Cluster Ordinance Questioned

The Planning Board again last night continued its consideration of Governor's Crossing, an 88 lot subdivision proposed off Endicott Street East (Route 11B) at The Weirs.

In withholding its approval of the development, the board cited a variety of issues from street lighting to traffic volumes, but ultimately the project highlighted a simmering debate about the purpose and application of the ordinance governing cluster development.

Cluster development is intended to discourage sprawl and preserve open space by clustering or concentrating homes on a defined section of a larger tract of land. In return for setting aside the bulk of a property as open space — held in common ownership — the ordinance permits developers the same number of lots on a section of a tract as they would be allowed on the entire tract in a conventional development. For instance, where the minimum lot size is two acres, a ten acre tract a conventional subdivision would consist of five two-acre lots, but a cluster development could designate eight acres as open space and create the five lots on the remaining two-acres.

Governor's Crossing consists of 88 lots on a rectangular tract of 48.831 acres, strewn with wetlands. The lots are laid out along a 6,000 foot road traversing the property and several cul-de-sacs leading from it. Attorney Pat Wood of Westcott, Millham and Dyer contends that the project fulfills the intent of the cluster ordinance by preserving and protecting open space, in the form of the wetlands, which would be at risk if the tract were conventionally subdivided. He stressed that none of the 88 lots encroached on either the wetlands or wetland buffers

However, Peter Brunette, vice-chairman of the board, said that Governor's Crossing "is not a cluster and is contrary to the spirit and intent of the cluster ordinance." Conceding he was new to the board, but familiar with the concept of cluster development, Warren Murphy ventured that "it doesn't look like cluster housing. It's scattered housing."

Brunette and Murphy echoed misgivings about the application of the cluster ordinance expressed earlier, in a different context, by Diane Hanley, who chairs the Conservation Commission, and Rick DeMark, its longest serving member. Both have claimed that the purpose of the ordinance was to preserve expanses of contiguous and usable open space. Although projects like Governor's Crossing set aside 50 percent of the tract as open space as the ordinance requires, it is neither contiguous or usable. Instead, it the open space is fractured by buildings and roads and consists almost entirely of wetlands. Hanley suggested that in some cases, including Governor's Crossing, the effect of the cluster ordinance was to enable land with plentiful wetlands or steep slopes to be developed more densely than it could be by a conventional subdivision. Asked her opinion of the project last night, Hanley replied "it's an overuse of the property."

Planning Director Shanna Hallas-Burt suggested one alternative would be to subtract or discount wetlands when calculating the open space required of a cluster development.

Despite reservations about specific aspects of Governor's Crossing among board members, the project apparently satisfies the stipulations of the cluster ordinance. But, misgivings about the project has called the ordinance itself in question.