While MetroFuture recommends that authority for most land use decisions should remain at the local level, it also recognizes the need for a more cooperative approach to reviewing proposals that will have impact in multiple municipalities.  An advisory review process would provide a mechanism for neighboring municipalities to voice concerns and recommend mitigation for potential impacts.  

Currently, there are very few established avenues for municipalities to comment on proposed development on the border of an adjacent city or town.  The lack of a formal comment process may frustrate neighboring municipalities, creating an adversarial relationship, impeding efforts for mutually beneficial alternatives, and possibly resulting in delays or legal action.  

A formal advisory review process—beginning with land use planning, though zoning and development review—would provide neighboring municipalities with productive opportunities for comment and would encourage host municipalities to consider and accommodate the needs of neighboring municipalities.  Similar to existing MEPA reviews, such a process would include thresholds for review, a scoping phase in which abutting municipalities would identify concerns and potential mitigation, evaluation of those issues by the host municipality, and documentation how the comments were considered.  These efforts could begin before – and eventually run parallel to – the MEPA process, so they need not result in delays.  The consultative process used by members of the MetroWest Growth Management Committee to conduct “regional impact reviews” has many hallmarks of such an advisory process.

11.a    MAPC should evaluate mechanisms for an advisory review process for regionally significant development

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