planning I'll call the regular meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission of the town of Andover to rder first up is roll call and seing of alets I see an present Leanne is present Steve Nelson's present I do not see Scott pan based on that at this point in Marie I will seat you as an alternate for Scott pan sounds good and I am present as well I also see that Kevin arneson is here as an alternate tonight next up our additions or changes to the agenda and I have none does anybody have any additions or changes okay next item up is public comment any comment from members of the public that on items other than what we've got on the agenda tonight Mr chairman this is Katherine Hutchinson andine I'm respectfully requesting permission to speak when the item comes up later on the in the agenda under old business 6A understand yep thank you okay moving on to new business and first up is a town ordinance enabling the zoning enforcement officer the authority to access finds for zoning
violations and at this point I'd like to turn over to Dennis O'Brien the town's attorney to brief us on the ordinance and Dennis I see that you are mut so we can't hear you yet myself okay there you go okay okay you got it right I am Dennis O'Brien and I am the town attorney and I've been in that position now for more than 20 years and I I I don't do much with the zoning commission I did appear in front of the zoning commission fairly recently regarding the Community Center issue but normally I do not do zoning work in Andover I did I think when I first started I did for a while anyway back in I've been h i was a legal aid lawyer for 23 years and then I I I left and I became a town attorney and a judge of probate but i' I've been Town attorney in several towns and when I first started as Town attorney in towns like Ashford and Mansfield I was asked to I was handling zoning work and I was asked to do U some lawsuits under General statute 8-12 to attempt to get o owners or
people who control property to to not violate the zoning certain zoning regulations and that involv filing a lawsuit in Superior Court took a lot of time cost a lot of money and was a very complex process and that was the only thing that was available at the time but then in a few years later the legislature in its wisdom passed a new statute 8-12 a general statutes 8-2a that permitted towns to do what was they were able to do in other areas of the law with ordinances and that is to establish a fines for violations of the zoning ordinances and then to enforce those fines through a process that involved notice to the alleged offender and an opportunity for them to comply and then after no after a certain period of notice if they didn't then the zoning agent would follow through and site them for the violation and the violation would carry a fine and the fine is can be established by an ordinance and that's the ordinance that you have in front of you that I submitted to Jim Hy i' I've I have one of those on place in chaplain the reason that well in Mansfield it was very easy to implement because there were people for some reason or other you know people in
Mansfield think they can do anything and there are people in Manfield that are always willing to volunteer to be hearing officers and to act as judges in these cases and decide whether in fact somebody had violated an ordinance and should be fined and and but the problem is I didn't anticipate this coming from a town like Windam I didn't anticipate this at all but in towns like Andover in chaplain who I still represent it was not easy to find anyone that was willing to do this in their own town in a smaller town and act as a judge of their own you know co-residents and recently Jim Hy and I did a case involving zoning but it also involved light and we the town in the person of Eric Anderson Our Town Administrator recruited a gentleman who agreed to become the hearing officer for the town and he volunteered and he and I trained him and we had our first hearing on September 13th and I'd say it went really really well and we got a an order from him and it was you know successfully brought by Jim Hy and we got a conclusion where there was a fine and in in a blight situation you don't even have to take it to court after you get the after you get the a judgment you can just you can just lean the property and that's what we did but but in the zoning situation what happens is if you go through the whole process person doesn't comply and the fines you know the fines are daily fines okay I've written
the way I've written the ordinance I made it $30 a day that's because in the past when we first put the ordinance in to the town meeting for the other ordinances that carrye finds not zoning which is a different statute we had there was a large group of people that came to the the hearing and there was some opposition to it and I think you know we were concerned about finding people too much and so we went with I think $25 or $30 for that ordinance but I'm suggesting $30 for this $30 a day which can add up okay the statute 8-12 a that I mentioned that covers this this zoning area calls for a possible fine of up to 150 bucks a day okay that's a lot $150 a day that's like Fairfield County fine maybe maybe T maybe certain parts of Talon County but not Andover anyway I've drafted an ordinance based on the ordinance that we have in chaplain and it is it goes through a process that somebody would have to go through if if the zoning agent were to find them or attempt to find them I mean the goal is not to collect fines the goal is to get people to comply with the zoning regulations and this is not something that replaces filing a lawsuit okay it's an alternative the both both options are still available this is just another tool in the toolbox and I think it will work
well I we have an excellent hearing officer now Mr rizley and I think we could do this I think there are cases that could be brought this way that we could site somebody for the violation give them a certain amount of time whatever is reasonable in the in the in the mind of the zoning agent to fix the violation and if the violation is not fixed by the deadline then you go ahead and you cite them and in the citation you find them for it would be 30 bucks a day if we go along with with what I suggested you could go higher or lower and this is something that would have to be it would have to be approved first by the gatekeeper the board of Selectmen and then it would have to go to the town meeting and be pass the town meeting now what I did in chaplain when we passed the chaplain ordinance 10 years ago was I went to gave the Planning and Zoning commission the opportunity to have input because because they should because you're working with the zoning regulations and you know the regulations
far far better than I do but that's what I'm doing here I'm asking you to look this over ask any questions you might have and let me know what you think and I I'm I'm pretty committed to this kind of approach because I cannot see having had the experience spending a lot of time suing somebody to try to get them to cure say a setback violation and this this me to me would be a real incentive for people to to comply with the regulations word gets around and it's just another tool in the toolbox of the zoning agent and also the town attorney me and it would be easier for me it's
something that I'm familiar with I I had a lot of these cases in Mansfield they were not zoning but they were all violations of Mansfield has a lot of ordinances that for f that worked very well and most and the hearing officers did well I attend the hearings for a while until the U hearing officer is ready to handle them on his own but it's a very simple relatively simple in U procedure that is handled by the citizens of the town and and and what you do at the end of the trail if you get a a judgment say for a th worth of fines against an individual the the zoning I'm sorry the hearing officer fills out a form very simple forms it's a state court form and passes it on to me I file it with the suprior court in ton County and I pay an $8 filing fee as
opposed to 350 for the lawsuit and pretty much U if the the person who's fined doesn't appeal with 30 days the fine becomes a judgment a court judgment it has the effect of of a court judgment it can be implemented by a wage execution which I doubt we would use in a zoning situation or by placing a lean on the property where the offense was committed and that's pretty much that's pretty much it in a nutshell and it's it's just another way to deal with some of these cases where zoning regulations are are violated and you know to compliance has not been obtained so that's that's my basic talk on this and I I would be very happy to answer any questions so at this point Dennis I did I did send well Jim sent the the draft ordinance out to all the commission members so they've had a chance to take a look at it I know Jim had a couple of comments and can you discuss what the comments were that you had already Jim I just pointed out that there was discrepancy in the amount of fine one at one point in the in the draft mentioned $25 and another 30 and Dennis corrected that and I had a comment about okay citing both the owner and the the Violator in case of a a business or a rental property and I believe that was in there anyway upon further review but nonetheless it's it's there now I believe that's about it okay nope sounds good I've been drafted i' I've taken Jim's excellent comments and made changes in the latest draft and sent them Jim and U I'm u i really I'm really
pleased by working with Jim the experience we had working on that blight case together was a good one but it took a while it wasn't easy but I'm used to that that's what that's the way it goes but anyway that's that that's about the size of it I'm if if if there are any suggestions if there are any they don't have to come tonight that's up to you all and I you know I I really don't need to get your approval though I'd like to I I I I I certainly wouldn't want to go to the back to the board of Selectmen without it but passid approval would be okay too I mean I just I just wanted to give you
the opportunity to comment and Jim is already done some of that but it's it's a something that I've done before in other towns and it works well in certain cases and it just gives us another now that we have a hearing officer in place who's very good by the way we have the opportunity to do this and one question Jim asked me I guess there's some maybe a case or two pending where there's a violation and it's it's pending so I you know under the statute basically it's clear that it makes each day that that the violation continues a new
violation so I would say that if you have a case where somebody's been in violation for a year and this thing goes into effect we could not obviously find them for anything that they didn't do in the past but I think once the once the or ordinance was passed by the town meeting and and these certain there's a certain period of time before which it goes into effect once it goes and becomes effective I think we could go right after that same violator and start the clock running and I I was just wondering what you all feel about fing people and and and they you know by the day or it sounds it sounds a little harsh but you know it's a way to gain compliance without I mean I I've had cases where I filed in court before this went into effect where I I was tied up for two years in one case and the courts are slow have to say this I was judge of probate and wind
them for 12 years and I was chief judge of the children's Court which covers a counting and a half which included Andover I did not hear Andover cases but I did supervise the judge I was in charge of all the supervising the judges if you can do that it's like supervising cats but I I but I did lawyers would come whenever lawyers had an opportunity to either come to probate Court which where the where the procedures are much simpler or go to Superior Court where the judges wear robes they would come to probate and and because they get they'd get quick action that's what this is all about well I think it's a great idea Dennis and at this point I'd like to hear any comments or questions that the other commission members have I have a general question yep go ahead not about the the policy itself but how many cases have we had or do we currently have that would have what that would be subject to these fines right now I mean are we talking about three cases 20 cases 100 cases not 100 but probably three or four at in any given time three or four yeah and that's current currently yes okay well this blight case that we just handled if I may Jim and I handled together had zoning violations in it as well and Jim recalls quite well had violations of a lot of things help code zoning code and we we we were hamstrung really by by the by the fact that it was a you know it may I'll tell you it was a lot easier to just go with the blight because we were able to do it through this kind of process and
not having to run into court and waste a lot of time and it and and money so anyway stre I think the ordinance worked very well and I'm I was surprised when you said Dennis that this was a different state statute that it comes from but I guess that's why we're doing it in two steps then but being able to have some teeth without having to get involved with the courts I think is is a great deal for the town and so I'm I'm in favor of it I guess now again I'm just looking before I will make a motion after we've had a chance to answer any questions or concerns the commission might have if there's anything else that the commission wants to ask before I make a motion there de I don't have any questions but I think it looks like a very good plan and good ordinance think it would really help to put a little bit of force behind our ordinances otherwise people just ignore sometimes well and it did work well on that property out on Route Six you know that we've been talking
about for a long time so yeah I I thought that was that told the story Le and did you have a a comment you were trying to get in there yes to follow up to an Marie's question if we what what would if we have cases that are going on right now would these fines if they're not resolved by the date that this goes into effect would would the daily fines start to acre then in other words it would not be retroactive yes Le work it would not be retroactive no normally when you pass an ordinance or a statute there are exceptions but normally normally they are not applied retroactive because people haven't been forewarned and that's that's that's that's you know that's that's new process good question that makes sense and I I like the idea of the the $25 a day where it is rather than being way at the upper end or at the upper end I
think it makes it easier to work with people and still have something in place well we had we had two different numbers in the the draft and I think Jim and Dennis chose to go with $30 a day instead of the 25 but it's still you know up to you it's up to you yep I thought I like 30 but you know just just to resolve it right I did notice both and did see that you changed 25 to 30 tonight so still it's it's according to attorney O'Brien is far from the upper end of what's in the statute right 150 is the upper end and that's that's a pretty stiff fine and if you go to I think if you go to a
town meeting in in in Eastern Connecticut with a opposing a fine of 150 bucks a day you're gonna have a tough time passing the ordinance I I I think that's too much that's just my own personal feeling based on many many years of experience okay so with that I will make a motion that the Planning and Zoning commission favorably endorse the draft ordinance on zoning violations and forward it to the board of Selectmen for further action second that thank you an any other discussion hearing none I'll call for a vote Ann hi Leanne hi Steve hi an Marie hi and I vote I as well that motion passes 5 z00 thanks for attending tonight Dennis and I think that's good work that you've got there I thank you very much and I appreciate the good work to you all do as well and you have a a great rest of the meeting thank you thanks Dennis next up is under new business appointment to the Capitol region Council of government's Regional planning committee and Jim did you want to talk to that sure Capital Region Council of governments has a regional planning committee meets four times a year I believe the third Thursday of the month meets virtually at this point in time and they go over issues that affect Regional planning in the area of specific concern right now is is the
capital region plan of conservation and development which I think is why they reached out to the town trying to get a member of our commission to serve on that the committee Crocs committee and their role would just sort of be to to participate and bring information back to the to the commission the local commission here so I did note I got a copy of the dates from from John and the June meeting that they have is on the same night as our Planning and Zoning commissions so that we wouldn't be able to support that so that would get us down to three meetings for the year the first of which is this Thursday and I didn't know if there was any interest of anybody on the commission to you know want to go and participate in those meetings on behalf of our
commission and that's about where I expect the that to go I know I had asked John John didn't you say you were an alternate for the town of Columbia I wasn't sure that Columbia was in that group yep so so I it's possible that I can I can attend some depending on on the the needs of the Columbia member which is Tom Courier and you said you had a conflict for this Thursday coming up I do yes I can probably attend that one and and I think you know the right I have as much desire as anybody else to go to more meetings then but I may see if I can sit in this Thursday night and and get that started I would obviously prefer John if you can attend on behalf of both and over in Columbia that's that's as coste effective as we can get it but but since you're you're tied up here and so somewhere down the line if we work that conflict out maybe you can be the primary for us and I would alternate going forward on that that's fine okay and that's that's about all that that's all that I had
anything else John or Jim on on that particular issue okay I think that wraps up new business now we'll proceed onto the old business and first up is the status of the Gravel Pit Jim okay I met with Ellen Certo from howerin sage and Jed today and we had had been provided a lot of the information previously and gone over it look at our website all the documents on the website we viewed the the YouTube once again and Allan was of the opinion he did not recommend bring going forth with a lawsuit he felt that the
applicant was largely inmp complete iance with with the plan there was some just there was some discussion about the flow of water and as we watched the the YouTube several times it became less clear or more clear that perhaps the commission assumed the water was Contin the demarcation line was was a little different than than was being represented in the meeting meaning that a little more water flowed off to the south towards the Hutchinson property then the commission was originally under the impression would happen he did also he further pointed out that you know anything that's done on this property needs a special
permit meaning anything in the future it's currently on the market and quote the town would have another bite at the Apple and he did not he did say that town could pursue legal act could take legal action if they so chose he just wasn't recommending it and I think Jim he talked about the fact that there was a new judge that was a bit of an unknown talked about the the lengthy process through the courts and quite honestly you know in just getting to where we had our meeting today we've had some significant cost for attorney's fees on doing the research that led up to today's meeting and and all that so yeah clearly he was not inclined to think that we should be going any any further he said he was he thought the applicant was ubstantially in accordance with the plan that was approved and and after reviewing it many times and
and having that long conversation today I guess I don't disagree with him we we all agreed that we didn't know exactly why you know in why the I think I'm going to call it 696 foot elevation line that wasn't really a line on the drawing was so far away from the 694 which was the end of the flood plane and when we say so far it was like tens of feet not quarters of miles or something like that but it did seem that what they have is in agreement with the drawing there the drawing just didn't have enough detail and if there's any fault there that is probably that might be my fault for not demanding more detail but I thought we were pretty close when we were talking that night not as close as
as I thought we were and and we have been trying to get through a restoration plan for five years now on what was supposed to have been a one-year project start to finish so maybe I get beat into submission a little bit there but it does seem like the water is being absorbed into the property and not running down over that steep side into the into the flood plane there anything else to add on that Jim no any any of the commission members have any thoughts on that at this okay Miss Hutchinson I guess it's yours yes thank you very much obviously I am concerned about the conclusion that was reached that yes there was more water flowing toward my property and that however that the commission it's recommended to the commission that nothing be done about it and I would would respectfully request that the commission give some serious consideration toward dealing with it I
understand it's an expensive process but the C commission made it clear during the entire application process that the water was to be graded so that it did not flow toward the east or south or my property and with that was supposed to be shown on the plan that was submitted and restoration plan was submitted and ultimately the commission went with that did show had the arrows pointing toward the proposed low point in the middle running down the middle the proposed area that was to drain it toward the back and I guess at this point I would respectfully request the commission give some consideration to pursuing that as opposed to just letting things go okay and Jim and I did talk today about the the latitude that this new ordinance might provide to it is if we get there I John if you can I'm going to try and post the approved map that's under the archive
section there that we talked about on 8:15 and if you were familiar enough with that and could call it up that would be great if if you don't think so if you let me to share my screen I will try to call that up I'm concerned that you know when when alen Jim and I were looking we we were looking at a blow up of the screen there and I won't have the technical skills to blow it up right so everybody can see what we were talking about but I will give it a quick attempt you should be able to and yeah and I don't see what I was looking for here so I guess we will will have to put that off we'll get our ducks in a row a little bit better and at the next meeting have the right drawing that we can show to everybody and and explain what was brief to us and why we think it's substantially in compliance and and discuss it more at that point I just have one of question slash request I has either you or Jim or anyone seen the erosion on the souly side that my property that my side is on up close are you talking about on the on the Gravel Pit property where it
flowed down as you get close to that Mound there or you talking about some place specifically as you're looking at it from Route Six the right hand side joins 50 feet away my property that whole stretch the full flat area as well as in the back where the hill with the hill in the back there's I believe that's where you're referring to the erosion I'm referring to the erosion that exists basically from Roe 6 all the way back I have not been out there recently Jim you can speak do it if you're familiar with it but I have not I have not been out there when our dialogue fell apart I had asked for I asked geneves if I could access his property to monitor it and he never responded to me and at that point I chose not to I'd be happy to follow up but it didn't occur to me I I did see it you know previous to that I could access it from your property Katherine yes you certainly could I was just gonna suggest that if yeah as long as as
long as it's accessible I know it's extremely overgrown at some point I don't know where on the property but I'd be happy to give it a shot perhaps I could touch base with you because it's been pretty wet but there may be u a way of getting a strip mode along my line obviously on my property so that we might more easily access it but why don't you look into it and I'll speak with you we'll go from there okay and I don't mind walking it just it just extremely a lot of brambles and such in there yeah well perhaps as I said we could get a strip mode run through there so that you could see it more easily I'd be happy to do that
great I'm not guaranteeing it because I don't know how wet it is there but to get a tractor down sure to get in there but either either that or we put on Brier free resistant clothes and go for a walk I'll touch base with you okay very good and so you know at the next meeting one of the things we might choose to do is once again do a S sidewalk over there so that the commission can see exactly what Miss concerns are I know we did that when it led to the conversation that I thought we had a better agreement than we did with where that water was going to go but anyhow so between now and the next meeting I will make sure that we have the documentation that I can get up on the screen to present and and show what our attorney thought and then we'll we'll make the decision based on input from Jim on whether or not we want to do a site walk on bit okay I'm going to move on to item 6B connectivity Grant trails and John I was hoping you could just give us a quick update I had to leave early
from the the public information session the other night how how did that end up going yep yes Leanne yes I I thought I was unmuted I had a couple of questions about the Gravel Pit oh go ahead yep one is Jim did the attorney go out there in person no he did not did look at the asilt drawing you not go out there in person okay and I have a a real concern that everyone knows how much time we've spent on this and I have a couple comments one is that you know Mr geneves has not responded to several attempts at correspondents and you know that were sent directly to him or through Chris Bell so this is not the first time when Jim said that he didn't hear back from him about walking the property himself so he does have a habit of doing this and I think it would be a real obstacle to all of the work that we've put in as it yet it's been I think almost exactly 5 years since we went on the S sidewalk there to just drop so to speak the restoration plan I don't think enough has been done with that so I hope that that's one of the things we can take up next
month yes we will okay thanks yep okay John now we'll move on to the connectivity Grant presentation okay so as as Jed said last week Tuesday I believe there was a public information session to discuss the town's initiatives to develop some bicycle and pedestrian connectivity basically between the the town's Civic campus where the town hall and Elementary School and the senior center are and The Hop River Trail and the municipal facilities to the north side of Route Six which include the athletic fields and the post office and and and that sort of thing so there we had had some initial discussions about having en visioning session to determine which route to u pursue and the two main routes were you know more or less an on-road option or a you know an option immediately off of Route 316 and then the other option being Overland basically through the woods through the town-owned land to the rear of town hall and Senior and the senior center out to the hop River Trail and upon discussing it we determined that it was both both routes were preferred for sort of different reasons different purposes different Target users they were both worth pursuing and there are different funding mechanisms to provide for both so working with our consultant Barton and the Judith engineering we first tackled the question of the onroad I I I shouldn't say onroad because it would be a multi-use trail on the side of Route 316 from school road all the way to Cider Mill then it would go literally on road basically a shared Road on Cider Mill linking back with 316 and and being alongside the road
for that short stretch heading north to hop River Trail and it would sort of go up the hill to meet the Hop River Trail there was a lot of individual input from Property Owners along 316 because this would be essentially a very wide sidewalk some somewhere between six and 10 feet wide paved off of the side of the road which would be basically almost entirely within State RightWay so not actually on private people's property however there would be some elements of that it would encroach a little bit but because of slope and and Grading and width of the right of way and telephone poles and things like that where it would encroach a little bit onto people's land but you know again would be on State Property although you know if you if you abut 316 the whole front yard feels like yours so so there was a lot of conversation with the people who that the trail would cross their their in front of their land and it was you know people had concerns but were generally supportive and the the good thing is we were able to sort of FastTrack the design schematic process and submit a grant to lsip which is the local Transportation Capital Improvement program funded through the capital region Council of government and while we haven't received any sort of official word on that the information from the capital
region is that they received that they they had more money in their fund than they got project applications so as long as you know as long as we didn't you know scribble on a you know wet napkin and crayon and it was a legitimate application it should be fundable so I think that's good news obviously the designs were preliminary and there's a lot of work still to be done but but it seems very positive at this point so that we'll hopefully hear on that one soon the second path is the Overland path which would be you know obviously steeper sort of less friendly to a quick commute and if you're you know trying to get from one place to another it wouldn't necessarily be the path you'd take but it is it does help create a continuous loop and another way to get you know to access other other state and town facilities that is still very preliminary design and we basically applied for a d recck Trail Grant for you know a small amount of money to basically bring that to engineering designs so we're not looking necessarily to build anything there yet but just sort of take the next step and so what's nice is you know when when sort of faced with the choice of you
know should we focus on this Trail or focus on this Trail we got to say both and and hopefully both Concepts will be moving literally and figuratively down the road soon any questions for John on that yeah John on the first option that you talked about the the trail adjacent to the road What's the timing on that Grant application and when would we think the town would receive funding I I you know the the the grant went in mid February and it was you know it's preliminarily at kog my my anticipation would be they'd probably make the the preliminary announcement within the next month or so I mean these projects are always a little you know attenuated particularly if State money is involved and you know not only is State money involved but State roadways are involved but I would anticipate if we if we heard something and got under contract sometime this summer we could probably spend the you know the the next n month doing final design and working with do do on on permit Pathways you know if all goes well could we start construction
next summer I think it's possible I think it's probably more reasonable that we'd be looking for completion probably 20126 but I you know I think it's it's possible to get underway next year would be my anticipation and you know fortunately Eric is not with us to contradict me and you know jump up and down and so don't tell them that but I I I think that's not that's not a crazy thought but again it's it's the state state Grant State money state property so sometimes the wheels turn slow thanks John it does sound really encouraging yeah I think I mean the the key is you know I think it's it's it's of obvious Community benefit the the key will be to make sure that both B and the the property owners along the trail sort of have their concerns heard John okay hearing none let's move on to the update on the plan of conservation and development and John that's you again okay well we have our Quorum and we have our technology seems to work so I'll do that does this look like a PowerPoint presentation to everyone it does yeah okay I I'm gonna I'm gonna Buzz through this a little bit so we're going through two elements of the plan of conservation and development process first is just a quick demographic overview sort of a snapshot of where we are as a town and then I harvested the the most most recent responses from the survey that we've done and so we'll kind of go over some preliminary results but I note that the survey is still open and we're
still getting getting in responses every day and John I did note that in the little inbox there at the entrance to the town hall today there were probably 10 to 15 is that right survey so okay I'll have I'll have to swing past and and pick them up yep okay thanks for the note okay so again have a number of demographic slides here we caveat all of these by saying these are already a couple of years old we Ed for the most part 2020 census figures although I think things are not changing very quickly in Andover and then the second thing is you know much of this is pretty self-evident I'm not telling you guys anything you don't know but so andover's population a little over 3100 as of 2020 primarily strongly almost 90% non-hispanic white with small minorities of non-hispanic multi-racial
4% non-hispanic blacks one and and other hispan and and 4% Hispanic the bottom chart shows basically how Andover Stacks up in those things in those ethnic classes relative to the state Andover is in green is the green bar so you'll see at the bottom that's white only obviously Andover is more white than the state as a whole the sort of rust colored bar in the middle is talin County and the blue is the the state of Connecticut as a whole so the state of Connecticut as a whole is a little over 60% white Andover is little 90% white the state is about 15 to 20% Hispanic and and again Andover is about four% so it's it's relatively homogeneous relative to the the rest of the state population
estimates you know the the the chart looks like things are dropping off a cliff but you know the the the the y- axis of that chart is really only you know 3,50 people to 3350 people so it's a 300 person span from top to bottom of the chart so you will note you know over over a few years andover's population has has declined from about 3,300 to about 3150 I think it's probably not that we we lost you know 80 people or so between 2019 and 2020 it's it's possible some of that could have been out migration some of that could have been death you know that 2020 was the
census year was also a covid year so so fatalities were a little higher that year it's also possible I'm I'm suspecting that the population estimates leading up to 2020 were just that estimates from the American Community survey and the 2020 number was 100% count so it's possible that the decline was a little bit faster and and and and steadier heading to 2020 but as of you know as of 2020 were you know about 150 people lighter than were in 2010 John I did look you know I was trying to find anything more recent than 2020 and I went to the Connecticut demographics.com and they had a population of 2022 of 3160 and so I was looking to see if you know when everybody started working from home I was hoping that that would cure the decline but in in that data point shows that that it did it leveled off if maybe not going up again so I think you know we we don't I don't know that we have a real good yeah no actual idea of what the the future is going to hold there yet hopefully not as dreary as what that
shows true I have a comment too I've been talking to the superintendent of schools and what she's seeing with the school is that houses have been selling and then been bought by families with young kids so for a while we were dropping because of the elderly population was moving out or passing away but now they're getting more young families in so that we may be seeing an uptick or not as much of a drop as what they ually thought okay that's positive yeah and and again what the other thing to to note here which is that I think that's a positive note and is that you know these are these are small numbers you know we're we're talking about you know 10 people 50 people here and there that that you know could could affect you know one of these one of these charts the population Trends and projections the lower left was from the Connecticut state data Center they're the only data projections we really have Unfortunately they were also done pre
covid which which obviously shook things up somewhat but Andover according to this was projected to have peaked at its 202 2020 I'm sorry 2010 census about 3,300 and sort of have a steady slow decline for the next 25 years or so I'm sorry 15 years or so which you know doesn't seem impossible but it's also certainly not written in the star in pre-ordained things could certainly turn turn around and and again these are very small differences so again on the on the right Andover is projected to shrink by another you know 500 600 people or so and Connecticut is expected to grow very very modestly over that same same time frame so a few a few municipalities may may gain but most municipalities are are going to be somewhat stagnant I think the bottom line here is don't expect massive change one way or another the next in the
next 15 years or so in terms of our age group demographics again we have handovers Distribution on the upper left and the overall distribution compared to 2020 and 2020 on the on the lower right the things you know you would note on the left is the longest bars is the largest percentage of population basically your your 5050 to 60 your 45 to 65 essentially makes up about 40% of the town's population the largest the largest sort of set there and what I would point out in the lower right bar is the the light blue is where our population curve was in 20 20 I'm sorry 2000 the medium blue is 2010 the dark blue Is 2020 so if you sort of draw a curve over each one and I don't know if you can see my cursor but it it sort of Peaks the 2000 Peaks between 35 and 45 the 2010 Peaks at 45 to 55 essentially and then the peak for the most current census 2020 is now at at 55 to 65 so you know there's some fluctuation here but the old overall peak of the population the the the the plurality of of cohorts is sort of Shifting old which you know again is it should not be surprising to
anyone on this on this call but there are as you say and you know the the under five the young child demographic has increased a little bit from 2010 to 2020 the school age kids are sign signicantly down your five to 15 are significantly down but but your college age kids are holding steady and again it could be could be a migration of of more young families which would be which would be welcome John you go back to that last slide again for just absolutely a typo up on the the left hand this one the third the fourth bar down shows I think that should be that should be 20 20 y okay very good thank you good catch I I I caught that as well but I should have I should have brought attention to it before you did because I would have seemed more no you got to give me a chance to do so
okay okay so this is units and structure this are our household and again you all live in Andover you know Andover were were very very significantly majority single family detached housing there are a few units 3 to four units 5 to9 units but by and large it's a it's a single family detached Town interestingly also perhaps not surprisingly in 2020 the household sizes the one and two person households make up over 60% nearly two almost twoth thirds of the town's population is is in one or two person households so it's relatively small families we have you know about about a fifth each of three person households and four or more but interestingly what you see if you look so so we have a lot of very small households but if you look at the graph on the right which is average household size over the last 15 years and again this data is a little bit older or 20 I know we're almost 25 years of data now in 2000 the 2000
census household size was 2.64 which is larger than either Talon County or Connecticut which were both about 2.55 and that stayed steady for about 20 years since then so even though we have a large number of of small households one and two person our average household size is is remaining relatively steady and I think you know sort of reflecting that the house the housing stock you know are are larger houses larger single family which are which are certainly familyfriendly you know you can have two three four kids in the in the big houses of Andover in terms of income and unemployment and over again not surprisingly is a little bit wealthier a little bit higher income than Talon County or Connecticut in general about you know 10 12,000 above Talon County and 20 over the state of Connecticut which again is reflective of single
family detached High ownership economy and over the chart on the lower left shows you the immigration and out migration of jobs there are less than 70 people who both live and work in Andover there's not a ton of jobs that that support an Andover lifestyle we do import about 270 people come to Andover to work but most people from Andover that are working are leaving so over 1500 people are leaving Andover for work again not surprisingly but the unemployment rate is extremely low in Andover as of 2021 we're at 3% which are which are which is well below even the very low numbers in Talon County and Connecticut is in general so it's it's it's affluent it's comfortable place but just you know people don't aren't working here so that's that's a bit about the demographics again no no real surprises there I wanted to go through some of the preliminary results of the survey so this ad hopefully people have seen it I don't know has this ad been posted in the River East I I saw it but it was sort of stuffed in with all the other ads and it I almost
missed it because it I thought it was like another real estate ad or something like that it should have probably been in like an article up in the top of the page instead of stuffed in the bottom but I don't know if you had any choice I yeah I I mean we can we could probably talk to Eric if if we want to maybe buy a more prominent spot there was an article you know about the the survey done about a month ago now it unfortunately had the link to the survey but it was sort of across two lines and a little bit harder to follow I had given the the journalist the QR code that he could pay into his article but heed not to but despite that you know and so this is you know we've been trying to promote this and hopefully it'll be in in for another another issue of River Easter too yeah it was in the last two weeks last two Fridays okay great and we wow up to 181 answers so right so not bad we're coming long plus plus your 10 or 15 that are sitting there in town hall Jed yeah so we could in a matter of a couple days be up close to 200 so I'll go through preliminary results again this is this is as things stand right now folks so the the blue lines this is liver working Andover as we saw with that in migration out migration we have a very large population of folks living in Andover
but working in other towns and then the orange line at the bottom is living Andover and are retired so that tells you a little bit about the folks that are that are filling this out not a lot of people working an and over that's probably just one possibly two responses of working and and over and as you recall for because I'm sure everyone on online took the took the survey so you're familiar with the questions we ask people to rank highest priorities this was under Economic Development and even though one is the top priority and seven is the lowest priority the way the data is projected here is the longer bar means higher priority so so the more retail along six was the most popular response and and you know it was it was most frequently people's top priority followed you know by more restaurants and more service and
professional and as more small businesses in that area least popular which is nice to see is no major changes to the economic development strategy people people generally supported being a little bit more aggressive particularly along six Corridor in terms of housing options in Andover again the the longer bar means the the more popular answers so there was you know 20% you know stated that we don't we are fine with our housing options as they are but far more than that people identified young families as well as young professionals seniors and teachers firefighters and other other critical employees as being important and with
young families being easily the the plurality choice so and so I guess when we get get to the end of this for the commission with John's help you know we we see here we think we need more housing opportunities for young families which I think you know everybody recognized what a great school we have here we need to bring the housing opportunities and I'm not exactly sure what young families are looking for there but we've got to build something that allows them to move into Handover so they could take advantage of that great school that we have and that's that's going to be our challenge where we can influence it is what can we do to help build it so they will come we've got the school if we build the housing I think people will come so they could take advantage of it yeah and I think yeah there's I mean those are those are regulatory things we can do you know Financial incentives things that we can do but that yeah we'll those are all for brainstorming when we get to those discusss types of housing that that are should be provided again reflecting the the the established character of Andover people like you know people are here because they like here and and the character of Andover is largely single family detached so that was the most popular option people did find some support for single family with accessory Apartments which is you know enabled by the zoning regulations as well as some two family and Tow houses people generally didn't support you know larger multif family developments or three or four family as
as common but again that you know that that reflects sort of the established patterns in Handover John what's the difference between a three and four family and a townhouse I guess I thought they were kind of the same thing yeah I you know I think a a townhouse can be sort of more than Peter porn family but I I picture it as you know as a row semi detached a three or four family you know tends to be in sort of a single structure with a single entrance sort of sort of setup you know a two over two or something like that but yeah I mean it they can be very similar I know my mom at one point she lived in this housing community that had they were all triplexes and so you had you two end units and then you had a unit in the center you know they each had a two-car garage each had a you know their own entryway in that but I thought that suited itself well I thought one it was very nice but two it
was well suited to have the center unit being the affordable component and that get you your your one-third affordable that we required to have and so I was disappointed when I saw this and I I think it's probably because we haven't let folks know very well what we're looking at yeah to do that but that might be something we have to yeah I how to overcome that when we get to the end where you know the town is clearly spoken they don't want three and four bedroom units well that's I think that we could probably do some more nuanced polling on that and and we've done in other towns particularly when looking at the affordable housing plans which were you know done the last couple of years are are like basically visual visual preferences you know where they're shown something like what you're describing for your for your mother Jed where it was you know a three side by side which I would picture as kind of a townhouse structure or you know or you know a a a three-story apartment sort of thing but yeah people can express you know preferences visually also and that may be something we want to explore I was disappointed when the apartments got a bit more favorable rating than the three and four family I and I think you know and and you know not wanting to read into responses there but you know I think Apartments tend to be single location
you know all all sort of on its own at least in Suburban towns that we don't have Apartments Apartments Apartments Apartments Apartments like you might have in in you know cronwell right okay so we looked at then Community resilience and sustainability priorities there the most popular being upgrading of roads and bridges to address you know increased flood volumes and things like that to deal with climate change the rest of the ones are fairly clustered upgraded power data infrastructure and making sure and over roads and bridges are are properly maintained where you know popular but there was no you know truly unpopular option I think you know people tended to have slightly different slightly different you know third and fourth choices which kind of even those even that noise out a bit somewhat similar we asked about open space and conservation and natural resources which are the priorities focusing on Trails and interconnection of open space was the blue line that was the most popular there was also you know strong support for investing in stewardship of properties and open space that we already have investing in active Recreation which just to say things like ball field you know soccer pickle ball tennis baseball and then focusing on efforts on Andover Lake as a as an important natural resource and conservation feature so you know no
no real real poor support again other than other than the statement and over has sufficient open space which received the lowest support which is again you know it's a a strong support for conservation and particularly particularly trails and connections we ask for people to rate you know from basically one to five strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree on several issues about about longrange planning all of these were very much in the middle you know an answer of three is neutral two is a is a agree all of them received you know basically between 4.35 and 4.55 except for route six the town should actively Market available and undeveloped commercial land along the six 40% by far the strongest response said strongly agree another 24% said agree so that had by I would say
you know overall that was clearly the strongest agreement in terms of long-term planning so as we saw with the Economic Development question at the beginning Route Six is clearly a focal point we then asked about Town Services and it was funny I was filling in the manually a number of survey responses that I believe Jed you must have harvested at some sort of senior breakfast or senior lunch in because there were probably 12 of those and all of them all of them had Services for Seniors as the top priority and and Andover public schools as a very low priority without casting aspersions on on the people who filled it out that was they were clearly an interest group but what what we saw overall is strong support for endover public schools and Public Works roads Bridges Trails and then obviously you know sort of moderate support all in the middle for seniors General government parks and rack Etc Transportation was surprisingly the lowest I I some of the the surveys I looked through I'll rank those quite high but I think overall that sort of
you know leveled out that might be because of the upgrades that have been recently done there to transfer station I don't know but so yeah so certainly a lot better than it used to be taken care of yeah so this is now a question of concerns How concerned are you about various issues again the same fivepoint scale very concerned to not concerned at all and again you know everything tends to to land in the middle somewhere between you know neutral and and cons conc ered all of those had you know somewhere between you know 2.3 and 3.3 which is sort of the the slightly concerned end of neutral the two strongest responses with over 30% saying very concerned were aging infrastructure and affordability of living in andov and I think that's that's very telling you know the you know there was there was some strong response on overdevelopment and of Natural Resources and changing demographics but I think some of those those those things are are intimately related but I that's this was I think maybe one of the most interesting questions thus far happy to see the low number there on crime yes yes that I mean people basically a three basically people are neutral about crime you know I think they're no one's is going to the very few people are saying you know not concerned at all but but people were not too terribly alarmed seem I did wordcloud this isn't to
revealing yet I think we want to filter these out a little bit so we had asked two questions free response open-ended what's something you hope will happen to end over in the next 10 years and then later what's something you're worried about and so again this is word cloud the most more time a word appears the the bigger it is so you know you can pick up some of these words you know infrastructure schools businesses and over Plaza I thought was interesting was a multiple thing senior housing retail development affordable housing restaurants stay small town Town Center I think there's some good responses there I think what we'll try to do to is refine this a little bit and take out you know simple repetitive words we don't need the word town or the word Andover so we we we'll see if we can
make those a little bit more usable but it's it's a nice visual tool second is the the question about worried what are you worried about and this you know fewer words were used that that really pop Elementary School businesses taxes crime aging climate change you know if if you combine property taxes increasing taxes taxes you know tax based you know a lot of those things are are circling around obviously the same topic so we can we can find ways to to refine that but it's it's interesting to sort of see what what what people are saying like all at once and then we asked a couple of questions about demographics so just so we can see who was taking the survey again you know my my initial thought having you know my own bias of having entered a number of these in manually from from a senior lunch in I was surprised that that the 70 plus population was relatively small and it was about the same as the young family you know the 30 to 44 year old demographic was about the same as the 70 plus and you most responses like most people in town somewhere between 45 and 70 and so I you know I think the response at least at this point is fairly reflective of the adult population you know demographic in in Andover and then you know the income is is probably also reflective you know our our basically three largest income cohorts were you know between 75,000 and over 150 so 75 and up
was was a lot of responses so these are most likely established you know homeowner employed or or comfortably retired and again you know as we saw do you own or R your home looks like we're at about 94% own the home with a very small rental population and and that you know we know that that's you know the rental numbers are higher than this so we're we're getting a sight overabundance of homeowners and and we may want to see if there's something we can do to to solicit renters a little bit and also I would say younger younger adults and younger families so again the survey is gonna going to stay open it's up to to you guys when we when we ultimately close it out but there could be some other things we do to solicit additional responses and one of those things that that's been somewhat successful in other places is if the school is amendable to this sort of thing oftentimes we can request that the school do a you know a stuffer for the kids going home
so goes into the kids folders and comes home with them to encourage families to participate in this process that would really be my primary suggestion to to reach those kids unless there's some way good good distribution list through parks and wreck where we can we can solicit particularly you know your your young families but that's where we are right now John yes ma'am hi this is Leanne I think it was an excellent idea to include the 70 plus age group here because I see a lot of surveys that just say 65 and older and people are quote Living longer unquote and so every this this allowed there not just to be one lumped in group of people who are 65 and older which I think is important because you know you could have people 70 and older who were the parents of people who were in their 60s and I think it also points up a couple things about it may give us some indication of the people who are interested in staying in town as far as the question about the senior housing and then including people who were 70 and over and I think it also points up that not everybody say age 60 and older retires at the same time some people never retire some people want to downsize some people don't so I think that was a good tool to have to break it up into another age group because like I said most surveys I see just say everybody's 65 and older period thank you and I think what what I think we will do hopefully at the end is we'd probably do' like to do
some cross tabs and on on some of these things so I think as I as I said in my my little anecdote you know noting that you know a lot of your 70 plus folks are obviously concerned with you know senior facilities then you know and I am sure as we as we break it out into the responses from 35 to 44 year olds the school is probably a higher priority so I want to do that that formal cross tab as well as probably word clouds or a modified word Cloud for each of the major demographic groups because it would be interesting to see what are the hopes of the 70 plus folks what are the hopes of the 35 to 44 year olds what are the what are their fears as well or their concerns as well I but I think yeah it's it's valuable to have broken that out I have a question about the demographics that you had there with the types of homes where working on getting the affordable housing and the types of like we have a senior I'm trying to an in-law apartment on the house so with an in-law apartment you have the main house and you have a little apartment where do those get categorized it's not really a single family yet it's not an apartment where did those get put I think the well I think it it depends on what the actual structure of it is if the you know if so because sometimes there are sort of Senior Communities active adult communities that are either freestanding sort of bungalow type things in in sort of a tight cluster that would probably be well it depends on what how we
defined it those would probably be single family detached but you know in many cases they would be essentially a a condominium or common interest Community sort of setup you know I know in our neighborhood and a few blocks away of at least four houses that have an in-law apartment attached and they're attached so is that considered still a single family house or is it with an accessory apartment isn't that the single family house with the accessory apartment that's what we would we would call that was that a category yes yes and okay and you know and also it's how we how we Harvest our data is you know so that that question was the preference question well I think the single family well hold on hold on the single family with accessory Apartments was in the survey I don't think accessory Apartments was in the demographics present was in the demographic no it wasn't it was in the survey John right so so but if we and and this was the the the single
family attached single family detach two apartments three or four apartments from the demographics that's Census Data we can actually get better data from our assessor using C codes because in in C single family single family with accessory apartment and two family are actually three different codes so we can do a much finer grain analysis what we got okay thank you hey John I apologize I missed it earlier but how many total responses do you have at this point a little over 180 okay that are they're recorded again Jed is telling me we have some some hard copy to be entered and we've been getting two three four a day trickling in so you know keeping it I don't see a real downside keeping it open for the while and there's two tools we haven't used yet and you know Eric and I were working on something to send out to the all the board and commission members to make sure that they understood the importance and send it in and I don't think that ever got sent out and so I'll have to follow up with Eric on that and we wanted to do that and then we were going to follow up with the communication you know blast going out to the entire town to fill it in so we've got a couple other big things to use and I like John's idea about getting it out through the kids at the school I think one I think the school would like to get it out that way I don't know John if you had a
thought on do we just send the QR code out because most of the the parents are younger and and they they do that stuff better they certainly we don't need to send the paper copy home for them that is not the group that wants the paper copy to send in well I yeah so I the you know the we could send yeah right but I'm wondering if we want to send a you know a half sheet that has the QR code on so get stuffed in the boxes and then kid kids bring it home parents can just scan the QR code you know I want to be sensitive to not not overburdening the school with having to distribute something like this but if there's someone friendly with the school district that I could work with I'd be I think an's that person I think the used to do an email to all the parents like I don't know if they still do that an like the Friday
update or the Sunday night update from the principal I I don't know if they do that they probably have something I know a few years ago they did every single Friday they said really was Sunday night yeah but if we were to send a half sheet home of that ad that we wear in the the River East which was very small we put that half a half sheet size so it didn't get lost with all the other stuff or even a full sheet but that's probably all we need to to do to get it out to the parents oh yeah and if you want to if you could just be in touch with me if if you know either you could ask or just give me the right person to ask and I'll pursue it thank you any other comments from the commission at this point okay and you the most positive thing I saw of all the data was that little demographic that showed the the young kids you know increasing I thought that was great news and my my thinking is that you can increase the load at the school without having to increase the cost so much because most of the the school budget is fixed cost until you start adding more
teachers or something but we're never going to you know we're never going to exceed the capacity of the building there so so anyhow I thought that was good news anything else you want to pass on to us that point John am Mar you had a comment no I was just going to say it looks great so far yep okay yep y I agree so I think that concludes the old business next up is the approval of the minutes from the meeting on 16th of January and I'll make a motion that the minutes be approved second and and I think there were maybe two comments on the minutes and Marie weren't you in attendance at that
meeting I was yes okay so you should be on the list of participants and then down under new business where we were talking about the burnap Brook Road property swap there was a line in there it said the town would give up land in return that is in the flood plane and somebody pointed out to me that we probably wouldn't have said that and I went back to review it as did Marina neither of us could find that so I'm not exactly sure how that thought get in there but I would recommend that we strike that line from the minutes because it was not I think I made a motion to approve I can't recall if we had a second yes yes who who seconded it I think Leanne and I both seconded same
time okay well we'll give that to Leanne and I'll call for a vote on approval of the minutes an i Leanne I Steve I and Marie I and I vote I as well the motion passes 500 Z next up on the agenda is Administrative reports Jim yes seems to be bit of an uptick in activity of a seasonal nature a lot of preditions sheds Etc is a one a new single family home on shotty Mill application came in see I am working on a a matrix of costs associated with planning zoning commissions I believe it was a suggestion of the board of selectman see what other towns were charging for for subdivisions for for variances what have you bring that together just take a look at and see where town of Anover stands I am involved in a number of Enforcement cases I did reach out to the Connecticut Med Meditation Center which is 131 root6 and there which is the Buddhist otherwise known as the Buddhist temple and I did get a call today I did not speak the gentleman got a message indicated they would be coming forth with an application some point very soon I have yet to contact the mountain of worship which is on shotty Mill which is a Church of sorts U that's been operation for for quite a many quite many years so I be reaching out to them to see see what we can do to bring them into compliance I'm working with Protek or I'm sorry Benjamin Franklin and Mer Valley Lake Lake Road to address their pite conditions U
more particularly they have a number of boats and a trailer out there which is not on their approved site plan and their lighting is not in compliance other than that I have nothing to report any questions be happy to address so a question for the commission and I don't know I've got a matrix that Jim puts out it's the blight and violation status and I can't remember if he or I sent that out to the commission members or not does anybody recall seeing that yeah I think it came out once with an email should come out late last week yeah the last date I have on The
Matrix gym was February 12th but so maybe for the next meeting this gets back to an Marie's comment earlier about how many how many violations are we working on and I think Jim's got a two-page flight violation status and and a significant number of them are resolved so there's been a lot of good work going on obviously we just care about the ones that are still open and but we'll take we'll make it so that we get that out to everybody again and I think that's a a good document it shows Jim's doing a lot of good work on that couple of them have been very hard to to get moving along and I think this ordinance that we talked about tonight might make some of those a little asier I was just wondering I had a question for Jim that I don't know if it'd be blight or just I don't know what's going on 114 hendy road that house that has like plastic wrapped around the first floor you are you familiar with that or know what's going on it doesn't appear to be a blight or a zoning violation the building official was brought in on that and I don't know what the status of that is I can find out it's been that way for over 10 years I think so I didn't know what was going
on I I believe the owners started out on a some sort of rehab project and it became a little bit bigger and there was a lot more rot why it's still repped I don't know and whether it's in violation of anything I'm not aware of yeah I can check into it okay thanks any other questions for Jim okay next up is John you know John's doing an awful lot of good good work for us on planted conservation and that he's starting to get his fingers in a lot of other things helping the town out and I wanted to give him his nickelsworth to share with us any thoughts or comments that he had each meeting so all your joh thanks Chad I I you know obviously I've spoken enough this evening working on the the trail grants hopefully the the wreck Park the W field Grant will be moving forward we did receive to to do some improvements at the soccer field and
and put in a playscape and and pickle ball courts hopefully that'll be moving forward I would anticipate I mean it's in Eric's hands but I would anticipate construction probably I don't know maybe some work in the fall but that's that's in Eric's timeline and the other thing I would just note that I've had some correspondents recently with Ryan Fitch from Fitch Family Farms who are who are looking to sell their the Christmas tree property on Route Six just wanted to reach out to them to kind of get a sense of how and where they're marketing and and maybe get get basically introduce myself I haven't met the Fitch family yet to just make sure that they understand that it's it's an important property and and we would be interested in in being in touch with potential buyers to talk about to talk about options and visions and that sort of thing so kind of want to get ahead of that a little little bit so we'll hopefully be meeting with Brian sooner than later John what was he specifically asking of you well he emailed me thinking he was getting Jed but it was it was it was basically to to reach out and and let's see it says hoping to touch base with you and the board the properties for sale looking to build a relationship with the town and what could be the next step for our farm and for our for us in terms of commercial development and so he you know basically wanted to sit down and kind of talk about a plan of attack so you know I think understanding you know understanding what the town has in mind there would probably help them Market the
property and I don't know Ryan either you know I don't know him at all but I do recall when John was going through the survey responses you know the number one item for economic development was for the town to be involved with Property Owners on Route Six for for developing and so this effort seems like it's in line with what people are looking for the town to be doing so I think that's good news so would this be in lie of him being able to sell it in the foreseeable future is he looking into things if it doesn't sell I I didn't get that sense and when I as I responded to him you know know saying that we'd be happy to to meet and talk about options and and his his response was no I mean I think they are looking to sell you know literally he says I actually have no plans for the property other to sell it but I would like to sit down to to talk about possible ideas and ways to get this sold to the right commercial development because I think they they want to be you know a good a good Steward and a good you know Community partner okay thank you John do you know the size of the parcel yesik I don't offand I can I could find it relatively quickly if you wanna if you want to move on and I'll I'll I can pull that up and okay well so I will move on quickly to the Inland Wetlands water course lays
on and our meeting for this month was canceled because we had no applications and so we we didn't do anything there next up on the agenda commission discussion anybody have anything that we would like to discuss oh come on an I I should have spoke already okay so before the meeting started an was asking me if we had any thoughts on going back to an in-person venue for the summer months and I'm not opposed to that my my concern about that is I know John has got a considerable distance and would not be joining us he would continue to be remote I am a little concerned about some of the people you know thankfully our attendance and membership has very good and I really appreciate that I know Kevin lives about as far away from the meeting as you can get and still be in Andover and and I would think that that would be a little bit I don't know how do you feel about that Kevin I mean it's definitely not the most convenient thing in the world as you said I'm pretty much as far as you could possibly get with with still being in the town I don't know it's a you know typical day in the life some days are easy some days are difficult some days work gets in the way and I stay a lot later than intended you know so on and so forth so I don't know I can't say one way or another so what what I think I'm gonna do is I'll send out you know an
email and everybody you know don't reply all just reply to me your preference would be meeting in person meeting online or you don't care and I guess one question I do have is if if you decided to do in person will you still be doing will it still be recorded to be logged for the public it would and and I know Ann who is you're probably most excited about getting back to inperson meeting has taken it on herself to become an owl expert yeah so that I guess that's where I was going if we're doing an owl I know I've done a bunch of meetings you know for for work and whatnot where where we can we can do hybrid meetings I mean I know I know it's a little more of a ambitious for some people but from my experience it hasn't been that big so people that can make it that night can be in the room with the owl or whatever video conference host we we use and then other people can dial in if as necessary and that would help us achieve the best attendance we can you know everyone can still try to make it even if it's last minute and people who can make it in person great just J to to that end actually that there's a change in the state statute a couple of years ago following following the covid protocols is that now Commissioners have the right to require a hybrid accommodation so if if any commission member the remember of the public cannot but any commission member can request and require a virtual accommodation to even an inperson meeting so if you
know if one or more members you know would like to participate remotely you have that right by State Statute and the town has to accommodate okay yep yeah I also have an answer to the to the the fit the Family Farm question but you go ahead do that's all wanted to say about the the the meeting thing so go ahead John okay so actually I'm so can you see my my my screen the gis map on it yeah yes so when I when I looked for Fitch Family Properties on Route Six actually more than one came up I assume the one we're talking about and I could be very wrong is the one on the South Side of Route Six that more of a frontage there is also a little bit farther to the West a large part of their their family farm that has
Frontage on Route Six and then goes back on the adjacent Road but this property if this is the one we're talking about acres with lots and lots and lots a road Frontage lots of what road Frontage Frontage yeah yeah visibility it looks great it looks like the listing on Remax is for 15.5 Acres right now so that's that's is the one we're talking about yep okay so there's your there's your answer thank you Jed yes Le just to go back to the meeting format for a minute I think one consideration needs to be the Acoustics in the community room they're really bad they've been that way since the community room was built and maybe Ann can tell us from the board of Selectmen if there's any discussion about remedying that because it can some meetings are much better than others and if it's not a meeting where the transition is particularly good I mean the meeting even if you're in the room I mean I went to a meeting there recently and somebody was no more than 10t away from me and they were speaking to the front of the room and I had to strain to listen to what they were saying because the Acoustics are so bad and they're they can be worse on a zoom meeting so Ann does the has the board of Selectmen discussed lately doing anything to remedy that they haven't discussed anything recently my best guess for doing a a hybrid Zoom meeting would be if we have
the table set so that it's pretty close to the owl which is the piece of equipment that helps make a hybrid meeting we stay close to that you can hear better it would be really good if okay I see or if people had individual microphones or you know something that would go a long way but thank you were you were you finished with your remarks about what might help that situation yeah that's the only thing I know of right now and I suppose that maybe when the new building is finished we could meet in there sometimes and it would have better Acoustics it's a different kind of ceiling and not as high I know that community room has that really high ceiling with the wooden ceiling which makes very echoey thank you we could also run a few you know offline tests not in a meeting just to see how the audio comes out and I know a lot of those like the owl and other things that I've used have have pretty good noise filtering so we just have to play with the filtering
aspects to see how much we need to to take out the Reverb in the room or whatever else it is okay interesting thanks yep any other any other commission discussion things okay I'll move on to miscellaneous and we probably don't have there's not too much difference between that commission comments okay the date of our next regular scheduled meeting is April 16 and I'll let you know if we do anything different that might be premature to change but we'll we'll we've got a month to work on that months a long time so I'll let you know how that's going to go and if nobody's got anything else I'll make a motion to adjourn second thank you Steve you got in on that one all in favor raise your hand or say I I hi I opposed hearing none the motion passes 500 Z thank you for hosting John thank you all for coming appreciate the support and and we'll be in touch got a couple of things to work on for next month so