In one of the final steps in the Town’s outreach process, the Planning and Zoning Commission (PZC) moved toward adopting a new Zoning Draft Plan including a series of zoning regulations, with a Town Meeting last week. The most recent forum focused on changes that the commission and town planner are considering in the town’s overall zoning plan, which has been underway for over three years.

Many of the changes are simple verbiage and terminology, including comprehensive changes to the online version of the regulations. The effort is focused on streamlining and updating the processes and accessibility of the town’s eventual permanent Zoning Plan.

“It’s really about organization. We tried to make it more graphic; we tried to make it better formatted and to make it more user friendly,” said Town Planner Jamie Stein.

According to Stein, these larger-scale changes include provisions in affordable housing, residential zoning, and business zoning. Also, provisions that would ease restrictions on solar and wind power are being considered, according to Stein.

“This has been a comprehensive overhaul of the town’s zoning regulations that has been ongoing for the last three years,” said Stein at the meeting. “Our residential districts have gone through, not a significant change in terms of their details, but just in how we lay out the districts themselves. We offer some examples in the draft tables that show you, height restrictions, minimum lot size, and standards.”

Some of these more comprehensive changes include easing and modifying provisions for commercial vehicle parking, the application and approval of accessory residential dwellings, and on the number of occupants, as well as new “inclusionary zoning” additions. The new proposals include, but are not limited to, the elimination of yard setbacks and floor limitations, and also increased height restrictions in certain zones.

The business zoning changes include merging or simplifying certain business zones. Currently, there are numerous existing commercial zones; those will be culled down to 11 zones in the proposal, with Route 1 zoning pared down to six zones.

“Here in Guilford, we have currently 22 different commercial and business zones as part of the comprehensive rewrite of our regulations; we want to consolidate that into 11 districts. We are also still in the process of trying to assess how different uses of business zones along Route 1,” said Stein at the meeting. “We also have a series of special districts that we have gone through and re-evaluated…there are use-related provisions and standards. These standards are pretty exacting; some of the updated provisions include ones focusing on landscaping and also for exterior lighting. We have had a lot of comments for dark sky lighting asking for changes…including one that is more environmentally friendly.”

Owners of a proposed business, Versio, spoke about their plan, which highlights some of the clunky impediments found within Guilford’s current zoning regulations. Representatives of the firm said they are seeking to open a research facility on Route 1; however, for reasons that are not clear, that section of Route 1 has a decades-old specific provision that does not allow special permits nor is zoned for “research facilities.”

The group, which hopes to open a facility employing 50 plus people, is averring for the ability to allow a special permit or elimination of that specific rule that would allow the company to undertake their project.

“That is the only commercial zone in town where we do not permit research facilities. All of our other commercial zones do, so, that would be a situation where commissioners would take a look at that,” Stein said.

Changes such as these, according to Stein, are critical to business development, and do so in a way that won’t negatively impact other proposals or overlay an automatic approval scenario on future proposals.

There are also new conservation zoning changes that focus on lower and less intrusive lighting schemes and stormwater and erosion controls. The proposed regulations have sections concerning the elimination of several flood zone redundancies.

The document in its draft form is available via the town website. The commission will open a 35-day comment period beginning March 13, before holding a public hearing to vote on the Regulations in April 2023.

“The idea is that at that public hearing, hopefully on or around April 19, and during that covered period we can discuss the public comments we’ve received and we can either vote to adopt the regulations…we can continue the public hearing, Stein said.