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Southwick planners confident voters will OK large development bylaw

Date: 4/7/2022

SOUTHWICK — Planning Board Chair Michael Doherty said he is confident that the proposed planning bylaw changes the board approved last week will be voted in at the annual Town Meeting on May 17.

Doherty said that he felt good about the seven-month process of negotiating the changes among themselves and with Southwick resident Diane Gale, who submitted the proposal last fall.

“It is a product of a good process. We had a lot of discussion and narrowed things down, and figured out the appropriate ways to go about it,” said Doherty. “We came out with a product that is something the town can get behind.”

The bylaw change was submitted by Gale in response to the Carvana proposal last year, and would force large-scale developers to release information about proposed projects early in the planning process, rather than waiting until public hearings. When a development proposal meets certain size and impact thresholds, it triggers a requirement from the applicant to submit a comprehensive impact statement and host a community meeting to reveal the details and specifications of the project.

Doherty said that he thinks the five-member Planning Board consists of a decent representation of the residents of Southwick, which he said reflects well on the prospects of the bylaw passing at the Town Meeting.

“If you can get this board to agree on something, I think it usually reflects what the town would support,” said Doherty.

The bylaw changes largely have to do with making residents informed about development plans, rather than setting limits on the projects themselves. Originally, Gale’s bylaw proposal included hard upper limits for the size of developments, but those were removed after facing opposition from most of the Planning Board.

“The more substantive vision issues are to be developed by the Master Plan Advisory Committee to bring to the Planning Board,” said Doherty. “I don’t think now was the time do to those bigger vision issues.”