Businesses elect to wait for full Planning Board
By Catie Foertsch Community Reporter

Westborough - An absence at the July 3 Planning Board meeting caused two local businesses to postpone their presentations for permits.

EMC is looking for a subdivision permit to build an office park on the Westborough- Southborough line, and Herb Chambers wants a special permit to build an Infiniti dealership at Route 9 and Otis Street. Because a family emergency kept Planning Board member Maureen Bliss from attending the meeting, both EMC and Herb Chambers elected to come back when the full Plan- ning Board could assemble.

They have been placed on the board's Tuesday Aug. 7 agenda.

EMC

EMC has been working with the board for nearly a year on a complicated special permit for an eight-building business park on 445 acres on the Westborough Southborough line.

Discussions with the Planning Board have involved several issues, including location of roadways, use of 30 acres of open space, traffic impacts, protection of wetlands, a proposed conservation restriction, drainage and the relocation of Washington Street.

The project is further complicated by the fact that EMC also needs subdivision approval from the Southborough Planning Board.

For the first time since the public hearings began in November 2006, EMC brought a court reporter to the Planning Board meeting.

A subdivision approval requires the votes of three Planning Board members, and EMC's attorney, Patrick Toomey of McCarter English, said EMC wished to proceed with the full board because "it is better to have all members present."

Herb Chambers

Herb Chambers has applied for a special permit to build an Infiniti dealership at the corner of Otis Street and Route 9, and to build a repair facility for its Ford dealership on the Otis parcel directly behind the existing Ford dealership.

The Infiniti project is also complicated, and issues include drainage, open space, lighting and parking.

Unlike a subdivision approval, which requires three Planning Board votes, a special permit requires four Planning Board votes.