A one-year moratorium on wind turbine applications and an array of housing initiatives, including a bylaw that addresses the thorny issue of inheritance for the children of affordable housing recipients, top the list of business for a double-header special and annual town meeting in Chilmark next week.
The meeting is Monday night in the Chilmark Community Center; longtime moderator Everett H. Poole will preside. The special town meeting begins at 7:30 p.m., immediately followed by the annual town meeting at 8 p.m. There are a total 31 articles on the two warrants.
Voters will be asked to approve a $6.8 million budget for the coming fiscal year, just over two per cent higher than last year’s budget. Noted for its well-trimmed financial affairs, Chilmark has no Proposition 2 1/2 override questions on the ballot, although there is a hot contest for selectman. Jonathan Mayhew and William Rossi are in a tight race for the seat left vacant by outgoing chairman J.B. Riggs Parker, who is not seeking reelection.
The town election is Wednesday.
First up on the special town meeting warrant, the wind turbine moratorium is aimed at allowing time for the town planning board to fine-tune rules on the subject of who is notified when a public hearing is held on a wind turbine application. Wind turbines are allowed by special permit from the zoning board of appeals. One apparent glitch in the bylaw involves notification of abutters; ordinarily this is done for people who live within a defined distance from a building project. But because wind turbines are so high that they can be seen for miles, they can have an impact on someone living well beyond the ordinary zone of an abutter.
“[Current wind turbine regulation] is inadequate; it focuses on setbacks from the structure itself and not the emanations that can come from it,” said Andy Goldman, who submitted the article by petition. “The impact of a turbine jumps over properties in many ways and people need to be notified and our current bylaw doesn’t provide for any of that,” Mr. Goldman said. He also said since the Martha’s Vineyard Commission created a moratorium on turbines over 150 feet when it adopted a wind energy DCPC earlier this year, there is extra rationale for Chilmark to adopt a moratorium on turbines under 150 feet.
“I felt the town was at some measure of risk and since the MVC had declared a moratorium of over 150 feet, it would be appropriate for the town to declare a moratorium under 150, allowing to collect other information, as the commission collects its information,” he said.
The town planning board hosted a public hearing on the proposed moratorium but has taken no position on it.
“That’s what the town meeting will decide,” Mr. Goldman said.
The second of two articles on the special town meeting warrant would add language to the town zoning bylaw that allows affordable housing recipients to pass their property on to their children with no regard to income. This has been a subject for wide discussion as all Island towns become deeply involved in creating affordable housing. Covenants and ground leases ensure that the housing will remain affordable in perpetuity, but the question of whether heirs must also meet income rules demonstrates the complicated nature of the affordable housing initiatives on the Vineyard.
And there are no easy answers, said town executive secretary Tim Carroll.
“Mr. Parker and Mr. Fenner [town selectmen] are on opposite sides, the housing committee is split, we are talking and talking about this, but no one really knows what the right thing is to do,” he said.
Mr. Goldman said he takes an opposite view but agreed that the article should come before voters.
“We the town have gone to a great deal of trouble and money to create affordable homesites, not just for one generation but to be available for others to be used. We have debated it at length, and the time has come to decide the question: what does the town want to do?” he said.
On the annual town meeting warrant voters will be asked to decide a variety of spending articles for public safety, shellfish and affordable housing programs in town, including:
• $35,000 to begin a savings program for replacing the town’s 25-year-old fire truck;
• $9,000 to replace the emergency notification siren on the town hall roof;
• $27,000 for a new Ford four-by-four police cruiser;
• $2,500 for an oyster reef building project in Tisbury Great Pond and $10,000 for a new outboard for the shellfish department;
• $30,000 to pay for a bond for three still unbuilt affordable housing rental duplexes at Middle Line Road.
Community Preservation Act money to spend in the name of historic preservation includes $30,000 to be put toward an ongoing stone wall restoration project.
And like their counterparts in the five other towns, Chilmark voters will be asked to pay a share of four Islandwide programs: County rental assistance ($55,000, from CPA funds); replacement of the 1860s Edgartown courthouse windows ($5,545, from CPA funds); county pest control; and county health care access program.
Also as in other towns, Chilmark will be asked this year to create a town affordable housing trust that has powers to receive and dispose of property without returning to the town meeting floor for approval. In Chilmark the plan comes with a special twist: the trust fund will be named for the late Molly Flender, a Chilmarker who led the effort for affordable housing in her town and beyond. Molly Flender died of cancer in 2005.
And finally, voters will be asked to spend $4,000 to carry out the town center path enhancement plan, a people-friendly path system designed to allow safe walking among the various buildings at Bettlebung Corner, including the town hall, post office, school, library and community center.
The plan has been drawn by Dan Greenbaum, a Chilmark resident and retired engineer whose specialty is traffic and transportation planning.
“Dan came up with a very low-cost plan,” Mr. Carroll said. He said the Greenbaum plan recognizes the obvious: people will follow a certain natural route when they walk.
“That’s where the path should go, and the idea is to make it easy and safe, including a crosswalk that is a straight line from the post office to the Chilmark Store. School kids walk there,” Mr. Carroll said.
He said the paths may include a few motion-sensitive night lights. “The finance committee did not want to see street lights,” he said.
“It’s basically to improve the safety because we have so many people who walk around there,” Mr. Greenbaum said from his home yesterday.
“Right now people wander around and the paths are pretty well set, so this is formalizing it. People do it anyway; we just want to make it a little safer and a little more organized,” he said.
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