Rehoboth Planning Board Sends Moonlight Estates Back for Redesign Over Lot Shapes

REHOBOTH -- July 16, 2014, Rehoboth Planning Board presses engineer to redesign four-lot Tremont Street subdivision over lot-shape concerns. The board stopped short of voting on the Moonlight Estates preliminary subdivision Wednesday, directing engineer Rob Davis of Insight Engineering to return with a revised conceptual plan placing houses for lots one and four within rear building envelopes and redrawing lots two and three to reduce their pork chop configurations. Davis argued at length that the town's bylaws set no written minimum lot width, citing Gifford v. Planning Board of Nantucket (1978) and Cassani v. Planning Board of Hull (1973), and proposed 50 feet, the retreat-lot bylaw minimum, as the applicable standard. Board member Ed Bertozzi acknowledged the access argument but held firm on density: "The pork chop lots are forbidden where the intent is to meet the lot size requirement of the bylaws while evading the bylaw's intent to regulate building site density." The project, proposed by owners Stan and Robin Franzick following a failed variance request and a failed title insurance claim, requires four lots to be financially viable, Davis confirmed. The board voted unanimously to ask town counsel for model bylaw language defining gerrymandered lots for inclusion in the Subdivision Control Regulations.