Working group, citizens collaborated in days before deciding vote
UPDATED, Jan. 19: Expressing general doubt about the readiness of the latest draft of the zoning-bylaw recodification, the Redevelopment Board voted unanimously Wednesday, Jan. 10, to continue its hearing until Jan. 22.
In the meantime, members hope that a revision they believe more acceptable to the Feb. 12 Special Town Meeting can be achieved. At the same time, a warrant article for the annual Town Meeting will be prepared as an option.
Since Jan. 10, representatives of a small group of citizens who have been following the project closely spoke about issues in the next hearing draft — the third — that they believe need to be resolved before a vote. After presenting these findings to the Redevelopment Board and the Zoning Recodification Working Group for their review, the latter invited the citizens’ group to discuss them. The working group and two citizens’ group members met Jan. 12, and the working group has indicated that the results of this discussion will be incorporated into a revision of the third hearing draft, which was posted Jan. 18 with the Redevelopment Board agenda.
See two links to the latest documents here:
Citizen revisions of zoning bylaw guide, Jan. 14, 2018
Revisions of zoning bylaw draft from recodification working group subcommittee, town planning, Jan. 18, 2018
On Jan. 10, 10 people attended the continued Redevelopment Board hearing at the Senior Center, many of them directly involved in the process.
4 residents speak
Four residents spoke. Steve Revilak, a Precinct 1 Town Meeting member and part of the working group, expressed gratitude for all for submitting comments. “It’s not light reading,” he said.
His comments reflected the past and our digital present. He said he had returned to documents from 1975, when the zoning bylaws were last codified. The Redevelopment Board held a three-day public hearing on Sept. 15-17, 1975, for the Special Town Meeting on Oct. 6, 1975. The board held four public, precinct meetings early in 1975.
As to the present, he and Christian Klein worked via an open-source computer program from Thanksgiving through Christmas to arrive at the working group’s latest document.
John Worden, the former 18-year Town Meeting moderator, added further to the historical view. Before 1975, he said, there was “the Little Red Book,” an update of the initial 1924 bylaw.
He congratulated Revilak for doing what some said couldn’t be done — provide a redline version showing all that was changed from original to draft. He said he was sorry if the version did not come in August or September.
Worden urged the board to “do the right thing.”
After public comments closed 45 minutes into the hearing, they were later reopened to allow two more to speak.
Ted Peluso of Precinct 6 said that with one 500-page document replacing another, he doubted Town Meeting members would read it and urged it to be recommended to the Special Town Meeting, not the annual.
Wynelle Evans, a member of the citizen’s group offering its version of recommended changes, wondered how much would be left to review the next draft.
Redevelopment Board members comment
Redevelopment Board members had their say. All thanked the variety of people involved in suggesting changes. Gene Benson called it “a wonderful example of crowdsourcing.”
What he said next echoed through the board: “I’m a little torn about what to do ….”
“… [I]f we can bring a good version to the Special Town Meeting, then we should,” he said, urging “not to make the perfect the enemy of good.”
Kin Lau called the changes in substance “inadvertent, with no ill will.” He said he is “on the fence, leaning toward getting a cleaner version.”
Dave Watson, a representative on the working group, said he has seen firsthand what took place and that “volunteers did vastly more work than expected ….
“… [D]espite heroic efforts by Jenny to revise, I don’t feel I have had enough time comb through all this,” concluding he is “feeling very uncertain.”
Andrew West said that the process has come a long way and “worked very well.” He said that the effort may be among “the best things I’ve seen done in 25 years” involving town volunteers and official.
He said he is “inclined to take the time.”
Board Chairman Andrew Bunnell said: “I agonized over this,” saying he saw how Revilak and Klein designed a computer program to to produce a redline document between the existing bylaws and proposed the recodification.
As to the pace of the effort, he said, “I would personally be comfortable voting to send” the final revision to the February Special Town Meeting.
He said expects that revision for Town Meeting to be available 24 hours after the Jan. 22 vote.
Because the warrant for the annual Town Meeting closes Jan. 26, Bunnell asked that an article for that meeting be prepared. He said that should the effort be put off until spring, after the April Town Election, involved will be some new Town Meeting members who may not be familiar with the yearlong recodification process.
After Benson said he was comfortable continuing the hearing until Jan. 22, a motion to continuing again succeeded, 5-0, with the location to be determined.success at the Special Town Meeting.
The schedule of meetings
In an effort to prepare for the continued public hearing, the Zoning Recodification Working Group has canceled two of four neighborhood meetings. The rescheduled meeting dates will be announced at a later date.
The following neighborhood meetings will be held at 7 p.m. in the Media Center at the following dates and locations:
Wednesday, Jan. 24, Peirce School, Media Center
Thursday, February 1, Hardy School, Media Center
Jan. 9, 2018: Slow recodification, redevelopment panel told
Jan. 8, 2018: Zoning-recodification process from October into January
Jan. 4, 2018, opinions: Two views of recodifying town bylaws
July-October 2017: Documents online as zoning-code forum held
Aug. 9, 2017: Let’s fix our zoning recodification process
This news summary was published Monday, Jan. 15, 2018, and updated later that day to clarify information attributed to Steve Revilak. It was updated Jan. 19 with a link to the latest town draft.
