Williamstown to Undergo Audit of Land-Use Rules
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The community development director on Monday updated the Select Board on progress in executing the recently adopted comprehensive plan.
And he told them that one major initiative coming out of the plan got a boost from the commonwealth.
"Completion of a land-use policy and regulatory audit is a huge item," Andrew Groff told the board at its twice-monthly meeting. "I can announce that the town received Community One-Stop funding, a $100,000 grant from the commonwealth. We're going to be partnering with the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission on a housing policy audit and review."
Groff said that the audit will help the town identify areas where the existing regulations are antiquated and, in some instances, arguably impeding development.
Specifically, he referenced the town's subdivision bylaw, a frequent point of discussion by the Planning Board, which earlier this year adopted the comprehensive plan after a multiyear process.
"They're very out of date," Groff said of the subdivision rules. "They don't include principles such as low-impact stormwater design, for example. You could argue they require the overbuilding of certain types of infrastructure, and they don't address other infrastructure challenges, like provision of public water supply.
"And we hope to look at the areas of our zoning that are related to subdivision, which some might remember the Major Residential Development provision in our bylaw that comes up frequently as an impediment to housing growth. We plan to address that with the regional planning agency's help."
Groff said the audit and review will get underway in 2025 and that he hopes it will help address a market rate housing shortage in town by making it less cumbersome to build new housing.
The comprehensive plan, titled "Envisioning Williamstown 2035," includes a lengthy matrix of action items for various boards, committees and town staff to address concerns raised by the community during the development of the plan — formerly known as a master plan, which last was drafted in 2002.
Groff's appearance at the Select Board meeting was the latest in a series of efforts to keep the comprehensive plan and its objectives top of mind among town officials.
Behind the scenes, as it were, town staff at the Department of Public Works is beginning the work of a town wide facilities assessment as recommended in the plan, Groff said. One town asset, its sidewalk network, is undergoing a survey by Williams College students working with the Planning Board as its client, he said.
"They are cataloging and grading them based on surface, condition and accessibility," Groff said, noting that the survey is the first of its kind in the town. "That will get us a long way to getting us to a plan to better maintain and fill gaps in our network."
On the town-board side, the Planning Board is addressing the lack of a local ordinance on short-term rentals, which also were mentioned in the plan. Groff told the Select Board that while STRs (commonly referred to as Airbnbs) are needed to support the local economy in peak periods when hotels cannot accommodate spikes in visits, the Planning Board is drafting a bylaw proposal that will deter outside investors from buying up housing stock and turning homes into de facto motels in the middle of residential neighborhoods.
"I think you'll see that at town meeting this year," Groff said.
Groff walked the Select Board through a number of other projects related to the plan that are underway and mentioned a couple that would benefit from work by the board.
He also mentioned one that is, strictly speaking, outside of the town's control but for which he hopes the town will advocate: the town's limited electricity grid capacity.
"We're on the end of the National Grid local distribution network," Groff said. "It's presenting issues for the college, and I think pretty soon it will be an overall impediment to growth. … It puts a lot of these other [comprehensive plan] goals in peril. We want new housing, economic diversity, our institutions to grow and we want to help people reduce their carbon footprint.
"We have to have electricity to do all that."
Groff said the town is working with officials at Williams College and the BRPC to pressure the commonwealth's Department of Public Utilities to address the issue.
"This is a very high priority," Groff said. "Honestly, it's a little out of our hands, but we can be the folks raising the red flag and say, ‘Hey, folks who can fix it, we need your help.' "
Coupled with the comprehensive plan discussion, Monday's meeting included a presentation from the consultant helping the town develop an updated hazard mitigation plan.
Jamie Caplan told the Select Board that the process that began earlier this year starts by looking at the town's demographics and the critical infrastructure that could be impacted by natural hazards and doing a threat assessment of which hazards are most likely.
"From that chapter, we give a list of recommendations," Caplan said. "We put them into a mitigation strategy, where we're really trying to solve those problems. We're going to come up with some actions, or projects, if you will, where, if you implement them, that level of risk we've identified will go down or the community's capability [to address damage] will increase."
Caplan explained that the Hazard Mitigation Plan is premised on the somewhat optimistic notion that the United States will have a functioning federal government a year from now. She explained that grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are available to municipalities to help implement the plan.
"The plan will identify cost-effective actions to reduce risk," Caplan said. "It's a little tongue-in-cheek, but I like to say we're not looking for hair-brained ideas. We're really trying to find out what's cost-effective, what's going to work, what's going to focus on your greatest vulnerabilities and use your resources."
In other business on Monday, the Select Board:
• Approved by a vote of 4-0 (Jeffrey Johnson was absent) new regulations for outdoor dining that were developed by Town Manager Robert Menicocci in consultation with the Williamstown Chamber of Commerce.
• OK'd a response to the House of Representatives, which sought clarification on a couple of points in an income-sensitive property tax exemption for residents passed by acclamation at town meeting in May. Former Select Board member Andrew Hogeland told his former colleagues that two of the three home-rule petitions related to tax relief passed by town meeting already have cleared the House and are awaiting Senate approval in Boston.
• Reappointed Andrew Art and Noah Smalls to the Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Equity Advisory Committee. Randal Fippinger, who fills the Select Board's seat on the DIRE Committee reported that the advisory group is looking for a new charge from the Select Board after finishing work on a strategic plan as previously requested by the Select Board. Fippinger said the DIRE Committee also has asked that its name be updated.
"They feel that while the need hasn't changed, the cultural moment has changed," Fippinger said of the committee's members. "They feel like the name being, in their words, sort of negative, isn't helping. And they'd like to reflect a more positive perspective on the work they're trying to do in town."
Select Board Chair Jane Patton, who was chair when the board created the Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Equity Committee in 2020, agreed it might be time for rebranding and encouraged the committee to suggest a new name.
Tags: land use, master plan,
