Billerica Planning Board Rejects Push to Fast-Track Mixed-Use Zoning Overhaul

BILLERICA -- March 8, 2023, Billerica Planning Board declines to sponsor a comprehensive mixed-use overlay rewrite for the spring town meeting warrant. Select Board member Mike Rosa presented a detailed page-by-page rewrite of Section 5E11 of the Billerica Zoning Bylaw, the mixed-use overlay district, to the Planning Board at a special session March 8, seeking the board's sponsorship of his draft as a warrant article ahead of the March 13 deadline. His proposed changes included raising the affordable housing requirement from 10 to 15 percent, reducing maximum residential density, adding "dry usable" land definitions to exclude wetlands from density calculations, eliminating off-site shared parking provisions, and replacing permissive "should" language with mandatory "shall" throughout the design guidelines. A majority of board members, including Vice Chair Michael Parker and member Christopher Giroux, said the changes needed more public process and recommended a series of in-person meetings leading to a fall town meeting article instead. A last-minute motion by member Blake Robertson to place a moratorium on the mixed-use overlay and submit it as a spring warrant article failed 4-3. Rosa indicated he may submit a petitioner's article by the March 13 deadline, which would require the Planning Board by state law to hold a public hearing before the spring town meeting in May.