Weston voters override Planning Board, approve double curb-cut driveway protections

WESTON — May 10, 2017 — Weston voters override Planning Board, fund tavern design and seed housing trust on second night of Town Meeting. The May 10 session cleared nine articles, advancing $630,000 in CPA design funds for the Josiah Smith Tavern, $950,000 to capitalize the Weston Affordable Housing Trust, $30,000 for a Brook School elderly-housing feasibility study and $19,230 for the Regional Housing Services Office. Attorney Connie Gutierrez's citizens' petition limiting Planning Board authority to deny double curb-cut driveways passed by the required two-thirds despite opposition from Chair Alfred Aydelott, who warned it would "profoundly upset the balance" of hard-surface review. Voters raised the annual-meeting petition signature threshold from 10 to 50, on a counted vote of 204-111, and banned single-use plastic checkout bags effective Jan. 1, 2018. Finance Committee Chair John MacDonald called the housing-trust fund "a blind fund," but Select Board member Douglas Gillespie countered that three hostile 40B projects totaling 175 units are already pending.