Council Approves ZBA Changes

By Adam Swift

The Town Council unanimously approved two motions that seek to make the Zoning Board of Appeals more efficient at its meeting on Tuesday night.

The first motion increases the size of the ZBA from six to seven members, and the second adopts Massachusetts General Law to allow associate members to vote on hearings if a full member is absent.

“Both of these give the ZBA the ability to be more efficient and to keep these hearings moving through the system,” said Council Vice President Stephen Ruggiero, who chairs the rules and ordinance subcommittee. 

Currently, the ZBA has six members, with three sitting in on any one hearing. The changes expand the ZBA by one member to seven, with five members taking part in a hearing.

With the change under Massachusetts General Law, a request to the ZBA will need four of five votes to pass as opposed to the current system, which requires a unanimous vote of all three members on a hearing.

“This will enable us to have five members sit on a particular hearing, so it gives more flexibility,” said Council President James Letterie. “It gives the associate members, someone not sitting on a hearing but they have been at all the meetings, they are able to step in.”

Letterie said there have been cases where one of the three members sitting on a hearing hasn’t been able to make it to the meeting for a vote, causing a case to be repeatedly postponed.

“It just makes it a lot more fluid, and looking at what other cities and towns have done, it seems to fall in line,” said Letterie.

Ruggiero noted that allowing the associate members to vote is simply following an existing state statute.

“We are literally just adopting the chapter of the Mass General Law as another tool to make a more efficient style of government,” he said.

Letterie added that the town did get a legal opinion on the proposed changes, and that a number of questions about the proposal were answered during rules and ordinance subcommittee meetings.

“This is clearly an example of making government procedure more efficient,” said Precinct 2 Councilor John Munson.