Zoning Board of Appeals, April 14, 2021

The town published an agenda, an agenda, an agenda for this meeting. No minutes have been published; the recording is the only record, and what follows is a guide to it.

economic developmentplanning and zoningpublic commentpublic safety

Present: lisa normanden (board secretary); jim bezikowski (member); hans winthrop (member); david blatt (member); patrick callahan (member (handles Zoom participants)); tony nacastro (member). Names are the caption model’s hearing and may be wrong.

Votes

1. ▶ 1:17:11Approve the Empire Management special permits: continued non-conforming parking and display within 30 feet of the street and 15 feet of other lot lines, and an amendment to the 2005 permit, with conditions including a 15-foot minimum from the edge of pavement. — moved by hans winthrop, as heardpassed (roll call responses all in favor; chair said approved)
2. ▶ 1:42:50Approve the special permit for 7 feet of front yard setback relief at 45 Cove Road.passed (roll call responses all in favor; chair said approved)
3. ▶ 2:01:58Approve the dimensional variation reducing the front yard setback from 40 feet to 25 feet for PSG Realty.passed (roll call responses all in favor; chair said approved)
4. ▶ 2:26:00Approve the side yard setbacks (10 feet garage, 8 feet house) and 4.3 feet of height relief at 12 Sunset Lane.passed (roll call responses all in favor; chair said approved)

And 1 procedural: adjourn. (▶ 2:29:07).

The money

Nothing touching money was heard beyond the transfers.

Settled without a vote

• ▶ 2:25:13The Sunset Lane applicant agreed to email the revised plans to the board the next morning.
• ▶ 1:34:38The Subaru applicant offered to prepare a draft decision for the board secretary's review; the secretary will also write her own from the recording.
• ▶ 2:29:28The board has nothing scheduled for the rest of April; any new application would be heard in the second or fourth week of May.

Documents and exhibits

State law asks minutes to list the documents and exhibits used at a meeting (M.G.L. c.30A §22(a)). Names from the recording are the caption model’s hearing; the two sides are matched by name, by script, so a document named two different ways can be missed. A place to look, not a finding.

Public comment

1. ▶ 1:09:08The chair asked for public comment on the Subaru application. No one from the public spoke; a few phone-ins were not for this item.
2. ▶ 1:42:27Public comment was invited on the Cove Road garage. No one spoke.
3. ▶ 2:00:56Public comment was invited on the PSG Realty application. No one spoke; the applicant's owner unmuted only to say thank you.
4. ▶ 2:25:37Public comment was invited on the Sunset Lane application. No one spoke.

Where the time went

Minutes of recording by subject, from the topic spans below. A topic with two subjects counts toward both.

• planning and zoning141 min · 96%
• public safety34 min · 23%
• economic development31 min · 21%
• public comment6 min · 4%

The whole meeting, in order

1. ▶ 0:01Opening notice, roll call, hearing procedure and the required findingsinformational · 5:13 long
2. ▶ 5:14Empire Management / Subaru, 757 Chase Road: application, letters and department comments readinformational · 12:10 long · planning and zoning, economic development
3. ▶ 17:46Subaru: applicant presentation, curbed landscape island, setback measurementsinformational · 17:20 long · planning and zoning
4. ▶ 35:06Subaru: board questions on setback, fire access, vehicle count, right-of-way, plowingno resolution · 34:02 long · planning and zoning, public safety
5. ▶ 1:09:08Subaru: public comment and car-carrier unloading on the streetno public comment · 6:18 long · public comment, planning and zoning
6. ▶ 1:15:26Subaru: motion, 15-foot minimum condition, conditions read, roll call, post-decision textvoted · 19:12 long · planning and zoning
7. ▶ 1:35:2045 Cove Road: attached garage, 7 feet of front setback reliefvoted · 9:34 long · planning and zoning
8. ▶ 1:45:14PSG Realty, Leominster-Shirley Road: new six-bay garage, front setback reduced from 40 to 25 feetvoted · 18:52 long · planning and zoning, economic development
9. ▶ 2:04:2612 Sunset Lane: side yard setback and height relief for house and garagevoted · 23:59 long · planning and zoning
10. ▶ 2:28:25Closing remarks and adjournmentinformational · 1:24 long

What the captions could not carry

• Roll-call responses are rendered loosely, so individual votes are not clearly attributable.
• The exact wording of the amended Subaru motion is only partly captured.
• Whether the adjournment motion was voted on is not audible.

Written 2026-10-26 by scripts/write_recording_minutes.py (sonnet) from sources/data/youtube-transcripts/zoning-board-of-appeals/2021-04-14-FuccNZr2EKc.json — 3,898 caption segments, sha256 e0fe121e2001…. All recorded meetings.