Amid uncertainty surrounding the impending sale of the building that houses the General Store, the Select Board on Tuesday heard from residents urging the board to take a proposal for a town center overlay district off the table for consideration at the Sept. 27 Town Meeting. Proponents for tabling the bylaw argued that the expanded set of allowable uses proposed in the new zoning would make it too easy for a new owner of the General Store building to convert it to something other than the store, cafe, and community gathering place it has become.
The building’s occupants, the Harvard General Store and the Harvard Press, were notified in late spring about the impending sale by owner Adam Horowitz. The broker handling the sale, Steve Nigzus of Harborside Realty, said the building will come on the market this fall.
General store proprietor and Elm Street resident Scott Hayward has leased the basement and first and second floors of the building for his store since 2012. And at Tuesday evening’s Select Board meeting, during the public comment period, he was the first to urge the board to skip consideration of the overlay district at the Sept. 27 Town Meeting.
Reading from a prepared statement to a Zoom audience of 92, Hayward noted that the overlay district would allow condos and apartments and that a new owner “could decide that rents are more important than heritage.”
He said expanding the uses and ensuring increased vibrancy in the center “cannot be argued with,” but “unintended consequences could actually work to decrease vibrancy and render the town center a lifeless enclave.” He asked for the current zoning to remain “until a more complete and stable plan can be established.”
Seven residents followed Hayward, each speaking in favor of postponing the zoning article and praising the role the store plays in community life; nobody spoke against the suggested delay. The board did not discuss or respond to the comments because the topic was not on its agenda. In any case, it cannot simply remove the article from the warrant as it is left over from May’s Town Meeting. Instead, either the Select Board or Planning Board would need to move—at Town Meeting—to “take no action” on the overlay district.
In an email to the Press Tuesday evening, Planning Board Chair John McCormack said his board would discuss the request for delay at its next meeting, Sept. 8.
What would the overlay district allow in the town center
The proposed bylaw was originally on the warrant for the May Town Meeting, which was continued to Sept. 27 with three articles left to consider.
It would create a zoning district, encompassing 89 lots, to “overlay” the agricultural-residential zoning that exists in town center today. The bylaw would tailor dimensional requirements—such as setbacks from adjoining lots—to the small lots (average ¼ acre) of town center, rather than to the 1½-acre lots of the current A/R zoning, making renovations easier.
It would also add new uses to the district, including multifamily homes with up to four units per building and a mix of residential and commercial use.
Currently, such changes are strictly limited by the bylaw governing the legally existing, nonconforming lots comprising town center.
The permitting process would largely shift from Zoning Board of Appeals-issued variances to special permits issued by the Planning Board. Historical Commission regulations would still apply to any property in the historical district, which overlaps with the proposed overlay.
Proposed new uses are as follows:
- Medical or dental office
- Personal or business service including barber or beauty salon, shoe repair, tailoring, photocopying, and locksmith. Exception: business or trade schools are not allowed.
- Inn or bed-and-breakfast establishment
- Dry cleaning and laundry pickup station
- Nursery school, kindergarten, or day care center for preschool children
- Catering service, delicatessen, or other food market or a permitted eating establishment
- Restaurant or other food service establishment whose principal business is the sale of prepared foods or beverages that are consumed on the premises or carried out by retail customers
- Pharmacy
- Recreational, dance, or fitness facility
- Grocery or farm products retail store with less than 5,000 square feet of gross floor area
- Mix of residential and any of the listed commercial uses.
—VH
