Fertilizer Bylaw, Rezoning Focus of Brewster Town Meeting

A bylaw having to do with fertilizer application, pictured, is before Brewster Town Meeting voters.

A bylaw having to do with fertilizer application, pictured, is before Brewster Town Meeting voters.

BREWSTER – Brewster will join other Cape Cod towns that have weighed in on a fertilizer bylaw when residents turn out for the Fall Town Meeting tonight. That is just one of the warrant articles likely to get discussion at tonight’s Town Meeting.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Stony Brook Elementary School in Brewster.

The warrant article concerning fertilizer is one of 18 articles on the Town Meeting warrant.

It is an amendment to the town code that would control the application of fertilizers on private and public properties.

Brewster Town Administrator Charles Sumner said there is a reason for the bylaw.

“If they’re not applied properly and not applied in the right time frame in terms of year or weather conditions, ie. if it is raining, they can add to the degradation of wetlands and private water resources,” he said.

It is the first time the bylaw has been presented to town meeting.

Another article likely to get discussion tonight requires special legislation to expand the room occupancy tax to include timeshare units and single family home rentals.

“A lot of the business community and the chamber of commerce even have supported it because it really levels the playing field. There’s a tax and everybody pays for it,” Sumner said.

Revenue generated from the tax would give the town about $1 million per year, he said.

Sumner said, town meeting members have already passed the tax four times at previous town meetings but it has not been approved by the attorney general because it needs state legislative approval in order to become law.

Another Town Meeting article that has been getting a lot of discussion in Brewster is one that would change the zoning on a section of Route 6A in East Brewster. The article proposes changing 10 lots from “Village Business” zoning to a high-density commercial zone.

“There is a very large group of citizens, particularly folks that live in that part of town, who are very concerned about the impact on the zoning change to their neighborhood and Route 6A,” Sumner said.

The article was passed last year, but the attorney general objected because of a problem with the meeting notice for a hearing on the plan. The hearing had been postponed because of a snow storm.

 



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