Minutes -- 3/06/08 LAND USE TASK FORCE
(Amended 3/08/08)
Members : Mike Kopczynski, Rick Lent, Ted Perry, Kathy Sferra and Kathleen Willis.
Board of Selectmen Representative : Jason Robert
Guest: Margaret Lynch
We reviewed once again the Committee's charges, in order to develop a viable work plan and to spend most of this evening on the methodology to accomplish this plan.
Rick Lent had met with Steve Dungan, Chair of the Board of Selectmen to review
The background to the charge of our committee. No specific date has been set for the conclusion of our task, but we are tentatively aiming for 12 months, or more prior to any presentations to a Town Meeting. Mike Kopczysnki will arrange for periodic reports to be included on the Town Web site.
Margie Lynch covered in quite some detail the Municipal Land Use Survey Results and discussed the major needs of the various Town Departments. It was a difficult task to quantify, though several major needs (i.e. affordable housing) appeared quite obvious. This survey did an excellent job in cataloguing many of the land use needs, but made no attempt to determine an order of priority. Though almost all Stow's future plns will involve to a greater or lesser degree the Pompositicut School, the Land Use Survey did not address land needs for the school, since there are still many decisions to be made before finalization./
Our committee agreed to study in depth the perceived land needs for Safety, Schools, Recreation, Council on Aging, Housing, Open Space and Agriculture, and committee members were tentatively assigned to do the research on one or more of these groups. Final assignments will be decided at our next meeting. It appeared that our efforts are to be defining specific needs of the various groups in the Town. Other area such as the Rail Trail and 40B housing will also be considered.
The committee will attempt to update the extent of the various needs , and to detail those with the most urgent needs. Jason Robart stated that perhaps one approach might to determine the absolute needs, and then determine the associated land possibilities, as opposed to finding the land and then attempting to determine which needs might be filled with such land.
The primary focus of the committee's work, as clarified by Jason, is to focus on the comprehensive analysis of:
Town-owned land
Properties currently under Chapter 61
Large privately-owned parcels and all parcels adjacent to town-owned land.
Land under conservation restriction.
We discussed that it might be best to focus first on everything, but the privately owned land category since that is the most difficult category.
Budget requirements were discussed, and it was agreed to request from the Board of Selectmen a drawing account of $10,000, with no present indication of actual expenses, but this would provide some money in the slim event of necessary funds for legal advice, for example. This motion was made by Kathy Sferra and seconded by Ted Perry. It was passed unanimously.
One of the item for the next meeting would be to discuss how to plan for a population build out of 7,000 to 10,000 to 15,000 over the next 20 years, as one of the ways to put boundaries how we define the critical needs facing the town.
We also began to look at elements of the work plan. We will discuss this in greater detail next meeting.
Our next meeting is scheduled for March 20th, at 7pm, at which time we hope to vote in the new Associate Members. The meeting adjourned at 9:05pm
Respectfully submitted
Edward R. Perry
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