Temple rezoning goes back to TM
Published on February 25th, 1998
STONEHAM, MA - As a group, the 17 proposed warrant articles on this spring's Town Meeting agenda represent one of the least controversial in recent years.
This year's annual Town Meeting warrant closed this past Monday with every matter, ex-cept two, generated by town officials. But it is those two articles which were submitted by residents seeking changes in the bylaws and zoning laws that are probably the two most newsworthy items.
Local dentist Steven Migliorini is back with a second proposal to convert the Jewish Tem-ple on Franklin Street into a dental office. Migliorini failed to gain the necessary two-thirds majority this past fall when he asked to rezone the property from Residential A to Highway Business.
This May, he will ask voters to rezone the property once again, but this time with tighter re-strictions placed on the Franklin Street property.
Migliorini and his attorney Charles Houghton will ask Town Meeting voters to reintroduce a Professional Office District in the zoning bylaws. Within the guidelines of the proposed Pro-fessional Office District only physicians, dentists, architects, engineers and accountants would be allowed to work. The district would also include minimum lot size requirements (15,000 sq. ft.) as well frontage (100 ft.), height (30 feet) and setback requirements. The zone, which previously existed in the town's bylaws before 1985, would also include restrictions on sig-nage.
If Migliorini is successful in inserting the new zone in the bylaws, he will then ask that the Professional Office District be placed on the Temple land.
At a preliminary meeting with the Planning Board earlier this month, several neighborhood residents expressed their continued opposition to the proposal.
In other bylaw matters, Town Meeting voters will be asked to remove the 32-year-old age maximum restriction for hiring police officers and firefighters.
A group of Stoneham residents collected enough signatures to have this proposed bylaw change placed on the Town Meeting warrant. The town has just recently begun the long proc-ess of hiring two new police officers through grant money.
Here is a brief rundown of some of the other articles on this year's warrant:
*The Selectmen will ask the voters to accept eight roads as public ways. They are Carlida Road, Fairlane Road, Gerry Court, Newcomb Road, Rebecca Lane, Corey Avenue, Notting-ham Way and Virginia Lane.
*A yet-to-be-disclosed amount of funds will be requested by the town to "embellish" Lin-denwood Cemetery including brook improvements and construction of a new burial area.
*The town will once again seek monies to continue water main and sewer pipe construction throughout the town to reduce the amount of infiltration in Stoneham's pipes.
*The Selectmen will ask voters if they would like to turn over management of the town's two golf courses to a private firm and award a contract for up to five years.
*The Selectmen have sponsored a warrant article which will amend a current bylaw re-garding providing notice of Town Meeting to residents. The Selectmen would like to have the option of mailing the 20-plus page Town Meeting booklet to every Stoneham residence rather than advertising the warrant in a local newspaper.
It has already been determined that a special Town Meeting will interrupt the annual meet-ing to handle a handful of proposed articles that were not prepared in time to make this past Monday's deadline.
Some of those potential articles include rezoning around the proposed elementary school renovation projects, tri-community bike path related matters, demolition and construction of the DPW garages on Pine Street, the sharing of Animal Control Officer duties with Wake-field, fuel tank installation, shade tree removal and the purchase of more computer hardware at Town Hall.
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