With the renovation of Town Hall stalled by a too-close encounter with Harvard’s Protective Bylaw, a group of residents has asked the Selectmen to add an article to the Town Meeting warrant which, if passed, would exempt town-owned buildings on the Common from the bylaw’s provisions. Town officials, however, may have plans for an article of their own.
The request came in the form of a citizens’ petition handed to Town Clerk Janet Vellante by Stu Sklar on Tuesday, Feb. 26, and signed by 15 residents, five more than required by law. The petition was filed just ahead of the deadline for articles that will be considered at the upcoming April 6 Annual Town Meeting.
The committee responsible for managing the renovation of Town Hall has been unable to begin work because its plans have been found to violate two provisions of Harvard’s Protective Bylaw. The building is closer to Ayer Road than the 75-foot setback the bylaw requires, and the new addition is higher than the permitted 35 feet “above average grade.”
Because of the violations, the town has had to petition the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) for two variances. A hearing was held two weeks ago, as reported by the Press (see “Board asks if Town Hall plan will cause ‘substantial hardship,'” Feb. 22.), but the ZBA wanted to hear more evidence that their rejection of the request would cause “substantial hardship” to the town—a key criterion for approval—and members voted to continue the hearing on March 13. If the ZBA rejects the request, the town has 60 days to appeal the decision. But exempting Town Hall from the bylaw makes it unnecessary for the ZBA to approve any variances from its provisions.
In an email to the Press on Wednesday—repeating comments he had made the night before during public comment at the Selectmen meeting—Sklar said he was frustrated by what he had heard at the ZBA hearing. “It wasn’t clear in the meeting if [the ZBA] would vote to support this request,” he wrote. “The ambiguity of the law is appalling.”
Emulating Washington gridlock?
“Are we really trying to emulate Washington gridlock?” Sklar asked. “If the ZBA doesn’t grant the variance, do we want the town suing the town on appeal? The argument for the variance and the precedent from prior ZBA decisions are there, but is that how we should waste taxpayers’ money? Every delay costs the town something.”
The petition asks the Selectmen to add a new paragraph to the town’s bylaw. The new paragraph would allow “any lawful nonconforming existing structure” that is either owned or occupied by the town “and located on land that is within 2,500 feet of the town center intersection of Routes 110 and 111” to be “repaired, moved, enlarged or altered without requiring any zoning relief” and “exempted from any and all provisions of the Protective Bylaws.” A change in the bylaw requires a two-thirds vote of Town Meeting.
“Many towns have a bylaw that exempts every municipally owned building,” Sklar told the Press. “That’s pretty broad, so we’ve limited the scope of this exemption to the town center and institutional uses within 2,500 feet of the flashing light, where the greatest constraints exist.”
“Virtually every building in town center is nonconforming,” including several likely to be renovated within the next ten years, such as Hildreth House, the Fire Station and Bromfield House, Sklar said, “There are only a few that were built after the bylaws first came into effect in the mid-1960s,” he added.
The Selectmen had been scheduled to review and approve all Town Meeting articles at their Tuesday meeting this week, but in their discussions they never made it that far. The petition currently appears as Article 41 in a list of 43 articles, and by law must be included.
A debate deferred
But earlier in the evening, Sklar told the Selectmen he would be willing to withdraw his article if they offered one of their own. And during a preliminary discussion of the warrant, Town Administrator Tim Bragan told the Selectmen that he and Town Counsel Mark Lanza had drafted an article that would exempt only Town Hall from the by-law, and only from the provisions dealing with setback and height.
Unable to finish their work Tuesday evening, the Selectmen were forced to continue their meeting to discuss the warrant on Thursday morning, Feb. 28, when they will decide whether to offer an article of their own, a step that both Selectmen Ron Ricci and Bill Johnson said they would favor.
