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Sewering and Smart Growth
By Christine Rassmussen and Tim Purinton
There has been a growing national movement to look at sewering and its relationship to the growth of sprawl. Many feel that publicly funded sewer projects are actually subsidizing sprawl. Studies have shown that communities can save infrastructure costs by employing smart growth. Gloucester, Newbury, Newburyport and Essex are all examples of communities struggling to plan for growth due to the impending construction of new sewer lines.
When the City of Gloucester entered into an Intermunicipal Agreement with the Town of Essex to allow the town to discharge sewage into the city’ s sewer treatment plant, residents expressed their concern about the development that would follow the pipe. The proposal, without land use control could result in the development of 1,358 acres in West Gloucester (1719 building units), overwhelming the existing cities schools and infrastructure.
To mitigate the negative impacts of growth a zoning ordinance was approved that placed a moratorium on private sewer construction and the approval of Approval Not Required (ANR’ s) of more than three lots for five years. After this ordinance was adopted locally, it was sent to the State Legislature where it was approved as a Special Act.
A Request for Proposal was developed to hire a consultant to establish a process of seeking community input and developing proposals to address growth, without burdening landowners. After conducting a series of public meetings, reviewing numerous reports, surveying the area and spending hours in consultation with city staff, the consultant team developed a draft report and two ordinances – one that would limit sewer expansion to certain areas, the other used incentive zoning concepts to increase density in areas that were scheduled for sewers [learn more at:
http://www.daylor.com/projects/Gloucester/index.htm and
http://www.ward5.com/village_overlay_village_developm.htm].
An innovative ordinance came out of the process that seeks to encourage land use consistent with the city's community development plan by establishing a " Village Development Overlay District Zoning Ordinance (VDOD)" . VDOD encourages development to occur where the infrastructure can support it, and protects environmentally sensitivity areas, allowing developers to increase housing density in certain areas. In exchange for increased density the developer must permanently protect open space in the area.
The ordinance also contains a provision allowing the city to approve more concentrated development in certain areas, if the additional development meets criteria as affordable or moderately priced.
Although land use controls are one way to limit the impacts of sprawl it must be kept in mind that Massachusetts state law prohibits denying hookup to sewer lines along legal frontage and provides special exemptions for housing under Chapter 40B regardless of local zoning.
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