At its Monday meeting, the Planning Board voted on which zoning bylaws to place on the warrant for this year’s Town Meeting. Amendments to museum and lighting bylaws are in, wind energy and town center overlay district bylaws are out. (see related story)
Museums
The so-called museum bylaw aims to fill a hole in current regulations, which lack a definition for “museum.” The board voted to include the amendment in the warrant, hoping that it will help to resolve a lawsuit brought against the Zoning Board of Appeals by Fruitlands Museum. The museum sued the ZBA to challenge conditions of a special permit that set parameters for the museum’s social functions, events it has hosted for years. In the process, the ZBA denied the museum’s claim that it was an educational institution and therefore subject to state—instead of local—regulation. ZBA Chairman Chris Tracey attended the meeting.
“The ZBA, at the request of the Board of Selectmen, is trying to come to settlement. This bylaw could be one component of the settlement,” he said. Town counsel Mark Lanza said he had asked the attorney general for “feedback” on the bylaw and expected a response in March.
Lighting
The Planning Board wants to clarify the purpose of the lighting bylaw and make it less specific to the Oak Ridge Observatory on Pinnacle Road, which before its closure in 2005 had been operated by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The amendment adds neon, mercury vapor, and quartz lights to its list of prohibited lighting, joining metal halide lamps. The bylaw also regulates outdoor commercial lighting between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Residential wind turbines
The Planning Board voted to exclude from the warrant a bylaw that would have allowed some residential wind turbines, or wind energy conversion systems. (It was a tie vote, which automatically defeats a motion.) Dissenters Kara Minar and Joe Sudol said the three-page bylaw was not restrictive enough. Proponents Mary Essary and Peter Brooks wanted townspeople to debate the issue. Barbara Brady, who drafted the bylaw for the board, went home to tend her ailing youngsters before the vote was taken, at about 10:30 p.m. Another wind energy bylaw, drafted by Harvard citizens, will appear on the warrant.
