TEWKSBURY MASTER PLAN COMMITTEE MEETING

April 14, 2003

The meeting was called to order at 7:10pm. Members present were Frank Sweet, Sal Torname, Steve Sadwick, Nancy Reed, Stephanie Wilkie, Joe Gill and Susan Duffy. Judi Barrett, Mary Coolidge & Terry Szold from COG were also in attendance.

1. Approval of Meeting Minutes

Regarding the 03/27/03 meeting minutes, Duffy informed the committee that the second April meeting date of April 17, 2003, is incorrect and needs to be changed to the correct meeting date of April 21, 2003. The members agreed, and the minutes were approved unanimously in a motion made by Gill and seconded by Reed.

2. Next Scheduled Meeting

Per the Town Manager, the committee’s next meeting of Monday, April 21, 2003, is on the Patriot’s Day holiday. The Town Manager had spoken to Barrett and Sadwick suggesting that the meeting be changed as result. After some discussion, the committee unanimously decided not to change the date of the meeting.

Due to technical problems with the Power Point presentation, the meeting was recessed for ten minutes by a motion made by Gill and seconded by Reed. The meeting was then reopened at 7:28pm, by a motion made by Gill and seconded by Wilkie.

3. Land Use Presentation & Discussion

Terry Szold was in attendance to present and discuss COG’s Land Use Technical Paper #2, specifically with regards Route 38/Main Street and the concepts discussed in Challenge #1, “The Future of the Main Street Corridor: Guiding Growth, Creating New Districts, and Improving Design”. (The committee had already previously agreed with the idea in principle at the 12/12/02 meeting). Szold discussed the existing state of the Route 38 corridor and characterized it as a “monolithic strip” of commercial development, with no real sense of coherence or design, with lots of curb openings, no clear path between sidewalks and stores which results in many conflicting movements and poor traffic and pedestrian flow throughout the corridor. COG feels that the Town has an important opportunity to foster more attractive development along the corridor in future years, by creating 4 new overlay districts. The proposed new districts would have specific developmental guidelines for each district that would help improve movement within the corridor and encourage more attractive and cohesive development. The proposed districts, their boundaries, and specific objectives can be found in the Land Use Technical Papers, beginning on page 15.

COG feels that the Town has done a good job with some of its newer development along Main St., such as the Police Station and the Library. COG also feels that with one to two “catalyst parcels” developing in each of the districts annually in the future, that the character will slowly but surely change in keeping with the proposed Master Plan’s goals. The changes will benefit owners and residents alike by providing a better quality and aesthetically pleasing product, capturing more business, and ultimately increasing tax revenue.

The committee agreed with Szold that the Town deserves to be able to benefit from the proposed corridor design guidelines sooner rather than later, and to do so, implementation will be key. This could be accomplished as soon as the Master Plan is accepted, by writing specific design guidelines listed for each district, and have them on file with the Zoning By Laws. Applicants will then see what will be encouraged, and conversely, what will be discouraged, within each of the districts. Also the committee discussed design guidelines, the options being Design Principles, Design Guidelines and Zoning Regulations. Linking of the Master plan guidelines to the Zoning Bylaws was discussed as a possible quick solution to get these standards in the forefront for decision making purposes.

A suggestion was made to change the name of the Commercial District to “Trull” or “Wamesit” District. Those present agreed that a name change would be a good idea for this proposed district, but a final decision was not reached at this meeting. It was also agreed that some of the boundaries can, and probably will be expanded, and/or narrowed. Reed felt that there is a development opportunity at the boundaries of the proposed Gateway and Town Center Districts near Capitol Avenue, for a possible mixed use scenario, to which Szold agreed could be a possibility.

Szold displayed a plan of a “traditional” commercial strip development where the buildings are set back with the parking lots in the front and along the street. The committee then viewed a “smart growth alternative” plan of a commercial strip development where the buildings are closer to the street, with the parking situated along the sides and in the rear and the parking broken up by attractive landscaping and walkways. There was some concern about safety, both vehicular and pedestrian, but Szold stated that the “smart growth” parking layout actually calms traffic and usually reduces safety issues with regards to traffic. Sweet also suggested that language could be written into the plan regarding public safety goals.

The committee then discussed Challenge #2 in the Land Use paper, “Guiding Growth in Industrial Districts”. COG feels that the Town has an opportunity to create additional types of industrial zones that would be customized accordingly in relation to surrounding land uses, and also striving to be more harmonious to abutters and neighborhoods. The three proposed types of Industrial zoning discussed were, “Heavy Industry” (near the highways ie 495), “Light Industry” (adjacent to Residential with buffering design standards), and a “Neighborhood Transitional District”. Szold also suggested that the densities of the future developments could be controlled by establishing Floor Area Ratio (FAR), requirements for the heavy industrial zones.

Before discussing those additional land use items, the Committee opened the discussion up to the public that was present. Most comments focused on the general acceptance and need for a Master Plan to provide for control and character in Town. David Cressman, Town Manager, expressed his opinion on potential redevelopment sites. He sees the Master Plan goals and identification of the different areas of Main Street as a means to prepare for redevelopment of these sites.

It was suggested by the consultants that the Town may want to start with design “principles” to get started quickly instead of full blown guidelines.

4. Next Scheduled Meeting

The next meeting will be on Monday, April 21, 2003, at the Tewksbury Police Station at 7pm. The meeting was adjourned at 8:55 pm.