EASTHAM — For the last three-and-a-half years, Eastham’s task force on residential zoning and regulation has done intensive behind-the-scenes work to adapt the town’s zoning bylaws to its major strategic goals, including expanding affordable housing and creating a new downtown in North Eastham.

On Aug. 5, the select board accepted the resignations of Jim Kivlehan and Jeff Cusack, two members of the task force who had served since its inception. Kivlehan told the Independent that he and his wife plan to travel the country in an R.V. for much of the winter, when the task force will be doing important work. Cusack said he stepped back about four months ago because his work schedule had become too busy.

The select board had also accepted the resignation of Roy Merolli from an alternate seat on the task force on Aug. 5, but according to select board member Bob Bruns, who had previously served on the task force, that was the result of an error. Merolli was never actually appointed to the task force, according to Community Development Director Paul Lagg; task force chair Mary Nee confirmed that Merolli had not attended any meetings.

The select board appointed Patricia Canavan to the task force in January, and Martin Ridge was appointed in July. The task force can have up to 10 members, according to its charge, but there have never been that many members at one time.

The group meets monthly, but the schedule accelerates to once per week for several months before spring town meeting. There are large packets of required reading.

Their work has yielded results, though. The task force has made 17 different zoning proposals at the last three town meetings. Some were technical amendments, but most have been substantive changes that will affect how the town looks in the future.

All 17 proposals were approved by voters, usually with about 85 percent in favor, according to Nee.

“The zoning task force has become one of the most significant entities in town,” said Bruns, who was the chair of Eastham’s zoning board of appeals before he was elected to the select board in May. “It puts a lot of items on the warrant that are actually passed.”

“Zoning is the rules that you have to follow to do development,” said Kivlehan. “They’re basically designing what the future is going to look like: building heights, how close the buildings are going to be to the road, where the parking is going to be, what the architecture would look like.”

Past and Future

Much of the task force’s work in its first two years focused on residential zoning to preserve Eastham’s “small town, semi-rural character,” according to Nee.

One of the first issues the task force took on was restricting the construction of very large homes, especially on small lots. The town adopted the task force’s proposed solution: a sliding scale for maximum site coverage based on lot size. For example, a house on a lot between 10,000 and 19,999 square feet can cover up to 15 percent of the lot. The town also adopted the group’s proposal of a 6,000-square-foot upper limit for the gross floor area of a home.

Those limits have prevented the construction of “McMansion”-style homes in Eastham, said Nee.

The group also advocated the adoption of “buildable upland” as the controlling definition of a lot’s size. By excluding areas that are underwater or subject to flooding, the new rules prevent homeowners and developers of coastal lots from claiming to have larger parcels based on old assessor’s data than they actually have today.

The task force also proposed loosening the town’s rules on duplexes — which since 1988 had required an 80,000-square-foot lot, or almost two acres. Duplexes are now on an equal footing with single-family homes in all the town’s zones except the National Seashore District.

Nee said the group’s goals moving forward are to create clear regulations for business owners looking to build in the new downtown, to consider how the town’s wastewater plan will affect residential and commercial density, and to expand affordable housing to support a workforce.

The Forever Task Force?

Unlike other boards in town, zoning task force members have no end date to their terms. The task force itself also has no expiration date.

Nee said that task force members told the select board last year that it would take two years to review commercial zoning to support the town’s master plan.

The select board not only agreed but also gave the group more assignments: researching restrictions on “fractional ownership” of homes and limits on how many short-term rentals can be owned by one entity.

The following spring, the task force recommended the town ban fractional ownership and limit short-term rentals to two per owner, and town meeting voters passed both measures by large margins.

“I have a lot of reading to catch up on,” said Ridge, who also serves on the zoning board of appeals. “The heavy lifting is happening now.”