By Colleen Gundlach
This past summer has been an unprecedented one for Norfolk in terms of vitality, excitement and community involvement. The Artswave! event created a groundswell of community pride, and opened the town’s borders to visitors who may never have experienced the scenic beauty nor been cognizant of the cultural vistas Norfolk has to offer. The numerous volunteers who organized and orchestrated Artswave! did so out of a commitment to the town and its residents
While the Artswave! committee was doing its very visible and rewarding work, another group of Norfolk volunteers was also striving in a different way to encourage growth. The Foundation for Norfolk Living (FNL) has been developing plans for building affordable housing for several years, and its labor is coming to fruition. Organized by a group of townspeople in response to the Housing Committee Study commissioned by the Norfolk selectmen in 2003, this group has developed a plan to create homes for people of modest means. The first of these homes is scheduled to be built on Old Colony Road sometime next year.
The Foundation for Norfolk Living and the Artswave! group are but two of the organizations and individuals who invest a great deal of time and money in making Norfolk a better place to live, work and raise children. We as a community need to work just as hard to be sure that our town regulations, especially our zoning ordinances, don’t discourage the kind of growth our townspeople are working to achieve.
Writing zoning regulations is a thankless job. Most Norfolkians will agree that they want to maintain the town’s rural character but it is more difficult to agree on how to achieve that goal. Regulations have to be resident friendly not only for the newcomer but for the established property owners as well.
Our zoning laws should eliminate undue hardship on residents and allow them to use their land in a manner consistent with their needs, while not infringing on the rights of others. That goes without saying. One example would be the issue of the outdoor wood burning furnaces, also known as hydronic heaters, which were installed by some homeowners due to the rising costs of heating oil. Some towns issued knee-jerk reactions to the presence of these stoves in their towns and issued bans in years past. However, the federal Environmental Protection Agency developed guidelines for acceptable emissions from these stoves in 2007, which could serve as a point of reference for developing local regulations. I use this as an example for the purpose of pointing out that sometimes ordinances and rules handicap the homeowner and cause more expense. If a resident needs to pay an extra $300 fee to refer a hardship to the Zoning Board of Appeals, it only creates more of a financial hardship, and discourages growth.
Zoning regulations in Norfolk need to be written in the positive rather than the negative if we are to achieve our goal of being a community where our children can afford to live once they are grown, and where families of modest means can live and enjoy the culture and beauty of our town. I would challenge all of the boards and commissions in town, not just zoning, to look at its regulations and objectives to be sure that we really are the open and inviting community we want to be.