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Truro Planning Board

    CIVICS

    Ginny Frazier Named to Truro Planning Board

    Two boards have no argument over filling a vacant seat

    By

    TRURO — Ginny Frazier was appointed to the planning board at a special joint meeting of that board and the select board on Oct. 25.

    Ginny Frazier, a member of the Truro Zoning Board of Appeals, has been appointed to the planning board. (Photo courtesy Ginny Frazier)

    The two boards have had a contentious relationship. But that conflict was not in evidence at Tuesday’s meeting, at which the purpose was to fill the seven-month unexpired term of a planning board member.

    When Bruce Boleyn resigned in September the planning and select boards began a procedural dance in which the two boards come together to select someone to fill the vacant seat until the annual town election in May. This process has been fraught in the past. The select board has criticized the planning board for not supporting affordable housing or the bylaws needed to help create it. Planning board members had criticized the North Truro Cloverleaf housing development in particular. Former planning board member Peter Herridge was censured by the select board in 2020 for violating town policies on integrity and civility after he accused town staff of lying and denigrated affordable housing developer Ted Malone.

    In years past, most planning board seats had been uncontested, especially at the town’s annual elections. This time, however, four people volunteered to complete Boleyn’s term: Ginny Frazier, Steven Stahl, Joe McKinnon, and Karen Ruymann. After interviewing all of them, planning board members Caitlin Townsend, Ellery Althaus, Anne Greenbaum, and Jack Riemer named Frazier as their top choice, as did four members of the select board. One select board member, Susan Areson, was absent.

    When it came time to vote on the appointment, only Riemer voted against Frazier, making the final tally 9 to 1. Rich Roberts and Paul Kiernan of the planning board had not selected Frazier as their top choice but voted for her in the end. And while Riemer ranked her as his top choice, he voted against her appointment.

    “I am thrilled with the level of talent that has applied for the board,” said Anne Greenbaum, chair of the planning board.

    Frazier developed a nine-home subdivision in Brockton, finishing the project after the death of her life partner, who had a 75-percent interest in the development. She has lived in Truro full-time since 2016, she told the Independent.

    Frazier drove for Cape Cab and is now working at the Truro Vineyards shop. She also serves on the Truro Zoning Board of Appeals. That position, she said during her interview before the two boards, taught her about the same bylaws that fall within the planning board’s jurisdiction.

    But, she said, she preferred to make a switch to the planning board “because it has more of an impact.” Projects often come to the planning board before they end up at the ZBA.

    With two alternates on the ZBA, Frazier said she does not feel she will be leaving that committee in the lurch when she joins the planning board.

    Like most of the candidates, Frazier listed the creation of affordable housing as the lead issue facing Truro. She also named climate change as the third top priority, again aligning with the other candidates. But Frazier was alone in naming mental health care as the second-most important issue.

    “The mental health crisis is totally out of control,” she said. “We need some county support and some help for our residents.”

    In their deliberations, board members stated that McKinnon, a builder and landscaper, had a valuable perspective on the needs of year-round working people in Truro. And many complimented Stahl, a special education teacher and former president of the Family Center of Washington County, Vt., for his research and campaign to become a planning board member. He has twice run unsuccessfully for election to that board.

    Several members of the boards complimented Ruymann, a musician, for her ability as a community organizer. Ruymann said she helped bring in 300 donors to buy the Pond Village Preserve for the Truro Conservation Trust. In 2021, she said she created a neighborhood newsletter called the Pond Village Voice.

    She said her activism began over questions she had about wastewater effluent that would be created by the Cloverleaf apartments on Highland Road. Her husband, gastroenterologist Frederick Ruymann, is one of the Docs for Truro Safe Water, a group of seven M.D.s and Ph.D.s who misrepresented the Cape Cod Commission’s water quality standards and falsely claimed their report was “peer reviewed” during the protracted battle over the Cloverleaf.

    Despite the compliments, no one named Ruymann as their top choice. “We have an abundance of riches,” said Kiernan, noting that each of the candidates would be a benefit to the planning board.

    BALLOT BOX

    Townsend Wins Election to Truro Planning Board

    Turnout of 673 voters is more than three times last year’s

    By

    TRURO — Caitlin Townsend, 23, was elected on Tuesday to a five-year term on the planning board in the only contested race in the annual town election. She outpolled Steve Stahl 457 to 205 in unofficial results released Wednesday around 1 a.m.

    Planning board member Caitlin Townsend. (Photo courtesy Caitlin Townsend)

    A total of 673 ballots were cast, representing 32 percent of Truro’s 2,075 registered voters. The turnout was more than three times last year’s 207 voters, or 10 percent.

    A Proposition 2½ override that will permanently raise the town’s levy limit by $355,763 was approved on Tuesday by a vote of 453 to 201. The override will fund the hiring of four new full-time firefighter-paramedics.

    A majority of voters also checked “yes” on a public advisory question calling upon Holtec, the company tasked with decommissioning the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, to “immediately withdraw any plans to dump any radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay.” On this question, 610 were in favor, 48 were against, and 15 left the question blank.

    In uncontested races, Bob Weinstein and Sue Areson, two incumbent select board members, secured three more years on the board. Peter James Thomas Cook and Rachel Rowland will serve three-year terms on the school committee, Frank M. Grande will join the cemetery commission, and Kevin Grunwald was re-elected to the housing authority for another five years.

    TOWN MEETING

    Effort to Change Planning Board Selection Fails in Close Vote

    Child-care vouchers and an override for firefighters are approved

    By

    TRURO — Truro’s housing crisis took center stage at Saturday’s town meeting, which featured chilly temperatures, gusty winds, and heated debate over Article 50.

    That petitioned article would have changed the planning board from an elected one to one appointed by the select board. It required a two-thirds majority, which it barely missed.

    Voters approved the expansion of a child-care voucher program and a Proposition 2½ override to fund four more firefighter-paramedics to the town’s struggling fire dept.

    The meeting adjourned just before 2 p.m. when a quorum was lost, but it resumed the next day to close out the last items on the warrant.

    Charter change advocate Raphael Richter. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    Voters approved Article 7, a $212,500 expenditure that will expand a child-care voucher program to all children through age four who can’t be accommodated at Truro Central School’s preschool. The original voucher program started with a petitioned article from Raphael Richter at last year’s town meeting; it offered parents $7,500 vouchers to enroll two- and three-year-olds in child care.

    “That pilot was a success, with a large uptake of families using the program,” said Richter. “As a reminder, child care in Mass. is the most expensive in the nation.” Article 7 expanded the existing program to include children younger than two as well as three- and four-year-olds.

    Planning Board in the Hot Seat

    Shortly after the vote on Article 7, charter review committee (CRC) member Chris Lucy asked to take Article 50 out of order before the chill sent people home and dissolved the quorum.

    Richter, the originator of the article, urged voters to support the change. “Folks, the situation is broken,” he said. “Supporters of this article have not just appeared out of nowhere or with a personal vendetta. We are active and concerned community members who have watched with frustration and sadness as important initiatives have been delayed and derailed, while our friends and colleagues are forced out of the community at a steady clip.”

    The planning board’s votes, he said, have reflected a “clear pattern of obstruction and, at times, outright opposition to housing solutions being brought forward.”

    “The median home price in this town is over a million dollars,” said state Sen. Julian Cyr. “I can’t afford to buy a home in this town — and I’m your state senator. I’m a hometown kid.”

    Brian Boyle, the CRC chair, said that a 4-3 majority of his committee had concluded that the charter should remain unchanged. Amy Wolff, a voter, said the planning board was being “scapegoated” and that keeping the board elected “brings balance and greater diversity of ideas and thoughts to the table.” Jack Riemer, a planning board member, argued that doing away with these elected positions amounted to “giving up our democratic right.”

    Richter said that few candidates step up to run for any elected board. He argued that contested select board races were the venue for “the best discussions about the important issues facing our community. By making this change, you are strengthening the power and meaning of your vote.”

    Tensions flared when select board vice chair Kristen Reed pinpointed Articles 43 through 46 as evidence of the planning board’s “silo-ed” approach to drafting zoning bylaws. Those articles were postponed indefinitely.

    Truro Planning Board chair Anne Greenbaum. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    “The select board couldn’t support those articles because they aren’t ready, because the boards don’t work together,” Reed said. “Effectively, it’s lip service. There’s just no honesty in it. I’m sorry —”

    “Point of order!” planning board chair Anne Greenbaum called out. “I will not be called a liar at this town meeting.”

    “I’m rather loath to get up here,” said Ellery Althaus, a planning board member. He said he was the person who had drafted Article 46, a bylaw on duplexes with problems that derailed it for this town meeting. He had scraped it together in just 15 minutes before a planning board meeting, he said.

    “I thought the whole group would have multiple meetings forming bylaws that might help save this town,” Althaus said. “Instead, it was me in that silo we’ve all talked about. Perhaps it’s time to allow the select board to appoint people who are more qualified than myself to do this.”

    In the end, 130 voted for the charter change; 77 voted against it — 63 percent in favor, short of the two-thirds needed.

    Dozens of voters scooped up their bags and moved toward the parking lot to escape the cold. As voters flipped back 50 pages in their warrant booklets to Article 8, Richter sprang to his feet and moved for reconsideration of Article 50.

    The group had by then dwindled from 207 voters to 155. The motion to reconsider, which required only a simple majority, passed 91 to 64.

    Before Article 50 came to its second vote, however, some voters had hustled back to the ballfield. There were now 171 voters: 113 voted for the charter change, and 58 voted against it. That was 66.08 percent in favor — barely shy of two-thirds. If one “no” vote had been a “yes,” the tally would have been 114 to 57 — exactly two-thirds in favor.

    Richter and Cyr said that coming so close was still a win. “A strong majority in town agree we need to take a different course on housing, continue the momentum, and bring that to the Walsh property,” said Cyr. The Walsh property is a 70-acre parcel of undeveloped land that Truro purchased in 2019.

    As for Greenbaum, she’s “looking forward to turning the page,” she told the Independent.

    Firefighters and More

    Voters passed Article 10, a Proposition 2½ override that will permanently bump up the town’s levy limit by $355,765. The extra funding will allow the town to add four full-time firefighter-paramedics and move toward three-person crews.

    “We almost experienced a catastrophic failure of this fire department,” said Chief Tim Collins. “Sending two people to a fire is not sufficient. To respond to a building fire, 25 tasks need to be completed within eight minutes. Three people can accomplish those tasks 25 percent more quickly than two people.”

    Article 10 still needs to pass at the annual town election on May 10.

    A 13-article bundle of Community Preservation Act expenditures was approved in one fell swoop. Among them: Truro will pitch in $100,000 to help support an affordable housing project at the former Cape Cod 5 bank headquarters in Orleans; the High Head conservation area will get 1½ miles of trails and six benches; and the Highland House Museum will acquire a collection of Wampanoag art and artifacts and build a wetu, a traditional house.

    CIVICS

    Truro Debates Charter Change on Saturday’s Town Meeting Warrant

    Can a planning board be a ‘check’ on a select board?

    By

    TRURO — Voters at Saturday’s town meeting will take on practical matters from child-care vouchers to a Proposition 2½ override. They’ll also be asked to consider at least one seemingly technical matter — a change in the town charter — that has nonetheless inspired passionate debate.

    Backers of Article 50 seek to change the Truro Planning Board from an elected body to one appointed by the select board.

    The proposed change appears as a citizen-petitioned article on the warrant, put forward by businessman Raphael Richter for the second year in a row. For Richter and other proponents of an appointed board, the housing crisis is the reason for the change. The elected planning board, in their view, has undermined the town’s efforts to create more affordable housing.

    Those opposing Article 50 argue that a town’s planning board should serve as a “check and balance” to the select board. That won’t happen, they say, if the planning board is appointed rather than elected.

    The select board voted 3-1 to recommend Article 50. The charter review committee (CRC) voted 4-3 not to recommend it.

    Last Oct. 21, the CRC interviewed Barbara Carboni, the town’s planner and land-use counsel, who has served as a town counsel for 18 years at the law firms Huggins & Witten and KP Law and describes herself as an expert on housing, the environment, and municipal planning. The interview was part of the CRC’s research on the question of whether elected or appointed boards are more effective.

    “I’m not sure it’s correct to put a planning board in the position of serving as a check or balance against whatever the select board are pursuing,” Carboni told the committee. “I just don’t think it really fits what their role is under the statute.”

    The planning board’s authority, she said, is based in two specific roles: first, applying the state’s subdivision control law by reviewing and approving subdivision plans or certifying “approval-not-required” plans; and second, proposing possible zoning bylaw changes to town meeting.

    “I don’t see either of those functions as really needing to, or appropriately framed as balancing another center of authority,” Carboni said.

    At a meeting of the CRC on April 21, member Cheryl Best, who voted not to recommend Article 50, disagreed with Carboni’s opinion on checks and balances.

    “Perhaps, on a technical level, the planning board is not a check and balance,” Best said. “But in a nuanced way, I would say that any regulatory board is a check and balance on an executive board if an executive board decides they don’t like regulations.”

    CRC member Bob Panessiti, who voted to recommend Article 50, said that checks and balances are built into the structure of municipal government. “At the end of the day, the business gets done at town meeting,” he said. “We may have three people making recommendations, but it’s 200-plus people at town meeting making the decision.”

    Several Truro residents attended last week’s CRC meeting to voice concerns that an appointed planning board would shift more power into the hands of the select board.

    “We can’t allow the appointment of town regulators to be based on their alignment with the vision of three people on the select board,” said Debra Best-Parker of North Truro. Allowing voters to decide who enforces town regulations, she continued, serves as a “protection”; doing away with it amounts to “an example of how governments can move toward autocracy and away from democracy.”

    Bob Weinstein, chair of the select board, argued that the CRC should be guided by three metrics to determine the best way to choose planning board members.

    “The first one,” he said, “is to study the goals and objectives of the policy-setting board in this community, which is the select board.” He then urged the committee to review Chapter 41, Section 81 of the Mass. General Laws, which outlines the role of the planning board. The committee should consider the state’s statutory language, he said.

    He concluded his remarks by questioning the productivity of the current planning board. “What have they done for the community over a five-year period?” he asked.

    Jeffrey Ribeiro, Truro’s previous town planner, conducted a survey for the CRC in 2019, looking at how other Cape Cod towns choose their planning board members. Six towns, including Truro, have elected planning boards: the others are Bourne, Brewster, Falmouth, Mashpee, and Sandwich. The other nine towns have appointed boards: Barnstable, Chatham, Dennis, Eastham, Harwich, Orleans, Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Yarmouth.

    (In the CRC’s draft research report, only eight towns are said to have appointed boards; the town of Barnstable was left out of the tally.)

    Summing up her views on the question, Carboni said that in her experience in working with municipalities she has seen both good and bad elected planning boards and good and bad appointed ones.

    “I don’t think it’s a function of whether it’s elected or appointed,” she said. “It’s always going to be dependent on the people.”

    TRURO ELECTION

    Planning Board Hopefuls Both Say They Favor New Housing

    Townsend, 23, and Stahl, 67, vie to replace Sollog

    By

    TRURO — Two candidates, Caitlin Townsend and Steve Stahl, are on the ballot to fill the seat of retiring planning board member Steve Sollog in the May 10 town election. Both say that the board needs to balance conservation with a pressing need to use the town’s limited developable land for housing. The seven members of the planning board are currently elected to five-year terms, although there is an effort to change the board to an appointed one (see related article.)

    Townsend: ‘Indebted’ to Truro

    “There’s a way to maintain the beauty and charm of Truro while making it a sustainable community,” says Caitlin Townsend, 23, who was born in Truro.

    Townsend says working multiple jobs is the only way she can afford to stay in town. She works on a lobster boat with her father, Chris Townsend. She also does farm work, is a server and bartender at Truro Vineyards, and has written articles as a freelancer for the Provincetown Independent.

    Planning board candidate Caitlin Townsend. (Photo courtesy Caitlin Townsend)

    But she says she’s staying in Truro for good. “I decided to run for planning board because I’m dedicated to making life here possible for people like me, people who are in our workforce,” she says. “Words can’t describe your feelings about the place you call home. I feel indebted to my community.”

    Townsend supports the proposed change to the town charter that would have planning board members appointed by the select board rather than elected. Truro’s is the only planning board on the Outer Cape that is elected rather than appointed.

    “I don’t believe the status quo is sustainable,” she says. “There needs to be more diversity in age and background on the planning board. It’s difficult to do that through a town election, though I am trying my best, because small-town down-ballot elections are often an afterthought, and are restricted to people who have the entrenched, established connections with large groups of voters that are simply not available to everyone.”

    Townsend is also in favor of developing the 70-acre Walsh property for affordable housing, and she supports the Cloverleaf affordable housing project, which the current planning board has opposed. She wants to see more compromise on development than the current board has engaged in. “I think there’s a way to meet in the middle,” she says.

    Townsend attended Truro Central School and Nauset Regional High School and graduated from Mass. Maritime Academy in 2021 with a degree in marine science, safety, and environmental protection.

    “I’ve spent all 23 years of my life here,” she says when asked if she thinks her youth is a liability. “I have a very good sense of what we need to create a sustainable community.”

    Townsend will hold a meet-and-greet for voters at Truro Vineyards on April 28 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Voters may contact her at [email protected].

    Stahl: A Second Bid

    “It’s very important that we figure out how to balance quality of life in Truro with potential degradation of resources and affordable housing,” says Steve Stahl, 67, making his second bid for a seat on the planning board. He ran an unsuccessful write-in campaign three years ago.

    Stahl and his wife moved to Truro full-time six years ago from Cabot, Vt. “We didn’t look anywhere else,” he says. He has volunteered at Payomet, Cape Abilities, and the Provincetown Schools. In Vermont, Stahl was a teacher and for five years served as president of the Family Center of Washington County, which provides child care, parent education, and other services to families. “Nearly everything I’ve done in my life has been helping people,” he says.

    Planning board candidate Steve Stahl. (Photo courtesy Steve Stahl)

    “The planning board is probably going to have the most important impact on Truro’s future,” he says, adding that he is particularly interested in long-term shaping of the zoning bylaw.

    Stahl calls building affordable housing a “top priority.” He is also concerned about drinking water contamination, but he says he supports the 39-unit Cloverleaf project, which will nearly double the number of affordable units in Truro.

    Stahl says the debate over the Cloverleaf’s wastewater system “resulted in a better plan” and raised public awareness of cesspools and drinking water problems. He credits the campaign waged by a group calling itself “Docs for Truro Safe Water” with “the Zoning Board of Appeals having the developer put in a better water filtration system.”

    The so-called Docs group, which does not include a hydrologist, produced a report whose findings were disputed by a groundwater scientist with the Cape Cod Commission. The Docs advertised their report as being “peer-reviewed,” but later admitted that they themselves were their own “peer reviewers.” The Docs have refused repeated requests to be interviewed by the Independent.

    Stahl describes the current planning board as “conscientious and open to public input,” but he noted that “they need to come out of their committee and collaborate more with other boards and committees.” The stormwater proposal recently presented by the planning board, Stahl says, “clearly wasn’t ready. It really needs collaboration.”

    He believes the planning board should remain elected. An appointed board, he says, would mean “less opportunity for diverse opinions, ideas, and concerns.”

    Stahl calls the Walsh property “a great opportunity for affordable housing,” but he has strongly opposed the Habitat for Humanity project at 181 Route 6, which the organization acquired in 2014. At one November 2020 meeting, Stahl made a formal request that the Truro Housing Authority not allow Habitat to develop the property. “It places the town at risk, and it places the abutter at risk,” Stahl says. “Affordable housing projects need to protect the occupants and the residents around it.

    “I am not against affordable housing in any way,” he adds. “I’d be very happy if the house next to mine was affordable housing. But I don’t want to see people hurt by it, and that’s what I see with the Habitat project.”

    Stahl will hold a meet-and-greet for voters at his home on Saturday, April 23 from 2 to 4 p.m. Voters may contact him at [email protected].

    Editor’s note: A previous version of this article, published in print on April 14, reported that Steve Stahl said it was the lawsuit over the Cloverleaf project that resulted in an improved wastewater treatment plan. In fact, Stahl says, he was referring to the activities of the Docs for Truro Safe Water. “Regarding the lawsuit,” he says, “I don’t know who filed it, I never read it, and I don’t know what was in it.”

    PETITIONED IN TRURO

    Effort to Make Planning Board Appointed Resurfaces

    A second try at a charter amendment, after last year’s died in committee

    By

    TRURO — At the annual town meeting on April 30, Raphael Richter plans to approach the microphone on the Truro Central School ballfield and air his frustrations with the town’s elected planning board. He will be asking voters, once more, to support a citizen-petitioned article to amend the town’s charter.

    This year’s article mirrors the one he presented last year, which was postponed indefinitely and referred to the charter review committee, where it fizzled out. Richter wants the planning board to be appointed by the select board, which, in his view, serves as the “one policy-setting body in this community.” Other boards and committees would then be charged with carrying out goals set by the select board.

    “This town meeting body has voted with strong majorities to support affordable and community housing,” Richter said at last year’s town meeting in June. “Unfortunately, despite that being a goal of the town for quite a long time, the planning board continues to undermine that effort.”

    He was referring to the lengthy process the board had undertaken to review the Cloverleaf affordable housing project. Nearly a year later, his grievances remain, and at the March 29 select board meeting Richter called the planning board a “shadow policy-setting board” that has been wielding its authority to “slow down, delay, and potentially kill important projects that the town wishes to take on.”

    The select board voted 3-1 to recommend the charter change.

    Kristen Reed, vice chair of the select board, was galvanized by the town’s mounting housing crisis. “I feel like we’re way past crisis,” she said. “We have an override for firefighters. We are hemorrhaging staff. We’re having retention issues. We’re having recruitment issues. We’re going to potentially offer signing bonuses, and so many of the issues related to our staffing challenges and our businesses not being open this time of year — all is connected to housing.”

    Dying in Committee

    After Richter presented the charter amendment last June, three members of the charter review committee — Bob Panessiti, Cheryl Best, and Brian Boyle — urged voters to table it until their committee had “the opportunity to look at all the data,” as Best put it. A 114-83 vote indefinitely postponed Richter’s article, and the charter review committee took up the matter.

    The 2021 annual town meeting also featured articles that would have changed the status of the zoning board of appeals and the board of health. These were presented by Joan Holt, who urged voters to turn these select-board-appointed committees into elected ones.

    “Those articles were directly reactionary to the planning board article,” Richter told the Independent. “They never appeared on the horizon until the planning board articles were submitted.”

    Those articles were also indefinitely postponed, and the charter review committee considered them all. But in November, those discussions ended when the committee, in a 4-3 vote, decided to maintain the existing manner of filling seats for all three boards.

    That Nov. 22 meeting was divisive. Nancy Medoff, the vice chair of the charter review committee, said there had not been adequate discussion of the merits of an elected versus an appointed planning board. “I would rather see us talk through it before we do anything,” she said.

    Best insisted that the discussion was, in fact, underway. “We’re having it now,” she responded to Medoff, “as part of the motion.”

    Panessiti asked other members to think about what further data they needed before making a recommendation. “Actually,” Best replied, “it’s not that we don’t have data. We’ve done a lot of work with data. I don’t feel that any of the data is conclusive enough to make these decisions on these committees.” She later added, “I don’t think there’s other data out there that we could gather, frankly.”

    Medoff pointed out that Richter’s petition was submitted for a reason. “Why wouldn’t we want to find out why?” she asked.

    Boyle said that the committee had held a public hearing, but that event yielded little further information “other than somebody sat down and signed their name to it. That’s a relatively low hurdle,” he said. “So, I have to conclude there’s not a strong feeling about that, which makes me even want to take less action.”

    Best wondered if the initiative was fueled by a “personal reason” or a “vendetta” against the committee. “Or did the ZBA not give you the waiver you asked for?” she said. “I don’t believe we should be using the charter as a political instrument. It’s about running the town.”

    Boyle, Best, William Golden, and Meg Royka voted to maintain the status quo in the charter. Medoff, Panessiti, and Chris Lucy dissented.

    Flashing Forward

    At the March 29 select board meeting, after Richter’s presentation, chair Bob Weinstein said he was disappointed in what he called “the inaction of the charter review committee.” The committee, he said, had promised to address whether the planning board should remain elected or become appointed. “They simply didn’t do it,” Weinstein said. “They were getting into weeds about things that were totally inappropriate or cumbersome.”

    “The charter review has had two years to have a discussion and come up with something substantive for the select board,” said Reed. “And they have not delivered that.” She added that she also wanted “a planning board that works in harmony with the select board’s goals and objectives.”

    Brian Boyle, chair of the charter review committee, reiterated that he and his colleagues “didn’t have enough information at the time” to recommend a change regarding the planning board.

    As for the planning board, Weinstein strongly supported Richter’s article. “We’re all in a lifeboat,” he said. “Right now, what’s happening is we have half the crew rowing toward Boston and the other half rowing toward Portugal. I think it is now time to move forward and have the planning board discontinued in its present form as an elected body.”

    Select board member Sue Areson agreed that the planning board had made some missteps, but she said the select board was “unfairly chastising them” to the point of saying, “Oh, we’ll just get rid of them, and we’ll appoint them rather than elect them.”

    Weinstein, Reed, and select board member Stephanie Rein voted to support Richter’s article at town meeting; Areson was opposed. The fifth member of the board, John Dundas, was absent.

    The measure will appear on the town meeting warrant as Article 50.

    CIVICS

    Select Board Again Rejects Planning Board’s Articles

    The Truro Planning Board tries and fails to regroup after confrontation

    By

    TRURO — An effort by the planning board to regroup after a barrage of criticism from the select board about its proposed zoning bylaw amendments fell apart last week, when the select board rejected the planning board’s revised versions of several articles for the upcoming annual town meeting.

    Seven proposed zoning articles that had been offered to the select board on March 8 were deemed not ready for the warrant. The planning board was taken to task for leaving other town boards and officials out of the loop in preparing its articles, and planning board chair Anne Greenbaum admitted to working in a “silo” — a problem she said she would remedy.

    The next day, the planning board withdrew three of its seven articles and scrambled to tweak another three to make them more acceptable. They included an article outlining the planning board’s purpose, an amendment to the definition of “street” in the zoning bylaw, and a proposed bylaw governing duplexes.

    Only one proposed article, dealing with lot coverage, remained unaltered from its original version.

    With the town warrant officially closed, the planning board didn’t have time to swap out its original articles with amended versions. It would have to rely on the select board to do that. But Greenbaum said on March 9 that she was confident the select board would adopt the amended versions.

    She was mistaken.

    At its March 22 meeting, the select board declined to accept the amended versions of the articles.

    The planning board’s edits, select board members said, were still riddled with undefined terms and what Bob Weinstein, the chair, called “squishy” and subjective language.

    That left the four planning board articles on the town’s draft warrant and, on March 29, none of them received the recommendation of the select board.

    Chris Lucy, vice chair of the zoning board of appeals, offered his view of this year’s zoning amendment process at the select board’s March 22 meeting.

    In his 20 years in town politics, Lucy said, he has “never seen a more screwed-up situation.” He described how the process should have gone: “You plan on getting your articles in early — when the warrant’s open,” he said. “You have your plan ready to go. You submit to the selectmen. They submit it back to the planning board to have the hearings.”

    By comparison, this year’s process, Lucy said, “is a complete mess,” reflecting a “lack of planning by the planning board.”

    A ‘Squishy’ Purpose

    In its original version of one article, the planning board had included a new charge that the board “protect and maintain the scenic rural character, ambiance, and aesthetics of Truro.” But on March 8, Kristen Reed, the vice chair of the select board, expressed concerns over the “fuzzy” and “subjective” nature of this provision. The following day, the planning board addressed Reed’s objection by removing a single word: “rural.” The rest of the amended version remained the same.

    Weinstein was unimpressed by this revision. “I’m sure the ‘ambiance and aesthetics of Truro,’ from the eyes of any random sampling of Truro inhabitants — voters, taxpayers, visitors — would be a whole panoply of definitions,” he said.

    That was just the first of a string of objections from Weinstein. He puzzled over the planning board’s proposed charge “to promote carbon sequestration by natural means.”

    “What does that mean?” Weinstein asked. “Do we have some kind of filter in the environment?

    “The next one makes me smile,” he went on, referring to a line about protecting “native soils” from unnecessary removal or disturbances. “I think anyone who lives in Truro would be hard-pressed to find ‘native soils,’ ” Weinstein said. “We live in an area that has been inhabited since the 16th century. And before that, by Native Americans. There is no definition for that.”

    Weinstein also took issue with the ninth of the planning board’s charges, which tasked the board with promoting “the use of green energy and green building practices.” Those matters belonged in the purview of the building commissioner, Weinstein said, not the planning board.

    “I can’t state it more strongly,” Weinstein remarked. “I will not support the purpose changes as they exist.”

    Still in the Silo

    The planning board also amended its duplex bylaw, which Greenbaum told the select board was “designed to increase year-round housing options in Truro by making it easier and more appealing to build duplexes.”

    Select board member Kristen Reed asked, “Did the Truro Housing Authority ever get a chance to comment or weigh in on this article?” she asked.

    “They were invited to attend public conversations,” Greenbaum responded.

    But Kevin Grunwald, the chair of the housing authority, said that, while he and Greenbaum had discussed having a public forum, that forum was never scheduled.

    “There was never any discussion about this duplex bylaw,” Grunwald said. “And there was certainly never any attempt or interest in discussing this with the housing authority.”

    UNWARRANTED

    Bylaw Changes Seem to Target Walsh Land

    Weinstein says planning board’s stormwater proposal is ‘regulatory overreach’

    By

    TRURO — Anne Greenbaum, chair of the planning board, presented the select board with seven articles for town meeting on March 8, ready to breeze through each one. “I don’t want to go into detail unless it’s absolutely necessary, out of respect for your time,” she said. “Does that sound reasonable?”

    The select board thanked her for the consideration before proceeding to ask numerous questions and express concern that the planning board’s proposed zoning bylaw changes were intended to curtail development on the Walsh property. A planning committee is currently studying the best uses — with housing, open space, and recreation all possibilities — for the 70-acre parcel of town-owned land behind Truro Central School.

    Two articles that the planning board ended up withdrawing from the town meeting warrant drew particular fire from the select board and town administration: a stormwater bylaw, which contained soil disturbance regulations capable of restricting construction, and a development agreement bylaw, which would have required numerous layers of approval before a developer could build on town land.

    Kristen Reed of the select board asked why the proposed bylaws were drafted without input from the parties tasked with implementing them — namely, the health agent, building commissioner, dept. of public works, and conservation commission. When pressed, Greenbaum admitted that the board had been working in its own “silo.”

    Planning board member Jack Riemer did seek guidance from the Cape Cod Commission. The tenor of Riemer’s questions, however, rang enough alarm bells that a commission staff member voiced concerns about the proposed changes when Town Manager Darrin Tangeman called to discuss them.

    “It was pretty clear to us that the intent was to restrict development and construction on the Walsh property,” Tangeman told the Independent. “I’m very concerned, because we have a housing crisis,” he added, “so why are we trying to turn the Walsh property into a $5 million paperweight?”

    Greenbaum and Riemer did not return calls or emails requesting comment.

    ‘Attack of the Slime’

    In Riemer’s view, stormwater has been relegated to “stepchild” status in Truro, eclipsed by the town’s recent focus on septic policy, which he called a “sexy topic.”

    “Stormwater has been overlooked simply because you see it washing down the street,” he told the select board. “You don’t pay attention to it because it’s absorbed into the sandy soils, but what goes into the sandy soils are contaminants.” The need for a stormwater bylaw has grown, he said, particularly after last summer when Village Pond faced its “first-reported ‘attack of the slime.’ ”

    Truro’s planning board modeled its proposed bylaw on Eastham’s stormwater regulations. But Eastham’s regulations are designed for its MS4 community — that is, its “municipal separate storm sewer system.” The rules there are designed for a more densely developed community, Truro Health Agent Emily Beebe told the Independent. Truro, which has a significantly smaller population, does not require an MS4 system.

    This stormwater management plan was “an example of regulatory overreach,” said Bob Weinstein, chair of the select board. He added that he found himself “confronted in the packet with 18 pages of what I say are totally inappropriate for the planning board.”

    The stormwater bylaw would have regulated soil disturbance activities taking place on more than 10,000 square feet of land, which is roughly a quarter acre. During the select board meeting, Beebe pointed out that this is more restrictive even than Eastham’s stormwater regulations, which set that land disturbance threshold at one acre.

    Tangeman also told the Independent the proposed rules were “more restrictive than what you’d normally see in other examples of disturbance bylaws.”

    When Riemer spoke with the Cape Cod Commission, he asked about the possibility of establishing a “district of critical planning concern” around the wellhead protection area on the northeast corner of the Walsh property. This didn’t make the final cut of the stormwater draft, but Riemer stated that he intended to use this measure to protect the well site on that portion of the property.

    Tangeman thought otherwise. “It was as if the Walsh property was being targeted to limit development, specifically,” he said. “We need to address stormwater in a way that reflects the needs of Truro and not try to put a stormwater bylaw in place that will limit anything that we can do on the Walsh property.”

    A Lot of Hoops

    The planning board’s proposed development agreement bylaw was presented to the select board without the required Cape Cod Commission approval. “That process has not been pursued here,” town planner and land use counsel Barbara Carboni told the select board.

    The procedural misstep was only one of the town staff’s concerns. The proposed bylaw stipulated that any agreement with a developer would need approval from town meeting voters.

    “No developer will want to wait a year to get a development agreement signed and approved by a town,” Tangeman told the Independent. “Most of them get it done with just the approval of the select board and the planning board. Waiting that long will kill deals — which may or may not have been the intent. But the Cape Cod Commission flagged that as a major concern of theirs.”

    The commission flagged another area of concern: that a required town meeting vote would pose problems for the commission itself. “To invest a lot of time in working on a development agreement only to have it subject to defeat at town meeting — to me, this is a serious flaw,” Carboni told the select board.

    “It seems like it sets up a lot of obstacles,” Reed said at the meeting. “It’s a lot of hoops.”

    Back at the Silo

    The planning board pulled the stormwater and development agreement articles from the upcoming annual town meeting warrant, while the fate of the other five are undecided. But on March 9, the planning board voted to request that the select board schedule a special town meeting “as soon as possible.” If that’s a go, the board could bring the two controversial articles back.

    If the select board refuses to call a special town meeting, Greenbaum said, she is confident that one could be instigated by petition.

    Editor’s note: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article, published in print on March 17, incorrectly reported that a Cape Cod Commission staff member had called Town Manager Darrin Tangeman with concerns about the proposed bylaw changes. It was Tangeman who initiated the exchange.

    The earlier version of the article also reported that the planning board had asked the select board to schedule a special town meeting in the fall. In fact, the planning board agreed to ask for a special town meeting “as soon as possible.”

     

    This Week In Truro

    Meetings Ahead

    By

    Meetings are held remotely. Go to truro-ma.gov, click on the meeting you want to watch, and open its agenda for instructions on how to watch or take part online.

    Thursday, April 22

    • Climate Action Committee, 10:30 a.m.

    Monday, April 26

    • Zoning Board of Appeals, 5:30 p.m.

    Tuesday, April 27

    • Select Board, 5 p.m.

    Wednesday, April 28

    • Planning Board, 5 p.m.

    Thursday, April 29

    • Climate Action Committee, 10:30 a.m.

    Conversation Starters

    Accessory Dwellings Not Recommended

    Planning board chair Anne Greenbaum started off an April 7 meeting by saying her board “is not anti-affordable housing despite what some people are saying.”

    Then they voted unanimously against a petitioned article by Chris Lucy that would allow home owners to add accessory dwellings to property “by right” rather than going to the planning board for approval.

    The dwellings, sometimes referred to as “mother-in-law apartments,” are already allowed in town; they must meet septic, setback, and other requirements. They are one of the tools recommended by the Cape Cod Commission to create more year-round affordable homes for Cape Codders who cannot otherwise find a place to live.

    The major difference between what is allowed now and what is proposed by Lucy’s article is the process. Instead of going before a board, the applicant would simply apply for a building permit and the project would be reviewed by the building department.

    The planning board voted against it for two main reasons. Greenbaum said it would eliminate notifications to abutters. Neighbors get notified only when projects go before regulatory boards.

    Board member Jack Riemer said Lucy’s change would make every lot in town into a two-dwelling lot.

    Lucy said that wasn’t true and that only four accessory dwelling units (ADUs) have been built in four years. Greenbaum said that by her count there are seven.

    Even in communities where they are allowed by right, Lucy continued, there has not been a flood of applicants. Orleans has only eight, he said. Limitations for septic systems and lot size are barriers. Also, many people have no desire to add them.

    But, Lucy said, there are 77 studios in the homes built in the Cape Cod National Seashore. On these large, three-acre lots which contain mansions, these studios can have bedrooms but not kitchens. If owners decided to convert these studios to ADUs it would not harm the environment, he argued.

    Steve Sollog of the planning board said he wanted to first see the long-term effects of the six other changes to the ADU bylaws, which the planning had just voted to send to town meeting. Those changes focus on simplifying parking and other requirements.

    Lucy said the effect is already easy to see. “We’ve seen the young people leaving,” he said.

    Quoting an article in the Independent, he said, Truro has just 35 residents between the ages of 20 and 34.

    “So, the long-term effect is here, folks,” Lucy said. “There are businesses that haven’t been open in months because of a lack of people who have come here to work.” —K.C. Myers

    This Week In Truro

    Meetings Ahead

    By

    Meetings are held remotely. Go to truro-ma.gov, click on the meeting you want to watch, and open its agenda for instructions on how to watch or take part online.

    Monday, April 5

    • Conservation Commission, 5 p.m.

    Tuesday, April 6

    • Board of Health, 4:30 p.m.

    Wednesday, April 7

    • Planning Board, 5 p.m.

    Thursday, April 8

    • Climate Action Committee, 10:30 a.m.

    Conversation Starters

    Planning Board vs. Robert Weinstein

    Robert Weinstein, chair of the select board, took some heat from two of his fellow board members who were not pleased when he called the planning board “an embarrassment to the community” in a March 18 article in the Independent.

    Board member Sue Areson said on March 23 that some people “were distressed and a little upset” when they read Weinstein’s remarks.

    He said he thought the petitioned articles on the June 26 town meeting warrant to make the board of health and the zoning board of appeals elected rather than appointed was a terrible idea. The planning board is elected, he said, and it has done nothing to promote the goals of the elected town leaders — the select board, primarily — regarding affordable housing. The current planning board members all ran unopposed, except for Richard Roberts, who was interviewed along with several candidates and appointed to fill an unexpired term.

    “The planning board has done everything in its power to prevent the progress of diverse housing stock,” Weinstein told the Independent.

    “Obviously people are allowed to speak as private citizens, even on boards,” said Areson. “I wouldn’t do so and particularly not to the press, because it appeared that some commentary Bob made, that I think was unfair to the planning board, was representing the board. That was not the case.”

    Areson, the former deputy executive editor of the Providence Journal, said tension between the select board and the planning board has been no secret and “uncivil discourse and disrespect has gone on for four or five years.”

    “It’s counterproductive to lob grenades,” she said.

    Board member Jan Worthington agreed. She said it’s unfair to criticize a board that is elected because it means you are “criticizing and chastising those who elected them. I was very unhappy to see that in the Independent.”

    The planning board’s Peter Herridge was censured in November by the select board after making false and crude comments related to the Cloverleaf, a 39-unit affordable housing complex.

    On March 24 and March 31, the planning board held two closed sessions. Both times the exception to the Open Meeting Law they cited was for discussion “of the reputation and character of individual (board members) and of complaints or charges brought against board members as public officers/individuals.”

    The planning board will hold a public hearing on April 7 to go over several zoning articles on the town meeting warrant. That meeting starts at 5 p.m. —K.C. Myers

    This Week In Truro

    Meetings Ahead

    By

    Meetings are held remotely. To watch live, go to truro-ma.gov and follow the “helpful link” to Truro Channel 18.

    Thursday, Dec. 10

    • Human Services Committee, 1 p.m.
    • Housing Authority, 4:15 p.m.

    Friday, Dec. 11

    • Finance Committee, 3 p.m.
    • Community Preservation Committee, 4:15 p.m.

    Monday, Dec. 14

    • Zoning Board of Appeals, 5:30 p.m.

    Tuesday, Dec. 15

    • Board of Health, 3:30 p.m.

    Wednesday, Dec. 16

    • Planning Board, 5 p.m.

    Thursday, Dec. 17

    • Zoning Board of Appeals, 5:30 p.m.

    Conversation Starters

    Covid-19 Update

    As of Dec. 6, Truro had two active cases of Covid-19, 18 cases that are considered resolved, and no deaths.

    Planning Board Member Can Be Appointed

    Karen Tosh resigned from the planning board last week, before her term expires in 2021. She would say only that she left “for personal reasons.”

    Truro’s planning board is an elected body, but replacement of committee members who resign midterm is done by appointment, said Anne Greenbaum, the board chair. That is, according to state law, “unexpired terms shall be filled by appointment by the board of selectmen and the remainder of the members of the planning board until the next election, at which time, such office shall be filled, by election, for the remainder of the unexpired term.”

    In this case, the select board and the planning board can jointly appointment someone to take Tosh’s place until the next town election in May, at which point citizens can run for the seat, said Chris Lucy, a member of the charter review committee.

    Since Peter Herridge has stated he will not run for re-election to the planning board in 2021, after being censured by the select board for statements he made about the town manager and developer of an affordable housing project, there will be at least two openings on the planning board this spring.

    —K.C. Myers

    CONDUCT UNBECOMING

    Herridge Is Censured by Select Board

    Planning board member says he is going ‘to step back’ and not run again

    By

    TRURO — The select board has sent a letter of censure to planning board member Peter Herridge for violating town policies on honesty, integrity, and civility, suggesting that his actions could place the town in legal jeopardy.

    In communications with the Independent, Herridge had accused town staff of lying to protect their jobs and denigrated affordable housing developer Ted Malone in vulgar terms. Malone’s company, Community Housing Resource, is developing the 39-unit Cloverleaf project on Highland Road in North Truro.

    The select board also wrote to planning board chair Anne Greenbaum, asking that the planning board remove Herridge from the community preservation committee and the water resources oversight committee.

    Herridge, who served as the planning board’s representative on both committees, said on Monday that he had already resigned both posts “for health reasons,” and plans to remove himself from further comments about the Cloverleaf. He said he also won’t run again when his term ends in 2021.

    “I get angry and lose my temper,” Herridge said. “Things that have to do with preserving Truro are very important to me. Things that have to do with overdevelopment have a real emotional effect on me. I’m going to have to step back from it. It’s not good for me, for my blood pressure.”

    Greenbaum did not return calls for comment.

    Herridge has been a vociferous critic of the Cloverleaf project. The letter of censure came after Town Manager Rae Ann Palmer, now retired, complained about Herridge’s comments in the July 16 Independent, in which he called Malone “a little scumbag,” and comments about her and her staff made in an email to editor Edward Miller on July 6.

    In that email, Herridge wrote that Truro town employees were lying about the Cloverleaf project to protect their jobs because they did not “want to get in trouble with the town administrator who is infamous for firing anybody who offends her in the least.”

    He also threatened Miller with legal action if the newspaper did not retract part of a story about the Cloverleaf.

    “In addition to being a medical doctor I am also a lawyer,” Herridge wrote to Miller, “and I absolutely love litigation and publishing lies about a person is an actionable tort.”

    The definition of a lawyer, the select board told Herridge in its letter, is one who is licensed to practice law.

    “As of writing,” the letter of censure states, “you are not licensed to practice law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and therefore should refrain from referring to yourself as a lawyer and threatening to sue people as such.”

    The select board discussed how to handle Palmer’s complaint on Nov. 10 and again on Nov. 17 in closed-door sessions. The Independent obtained the minutes of those meetings, the letter of censure, and the letter to the planning board through a public records request.

    In the letter to the planning board chair, the select board warned that the town could be held liable if there were no attempts made to distance itself from Herridge’s behavior. During the Nov. 10 meeting, town counsel David Jenkins said the town could be sued if it finds there was a violation of its policies and fails to take any action.

    The town charter states that appointed members of committees can be removed by the appointing authority for good cause, which includes conduct unbecoming to the office or reflecting adversely on the town.

    The letter to the planning board also warns that Herridge should be reined in during any discussions of the Cloverleaf or the town could be subject to legal liability.

    Herridge has been called out for making false statements about the threat to drinking water in Pond Village should the Cloverleaf be constructed. Last year, Herridge told the Independent that the Cloverleaf area had the worst nitrogen contamination in Truro.

    “In 2010, six percent of the homes had levels over 5 mg.,” he said. “The town did not check them more recently, but I have, and the levels are increasing. Some homes in Pond Village are over 10 mg. and have gotten warning notices from the board of health.”

    But Truro Health Agent Emily Beebe refuted that, saying, “I’m not aware of any tests over 10 mg. in that neighborhood. There are some readings that are over 3, and a couple over 5. The average in Pond Village of all the samples we could find is less than 2.”

    The chair of the board of health said there had been no warning notices sent to Pond Village residents.

    Resistance to the Cloverleaf remains robust. A letter signed by 114 people in October stated that the proposed septic system may not work, despite two independent evaluations by an engineer and by the Cape Cod Commission stating otherwise.

    “In terms of expressing my opinion on it, I think the people of Pond Village are aware of the danger they might face,” Herridge said.

    Truro Planning Board members are elected, so the select board cannot remove Herridge from the board. The only way to do that is through a recall election.

    AFFORDABLE HOUSING

    A Missed Deadline, a Year’s Delay

    Opponents of Cloverleaf project liken it to a concentration camp and call the developer a ‘scumbag’

    By

    TRURO — The zoning board’s review of the proposed 39-unit Cloverleaf affordable housing project will not be completed in time for developer Ted Malone to apply for state funding before an early August deadline. That means construction cannot begin until 2022 at the earliest.

    A July 9 hearing at which the board’s lengthy review process was to continue was called off after 30 minutes because of audio problems in the remote meeting setup. The hearing is now scheduled to resume at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 16.

    Before last week’s session was aborted, however, Town Planner Jeff Ribeiro said it would take more than two more meetings of the zoning board of appeals to work through unresolved issues with the project, to be built on 3.9 acres at 22 Highland Road in North Truro.

    It would have been impossible even without the technical snafu for Malone’s company, Community Housing Resource of Provincetown, to meet an Aug. 6 deadline for applying for state funding this year.

    “Reapplying in 2021 will put the timeline an extra year out,” Malone said.

    Before a shovel hits the ground, the ZBA must grant waivers to the town’s height, density, and wastewater regulations — waivers that are enabled under Chapter 40B, the state law that provides a relatively fast-track process for developers of affordable housing in communities with extreme scarcities of such housing.

    The opposition to the Cloverleaf project has been vocal.

    On July 9, the ZBA met in executive session to discuss Truro Planning Board member Peter Herridge, who has distributed a “fact sheet” of objections to the development.

    The exception to the state’s Open Meeting Law cited by the board in justifying the closed session was “to discuss the reputation, character, physical condition or mental health, rather than professional competence, of an individual, or to discuss the discipline or dismissal of, or complaints or charges brought against, a public officer, employee, staff member or individual.”

    Town Manager Rae Ann Palmer said that a resident had complained about Herridge’s fact sheet and that his language was intended to scare people.

    A major objection raised by Herridge and others relates to granting a waiver from town regulations on the treatment of wastewater. The ZBA asked the developer to design a more intensive septage treatment system; this design was then reviewed by an independent consultant, the Horsley Witten Group.

    The new design lowers the concentration of nitrogen of the treated effluent to below the state standard of 10 milligrams per liter. The Horsley Witten review, released on July 9, concluded “that it is appropriate to grant a waiver to the board of health nitrogen loading limitation regulation.”

    The Independent asked Herridge what he thought of the new proposed wastewater treatment system, and he responded that he had spoken to a water expert who told him, if properly maintained and monitored, it will be “adequate.”

    Herridge added, “It makes it impossible to sue [Malone] as I had intended. Of course, this little scumbag will try to sleaze in any way that makes him money and this system will require constant and expensive maintenance, which, of course, will be done in the crummiest and cheapest way possible. But I believe, from a purely legal perspective, it makes it highly unlikely that we could win.”

    A Strategy of Delay

    Herridge described his strategy for fighting the Cloverleaf project.

    “The thing to do now is to delay in every way possible, because there may be state and federal money available now, but there sure as hell will not be next year,” he told the Independent. “My motto is never give up, never surrender.”

    Herridge is not the only opponent of Cloverleaf. Stephen Williams, who was Truro’s building inspector 35 years ago, wrote to the ZBA that the development is too dense and out of character for the town.

    “And just because low-income working people aren’t rich enough to buy a house in Shearwater is no reason for them to have to suffer the added indignity of being herded together like animals so tightly into the concentration-camp like densities of this ‘duplex disaster,’ ” Williams wrote.

    Letters on both sides of the controversy have attracted large number of signatures. One such letter to the ZBA, signed by more than 75 Truro residents, stated, in part, “The pandemic — which we can’t assume will be our last — has put everything into a new perspective. We know now that infectious diseases like Covid‐19 disproportionately infect people living in densely populated housing. Doesn’t this fact make it incumbent on us to reconsider whether it is responsible from a public health standpoint to house close to 100 people including at‐risk workers and elders in close proximity on 4 acres of land?”

    Andrea Aldana, director of housing advocacy for the Eastham-based Community Development Partnership, has responded to this concern, “Solid affordable housing stock reduces overcrowding and makes public safety less of an issue,” said Aldana in June.

    Another letter, delivered this week to the ZBA and select board and signed by 85 people, refuted the objectors’ letter point by point, concluding with: “They say: We need to slow things down. We say: We need to keep moving forward to address our housing crisis.”

     

     

     

     

    currents

    This Week in Truro

    By

    Meetings Ahead

    Truro meetings are generally held via telephone or video conferencing and are aired for the public after they are over. See: www.truro ma.gov/home/news/viewing-the-33120-select-board-meeting-and-general-remote-meeting-information

    Thursday, April 2

    • Zoning Board of Appeals, 5:30 p.m. (procedural only)

    Monday, April 6

    • Conservation Commission, 5:30 p.m.

    Tuesday, April 7

    • Board of Health, 4:30 p.m.
    • Select Board, 5 p.m.

    Conversation Starters

     Cloverleaf Affordable Housing

    The zoning board of appeals is expected to vote on April 2 to delay review of the Cloverleaf, a 39-unit affordable housing development at 22 Highland Road, until May 28, according to the meeting agenda. The ZBA has been reviewing the project for months now. The recent delay, due to the closure of public offices because of the coronavirus, will not threaten the project’s financing, said Ted Malone, president of Community Housing Resource, the developer.

    Malone said he can continue working remotely with designers and engineers to finalize the plans in accordance with changes already suggested by the board. He also can communicate by email with the town officials if necessary and be ready for further review on May 28.

    An Appointed Planning Board?

    Town meeting, originally set for April 28, will be postponed until a still undetermined date, but the select board has begun making recommendations on the warrant articles. On March 10, board members voted three to two not to recommend a petitioned article that would make the planning board appointed rather than elected.

    Truro is one of six towns out of 15 in the county that elects members of the planning board. Select board members Stephanie Rein, Sue Areson, and Jan Worthington voted to keep the planning board elected, while board members Bob Weinstein and Kristen Reed voted to recommend the change to town meeting voters.

    Raphael Richter, who sponsored the petitioned article, said the elected races are almost never contested and so there would be more accountability if they were appointed following interviews by the select board.

    Areson said she was distressed by “unwarranted public criticism of the planning board,” according to minutes of the March 10 meeting.

    The board has been criticized as working against business and affordable housing. —K.C. Myers.

    CIVICS

    Truro Planning Board Called Out for Opposing Housing

    A lobsterman takes the board to court and wins

    By

    TRURO — A local lobsterman feels vindicated after a judge reversed two conditions that the Truro Planning Board had imposed on his building proposal.

    Orleans District Court Judge Robert Welsh III agreed with Christopher and Heidi Townsend, who sought permission to build a 30-by-36-foot barn with an upstairs 1,000-square-foot accessory dwelling unit at their 41 Highland Road property. Townsend intends to use the accessary dwelling unit to house his lobster boat mate.

    Townsend Barn
    Christopher and Heidi Townsend recently built this barn and will be adding an accessory dwelling unit. A judge said the conditions imposed by the planning board for the ADU were outside the board’s authority. (Photo K.C. Myers)

    The planning board approved his request but with a condition that any shower or bathtub be on the second floor. The planning board also required Townsend to get a letter of approval from the Cape Cod National Seashore, since the property is in the Seashore.

    Welsh ruled that both conditions were outside the board’s authority.

    “The location of bathing facilities are not specified in the ADU [Accessory Dwelling Unit] bylaw and have no connection to the stated purpose of the bylaw,” Welsh wrote in his summary judgment on Nov. 26. “Truro improperly delegated permit approval authority to the United States. Zoning is inherently a local concern.”

    The decision has re-ignited an ongoing complaint that Truro’s planning board, which is among the few that are elected on the Cape, is particularly hostile to development.

    Addressing the condition requiring approval from the Seashore, the town’s own attorney, Jonathan Silverstein, wrote a letter to Town Manager Rae Ann Palmer advising that it was unnecessary for this ADU.

    The planning board imposed the condition anyway. So when Townsend challenged the conditions in court, the select board voted not to defend the decision.

    “It was a weak case for the town,” said Selectman Robert Weinstein. “We chose not to have town counsel defend the planning board.”

    Townsend said he was happy with the judge’s ruling, but that battling the planning board added legal fees for his attorney, Ben Zehnder, to the expense of paying rent for his employee for an extra season. He had hoped to begin construction in December 2018, but the permitting process with the planning board lasted all winter and he could not finish it in time for summer.

    Townsend said that the planning board’s decisions show a pattern of discouraging year-round businesses and housing.

    “They are extremely difficult, and they are clearly working against everyone’s wants and needs,” Townsend said. “I’m very passionate about the Outer Cape, and I want it to be easier for people who work for a living like myself.”

    “The planning board was doing the best it could to protect the town and the Seashore,” said Steve Sollog, its chair. “We’re citizens. I’m not going to represent a position or opinion, because as a member of the planning board, I’m representing the town. We made our decision. The town made its decision. The court made its decision, and we’re all going to move on.”

    Weinstein agreed with Townsend, noting that recent bylaw changes to promote year-round housing were brought to town meeting by petitioners and were opposed by the planning board. These included the bylaw that relaxed restrictions on accessory dwelling units in 2017 and the change to allow cottage colonies to be converted for year-round use in 2018.

    “Their record concerns me,” Weinstein said.

    Karen Tosh, a planning board member since 2017, said she disagrees that her board is against affordable housing. Since the ADU bylaw passed, all six ADU applications that have come before the board have been approved.

    But, she added, the planning board has been hampered by a lack of consistent professional help. In three years there have been seven town planners, she said. This has made reviews of projects lengthy and made it more difficult for them to bring bylaws to town meeting.

    Unlike in Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Eastham, Truro’s planning board is elected, which, Weinstein said, may be part of the problem. Nine out of the 15 Cape towns appoint planning board members, said Robert Panessiti, chair of the Truro Charter Review Committee and a member of the Truro Finance Committee for 18 years.

    “[The planning board] should be on the same page, with the same priorities, as the select board,” Weinstein said. No one wants to compete for those seats, he added, so most people get on the board unopposed or as write-in candidates.

    Panessiti said that current planning board members blatantly oppose affordable housing measures. He said the charter committee hasn’t decided whether to recommend changing the planning board from elected to appointed. But, he added, if the current planning board members were to stay on, then “absolutely. They should all be gone,” he said.

    “Sometimes the loudest voices are not the most well informed,” Tosh said in response to the criticism. An elected planning board is pure democracy and best represents the town, Tosh said. If people don’t like them, they should use the ballot box.

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