SOUTHWICK — The town’s zoning bylaws need an overhaul, and a recent grant provided to the state will get the process started in the next few months.
“I’m looking forward to getting it started as soon as possible,” said Planning Board Chair Jessica Ann Thornton when asked about the $67,500 state grant that will be used by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to help guide the town through the bylaw revisions.
Some of the issues in the current bylaws were discovered during the development of the town’s Master Plan, which was drafted by the PVPC using suggestions from a committee that met for over two years to guide the process.
Current Town Planner Jon Goddard described the bylaw revision as “building on the work” of the committee during the development of the Master Plan.
Since the original town bylaws were written in the 1970s, Goddard they have been “reworked piecemeal” with new elements added and others removed.
It has left the town with a document that is “awkward,” which is how the PVPC described the bylaws in a comprehensive review of them last year.
“As the town has adopted bylaw amendments and added new sections, this structure has produced some awkward, non-standard placement of content. Finding information in the ZBL can be made more difficult due to various definitions and standards not being in a place where the reader would expect,” wrote the PVPC in the review.
Some of the issues in the bylaw were made apparent last year when the Planning Board was taken to court because of its decision to deny a special permit to a commercial real estate development company to build and open a Dollar General retail store on College Highway.
There were two lawsuits filed; one that questioned the impartiality of two board members and another that questioned the criteria used by the Planning Board when making a final determination on granting a special permit in both Business zoning districts.
The lawsuit pointed out the vagueness and subjectivity that might be used by the board to justify a decision including that the business needed to be “suitably located” in town, “be reasonably compatible with the character and scale of other uses permitted,” that the “use will not constitute a nuisance by reason of … visually flagrant structures and accessories,” that the “use is in harmony with the general purposes and intent” of the zoning regulations, “the public good will be served” and “the proposal reasonably protects the adjoining premises against detrimental or offensive effects of the site, including, but not limited to, unsightly or obnoxious appearances.”
When former board member Michael Doherty abruptly resigned from the board in January, he said the Business Restricted zoning district bylaw needed to be revised “sooner rather than later.”
In the comprehensive review, the PVPC pointed to one provision of the bylaw related to “adult entertainment” that would need revising.
It wrote that the bylaw refers to an “Adult Entertainment District [but] does not include a reference to any map identifying the district boundaries.”
The bylaw does, however, prohibit all adult entertainment uses in each of the town’s zoning districts except in the Industrial Restricted district and that it is only allowed after securing a special permit from the Planning Board.
“As such, it does not appear necessary or accurate to include language referring to a district specific to adult entertainment,” according to the comprehensive review.
Goddard referred to comprehensive review as determining “what works well and what doesn’t.”
“[The bylaws] reflect a set of ideals of a different time. Southwick is a different place today than it was before,” he said.
Currently the Planning Board is struggling to conduct business because of the resignation of Doherty and David Sutton, who did so at the same meeting.
Associate member Diane Juzba was elevated to a full board member by the Planning and Select boards last month, but that leaves on four voting members of the board.
One application for a special permit has already been put on hold because of a board member’s potential conflict of interest with the applicant, Thornton said.
While Juzba is running for Sutton’s open seat, the Southwick Republican Town Committee will most likely place a candidate on the municipal election ballot in April to run for Doherty’s seat in May.
