WESTFIELD—The City Council’s Natural Resources Committee has been working on strengthening the water resource protection district zoning ordinance in the city.
The natural resources committee has been working on creating a new draft for the zoning and are expecting to be able to bring the completed draft to city council and beyond starting next month. The draft has been worked on by Ward One City Councilor Mary Ann Babinski, who has presented it to her fellow committee members, Ward Two City Councilor Ralph Figy and Ward Four City Councilor Mary O’Connell, over the committee’s last two meetings. Since then, all three members have been working on the draft and attempting to prepare it.
The natural resources committee during yesterday’s meeting. From left to right: ward two councilor Ralph Figy, ward four councilor Mary O’Connell and ward one councilor Mary Ann Babinski.
According to Babinski previously, the purpose of the proposed ordinance change is to improve protection of the Barnes aquifer. The aquifer has seen issues with contamination from perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) over the past year.
“People need to understand why we want to protect it,” Babinski said during the meeting last night. “What kind of impact we can have on the aquifer.”
The ordinance is still in draft form, but some areas of focus from the committee thus far have included protecting above-ground water sources that may feed into the aquifer, changing and adding definitions within the zoning ordinance, modifying prohibited uses within the district, as well as modifying impervious ground percentages allowed before special permitting is required.
The committee’s members left yesterday’s meetings with more tasks to research additional information related to draft further. They are expected to reconvene Oct. 16, at which point it may be referred out of their committee.
However, following that the draft would still need to go through a public hearing and should also go to the council’s Legislative and Ordinance committee and to planning board, according to O’Connell, with a public hearing possibly not occurring until January.
