I n t r o d u c t i o n
by Peter B. Brace & Mary Lancaster
Regardless of all the talk over the past year about changing the format of Town Meeting, the tradition of residents gathering in force to have their say in governmental spending and decisions remains intact. The 2007 Annual Town Meeting begins at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 3 in the high school auditorium with Sarah Alger as moderator for the 11th year.

This year's session is expected to run at least three, if not four nights, because of an extensive list of zoning articles as well as sewer-related proposals. Also, among the 80 articles on the warrant are nine by the Town Government Study Committee, three of which - to change the Planning Board, Historic District Commission and Shellfish and Harbor Advisory Board from elected to appointed by the selectmen - are sure to draw lengthy debate.

TOWN GOVERNMENT The primary articles under this heading come from the Town Government Study Committee, seeking a few sweeping changes at the same time they are doing a little housekeeping to clean up the town charter. Of utmost importance among its nine articles are three seeking to alter the Planning Board, the Historic District Commission and the Shellfish and Harbor Advisory Board from being elected to becoming bodies appointed by the selectmen.

Other TGSC articles include changing the title of town administrator to town manager, adding appointment authority to the administrator/manager, placing limits on who may serve as selectmen, mandating an annual audit committee, deleting the now non-functioning board of Our Island Home and the town's Personnel Board from the charter and creating a bylaw requiring a five-year review of government functions starting in 2010.

ZONING AND HDC It is inescapable. Like the year's first crush of tourists arriving for Daffodil Weekend, if you are a conscious voter who regularly attends Town Meeting, there is no way around sitting through at least one or two nights of zoning articles.

They are the end-products of countless discussions on job sites, in public hearings and on Yack.com, and the spawn of the Planning Board and Planning Director Andrew Vorce, who this year, is giving Nantucket at least a partial break by deferring review of most of the proposed 41-81D Master Plan Land Use element articles to a Town Meeting that might be held this fall or to the 2008 Annual Town Meeting next April.

What we are dealing with just four days from now are a mixed bag of technical corrections, neighborhood rezoning and harbor zoning articles that would have felt like a lighter load this year were it not for four articles related to the 2007 Nantucket and Madaket Harbors Action Plan. Likely to eat up at least a couple of hours of one night of Town Meeting, Articles 25, 26 and 27 are attempts by the Harbor Plan Advisory Committee to protect Nantucket's commercial waterfront - downtown Nantucket and part of Hither Creek in Madaket - from gradually being displaced by non-water-dependent uses such as retail and residential.

Articles 25 and 27 would establish a harbor overlay district (HOD) for the RC district containing Nantucket's waterfront properties from the former Breakers Hotel down to the Great Harbor Yacht Club and the northwest side of Hither Creek encompassing all of Madaket Marine. Article 26 makes the change on Nantucket's zoning maps by adding the HOD locations.

Property owners within this new overlay district would still have to adhere to existing zoning, but also be restricted to new residential uses only on second floors and not on structures on pilings or those within 25 feet of the mean high water line. Additionally, new buildings for non-water-dependent uses could not be constructed within 25 feet of the mean high water line or cover more than 50 percent of the lot. Also, no new non-water-dependent uses or renovations to existing ones would be permitted to supplant or "significantly disrupt" existing water-dependent uses, be built where a water-dependent use could go or block the public's access to the waterfront.

Waterfront development faces another restriction in the form of a permanent moratorium on docks, piers, and wharves. Article 28 would make the existing temporary prohibition that expires on April 30 law forever, outlawing docks, piers and wharves in RC districts. An exception is that property owners of Tuckernuck Island, working in conjunction with the Tuckernuck Island Landowners Association, the town and the Department of Environmental Protection could construct a community pier and dock. Two of the most heavily used piers in the lagoon at the east end of Tuckernuck were recently declared illegal by the DEP, but Marine Superintendent Dave Fronzuto finagled a stay of dismantling until after Town Meeting in hopes of being able to build the pier in time for summer.

Off the waterfront, the rest of the fascinating world of zoning is orbiting portions of the 3M Subdivision next to the Miacomet Golf Course and the Miacomet area. With a nod to the 41-81D Master Plan, Articles 31 and 32 are the products of neighborhood organization over the last year to protect the rural quaintness of properties on all of the lots on Doc Ryder, Henderson and Swayze's drives and 29 lots on Golf View and Farm View drives. To accomplish this, for these islanders, the Planning Board is asking for Town Meeting approval for pulling these lots out of the RC-2 district and putting them into the R-10 district, chopping their development potential in half by 5,000 square feet.

Closer to Miacomet Pond, Vorce and the Planning Board are stumping for a suite of articles designed to correct a contour line running through along the east side of Miacomet Avenue. Passage of Articles 33, 34, 35 and 36 would allow the movement of this boundary from the 20-foot contour line to the 10-foot contour line. The line in question is measured in feet above sea level and was incorrectly placed at 20 feet above sea level when the town converted its paper zoning maps into computer files in its geographic information system in 2003.

In adjusting this line, these articles would pull lots and portions of lots out of the RC-2 district and place them into the LUG-2 and RC-2 districts, and convert some from LUG-2 into RC-2.

Though some residents of Miacomet Avenue are bound to be angry with the Planning Department over these changes should they be adopted un-amended, most islanders should be happy with Article 37, which boosts the minimum parking spot requirements for most categories of residential development up to one parking space per bedroom. Should a developer propose to build a mixed income residential development, for which

Article 40 would extend the existence of this development option from 2007 to 2009, the positive results of Article 37 would help provide enough parking for such developments.

On the commercial construction front, in the aftermath of the new definitions surrounding the Penalty Box at Nantucket Ice adopted at the Oct. 23 Special Town Meeting, Article 38 became necessary this year to ensure that the definition of a recreational facility is not limited to those owned by nonprofits, but owned by all entities.

While technically not in the purview of zoning, if Articles 55 and 59 take flight at Town Meeting, the Historic District Commission will get to poke its head into the tent of building interior restrictions and take a crack at aiding historic building owners with their historic renovations. The former would give the HDC the power to grant a tax abatement for five years based on the final assessment of a building's historic renovation; while the latter would charge the commission with requiring historic renovators to save all salvageable, usable interior primary and secondary framing parts that can used in the reconstruction of a historic structure.

HOUSING The topic of supplying Nantucket with more affordable housing has been brought up at Town Meeting for several years in a row. This year there are two citizen's articles addressing the subject, both of which propose significant changes to meet that goal. Barbara Gookin's Article 62 proposes a change to the formula for Community Preservation Committee allocations so that 80 percent of its funds are alloted towards community housing. Curtis Barnes submitted Article 63, seeking to amend the Land Bank Act so that 25 percent of its revenue goes toward affordable housing and that some Land Bank open space property be used for that purpose.

LAND CONSERVATION AND CONVEYANCES Abit of housecleaning or rather, yard work is in order for the town and the Nantucket Islands Land Bank next week at Town Meeting.

Attendees are to tackle a bevy of loose-endremedying articles packed into the warrant designed to tidy up holdings of both entities. These articles are bound to elicit a ho-hum response from most voters at first, but upon closer scrutiny, weary voters enduring the several nights in the Mary P. Walker Auditorium at Nantucket High School should at least see the wisdom behind them.

Such as Article 61 in which the Land Bank is aiming for equitable application of its property transfer fee. If it garners the requisite number of affirmatives, this article would ensure all purchasers of property on Nantucket, regardless of ownership type, would pay the transfer tax.

If enough Nantucketers agree that the town needs a tract of land open to the public connecting Surfside Road with the beach, Articles 75 and 76 are their vehicles to converting paper roads and clear title land of unknown owners from town parcels to Land Bank open space. And out off the east side of Bunker Road, the town and the Land Bank could also separate their holdings through the passage of Articles 67-70 that would untangle intertwined shares of land owned by both entities, producing one solid block of Nantucket for each.

Hoping to add to the island's public access to its beaches, the town is trying to swap use of its land at 43 Eel Point Road with the owners of 39 Eel Point Road in Articles 65 and 66. If the voters see the town's logic, the owners of 39 Eel Point Road can drive over an easement to reach their property and the town is granted an easement across the eastern side of their lot to use for future public access to Dionis Beach.

No access by members of the public, namely, the airport, would probably please Eric Shaw, owner of 58 Madequecham Valley Road. In

Article 71, Shaw, who is trying to get the opportunity to offer the town payment for .14-of-an-acre lot he and the airport both claim they own, is like- ly to be envious of the property owners living next to land the town is trying to unload on them through Articles 72, 73 and 74. Through the town's Yard Sale Program, undersized lots would be made available at below-market rates to lot owners who could annex them to enlarge their existing holdings and expand their development potential.

TRANSPORTATION Once again, there is no plan in sight for a central transportation hub, so the only article that relates to this subject, Article 17, is allocation of the ferry head tax. The collected tax for last year is $231,400 and is suggested for use by the police department to pay officers to perform traffic control in the harbor areas where boats come in and vehicle movement becomes congested.

FINANCES Since the town's operating budget (Article 8) is essentially balanced this year at $62,520,173, voter interest will likely be more focused on a potential $4,375,600 capital override request (Article 10), subject to passage of a ballot referendum to exempt borrowing from Proposition 2 1/2.

It is important to understand, however, that many of the pieces of equipment and some work sought will be paid for through means other than tax dollars. For example, $180,000 will come from the Ambulance Reserve Fund to replace a fire department emergency vehicle. The town is only paying a $30,000 share of a grant for the Marine Department's stormwater drainage and improvement project, and the town administrator has authority to sell or trade-in equipment being replaced. Article 12, dealing with enterprise funds capital expenditures, calls for $10.3 million in spending, but those costs will be recouped from airport revenues, sewer enterprise revenues, solid waste enterprise revenues, and Wannacomet Water Company revenues.

PRESERVATION This year the Community Preservation Committee had some hard choices to make, selecting 16 funding recipients from 26 proposed projects. Its total allocations amount to $3,034,741, well under the several million sought from all the applications combined. The amount includes five percent of the funds to be designated for administrative expenses. Under the category of historic resources, it chose to help back the preservation project for the First Congregational Church, a Nantucket Historical Association restoration of Greater Light, a Nantucket Preservation Trust landmark update, restoration of the Methodist Church, preservation of Sankaty Lighthouse, a cemeteries restoration project and archiving and restoration of the Artists' Association's permanent collection.

INFRASTRUCTURE What would Town Meeting be without some level of debate over the island's sewer system, its two districts and its treatment facilities? Probably nothing but zoning and endless misguided calls for points of order.

Nantucket voters can thank the now-defunct Sewer Advisory Committee for keeping this timehonored tradition of dealing with the collection and processing of our ever-increasing flow of effluent a part of Town Meeting. This year, although the articles are few, the discussions and amendments they are most certainly going to generate over the issues at stake are quite serious and carry the potential for broad-reaching impacts for all Nantucketers.

Currently, it takes a Town Meeting vote for one property owner or many to add their lot to either the town or 'Sconset sewer districts. In fact, Articles 41, 42 and 43 are requests from islanders to have their properties in 'Sconset, off Hummock Pond Road west of Aurora Way, on South Shore Road, Correia, Blueberry and South Pasture lanes, Folger and Field avenues and Cherry Street added to their respective sewer districts.

And at least for this year, they will be counting on the providence of hundreds of voters to grant them permission to rip up their lawns and streets to plug into town sewer pipes nearby.

However, should these same voters see fit to approve Article 60, a home rule petition that would then file special legislation with the state and if adopted by the Legislature, the Board of Selectmen would gain the authority to build the town's first Sewer Commission, which could then rule on sewer district additions, repairs to the existing collection and treatment systems and construction of new facilities among many other duties. The act created by this legislation would also empower the selectmen to handle a slate of sewer issues including districts, financing, infrastructure and options regarding the organizational entity that oversees sewers.

Through the approval of Article 53, which Town Counsel Paul DeRensis doubts the legality of, the Board of Selectmen could change the island's two sewer districts adding lots to it within the districts or from the needs areas identified in the Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan without getting voter approval of Town Meeting articles containing their desired actions. If Article 60 is adopted, the board and the Sewer Commission could gain

most of these powers. I