Affordable housing - Inexpensive dwellings affordable to those of modest income.

Approval not required (ANR) - Chapter 41 Section 81-P of the Massachusetts statutes permits unlimited subdivision of individual parcels along existing roads without local review as long as the have adequate frontage.

"Big Box" retail - Large retail stores over 35,000 square feet drawing customers from a large area and typically surrounded by parking lots.

Biodiversity - The tendency in ecosystems, when undisturbed, to have a great variety of species forming a complex web of interactions.

Brownfield - Abandoned, idled, or underused industrial or commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination.

Building codes - Municipal ordinances that regulate the construction and occupancy of buildings for safety or health reasons.

Buildout - No additional development is possible on a parcel or within a community.

Charrette - An intensive design process that involves the collaboration of all project stakeholders at the beginning of a project to develop a comprehensive plan or design.

Community Preservation Act - A law passed in Sept. 2000 that enables communities to establish a local Community Preservation Fund, through a ballot referendum, dedicated to open space protection, provision of low and moderate income housing, and historic preservation. Revenue for the fund is generated by a local property tax surcharge of up to 3% and a state match of about $25 million annually to participating communities.

Community Preservation Initiative - An effort of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs to provide tools and information to local decision-makers so that they will be able to make informed decisions about future growth.

Easement - Access rights to a portion of a property for which the owner gives up his rights of development (such as a power line easement to a utility company).

Ecosystem - A complex set of natural, interconnected elements on which a habitat's survival depends directly or indirectly.

Executive Order 418 - An initiative of the Swift Administration to provide incentives for housing production and to provide $30,000 in services to each MA community to draft a Community Development Plan that addresses housing, environmental resources, transportation, and economic development.

Feasibility study - A combination of a market study and an economic analysis that provides an investor with knowledge of both the environment where a project exists and the expected return on investment to be derived from it.

Floodplain - The land adjacent to a body of water or water course that is subject to flooding.

Floor area Ratio (FAR) - The ratio of floor area in a building to the land area of the lot on which it sits. Used to regulate building volume.

Geographical Information System (GIS) - GIS is a computer system capable of assembling, storing, manipulating, and displaying geographically referenced information (i.e. spatial data).

Grandfathering (vesting) - A right to proceed with a development project that cannot be abolished by subsequent changes in development regulations.

Graywater - Water that has been used for showering, clothes washing, and faucet uses that can be reused for irrigation in some circumstances.

Greenfield - Undeveloped lands such as fields or forests.

Habitat - The environment in which an organism or biological population lives or grows.

Highest and best use - The property use that at a given time produces the greatest net worth return.

Infill - Developing on empty lots of land within an urban area rather than on new undeveloped land outside the city or town.

Infrastructure - Services and facilities provided by a municipality or privately provided including roads, water, sewer, emergency services, parks, etc.

Mass transit - Travel by public transportation system such as bus or subway.

Mixed use - Multiple land uses in the same structure or same general area of a community

Neotraditional planning - The pragmatic mix of traditional urban development patterns and styles with the requirements of the modern community.

New Urbanism - A movement to re-examine the basic development patterns of our communities and to rediscover the planning and design practices responsible for creating the traditional development patterns of Massachusetts.

Open space - The non-built environment.

Operating costs - Costs directly related to the operation, maintenance, repair, and management of a property and the utilities that service it.

Orthophoto - A stereoscopic aerial picture.

Overlay District - A zoning code or district which is available as an option to the underlying zoning.

Parcel - A portion of a subdivision.

Pedestrian scale - An urban development pattern where walking is safe and efficient

Plan - A method of action as text, drawing, or map.

Planned Unit Development - A zoning category that allows innovation in development by the suspension of standard zoning to be replaced by negotiated agreements.

Redevelopment - The redesign or rehabilitation of existing properties

Renovation - The process of bringing back a structure or landscape to its original state.

Restoration - The process of upgrading an existing building; usually while attempting to keep the same general appearance of the building.

Right-of-way - The easement dedicated to a municipal use on either side of a publicly
owned street.

Setback - The required distance measured from the right-of-way in which construction may not encroach.

Site coverage - The percentage of a site that is covered by the built environment.

Sprawl - Low density development on the edge of cities and towns, poorly planned, land consumptive, auto-dependent, and designed without respect to its surroundings.

Stakeholders - Those people who are or will be affected by a real estate development.

Subdivision - The division of land into individual parcels.

Sustainability - Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. As defined by the Brundtland Commission, 1987.

Topography - The physical features, including the configuration, of a landscape.

Traditional neighborhood development (TND) - A basic unit of the New Urbanism which contains a center that includes a public space and commercial enterprise; an identifiable edge, ideally a five minute walk from the center; a mix of activities and variety of housing types; an interconnected network of streets usually in a grid pattern, high priority of public space, with prominently located civic buildings and open space that includes parks, plazas, squares.

Transit oriented development (TOD) - A mixed-use community within walking distance of a transit stop that mixes residential, retail, office, open space, and public uses in a way that makes it convenient to travel on foot or by public transportation instead of by car.

Urban growth boundary - A planning tool used to set the maximum extent of an area to be developed.

Variance - A special permission to vary a physical structure or use a property in a way normally prohibited by existing zoning.

Vernacular - The traditional architecture of a region, frequently developed in response to the climate, land conditions, or culture of a region.

Viewshed - Everything visible from a particular vantage point.

Visual preference survey - Photographic images of various planning and design elements, accompanied by questionnaires and other analysis techniques. Developed by
Anton Nelessen.

Watershed - The land area drained by a stream or river.

Wetland - Land that is transitional between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and is covered with water for at least part of the year.

Zoning - A legal mechanism for local governments to prevent conflict land use and promote orderly development by regulating the use of privately owned land through enforcement