Residents will have a few decisions to make when they meet to decide Westport's business for the year at next week's Town Meeting, set for Tuesday, May 7, at the high school.

Apart from a warrant article that could seal the fate of the town's $35 million Route 6 sewer and water project, they'll be asked to set a budget, find a financial solution to Westport Community Schools' rising transportation, special education and other costs — and will be asked to pass over several significant zoning changes developed by the planning board.

Of the 43 articles on the warrant, the finance committee recently recommended 'No' votes on the following:

•  Articles 14 and 15 deal with the $35 million Route 6 project, which would see a trunk line extended from Fall River and modern infrastructure installed east to the Dartmouth town line. The project, which requires two separate approvals, failed at the polls early last month when voters, nearly two to one, rejected a debt exclusion that would have provided access to funding for the work.

The second step comes Tuesday, when voters are asked to appropriate up to $35 million for the project. With the April vote's failure, this second step in effect becomes the first; if it passes, town officials will once again ask voters, likely later this year, to approve the debt exclusion.

There is talk that members of the Infrastructure Oversight Committee, which worked with the planning board to design the project, might favor an amendment next week that would reduce the amount sought, and instead fund the project in three smaller phases, each of which would be independently funded. The first phase is expected to cost roughly $8 million.

Breaking the project up into smaller pieces was the IOC's plan earlier this year, when members endorsed the three-stage approach before changing strategy and opting to go all in on one large, all-encompassing project.

Article 15, also not recommended by the finance committee, would establish and assess "betterments" — fees charged to individual property owners to tie into the new lines.

•  Meanwhile, members of the planning board recently recommended that articles 34 and 37, which would establish new zoning districts, be passed over. They include, in article 34, a new Mixed Use Science and Technology District, which according to proposed language promotes "a live/work mixed use environment that offers employment and housing oportunities" in north Westport, and "promotes the creation of housing in proximity to services and employment opportunities."

Article 37 would establish a "Westport Gateway District," a new district along the Route 6 corridor. The district "considers existing and planned infrastructure" and seeks to establish regulations in an area where many properties pre-exist zoning and thus have "regulatory anomalies." The end goal of the district, the article reads, is "to address these regulatory challenges, incorporate the contemporary uses envisioned for the area, and offer a permitting pathway to enhance quality of life and economic development while protecting the public health, safety (and) convenience."

Planning board member Bob Daylor said this week that the board's decision to pass over the articles came down to questions many raised over the Route 6 project, and its relationship with the proposed zoning changes.

"The PB decided that there was a substantial number of voices mixing the proposed zoning with the sewer articles. We were concerned that message would kill or at least hurt the chances of getting the first section sewer approved."