Bridgewater Planning Board advances CBD zoning overhaul, schedules June 24 vote

BRIDGEWATER — June 17, 2026 — Bridgewater Planning Board and Town Council's CED Committee advance sweeping downtown zoning overhaul toward a June 24 vote. The joint public hearing on Ordinance DFY 26-014 consumed most of a two-hour session June 17, with Town Planner Shane O'Brien walking both bodies through a redlined draft that would reduce maximum building height from four stories to 3.5 in all CBD subdistricts, cut the maximum building width in the mixed-use CBDR from 200 feet to 100 feet, eliminate a footnote that had allowed building footprints as large as 16,000 square feet, and replace a depth-based commercial ground-floor rule with percentage minimums of 80 percent in the CBDS and 70 percent in the CBDR. The most contested element was a procedural shift returning final approval authority over downtown development to the elected Planning Board through formal site-plan review — ending a process under which the board could only submit non-binding recommendations to the CED director. Building Commissioner Steven Solari called the cleaner commercial-percentage standard "a lot easier for determination." Member Michael McDonald pushed back on a 30-day decision window, warning that a board that meets once a month could be forced into a single-meeting review of a major project; the issue was left open for June 24. Resident Donna Jewel, citing the Friendlies project, called the authority shift "critical" and said the board's prior 20 recommendations — carrying no mandate — were "just unacceptable." Both bodies voted unanimously to continue the hearing to June 24 at 6 p.m., with a clean redlined draft due for circulation by the weekend.