NORTHFIELD — More than 30 residents turned out to the Northfield Elementary School Tuesday night to critique proposed changes to the zoning bylaw, which would expand the potential uses for the former Northfield Mount Hermon School campus and create new districts with different construction regulations.
The majority of suggestions centered around which businesses to protect and which to prohibit to maintain the town’s rural nature.
In particular, residents expressed a desire to protect parks for camping and recreational vehicles to attract business to the town, and to promote the existence of dog parks. However, there were also concerns over restricting fast-food restaurants and adult use businesses such as pornography shops.
While there is no specific part of the bylaw that calls out fast-food restaurants, there are limitations that would indirectly prohibit their construction. For example, neon signs are not allowed, nor are drive-through windows except at banks.
There are also existing regulations that would limit big businesses in general by putting a cap on floor space; only businesses of 1,500 square feet or less would be approved.
Judi Barrett of RKG Associates Inc. and Daphne Politis of Community Circle, who assisted the Zoning Bylaw Revision Committee in completing the first draft of the revised bylaw, presented the bylaw’s key changes.
“People have said over and over again, we’d like a little more economic development, we want more employment opportunities, we want more places to gather,” Politis said, adding that the new draft was designed with such goals in mind.
“The priority goal was the preservation of open space,” Barrett added, as the committee hoped to keep the rural feel that residents enjoy. “We have tried to craft a zoning bylaw that gets these themes as much as we could.”
Residents were also concerned over whether the new bylaw would affect structures already in place. Barrett explained that all lawfully pre-existing properties are exempt from changes in the bylaw, as they are “grandfathered in.”
The Zoning Bylaw Revision Committee will now write a second draft of the bylaw based on the residents’ suggestions. Kathleen Wright, a member of the Zoning Bylaw Revision Committee, said the committee will likely present two more drafts during public forums.
She hopes to have a final draft by early fall, and intends to present the final draft at next year’s town meeting.