Special Town Meeting delayed yet again

Feb 16, 2021

The Special Town Meeting at which voters will weigh in on a proposed Hospitality, Recreation, and Entertainment overlay district has been delayed yet again until Saturday, April 10. The meeting will be held at noon at Spillane Field at the high school.

Town Moderator Claire Smith said that she chose to delay the meeting due to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. While the number of cases is decreasing, Smith said she still doesn’t think it is safe for a large number of people to gather. 

The meeting was first scheduled for Dec. 19 before being moved to Jan. 16 and later delayed to March 13. 

A previous version of the proposal was set to encompass about one quarter of the town’s landmass, including the roughly 275-acre property on which the Notos Group had hoped to build its racetrack and casino, a venture that seems to have been dropped. The district has been cut down to about 963 acres.

The district would allow a variety of uses including hotels, conference centers, multiple family dwellings, hospitals and riding stables. All projects would have to include an “indoor and/or outdoor commercial recreation facility or place of amusement and residential uses.”

The district still requires projects on at least 100-acre parcels and would require all proposals to go through a special permit process with the Planning Board, which gives the town a fair amount of say about what is built.

As a zoning change, the proposal would require a ⅔ vote to be approved.