Committee Memembers
Jill Sullivan, Chairman
Joseph Burke
Bill DiMento
Virginia Hughes
Patrick Jones
Wayne O’Keefe
Peter Spellios
Andrzej Schreyer, Town Planner/Conservation Agent (Ex Officio)
Zoning Bylaw Review Committee (ZBRC) Mandate
The role of the Zoning Bylaw Review Committee (ZBRC), an ad-hoc sub-committee of the Planning Board, is to guide the effort of reviewing and amending the current zoning bylaw. The purpose of the ZBRC is to propose and champion through the Town Meeting statutory process updates to the zoning bylaw that "regulate(s) the use of land, buildings, and structures [...] to protect the health, safety and general welfare of its present and future inhabitants".
Over the course of the review process the ZBRC will balance interests of property owners (residential, commercial, non-profit and government) with those of the community at large as expressed in the Community Development Plan( CDP) (EO 418).
More specifically, the ZBRC endeavors for the zoning bylaw to:
o Respond to identified problems and new trends in demographics
o Be consistent with current legislation, case law and community aspirations
o Be explicit, predictable and enforceable
o Be functionally unified and procedurally efficient
o Include appropriate innovative regulations, procedures and processes
Why review Swampscott’s zoning bylaw?
The current zoning bylaw has inconsistencies, it is not explicit, has lax requirements in some areas and too stringent of requirements in others, has an onerous and inefficient permitting process, is not consistent with the 2004 CDP and needs to respond to community needs, aspirations and identified weaknesses.
What is a zoning bylaw?
A zoning bylaw contains provisions that regulate the use of land in the Town. It outlines the legal requirements a landowner must meet to develop or do construction on their property:
o How land may be used
o Where buildings and other structures can be located
o The types of buildings that are permitted and how they can be used
o The lot sizes and dimensions, parking requirements, building heights and
setbacks from the street and adjacent lot lines
Zoning bylaws have 3 basic components:
1.maps- identifying "zones" within municipalities and how they are regulated
2.words- that form an idiosyncratic "language"
3.numbers- that establish:
o height requirements buildings in storeys or feet
o setbacks that regulate where a building can be located on a lot
o the amount of parking spaces and landscaping to be provided
What is the Community Development Plan (CDP)?
In January 2000, former Governor Cellucci initiated the Executive Order 418, of which Community Development was a large component. Swampscott participated in the EO418 CDP program, a program designed to help local officials balance economic progress with preserving the quality of life in their communities. Swampscott's CDP was completed in June of 2004.
This Program provided all communities across the Commonwealth with up to $30,000 in technical assistance (pre-planning) and planning services in four core areas; Housing, Open Space/Natural Resource Protection, Economic Development and Transportation. The Program was jointly funded by four state agencies; Department of Housing and Community Development , Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, Department of Economic Development and the Executive Office of Transportation and Construction. Representatives from these agencies formed a working group responsible for reviewing and approving each Town's CDP scope of services.
What is the relationship between zoning and the CDP?
The CDP allowed Swampscott to address future growth and development by creating visions, goals and strategies. Zoning is the legal means of implementing the CDP. This effort seeks to bridge the gap that exists between current zoning and the CDP as well as the community’s input over the course of the zoning bylaw review process.
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