LEOMINSTER — A commercial building at 1341 Central Street was already built before receiving planning board approval, prompting the board to schedule the site plan application for review during its May 18 meeting.
The application was listed on the agenda as a site plan application for 1341 Central Street, Map 499, Parcel 45, for a commercial building.
“This one is already under construction,” Elizabeth Wood, Leominster’s director of planning and development, said during the meeting. “It was given a building permit without going to planning board approval and that shouldn’t have happened.”
Wood said the city was now trying to correct the issue by bringing the project before the planning board.
“So now we’re correcting the problem, and we’re trying to make things right by making them go to planning board, and hopefully they don’t need to move their building because it’s already up,” Wood said.
After hearing this, Planning Board Member John Souza chuckled and raised questions about site-related items that still needed to be reviewed.
“But they’ve got landscaping parking lots, driveway, parking,” Souza said.
Wood responded that there were other issues for the board to review, including fire truck access and required widths, but said the immediate task was to schedule the matter for a future meeting
“And there’s all kinds of other avenues for the fire trucks and things and widths and all of that to look at, but I’m not going to get into that right now,” Wood said. “We just need to schedule it.”
Wood told the board that its June 1 meeting was already full, with seven projects scheduled.
After Souza asked about the scope of the seven projects already scheduled for June 1, another board member noted the timing issue involving the Central Street building.
“It might on the time crunch,” Planning Board Member Patrick Perla said. “We already built the building.”
Planning Board Member Paul Weizer then asked whether the matter could be placed on the board’s June 15 agenda.
“Do we have anything on the 15th?” Weizer asked.
Souza said the project still needed to be reviewed, even though the building was already up.
“We’ve got to look at it,” Souza said. “I mean, the building is up. So, it should never have been. See, the rule, what we have, regulations, is 10,000 square feet or 10 parking places. And there’s 16 parking places.”
The board then moved to schedule the site plan application for June 15 at 6:30 p.m., with Wood saying that date would give her more time because she was “really backed up.”
The board voted to schedule the site plan application for June 15 at 6:30 p.m. The motion passed unanimously.
