Boxborough Planning Board scraps Route 111 gateway rezoning, advances six ATM articles

BOXBOROUGH — March 16, 2026 — Boxborough Planning Board withdraws Route 111 gateway zoning article after business owner opposition. The four-member board, meeting remotely with Acting Chair Rich Guzzardi filling in for absent Chair Rebecca Verner, voted 4-0 Monday to pull the proposed B2 Gateway Business District from the Annual Town Meeting warrant after operators of Element Materials Technology and Lindskog Balancing — both long-standing tenants along Massachusetts Avenue — raised concerns that rezoning from Industrial Commercial to a new gateway district could restrict their ability to expand. Bobby Lunnin, representing Element Materials Technology, which employs 60 to 70 people and hosts up to 60 international customers weekly, asked whether individual lots could be excluded if the intent was to grandfather existing uses. Board member Mark White said the proposal had become "piling on" a simple concept and was "less likely to succeed" in its expanded form. The board simultaneously advanced four zoning bylaw amendments and two general bylaws to the ATM warrant, including a 4-0 recommendation for a plastics-reduction bylaw and a 4-0 vote to authorize the town to seek state permission to restrict second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides — adopting town counsel's advice to request legislative authority before drafting a full bylaw. A Scenic Road Bylaw was also withdrawn 4-0 after residents said they had no reliable way to know whether their trees or stone walls fell within the public right-of-way.