located Riverside Drive and Longill Road. More particularly the improvements include baseball courts, gazebo, two playcapes, various associated site improvements. The proposed use specifically requires a special permit in accordance with section 10 of the Andover zoning regulations. And so that is that at this point I'll ask Christine to if you could just go through any of the changes that we've received since the last time we got together. Sure. So, our final punch list that we were working on was to revise the date on the regulations to the latest, revision, which was February 7th, 2023. add the wetlands approval letter to the plan. put approval boxes for PCC on every sheet. we wanted to add two signs at the entrance. one at the entrance to the pickle ball courts and one to the playground. we also needed the latest revision date on the plans of the actual plan. And the last thing we had was including a statement on the plans stating the methods used to retain storm water runoff so as to reduce no increase and peak runoff meet the requirements prescribed by the commission's engineering consultant. And all these
updates were made by Joe Dylan who is the acting town engineer and engineer for the for the project. there was also a communication with regards to the lighting plan. and I think yeah those are all the revisions that were made. Okay. so the other thing that we were waiting on for tonight was the approval of the variance by the zoning board. And Jim, where we stand on that? Zoning board appeals met last Tuesday evening and approved the application the relief from section 112 so as to allow for reduction in the front yard setback. Okay. To in turn allow for the construction of the pavilion. So, Christine, do you have any other comments you want to provide, on on the project here tonight? I don't think so. I I think we tried to be as sensitive as we could, just being residents in town and wanting to make sure everything conforms to the highest safety and regulations that are required in the town. And we are just happy to see this come to fruition. Hopefully something that residents could benefit from. Okay. Jim, any other comments on the application? No. Any other commission members has questions? Did we need to have information included in the public record No. No. Okay. Very good. So, my sense is then that all the commission members here tonight are ready to close the public hearing. We've got all the information that we want for for deliberating on the application. Given that at I think clock says 7:05 we will close the public
hearing. And at this point, we will open the regular planning and zoning meeting. And first up is roll call and seating of alternates. We're a little short on folks here tonight. we've got Annne Pray, Scott Brassan, Leanne Hutchinson, and myself. We've got no alternates to seat for in Patrick's place. So there's just the four of us. I don't see anybody from the public here. So, I I think we are going to move past public speaking and on to the old business. The application of the town of Andover acting through the Andover Field Committee. Applicants seeking special permit to undertake various improvements at the veterans field 30 herbicide project. any any of the commission members would like to discuss on that application at this point? Okay, very good. I would just point out that and I don't know if everybody read through the you know the lighting narrative that was posted online that Christine was talking about. we did go through and redo the math to get the right numbers to calculate and average with. And then one of the issues that that I was struggled with over the last month was most of the lighting levels in our regulations are a maximum level. when we went to the sports guidelines, you can certainly build a good case that those lighting levels that they specify are minimum levels. And so I thought, you know, we were trying to, you know, implement actions to reduce lighting levels when more light is better. And so when I
looked up, you know, are these lighting levels for sports fields a maximum or a minimum? said it's a minimum. So that's that's one place that the levels are different than what we have for the rest of the place in our lighting levels here. So I was I was good to go with that. Leanne, any questions or comments on the field improvements? You are unmuted. no thanks. Heard enough. Heard enough, huh? Sounds good. Okay. I do you does the committee want to discuss hours of operation? Oh, thank you. Yep, we do. So, I think we do a draft motion. There is draft motion. Yep. So, hold on. I'm trying to find my notes here. That was that was on. [Music] Okay. So, one of the things that was in the application was that the lights would be off at a time set by the Planning and Zoning Commission, but no later than 11 p.m. time what we thought was good. What did we say? I thought we said 10:00. Yeah, I mean that's See, I don't remember talking about it, but that's the time that came to my mind. That was if I don't remember talking about it either, but 10:00 was kind of what I was thinking. So, I think we're being outdoors and possibly affecting neighbors or something. Nope. I, Christine, that impose any significant hardship for you there? Yeah, I don't see any issue with that.
Okay. And then what about starting time? Do we have a starting time or is it just everything's over by 10? Well, so in the in the draft motion that I will make everybody else, it talks about the hours of operation which shall include the hours late for the pickle ball court shall be from 6 a.m. to 1000 p.m. 7 days a week. And that that does set a start time. Not to necessarily need lights out there at that point, but you might depend upon here, that sort of thing. Okay. Thank you, Wayne. No draft motion which anything else now that you saved us on that one? No, I guess we would have got there as I read through the motion that you guys would have got there, but I thought maybe you guys would want to fill in that blank prior to making the motion. So, here's the I will make a motion to approve the application of the town of Vandover Planning Zoning Commission application 2404 for a special permit for improvements of the property of the town of Vandover known as Veterans Park, 30
Riverside Drive, as depicted on a plan entitled Down of Vandover, Connecticut Recreational Facilities Enhancements Phase Two prepared by Nathan Jacobson Associates from Chester, Connecticut, dated November 2024, revised through 225, 2025 with the following conditions. Add a letter of approval to the final plans prior to filing. Final plans in their entirety, page 1 through eight, shall be endorsed by the chairman of the planning and zoning commission and filed in land records of the town of Andover. The hours of operation, which shall include the hours lighting for the pickle ball court, shall be from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. 7 days per week. The applicants shall secure a separate zoning permit for any and all signs with the exclusion of a sign detailing the rules for the use of the property for parking signs. Prior to the commencement of the work, the general contractor shall provide the zoning agent with contact information, including current mailing address, an email address, phone number, and update information should it change. And Christine, we'll send this out to you by email, so you don't have to write all that down. All erosion and sediment control measures shall be in place and inspected 48 hours prior to the commencement of work and the general contractor shall schedule a pre-construction meeting with the zoning agent, the inland wetlands and water agent Hank Bruner if available the public works director, the town administrator and his or her agent. Such meeting shall take place prior to the commencement of work. In such meeting the responsibility of all requisite permits shall be established and that that is the end of my motion. I'll second that. Okay. Second, Scott. Thank you. Any discussion on the motion? Good. Can I just confirm that that the date the revision date is accurate? 225
to29. the correct the revision in the motion is consistent with the the most recent revision the Y revised 22525 okay hearing none I'll call for a vote I and I vote I as well. Motion passes 4 0. Good job, Christine. thank you. That that doesn't mean you're all done. There are some steps. I don't know exactly what they all are, but Jim will Jim and Wayne will help you through those so that we we do all those things. We have a tendency to read that side or leave when it passes and then don't get all the last little bits done which include me signing all those myar so that we can get it filed in there. But nicely done on that. Sounds like a great plan. Look forward to having that in the Thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you guys. You Hey Jedi relations for the project. I just got an email from Kevin Arnison. Yeah. who was trying to get in and said that the Zoom link was not on did not appear on the agenda and the town website access was blocked. So I
just copied him. I I emailed him, copied everyone else with the link. Obviously, you know, you're Leanne got in, you know, and there are several people there in person, but Kevin was apparently having difficulty getting in. Maybe he'll join us in a second. Okay, very good. You're good to go, Christine. Yep. Thank you. Yeah, I I tested the link on the calendar this afternoon. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe he was clicking around the wrong place. That's how it's been displayed up there. I just use the link. Yep. Okay. Sorry about that. Kevin, we will we will seat you in place of Patrick Gerty. But I'm a little surprised Patrick's not here tonight. He might be Well, he might
be in the same situation I was in. Do you guys have Patrick's phone number? I believe just see if he had some problem joining us here. What kind of calendar? [Music] All right, I spoke to Oh, I think he's on the phone there. I think well thank you. See that thing is creeply. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Byebye. in good news and bad news. Good news is be sure meeting is like Patrick's not feeling well right now. He's here. Patrick's just joined. You're muted, Patrick. Yep. I think he said he's just going to listen. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm here. So, my computer's having technical difficulties. Yeah. Next item on the agenda was to discuss the the economic development commission topic for the plan of conservation development. based on the email I got from you a couple of days ago, I thought that was going to be the highlight of our meeting tonight. If you're not up to that, yeah, I'm not up to it tonight. Sorry, Jed. Okay, understand. and we've got Kevin's you know seated for you. So very good. I recommend that you click off and rest up. Okay. Thank you, Jed. Yep. Talk to you later, Patrick. Okay. Bye. Okay. So, moving on to the next things, discussion of status and proposed changes to zoning map and zone changes. And I don't have the map here tonight, but Jim, Wayne, I Eric, John have been working on our zoning map and and we have shifted from just a plain old map to I think John, is it correct to say that this is all GIS based now that were moving
to. Yes. yeah, it's it's it was sort of an odd combination of assessors based parcels and also you know there was some there was some mapping that sort of crossed parcel lines. So you had zone lines that would bisect parcel lines and what we've been trying to do and and migrating from one GIS system to another left some mapping lag and some what we would call phase shift in mapping. And so the the the parcel lines and the zone lines didn't sort of add up properly. And so even in parcels where we didn't intend to split
the parcel with his own line, there was some bleed over and and so we're, you know, we have a new we have a new upgraded parcel layer. So we're we're trying to make sure that that the assessor and the the zoning map and the GIS map are all, you know, sort of speaking the same language. So there's some technical corrections to be made. So, anyhow, that so the the map we've been working on didn't have street names on it. It was missing some culde-sacs here and there that have been put in. it had, you know, just several inaccuracies that we found between the map and the zoning cards in the assessor's office and that sort of thing. And I was going to try to make one big jump all the way to the finish line where we would get together with the conservation commission and and see where they thought we needed, you know, the conservation zones were and then have a discussion at the same time with the economic development commission so that we can we're not trying to make a new store in the middle of the land that we wanted to conserve and get through that. And so that's a that's a big outcome of the plan of conservation and development is finalizing that. But I was going to take an interim step where we got the map looking as good as we could as a map that would not require us going to a public hearing like it will at the end when we change some of the updates on the different properties. but if we tried to do it all in one big step, I think that would be too
difficult. So, we're going to break it into two and it's going to be a while before we get to that map, bring it to the commission to take a look at it and then follow that up with the public hearing where we get input from the public on it. But, I just wanted to let everybody know where it was that we stood at this point. So, that's all business C and we've been putting a lot of time and energy in on that. I hope that it comes out very nice for everybody. So, what's going to be incorporated in the map? So, we've got on our zoning map right now, we've got some some properties that are multiszoneed. You know, you got a piece of property and a line going through the center. One's business and one's residential or something like that. And
we're trying to get, you know, for the most part, each property should have a single zoning associated with it. There will be a few that are different that big pieces of property that run back from, you know, Route Six where along Route Six might be business back along there might be something else. I don't know. But, we're trying to get it accurate. There's a a bunch of places out there now that we know have been changed from what our current zoning map shows like the Bernett properties got there's some discussion about at least some of its business. I think our maps shows that ARD Mike Dion's got a property that's listed as residential that I think needs to be business. So there's a bunch of
those that we Jed, would it be helpful if I just showed an example of the map? Sure. Yep. I underestimated your capability there, John. Sorry, but we didn't have the paper copy, but you're I didn't I didn't think of it until just now. So, so this is the the Crag GIS map. that is a regional parcel layer, and I turned on zoning. and so and and so the the the colors the zoning map is is approximate and it's it's sort of you know it's a sort of an image that's laid on top of the parcel layer. And so if you look over here, this is just west of the this is on Route Six, just west of Long Hill Road, so near the park and ride, near the post office. and you'll you'll see if you know where you've got a parcel line here, the post office parcels where the 140s are and and the parcel to the to the left of it is, you know, weirdly in sort of three
zones according to this map. and the zone itself, the color really has no value associated with it. and and the the zone designation is actually found in the assessor's record if you click on the parcel. So there's you know things are off. It's you know you can sort of see visually things are off. So that we needed to we wanted the you know the the parcel lines to be fixed relative to zones and and you know make sure that parcels are in the proper designation. The goal was to at the end of the day you we should be able to go to our zoning map and somebody says what is my property zoned and we should be able to go to that map and get the right answer and it ought to match up with what's on the property card in the assessor's office and we're not there yet but we're working towards that with the goal and and that be that. So so the first step is to get a map that is accurate of current conditions. Accurate of what? The first step is to get a map that is accurate of current conditions. Yep. That reflects the current zoning that's been in place like since 1961. And then with with
planning, zoning commission, economic development conservation commission, we're going to sit down, look at the map, and say what's the best use of this land for the town and change it to reflect that. I think there's some properties that are zoned industrial because I've told that we've, you know, excavated a lot of gravel out of way back when. Well, that might not be the right for now. Maybe it's business, maybe it's not, I don't know. But with the with the three different groups sitting down together going through the different parcels, you know, it's all right around crowd six because everything else is all residential anyhow. But, gives us a chance to get that right. And I think that that would be a good step for the town. So I was hoping to have been I was hoping to have the map all done before Jim retired. Jim's still here hanging on, but he said, "Nope, that map's not going to be done before I There we go. He didn't really say that. I'm kind of making joke." Jim would never say anything like that. But yeah, that's that's that under new business review the bylaws. So Jim Wayne and I have been working on the bylaws a little bit. I didn't send those out to everybody because I had just other stuff going on. I think we're very close to have that the way we want it and and I'll get that
out before the next meeting. I think we have to have 30 days before we vote on it that you have to have it available or something and and I just got to check on that. We're getting close on update the bylaws and that's something that I wanted Jim and Wayne to go through before Jim correspondence. Jim, anything there? No. None. No. Wow. We got time tonight. Wayne, you got any correspondence? No. Okay, very good. administrative report zoning agent. trying to wrap up a few loose ends being in particular the the Dollar Tree and the the Benjamin Franklin enforcement efforts. Hopefully I I haven't gotten them out as far as the zoning violation that that carries with the the the fine. I hope to have get that done this week. Shouldn't be a problem. Other than that, indeed, I am holding a bond on work done work incomplete work at the end of Pine Ridge Drive property of George Carrera. the two lot subvision that was done over the course of the last few years to ensure that the adjacent property is restored as requested did send out a fairly recent notice to the property on Aspenol Drive the apparently the owner well passed away so I'm dealing with when somebody gets supported by probate when a somebody's able to they I'm told that they will pull from it and take care of
better dealing with what are the attorneys involved a little something I haven't done it seems to be pretty clean it appears be taken care That's all I have. Okay. You got anything for us tonight, Wayne? No. No. Okay. And I don't have anything for the Inland Wellers Water Force Agent report either. We have a couple of items that the wetlands agent took care of on his own in the upland review area. And I think we're we're starting to work on one driveway over on Woodland where the guy is trying to expand his house, make it so that he can age in place there. And part of that's moving his garage from one end of the house to the other. And he's going to have to run a driveway across the wetlands there up in that area. But nothing significant there. John, anything for us? Yeah, a couple of things. so I I just reached out to to to Patrick by email and I know you're not feeling well and you guys want to push this off, but if I I'd be happy to get together again with the Economic Development Commission to sort of help bring the EDC chapter along a little bit. you know, whatever the status is. you don't have to respond. We can we can deal with
that online. I w wanted to just follow up. we forwarded to I believe everybody last week the draft conservation chapter of the plan of conservation and development and would be happy to to have any any comments on that. We can you know if you if you've got comments feel free to email them to me and and so we can you know sort of come up with a with a more finalized draft version for the next couple meetings. and then the last bit is been emailing back and forth. Jed and I spoke about the potential agurism regulations or you know the sort of farm farm tourism farm activity regulations. I made a couple of changes based on our conversation. forwarded it back to Jed for comment and I also forwarded it to Ryan Fitch who had been checking in. for the you know the the tree farms to to see if he has any interest in sort of carrying it forward. And and he said he's you know still very interested in the topic and would would like to pursue the idea of of you know using their tree
farms as special event facilities and things like that. But if the commission was still interested in kind of taking the lead in shaping the regulations themselves, he was happy to take a back seat. but I wanted to put that to the commission again if this is something that you want to continue to sort of tailor in-house or or would you prefer to have someone basically a private applicant meaning Ryan submit this as a as an application. So, I was hoping to have discuss discussed a little bit as we had the economic development commission ideas and I recall when
Patrick first spoke to us, you know, that the EDC was pretty favorable and enthusiastic about giving as much latitude to the farmers as we could the the issue that I'm wrestling with with myself anyhow is so if you look in our regulations whether it's business industrial or what have you and you were to say we're going to build a wedding venue in Andover that's not one of the options that we would allow to have so does it makes sense that we would allow a farmer to have a wedding venue when we wouldn't allow somebody to build a wedding venue because it's not consistent with the regulations or a concert venue, that sort of thing. You know, Andor is kind of a quiet little town. So that's and that doesn't mean that we can't change any of those things either. The other the other aspect, you know, when and and I take grandkids to a bunch of little farm events, so I'm kind of familiar with what the what the farms put on for stuff and it's normally not weddings and concerts and that sort of thing. but would so would we as I drive around Andover, there are a lot of trees that
have tree farm signs on it. And does that mean that everybody that has a tree farm should be able to do businesses there? and they probably wouldn't. I think they've got prefarge because it's an accident trying to break forward but but there's a bunch of stuff that that I don't know and I was looking forward to that EDC discussion to help me get a better feel for that. So I'll look forward to that for next month and but those are the things that I'm wrestling with when I try to figure that out. I think I made the comment before we didn't want Woodstock 2025 taking place in Andover and and I think that's probably a good plan. So that's but I do I do think that we we need to make some so I guess the question comes down to my mind is do we want to regulate these activities or let let Mr. fish go on his merry way as long as he doesn't annoy his neighbors. And that's, you know, when we did the lighting rags, we put those in so that the zoning enforcement officer, and that was John Valen at the time, had something to go back to when the neighbors complained about the lights shining in their house. And sure enough, we've had to we've been we took advantage of that a couple times. So, anyhow, John did a great job of updating the hanger business rig. I just not sure where I go on that. And and I'm only one vote out of five. Teach some other people to be thinking about that too. I I can see a lot of
opportunities to maybe do some sort of agurism. I think about my high school reunion was at an herb farm couple years ago. there's a lot a lot of the big up and coming wedding venues are farms and barns and things like that. And y I can't really see that that would be bad to have in town. It just seems like it'd be something that would give some positive growth and it wouldn't be like having a store that's open every day of the week. It would just be an occasional flare. Yep. So, that's my thought about it. And you know, when you had a wedding venue, maybe you you know, you're required to be all inside a a tent or something. I know you know, Colombia, they have a soundproof tent requirement that they put in when they're going to have a rowdy thing going on, but there's a lot that we that Mr. Fitz could probably do. might be some things that we don't want them to do and we need to figure out what those bounds are. How do we stop that? And farms are not just tree farming. No, like the Hurst farm out there. Not a tree farm and I was out at Hurst Farm over the weekend getting the maple syrup and that's dairy farms and that is they have to meet a certain tax criteria, right? and yeah at 2500 or something like that sales and products. I'm not familiar with the actual number something something like that to make the farm to have sort of a formal farm designation that's yeah in terms of in terms of state of Connecticut and tax status right 5 acre farm wedding venue I'm all for it I'm all for it as
well as long as It's not impacting the just as a point of interest a number of people have stopped by the office contacted me that have actually in the setting up farms you know new farms small I say small you know one was 30 acres one was 10 acres another one was sort of conversion of the the hay fields on on Bunker Hill over to you know propose conversion over to some sort of more high intensity use of property. People are there there is some interest in in doing doing something on on a smaller scale but but not time you
know for for this area. So we'll get through that and but you know working on trying to get through the POC too that's not going quite as fast as I was hoping. I did talk through Hank and you know he was gonna he asked me if he should come tonight to go through the chapter that John did. I said well if you and the conservation commission had a chance to review it and think about you know your comments on that jet and he said you know they were hoping to do that. I think their meeting is next week and so he asked if they could come and address that at the April meeting as well. So what I thought was going to be
busy meeting tonight is going to turn into a busy meeting in April. anything else, John? that's it for me. Okay. No public there, so we're not going to do public speak. next regularly scheduled meeting, April 15th, to be held as a hybrid meeting just like this one. I would hope that we get more people there. I'm kind of disappointed that we got nobody no interest tonight in what's going on, but that's okay. But that's going to be April 15th. I guess the So this weekend is the big land use training weekend by the Connecticut Bar Association. I sent out to everybody this afternoon what the schedule for that day should be. in my notes I that I can't find, I included the training requirements and what surprised me when I was reading through the schedule. It says this program fulfills the general training requirements and half of the required one-hour training concerning affordable housing and fair housing policies. And that that surprised me because you would have thought with a full day of training they would have met the requirements for with the training. I remember Mark Grant talking about how they boosted that up the first year but we're going to make sure that never happened again and it well maybe not. So, there's a
panel discussion from 240 to 3:40 on affordable housing, the municipal perspective, and options for expanding housing opportunities. That sounds like an hour to me. so I'll see what kind of information it is but since they go on to say that you know this this training is the office of policy and management does not certify individual programs and I do we'll see what what we can do but I would ask everybody to attend that part in particular get another three hours of stuff to meet our fourhour requirement. And hopefully that will be that. I'm hoping they talk about that a little bit in the introduction on Saturday morning. I like to point out that I do have books for folks. I believe Lee Edward would be the only one that I know Patrick already has a book. pick it up. Great. If not, I'll I'll drop it off. And also that there is the community center being set aside to hold that meeting on a screen. That will be open sometime quarter 9 or there about Saturday morning. Yes, we did did Jim just mention my name? I was going to ask a question anyway, but did did Jim just mention my name because it was a little bit of echoing. He did mention your name. I think it was in
regard to dropping off a book for you. I have books for the the workshop, the CBA, the Connecticut Bar Association workshop, and I believe one of them is for you. You did sign up. That's going to be my question. I see from a month or two ago that we were supposed to get a book and I was just going to mention that one I don't think I've gotten a book and two are we supposed to get some kind of link to sign in or or is that going to come between now and Saturday? The link is supposed to come tomorrow. Yep. I was hoping it would be out today. Thanks, John. And thanks Leanne. I forgot to mention that. I have not
seen the link yet, but they normally put one out a couple days before the training. sure you can get there. Okay. Jim, would you like me to email you about about getting together and and so that I can pick up the book? Sure, that'd be great. Okay. Any other questions or comments on the training? Okay. Any other questions or comments on anything? Hearing none. I make a motion that we adjourn. Second. Okay. Thank you. All in favor say I. I. I. Lean. I motion passes 500. Thank you all for attending. See you next month. Bye.