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11/03/2019 11:00 PMThe Planning & Zoning Commission is soliciting public feedback as the town seeks to rewrite many of its zoning regulations in an attempt to update functionality and iron out inconsistencies.
Town Planner George Kral said that the meeting, which will be held at the Community Center on Wednesday, Nov. 6 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., is part of a project to address the “hodge-podge” nature of regulations, as various contradictions and an overall lack of organization has made interpreting and understanding zoning rules more difficult for residents and stakeholders.
Kral said that though there is a possibility the town would look to make changes that would have a direct effect on individual property owners or developers, primarily the commission looking simply to smooth and update language. This will help people better understand the restrictions and intricacies in the town’s regulations, Kral said, and also allow town employees to do their jobs more effectively.
“The focus of this project is editorial rather than substantive,” Kral said. “We’re not really going to be changing in any significant way the underlying values and premises and minimum lot sizes—the way property is zoned. What we’re doing is trying to clean it all up so it’s easier to use.”
Kral said that over the years, as various amendments and addenda have been added to regulations without always checking to make sure language was consistent, Guilford’s zoning laws have enough contradictions and confusing language to warrant the project.
For instance, Kral described how in two different places in the regulations, the town defines completely different ways of measuring the height of a building, which would yield different results depending arbitrarily on what part of the regulations someone was reading. That obviously is frustrating for anyone building in Guilford, he said, and makes town employee’s jobs more difficult.
The genesis of the project dates a year or so back, Kral said, when Erin Mannix was hired as Guilford’s new zoning enforcement officer. Kral said Mannix came in with a “fresh” look at the town’s regulations and the need for possible updates and reorganization.
Kral said the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance approved $60,000 to hire consultant Glenn Chalder of Planimetrics.
Planimetrics has worked with the town on other zoning projects, Kral said, and Chalder has done “basically the same thing” in Branford, Madison, and Westbrook, to organize and eliminate problems in those towns’ regulations.
“It’s a pretty significant effort in terms of time, on the part of” Chalder and Planimetrics, Kral said.
The process has only been ongoing for a couple months now, Kral said. The public comment session on Nov. 6 is the first major step, according to Kral, though Planimetrics has already reached out to local architects, lawyers, and engineers to get an idea of some of the more obvious or significant issues in the regulations.
Kral emphasized that the meeting was meant for residents to share these sorts of issues—contradictions, inconsistencies, outdated terminology, or vagueness—not for ideas of large-scale reworks of the regulations.
“People should understand it’s not directed to any sort of fundamental changes,” said Kral.
Kral said the town was still willing to listen to residents who had these larger concerns, at an appropriate place and time.
Kral said that once Chalder has put together everything he has garnered from conversations with residents and stakeholders, he will present his work to the Planning & Zoning Commission. That could happen as early as December, but more likely in January, Kral said.
After that, Chalder will draft a revised code over the course of the winter and possibly into the spring. At that point, standard procedures will kick in as the commission holds public hearings before voting to adopt any of the new regulations.