Athol's Board of Planning and Community Development has recommended passage of two zoning changes at the upcoming Special Town Meeting. Article 6 calls for amending the definition of "family" in the bylaws and increasing the number of unrelated individuals living together to meet the definition of a boarding house. The board members were satisfied with the inclusion of a reference to rooming houses in the proposed bylaw amendment and voted to recommend its passage.
ATHOL – The Board of Planning and Community Development has voted unanimously to recommend passage of two zoning changes at Monday’s Special Town Meeting.
The four members who were present voted at the board’s meeting on Nov. 5. Monday’s Special Town Meeting gets underway at 7 p.m. in Memorial Hall at Town Hall.
Submitted by the Zoning Board of Appeals and Zoning Enforcement Officer Bob Legare, Article 6 calls for amending the definition of “family” in the bylaws. Currently, Section 4.1 of the bylaws describes a family as “(a)ny number of individuals living and cooking together on the premises as a single housekeeping unit.”
The amended bylaw would require a group of five or more people to be related “by blood, marriage or adoption, including wards of the state.”
The article also calls for an increase from three to five the number of unrelated individuals living together to meet the definition of a boarding house.
The issue arose when a property owner opened a sober house at 217 Spring St. in January. Legare found that the home more closely resembled a boarding house, but owner James Parmenter argued the site complies with the town’s current definition of family.
The ZBA upheld Legare’s decision while also denying reasonable accommodation to Parmenter to house five people on-site until he could bring the property into compliance with the requirements to operate a boarding house.
Referring to the last sentence of the proposed amendment, board member Rick Hayden noted, “The amendment says, ‘A rooming house or a furnished rooming house shall be deemed a boarding house. I would think we’d need to have a definition for rooming house, but I don’t see it in the bylaws.”
“We’d have to come back at the June Town Meeting to do something like that,” said Planning and Development Director Eric Smith.
“I’m not saying what we should do,” Hayden said. “I just don’t see a definition, and I think we probably should have one.”
Hayden said he looked through the zoning bylaws “and the only place I saw ‘rooming house’ or ‘rooming’ was right here [in the amendment]. That tells me there’s no definition.”
When the board was asked the difference between a boarding house and a rooming house, member Aimee Hanson said that after an online search she learned that, “Traditionally, a boarding house includes some meals in the price, along with a room” and other amenities. A rooming house, she said, “provides a room for rent, with residents using shared facilities, no meals included.”
In response to another inquiry, board Chair David Small said a rooming house would need to meet the same safety requirements as a boarding house, which includes a sprinkler and alarm system.
“That’s the difference between a family house and a boarding house,” he said, “because you’re charging people to be there, and that constitutes a business.”
Board members ultimately were satisfied that the inclusion of a reference to rooming houses in the proposed bylaw amendment did not constitute a problem and voted to recommend its passage. There was also agreement that the addition to the zoning bylaws of an explicit definition of rooming house should be put before voters at the annual Town Meeting next June.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.