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Action Plan 4:
Improving Land Use Management and Promoting Smart Growth
October 17, 2011 draft finalAbout the new Buzzards Bay CCMP Action Plans
The Buzzards Bay NEP is now updating our 1991 landmark Buzzards Bay Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) to reflect the great progress achieved since that plan was finalized. It will include new or updated goals, objectives, and management solutions to meet the environmental needs for Buzzards Bay and its surrounding watershed throughout the next decade.
On this page is a draft action plan from the updated Buzzards Bay Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan. The text on this page is a public draft provided to invite comment and discussion of the subject by residents and stakeholders. It may contain goals and recommendations that have not yet been endorsed or approved by the Buzzards Bay Steering Committee. The views or information contained here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or the US Environmental Protection Agency.
We want your feedback on this action plan. First, please read the entire action plan Improving Land Use Management and Promoting Smart Growth (October 17, 2011 draft final, pdf file). Then at the bottom of this page click the "Rate the Goals and Objectives now" button to provide comments on each goal, objective and defined management approach contained in this Action Plan. Based on your feedback, we will update and revise all the action plans in the new CCMP.
Improving Land Use Management and Promoting Smart Growth
Problem
As noted in the Promoting LID action plan, past building and development practices, coupled with poorly planned local zoning and development requirements have resulted in sprawl, increased pollution discharges, and many other unintentional effects that have been injurious to the environment. Whereas LID focuses principally on stormwater management and restoring the natural hydrology of sites, "Smart Growth" and similar growth management principals address the protection of open space, preserving natural landscapes, encouraging village centers, and promoting clustering of development. Implementation of these practices will not only benefit the environment, but save government infrastructure construction and maintenance, and ultimately benefit the public with reduced government tax burdens.
Goal
Goal 4.1. To improve land use management through the use of smart growth strategies in the Buzzards Bay watershed to maintain and improve the natural resources and ecology of Buzzards Bay.
Objectives
Objective 4.1. To encourage smart growth techniques in less developed Buzzards Bay watershed communities to preserve open space, revitalize urban and village centers, focus development on growth centers, and protect natural resources and the environment.
Objective 4.2. To improve local zoning, subdivision, health and wetlands regulations to manage future growth in a way that protects the environment of Buzzards Bay and its watershed.
Objective 4.3. Promote sustainable agriculture that does not impact water quality.
Solutions
Municipalities have the greatest capacity and responsibility for regulating and managing the impacts of future growth to minimize potential environmental impacts from that growth. Other levels of government need to support municipalities through technical and financial assistance programs. Where appropriate, state and federal government must also change regulations and laws governing new growth and redevelopment to both support smart growth principals, and to lead by example.
The biggest challenge facing municipalities is to better define what kind of new development and redevelopment the town wants. Rules to encourage clustering of development, parking space regulations, and zoning are just some of the local regulations that need to be rethought to better define the future character of communities to minimize impacts from new development.
Regulatory strategies may include revisions to zoning bylaws, general bylaws, and local wetland regulations. However, a vision of smart growth strategies and goals must be included in long-term planning in documents like municipal master plans, open space plans, and municipal stormwater plans.
Each municipality must decide which smart growth techniques work best for them, and implement those that best protect their critical resource areas and minimize growth impacts on water quality and habitat special to their community. Certain techniques, like cluster zoning, should be universally adopted. Others are more town specific. Transfer of Development Rights (TDRs) is underutilized and should be more widely embraced by rural municipalities. For the TDR process to work as desired, municipalities must identify sensitive resource areas (sending areas) and growth centers (receiving areas). Defining these areas is informed by science but must also incorporate political and economic concerns.
Regional planning and regulatory agencies, the Buzzards Bay NEP, and state agencies all have important roles to play through training, education, and in the review of projects that meet certain state and regional thresholds.
Costs and Financing
Many of the necessary regulatory changes to im-plement this action plan have negligible cost to government. More importantly, some smart growth approaches (like clustering of development) also reduce costs to developers and tax burdens to residents because of lesser infrastructure maintenance costs.
Measuring Success
To measure the success of this action plan involves tracking the implementation of programmatic measures such as adoption of laws and regulations that achieve the goals of this action plan. Because this action plan attempts to lessen impacts of new development, no environmental outcomes can be tracked directly.
For this action plan, programmatic actions are the chief measure to track progress toward the goals of this action plan. Some of those actions, like the type of local regulations needed is subjective, and each municipality must assess its needs and the most effective solution.
To fully understand the basis of these goals and recommendations, please read the complete Improving Land Use Management and Promoting Smart Growth (October 17, 2011 draft final 65kb pdf).