Lee — Although all 13 warrant articles passed during Lee’s March 20 Town Meeting, some voters in the minority voiced concern over the last five measures related to zoning changes, new bylaws they say may alter the town’s vibe.
At the meeting, the town approved what will essentially be a new Lee Youth Association home, including a pre-school facility and gymnasium. The measure supports a 99-year lease on a Maple Street tract west of the high school’s baseball field, and the facility will be constructed at the organization’s expense, but with public use.
A good-sized crowd also passed: the purchase of about 18 acres of land on Off Landers Road, enabling the town to own all of the watershed property surrounding the reservoir that serves as its water source; the purchase of about 27 acres of land at 35 Tamarack Avenue, with that property connecting to two other town-owned parcels, making one contiguous tract for future use; the creation of a five-member Affordable Housing Trust tasked with collecting funds that will provide for and preserve local affordable housing; the creation of a five-member Parks and Recreation Commission to oversee the town’s parks and trails; the appointment of a Zoning Administrator who will stand in the place of the Zoning Board of Appeals that has had difficulty acquiring a quorum at meetings, stalling its permit decisions; the reappropriation of unused funds earmarked for bridge repairs to the Department of Public Works for paving and equipment; and the payment of invoices that were left unpaid in prior years.
Lee’s books now incorporate new zoning bylaws aimed at increasing new housing construction, including multifamily projects. Those regulations include relocating some zoning tables and increasing maximum building heights from three to four stories; increasing the maximum units allowable on a lot from four units to eight units; relaxing overlay district building requirement to facilitate reusing large, older structures; and streamlining existing text.
Thirty-year Lee resident Gail Ceresia opposed most of the zoning provisions for increasing building height and density, actions she said will possibly alter “some of the vistas that you see as you’re driving into town” and changing “the look” of the community.
“My general concern is that we are changing the nature of our small town to a city-like area,” she said. “I moved here because I wanted to live in a small town.”
Longtime resident Caroline Young also voted “no” on the building-height article. She said the increase in allowable height—in terms of building stories—had been considered by the town before, with the issue being “very controversial.”
For Ceresia, the increase in the number of allowable units per lot from four units to eight “is just going to make it extremely populated.”
“Our main road is already, it’s slow, basically, to move through town,” she said. “I just want it to stay a small town.”
