Review of Athol downtown zoning under way
Published: 4/4/2021 12:13:35 PM
Modified: 4/4/2021 12:13:34 PM
ATHOL Meagen Donoghue of the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission (MRPS) recently updated the Downtown Vitality Committee on the start of a review of current zoning regulations affecting downtown Athol.
“The Downtown,” Athol Planning and Development Director Eric Smith said, “for some reason, key parts of it are two zoning districts: central commercial and general commercial. Everything from Island Street the YMCA and that area down toward Exchange is all part of central commercial, and everything that kind of wraps around that is general commercial. And there are significant differences. One of those is that parking requirement inside of central commercial are waived outside of that you have to meet all the requirements, and the only way to get a waiver would be a variance. So those are the kinds of things that need to be looked at.”