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

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.”

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 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)

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.