Personal Thoughts on the Land Use Partnership Act - Part 2 Changes Affecting a Community Without a Certified Plan: Town Meeting Vote Change

First, I recognize that this change affects certified plan communities as well as non-certified plan communities, however non-certified communities will be far more adversely impacted by this change.

I know every planner has probably questioned the super-majority vote requirement at town meeting. This is particularly true when a zoning change we have worked quite hard on has failed, with better than half the residents supporting the change. However, zoning is one of the few areas of government where the rights of the minority are truly valued.

That being stated, I would like to point out other reasons to oppose this change.

As a local Planning Board member we were faced with a builder's zoning proposal. It came in as a petition for a Special Town Meeting Agenda. The petition sought to undo a zoning change adopted with little opposition at a well attended Annual Town Meeting. Traditionally the town places zoning articles and petitions at the end of the agenda. As anyone knows, Special Town Meetings are not well attended, can be dominated by special interests, and many do not stay for the end of these meetings. The builders ensured they had enough people present to ensure a quorum. The special interest article barely missed the two-thirds vote, there-by preserving the real will of the town.

Had the proposal before us in the Land Use Partnership Act been in place, the real will of the town would have been undone.

Now lets think about this change in relation to the other proposed changes, in particular the vesting discussion I put forward earlier.

A special interest puts forward a zoning proposal geared to promote the interests of a few. A proposal that may not be consistent with local planning objectives. The Planning Board recommends against the zoning change. The special interest ensures a large turnout of its interests at a Special Town Meeting and wins by a vote of 50% plus one. The proposed change in the law will allow such a proposal to become a valid zoning by-law.

A certified plan community may be protected by such a zoning change in that the proposal will need to be certified as compatible with the certified plan by the regional planning agency (not that I feel regional planning agency control of this type is desirable). Hopefully this will ensure that certified plan towns can fend off such a proposal.

Non-certified plan towns will not have a regional planning agency reviewing and approving its zoning proposals. Leaving them far more vulnerable from this change than certified plan communities.

To me, I see this part of the proposed changes to the Zoning Act as responding to the interests of some special groups, and not to the needs of the citizens of the Commonwealth. It provides a second reason to oppose this "Land Use Partnership" proposal.