West Newbury Planning Board Votes to Renew Meridian Engineering Peer-Review Agreement

WEST NEWBURY -- December 2, 2025, West Newbury Planning Board votes to renew engineering agreement, debates cannabis school setback. The board voted unanimously 5-0 at its December 2 meeting to direct Town Planner Chris to pursue a two-year renewal of its on-call peer-review engineering agreement with Meridian Engineering before the current contract expires December 31. Members also moved a draft request for proposals for visioning and build-out analysis consultant services toward a mid-December release, targeting a January 15 response deadline, after editing out a reference to "evening" workshops and directing that the build-out component be named earlier in the document. The sharpest debate was over a school-setback provision in the draft cannabis regulations bylaw: member Brian Murphy pushed to restore a buffer requirement struck by the building inspector, and member Ray Cook found Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission language establishing a default 500-foot buffer from preexisting K-through-12 schools, language the board agreed to send back to town counsel Sam Joslin with a question about whether to keep the state's 500-foot default or reduce it given the business district's estimated 750-foot total length.