By Carol Britton Meyer

The three-and-a-half-hour second session of town meeting adjourned at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday evening after consideration of eight warrant articles, with only one “no” vote. The third session is scheduled for Wednesday, May 8 at Hull High School, beginning at 7 p.m.

Voters approved spending $150,000 to study building a combined police/fire public safety facility, appropriating $6 million for the town’s share of rebuilding the deteriorating seawall in the Allerton area, establishing a floodplain overlay zoning district, and replacing the float at Pemberton Pier. An article that would have allowed the town to take land on Beach Avenue by eminent domain received a vote of 124-123, short of the two-thirds required for approval.

The first item on the agenda will be the MBTA Communities Zoning Act. While that article number was drawn during last night’s meeting, discussion was postponed due to the lateness of the hour out of concern that it was unlikely that a vote would be taken by the 11 p.m. deadline for adjourning the meeting.

New state legislation requires that MBTA communities (those served by commuter rail, ferry, bus, or subway service, or adjacent to those with service) have at least one zoning district of reasonable size near the MBTA facility in which multi-family housing is permitted as of right.

Town meeting will be asked to adopt changes proposed to the town’s zoning map to put Hull in compliance. Failure to do so puts the town in jeopardy of losing significant state grants.

Other articles remaining to be addressed are Community Preservation Act funding recommendations; creation and funding of a special purpose stabilization fund for capital planning; establishing an opioid special revenue fund to hold Hull’s allotment of the Commonwealth’s share of the financial settlement with the states by manufacturers of opioids for use to treat and combat substance use and addiction; and funding the Memorial School retrofit related to relocation of town hall operations to that location as part of the school consolidation plan.

Voters are encouraged to arrive early so the meeting can start on time. Watch this week’s Hull Times in print and online for full details of town meeting action.

Click below to read the full text of the May 6 town meeting warrant:

https://www.hulltimes.com/s/hull_atm_2024_final-2.pdf

Click below for the Times’ news stories about town meeting issues:

https://www.hulltimes.com/town-meeting-2024

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