The Planning Board is a seven member lay committee, appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the City Council, that is charged with administering the City's site plan regulations, conditional use regulations, subdivision regulations, and with overseeing the development of a Comprehensive Plan.
Members serve a three year term.
The Chairperson of the Board is chosen by the Board each year in January. See the most recent Planning Board Agenda . In most cases, site plans are projects that are permitted in a particular zone, but that require a new building to be built, or result in a large amount of said disturbance. In an Industrial District, the threshold is 10,000 s.f. of new building space, while in a business district, anything over 1,000 s.f. of new building requires review. The intent of site plan review is to make sure that a project's adverse impacts are minimized.