Controversial North Grafton warehouse gets Planning Board approval

A controversial 375,000 square foot warehouse proposed for the what is now the front lawn of Wyman-Gordon received a special permit from the Planning Board after six months of neighborhood objections and deliberations with the developers.

With just seven minutes to go before midnight, the Planning Board voted, 4-1, to approve the special permit for Churchill and Banks Companies, LLC to construct the warehouse, which is being built on spec for an undetermined final user. 

Planning Board member Prabhu Balaji Venkatarama was the sole vote against.

The Planning Board is coming away with several concessions from the original proposal:

• Hours of operation were changed from 24 hours a day to restricting trips into the complex between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.;
• Rhe warehouse will not be a “last mile” facility where delivery drivers would pick up goods;
• The applicant abandoned plans to seek a waiver to build taller than that allowed under zoning;
• Tractor-trailers will be required to travel west toward the Mass Pike on Route 122, with the exit from the facility designed to restrict turns;
• Two hundred parking spaces out of a total of 666 spaces are proposed as reserve parking;
• The applicant agreed to work with Mass DOT on traffic mitigation measures as well as adding continued traffic monitoring once open.

Once built, the warehouse will be the largest building in Grafton, taking the crown from the building that will ultimately sit just behind it: Wyman-Gordon, once the town’s largest employer, clocking in at 350,000 square feet.

“We don’t have any warehouses comparable to this in Grafton,” Planning Board Chair David Robbins said.

Residents in the neighborhoods just across the street thought that was a good thing.

“Grafton will look like the trucking center of MetroWest. I don’t think we want that reputation,” said Rita Zeffert, one of more than 50 neighbors waiting on the Zoom call to testify against the plan one last time. 

Zeffert added that light pollution from the facility will disrupt sleep, increased traffic will lower property values and back up the Mass Pike exit, and both noise and environmental pollution will increase from the constant stream of tractor-trailers.

“I say, don’t be afraid of lawsuits because you care for us,” she urged the board.

Planning Board member Bob Hassinger said the site location in an industrially zoned area across the street from a thickly settled residential area “is an extremely difficult compatibility issue.” 

The board went through the conditions and findings developed over the past six months line-by-line for more than two hours, at one point suggesting that a vote be delayed until next week.

“You’ve reviewed it from stem to stern. Now it’s time to make a decision,” said Mark Donahue of Fletcher-Tilton, PC, which represents Churchill and Banks.

The board will still meet next Monday to go through the written copy of the decision and adjust for errors.

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