China planning board members continued review of the town’s subdivision ordinance at their Oct. 22 meeting, focused on clarifying a change Codes Officer Nicholas French is recommending: allowing cluster developments, also known as open space subdivisions.
The current ordinance has one sentence about cluster developments. Section 11.7 says, “Cluster developments are prohibited.”
This language was adopted in 1993, board chairman Toni Wall pointed out. There is no reason board members, or voters, should have the same opinion more than 30 years later.
French explained that in a cluster development, the owner of a parcel of land is allowed to group an appropriate number of houses on a small part of it, often around one-third. Each individual house lot is smaller than the current minimum 40,000 square feet (a figure that varies with location and other factors).
The rest of the parcel is common space, usually left as is – woods or former field, for example – and open for all the home-owners to use. The developer might own it, or he or she might sell it to the lot-owners.
A cluster development would be likely to have some shared septic systems and perhaps some shared wells, French said. Access roads – fewer and shorter than in a conventional subdivision, because the houses are closer together – would be maintained by a road association consisting of lot-owners.
French favors cluster developments, primarily, he said, because they would allow China to help alleviate the current housing shortage without sacrificing its rural character.
Board members intend to continue discussing the subdivision ordinance at their next meeting, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 12.
By then, Wall said, her term as a planning board member will have ended.
The amended Planning Board Ordinance voters approved in June says: “As individual terms expire, the Select Board shall appoint new members on an at-large basis to two-year terms. Such terms may be extended at the discretion of the Select Board.”
Wall said she is applying to the select board for reappointment.
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