Hatfield Planning Board Weighs New Farm-Land Zoning Model to Replace Pulled Bylaw

HATFIELD -- November 6, 2019, Hatfield Planning Board hears pitch for mandatory natural resource protection zoning to replace a draft bylaw pulled from Town Meeting. Consultant Jeff Lacy of Rural Planning Associates presented a model bylaw built around a density-divisor formula and a required open-space preservation threshold of 65 to 90 percent of a parcel, describing it as "by right" and "by formula" to give landowners predictable permitting. The board had shelved a Pioneer Valley Planning Commission-drafted open space development bylaw after Lacy and colleague Bob Richie found it internally contradictory, ambiguous on whether development would be optional or mandatory, and roughly twice the recommended length at 18 to 19 pages. Cannabis company Tree Works, operating at Three West Street, separately briefed the board on plans to pursue additional state licenses, potentially including retail and cultivation, after waiting 240 days with no substantive response from the Cannabis Control Commission on its pending manufacturing application. Prospective buyer Bob Day also appeared to ask preliminary zoning questions about 164 Depot Road, the former Pomeroy Lumber Company property, and a Pioneer Valley Workers Center representative described a parking-access impasse at a Linseed Road community farm driven by Conservation Commission buffer requirements.