A critical town board has been operating with two vacancies since the summer – and no one has applied to fill either seat.
The Planning Board, which normally has five members and one associate member, makes recommendations on whether development projects should proceed and if so, under what conditions.
Among the issues it has weighed in on recently are a proposal to expand zoning in the waterfront district to include single-family homes, plans for a controversial affordable housing project across the street from the public library, and how many market-rate homes the Redbrook development in South Plymouth should have.
But since the summer, it has functioned with just four members and no associate (who would fill in if a regular member could not make a meeting). Full-time member Birgitta Kuehn resigned in July after moving to Chicago. Associate member Rosemarie Barry did not apply for reappointment over the summer, citing personal reasons.
The vacancies have already affected plans for an affordable housing project, developer Rick Vayo’s proposal to build 24 one-bedroom apartments on South Street. The plan needed a supermajority of four votes for approval. But with chair Steve Bolotin casting the lone vote against the project at an October Planning Board meeting, there were only three votes in favor of recommending it. That meant the plan would have gone before Town Meeting without the board’s support. Town Meeting could have disregarded the Planning Board’s lack of a recommendation, but it rarely does in such instances, so the 3-1 vote effectively killed the project. Following the vote, a frustrated Vayo said he would not go forward with his plan.
“It clearly does obstruct the ability to proceed, because some votes require a supermajority because of the lack of that one individual,” said Frank Mand, who ran for an opening on the board last May but narrowly lost to Tim Bennett.
Bolotin recommends that anyone interested in serving on the board apply to Lee Hartmann, the town’s director of planning and development. Applicants would be interviewed at a joint meeting of the Select Board and Planning Board and would need to win a majority vote of the combined boards to be appointed.
But Bolotin warned that serving on the Planning Board, normally an elected position, is challenging.
“This is not a board in which you get to advocate for your particular view,” he said. “You are trying to balance the views of competing interests.”
Bolotin added that board members receive hundreds of pages of material to prepare for each meeting.
“It’s not a task to be taken lightly,” he said.
Mand speculated that people may be reluctant to apply because they fear facing criticism when deciding whether to recommend development projects. The South Street project, for instance, generated strong opposition from neighbors.
Still, Mand said, the board’s work is crucial.
“I really think it’s a very important position in town,” he said.
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org.