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Andover council approves consultant to refresh Unified Development Manual
Summary
The Andover City Council unanimously approved a professional services agreement with Olsen/Olson to update the city's Unified Development Manual, directing a consultant-led, roughly six-month review with stakeholder sessions and recommendations for ordinance and staff-level edits.
The Andover City Council voted unanimously to hire a consultant to "refresh" the city's Unified Development Manual (UDM), a document adopted by ordinance in 2018 that contains the city's subdivision and site-plan regulations.
Julie Boyd, interim planning and zoning administrator, told the council the UDM was intended to translate technical code into a more digestible format and that the city has noticed internal inconsistencies and a high number of variance requests since the document was adopted. "We put into practice the current version of the UDM in 2018, and it has stayed, as far as I know, unmodified since it was adopted at that time," Boyd said.
Abby, a representative from the consulting firm Olsen (spelled "Olsen" in her remarks), described a proposed six-month engagement that would include a comprehensive assessment, three in-person stakeholder sessions, user-facing changes such as checklists and forms, and an implementation strategy that separates items that require ordinance changes from staff-level documents. "So there could be things that are substantive, and there could be items that are revised that could be more about kind of how the document itself interfaces with those who are using it," she said.
Council members asked about reimbursable expenses and whether user-oriented checklists could remain outside the ordinance so staff can update them without a formal ordinance amendment. Abby said reimbursables were expected to be mileage and overnight stays and that contract language could clarify whether underspent reimbursables would be refunded or handled internally.
Homer moved to approve the professional services agreement with Olsen Incorporated for the UDM refresh; the motion was seconded and carried on a unanimous vote. The agreement and scope discussed at the meeting call for a consultant-led review, stakeholder engagement sessions, and an implementation plan; the agenda did not list a final contract dollar amount in the transcript.
