Planning Board to send ZBA letter on odor

Planning Board · Meeting of January 14, 2026

West Boylston Planning Board agreed to back a resident's odor complaint against a marijuana facility and send a letter to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Chair Marc Frieden said he would draft the letter informally, without a formal vote, after resident Vinny wrote that he "can smell marijuana" near 215 Shrewsbury Street despite a permit requiring odor controls. The three members present, Frieden, Clerk Matt Barakian and Treasurer Francesco Lopriore, also discussed bidding out the board's longtime peer-review engineering contract after VHB's project-manager rate rose to $316 an hour.

Members said a 40B project pushes the town's subsidized-housing stock to roughly 10.1 percent, just above the state's 10 percent safe-harbor threshold. The board unanimously approved minutes from four 2025 meetings but tabled its August 13 minutes over confusion about a Temple Street plan endorsement.

In the full story:

• The Full Story
• Why It Matters
• Key Motions & Votes
• Source
• West Boylston's community access TV: Planning Board meeting, January 14, 2026
• The complete report: 893 words

Source: the Planning Board meeting of January 14, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript.