In a narrow vote after a half hour of debate, voters passed the transfer of development rights bylaw at the first night of spring Town Meeting on Tuesday.

The bylaw, as explained by Planning Board Chairman George Barrett, "would allow a property owner to transfer their rights to develop property to another location and preserve that piece of property with a conservation restriction."

The land owner(s) could make money and preserve critical environmental space by selling his development rights in an area that would be difficult to build, to a land owner in a more residential part of town

"What this does for the town is promote development in areas of the town that are already developed, the infrastructure is already in place so it doesn't add additional cost to the town to maintain that," Barrett said. "It gives us development we've seen but with the added benefit of preserving lands for the future."

Wareham resident Ed Pacewicz, who has previously raised concerns with this bylaw, delivered his remarks on Tuesday night.

"TDR's in other towns are setup to protect the environment while preserving quality of life for residents. The same cannot be said for this one, in fact it does neither," he said.

Pacewicz's main area of concerns were the failure of the Planning Board to conduct a real estate market analysis to see if the bylaw was needed, the 5,000 square-foot minimum lot size in receiving parcels and the supposed density bonuses within the bylaws.

Resident Ervin L. Russell made a motion to push the bylaw for further study, saying, "It poses too many unanswered questions at this time and we need more of an opportunity to look at the long term ramifications."

Wareham resident Dave Walton was against putting the bylaw on hold.

"What the town needs to exist and continue is middle income housing, light industry and transportation," he said. "We need to invite people into our town and make this town grow and this is one way to do it."

Barrett said the board has been looking at this bylaw since 2006 and Selectmen Peter Teitelbaum said the town has been studying potential transfer of development rights bylaws since 1999.

Barrett also said in regards to Pacewicz's comments that all the density bonuses had been previously taken out of the bylaw and that projects in town are subject to a public hearing process where all abutters are notified and are open to local input.

Teitelbaum echoed Barrett's statement, saying it is not a fault in the bylaw but the very job of the Planning Board to use their discretion on these applications.

He also said of Pacewicz's comments on the minimum lot sizes, "Good, clean, new residential development on a 5,000 square foot lot is certainly preferable to a lot of the blight we see in town."

Both the Selectmen and the Finance Committee unanimously supported the article. Finance Committee Vice Chairman Marilyn Donahue said, "It gives Wareham a tool to protect undeveloped open space," and "conventional zoning has failed to prevent and is often the cause of suburban sprawl in Massachusetts."

Needing a two-thirds majority, the vote passed by 14 votes, 166 to 76, at the stroke of 10 p.m. to close the first night of Town Meeting.