Module Directory

Introduction to the Roles & Responsibilities of Planning Boards and Zoning Boards of Appeal

An introduction to the basic terms, rules and tools a new board member needs to to navigate through the early years of being a public official. This workshop is one of the building blocks of a permanent, comprehensive training program for local Planning Boards and Zoning Boards of Appeals.

The Objective: competent and confident local officials

Module Directory (click on any topic below for more information)

• What is Planning
• Tools of Planning and Zoning
  • Comprehensive Plan
  • Zoning Bylaw/Ordinance Administration
  • Zoning Map
  • Official Map
  • Subdivision Regulations
  • Capital Improvements Plan
  • Rules and Regulations for a Permit or Special Permit Granting Authority
• Doing Your Jobs Right: Administration and Conduct
  • Adopting Rules and Regulations
  • Team Effort with Other Boards and Departments
  • Open Meeting Law
  • Quorums, Voting
  • Public Hearings
  • Conflict of Interest Law
• Duties and Responsibilities: Planning Board
  • Composition
  • Comprehensive (Master) Plan
  • Zoning
  • Subdivision Regulation
  • Scenic Roads
• Duties and Responsibilities: Zoning Board of Appeals
  • Composition
  • Adopting Own Rules
  • Comprehensive Permits

What is Planning?

"...the conscious attempt to solve problems and control the course of events by foresight, systematic thinking, investigation, and the exercise of value preferences in choosing among the alternative lines of action."
[Gilbert and Specht: Planning for Social Welfare, 1977]

Do you feel that this is what you are doing at your Board meetings? An overriding goal of the Citizen Planner Training Initiative is to help you get out of the re active mode most officials find themselves in, so that you can get into the pro active mode that is true planning.

Some of the Purposes of Planning:

1. Orderly growth to minimize costs and conflicts
2. Clean water and air
3. Healthy economy, local jobs
4. Good schools, other services
5. Housing appreciation, availability, affordability
6. Efficient use of taxes
7. Adequate recreational areas and open space
8. Protection of natural and cultural resources

Legal responsibility to plan

State statute :

1. Planning Board = long range planning and administration
2. Zoning Board of Appeals = appeals, other key decisions

   These are the responsibilities that are given to you under State law. Case law upholds planning. Planning is a good thing to do. It's both possible and legal. But, most boards do not find the time to do it. That's one reason for this training... to help you accomplish your other tasks more efficiently, so you can get to "real" planning.

Tools of Planning and Zoning

These are your municipality's basic planning tools. This workshop will provide you with an overview of the purposes of each tool, and how they should fit together to provide a solid basis for local officials' on-going decision-making on behalf of the community. We will also consider your respective statutory responsibilities in regard to the adoption and administration of these tools. We'll start with brief definitions of what these tools are. You'll hear more about them later in the workshop.

• Comprehensive or Master Plan - Policy document outlining Town's current situation and desired future. A public document with legal standing if adopted by City Council or Town Meeting. The emphasis is on future pattern of land use, provision of services, relationship among different parts of the community (e.g. housing, business, open space, transportation).

• Zoning Bylaw or Ordinance - Bylaws and ordinances should guide municipal decisions, regulating pattern and appearance of development and what can be the uses of land and buildings. Simply, it spells out the development review process.

• Zoning Map with or without Overlay Districts - Shows the locations of the different districts within the city or town.

• Official Map (Different from the Zoning Map) - Shows public ways and parks previously laid out and established by law and private ways existing and used in common by more than two owners.

• Subdivision Regulations - Regulates division of land into smaller parcels. Specifies standards for roadways and other improvements in resulting new rights of way.

• Capital Improvements Program - On-going municipal plan to schedule and pay for needed major expenses.

• Rules and Regulations for a Permit or Special Permit Granting Authority - Zoning Boards of Appeals can add to their set of basic tools. Rules which outline conduct of the Zoning Board of Appeals business. Other training modules will examine these tools of zoning in more detail.

Doing Your Jobs Right: Administration and Conduct

Here are the 4 essential aspects of doing your jobs that you must get control of. They are clear, reasonable, and straight-forward. Do them right, and you will be meeting your fundamental, ethical obligation of fairness. You will also be keeping yourselves and your municipality out of legal hot water.

Issues covered below include:

1. Establishing rules and regulations
2. Relationships with other boards and municipal staff
3. Introduction to Open Meeting Law
4. Ethics/conflict of interest

Your board should have duly adopted Rules and Regulations on such topics as:

1. Election of Officers Rotation without hard feelings
2. Appointments Getting on your agenda ahead on time, so you can review materials before the meeting and budget time.
3. Meetings (time, location, agenda)
4. Record of Proceedings
5. Conduct of Meetings Who gets to talk and when? 'Open meeting' does not mean you must let anybody seize the floor whenever he or she wants to. You cannot d your jobs if you don't plan and enforce a balance between public input and your time for deliberations.
6. Applications (Special Permits, Site Plan Review, Subdivisions) Be clear about what constitutes a complete application. If all the information you list is not included, it is not an application, and the review period clock does not stop ticking.
7. Public Hearings Who doesn't have a horror story about a public hearing that got out of hand? The only way to avoid this is to do homework ahead of time about how a constructive hearing must be conducted- and then stick by the rules.
8. Writing of Decisions This is how you are clear to the concerned parties, and how you provide firm footing for future proceedings.

You will probably find that reviewing these topics with your fellow board members will prompt much more discussion and varied opinions than you would expect. It is worth the effort to come to thoughtful agreement because how you craft and follow your Rules and Regulations will have a great influence on whether you drag yourselves home from meetings at midnight, exhausted and frustrated, or get home at a reasonable hour, feeling the satisfaction of having completed your work and done it well.

Team Effort with Other Boards and Departments

A team approach (rather than a turf approach) to administration of bylaws/ordinances and regulations is more efficient, fairer to the public, and better for your physical and mental health. It is not easy. Different boards and officials have different responsibilities, expertise, and legal mandates. But you must still see that you are on the same side, doing your best on behalf of the community.

Town Hall Team Lineup

• Town Clerk Filings, postings
• Building Inspector Zoning Enforcement
• Board of Health Title 5 issues, subdivision filing (their decisions are binding and Planning Boards must follow them)
• Conservation Commission Wetlands Protection Act with respect to new developments
• Historic Commission Reviews development impacting national registry, state listed properties and/or historic districts

Others?...Who are some other officials in your municipality that you need to work well with? Is there anyone here who has not at some point said, 'Oh no!! We're going to have to deal with X?' This is a diagnostic sign that you need to work on establishing more of a team approach!!

• You and your fellow officials need to polish up your ways of working together before the next controversial application comes in.
• Be team mates on the same side.
• Avoid frustration and burn-out.
• Don't sue each other; communicate!!

Here are some ways to collaborate that will make everyone's life easier and help you work together:

1. Shared computer database
   The management and sharing of information is crucial to timely and good decisions. Avoid wasting time spinning your wheels because you didn't have the right information.
2. Same scale maps for overlaying
   This way you and the Conservation Commission and the Historic Commission can start seeing the same community.
3. Check-off circulation list for all applications
   Numerous boards and officials receive applications for a variety of permits. Each of you can require that -- before submitting it to you -- the applicant must circulate copies of the application to a designated list of other boards and officials. Each of them checks off on the circulation list that they have received it.
4. Development review process manual
   A clear road map through your development review process will help the applicant avoid that feeling of being a pin ball bouncing fruitlessly back and forth. It will make clear just what homework he/she needs to do before taking up your time. And you and your fellow officials will learn a lot from the discussions you'll have as you try to figure out how an application should make its way through Town/City Hall!
5. Regular All-Boards' Meeting
   The lack of communication among local officials can be staggering. Sitting together in the same room 2 or 3 times a year can work wonders. You can work out problems in the review process, discuss the implications of expected applications, maybe even get into long range planning.

Open Meeting Law (OML) - Purpose: To conduct government in full view of the public and to eliminate secrecy surrounding deliberations and decisions on which public policy is based.
Note that this means that the public has to be able to watch and listen. They don't have to be allowed to speak or participate in the discussion.

Rule: No quorum of a governmental body may meet in private for the purpose of deciding on or deliberating on any matter.

Requirement: All meetings of a governmental body must be open to the public. A Subcommittee is a governmental body while town meetings are not governmental bodies. And work sessions are meetings while site visits are not meetings.

Exceptions:
Executive Sessions - By law there are now 9 reasons why a body may go into Executive Session. The most common reason relating to planning/zoning deliberations has been to discuss strategy regarding actually pending litigation or immediately threatened litigation if an open meeting would be deleterious to the Town's position. The body itself must be a party in the litigation or reasonably expect to be a party. A recently added second likely reason for you to go into Executive Session could be in order to enter into a mediation procedure.

The proper way to go into Executive Session is:
First, convene in open session of a posted meeting. Then, vote by majority roll call to go into Executive Session. The presiding officer must first state the purpose for the session and say whether or not the board will reconvene afterwards.

Required Notice of Meetings (Responsibility of Officer calling meeting)

• File with Town Clerk and post publicly in Clerk's office or main Town bulletin board
• At least 48 hrs. in advance (incl. Sat. but not Sunday or legal holidays)
• Include date, place, time . "Every 3rd Wed." is not enough. Can post specific list if adhere to it rigidly. You can post a series of meetings ahead of time, but any change must be posted at least 48 hours ahead of the meeting affected.

Required Record of Proceedings (aka Minutes)

Contents:

1. Date
2. Time
3. Place
4. Members present/absent
5. Actions taken
6. Roll call votes become public records immediately (except Executive Session minutes, but only as long as publication would defeat purpose of session). As soon as the pressing reason for secrecy no longer applies, you must make public the minutes of an Executive Session."

No special format required. (Keep tapes or discs until official printing.)

OML does not apply to:

1. Site visits (generally)
2. Chance/social meetings, even if matters relating to official business are
3. Discussed so long as no final agreement is reached
4. Emergency meetings (sudden, unexpected occurrence or set of circumstances demanding immediate action)
   

OML does not require:

1. Printed or posted agenda
2. Public participation
3. Publication or mailing notice to abutters (Except as required by law, for example, for Public Hearings)
4. Public meeting to reduce decision to writing (but all conditions of approval need to have been made known at public session) Once the decision is made at a meeting, a member can write it up later.

Conducting Meetings with Meaningful Access - Meeting environment which allows all persons to hear (and preferably see) all discussion and decisions. (Note ADA)

You must take action to remove disturbances, or move to a larger hall so that all may fit. The Presiding Officer may [and should] request all persons to be silent, and may [should] have removed anyone who persists in disorderly behavior despite warnings. There should be no closed doors unless there is a sign inviting people in.)

Attorney/municipal client privilege is waived: That is, an attorney must deliver advice to you in the open, except under the strict limitations of Executive Session.

No telephone calls for quorum: Neither serial nor conference call are permissible if a quorum is involved.)

Release of Minutes: Minutes are public from the moment they are created, regardless of form. You cannot hold them back until they are officially adopted, but you may mark them as draft. Official minutes should be released with in a reasonable time. Amendments must be made in open session and the decision noted in that meeting's minutes. You need to mark revised minutes as amended, with the date.

Avoid conduct that leaves an impression of OML violation

Quorums

General rule: Majority of board is a quorum, and a majority of a quorum may act. (usually by majority vote of those present and voting)

No regard for vacancies, i.e. a majority of the number of members there are supposed to be.

Cannot count member with conflict for quorum in regard to that matter.

Ordinarily if a super majority is required (e.g. 2/3, 3/4 or unanimous), should have that number present.

A super majority means that the vote required to approve is greater than the simple majority of 50% plus 1. Whether a super majority is required is determined by a variety of statutes pertaining to such decisions as Special Permits, and Variances. The exact number required can vary according to the number of board members. For example, a 3 member ZBA may need all 3 votes to achieve a super majority, whereas a 5 member board may only need 4 out of the 5. If you have questions about this, check with your Town Counsel or City solicitor.

Voting

1. Must take place at meeting. No call-ins or faxes.
2. Abstention counts toward quorum, but not as vote for or against motion.
3. Tabulate vote based on those present and voting. Majority (or super majority) required for motion to pass.
4. Tie vote usually defeats a motion.

Public Hearings

1. Due process may necessitate, even if statute does not require one. (Constitutional requirements take precedence over statutory ones.)
2. Not on same day as state or municipal election, caucus, or primary in Town (for Special Permits, Variances, or Appeals)
3. Can continue to certain date without sending out new notices (but must re-post with 48 hour notice!!)
4. Ends when cut off parties' right to argue. When interested parties may no longer present information, and argument is cut off, the Hearing has ended and the time clock for your decision starts ticking.

Conflict of Interest Law: Chapter 268A

Who is covered?

1. Everyone from Governor to unpaid board member.
   Elected or appointed.
2. Full or part-time.
3. Paid or unpaid.
4. Current or former.
5. Partners of current or former.

What activities are covered?

1. Bribes (i.e. to influence action)
2. No making, seeking, or receiving bribes.
3. Extra pay, gifts, privileges (i.e. because of your official actions) Nothing of value over $50, even out of simple gratitude for a job well done. No tickets or free passes.
4. Participating in a matter in which there is any financial interest of: you or member of immediate family, (including as abutter) your business partners, organization (including non-profit) for which you are officer, director or a prospective employee

What should you do?

If have a question, request opinion from Town counsel or contact State Ethics Commission before engaging in the activity or participating in the matter.

Stay totally clear of the matter until you receive a favorable opinion.

If conflict comes up, advise person or board who appointed you (or fellow board members) in advance, in writing. This allows others to assign the matter to someone else, or to make a written determination that your interest is not so substantial as to require your withdrawal from the matter. (See details regarding Rule of Neces sity)

Someone who is otherwise disqualified because of a conflict may still act on the matter if his/her not acting would defeat the purpose of the proceeding and the result is a failure of justice. (For example, no action is possible without your vote, and there is no alternative member or other board or official who has jurisdiction.) The Rule of Necessity can only be invoked if a board is unable to act because of a lack of quorum resulting from the disqualification of one or more of its members. You cannot invoke the Rule because of vacancies or absences or to break a tie vote. You can only use it as a last resort. Only the chairman (not the disqualified member) may invoke it, on advice of the town counsel or city solicitor. If the Rule is invoke, note in the minutes how and why you used it as a last resort.

Standards of Conduct

You may not . . .

• Accept other employment which would impair your independent judgment
• Improperly disclose confidential info.
• Use your position to gain privileges (For yourself or others)
• Give reasonable basis for impression of being improperly influenced.

If the matter is adjudicative, disqualify yourself if you've already made up your mind, or have a closed mind about the facts or parties involved, or have personal animosity. For making public policy or factual determinations, you do not necessarily have to disqualify yourself even if you've already made up your mind.

Planning Board

Composition:

1. At least 5, no more than 9 members
2. 3 or 5 year terms,(decided by Town Meeting or City Council)
3. At least 1 term expiring each year (Staggered terms)
4. Elected or appointed (varies by municipality)

A Board's level of independence can be highly influenced by whether it is elected or appointed. Your municipal charter determines this, because it is a matter of your form of government.

Comprehensive (Master) Plan:

1. Public document with legal standing
   A sound, properly adopted Plan serves as an argument why decisions based upon it are not arbitrary and capricious.
2. Adopted by majority vote of Planning Board following Public Hearing
   For sound political reasons, and to ease future implementation, you may choose to have Town Meeting or City Council endorse or accept the Plan, but it becomes the municipality's official Plan when you adopt it.
3. Current and forecasted land uses. Policies and plans for long term management of growth and development
   These are the physical aspects of your community that must be included in your Plan, according to state statute. But it is your community's plan. You can have other things, too. For example, how Town Hall will relate to, and work with, the business community or local volunteer groups. "Nonphysical" considerations may be very important to your planning in order to achieve implementation, for example to win the votes necessary to amend your Zoning or to fund capital improvements. Or working with your Downtown Business Association may be key to implementing the economic development component of your Plan.
4. Comprehensive and internally consistent
   Your Plan must be comprehensive and internally consistent precisely because of its basic purpose: to understand how all the parts of your community fit together and to set policies and guidelines to help your regulations and actions be consistent. Now, don't let this discourage you. 'Comprehensive' doesn't have to mean 'encyclopedic'. Gather the best information you can for now, and think about the broad outline of your community and the overall patterns of development. What is crucial is community-wide consideration of the big picture, and agreeing on useful policies to help make important decisions. A good Plan is a living document. You can fill in missing pieces, get more specific, and adjust it over time. The important thing is to get thinking and talking about your shared future. You may already have pieces of a Comprehensive Plan, for example an Open Space and Recreation Plan, an historic survey, or an economic development Plan.

Planning Board Duties Relating to the Comprehensive Plan

1. Make and amend from time to time.
   State statute designates you as the body who may adopt and update the local Comprehensive Plan. A tool that is rusty and out of date won't be used. Make sure that your Plan addresses and gives guidance on the issues that confront you and your fellow officials. If it is not providing a basis for making the decisions that you face, it is overdue for an update.
2. Should spearhead broad-based process to inform, involve, gain knowledgeable support from residents and other officials.
   Speaking philosophically, if this is a Plan for the community, the community must develop it. Speaking practically, the 5 or 9 members of one board (even with a fantastic staff, RPA, or consultants!) do not have the knowledge or energy to generate a good Plan. Speaking politically, a Plan developed in a vacuum won't have a prayer of implementation. You adopt the Plan. Other people vote the regulations and money to implement critical objectives. Daily decisions by other officials will follow its guidance or undercut its intentions. How can they pay attention to a Plan they don't understand and may not agree with? If this is seen as 'the Planning Board's Plan', you've wasted your effort and not done your job, because there still is no Plan that is guiding the municipality.
3. Consider seeking Town Meeting or City Council endorsement
   If the process that generated the Plan also generated a community-wide mandate for the Plan, it should be fairly easy to get this vote, and subsequent votes on implementation actions will be made much easier.
4. Advocate use as guide for decisions
   Keep reminding officials and residents that the Plan is their tool to help make decisions easier. Quote from it during public debate. Refer to it in your decisions and recommendations to other governmental bodies. Ask that an agenda item in the All Board's Meeting be periodic consideration of whether the Plan is still a useful reference for the decisions confronting your fellow officials.

Zoning

1. Purpose: health, safety, welfare.
2. Divides community into districts, each with regulations regarding: use of land, use, height, area of buildings.
3. Tool for implementing Comprehensive Plan: should be guided by and consistent with it.

Planning Board Duties Relating to Zoning

1. Public Hearing and recommendation on proposed Zoning or amendments, no matter who initiates. As the board responsible for long range planning, you must advise the Town/City regarding how a proposed change would work for or against the community's desired future. A good Comprehensive Plan clearly explains what that desired future is and provides the rationale you can use to evaluate whether or not a proposed amendment would be in the best interests of the community.
2. May be Special Permit Granting Authority (SPGA)
   This is a crucial decision made in your Zoning. The Planning Board's expertise lies in making planning-related judgment calls, whereas the ZBA's expertise tends to be in adjudicative decision-making. The Special Permit Granting Authority should fall on the board who are in the best position to exercise judgment on behalf of the community.
3. May conduct Site Plan Review
   This can be used to regulate a use, not to prohibit it.

Subdivision Regulation - Controls conversion of undeveloped land into smaller lots (res. and non-res.) and the roadways and services required. Should be guided by and consistent with Comprehensive Plan and Zoning.

Subdivision regulation addresses:

1. Adequate access for safety
2. Compliance with Zoning
3. Compliance with other bylaws
4. Adequate utilities and services

The density and development pattern reflect what your Zoning allows and requires, but through your Subdivision Regulations and review process you determine a great deal about how new development is laid on the landscape.

Planning Board Duties Relating to Subdivisions

Determine whether plan is ANR (Approval Not Required) - That is, exempt from Subdivision Regulations because the lots have adequate frontage on an existing way. The issue of whether adequate access already exists is extremely thorny.

Adopt Subdivision Rules and Regulations - What should new roads look like? Just how much pavement fits on your landscape? What about sidewalks, paths, street trees, utilities, walls, other elements in public rights of way, including easements? What information should be on plans and in the submittal package before you accept and consider an application? Your Subdivision Regulations. tell the applicant up front what you expect, what you require, and what your standards are.
To adopt or amend your Regulations requires a duly posted Public Hearing followed by a majority vote of the Planning Board.

Review and Approval or Disapproval of Preliminary Subdivision Plans - Preliminary plans are required for non-residential plans, and strongly recommended for residential ones. At this early stage, you have an excellent opportunity to suggest, influence, negotiate, and drive home your requirements. You can approve, conditionally approve, or disapprove the preliminary plan. In the case of disapproval, you must detail the basis for your disapproval.

Review and Approval or Disapproval of Definitive Subdivision Plans - Definitive Subdivision Plans require a Public Hearing. The Board of Health must have received a copy at filing and must approve the plan. You cannot approve a plan that doesn't comply with their recommendations.

You can approve, approve with modifications, or disapprove a definitive plan. You can only disapprove it for specific violations of the Subdivision Regulations (see how important your Regulations are?) or for not following Board of Health recommendations.

If you disapprove the plan, you must detail in writing the basis for your disapproval and specify definite suggestions for amendment. Be clear and complete.

Scenic Roads - Once municipality designates road scenic, trees and stone walls in the right of way cannot be cut, removed, or destroyed as part of road repair or reconstruction without prior written consent of the Planning Board. Exception: A municipality cannot give scenic designation to a state-owned or maintained roadway.

Planning Board Duties Relating to Scenic Roads

• May recommend designation (Others can, too.)
• Hold Public Hearing on request to cut, remove, or destroy tree or stone wall (jointly with Tree Warden, if concerns cutting a Public Shade Tree
• Decide whether to provide written consent

Once a road is designated as scenic, written consent from the Planning Board must be obtained before a tree or stone wall in its right of way can be cut, removed, or destroyed as part of roadway maintenance or reconstruction. Note that this protection does not extend to private landowners making these changes, for example to build a driveway. That concern must be addressed by other means, for example through your Subdivision Regulations or Site Plan Approval.

Zoning Board of Appeals

Now it's the ZBA's turn! Here are the key points we'll be looking at:

1. Composition
2. ZBA Duties Relating to Adopting Own Rules
3. ZBA Duties: Zoning
4. Comprehensive Permits

Composition:

1. At least 3, no more than 5 members
2. Elect Chair and Clerk annually
3. 1 term expiring each year
4. Appointed unless local charter says otherwise
5. Local Zoning Bylaw/Ordinance may allow for associate members

This is a particularly important point for the ZBA, given the judicial nature of your responsibilities and what a tough spot you are in if you haven't got a quorum or one or more members have to excuse themselves due to conflict. Think through the implications of this option, and consider amending as necessary the Zoning provision that establishes the local ZBA.

ZBA Duties Relating to Adopting Own Rules

1. Consistent with statute and local Zoning
2. File with Town or City Clerk
3. If appoint Zoning Administrator, must be named along with duties and limitations of position

Tomorrow, dig out your own rules about how you conduct your business on behalf of the community. Are they current? Do they truly reflect how you operate? If not, should they be changed, or should you update how your meetings and Hearings are conducted?

Earlier we scanned the contents of board rules that apply to most boards, and these are relevant to the ZBA, too. Because you have such a range of appeals and administrative processes crossing your desk, you have to be especially careful that your standard operating procedures are fair and clear to all parties, adhere to the various "ticking clocks" that apply to different matters, and provide you with the best information and most time to exercise your best judgment.

A word regarding the Zoning Administrator position. This is not the same as the Zoning Enforcement Officer. Local bylaws can designate an official who is charged with enforcing zoning. By default, this is the Building Inspector in most municipalities. Under state statute the ZBA could appoint a Zoning Administrator, to whom the ZBA delegates certain of their powers, for example ruling on appeals. Few ZBA's have chosen to follow this course.

ZBA Duties (note that state statute carefully lays out a process and schedule for each of these.)

• Zoning

• Administrative appeals - For example, regarding the Building Inspector's decisions

• Appeals from decisions of zoning administrator

• Special Permit Granting Authority (if specified by local Zoning) Remember the previous comments about figuring out which boards should rule on which Special Permits.

• Variances This is the most frequent violation of the law committed by ZBA's!! Pull out and memorize the provision of the statute that specifies the conditions under which you may grant a variance!! Each and every one of those prerequisites must be there in order for you to grant the variance. The ill-advised granting of variances is undermining plans and regulations all over the Commonwealth. Do not use local traditions, or previous practice as a guide!

If the variance request is for a use that is not permitted under the zoning, a particular use must be sought, and it must be one not requiring some other permit, for example a Special Permit.

For both use and dimensional variances, the conditions affecting the parcel or building must not be ones that affect the whole district. There must be substantial hardship that would result from strict enforcement of Zoning. The Variance must be possible without detriment to the public good, or derogating the intend or purpose of the Zoning.

If even one is not true, you must deny the request.

Comprehensive Permits

What are they? Under Massachusetts law, if a developer proposes a project that will contain affordable housing, he or she may apply for a Comprehensive Permit, which supersedes local Zoning's density and use regulations, and review procedures.

ZBA Duties Relating to Comp. Permits:

Here is where the ZBA becomes involved in a subdivision type decision -- the kind of decision that you are not usually called on to make. You need the most informative and quickest response from all your fellow officials in order to have the best basis possible for your decision.

Comprehensive Permits can be a useful tool for the Town or City, for example in support of a locally initiated effort by your Housing Partnership. Or a private developer who is trying to build what the municipality's housing plan says you want. A well planned Comprehensive Permit can be a useful way to achieve certain housing opportunities without totally altering your Zoning Bylaw.

The steps required by state statute are logical, and they require quick, coordinated action:

1. Receive and rule on applications
2. Notify each applicable other board Quickly, so they have time to get back to you.
3. Hold Public Hearing (within 30 days of the application)
4. Decision by majority vote 40 days after termination of Hearing
5. Written decision, findings, reasons

Here is where your skill and good judgment show. Your decision must be carefully considered and based on solid information. This is why you need a good Comprehensive Plan and a productive local housing effort. If the applicant has agreed to make changes in order to make the plan acceptable, specify every one of them in your written decision. If you have not been able to gain concessions that make the plan acceptable, consider very carefully how a housing development, as proposed, could be made to fit on the site. Then, spell it out in a conditional approval. Quote chapter and verse from your Comprehensive Plan, your housing policies and plan and the data on natural resource constraints. (You can see how important team work with the other boards is in this situation!)

Approach a Comprehensive Permit application as an opportunity to obtain a benefit for your community: affordable housing that meets local needs. Your responsibility is to marshall the available information, listen carefully to advice and opinions particularly from your fellow officials, work for the best development plan you can get, decide whether it is acceptable, and carefully record all your findings and reasons.