Belmont Town Meeting Preview: Demo Delay Dashed Again As Session Comes to Close

In a mix of frustration and weariness, the 2013 Town Meeting – which is scheduled to come to a close tonight, Wednesday, June 5 – will not take up two controversial warrant articles a majority of approximately 290 Town Meeting representatives were eagerly anticipating to take up when the annual legislative gather began in the chill of April.

The long-promised zoning bylaw restricting the demolition of nearly 210 "significant" residential properties for up to six month will be tabled tonight said Mark Paolillo, chairman of the Belmont Board of Selectmen at the end of Monday night's Town Meeting, June 3.

In addition, the snow removal article that many expected to begin a wide ranging debate concerning its "good neighbor" virtues versus the personal freedom to leave snow on the sidewalk outside your abode will also be removed from the agenda.

By setting aside the pair of time-consuming articles, tonight's Town Meeting – which will finish the budgetary and financial portion of the budget then move to complete the remaining articles from the Special Town Meeting adjourned on May 29 – will in all likelihood be the final night of this year's gathering. 

The articles most likely to produce a debate will be those covering the $1.2 million of Capital Budget Committee recommendations – including $19,500 that will be "up for grabs" through floor amendments (it is the amount set aside to have purchase an electronic voting system that is now being bought through two anonymous donations) which Capital Budget's chair Anne Marie Mahoney would like to see used to repair town building envelopes – and the only citizen's petition to halt for a year the demolition of single-family homes so multi-family structures can be built on the lot. 

While the snow removal article is being pushed back to the next Special Town Meeting – "We can wait on this one since it's not likely the town will have much snow until a Special," said Town Moderator Mike Widmer – due to time constraints (Belmont's Town Clerk Ellen Cushman budgets for five to six dates for the yearly Town Meeting; tonight's will be the seventh assemblage including both annual and special sessions), the Demolition Delay Article appeared doomed months before representatives had a chance to discuss it.

"Like a blood bath on the page"

It is not as if the proposed zoning bylaw to delay the issuance of a demolition permit on 214 predominant homes for six months – commercial and municipal buildings were not included – is an idea whose time hasn't come (most cities and towns surrounding Belmont has such laws), but rather the execution in forming the article that was brought to the fore after the sudden destruction of the historic Waverley Congregation Church in January.

This article now suffers the same fate as last year's delay article which was withdrawn after its sponsor, the town's Historic District Commission, determined Town Meeting would not support the proposal that was written without cooperation from other town committees and groups. 

After discussing for more than six months over a proposed article, disagreements between the Historic District Commission and the Belmont Planning Board on the length of the delay (the Historic Commission sought a year delay) and whether property owners of the 214 homes would be allowed, under the Planning Board's urging, to "opt-out" of the list, nearly saw the creation of dueling articles. 

In a last minute compromise, the Commission and the Board agreed to a measure with a shortened delay of six months without the "opt-out" provision. 

But by the time the article was submitted, it was written into the Town Meeting's Warrant before it could be critiqued by the Bylaw Review Committee, a requirement under the town's regulations. The Review Committee and the Town Counsel, George Hall, discovered a series of irregularities including the inclusion of the homes list which they determined could not be placed into the bylaws. 

But since the Article was already in the Warrant and could not be rewritten, the Bylaw Review Committee submitted its own amendment to significantly alter the measure – including giving the Historic District Commission the sole responsibility in placing and taking out homes on the master list of significant properties – which the Planning Board and others said they could not support. 

Into the gap came the Belmont Board of Selectmen which moved its own version of the article that incorporated the concerns from the District Commission, Planning Board and Bylaw Committee and giving them the authority to approve what properties would be placed or removed from the list as part of authorizing powers.

On top of all that, three Town Meeting members had submitted several amendments to the article – including bringing back the "opt-out" measure – that would need to be voted on before the final hybrid version of the article could be brought before representatives for a vote. 

But after taking into account the myriad of changes and amendments – the article requires 43 screens to explain – Widmer and Selectmen Chairman Mark Paolillo both felt the measure had become so "compromised" that it should be pulled for the warrant. 

"We received a revision (of the article) from (Town Counsel) George Hall that was so red with revisions that it looked like a blood bath on the page," Paolillo told Belmont Patch on Monday. 

"How could we expect Town Meeting to follow what has been going on? It really was the only thing we could do with the measure right now," said Paolillo.

"We need a (demolition delay) bylaw; you saw what happened at Waverley Square. But you just can't have such an important addition to our bylaws that's so compromised."