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Attorney General requires wording changes to Millis ADU bylaw; planning board to present amended article at fall town meeting
Summary
The Planning Board asked the finance committee to note required state Attorney General edits to the town's accessory dwelling unit (ADU) zoning bylaw; the board said the changes are largely wording updates to meet statute and are not policy shifts.
Nicole Riley of the Millis Planning Board told the Finance Committee Wednesday that the ADU (accessory dwelling unit) zoning bylaw the town passed at the last town meeting requires edits requested by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office before it can take effect.
Riley said the Attorney General disapproved portions of the bylaw and asked for specific wording changes that the Planning Board and town counsel did not draft; the edits must be made for the bylaw to become effective. “If not, our bylaw doesn't exist and anyone that wants to put in an accessory dwelling unit has the ability to do so and the town will have absolutely no oversight to it,” Riley said.
Riley described the changes under consideration as largely terminological and procedural rather than substantive policy shifts. Key edits the Attorney General requested include replacing the term “single-family home” with “principal residential structure”; requiring that certain conversions of preexisting nonconforming accessory structures proceed by a favorable finding of the Zoning Board of Appeals rather than by a discretionary special permit; and clarifying which frontage, setback and height standards an ADU should follow when multiple structures on a lot have different dimensional rules.
Riley said the town council and planning board had discussed pushing back but concluded it would not be worth the legal expense to contest the Attorney General’s requested changes. “Town council was like, you know, what we drafted conforms with the regulations, he said it's not worth fighting over,” she said.
Committee members asked for procedural clarifications, including whether existing ADUs would be grandfathered and how many ADUs currently exist in Millis. Riley said one ADU exists today, with two or three more in various stages of permitting. She said preexisting ADUs that maintain their permitted use would continue as preexisting nonconforming uses and would not be invalidated by the amended bylaw.
Riley and the committee said the revised language will be placed on the fall town meeting warrant in November for voters’ consideration.
