East Longmeadow Planning Board Begins Six-Month Town Center Zoning Review

EAST LONGMEADOW -- April 21, 2026, East Longmeadow Planning Board opens six-month review of a draft Town Center Mixed-Use Zoning Bylaw. Planning and Community Development Director Rob Wachilla presented a 17-page draft at the April 21 meeting that would create a new TCMU District covering much of the downtown rotary area on North Main Street and extending south along Shaker Road, amending six sections of the existing zoning bylaw to allow market-rate housing, co-working spaces, specialty food markets, and small takeout restaurants by right. The board made one early edit to the draft purpose statement, moving a provision to "strengthen East Longmeadow's economic base" from fifth to first, and reached working consensus to trim the district's southern boundary at the A.W. Brown's commercial properties rather than extending to Chestnut Street. Town Councilor Ralph Page, a former member of the now-disbanded Center Town District Steering Committee, told the board from the audience that he agreed with cutting the boundary at Spruce Street. The board separately resolved a dispute over a previously approved development at 95 Shaker Road, informally agreeing to drop a condition requiring 90-degree spaces to be converted to 45-degree angled parking after the applicant said compliance would eliminate roughly 20 of the site's 72 parking spaces.