PROVINCETOWN — Voters here are likely to be glad about their 2021 vote to add cushions to the seats in town hall auditorium — because the warrant for town meeting on April 7 is currently estimated at 150 pages.
Most of those pages will be filled by eight zoning measures: six updates to existing codes and two entirely new sections, one for Shank Painter Road and one to preserve existing commercial spaces facing Commercial Street.
The major budget item is a $1.4-million override to fund six new leadership positions in the fire dept. and additional overtime in the police and fire depts.
The largest one-time spending articles are for housing: $4 million for a 40-unit building on Shank Painter Road and $1.3 million for the “Barracks” project on Route 6.
There are likely to be at least two petitioned articles — one directing the town to make public bathrooms in town-owned buildings gender-neutral and another banning rodenticides that cause internal bleeding in rats and the predators that eat them. The proponents of those measures spoke at the select board meeting on Feb. 24 but have not yet filed their petitions.
The deadline for petitions and the finalized warrant is March 7.
Budget Discussions
The operating override in Article 2 would permanently increase the town’s total property tax levy to fund the six fire dept. positions — four experienced captains and a full-time chief and deputy chief.
The town now has 20 full-time people in the Fire and EMS Dept., but most of them were former paramedics and EMTs in the now-shuttered Lower Cape Ambulance Association, and many of them do not have years of experience fighting fire, Deputy Fire Chief Othaine Rance told the Independent last month.
Several of the town’s most experienced volunteer firefighters retired last year after telling the select board that Town Manager Alex Morse had treated long-serving Fire Chief Mike Trovato with “extreme disrespect.” Trovato, Deputy Chief Gerard Menangas, and 18 volunteer firefighters all left the department.
The $1.4-million override was the subject of spirited discussion among select board and finance committee members at their joint meeting on Feb. 24.
Finance committee member and former Town Manager David Panagore wanted the town to use more of its ambulance receipts to fund the fire dept.’s budget, which he said could reduce the override by $200,000 to $300,000.
The new budget for the full-time fire dept. already relies on $600,000 per year in ambulance receipts, said Town Accountant Nick Robertson. The remaining ambulance receipts — about $500,000 to $600,000 per year, according to Rance — pay for the periodic replacement of the town’s five ambulances.
The six new leadership positions will be a permanent expense, Robertson said, “so if you’re trying to prevent a structural deficit, you don’t want to reduce this override.”
It would also mean the town’s ambulances would need to be purchased with free cash, Morse said. “The more we drain the ambulance fund, the more we drain free cash, the less funds we have to prevent another operating override” in a future year, he said.
The finance committee voted to ask town staff to examine changing the override total, while the select board supported the budget and override as written.
Morse and Robertson said they would present the select board with both options before the warrant closes on March 7.
Housing Projects
Article 8 in the draft warrant would allocate $4 million from a mix of funding sources, including the town’s housing funds and community preservation act funds, to a 40-unit project that will include 30 below-market condos at the site of the town’s old police station at 26 Shank Painter Road.
The affordable-ownership condos, which would be sold by lottery for prices from $200,000 to $675,000, would have to be the buyers’ sole domiciles, could not be used as short-term rentals, and could be resold only at below-market rates through town-sponsored lotteries.
Because there is no state or federal money involved in the project, the town can limit the lotteries to residents and employees of local businesses, or dedicate certain units for artists or town staff.
Article 9 would allocate $1.3 million to the “Barracks” dormitory project that business owner Patrick Patrick is trying to build on his family’s land at 207 Route 6.
In addition to 28 rooms with bunk beds for seasonal workers, the project includes 15 year-round apartments, 13 of which would be deed-restricted as year-round rentals.
Patrick told the Independent this week that he is aiming to break ground on the project in early summer.
Zoning Measures
One of the eight zoning articles would expand the town’s most permissive Town Center Commercial District about a quarter-mile deeper into the East End from its current boundary near Dyer Street to a new one at Cook Street.
Another article would establish a mixed-use overlay district along Commercial Street from Cook Street in the East End to Franklin Street in the West End.
Within that district, properties that face Commercial Street and already include commercial space — including retail shops, galleries, restaurants, and hotels — would have to retain at least half the ground floor as commercial space in the future. The bylaw would ban the conversion of such properties into single-family homes or purely residential condos, although residential units would be allowed behind and above the commercial spaces.
A new zoning code for Shank Painter Road would also require redeveloped properties on that street to include ground-floor commercial spaces with housing above them. Parking would be relocated behind buildings and away from sidewalks to make the street feel safer for pedestrians.
Finally, an update to the town’s formula business bylaw is still being revised. An advisory measure at last year’s town meeting called for a limit of three hotel licenses per owner, which proponents Elias Duncan and Brent Daly had said was a response to the Linchris Hotel Corp.’s purchase of six Provincetown hotels that collectively include 31 percent of the town’s hotel rooms.
Town staff had initially proposed adding hotels to the town’s formula business bylaw, which regulates the appearance and marketing of chain businesses but not their ownership. That update would have prevented Linchris from opening a “Margaritaville Resort” here, as it recently did in Hyannis, but would not prevent it from buying more hotels.
Daly asked the select board on Feb. 24 to find a way to also address consolidated ownership. Select board member Austin Miller asked if a combined booking platform across multiple hotels could be made a trigger for the restrictions in the formula business bylaw; town staff said they would consult the town’s lawyers and report back by March 7.
