ZBA REQUESTS SHOOTING RANGE PLAN FROM HUNTING ASSOCIATION
The Zoning Board of Appeals wants to see a set of detailed plans from the Nantucket Hunting Association before it decides whether to issue a special permit for a shooting range just east of New South Road.

The board said at its Jan. 11 meeting that it could not rule on whether to grant a special permit for 48 acres on town-owned land between Bunker Road and Russell's Way without a more definitive, detailed site plan from the hunting association. The hunting association has been leasing the property from the town since Dec. 11, 2006.

"It does make it tough on the board to make a decision on it without knowing all the details, that would be important to me," ZBA Chairman Dale Waine told Nantucket Hunting Association President Steve Holdgate after Holdgate told the board that with money being tight, the NHA did not want to do final plans until it obtained ZBA approval. "I know it is hard, financially, to get exactly the whole thing, but you could certainly could come up with where the sheds are, what berms would be where and where the baffles would be."

The Nantucket Hunting Association wants to build specific shooting areas for archery, skeet, and pistol and rifle target practice with three sheds, a threesided shelter, a small bathroom building and a sand/gravel parking area. Additionally, Nantucket Hunting Association attorney Alison Zieff announced at last Friday's meeting that the hunting association will construct berms between all 20 shooting lanes, a backstop for the targets with an overhanging roof jutting back toward the shooters and structures called baffles placed intermittently along each lane to keep gunfire restricted to sightlines aimed at the targets.

But members of the nearby Wigwam Road Association, who are contesting the shooting range, want to see exactly what all proposed structures will look like and where they will be on the property.

Holdgate could not give the board a time when the drawings would be completed.

"To hire the engineers to go out and do this takes money," said Zieff. "This is a nonprofit club and it's not something that we have the money to do."

Waine then softened the board's request, saying that the NHA could submit less formal final plans as long as they depict all of the ranges and structures on the site plan.

"We have to base our decision on something," said ZBA member Lisa Botticelli. "I just don't think this board could make a decision on what you could live with and certainly on what the neighbors could live with. A lot of the information could be put on the site plan."

Knowing how the shooting ranges and protective structures will be situated on the property is vital to the ZBA's deliberations that take into account the noise and safety concerns of the 30 property owners on Wigwam Road. Although the hunting association's noise consultant, Acoustical Engineer Eric Thalheimer of Thalheimer Associates of Natick, Mass., contends that gun noise from the shooting range is below the town's maximum allowable noise level of 63 decibels, the Wigwam Association is concerned that Thalheimer did not consider how loud the maximum use of the shooting - such as the sound of 20 shooters and skeet shooters all using the range at the same time - would be.

In addition to a more detailed site plan, Botticelli requested a response to her recommendation that the hours of operation be restricted from September to May, that the range not be open long hours during the day and to Waine's suggestion that notice of any shooting be published in island newspapers. ZBAmember David Wiley recommended that Town Counsel review the hunting association's proposed access options since no legal access exists to the property.

Waine urged the hunting association to work out differences with the residents of Wigwam Road.

The hearing will resume at the ZBA's Feb. 8 meeting.

ANDOVER COMPANY BRINGING NEW LIFE TO METHODIST CHURCH ORGAN This spring, the grand manual and pedal Thomas Appleton organ at the island's United Methodist Church will fill the historic worship center with the richest sounds heard in more than two decades. Last fall, the highly respected Andover Organ Company, which restored the First Congregational Church organ a couple of years ago, began dismantling the Appleton organ, first rebuilt in 1858 by E. & G.G. Hook.

The Andover crew restored key action and performed other work on the organ in 1985, but are now engaged in restoring pipework and voicing, repairing the instrument windchests and regilding the metal case pipes. The work is expected to be complete this spring and is being performed under the direction of Bob Newton, who is also restoring the voicing. The windchest work is being overseen by Michael Eaton and pipes are being repaired by Jon Ross

and Casey Robertson. I