Zoning Rule Revisions Intended To Simplify And Clarify

By Andrew Gorosko

To make the town’s voluminous zoning regulations more understandable and easier to use, Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members have been incrementally rewriting those land use rules since the summer of 2005.

P&Z members soon plan to act on their many proposed revisions to the zoning rules, explained P&Z Chairman Lilla Dean.

Many of proposed changes are minor ones, but some of the proposed changes are more significant, such as the P&Z’s proposal to simplify zoning designations concerning industrial, business, and professional land use zones, Ms Dean said.

The ongoing revisions are intended to make the voluminous rules clearer, better organized, and more usable, she said.

As such, the rules that pertain to a given subject are being consolidated within the regulations, rather than remaining scattered through various sections of the document, she said.

“We hope we’ve accomplished our goals,” Ms Dean said.

The P&Z was scheduled to continue a series of public hearings on the proposed zoning rule changes on the night of February 21, after the deadline for this edition of The Bee. Those hearings are scheduled to resume at 7:30 pm on March 6, at the town offices at 31 Peck’s Lane. The P&Z is expected to act on the proposed zoning rule changes on March 20. The revised rules would take effect on April 1.

Elizabeth Stocker, the town’s director of planning and community development, explained that the zoning regulations have not been thoroughly reorganized in many years. Certain sections of the rules have been modified by the P&Z in a piecemeal fashion across time, he said.

The town’s original zoning regulations took effect in 1958. The rules were last thoroughly revised in 1987.

The various changes that have been made to the regulations over the years have made them difficult to use, according to Ms Stocker.

P&Z member Jane Brymer worked on rewriting the regulations with former P&Z chairman William O’Neil. Mr O’Neil resigned from the P&Z last year and moved away, after which Ms Dean became P&Z chairman and worked with Ms Brymer on the project.

In their initial review of the regulations, Ms Brymer said that she and Mr O’Neil realized that the regulations had become a “patchwork quilt” that needed to be reworked for the sake of clarity.

They found that the same land use topic would be addressed in various sections of the regulations, making it difficult for users to understand the rules, she said. Thus, a consolidation of content, plus simplification were required, she said.

The many changes that had been made to the rules over the years by the P&Z had not been well integrated into the text of the zoning regulations, she said. Consequently, the regulations had become somewhat illogical and occasionally contradictory, resulting in the rules becoming cumbersome, she said.

The reorganization of the rules would make it much easier to modify the regulations in the future, she said.

The various regulations will now be prefaced by statements of purpose and intent to explain the rationale for the rules, she said.

“It was antiquated,” Ms Brymer said of the zoning regulations. The proposed revisions are intended “to make it user-friendly” and “to bring it up to date,” she said.

The regulations had become very difficult to read, Ms Brymer said, noting the many piecemeal changes that had been made to them.

The zoning rules that the P&Z is proposing changing pertain to the classification of land use zones; land use administration and enforcement; rules on lot area, building heights, and yard specifications; business, commercial, and professional zones; the turning radiuses for driveways; excavation; exterior lighting; industrial zones; landscaping, visual screening and buffer areas; legislative revisions; mining; parking, driveway, and loading standards; performance standards for development; ponds and drainage basins; residential land uses; signs; special exceptions to the regulations; wireless communications facilities, and the sale of alcohol.

A November 19, 2007, draft version of the proposed zoning rule changes is available on the town’s website on the Internet at: http://www.newtown-ct.gov/public_documents/NewtownCT_ZoneRegs/draft_regs.

For comparison purposes, the current zoning regulations, as amended to January 1, 2007, are posted on the town’s website at: http://www.newtown-ct.gov/public_documents/NewtownCT_ZoneRegs/toc.