Planning Board Backs ADU Pre-Application, Schedules April Common Driveway Hearing

WEST NEWBURY -- March 4, 2025, West Newbury Planning Board informally backs a 1,400-square-foot ADU barn conversion and schedules a common driveway hearing for April 1. Select Board member Chris Weil appeared at the March 4 meeting seeking pre-application feedback on a plan to convert an existing barn at 150 Main Street into an ADU for his daughter, requesting a special permit to exceed the 900-square-foot by-right limit by adding 500 square feet of finished loft space, for a total of 1,400 square feet, just under 50 percent of his 2,852-square-foot principal dwelling. Planning Board Clerk Raymond A. Cook questioned whether the jump from 900 to 1,400 square feet fit the spirit of the bylaw, but Chair Ann E Bardeen and Associate Member Tim Cronin said the proposal seemed reasonable given the unit remains within the existing building footprint. Town Planner Katrina flagged that a Select Board-proposed ADU bylaw revision would allow special permit ADUs up to 1,800 square feet, a figure Bardeen called "arbitrary", and noted a potential state-law loophole that could allow two ADUs on one lot simultaneously.