Chatham Town Meeting Bans Large Aircraft, Approves COA Renovations

CHATHAM – In a six-hour marathon session Saturday, town meeting voters approved funding to expand and renovate the Center for Active Living, turned down an extensive zoning change and approved a bylaw to ban large aircraft from Chatham Municipal Airport.

Voters approved a $44,154,028 operating budget and an $11,118,811 Monomoy Regional School District budget, as well as authorizing $9 million to replace siding and windows at the middle school. 

After years of failing to approve a new building for the council on aging, voters Saturday agreed to use $5 million in free cash to upgrade the existing Center for Active Living on Stony Hill Road. Plans call for enlarging the building by 22 percent, expanding parking and creating dedicated space for the new senior day program. 

“This project is about ensuring that when you or your neighbors are ready, that the doors are open and programs are available to support healthy, active aging in Chatham,” said Town Manager Jill Goldsmith. The article passed 440-88.

Gerry Stahl, who submitted the petition article to ban aircraft with wingspans greater than 49 feet from using the town’s airport, said the measure addressed the safety concerns of many residents. Chatham’s airport is designed for smaller, single-engine aircraft and is not safe for the larger turbojets to use.

“These planes should be using Hyannis airport, which is designed for them,” he said. Town officials have failed to address the concerns of residents for both safety and noise, he added, and the bylaw was a “compromise solution to the long conflict between airport development and neighborhood development.”

Stahl and others dismissed concerns that the town would incur legal expenses defending the bylaw, which both the town and airport attorneys warned would be struck down by state and federal authorities. “We are voting not on the law,” he said. “We are voting on a growing problem with our community.”

In noting that the finance committee opposed the article, member John Pappalardo recalled when DC3 aircraft with 90-foot wingspans “without incident routinely flew in and out of Chatham Airport.”

Airport commission member Leo Eldredge said he sympathized with the concerns of residents but said that the Federal Aviation Administration looks at flight safety data when considering prohibiting aircraft from a facility. “Turboprops have a flawless safety record here,” he said. “In my mind it’s a virtual certainty this will not be approved.”

Town meeting nonetheless approved the bylaw by a narrow 26-vote margin, 192-166.

Voters also rejected the town’s share of airport facilities upgrades. The $59,175 would leverage more than $1 million in state and federal funds for new lighting, apron maintenance and other work. Airport Commission Chair Huntley Harrison said the town will have to find another source for the town’s 5 percent matching share of the projects.

A West Chatham Neighborhood Center zoning bylaw, in the works for years, was rejected by voters, with a number of residents expressing concerns about affordable housing provisions in the measure. A majority of voters approved the article, but the 253-143 vote failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pass.

Voters also rejected a petition article to pay the back property taxes of an elderly resident, approved $3.4 million to complete upgrades at the transfer station, and approved $32 million in borrowing to continue the town’s sewer program.