Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Zoning & SLUD's - Call for experiences

[Jim Snyder-Grant (Jim_Snyder-Grant.LOTUS]

For New View, we used the "Planned Conservation Residential Community" (PCRC) 
bylaw of Acton Mass. We required no significant variances to get our site plan 
approved.

I think that variants of this sort of zoning law are called "clustered housing 
statutes". The intent of this statute is to preserve open space while allowing 
clustered housing, by requiring the same overall maximum density as is standard 
in Acton zoning (1 house/acre) while requiring that a certain percentage of the 
land is left undeveloped. (We got a bit more density into our site plan by 
using the town affordable housing statutes).  We left both an inner & outer 
area as our undeveloped area. The statute apparently allows a variety of 
ownership structures to enforce the non-development of the land, but so far in 
Acton, all the PCRCs have been done as condomiums, so owners have a narrow 
exclusive use zone around their houses, and the commonly held land includes the 
common house, the roads, and all the PCRC undeveloped land. Our condo docs 
outlinewhat we can & can't do to the common land, and explicitly reference the 
PCRC regulations.

During the time we were developing our land, the town meeting passed a 
resolution proposed by the planning board that PCRC approvals no longer require 
town meeting approval, but instead are handled by the planning board. This 
change, unrelated to our looking to develop land in Acton, helped our timeline 
a lot. 

Because, in the middle stages of our permitting, we had some neighborhood 
opposition, we were very careful to not have the planning board take any 
irregular shortcuts that could be used as the basis of a lawsuit later. So, 
while the board was certainly friendly, and gave us advice, and did things in a 
timely manner, they didn't do anything extraordinary for us in the permitting 
process.

The lack of a clustered housing bylaw eliminated some towns from our 
consideration, when we were narrowing our list of towns. Our professionals 
thought that getting waivers & exemptions & special permits would be too hard & 
too expensive & too time-consuming & too risky.

-Jim Snyder-Grant
Jim_Snyder-Grant [at] lotus.crd.com