Town Meeting 2020

Welcome to the Planning Department 2020 Town Meeting landing page!

Due to COVID, the information below may not be timely, as town meeting has been postponed several times, and the agenda will be modified significantly in response to this public health emergency.

We have three categories of articles on the warrant this year:  zoning bylaw, general bylaws, and capital.  The explanations and links are grouped in this way - all of the information is located below - in some cases you will be redirected to another page due to the supporting information relative to a particular article.  Click here to view Powerpoint presentation to Selectmen and Finance Committee Februrary 18, 2020.

ZONING BYLAW

Five zoning articles are proposed for Town Meeting 2020: New FEMA inland maps; housekeeping for medical marijuana; and two recodification articles - a use table, and a streamlining article (the streamlining article has been indefinitely postponed).  The fifth is a citizen's petition relative to notices on building permits.

FEMA Flood Zone Maps for inland areas - FEMA has recently updated the inland flood risk maps.  Click here for details, and Housekeeping - Medical Marijuana - Correcting a Scrivener's error where the new overlay district (which was adopted in 2019, and is in effect) will be added to the list of overlay districts in the bylaw - downloadable below. 

Two articles - start of recodifying the zoning bylaw were Indefinitely Postponed for 2020 March Town Meeting.  Link to Zoning Bylaw Review Committee's Report to learn more about recodification.

Citizen's petition to modify the bylaw.  Downloadable below. 

GENERAL BYLAWS

Two general bylaws (in one warrant article) are proposed by the land use department heads to address the stormwater requirements in our MS4 permit.  Please click here for an overview. The first addresses MS4 stormwater requirements, and the language adds a review of stormwater management on projects that have a potential to affect stormwater patterns - where they will disturb over 15,000 sq. ft. of land in a Residential zoning district; render 25% or more of an undeveloped lot impervious or increase impervious area of a developed lot by 25% or more - this is similar to several towns on the south shore in their MS4 management.  The second addresses illicit discharges into the stormwater system through the Board of Health, also required by the MS4 permit and in keeping with other communities.  Please click here to see these proposed bylaws.

A housekeeping article to amend the General Bylaw relative to Local Historic Districts.  The town amended the general bylaw a few years ago to reference a single map that would be kept current as the Official Local Historic District Map, in order to make reference to the districts.  More recently, the Planning Department worked with the Land Court and Registry of Deeds to ensure that these districts would appear in a title search at the direction of the Finance Committee, requiring the Town to re-record the districts as individually voted at all prior Town Meetings in a format that accomplishes this goal.  The intent of the article is to eliminate the Official Local Historic District Town-Wide Map, and instead refer to the individually adopted historic district maps as have been and will be adopted from time to time by town meeting.  A town wide map will still be updated on line and available upon request.  Article is located below - scroll to bottom.

CAPITAL ITEMS

There are three articles relative to spending:  Exit 10 engineering, CZM Resiliency Match (which is the same as beach maintenance permitting), and Sea Wall Grant Match (relative to replacement of old sections of wall not damaged in the storms, but have outlived their useful life).  Fact sheets are available below, scroll to bottom.