Land use planner's salary to pay for consultants
BY PETER B. BRACE
Forced to operate without a land use planner in the midst of the genesis of the 41-81D Master Plan, Planning Director Andrew Vorce plans to hire consultants to complete the Open Space and Natural & Cultural Resources elements of the plan.

Vorce recently got the green light from the Planning Board and the Nantucket Planning & Economic Development Commission to use about $30,000 of the $58,890 he had in his budget to cover the salary of Land Use Planner Shaun Logue. Eight days after Logue started his job with the Planning Department in late November he unexpectedly quit, leaving Nantucket's planning staff short-handed once again, and leaving a portion of Vorce's budget unused.

To make constructive use of Logue's salary, Vorce is now in the process of getting out a request for proposals for an open space consultant, and writing one for a natural and cultural resources consultant.

"The open space plan expired in 1993," said Vorce. "It has been assigned to a variety of land use planners from 1993 to present, but we've never been able to get that project done. We've been in discussion with some consultants who have done some open space plans for some of the Cape communities and since it's unlikely we're going to have a land use planner in the future, I think transferring these resources would be a good use of these funds."

Making use of this money requires a Town Meeting vote, likely the same vote that adopts the town's annual budget. Vorce said this transfer of funds would appear as a separate line item in this year's budget article. The money would also be used for creating the Natural and Cultural Resources element of the 41-81D Master Plan, which seeks to identify and document the island's natural and cultural resources for preservation and enhancement.

Vorce had hoped to enlist the help of the new preservation committee, the Nantucket Preservation Commission, but it appears, said Vorce, that this commission does not have the resources and time to help with this element of the plan.

"I had hoped the Nantucket Preservation Commission would be taking a lead on it, [but it's not going to happen]," said Vorce. "One of the consultants that we have used on Nantucket with all of our bikes paths has direct experience and knowledge of the island."

The Planning Board and Planning Commission also allowed Vorce to use dormant salary money in 2006 to pay consultant Jim Coyne to research and write a comment letter for the Planning Commission on the merits and impacts of Cape Wind Associates' proposed 130 wind turbines for Nantucket Sound. This year's shifting of funds will help put the town in closer contention for state grants for open space initiatives yet to be included in the 41-81D Master Plan.

Three different land use planner searches yielded no new staff members to help lessen the 41-81D workload for Vorce and Senior Planner Leslie Woodson who have been expending nearly all of their energies on the Land Use element of the plan that entails sweeping zoning changes across the island. The other elements of the 41- 81D Master Plan include Circulation (transportation), which Transportation Planner Michael Burns is working on, Housing, Economic Development, Goals and Policies, Implementation and Facilities.

"What we're doing is killing two birds with one stone [and] getting our

elements done," Vorce said. I