As you may have read elsewhere, the Commonwealth is proposing to change the regulations about septic systems (called Title 5) to allow septic systems in areas where it takes up to 60 minutes for water to filter through an inch of soil, instead of the current 30 minute rate.
Tests of this filtration rate are called "percē [for percolation] tests. While no one actually knows how much land in this area will "perc" in 60 minutes that wouldn't "perc" in 30, it's a lot. This change won't directly affect Amherst very much, since most houses are on sewers and we've been extending sewers to additional neighborhoods to take care of problems caused by septic systems approved years ago. (Not an encouraging precedent.) However, the new regulations will have a huge impact on the smaller neighboring towns, including Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury.
These towns, like many others in central and western Massachusetts, have relied on the existing regulations to help control the residential growth. Much of the soils in these regions wouldn't perc in 30 minutes; town officials and the neighbors came to think of that land as "unbuildable." But with the proposed easier standards, all those acres become available for development.
State officials don't deny that the change would have this affect. However, they insist that health regulations should not be used to control growth, and tell protesting towns and citizens to use zoning and other planning tools instead.
One problem with that answer is time: while the new regulations at this point are only "proposed," it takes months (or years) for towns to change their zoning laws. Although many people have called upon the state to delay implementing the change to give towns a chance to modify their bylaws, it is not clear the state will.
Another problem is that the towns don't have much information to work with. They don't have soil maps to show which areas are likely to be affected. Small towns don't have trained people (staff or volunteer Board of Health members) to assess the new perc tests. While there are some systems built to the new 60- minute rate, no one seems to have any data on how well they actually work.
But to my mind, the biggest problem with telling towns to use other tools is there aren't any that work well. Amherst is as sophisticated about planning and growth control as you can get, but I'd say we are unable to control very much.
The laws of Massachusetts were written to guarantee landowners rights. Remember, the people who migrated to this continent in the 17th and 18th centuries came mostly so they could own land (which they couldn't do at home). Whether we like it that way or not now, (and I think most people do want and expect to have a lot of control over the land they own, even if it's a quarter acre), landowners are entitled to "subdivide" and "develop" their land unless there is some specific prohibition. Towns are allowed to have some rules about how the subdividing is to be done, but they can't just say "no." Zoning and subdivision regulations can spread things out by requiring larger lots, but that means more sprawl, not growth control.
Which means if you want to get property owners and developers to do something different from a standard subdivision, generally you have to entice them: offer them significantly more lots if they cluster them. Those enticements tend to look like "give aways" to the people already living nearby; so when a proposal for cluster development comes before the zoning or planning board (such special kinds of development usually require a Special Permit) the neighbors are likely to be there in force arguing against it. It's just easier to build the same old same old.
Except larger and more expensive. More expensive at least partly because land prices are rising. Also because these new septic systems will need more land per house, not less. If you pay $80,000 for the lot, you aren't going to put a three-bedroom one- bath Cape Cod on it. Plus there seem to be people willing to pay for these new castles, especially when they have spectacular views. The house on its own lot is the American dream; how many of us can honestly say it isn't ours? Or our childrens'?
Personally, I'd like to see the smaller towns find ways to meet their obligations to provide affordable housing, but this isn't it, despite the rhetoric of some of the proponents of this change to Title 5. Nor am I optimistic that planning per se will help the towns control development and guide it to the more suitable locations.
In my opinion, the only real way to save land is to buy it, or at least its development rights. I'm glad Amherst has pursued that course for decades, and I wish our neighbors had done the same. Now the pressure is on, the price of land is high, and neither the state nor the towns have any money. I don't want to look up at the Pelham Hills and see rows of houses any more than I want to see them on the Mt. Holyoke Range; I doubt many others do either. We're all going to have to work together quickly to insist on strict enforcement of whatever regulations are eventually adopted, explore innovative legal and planning tools, change state law, and raise money to buy particularly significant and strategic parcels.