Dudley Planning Board Approves Playground Parcel, Advances $500,000 State Grant

DUDLEY -- April 22, 2026, Dudley Planning Board clears final land-use hurdle for $500,000 playground grant, flags 15-foot safety drop on Noble Street. The board unanimously approved an approval-not-required plan creating a standalone parcel at 71 West Main Street, a state PARCS grant condition, allowing landscape architect Michael Radner of High Point Engineering to move the project to a town meeting warrant article on May 18. On Noble Street, engineer Eric Bader presented a multi-phase subdivision acceptance application stretching back to 2006, but Town Planner Braden halted any vote, citing an unguarded 15-foot vertical drop at a wetland crossing with developer-installed fencing that lacks a bottom tension wire; the board unanimously directed Graves Engineering to evaluate all phases of the subdivision before any recommendation goes to the Board of Selectmen. The board voted 4-0-1 to send Town Counsel a referral through the Town Administrator on the Country Club Acres development, whose special permit expired October 16, 2025, six months ago, with a roughly $495,000 bond still on the table and no response from the developer to a certified letter sent this week.