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[Editorial Disclosure: The author of this story provided a signature for the Citizen Petition mentioned in this story.]
On Tuesday the Select Board had another conversation about its draft zoning bylaw (page 18) to regulate gun businesses in Sudbury. There are currently no regulations specific to the location of gun-related businesses in Sudbury. The bylaw would allow two firearms businesses in Sudbury, with a series of requirements on locations, operating hours, insurance, annual permitting and security plans, among others. Here’s what happened to date:
- Spring 2023: A Citizen Petition banning gun businesses in all Sudbury zoning districts is on the warrant for Annual Town Meeting. The Select Board asks the petitioner to work with Town Counsel to develop amendments that might turn the petition into something the board could support. That didn’t happen in time for Annual Town Meeting, and the Citizen Petition failed 59-107. However, the Select Board voiced an interest in continuing to work on a bylaw.
- Summer 2023: Town Manager Sheehan and the Select Board begin work on a more comprehensive bylaw. The approach was to find a way to allow gun businesses in limited locations while giving the Town tools to strongly regulate them. Some members of the Select Board preferred this approach to reduce the risk of an expensive legal challenge from gun rights groups. The board was divided on this approach, with three members in support (Russo, Roberts, Carty) and two who would prefer an all-out ban (Dretler, Kouchakdjian).
- Fall 2023: The draft bylaw came up again from time to time for further discussion, though the Select Board was waiting for an Attorney General review of Acton’s recently-passed firearms bylaw (page 27). With the Acton bylaw approved by the Attorney General, Sudbury’s bylaw is back on the docket, and that gets us to this week.
This week’s discussion was a bit more contentious than prior meetings. (0:48:40) One complicating factor is the placement of gun businesses. The draft bylaw sought to limit approved locations not only by zoning districts, but by proximity to residential properties, childcare facilities and public parks, to name a few.
Sudbury’s new Director of Planning and Community Development, Adam Burney, did a parcel analysis and found that the bylaw, as written, would not allow for placement of a gun business anywhere in Sudbury. (Page 22) If the options were to expand to industrial zoning districts, two parcels become viable: the location of the Soul of India restaurant on Boston Post Road and an adjacent parcel owned by Herb Chambers. Here are the parcels they discussed on Boston Post Road, highlighted in yellow:
However, these two only count as one viable parcel for gun businesses, because the current draft of the bylaw does not allow two gun businesses to abut each other. That created a bit of a conundrum for the majority of the Select Board that wants to advance the bylaw, because they would need to relax the regulations to find more parcels.
Much of the discussion Tuesday focused on how to ease the requirements to find more viable locations for gun shops. And while the Select Board proponents of the bylaw were clear that they felt this bylaw was the best way to keep Sudbury safe, the exercise of elected officials seeking out parcels for gun businesses in an effort to keep residents safe from gun violence was, though necessary for their approach, inescapably peculiar to observe.
To identify additional parcels for gun businesses, the Select Board considered reducing setbacks from certain uses on nearby parcels. For example, they requested an analysis from the Director of Planning and Community Development that would reduce the 500-foot setback from public parks down to 100 feet. This was driven largely by the two rail trails being built in Sudbury, since Burney explained the rail trails were a major factor in limiting which parcels could be available to gun businesses. Indeed, Sudbury’s rail trails weave through most of Sudbury’s non-residential zoning districts as depicted by the black dashed lines running north-south and east-west:
There was no expressed desire to allow gun businesses within 100 feet of the rail trials, but the idea was to reduce the setbacks enough to find out if there’s any chance of freeing up more parcels for gun businesses. Another option mentioned was to classify the Bruce Freeman and Mass Central rail trails as something other than public parks. The Select Board is expected to review further parcel analysis by Burney at one of their January meetings.
Pedal to the Metal
The Select Board majority of Russo, Roberts and Carty voiced a desire to put the bylaw on the warrant for Annual Town Meeting in May. The deadline for that is January 31, 2024. That gives the Select Board just about 40 days to decide which areas of Sudbury could become home to a gun business. As the majority sought to speed the process up, the public comment period on Tuesday included the first public acts of vocal opposition to the bylaw. (0:16:00)
The majority also opted not to host a public outreach session prior to putting the bylaw on the warrant. Instead, they felt that a legally-required public hearing with the Planning Board, after the bylaw article is finalized and added to the warrant, would be sufficient. The Select Board minority voiced a strong desire to engage the public for input in January. (2:53:55)
At the top of the discussion, Town Manager Sheehan also indicated his support for a public event prior to the warrant article deadline in January. He felt the Town could pull off such an event in the middle of January. At one point during the discussion, Burney noted the process needed to be resident-centric:
“I guess what I’ll say to that is I don’t want to go about suggesting locations, because this is a very Sudbury resident-centric decision process.” (1:32:14)
Paradoxically, members of the majority argued that the bylaw needed much more work, and the board itself needed more education on a bylaw they started developing six months ago, before it would be appropriate to solicit public input. They concluded that it was premature to hold an event to engage the public in the process, but remained confident that they could draft a final version of the bylaw by the warrant deadline in January without a call for public input. (3:04:30)
And finally, the majority also opted not to establish a subcommittee to work on the bylaw. They felt a subcommittee would slow the process down with redundant work. (2:30:00)
Varying Perspectives
Each member of the Select Board seemed to have their own logic and unique points of emphasis. But the general argument in favor of the bylaw has been that Sudbury is at the mercy of a hypothetical gun shop under existing bylaws, and the Town doesn’t have the most powerful tools to regulate such shops. In the meeting, it was made clear that, under the current zoning bylaw, gun shops can open up in virtually any district where retail is allowed. The majority felt the higher burdens imposed on potential gun shops, specifically in requiring a special permit, would give the Town the tools it needs to maximize control and public safety. To be clear: this would not enable the Town to stop a bylaw-compliant gun shop from opening, but the process may be a deterrent, and the bylaw would limit how many gun shops could operate in Sudbury. (2:22:10) For a full description on the difference between by-right and special permits, jump to 1:15:00. In addition to the control they felt the bylaw would give the Town, Town Counsel also reiterated that he felt an absolute ban would very likely prompt an expensive legal challenge.
Arguments in opposition to the bylaw typically focused on two points. First, that case law is just now developing relative to zoning for gun businesses, and it’s risky to pass the bylaw without getting clarity on what direction the courts are heading. Hypothetically, if the courts end up giving municipalities greater powers to regulate gun businesses than Sudbury’s proposed bylaw offers, it would be hard to undo that bylaw and the Town may be stuck with weaker regulations than it otherwise could have. If things go the other way, the Town might need to update the bylaw to comply with decisions in pending cases. (2:18:30) The second argument against is the Select Board could just do nothing. Sudbury doesn’t have a gun shop, and Sudbury’s Director of Planning pointed out that it’s unlikely that one would want to open in Sudbury. In that sense, the bylaw was framed as a solution in search of a problem. Doing nothing may also be a way to avoid unintended consequences.
The discussion ended with a thoroughly divided Select Board and a path forward dictated exclusively by the majority. But the real-world implications are perhaps more important to residents than process at this point.
Whether gun shops get zoned in a research district in north Sudbury, smack in the middle of Town Center, or an industrial district on Boston Post Road, the locations the Select Board identifies for gun shops could be very close to certain neighborhoods and much farther away from others. Sudbury is predominantly zoned residential, and many of its business and industrial districts are clustered together along Boston Post Road and surrounded on all sides by residential zones, while the rather large research district is on the northern edge of town in red in the below map.
Sudbury’s Director of Planning and Community Development, Adam Burney, was clear that he felt Sudbury is an unlikely location for a gun shop given the nature of the town’s commercial properties and the needs of typical gun shops. Yet that may not be of much comfort to residents who live closest to the locations the Select Board eventually identifies without soliciting their input. And Sudbury is no stranger to zoning drama. In recent years the town witnessed swirling controversy around the development of a storage facility next to Whole Foods on Boston Post Road that packed the Lincoln-Sudbury auditorium for a Special Town Meeting. There was also the proposed Sudbury Station 40B development in Town Center and the ensuing land swap and rezoning of the Melone property in north Sudbury. Currently there’s some controversy surrounding a proposed childcare facility at the corner of Concord Road and Newbridge Road.
The firearms bylaw is unique from prior zoning controversies, in part, because nobody is currently proposing to open a gun shop. The bylaw is something the Select Board is choosing to advance proactively, not as a reaction to a proposed development or store opening in Sudbury. In theory that alleviates some of the urgency that comes with outside proposals from businesses. But this one is moving forward with similar urgency, and with significantly less public outreach than has been typical in the past; even for less politically-charged topics.
What’s Next?
So far the Select Board has only consulted with Town Counsel and, for the first time on Tuesday, with Sudbury’s new Director of Planning and Community Development. But they haven’t gotten formal input from the Planning Board or Zoning Board of Appeals, nor have they gotten formal input from Sudbury Police Chief Scott Nix, or the Board of Health/Health Department for a public health perspective on firearm safety.
Member Russo has referenced his personal conversations with outside groups like the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (page 63), but no gun violence prevention or even gun rights advocacy groups have been engaged by the full Select Board in open meeting. It remains unclear if they will, as a full board, pursue any additional local expert input or outside expert input before the warrant article submission deadline in January. In combination with repeated comments from the majority dismissing differing perspectives, going so far as to call them “foolish,” and “naive,” it may put consensus of any sort out of reach.
A similar bylaw recently failed in Westford, with over 1,000 people turning out for the Town Meeting, and even more showing up as part of a heavy presence of gun rights activists. While it had majority support, it did not meet the 2/3 majority threshold required for passage. On Tuesday Member Russo referenced that Sudbury’s May 2023 vote was two-to-one against a ban (2:13:54), however even the citizen petition caught the attention of gun rights activists and supporters, many of whom were quite vocal on the floor of Town Meeting. The vote was 59-107 against. But it’s unclear how many of the 107 would be in favor of the new bylaw just because they opposed the ban proposed in the citizen petition, or what the composition of the room will even be in May 2024.
One big question remains: if gun rights advocates organize and turn like-minded people out to oppose the new proposed bylaw like they did in Westford, and proponents of a ban instead of regulation turn out to vote against the new bylaw, will it garner enough support to reach a 2/3 threshold? And will a lack of community engagement before a bylaw is approved for a warrant article hamper the ability to garner that support?
Much like the varying perspectives on the Select Board, there are sure to be varying perspectives among residents, as has been on display recently in other communities. The public will be able to formally engage in the process at a public hearing of the Planning Board sometime before Town Meeting next year. But that will likely be too late to change or influence the Select Board’s bylaw before Town Meeting. If the Select Board follows the next steps decided upon in this week’s meeting, it looks like it will unilaterally decide the locations where gun shops will be able to open in Sudbury under this bylaw. After that, assuming they put it on the warrant, Town Meeting would have an opportunity to amend the article, or simply take the final up or down vote, in May 2024.