The Planning Board has requested that the town allocate $300,000 from the Capital Stabilization and Investment Fund to plan the future commercial development along Ayer Road by creating a new zoning framework. Citizens will vote on the proposal at the May 15 Town Meeting, where it will require a simple majority to pass.
At an April 29 webinar, Director of Community and Economic Development Chris Ryan explained the details. The $300,000 would be divided over a three-part plan, with each part requiring the services of outside consultants with experience designing zoning changes in other towns.
The first part would be a market analysis and fiscal impact study, which would take an estimated four to six months and cost $45,000. This study would determine which business types Ayer Road could support and in what numbers, and how those businesses would affect the town’s revenue and expenditures. This study would determine what range of possibilities would be realistic expectations for the future of the district and the likely financial consequences of pursuing those options.
The second part would be a vision plan, which would take 12 to 14 months and cost $155,000. The Planning Board would consult with the public to determine which of the options laid out in market study best fit citizens’ desires for Harvard’s future. This part would determine goals for the overall amount of new development, allowed uses, protection of open space, changes to traffic flow, and plans for utilities.
The third and final part of the plan would create zoning to implement the goals outlined in the fiscal analysis and would take eight to 15 months and cost $100,000. The goals of the market analysis would be turned into a legally binding bylaw. It would do this with form-based code, a highly prescriptive type of bylaw that uses a combination of images and language to describe precisely what can be built. According to Ryan, this step would allow citizens to choose exactly what will be built long before any developer gets involved.
Ryan intends to use a set of principles called “smart growth” to guide the planning process, which he contrasted with “standard zoning” (what Harvard currently has in place). According to Ryan, the standard zoning limits how much can be built and specifies a few things that cannot be built but leaves the details of what is eventually built up to a developer. It is simpler to execute, but some things that get built may not make sense for the community, which turns citizens off from any further development.
By contrast, smart growth focuses on finding the needs of the community and making sure that any new development addresses those needs. Based on the feedback it has gathered in the past, the Planning Board expects that would mean protecting open space, improving traffic safety, increasing pedestrian access, and preserving a small-town aesthetic. According to Ryan, the downside of smart growth is that accurately determining and describing a community’s needs is difficult, which is why designing and codifying bylaws for smart growth is more expensive. Ryan plans to hire consultants who have already helped to create smart growth districts in other towns in the region.
Voters will be asked to allocate $300,000 for the entire project, but this money will not all be spent at once. According to Ryan, the first two parts of the study will each include an assessment of whether it is worth continuing the project. If the project is stopped early, the funding for the remaining parts of the study will be returned to the Capital Stabilization and Investment Fund. One year ago, at Town Meeting, the Planning Board requested funding for just the market study, but voters said they wanted to see the entire plan before they would commit to spending money on it.
