The 10-article special town meeting lasted two hours last night, with a significant debate before rejecting both the quorum requirement at town meeting and a building moratorium in the center of town, but passing a low-impact development bylaw.

The town meeting started with significant debate about whether or not to eliminate the 75-person requirement to start town meeting.

Many residents expressed concerns about reducing the quorum and letting too few people conduct the business of the town. Resident George Ainsleigh suggested simply reducing the quorum requirement to 50 people.

"We have never had a problem (that number)," Ainsleigh said.

Ninety-nine registered voters turned out for the meeting on Nov. 15, at Oakmont Regional High School.

Selectmen Christopher Gagnon said he would support that if it was reduced to 40 people.

"It's getting more and more difficult to keep people," he said.

If a member of the town meeting calls for a quorum count in the middle of the meeting and the town moderator recognizes that request and a quorum is counted, then a meeting must be adjourned if a quorum fails to be in attendance.

As a proponent of the original article to eliminate the quorum, Selectman Jonathan Dennehy, said, "If people don't want to show up and participate, we don't want to hold up the people that do participate."

Residents expressed concern that they couldn't get 1 percent of the town's population to a town meeting.

"What protection is there that a special interest group can't come in here," said Jim Kelly.

Former Town Clerk Wesley Landry said there has only been three town meetings in last 36 years that could not be held because of a lack of quorum, and the quorum at that time was 5 percent of the registered voters.

Voters approved the amendment, which changed the question to lowering the quorum requirement to 50. They then rejected the move to change the bylaw to the lower quorum requirement with a 39 to 53 vote.

Voters also rejected a move to implement a one-year moratorium on building in the Village Center area of town by a large majority in a voice vote.

"This is not unlike what we had to do when we dealt with the cell tower bylaw," said Selectman Mark Carlisle, who spoke as a proponent to the article.

There are a variety of properties in the center of town that are for sale and some town officials have expressed concern about the potential development on those property.

Many residents who spoke against the proposal expressed their concerns about the decrease of property values.

"You have basically taken those opportunities off the table for at least a year," said resident Geoff Evancic.

In other business:

- Voters on the other hand approved a low-impact development bylaw by a vote of 58-31, after many members of the town meeting objected to the proposal of the bylaw is geared to help town officials manage storm water run off.

"This is America. We have property rights. This is really overkill," said resident Bill Donovan.

- Voters supported a move of $20,000 from free cash to help cover the expenses of moving the Town Hall offices to Oakmont Regional High School during the renovation project. Interim Town Administrator Paul Boushell said the additional money is to cover the cost of the rent of the rooms, the PODs that are storing some of the materials, as well as some other costs.

Residents expressed some concern about confusion on whether or not the article was funding the move back to the Town Hall building. The Advisory Board thought that this article was funding the move back to the Town Hall from Oakmont and withdrew its support of the money.

- Voters unanimously approved an article supporting the donation of land to Habitat for Humanity. This was the third time voters have supported donating this land, because wording issues in the article and incorrect property lines have caused legal problems with the donations.

Another legal issue almost arose when Town Counsel Deb Philips noticed a typo in the language in the warrant, but voters approved language vague enough that she believes the issue will not have to determine this again.

- Voters unanimously approved the funding for three capital repairs to the schools including the HVAC system and door at John R. Briggs Elementary and a phone system at Overlook Middle School.