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Bylaw review committee reports
By Susanna Sheehan   
Wednesday, September 26, 2012 09:15 AM

The Zoning Bylaw Review Committee has completed its work of analyzing Duxbury’s zoning bylaw and is holding a public meeting Oct. 3 to gather comments on its findings.
The meeting is at 7:30 p.m. at the Senior Center on Mayflower Street.
Bob Fitzpatrick, chairman of the zoning bylaw review committee, presented the draft report to the board of selectmen Monday night.
He explained that his ten-member committee, which was appointed by selectmen in June 2011, was established to review the bylaw and recommend a plan to improve its clarity, internal consistency, and organization. The committee also examined permitting requirements and procedures and administration and enforcement procedures, and it reviewed the bylaws for consistency with state and case law.
Fitzpatrick said the committee spent a lot of time gathering information by speaking to present and past members of town boards and committees, local builders, developers, architects, property owners, and lawyers, as well as the town’s professional staff and others knowledgeable about the bylaw. The committee also met with various town boards and gathered comments from the public.
“We talked to a lot of people and took a lot of time to get our arms around people’s experience with this bylaw,” said Fitzpatrick. “It was a tough task and it was a lot of work.”
In its 26-page draft report, the committee concludes that due to the nature of how the bylaw has been altered over the years, it needs revision. The committee recommends the town hire a consultant to prepare a plan to recodify the bylaw. It also recommends another committee be formed to work with the consultant.
“The principal conclusion of the committee is that the zoning bylaw is like a patchwork quilt of zoning amendments that has been put together over the years,” Fitzpatrick told selectmen.
The bylaw has been amended 23 times since 2003, according to the report.
“These discrete changes have had unintended ripple effects that have created ambiguity, duplication, and inconsistency,” stated the report. In addition, these changes make the bylaw complicated and “harder to navigate.”
The committee believes that “the time has come it seems to revisit the bylaw and restate it as a whole, stitching into one the numerous amendments and clarifying areas where concerns have been identified.”
Selectmen praised the committee’s work and the draft report.
“I thought this was one of the best drafted reports. It was really well documented,” said Selectman Shawn Dahlen.
He told Fitzpatrick he wants the committee to come forward with a recommendation for a town meeting article that will fund a consultant to revamp the bylaw. Fitzpatrick said the committee would wait until after the Oct. 3 public meeting before it makes any type of recommendation like this.
In the report, there are twelve “key findings” that need the most attention and the committee’s recommendations on them. These include the need to standardize definitions, minimize duplicate filing requirements from board to board (and encourage electronic filings to save paper), clarify who has site plan review (it’s the planning board, not the zoning board of appeals), consolidate hearings of the planning board and the ZBA to streamline the process, and update the names of maps and references to these names to eliminate confusion.
Other hot-button issues included clarifying the section of the bylaw on re-building/building piers and on non-conforming uses.
The section of the bylaw governing extensions and/or alterations of non-conforming uses generated more comments than any other, stated the report. The committee recommended that this section “should be reviewed with an eye to clarifying the permitting process for altering nonconforming structures and providing more certainty about the process to regulated parties.”
The committee recommends that the town create a permitting guide or an outline of the permitting process to help guide property owners and applicants. It also believes the town should provide “some level of training” about the land use process and local and state laws to new land-use board members.
Further, the committee believes the town should assign “permitting ombudsmen responsibilities” for complicated projects to help coordinate permit reviews and nip issues in the bud.
The draft report is available on the town’s Web site on the zoning bylaw review committee’s page.
The committee urges residents to read the draft report and comment at the public meeting next week.
The committee consists of Fitzpatrick, Fred Clifford, Freeman Boynton, Jr., George Wadsworth, Judi Barrett, Martin Desmery, Mary Steinke, Nancy Armington Johnson, Paul Boudreau, and Scott Casagrande.
 

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