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

Universal Citation: 301 MA Code of Regs 301.25

Current through Register 1531, September 27, 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.

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