CHINA NEWS: 10 items on land development code set for annual meeting vote

by Mary Grow

China voters will have 10 separate articles asking them to approve amendments to China’s Land Development Code at the March 25 town meeting, all of them repeated from Nov. 8, 2016.

The Nov. 8 written ballot had all the changes in a single article. Voters rejected the article by a vote of 817 in favor to 1,248 opposed.

At their Feb. 8 meeting (postponed from the usual Tuesday evening because of bad weather), the three planning board members present voted unanimously to ask selectmen to put the changes to voters again as 10 separate articles on the March 25 warrant.

They believe voters rejected the changes in November for two main reasons: some people objected to one or more of the proposed amendments and could defeat them only by rejecting the entire document, and other people did not understand some or all of the recommended changes.

Board members hope separating the document into 10 sections will help with the first issue. To deal with the second, they intend to have an explanatory handout at the town meeting, and board members and Codes Officer Paul Mitnik will be there to answer questions.

Mitnik pointed out that some of the changes in specified sections will require changes in other areas to keep the entire ordinance internally consistent. For example, substituting the footprint of a building (how many square feet of ground it occupies) for the volume (in cubic feet) in certain measurements, if approved, might require a parallel change elsewhere in the ordinance. Board members asked Mitnik to add such related changes to the documents presented to voters.

The next regular China Planning Board meeting was scheduled for Tuesday evening, Feb. 14. Mitnik expected a presentation from the South China Library Association on plans to relocate the library from Village Street to Jones Road.