Our View: Harwich Town Meeting

On Monday, Harwich voters will tackle a 62-article annual town meeting warrant, a hefty task that may be lifted somewhat by the addition this year of electronic voting devices. Used for several years in other towns, the devices can expedite voting by eliminating hand counting and ensuring a more accurate tally.

 Many of the articles are fairly routine — town and school budgets, capital expenditures, zoning measures — but there are a good number of potentially controversial requests that are likely to keep the session lively.

 Several of the dozen or so petition articles that appear on warrant should be defeated. Article 28, requiring town meeting approval of discretionary decisions on Chapter 40B housing projects, would virtually guarantee that none get approved. It would create unnecessary bureaucracy and may not be legal. Likewise, Article 29 is vague and would not only delay but potentially kill many town projects as well as private developments. Article 52, which among other things seeks to require town meeting approval before housing trust money can be spent, would hamstring the trust’s ability to move fast and not wait months for town meeting before acquiring land or existing structures for affordable housing — one of the major reasons the trust was created. We recommend that it not be approved.

Article 52, which seeks to prohibit multifamily housing in much of the town, is clearly directed at blocking affordable housing projects and should be defeated. 

Article 50, a petition to prohibit individuals from serving as a voting member on more than one “major town board” is unnecessary and intrudes on the select board’s authority to set town policy. It should be defeated.

 Article 31, a home rule petition to allow the town to regulate fertilizer use, should be approved. Having the ability to set local rules on fertilizer use makes sense in a region where protecting coastal water quality is a priority. Likewise, the town should have a local tree bylaw; Chatham adopted one recently and it’s been key in helping review development projects. We also support Article 47, which would ban loud and obnoxious gasoline-powered leaf blowers.

 Another petition measure that deserves support is Article 15, which calls for evaluation of future uses and potential acquisition of the Marceline property off Route 124. A key parcel that has the potential for commercial development, its future could have a major impact on the town. Studying its potential for, say, affordable or attainable housing or some other use that serves the needs of the community rather than enriching a developer, has merit.

 We support replacement of the Monomoy Regional Middle School roof and believe a metal roof will have a longer and more resilient life than an asphalt roof, which select board members have championed. The estimated $315,000 savings an asphalt roof would provide seems to us nickel-and-diming the $11.8 million project and potentially endangering state reimbursement. Together with the current siding and window replacement work now happening at the school, the proper roof replacement will extend the life of the structure and save on future maintenance costs.

 We also support the use of community preservation funds for exterior renovations to the former West Harwich Baptist Church. More problematic is the request to contribute $100,000 in community preservation funds to each of two affordable housing developments in Chatham. While the community preservation committee’s position is that the projects will create housing opportunities for folks throughout the region — including Harwich residents — the select board and finance committee oppose the measure. This, again, is a shortsighted approach; local towns have been contributing community preservation funds to various housing developments outside of their own community for some time (Harwich contributed to the Pennrose development at the former Cape Cod Five headquarters in Orleans). All of those projects help ease the region-wide housing crisis, which knows no town borders.