DEERFIELD — All 12 articles were approved as read or amended at Special Town Meeting Monday evening, including a contentious one that sought to reduce frontage requirements in certain districts in town.
Article 8 — which is a revision of a bylaw revision shot down at Annual Town Meeting in June — sought to reduce the minimum frontage specifically in the Center Village Residential District, Small-Business District and Industrial District to 50 feet. The original bylaw in June proposed a minimum frontage of 50 feet across the entire town of Deerfield.
Select Board member Carolyn Shores Ness explained that the town has two projects in mind that would benefit from this bylaw change: developing the Leary Lot for parking and access to Elm Street, and the proposed North Main Street park.
Representatives from the Deerfield Planning Board and Finance Committee supported of the proposed change.
Resident Lili Dwight urged fellow voters to vote in favor of the proposed bylaw change.
“This bylaw is the first step toward village-focused development that is anti-sprawl and preserves farmland,” she said. “It brings added vitality to the village center that extends all the way up to Mill Village Road and down (Route) 116.”
Dwight said the bylaw would give the town the ability to develop small clusters in Center Village to “keep older adults integrated … and it locates … us in walking distance of town, medical, recreational and business services.”
Others who voted in support of the bylaw change spoke to the need for a park in Deerfield, as the closest park for many residents is in Sunderland.
Others had questions about the long-term implications of the change and about the way supporters characterized it.
“This will result in a wholesale redevelopment of a wooded area, removing all wildlife, birds and plants,” said Judith Rathbone, who owns one of the properties next to the North Main Street park.
She said the proposed zoning change would be unfair to residents who may want to develop their property, as the frontage change only applies to town-owned properties.
The article was ultimately approved by a two-thirds majority vote.
Also approved on Monday night were two articles creating a new tourism zoning district encompassing the Routes 5 and 10 corridor and South Deerfield.
“This overlay district allows the breweries to do some activities by right — tours, tasting, classes, etc. — and go to Planning Board for a special permit on other issues,” Shores Ness said.
Some residents asked whether this change constituted spot zoning, or was benefiting certain businesses over others, before it passed with a two-thirds majority.
Residents also had a brief discussion on Article 12, a revision to the solar bylaw passed at June’s Annual Town Meeting. The revision sought to restrict by-right, ground-mounted solar arrays to 660 square feet.
Resident Mark Brennan, a member of the Capital Improvements Planning Committee, however, proposed an amendment to the bylaw, which would restrict by-right, small-scale ground-mounted solar arrays to 1,000 square feet rather than 660 feet.
The amendment was supported, and the article — as amended — was approved.