Efforts to ease the Island’s housing crunch, funding for repairs to South Beach and potential borrowing to shore up aging septic pipes will all be put before Edgartown voters at town meeting next week.
The annual and special town meetings start at 7 p.m. at the Old Whaling Church, with town poet laureate Steve Ewing moderating. The quorum is about 225 people.
Combined, the warrants have 110 articles that range from million-plus dollar spending requests to bans on commercial gas-powered leaf blowers. The proposed budget is $46.5 million, a 7.6 per cent increase from last year.
In big ticket items, voters will be faced with two debt exclusions, including one seeking $1.5 million to buy the former Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank headquarters on Upper Main street, potentially for affordable housing, and another seeking $4.8 million to repair an aging septage main along Edgartown-West Tisbury Road. First installed in 1971, the cast-iron pipes have needed more frequent repairs, failing twice near E.C. Cottle in the last three months.
“You don’t want that breaking in August,” said James Hagerty, the Edgartown town administrator. “It would essentially flood the streets.”
Both of the funding articles need a two-thirds majority and would also need to be approved at the April 11 election. If approved, the Land Bank question would add about $60 to the tax bill of a person with a $500,000 property and the sewer main would add about $15.
The next biggest funding article would put $1.1 million toward restoring the South Beach area, which was battered by three storms this winter. Work in the area has already begun to repair Atlantic Drive and rebuild the dunes.
A proposed party bylaw on the warrant has been heavily discussed in the lead-up to town meeting. If passed, the new regulation would limit people to have no more than two parties a month with more than 50 people, nor host five large events per year without town approval.
Affordable housing and putting guardrails around development are throughlines throughout the warrant.
Resident Lucy Dahl has put forward a petition article that would instill limits on short-term rentals, such as AirBNBs. The proposal is similar to an article on the West Tisbury stating that: warrant rentals could not be rented for more than eight weeks per year, there would be a minimum rental period of seven days, and owners could not use them for commercial events. A property owner would also only be allowed to rent one property for short-term rentals.
Enforcement of such a bylaw has been thrown into question after a judge in a Nantucket case said that restrictions on short-term rentals should be done via zoning.
Edgartown does have several zoning articles on the warrant. One would prohibit fractionally owned properties held in residential districts. Edgartown, along with other Island towns, is concerned that companies, such as Pacaso, would scoop up residential homes for commercial uses similar to time shares.
Another bylaw would limit accessory dwellings to 1,250 square feet and in a proposal akin to West Tisbury’s bylaw, another article would cap gross floor area for residential buildings to 12,000 square feet.
Another proposal would place a new limit on the total amount of impervious surface allowed on a property. The bylaw at town meeting would, if approved, limit a lot’s impervious surfaces to 20 per cent of the property or 3,000 square feet, whichever is greater. Properties with stormwater management systems could be allowed to go higher.
All of the zoning amendments on the warrant would need a two-thirds majority vote and are designed to aid the Island’s housing crisis without putting overly burdensome regulations on owners, said Lucy Morrison, chair of the planning board.
“Zoning is definitely a big piece of the puzzle,” she said. “But it’s a delicate balance with our environmentally sensitive stuff, too, so we tried to sort of move the need on both at the same time.”
A second petition article on the warrant could generate some noise on town meeting floor. Sara Piazza submitted a ban on commercial gas powered leaf blowers that use two- or four-cycle gas engines.
Ms. Piazza said the incessant racket from landscaping companies cleaning leaves off properties has become unbearable. Nantucket has also banned commercial use of leaf blowers and Ms. Piazza said she’s talked to landscapers who said it wouldn’t affect their business.
“We need to get beyond the concept of having Edgartown being a leaf free town,” she said. “That’s ridiculous.”
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