[Massplanners] Planning Board "determination" and decision

[Daniel Fortier]

No, not at all. No informal meetings even, everything should be through
proper notice.

Dan Fortier
Retired
Interim Dennis Town Planner

On Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 10:53 PM robert leavens via MassPlanners <
massplanners at masscptc.org> wrote:

> A late Friday question.............
>
> I recently started working as interim town planner for a small town north
> of Boston.
> I was recently contacted by an architect who wanted to go to the Planning
> Board for an "advisory determination" for a project within the water supply
> district.  There is a provision that the impervious surface of a lot has to
> be lower than 15%.  While the bylaw is oddly worded, this "advisory
> determination" of the Planning Board involves attending a Planning Board
> meeting, having the Planning Board review the plans, have someone else
> review the drainage calculations and then a "decision" would be issued and
> filed with the town clerk.  No notice to abutters and the architect wanted
> to get on the next agenda, which is 12 days away.
>
> I've been in this profession for over 30 years, with work mainly in
> Massachusetts and I have some concerns about this process.  I don't believe
> that the Planning Board can make an "advisory determination" and then issue
> a decision that gets filed with the Town Clerk without due notice and a
> public hearing.  The language throughout the bylaw implies special permit
> but that is not how it has been interpreted in the past years.
>
> Do any of your Planning Boards issue "advisory determinations", with no
> public hearing or abutters notice, with an end result of a written decision
> that get filed with the Town Clerk?
>
> Thanks for any insights I may have missed,
>
> Betsy Ware
> Interim Town Planner
> Town of Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA.
> --
> MassPlanners mailing list
> MassPlanners at masscptc.org
> http://masscptc.org/mailman/listinfo/massplanners_masscptc.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://masscptc.org/pipermail/massplanners_masscptc.org/attachments/20221118/ebc19bcf/attachment.htm>