The Commercial Zoning Districts of Dennis – Part 2 The West Dennis Village Center Zoning Districts

It started in the late 1990’s with the restoration of the West Dennis Graded School. This building has become the focal point of community groups from the Girl Scouts to Weight Watchers. It continued with the creation of an accessible playground by the Dennis Committee on Disabilities adjacent to the village center. Next the town purchased the $3.2M property next to the Bass River. With this acquisition the town formed the BassRiver Park Committee to oversee planning for the site. The committee oversaw the removal of a defunct restaurant and retail buildings by volunteers. The property is now known as the Bass River Park. Finally, in October 2007 the town completed three years of planning work by the Dennis Economic Development Committee, village residents and businesses to develop a zoning by-law providing a framework to foster the future of West Dennis, connecting the traditional village to its waterfront. This zoning proposal was overwhelmingly approved by residents at the Dennis Town Meeting.

West Dennis is an historic village dating from the early 1800’s. The village was the home to sea captains and founders of industry. When first settled, West Dennis contained a mix of residences and businesses, including one of the earliest manufacturing facilities on Cape Cod, thus creating a thriving and vital village center. The village served as the gateway to Dennis first being connected to Yarmouth by a ferry service and later by a toll bridge. After the “old” bloodlines left West Dennis, the village became a center for the Mid-Cape’s tourist economy.

In the 1950s, this historic village development pattern was replaced with zoning that did not connect with the history of the village. The zoning allowed for significant non-village related and automobile oriented uses, including mini-warehousing, contractor’s yards and automobile dealerships. The zoning did not allow for residential uses over commercial storefronts, a staple of the early commercial development.

The West Dennis Village Center by-law reconnects West Dennis zoning with its traditional land use pattern.The rezoning contains a number of critical elements including down-zoning four neighborhoods, recreating a village center within the constraints of zoning, removing incompatible land uses, and creating a waterfront marine district promoting water and tourist oriented uses. The by-law promotes a mix of retail, professional and upper floor residential uses on a single property – uses that were characteristic of our centuries-old downtowns, made illegal by zoning adopted over the past 40 years. The new zoning:

• Fosters sustainable development by promoting a self-sustaining village where people can live, work, shop and play.
• Encourages redevelopment of existing properties.
• Concentrates development within the Village Center.
• Controls building designs to promote local architectural standards over national formulas.
• Removes land uses that are not conducive to a village center.
• Encourages the creation of new jobs in the village center.
• Expands housing opportunities by linking commercial development to providing needed affordable housing.
• Conserves natural resources by allowing increased intensity of development in the village center and reducing development in other portions of the village.
• Encourages pedestrian and alternative transportation modes including promoting pedestrian connections to the South Yarmouth village area..
• Provides an opportunity for an older commercial neighborhood to share the benefits of development in Dennis.

The keys to economic revival are people and attractions. The actions of the town over the past several years have provided for both of these.

The efforts in West Dennis brought together:

Ø Dennis Board of Selectmen

Ø Dennis Committee on Disabilities

Ø Dennis Historical Society

Ø Dennis Conservation Trust

Ø Dennis Economic Development Committee

Ø Dennis Community Preservation Committee

Ø Bass River Park Committee

Ø Dennisport Revitalization Committee

Ø Dennis Planning and Appeals Office

Ø Zoning By-law Study Committee

Ø Dennis Planning Board

Ø Dennis Chamber of Commerce

Ø Private property owners

Ø Private citizens (donated $250,000 to the park project)

Ø Local contractors

The Accessible Playground and acquisition and improvements to Bass River Park involved significant public and private financial contributions, as well as many hours of volunteer labor to create these two public attractions. These two outdoor public facilities serve as bookends to the West Dennis village. The Playground being located in the easterly most area of the village adjacent to the West Dennis Graded School, Bass River Park at the western most edge of the village. These two public facilities are now linked by a comprehensive land use scheme promoting pedestrian oriented land uses. House and the

The Dennis Economic Development Committee met for over a year in the West Dennis Graded School House, a central meeting space in the village. Flyers explaining the zoning proposal were distributed throughout the village. Several local business leaders offered to host “coffee and donuts” in the village to reach out to those who had questions and were unable to attend the monthly meetings.  This illustrates tremendous local support for redeveloping the village of West Dennis.