UPDATE!
From the mayor’s newsletter …
Thanks to the thoughtful collaboration of City Council President Susan Albright, the City’s Law, Planning, Inspectional Services, and Police Departments, today I and members of the City Council have jointly docketed an amendment to the City’s zoning ordinance that would only allow firearms sales related uses in certain zoning districts in the City. It will also require firearms sales uses to be approved by special permit by the City Council. Finally, it will create specific special permit criteria, including a buffer zone between a firearms dealer and residences and schools.
What is the process moving forward for the proposed zoning amendment?
The City Council will assign the proposed zoning amendments to the appropriate committees at its meeting on Tuesday, April 20 and also assign a public hearing date. It is likely that the matter will be assigned to the Zoning and Planning Committee (ZAP) for a public hearing on May 10, 2021. At the public hearing, the Council will hear input from the public. It will then discuss the draft language, potentially make revisions, and ultimately recommend that matter to the full City Council for a final vote to approve the zoning amendments.
In general, zoning is prospective and would not limit ongoing uses and businesses that are already operating.
However, the State Zoning Act, Chapter 40A, does state that any approved zoning amendment will apply to any use/business that has not commenced prior to the publication of notice of the public hearing for the zoning amendment.
It is expected that the City Council will provide notice of the public hearing in the newspaper on April 26 and May 3, 2021. Practically speaking, if there is a proposed firearm dealer use that has not started operating by those dates, it will be subject to the proposed zoning amendments whenever those amendments are passed.
Why are we not prohibiting gun stores everywhere in Newton?
The City Council has broad authority to regulate all land uses in Newton, including the location of firearms dealers. That said, in light of the nature of the issues and the implications of Constitutional protections, it may be reasonable to expect that the more restrictively firearm sales are regulated, the more likely such regulations will be subject to a court challenge.