Planning Board backs mixed-use framework for 600-acre Hubbardston sandpit site

HUBBARDSTON — October 16, 2025 — Hubbardston Planning Board moves toward mixed-use zoning for 600-acre former sandpit. The board expressed consensus support for Scenario C, a hybrid framework combining a neighborhood-scale village district along Gardner Road with enhanced conservation standards across most of the site, after a working session with Allison Evans of Niche Engineering, which has studied the property since spring 2025 under a town grant. The roughly 600-acre site is currently zoned entirely residential agricultural and is divided among 10 owners, including three public entities; it has no public water or sewer access and sits within a wellhead aquifer protection district. Board members rejected the more intensive employment-focused Scenario B — which would have allowed warehousing and large-format retail via a new bridge crossing Hubbardston Brook — citing lack of highway connectivity, infrastructure constraints, and proximity of the proposed industrial subzone to residential abutters. A public survey drew 179 responses, with rural character and environmental protection ranking as the top priorities ahead of economic development. The board asked Niche Engineering to return with a comparative analysis of cluster-development lot sizes from peer towns before further deliberations; no zoning changes can take effect without town meeting approval.