It is 7:02. I will call the regular meeting of the Andor Planning and Zoning Commission to order. Next up is roll call and seating of alderman. So we've got start to vote first. [Music] Yeah, you're not able to. Okay, there we go. Then we got me. So Kevin and Amarie, thank you for coming tonight. the but we won't be seeing either of you and and if I think everybody knows that Susan England resigned since the last time we met she just got a bunch of different family issues going on kind of like Steve Nelson did earlier and that has not allowed her to take take the time she needs to dedicate to that. So, she submitted her esignation. Next up is additions or changes to the agenda and I have none. Anybody else? No. So, with at that point, we'll move on to public speak. anybody from the public here that wants to to speak about anything that we're not going to be talking about on the agenda and looks like a note there as well. So, next up is old business and we
start out with the plan of conservation and development. And I guess we'll let Patrick and Elaine take it away. Oh, we'll let Patrick take it away. Not just that. Very good. It's all yours, Patrick. Oh, thank you. is can somebody show me how to share the power on the screen here? Sure. John, can you make sure you give Patrick permission to share? Yep. Sharing is allowed. Oh, there's a button. Share. Click share. Okay. Right there. Yeah. And say share. Great. Thank you. want to hit that button right there. Should that work? You should [Music] And that's one step more than I was ever able to do. I got a bad tree off the board. That was as good as I can do. So you're off and running. All right. So these are the concepts and ideas that economic development
commission is going to recommend for our next plan of conservation development. we're going to be focusing on smaller scale neighborhood based businesses and we need to help them grow here in Andover because a lot of homebased businesses start and then they outgrow their house and then they want to they they they expand, but then they move their business to some of our surrounding towns and cities which have more commercial spaces available. And so we want to start making sure that they can thrive here. so going hand in hand with that, we want to make sure that you know the the all the services and businesses that everybody was surveying in our town, the coffee shops, the home services, bicycle shops, restaurants and maybe small workshops will be available here without
traveling to the next on you know. we also are investigating small business mixeduse hubs. So that's an that's a concept that we we talked about 10 years ago with mixed use development. So that's the ability to have a dwelling on the same property as commercial building. now we don't currently to my knowledge have any but that's really kind of what we're looking for. But we've got the regulation to support it. The regulations are already there. They're startup, but I think we need to really define what we would like to see, you know. Okay. That's that's the main point. Tweak to fit. Yes. Tweak it. Tweak. Okay. And to fit Andover's rural character. I mean, you know, we want it to still look like Andover without looking overdeveloped. And over better. True. one of the one of the things we could do is expand as red uses for these mixed use facilities. and going hand in hand what we just talked about is the design guidance. So some people call it design standards. but we would be calling it design guidance. You know, these are the types of buildings that we think fit in our our neighborhood and our our surrounding towns. and encourage anybody who wants to develop in our town to follow suit. we also investigated some towns they convert older houses that may be in a hight traffic area into small restaurants and that's one of the things we're looking into. And yeah, there we go. We we still are we want to keep the town
cured page. We're also really excited to try and promote some more tourism in our town. before I go through the list, I a couple years back my wife and I were up at the old town hall and we met some travelers from out of the country and they were, you know, looking at all the colonial sites and there's a couple markers here and there, but that's really what a lot of people come to our town for. They want to go down the trail. really want to see the sort of places and so that's stressed here in the slide I think oh maybe not the slide okay back to the list yeah actually it's first thing on list town guides and some of them being maybe located at or near the trail crossings focus on our historic places like the Roshambo marker really investigate the auxiliary uses for farms, farm farmers markets, agurism fairs and to maybe sponsor local events. also we need to really finalize what properties are best suiting for these needs because we really don't want to encroach on the conservation land and get too close to the river. We really want to keep, you know, we don't want to just do the whole
strip of Route 6. You know, that would be counterproductive. also we want people to be able to walk or bike there. That's one of the big goals that we've been that was identified in the last plan conservation development and we see all the the the sher now and we have crossings on Route 6 and that's going to help with tourism. Oh, and now also the last thing we don't have really any lodging power. So if we're going to try to track tourism, we need to address that too. Would that be the bed and breakfast thing? Bed and breakfast to start and maybe some smaller Maybe a hotel. yeah, because I mean we've got them in the veterans. Agent Orange Memorial and there's a very I think we might we're the only ones in the state, you know. So, a lot of people come just to be there just to sit there and then and where do they go? What do they do?
So, be good to have something. Definitely good points. I think with the hotel lodging we got to be careful a little bit because there are people moving there permanently. So the homeless people whatever Airbnb is more popular amongst people who travel like that I think. so I'm sure it's it's worth doing a survey. Just go on Airbnb and look at Andover and Columbia. How many Airbnbs are you'll be surprised to see there are so spend their money here in Andover. Absolutely. No absolutely. Yeah. And you know for them a two-minute drive from Colombia Lake to Andover is an issue to spend that money. So I mean yeah that leads us to we did a lot of discussion and we would like to see the town as develop later. and that that goes hand in hand with literally acquiring property if possible and you know, see that the town can make
some money off of their own properties if possible. we also talked about a town business park other than retail, so something off of Route 6 that would spur economic growth. and also the small business mixeduse hubs and John brought up our town planner calls it a sinking fund for development land and that's like a kind of like a you can pipe in John and explain that. I I'm sorry I don't know what's Well, it's it's basically the converse of setting aside money to acquire open space. you know, you you establish a fund, you you set aside a little bit of money every year and and then you have a fund available should a a a you know, a targeted a targeted property become available or or someone offers you
you know an an opportunity. So it's it's just having having funds at the ready over time. Thank you. So, one of the thoughts, you know, that I was always disappointed that we didn't get the little piece of land off of Beer Valley that out back here budding, you know, down property and and at the time we were only looking at open space. And I said, I'm not sure we really wanted that open space. that would be the kind of thing that the town would want so that we could you build nice housing development or something back there and have the access both through here or from offer valley road that kind of thing. So it was you know in retrospect but then we all see how successful we were getting money in the budget for open space this year a lot long thinking about you know just buying property for other things. So that's going to be a bit of a of a
stretch, but yeah, it may be seen as differently, too, because people realize, no, now we're putting a fund to go ahead and get areas for development that the town can benefit from as opposed to just open space, so nothing happens there. You know what I mean? It might they might see it differently, but I never Yeah. the the need to have the town purchase property to spur the development is one of those light bulbs that started to come on with me and yeah I see that need and a lot of the discussion came because like I I was with the hot river six LA plan that was done and they talked about the village node and they kept bringing up the village node and that's where we said Oh, we need mixed use areas so they can have housing, little shops and and stuff all in one area. And they came up with great plans, things to do. and it went nowhere. So, this is kind of a we still have that vision. You still kind of want to move it forward and do something with it. it was it was a value to look at and they even talked about the small business little industrial park out there on the back post property you know that offic you know to utilize land for economic growth. So it was it was great. We just want to keep building on. Okay. Sounds good. And that leads us right into housing economic development. We do have we've
identified need for more starter and and downsizer options which would be you know smaller square footage residences and more in the middle of the price range because it seems in our town we have the gap. Some people call it miss and middle some sometimes it's called the gap you know between the lowest and the highest price houses in our town. I remember from the last conservation development plan like an average teacher salary can they buy a house in our town and what's the availability for them to stay in our own town? also, the smaller house and parcel sizes in plan development. We're revisiting regulations on accessory dwelling units and drain pods. We already have in-law apartment allowances that can be attached to your house. We're going to look more into that. over 55 housing availability. So with the but don't I would think I would say that we allow
ranny bodies now now maybe you're talking about something that's not got a permanent foundation or something bring in a trailer or something I don't know but you know the the accessory boing unit I thought was the same thing. It's similar but I think right now we're not we don't permit people to live in trailers in our town as we don't as of like as right but we could identify areas where that might be acceptable right we do for a period of time for a certain amount of time not really I mean on a case by case basis the CPA has allowed that in the past in case seen cases where a house burned down because of a fire or something that allowed somebody to live in a you know a trailer on site for a period of time while the house is reconstructed. state I know the state. Yes, and I'd have to go back and check. I I'm pretty confident we're not in total compliance with that public act 2129 did talk about allowing traders in our reg currently for a period of time. Yeah, I don't know the details. It was never never got around to that one yet. Well, it had started like with an appeals process. Like you said, CBA was working. So, if we can make it some kind of a standard, then people don't have to go to appeals every time they want to do something. Well, but you have to ask yourself, is that really what you want to do? Maybe yes. I'm not saying yes or no. I'm just saying that that's something certainly in the past. middle housing. Middle housing is all of this. Well, middle housing, the the term middle housing really relates more
towards duplexes and triplexes. That's what's traditionally considered middle housing density. So, it's not an apartment complex, but it's duplex or triplex. Right. And there are serious bills up in the legislature right now that would essentially force towns to allow duplexes and triplexes as of right. Don't think they'll go anywhere in this legislative session. But this 10year plan will work with that. So yeah. No, I'm just giving you the history. Yeah. Right. And we could we could do that in town with our current regulations, you know, and I'm certainly not opposed to that. I my my sense is there's probably some residential areas where people wouldn't want to duplex showing up in the middle of that. But if we were to have a middle or affordable housing development someplace that's not sprinkled all over town, but kind of clustered together, I think that'd be a
great thing. you know, and even the 55 housing plus housing. I know we had an approved lot up there at the end of Bear Swamp, right? I think M's property or something, but then things changed and there was no money to go ahead and do it. So, you know, when I was selling that lot across 162 acres across from the dub, we transfers the trans, you know, some of the plans we were showing was 55 housing, you know, possibilities and stuff, but you know, thank the person who bought it like had one residence on it. It's like, oh well, then goes that. Let let me know when across the street from bear for sale. I'll buy it. I live like right there. There's no way I'm gonna want anything. The reason why I bought that house is because I'm next to the forest. It's quiet. Yeah. So, if it goes up for sale, let me know. And that's that's a good point. Like that's why it's important for us to identify the areas where these
ideas will work. where and we have to pipe over the summer. Yeah, there's still some more I think 55, right? 55. Yeah. Well, it doesn't have to. We could do a mixeduse development along Route Six or something to to do that. But again, it's you know, it's a localized thing. It's not people out on beer swarm aren't going to be offended by the fact we've got you know some tri flexes and that in like lone corners for instance you know right down there off 87 in round six. Yeah, your period of life where you are makes a difference. When we moved here 20 years ago, we were looking for land in the quiet in the woods. We bought two acres. Now, we can't afford to maintain something like that. So, we're very glad we had built the in-law apartment on it and we moved into that now. Yeah. And now we would really jump at something like the 55 housing, the middle housing, something. we got friends who are moving into a 55 plus community in Mansfield up Newton store on 44. You know, it first looked like it's a trailer park, but they it's a 55 plus.
They're putting in double wides in there and Jensen is 44 right before you get one. It's a very nice little community and it's close. You know, it's close but that's what people want when they're that age and they can't afford or maintain and if we could find some way to do that and to your point you want to stay in town size. So moving into a 55 locally would make sense. I heard there might be a property for sale. Can we build a bridge across the bear swamp so I can get to that? Okay, go ahead. I see you got the sewer thing there. Yeah, that a last minute addition to my presentation because practically speaking, we we do know there's new smaller package wastewater systems available. and we're lucky enough to have Megan on our economic thumb. She's very versed in the the how the water needs to be treated and you know but that we also talked about having the sewer connection along Route 6. Now that would be the biggest hat's right and and at that point if it was connected it would open up a lot more possibilities. That's I I added to the list. Yeah. So in has there been any discussion with the board of selectment on anything like that? Sure. Yeah. People bring it up. But it's not like doesn't go anywhere. Okay. I think it is a need for connected just like Yeah. The my thought was at some point the need for affordable housing will be so great that the state will pop up money and put in a sewer so we can put in affordable housing and then we
want to have it in our POC that we're ready to support that you know if we were to be that get that kind of a financial break and there's always talk of having to get a sewer system over by the lake at some point in not being forced to do it. And if that's the case, then we're coming up from Columbia and then that opens up that little 87 corner area and all it'll have. You never know. We can dream. The other the other thing to consider is that the health codes in Connecticut have been relaxed somewhat in the last four to five years. So you're allowed to have a lot more discharge into a system without tripping higher levels of
scrutiny. So I mean you can certainly today cluster like it works to cluster like up to eight genie homes on one septic system and on a single well today. So one of the ways you can build that cluster is to just do that and and so there's advantages and disadvantages to the what's called packet septic treatment plants. their success rate has not been super great both in Connecticut and New England. And the thing to keep in mind as a town is that if it's a true packet wastewater system, it's a town responsibility ultimately if it fails, not the community's responsibility. And that's a little weirdness in Connecticut's law. However, if you have say eight tiny homes with one leech field, that is not a packet wastewater system and that is the the owner's responsibility. So, from a liability standpoint, you know, today the ability to cluster that makes a lot of sense. if it's designed thoughtfully, I think you certainly can do a series of small developments if it's done really thoughtfully and be successful. And I shared examples of that with the commission in the past. That's it. So, let me just, you know, one of the things that that I think is an opportunity right now and maybe they come and go all the time. We've got three big parcels of land that are sitting out there for sale signs on it, you know. Well, I guess Linds Quarters probably dozen, but we got the fence farm and we got the gravel pit, you know, across the street from it and You would think there might I don't know if we have any thoughts on how to take advantage of that opportunity that's in there now.
Well, we do I mean being a real estate agent has definitely been in communication with a lot of developers. Okay. And so we that whole area I guess the the auto parts part of it sold. I am not aware of that. Yeah, that might have sold, but hopefully it's still the area to the right of it is available still because that would be a good spot for one of these multiple businesses, you know, like some some incubator kind of buildings where people can have, you know, you know, different spots in the building for their businesses. that that would be an ideal spot for them. But, you know, it's a matter of getting developers interested in maybe doing that. Yep. But certainly the town won't be able to buy it. But, well, we've had
some initial conversations with Mr. Fitch on his tree farm that a nice place for a mixeduse development kind of thing. And we've had some conversations with the fellow that owns the Lindo Corners out there and he sounded like he was enthused a little bit, but you know, we've never heard anything back where they're ready to do anything. I'm not sure what it is that that's holding them back, but if we don't guide what we want to show up there, you know, and if I'm not unhappy with the Dollar General, then we got there, but you know, I thought that worked out fairly well. you know, I don't know what the next one to come down that everybody's going to be at with trying to it's it's one of the things about general. So I in go to rich area dirtiest one I ever seen last paper plates and that's right so the other thing for a small single unit to go that you could consider is when the town acquired using money from the open space fund, the Merit property, which is between Lake Road and the rail trail and 316 or correction Route Six. And then on the other side of that, we bought that as multiple parcels. And the reason we did that is there's a parcel in there that we got them to donate. In other words, we paid a little bit more for the other with the open space funds and permanently heated that. But there is a piece in there that's about I don't know 25,000 square feet that is it's in the commercial zone. the town owns it and there are no development restrictions on that. So if you ever had somebody who
had a legitimate and probably the smartest thing to do is put something that's trailbased business in there. you've got curb cut and you know you've got the ability to develop that. So just keep that in mind and that system will need to identify put on paper put on maps so that developers realize that. Yep. The other property that would be have commercial potential is the property that's relatively easy to develop because it's fairly flat and that is the property directly adjacent to the network group. currently owned by the Jaff Group. nobody knows quite how to get a hold of the J group because the LLC that controlled that was dissolved been trying to collect taxes for them for quite a while. it will go into tax foreclosure this year probably in the next couple months. So that's something that's of interest. be aware that that's possibility. matter. It's a pretty good question. a lot of it's wetland, a lot of it's right by the river stuff by Route Six is highly developable. certainly the town home probably smart thing to do would be to buy it, carve off the front part as commercial and leave the rear and open space so that can use it. But that's Also, any other questions for the economic development team? So, John, next up, you and your Mary folks crash into a chapter like you did with the conservation one. Absolutely. So, I'm going to just throw on the screen a a proposed schedule. having a hard time here. At least I am. I don't know if you can raise the volume on your mic there or not. Okay. Is that
any better? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All I need to do is hold it less than two inches from my mouth, I guess. All right. I'm going to just throw up a a draft calendar sort of going forward and and conversations had with Jed this week or last week indicated we would like to finish this off this this calendar year ideally. and so what's best because we have some public notification requirements associated with the with the public hearings of a of a planet conservation development is to start from the end. and so looking back working backwards from a presumed public hearing and adoption date and and so you need to have a public hearing before adoption. It could happen at the same meeting. so we'll schedule that. We'll again and we'll base this basically on our planning and zoning commission schedule. So December would be the public hearing and adoption. Backing up we basically need to give two months notice. So the
actual finalizing of the drafts has to happen in October and we'd post the notice with the town clerk and the state and the and the region at the at the October meeting where at which time we would ideally sort of say okay this is this is the plan that we're going to be working with. so then working back from there, September we would look at the implementation draft including so whatever whatever additional maps we're going to be including although most of the maps are going to be included in in the various chapters like we did with conservation and complete complete streets and then working back from September basically set ourselves on a one draft per one chapter per meeting schedule in which we would have the have the the draft
reviewed and sort of ceue up the next draft. And I'm again I'm doing this in reverse order. So, but let let's actually let's start where we are today. which is April we'll review the conservation chapter which we which had a number of edits and we began the economic development discussion. We will write economic development draft ahead of the May meeting. So for your review in May and then we'll begin our housing discussion which is the next chapter. We'll review the draft of the housing chapter in June. begin the quality of life discussion that chapter will be written in July or for July then our resilience discussion and then the it's climate change and resilience that draft would be reviewed in August and then we would start the process of wrapping things up in the fall but yeah so basically you know starting starting last month when we when we delivered the initial conservation chapter draft we'll we'll start knocking down these pins one by one into the into the Does that make sense? So when we we first started the journey towards updating the planet conservation development, you know, we we had a schedule that was about April through December and we've been working on it for a while now, good year anyhow. And and I think we have done an awful lot of good ground work on it. I think we got a couple of the the tougher chapters in pretty good shape. They're getting started. So, I was about ready to say, "No, handrs on the wall. We're not going to get it done this year." But I really didn't want to jeopardize any of the town's
funding, you know, by not having that thing done. you know, they're tying grant money and all that kind of stuff. I don't know if they would tie all the, you know, like school money and that to it or not, but it's a g whiz, it would really be nice if we had it done on time and not put it down in that predicament to say, "We're really close." At the same time, you know, I like the way we've got started is going, you know, I think we're putting out a good quality product for what we've done so far. and I don't want to do that. And so, that's a fairly aggressive schedule that John just showed you there. But, I do think it's it's doable and, we ought to, we ought to at least have that as goal. Something, right? We don't want to get there, get anybody in trouble for not having not having RVs or that. So, and Jed, the one thing I would note is I I don't think we're at any genuine risk of of losing eligibility on state funds, particularly if we keep OPM well informed about our progress. you know, and they they understand that things slip sometimes. You know, they they in fact had a a 5-year plan of conservation and development that wasn't written until the fourth year of that plan. So, they they are have
generally been willing to to work with towns, particularly if they're, you know, demonstrating that they're working on on the progress. But, yeah, I think it it'll just take a little bit of discipline on all of our parts. Obviously, ours to do the do the writing and you guys to review and and have comments ready for the meetings and and we'll we'll proceed. Okay. Thank you, John. next up on the agenda, if anybody I I know we talked about questions for Elaine and Patrick. I can't remember if we got any or not, but I Yes. So, with the the economic development chapter, we're looking there was talk of a number of parcels. You're looking at actually create having a map embedded within the chapter that would identify those partials for development. Correct. Okay. Yeah, that's yeah, we want to really get them identified as soon as possible. Okay. Instead of just Oh, maybe someday. Okay. So, my followup question to that then is the process you would included which was great. We love
to see that coordinating with PNZ and conservation commission on what are the parcels that are most suitable. So the pro because we're all developing our scapulars you know we did our process we didn't necessarily communicate you got and you were you with us so the process for how that occurs so that you know is that a sit down is that a meeting of the commit the planning and zoning so we're looking at that and sort of saying yeah okay yeah that works that works that one doesn't that works with these sort of considerations so that your your map dubtales with our map you know there's synergies Yeah. So, I'm Yeah, I think I'm kind of the ring leader on that effort, although I'm looking for the action item to show
up in the EDC chapter because that is our BOC. but I kind of, you know, I think we need to go almost partial by partial down Route Six and say what we want to do here. Here's a nice piece of farm. What can we do to preserve it? you know, here's where some nice little businesses could go. This is currently zoned industrial, but you know, might be better off business because, you know, I think industrial there's not the industries that they used to have for, you know, small little places. You know, there's more we're going to do a better job of getting little businesses than little industries. and so I'm looking to that to have probably a due date, not before we issue the report because, you know, I think we've got a hard enough road to home to get the the report done by the end of the year. But
soon thereafter, we should be getting together and saying, "Nope, this is an area we want to conserve. know if this is an area we want to develop and and have that discussion. My question, Jed, is that my concern is that if if a map comes out separately from economic development, y you know, we've got our our one I don't know if recreation's creating something looking at, you know, trails, various other areas, they'll be without sort of a in the process if they're going to be in that document somewhere in this process of the preparation for the document there should be some coordination so that we all agree that that's yeah, that that is this or we have a disagreement minutes in that it gets wrapped into the 10-year plan of how do we resolve that type of thing. So rather than have the plan come out and then we have that meeting we say
well geez that that's wrong. We are fortunate enough that John working with his team has drafted both your chapter and he's going to be drafting the economic development chapter and so he has an understanding of what we're trying to do there and I think it's going to probably come out right. If it doesn't, we'll find out at the next meeting when we see the the chapter here. But will I was going to say we we could always have a separate meeting like meeting that way. We've had the full size maps because one of the other challenges is trying to view it on a computer screen and it's it's
challenging and that's you know to have the full size maps or some way that we can both you know your maps were incredible that that already been generated but we don't really have EDC maps other than what's already on the top books and that's another you know thing that John with us has been working on fairly you know took a lot more that I thought it was going to do is to get that computerized GIS broad map so that it would be functioning for us as a zoning map. We could do that now with we can call up the parallel maps and go I I don't mean this meeting we could do that. Yeah. You know, and say look what are these because you know I I guess you know there's multiple ways to do it. I'm just don't I'm just concerned that we come out with a document that we haven't sort of done that coordination around. So if the plan is that you know John's going to put together these drafts then is the review process is like we reviewed the conservation chapter. Yep. But I didn't anticipate looking at the economic development chapter or is there going to be a review process that's broader? So it's not just economic development looking at their chapter, you know, they can see our chapter so that we can say, "Oh, geez, this is a Yeah, it's really important." Yeah. Yeah. We should have joint committee meetings at the very least or Yeah. And it was my intention to do that before January. Yeah. But I was I thought we
would be done with that whole project six months ago and you know we're not even ready to start having that conversation because we're trying to get street to that on on the map. I I don't actually think it will be because the parcel maps, you know, albeit that the the crowd parcel map still there's some funkiness in some of the lines, but that's sort of the standard everybody's using right now. It would be in my view pretty easy to put that up. We have our layers in in GIS. We can call up layers and say, "Look, here's here's what's here for wetlands. Here's what's here for endangered species. Here's what's here for forest sand gravel deposits." It's a matter of what we don't know is what you know is that this one is more suitable to this. You know, this would be great to develop. So, we could sit down in a working session figure out, get that one works, this is great in these areas. So that when you're creating your map, you know that we're completely 100% supportive of those parcels, you know, it's not like there's a you know, for development. we we agree on because we're calling them out necessarily as we've identified you know undeveloped private properties but we haven't said that that should necessarily be preserved or that will discipline that guides that I think along the lines of those need to be preserved yeah we have a sense of that basically
but we we we're using our database of the natural resource inventory to guide our prioritization so but we're not coming out necessarily say because we want to see that's more of a collaborative to say because we recognize there's other values. So the question is is all right how do we as a town figure out where those are the best parcels because there's two key questions. There's the where and then there's also the how. So for example, in some of those parcels, we may have conservation values that are high, but if the development is done in a particular way, there's a synergy there, you know, and there's numerous cases that would fit that with parcels here. you know with and Eric mentioned one you know with that property that was next to the network where you know he could potentially have the rear of it be conservation because of the wetlands and proximity to the river but the front end of it on your six thing can support development and then it's a matter of the best development practices around wetlands and it's a it's a win-win. So, but so it's that it's sitting down and saying, "Okay, here's the ones so that they can do that and we know that using the information that we already have." So, you're already using the GIS map as your base map. Yes. So, if you can just use the GIS map as your base map and everyone operates on the same as base map, you highlight the ones you want. We
overlay them and then we just talk about the ones that overlap the discussion. And then if there's ones that you want and you have no environmental. So, yeah, here here's my concern. We've spent a year getting one chapter done. In the next six months, we're going to do six more. I am interested in capturing the action items put into the plan, then we can go work on it. Otherwise, we'd had this done five years ago. Why didn't we do it five years ago? you know, I we we've got to get the plan done and then the plan is going to give us some actions that we go do. I would love to have all the actions done before we initiate the plan, but that's that's not the way it's working. It's not how it works. I mean, this is supposed to be for the next 10 years what we're going to be working on. Okay, this is now a good thing to go work on. I just don't think soaps need to be done for the PLC to be done because of what we put in
the PS. So let me let me understand. So what you prefer a method where we have these individual maps that you've identified areas that are important for economic you feel are important for economic development. We've identified areas that are for conservation areas. We put this plan together that has these goals and objectives associated with these and then you would then take that. So that's the plan that the state would see and others would see and then over that 10year period that's you would those different ones. else and I think it would be a lot quicker than over that 10 year period but I don't think we I don't think we can go quick enough to get it done
between now and the end of the year. So don't so we have a map a GIS overlay that has all the what the conservation commission has identified. We have a we have mapped the natural resources. Okay. And and we have mapped existing open space and we we've mapped the the parcels that are undeveloped. Okay. So those are the elements that can be used to make recommendations about parcels that you want to develop or they're used for various practice practices. So, and you guys presumably have a map that shows which parcels or which areas you think support what type of development whether higher intensity residential or you know commercial we don't have a physical map we have ideas what kind of development we want to see where the development It's going to How many of these things have we had in the last five years where we've had to even discuss it? How many times has somebody come up and said, "I want to develop this property on Route Six." And there's never been that discussion. You know, I I I think we could wait till January to to do it right. I'm concerned about it. We try to squeeze that in. talent it I don't have to be able to do it, you know, and and it's my EOCD. I I got to be able to you know, only drive the bus as far as fast as I'm capable of driving the bus, you know, and and I look at when we look at that schedule
that John put out, I'm looking at any minute the gravel pit could bite us in the butt and and take us full time. any minute you know Mr. Pitch put in his request for agro tourism thing and then we're on the clock to get that done and and that's going to be priority. You know I I've been trying to get there's a guy on Lake Road who wants to turn his house from a three season to a year round. I've been trying to get him to come in and talk to the commission so I can at least figure out what regulate regulatory changes we do before he drops that and we're on the clock for that one. But I know there's going to be permits that are going to come in and it's going to take everything I got to deal with that and I'm not going to be able to deal with the PCD to get it where I want it to go. And and I got you know I want to do a good job. I think we we've got the vision now that we didn't have a year ago that we need this group session to go look first parcel by parcel to do that. And I think we can even extend it down 3:16 because we got some nice historic houses there that I think would be you know could be turned into a bed breakfast or
restaurant or professional building or stuff like that. But but I just don't think I have the ability to get that where you're looking. And I know exactly where you want to go, Nick. And I'm committed to going there. I just can't do it right now. And my concern is we don't get there. Okay. That once once you've got maps that identify maps that are separate from Let me stop there because we worked we've been working. You know, one of the things that I told Jim, you're not going to retire till this map is done. Okay, you're retired now. Mount's not done. And we're halfway there. You know, we have not even talked about what's the best use of the land that I thought was going to be finishing that up. And we've been working on that for six or eight months now, just to get it to the point and I'm stopping that effort until we get done with PC. And then we're going to take that math and talk about the best use for the different parcels. And then is the PCB amended or is it No, that's one of the action items in the PCB is to have that meeting and create what I would suggest if you're going to do that is that you make a plan right up front that you're going to adopt additional mapping as an addendum to the PC and you leave an actual blank in the POC. Okay. last time, Mr. Chair, the with like the complete streets plan and a few other things. Yeah, we didn't get it in in time when we put the PC, but we then had a plan to come back and do an
amendment to the PC and that's okay. Yeah, because and it should be just written out as an action and then yeah, the idea of a placeholder in there is great. But but I do expect that we're going to hop on that soon. I think it's a really great thing to do. I just think that getting the POC done is a really great thing to do, too. And that one's got, you know, that's a requirement because we need to know what we're marketing. Yes. Developers as each box of this kind of development. And if you're interested in doing that kind of development, come take a look at what we and that's not going to be an easy conversation because the conservation commission and the economic development commission have different goals. That's why to me it's an essential piece is that you don't need to it is the plan of conservation development. So that's why you have and that's to me my experience is that's the pro that's the process that never happens. On the other side is just like you said you'll start going out marketing properties. So things will set up and then it becomes this and so this I think the first the first step resources though the first step get ready for that conservation commission needs to go say these are the properties
that we're really excited about and then economic development needs to do the same before we go and start talking that together. So, so I if I might, Jed, I think I what you're talking about and I if if if I'm hearing it correctly, I think what we're talking about is possible and it's something that we will plan to do as part of the full draft of the plan. you know, each chapter obviously establishes its own priorities and we'll work with economic development over the next month to identify either specific parcels or parcel criteria that will identify, you know, sort of key development areas obviously along Route six, maybe key intersections, maybe key crossings of the Hop River Trail. that that sort of thing. we will you know and so we will we will create a map of you know maybe high
potential economic development parcels obviously there's going to be some overlap with with conservation because we're we're dealing with the Route Six corridor but but that draft will be part of the economic development chapter as we get towards the end when we do the implementation and I noted implementation and mapping for our I think our September or October meetings there will be what we would call a future land use map. That is, you know, the the attempted Hegelian synthesis, right, of conservation and development. And obviously, we're not going to nail every parcel down to say this one's conservation, this one's development, that one's development, this one's conservation. But it will be our our our best shot at synthesizing those goals while reinforcing the you know the the criteria that that makes them attractive for one reason or another. But there will be a map. we will produce a a future land use map that will attempt and again not everyone's going to agree and it'll be ultimately up to the commission to kind of use their wisdom and all of the input that's provided to to do the best estimate on on the that blend and and we would call it a future land use map and and ideally adopt it with the rest of the plan in December and then and then spend the next several years hacking Okay, so that was a short answer to a good question and probably but I'm struggling to get that ball. We have to have a lot of combined meetings
over these areas. We have already had a fair number of those and get done with, you know, where we are now. Yeah. And and so just do yourself. Use the same whatever they're already using. Just do yourself a favor. Use the same one starting out when you start. Even if it's just not for yourself, just use the same one starting out. It'll make your life easier. What's really going to happen if somebody wants to come and develop one of these pieces of property? We got three of them for sale. and then they're they're going to come in and tell them what they'd like to do and we're going to try and guide them in the right direction to get you know whatever everybody wants there. But right this minute there has not been a abundance of properties even for sale but right now we got three of them. It'd be nice to figure out what would we like to to do with those. So if any of those
three properties hey you've got no we need to conserve it you know let us know and we'll we'll you know figure out okay so how are we going to go get money to buy that work with Josh Press or whatever. Well I'm going to see a map that comes out that shows properties that develop focused on because as John talked about the matrix we have a whole we did a natural resource inventory. Y invested a lot of effort into putting that together that has a variety of data and that should be used as one of those tools in evaluating the properties. We should be baking making decisions based on data. So that's you know we can certainly apply our layer to that and say here's the potential challenges associated with Yep. And if if these guys want to get together and have some of those concess discussions now, but you know, was I already we're already a couple of months later to get to this discussion point that I was hoping we were going to be. You know, it's just the way it goes. But John told me his team is not going to be the bottleneck. It's going to be Ukrainian guys. So, we're going to have to do whatever it takes to get
there, right, John? That's right. And it's Yeah. If we do Yep. And that's why, you know, John came with the schedule to try to get us to the finish line on time. Let's not buy the fact that no, we're going to be a month or two late. Let's do it right. And if we need to get more meetings, then you that's what we need to do. But right this minute, we need more chapters to go first and then we'll schedule a meeting. But it I don't I don't anticipate that we're going to be able to get through with one meeting a month to get to the finish line. Something's going to happen and that's just the way it is. and we'll do we'll do what we can and if somebody comes and wants to develop a property I know
Hank you will be there with us to be the little Jimny cricket on our shoulder to make sure that we're we're doing the very best we can for all that our commission is that our commission yeah so okay well hey I think it's time for your nickel now I'm going to turn I think I I'm going to turn it over to Mar. Oh, okay. Okay. Hi. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. But we can hear you. Okay. Okay. so the group has spent a month or so going over the draft chapter that was provided and we had a lot of thoughts on it. We did some editing. we sent along some additional photos to be added. and I sent it along. Well, we sent the link to John and Jed. Did you two both get a chance to look at it? Yes, I did and I forwarded it out and maybe John did as well. I can't remember, but everybody on the commission has had a chance to see the update. Okay. so I don't think we changed anything substantially, but we did make quite a few revision, excuse me,
revisions. So, it's a lot to go through. So, I don't think we'll go through the whole chapter, but, we would like to know if you had any questions or concerns. So, I noticed, you know, and you you had the question in the draft. It's, it was where it was talking about the amount of open space in Connecticut. And I think it might have said that 76% of Connecticut is open space or something, right? Yeah, we weren't sure about that number. But that can't be true. Can it be true? 76% of our state is open space. It It might be It might be undeveloped,
but it's not protected. So, we just need to clarify in the draft chapter what that number means. I think that reference that the state's goal was 21% of the state by 2024 which they didn't hit and that was open space that the state would be purchasing but also towns and land trust. So, it was not just a state. I think the reference from that 76 that was in the chapter really talked about it was really that 76 they've hit 76% of the goal. So I think it was trying to and John you you you guys wrote that. Yeah. I think it was reflecting more that why Andover's contributions is you know as the state's trying to hit goals. You know there's an importance to Andover's contributions as is other towns addressing some of these goals. Sorry. Yeah. It was it was 76% I believe was it Andover's open space that was was provided for or accounted by accounted for by the state and the remainder was was town and private I think was the statistic. Okay. The sentence that's on page 11 says, "As of December
2022, Connecticut Deep and its conservation partners protected an estimated 515,000 acres or 76.6% of open space across this state." So of the open space, I guess they're saying that we protected 76% or something. probably 17 76% of their goal for open space. Yeah, it says okay. I can double check and just make sure that that's the correct number. Oh, yeah. No, I think that's what you have is Yeah. 76% of its go of the state's stated goal. Yeah, that's that's what that statistic is calling out. I got it. So the state is threequarters towards its established goal. And I was interested. I did not see a draft that had the new pictures that you sent out in and my technical skills didn't allow me to see the new pictures that were going in. So, I am eagerly looking forward to seeing the graph that has all the new pictures that you took in it. I are Are you asking? Are you saying you didn't see the I didn't put in the We haven't We haven't We haven't incorporated any That's sort of final layout stuff. We We haven't incorporated the photos. We We got them, Maryann, but but yeah, we haven't we haven't sort of finalized the draft and cleaned it all up. The tech the text is more important right now. Yes. Well, that's what we figured. So, yes, they're not in there yet. They just need to be placed strategically like the pollinator, you know, the pollinator garden here where we talk about the pollinator garden and
you know some of the water views where we talk about the water quality. I've just been looking at what we did receive. You've got pictures labeled Andover Farmers Market, but that's not our Andover farmers market. I think that was from Massachusetts actually. We removed those pictures in the draft. So we we sent some pictures, but they shouldn't have included the farmers market. There were pictures of some farmers market in the draft and we they had been exed out in the draft that we sent back. We wanted to remove the farmers market photos. Yeah, we were able to see the the comments. We just haven't gone through and removed those pictures yet. Sorry, the light just turned off in the room. I mean, because they're motion sensored. Okay. So, does that answer your question about the market pictures? Yeah. Okay. I mean, and while we're mentioning the market, I did rewrite it a little in that the market is officially on a hiatus. that wasn't in progress last year and there's I couldn't find any reference anywhere to any plans to do it this year. So, I just mentioned I updated that because the original text talked about it as an ongoing venture which it currently is not to my knowledge. Yeah. Ryan Ryan Fitch would like to do the farmers market ahead of his property. Is that for this for 2025? He's trying 2025 but more like 2026. Yeah. No, he you know he's and and and
since we are not you know the town itself we're not doing it. There's we don't have anybody to do it and we saw this as EDC members as kind of an aggra tourism thing. Yep. And said it's fine if you want to on your property to do a farmers market. Right. And where is and the other thing there was another there was a food share some sort of co-op mentioned I don't have sorry I don't have the draft open in front of me but none of the commission members the conservation commission members were familiar with that particular organization is that still current and in business who is is that still ongoing someone can verify that and food pantry in the town of Food share is one day a week. believe Tuesdays. No, not I'm sorry, not the food share. The there was some organization with a picture of a farm. Is it the our farm our food LLC? I think that is that was never actually located on that road. Yeah, we were told. So we'll remove. All right. Yeah, if you could remove that because we didn't think that was a thing. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments at this point? And I had, you know, a couple once we got so on page 22, right before the
goals, there's a couple of you know, paragraphs. One is about the cart program and the other is about recycling efforts with the the composting program. And I didn't see anything in the action items that took those thoughts and made them an action for anybody. Well, we're open to suggestions that the conservation commission is not in charge and does not run the cart program. So, we'd have to have someone from cart with cart. What do you want to know? Well, it says says we need to increase it. Small stuff increase it. Andover should continue to maintain and expand its efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle the cart program. The cart problem is just for return bottles and cans. Yeah, we're just the return of bottles and cans. Okay. Unless the only thing is I I mean I did a little reading on it. when I was on sustainable CT, they talked about there's lots of other things you can recycle. one of the ones was mattresses that a lot of towns
recycle old mattresses. So, I don't know if we even have the space for it, but that is the sort of thing that could be considered an expansion. Well, that's all part of the transfer station and its programs, right? That's that's the transfer station erover's returnable treasures stands for and we're just taking the money and and splitting it up among the four organizations that do it. So as we started reviewing the current POC to figure out where to go, there were a lot of great thoughts in that POC and that's all they stayed at was great thoughts because nobody was assigned the action. Nobody was responsible for it and trying to do better on that process this time around. Yeah, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to identify in the POC in the conservation chapter a goal of incorporating an organics recycling program. we know the municipal waist streamwide somewhere around 30% of the total household trash. I think that's a very followup paragraph in here. It talks about Andover should consider sponsoring the composting program at the transfer station with future organics entering the wasteland. You know, it's I think it's great thought. It's just we somebody needs to do it, you know, and
so because 10 years from now, we're going to look at that great thought and who did that? And even if we're assigned action, it's very clear we got a 50/50 chance of getting to that. So 64. So that was that was my last Yeah. and and that was really you know when we well I guess so I looked through you know when we we we did the discussion on the action items report and it said for instance amend ARD 5.57.5 to replace 75% with 100% of wetland acreage removed from calculating a building lot allowances precise. I said, "That's easy. All I have to do is cross off 75, write 100, we're good to go. On to the next one." And I said, "Wow, is that what we want to do?" You know, and again, we don't have a lot of experience with that because we haven't had any of these big subdivisions put in. So, I I I always knew when I was reading the instructions that I don't know what that really how that's going
to work, but I'm not sure. But I know I'm not smart enough to face change in it when the the prevailing thought is that we're not we don't have developers feet down the door to come build here because we're we're too hard to work with. Well, I was going to just ask that exact question that you asked. I'm not sure. I probably ask it better because Go. No, I think you just pretty much asked it, but I was going to ask the same thing. Is it really necessary and is it really advisable if it's already at 75% is it necessarily even practical to make it 100%. Yeah. And and I don't know and without having you know because we haven't gone through an example I don't even know how to start making that assessment. but it's it sounds I understand it sounds good from a conservation perspective. We want to conserve more. But but I think and but if we can serve too much, nobody's going to come build.
We're gonna conserve it all by default because nobody's going to come here doing it. And it says somewhere in here that the town is already at 23% of open space versus 21%. Yep. So I think not that we don't you know it's it's a relatively small town geographically anyway compared to a lot of other towns in Connecticut and I think you know we should keep proportion in mind especially with the kind of question that you and I are just talking about now while you know Maran and Hank are here. Yep. Was that number was that number protected open space or just Roman numeral
B5 because we did have the very first zoning ones and the second one similar says you replace 40% with 50% is the minimum amount of open space set aside required. Okay for a conservation perspective sure bet that sounds good but is that really what we want? I think it's another one of those things that we could probably talk about a lot before we issue the plan. And I know on the the current plan, you know, the the thing the plan talked about going from R80 to R40 and we ended up at R60 and you know, so there was some compromise in there. I I understand the thought, but I think that's going to be where we get the tension with the economic development because, you know,
we're not we're not bursting at the seams with economic development yet either. It's kind of nothing. So I I don't know what the I don't know what the roadblock is for getting these guys to come in and want to work here in handover, but the result is that people like Graas who are on a very small road on nice and quiet are getting exactly what they want and that's what 90% of the town wants. Right. So that's Well, I do know I mean when I was marketing in 162 acres for several years, whatever developers looked at it because it was too much ledge. It was too much work to build in there. It was going to cost them too much. So they're going to go out find a flat property that doesn't have ledge and that's where they're going to put their stuff. So I mean, you know, there's just Yeah. So yeah, I think part of it is we
have to not land trying to figure out how to how to find spots that we can develop and right, you know, bring them in there. But so I understand what the conservation commission is driving to and I agree with it from a conservation perspective. I'm not just not sure I agree with it from the town perspective. Yeah. And we don't have to agree with it. We got till December to to really do that. And and it may be again it's an action after the POC is issued for us to go off and do. I would like to have it all actions that the planning and zoning commission agreed we want to do before
we put it in there. but if we miss we miss some you know. Yeah. I to from the conservation commission perspective unlike the maps which I think were different opt the the recommendations that we provided regarding regulatory changes and so forth were intended not as when you put that in the PC so that's not a it can't be that I mean you have to follow a process for regulatory trade was just saying these are recommendations that we have to protect the resources that we've identified and then the process the action item going forward. In the case of example, the wetland region be to work with the wetlands commission and follow the regulatory process for review and figuring out where you want to go with regulatory changes. Y so those are very processoriented, but they're they're they're a little different than sort of identifying parcels up front and putting them in. It is. No doubt about it. Then then the last one that I'll mention is just oh it's a wetlands one and we so we're taking so the first wetlands is to areas of special concerns with cold water springs and vertical walls. I said okay that's yeah I think that's probably way the right thing to do. It's a cold water stream. I don't know the answer to that one. It's got cold water in it, you get cold. They're identified by the deep based on the characteristics they have. In essence, they're cold water. So they they generally have a more porested edge so that they're not warmed up and they support things like brook trout, a variety of organisms. You can't have them non cold water streams. The water
quality in streams when they start to get warmer declines. So they're very interested in protecting cold water streams because of the wildlife and the water quality standpoint. and so the other aspect of them is because climate change they're very vulnerable. We're seeing significant declines in stream quality increases in temperatures loss of species like brook trout things like that. So for example, Hop River the Hop River stream right now is considered a cold water stream. If you talk to any of the fisheries folks in EP, it's right on that edge of whether it can hold support brook trout. So depending on decisions made in Colombia and overor country along that system will determine whether that system stay safe like that a water stream system and likely whether DP would continue to stop the trial things like that. So there's various so it's identifying if you were to look at a lot of state goals they've identified things like drones water streams or forests as important for a variety of reasons that are some german wildlife some ger water quality some ger to maintaining buffering water temperature flood sewage things like that so that's what so things like the river the river are those cold water stream so it would be burnout Brooks excellent example of a cold water stream it's got a lot of oxygen it's got a lot of forest around it but depending on how development goes along would determine whether it would remain a cold water stream so the last action I'll ask for your perspective on again for the wetlands says expand the upland view area including whole water streams and vert pools to 300 ft from 200. And so I
know we had talked at the wetlands meeting the other night about the fact that it was only like yesterday that people you didn't know they had a ver pool, didn't care about pool, were cut down trees and all that you right to the edge of the vernal pool. And so my thought was if we kept that at 200 ft that's a tremendous improvement over what we've been doing and did we really need to go to 300 ft on on those. Okay. Yeah. I certainly can explain. In fact, one of the documents that we provided is for all the recommendations that we made, we have an annotated document that goes through what the regulation is now. what the recommended change is including the wording and the justification for it. Okay. So if you read that document you see our justification. So in that case the science tells us now that 300 ft is important for protecting against what we call edge effects and that's based on research. So edge effects are when when you do a development you have what's called development footprint. So it's the area that you're disturbingly developing and obviously that's the service but the effect of that development and it can be agriculture it could be a commercial development housing development it could be a trail depends on and they will have depending on the type of development or activity they will have an extended
impact of distance into the surrounding environment. So we now know and that's been studied. There's a body of literature that's looked at that over the years and looked at the effects on soil, looked at invasive species spread, a variety of different things. So basically this the what we now know is we look at that 300 ft. So for example, if you look at the D's website or if you look nationally, you'll see they call and we map po forest in Connecticut. There's actually a map for Connecticut. So we can look at what's been mapped as core forest in Andover and the core forest is based on bar that is at least the edge is at least 300 foot distance from nonforest area because the effects can bleed in up the 300 ft within that forest. So what the 300 ft gives you is is based on what we now know and it allows you it's not a a an exclusion zone just like two existing 200 ft is. It's basically a review area to be able to look at and assess what the potential impacts of a particular land use will be whether it's removable trees, increase surface, whatever it is. so it gives it provides you an opportunity to have a
better review on what the impacts might be associated with those. Okay, so that's why there's no doubt why you you done your homework. So you know you can much better than I would be restrict of the roads or driveway if you restrict this was nothing the 300 ft is a review area unlike setback. Yeah. So, one of the recommendations we made associated with the hot river system is to look at identifying the hot river as an overlink zone or something along that line which you can do in Connecticut and it allows you to then look at and put in things like setbacks where you may have 50 foot or 100 foot setback which would be more
of an exclusion. You say you can't cut trees within 100 ft of right now. on where our weapons rigs are. We have it's 100 ft around any weapons review area. That means that if you're doing a regulated activity within that, you need to go before weapons and seek a permit for it. Doesn't mean you can't do it. It means you need to assess that and get a permit with a spe in our existing regulations in wetlands. They identified back in 2015 a list of wetlands and water forces that were of special property. So they upped it to 200 ft basically saying we need that we need more review around these because they're sensitive. We value these because what they are the lake so what we're saying is yes that's right. We think you should add a couple more into that based on the challenges that these systems face now and not reduce any of the other ones because that that logic held true. But we should also reflect the new science and increase Okay. I have no other questions for the conservation commission tonight. How about you guys? I hear all these things, but I feel like what you said is it's difficult enough to get development and things right now and putting all this in is going to make it even harder. I know you'd want to conserve, but I also feel like we need to do some developers. I don't think there's a developer out there that would would have a problem with just viewing the the property, not wanting to destroy environment. You know what I
mean? And most developers, if they want to make sure they're not damaging things going to be consulted on every application, it's got to be I thought it was a proposal to have it reviewed. Yeah, but there's that time out. Thank you. All right. because I do not want to be in what we want to avoid is this. Yeah. Yeah. So the reasons the reason you do you put the effort into the plan and I recognize that it's hard and it takes time and it rarely actually happens. The reason you do that is so you have a strategic approach that your your commissions agree on that are moving
forward on vision for the town. Not just something you pick out each one this parcel that parcel. It's a strategic vision that you can go forward with. So when people come in it doesn't become this, right? It it becomes it's you know and and believe me the developers everybody else will will get that and understand that what they take advantage of is when you don't don't have it. And right now we don't have that. We've got some good ranks. We've got some good policies. We've got some we've got we have it. We need to pull a lot of that together. This is the plan to do it because it gives you what it should be as a 10-year action plan for all your commissions, conservation commissions going forward working within the wetlands to review those and determine what's the best approach. And you're right, it is a compromise. But unless you do that, you're going to end up like this. It's going to be all right. Somebody wants to come in and develop the 162 acres of them and all of a sudden it's like, you know, a week the already got an application in. So, they're already wanting to go. We find
out about it when everybody's like this. Yeah. It's it's not the way. And what ends up happening. Guess which side loses. Guess which side loses in all those equations? Every side. No. No. The conservation side always loses on those equations because you because that nobody put in place. Everybody gets nervous about 300 ft of these and conservation side will keep whiddling down and down and we lose what we have. And make no mistake, those systems out there, even though we're blessed with an abundance of resources, they are already under index. It's not that they're not. We park our school buses next to the Hop River. We store our sand next to the Hop River. We have lots of development along the Hop River. We have a major road six along the hot river. They're already under under trying to move it out of there. No. And
I'm not I'm not being I don't want to come across as accusatory. What I'm trying to say is we don't want the next 25 years to be added to that. Right? You and it doesn't have to be. There's a lot of these things that easily could be dealt with if they were planned for up front, but won't be dealt with if they're not for up front. And that's been my experience. So I think that that I I mean with with that plan, that information and conservation involved with it, then that would be another push that we could have to move public works out by the transfer station. You know what I mean? You know, looking at the properties and looking at the land and say, where would be a better place to be storing this sand that's all have these trucks, you know? To me, that's almost like a that would be fantastic. To me, that's almost a bridge. We're still at that stage of understanding what we have and putting it together and saying, "Okay, how do we integrate the economic development goals?" Those goals that I saw you guys lay out were fantastic. Yeah, they were when I sit here as a resident in Andover, they seem like the right goals. And as a conservationist, I only wrote down a couple of notes and okay, here's the areas we have to really think about and coordinate. And it's the same. But recreation, same thing. But
unless we do, that's why I was arguing about unless we do this, you're gonna come out with masks. We're coming out with masks. We're not going to and we're going to say, "Okay, down the road we're going to do this." And J's right. We need to have an action plan. We need to have it, but we need to hold our feet to the fire on doing that. And the problem is is it doesn't fit neatly in the structure. you know, we'll go back and we'll have our conservation commission meeting and talk about things and see we see something come up in P&Z or in the
11s, we'll go, oh, we got to weigh in on that. But that gets you this because it's already in process versus knowing that, okay, we've already thought about where the development is going. We've already we're not so much worried about that. You know, we can take on these other challenges and be more proactive with land owners and things like that, but it unless we do that planning effectively on the front end, we are our chances of getting I work at Brad. I mean, I do a lot of process engineering and the key thing is graduation. So, I'm all for what he's saying. I think you have to make the effort to get together see what we're doing develop a plan and we can work to that reality we call it action right that we can work towards so yeah okay well I think we spent you silly question but on the draft you gave us all these maps are these little tiny things are they going to be full size like this in the final production or are they going to be the little tiny? Here's the thing. The value of those maps we those were inserted as sort of examples of the types of data we look at the value of those is putting those in a GIS system. Okay, which ours so layering them. So when you look at a parcel for example or you look at a particular area
town you can say okay what do we have here from in our pers natural resources on your perspective it's coming economic development on Eric's perspective it might be team infrastructure I'm just wondering if they're going to be on the in the plan too not all of those there will be subsets of those that will help tell the story and John's crew working on they were in that draft but we had a separate meeting recently to talk about those and make some modifications to those. What I'm arguing for is using the data and those maps and a layering process with what their group has. So you're you're you're basically using information to make about using them but not showing. We're not going to use the the map that we're going to go to the GIS database and be able to blow it up and shrink it
down whatever you want. see all the Yeah, for the for for the most for the most part the maps inside the document are are going to be mostly illustrative and you know and to to do descriptive you know the the policy stuff will be there'll be like a couple of a couple of larger scale policy maps but but mostly it'll be sort of an ongoing basis through the GIS. Okay. I think that anything else for the conservation chapter? John, you're ready to go take Yeah, we're gonna Yeah, we'll make the we'll make the edits to conservation and we'll be drafting economic development. Okay. Excellent. And then John, you'll send us once you've made the edits, you'll send us the new draft so we can look over it again. at this point, we'll we'll send it to everybody. as you know as as the draft. Yeah. And before Maryanne drops off the screen here, I just want to thank you for you know joining me with the at the finance committee public hearing there and we did get an awful lot of funding added back in. Oh, you did? I
thought when when we were done if whoever made the motion to put 10,000 in said 25, they would have asked it at that point. So, well, that was my I tried with the money. I said it doesn't have to be 50. Just put some money in. So, that's great. So, thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to the next item and which would be discussion on status of proposed changes and zoning now and zone changes. I think we beat that more than that. I want to talk about any more. So, we're going to move on to the exciting discussion of bylaws changes and John's got that. We're going to put it up on the screen. I think it's going to go hopefully this could be fairly quick. I have not run these through. Thanks. Thanks for putting up with me. Love that. [Applause] so what we're seeing is a small portion. Eric, can can you make that bigger or is that going to be from John that it would have to get bigger than that to do? I'll zoom in. We're in there. Okay. [Music] Super. Okay. So, let me know where to go. On the first page, there were no changes from what's been there before. So, thanks. Yeah, me moving that moving to the first red change there. Yep. It says officers of the commission shall consist of chairperson and vice chairperson duly elected pursuant to article seven which
talks about the election of officers. So, a comment that came in just to provide, you know, where's where's the talk about that and put that in there. So, it changes nothing nothing that we've been doing. And that's it for page two. Oops. The I'm sorry, down at the bottom, we deleted the board clerk shall be a salaried employee of the town because I don't think she is. That's correct. Yeah. So, we cross that line now. Moving on. What's that? What does that mean? well, all I can tell you is that the board clerk is not a salary employee in the town and so she's a union employee. So, we figured we would cross out the requirements and we weren't following them. Is she an independent contract? Yeah. So she's Okay. So anyhow, it doesn't affect what we're doing. Going on to page three.
So, under section 2B 4, it used to say copy of summary ruling and proof of mailing. And we don't do summary rulings. And so, we came up with a different term there, notice of approval or denial. That's what Jim creates for us when we're getting ready to to vote on things. and approve applications and that sort of thing. Wetlands does summary rulings. I probably plagiarized that right out of theirs when I was this copy and wasn't smart enough to know the difference. There are a couple of differences between wetlands in here. Is that the word certified later on? Certified is we deleted that too. Proof of mailing. So there's a there's a new process now where well essentially certified sign receipt is too hard anymore. mailman never finds anybody at home when they're trying to deliver mail and so a lot of places have been gone and this has been you know discussed with attorney Bansson he's he agrees with it that we get proof of mailing we dropped it off the main we dropped it off the post office post office acknowledges receipt and then that's as much as we get with a receipt with receipt Yep. So, for instance, when we were talking about the the package that we were supposed to have got last July for the cell tower out there at Hers Farm. I tried to pull the string on,
okay, who signed these? And there is no sign. The only proof that the attorney had that he had sent it to us was he had something from the post office and he delivered them there. I don't know what happened after they got to the post office. but I certainly wasn't I couldn't convince myself that they came here either. You know, I talked to a friend of mine who's on the weapons over in Heert and he never got a copy of the thing either. So, I don't know what happened, but we didn't get a cell power package when it came out. So, does that mean that the responsibility for actually receiving it is less definitive? Yes, we still have a record with a receipt from the post office, but and I'm probably way beyond my level of knowledge there. Jim, if you can help me out on that, I'd be happy to list anything you want to say, even though we're not. Well, I think you covered it covered. Well, the problem is I people don't pick up certain first go to the post office. So, if you get a notice in your mail saying go to the post office, you got to leave work, you know, the next day early. A
lot of times a lot of people don't most of you don't want you know so they don't there you go then from a standpoint if you have all these green cards flying around they just track and and it doesn't matter if this law change you know statute changes proof of certification at least has proof Yeah, he's got that right with that. It is a pain. There's a lot of paper. Sometimes you get three, five, seven, you know, some 30. And the other thing about the return requiring return receipts, there are still times when I require send stuff out and you know do that is that you often don't get the rejection back for like a month or six weeks and that's longer than it takes to have the first public hearing. So, I've had one where I've gotten five of the green cards back for Butters, and there's two that I have no idea what the status is, and then four weeks later, I get the mail returned to me, but it's too late to do anything anyway. So, I don't think it gains you anything is what I'm saying. So, I think this is correct. So I'm not I'm just asking if So if that's the way it's done now, so there is some burden of proof that at least the town something to the post office. Yeah. Yes. We still put up the signs and we still put the notice in the newspaper. So there's there's a fairly significant effort to get word out to anybody who's interested. Okay. Thanks. But all people have to do is not pick up
the name. Very simple. Yep. But they don't want to get that little grainy. So they just don't. Okay. moving down to the bottom there just above section three talks about we added the mainly correspondence, you know, to what the land use administrative system does. under zoning enforcement office the added responsibility assist the general public with interpretation of land use regulations and assist with completeness of applications and I think that's what Jim has spent a good deal of his time doing wanted to recognize that on to page four you know Roman numeral 6 prepare the assistant chairperson in draft motion and conditions of approval. That's something that Jim works with me on before we're getting ready to go to the the meeting on an application. You might even say a draft motion and conditions of approval and or andor denial because I think in some cases you're going to actually want to prepare both. Yep. I know we've done that in the past when I didn't really understand which way mission was going to go. So, you know, we worked out both options so that we weren't fumbling around. And that's, you know, one of the things that that they talked about in the land use training we went to was, you know, the process by which we don't need to be in a hurry to approve the application. We we get done with the public hearing. We get all the information. We think about it a little bit. And then, you know, that gives the zoning enforcement officer an opportunity to prepare you know, figure out what the conditions of approval ought to be for approval or for denial and all that. Then we'll take care of that at the at the next
meeting. I know there's some times where it's a fairly easy thing. We try to get it done on the fly and normally when I'm trying to come up with conditions of approval on the fly, I goof it up. So I like the process where we do it in a little more formal manner there. next one coming down talks about submitting all commission decisions for publication for newspaper. You know that this is this is where we put it in the paper so that you know people get noticed of what we're we're doing. Then down at the bottom of that page, before the election of officers, I added maintain online folders for each application up to date with pertinent information, including all PZC correspondence. When application is complete, have the application folder transferred to the archive listing. So that that's one of my goals for having zone 8 officer do that. on elective officers that by annual organization meeting shall be held as part of the first meeting which is scheduled following a public election for town officials. We're not doing an election for town officials. we don't get together and figure out who's going to be the next chairman or vice chairman. Can I just suggest that you say the first meeting after any new any new zoning commission members have been seated because you may have a meeting right after an election. There may have been decision but they may not get the seat. Do you want to wait till whoever
your new members are seated before you have any? Eric, could you could you say that again? So, if you have an election and then you have a planning and zoning meeting four or five days later or a week later, even though the zoning new commission members may be elected, they're not yet seated. They're not yet in session. So it should be the first meeting after the new officers are the new members have seated. So we just we would change it to say public election for town officials at which time officers will be elected and seated that takes Is this what we're talking about? First meeting which is scheduled in seated right before any event. Oh, shall be right there. At which time? Oh. Oh, shall be at which time new members are new members are seated and officers will be
elected. Elected and and seated. They get elected first then they get seated after they're sworn in. Well, no. You're talking I thought Eric was talking about Eric was talking about general membership, not officers. Right. Right. So, so what happens? You have an election. A new board member gets elected. He then after a certain date, he then gets sworn in and he becomes seated with the commission. After the new officers are seated with the commission, then you hold elections to elect your officers of the commission so that the people who are now on the commission get to vote on that. Does that make sense? Yeah. I'm just trying to see. Should we just should we just say the election the the following the election and seating of members? Correct. Yes. Okay. moving down to article alternates. The commission we just added the word as just to make the sentence proper English. Under meetings, we just said regular meetings will be held monthly. you are currently we still say we're the third Monday of the month and and so we took out what the day of the week was going to be and just said that the schedule will be posted on the town website. So, you know, at the end of the year we come up with a schedule for the following year. Those are the dates. If for some reason we don't want a new one on the third Tuesday, we can
we can change it. Oh, one of the things I wrestled with in section four on page six and I I guess we'll just leave it the way it is. Alternate members of the commission who are seated at the beginning of the meeting shall not be replaced by another member who will rise late. So that we got to get everybody to show up on time. If you see somebody that's the way and and my thought just need it that way. Sometimes we do have trouble trouble logging in. Yep, we do. And so if you're not going to be there, let me know. You know, I tried to delay start the meeting a little bit, but I think somebody's going to be there trying to get to get in. and and go
that way. But u be the We we said no member of the commission shall participate in the hearing or decision of the commission in which used to say he is directly or indirectly interested with putting he she and we just decided that it would be in which the member is directly or indirectly. So we get get that issue out of the seven, grammar change there. but coming down to section six under the minutes in, I don't have this one straightened out yet. Maybe Eric knows the process how this is really supposed to work. Says the commission shall review, amend as needed, and approve the minutes of all meetings. Any amendments to the minutes shall be made in date to the official copy submitted to the town clerk. After making amendments, the secretary shall initial said minutes in the gate final
approval. we don't have a secretary and I know I've never initial. I tried to understand from Marina what we did on this. I think she told me that the way it works according to town work maybe is that you look at the minutes and you look at the following minutes to see if there are any changes the previous minutes and that's how you know if there's any changes. Not sure that's makes most sense to me but I know so I've got to go out and figure out a better line there. I forgot to do that before we got together for this go through and just for the process if everybody's fairly happy with the way the bylaws look what I'll do is I'll run it through our branch then next meeting we'll vote on so that's how I plan to do that section three of that same thing which interesting incompetence stenographer show I heard the evidence of such evidence shall be recorded by audio recording device. Well, we have the audio recording device visual, too. I was going to get rid of the stographer, but that's still in the state statute. Got to have stenographer, so I just left it in there. And then under public relations under section two I they used to say the commission shall comply with sections 119 120 121 of the general statutes. those statutes no longer exist. And so
these are the words that Mark Grant suggested to put in there. It's all three good information stock and that was really it. So I don't think there's a lot that anybody would get all excited about in there but we did get rid of those Monday meetings and we haven't done those in a while. So everybody reasonably happy with those so that if we get the blessing of our attorney we can vote on those next month. on. Exe I was going to do an executive session to interview candidates for land zoning commission alternate member meetings. I was expecting one more fellow show up tonight. So he was going
to be here. He's not here. We have one fell that did show up tonight. He showed up the last time we got together. talk about teams. I thought I thought last time he was going to be he would be an exceptional member of the team. Still think that I thought we picked another exceptional member to the team that had lots of experience. I think the best way to start out is by an alternate and so anybody have any questions for Andreas? You want to hear anything about his background? I sent out the little paragraph he he sent me. but I think from his interaction here tonight, you know, seems like he would be a good guy to to have on the team. Thank you. Yeah, it's it's really an honor. thank you for thinking about me and giving me this opportunity. I participated in meetings in high school that was required for us to do. I went to high school. I would say it's kind of fascinating. So being part of this commission I think it's important you know I think it's I don't want to say it's a job but it's definitely a job that's important people transit is doing the work here and things that you guys discuss and decisions made affects everybody here whether they realize it or not. So I want to be part of that process, part of that decision making that represent everybody here, not just people that think like me, but people that don't and kind of find that sweet spot, middle ground and preserve the the
nature. The reason why we moved here is because of, you know, tranquility, if you will, the nature and the the history. So we're very happy to be him. my wife and I, she's an attorney. She's a real estate attorney. I work at Proud. I've been there for 14 years. Before that, I worked in healthcare and I worked my father's restaurant for 10 years. So, I know about restaurants. I know about healthcare. I know about I studied biology at Eastern Connecticut State University. a couple engineering degrees through grad. So, I understand technical stuff as well. And, so I think I know a lot of the table. I'm also a country guy. I love tractors, cars, everything in between, you know. So, pretty hands on I think. So, yeah. Anybody got any questions like ask at this point bring this up you looked at minority representation and the reason I say that is CBA problem alternates are treated kind of as a separate commission they are problems with when when Patrick was on the ballot. help and he declined because we had to have rememberation three alternates right only two of them can be of the same party or put forward by the same not okay but let's no of the same in the Arena right now. We've got one Democrat, one Republican. So, I knew no matter what we did, we were okay from that perspective.
Yep. It does. It was very So, I just I want to make two quick points. The reason to bring that up is because it is under state statutes. It's not any of your land use commissions should be completely nonpartisan. Anyway, Jim just brought that up because it's not an endover thing. It's something that you know that we have to adhere to and I like what you said about you know there may be times when you know you don't agree with people and vice versa and it does happen. You just as you know have to use your best judgment and go by the regulations and then if there's any leeway you should try to be able to defend your position whether it's favorable to somebody or less favorable to somebody. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I think I'm I'm a data guy so I was a little bit data regulation. Yeah, sure. We will have some educational requirements under current state law. Okay. if you do get appointed to this position, they have a minimum mandatory number of hours of training. Okay. there are a series of fabulous programs for land use law. One is by the Connecticut Bar Association and then the other is by clear which is the Connecticut land use academy. I would suggest you take the clear training for basically beginner you know commission members, land use commission members you know and then a year or two take the advanced you get a lot out of it and have a better understanding of what their role is in the commission. the commission. So, you know, Andover has a combined planning commission and zoning commission. Towns are allowed to have them combined or separate commissions. Since we're small, we operate a combined
commission. and you operate under kind of two different sets of authority depending on what you're doing. If you are so when you make regulations and the commission implements new regulations, you're basically setting land use law and you're acting in kind of a judicial capacity. and then if you are if you have an application before you you're acting in kind of an executive capacity and your responsibility so you the commission gets to make land use law but then it has to abide by the land use law that it created. so depending on what you're doing, your authority changes. but but it is there powerful positions.
You have the commission has a lot of say in the workings of a town, what can and can't be done. Absolutely. Just point in the right direction on where I need to do that training. There's information. I can I can Yeah, I can send some stuff to Andreas also. Perfect. Yep. approve Andreas Coladus as an alder member of the planning and zoning commission. Second. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Any abstain? Motion carries 500 Z. Congratulations. All right. Thanks, guys. Welcome to the team. Pleasure. It's let me I don't get it's politics. It's a It's a Greek name. Yeah. Okay. I know. I was saying it until this part had to get in motion. That's where the pizza thing comes in. I I My father's Greek, my mother's Hungarian, so I speak fluent Hungarian. If you guys ever come across someone that doesn't speak English you said 500 that's probably technically 700 alternates are are allowed to vote on that. That's true. Y that's pretty knowledge. Yeah. Okay.
Eric used to be the chairman before he'd be with the town administrator. He's done a great job. Yeah. sometimes. Okay, next up is correspondence. Jim, got any correspondence? Farewell cards that Okay, very good. Administrative reports got right along. How about zoning agent? Nothing. Wetland water course agent. I got nothing either. Nothing going on there. John, you got anything else for us tonight? nothing additional. Okay. probably looking around there and here. Nobody else for public speak. Oh, I want to thank John for helping us distill all the economic development commission ideas into the presentation that I gave tonight. It was a lot of times literally I took his notes from our last meeting and transferred it over my my old PowerPoint. So I want to give John credit for credits too. Okay. Thank you. The approval of the minutes and we got a couple of them because I added the agenda then forgot to do it last month. We'll start with the the regular meeting public hearing and regular meeting from February 18th, 2025. Any comments on those minutes? The only comment I had was under old business executive session pending litigation involving the same gravel operation. It was really be the sand gravel operation. That's the only thing I had on that. Anybody else have anything? Make a motion to approve the minutes
from February 18th public hearing and regular meeting as amended. Second. Thank you, Leanne. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstain? That motion passes 500. Next up is the minutes from March 18th. And the only comment I had on that was on page two under administrative reports inland wetland and water course agent talks about work beginning on a driveway on Woodland Street. Question question. And I think the the question there is to Woodland Street has the address of the place where the driveway is going up. Any other changes to those minutes? Hearing none, I make a motion to approve the minutes from March 18th as second. Okay. Any further discussion? None. Call for vote. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Motion passes. 5 Z. Next regularly scheduled meeting to be held as hybrid on May 20th. Any final comments other than Jim? Thank you so much for everything you've done over the last Enjoy retirement that you can travel. I guess you didn't feel guilty too many times taking free and clear. Thank you for everything you've done and thanks for staying on during the training period. Oh, I was going to ask has anybody heard anything back from the training on the 22nd? Like I have not seen we were supposed to get links to the training and all that stuff and diplomas. I've got nothing. Anybody get anything? No. I sent her an email also.
She responded back there was going to be ready next week. Okay. So who all attended? And you didn't make it. No, I didn't make it. Okay. Okay. So you guys have to do the the clear training if you've already done that at some point this year before before the end of the year when I have to send in my little report to the selected one of them. Oh, you have to do four and a half hours. No, I mean I did. Yeah. That's Yes. contrary to what they wrote initially in that thing, you know, and I think what Mark Ransom pointed out during the training that there's enough affordable housing in there that we get
our full credit. So, everybody who attended that training is free and clear. No more training for another two years. It's a every two-year requirement. So, you you'll have to do and those two like are really pretty good. The one thing I would say about the basic clear course is that there's a lot of emphasis on reading maps and reading drawings and stuff like that. And if you're not really used to looking at shop drawings or topographical lines on a map, that can be pretty helpful. So it's it's it's not the legal aspect. It's the kind of nuts and bolts of how you review something and what it looks like and what it all means. So that may be of interest. There's three little clear courses that if you do all three of them that fulfills the the requirement and I think you'll find pretty helpful. They're pretty good. Yeah. I've looked through the GIC numerous times on the end trying to what it means. So that's interesting. thank you Ann. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any obain? Motion passes by zero. Thank you very much everybody. Thanks John. Thanks. Eric, can you So we looked