Code of Massachusetts Regulations › 301 CMR - EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS › Title 301 CMR 25.00 - Designation Of Port Areas › Section 25.01 - Purpose

Current through Register 1525, July 5, 2024
(1)
								301 CMR
			 25.00 serves as the primary agency of the Commonwealth
			 for environmental planning, as set forth in M.G.L. c. 21A, §§ 2 and
			 4; and to implement the Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Program (CZM
			 Program), established by M.G.L. c. 21A, § 4A for the purpose of securing
			 for the inhabitants of the Commonwealth the objectives and benefits of the
			 Federal Coastal Zone Management Act,
			 16 USC
			 1451
et seq
.
			 301 CMR
			 25.00 forms part of the CZM Program and shall be
			 interpreted and applied in a manner consistent therewith.
(2)
Purpose
.
			 301 CMR
			 25.00 sets forth a procedure for establishing and
			 modifying the boundaries of Designated Port Areas (DPAs). Since 1978, the CZM
			 Program has identified DPAs as geographic areas of particular state, regional,
			 and national significance with respect to the promotion of commercial fishing,
			 shipping, and other vessel-related activities associated with water-borne
			 commerce and the promotion of manufacturing, processing, and production
			 activities reliant upon marine transportation or the withdrawal or discharge of
			 large volumes of water. These water-dependent industrial uses vary in scale and
			 intensity but generally share a need for infrastructure with three essential
			 components: a waterway and associated waterfront that has been developed for
			 some form of commercial navigation or other direct utilization of the water,
			 backland space that is conducive in both physical configuration and use
			 character to the siting of industrial facilities and operations, and land-based
			 transportation and public utility services appropriate for general industrial
			 purposes.
This special combination of industrial attributes is found in a
				very limited and diminishing portion of the coastal zone, and particularly few
				areas are of sufficient contiguous extent to invite concentrations of related
				businesses and/or large-scale facilities. Because economic, environmental, and
				social factors now virtually preclude further development of such an intensive
				nature, what remains of the industrialized coast should be preserved to the
				maximum extent practicable in order to meet the long-term, cumulative space
				needs of the water-dependent industries that these areas are so well-suited to
				accommodate. As a matter of state policy, it is not desirable to allow these
				scarce and non-renewable resources of the marine economy to be irretrievably
				committed to, or otherwise significantly impaired by, non-industrial or
				nonwater-dependent types of development, which enjoy a far greater range of
				locational options.
Accordingly, within DPAs it is the intent of the CZM Program to
				encourage water-dependent industrial use and to prohibit on tidelands subject
				to the jurisdiction of M.G.L. c. 91 other uses except for compatible public
				access and certain industrial, commercial, and transportation activities that
				can occur on an interim basis without significant detriment to the capacity of
				DPAs to accommodate water-dependent industrial use in the future.
The additional purposes served by
				301 CMR
				25.00 are as follows:
(a) to carry out overall state growth policy
			 by encouraging further maritime build-out of existing industrialized
			 waterfronts, in order to both minimize incremental detriments to the
			 environment and maximize the effective return on prior expenditures for port
			 infrastructure;
(b) to carry out
			 overall state environmental policy by, among other things, providing for the
			 management of land and water resources to assure the protection and balanced
			 utilization of such resources; promoting the best usage of land and water by
			 encouraging and providing for, in cooperation with other appropriate state
			 agencies, planned industrial, commercial, and community development; and
			 assisting other state agencies and regional planning agencies in developing
			 programs and policies relating to land use planning and regulation in the
			 Commonwealth; and
(c) to comply
			 with and implement national coastal policy as set forth in the Federal Coastal
			 Zone Management Act of 1972, as amended, by giving priority consideration to
			 coastal-dependent uses and orderly processes for siting major facilities
			 related to national defense, energy, fisheries development, ports and
			 transportation, and to the location, to the maximum extent practicable, of new
			 commercial and industrial developments in or adjacent to areas where such
			 development already exists.