Erving Planning Board Votes to Send Zoning Map, PUD District to Select Board

ERVING -- October 21, 2021, Erving Planning Board unanimously advances zoning map overhaul and new planned unit development district toward a special town meeting. The board voted Thursday to submit the proposed amendments to the Select Board under Chapter 48, Section 5, triggering a formal clock that targets a public hearing on November 18 and a special town meeting in January or February 2022. Legal counsel, identified only as Donna, warned that achieving the required two-thirds supermajority will depend heavily on presentation order and advance public outreach, recommending the PUD article appear before the zoning map on the warrant so a failed PUD vote would not corrupt the map. The board also flagged the town's existing sign bylaw as constitutionally vulnerable under the Supreme Court's 2015 Reed v. Town of Gilbert decision and voted to defer that rewrite. In a separate unanimous vote, the board approved a modified site plan for a Route 2 curb cut serving the French King Solar project, accommodating an Eversource Energy request to access electrical interconnection equipment on the eastern side of the highway.