Resident Memo
Carolyn Misch
From:Mia Kim Sullivan [mail2mia@gmail.com]
Sent:Thursday, February 17, 2011 11:33 AM
To:northamptonzrc@gmail.com
Cc:Carolyn Misch
Subject:Zoning Revisions Committee Forum
To the members of the Zoning Revisions Committee:
I attended the forum at the Bridge Street School last night and am writing you now in support of the third option
you presented to allow for more neighborhood infill, creating a special permit process. The URA, URB and
URC zones each encompass very different neighborhoods, and a permit process would allow for consideration
of different neighborhood standards and the character of a particular neighborhood. In our neighborhood, off of
South Street in Ward 4, kids play soccer, skate and ride trikes in the streets; people also walk their dogs and
walk into town in the streets, especially during the winter when, as now, the sidewalks are icy and difficult to
navigate. We know this is not the case in other neighborhoods that are similarly zoned URB, that people don't
walk in the streets, and it might be unreasonable to expect traffic to be minimal enough to do so.
Last night, members of your committee said there is no way to recognize these distinctions between similarly
zoned neighborhoods under the other two options you are considering, lifting the minimum lot size restrictions
or implementing performance-based zoning. As another community member noted during the discussion, we
don't know what could be built in our neighborhood if new lot sizes or performance-based zoning is
implemented. This is not merely an abstract concern, as some speakers suggested; in the past several years, at
least four lots have been subdivided in our neighborhood, and new homes built. With the current minimum lot
size requirement, single family homes were built in these lots. With another set of size requirements or
performance-based zoning, multiple structures might have been built - your committee suggested that up to five
units could be considered a "small" development. If that many units had been built in each new lot, there would
have been a substantial impact and change to our neighborhood, without the opportunity for neighborhood
input.
Like many homeowners in town, our house is our single major asset. We worry that the broader proposed
zoning changes would make it a much riskier one, which in this current economic downturn could wipe out the
equity we have in our house. Your committee did not present new proposed lot size requirements, and
acknowledged that there was no number associated with the concepts of "small" or "large" multi-unit
developments under discussion. From the presentation last night, we just don't know what these changes would
mean for us and our neighborhood. Many of the community members who spoke last night indicated their
interest was in adding units to their existing structures, and the third option you presented was to allow for these
kind of expansions or structural modifications through a permit process. This option would provide needed
flexibility to address these kinds of concerns, without changing neighborhood lot sizes completely and all at
once.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to community concerns at the forum last night, and inviting further
comment.
Mia Sullivan
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