HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-03-02-MGWG-min.pdf Tuesday, March 14, 2000 minutes of 03/02/00 meeting 5 ✓ J Page:1
Subject: minutes of 03/02/00 meeting
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 14:41:46 -0500
MINUTES OF WORK GROUP MEETING
Title of Work Group:
Managing Growth: Development and Open Space
Date, Time, and Location of Meeting:
Thursday, March 2, 2000, 7:00pm - 9:00pm, Room in, Town Hall
21embers Present:
Heather H. Sweeney [Steering Committee liaison #1]
Larry Belvin
Suzanne Caton
John Frey
Glenn Garber [Staff Resource]
•
Ione Garing
Tom Harden
Karl Kastorf
Marianne Lazarus
Karen Longeteig
Gerry Moloney
Josh Murray
Tiffany Papadonis
Markus Pinney
Edmond Vail
Lee Sinai
Members Absent:
Fred Merrill [Steering Committee liaison #2]
John Andrews
Gary Fallick
Donna Rossi
Guest:
Ben Goldstein [member of the Fiscal Stability Work Group]
ote: Mike Hanauer attended the Core Participants Group
meeting being held at the same time as this meeting.
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Distributed Information:
-. Karl Kastorf distributed copies of his latest version
of the Environmental Scan.
2. Karl also distributed copies of a proposed conclusion
for the Environmental Scan.
Date, Time, and Location of Next Scheduled Meeting:
Tuesday, March 7, 2000, 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Civil Room, second floor, Cary Hall
The meeting was called to order by chairperson Suzanne Caton.
Issues Addressed and Agreements Made:
1. Minutes of last meeting were approved as is - no one had
any comments or corrections.
2. Agenda Item: New working group member introductions.
Tiffany Papadonis and Josh Murray both introduced themselves.
They are both sophomores at Lexington High School, and they
were both contacted by Principal Philip Lanoue regarding
joining our group.
Ben Goldstein, a member of the Fiscal Stability work group,
joined us for this meeting, as his group wants to know what
is going on in the other work groups.
Agenda Item: Discuss final draft of the Environmental Scan.
Suzanne proposed that we proceed line-by-line through the
Scan. We did so. John Frey presented Mike Hanauer's comments
on the Scan, and Suzanne and Larry Belvin presented John
Andrews's comments on the Scan. Suzanne suggested that those
who had typos, grammar corrections, etc. should submit those
corrections directly to Karl. Karl requested that those who
had more complicated changes to the Scan submit their
re-work to him electronically.
We reviewed the entire document line-by-line. I have not
noted every single decision we made in these minutes, but
all of Mike's and John Andrews's suggested changes were
discussed, with some of the suggestions being approved and
others being rejected. Every member of the group was given
a chance to comment as we proceeded through the document.
When there was a disagreement among the group members,
Suzanne requested a vote, and the majority decision carried.
Karl noted all of the minor changes on his version of the
Scan. The following paragraphs are a summary of the
non-minor changes that we discussed.
We had a long a spirited discussion about the third paragraph
regarding the size of our population and size of our households.
We also had a discussion about what "mansionization" means.
Marianne Lazarus suggested that it means "the construction of
very large houses", and that that can include not only
tear-downs but also new large houses on vacant land and
large additions to existing smaller houses.
The residential development sub-committee (Marianne, Tom
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Harden, and Gerry) agreed to discuss some substantial changes
that Marianne proposed. One member of the sub-committee
will e-mail the changes to Karl by Sunday at 8:00pm.
There is concern in the group that some of the statistics
collected regarding open space, undeveloped land,
underdeveloped land, unprotected land, etc. from the
Planning Department and from the Conservation Commission
conflict. Part of the problem may be that we do not have
precise definitions of the preceding terms. For example,
Our Museum of Natural Heritage has a lot of what one would
consider "open space", but their open space is private
even though it is enjoyed by the public [when the public
visits the museum] . Gerry Moloney pointed out that his
back yard is "open space" of sorts, but that it is private
land and should be considered differently than open space
that is public land. A suggestion was made to prepare a
table that would reconcile these conflicts. No one
volunteered to prepare such a table. Glenn Garber added
that there are some undeveloped parcels remaining in the
business districts in town and that there is a lot of
underdeveloped business space (much lower usage of floor-
space than is allowed) in the Hartwell Ave. area, but that
Hartwell's traffic problem prevents this space from being
utilized.
Markus Pinney suggested that the Scan should contain some
comments on the biodiversity of the town. Markus will
send his comments on this subject to Karl for inclusion
in the next draft.
Markus was nominated to rewrite the first sentence in
the "Future Trends" section. Marianne's suggestion for
merging the first three sections of the "External Forces"
section was approved. Ed Vail will send Karl a few
sentences regarding wireless / RF transmissions.
The Open Space subcommittee (Karen Longeteig, Lee Sinai,
John Andrews) noticed that their submissions appear to
have disappeared from the Scan. They will resubmit their
sections to Karl for inclusion in the next draft.
Suzanne pointed out that our draft was not ready for
submission and that we needed another meeting.
She also asked Heather H. Sweeney to formally request
an 1 week extension for the March 3 Scan deadline for
our group, as other groups have also received a 1 week
extension.
Karl asked for but did not receive a decision regarding
when the draft is final and whether we should have a
maximum size limit. Larry suggested 10 pages as a limit,
and no decision was reached.
Karl did say that he will disregard any submissions that
are sent to him after 8:00pm on Sunday night.
We very briefly discussed our deliverables that follow
the Environmental Scan, but since it was close to 9:30,
this discussion was extremely brief.
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 9:30pm.
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Respectfully submitted, Larry Belvin, March 5, 2000.
lnbelvin@world.std.com
Larry Belvin
10 Denver Street
Lexington, MA 02421-6502
781.674.0246
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