HANSON – Town officials have reached a consensus on the need for finding alternative, lower-cost methods of providing street-lighting for safety, especially at street intersections.
The discussion —marred by technical difficulties caused echo on the audio feed and rendered useless a virtual connection with Planning Board Chair Joseph Campbell — hinged on changes to street-lighting at the Meadow Brook subdivision on County Road.
“Historically, the town was paying to light all kinds of public ways, like cul de-sacs, and then did some kind of a little ‘come to Jesus’ kind of a thing in the late ’90s/early 2000s, and said, ‘Why are we paying to light all of these streets?’” Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said, “Many of them were shut off. I can’t say for [certain that] all of them were shut off, but the vast majority of them were shut off.”
She added that the town is in no financial position to simply decide to turn them back on and the town would pay for them.
“I think that’s where it becomes a problem,” she said.
“That’s why I’m here,” said Town Planner Anthony DeFrias. “This road is not at a point where these street lights are going to go in.”
That’s what brings the town to place the onus on developers or coming to another alternative arrangement instead of getting to the point where the town would be getting more street lights that then get turned off.
The Planning Board has already voted its approval for the new subdivision, which proposes street lights, DeFrias added, nodding to the town requirement for street lights in general and the subdivision in question
Past discussions centered on the unknowns concerning cost in relation to streetlights.
“Is that the board’s position?” he asked about the concerns. “Because, if it is, obviously it’s in conflict with the subdivision control law and, if that’s the case, now’s the time for us to talk to this developer about coming back to the Planning Board and ask for a waiver for that section and propose some alternative street-lighting.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if the town would have to foot the bill for the street lights.
“Once the rule is accepted, it will be the town’s responsibility to pay for those streetlights,” he said.
Select Board member Ann Rein asked if there were plans to establish a homeowners association in the development, suggesting that such a group could be expected to shoulder the cost through fees. She pointed to Stone Bridge as such a development.
DeFrias said he believes there is some language toward establishing one.
“But there typically is and there hasn’t been one occasion when that doesn’t even come to fruition or its an ineffective arrangement,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
DeFrias said he has done subdivisions in other communities where, instead of a street light, the town went away from street lights, going with an alternative carriage lamps at the end of driveways, paid for by the homeowners. The only street lights would be put in where the subdivision road meets a main street for safety.
“I think that’’s what we’d want to do where it meets the main drag, which would be the case in this,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“What we do for one, we have to do for everybody,” Select Board member Joe Weeks said. “If we’re going to be spending taxpayer money, we have to do it so it’s fair and equitable for everybody because it’s everybody’s money.”
He asked it would be possible to switch to an alternative power source, such as solar?
DeFrias said that was another option worth exploring. The towns’ subdivision control law has not been updated since 2012, including newer engineering standards, drainage requirements and street lights.
In other business, the Select Board referred an amendment to the zoning by laws proposed by the Planning Board for review and on which to conduct hearings.
Town Planner Anthony DeFrias told the board that a zoning bylaw discussion was to center on a new battery energy storage project approved at Town Meeting last year, but “shot down” by the state attorney general’s office.
“They felt it was two issues that didn’t go [together],” he said. “One had to do, basically, with language that we have that they felt was in conflict with the Waltham case, which is regarding solar – it’s become a crucial case regarding solar. Basically, in a nutshell, there was an access road from one town into Waltham for solar.”
Waltham lost a legal battle over the issue, being found in non-compliance with the Dover Act, which exempts agricultural, religious, and educational uses from certain zoning restrictions.
“We had some language in here that the AG’s office didn’t like, so they turned down the bylaw,” he said. “I’m working with town counsel. We’re going to revise the language so that it meets with what the AG’s office will be comfortable with.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if the issue came down literally to that one tweak.
“That is just a draft at this point,” DeFrias said of the adjustment she referred to and asked the Select Board to consider the change. The Planning Board had given it to the Select Board for that consideration, passing it on to the Planning Board to schedule a public hearing and finalize language with input from Town Counsel before it is returned to the Select Board for placing the issue before the October Town Meeting.
“It’s a draft copy, there’s probably going to be even more changes to it, but this is the starting point,” he said.