Framingham Planning Board Continues Music School Hearing Over Traffic Concerns

FRAMINGHAM — May 7, 2026 — Framingham Planning Board continues music school application over traffic concerns, adopts fee increases. The board voted 4-0, with member Mitch Madanin abstaining, to continue a public hearing for Plugged In Band Program — a 25-year-old nonprofit music education organization seeking to open at 541 Concord Street under the Massachusetts Dover Amendment for educational uses — to its May 21 meeting after neighbors raised alarms about drop-off traffic in a congested residential corridor. Co-founder Tom Pugh described a program serving roughly 24 students at peak capacity, approximately 70 percent of whom have disabilities and are dropped off rather than driving, with staggered 90-minute class sessions and a planned February 2027 opening. Christine Tiber of 24 Dyer Street told the board that the street already functions as an illegal cut-through despite posted do-not-enter signs on both ends, with school buses and other drivers ignoring them daily, and said adding 10 to 15 drop-off vehicles per session "could be a recipe for some potential issues." The board also unanimously adopted a revised planning application fee schedule, the first update in several years, driven largely by rising legal advertising costs, and Planning Director Sarki previewed a proposal to revive a form-based Waverly Street overlay zoning district — built on a 2024 study with Utile Engineering and Northeastern University — citing a live condo development application at 733 Waverly Street as evidence the corridor is already changing without coordinated zoning guidance.