Planning Board Orders Rewritten Denial of 130 Middlesex Road Mixed-Use Permit

TYNGSBOROUGH — May 21, 2026 — Tyngsborough Planning Board unanimously authorized a revised denial of a mixed-use special permit at 130 Middlesex Road, acting on a Superior Court remand. Town Counsel Adam Costa explained that a judge found the board's original one-sentence written denial — that parking adequacy evidence "was insufficient" — too thin to sustain, and ordered the board to further deliberate and re-explain its reasoning. The central dispute is a zoning bylaw parking formula: Costa interprets it as requiring one space per 200 square feet of gross leasable area with a floor of three spaces per establishment, producing a 120-space requirement, while the applicant argues the "or" language allows a choice, yielding only 88 spaces — exactly what was proposed against an existing supply of 71. A board spreadsheet showed five recent non-residential approvals in town all calculated under the stricter method. Member Kristen Keegan called it "outrageous" to suggest a restaurant like Casadores needs only three parking spaces, and the four-member panel voted 4 to 0 to let Costa draft a supplemental decision focused on parking interpretation, past practice, and site safety concerns, to be signed by Acting Chair Jeremy Baldwin without a further meeting.