PLYMOUTH — Oct. 6, 2026 — A Plymouth Planning Board member used Tuesday’s joint session with the Select Board to ask for the town’s complete record of communications with the developer of the Darby Farms friendly 40B, saying the 392-unit Carver Road project won Select Board endorsement without ever coming before the Planning Board or the public. Residents pressed the same complaint during public comment.
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The objection came moments after the Planning Board called its own meeting to order. Francis Mand noted the project was not posted for discussion and did not ask either board to debate its merits, but said it touched the joint agenda.
I do want to put on record my concern that a development of this magnitude with major implications for land use, traffic, water, sewer, public safety, open space, and the future development of West Plymouth apparently reached the point of negotiations and Select Board endorsement without ever being presented to the planning board or to the public through the normal planning processes.
— Francis Mand, Planning Board member 1:34:30
Mand asked that the Darby Farms proposal, including the process followed so far, go on the Planning Board’s next available agenda with documents provided well in advance. He also asked the Select Board and town administration for the town’s communications with the developer, the proposed mitigation commitments and the basis for the endorsement. Planning Board chair Steve Bolotin answered that the matter is already on that board’s agenda for next week, with a presentation on the process to date and a discussion of the Planning Board’s role going forward.
The criticism echoed public comment earlier in the evening, when residents raised traffic on Carver Road and Route 44, missing sidewalks, school capacity and the health of Clear Pond, and several said they learned of the project only after the vote. Departing from the usual practice of not responding to comment, Select Board chair Deb Iaquinto said the board had voted the previous week to send a letter of support for the development as a friendly 40B, that the final permitting decision rests with the Zoning Board of Appeals and that the permitting process will include a public hearing.
Later, Select Board member Kevin Canty said the board had followed the same procedure used for past friendly 40Bs: a high-level review by the Select Board, then the Planning Board, then the ZBA, with public hearings along the way. He said the Select Board’s ability to influence the outcome is limited.
The joint session’s first posted item was the Select Board’s Economic Development Strategy, a July 22 framework built from the board’s summer workshops and the comprehensive plan. It lists eight priority initiatives for fiscal 2027 and 2028, among them comprehensive zoning updates, a business development concierge in Town Hall, a business recruitment and marketing strategy, an updated Harbor Plan, and redevelopment strategies for sites including Plymouth Industrial Park, Camelot Industrial Park, Cordage Park and the 1600-Acre Area/Holtec site.
Town staff told both boards that only about 8.5% of Plymouth’s land is potentially developable and only about half a percent includes commercially or industrially zoned land, and that several recent friendly 40Bs have taken place on commercially zoned land. Another speaker put what remains undeveloped of the roughly 2,500 acres zoned for commercial and industrial use at about 350 acres.
