HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - PB - 11/09/2016 Planning Board Meeting APPROVED MINUTES 1 of 2
November 9,2016
COHASSET PLANNING BOARD MINUTES
DATE: NOVEMBER 9, 2016
TIME: 7:00 PM
PLACE: COHASSET TOWN HALL—BASEMENT MEETING ROOM
41 HIGHLAND AVENUE, COHASSET,MA 02025
Board Members Present: Clark H. Brewer, Chair (CB)
David Drinan,Vice Chair (DD)
Charles A. Samuelson(CS)
Board Members Absent: Brian Frazier, Clerk (BF)
Michael Dickey,Liaison to CPC (MD)
Erik Potter,Associate Member(EP)
Recording Secretary Present: Jo-Ann M. Pilczak
Others in attendance:
• Selectmen: McCarthy, Keniley, Schubert
• Lynne Schwandt, Citizen At Large
• J.Patrick Kennedy,Conservation Commission
• Christopher Senior,Town Manager
CALLED TO ORDER AT: 7:10 P.M.
7:10 P.M. MASTER PLAN DISCUSSION
(CB) gave a recap of Master Plan efforts beginning with the 2004 Master Plan through current Master Plan Effort.
Components of current Phase I deliverables from MAPC:
• Open House Visioning Session in March
• Survey with 11%response; binder of raw data; "Visioning our Master Plan"report with Appendix
• RFP's
Now at the point of having a funding request at the November 28, 2016 Special Town Meeting to begin Phase 11.
Overall strategy was to get funding in this cycle so work with consultant and Cohasset Master Plan Committee
(CMPC)could begin in early 2017.
(CB) asked (CS) to discuss the top 10 ideas he had in his Mariner Article. (CS) - the Mariner asked him to do an
editorial which he did as a private citizen. Some questions he thought should be considered: What is Cohasset's
policy on growth and new development? Do we want to encourage growth? Do we want Cohasset to just grow
organically? What is the character of the Town? There are a lot of things we could do in Cohasset, but they might
be very expensive —so things should be prioritized in terms of whether the Town can even afford to do them. His
priorities: Maintain property values; maintain the quality of the schools; make sure public safety services are up
to snuff. Also, there is no legal Master Plan deadline—does not have to do it all at once—could take incremental
approach. Should pull together all the pieces and plans of the various Town departments and make sure all groups
are working off the same set of assumptions. Also has to be an education process for citizens about processes and
procedures of all departments etc. (CB) - Visioning Session and survey do a good job in providing the overall
philosophy of some of the things that are important to the Master Plan that can be worked on over time.
(DD)—Visioning session made sense to have a process where you invite the Town to collect diverse opinion and
information from a large variety of constituencies — Board did not want a CMPC that was too unwieldy so it
focused on creating a committee of about 13 people with certain representation from ongoing work in Town. Board
will give the charge to that committee and ask them what more they want to know — right now there is a lot of
Planning Board Meeting APPROVED MINUTES 2 of 2
November 9,2016
information to into the CMPC and the challenge will be to have it not be bottlenecked—the information has to be
moved along.
(CB)Board has not quite worked out how the CMPC will operate in terms of meetings,how it will interact with the
Planning Board etc. But, want to have a road map so the plan and the activities of the CMPC are relevant to the
problems we have right now and address the long term issues as part of the full Master Plan.
Jack Keniley—it is hard to get started when doing a big plan like this —making a list of short term and long term
issues. Master Plan is deals with physical stuff—can lay out a physical plan and look at the pieces. Do field trips
to other towns and study their approach and bylaws etc.
Example: Rt. 3A issues — the Rt.3A Corridor study done by CPTC provides a lot of information and useful
remedies and could be a useful goal for Rt. 3A.
Long Range Planning Committee is looking at residential parcels in town to see which parcels are developable and
which are not to determine how many potential students could be added to the rolls over time as the parcels are
developed — this helps with long term forecasting. That data will be available and can be shared over all the
committees. Long Range Planning also will help with determining how much free cash the Town has and how to
split it between the General Fund and the schools. Long Range Planning will also build a model for doing the whole
budget.
Patrick Kennedy—CMPC has to put regionalization on the list of things to address—in 10 or 20 yrs. It might not be
efficient for Town to provide these municipal services as they do today—regionalization may be necessary.
Anticipate first CMPC meeting to be in early December after Town Meeting.
Keniley suggested that having a physical map of the Town for everyone would help coordinate stuff.
MOTION: By Member Drinan to adjourn at 8:20 P.M.
SECOND: Member Samuelson
VOTE: 3-0 MOTION CARRIES
NEXT MEETING: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016 AT 7:00 P.M.
MINUTES APPROVED: CLARK A. BREWER, CHAIRMAN
DATE: NOVEMBER 16,2016