LYNNFIELD ― With only four days left until Monday night’s Town Meeting, the Planning Board is making one final push to ensure that the tree-preservation bylaw will survive the cut.
“The Planning Board is pleased to bring this bylaw (Article 3 on the warrant) back to Town Meeting,” said Planning Board Chair Brian Charville. “This is an all-new and totally pared-back tree-preservation bylaw compared to what was originally proposed. The situations to which the bylaw would apply are far fewer than prior versions.”
Charville said the bylaw’s goal is “to make sure that the typical Lynnfield homeowner would not be affected,” adding the revised bylaw applies only to four situations: new subdivisions, new home construction, commercial property projects requiring site plans, and special permits.
“We wanted the effect of the bylaw to be positive in that far fewer trees would be lost and we feel that this bylaw accomplishes that as it really only applies to new development,” Charville said. “It has been drafted in deference to the average homeowner who is performing simple tree upkeep.”
Director of Planning and Conservation Emilie Cademartori said her office is making one final push to make sure people are accurately informed on the impact the bylaw will have. An informational brochure with questions and answers was handed out to some residents last Friday with plans to distribute a tweaked version this week. In addition, foot soldiers have been canvassing neighborhoods, going door-to-door to get the word out about the bylaw.
“We are actively reaching out to people to make sure this is a totally different bylaw,” said Cademartori. “It’s important for people to know how much time has been spent on this and how many times we have aired this publicly at 27 meetings. Clearly, this has been carefully thought out.
“The thing is, the bylaw will not apply to many homeowners at all. Last year there were seven building permits for new home construction that would trigger the tree bylaw. Clearly, that is not negatively impacting a large number of existing homeowners.”
The Planning Board presented the bylaw at Tuesday night’s Finance Committee meeting in hopes of obtaining the committee’s recommendation to support the article.
“I’d like to think that the committee would support it, as it will only bring more revenue to the town,” said Cademartori.
The Planning Board had submitted a much more restrictive article at a Town Meeting held last fall, but it was withdrawn after residents expressed their opposition to and confusion with the proposal. The board went back to the drawing board and totally reworked the provisions of the bylaw, significantly scaling back the original provisions to the point where the bylaw bears little semblance to prior versions.
“We think now we have addressed all the concerns that have been brought to us by the Select Board and constituents,” Charville said in a presentation to the Select Board last week.
“We made a few more adjustments after listening to the Select Board, residents, and after the board didn’t support it for the June Town Meeting. We had more time to understand the feedback the public was giving us,” said Cademartori. “This bylaw is substantially different from prior versions so we are hopeful.
“People need to realize that this bylaw only came into existence because the public came to us asking us to do something about the fact that people were removing trees. People asked us to do something about the loss of these trees.”
While the Select Board declined to give its support to the bylaw at its last meeting, Cademartori is cautiously optimistic that enough proponents of the bylaw will come to the Town Meeting to carry the vote.
“My fear, however, is that with so little on the warrant there may be an insufficient quorum,” she said. “We hope the people will come out. We need the folks that want this bylaw to come to the meeting to make the quorum, otherwise, the issue will be pushed back to April.”