Marion Affordable Housing Trust member Susan Miller learned a lot during her participation in a recent South Coast Affordable Housing forum, as expressed during the June 13 public meeting of the AHT.

            “This was an eye-opener,” said Miller, seeing that the City of New Bedford is a focal point of ARPA funding.

            New Bedford was to receive $63,000,000 that the city would use to create a building coordinator to look at new properties. The aim is to buy up old buildings, including former factories to be converted into residential buildings.

            “They said, if we get this housing, then we’re not going to deal with the homeless problem. They were very clear about that with the New Bedford group,” said Miller.

            The state held up Brewster Woods’ 30 affordable rental apartments on Cape Cod and the development’s “whole community approach” as a model for other communities.

            “You see that with this one development, that they got money from all different sources,” said Miller, adding that the focus there is on helping people with disabilities. “Also, that was the first group that I heard anyone saying they want to help out the veterans.”

            A supportive housing development for the elderly in Plympton has also been held up as an example for communities.

            Miller came away from the forum with the distinct impression that the Town of Marion needs a full-time grant writer. “It’s a big task,” she said.

            Major municipal construction projects facing the town have experienced grant writers on staff preoccupied.

            Miller’s research on Community Preservation proposals yielded information on communities that give a discount or help, including nearby Middleborough, which offers a discount to ages 65 and over (as does Cambridge.) However, said Miller, the other towns rely on federal, low-income housing grants. “You have to be within the federal-poverty guidelines,” she said.

            The state Association for Community Action assistance helps eligible households pay water and sewer bills. “They break it down, the household, the income, gross income for the month and if you can qualify,” said Miller, then it becomes another means of assistance.

            Miller also spoke about green energy and the Great American Rain Barrel program. She said the Mattapoisett Agricultural Commission held a now-completed program for residences (including those in Marion and Rochester.)

            AHT member Nancy McFadden said she became more cognizant at Town Meeting as to what the Community Preservation Committee does.

            AHT member Norm Hills explained that the Community Preservation Act is funded by a 2% tax that the town voted long before he lived in Marion, then the program expanded and has funded many projects with CPA funds.

            Chairperson Terri Santos noted that the AHT has $8,000 in its budget.

            An April 24 letter from former Select Board member John Waterman on the Affordable/Inclusionary Zoning Bylaw was discussed.

            “A lot of this is not accurate,” said Santos of Waterman’s letter. Santos said she is “on the same page” as Hills, who disagrees with Waterman’s criticisms of the 20-year bylaw.

            Hills pointed out that no permit has been pulled for the Heron Cove Estates development, so the town only has conditional protection to refuse a developer’s 40B application until it’s pulled. Eileen Marum, attending the meeting, said that without that permit pulled, Marion is not in a “safe harbor.”

            Hills encouraged the trust to work with the Planning Board, and Santos suggested the trust will want to speak for itself in its response to Waterman’s letter.

            The next meeting of the Marion Affordable Housing Trust is scheduled for Tuesday, July 11, at 6:00 pm.

Marion Affordable Housing Trust

By Mick Colageo

            All the “meat and potatoes” have not changed on a site plan and special-permit application for a recreational marijuana establishment that would be located at 621 County Road, according to the applicant’s lawyer, Jonathan Silverstein.

            The Rochester Planning Board on Tuesday night did not take any action, as project representative Phil Cordeiro of Allen & Major Associates is still working with peer-review engineer Ken Motta on some of the finer details. Specifically, the board awaits Motta’s written input on the traffic plans, which Cordeiro said will not have a significant impact.

            Planning Board Chairman Arnold Johnson said the board will be ready at its July 11 meeting to vote on a special permit that would allow for marijuana use at 621 County Road. The site-plan review-approval process should occur at the board’s first meeting in August.

            This process will pave the way for a 4,500-square-foot, mixed-use commercial building that will become the first pot establishment in the Tri-Town area and located by the Wareham border.

            Cordeiro gave a presentation on some of the more recently proposed changes meant to minimize the impact on abutters to the north and south of the property. Among the changes is a proposed 6-foot stockade fence on a 3-foot berm, creating a 9-foot barrier.

            Planning Board members questioned if the fence would block the view of the road for vehicles exiting the property.

            “There is nothing worse than pulling out into traffic,” Planning Board member Ben Bailey said.

            Cordeiro said he would continue to work with Motta on that issue, perhaps tweaking it so the fence only reaches a 4-foot height as it approaches the main road. Cordeiro said sidewalk deficiencies in that area will also be improved.

            Megan’s Organic Market Rochester LLC is owned in part by two Massachusetts residents but is a California-based company.

            Talks with the Planning Board started last year, but an agreement was reached with the Select Board last fall.

            The site-plan review and special permit are the final steps toward construction of the marijuana shop, which will share a site with another small business.

            In other business, the Planning Board agreed to work with Zoning Commissioner Paul Boucher on an in-law apartment bylaw.

            Boucher said many communities have such a bylaw, and it often protects the abutters of these properties. He said some applicants in town have a proposed, 1,200-square-foot, in-law apartment, which appears to be much bigger than its intended purpose.

            “That’s a house for God’s sake,” he said, offering 750 square feet as a reasonable size.

            Boucher said some communities have rules stating that a relative must live in the in-law apartment, which he said is impossible to enforce.

            The next meeting of the Rochester Planning Board was not scheduled upon adjournment.

Rochester Planning Board

By Jeffrey D. Wagner

            Terrence and Laura Hartford can now step off their deck and onto their own property after the Marion Zoning Board of Appeals voted to grant them a variance immediately following a June 22 public hearing.

            The Hartfords applied for a variance from Section 230-5.1 of the Marion Zoning Bylaws to allow the conveyance of an abutting parcel at 62 Water Street, also described as Map 16, Lot 135B, to the applicant’s lot (135C) at 70 Water Street to remove a hardship of trespass.

            Tom Ryan, the applicants’ attorney, described “a jagged boundary line,” harkening back to a 1999 Approval Not Required maneuver that “took some land from Lot 135B, giving it to 135C in order to build an extension.”

            The existing deck, Ryan said, was built right to the boundary line. “Every time my clients step off of the deck, they’re technically trespassing,” he noted with some humor. Ryan said this has gone on ever since the 1999 construction without any sort of right-of-way or access agreement. He considered the situation “a major hardship” for the applicants.

            As ZBA member Margie Baldwin would point out, both neighbors are shielded from view of this situation by either the house or trees at a distance and a fence.

            The goal, Ryan said, was to establish a more-natural boundary line between the two lots, one that would run along an existing fence marked on the site plan. The plan would not alter the frontage facing Water Street.

            Robert Braman, a Marion-based land surveyor, said the parcel that the applicant will take from Lot 135B to Lot 135C measures approximately 605 square feet. That loss of land from Lot 135B will leave in excess of 1 acre, the minimum required when that lot saw an addition to the house.

            Ryan said the abutters, whose property is the landing point when the Hartfords step off their deck, actually suggested the proposed plan.

            ZBA member Dana Nilson asked if there is any plan for addition(s) to the house that would require future setback variances. Laura Hartford said there are plans to add a dormer to the back of the house and a kitchen to the front side, neither of which would alter the footprint.

            Marion Building Commissioner Bob Grillo identified the case as “one of the rare circumstances where this variance is making it more conforming. It’s not conforming, but it’s making a bad situation better,” he said.

            Grillo also pointed out that if the ZBA did not grant the requested variance, the applicant could file an application for a special permit based on the fact the deck already sits within inches of the lot line. The deck, as Baldwin also pointed out, had been installed prior to the sale of the abutting lot.

            ZBA Chairperson Cynthia Callow sought clarification from Ryan as to whether easements are an option, to which Ryan confirmed they “always” are. But he said they do not want a situation in the future in which an attorney could challenge an easement created by attorneys in this case. Ryan called a variance “the cleanest possible way” to ensure the future of the proposed arrangement.

            Based on a “lengthy packet” given the ZBA by former Town Counsel Jon Witten, Nilson and Baldwin admitted struggle with the hardship as asserted, a prerequisite of a variance. Nilson quoted Witten’s document disqualifying resale value as a legitimate hardship in a variance application. “I don’t understand the hardship here,” he said.

            Ryan said the hardship is not based on a deterrent to the house’s resale value but on “breaking the law every time they step off the deck.”

            “If the Hatfields and the McCoys get the land, then we’re in trouble, aren’t we,” said Callow.

            ZBA member Will Tifft expressed concern that the abutters’ approval was not documented, but Grillo said the associated ANR plan required the transfer of property, implying the abutter’s approval. Ryan said the abutters had planned to attend the hearing and apologized for their absence.

            Baldwin and Callow called it a “bad division” of property that would be made a little better and less nonconforming.

            With that, the public hearing was closed. Deliberation quickly gave way to a unanimous vote of approval.

            With the resignation of Dr. Ed Hoffer from the ZBA, Dani Engwert became a full, voting member, and on June 22, alternate member Joan Gardner voted on the Hartford public hearing. The ZBA needs a new alternate member.

            In discussion regarding CPTC on-demand training, Callow asked the membership for feedback while noting that Marion can determine the focal point of needed training.

            Callow introduced Assistant Treasurer/Collector Daryl Hope Cook, who filled in for regular board administrator Anne Marie Tobia.

            Without scheduled public hearings, the next meeting of the Marion Zoning Board of Appeals was not set upon adjournment.

Marion Zoning Board of Appeals

By Mick Colageo