In the midst of this month’s annual Town Meeting, members will also be asked to consider three articles on a special Town Meeting warrant, including one that aims to enhance enforcement of the new leaf blower bylaw.
The meeting is scheduled for May 18. The first of the articles will be reports of town leaders or committees, and there are no reports expected.
Article 2 seeks to amend the town’s leaf blower bylaw to strengthen enforcement by increasing the incentive for landscapers to comply with the bylaw. In effect, it lowers the threshold for the Select Board to remove a name from a publicly available list of providers who have committed to comply with the bylaw. A service provider removed from the list may reapply for inclusion after three months have elapsed since its removal.
Previous Coverage
The leaf blower bylaw, which was written to include multiple stages, went into effect in February 2023, bringing Belmont into alignment with several other towns in the state. At that point, restrictions limited the use of combustion-powered leaf blowers (gas-powered) at certain times of the year and certain times of the day.
On Jan. 1, 2026, combustion-powered leaf blowers became completely prohibited in town. While electric leaf blowers are allowed, there are limits on how many can be used at one time on a property.
“Not totally surprisingly, there’s been a bit of a compliance issue because people are changing their behavior,” said Roy Epstein, who was a member of the committee that helped write the bylaw. “We might have been a relative pioneer, but a lot of surrounding towns have moved to a similar system … I think where Belmont does differ from other towns is in the enforcement mechanism, which, I think, is far superior in Belmont, but it needs a wrinkle to give a further incentive for people to conform to the program.”
For a first offense, a warning letter is mailed to the property owner. Second offenses carry a $100 fine; third offenses and each additional offense carry a $300 fine.
The proposed change would lower the threshold for removing a landscaper from the list to a single written warning to the property owner, rather than two offenses on the same property within a calendar year.
“There are complete bans in other towns, so landscapers are adapting to this in far more places than just Belmont,” said Epstein, who noted the bylaw depends on voluntary compliance, not police enforcement. “One way or another, it is feasible to comply with the bylaw, even though people may not be … happy about it.”
Article 3, then, seeks to appropriate funds from Fiscal Year 2026 investment income for the acquisition of right-of-way for Phase 1 of the Community Path Project.
The dollar amount will be included in the motion once the town has received the necessary appraisals.
