A new zoning law designed to eliminate "seas of asphalt" created by large parking lots was passed at Town Meeting on Tuesday.

Voters approved the Section 16 Site Plan Review bylaw, which calls for fewer parking spaces for large retail stores -- an effort to to minimize the “sea of asphalt” that occurs when the majority of parking spaces go unused for most of the year, Planning Director John Hansen said. Under the new bylaw, a typical big box store will have 100 to 200 parking spaces.

Additionally, business owners can request a special permit through the Planning Board to further reduce the number of required parking spaces. To do so, business owners must prove that a parking lot can be built on-site and that the full number of parking spaces will not be necessary because the peak hours for adjacent businesses do not overlap with their own peak hours. Business owners can also demonstrate that fewer parking spaces will minimize stormwater runoff and increase green space.

The bylaw also clarifies business construction requirements for the town. Under the previous bylaw, the Planning Board would review a business's site plan whenever a business owner wanted to make changes to a property—including adding new structures, changing a facility's use, making any substantial alteration to a facility, pedestrian, or vehicular patterns, or enlarging a parking lot.

The updated bylaw will trigger a site plan review both in the aforementioned circumstances and when there is a request to increase the seating capacity at an existing business, when a site “that had contained a use [is] discontinued for two or more years,” if a site will contain at least 1,250 square feet of pavement in a commercial district or… 2,500 square feet of pavement in a residential district, if there is a change in vehicular or pedestrian patterns, and/or any alteration, construction, or enlargement to a parking facility, said Hansen.

Additionally, new landscaping standards in the bylaw will help prevent loss of vegetation due to disease and increase shade over parking spaces to lower temperatures around vehicles.

The bylaw also includes requirements for creating sidewalk, crosswalks, and bikeway connections, and requires a bypass lane for all drive-throughs.