Election Preview: Questions For The Nantucket Planning Board Candidates

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s annual elections, hear more from the candidates for Planning Board.

The following questions and answers were transcribed from the Civic League’s annual Meet the Candidates forum. They have been edited for clarity and brevity. Watch the full forum at this link.

Some of the top concerns for local voters are affordable housing and overdevelopment. Often, those concerns can seem to be in conflict. How do you believe the Planning Board should balance those issues when evaluating the proposals that are submitted for review to the Planning Board?

Hillary Hedges Rayport:

It's definitely a tension, so you're right to ask the question and point out the dynamic between those two. No, people don't want more building, but it just seems like we're building and building, and we're not getting more housing out of it. We're building more vacation homes, and more compounds, and even the smaller houses that we're building aren’t going at prices that people can afford. I was at the VFW flea market this morning just talking with folks, and I heard from multiple people of all different stripes: there is too much building on this island. And it's difficult to talk about because, of course, the building trade is one of the biggest parts of our economy, so nobody is really hoping for a recession.

To get to some specifics about what I think we can do: we need different types of housing…[in locations like the Richmond housing development], with that setback from the road, would that really be so much worse if there were three stories on those buildings? So I think we're kind of dogmatic when it comes to the height restriction, and I think we should be a little bit more flexible and figure out how to build bigger buildings that actually work on Nantucket, and have the infrastructure that can support them and integrate them into the community without creating negative effects. And that's what I mean when I say planning tools and investment tools.

I'll mention quickly one other thing, which is we have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot on the Planning Board. When people come to us, and they want to subdivide their land, and they can't…according to our zoning, they need to ask for waivers for a subdivision. If we're going to give these waivers, we need to get something in return. So you have a plot of land, it cannot be subdivided, we will let you divide it and create more housing, but it should be for a year-round family. Or even better, we can say, let's find a way to make the covenant program work. I'm a big fan of the programs that we have that supplement and make it affordable for people to do the right thing with housing, like the Lease to Locals and the Rooted Renters programs. We could do something where we have loans to help people build covenant housing.

Brian Borgeson

As we continue to develop out the island and look for housing for people, I agree that the Richmond project, when you look at it, just from the road, it kind of takes you aback. But I know many, many of my friends and many people that had no opportunity to live on Nantucket were able to buy in Richmond…we need some covenant apartment buildings for single males and single females. When you build a home…it ends up being two or three bedrooms, and that kind of leaves individuals out, fending for themselves. And I know a lot of these individuals. I know people personally living in tents and stuff like that, because when they're looking for housing, they have to go into a shared housing situation with someone else, and then you end up living four people in a house.

Describe your perspective on the town's ongoing planning board's ongoing Master Plan process, whether it's on the right track, if there's anything that's missing, and also, once it is completed, how do you ensure that it doesn't sit on the shelf, and that it's actively used in the planning decisions that are made by the board?

Hillary Hedges Rayport

Some of the things that I'm very happy about are that we really did do a lot of community engagement at the beginning of last year through the middle of last year…and we did develop and adopt a vision statement. One of the things that I felt strongly about, and others on the board agreed, and we prevailed, was that the vision statement should be really detailed. And honestly, the reason why I wanted a detailed vision statement is because I thought, if we don't actually finish a plan, at least we can finish a really detailed vision statement, and that's better than nothing. So I think we have a great vision statement. It lays out goals and why we think the goals are important.

The consultants that we hired, who are Bartlett Planning Group, have finished an inventory, which is, before you plan, you need to figure out, well, what do we have? What are our resources? What are our challenges? And they've also taken a first cut at a statement of challenges and opportunities. We then have to go and turn that into objectives. So I am happy with where we are, [but] I don't think it should have taken two years.

Brian Borgeson

I feel like we hire a consultant, and then we have a study, and then we do something, and then something changes, and then we have an election, and then we have a Special Town Meeting, and we really are continually in this ever-evolving “Master Plan” of this island. And I think that everything needs to change. I think our sewer is a huge issue. I think housing and [Accessory Dwelling Units] are going to be a huge issue going forward for what we do on Nantucket.

Do I love the “New Downtown?” No, but that was sold to us by [former Planning Director Andrew Vorce] at Town Meeting, and we all voted for that…if we could go back now and have that same discussion, would we vote for that right now? I think the answer would probably be absolutely not. So I think going forward, we need to tread lightly on a “mission statement” and a plan and these directives that we’re driving headfirst into and always be stepping back and analyzing how we are developing in a way that we don't jam gigantic, massive buildings into the town.