Politics & Government

Planning Board Removes Wireless Bylaw Revisions From Warrant Articles

The warrant article was dropped during a public hearing of the Westwood Finance Commission Monday night.

The Westwood Planning Board withdrew Wireless Communication Overlay District bylaw revisions from its 2011 Warrant Articles Monday night, the Board announced during a public hearing of the Westwood Finance Commission at Westwood High School.

The main reason for the withdrawal of the article was that the issue became too complicated to sort out in time for Town Meeting.

"We really put this out to get guidance from the community," Planning Board Chair Steven M. Rafsky explained to FinCom. "We were trying to get a dialogue and guidance going. I don't think we were prepared tonight, and we will not be prepared by Town Meeting."

The idea behind the amendments noted in the article would be to provide additional town-owned parcels of land to better meet wireless communication coverage in the town. Those parcels include the Carby Street Municipal Building, the fields at , and the .

The prompt to include it among the Board's Warrant Articles came after the Board reviewed minutes from 1997 and 1998, and realized that it seemed as though the bylaw wasn't originally intended for free-standing cell towers to be installed at the aforementioned locations, which are, in most cases, in close range to a large quantities of residences.

"The bylaw is flawed; it has sections that are just inconsistent," Town Planner Nora Loughnane said Tuesday. "It's difficult to interpret, and we wanted to clean up the bylaw. This was an attempt to put it back to the voters to see if this was this was what the original attempt was."

The current WCOD section allows for wireless communication facilities to be present in the Administrative Research Office (ARO), Highway Business (HB), Industrial (I) and Industrial Office (IO) Districts, in addition to specified areas of land in other districts, which include town-owned land and that of religious organizations.

The proposed amendments in the article would essentially establish two separate districts: WCOD1 and WCOD2. Under the bylaw, major wireless facilities are only permitted in WCOD1, which includes schools and municipal areas in town, while minor facilities would be allowed in either WCOD1 or WCOD2.

Minor wireless facilities would be less than 10 feet in height, or fully contained within a building or structure, according to the proposed Warrant Article. Moreover, under the amendments, the parcels currently zoned for wireless facilities would be placed into the new WCOD2 district, including all those owned by religious institutions, one parcel owned by Hale Reservation, and two owned by the town. The proposed changes would not affect currently-pending applications for a wireless facility.

Meanwhile, concern has been expressed by Westwood residents regarding the . That project would not be affected either way by the proposed WCOD bylaw revisions in the Warrant Article that was dropped, as it falls under the current bylaw. A public hearing regarding the cell tower project was held in January, and that hearing will continue Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. in the Westwood High School auditorium.

Explaining their reasons to FinCom Monday night, Board ultimately decided that the issue was too complicated to pursue by Town Meeting.

"If we had know what we knew tonight a month ago, we probably would not have started that process," Rafsky said Monday. "It wasn't on the warrant originally, and it is a significant topic, and it does, in retrospect, deserve to have the proper notification, the proper series of hearings. I do believe that if we had more time and more process and we had it as an original warrant article, we probably would not have made that decision (to remove the article) tonight."

The WCOD article was the only one to be dropped by the Planning Board, who gave a brief rundown of its in Monday's public hearing, which also comprised discussion and overview of the Board of Selectmen's 2011 Warrant Articles.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here