May 1, 2025 by Carol Britton Meyer
An Anchor News reporter posed questions to the two candidates running for Planning Board in this year’s Town Election—the only contested race on the ballot.
QUESTION 1: What do you consider to be the biggest challenges faced by Hingham from a planning board perspective?
CRYSTAL KELLY: The biggest challenges facing Hingham from the perspective of the Planning Board are resiliency and sustainability in the face of climate change and maintaining the character of our Town while supporting growth. As a coastal community, Hingham is directly threatened by rising sea levels. The Commonwealth estimates that over the next five years, sea levels are projected to rise six inches to 1.1 feet above 2000 levels. Without action, in the short term the rising seas will periodically inundate the area adjacent to Hingham harbor and threaten the downtown. Hingham has embarked on an ambitious waterfront resiliency project that will address some of the more pressing dangers from rising seas, including by increasing the Town Wharf and Barnes Wharf elevations, improving revetments around Memorial Park, berm and dune enhancements along the Bathing Beach and a tide gate to protect Home Meadows. Additionally, increased severe storms make appropriately managing stormwater runoff critical to all projects.
I have had the pleasure of serving Hingham as a member of the Conservation Commission for the last six years, including at least three as the Chairperson. Not surprisingly, the issues of climate change and resiliency are near and dear to my heart. However, the Conservation Commission has a much more limited area of jurisdiction than the Planning Board. The Planning Board has a critically important role in supporting and encouraging resiliency within its own area of authority. As a member of the Planning Board I will assure that projects within our purview that may be threatened by the effects of climate change incorporate design and engineering features to be resilient.
Hingham also faces the ongoing challenge of maintaining the character of our Town while supporting growth. Several neighborhoods have become exceptionally popular and are experiencing significant redevelopment that is impacting the quality of life in those communities. For example, in Crow Point, it is now quite expected for the new owner of an older home, particularly as it concerns the existing summer cottages, to tear down the modest house and build a much larger, modern structure. Unfortunately the ongoing redevelopment of these homes has caused negative impacts to the neighborhood through loss of open space between houses, disruption due to blasting ledge, and in some instances, interproject runoff and loss of privacy.
The Planning Board is currently investigating ways to mitigate the impact of the intensification of the residential uses in the affected neighborhoods. Recognizing that Crow Point is different from Liberty Pole or Farm Hills or Martins Lane, rather than recommending a change that would apply to the whole town, I support a neighborhood specific measures that would directly address the concerns of that particular neighborhood. This is an issue that warrants thoughtful study as the solution will likely affect the size and scale of new or reconstruction in the applicable neighborhood. Like all zoning, it involves a balancing of rights, and the final proposal will be debated at public meetings, and eventually go before Town Meeting.
TOM PATCH: First, ensuring there is a balance between the impacts resulting from the need for municipal revenue to fund the municipal services demands of residents while maintaining the quality of life of Hingham that attracted people to want to live and work in Hingham.
This has been an ongoing major challenge for the Planning Board since its inception in 1942 and is one of the reasons why the Planning Board exists. The Hingham of today is a product of our Hingham predecessors’ recognition that the right guiding principal in crafting our Hingham community is the intertwined past, present and future in equal parts rather than a focus on only certain parts to the exclusion or diminishment of others.
Second, to achieve more widespread community engagement to enable the Planning Board to listen and be responsive to all the voices in our Hingham community. This is no easy task because “community” is not singular: people with similar characteristics or in a shared geographic area may have very different interests and needs, based on their lived experience. As stated in the 1950s by Arthur Whittmore, former Town of Hingham Town Counsel and Moderator, as well as an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, It is an axiom of the Democratic system but in the 1950’s it sometimes appears forgotten by some people that only if full examination of all views is had will the better course be discovered and error exposed.”
Former Town of Hingham Moderator Thomas L. P. O’Donnell expanded on this standard in stating “Individual liberty works in a democracy because we talk things over together and do what seems right under the circumstances.”
Third, put more substance in the word “planning” in Planning Board by the Planning Board members. For example,
(1) to be proactive in crafting and implementing housing production so it is accomplished on terms acceptable to the Hingham community rather than on terms forced through a mandate by the state;
(2) to recognize the reality that because Hingham is competing with other communities for the same sources of municipal revenue then Hingham must offer a more desirable destination for businesses to locate in, remain and thrive through, for example, infrastructure improvements and more zoning flexibility to allow for mixed uses;
(3) for Planning Board members to enhance their training and education to allow for more effective direct engagement with those who come before the Board; and
(4) implementing and keeping current the Master Plan so it is not merely aspirational.
I am confident I can help the Planning Board meet all the challenges presented and respectfully ask for your vote as the next Planning Board member at the May 3 rd Town Election. Thank you.
QUESTION 2: With the town’s focus on economic development, how do you envision encouraging the growth of business in Hingham while also considering the importance of maintaining residents quality of life?
CRYSTAL KELLY: Economic development is critically important to our Town as vibrant commercial districts enhance our community and bring balance to our tax base. I support encouraging additional compatible investment in our existing commercial areas, such as Downtown Hingham, the Shipyard, and the Derby Street area. The Planning Board can recommend measures to encourage growth in these areas, such as making desired and commercially viable uses as of right, consider reducing the parking requirement for some uses (as it can add additional expense to small businesses) and improving the layout of sidewalks and streetscapes for new development. Maintaining control over the what kind of business are able to operate and the location of non-residential uses will protect the quality of life that we all enjoy now and will enrich our community.
TOM PATCH: My response to the prior question recognizes the need for balancing economic growth with quality of life as one of the Planning Board’s biggest challenges. This has been one of if not the biggest of challenges Hingham has faced since evolving from a semi-rural community to a suburban community starting in the early 1900s.
What I hear from residents is a legitimate “kill the goose that laid the golden egg” concern that Hingham is heading down the path of evolving into a densely developed urban community driven by the need for municipal revenue to fund demands for municipal services.
In the choice presented to Hingham voters in this election, the value of my voice as a Planning Board member is
(1) the work of the Hingham Planning Board is in my professional wheelhouse as a practicing attorney, and
(2) I am not a bureaucrat but instead a person with an extensive real world background in planning, economics, real estate development, municipal and land use law, representation of businesses, coupled with deep understanding of and devotion to our Town as a born and raised Hinghamite with deep family roots in Hingham.
This provides me with a critical knowledge base, experience, skill set and perspective to be able to achieve tangible results in the present and in the future rather than offering the promise of aspirations.
I understand what will drive businesses to not just grow but also choose to locate in Hingham: that Hingham offers more value than other communities in terms of demographics, infrastructure, government services and regulation, quality employees, and brand and goodwill development.
Yet I also understand that business growth must be accomplished within a framework of not merely “considering” but instead requiring balance with resident quality of life.
Melding what may appear to be two incompatible interests into the best of both is what lies ahead for the Planning Board.
I am confident I am up to the task and respectfully ask for your vote as the next Planning Board member in the May 3 rd Town Election. Thank you.