CHATHAM — Depending on your point of view, a proposed change to the town’s zoning bylaw would either create new housing opportunities for working families or open the town to an untamed avalanche of residential development. The zoning amendment would allow property owners to build “accessory dwelling units” on their properties by right. It aims to replace a bylaw provision designed to encourage the developme...

When the weather cleared on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1978, local residents emerged from their homes to find that the area's shoreline had been significantly rearranged – in some cases more or less permanently. While the Blizzard of '78 paralyzed many areas of Southern New England with several feet of snow, trapping people in vehicles and ultimately accounting for 54 deaths in Massachusetts alone, the snow wasn't the n...

Parking Lot Steps Were A Safety Hazard by Tim Wood CHATHAM – Each fall, Yankee Ingenuity becomes the de facto downtown information booth after the small building that usually serves that purposes closes for the season. “We're the nearest store,” said owner Jon Vaughan. This past fall, the most commonly asked question was when the stairs leading from the town offices parking lot to the Main Street sid...

CHATHAM — Saying they need more money to promote the town as a destination, the chamber of commerce is seeking a $15,000 hike to its town budget appropriation next year, representing a 20 percent increase over the current year’s payment. On Monday, selectmen said they appreciate the chamber’s work to promote the town and could support some kind of budget increase, but they stopped short of approving the appr...

If and when it comes, the decision to change the grade alignment at elementary schools in Chatham and Harwich will be made by the Monomoy Regional School Committee and both town's boards of selectmen. Town meetings, however, will not have the option of weighing in on whether students from one town can be sent to the elementary school in the neighboring community, according to a change in the language of the Mo...

CHATHAM – New bleachers at Veterans Field, replacement of the fish pier observation deck, restoration of a downtown memorial and preservation of town records are among more than a dozen projects seeking Community Preservation Act funds this year. This year's CPA requests total $1,845,075, with the largest amounts for recreation projects. Six requests in that category from town departments and other agencies se...

CHATHAM – For 30 years, the Dennis-based Aquaculture Research Corporation maintained a satellite shellfish upweller on the shores of Stage Harbor. The facility allowed the company, which annually sells millions of seed shellfish to Chatham and other Cape communities, to take advantage of the warmer Nantucket Sound waters to grow out shellfish earlier in the season than it could at its Cape Cod Bay-side facility. ...

CHATHAM – “Hooked on Chatham” will be the theme for this year's Fourth of July parade. The theme represents the idea that people who live or visit become “hooked” on the town's many aspects other than the obvious fishing, such as the beaches, boating, shopping and history, Independence Day parade committee chairman Justin Bohannon told the selectmen Monday. It was submitted by Connecticut resident and regular ...

CHATHAM — From the town’s perspective, the latest volleys in the Monomoy refuge boundary dispute have added insult to injury, selectmen said Monday. On Jan. 5, federal officials replied to a letter the town sent to U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke more than half a year earlier, asking him to intervene in the town’s dispute with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The reply didn’t come from Zinke or from an...

CHATHAM – “Hooked on Chatham” will be the theme for this year's Fourth of July parade. The theme represents the idea that people who live or visit become “hooked” on the town's many aspects other than the obvious fishing, such as the beaches, boating, shopping and history, Independence Day parade committee chairman Justin Bohannon told the selectmen Monday. It was submitted by Connecticut resident and regular ...

CHATHAM — Thanks to a strong property tax base, a recovering economy and the town manager’s tight purse strings, selectmen Tuesday heard some good news about the draft FY19 town budget. Town Manager Jill Goldsmith is proposing an operating budget of $30,427,418, an increase of 0.57% over the current year’s spending plan. The draft budget not only stays within the constraints of Proposition 2½, but leaves alm...

CHATHAM — The name “Old Colony Rail Trail” is a nice tribute to the railroad that once serviced Harwich and Chatham, but it doesn’t communicate some key information: where the trail goes. “I see bikers between Thompson’s Field and [Route] 137 looking at maps and trying to figure out where they are,” Harwich bikeways committee member Shanna Nealy said. Nealy and her group met last week in a rare joint session...