warrant doesn’t say how much is in the fund

• Vote needed: not printed in the warrant; the Moderator announces it before the vote.

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends favorable action, unanimous

Articles 16 through 18: sewers, the wells and the street lights

Article 16: Sewer Commission report

• A yes vote: none is taken; Town Meeting hears the Sewer Commission’s report on bylaws for a sewer district.

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board, whose comment says only “To be heard at Town Meeting”

Article 17: Groundwater Protection District

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: amends the Groundwater Protection District section of the zoning bylaw to prohibit seven more uses in Zone II, the aquifers and main recharge areas that feed the town’s five public wells, and therefore in the stricter zones closest to the wells as well:

  • animal feedlots, defined as 25 or more livestock per acre raised for slaughter, unless inside a structure built to contain runoff

  • dry cleaners and coin or commercial laundries that clean on the premises

  • commercial chemical or bacteriological research and development labs

  • businesses that sell, service, fuel, wash, lease, rent or repair motor vehicles, machines and equipment

  • storage of 250 pounds or more of herbicides or pesticides on one lot, unless kept in a weatherproof building with an impermeable floor

  • commercial plating, finishing, etching or polishing of metals or semiconductors

  • commercial painting, wood preserving or paint stripping

  It also adds several definitions and drops the word “liquid” from the existing ban on storing petroleum products in Zone II, which keeps its exceptions for household use, heating and emergency generators. The Select Board says the new limits apply to future changes in land use, and existing permitted uses are not affected.

• Cost and source: none

• Vote needed: two-thirds, which state law requires for zoning changes

• Recommendations: sponsored jointly by the Select Board, the Planning Board and Envisioning Future Holliston; the warrant prints no Planning Board recommendation, and the board’s public hearing on the article was continued to October 14; no Finance Committee recommendation

• Background: The town’s project page says the rules haven’t been significantly revised since 2000, and the full redline is on pages 18 to 29 of the combined warrant (PDF · town site). The proposal comes from Envisioning Future Holliston’s Wellhead Protection By-law Subcommittee, to meet goals in the town’s Strategic Plan, and at last October’s Town Meeting a resident pointed out that a state report about 20 years earlier had recommended a wellhead protection plan for Holliston that was never carried out (minutes · town site).

Article 18: Citizens’ petition, Constitution Village street lights

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: as printed, has Town Meeting vote to install street lighting on the Constitution Village roads, paid for from available municipal funds or other sources. The motion expected on the floor is narrower. The Finance Committee’s report supports a motion “to request that the Select Board develop a comprehensive plan for street lights in areas where there are deficiencies,” and on October 6 the committee heard that the petitioner, working with the Town Manager, plans to move that Town Meeting ask the Select Board to identify streetlight deficiencies across town, Constitution Village included, and to work with the Finance Committee on a funding source and financing plan, with no money attached. Committee chair Ken Szajda said he expects Town Counsel to tell Town Meeting the motion is advisory only (from the meeting recording).

• Cost and source: no amount in the article or the planned motion. At the Select Board’s September 28 meeting the petitioners gave a working estimate of about $250,000 for 27 lights on foundations and conduit already in the ground, a figure they said still needs confirming.

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: brought by citizens’ petition; the Finance Committee supports that motion, unanimous; the warrant prints no Select Board recommendation; its comment is summarized below

• Background: The petitioners told the Select Board that street lighting was part of the subdivision’s original approval and was never finished. In its comment on the article, the board says that on October 5 it asked the Town Manager to set up a town-wide process for evaluating streetlights on public ways, new lights included, as part of the FY2028 budget work that begins in January 2027, and that the process would take in Constitution Village. The Town Manager told the Finance Committee the board would likely act on a streetlight prioritization plan before the end of November (from the meeting recording).

If you’re going. The town asks people to arrive 15 to 25 minutes early to check in, and there is preferred parking for seniors and closed captioning (town notice). I’ll post the results after the meeting from the HCAT video and the Town Clerk’s certified votes. If you spot something wrong here, reply to the email or leave a comment, and the correction will run in the next issue with the date.

I use AI to transcribe meetings and to help pull details out of town documents, and I check every figure against the source before publishing; everything in this guide links to where it came from.

Where the news comes from

Twice a week, a simple Python program reads the town’s website (its news flashes, alerts, posted agendas and calendar) along with the Holliston Reporter’s feed and collects anything new. For each posted agenda, the software opens the agenda to find which committee is meeting and what’s on the docket. Meeting recordings come from the same place, the town’s Agenda Center, where boards post their video and audio, often weeks before the minutes are approved.

What the AI does

For each new item, an AI model reads the source and writes up to three possible headlines, each paired with the sentence from the source that supports it, and a second, smaller model reads each headline against the source and flags anything the source doesn’t say. After that, ordinary Python code checks that every number, vote count and quotation in a headline appears in the source. All of this is dropped off into a Google spreadsheet, including the items the program decided to skip, so I can see what it left out as well as what it kept.

What I do

I read every row in that Google spreadsheet, open the link, and pick a headline, rewrite it or drop the item. Nothing reaches Substack unless I’ve approved it and vetted it myself and none of these programs can publish anything by themselves. The model also suggests which item should lead The Briefing, and that call is mine too.

Meetings

For the boards that make the large decisions, like the Select Board, the Finance Committee and the Planning Board, a program downloads the town’s recording and transcribes it overnight on my own computer with Whisper (an open-source speech-recognition program) using a list of Holliston names and streets so it writes “Hiawatha Trail” and “Eversource” instead of guessing. It then grabs every motion, vote and dollar figure and places it into a checklist with the timestamp in the recording where each one was said. A model then drafts a summary from the transcript, with each fact tied to its time in the recording. I then check those facts against the video before any of it runs, with a preference given to the official meeting minutes if they have been posted.

The transcripts themselves stay private because speech recognition still gets names wrong and can’t always tell one speaker from another (the automatic captions for one recent meeting spelled a resident’s name four different ways). I’m not willing to publish a record I can’t stand behind word for word.

What stays private until I’ve asked

When something in the record looks like a mistake or a conflict, it goes on a private list of questions first, and it appears in the Ledger only after I’ve asked the office or committee responsible, along with their answer.

When I get it wrong (and I will)

Corrections go at the bottom of the corrected post and in the next This Week at Town Hall, and every item links to its source so you can check my work against the record. A ★ marks items I reported from the public record myself; everything else links to reporting by the Holliston Reporter, HCAT or the town. If you see something wrong, or know something the record doesn’t, reply to any email, and it comes straight to me.