The Framingham Planning Board held a regular meeting on September 17, 2026, at 7:00 PM, chaired by Ted Cosgrove. The board considered several applications, including a temporary outdoor entertainment permit for Jack's Abbey, continued hearings for two mixed-use developments, and previews of upcoming zoning initiatives.
The Framingham Planning Board is comprised of five members. The board reviews a wide range of applications for commercial and residential projects. The mission of the Planning Board is to ensure the projects increase quality of life, contribute to economic development, and are consistent with Framingham's character. The Framingham Planning Board is also responsible for enforcing and revising the zoning bylaws and developing and implementing the city's master plan. The following planning board meeting coverage is brought to you by the government channel, a service of the city of Framingham. The hour being 7 p.m. September 17th, this is the uh the planning board, the City of Framingham Planning Board. I'm Ted Cosgrove, the chair. And this hearing will be both in person and online, virtual. So if you are out in Zoom land and you wish to speak, please raise your hand. We are going to go uh we're gonna vary a little bit from the agenda this evening. We're gonna take uh one other business item out of order. Uh it's a relatively quick one. And um then we will do the minutes and then we will move into PBO326, which is 121 Concord Street. Okay. Uh so let me start with uh 100 Clinton Street. It's a minor modification, special permit request for temporary outside entertainment. Uh Sarki, I'm wondering if you would like me to go right to the applicant, or is there any introduction you would like to make? Just to tease up there's a decision that we have Jack's Abbey. Jack's Abbey property special permit. And the request uh deviates from that, and it also has a condition, any changes um regarding outdoor space would have you, you know, needs approval. So they're here tonight because they have a big event um going on and um they're gonna close the street and a lot of issues with closing the street, learning that maybe we don't even own Clinton Street, could be owned by um the private property owners, but they'd like to close the street and they're gonna hold an event. And same as the situation we dealt with with the mills um at our last meeting. Um same finding that we should um that I would recommend that we make. But I think we should allow the applicant just to kind of give a brief description of what you guys are proposing. It's a one-day event. So come right up to the microphone, introduce yourself, and uh tell us what you want to do. Hello, everyone. Uh my name is uh Davis Norton. I'm the current acting general manager for Jack's Abbey Brewing Company. Uh thank you to the chair as well as the rest of the board for having me today. Um we're here just to talk a little bit about the uh Oktoberfest event that we're planning on the weekend spanning from October 2nd to October 4th. Um the Oktoberfest event is something that we've hosted annually at Jack's Abbey for many, many years now, uh, usually within our own space uh compounds in the actual brewery. Uh but this year we wanted to scale upwards uh and in true Bavarian traditional fashion, uh, close off Clinton Street and host a larger uh event space on the actual street of Clinton Street. Uh we've had numerous different meetings with both the Framingham Police Department, the fire department, as well as uh De Petrie, who owns the Clinton Street in order to get his grace and his permission to do this. Um talking through with the fire department and the police department. Uh we do know what we are required in order to uh ensure we have for this event, including a police detail, um, the required materials for blocking off the street, um, and just doing everything we can to assure public safety throughout the course of our event. Um this event is going to be a specifically two-day event. We're using that Friday the second to set up. Uh so we plan on having a uh large outdoor tent spanning 20 feet in width. The street itself is at 27 feet in width, so uh encompassing just that street, keeping the sidewalks completely open for the public. Um, and in that tent we're going to have uh a stage for live music as well as some seating arrangements and a pop-up beer garden that we're gonna have for that event. Everything is going to be sourced directly from Jack's Abbey. We're not doing any outside vendors. Food is not going to be served or prepared in the outside area. Um we will be bringing um certain food items to designated areas around the actual event, but everything will be out of our kitchen that we have on premise. Um, and this is really going to just uh provide more of an atmospheric feel to a traditional Octoberfest celebrat uh celebration in Germany and kind of encapture that the best we can. In addition to the tent area, we will have a children's area outside for families to partake in as well. This includes a bounce house, um, some other you know kids' activities, uh face painting, things of that nature uh in that area for parents to spend time with their families and kind of intermingle between each space. Uh we are going to have security detail that we've already booked for the event so that we can control all of the access points, make sure that we are controlling uh the age limit and uh we are also reaching out to the police for an official police uh detail, uh and we'll have overnight security during the days that we are hosting these events, specifically on that Friday night through the night of Sunday the fourth, uh, to make sure that all of the materials, the space itself is untampered with and untouched.