At a November 26 hearing of the Ordinance Committee, We discussed a zoning petition introduced by Councillor Carlone and I that would ensure the impacts of large new projects on electricity and natural gas infrastructure are properly considered as part of the permitting process.
There was broad agreement that it would be helpful to require developers to provide the Planning Board with information about the expected utility demands of their proposed projects, but the committee was not ready to require the Planning Board to base their decision directly on this information. I will return to this topic in the next term to find appropriate ways to ensure we are never again presented with a surprise on the scale of the proposed Eversource transfer station on Fulkerson Street. It’s critical that we plan carefully for the future while conserving energy and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, and that will require a more stringent approach than the “build first and ask for more electricity later” approach that we’ve been following so far.
