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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSchulte - Planning Board Comments - 10_27_25Comments to Planning Board – 10/27/2025 Good evening, Planning Board Members. I’m Bob Schulte, a resident of Centerville and former chair of the Ad Hoc Zoning & Regulatory Agreement Review Commiee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you once again. Since I addressed you a lile over a month ago, I sincerely hope you took me up on my request and reread, or perhaps read for the first me, the Ad Hoc Zoning & Regulatory Review Commiee’s Memo and Immediate Priority Recommendaons to the Town Council. I provided you with my detailed comments at your last meeng so I won’t repeat them again tonight. However, I will remind you that the Commiee’s Recommendaons were developed aer careful consideraon of extensive public comment received over a 9-month period. The public’s comments were about the concerns and changes that many residents and business owners would like to see made to our zoning regulaons in order to preserve and improve the quality of life in our Town in order to sasfy their current and future needs. In addion to public comment, before making its final recommendaons to the Town Council, the Commiee’s members spent at least 40 – 50 hours reviewing the relevant provisions of the Town Code, considering a variety of informaon provided by the Town & other sources, and it also met with and heard from numerous town employees, subject experts, and cizens. Comments to Planning Board – 10/27/2025 As I menoned at your last meeng, it has now been close to 3 years since the Downtown Hyannis Zoning was enacted in early 2023. Much has changed over the course of the past three years and we’ve learned about the things that work and some that don’t in our Downtown Hyannis Zoning. I would challenge each of you to look me in the eye and say with a straight face that what’s being built at 201 Main Street is what you envisioned and what you want to see more of in Downtown Hyannis. As one resident said to me recently, it looks like a cruise ship mistakenly entered the harbor, overshot the dock and landed on Main Street. To believe the Downtown Hyannis Zoning passed in 2023 was perfect and to refuse to learn from actual experience and adjust it to reflect current input from the public, both residents and business owners, would be nothing but total arrogance and a refusal to acknowledge public concern and opinion. I’d like to provide you with a prime example of informaon that has been updated since 2023 and which I believe should be a primary consideraon in the Town’s decisions regarding zoning. That important informaon is new long-term populaon projecons for Barnstable County and the Town. There was an arcle in the October 21st Cape Cod Times about the Cape Cod Bridges Project. In that arcle, it talked about concerns the public had expressed regarding the new replacement bridges increasing the populaon of Cape Cod and the problems that might be causes by the increase. Comments to Planning Board – 10/27/2025 Well, interesngly enough, the 996-page DEIR, or Dra Environmental Impact Report, filed with the State for the project includes a Socioeconomic Technical Report completed in August – just two months ago. And guess what, the Technical Report states that based on the most recent data on Populaon Projecons, Barnstable County’s populaon is now projected to DECLINE from 212,990 to 176,007 people, or 17.4%, between 2019 and 2050. That’s right, I said DECLINE!! And the number of Barnstable County households is also expected to DECLINE even more, from 94,323 to 82,313 or 17.9%. This isn’t data I’m making up. This comes directly from the State and the populaon data source was the UMass Donahue Instute which is the same organizaon used frequently by the Cape Cod Commission for its reporng. I have a copy of the relevant pages of the Technical Report I’ll give to the Chair My point is this. Circumstances change, we have new and beer data and it ’s me to step back and adjust our zoning and housing policies to reflect the real needs of our community and the concerns & desires of our cizens. I’ll close by asking you to respect the significant input and comments from the public, as well as the me spent and hard work that the Ad Hoc Zoning Commiee put into draing its Immediate Priority Recommendaons, and ask you to PLEASE vote to recommend the Town Council pass the four Agenda Items under discussion, as proposed. I see there are a few other members of the Ad Hoc here tonight and we’d be happy to answer any quesons you might have. Thank you.