The Planning Board has determined what bylaw amendments it will bring to town meetings in 2021 and 2022. The board discussed this at its June 7 meeting, where it focused on senior housing but also addressed a wide variety of topics.
For fall 2021, the board intends to update the town’s assisted living facility bylaw to include continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs). According to Planning Board member Fran Nickerson, CCRCs include support for older individuals who require varying levels of care, while assisted living facilities cater specifically to those who are no longer able to care for themselves. Older people generally move into a continuing care community while still healthy and independent and then receive increasing assistance as they age.
The Ayer Road Village Special Permit (ARV-SP) bylaw currently allows assisted living facilities in the commercial district, and the general senior housing bylaw recently passed by the May 15 Town Meeting applies some restrictions and guidelines to these facilities. Assisted living facilities are a subset of CCRCs, so the expanded bylaw would continue to support currently allowed uses in addition to adding new ones. Board members agreed that such facilities should remain restricted to the commercial district.
At Town Meeting this fall, the board also plans to propose an erosion control bylaw. Such a bylaw would require property owners who clearcut large areas of land to seek Planning Board approval beforehand and to use techniques intended to reduce erosion. The Planning Board previously attempted to pass an erosion control bylaw at the Spring 2019 Town Meeting, and the Conservation Commission attempted it in 2016, but citizens voted them both down. Planning Board Chair Justin Brown suggested that the board make sure the bylaw is designed to minimize inconvenience to citizens.
The Planning Board also intends to update Harvard’s scenic roads bylaw in fall 2021. Planning Board member Gwen Leonard has led the effort to update this bylaw with stronger protections for Harvard’s rural roadside features, such as stone walls and trees.
For Spring Town Meeting in 2022, the Planning Board intends to propose an open space design bylaw. Such a bylaw, sometimes referred to as a clustered cousin bylaw, would allow an alternative development path for large properties. Instead of splitting such properties into the 1.5-acre lots required by Harvard’s standard zoning, the open space design would allow a cluster of smaller homes plus a large section of permanently preserved open space. The board intends to include additional incentives for clustered senior housing as part of the overall goal to improve Harvard’s senior housing stock.
The board has been working on this bylaw for years and considers it more complex than most bylaws, and thus it requires more outreach. Board members agreed that outreach will be easier during the leadup to a spring meeting than a fall meeting, since many citizens go on vacation during the summer, making it difficult to connect with them.
At the suggestion of Director of Community and Economic Development Chris Ryan, the board also planned a town center zoning bylaw for spring 2022. According to Ryan, Harvard’s town center has the same agricultural-residential zoning as the majority of the town, mandating single-family homes on 1.5-acre lots. This means that most of the town center’s buildings are nonconforming uses. He presented the board with three options for changing the town center zoning to reflect the reality of the area: an overlay district, a new regular district, or a form-based code.
The board also intends to update Harvard’s housing conversion bylaw to be more favorable to senior housing. The conversion bylaw allows very large, pre-1965 single-family homes to be converted into multiple dwelling units. Board members agreed that the bylaw should be focused on converting oversized homes near the town center into senior housing.
