SOUTH HADLEY — This year’s special Town Meeting will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 13 at 6 p.m. at Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School, located at 15 Mulligan Dr.
The warrant features 12 articles with the final seven articles dealing with bylaw amendments. The Select Board approved the warrant during its meeting and can be found at tinyurl.com/89c7symz.
The first four articles feature hearing reports, amend previous capital budgets and transferring funds to different accounts.
Article 5 is an unhitched trailer bylaw that prohibits unhitched trailers on public ways with several exemptions. The article will see if the town will vote to amend Chapter 179 by adding a new section.
The Traffic Review Committee discussed this article and if approved at Town Meeting, there would be eight exemptions to the bylaw and a new added subsection.
Article 6 would add a bylaw that deals with animal impoundment. South Hadley currently has no protocol to a impound a dog or animal and doesn’t have a pound to keep that animal.
The bylaw would allow the town to house the animal found without a license, an animal that acts as a nuisance or danger to residents or any animal that violated a bylaw by Select Board order.
Article 7 and 8 deals a nuisance bylaw amendment and enforcement. At May Town Meeting, a nuisance bylaw amendment that dealt with unreasonable noise, property maintenance and the enforcement of them.
It was tabled to next Town Meeting after a lengthy conversation.
The Board of Health and Conservation Commission looked to eliminate section 179.4 of the town’s bylaws, stating that all property owners will be responsible to keep their property in a reasonable state of repair. Grass will be kept no higher than 6 inches; leaves, excessive grass clippings will be removed, composted or otherwise properly disposed of; damaged branches will be addressed; and other debris or litter will be eliminated from the property.
At the November special Town Meeting, Article 7 will look to eliminate section 179.4 and Article 8 will look for the approval to add the enforcement and fines for unreasonable noise.
Articles 9-12 were all proposed by the Planning Board and Select Board Chair Andrea Miles said the board has received “a bunch” of emails asking the Select Board to not include various zoning bylaws but said she was hesitant to do so because “that would be the Select Board suggesting that the Planning Board hadn’t been doing their job,” and “we have elected Town Meeting members and it is their job to vote on the articles.”
Article 9 is an amendment to Zoning Bylaw 255-31 Flexible Development and 255 Attachment 1 Use Regulations Schedule.
Based on the background, the Planning Board has been working on amendments to the 1995 Subdivision Regulations since July 2023.
The amendments have some implications on the Zoning Bylaw, specifically the Flexible Development Bylaw 255-31, which needs to be addressed before any changes to the Subdivision Regulations can be adopted by the Planning Board.
Flexible Development is a zoning tool that essentially creates a subdivision or other residential development with multiple dwellings with a portion of the site devoted to protected open space.
The proposed amendments to the Flexible Development Bylaw are needed to ensure consistency with the updated Subdivision Regulations, and to incentivize use of it as an alternative to a traditional subdivision which does not require any protection of open space.
The Planning Board stated that since adoption of the Flexible Development Bylaw in 2004, it has only been used three times and is therefore not an effective zoning tool for stimulating new residential development that has the added benefit of protecting open space.
Article 10 will see if the town will vote to adopt a new Zoning Bylaw Common Drive to regulate multi-family developments and developments with more than one building for dwelling purposes on a single parcel of land.
The intent of this bylaw is to remove regulation of non-subdivision roads from the Subdivision Regulations, and establish standards for their design, construction and maintenance separately within the Zoning Bylaw.
An example of a non-subdivision roadway, called a “common drive”, would be a roadway within a multifamily development such as a condominium complex.
Article 11 is to see if the town will vote to adopt a new Zoning Bylaw Common Open Space to provide consistent standards for the provision and maintenance of such wherever common open space is required as a component of a residential development within the Zoning Bylaw.
The intent of this bylaw is to create consistent standards for common open space for all sections of the Zoning Bylaw where such is required.
The proposed bylaw is essentially composed of all of the common open space standards that are being pulled out of the Flexible Development Bylaw.
Article 12 is to see if the town will vote to amend the Zoning Bylaw Chapter 255-47 multi-family and multiple dwellings by deleting subsection D. The proposed Zoning Bylaw package addresses numerous goals, objectives, and actions in the 2020 Master Plan.
Multiple public meetings and hearings have been hosted on these four bylaws before the proposed amendments were sent to the Select Board. Background information and discussion during past meetings and hearings will be available on the town website under Town Meeting warrant information.
There was also an additional public hearing on Oct. 28, with another scheduled for Nov. 4 for those looking to learn more about the proposed Planning Board bylaws.
