Boxborough Select Board Votes 3-1 to Back Campanelli Development in Rare Move

BOXBOROUGH -- September 11, 2025, Boxborough Select Board votes 3-1 to send letter backing Campanelli commercial development. In a special meeting called solely to address the matter, the board authorized Town Administrator Mike Kelly to draft a letter to the Planning Board expressing support for the Campanelli site plan on Beaverbrook Road, where a major commercial development is pending after Cisco's original permits expired and required renewal. Chair Kristen Hilbert, who has attended multiple Planning Board hearings on the project, argued that Boxborough's budget shortfalls and reputation for being unwelcoming to business made board support essential, noting that Planning Board members have sought reductions in building height and setbacks even though the project is fully within town zoning bylaws. Member Wes cast the lone dissenting vote, saying it "was not very enjoyable a few years ago when that was happening to us" and he would not willingly do it to another elected board. Former Planning Board member John Markowitz, attending as a member of the public, said in nearly 24 years on that board he could not recall the Select Board ever submitting a letter on a development application, citing Town Center, Paddock Estates, and the original Cisco project as precedents where the Select Board stayed silent. Kelly disclosed after the vote that he had already sent his own letter of support to the Planning Board on August 25 in his capacity as town administrator, based on his work with Campanelli on a Beaverbrook Road water line project.