This site is committed to educating people about concerns around zoning that can harm people...
See below and several other pages on this site have info specific to the Acton 2024 Town Meeting votes to rezone Acton.
NOTE: If there are errors in the Town Meeting info on ResponsibleZoning.org, please know the the authors did not intend to publish errors. The Town refused to provide numbers and we did our best to estimate based on work by local volunteer financial analysts/engineers.
We plan to keep the info below for historical purposes, because it may be useful to people.
See below and several other pages on this site have info specific to the Acton 2024 Town Meeting votes to rezone Acton.
NOTE: If there are errors in the Town Meeting info on ResponsibleZoning.org, please know the the authors did not intend to publish errors. The Town refused to provide numbers and we did our best to estimate based on work by local volunteer financial analysts/engineers.
We plan to keep the info below for historical purposes, because it may be useful to people.
Impacts by Zoning Article
Article 11 PowderMill VOTE NO!
The intention of this article is to create "vibrant walkable downtowns".
This sounds lovely.
However the chances of this happening are small. The town has not shown any evidence that this will happen, despite the risks to water, road capacity, taxes and the environment. So it's a big gamble.
We realize that the town has been working on this with Maynard for years. But it's still not ready. At the very least, the proposal should include affordable housing.
We say VOTE NO! until the Town quantifies the impacts and shows evidence as to how likely various scenarios would occur and REQUIRES AFFORDABLE HOUSING.
PowderMill zoning is NOT required by law. It's an option. Let's do it right.
As proposed, PowderMill zoning will allow developers to build multiple stories of condos on top of busnesses. There would be no requirement for the business floor to be occupied by a quaint shop, or any active business at all. It could be an empty business. There is ZERO requirement affordable housing, despite the fact that the "housing crisis" is a crisis of pricing, not a crisis of quantity.
Here is our estimate of the fiscal impact of PowderMill Zoning on taxes.
But that's just the fiscal impact.
Then there is the carbon footprint, created all the new building. And for what? a chance at quaint shops, but at a sure cost of adding more housing, that's not even affordable?
Why create housing that is not a focus of Acton's Housing Production Plan, which calls for affordable housing for people making under $50K/year. The housing that would be created under the PowderMill Zoning would NOT be affordable.