NEW SCOTLAND — After six years of having term limits for zoning and planning board members, the town board decided last Wednesday, in a 4-to-1 vote, to make allowances.

The amendment to the limits will allow the board to appoint a member who has served two full five-year terms to an extended term by a supermajority vote of the town board.

“I think 10 years is a long time,” said Councilwoman Patricia Snyder, who cast the lone vote against the amendment. “I am really troubled by this. I think term limits offer an opportunity for refreshment to ensure a wider range of perspective.”

“We had a zoning board opening and no one applied for it,” said Councilman Adam Greenberg, who, last year, left the zoning board when he reached his term limit before joining the town board. Greenberg said that the town balances its boards by gender and geography, bringing together men and women from Voorheesville, Clarksville, Feura Bush, and elsewhere in New Scotland.

“We don’t want to tie our hands,” Greenberg said.

Earlier this year, Supervisor Douglas LaGrange said that term limits of 10 years, enacted in 2011, “can be unduly restrictive.” The amendment is proposed “to allow a procedure for making exceptions to the term-limit rules in certain circumstances,” he said.

“Due to the limited number of qualified candidates who are willing to serve as members of the boards,” the proposal states, “and the overall population of the town, the town board has found that the term limits can be unduly restrictive…and the town code should be amended.”

Four of the town board’s five members, a supermajority, would have to support the allowance.

The 2011 term limits law was accompanied with a restructuring of the boards; the terms are now set up so that only one board member’s term expires each year. Also, most boards were set up to have five members with five-year terms; the planning board previously had seven-year terms for seven members.

New Scotland Republican Chairman Deane Fish asked the board why it would remove term limits.

“We advertise. We take résumés. It’s very transparent,” said Democratic Councilman William C. Hennessy Jr. “Now we go through interviews.”

“That’s a lame excuse that you can’t find qualified people,” said former New Scotland Republican Chairman Timothy Stanton. “You change the law to get people off, then change it, again, to get people on. That’s what it comes off as. You’ve got your people there, and you want to keep them there.”

Stanton said that he supported the term limits in 2011, and that he was against ending them.

Hennessy noted that two of the five current planning board members are Republicans.

Greenberg said that experienced members can save the town from problems with zoning, such as when big-box development or cell tower proposals come before a board.

“We need to...make an intentional effort to seek out...qualified candidates — develop succession planning. We have to have a roster of candidates. We have legal counselors and advisors” to guide new members,  said Snyder.