WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A member of the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee last week questioned why its parent committee is moving ahead with an ambitious proposal to redo zoning in the town while the comprehensive plan process is just getting started.

 

Sarah Gardner raised the issue early in Tuesday's meeting, attempting to get the town's planning consultant to weigh in on whether the Planning Board should hit the pause button on its effort to bring zoning bylaw change proposals to May's annual town meeting.

 

"In general, when starting this year and a half long master plan process … do you think it's a good time for the town to hold off on making major zoning proposals?" Gardner asked the consultant from New Hampshire's RKG Associates. "Because there is a big townwide zoning proposal being put forth right now.

 

"I'm concerned about the timing in that we're just getting started on this committee, and we have a robust and thorough plan to get engagement in that process. Based on your past experience, what's your take on that?"

 

Steering Committee Chair Stephanie Boyd, a member of the Planning Board, jumped in before the consultant could address the concern.

 

"To some degree, Sarah, that may be beyond the scope of what our work is here on the comprehensive plan," Boyd said. "We're looking at future issues, and that is more of a current issue on the Planning Board.

 

"You can call the [consultant] team after this and ask them, but it's not on the agenda for this meeting."

 

Boyd and Planning Board member Peter Beck, who also serves on the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee, suggested that Gardner bring her concerns to the Planning Board at its meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 8, where it will continue its discussion about potential bylaw amendments.

 

The comprehensive plan – formerly known as the master plan – is a state-mandated document intended to guide future development in a community. It is designed to serve as a vision for the next two decades. The last iteration of the Williamstown Master Plan was drafted in 2002.

 

The elected Planning Board appointed nine community members to serve with Beck and Boyd on the steering committee to guide the master plan process; at its late January meeting, the Planning Board approved the recommendation of the steering group to rename its product to a comprehensive plan. 

 

The comprehensive plan process is scheduled to be completed by May 2023, meaning that any zoning changes that might be informed by the final document would not come to town meeting until May 2024 at the earliest.

 

Later in Tuesday's CPSC meeting, during a discussion about the "land use" section of the comprehensive plan, member Justin Adkins, while twice saying that he did not want to "step on a hornet's nest," invited Gardner to elaborate on her concerns.

 

"It seems like this is quite the hot topic in town right now, land use," Adkins said.

 

"If we're going to go ahead as a group here and have this conversation, it feels, to me at least, like this conversation is moving ahead in another arena, under the Planning Board."

 

Gardner agreed.

 

"The essence of this comprehensive planning process is land use, and there is this proposal to rezone the entire town," she said. "I just wanted us to think about the logical sequence. If that's going to go through, I'm not sure what we're doing on this Comprehensive Plan Committee – if the town is going to be rezoned before we get through this process, to put it in the bluntest terms."

 

Beck replied that whatever proposals may come out of the Planning Board's deliberations or may pass at town meeting, the land use section of the comprehensive plan will continue to be relevant in future zoning questions that come up in town.

 

"I think if we passed all of [the proposals] to consider at town meeting or none of them or anything in between, these would still be essential questions after May," Beck said. "I think the Planning Board is doing important work considering these questions because they're so central to what the Planning Board does. I don't think there's any version of what the Planning Board could pass that doesn't mean these questions aren't still alive for us.

 

"It will be an important issue for next year's Planning Board and the Planning Board after that and the Planning Board after that. These are important, enduring questions."