Lanesborough Selectmen See Special Town Meeting Articles.
Town Manager Paul Sieloff walks the Board of Selectmen through articles for the special town meeting in November.
Before Town Manager Paul Sieloff walked the Selectmen through the nine potential town meeting articles Monday, Planning Board member Jamie Szczepaniak went over the zoning changes that will be on the town warrant.
Szczepaniak said town meeting will be asked to accept new zoning that will expand the business district from Bull Hill Road along Route 7 to Laston Field.
"By zoning this business, it will make it a little bit easier to have a village center maybe down the road walk in shops," he said. "There is a lot of open real estate on Route 7 on both sides and this could give us that village center feel."
Szczepaniak said ultimately the Planning Board wants to extend the district to the town line, however, it wants to gauge public opinion before making such a drastic move.
Selectman Henry Sayers suggested updating the zoning in the entire district at once but Szczepaniak said the planners still have to work out the new zoning and want to phase the expansion.
Selectman Robert Ericson said he was hesitant to support the extension and wanted to make sure the town still had some control over what businesses can do in the district.
"This town looks like a good residential property for people and the fact that we have beautiful hillsides and it doesn't look like crap," he said. "Other towns have abandoned businesses and dilapidated properties."
The Selectmen unanimously agreed to approve the item and the Planning Board will have to hold a public hearing.
Szczepaniak added that there will be another zoning article that would create a solar overlay that would dictate where solar panels can be placed. All town properties would be included in the overlay.
Sieloff added that there will be another warrant that will ask town meeting to accept portions of Hobomack Avenue, Iroquois Street, Lacona Street, Bangor Street, Umbagog Street, Roanoke Street, Squanto Road George Street as public ways.
"This should be a win-win for us and could help us get more in Chapter 90," he said. "These are all very small roads."
Voters at the special town meeting also will handle the question of whether or not Williamstown and Lanesborough elementary districts should join together with Mount Greylock Regional as a single K-12 regional school district. The so-called "tri-district" is made up of the junior/senior high Mount Greylock and its two feeder schools, Williamstown and Lanesborough.
School and town officials have talked for years about regionalizing but the issue was put aside to concentrate on the renovation and addition project at Mount Greylock. With that under way, regionalization has moved to the top with scheme that would allow the towns to continue to have more control over spending at their separate schools while still creating a single school district and committee to streamline its governing structure take advantage of efficiencies.
Sieloff said two articles having to do with joining the mosquito control district, an article that would allow the town to sell an abandoned part of Quarry Road, an article to purchase a tractor and an article that would increase the local marijuana tax from 2 percent to 3 percent will also be on the warrant.
Town attorney Jeffrey Blake suggested placing a moratorium article on the warrant that would allow the town to not act on recreational marijuana retail and growing facilities applications until December of next year.
"It's quick, it's drafted already and it allows you to put a freeze on the April 1 applications," he said. "You will be able to take time over the winter before the annual town meeting to figure out exactly what you want to do."
Sayers suggested not placing the moratorium on the town meeting because he feared that it would discourage possible businesses from coming into town.
"There other towns going through with this and if we delay this we could lose out on money," he said. "My idea is to push forward with it get the tax money and the benefits. I want to be the first instead of the last."
Blake said by not doing anything and with the uncertainty surrounding the coming state regulations the town may lose control over where a facility can be established and how many can be established.
Blake said the other possible route would be to hold a special town meeting before April when applications can come before the town, and pass recreational marijuana bylaws.
Szczepaniak said the Planning Board already did some of this groundwork.
"We have touched on it and we have an idea of how we think it should go but there were so many unknowns at the state level," he said. "We just shoved it away for a while but it is on our radar and we have the foundation."
The Selectmen agreed to try to push a bylaw through and have a special town meeting before April 1 in order to pass new bylaws.
Tags: regionalization, special town meeting, zoning,
