Bellingham Planning Board Pushes Hartford Avenue Development Hearings to January

BELLINGHAM -- November 13, 2025, Bellingham Planning Board continues Hartford Avenue commercial development hearings to January amid unresolved traffic design questions. The board unanimously voted to push hearings for a proposed mixed-use development at 182-198 Hartford Avenue to January 15, 2026, extending the decision deadline to March 31, 2026, after traffic peer reviewer Robert Misho of MDM Transportation Consultants flagged the need for additional signal timing analysis and revised site plans accounting for a planned MassDOT widening of Hartford Avenue. Misho told the board the conversion of Cedar Hill Road to two-way operation, projected to carry five to ten left-turning vehicles per hour in the morning peak, "is going to go a long way to making this an efficient site," but said a separate Selectboard vote on the public-way change must come first. Board members pressed the applicant to produce side-by-side designs showing how the Hartford Avenue driveway and internal circulation would function before and after the MassDOT improvements, with one member citing multiple personal observations of drivers cutting illegally across the corridor. The board also opened and immediately continued a separate Blackstone Street hearing to December 11 after that applicant failed to appear without requesting a continuance, and unanimously recommended the town's 2025 Open Space and Recreation Plan to the Selectboard.