The Rate of Development Bylaw will be discussed and voted on at the Fall Special Town meeting, November 13 at the Nissitissit Middle School. This Bylaw is an outcome of our investigation of by-right 40R zoning. The Bylaw is an attempt to promote affordable housing to address local needs, and introduce analytically based planning to focus attention on costs to Pepperell taxpayers, town infrastructure and services, climate and environmental hazards, natural resources, and the town’s rural character.

In 2000, Pepperell passed a Rate of Development Bylaw (Section 3600 in the Zoning Bylaw) due to concerns about overdevelopment and rising school enrollments. Rate of Development Bylaws have sunset clauses that can be extended by Town vote. Once a Rate of Development Bylaw is passed it must be reviewed and approved by the State Attorney General’s office. The original Rate of Development Bylaw expired in 2004. The proposed Rate of Development Bylaw is also for four years.

Today, our School District is experiencing a new set of cost pressures: inadequate state funding, an increased number of special needs children, rising enrollment at Varnum Brook, and several collective bargaining agreements to be renegotiated. Future overrides in the years to come to address the above challenges are highly likely.

The town has also seen recent zoning proposals (in addition to 40R) targeting areas of town for increased development: Adaptive Reuse Overlay District (AROD), a Town Center Mixed Use Overlay District (MUOD), a Town Center Overlay District (currently in draft stages yet to be brought to town meeting), and a Rural Business Overlay District.

Development requires town services (which includes schools), and town services are costly. Therefore, the purpose of the proposed Rate of Development Bylaw is to use a four year period to study growth using planning tools such as build-out scenarios, fiscal impact analyses, examination of town services (water, sewer, police, fire, EMT, town administration, roads, bridges), climate resiliency (mitigation for flooding, drought, heat), and preservation of natural resources. In other words, a holistic examination of what the impacts of possible growth scenarios would be on the town, and the taxpayer. This would fill missing gaps in our current town planning.