Pepperell Planning Board Approves Self-Storage Expansion With Drainage Conditions

PEPPERELL — April 21, 2026 — Pepperell Planning Board unanimously approves self-storage expansion and launches downtown housing overlay review. The board voted to approve major site plan application PMAJ-26-1, filed by applicant Mike Blood, to add two buildings — 10,000 square feet and 5,000 square feet — to an existing self-storage facility on Wilmar Park Drive, with conditions requiring a revised site plan showing exterior and snow storage areas, an underground infiltration component to address freeze-thaw drainage, elimination of an existing contractor yard, and a no-clearing condition on a forested strip abutting a town roadway. The board then spent more than an hour on a presentation by the town planner on the state's 40Y starter home zoning program, which the town is considering branding as a "Multi-Generational Housing Overlay" over some or all of Pepperell's 310-parcel Urban Residential district, where the average structure dates to 1945, lot coverage runs 14 to 20 percent, and the existing one-per-10,000-square-foot density already approaches the four-units-per-acre floor the program requires. Officials noted Pepperell issued only two single-family building permits in 2025 — compared with more than six ADU permits — and framed the zoning review as essential to making smaller, more affordable housing economically viable in the downtown.