Six Years In The Making, New Ch. 91 Flexibility Washes Ashore

Last month, MassDEP and the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management released long-awaited revisions to the regulations governing waterfront development in Massachusetts (the Chapter 91 regulations, the Designated Port Area regulations, and the Municipal Harbor Plan regulations). The changes have been in the works since 2010, when MassDEP and CZM first convened working groups to review whether the regulations could be revised to provide greater flexibility to accommodate a variety of uses along the waterfront. We summarized the draft regulations last spring.

MassDEP's regulatory changes offer enhanced flexibility by allowing waterfront developers to meet their Ch. 91 obligations to provide public access to the waterfront through a new category of uses, called Facilities of Limited Accommodation. These "FLAs" include uses that are open to the public by appointment or enrollment, such as photography studios and childcare centers. These uses may are now