Abington Planning Board Directs Staff to Prepare Economic Development Pitch for Select Board

ABINGTON — June 1, 2026 — Abington Planning Board confronts a decade of commercial stagnation and signals zoning action on data centers. At the June 1 meeting, Chair Bruce Hughes and member Rick Collins — who also directs the state's Division of Clean Energy Siting and Permitting — led a blunt assessment of Abington's commercial development record, noting that no commercial site plan has come before the board since approximately 2019 and that roughly two commercial developments have occurred in 10 years. Collins called it "a major, major problem," while Hughes drew attention to Mansfield's first-in-the-state cloud computing data center zoning bylaw as a model worth pursuing. The board voted unanimously to move its July 6 meeting start time to 5 p.m. for a stormwater working session with Town Counsel Amy Quessel, and also unanimously approved a Form A lot-consolidation plan at 200 Whale Street for applicant Steve Zabosky. Staff were directed to use a master plan progress analysis prepared by new Select Board liaison Dan Eddy as a working framework for an economic development presentation targeting the Select Board in mid-July.