TRURO — It was a close vote, but the planning board will support a proposed overlay district encompassing the town’s 70-acre Walsh property when it is presented to voters at town meeting on May 3.

At the end of a 90-minute public hearing and debate on the proposal on April 9, planning board vice chair Anne Greenbaum and members Ellery Althaus, Caitlin Townsend, and Virginia Frazier voted to recommend it, while chair Rich Roberts and members Jack Riemer and Paul Kiernan opposed it.

The Walsh Zoning Overlay District addresses the possibilities for the acreage purchased by the town from the Walsh family in 2019 — land where both affordable housing and open space have been envisioned by a community-based planning committee, a consulting firm’s study, and a town meeting vote.

David Bannard chaired the zoning task force that developed the plan for the district. It must be approved at town meeting to go into effect.

During the discussion, several opponents of the proposal suggested slowing things down. “Why are we even looking at maps of proposed housing subdistricts when we have little idea of what is even possible because of water and wastewater limitations?” said Karen Ruymann. She argued for more study “before we further address housing configurations at Walsh.”

Later, Greenbaum, who is an alternate member of the Ad Hoc Walsh Property Advisory Committee, urged her colleagues to “go back to the big picture.”

“Nobody wants to poison the water,” she said. “This article will not result in a single shovel in the ground or a single building put up. The article doesn’t create any housing; it allows for planning.”

 

The District Basics

The Walsh property lies within the town’s existing residential district, which restricts development to single-family houses, duplexes, and accessory dwelling units. The proposed overlay would divide the Walsh property into three subdistricts: two would allow affordable and attainable housing development and the third would be reserved for recreational use.

The Walsh Low-Density Subdistrict encompasses 6 acres for housing on compact lots arranged around shared community open space. The Walsh Moderate-Density Subdistrict designates 33 acres for mixed-use and multi-family housing with a focus on walkability and compatible commercial uses. The Walsh Recreational Subdistrict, 31 acres separating the low-density and moderate-density subdistricts, is intended to protect and preserve topography and wildlife habitat and includes open space for recreational and civic uses.

At the hearing’s opening, Bannard pointed out two recent changes prompted by public input. The maximum height of the buildings was reduced from five stories to three, and the distance between buildings on the same lot was increased from 5 to 10 feet.

In a long speech, planning board member Paul Kiernan questioned the 10-foot distance between buildings on the same lot. Bannard responded that 10 feet is the minimum. When the town designs a housing plan and puts out a request for proposals, it could require a greater distance.

“We were very careful to try to buffer the development from the surrounding residential district and have included a 25-foot buffer from any building,” Bannard said. Instituting the Walsh Property Overlay District “would allow development at the appropriate time with what is consistent with the initial Walsh committee,” he said.

 

Walking and Chewing Gum

Concerns that dominated past discussions of the overlay district about water, wastewater, rural character, traffic, and access were repeated at the April 9 hearing.

Bannard and Town Planner and Land Use Counsel Barbara Carboni both said that the overlay district would provide a basis for future decisions about what gets built at Walsh, but that actual construction won’t occur until water, wastewater, and other issues have been resolved.

Those assurances didn’t deter Ruymann, who suggested a delay because the current negotiation of an intermunicipal agreement between Provincetown and Truro for water and a wastewater terminus could affect development at Walsh.

Part-time resident Steve Wynne, who served on the earlier Walsh planning committee, said that “there was never any question from any member of the Walsh committee that we wanted additional housing in Truro,” but he believed studying water, wastewater, and potential traffic issues should be done before establishing an overlay district for potential residential and commercial development.

Jeffrey Fischer, chair of the current ad hoc committee, responded that water supply and wastewater are being worked on separately by the town, as is a traffic study to be done this summer. “That’s not part of the zoning overlay,” Fischer said. “That’s part of what our committee and the town are working on.

“We need a housing plan,” he continued, “to figure out where the roads are going to be, how we’re going to deal with runoff from the site, and those kinds of things.”

Darrell Shedd, vice chair of both the zoning board of appeals and the zoning task force, said that when the town ultimately issues a request for proposals, “water, waste, traffic, etc. will all be dealt with in the design, and there will be no permits without all the issues being responsibly and completely addressed.”

Kiernan suggested that it would take a two-thirds majority and not a simple majority for the overlay district to pass at town meeting. The state legislature changed the requirement to a simple majority under the Affordable Homes Act last summer, but Kiernan said that change applied only to eligible locations and that the Walsh property wasn’t one.

Carboni disagreed, saying, “We’re putting zoning in place that allows for the development of multifamily housing and mixed use, and the bylaw was specifically tweaked by town counsel to ensure the proposal can be voted in by a simple majority.”

Kiernan asked how the low-density subdistrict could be accessed. That was not a subject of zoning, the town planner said, but Kiernan persisted: “I’m asking a very practical question: how is somebody going to drive their car to the low-density zone?”

“That is a question for later, when the RFP is issued,” Carboni said.

Later, Kiernan again raised the question of whether the Walsh property was an “eligible location” and was told by Bannard that town counsel had confirmed a simple majority vote would be sufficient.

“I don’t know the ins and outs of what that requires, sir, but I am pretty confident that our town counsel does,” Bannard said.

Once the hearing closed, planning board member Jack Riemer, also opposed to the overlay district, read excerpts from the town’s comprehensive plan and said the property encompasses an area of critical environmental concern, and his board should have adequate time to deliberate.

“We need to pursue our due diligence to ensure we are meeting the future needs of the town,” he said.

Greenbaum countered that issues like water, wastewater, and traffic are moving forward on parallel tracks “in order to get something to happen at Walsh before I die.”

Saying she represented Truro’s younger population, planning board member Caitlin Townsend expressed support for the overlay. “I hear people’s concerns, but what I see through the whole thing is the struggles my generation is facing,” she said. “We’re the future of this community. We are the people who want to stay here.

“It’s extremely frustrating to hear people not being in support of keeping the younger generation here,” Townsend added.

Chair Roberts, speaking just before the board’s vote, said it was “premature” to bring the proposal to town meeting. “I’d like to at least see it deferred until we have all the cards on the table, until we know what we’re talking about in terms of water and what the hydrology says, what will be allocated by the intermunicipal agreement,” he said.

Greenbaum acknowledged that “some feel like you have to solve water first before you can do anything else,” She disagreed. “Being a believer in Truro’s ability to walk, chew gum, and not trip, I’m a strong yes on this.”