Hamilton Select Board Adds Stormwater Bylaw to Fall Town Meeting Warrant

HAMILTON -- September 5, 2023, Hamilton Select Board unanimously adds stormwater management bylaw to fall Special Town Meeting warrant. The board voted 4-0 Tuesday to reopen and amend the warrant for the November 6 Special Town Meeting, adding a revised Chapter 29 stormwater bylaw driven by runoff and flooding at a nine-lot Bridge Street development. Planning Board Chair Marnie Crouch said a loophole in the existing bylaw let a developer withdraw its permit application after disturbing less than one acre per lot, and that revised language will tighten the definition of "common plan of development," strengthen enforcement, and add slope-based permitting thresholds. The board also heard a lengthy update on the stalled Brown's Hill Overlay District for the 102-acre Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary campus, with town counsel John Witten warning that going to town meeting "without the development agreement is going to meet an uncertain fate." Seminary representative Ken Barnes called "patently false" any suggestion the Seminary had abandoned the holistic rezoning effort. In separate votes, the board approved using approximately $300,000 in cemetery perpetual care funds to purchase a replacement overseeder and authorized an intermunicipal agreement for a shared conservation agent with Manchester.