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2023 Zoning Recodification
Overview
Under Article 8 of the October 2017 Special Town Meeting, the Town Clerk was authorized "to make up-to-date, accurately indexed, print and digital copies of the Town's General Bylaws conveniently available to the public; to separately format and index Chapter 10, known as the Zoning Bylaws, and make up-to-date, accurately indexed, print and digital copies of the Town's Zoning Bylaws conveniently available to the public; to promptly incorporate and index future amendments to the Bylaws in up-to-date print and digital copies of the General Bylaws and the Zoning Bylaws which shall be conveniently available to the public." The Town engaged the services of General Code, a firm specializing in the digitization of local bylaws, to reorganize the Town's bylaws so the Town Clerk could implement Article 8.
At the 2023 Annual Town Meeting, Town Meeting members will be asked to adopt recodified versions of the General and Zoning Bylaws. Recodification does the following:
- Reorganizes the bylaws to be consistent in terms of numbering, labeling, and formatting
- Creates a document that works well in a searchable, web-based format
- Brings the General and Zoning Bylaws up to date as of the most recent amendments
- Allows the bylaws to be immediately and seamlessly updated as soon as Town Meeting takes action and upon the approval of the Attorney General
The recodified General and Zoning Bylaws include the existing text of these bylaws verbatim. There have been no changes to the style or content of the bylaws; the only exception is for internal references to another section or subsection within the bylaw. Internal references have been updated so that they refer to the new numbering of the bylaw.
The documents below will help Town Meeting members, Town officials, and residents to evaluate the changes that are being proposed to the Zoning Bylaws.
To review the General Bylaws, please visit this page on the Town Clerk's website.
Documents
- Recodified Zoning Bylaw (PDF): The reformatted, reorganized Zoning Bylaws
- Explanatory Notes (PDF): A guide to the types of changes reflected in the Recodified Zoning Bylaws
- Derivation Table (PDF): A table that shows where sections and subsections in the existing Zoning Bylaws can be found in the Recodified Zoning Bylaws
- Current Zoning Bylaw (PDF): The official Zoning Bylaws, updated through the May 2009 Special Town Meeting
- Zoning Amendments (PDF): Amendments to the Zoning Bylaws from 2009 to 2022
- General Code Process (PDF): Outline of General Code's process to codify Town Bylaws
- Zoning Recodification Town Meeting Article (PDF): Article 13 of the 2023 Annual Town Meeting regarding the recodification of the Zoning Bylaw