Sandwich backs $20M for active living center, library work Voters also bar town purchase of single-use plastic bottles.

Sandwich backs $20M for active living center, library work

By Geoff Spillane
Posted Oct 29, 2019

Voters also bar town purchase of single-use plastic bottles.

SANDWICH — Special town meeting on Monday approved spending $20 million for construction of a new Center for Active Living on Quaker Meetinghouse Road and renovations to the public library on Main Street.

The projects, included in the same article, will not affect the town’s tax rate and will be paid for through two new revenue sources: a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement for Canal Generating LLC’s Unit 3 and the new short-term rental tax.

The Center for Active Living will include a large multipurpose space that can be partitioned for smaller uses. It also will feature game rooms, a kitchen facility and a community gym that will be outfitted with pickleball courts and an elevated walking track, among other features. The project will cost about $16.5 million, and the library renovations about $3.5 million.

Sandwich also became the seventh Cape Cod town to prohibit municipal purchase of single-use water (or other beverage) plastic bottles and the sale of the bottles on town property. The petition article passed by unanimous vote.

A full house of more than 900 voters attended the meeting, dispatching of the 11-article warrant in about 3½ hours.

Voters also approved disposition by sale of the Forestdale Fire Station building on Route 130 and the expenditure of $340,000 for a new ambulance and related equipment.

They also approved spending Community Preservation Act funds on two projects: $51,000 to support Latham Centers Inc. in construction of housing for four disabled adults to age in place and $47,438 for the construction and maintenance of a disc golf course at the town’s Oak Crest Cove property on Quaker Meetinghouse Road.

The meeting started more than a half-hour late to accommodate voters waiting to check in.