THE STREAMER NEWSLETTER

Streamer: Summer 2000

By Bob Zimmerman

Building on our experience with a pilot project to curb over-development in Holliston, CRWA has been writing a descriptive "environmental zoning toolkit" to be distributed to municipalities throughout the state.  Under contract to the Lincoln Land Institute, we will detail the issues and analyses that drive an environmental zoning project.  Our project partners include Ezra Glenn, a planner with MacGregor Associates, Buzz Constable, a vice president with developer AW Perry, and Bennett Heart, a senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation.

The toolkit will provide a generic version of our zoning work in Holliston where we linked future development to the availability of water resources.  The toolkit examines the underlying principles of environmental zoning and details methods for conducting an ecological analysis.  Available by the end of September, the toolkit will include elements such as expected timeframes and chronology, the methodology for conducting an environmental analysis of a community, managing the public and political processes, and implementing change.  CRWA has learned much from the Holliston pilot project, and intends to document those lessons.  

Work Continues in Hollison
CRWA is creating by-laws for review and adoption by Holliston residents at town meeting this fall.  Recommendations include increasing densities around the town center, reducing densities in sensitive ecological areas, and using the transfer of development rights to accomodate those already holding land in sensitive areas.  We are also working on stormwater recommendations, looking to recharge (i.e., put in the ground) rainwater that would otherwise have been lost off of paved and constructed land areas.  When implemented, these recommendations will help Holliston achieve the goals of maintaining town character, better managing growth, and sustaining and restoring environmental resources and habitat.

Sherborn Files Suit Against State and Holliston

After initially rejecting a $63 million sewer expansion by an overwhelming margin at a special town meeting in April, Holliston voters approved a scaled back $45 million version of the same plan by an overwhelming margin in May.  Endorsed by CRWA, the plan received Massachusetts Environmental Protection Act (MEPA) certification from Environmental Affairs Secretary Bob Durand in March.  

The adopted plan provides for town management of remaining on-site septic systems, and calls for two 'package' groundwater discharge treatment plants to clean local wastewater to drinking water standards and return it to the areas from which it was originally pumped.  

Sherborn, neighbor to proposed project infiltration beds and opposed to the project, alleges in a lawsuit that Holliston's application for its MEPA certificate "was flawed," and has filed to have Secretary Durand's certificate overturned.  Should their suit succeed, Holliston would likely be required to file a supplemental environmental impact report. 

Sherborn alleges that Holliston's application was inadequate in terms of its MEPA notice process, documentation, analysis of impacts, and mitigation proposals.

According to local newspaper articles, both towns are still talking, with the hope of some form of settlement.  A value engineering review of the plan, contracted by Holliston, is about to get underway. 

CRWA has carefully reviewed the plan approved by Holliston in May and believes it to be deserving of the secretary's certificate.