this meting is being record and the first order of business is roll call and seating of alternates and I see all the commission members here with the exception of Leanne and so hello are you there Leanne oh yes okay you so you're listed as owner tonight I don't know what that means but I guess it's apparently it's me okay very good so the the entire commission is present tonight Susan we won't be seating you as an alterate next up are additions and changes to the agenda oh now it says Leanne okay and Christine did you get a hold of the other person you were trying to get a hold of I did reach out to him he hasn't responded okay in that case if if he was here I was gonna I'm here there he is he is here okay Mike Russo okay very good so we've got you know first up would by the agenda would be a fairly linky presentation by the Conservation Commission and so what I would like to do is move the application for the Field improvements up to before the old business and I don't think you're going to take too long with us tonight but that way you won't have to sit around through all the other business you can go about and and doing your other stuff there so I'd like to make a motion to move the new business item receive application set public hearing from the town of
Andover for special permit for various improvements at Long Hill Riverside Drive up to right after public comment does anybody else have any other suggested changes or additions deletions to the agenda no hearing none the my motion stands as is just to move the one item up to the top of the list tonight looking for a second I'll second that okay thank you Scott with the with all the attendees here I can't see everybody that's on the commission so I'm just going to call call for a vote to approve the motion an i Scott hi Patrick I Leanne I and I vote I as well the motion to amend the agenda is passed so with that I will turn it over to Christine Eric who wants to go I think Christine wants to go or Mike wants to go I can start us off Christine you can go ahead I you got it under control okay so I was just going to give you a brief description of the project we are doing improvements to Long Hill beyond the existing soccer fields this is these improvements are going to include three pickle ball courts two playscapes one for ages 2 through 5 years old and then 5 through 12 and a pavilion along with the development of this area we have a little bit of surface drainage going in we are going to pave the existing parking area that's that's the upper area along Riverside Drive the the site isn't going to it has already been developed you know in the past 20 plus years so the site is already completely a disturbed site we are going to be taking advantage of the
elevations of the BM area at the back of the soccer fields to put the Pavilion and the the playgrounds just to ensure the this area is does experience flooding occasionally and so we're trying to keep those two things above any type of flood area the pickle ball quartz will be down in the lower area that will probably experience flooding more than the the the ridge that's up there all water is going to be handled surfac through swailes and drainage ditches and plunge pools and it's a pretty straightforward project and we do think that the town will benefit as a whole for its residents and any future residents that are looking to move to the town to be able to have these Services the the three main things that we're planning to do should Target there should be something there for every age group to be able to utilize at some point and we think yeah the town will really benefit from having this area used for this this service Okay so good thank you Mike did you want to add anything to that no I mean Christine spelled it out
perfectly that's our you feel that this project could be a great asset to the community and it's a proper use of an area that really can't be served in a lot of other ways and it expands the current Recreational facility for the town and you know as as we've outlined in some of the checklist items for the pnz special permit you know that we're taking into consideration you know some of the the challenges that that do exist in the area making sure we're trying to mitigate them with with the process okay Eric anything to add no I think it's a great project I think we're very fortunate to be able to obtain a steep Grant to pay for it and I think you're you can look forward to a pretty well thought out application and we welcome your okay Jim so if you had a chance to go through your checklist yes I okay I met with Mike Christine Eric and Wayne and went over pretty much the checklist and found they pointed out actually a couple of things documents that we're waiting for from the town engineer and I have had a conversation with Joe Dylan and he is well aware of what needs to come in and indicated he would have it in
shortly pretty much it was there's a little bit of work on the Storm drainage and and erosion he's adding some detail on erosion control lighting is we have no detail on lighting I'm told it's coming in I mean if it's if it doesn't come in the application can be evaluated without it it it does not need lighting as far as PGC I I understand integral part of the the project but it could certainly be added later if it if the detail isn't here that's all I have okay I did go through and spend a little time looking at it and I I didn't see well one I I couldn't the plans up enough that we have in the folder to read the writing that's on there so I wasn't able to to go
through all the notes that were on the plants but it did look like there was a rosion and sediment control PL but I didn't see anything that discussed removal of material to compensate for material that was added in the flood plan so if if that is well there is a statement required by way of the regulations that by by a certified engineer licensed engineer stating that the flood plane Rags are in order that that they're addressed and I'm kind of working through that detail I haven't fully grasped it yet but I'm I'm close and I'm gonna ask Joe to Joe Dylan to go through that in his presentation at the public hearing okay okay j i d all all the material that's being removed from the flood plane and it's also being deposited in in a different place in the same flood
plane okay yeah I just want the the plan to show that you know the requirement is that we compensate for anything that we're putting in and want to make sure that the plan talks about that the I know early on in the project there was some discussion about making some changes like irrigation maybe over at the ball field across the street that's not part of the project as I understand it now is that correct correct so there will not be a full irrigation plan over there there will be a PL a outlet plumbed across the street and be left there so the h could be attached to it so not a full irrigation plan of in the ground but there part of the scope of the project does include I don't know have the right terminology but but a pipe to go across Riverside Drive to be left with an outlet over there for the ball field to be used for watering and is that on the plan now is that shown on the okay
the U ched the reason why we're not we've never really comp considered an inground sprinkler system there is because that area has much of that softball field sits on top of the septic in the leech field for the Hop River Homes so you really can't under the the way the health code is even though none of the none of the sprinkler water is pable you can't mix that in close Pro proximity with the the septic you know you can't run sprinkler lines over a leech field basically okay no sounds good I remember that conversation now that you mentioned it so my the first question for the commission is does anybody on the commission think or want that we should do a site walk to go see the plan and I'm not advocating for that I think the plan you know was pretty easy to visualize what's going on there but I think it's a big enough project that if if the commission wanted to do a site walk over there we could do that between now and our next meeting hearing no overwhelming desire to go do I'll I'll think that that's probably not so J I'd be happy to send out full-size plans to the commission I think that
would be helpful as I say I went you tried to read the notes and it just didn't copy clearly enough that I could blow it up and and read with the notes were so I would like us that I can do that yep so at this point I will make a motion to hold a public hearing prior to the regular planning zoning meeting to discuss improvements to the Andover Memorial Field on 21 January so that would be at 7 o'clock second that thank you an any discussion on that at all and I will ask I guess Jim or Eric when do we think we will be able to get all the items that we missing from the engineer so that we have a little time to review it before the public hearing would we be able to get like a week ahead of time well I did make it clear that we should have everything 10 days prior okay to the meeting 10 days prior indicated that would not a problem I'm just using that date because that's that's the publication and posting date requirement so it makes sense that the information be available at that time okay any other discussion on schedu of the public hearing no and and I guess in a little bit of almost Planning and Zoning humor Eric I went through my list of 824 referrals and I did not see one for this
project well I suppose we can correct that at the next meeting I I think we can I just I went through I I would I I'm sure that it was one of those things we talked about it it was so early in the project we decided don't we'll wait for a while and I don't think we ever did one so that would be I I'll have to look through my notes because I thought we did one because we had to go to public hearing to approve the town's contribution to this okay yeah we would have had to have had an 84 prior to that I think take a look and see if you've got one I couldn't find one in my file of 824 stuff so okay J put together a list of a24 referrals and it was it's either going online or is online on the on the planning zoning web page just for this very reason to track them okay I'm not sure whether this one's on here or not yeah list or not I noticed that Jim very good idea thank you but if we don't have one we'll have one for the next meeting here so I can't remember if we voted or not and Jim did we vote I don't know okay but we're going to vote again we've got the motion to hold the public hearing at 7 o'clock on January 21st prior to the regular planning zoning meeting and it was seconded and we'll call for a vote Ann I Scott hi
Patrick I Leanne I and I vote I as well the motion passes 500 thank you Christina Mike I think we're in good shape look forward to to getting the rest of the stuff I agree that it's a great project for the town looking forward to it we'll see you next month thank you night okay we're going to move down to old business now and first up is the discussion on the plan of conservation development Conservation Commission input so I see Hank and Maryanne here Hank are you presenting that Hank Hank you're still muted sorry sorry there you go yeah I'm going to start the presentation off and then hand it over to Maryanne for we have a slide of some questions relating to the process for planning Maran will pick up the discussion there sounds good go ahead and Jed I'm assuming you know based on our we're we're doing the first half of the presentation tonight correct yes correct okay can I share am I able to share you can try I yeah I think so I I've enabled sharing all perfect can folks see that let me see if I can y we can see it yep I'm not getting a blanking me out from being able to actually start the slideshow which I don't know why hold on up top I know but it's not it's grayed out on me like I can't it's weird let me let me try the icon there's a the tiny icon on the lower right next to the the the zoom slider
bar just to the left of the zoom slider bar is that's the yeah just to the left of that to the left not to the right there you go that's it slideshow yeah normally it's up top that's weird okay all right so thank you for the opportunity to present tonight the Conservation Commission has and it's I don't know why it's automatically changing on me the Conservation Commission has spent two years pretty much focused on planning for revision to chapter eight this is an image of chapter 8 from the 2015 plan of conservation and development protecting natural resources and open space plan nice picture of a a bald eagle there so we've spent a couple of years on
planning but I thought it would be good just quickly to reiterate the value of natural resources and open space to our municipalities they contribute to a healthy environment for residents especially air and water quality helping maintain a nice healthy environment for our residents they mitigate impacts of climate change which are becoming increasingly evident with increased flooding and and events that are driving changes and challenges for our infrastructure I know Eric's wrestling with all that with the culverts and so forth increased temperatures and changes to groundwater through droughts protection of Natural Resources goes is a significant role in helping to mitigate against those impacts they support recreational opportunities for Town residents especially given our major trail system that's going through the Hop River State Park trail protect biodiversity and critical habitats and they help maintain a SC rural character of of the town so over the past two years we've gone through a process a planning process and a key component of that is a natural resource inventory and an open space inventory what we so the process involved basically five questions what important natural resources occur in town and where are they located what open space currently exists
in other words what's already protected out there how do natural resources and open space align so when we overlay those two the location of the different Resources with our protected lands are there gaps you know we want to look at that that gives a strategic look at how well we're protecting those resources what are the goals for open space and natural resource conservation typically when you do a planning process you establish the goals at the front end of the process but with with a with a conservation initiative you need to have the information that you then analyze and it tells you what resources you have what levels of protection that then drives your the goals because you can look at the sort of a gap analysis there so then you so we formulated some some goals which
we'll share with you for open space and natural resource conservation in town and then the final step and this is often the one that is not paid as much detail to but as very important the easy part is actually the first four of those bullets conducting the natural resource inventory Gathering the information and pulling it together and doing the analysis is fairly straightforward given the availability of data today and the the the mapping technologies that are available online the trick is in then taking that and looking at how those resources and plans and goals relate to town policies regulations and any other town plans that might be in place for example recreational plans Economic Development plans and looking where there's potential conflicts or where
there's alignments that becomes what I refer to as more the implementation plan how do we go forward and meeting these goals once we we've we've established them based on the analysis so that's a critical piece and we'll form a lot more of the second part of the presentation on you know what are the recommendations for moving forward so I wanted to go first go back to 2015 because we have to look at you know where where were we and in 2015 this is what basically had been completed they mapped permanently preserved what they called committed open space it was an analysis that developed a map of that there were areas that were mapped that were considered undevelopable by regulations primarily Wetlands due to regulatory thresholds for Wetlands they mapped areas considered undevelopable by character primarily steep slopes typically over 15% then they referenced the state plan of conservation and development the capital region Council of government's plan of conservation and development the natural diversity database which provides information to municipalities on the locations of endangered and threatened species of plants and animals and critical habitats and they also looked at the location of prime agricultural soils which are also mapped so all that information was put into a map that was basically their natural resource inventory at the time and what that led to was this is figure D from
that plan was their open space plan so they identified all of the green areas are areas that based on that analys is were considered to be protected open space what they then did is they created three open space corridors if you see the dotted lines that create these sort of polygons the the Western Highlands open space Corridor there on the on the on the left side the hop River Corridor right through the middle that follows the Hop river system and then the Eastern Highlands open space Corridor they pretty much anchored the Eastern Highlands open space Corridor was anchored by the Nathan halil State Forest and the Western Highlands open space Corridor was anchored by the bishop swamp Wildlife Management Area our two large State Holdings and then of course the Hop River open space Corridor was anchored by the location of the Hop River and the wetlands and soils
associated with that that system then all of the small small areas are Greener the areas that I mentioned where there was either steep slopes or Wetland soils evident that were led to the belief that they might be non-developable so that was the plan that was pretty much put in place in 2015 so if we jump ahead to 2025 there are more data sets available and more coming online every year and there's more sophisticated geog GE geographic information systems programs available for analysis so what we did on the commission is we used the public ezri the company called ezri develops sort of the standard for the industry of of GIS it's a system called Arc view it's a very sophisticated high-powered system and if you have somebody in town dedicated to GIS with expertise in it and you have you know a system set up and you maintain that system with upgrades and training and so forth it can be very powerful that's very difficult for many small towns such as Andover to to maintain those larger high-powered systems and Personnel required to to to continue to run those and maintain those what we did is we used their free they have a free public program that's available and the value with that is it allows each commission member can basically have a license a free license and can basically do analysis on their own once we create
the information we can share it and allows a much more commission-based approach toward looking at the information the mapping and the data versus having one individual or a consultant dealing with it separately and then sharing information because these are living maps that are constantly being updated by the state and by various entities providing information that allow us to be able to really continue to analyze that over the course of the of the 10 years of the planet conservation devel vment and also enable us to create our own maps that then will talk with the other existing maps and data and I'll show you an example of that so these are the these are just examples of the data that we utilized and the data and maps that we utilized in the analysis for 2025 were in Broad sense they were land use land cover data sets and Maps geological data sets and maps and biological data sets and Maps where the primary sources of information oh and wetlands D maps that we utilize so this gives you an example of some of the maps and information that we utilized in our analysis we did create one map that we felt was missing there is no Statewide map for vernal pools which are an an important water course type in Connecticut for a variety of ecological reasons and water retention reasons and many towns you know are faced with that that they're often times come up before review in in the Wetland commissions because of development that might occur around them or Timber harvests or agricultural practices so it's good to have upfront proactive information on them so we took
an approach in partnership with the in the wetlands commission and a citizen science initiative to do an inventory of the a townwide inventory of vernal pools and we did that through GIS map satellite image analysis and then we followed It Up by training residents in town to go out with us and do surveys biological surveys of those pools and bring that information back in we partnered with the University of Connecticut through a program that they had a climate change program that enabled us to get more sophisticated analysis beyond what was available through the free public program and mapping so when we needed to calculate percentage of land cover and so forth they were able to do that for us and we were able to take that information and then integrate it into into our Maps so we did create one of our own Maps to be able to utilize in this analysis and that's the veral pool map that you see there I won't go through all of the maps because that's a lengthy exercise and really the the power of it
is not in looking at an individual map but overlaying maps to look at where there are Parcels that have high value because of concentrations of various important natural resource variables looking at how well those open space corridors line up with the resources that we have and looking for gaps so they become it's really a process of doing overlays various overlays to analyze but I wanted to give you a sense of the information in detail that we looked at in our analysis we also similar to what they did in 2015 we referred to the relevant Regional and state plans that were Avail that were out there and they included the green what's referred
to is the green plan the Connecticut's open space acquisition plan the governor's Council on climate change the climate change preparedness plan the state plan of conservation development Connecticut's Wildlife action plan which is currently in the review in updating process now I'm a member of the one of the Committees that's working on that so I had access to a lot of the information there and then of course the Connecticut the capitol region Council of government's Regional plan of conservation development we had a a good opportunity early on when we prepared a a state a grant to submit to the state for hopefully acquiring a property we were able to go through in detail a lot of these plans to be able to provide some rationale for why we were pursuing a part particular property that eventually fell through but it it the exercise gave us a really good look at some of the state goals and Regional goals and how they overlaid with the town of bover and where where we fit into that so the two thou so here's the this is our 2025 draft open space corridors and parcel map so the map that you see here all the green is the state land the sort of lighter pink is Town land the purple is the land trust we have little bit of land trust land the private to be determined I should mentioned when they did the analysis of protected open space in 2015 they there was conflicting information presented it ranged anywhere from 18 to 29% of the Town protected open space and there were several Parcels that were considered to be
protected open space including those Parcels that are red and and dotted line the Sportsman's Club the Estonian Society owns a small parcel up there on the north on the Bolton line and then the Harford Neighborhood Center is the Old Camp hote property which are private and we we do not know what the status of those as far as ultimate protection a good example is they ALS o included in that analysis Parcels associated with the har the Camp current which it was in private holding but not wasn't necessarily In prot Perpetual protection so we wanted to be very careful on what we were considered to be protected land so as of now we consider those as undetermined we didn't go into the deeds and look at whether those were permanently protected or whether they could ultimately be sold and developed that's something that's sort of hanging out there we did calculate we did create a a spreadsheet with a full inventory of the parcels and we are at 23% of the town in protected open space that does not include land in steep slopes or Wetlands because we don't consider those to necessarily indicate permanent protection so they were not included in that analysis and they're typically not so and this the goal in 2015 was to reach a 21% level of protected open space which mirrored the state's goal of 21% so at 23% we're over that at the time when they calculated they used the lower number of 18% so that I believe
they recommended that we try to pursue an additional 240 some acres in protected land to get to the 21% but based on our analysis we're at 23% right now we also did minor modifications to the open space corridors the 2015 analysis was pretty good there were slight modifications we made to the to the corridors basically to include the skunka mug River on the Hop River Corridor because of its ecological connection and importance to the hop River so it gave it a little jog to the north and east we also separated the Hop River Corridor on the Far Eastern side from what they what was originally mapped as that Northwestern because ecologically they're very different systems so we carved out the the we broke those up in that one area and we also adjusted the lines slightly to bring in some protected lands that were not included within the original lines probably just an eror of a transpose or something along that line so there were some minor modifications but basically the open space corridors that we were recommending Remains the Same with slight modifications we also went and looked at well what undeveloped private land do we have and this is this so This has no structures no real houses or units like that on it so if you take a look at the yellow Parcels that are outlined those indicate the the undeveloped private lands that we have within those open space corridors they obviously provide opportunities for either acquisition or conservation easements and I urge you to look at the areas where we have gaps like the Hop River Corridor now arguably some of the Hop River Corridor
is protected through because of flood plane and FEMA lines from a standpoint of flooding but there's very little protected open space currently within the Hop River open space Corridor versus the Eastern and Western High Uplands corridors which have some significant open space and it's easier to build connectivity and build out from those and than it is within the Hop river system we also looked at so that's the open space analysis one question let me back up one one question that we do have in the 2015 they set forth a goal to try to achieve between 2015 and 2025 as I mentioned I think it was 284 Acres based on trying to get to that 21% so one of the questions we have is do we want to set a new goal for open space acquisition or not we talked about that in our last commission meeting and I I think you know our sort of philosophy on it is we're less interested in numeric goals and more interested in strategic goals as into Parcels in areas that are of higher value from a conservation standpoint and not necessarily looking at it from a
standpoint of we need a certain percentage of land protected rather being more careful on where we protect the land and what lands we protect and how it's protected and how how and the uses within there hopefully they're best you know they're following best management practices or best development practices so that's kind of our piece but we recognize that that's something that should be a broader discussion there are while we're over the 21% that the state has the state will likely set a new goal they didn't meet the 21% they'll likely set a new goal because their's ran out in 25 too and there is talk you know at various levels on a concept called 30 by3 which is 30% over the next 30 Years type of thing that would be a stretch for us to try to hit a 30% goal from a numeric again you know it's it's you know what are you trying to achieve but I think that's
something for the Planning and Zoning commission to give some thought to and if there is a desire within the town to have more of a numeric goal you know to you know to sort of serve as an impetus for for for for going forward you know that's worthy of a discussion so goals so once we did the analysis we looked at the natural resources we looked at the open space you know could get a sense of you know how things lined up and where there were gaps and so forth we we discussed we came up with five broad goals and Within These we have more specific goals but the five broad goals we have are aggregate tracks of land to create large
intact conservation areas promote connectivity of open space Parcels with an open space corridors those two are pretty straightforward and you know our part of pretty much every conservation plan that any municipality or Regional group or state group has out there because there's a broad understanding that larger is better for for a lot of reasons and connectivity is is critical whether you're looking at Trails or whether you're looking at ecosystems so those two then the other is to pre protect our natural resources as we Define as clean air water soil and a diversity of native plants and animals promote public awareness of natural resources and the value that they provide and engage the community in conservation initiatives and support recreational opportunities where appropriate the area where we probably have the more detail developed is number three because obviously those are very distinct items soil you know plants and animals water air on how you would protect those there are very different potential strategies and they line up in different areas within the town so we do have specific goals associated with each of these broader goals so I want to jump back to 2015 real quickly so the recommendations that
came out of 215 and and they weren't in one sort of bulleted recommendation area they were kind of scattered about so I made an attempt to pull them together and I I met with Eric recently to try to go through some of these to see what our status was the first one was to evaluate development of propo proposals in relation to the open space plan to guide preservation and development Footprints and to be quite honest you know we don't have a lot of development pressures in town so I'm not really sure you know how that well that's being utilized whether the open space PL is being utilized in that in that regard because you know we haven't had a lot of of development actions you know folks on this commission may know better than I on the use of that promote the
purchase of development rights to preserve important farmland and they made a point of potentially resoning the Post Farm which is zoned his business to residential so I noted that that's sort of an incomplete and that's a question you know whether that that's something that wanted to be pursued or not certainly that that area within the in the Hop River Corridor is an important area from both agriculture but also from ecological from from a variety of values carefully evaluate the Bal property Bunker Hill which is located on Bunker Hill Road status of that it's incomplete it's sold that property sold to a private owner but remains undeveloped encourage participation in the Chapter 490 program that's forest and farm program for tax tax benefits there are some we do have some farms in town that are a part of various farm programs which is great but you know as far as a desire by the commission to Planning and Zoning or or Conservation Commission whether you want to pursue additional in 490 we didn't really have a feeling that needed a big push but that's something that the Planning and Zoning may may may want to consider
consider rezoning R40 land to r80 and permit a right permit as right open space subdivisions allowing 40,000 foot Lots with 50% open space dedication that was implemented through the Andover rural design zoning Gregs with a 40% open space dedication consider mandatory open space subdivisions in three corridors the status of that was it was included as open space subdivisions by right in the ards but not necessarily mandated and then continue with the fee and L of open space where appropriate and supplement open space funds through budgetary allocations and they also noted applying for State Municipal open space funds and that's been implemented and as I mentioned we did put an effort together to try to purchase a a parcel but it fell through and our goal was to we were talking with the state folks through their Open Space Program about cost sharing for that for that program and we actually got to the point of a full proposal and and we're you know pretty close before the property was purchased by a private owner so those are the 2015 recommendations and kind of you know where we're at where the town was at in implementing those we have drafted 2025 recommendations that's a more detailed discussion and in conversations with Jed it the feeling is that that should be a separate discussion than this this front end one we I just want folks to understand that we looked at three focal areas in our recommendations one is policy particularly around open space planning so what are the policies you how do we want to go ahead with open
space planning one is the two is the regulatory realm in particular in the wetlands commissions or Inland Wetlands regulations and and zoning regulations you know we've reviewed some of the regulations and have recommendations there that related to regulatory realm and the Third Realm is management especially best management practices and this is an area that very often involves more voluntary work with you know for example implementing best mowing practices on town properties to promote pollinators some of this has already begun connecting with land owners to provide them opportunities for best management of their if they have forested properties that we've already had two workshops promoting nrcs programs and we have several land owners in town that are already pursuing various initiatives through that Stronger connections with the endover Lake management association so that Conservation Commission is working more cooperatively with Alma on planning associated with protecting that key resource the Andover Lake so there's a variety of best management and Cooperative initiatives that can help protect and preserve our our resources as well as provide awareness opportunities for our land owners and residents in town about the value of these properties so we have recommendations about those three areas that we would like to go through with
the commission at a later date to you know to talk through those because those are the areas where there's potential for you know do they run up against other plant that other groups may have whether it's Economic Development recre ational development you know a variety of different approaches that could could be be taken so I'm going to before I turn it over to Maryann to talk about because we do have some questions about the process that we have actually to the commission I guess Jed I'd ask if anybody has any commissions about or any questions about the process that we undertook or the information that we have and I I fully realize it's a lot and there's really sort of No Way Around that because you know evaluating this open space and and and these these various natural resources involved looking at a fair amount of information and and analyzing a fair amount of information and as I mentioned it we were two years on it so we're trying to synthesize this down into a you know a manageable piece that of two years worth of work well so I know you guys have worked very hard over the last two years in your veral pool mapping thing you know just is really worthwhile for the town the I was I was surprised when you went through the goals from the you 2015 PCD that you know so many of them were listed as incomplete and and I know we had the same thing when we went through our goals of the p CD and maybe you the way
the the goals got or the recommendations got put out there you could never get complete you know it's always going to be an incomplete working forward so so I think the Conservation Commission is you know set the bar very high by out there doing things I know I've been personally disappointed that we have not been able to add much to the open space list and so when you talk about should we have a numerical value I was surprised when your current analysis said we exceeding the the current state value and I thought you were going to say the state was going to lower it because they couldn't ever get around to meeting what they'd already said but you're thinking it might go up but I think finding the right properties and be ready when they come along is more important than just adding property and and we even tried doing that a couple of times you know the the piece out on shotty Mill I thought we had a really good shot at it so one of the things that you know I'll as we get into budget season you know we were able to add a little bit of money last year and hopefully we can do that again this year that won't be a plus up that'll be just a maintain but I I don't know that we're going to be at the point of budget where we're looking to to have to make some of those cuts but those those cuts are going to be coming so I will try to keep the money going into the pot so that when the right property comes open we'll do that and that should be a goal of the
Conservation Commission is to be ready to do that too great the the other thing that we've got no control over but it's been a little bit disappointing is I like the open space sub division regulation unfortunately we haven't had any big subdivisions where it could be effective right and and the only place where we've used that regulation there there's been two or three open space subdivisions but they've been for you know a two lot subdivision where it allowed the property owner to take advantage of some of the reductions in Frontage or whatever to to be able to go build on the property but we didn't and we did get open space we just didn't get it in the right spots we got little chunks of it yeah here and there and so that didn't really work out the way that I think the
regulation was intended but we're going to keep working on trying to get a bigger developer out here for this Market housing or the the workforce housing project and maybe gets some that way yeah I think with the housing you know with the push for housing that's going to be coming and you know I think it's you know it behooves towns to be ready to be able to deal with it so even though we didn't deal with a lot of development there at least it you know it's it gives us the opportunity and you know the steps that we're taken to actually develop the Ard were good there were a positive direction and they they set us up in a good way for you know if that you know when some of those waves and when we're trying to push for greater residential development where we can deal with it more strategically any any of the other commission members have any comments or questions for Hank at this point J can I make a couple comments yep go ahead Eric one of the things I think the commission could do which might have a beneficial impact is which is something that Hank had mentioned to me separately is that you could consider in the open space corridors making the Ard conservation subdivision you know instead of the as of right with the other as an option just say that will be the the method of subdivision in that in those borders so that was was one thing that may push towards because you may see somebody come in and try to do a more conventional subdivision in those areas the second thing Hank can you do you have any way to pull up a big
pull that map up showing the open space quarters this one okay yep that's what I was looking for or blow it up a little bit yeah go along Cone Road down y so that's down here right yeah so and I don't know whether it would meet the be something you want to preserve or not but there is a large piece down there about a 60 acre piece this right here I think that one's there what what was the color yellow is that p490 no the yellow is basically what's in private holding is undeveloped so that that would meet that that's over by where the power power line goes through yeah yeah yeah so I do happen to know that that owner is would be open to selling that property if that was something something if that fits in to what the town would would consider buying so that would be one possibility to think of the owner lives in New York state now so he's not anywhere near here it's an orphan property he's owned since the mid90s that he planned to develop and has since you know kind of moved on with his life
so there's nothing on it as far as I know although he may still have his old bulldozzer on it but doesn't that have a lot of property in Hein too isn't it isn't is that or is it a separate parcel I think it's a separate parcel I think that was at one time one big parcel and Mr Powell bought one side and somebody else bought the other side in the other town so that would be a parcel that would be a primary candidate for partnering with the state on because of the proximity to Bishop swamp Okay you know they're looking they're always looking at connectivity along you know they bought they recently purchased that large parcel in Hein next to gay city they're you know this whole area they're always looking for building out bigger and connectivity along some of those so that would be a would be something that would be I think of Interest if you ever wanted to talk to the land owner about that I'd be happy to pass off the contact info for the land owner the other one is I know Joshua's trust has been looking at least a little bit at that property there's a property off that abuts Nathan hail State Forest off of of Wheeling road that other big yellow one there up here yeah yeah that's again that would be of State interest because of the you know my suspicion is the property owner would never consider selling it to the state they would consider
par yeah yeah because of that but they would consider you know some sort sort of arrangement with Joshua's trust or something along those lines it's obviously been on on the market for quite a while but you know they've had basically no no serious interest in it so those are the two big ones that I know of that are currently you know probably the biggest parcel in yellow is the one that goes from Long Hill Road and connects over to Bunker Hill you know that was was the old B property that's now owned by a guy named Daniel stobber you know and obviously that partiel has enormous possibilities but it just and I think we should keep engaged with him because you know as long as those Parcels are not developed I mean there's opport you know to me there's opportunities down the road and again it doesn't have to be always acquisition conservation easement there's variety of different ways to you know protect those lands and some of those lands like that parcel that you mentioned Eric the old B pro parcel you know could easily accommodate multiple uses so there's various values associated with those right yeah I was surprised that whole parcel is not even in the PA 490 program it's not developed he has no intention of developing it but he's never put it in forestry which seems kind of crazy to be paying the taxes on
it when that's an option but yeah so Hank should you add Joshua's trust to that list of groups that you wanted to strengthen your relationship with yeah Jed I think when you see the recommendations that we have that's in there okay you know we reached out to them when we when we were preparing the proposal to the state they were very supportive very helpful to us because obviously they have a lot of expertise in this area they're very supportive of what we were doing we you know we have a good relationship with them and I do think that they are the
land trust that I think we can jointly work with to help help protect some additional land within Andover and they seem to have an interest so for sure they're ones that we believe we need to work more closely with and and more strategically with okay well I think you know we' we've talked for a while here let's go to MaryAnn's slide and I I I see you got some hard questions on there get to them there yeah thank thank you Hank and thanks for putting the questions in here too no problem so these are all the Practical questions so we every month we talk about the pccd and how to proceed so we've talked a lot about what we want to recommend and what we want to include but we don't know how to proceed and we want to get it right the first time so we didn't have to redo it and redo it and obviously we've talked about how this is one document for the town so we don't want it it to look like one of those books where everybody writes one chapter and they're all cobbled together so we wanted to have the same feel the same template the same type of writing the same type of formats for maps and Graphics so we can go through these questions one by one and maybe can give us some guidance because everyone on the commission is new to doing this and none of us worked on the last plan of conservation development so we'd like some guidance on how to get started so
before before we go through the six here let me just toss something out to John and I would think that this might be something that if we were to have a meeting with you me maranne and Hank and we could you know include Eric if he wanted to didn't necessarily have to be there but we could work through all these questions and I don't know that we have good answers for them developed yet the only chapter we have that's close to being done is Eric's complete Street and he was kind enough to give us something that we could just about take and and put into the document as a chapter so the closer we get to that the better but I know that you know John's got some a lot of thoughts on that in and I don't have the answers to a bunch of these things here but if we could right after the the start of the year maybe get together with the four of us and hash through those a little bit okay I think that would be helpful and not take all the commission time here trying to sort that out yes
we're we're fine with that we actually had discussed doing that earlier but I know he wanted to meet with the whole group first but we we're certainly happy with going through these one by one have you all started other than the Eric section have you started writing any of the other sections no le le John has done something that I'm not aware of well we're I'm I'm in process of writing sort of the introductory stuff the the stuff that doesn't necessarily need a ton of town input because we've we've already done sort of the demographic and housing updates sort of the you know basically the facts like what what are the town's what are the town status points in terms of population and and and housing and things like that and as well as fitting you know what establishing what the goals of the the state plan are you know sort of the throat clearing about what plans of conservation are in general so some of the the very front end yeah this is the second sub the
second of the six substantive chapters that we're attempting to to write and to actually you know I I'll just take just two two two moments on this the short answer to probably the first three maybe fourth question fourth questions you're asking is I think we will work together as as Jed said it'll be my primary responsibility to to write the draft of all the chapters however that said you know Eric had done a lot of work on on complete streets and had a lot of the meat that it was just about sort of structuring it and and organizing it maybe doing a little light editing my anticipation it'll be probably the same obviously you've done a ton of work I don't know how much actual sort of full sentence Pros you guys have sort of committed to paper but the my my thought would be to get that from you and and try to edit it into a shape that made sense for the rest of the document Without Really changing too much because you guys are are clearly the the critical stakeholders in in thinking about this section so the the goal would be to to deeply respect what
you've done and just try to put it in a way that again makes it seem like it's all part of the same document and as far as and and that's that's that's in this process really my role is to is to get all of the the data from the various stakeholders and put it in a format that makes sense and then yeah as far as timeline again not knowing how far along you are with the actual sort of writing you know just a a list of goals a list of of action steps is fine I can I can you know fill in sort of Pros in between and yeah we'd like to do that over the next month or two for this and then at the at the very end once we do the the six substantive chapters then everyone will be taking a look you know and the commission will be looking to to make some changes we'll be looking at areas of potential conflict but we're you know the idea is to get the substantive chapters you know largely in shape first and that's that's where we are so one of the thoughts that Eric shared with me and I think is a very good one that you know we as a a team need to talk about is probably a lot of the property that we would like to
conserve is the property that's in the business and Industrial Zone along Route Six and so we have to figure out how to best serve the economic interests of the town with the conservation interests of the town and and that's going to be a little bit of a trick but that's going to come more towards the end so we we chose to have Conservation Commission come and present second because we figured you know it's a harder topic than complete streets but you guys had worked on it very hard over the last couple years so I I thought you know we were in the best shape there and
then next we'll tackle the economic development then we'll kind of try to mesh the two of those together so that we have you you know what the plans for the town would be but you know as John said if we could get something done in the next couple months you know when when we started this project I was worried about getting the not getting the thing done until sometime in 2025 now I'm worried about getting the thing done in 2025 because there's still a lot going on and it's starting to show me just how big a project it is so I think you know we'll we'll be ramping up the process but if we could get this one to the finish line within the next couple of months that would really be good the other thing that's kind of ironic is John Eric and I you know get
together once a month to to talk about things and and recently that that meeting has sort of been taken over by trying to get our zoning map up to date we found that what had some problems with it and we've been working hard on that and so now I can see that that once a month with you know John and and Eric might need to go to two a months two a month to get all the things we've got to do there so I think 2025 is going to be a busy year for us but we just have to start whittling away at it and and so you know while the next meeting with Eric and John talking Maps is for the 9th of January maybe we'll have to you know get do the one for you a week or two after that or I'll have to go back and take a look at it and see what works out best maybe we put this one to the head of the line and we put the the map update on the back burner till we get a little bit more done on that and and do that but but I'll let you know but it's probably going to be a Thursday Thursdays seem to
be the days that work out pretty good for us getting together to meet if that works with you guys so Jed just that when you mentioned that the challenge of of because I agree with you I think the challenge is going to be that hop River Corridor and balancing the conservation of Natural Resources with economic development and various business Associated projects that might be looked at along that Corridor and that's where I think the maps that we have the the NRI Maps can be used very effectively in that anal iCal process so I just want to make sure that you know as you you know you're looking at the locations for particular areas and your pro you're an analytical process from the standpoint of you know business and so forth along that Corridor you know that's where I think we need to coordinate so we can share our information and maps in that process and we can we can avoid areas where there would be potential conflict or mitigate in those areas through you know sort of best development or best management practices you know rather than developing them separately and then trying to you know Jam them together I I find it it's a better process to do that more collaboratively it's a little bit busier and timec consuming to do but once you've already individually established separate Maps then you know it gets a little harder so one of the things that we're
doing on the zoning map is we're you know we're trying to one make it as accurate as we can but two we' started discussing should we change the current zoning on some of those properties yeah whether to put them back to residential or make them you know other properties business and and I like your collaborative comment there that we should look at it with with the conservation Corridor maps on the most important areas and make sure that we're not going to put an industrial site in the middle of of the most important area to conserve right right yep now that would be if if we did just that part and got that right with this thing that would be a big win yeah I agree with you I agree with
you okay well I will give the give some thought on when to to get together and I'll I'll collaborate with John a little bit on his thoughts there and we'll see where we go on this and and but we'll try to get back with you two you know right after the first of the year see if we can set something up and try to get a better understanding of the way ahead on how all that's going to work and Hank Hank and Maran is are you can you can you give me a a preview of what kind of shape some of this planning is in do do you have you written stuff out haven't written the text yet no okay well good so that's probably a good spot then yeah no if if you would be willing to share sort of not not really beyond the PowerPoint sort of the full list of recommendations and and that stuff I can I could give you a folder in which to sort of upload a whole bunch of stuff that would be awesome well here's Here's a thought should we should we wait until after January 21st where we go through your recommendations Hank before we sit down
and go through these things and that way we've we've all got you know what your recommendations are and that might help provide a little bit of clarity on yeah that might make sense because I mean that would you know as far as you know as I said we we sort of counts the recommendations in three different areas you know and do you want I I want I'm not sure how how you want to sort of reflect it within your formats and so forth so it may make sense for you to see where we're going because we talk you know we we're talking about zoning things we're talking about you know regulatory changes so that would relate to other areas that you're already analyzing in in you know in in in other sections of the report so it that might make sense okay yeah yeah I think I think there's some Merit to that and okay well I mean do we we can I can send those in advance I don't know whether you want I mean we have them in a power we have them in this PowerPoint format grouped by that we have them all
listed out and read so I could share that with John and you if you want if if I don't know if you if you have it all done you know if you don't have a problem with it i' probably share it with the commission before the next meeting just so they're they've had you know a look at it and ready to absorb more of what you tell us when we get together at that point yeah that's exactly why I offered it because I think it would be better you know because it's you know I recognize that you know when you start going through line item by line item of these recommendations it get get gets pretty tedious and pretty it but if if you see it in advance and there's particular areas you want to focus the discussion on you know that you know that becomes a lot easier yeah so that would make what do you think maryan do we do we need to go do we need to doing another goor round with our with our group with the recommendations we we don't have a December meeting though yeah we don't no I think we can go ahead with what we have now okay let's do that well we'll we'll send out what you got is a read ahead we'll talk about it at the January 21st meeting and maybe before you know early after the start of the Year I'll put out some proposed dates and we'll see if we can get something where it works for everybody that we get together and and talk about the the questions you have here and sort out with the way head is
there okay sounds good so J send that to you and then you distribute to who you to okay send it to John and I John and you all right I'll send it as a PDF okay that's fine all right perfect and out outstanding work guys yeah that was awesome we really appreciate how much work you guys put into this that's been that's tremendous well we appreciate that I want to thankk Hank has done such a great job organizing this so no it's it's a commission effort in fact some members who aren't even with us anymore and Carrie cromton you know it's been I hope we didn't burn them out okay well thank thanks marann and Hank and that'll do it for that for tonight great appreciate again all the the great work on putting that together thank you Hank and Maran gonna sign out great job all right how get stop next next item up on the agenda it was Patrick you had you had indicated that you were talking about the Agro tourism Agro business stuff at after our last Planning and Zoning meeting I didn't know if you had anything for us tonight that you on that unfortunately I now I I feel like I should have done a PowerPoint too but no just some key points
that I'd like to cover tonight we we had in the EDC we had some of the similar questions that the other commission had and but our main our main item that we address wanted to address tonight was the AGR tourism and basically we want to have as permissive as regulation as possible without you know aggravating neighbors that being said a lot of our other discussion is like why these agrotourism businesses are important and how that that could work in our town I had a prepared statement but now I'm going to kind of throw it out the window because we we we actually talked about setting up a meeting with John also and yourself so that we can go over what we're what we'd like to write down because you know some of the ideas that have been thrown around we've been doing a lot of brainstorming and and I'm hoping Bata can pipe in because she
had a lot of great ideas but a lot of the small businesses that we'd like to see flourish in our town would primarily be along the Hop River Trail and and also near The Hop River itself but not too close obviously you know there are some developable there she is there's some developable properties that would be perfect for very small businesses and the kind of mixed use development that was set up in the last plan of conservation the EVC back then when I was on it decided that you know if we had small businesses and possibly small rental units for housing that would be a bonus I know there's severe limitations along the Hop River itself but it it would also fit into the connected streets plan and my main take away is that in order for us to promote the small businesses that we want to see in our town and utilize the connected the connected roads and streets and and trails that we got to have somewhere to go and that that led us all the way back to the beginning when I started on EDC was the recommendations for the hoop River quar itself you know the mix besides just the mixed use businesses but also more of more permissive use but you know not overdeveloped be any thoughts on that or I think you're getting right along to the main points that we wanted to tackle
Patrick I think really just trying to you know what is the basic first steps of how do we bring in some of the businesses and the growth that we're looking to Foster and I think it started with the infrastructure so making sure that the zoning regs kind of align to allow those businesses and development potential to come in and you know actually get a project going is really where we want it to start so so did the EDC discussed the issue with regard to you know the concerts at the farm yeah we did but considering that we at this point in time still don't have a sound ordinance in town and I mean we've we've seen the extremes of of of no sound after 6 pm and and and and the extreme of midnight you know we we want to meet somewhere in the middle and that's why we did we did agree that we like the proposed draft that John already r wrote up but we would like to see if we can change it a little bit here and there and you know obviously it's it's still a work in progress but
we we kind of went back to the whole idea of AGR tourism and and we want to make sure that it IT addresses the the the businesses that we're going to be you know hopefully attracting to our town so I think that we should have a meeting with John also if if we can work that out and ideally it would be on our regularly scheduled EDC meeting night which would be tomorrow or it's going to look like the the day after Planning and Zoning meetings every month so what time seven o'clock work something else out maybe but yeah I I I can't do it tomorrow but I I think I have the second Wednesday becoming wait no that'll be third Wednesday third Wednesday becoming fre next month but yeah we can work something out yeah great and also I did like the coner the the wetlands recommendation you know to align all these maps and align all the all the usages Because unless we're all working towards the same goal like and and considering all the other options it's going to we don't want to really step on each other's toes when we write this new plan of conservation so the better we can nail it down early the the smoother it should work I think okay and once again you guys had an excellent PowerPoint presentation so if they're still with us nope that sounds good it is gonna be it is going to be
well we need to we need to put ourselves in the shoes of the neighbors you know the draft regulation and say is this something that I would like having going on if I were right there now one of the the thoughts I've had since we got together the last time you know and we're talking about AGR tourism and and I don't know if if what we see here is a farm if what we see here is an industrial complex or if what we see here is a landscape company that happens to have a farm as a sideline most people sell Christmas trees is a sideline to some other business and I know you know he's got his business industrial park out there and and he also has his landscape company and so I don't know if that muddies the the system up or not but well that's why I I thought I'm sorry to interrupt I thought it was important to address it
as more of a mixed use development in in in intent you know that's why writing these new RS is it's going to be tricky you know well and you can see that the the article that I sent or referenced you know that was in the River East yeah a lot of towns are clamping down on on the outdoor Amplified music concerts it seems like and in I don't know if that's so I don't know how that's going to play out I know I'm not sure that that I would like concerts going on all the time next door to me but I think there's an answer out there we just have to look for that win-win solution and and it's there we just have to find it so we'll go from there and and I'll have to talk to Eric about how much budget we have to schedule John for all these meetings it sounds good but and it's it's all in the in the realm of plan and conservation devel so I guess part of that budget y absolutely Mak sense okay no any any questions that anybody has for Patrick so broadly how are we defining aggro tourism well I was I was I was addressing it more as an auxiliary use in in in the the same kind of spirit as mixed use development so that's why I was I was going to go
down the other path of of mixed use then then just okay this is a business lot or this is a farm lot and then some expanded uses so I think it's different than some other towns they you know the old ways of regs were this is only what you could do here and that's it you know so and this is our our trial run basically because we don't have anybody else applying for mixed use stuff right now I mean it' be this it would be similar to say all right well he's got a tree farm and he's going to throw up a couple small housing units too right that would be mixed use I mean I'm I'm going to an extreme it's not apples and apples but anybody else yeah I'll I'll chime in if that's okay Eric just to address what you said part of our discussion did include Define our you know agrotourism and what we want to Define that and adding that into the plan of conservation and development so that you know we have a clear picture and you know that can give us guidance when it comes to regs and also when people come in you know wanting to do these type of things it's defined right as to what that is and and I've done a little research as to what Connecticut defines that as and I think that would probably work but that's a further discussion that we'll have to I think bring over to you guys a little later
well going back to the the draft that John you presented back in October you know I liked everything he wrote about the agricultural accessory uses had no issues with any of that it was when he got into the non-agricultural accessory uses I thought it had the ability to get carried away there just a little bit and might need to rain that in but that's where we have to start talking about it figure out what's good to what's good to go and the last part of that is you know I would hope to avoid having anybody throughout this process raise any questions about aloa or the town having their you know couple of concerts a year which I I think go off with I'm not aware of any complaints about any of those anyhow so well if I may the Alp POA is its own governing body like a condo association so that the complaints would go to them for their their concert right if I'm unless I'm wrong and then the town town events are town events but that was the reason why I wanted to see this go through as more of like a cottage
industry feeling kind of Regulation more more aligning to you know traditional New England you know oh somebody's going to have a party in their backyard and that's actually the way the owner of the property's referred to his events is you know well if somebody can have a party in their yard and and a couple speakers not a full-blown Rock concert but you know a couple speakers and a little band then he that that was his leg he stands on and you know the other the other thing that was brought up by another EDC commission member was that you know what if you have a a two Acre Farm and you want to have these special events do you have to have 10 acres you know that that without a special permit and stuff like that so we the EDC was definitely on the more permissive side because that's going to help the smaller I mean the smaller the business the harder it is to make money you know so basically that's where we were coming from and and and I had a Spiel for how agrotourism could be looked at more as cottage industry and Andover with our mixed use philosophy etc etc but I guess they said it all in a jumbled up way tonight but no it's it but just like with the lighting rigs you know we make it you know you can do you can do lighting but that lighting better not go
onto the neighbor's property yeah and so so anyhow more to follow on that I think that's thank you I appreciate hearing what you guys were talking about and and we'll go from there and I I found it very timely that the article from whatever other Town it was nearby that was in the River East there okay next up on the agenda is an update on the gravel bit and and one of the things that that was pointed out to me you know every time I talk to our attorney he says make sure you don't talk to it without being in the executive session so and he didn't you know I said but all this stuff is out the public record he says you will start talking about things that aren't in the public record
whenever you talk about it go into executive session and so since we haven't talked about it yet and I don't have much to to say there I will make a motion that the commission enter executive session to discuss pending litigation concerning the Gravel Pit and unfortunately I can't allow everybody here I don't expect that discussion to be very long so if there's people from the public that want to hang around I would expect this to be a five or 10 minute discussion but the people that would be allowed to go there would be all commission members you know the town manager the zoning agent and his relief and the town planner and I think that covers the folks that that would be allowed to go into that executive session okay so Jed do do you you want me to bring the Commissioners to the breakout room unless I well you've got well we we need to have a second on the motion and we have to vote for it but that is what I would expect to be able to do unless it takes a little bit of work and I didn't give you a heads up and because you did it so no I mean I can I it's I'm I'm ready to go I just I just need to know that that
who's who's not going I think who's who's not on the commission okay sorry go ahead so the the attendees would be all commission members including you Susan the alternate Town manager zoning agent his relief and the town planner and I think that's who we need to have there so is that everyone but Bata it might be and WJ Catherine Catherine okay and and W jsk is a commissioner it's Su in England yes in England all right okay so so Katherine and Bata I'm gonna be pulling everyone out right now but we need to vote first okay yeah so I'm looking for a second to that motion second okay I think that was you Leanne yes okay thank you and any discussion hearing then I'll call for a vote an hi Scott hi Patrick hi Leanne I and I vote I as well the motion 5 z z so if you can send this to the little breakout room already okay next item up on the agenda is 824 R referral for the installation of
solar panels and yes Wayne do we have to after coming out of executive session aren't you are we supposed to announce that something was discussed during executive assession or is it was that covered before executive session I think if we were to be taking we would be required to take any action outside of executive session but since we took no action I don't think we have to do anything okay so 824 for the solar panels and I'll turn it over to so we are the on on behalf of the first selectman I did submit an 824 statutory referral for the proposal to put a roughly 125k kilowatt array on the School building and there's there was a bunch of debate about whether that is a significant Municipal Improvement or not but the the reason why I think it's it makes sense as the town's attorney has said he feels that does need to go to public hearing he hasn't made a formal ruling on it but that's what he said he feels it does and if
it does then it probably should have an 824 referral to the zoning commission first so this is a project that is clearly in the best interests of the Town it is clear in the 2015 PCD that the Andover Elementary School is one of the standout features of this town and anything we can do to you know lower the cost basis for providing an excellent education and assisting the Board of Education and being able to budget wisely so this basically locks in a much lower cost electricity through the solar Generation so I would urge you to vote affirmatively on this Rec and I know there was some confusion because when Celeste came to brief us on the solar panels you know I think I indicated that she didn't need anything from the Planning and Zoning Commission because it was as of right to install the solar panels and so you there can be some confusion then why are we coming back to the Planning and Zoning commission and asking for an 824 referral and and the reason is because the board of Selectmen in the town manager is asked us for one and and I think you know my initial thought when we talked about it at that meeting we did not discuss 824 referrals at all I I
didn't even think about it I just looked at the regulations and saw that they didn't need a Planning and Zoning application but the the town is certainly you know it's it's their their decision and and arogant I have talked about is this a substantial Improvement or not and I think you can build a case either way you can build a case that it is you could build case that it's not one of the things that Eric shared with me was the fact that there is some potential liability financially that that the town is assuming when we go down that path and and I didn't hear you say anything on that Eric so could you elaborate on that just a little bit so I'm not sure it's really all that relevant to the 824 portion but it is true that a contract for a power purchase agreement has some pretty stiff penalties if the town were to pull out early not that I think that's likely but I think that's a you
know it's something that that the town has to deal with and that I think is why the attorney thinks that should go to town meeting is because you know in you can debate whether in our Charter talks about leases in a power purchase agreement isn't exactly a lease although technically in this arrangement we are leasing our roof space to a Solar Company so the question is whether the charter strictly talks about other people leasing us stuff or whether it also encompasses stuff we lease to other people but either either way why I think it's important because it makes it if if the commission does respond to this favorably and I think it does it is consistent with the plan of conservation and development if it does go to go to a meeting that makes it clear that it needs it only needs a simple majority to pass a town meeting and if you don't do an 824 there's some question about whether the thresholds really 66% or 50% and and that's subject to debate later so I would rather know upfront that we're dealing with simple
majority if it does go to town meeting so that's my take on I have some questions and comments about goe yep the 824 and like you said is to ensure that the proposed development aligns with our town of PL plan of conservation and development but that's something which it's with the Board of Ed and the school and if anybody should be bringing this in to us it should be the Board of Ed or the superintendent the Board of Ed chair or the superintendent should be the one bringing this and not Eric and there is absolutely no cost to the school or the town even if in five years you need to be doing a repair on the roof the company will come and remove the required amount of solar panels we repair the roof we put it back on there is absolutely no cost to the town the only way to be a cost to the town is that all of a sudden the school decided
no we don't want solar panels anymore but otherwise there is just no cost and that early termination fee is nothing to do with there won't be any like that and so I really feel like it should be the school if the school doesn't come to us don't give them anybody the a24 maybe why don't we read the Connecticut General statute yeah exactly what it says it's just to ensure that the proposed development aligns with the town's plan of conservation and development that's all it is o I've taken the liberty of sharing 824 on my screen hopefully people can see it yep the I think the relevant sections are so it's Municipal improvements so no Municipal agency or legislative body shall and then section two here is locate relocate substantially improve acquire land for abandoned sell or lease any airport park playground school or other municipally owned property or public building building I think certainly this is substantially improve and Lease both of a municipal building I there's no doubt I think there's no doubt that playground school yeah right municipally owned property so there's no question it it I think requires an 824 you know it doesn't say it's Municipal agency or legislated body I you know as to who is responsible for bringing it that's neither here nor there yeah well so the Planning and Zoning commission has a letter from the town and the board of Selectmen asking for a24 referral I think planning zoning commission has to answer the letter now
I think you know the town is is helping out the school because the school is not familiar with all this stuff the school knows a lot you know about teaching students in that but why why wouldn't the school be looking at this is a good deal assist as opposed to well in this case our superintendent Valerie is also in Scotland Connecticut and they do have the same thing with the solar panels there so she knows how this works and she knows that she does not need the 824 because she's already gone through this with the other school well that is that is absolutely not true and you know the towns the towns are different towns and and that's what the whole discussion about the the town rule is you know our rules might be different than Scotland's I don't know I thought the 824 was a state law it is and and I don't know how that doesn't mean that it always gets you know interpreted it we so I'll go back to you the best example I have is whether you need a Wetlands permit to do a logging
operation in a wood plot and Handover is probably one of the few places where we do require a permit to go through there and Mark bran is absolutely you know he says there's no question in his mind that that's what's required a lot of other towns don't do it that way I don't know why they don't do it that way but if our attorney says that's what we should do then then that's what we should do and and so I kind of look at that you know here as well is what what is the harm I I think there's a benefit to get the 824 referral that Eric discussed with having a smaller percentage just the simple majority to approve it as opposed to you know the higher percentage this this helps ensure the success why wouldn't we go that way go ahead an I don't think the town has to do anything the school has had the contract with the green sky and tit energy and town doesn't need to do anything with it they've signed the paperwork with them and they're getting the inspections over Christmas break and they're all set once they get that final inspection and then they'll come to the town for the permits that are required but that's all okay well do you agree that everybody wants the school to get solar panels yes okay I just feel that we're go it's not the town's position to ATS for 824 unless the school does well that is one that I'm not you know we're not going to solve that here at the pl zoning commission that that
goes back to a bigger issue in you know Eric doesn't the town own the own the building Y how I so I it's not costing the town a penny say again an it's not costing the town of Penny to have this done on the school yeah but it's still the considered an improve it's not any money spent on it so I don't see how that you have to involve the town with that at all well and the commission just made me do an 824 referral for the replacement bridge on Bunker Hill and that is fully funded and we are just taking out a bridge and putting in a new bridge maybe a little bigger the fact that that the school is a town-owned building has been talked about adium it's a town-owned building but the Board of Education is responsible for its maintenance and everything that they do with it they they have the how would I say the really the management of it do you feel you are maintaining these solar panels or are you installing these solar panels they're simply allowing the company to come and install the solar panels is not actually installing them themselves right so it's a lease of Municipal property right but there are times in where we as a commission have made an 824 referral even without being asked because we knew one was going to be required and so we were trying to speed the process up a little
bit I guess you know the way the way I see where we are right now we've been asked for 8 24 I think if you feel you need to have one then go to the board of ed the Board of Ed share or to Valerie and get her to request it they're not going to have to request it and because we're going to vote on it tonight yeah we're trying to keep the process right we're trying to down the road if we were it tonight you know then then we' be get holding up to do it after after this is done we we nobody has to do it then I think this is this is no no no harm delay anything to the school in fact we are trying to just the opposite and and keep it moving forward just as fast as we can and it would be a great opportunity on the easiest of all
projects to work together as a team I'm a little disappointed that we're not able to do that but well I I'm one person out of five so if everybody else votes for it okay but you know that I don't agree but I don't think well I guess you know we'll vote I would hate to think that you would vote no for an 824 which would have the potential to derail the project and then I don't think I don't know what would happen at that point it's just in my mind it's easier to work together than it is to to not work together and so with all that I am going to make a motion that the commission approves an 824 referral that the installation of solar panels is consistent with the plan of conservation and development and is the right thing to do I'll second that okay thank you Scott any other discussion on the motion and hearing none I'll let you vote first an no okay Scott He yes yeah Patrick yes lean yes and I vote Yes as well the motion passes next item up thank you next item up is the approval of the minutes from November 19th and I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from November 19th look looking for a second I'll second thank you Scott any comments on the go on so I'll call for a vote on approving the minutes an didn't hear inan hi Scott hi Patrick I Leanne I I vote I as well the minutes are approved 5 go y go ahead Jim no correspondence okay administrative reports Inland Wetlands water course nothing to report they received the project for the Handover Veterans Field and they'll be voting on that
at their next meeting the first week in January Jim yeah I did meet briefly with the owner of the package store today who is also the property manager for the plaza and he is proposing a new sign which appears to be pretty much in kind should should not require a a permit from the commission require a building permit and a zoning permit and I did I did suggest that he he reach out to the economic development commission and just make them aware of his his presence I I try and do that with any anybody who comes in about a business opportunity but I don't have really have a point of contact and and the economic develop Miss has not always been active so I I any suggestions I have who to direct those to would be appreciated moving on I Jed did report we were working on updating the the zoning map and that's a a project requiring a little bit of work I did send out at the last minute a list of Matrix of zoning violations I am I haven't gotten anywhere with either Dollar General or Ben Franklin and I am going to move to the next step which is
the a letter that indicating that a fine is is forthcoming and I have to work with Dennis on those just because he had asked me to for the first few went out so I'm in the process of doing that those need to do those need to go to this your town adjudication fella not until the appeal okay I got you okay so all right yep I remember the Dollar General is a little complicated because now you have I mean now you have a business owner you have the store and you have the property owner and then you have corporate so there's instead of just one or two people now there's three makes it a little more complicated so what's the problem over there J with Dollar General what when they hid their their their bike rack disappeared behind the ice machine and I'm looking for a storm water report on a on the storm water management which was required as part of the approval have gotten it it's pretty much it still no bike rack what's that still no bike rack no well actually they did put the bike rack in but then they stuck right be so they put two parallel single unit bike racks in and then they stuck an ice machine right between them so either the
bike sticks out into the Walk Lane or it's not really usable so these these are not huge very expensive fixes it's just it's hard dealing with a a store of that nature that's all I have be happy to answer any questions if you if you reach out to the guy at Ridge and ask him to submit his written restoration remediation plan I have not I will do that yep appreciate it that Leanne yes Jim speaking of the plaza I was going to ask you if we need to have any discussion about the Vietnamese restaurant that's proposed to go in there I think they've already put up a sign I know it's a restaurant replacing a restaurant is there anything in particular for us to do no okay it it should it should be covered under the regulations okay fine and he I did indicate they were they were coming in I believe he said I think he said faux Vietnamese okay but F faux meaning F the the noodle bowl yeah correct right anything else Jim no okay any other questions for Jim okay John your turn yeah nothing nothing much further I we're obviously working with Jim and and Eric and Jed on the zoning map and we got a proposal from
our our GIS coordinator to do that with us so that's hopefully in in progress and Jim I would just note if you can't you know if there's nobody clear that you want to direct the businesses to in terms of Economic Development I'd be happy to to feel that and and be a first point of contact thank you that's it for me okay any questions for John ext up is a commission discussion and miscellaneous anybody got anything they want to bring up at this point okay we'll move on to public comment I see Katherine still here ba is still here any comments for us Katherine I just want to wish everyone on the commission and everyone involved the best of the holidays and I appreciate you're allowing me to participate for the last of years as you have done thank you you're welcome VA no comment from me great discussion happy holidays to all thank you okay very good I don't think there's anybody else from the public out there next meeting is going to be on January 21st it'll be on Zoom Jim and I talked earlier today about what the the nature of the public hearing would we want to try and do
an inperson then I think with January I'll I'll stick with the zoom I I don't know that there's going to be any big interest for a public hearing on that and if they do I think the the zoom Works fine to support that so it'll be Zoom only at this point and January 21st 7 o'clock and that'll be a public hearing and followed by the regular meeting and last but not least as we heard from our public members here I'd like to wish everybody happy holiday season as well it's coming up awful fast I can't believe it's here already the year's coming to an end but wish everybody Merry Christmas happy holidays and have a little bit of time off same Merry Christmas yep and thank the commission for all its hard work in this year and even more in the next year it's going a busy year coming up
2025 I think I'll make a motion that we adjourn second second okay 908 all in favor raise your hand any opposed any abstaining motion passes 500 thank you all very much for a great year as I say it's G be a busy one enjoy the holiday season and we'll hit it again hard 2025 good night everybody night good night