Brewster Looks To The Next Phase Of Sea Camps Plan

BREWSTER – The plans for the Sea Camps properties aren’t set in concrete, but they are in printer’s ink after approvals at town meeting.

Brewster will now advance to the next steps: financing and beginning work on a decades’ worth of projects.

“It’s hard to believe we’re in this place, where we’re transitioning to the next phase and implementation,” Town Manager Peter Lombardi reflected at the select board Meeting May 20. “It’s really exciting.”

The bay and pond planning committees have met for the last time, and the select board will be looking to disband them, as it did to the Drummer Boy Park advisory committee last week. Then the board will create a new committee to implement the plans over the next decade or so.

Lombardi called the two-year process one of the most complex planning initiatives Brewster’s ever gone through.

“It was a great process. Great to hear all the positive feedback about the process,” he said of the two planning committees. “That was their primary responsibility and they’ve certainly fulfilled it. We heard a lot of positive feedback also throughout the process about our consulting team” Reed Hilderband.

Lombardi hopes to have a draft charge for the Sea Camps planning committee ready for the board’s next meeting next week.

“The Sea Camps implementation committee will have a very different role and set of tasks,” Mary Chaffee noted. “What [do] you see as some of the possible tasks?”

“There will be different work. There will be some similarities as well,” Lombardi replied. “The new committee will dig into [phasing and financing] a little more with town staff. On key policy decision points they are going to be making recommendations to the select board. We continue to hear from residents on interest in revenue generation opportunities.”

Residents want to maximize access and opportunities at the property, he added.

While there were 11 members on the planning committees, the new committee would likely have seven to nine members. Kari Hoffmann agreed the board should be mostly at large as opposed to being composed of members from other town committees.

Work on the sites will likely happen in the offseason, not during the busy summer seasons. The pond property and its beach will be renamed at some point in an open process in conjunction with partners on the property such as Mass. Audubon and the Brewster Conservation Trust.

Assistant Town Manager Donna Kalinick noted that she was on the stage watching the votes.

“Watching the majority of our residents vote for both of those plans was just a wonderful moment for this community and for all of the work that went into producing consensus community plans,” she said.