Washington’s Planning Board is working toward developing regulations governing massage parlors in the city.

One of the challenges it faces is defining different types of massage parlors and crafting specific rules pertaining to the operation of those different types.

The tentative agenda for the board’s meeting Tuesday indicated the board would discuss possible regulations for massage parlors and adult businesses, with handouts concerning those rules being distributed at the meeting. The handouts were not distributed because they were not ready, according to Glenn Moore, a city planner.

The proposed rules should be ready for the board to review at or before its October meeting, Moore said. Those proposed regulations would treat therapeutic massage sites differently from “massage parlors that are more adult-type businesses,” Moore explained.

“I would like to ask, with a therapeutic massage and a massage parlor, what’s the difference,” said board member Marie Barber.

“The way we’re drafting it, because of the information we’ve gotten so far from the Institute of Government some other municipalities and how they handle it, the therapeutic massages are falling under more physical therapy type uses,” Moore said. “I know there are people that are prescribed from a doctor — for a sports injury or something — massage therapy. That definition is falling under therapeutic, and it separates out the two.”

Barber broached the subjects of people providing therapeutic massages needing licenses and massage parlor locations.

“The therapeutic massage would be by someone licensed by the state to do that, board member D. Howell Miller said. Miller also said the board needs to discuss the distance of massage parlors from other types of businesses and institutions such as schools and churches.

Therapeutic-massage sites would be allowed anywhere a doctor’s office is allowed in the city, Moore noted.

“If there’s an age restriction on a massage facility, that’s not a therapeutic massage,” Moore said.

After reviewing the issue and coming up with proposed rules regarding massage parlors, the board would send the to the City Council, which has final say on amending the city’s zoning ordinances.