Planning Board hears citizen petitions for Town Meeting

The Norwood Planning Board met on Monday night for a regularly scheduled session. Its main order of business was to hold public hearings on five citizen petition articles appearing on the Annual Town Meeting warrant, and to vote on its recommendations regarding them.

Of those articles, four could be viewed as reactions to recent development proposals – particularly 55 Lenox St., which was voted down by the Board and is now in litigation.

Its January decision regarding that application was based on its interpretation of parking lifts not constituting parking spaces, and the ambiguity of the Norwood Zoning Bylaw’s language regarding them. Additionally, a parking waiver and an extra floor had initially been requested for the development based on stormwater and environmental bonuses.

All of these issues were addressed in those articles, three of which had to do with parking. In a broader sense, they could all also be seen as responses to the MBTA Communities Act.

Two of the parking petitions were submitted by Stephen Konetchy, both of which led to some discussion between him and the Board prior to its recommendations.

The first concerned his warrant article revising the zoning bylaw’s definition of a parking space, while also adding new definitions to it that would clarify lift, stacked, and tandem parking.

Vice Chair Ernie Paciorkowski – after first stating his agreement with what Konetchy in his attempt – explained why he preferred it not being put to a Town Meeting vote.

“Personally, I’d like to see a redline version. What are we actually revising?” Paciorkowski said of the working copy of the article, before going further into some of what changing a zoning bylaw entails. “I would also like a chance for the building inspector – who is the enforcing officer – to look at these because he has to interpret them.” He then added the chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals to that reviewing list because of that body’s bylaw authority. “As much as I like what you’re doing, I would like to see it a little cleaner and vetted a little bit more.”

This was the Planning Board’s approach for all four petitions for which proponents appeared: to offer preliminary input while recommending that it review the articles in more detail.

This was also true for Konetchy’s other petition, which proposes removing all bylaw provisions authorizing the Planning Board to waive or reduce minimum off-street parking requirements.

Despite its disagreement with the broadness of the petition’s language, the Board did agree to recommend that Town Meeting send the article back to it for a more in-depth review.

The other parking petition article – one of two submitted by Judith Howard – also focused on tandem/stacked/mechanical parking in its proposal to restrict it to businesses on Route 1.

As Howard explained, when meeting with the Town Manager, Town Counsel, and Town Moderator, she had been advised to request the Planning Board to review both of her petitions – again, because they were too general – likely for consideration at Fall Town Meeting.

“I support what I think your intent is here, and I do want the Planning Board to take this up and pursue it,” Joseph Sheehan said of her parking petition. “It can be technically difficult to put something together, I know, on your own, and we would be happy to look at this in the future.”

Howard’s other petition was a proposal to rescind density bonuses allowing developers to add an extra floor in exchange for “community benefits.” It would be applicable to all applicable Town overlay districts, including the MBTA multi-family mixed-use district.

Of the meeting’s four hearings, this one drew the most extensive public testimony, with the three speakers unanimously commenting against the existing density bonus system while advocating strongly for the Planning Board to use Howard’s petition as a platform for a serious review of it.

Selectman Cheryl Doyle noted that the Town has adopted energy efficiency codes for new construction – the Stretch code and the Opt-In Specialized code in 2024 – turning what had been bonus situations for developers into requirements. “If this is something that we adopt, we need to follow it and not give brownie points,” she said of the codes as they relate to bonus guidelines.

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“The intent would be to revisit it and analyze all data,” Chairman Brian Hachey said of how the Planning Board would approach its review of Howard’s petition.

Resident Anne Mackiewicz followed by stating that – according to the Department of Public Works – new structures are now mandated to have onsite water and sewer – thus removing another bonus.

“They’re really marginal,” Toni Eosco said of current bonus-inducing requirements. “They’re marginal things, when we don’t really need another floor of market-rate apartments.” Speaking in the context of a Planning Board review, she offered her own recommendation. “We need to take a breath, we need to analyze this situation, and – if you’re going to have bonuses – they have to be for a really, really good reason, and they need to be in the right place so that it’s not too high.”

For those four petitions, the Planning Board voted unanimously to recommend to Town Meeting that they all go back to it for further review.

The fifth petition – submitted by Gail LiDonni, who did not appear – proposed a clarification of standards for repetitive applications to the Zoning Board. The vote was taken to recommend to Town Meeting that it was not in favor because it is not in Town Meeting’s purview.

In other Planning Board news:

The annual reorganization took place prior to the hearings. Brian Hachey was elected chairman, Ernie Paciorkowski was elected vice chairman, and Debbie Holmwood was elected clerk.

The Norwood Planning Board’s next scheduled meeting is on Monday, April 27 at 7 p.m. in the Senior Center (275 Prospect St.). For information, visit www.norwoodma.gov.