CHRISTOPHER M. CREAN
WESTFIELD – The City Council voted last week to close its public hearing on proposed changes to the Aquifer Protection Ordinance, but only after one citizen raised the issue that government action is in effect taking value of property without compensation.
Eminent domain laws are a part of the fabric of the constitution which protects residents from governmental action seizing assets, such as property.
The Planning Board and City Council have both been discussing a change to the city’s aquifer protection overlay zone ordinance, seeking to tighten language and increase protection of aquifers which provide about half of the city’s drinking water.
The Planning Board, which provides a recommendation to the City Council, voted to change the amendment and eliminate the provision allowing commercial development on less than two acres through its special permit review process
“The Barnes Aquifer Protection Advisory Committee (BAPAC) requested the city, in 2007, to update the aquifer protection ordinance,” O’Connell said at the Planning Board’s Dec. 16 meeting, adding that the proposed revision will extend the ordinance restrictions to a whole parcel of land if any portion of that property falls within the aquifer overlay district and that it sets a limit on the amount of impervious surface allowed on a parcel.
The current ordinance has no impervious surface limit. The proposed amendment would set that limit at 65 percent of the total acreage. Impervious surfaces are typically buildings, driveway and parking areas.
CHRISTOPHER KEEFE
Gene Kurtz, a general contractor, said that the proposed ordinance does seize a property owners developmental right because the amendment extends restrictions to the entire parcel.
Kurtz, who owns residential apartment property at 810 Southampton Road, said just a corner of that property is over the aquifer, but that the whole property would fall under the aquifer protection ordinance.
“It takes a lot of development off the table,” Kurtz said. “I don’t want it to impact any plans we might have in the future.”
Ward 1 Councilor Christopher Keefe said the ordinance amendment “will have a significant effect on his property value.
“He (Kurtz) currently has a number of by-right uses under the current zoning that will all go away under the proposed amendment,” Keefe said.
Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Crean also objected to the Planning Board’s recommendation which eliminates all commercial development on less than two acres of land.
“I have blighted areas where nothing can be done,” Crean said. “There has to be middle ground. The way this (Planning Board version) is written, there is no middle ground.”
The council voted to close its public hearing and refer the matter to its Legislative & Ordinance Committee which will consider both the original ordinance language, which allowed commercial develo0pment on less than two acres through the Planning Board’s special permit review process and the Planning Board’s version while requires that commercial projects meet the two-acre minimum.
