These regulations shall officially be known, cited, and referred
to as the "Subdivision Regulations of the Town of Groveland."
These regulations are adopted for the following purposes:
A. To protect and provide for the public health, safety, and general
welfare of the Town of Groveland.
B. To guide the future growth and development of the Town of Groveland
in accordance with the Master Plan.
C. To provide for adequate light, air, and privacy; to secure safety
from fire, flood, and other danger; and to prevent overcrowding of
the land and undue congestion of population.
D. To protect the character and the social and economic stability of
all parts of the Town of Groveland and to encourage the orderly and
beneficial development of the community through appropriate growth
management techniques assuring the timing and sequencing of development;
promotion of infill development in existing neighborhoods and nonresidential
areas with adequate public facilities; to assure proper rural form
and open space; to protect environmentally critical areas, including
wildlife, wildlife habitat, and areas premature for development.
E. To protect and conserve the value of land throughout the Town of
Groveland and the value of buildings and improvements upon the land,
and to minimize the conflicts among the uses of land and buildings.
F. To guide public and private policy and action in order to provide
adequate and efficient transportation, water, drainage, sewerage,
schools, parks, playgrounds, recreation, and other public requirements
and facilities.
G. To provide the most beneficial relationship between the uses of land
and buildings and the circulation of traffic throughout the Town of
Groveland, having particular regard to the avoidance of congestion
in the streets and highways and the pedestrian traffic movements appropriate
to the various uses of land and buildings, and to provide for the
proper location and width of streets and building lines.
H. To establish reasonable standards of design and procedures for subdivisions
and resubdivisions in order to further the orderly layout and use
of land, and to ensure proper legal descriptions and monumenting of
subdivided land.
I. To ensure that public facilities and services are available, concurrent
with development, and will have a sufficient capacity to serve the
proposed subdivision and that the Town of Groveland will be required
to bear no cost of providing the facilities and services through requiring
the developer to pay fees, furnish land, or establish mitigation measures
to ensure that the development provides its fair share of capital
facilities needs generated by the development.
J. To prevent the pollution of air, streams, and ponds; to assure the
adequacy of drainage facilities; to safeguard the water table; and
to encourage the wise use and management of natural resources throughout
the Town of Groveland in order to preserve the integrity, stability,
and beauty of the community and the value of the land and wildlife.
K. To preserve the natural beauty and topography of the Town of Groveland
and to ensure appropriate development with regard to these natural
features.
L. To provide for open spaces through the most efficient design and
layout of the land, including providing for minimum width and area
of lots, while preserving the density of development as established
in the Zoning Bylaw of the Town of Groveland.
M. These Subdivision Regulations (adopted under the Subdivision Control
Law, MGL c. 41, §§ 81K to 81GG, inclusive) are adopted
under the provisions of Chapter 41 of the General Laws for the purpose
of protecting the safety, convenience, and welfare of the inhabitants
of the Town of Groveland by "regulating the laying out and construction
of ways in subdivisions providing access to the several lots therein,
but which have not become public ways, and ensuring sanitary conditions
in subdivisions and in proper cases parks and open areas. The powers
of the planning board under the Subdivision Control Law shall be exercised
with due regard for the provision of adequate access to all of the
lots in a subdivision by ways that will be safe and convenient for
travel; for lessening congestion in such ways and in the adjacent
public ways; for reducing danger of life and limb in the operation
of motor vehicles; for securing safety in the case of fire, flood,
panic and other emergencies; for insuring compliance with the zoning
bylaws; for securing adequate provision for water, sewerage, drainage,
underground utility services, fire, police and other similar town
equipment, and other requirements where necessary in a subdivision;
and for coordinating the ways in a subdivision with each other and
with the public ways in the town and with the ways in neighboring
subdivisions."
The Planning Board of the Town of Groveland, under the provisions of MGL c. 41, § 81Q, is vested with the authority to review, approve, conditionally approve, and disapprove applications for the subdivision of land, including preliminary and final plans. The Planning Board may grant waivers from these regulations pursuant to the provisions of §
70-1.10.
In order that land may be subdivided in accordance with these
purposes and policies, these subdivision regulations are hereby adopted
and made effective as of November 10, 1998 (the effective date of
these regulations). All applications for subdivision approval, including
final plans, pending on the effective date of these regulations shall
be reviewed under these regulations; except that these regulations
will not apply if a preliminary plan was filed with the Planning Board
within a seven-month period prior to the effective date of these regulations.
Refer to MGL c. 41, § 81S.
Upon the adoption of these regulations according to law, the
Subdivision Regulations of the Town of Groveland adopted December
22, 1976, as amended, are hereby repealed, except as to those sections
expressly retained in these regulations.
For the purpose of protecting the public health, safety, and
general welfare, the Planning Board may from time to time propose
amendments to these regulations, which shall then be approved or disapproved
by the Planning Board at a public hearing, following public notice.
Regulation of the subdivision of land and the attachment of
reasonable conditions to land subdivision are an exercise of valid
police power delegated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The developer
has the duty of compliance with reasonable conditions established
by the Planning Board for design, dedication, improvement, and restrictive
use of the land to conform to the physical and economic development
of the municipality and to the health, safety, and general welfare
of the future lot owners in the subdivision and of the community at
large.