On the Proposed Plymouth Land Bank
[Dear Readers: I should note at the outset that I was asked my opinion of the proposed Land Bank by some of its proponents on several occasions, and I gave it a positive assessment then. Nevertheless, I wanted this article to look at arguments both for and against the proposed Land Bank; given that I am not a Plymouth resident, I have tried to tread carefully, and to give primacy of place to arguments (both pro and con) from Plymouth residents. I do give my considered opinion of the proposed Land Bank at the end of the article. I have used parenthetical citations, as footnotes may be hard to refer to in this instance. As always, I am grateful to the many people in Plymouth who took the time to provide thoughtful and compelling comments on this subject. Thanks for reading and subscribing. — Ben Cronin.]
(PLYMOUTH) — Plymouth will hold its Fall Town Meeting this Saturday, October 19th, where it will consider a number of matters, including Article 17, which, if the Plymouth Town Meeting approves it, would “authorize the Select Board to petition the Massachusetts General Court for special legislation to establish a Plymouth Land Bank, which will be funded through a 2% land transfer fee paid by buyers of real property in Plymouth, said monies to be used to acquire land for open space, passive and active recreation, create affordable housing and establish municipal facilities….” (2024 Plymouth Fall Town Meeting Book, Art. 17, p. 119)
This article will take a closer look at the proposed Land Bank, examining the proposed statute and its overview in the Town Meeting Book before hearing arguments both in favor and in opposition; finally, I will conclude by giving my own view on the Land Bank — which, since I am not a resident of the Town of Plymouth, I offer as the respectful equivalent in local government of an amicus brief (I am not a lawyer).
(A portion of southern Plymouth, from an 1858 map of Plymouth County; credit — The Library of Congress.)
The Proposed Land Bank
This publication has written about the idea of a Plymouth Land Bank before (see here and here, on conversations on the subject led by then-Selectman Harry Helm and Planning Board Member and present Chair Steve Bolotin). A land bank, generally speaking, is explained by Mr. Bolotin on his personal website: “In general, Land banks are a mechanism for acquiring, holding, and distributing property in service of community goals. Land banks can be government supported, quasi-governmental or independent non-profit organizations,” wrote Mr. Bolotin.
The Overview of the Proposed Plymouth Land Bank contained in the Fall Town Meeting book explains the purpose of the proposed Land Bank in Plymouth.
“Plymouth has a number of critical land needs that cannot be funded by additional residential taxes,” the Overview states. These include “Open space — for recreation, conservation, aquifer protection and sustainability, as well as “affordable housing — at lower rents/prices appropriate for Plymouth,” and for “future municipal use — so that land is available when the Town needs it.”
“The purpose of the proposed Plymouth Land Bank is to provide a means to address these needs in Plymouth without placing a further financial burden on our residents,” the Overview states (emphasis in original).
The Land Bank would be “constituted a body politic and corporate and a public instrumentality, and the exercise of the powers herein conferred upon the Land Bank shall be deemed to be the performance of an essential governmental function.” (Proposed Plymouth Land Bank Legislation, Sec. 2.2)
It would be administered by a Land Bank Commission, which would consist of nine members, appointed as follows: the Executive Branch of the Town (presently the Select Board) would appoint two commissioners; the Legislative Branch of the Town, the Town Meeting via the Committee of Precinct Chairs, would appoint two commissioners; the Planning Board would appoint two Commissioners; and the Affordable Housing Trust, the Open Space Committee, and the Land Use and Acquisition Committee would appoint one each. (Sec. 3.1.2). No appointing authority could appoint one of its own members or an elected official of the Town, County of Plymouth, or of the Commonwealth (Sec. 3.1.3 and 3.1.5), and all Commissioners would have to be legal residents of the Town (Sec. 3.1.4). Commissioners would serve a three-year term (Sec. 3.2.1)
One important aspect of the Land Bank to note is that “The Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, or such similar position as may be established by the Commonwealth, or their designee… shall be a non-voting member of the Land Bank Commission.” (Sec. 3.4)
The Land Bank Commission would have the power to “[a]cquire, by purchase or gift, any Real Property Interest within the Town suitable for the types of uses set forth in section five, including any improvements thereon; provided, however, that the Land Bank Commission shall, in considering any such acquisition, use as guidelines the Open Space, Housing Production, and Master Plans of the Town.” (Sec. 4.1.1).
The land so acquired would be required to be used for the following purposes, as laid out in Section 5 of the proposed legislation: for natural and open space, including both passive and active recreation (Secs. 5.1 and 5.2); for municipal use, including for the construction of wells and municipal buildings like schools and firehouses (Sec. 5.3); and for affordable housing (Sec. 5.4). Critically, affordable housing is here defined as 60% of area median income, or AMA (Sec. 1.1)
“None of these uses circumvent any Town authority, meaning all property given to the Town and all Town expenditures must still be approved by Town Meeting, and all zoning and other land use regulations must still be followed,” state the authors of the Overview.
The Land Bank Commission would also be empowered to issue bonds and notes (Sec. 4.2.) However, if the Town were asked to put its full faith and credit behind any such bond or note, it would still require a two-thirds vote of Town Meeting (or other relevant Town board). (Sec. 4.4)
The Land Bank’s revenue would come primarily from a land transfer fee (see in particular Section 9, covering Transfer Fees). The Overview in the Town Meeting book describes the method of funding the Land Bank:
“The principal means of funding will be through a land transfer fee to be paid by the buyer of property in Plymouth. The fee can be between 1% and 2%, and on housing cost more than an amount determined annually by the Land Bank Commission,” the Overview states.
“This allows the Land Bank Commission to adjust the fee based on economic conditions so that it is imposed only on those who can afford to pay it,” the authors note (emphasis in original).
In addition, a number of exemptions are included in the proposed legislation (see Section 11, Exemptions). These include exemptions for affordable housing, for qualifying first time home buyers, for transfers between family members, for donations to charitable organizations, and to residents moving to a new primary residence in the Town of Plymouth, according to the Overview. All of these exemptions apply to primary residences, not to second (or more) homes.
“So to be explicitly clear, no existing Plymouth resident will be required to pay into the Land Bank unless they are purchasing investment property in Town,” the authors of the Overview state (emphasis in original).
According to Precinct 15 Town Meeting Member Arthur Desloges, the Land Bank has been the topic of questions and conversation among voters in his Precinct.
Mr. Desloges “hosted a Fireside Chat at the Stonebridge Club with residents of Pinehills about articles in the upcoming Town Meeting. This gave voters a chance to have a conversation with their elected representatives and ask them hard questions. One of the [conversations] revolved around the Land [B]ank article. Voters were keen to understand how the Land [B]ank would be funded, how the funds would be used, and how it would be managed,” he said.
“Most importantly, residents were able to question their Town Meeting Members on how they planned to vote and why,” he told The Plymouth County Observer via email, adding that he hoped to host another chat next month, at which the results of the Fall Town Meeting could be discussed.
Voices in Favor
The Advisory and Finance Committee, the Select Board, the Planning Board — which is moving the question — and the Open Space Committee have all voted to recommend that Town Meeting pass Article 17.
Steven Bolotin, who serves as Chair of the Planning Board, explained his own support for the Land Bank on his personal website.
“Plymouth wants to manage its natural resources and control new residential development. However, given the continued desirability of Plymouth, the Town has very limited ability to do so. Plymouth already has some of the most restrictive residential zoning in the entire Commonwealth, and still new subdivisions are being built. That is because Plymouth can’t prevent developers from building what is allowed by existing residential zoning. Moreover, our commercially zoned land is being converted to apartments though an “affordable” housing loophole in State law (Chapter 40B) which allows developers to completely ignore Town zoning laws. So the only way for Plymouth to prevent land from being developed is to own it,” he wrote.
“Some residents may ask ‘Isn’t that being done by the Community Preservation Committee?’ The short answer is not enough. The CPC get[s] funds from residential taxes, and uses them for defined purposes; historical preservation, affordable housing, recreational facilities, and creation of conservation land. Given the increasing value of property in Plymouth and the need to utilize tax dollars for municipal services, the CPC does not have adequate funds to purchase the open space which the Town wants to preserve while supporting truly affordable housing which Plymouth desperately needs for working young professionals, families, and seniors seeking to age in place in our community,” wrote Mr. Bolotin.
According to Mr. Bolotin’s website, there are two existing Land Banks in Massachusetts, on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket (a third on Cape Cod was approved, and Towns on the Cape joined, but left in favor of adopting the Community Preservation Act in the period 2000-2004). According to Mr. Bolotin’s website, on Nantucket, the Land Bank has been responsible for the preservation of almost half the island as open space. Plymouth’s Land Bank, unlike these Land Banks, would include the option for affordable housing, said Mr. Bolotin. (Indeed, it is worth noting that on Martha’s Vineyard today, there is a movement to create a Housing Bank modeled after the island’s Land Bank; see https://www.ccmvhb.org/)
Kevin Canty, who serves as Vice Chair of the Select Board, has expressed his own support for a Land Bank.
“The proposed special legislation to form the Plymouth Land Bank is an important opportunity for Plymouth to control its own future. In order to control the land, we have to own the land,” Selectman Canty told The Plymouth County Observer via email.
“The Land Bank will form an independent entity that has the ability to acquire land for open space, affordable housing, and/or municipal use using money derived from a 1 to 2% fee on the transfer of land in Plymouth that is paid by the buyer,” he wrote.
“Current Plymouth homeowners would not pay this fee, unless they buy an additional piece of property in Plymouth, and a number of exemptions exist for other residential property buyers too,” said Selectman Canty.
He explained the larger context in which the Land Bank is proposed.
“Plymouth is currently the fastest growing community in Massachusetts. We are gaining between 750 and 1000 new residents per year. The funding mechanism of the Land Bank is tied to that growth, and will allow Plymouth to address the challenges that growth presents by giving us another tool in the toolbox to preserve land and protect our aquifer with open space, to provide more affordable housing at 60% AMI, and to acquire land to provide municipal services like fire protection and wells as the demand on those services increases,” wrote Selectman Canty.
He also defended the Land Bank’s independence.
“The Land Bank's independence is essential. Other Land Banks that have had more direct involvement by other arms of municipal government have failed to pass at the State House. Also, the independence of the Land Bank will allow it to pay above appraised value for land, which is useful to compete with private entities vying to develop our land on their terms, which is something it would not be able to do if Town Meeting or other arms if our government were approving their individual expenditures,” he wrote.
“Further, the Land Bank does not replace any other part of our government. The CPC, the Open Space Committee, and the Affordable Housing Trust will all still exist and still function like they always do. The Land Bank is just another tool in our tool box, and one that can operate outside the Town Meeting cycle and compete with private development interests on the 12 month calendar cycle,” said Selectman Canty.
“The Land Bank will help Plymouth residents plan, protect, and preserve the future they want for Plymouth, rather than leaving that future in the hands of private developers and other interests,” he wrote.
Andrea Dickinson, who is a member of the Open Space Committee as well as on the Advisory Board of Sustainable Plymouth, gave her own personal view as an individual citizen.
“I support the Land Bank proposal. The Land Bank would provide Plymouth with an additional avenue to acquire open space, provide affordable housing and prepare for municipal uses without raising taxes on residents. It's a win-win for the Town and I don't see a downside. It's a new method of pursuing these objectives and takes nothing away from the powers and abilities that CPC and Town Meeting already have. I think the 2002 passing of CPA in Plymouth was one of the best decisions to come out of the last few decades in terms of our ability to strategically and financially plan for smart growth and the Land Bank would only complement this,” Ms. Dickinson told The Plymouth County Observer via email.
“I'm excited about Article 17 and what the Land Bank would mean for Plymouth,” she said.
Emily Tompkins, who serves as a member of the Advisory and Finance Committee as well as a member of the Advisory Board of Sustainable Plymouth, gave her own personal opinion of the proposed Land Bank.
“I'm excited for the potential of the land bank because in my opinion it is very forward thinking for our short-term and long-term goals, and would be an additional tool to help address three of our biggest competing interests (land conservation for aquifer protection, 60% actually affordable housing, and municipal needs),” Ms. Tompkins told The Plymouth County Observer via email, speaking as an individual citizen.
Precinct 15 Town Meeting Member Wrestling Brewster explained his support for Article 17 in an email.
“The only way to stop development and save the land over the aquifer [i]s to have control over [the] land,” he said. He argued that the Community Preservation Committee lacks sufficient money for the purposes of large-scale land acquisition. Mr. Brewster also noted that, while there is some concern over the idea of nine appointees being entrusted with the responsibilities of a Land Bank Commission, the Town presently relies on a body of appointees to advise it on the approximately $290 million Town Budget, the Advisory and Finance Committee.
Voices of Concern and Opposition
The Land Bank has also met with concern and opposition.
Precinct 2 Town Meeting Member Matthew Tavares explained his view on the proposed Land Bank in an email.
“My largest concern regarding the land bank is oversight. As I stated to the presenter at the Precinct Two caucus recently, the way the commissioners are appointed is heavy [S]elect [B]oard. Meaning, they are also the appointing body of not just two commissioner seats — but they also appoint members of several of the boards also appointing commissioners," said Mr. Tavares.
Sharl Heller, a Plymouth business owner and conservationist who serves as the President of the Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance, explained her opposition via email.
“Establishing a Land Bank and imposing a 2% land transfer fee is outrageous,” said Ms. Heller. “Every property owner already pays a 1.5 % of their property value annually into the Community Preservation Act (CPA) — a fund that already covers every aspect of the proposed Land Bank,” she said, including “The acquisition, creation and preservation of open space”; “The acquisition, preservation, rehabilitation, and restoration of historic resources”; “The acquisition, creation, preservation, rehabilitation, and restoration of land for recreational use”; “The acquisition, creation, preservation and support of community housing”; “The rehabilitation and restoration of open space or community housing that is acquired or created using monies from the fund”; and “A municipal affordable housing trust.”
“Every expenditure made by the CPA requires the deep scrutiny provided by Town Meeting. The nine member Land Bank Commission, on the other hand, with a simple majority vote would have the power to purchase, sell, manage and change the use of the properties under its control — and issue bonds — without oversight from the community at large,” said Ms. Heller.
“The Town of Plymouth needs to stop adding fees, stay out of the real estate business and continue to rely on the Community Preservation Committee and the CPA process to meet the needs of the community,” she said.
Frank Mand, who served on the Planning Board and is the Vice President of the Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance, gave his view on the proposed Land Bank via email.
“If this ‘bank’ contributes to an increase in long-term planning, especially planning for and acquisition of our remaining larger parcels of open space, I would favor it. However I still see little awareness on the part of our elected leaders of the need for and importance of such acquisitions and, my understanding of this land bank article, is that it would reduce, not increase, the level of transparency and/or citizen input, into acquisitions of this kind. I think that preparing for our future needs is great, but not if the determination of those needs is in the hands of fewer and fewer people,” he said.
“The development of the Hedges Pond corridor is perhaps a case in point, in that an outside group comprised largely of some of the largest landholders in the community, was given this land and facilitated a project that, in my opinion, is not in the best interests of the community as a whole and particularly not good for Cedarville itself. So, I’d ask for a revised article with more checks and balances before approving this,” said Mr. Mand.
Meg Sheehan, an environmental attorney, expressed her opposition in an opinion piece published in The Plymouth Independent, alleging that the Land Bank would constitute a give-away to private developers.
A different view was taken by two members of the Select Board, who opposed the Land Bank precisely because it does not allow what they view as necessary economic development (the Select Board voted 3-2 to recommend Article 17; Selectmen Canty, Golden, and Mahoney voted in favor; Selectmen Bletzer and Quintal voted in opposition. The Advisory and Finance Committee voted 11-0 to recommend it).
Plymouth Select Board Chair Richard Quintal explained his vote in opposition to recommending Article 17 to the Town Meeting at the September 10th, 2024, meeting of the Select Board.
“I don’t think the answer’s tagging on $10,000 for anybody’s house — even whatever the amount might be, but that’s a hefty amount,” said Selectman Quintal.
“Second off, we keep talking in the community — and you know, the country, the whole country, has an idea and the way … is to just raise taxes, find a new way to fee; but let’s look at the real problem here, and the lack of planning, and the lack of not changing our zoning to make it more appropriate to what we want to see in our community, and that’s going to come a lot with the Master Plan,” he said.
“So I guess my message is, rather than taxing people, and putting the burden on people some more, whether you’re coming to town or you live here, is to start planning….”
Selectman Charlie Bletzer also expressed his opposition at the September 10th Select Board meeting, noting that the inability of property held by the Land Bank to be commercially or light-industrially developed was a deciding factor for him in opposing the Land Bank.
“I think we have to identify land that’s good for light industrial-commercial development, and we need to get that land and [to] control that land, so — and this doesn’t do that for me, so I’m going to vote No at this time on this,” said Selectman Bletzer.
My View: If I were a Member of the Plymouth Town Meeting, I’d Vote in Favor of the Land Bank
I have been impressed by the arguments made on both sides of this question, and I find things to agree — and disagree — with in both the arguments for and against the Land Bank. Taking full cognizance of the fact that I am not a Plymouth resident, and with deep respect for the individuals and organizations which find themselves in opposition, I would vote in favor of Article 17 if I were a Plymouth Town Meeting Member. Here’s why:
About a decade ago, when I was a Plymouth resident, I remember looking out the window of the small cottage I rented overlooking Powder Horn Pond, deep in the pine woods of Plymouth, and feeling despair — despair at the over-development that threatened the region, its ecosystems, its human culture and lifeways, its water and forests. But despair, and its corollary, rage, are not productive answers to the problems that beset the town and the region. The Land Bank, by contrast, strikes me as a public-spirited and innovative solution to some of the real and persistent problems Plymouth faces.
The fundamental viewpoint of this publication is rooted in 18th century, Commonwealth Thought. This is the political ideology that underlay the American Revolution, and which guided John Adams in his creation of the Massachusetts Constitution and the new Commonwealth. One of its basic premises is that there are certain things which are irreducibly public, or common. In late medieval and early modern England, significant portions of the realm were held commonly; they were the commons, and they were freely and legally used by the commoners of the realm for things like fishing, hunting, gathering firewood, and drawing water, as well as grazing livestock and even keeping bees. While the Wampanoag had their own commons system, the English version, in a legal sense, was carried over to the New World by the early English settlers. These commons-systems took different forms in different places; in New England, they were largely under the aegis of the several towns.
This was certainly true in Plymouth. We find, in the early records of the Town of Plymouth, the following stipulation against illegal enclosure of the commons:
“Whereas sundry of the Inhabitants of The Town of plimouth haveing Takein in Certaine Tracts of Common Lands To The prejudace of sundry Neibhours whereupon the Inhabitants of sd Town Att a town Metting held at plimouth on the 15th day of May 1699 Made Choice of William Shirtleif John Doty sen James Warren & Thomas faunce to be agents for & trustes in the behalf of said town to defend the sd Commons from particular Intrustions….” (Records of the Town of Plymouth, Vol. 1. 1636 to 1705, (Plymouth: Avery & Doten, Book and Job Printers, 1889), pp. 270-71).
In Plymouth, unlike many of her neighbors, these commons appear to have passed in significant part into private hands. This was not the case in some of her neighbors and daughter-towns. In my own Town of Duxbury, for instance, land that had been held commonly as the Town Poor Farm was later purchased, in the 1920s, by the Town, and became part of what is now the Duxbury Green Belt, a vast area of woods and wetlands.
Indeed, as the map below shows, Duxbury has, in many respects, a de facto land bank, since the Town owns significant portions of Duxbury (the analogy is not 1:1, of course; we do not, de jure, have an independent land bank, as Plymouth would).
(The common lands of Duxbury in the 21st century: dark green are Town conservation properties; light green denote lands belonging to nonprofits; and dark gray denotes other Town or State land. Credit — Town of Duxbury.)
Some of this land is held permanently as open space; other portions of it, however, have been used for municipal purposes — when the Town of Duxbury needed to build a new police station in recent years, we did not have to buy the land, since we already owned it (the land came into the Town’s ownership in 1958 as a result of the former owner’s failure to pay property taxes). This has been to the benefit of the Town of Duxbury, and I think similar advantages could accrue to the Town of Plymouth if it were to already own the land it needs for public purposes.
The Land Bank would augment, rather than displace, those elements of the Town of Plymouth government devoted to community preservation, open space, and affordable housing. It would, alongside these institutions, serve to more fully reestablish the ancient commons of the Town.
In addition to open space and municipal needs, consideration must be given to the issue of affordable housing. In my view, having seen people whom I have known in my own life — people who are gainfully employed, and trying hard to better themselves and to play by the rules — become homeless due to rising rents in the Plymouth area (these individuals have since found housing in another part of the state), I am increasingly convinced that our towns have a communal moral responsibility to provide affordable housing. We also have a statutory requirement to do so — Chapter 40B of the General Laws hangs like the sword of Damocles over every town and city that has failed to reach 10% affordable housing stock, including Plymouth and Duxbury, and this has proven to be one of the easiest way for a community to lose control over its own destiny, and to have that destiny put in the hands of private developers. It would be better for affordable housing, in my view, to be in the hands of “a body politic and corporate and a public instrumentality” — which the Land Bank would be (Sec. 2.2.)
Moreover, the proposed legislation defines affordability at 60% of area median income, rather than 80%, as Chapter 40B does. This is a significant victory for working and low-income people in the Town of Plymouth.
I also believe that, for those like myself who are believers in the Town Meeting form of government, it is imperative that we make sure that that form of government can operate in the 21st century, and can compete with those forces of private capital and development which, with the power of the market behind them, have all too often been in the driver’s seat in setting the land use and development agenda for our towns and the larger region.
Indeed, this is where the bank aspect of a land bank is important. Town Meeting finds itself necessarily operating at a slower pace than real estate markets; in order to give the Town a chance to compete in these markets, it is necessary to move at their speed, and this simply is not possible in the timescale of Town Meetings. Governments beyond the Town of Plymouth have seen the need to create independent, though public, banking institutions that have provided order, stability, and a chance for the public, rather than private economic actors, to determine its own economic future. The Federal Reserve, for instance, was created as the nation’s modern central banking institution in the wake of the Panic of 1907, a financial crisis in which the nation found itself relying upon financier J.P. Morgan to rescue the financial system. It is far better to have this role played by a public institution than by private finance, in my view.
So it is here with the Land Bank. It is true that the Land Bank Commission would not be under the control of Town Meeting; but private developers are not under the control of the public at all, and the Land Bank Commission, per its enabling statute, would be “a body politic and corporate and a public instrumentality”; the same cannot be said of the private economic actors who presently dominate land-use decisions in Plymouth and the Commonwealth as a whole.
I also would note that, in terms of checks and balances, in my view, several can be found in the proposed statute.
Section 3.8, for instance, states that “The Land Bank Commission shall adopt a management plan for managing each of its land holdings in a manner consistent with section five. In preparing a management plan for any parcel of land, the Land Bank Commission shall use, as guidelines, the Master Plan, Open Space Plan, and Housing Production Plan of the Town.” Section 4.1.4.1 states that “[w]ith respect to lands held solely in Land Use Category 5.1. [Natural, Open Space, and Passive Recreational Land] herein, such change of use or disposal shall also require the approval of the Secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and be subject to the provisions of Article XCVII of the Articles of Amendment to the Constitution of the Commonwealth, to the extent applicable. ” Article XCVII [97] of the Massachusetts Constitution reads, in part: “The people shall have the right to clean air and water, freedom from excessive and unnecessary noise, and the natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic qualities of their environment; and the protection of the people in their right to the conservation, development and utilization of the agricultural, mineral, forest, water, air and other natural resources is hereby declared to be a public purpose.” (Mass Const., Art. XCVII)
In addition, we can find further checks and balances in Section 6 of the proposed Land Bank legislation. Section 6.1.1.3 prohibits “Removal or destruction of trees, shrubs or other vegetation other than for general maintenance or for ancillary uses” on land held in the natural, open, scenic, and passive recreation category. Section 6.1.1.4 likewise prohibits “[e]xcavation, dredging or removal of loam, peat, sand, gravel, soil, rock or other mineral substance in such manner as to affect the surface” of land held in the same category. Section 6.1.3.2 states that “[l]and which becomes designated by the Land Bank Commission for a specific municipal purpose shall be transferred to the Town, which shall thereafter assume all responsibility for its maintenance and development.”
Thus, in my view, a significant basis exists within the proposed statute itself to check and balance the proposed Land Bank Commission.
For the foregoing reasons, I believe the proposed Land Bank would be to the lasting benefit of the Town of Plymouth. I fully recognize that I am not a Plymouth resident, and that therefore those who are may wish to take my opining with several fistfuls of salt; I recognize, as well, the compelling arguments which have been made in opposition to the Land Bank, and I wish also to express my deep respect for the individuals and organizations making those arguments. Nevertheless, I remain of the view that the Land Bank is a welcome and necessary means to preserve the commons of Plymouth in our own time and century, and for that reason, I would vote “Yes” on Article 17 were I a Plymouth Town Meeting Member.
The Plymouth Fall Town Meeting will begin at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 19th, 2024, at Plymouth North High School, located at 41 Obery Street in Plymouth. It can be accessed via Zoom and watched online via the Local Seen (formerly PACTV), as well, here: https://thelocalseen.media/.
The warrant can be found here.