Zoning tops 125-article warrant
BY PETER A. SUTTERS JR. & PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITERS
Nantucket residents planning to attend this April's Annual Town Meeting may want to clear their calendar for the week. It looks like it will be a long one. Dominated by zoning issues, this year's warrant consists of 125 articles, compared to 80 articles in 2007 and 83 in 2006, both of which lasted three nights each.

In 37 zoning articles, island planners are largely in clean-up and island character protection modes. Much of this year's slate of proposed amendments to the zoning bylaw is made up of definition changes, map alterations, additions and a melding of old and new zoning bylaws.

There are also a fair number of articles that will continue the Planning Department's rounding out of the Land Use element of the Chapter 41-81D Master Plan. Articles 36, 37, 38 and 39, for instance, seek to put much of Esther Island, parts of Smith's Point, Weweeder Pond, areas around the State Forest and the west side of Miacomet Pond into the Land Use General-Three zone to keep them undeveloped.

For the 3M development bordered by the Miacomet Golf Course, Raceway Drive and Somerset Road, density alterations continue in Articles 32, 33, 34 and 35. And, if voters agree, there will be new commercial districts for the island this year, including the Commercial Industrial and Commercial Neighborhood, Commercial Trade, Entrepreneurship and Craft districts.

For the second year in a row, the people behind the 2007 Nantucket and Madaket Harbors Action Plan are trying to create a harbor zoning overlay district that protects water dependent uses in the commercial districts of Nantucket and Madaket Harbors, this time through Articles 49, 50 and 51. They are also putting forward two articles, Article 52 and 53, to make permanent the prohibition of new docks, wharves and piers - with several exceptions - in all districts.

In a nod to islanders who lose their buildings to natural disasters, Article 54 would allow them to rebuild what they lost.

This year's warrant also has a number of non-zoning articles, including a plan to build a new sports complex, a proposal on returning to cobblestone paving in the Old Historic District and the creation of a separate Board of Health, partially composed of members with working experience in the health field.

Article 27, asking for the town to "vote to appropriate, and also to raise, borrow…by passage of debt override exclusion" $3.6 million for a sports complex at the corner of Nobadeer Farm and Milestone Roads.

The article is backed by the Department of Parks and Recreation and the idea of the complex, complete with a field house, two artificial and two natural turf fields, 130 parking spaces and bathrooms, has generated debate among supporters and neighbors.

The Department of Parks and Recreation says it needs the additional field space because they turn away applicants in the summer months and the current slate of fields is overused.

Neighbors say Tom Nevers, where there already is a bathroom and other fields, is a more suitable location and raise a number of other issues such as endangered plant species in the area and there not really being a need for the fields, just better management of existing fields.

Parks and Recreation had also sought $1 million in funds from the Community Preservation Committee to cover the difference of the estimated cost to build, but that request got a negative recommendation from the Board of Selectmen last year.

Town Clerk Catherine Flanagan Stover submitted a citizen's article to mandate the town replace any asphalt street in the Old Historic District with cobblestones when and if the street needs to be repaved. The idea has been tossed around in the past, where supporters say in the long run cobblestones are cheaper. Opponents often cite damage to older cars and higher upfront cost and difficulty of maintenance.

Currently the five member elected Board of Selectmen also act at the Board of Health, but an article sponsored by Curtis Barnes seeks to establish a separate Board of Health and seeks to have at least three of the proposed five members have experience "in a health or health-related technical field (e.g. medical, nursing, lab technician, pharmacist, engineering, sanitation, surveying, etc.)." The article seeks to have the selectmen appoint the members of the Board of Health for staggered three-year terms.

Article 99, sponsored by Heather Coffin et al, seeks to establish an Agricultural Commission to "represent the Nantucket farming community."

The proposal calls for a seven-member commission to be appointed by the Board of Selectmen. Their goal would be to "serve as facilitators for encouraging the pursuit of agriculture on Nantucket…promote agricultural based economic opportunities in Town ... work for preservation of prime agricultural land; and pursue all initiatives appropriate to creating a sustainable agricultural community."

The article seeks to have a minimum of four members who derive their prime source of income from farming, while the other three are interested in farming.

Toward the back of the warrant are a number of real estate articles that seek to finalize conveyances from homeowners in the Surfside Beach area for more public access as part of the One Big Beach program. The conveyances, commonly known as "yard sales" which seek to take town-owned land and sell or deed small plots of land to residents to get the property back on the tax rolls. Another article seeks to give the Board of Selectmen the authority to "acquire by purchase, gift or eminent domain" portions of land surrounding a triangle shaped lot, which was gifted to the town in the 1940s to allow for that

land to be used for affordable housing. I