It’s January in Harvard and so cold lately that the plentiful snow crunches underfoot. The Planning Board, though, is hearing the crunch of time this month, as it works overtime to create a new town center overlay district bylaw for the March Town Meeting.
“It’s our busiest time of year,” said Chairwoman Mary Essary, adding that bylaw changes require public hearings, where the laws are discussed in sometimes excruciating detail. But Essary says that’s what the Planning Board wants, since many of the changes come in response to public requests and from goals in the Harvard Master Plan.
A proposed bylaw for a town center overlay district arises from work by the Master Plan Implementation and Town Center Planning committees meeting as a group chaired by planner Joseph Sudol. The proposed district reflects the work of these committees over the past few months, to implement recommendations in the town’s Master Plan and Town Center Plan for revitalizing and protecting the town center.
An overlay district is an additional zoning requirement that is placed on an area but does not change the underlying zoning. Overlays are enacted to achieve a land-use goal that has been enunciated in a town’s master plan, such as preserving views or watersheds. According to planners, the goal in this case is to preserve the look and vitality of the town center, protecting it from both overdevelopment and abandoned buildings. Currently, zoning in the center is mostly agricultural-residential; only a small portion of the center, at the beginning of Littleton Road, is zoned for business.
Current businesses in the town center are allowed by tradition, or grandfathering, but after a building is vacated, the right to keep a traditional but nonconforming use expires. This is just one complication the planners say they hope to avoid with an overlay district.
A draft definition of the bylaw differentiates the overlay district from the sewer system plan being developed by the selectmen.
“The proposed bylaw is not a commitment or vehicle for endorsing any specific town center septic system,” the draft says. “In addition to limits imposed by the special permit process on development under the proposed bylaw, development will also be limited by the scope of any future town septic system that may be constructed.”
Lucy Wallace, chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen, pointed out that the planners and selectmen are “working in parallel,” to properly delineate the issues and avoid getting bogged down. The issues are related, but the relationships must be clearly defined, both she and Essary said this week.
Inadequate septic systems have long plagued homes and businesses in the town center, and numerous study groups have documented the problems. Urgent septic problems that block renovations at the General Store, Unitarian Church, and St. Theresa’s Church have finally brought the issue forward. On Wednesday Wallace said that her board would ask Town Meeting for funding, perhaps through a financially advantageous bond, to “tie all the [previous septic engineering] work together,” “attach real dollar figures to the plan, and finally address the problems facing the churches and other buildings the town says it values.
The next public hearing on the overlay district is on Jan. 28 at 7:30 in the Hapgood Room in the former library.
