We are a group of Pepperell residents who, collectively, have had a long history of volunteer service to our town: Zoning Board of Appeals, Charter Review Commission, Board of Health, Peter Fitz Feasibility Committee, Master Planning Advisory Committee, Agricultural Commission, Climate Change Council, Affordable Housing Committee, Toward a Sustainable and Resilient Pepperell Working Group, and Pepperell Watchers (Toxic Dirt).

Last year, we provided you with easily accessible information about the proposed amendment to our Zoning Bylaw, Section 9000, based on MGL Chapter 40R to establish smart growth overlay districts and/or subdistricts in our town. The purpose of the proposed zoning bylaw amendment was to bring affordable housing to Pepperell.

We also were concerned about our water supply and PFAS contamination. We need clean, plentiful water. More testing has been done in 2023 at the DPW site, and we provide the reports in PFAS, continued to bring you up to date. We still don’t know the cost of remediating PFAS contamination at the site, nor do we know to what extent PFAS has spread through groundwater to other areas beyond town property.

The 40R Bylaw proposal was defeated at the Fall town meeting in 2022. The $38 million dollar safety complex proposal was defeated at Spring Town Meeting 2023. Our proposal for the town to investigate acquiring the Leighton land to preserve our town’s water supply at the Jersey Street Wells was also defeated at Spring Town meeting, 2023.

The town’s number of affordable housing is 2.83% of total housing units. As 40R was defeated, builders will turn to 40B development (under the purview of the Zoning Board of Appeals) as a way of building more affordable housing. It is very doubtful that Pepperell will ever meet the 10% goal desired by the State, but we could, with thoughtful planning, build the housing our residents need.

We have introduced a Rate of Development Bylaw to help us do just that. The fiscal challenges facing the town are so complex that reaching for easy solutions is enticing. One supposed easy solution is the idea that the town can build more housing and that revenue from new houses will cover the town’s servicing costs. The data we have does not support that assumption. We have to plan growth using build-out analyses and fiscal impact analyses to show taxpayers what growth will cost them. It is the rare town whose annual revenues cover costs.

Balancing growth with the needs of our natural environment that gifts us the resources to lead healthy lives is at the heart of our concerns.