The Traffic Study Used 44 Percent. Eight Issues Remain.

ORLEANS · ROUTE 6A · NOV. 18

The seasonal traffic figure is settled on paper. The town's Nov. 3 memo shows what isn't.

3 min read · A Celebrate Lower Cape spotlight

For the 78 homes proposed at the former Governor Prence property, the applicants' traffic engineer used a 44 percent adjustment to turn earlier traffic counts into peak-summer conditions. The engineers Orleans hired pointed to a 37 percent regional figure. If you were at the Oct. 22 hearing, you heard about that seven-point gap.

There's a newer document. On Nov. 3, the town's transportation consultant, Howard Stein Hudson, recorded that the Cape Cod Commission didn't object to the 44 percent adjustment. That comment is now marked resolved, with no further action required.

The traffic file isn't closed, though.

Eight numbered items, still open

The Nov. 3 follow-up lists eight unresolved items: 13, 14, 16, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29. Some concern the capacity worksheets and traffic operations at the rotary where Route 6A, Route 28 and Canal Road meet. Others ask about signal timing, marked crossings, Cape Cod Rail Trail access, bike parking, on-site car parking and the construction management plan.

None of those is an approval or a denial. They're questions from the town's engineers, and the zoning board still has its own decision to make.

61 rentals, 10 townhomes, seven houses

The town's comprehensive-permit application describes 61 affordable rental units, 10 middle-income townhomes for sale and seven single-family homes aimed at lower-income buyers. The named applicants are Preservation of Affordable Housing, Housing Assistance Corporation and Habitat for Humanity Cape Cod.

Those are three income bands with three sets of rules, so "affordable" means something different depending on which door you're standing at.

Brewster's 16.8 acres, about five of them built

Resident Jim O'Brien pointed to Spring Rock Village in Brewster, where Preservation of Affordable Housing and Housing Assistance Corporation are building 45 affordable rentals on about 16.8 acres. The Orleans plan is 78 homes on roughly 5.5 acres. Two of the three Orleans applicants are the same; Habitat for Humanity isn't part of the Brewster project.

The acreage gap is smaller than it sounds. At Spring Rock Village, the developed part covers a little more than five acres of the larger property. Gross acres alone don't tell you much about traffic or what a site will feel like.

Public comment is already closed

A report of the Oct. 22 meeting says the board voted 3-0 to close public comment and continued the hearing to Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. No date for a final vote has been set publicly.

On the 18th the board can weigh the updated traffic record, ask for more, or continue the case again. The town's posted agenda will have the room, remote-access details and the exact business once it's up.

Wednesday at 7, the 44 percent is off the table. Eight numbers between 13 and 29 are not.

Send it to: the Orleans neighbor who has been following the Governor Prence hearings.