Recent Happenings in the Harvard Planning World

It's late October and like much of 2019, there are a number of interesting projects going on in the community that relate to planning and economic development. Here we go with a few!

• Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) - Harvard received its formal notice of designation as an MVP Community in September. This makes the Town eligible for action grants. A new grant cycle opened two weeks ago and the Town anticipates making a grant application for the highest priority in our MVP plan, a Climate Action Plan that will provide more detail and specific actions such as culverts and dams to address, an agricultural action plan, a forestry plan, and much more. If you are interested in participating in the implementation phase of MVP and work with us to identify specific projects and funding opportunities, please contact me, Chris Ryan, at cryan@harvard.ma.us or 978.456.4100 x.323 and thanks to all of those of you who participated the first time around.
  
• Special Town Meeting Zoning Articles - There are six sections proposed to be amended within four warrant articles and I'll summarize them below. Note that the Planning Board has published a Frequently Asked Questions document that hopefully answers most questions about the articles. It can be found here or request a newer version from cryan@harvard.ma.us.

1. Article 19: Amend the Protective Bylaw Section 125-39, Site Standards. This article ensures that fire protection ponds for development projects must be located within the town's boundaries and not in another town.
2. Article 20: Amend the Protective Bylaw Section 125-02. Definitions. This Section is amended by adding a series of definitions specifically related to other proposed bylaws below. Should those articles fail, the related definitions would be sought to be removed by floor amendment prior to voting.
3. Article 21: Amend the Protective Bylaw Section 125-52, Ayer Road Village Special Permit. This seeks the amendment of a section of the bylaw that has been in existence since 2004 intended to encourage higher quality development in the C Commercial zoning district. However, due to a few issues with the bylaw, this has largely not happened. The key amendment is to increase development density from 0.2 (20% of lot area) to 0.3 (30% of lot area).
4. Article 22: Amend the Protective Bylaw Sections 125-12, 13, and 14, Small-Scale, Medium-Scale, and Large-Scale Commercial Uses. This proposed amendment seeks to add a few uses and examples of other uses.

• Please feel free to download the FAQ for additional detail.
  
• Workshop for Open Space Residential Design - Harvard is in the process of revising its current Open Space and Conservation - Planned Residential Development (OSC-PRD) bylaw that also has shortcomings that make it unattractive to use by developers. We are trying to put together a January workshop with guest speakers to make the concept more clear and for citizens and board members to ask questions.
  
• Form-Based Code Resources - Recently I had the opportunity to facilitate a panel discussion at the Southern New England APA Conference in Springfield, MA on the concept of form-based codes, which is a more appropriate alternative zoning methodology in many cases. I have posted the different slide shows that were used in the panel. I will also be adding additional FBC resources to this page so please bookmark.