Report covers from April 23, 2022 to April 29, 2022
The TA attended the subject Planning Board public hearing along with Chairman Pereen on April 27, 2022. The Town Meeting warrant includes an article to extend a moratorium on the change of use of a parcel from residential or vacant to commercial or industrial (from August 30, 2023 until January 1, 2024). Since the moratorium is part of the Town’s zoning bylaws, a public hearing was required. It is the Selectmen’s shared intention with the Planning Board to continue evaluating the Town’s zoning bylaws in order to bring formal proposals for possible amendments to the Fall Town Meeting in November of 2023. At the hearing, Planning Board members debated the options and unanimously agreed to support the moratorium. Reasons ranged from following through on the commitment that was set up after the initial Town Meeting vote to improving the chances of grant funding for phase 2 of the work.
Mr. Zubricki has prepared final Annual Town Meeting motions based upon the Board’s guidance from the last Selectmen’s meeting.
The TA met virtually with personnel from MAPC and the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Planning Board on April 28, 2022 to review the scope of services that will be expected from MAPC if the Community Planning Grant application that MAPC is helping us write is successful. As noted by the Vice-Chair at the Board’s last meeting, the Planning Board is probably not inclined to move toward defined zones as part of recommendations for zoning bylaw revisions that will come to the Town Meeting in the fall of 2023. Instead, the Planning Board wants to move forward with planning that will show residents what defined zoning in Essex would look like but will try to usher in other bylaw changes first, and possibly move on to defined zones. The full Planning Board will meet with MAPC personnel on May 4, 2022 to arrive at a final scope of services and MAPC will use that guidance to submit the grant application by the deadline of June 2, 2022.
This report is available at www.essexma.org on the morning after any regularly scheduled Essex Board of Selectmen’s Meeting.
