Southwick Planning Board Advances Zoning Overhaul, Defers Aircraft Facility Hearing

Planning Board · Meeting of July 14, 2026

Southwick Planning Board unanimously refers zoning bylaw overhaul to the Select Board to begin public hearings, with a special town meeting adoption possible this fall. Evan Mastriani, Senior Planner at the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, presented the draft modernized Chapter 185 bylaw — described as a structural readability overhaul with no substantive content changes — to Chair Jessica Thornton and the full board at the July 14 hybrid meeting. A companion matrix of recommended amendments, including consolidating competing definitions of "family" and "signs" and adding an amendment severability clause, drew extensive deliberation over which changes could safely be bundled into a single warrant article.

A community survey conducted as part of the project found housing affordability ranked as residents' top planning priority, with roughly 70 percent of respondents supporting some form of mixed-use development; notably, the largest responding age group was under 18. The board also continued a new public hearing for WGI, Inc.'s application to build a 68,000-square-foot aircraft engine parts remanufacturing facility at 34 and 36 Hudson Drive to August 11, pending a peer review from the town's consultant, and voted unanimously to begin forming a nine-member subcommittee to update the town's photovoltaic systems bylaw to address battery energy storage systems.

In the full story:

• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report — 2,735 words

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