Jaffrey voters will have the opportunity to vote on merging several downtown districts into two new ones — one for businesses, and one for residential — during voting in March.
On Tuesday, the Planning Board took up a continuation of a public hearing on the proposed zoning amendments. After taking feedback at a previous meeting, the board had made minor adjustments to the language of the proposed amendments. During Tuesday’s meeting, the board continued the discussion.
The proposed changes are mostly related to creating new districts, particularly around downtown Jaffrey, replacing the current dimensions and rules by essentially merging the current general business district and Main Street program overlay district into a single district, and similarly merging the downtown Residential A and B districts.
The changes would also have separate rules for the new residential district based on whether there is access to community sewer. Those with town sewer access require less road frontage and front, side and rear setbacks.
In the new downtown/general business district, the new rules would eliminate the lot size and frontage requirements previously required in the General Business and General Business A districts, and align them more closely with the Main Street Program Area rules, which require that the buildings align with the streetscape and have 15-foot setbacks from adjacent buildings.
The proposed amendment includes adding “light workshop and studio uses” to the new downtown/general business district. It would require that all activities, including fabrication and finishing, to occur within an enclosed building, and have no outdoor storage of materials, equipment or products.
It also creates new definitions for “civic use” and “commercial use.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, the board discussed those definitions, with Select Board ex-officio member Franklin Sterling questioning whether the definition — which lays out allowed uses under “commercial use” — was too restrictive.
The definition states that commercial uses include the sale of goods or services, business or professional office activities conducted within a building or site, including outdoor sales. It specifically lists retail, personal and business services, offices, nurseries, garden centers, automobile and vehicle sales, service or repair, parking facilities and gas stations.
Sterling wondered if that list was inclusive, mentioning that it lacked “wholesale” and whether that would be covered by “retail,” and didn’t include beds and breakfasts.
Building Inspector and Code Enforcement Officer Rob Deschenes said, “We shouldn’t have our regulations in our definitions, but out definitions should be clear, so when we go to our regulations, we know what we’re talking about.”
The board also discussed that the allowed uses for districts were also within the ordinance, with a more extensive list of allowed uses.
Ultimately, the board did not make any changes to the proposed language and unanimously voted to approve the proposed changes for the March warrant.
The proposed changes will only go into effect if approved by a majority of voters at the ballot in March.
For a complete copy of the proposed changes, visit the Jaffrey Planning Board page on the Jaffrey town website.