Meetings are held remotely. From wellfleet-ma.gov, hover over a date on the calendar on the right of the screen and click on the meeting you’re interested in to open its agenda, which includes information about how to view and take part remotely.
Thursday, Feb. 11
- Joint meeting of the Nauset School Committees, 6 p.m.
- Zoning Board of Appeals, 7 p.m.
- Nauset Regional School Committee, 7 p.m.
Mon, Feb. 15
- Bike and Walkways Committee Community Forum, 7 p.m.
- Dredging Task Force, 7 p.m.
Tuesday, Feb. 16
- Emergency Management Team Covid-19 community update, 10 a.m.
- Energy and Climate Committee, 4 p.m.
- Cultural Council, 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Feb. 17
- Cemetery Commission, 10 a.m.
- Conservation Commission, 4 p.m.
Conversation Starters
Covid-19 Update
Wellfleet had nine new cases of Covid-19 in the 14 days preceding the Mass. Dept. of Public Health’s weekly report, published Feb. 4. The town has recorded a total of 48 cases and one death from the virus.
Housing Angels Wanted
The local housing partnership, housing authority, and the new affordable housing trust are seeking housing angels — private land owners who will either donate or sell, at a reduced price, their land or home to the Wellfleet Affordable Housing Trust.
Access to town-owned land has dwindled and options are truly limited, said Elaine McIlroy, chair of the housing authority. The shortage of affordable year-round housing is critical, she said, and the situation has only gotten worse in the past year. “We are hoping someone will leave a legacy,” said McIlroy.
—Tessera Knowles-Thompson
Planning Situations
At their Feb. 3 meeting, members of the planning board discussed clear-cutting and reckoned with the practical challenges of their planned new affordable dwelling unit bylaw.
Though Chair Gerry Parent did not mention 1065 State Highway or its owners, Donna and Steve DiGiovanni, by name, the board spent much of the meeting discussing a potential bylaw regulating lot clearing — which the DiGiovannis did before Building Inspector Paul Fowler issued a cease-and-desist order.
Fowler was previously the building inspector in Dennis. He provided the board with Dennis’s lot-clearing bylaw, which opens with “No construction or site preparation work shall be done on any land including the removal of living trees of greater than 4-inch caliper measured 6 inches above grade or the removal of greater than 10% of existing vegetation until all necessary permits and approvals have been obtained….”
Parent said a zoning bylaw definition of lot clearing would allow the building inspector to be more proactive and prevent another “situation” like the one on Old Wharf Road. But board members Beth Singer and David Rowell focused on details, objecting to what they called overly stringent regulations.
“Only four inches?” asked Rowell.
“I don’t like this at all,” said Singer.
Parent also presented what he termed “horribly sobering” news: that drafting an ADU bylaw would be essentially impossible. Wellfleet’s definition of “new construction,” he said, would mean any resident interested in building an ADU would have to “bring existing septic systems up to the current Title 5 — which basically eliminates a tremendous amount of Wellfleet.”
The board did not vote on whether to drop the ADU initiative, but its future looks bleak.
—Josephine de La Bruyère
