Conservation director responds to concerns raised by local businesses

WESTFIELD — Conservation Director Anna Meassick said people are confused about the city's new wetlands protection ordinance that was approved by the City Council in May, and the rules and regulations that will apply to the local ordinance that are currently in draft form and inviting comments until July 7.
'There is a deep misunderstanding of what we're trying to do,' Meassick said.
Meassick and Wetlands Compliance Officer Julia Hampton were in their office on June 10 putting together a complete set of documents relating to the new ordinance, including agendas, minutes, peer review conversations and notes in response to a public records request. The Conservation Commission meeting that had been scheduled that evening was cancelled due to a lack of quorum.
She said in 2022, the Conservation Commission first started talking about making minor corrections to the local ordinance, but it was put on hold. She said the language in the previous ordinance was very 'gray,' and there were no rules and regulations on how to apply it to such areas as the 50-foot no disturb zone.
'When alteration is absolutely unavoidable is the only time you can do work in the no disturb zone' was added in 2022 to the previous ordinance. She said public feedback at the time was, 'if absolutely unavoidable, don't do the project,' Meassick said, adding, 'We can't just say no with no legal justification. We needed to make it less gray without being prohibitive.'
Meassick said it's about setting standards to do the work. 'If you can meet the standards, you can do the work. The local ordinance didn't set the standards.' She said at the same time in 2022, the paragraph about the Commission setting the rules and regulations, which she said is common to all local ordinances, had been deleted.
Asked why change the local ordinance, Meassick said the state Wetlands Protection Act doesn't protect all resource areas, such as vernal pools, which are only protected if they fall within a resource area. She said under the Home Rule Authority, cities can set rules and regulations that are stronger than those of the WPA.
Intermittent streams, vernal pools, isolated wetlands, ephemeral pools, and land subject to flooding if smaller than a certain amount of square feet are not protected under the WPA, but local protections around them are common across the Commonwealth. She said Westfield always protected vernal pools, for example.
'Most important in the new ordinance is establishing a 100-foot buffer zone as its own resource area,' Meassick said. 'It's not that it's all protected. We can set rules and regulations to go with it that aren't already in the act.'
She said the state has a 100-foot buffer zone, but it is not considered a resource area, so currently Westfield reviews projects in buffer zones by how they impact the resource areas they are protecting.
Meassick said the Conservation Commission has been working on rewriting the new local ordinance since June 2023, and the item was listed on every agenda until it was completed. It then went to the City Council for review in the Legislative & Ordinance Committee for four months, which went over the ordinance line by line.
Prior to going to the City Council, Meassick sat in a peer review for five months with Tighe & Bond. 'I worked with Tighe & Bond once a week for three hours over the course of five months before even giving it to the mayor,' Meassick said.
She said before the peer review with Tighe and Bond, the ordinance was written by the commission, including now retired longtime members David Doe and James Murphy. 'Anything I do is at the direction of the commission,' Meassick said.
The City Council had a public hearing on the new ordinance at the end of April with no public feedback. It was approved by the council on May 1 and signed into law on May 6.
'The revision of the ordinance was on the agenda for two years. There was plenty of opportunity for public feedback. Suddenly, there is a huge problem regarding intermittent streams,' Meassick said.
She said intermittent streams are not protected by the state WPA, but are protected in many local ordinances. Regarding the charge that the ordinance would regulate a stormwater swale, she said it does not. 'The definition of a stream says it has to flow from a resource area,' she said, adding that in the draft rules and regulations, it specifically states that intermittent streams do not apply to stormwater swales.
'The ordinance that is currently approved is not very different from the previous city ordinance,' Meassick said. She said the only resource area that was added to the previous ordinance was 200 feet from intermittent streams.
She said there is confusion from the public about the 200-foot protection area, and the department wants public feedback on how the draft regulations that are currently proposed will impact people. 'If something is truly undoubtedly a hardship, we want to modify that,' she said.
Another claim is that the city added a new, separate permitting system. Meassick said they didn't add a permit, but created a local version of the state permit in order to streamline and add clarity to the process.
'One of the things I felt was the most important was to add an administrative approval process. Under the former local ordinance, it didn't exempt projects that were usually exempt under the state act. We created an administrative approval process to streamline it so people who want to do minor projects, such as fencing, cutting a tree or pathways, don't have to go through the local permit process anymore, which they would have had to do under the old ordinance. Instead, Julie or I can just sign off on it, Meassick said.
'We're trying to make it easier and clearer for the public on what they have to do because we haven't had regulations before. The previous local ordinance had no regulations — there was no clear way to apply it locally,' she said. 'Just saying no was bad. You need to justify it somehow.'
Meassick said the rules and regulations are the 'nitty gritty' of the ordinance, giving the example of the state's WPA, which is seven pages, and its rules and regulations, which is hundreds of pages. She said they are two separate documents.
Meassick said the Conservation Department is seeking constructive feedback. Why would it be a burden, how will it negatively impact projects, instead of inflammatory comments such as catastrophic for our business. 'What we want to know is how,' she said, adding, 'The majority would be more appreciated as constructive criticism. We appreciate their feedback.'
The public comment section for the rules and regulations of the Wetlands Protection Ordinance may be found at www.cityofwestfield.org/947/Wetlands-Protection-Ordinance. Meassick said she has only had one comment submitted to date.
'There is nothing wrong with the way the ordinance is written. The ordinance sets the baseline,' Meassick said. She said the wording is typical and was compared to 21 other communities in the state. They also extensively referenced the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions handbook, guidance and literature by law, and modified it to fit Westfield.
'Our ordinance is science-based. It does not undermine property rights, due process and fairness. Yet again, we would greatly appreciate someone showing us how it does those things,' Meassick said. She also encouraged people to apply for projects at this time so the Conservation Commission can review their projects under the new ordinance, and give them feedback.
'The goal is never to be prohibitive, it's to regulate and protect our resources,' Meassick said.
Read the original article on MassLive.

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