Essex held its Spring Town Meeting last week at Essex Elementary School, with 177 residents weighing in a whopping a 37-article warrant. In the end, residents successfully voted to formalize Essex as a “one cannabis retailer” town and postponed a vote to establish a new downtown zoning district to a later time. They also voted to widen the number of senior citizens eligible for real estate tax relief. It all felt like “business as usual.”
What wasn’t at all usual this year was the fact that this year’s Town Meeting was conducted outside in the school parking lot during a stunner of a day, starting at 10 a.m. sharp in the crisp sunny morning with a bit of wind and winding down just before 1 p.m. as the afternoon was starting to become uncomfortably hot.
Town Clerk Pamela Thorne said town employees got started early, setting up 200 chairs six feet apart from each other to accommodate the new, social distancing reality and collecting more than 50 stones anticipating that light winds could make for a messy meeting with flyaway papers. Residents were asked to park in front of the school and along adjacent streets. Those arriving were met with a check-in area outside at the rear of the school at the gate entrance to the blacktop area. Attendees were asked to wear face masks and coverings, but disposable masks and water were on hand to those who needed them. And voters were able to enter the school to use the restrooms.
Most of the articles were approved as recommended by the boards that sponsored them, especially those involving town operating budgets. Some similar articles were postponed because they could be taken up at a more conventional town meeting with more “normal” attendance and environment.
The items that indeed drew “attention” involved the regional school budget, retail cannabis zoning, real estate tax relief for seniors and the establishment of a new downtown zoning district. Article 11 to approve the annual operating budget of the Manchester-Essex Regional School District, for instance, saw some debate even though typically it’s passed easily. This year, with the disruption of state financing and local operating revenues, the Manchester Essex Committee had to tighten its belt. Among the casualties was replacing the “Eagle’s Nest” play structure behind Essex Elementary, which was a particular sore point for Essex parents at Town Meeting and School Committee members assured them it was a postponement, not a true elimination.
In the end, the article passed, unchanged.
Article 13 proposed widening eligibility for real estate tax relief and that also passed, following some debate. Now residents aged 65 can apply for an increased property tax exemption if individuals meet certain ownership, occupancy, income, and other requirements to $1,000 and further to increase the asset (whole estate, real and personal) eligibility limit from $28,000 to $40,000 for a single taxpayer and from $30,000 to $55,000 if married, and increase the yearly gross receipts eligibility requirement from $13,000 to $20,000 for a single taxpayer and from $15,000 to $30,000 if married. The age requirement had been older, 70 years of age. The article passed.
There were two highly anticipated articles, one addressing cannabis establishment regulation in Essex and the other seeking to create a downtown zoning district. Both lived up to expectations.
First, Articles 15, 16, and 17 establishing a new town bylaw, zoning and operating limitations for retail marijuana passed. It’s important to note that part of the zoning passed Saturday also limited commercial marijuana establishments in Essex to just one.
The articles were the product of more than a year of work by the Board of Selectmen and a specialized resident committee, the “Host Community Agreement Committee” to establish a comprehensive operating structure for cannabis retailing in Essex. Once legal cannabis retail operations opened in 2018, it fell on towns to create zoning and regulate this new business category. That need became more pronounced when a company called BB Botanics announced plans last year to open an adult recreational marijuana shop in Essex. The town began to negotiate the elements of the operating agreement between the town and BB Botanics. Massachusetts enables host communities to capture a surcharge percentage of cannabis retail revenues to offset potential costs from this new type of operation. It’s estimated that Essex could collect an additional $300,000 each year from the agreement.
On Saturday, voters heard this new zoning would require cannabis retail establishments to be properly licensed by the town and submit to its regulation and inspection. They must enter a Host Community Agreement, which includes fees paid to the town. They cannot operate within 2,500 feet of a school, childcare facility or athletic field or 400 feet of any property on which the principal use is residential. Finally, the limit to the license for such an establishment would be just one, which means the BB Botanics establishment will be the only such business in town.
Articles 15, 16, and 17 passed easily by the required two thirds majority.
The other question drawing attention was Article 14, presented by the Essex Planning Board to establish a new downtown zoning district. It was an ambitious move. The goal of the zoning was viewed as a much-needed formalizing of the downtown which already has “mixed” retail and residential buildings but operate in a form of limbo.
The proposed zoning bylaw, which requires a two thirds majority at Town Meeting, stems from an effort started nearly two years ago by the town to address its long-term economic challenges. The BOS established an Economic Development Committee, which commissioned a large-scale study and is currently developing a practical plan to widen its tax profile beyond just restaurants and hospitality to increase revenues. The downtown zoning district is an important step in that process. The Planning Board presented a large and very comprehensive package of details for the proposed “Essex Downtown Zoning District” included spanned legalized mixed residential and commercial structures, specific commercial uses, parking, number of units, setbacks, etc. But in the end, voters focused on the footprint of the new downtown zone, with residents pushing back on streets such as Pickering and Winthrop Streets. In the end, a resident made a motion to postpone consideration of the article. That motion passed, and the issue was postponed.
As is the tradition, residents stepping down from public service on boards were thanked, including Andrew Spinney from the Board of Selectmen; Rachel Fitzgibbon of the School Committee; and Dexter Doane of the Planning Board.
