Good evening. We're going to call the town of Vandover March 17th public hearings to order and I guess we'll get right to it. we'll start with the application 26-1 SP. application of Thomas and Elizabeth Thomas Hurst Elizabeth Pollson at an accessory apartment above the existing farm store and go ahead.
Hello, I'm Elizabeth. I'm representing my parents and Sherry Hurst. we're looking to put an accessory apartment in the second floor of our farm store, which is an existing attic right now. you can see the store on the center of in in the cross there on the center of the plan. if we go to the next page, we can see kind of what we're looking at in terms of an apartment.
Is there anything?
I don't think there's anything particular on the site plan other than knowing really where the story is. unless anybody has any questions about that.
Well, we took this from the ngineering drawings that were sent to us by the cell phone company and those of the details for the property there. She's not u adding any buildings. She's using existing building. So that's without see. Is there any way that we don't? yeah. scroll down just a little bit so that you can see the weapons. What we're looking at currently is the second floor of our store building and stairwell up on the left. As we come to the stop at the top of the stairs, we're going to keep that storage. and then we've marked out where we're looking at having the accessory department. We've already put in a septic system. We've gotten the okay from the Eastern Highlands Health Department to do this. you know, it's it's we're looking at doing this because, you know, we all know that farms are they take a lot of
extra hands. I was one of nine children. A couple of my siblings are hoping to move back and sort of help out with the farm, raise their raise their children there, and my sister is looking to move back. So, this will hopefully be for my sister. You know, it helps them, helps us. So this is all storage for the farm store.
That's yeah
because the accessory apartment has a limit to how big it can actually be. So what we've done is we've made it so that the dimensions fit within what we're allowed to do for the film. Otherwise we probably would have just
So I saw one of the photos had a doorway from coming to the outside. One of the external photos. Yes. So,
and I didn't see how that fit into this picture if
No, I some of them. So, if you look at the stairwell on the left hand side, that door is at the bottom of the stairwell. So, we were told we have to put in a separate entrance for the apartment. They can't they can't access it through the store building, like the main entrance of the store. So, it will be at the bottom of that store, which I think we have a picture that shows where it will exit on the front of the store. Yeah. So, we just kind of white it out. That's it's currently a window. We'll just remove the window and put a door there so they can building.
And was the kitchen going to be, you know, a full standard kitchen, sink,
stove, refrigerator, small island, some
more than a microwave?
No, more than a microwave for sure.
For sure. I think that they're looking to live here, you know, for for an undetermined amount of time.
And how is it going to be heated?
there will be a plet stove and a wood stove upstairs
which are currently up there because we do heat the store with wood pellets. So that's already installed.
Okay.
And the septic is it's a new septic. It's a new septic for the the store itself, which on the site plan I did mark it's out in front of the store. and we put that in 2024.
And so you have all the stuff from Eastern Highland.
Yes. And they have approved that it's that the apartment is within the parameters of the subject to be added.
So, it's my understanding that a few years ago you connected the store,
right,
to the septic system with with the intention of
right
and now you're getting to the to the actual we want to the apartment, right?
Plenty of parking.
Yeah, I was up there last week with plenty of parking. As far as the square footage, it fits in with the 33% of the well the primary dwelling.
I think the only odd thing about it maybe from the the normal in that it's not attached to the house. That's the plan is still to use it for family. It's not really I know it was called the market rate class department but we're not planning on using it out just
I will note that they have requested a waiver for the A2 site plan
for the sorry
for the A2 site plan. Okay,
that's on file here. this is the checklist. And here's a waiver request right here. Don't know. Is there anything else you'd like me to show the commission out of this?
I don't. Is there anything else you would like? I I put into the into the satellite view of the of the farm.
We did also have
plenty of room.
They are going to start they're also the cell tower is going to be started pretty soon, isn't it?
Yeah. They're they're today. They're thinking maybe the middle of May if everything goes, you know, I
see they put in for their building for Yeah. cell phone towers going under the bar at the rear of the property along the bishop sw the line the they have a boundary kind of the bishop's one so it's going to be way back Yeah. Any other questions from the commission?
Okay.
I think I think I'm all set.
Thanks.
Sounds good. Yes. Ask any questions for the public.
Thank you for the reminder. There any questions from the public online present? I do have a letter,
okay, to be read a letter of support to be read into the file. It's from Edward and Ver Valerie Gerardi. U she came in this morning and hand delivered this to me asking that it be read into the record. I Mr. Wood I'll paraphrase the letter itself is is if it's not online but it'll get there. basically they are they are supporting this this proposal as a as as an asset to their property to make the area more functional. and she's quite quite a few accolades about the the property itself and the first family. So I think for for the commission's purposes this is very supportive of their proposal agency. That's great.
any other questions from you that I that
No, I I've reviewed it. I I can't find any any defects in the application. So, that's that's my report on it. It's got the square footage. It's got the health district. It's it's got a site plan. Just got a floor plan. Not much else involved.
Oh, sounds good.
Yes, that's it.
Motion to close the hearing.
Yes.
for a motion to close the hearing.
I'll motion close the hearing.
I need a motion. just ask if anybody wants to keep it open.
Does anybody want to keep the whole hearing open?
Thanks, Jed.
Okay, hearing none, I will close the public hearing.
Thank you very much.
So, at this point, it the there'll be there's another public hearing coming up on the plan conservation and development. After that, the commission is going to they don't have to to vote on this proposal tonight. It's going to be up to the commission what they do, but during the regular meeting, they will decide what they're going to do. If they're going to consider this today or push it off, if they consider it today, if you want to hang around,
there's a nice picture of the Hurst farm in our I know it's in our plan.
All right, right along to plan of conservation and development and I'm going to hand the floor to John Kuscowski, our town planner.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Very welcome. I will bring up PowerPoint hat hopefully will look something like presentation. Okay. thank you Mr. Chair, members of the commission. For the record, my name is John Gusowski. I'm the town consulting planner for the town of Andover. and with my firm Titan Planning and Policy Group. We help develop help the commission develop this plan of conservation development update for the town of Andover. I'm going to do just a short a short presentation and happy to answer questions after that. for those who are not familiar with the process, a plan of conservation development or POCD is a document that is required by the Connecticut General Statutes, specifically section 8-23 of the statutes that requires that every municipality in the state at least every 10 years update and adopt a new plan of conservation development. This is an advisory document that is prepared and adopted by the planning commission. in this case, Andover like many towns has a joint planning and zoning commission, but the statutes charge this to the planning the planning half of the planning and zoning commission. It is their responsibility. It is not a document that is voted on by the selectmen. It is not a document that is voted on in referendum or by town meeting. It is the responsibility of the planning commission to develop it. statutes have a number of things that that the plans must consider. sort of the usual things that you would imagine when you're thinking about a 10-year projection into the future. what land use is going to look like, affordable housing, drinking water and wastewater disposal, physical, social, economic trends like where have we been, where are we going in terms of our
populace, community needs, energy, preservation of agriculture, technology and as well as sea level concerns and and climate change have been added to our responsibilities a couple of years ago. So, all of these things need to be basically considered and weighed and planned for over the over the 10-year period. And I apologize the the font is funky on this the translation and the font. So, bear with me here. how are plans used broadly speaking? they are used for by by the planning and zoning commission to determine regulation amendments and how the town should be zoned and planned for. so for instance if we in the plan decide oh we really need more manufacturing or more industrial land that would then cause the planning and zoning commission later to say all right where are areas in town that we should change their zoning maybe from residential to industrial because we decided we wanted more industrial. That's an example. We didn't say that this in this this case, but that's the the the the goal of the plan the the plan of conservation development is to guide municipal decisions. It also at a at a bigger scale guides municipal decisions when it comes to investment in infrastructure, investment in land divestment in land by the town. So if the town was going to extend, you know, so a water line, a public water line from Willamantic or something like that and an investment, you know, what would
be millions of dollars, the plan of conservation and development has to be resulted and and and the planning and zoning commission has to be asked. The town is thinking about making this investment or let's say we're buying a piece of open space and using taxpayer money to do so. the planning and zoning commission has to be asked the question does this investment match with the goals of the planet conservation development. Ideally it does. If it doesn't that actually forces essentially a veto override by town meeting or whatever entity is going to be approving that that plan. so so it is a very important consideration relative to municipal investments. If we're seeking grant money, particularly from the state or federal government, they really really like to see that the thing you're applying for, again, let's say it's a piece of open space or or watershed land or something like that, matches your plan of conservation development. If the town if the plan says, "Oh, we're all about industrial development here," and then the town turns around and say, "Oh, we'd like a million dollars to buy a piece of open space." The state's going to say, "Wait a second. That's not what the plan says." and and it might not look favorably. So it really behooves the town to put in their plan the stuff that they actually want to do, the open space that they actually want to invest in, the infrastructure that they actually want to invest in, and that will help in terms of in terms of of seeking that sort of government funding. the plan also has to coordinate with the regional and state versions of the master plan. The
state has a five-year plan called the state conservation and development priorities plan. and the capital region, which is the 30 something towns around the greater Hartford area, which includes Andover, has a regional plan. That's a snapshot of the regional plan. and as part of our process, we reviewed both the state plan and the regional plan to find areas of harmony and disharmony. And broadly speaking, we are we are pretty harmonious. Generally, the reason we're we're harmonious is that the state and the cog, the council of governments tend to actually defer pretty strongly to the the local plans. We are we are we tend to be Connecticut
tends to be sort of a grassroots municipal planning up approach. That's changed just slightly over the last couple of years, but broadly speaking, the the the state and the COG plans tend to be pretty diffial to municipal plans. how did this plan actually get developed? We've been working on this Jed for two years now or so.
Yeah, good year and a half.
we the last plan was adopted in 2015, so we're just a slight bit behind schedule on that, but we've been making progress and the state is aware of our progress. the town advertised for a consultant to help with this and my firm was selected. as part of that whole discussion, it was decided that we would be assisting with my firm would be assisting with stuff above and beyond the plan of conservation development. So, in addition to working on this plan for the last year and a half, two years, we've also been working on grants and and and projects to assist the the the town manager, the town administrator and and planning and zoning commission. we saw a couple of slides ago that
there's a bunch of stuff that the plan has to consider, open space and and sewer and water and housing and things like that. There is no defined process for how a plan gets developed and adopted at a at a local level. Town can do sort of whatever they want. A lot of towns will appoint, you know, a little a little ad hoc committee with, you know, someone from planning and zoning, someone from selectment, someone from conservation, someone from economic development, all go in a room and and and write the plan. some towns will just hire someone to go go write the plan, come back when you're done. Other towns will the planning and zoning commission, which is what happened in Andover, decided to have a committee of the whole so the entire planning and zoning commission would be participating in writing this plan. And so what we've done over the last 18 months or so is we've taken this sort of section by section, chapter by chapter and and produced updates that the commission
has been reviewing at its plan at its at its regular meetings. We also conducted an extensive community survey both online and in hard copy that asked all sorts of questions about different priorities and and whether you know people found that the the the school was a more important investment than the senior center or that the the the transfer station was more important than public works or that town administration was more important than parks and wreck. we we sort of add added some of these these questions about priorities and and the type of town that people would like to see. Ask people about their concerns, ask people about their hopes. and we incorporated a lot of that input into the plan. We started from a vision and we'll we're going to put the vision statement up on the screen in just a second. That was sort of the broad statement about what we would like Andover to be over the next 10 years. And then the components of that vision
were then broken down into the substantive chapters, the thematic chapters that again were based on stakeholder input. So when we started talking about conservation issues and natural resources and open space issues, we engaged the conservation commission who were very very active and had a lot of brought a lot of good ideas and and maps Hank to the table. When we talked about business growth, we we we interfaced extensively with the economic development commission and so on and so forth. So each topical area was was included was was incorporated with stakeholder input for those folks that knew the most and cared the most about those topics. A couple of things and we're all you're all Andover residents here, so I'm not going to get too deep into this, but an important part of figuring out where we're going to go is to really understand who Andover is, what our demographic makeup is, and what some of the the gaps are. And I again, I apologize for some of the formatting in this. The the font didn't really translate. so we're, you know, a small town of about 3,000 people. relatively well to do. the median household income over 120,000 with a very low poverty rate. So in comparison to a lot of the communities in the in the area or certainly statewide, Andover is doing relatively well fairly well educated populace where you've got, you know, nearly a quarter of your population has a master's degree or higher, which is which is very highly educated. but and and again not surprise to anybody we have relatively high home values. and this is this is
a you know a single family owner occupancy community. 94% owner occupied which is extraordinarily high. It's it's one of the highest owner occupancy rates in the state. and that I think contributes a lot to the stability of the community because that there's you know the vast majority of people are are really grounded and rooted here in Andover. our economic status. The middle map kind of shows you the inflow and outflow of jobs. Again, surprise to nobody. Andover is not a job center. We tend to be a veteran community and most of our working population is leaving town. We have of of the 3,000 odd people. More than half are leaving the town every day to work. and that you know that number like
that that's that's a gross number. So basically most working people are are leaving the town to to find work. Only 92 people both work and live in Andover. the gap and then there's a bunch of you know people who are either children or retired or they're not in the in the workforce. a little snapshot of some of the major you know that network is that considered a government job or is that a private employer? network even private employer. I mean it's possible major customers are mental but yeah
no I still you know I still struggle trying to figure out how we've got 304 government jobs in Andover.
Well that's those are I think the the jobs of the the the sector that the people in town work in whether or not it's in town. There are there are 300 people in government working in or from from Andover. So that's that's Yeah, it's it's not Andover jobs, it's the jobs of the people from Andover, if that makes sense.
Yeah.
All right. so this is going to be a little bit more difficult to read because Okay, I'm I'm going to read it from my laptop. So I'm going to indulge me here. It's it's the vision statement is kind of an important framing document for the whole plan. So with your indulgence, I'm just going to actually read the the vision statement as a whole. because I think it's an important statement that the the community is making. See? Okay. I invite you to close your eyes and think of Andover if you'd like. The town of the town of Andover Planning and Zoning Commission in developing this update to the 2015 plan of conservation and development is guided by a deep commitment to conserving and enhancing the historic rural atmosphere of Andover and by the intent to promote actions and policies that will encourage a more welcoming, connected, and sustainable community where opportunities for growth are available to all. A fundamentally rural agricultural nature has defined the community of Andover for centuries, and it continues to be a critical component of the town's self-identity as it faces the next decade. Making investments in the conservation of forests, farms, trail systems, and open spaces will help reinforce this spirit. At the same time, certain elements of change must be acknowledged and used to guide appropriate growth. An aging population and infrastructure, limited housing and economic development, and a changing climate also demand proactive plans and active responses. We envision, and this is okay, I'm going to go to the next page here.
This is the core of it. We envision an Andover that provides economic, housing, educational, recreational, and civic opportunities that maintain the community's excellent quality of life. We envision an Andover that strives to create more affordable housing to welcome a wider variety of new residents and households and ensures opportunities for residents to thrive throughout their life stages. We envision an endover that safeguards the integrity of our agricultural, natural, and historic resources through sustainable conservation. We envision economic development that takes advantage of major transportation and rail corridors and is scaled to fit with the spirit and pace of Andover. We envision a safe and vibrant Andover that connects the community through a network of complete streets and enhances the town's civic campus on both sides of Route 6. At its heart, we envision civic investment that acknowledges and plans for a changing climate and the need for equity for current and future residents. The next decade in Andover will continue to enhance the civic campus on both sides of Route 6 as the heart of our community while integrating thoughtful development in surrounding areas and throughout the town. Strengthening safe, vibrant, and inclusive connections among all areas of Andover balanced with conservation and natural balance of conservation and natural and cultural resources are essential to the realization of this vision. So that's what we want to do in this plan. Each of those statements there are six of them became the heart of topical chapter in in the plan itself. So the chapter is then structured once the vision is established in each of those we envision statements. So the first one is the excellent quality of life in Andover. In each of these guiding principle
sections, first being quality of life, we broke this down into broad goals for what the the what should happen to help enhance the quality of life or the other guiding principles. And so in quality of life, we're seeking to continue to provide public safety for residents, workers, and visitors. Continue to preserve the scenic and historic beauty that's cherished by residents and visitors. supporting and encouraging the high quality of of education that Andover students of Andover students through well-maintained and updated school facilities to manage and maintain parks and public lands for the continued enjoyment of Andover residents and to protect them from climate change impacts and lastly to foster and encourage new and expanded services for senior citizens. So these are the things that we recognize are important to Andover's continued high quality of life. in each chapter in addition to sort of laying the groundwork and describing there's a lot of narrative in each chapter that describes a high quality of life and breaks down the you know our our school system breaks down our open space and our recreation opportunities. So this is
this is just sort of the snapshot. And at the end of each chapter, those goals are further broken down into specific action items, specific recommendations for the things that the town should do, steps that the town should take to help ensure that these goals are reached over the next 5 years. so the guiding principles for housing opportunity which is our second we envision statement are to include are to ensure adequate housing for individuals of all ages and incomes that's available within Andover with a focus on a long residents to age in town and young adults to remain in town and grow their families which is something that we saw repeatedly that young people are forced to to leave town because they can't find adequate housing. seniors don't have adequate places to move into and are sort of stuck in houses that are too big for them to maintain as they age. so finding opportunities for all of those those things are important. We want to allow for a variety of types of affordable housing. incre including accessory apartments, that's that's a key part of this. increasing the number of affordable housing units through incentives and density bonuses where it's appropriate and to encourage additional housing in locations near existing services and transportation
options. So that that's that last one is sort of a a non-spal. If you're going to increase the activity, it should be in those places that there's already activity, places where you can get to schools, you can get to jobs, you can get to town hall and the library and the recreation facilities and and not scatter people into the winds. where it's really hard to get from one place to another. So that's housing. The third was about conservation. and the goals here were to aggregate tracks of land to create large intact conservation areas and open space corridors to promote connectivity of open space parcels within the open space corridors. where we want to make sure that the the open space and conservation areas communicate with each other not only for people but particularly for for wildlife as well to protect our natural resources including air, water, soil and diversity of native plants and animals. promoting a public awareness of the natural resources and the value of open space because an educated public about these these natural resources is is really critical to the efforts to protect them and to engage the community in conservation initiatives and support recreational opportunities where it's appropriate. So the best, you know, among the best ways to get people to to be conservationists is to get them out in nature and make them understand and appreciate what they're seeing.
as part of particularly the natural resources and conservation chapter. Again, we're we're very indebted to to Hank Gruner and Maryanne Gile who who provided extensive mapping support and identified sort of key areas in in a number of in a number of resources, our water resources, our air resources, soils, wildlife and all of those things are are very important to understand where they are and how these natural resource systems work together. We identified several key open space corridors that we're trying to build upon. And so, you know, the the question is, all right, well, we're going to, you know, try to get a grant some open
space, right? Where do you want that open space to be? And so, we've part of what was being done, working with the conservation commission is to identify some of these key corridors and obviously the eastern highlands, western highlands, and particularly the hop river corridor. which is which is a key natural resource. Of course, the hot river corridor will also come up in our next discussion which is economic development. and so the goals in in economic development again is to grow the Andover's grand list by providing additional development opportunities. consider and promote housing as economic development again because recognizing that Andover is a very small community that is primarily a bedroom community. we're not going to turn it into Silicon Valley overnight. We're not going to turn it into the Berlin bike ever. but and so, so what are their assets and and what kind of economic development can we can we attract? The fact that Andover is an extremely attractive bedroom community and it's very stable community. more housing is is an appropriate way to to grow economic development and promoting tourism by making Andover a destination through again with with promotion of the hot river, promotion of agurism, ecoourism, the the hot river trail corridor. All of these things are are assets that can be that can be promoted for economic development purposes. The what are we on? That's one, two, three, fifth. Now, guiding principle is complete streets. which was a
particular passion of our town administrator who who departed during the drafting of this plan. is to make sure that Andover is a safe place to navigate and a safe place to circulate around. So, the town should be making changes to its roads to make them more safe. And there's a variety of methods that we go through to do this in terms of maybe more widening shoulders or changing the striping of of roads in certain cases, adding sidewalks, adding multi-use trails and and making the crossings of multi-use trails across existing streets safer. And then to that line, we should we should pursue safe trail upgrades to provide safer and more efficient use of our existing trails. We should be pursuing sidewalks and multi-use trails and identify locations to encourage walking as a safe path. And particularly when we talked about the route six corridor being, you know, bisecting kind of the the key campus areas. Obviously, we're in the sort of the the northerly part, no southerntherly part of the campus right now. and with the the the library and churches and the recreation facility on on Longill, these are sort of two key parts of our civic campus, connecting these things together conveniently and safely across all modes of of transportation is a really important goal. And so knitting the the sort of the heart of the town together through through bike, pedestrian, and and other transportation means is a key goal. And then the town
should continue to focus on public awareness regarding bike safety, resident resident trooper visibility and speed enforcement. So making Andover a well connected and safe community where people can navigate around is really important. And then the last of the goal areas the guiding principles is about climate resiliency and sustainability. so we want to continue to make strategic investments in our infrastructure to in anticipate increased storm frequency and intensity. this is just the reality on the ground. We're getting bigger storms more frequently and and it's stressing our our bridges, our culverts, our roads, our flood plan. We want to make sure that we demonstrate climate resilience and planning for municipal infrastructure and facilities. So when we are replacing a culvert, we want to make sure that we don't just replace it in kind, but that we maybe upsize it because the flooding is getting bigger, the storm water events are getting more significant. So we need to plan for those future climate circumstances. And we want to make sure that our local planning on things like this, our infrastructure is aligned with state and regional plans so that we can make sure that we are doing things in harmony with the state and we're not we're not trying to fight them about that. maintaining collaboration with all these these levels of stakeholders. continue to look at investments in in
public water and wastewater. Again, Andover is a fairly rural place. We don't have a public sewer line. We don't have a public water line, but c certain growth opportunities may necessitate some of those things. And it doesn't necessarily mean, you know, bringing in sewers from well Atlantic or water from the Atlantic or something like that. there could be, you know, smaller package systems, smaller community systems that would enable the sort of growth that would be properly scaled to vendor and then prioritizing, you know, municipal investments to protect community facilities at risk. a fantastic example of this happened a couple of years ago. Hurricane Ivan, if you remember that, the the state of Vermont's emergency operations center, sort of their their beating heart of what happens in a crisis, was built in a flood plane and it washed away. which is a failure of planning, I would say. and so if the the community has critical facilities that are in floodplane areas or in in you know at risk areas, we should really rethink that and and make these municipal investments in areas that are likely to be more resilient to the
changing climate. And one of the final things that we did in as part of the plan is to identify a future land use map. and so this is this is it. the Route 6 corridor is a challenge. we call that the balanced growth area. particularly because you know we're again you're all Andover residents here. You know Route 6 is our transportation lifeline. It is also the most environmentally sensitive area in in town. And so that creates a challenge but also an opportunity for some balanced growth opportunities. looking at our regulations to see how we can both encourage development right along the Route Six corridor, but then protect sort of the northerly stretches of the Route Six corridor where it intersects with the Hot River area and its flood
plane and it's and the the the riparian area that is so important for environmental integrity there. And then the majority of the rest of town is is intended to continue to be a relatively rural lowdensity residential encouraging of open space, encouraging of forest preservation and then and then you know clustering development in in sort of key areas. And so the final part of the plan is the implementation guide. So, as I said previously, each of those areas the the guiding principle areas, conservation, economic development, housing, you know, quality of life, all of each of those things had those goals and then is assigned a a number in some cases a fairly large number of actual action items. And in each chapter, we list those action items. And in the implementation guide, which is at the back of the plan, includes not only what the goal is, but also who's responsible for it, how long it should take, who are the people that that are important to it, and approximately how much it will cost. And in this way, so we break down each of the goals. So again, you know, to build a civil civic engagement plan, that's going to be the responsibility primarily of the board of selectmen. They can't do it alone. They're going to need the help from their town administrator, town staff, commissioners, and that sort of thing. But it's something that they should get started on pretty immediately
within the first couple years of the plan, but it shouldn't cost that much money. And so we've done this same sort of analysis for all of the goals in the plan. and in that way it's it's easy to revisit and that the plan of the the planning and zoning commission as well as all of the the different boards and commissions can see that they have their to-do list mapped out for them in this plan and can track this year over year over year. When we get to year three of this plan, we open it up and say, "Hey, has the board of select been really started on any kind of civic engagement plan? They haven't. Well,
they better get to it, you And so this is this keeps everyone in town sort of accountable and answerable to the goals of the plan. and that basically concludes my presentation. I'm going to stop sharing my screen so we can see if there are any.
Before you do that slide, John.
Oh, too late. Okay, let's see.
yeah, sorry J what slide?
It was the future land use.
Yeah. now and my question is we keep hearing about you know the action item that's coming our way to create a developable land use map and I was just wondering how hard it would be to turn that thing that seemed to be the it would seem like if we could identify developable land and put it on that you we'd be done with one of the actions that I know is going to come.
Well, I it's going to be Ricky and I Well, there I have a couple responses to that. So, so for those who aren't familiar, the the state of Connecticut passed a law in November, public act 251, which requires municipalities to develop a housing growth plan, which is a five-year plan that replaces the affordable housing plan that municipalities had to produce a couple years ago. And a housing growth plan will be will have a number attached to it which is a goal. and and we don't know what that number is yet because the state hasn't really hasn't developed those numbers. But at at some point in the next year, Andover will get
assigned a number in collaboration with the state in the region which will be our target for new for new housing in town over 10 years. Part of that analysis is going to be, as Jed said, a developable land analysis. that is guidance is going to be is forthcoming from the state. it's not clear exactly how they're going to do this, but I I I suspect they're going to have a couple of hard categories of high developability and a couple of hard categories of low developability, which would be the low developability would be flood planes and wetlands and active, you know, actual water bodies. land that are encumbered by, you know, ownership by the state. if it's state forest or it's town town park. those are sort of offlimit developments. Then there's other things that are going to be highly developable which is you know land you know immediately adjacent to ster state roads that has access to public sewer and public water that has existing development in the vicinity that has perhaps a transit station. And over doesn't have one of those but if you've got you know if you're on Metro North train station area surrounding that will be highly developable. and then everything else is going to be sort of gray areas, slightly more, slightly less developable. I don't think necessarily that the state is going to come up with anything that isn't really
reflected here already. you know, we we considered large forest blocks. We included we talked about areas of open space. We talked about areas of of highway infrastructure, of flood plane, of wetlands. I I don't think it's going to be that much different from from the considerations we've already had, but I would suggest when that guidance comes out, which is probably not going to come out until close to December, this commission could consider making an interim change, an interim adop revision to this plan of conservation and development to adopt those standards. I think more likely we'll we'll it'll just get wrapped up into our housing growth plan which you know the housing growth plan is intended to reflect the the goals and and the analysis of Atlantic conservation and development. So,
so I had really, you know, my first thought was, well, we know, we know what the developable things are, less the terms of where we consider affordable housing, you know, back here with the transfer station, right? And then quarters,
right?
then I guess, you know, we've got these big tracks of land, you know, like up on Skinner and and that and I guess those could be considered developable, too. develop a bowl, but but yeah, perhaps not high priority.
Yeah,
because of because of their their you know, their remoteness or lack of proximity to to other resources, but yeah.
Okay.
Good question, T. Thank you. all right. Now, I'm going to actually to stop the share. Okay, I'll turn it back to you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Josh. now we're going to have a section here where we have questions by staff, commissioners, and any comments by the public. And I respectfully ask everybody goes like one at a time. And anybody got any questions?
You're starting starting with commission.
Starting with commission. Good idea. I got a comment. One of the things that you know surprised me I guess and maybe it shouldn't is when we were talking about Andover's budget we said that education took up 81% which okay but I said 19% to run the town and I do remember that on the survey you know clearly the very top priority of everybody in the town adequately maintain the roads and the bridges and in your comment on the 81% is reflective of similar to other towns. So, I guess everybody's running their town pretty tight, but you know, one of the the things that Bob Hamburger commented on and at, you know, the tri the, board of ed, finance, and board of selectment meeting was, you know, we've got 33 miles of road, and I think the number came up to a million and a half dollars per mile to put down new road and and how many years you have to do it. But, you know, we need to be banking a couple million dollars a year to just be able to maintain the roads. That's not counting the the covers in that. And so I guess I just put that for our awareness as we go into, you know, we're into budget season now that last year down budget took a good hit and we can't keep doing that and maintain that excellent quality of life that we were talking about you can drive around and have a road that you don't fall into the pothole and hoof up your car on. bill that that surprised me that I always thought we were trying to to
go, you know, almost balanced one third for RAM, one third for the school here, one third for the town, but I guess we didn't do that as well as I thought we were.
It's Yeah, that the the town has a lot less control over school expenses than than it does over municipal expenses.
Yeah. one one thing I didn't mention during my presentation is it's our responsibility as part of the public hearing process for this plan to provide a copy to the board of selectmen for their comment as well as to provide a copy to the capital region council of governments or regional government for their comments. the selectman I I believe Scott correct me if I'm wrong had had no extensive comments on the plan. we gave him an opportunity last month to come to the meeting. and the the capital region forwarded a letter on Monday I believe we including in the record they had no they had no negative comments about the plan they they basically endorsed it so so we've satisfied our our statuto responsibilities that way
great
yeah question you're saying about putting in the sidewalks and stuff like that the public access and then again, we're saying that this town is there's a lot of seniors in this town, which are great. what's going to happen to the taxes? We're going to have to hire more people to the town to clean these sidewalks. We're going to have to have more equipment to clean these sidewalks. We're going to have, you know, all this development. How's this all going to get funded? Because you got a senior pound, fixed income. You can't be keep cranking up these tax people because you're they're going to leave. It's going to do the opposite of what you want. Whereas if we did something like the made moose where we took some land and we put canoes in and we made people want to come here for activities and that money went into town. It's bringing people here to see our town and maybe want here. You know, I just think that spending a lot of money on transportation without adding sidewalk. This is more expense to the other. it is true that adding infrastructure cost money.
it also adds to the quality of life. which is also seen in rising property values. If you have a pleasant town that people want to move to and live in and walk around, your your property values will increase as a result. but that's also why economic development, as you say, is an incredibly important component. We can't, you know, not have any new businesses or any growth happen and and expect the same people to pay increased property tax. As you said, that's that's untenable. That that is unsustainable. So, some certain amount of growth is necessary and and that's where economic development comes in. We need to bring more businesses. you know, people people said basically, you know, we're going to we should use Route 6 for more shopping opportunities, for more restaurants, for you know, you know, small businesses and things like that. That sort of economic development will grow the grandest and not create the same strains as you know, senior housing and that sort of thing.
Correct.
So, it's it's a balance and so it's it's not let's just do main booths and not sidewalks for anybody. It's a it's a question of both. It's a question. that keeps your environmental area nice, too. So, you have that, but yeah, agree. You need to have your Dollar Generals, your a few other things to come in here to offset it.
I want to have the people in this town who can't stay in our houses anymore be able to stay in this town and have a place to go to, too. I agree with that, right? But I don't want to go get so that can't afford to live.
I I think your your concerns and your goals are exactly reflected in the plan. But yeah, it's it's you. Yeah, we we can neither we can neither expect, you know, people to to pay for more and more enhancements without, you know, getting without getting anything in return. and and we want to create that that I don't know I guess pipeline is the wrong word but to you know to create those opportunities for people to live in town and and you know if you're in you know a widow or widowerower in a 4500 foot you know five bedroomedroom house you're just rattling around you don't want to go up and down the stairs anymore but you love and or you want to stay in town we want to create those opportunities for people to stay and then have a young family move into that that be old house and keep the generations going and so that you know the the people who have been paying taxes in these big old houses can retire in town in a smaller you know in an empty neester sort of situation pay less taxes still appreciate the town and and the town has continued to grow for a
young family.
Well the perfect example is Hurst Farm.
Think about small little farm right trees. Now look at it. It's got a beautiful store. Get homemade stuff made there which is awesome. It's a great place to go. that's taking an existing property and making it into something they might want to go there and see. My wife used to go there when she was a little kid. So, it's and it's got much, you know, favor.
And so, part of that is to make sure that our regulations are in place to allow folks like the her farm to grow their operation and not have the town sort of get in the way of that. and and yeah, so so we have that sort of continuity and we allow the existing businesses and exactly that type of business that you know the Hurst family farm is is exactly the kind of business that reflects and you know it's it's a it's a it's a money maker for the family. It's a money maker for the community in terms of its tax revenue and its generation of of tourism. and it's you know it doesn't it doesn't detract from the community. So that that
you know our our economic development efforts, our regulations have to reflect that.
A lot of things like that would be awesome.
Yeah. I quarterly invite you to economic development commission meetings. We're always looking for volunteers and we've been talking a lot about what you just asked. So
you guys approved a place for my parents to move in and I'll defin that question.
Go ahead Jay. Yeah, just I just wanted to respond to to that conversation. first of all, you know, thank you for that presentation. I think it's really wonderful to see development in Andover being contemplated in a very thoughtful way. I think keeping keeping Andover Andover while still developing is very important. but just getting to getting to the idea of the sidewalks or general being ability to navigate the town outside of driving you know folks on the Andover Lakeside in particular you know that's my experience living here for the past 20 years it's a very dangerous area to walk because there are no sidewalks there are no real ways of navigating around and we do walk it. and you can see some of the you talk about some of the the older folks in town you know they they're wearing you know bright orange jackets and flashlights anything they can to try and not get hit while still getting exercise. and my wife and I have to do the same thing. So, I think and if anybody's done some research on the town and the livability of the town for people that might be thinking about coming here, we do really well in just about every case. Our school, the environment, all of that. where we don't do well is walkability. very very poor. so I think that you know, I don't have any numbers or anything. This is just gut. But I would I would suggest that if we do it if we we do think about improving on foot or on bike navigility
of the town in a way that we can sustain we'll end up bringing more people into the town incl es especially small families that are going to be here for a long time and invest. So, that's my two cents, but thank you very much for that presentation. That was great.
Thank you, Jay.
really John, more questions on the process than anything. So, the conservation commission number of months back, we had did a sort of a final edit review and submitted, I think, some edits to the maps for clarification, some edits to the text. so I I'm curious as to sort of where the plan is. Is there a version posted now? Is it is it a is it available? Is, you know, what's time table sort of for wrapping up the ball on it? So yeah, and I think the a number I think of just about all of the changes that were proposed by yourself and Maryanne a couple of months ago have been incorporated into the version that would that will ideally be adopted. The exception is I believe last week or so our weapons
officer
provided a little bit of commentary on some of the goals and I' I'd forward it to you to to review those. So there are a couple of technical changes that are yet to be incorporated. Yep.
And so it's really up to this commission on whether or not they want to you guys want to review those sort of last minute technical changes or you know possibly adopt the plan pending the incorporation of sort of this last little bit. but yeah, so it's
yeah,
you know, it's it's sort of up to the commission how they want to handle that.
Okay. to to that point. I met with Joe Wangner, the weapon agent, last week, went through that and corresponded with you on that. So that we went sort of item by item who his comments were which were related to the in the wetlands regulations and recommendations we had made to look at potential updates to those which would be part of a separate regulatory review process that would wrote that implementation plan. so I leave it up to the commission how they would handle it. We do have we did and I think I sent you some of the language although if you want to sit down a little bit more details we could do that but there were some elements you talked about the implementation chapter tonight you showed that that's been filled out with responsibilities timets budgets things like that that wasn't in the earlier
review that we looked at right
and I know that we had put together a number of recommendations associated with policy with letting zoning rags wetlands rags roles of conservation commission and land own land land owner and public outlets and so on and so forth. So you know is that available for review to look at the the schedules of those and and what you're looking
that's been that that the implementation table has been on the town website for for two months already.
Okay. Okay.
It's posted this this draft is posted in the planning and zoning section.
Okay. under new pend under pending applications.
Okay. Thank you.
So that so could Mr. You have another time.
Just want to tag on to what talked about the commission or anything but if we want to comment on this what is the deadline I just I don't think this is well well publicized. I don't remember seeing stuff in the river east said this is available for public comment and visa provided by XYZ date. So I heard about this meeting tonight and I it's a good it's a good lengthy documents. I started for you to get but I certainly couldn't get through with it. So what is the timeline for public comments to be provided on this jerk doc?
It's it's really up to the commission. This is the public hearing.
No, but I'm just talking about I don't think it was well publicized. If I if I if I missed something or missed a vote or something, I don't remember seeing anything on the town Facebook page or the River East or anything about this. So, hearing about this, I I'm I guess I feel timely pressed to provide this, but I was asking what is the deadline?
Yeah, that's that's a I I refer that question back to the to to the commission. It's really it's it's entirely their discretion on on whether to you know recognizing that some people feel like they weren't aware of the process sufficiently. The commission is certainly in within its own power to continue the hearing or you know basically give give the public another month to submit written comments or whatever. This is this is the public hearing you know. so it's really and you know and I I I'm not at all trying to sort of like a blame a victim things because a lot of times these things just
you know sort of fly below the radar. You know the these these meetings have been happening for two years now. The process has been has been occurring. You know we've done outreach through the various commissions and and boards and so sought their input. Part of part of being part of a municipality and part of democracy is is showing up and making yourself aware. You know, we there's a limit to how much sort of individual doornocking or handholding the the commission can do. That said, you know, if people aren't aware, that's that's not ideal. That's not ideal.
If I miss somebody, my bad,
right? So, and you know,
right, it's really it's really up to the commission to figure out how how they want to close the loop on that. If I may, that's why in in the action items right in the beginning, one of the one of the items is that how how are we going to engage our population more you know the education of how the government does and you know be more involved and you know we from what I've noticed in almost 20 years here in for people that want to know they start showing up to the things to find out and you know I'm sorry that you can get more notice u if there's any major concerns you know now's the time to voice your opinion and we'll take it into consideration. I mean we're not ask we're also not asking to put a sidewalk on every street man over here. This is I mean
that's not answer.
Yeah. I know right. You know it's like John said it's a balance between the the conservation and and a little bit of development the way we we would all like to see. We he's done a bunch of surveys and a lot of the commission members I speak for myself actually we talk to other friends and family in town and we get the idea of you know well what what does everybody want to see our town do with the next 10 years and that's basically in my opinion that's the plan of conservation and development how how are we going to expend our resources not just money but we have a big volunteer element you know this entire commission is you know elected but still volunteer same with the conservation wetlands. I can keep going. So to answer your question, come on down anytime. All meetings.
Okay.
Yeah. Thank little comment. Go ahead. There's again there's a lot of not I don't want to go backwards in time, right? But there's a lot of other people and there's a lot of that don't know how to access internet stuff like that. You know, maybe people thought that a little French that said there's going to be no public media on such and such day. They might maybe they want to go, but they weren't sure. You know, this wasn't enough. Internet is a way everybody works going on the town hall page. You can see what are displayed there. I get that. But I'm just thinking about people that are in their 80s and their 70s. you name on paper have access to that as well. But we also still the town clerk town clerk post all the meetings on on the board so
that and we have a community center now so that you can see come on over and take a look and
and all public hearings are are advertised in the breeze.
Yeah.
Okay. I didn't know that also to answer your question when I was on planning and zoning for the record over 10 years ago and this was our big concern too is what a lot of people when they get to a certain age and they don't want to have the big house anymore where their family's moved away or started their own families. They don't want to it's expensive to live in a big house man's over
and pay the taxes never mind. Right. So that was on our SK that was on our plan of conservation 10 years ago too was to find a spot to put a community you know senior housing
over 55 and we're still working on it. So it's a work in progress. This is basically you know what we
absolutely
this is the our best shot at you know this is our this is our goals
and whether we achieve them all or not is up to how much support we get basically. Yep. it's always the same, but 50 or 100 people in this town that are involved,
right?
You know, I see you guys in town all the time. Everybody in this room, but then when you're walking around, you see the people that come to the meetings are always the same ones. They're the ones that are involved in the town. It's good we have volunteers. Go ahead, Lean.
Very good.
I didn't I thought you were done. I thought
Go ahead, Lean.
Sorry. I thought Scott was through. Scott, are you through?
Yes.
Okay, there's I hope you can hear me okay because I'm getting even more vibration than usual listening. So, I'm going to be a little bit vague, but it seems to me when the conservation commission came to us, I want to say it was sometime in the middle of last year, they had a couple of recommendations that I had questions about and I haven't been able to find them. I found them at one point in prior to this meeting, but I'm not finding them again. And I'm not when I look where somebody just said the POCD is on the town website under planning and zoning commission, my computer's just not bringing it up. I'm getting some kind of an error message. And I've also looked in my emails from John for the draft. But basically, one one or two of their suggestions had something to do with wetlands related to lot sizes and coverage and percent of wetlands. And I had a question at the time and it's my recollection is that and again I'm being vague because I can't put my finger on it now but that Jed agreed with me at the time and part of my point is I thought we were going to revisit that and I was kind of looking out for it and I don't know that we ever did.
Other words I think they just got incorporated pretty much into the POC. So yeah, hopefully it's something that I can find very soon. It'll be outside of the public hearing.
but I don't know Jed if you have any recollection of this.
Yeah, I I believe I'm sorry J if I might. I believe Leanne you're if you have a copy of the PDF, it's page 58. It's it has to do with the regulatory action recommendations from the conservation commission concerning replacing and and I'm going to look at Hank for this replacing 75% with 100% of wetlands acreage removed when calculating building allowances for sites.
Correct.
That sounds like it.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's it's in it's a recommendation in the conservation chapter which is six specifically page 58. and I don't know Hank if you there's any other elaboration you want to make.
Yeah. No, that that's absolutely correct. And Leanne, the you know, from the conservation commission standpoint, when we're presenting when we review the town's policies, regulations, sort of outreach and educational initiatives with the within town as well as management around town properties. One of the things that we focused on is that these were recommendations that we anticipated interfacing as a commission with the inland wetland commission with planning and zoning during the implementation phase of the of the plan of conservation development. So in other words, adoption of the plan of conservation development as I understand it doesn't adopt those regulations. I have a separate process to review and adopt regulations and that's where those discussions could occur and you know further research or whatever that was needed to sort of refine that or adopt that would occur. So these were just our take of the areas that we felt that needed to be looked at and our recommendations of how we thought they should be. But that there would be a process going forward hopefully earlier than later in the implementation to tackle those those recommendations. Yeah. And and this is a
an enormous oversight of mine in my presentation. I call this a advisory document which is important to reinforce. If adopted, this plan is not law. It does not change anything other than becoming the new advisory document for all you know future investments of the town, future regulatory changes of the town, all this stuff. This this basically this should be our goal. But the key part there is should be it is then falls to each individual board and commission to then go through their process on changing regulations on making investments on all that stuff has to go through the board of finance go through planning and zoning go through the board of selecting and go through town meeting depending on the individual process for how that recommendation gets carried out. So if this gets adopted, you know, it does not it does not fundamentally change the way we we go about our daily daily lives or how we do zoning. It just lays the groundwork for those future changes.
I think one of the things I remember Hank being very passionate about when we were
You remember that meeting?
I do. And you know and we probably can't show it up here, but there's there's a map in here that shows our business corridor all along route six. And then there's Hank's map with the open the Hop River corridor right on top of all that business development thing. And so one of the things that we were working on is do we have the town zone proper? you know, are the right ones, industrial business, that sort of thing. And there's going to be times where from a conservation standpoint, we don't want to develop that thing. So, we need to to break that right right this minute. We got the broad brush. Here's the hot river corridor we want to protect. Here's the
business we want to develop. And they are the exact same thing. And so, we we've got to get back to that. And it was a lot harder than I thought it was when you were working on that. And that's why, you know, it took us six months to
figure out it was going to be hard.
So I I think that's what I don't know if that's what Vian was talking about or not, but I know that's one of the things that you and Maryanne wanted to make sure that we continued working on as soon as we got done with this thing.
Okay. So, are you all saying that this is that the POCD isn't law? In other words, that this could still be applied even though it says, you know, this is like if somebody's reading it and they didn't follow this process at all and they said it says this is what you're supposed to do, are you saying that there's still room for like the the IWWC and us to modify that?
Yes. Most of the actions start out with the words consider.
Yes. It's yes it's and it's deliberately written. Yeah. that said if Yes. So this you are absolutely correct. This is not law. There's still lots and lots and lots and lots of room for negotiation and reconsideration and and even even you know opposing votes. the the one wrinkle there is so let's say you know next year at this time the plan is adopted inland wetlands comes or or conservation commission comes before planning and zoning with some proposed zoning changes that might change you know calculation of of developable area based on wetlands or what have you. they propose to make a zoning change and they the the weight of the argument will be on their side
because that argument will be presented in the plan of conservation and development as a strong recommendation to let's say change the impervious coverage as an example. when when the zoning commission reviews a proposal such as that, they are obliged to look at the plan of conservation and development and say is this supported by the planet conservation development or is this in opposition to the goals of the planet conservation development. In theory, if they are trying to adopt a regulation that is in opposition to the plan of conservation and development, they should have a basically a supermajority, essentially a veto
override of the goals of the plan. but that is possible if you know if you get a supermajority of the commission of planning and zoning that says, "Yeah, we don't really care for these recommendations by by conservation or by wetlands or by whomever." and and they get a supermajority vote. That's the end of that recommendation. So yeah, it is it is absolutely not law. It does not change any policies yet, but it just recommends that those policies get changed in a certain direction.
Okay, I think that makes sense. Thank you.
I like when it makes sense. Hi, this is this is Elaine Bookart, the chairman of the Economic Development Commission, chiming in. I you're going to be hearing this a lot from me over the next couple of months during the whole budget process because the most important thing for us and to move forward with a plan of conservation development is to have a planner. And I we haven't had a planner in town. We don't have we don't have a town planner until we just recently hired John to go ahead and do the POC. And hopefully we will continue to budget money to have a planner to work with us on the POC for doing any of the things that are that are recommended any kind of economic developmental stuff, any kind conservation efforts, anything we need to have a planner because I think John pointed how how how horribly things can go if it's not planned properly. You know, if you don't have a planner and
you're not having the right oversight, you're going to put something in the wrong spot. that was a good example that John had made of a mistake with poor planning. So I I am going to be advocating that we definitely have in the budget to have a planner continue on once the POCD is done then to hopefully still have John as our planner. so I'll be advocating for that so we can continue on with this. But yeah, this is just this is this is how we would like to proceed for the next 10 years. and we're going to have to work out all the details and the plans and the money and what people really want over the next 10 years that goes ahead and gets us toward our goals of what we have written in the POC. That's it. Thanks.
So, Elaine, that under economic development, that is action item number one.
Yeah. make sure we have a planner because it's so frustrating. We're just a volunteer committee. No matter what ideas we have, we don't have the expertise to you move forward with any of it. You know, we need we need a planner who knows what's going on. And also planners planners know how to find the grants and the money that's out there to go ahead and help us with our goals. the money's out there, but you have to have people who know how to go out and find it. so yep, that's our number one goal. Thanks.
Thank you, Elaine.
Well, if I could just
Yeah, I I didn't know it till I attended the training session the other night on the new state bricks, but you know, John is certainly tied in well with the Capital Region Council of Government and doing a lot of stuff there. So he he knows what's going on there and he can he can represent and overwhel in all those things in addition to doing it down. So I think we got the right guy to help us out. We just need to hold on to him.
Yes discussion. Oh, and also going back a couple minutes the the question was how do some of the seniors find out the you know information I know that John actually sent out surveys of paper too and they were distributed to seniors at senior lunch so that we could get more data because we recognize that some people don't use the computer and you know well did we do a good enough job I don't know but that's one of the things that we're also addressing in this I'm trying to be more communicative than more educational to the public.
We need to encourage Diane Granny to get back on the this and that. Yeah, there you go. All right. There any other questions, comments about the plan of conservation development online or here? All
set. Thanks. I mean, at this point, Mr. Chair, you're looking for a vote to either a motion to either continue or or close the hearing. If you were looking to close the hearing, I I would think that you may want to make a note that the the proposed, you know, technical adjustments to the implementation guide as as proposed by conservation and the wetlands officer could be incorporated into the final document. I I you know I Hank I don't know if you think that they're going to be if they're relatively targeted or or they're they're sort of fundamental to changing the the spirit of the plan.
No, they're not really a big shift. They're just a little bit more to clarify from what's existing in there and a couple of the regulations. They don't really shift any of the regulations. There was there was some clarification issues with some of what was designated as a cold water stream because we had conflicting diagn so how
I I you know and what I and I think I haven't seen sort of the final final recommendation play out but I I would put them in the category of of technical adjustments basically. So that's, you know, do do with that what you want may chair.
Thank you.
And I've got probably half a dozen little things to pass on to John that probably aren't worth talking about here tonight, but they're sort of technical on just making a little bit more accurate.
Okay. so at this point motion to close the public hearing.
Okay. No second with before we make the vote, I'd like to just make that note of the technical adjustments that were going to be the pending technical adjustments to be adopted from the conservation commission and the small edits you were mentioning, J before we vote. And we're ready to vote. Oh, sorry. I can just close the public hearing because it's not
close it. You can Yeah. Ask anybody thinking open.
That's a good idea. Anybody have a reason to keep the public hearing open for the plan of conservation and development? Okay, I'm going to close the public hearing for plan conservation and development. Thank you everybody for your hard work. It was a long long time coming and a lot of work involved from all the commissions. Thank you to everybody that that helped with that, especially John. So, now we're going to move on to the We show the reverse picture here.
Is there is there a hard copy in front?
Okay, there there it is. Full paragraph by you guys. Yep.
All the great things you're doing out here. So the public hearing is closed. I'd like to take a five minute recess so everybody can take a bathroom break.
You need to vote on
to I just closed the hearing. So the hearing's closed. I haven't seated.
well that would be for the regular meeting.
Regular. We have not started the regular meeting. So five minute recess please and then come back start the regular meeting.
I I just got his comments from a week ago. And so I basically like a day or two. Thank you. We're going to start with that.
way better than what 10 years ago that still like listed his draft. The one on the website Joe,
was that was this like his party?
He didn't tell
you they left to Chicago. the conservation commission they do an excellent job.
We talked about traffic. traffic that is outweigh but like in certain spots we have the share of So you came from people are aware that your bicycle
you eyes as you get older. There's been people walking and I just always assume they're not going to see me. So you are right back. All right. Here we go. Buckle up.
Okay. I'm calling to order the regular scheduled meeting of planning and zoning Andover, Connecticut, March 17, 2026. John, is it still recording or are we gonna Yeah, you're still recording.
Oh, okay. Yeah. Great. All right. Now, we're going we have sad news. We had a resignation from the planning and zoning commission and a is no longer going to be on the commission. And so before I do the roll call, I just wanted to make that announcement. And we're going to be seating an alternate tonight. Two alternates. One alternate. Yep. we have Kevin and Jay. He's gonna flip a coin. Let's see. Spoon volunteer to be seated for alternates.
Makes no difference to me. You can see Jay.
Okay. Thank you, Kevin. Jay,
happy seat. Jay Cayman's for increment and present is Scott Persan, Jed Larson, and Hutchinson and myself. And we have next order of business. We have a change to the agenda, right, Wayne? Or is that already been removed? No, it's still on the agenda. Okay. Should we do that now? We're going to remove there was an application
eed to motion and
the application of oh what road was it?
item 16.
Yeah. 34 Old Farms Road. That application has been withdrawn. Application 26-6 SP with
Thank you very much. we need to make a motion for that or to
take it off the agenda, you know. Okay. It's sort of academic, isn't it?
Let's do it.
Can I get a motion to remove that from the agenda?
Make a motion to remove item 6A from the agenda.
Thank you.
Second.
Oh, thank you, Jay. Secondly by Jay.
all in favor? I
Okay. Any other additions or changes to the agenda that anybody wants to bring?
Moving on to public speak. any public speak that's concerns, topics not on this agenda? Moving on. old business.
Okay. Up first is 5A, the special permit or the accessory department at the far hurst farm store. discussion.
Any concerns? Make a motion to approve the application. I'll second that. Thank you, Ted. All in favor?
I
J. And Leanne.
I
All right. And your special permit application is approved. I just like to make a note.
Go ahead, Wayne.
It's effective when it's filed with on the on the land records.
Yeah, this is very important. It's come to our attention in the past. the applicants don't always file the the the last part of their application.
You'll get a notice u the notice of action and that needs to be filed that you need to file that and the land records.
I believe Thomas is familiar with that.
Yeah, it's the same as your two other
special permits that you got.
Thank you. Anybody trying to do something?
Yeah. And I just want to get in the habit of making sure we make that announcement after the approval of any application because it's come to our attention that he passed the follow through was not done and then five years later somebody oh I was approved and we have to look it up in the minutes and it's never been filed on the land record. So thank you much and I hope you enjoyed the plan of conservation information. Yeah.
You're welcome to stay. You don't have to do it.
All right. Congratulations.
Thank you very much. Moving on to 5B.
Yes, this is for for me. U if you guys remember you approved the accessory department for St. going 280 Route 6
in December and so come to me with a revised floor plan.
We jumped ahead a little bit later.
Oh, I did.
Yeah, it's okay. BD. Yeah.
your old sh Oh, I'm sorry.
That's okay.
I'm sorry.
I just want to get that out of the way. Then we can definitely move on. strike here for the record.
Better not be quiet.
Okay. I think that right before we started the regular meeting, we were ready to have our final discussion and and or make a motion to adopt the POC with the pending technical adjustments and small edits from Jenner. Now, would you like to still make the motion or do we need more discussion? so let's say that if we don't need any more discussion what would what's the the next step after we vote that it's done what so the the if if you are limiting the edits to the the minor editorial things that you are offering and the things that that Hank is filtering from the outgoing wetlands officer. Those would be the only editorial changes we would make to the plan. We would so we would we'd finalize that, clean it up until it's it's final it final PDF. We'll print copies, put it on the website, distribute. But that would be the change. And the other the I would note like in the in the text of the plan as I was going through there is in the middle of it there is a a note in red that says insert photo of town garage or
something like that that that you know so there's there's a couple of little formatting things that need to get cleaned up but nothing that affects the the substance of the plan.
so we would yeah we would basically produce a final PDF. we would take so we put adopted by planning and zoning commission on the state that sort of thing on a on the final PDF
and you know probably the most
significant comment that's technical in nature only is the you know the the graph of Andover elementary school enrollment shows the dip in 2021 can you show me what page it's on page two okay on page one, you know, in the bottom sentence there, while school enrollment declined until 2018 to a low of 191.
And so that's different than what your graph shows
and then later on you do have the right year for the dip in a in a different discussion.
So that's it's we just need to change 2018 or to 2021. I guess you the other kind of comment I think we we talk about school street I think it's school road but this is so these that's the nature
these are typographical yeah
I'll just send them over to you to just make it a little cleaner
yeah it doesn't change the substance of the plan it's right
so I could approve the plan and authorize John to make the technical and typographical
edits that we're discussing.
We could approve it. Yeah. Do Wayne thing.
Yeah. So, it's it's approved with the very limited typographical changes that that are that are submitting. Yeah.
Okay. I'll make a motion to approve the plan of conservation development.
I'll second that.
All right. I'll take an official vote. Go ahead. One of the things after we make a motion, we should always have a little opportunity for discussion on the motion.
Thank you.
There has to be a lot you give if you give that opportunity.
Any discussion on the motion before we take a vote?
And and that we've noted the technical adjustments just the typographical edits. I will now take a vote. I for myself Scott I Jed by I
Leanne
I
and J
I
motion passes 500. We have a new plan of conservation. Congratulations. Thank you again everybody. That was a lot of work that was put into this. So thank you. Thank you. And now
Yeah. Thank you. Now we can go out to new business. Item 6A was removed previously. Item 6B, a market rate accessory apartment.
Unless you'd like to swap C and B, Wayne.
No, it's fine.
Okay,
I'll give to you. All right, Wayne.
Well, it's a it's another market race. Trust me, it's hard one. I believe I gave you guys the the application 32 right now. It's just set a hearing date. I know. Anyway, that's what that is. The applicant Colorado Land Gloss.
Yes. I pronounced that right?
Language.
Lang voice. All right. anyway, at at this point, this is just to set the public hearing date for the success rate. All right. He's here. We got I mean, you can't deliberate it now. This isn't this isn't a time to ask questions about the project or anything like that. That is for after for during the public for after the public hearing. I just want to make that understood. I But if Ron wants to say something, I think he can go ahead.
I can I can say a little about it just so you have a little idea. So, I have 24 acres of land up where I live. we have a horse farm right there. Now, between the barn and my back garage that's attached to my house, two car attached to the house. We're looking to put a a new unit in for my 90 year old parents that are having dad has dementia. We're trying to get them so they're expensive and we can u help them out more. So, so it's going to be a standalone unit. It's going to be 20 ft
from the back garage, but it's going to be about, I think it's like 60 ft from the barn. not near the property line at all. And, what we're going through right now is I'm waiting for Glenn from the, well, east east dish to get back to me. He talked to me and we're waiting on them right now. I had a new tank put in in 2020, septic tank. my leech fields are very good. He's officer, but we're waiting for some looking for some dimensions on how deep the pipes are and stuff like that from the drain experts that put in the tank. So Glenn is on vacation this week, so I have nothing to do on that.
So be careful at this point. This we're not the commission really shouldn't be. It's not deliberating, debating or anything like that. It's only setting the date for your public hearing when you have to have all that stuff
ready for the commission.
Yes. I I sent an email this morning that list of
So that's what we're looking to do is put up an ad.
My my only comment would be is if you know trust Wayne if if you think you need more time then we can schedule the public hearing a little later if you're having a hold up with anything like the
I'm not having a hold up.
No no he's having a hold up with with health department etc. What are we looking at right now, Wayne, for the
Well, the the commission could theoretically schedule the public hearing for next month's meeting, the 20 21st,
or it could push it off till May 17 or something like that. what you don't want is you don't want to have an incomplete application because they you it can't be approved,
right?
okay. And I don't know what the situation is with Eastern Highlands Health District. That's that's between you and them.
Okay. I may have to put it off, but is is there a timeline of when I can put it off? Like if I if we set the date tonight for next month,
the hearing has to happen within 65 days of receiving the application.
Okay. Right. And then we could leave the public hearing open, but that's up to
you. You could have the public hearing next month,
right?
Then leave it open pending. You know, that's it. Sort of goes to you how you want to, I guess, roll the dice. with Eastern Highlands Health District,
let's schedule it for next month. And,
you could always ask for an extension. I can ask for an extension that way.
Sounds good.
Motion.
I motion.
I'm asking for a motion
to set a public hearing date for the special permit application 26-4 SP.
I'll make a motion. We set the public hearing date for April 21st.
Thank you. All in favor?
I I
motion passes 500 Z and we have to I think Wayne is already familiar with this process. He puts in a public the you put in a notice, right? Right.
There'll be two legal notices assigned posted on the on the street. Sounds good.
You'll get all that information and time to do it. Is the meeting usually at 7 o'clock? Usually at 7.
Yes. We try to have the public hearing first.
All right. Thank you. You're welcome.
Moving on to new business item C.
Okay.
Go ahead, Wayne. You're on.
All right. So the commission approved So county's application for this accessory apartment 2806. This is new construction and new accessory fun. we have brought in a revised floor plan that includes a garage where the accessory apartment originally was intended. so my question to the commission is whether or not this is a minor change that I can just approve or circle back for a new public area. And is he still doing the accessory apartment?
He's still doing the accessory apartment. Basically, he did the the footprint of the of the residence is staying the same. It's not changing. He's moving the the accessory apartment upstairs directly above where the ground,
right? The garage is going where the accessory apartment originally was going to be and over the garage is going to be the accessory apartment. Same size, same dimensions. don't see my changes. I mean, I have the before and after drawings here. So, this is this is what you guys approved and this is what he's brought me. So, this is Yeah, this first go. I'm sorry. The garage is going where the kitchen got this was the accessory apartment. And this was I'm sorry this is the access sorry this is the accessory apartment right here. No, actually now it's a garage and I moved it to the this attic space is now the accessory apartment
change.
That's certainly a smaller space than this.
Yeah. So you did he change the roof line or anything? Amen.
Oh, here this is the revised elevation. Yes. So we squandered from dog house dormers to
Annie's added added us added the stairs. Yeah.
you move anything
the the overall footprint of the house is staying the house is staying the same. So I'm thinking this just a minor change and I have to defer to the commission.
So if if we're not okay with it, then you'd have to
there's got to come back for a new public hearing.
Yep.
Do I have it? Do I have that correct?
Yeah. And because the commission has delegated themselves the ability to determine whether something is is minor and therefore can just be handled administratively or if you don't believe it's minor then it's a new
Mr. Commission's decision whether it's or not.
Right. You've given yourself that discretion on your rights.
So how does he get up into this accessory department?
It's got a set of exterior stairs. commission discussion. Does anybody see a substantive change in that plan that you would require come back for a new public hearing? Leanne and Jay, please. What do you think?
Just a quick question. so the stairs are the one way of entrance and exit. Is that sufficient for emergency? That's a Yes.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Yeah. On on on this type of dwelling. Yes.
Is there an interior connecting door also?
No.
Okay.
So, the other egress would basically be the windows
and that was that was the way it was before.
The way it was before was just an exterior door.
That's an exterior door. Okay.
That's a good question. Go ahead, Leanne.
I just think that's a good question. it sounds like you all are satisfied that there's not a real substantive difference. So, just because I can't see, you know, the table map from here, but it it doesn't sound very complicated. plans online. The plans on the website are the plan. Okay.
Well, I think I'm going to just read the room and ask for a motion to accept the minor changes or conversely if anybody has a motion to ask for another public hearing. I'll make a motion to consider the change proposed to minor in nature.
Second that.
All right, let's take a vote. All in favor?
I motion passes 500.
Okay, it's all back in your hands, Wayne.
All right. A little. I'll do two parts. Do you have any correspondence, John?
I do not have any.
I just want to give you the opportunity. Go ahead, Wayne.
I don't really have any correspondence. Do you have a copy of the KURGS review of the PCD?
Yes. I did get some actually the wetlands agent got correspondence from who was it? Oh, from the state. they're they they're updating their plan and whatnot for Nathan Hill State Forest. I've actually got a throw a couple copies of that out there for you guys if you're interested.
I started reviewing that today. And I I forwarded that on to conservation commission and wetlands.
She sent it to the selectman also soon.
Okay. Yeah. No. Okay. And that's it for substantive correspondence
and the letter that was in the department of that was part of it.
One of the exhibits. Yeah.
The occupation.
Okay.
All right. Thank you.
Gave us a glowing.
Yeah, that was just
he referral.
Yeah, that was nice.
Very nice.
Very good. And a great writer.
Did you write that for him, John?
I did not. I did not. That was that's Jacob and all of his he signs off his all all his emails with all the positive vibes. That's that's his Yeah. sincerity.
Very nice. okay. Moving on to commission discussion. I I guess that I did the increment resignation out of sequence, so my apologies. but let's let's move on to item A. liaison to Cra. Yeah, it was brought to my attention that we do not currently have liaison to the regional planning commission.
Who's our last one?
Eric.
Well, I was
I mean Eric is the leazison to the policy board.
Yeah.
But this is the regional planning commission which is a separate entity. It's they basically have six meetings a year every other month. I think it's third Thursday usually via Zoom and they discuss you know issues of regional importance but then also review referrals. So like when when you do a a zone change that might affect the town boundary area. you know we sometimes get referrals from from Coventry or from from Balden or whatever. it's this this group is basically planning and zoning commissioners from across the region that kind of talk about these intermunicipal land use issues. That's what they do.
Are they going to be involved in the
They might be the
Yeah. the the 251 housing allocation stuff. They they they certainly might. Yeah. And so it's important to have a representative there.
Chad, you want to do it again?
No. the so in in when I took that position it was because as I recall I remember that John couldn't be the primary
right it needs to be
and so
town represent
I thought was well if John's going there because he's involved in so many of these towns and all this stuff that's great but it just didn't suit my schedule to go to first thing she had
look at me.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, this is if nobody's if nobody's available right now. Well, this is something you keep on the agenda, you know, if there's if someone's available, but you you know, you're not forced to appoint someone at this point.
All right. What's that entail?
He never went to a meeting.
Yeah, it's it's it's basically six Zoom meetings a year. Every other month, third Thursday, they have a Zoom. It's an hour, hour and a half.
Is it maybe evenings?
Yeah. 7 o'clock.
Well, I'd be willing to
maybe Bill Pen or somebody would like to do that. Who?
Bill P getting involved with the town.
Yeah, you could. I mean, Mr. Mr. Chair, you could, you know, appoint yourself and and make it a point to find a find an alternate.
I'll go with that unless there's any disscent from the commission.
Wasn't you?
I might have been appointed the alternate. If you want to do that, if you want to be make yourself the principal and I'll be the alternate, we can do it that way.
That was the deal.
I guess I'll do that. I'll let him know. I need to appoint someone.
then you can just appoint someone
myself.
I'm somebody else to in your absence.
In my absence. Yeah.
I'm happy to participate as well. I just don't think I know enough to go there on my own. You
guys here?
Volunteer.
Jay, believe me, I I I worked with I used to when I worked at Prague, I was the staff for this regional planning commission. I can guarantee you, you will not be the least informed person there.
Okay, I'll make a bet on you.
Are you volunteering, Jay?
Yeah, sure.
All right. great. Duly appointed. Jay is now going to be our leazison to crop unless Leander have an objection.
No.
Okay. All right. And I'd like to appoint John Kizkowski as our alternate.
That was easy. Moving on.
just one more thing. Wayne, you can send me the information on that.
Yep. I'm gonna I'm gonna put you in touch with with Jacob.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Jay.
Of course.
All right, moving on to item 9A, administrative reports.
No, you going to do the permit.
You're right.
We No, you're right. I I apologize. We have to address that. So, I asked advice. What did the planning a zoning commission do last time? There was a vacancy and you filled it.
I I was the one. Yeah. But there was
Did you put out a public notice?
The town clerk did.
Okay.
She has to notify the Democratic party chair, the Republican party chair, then put notice in the riveries.
Okay. Write that down. But can't you
we have a letter to regular
to fill that
vacancy
that was that was not the opinion of
right
okay that is if the if an alternate wanted to fill that position they do that to say I'd like to fill that position and by during that time they've got the experience that gives a leg up in the selection process.
Go ahead, Leanne. We couldn't hear you.
Oh, I I just had I said, "Do we have an actual letter?" And then I said in this in the charter, it has to be publicized, you know, it it has to be publicized somehow to the public.
Very good. In other words, we have to receive anybody else if there's any other interest. and then our own alternates if they were interested would, you know, signal us of that interest. And then we have 60 days to do it. If for some reason we fail to do it, then it would go to the selectman.
Thank you, man.
Yeah, I hope Ann's okay. I know people have all kinds of reasons for resigning, so I guess we'll just move ahead with the procedure.
Yeah. Do we do we know if she's going to stay on in the selectman role?
I was wondering that too. I guess we'll have to wait, huh? Okay. so Wayne, could you draft a letter for that or for the River East?
No, publicize the the opening.
Town Clark does that or just I could ask town clerk to do that. Yeah, like said,
I think I know them.
Yeah,
sounds like a plan. But the town clerk, well, the town clerk obviously knows about the resignation because she
told us she received the letter,
correct?
All right. been a spate of complaints coming in. actually, more complaints. What was that word you used? Spate. Spate.
I haven't heard that in a while. The
spate of complaints.
Good word.
It could use other words, but anyway. So,
a male maelstrom. Yeah.
Hopefully.
Anyway, a tractor trailer truck being parked in a culde-sac Lin Holers. I did speak with the owner of the truck this morning and hopefully he follows through with finding another place to park his truck. and
not a zoning I I I don't I don't want to make the meeting but zoning has some vehicle parked in the right way. That's not
Yeah, zoning has some
commercial vehicle though in a residential area.
Residential area that's a that's a It's actually his own business
is
but still it's and the town doesn't have an ordinance about parking in town streets
town roads
in the league is commercial vehicles right
zoning has commercial vehicle parked on
private property private property
he's in the town right away he's on public propert
anyway I've asked him Good for you. Good for you.
All right. he was telling I woke him up this morning. He was sleeping in it. Jesus. So anyway, another complaint, Hutchinson Road. I'll have be going back there. a complaint on Bear Swamp concerning a property that is accumulating some junk. I believe I believe that was a subject of a complaint some time about
what was the one on H
81 Hutchinson
Yeah. What was the complaint?
the complaint is about accumulation of debris and junk and vermin dragging the stuff from that property onto a neighboring property
and one on Bear Swamp also. No, the one on beer swab is just about stuff. Accumulation of stuff
and yeah, that's it. Oh, and complaint on Bulla Road concerning a property on Basola Road. And what was that complaint?
The complaint was a a joke in cars and stuff. Yeah. We literated the
in front of the house. Yeah. It must be. That's my guess.
You could be right.
I don't like I don't like outing people publicly if they're not here to defend themselves. So, I try to keep it generic.
Well, you all agreed to
I can't wait to see what you do, don't we?
Excuse me.
Excited to see what you do.
Okay. I think I told you this last time I've been monitoring the inland wetland stuff. been in contact with the wetlands chair Duncan Fe. There is an application that's going to be brought to them at their next meeting concerning the culvert on Lake Road at Arerendoni. The culvert replacement
atola.
Yeah. Anyway, given I think I commission all the stuff they need on that. up to the engineer that submitted it. And also I this commission can expect an 824 referral on that claim after weapons and that's all I have to report. So going back to the biza road thing. So, we approved a home occupation and construction of a new garage.
In part of that approval had instruction construction of a new garage to put all the stop
and he is
he has done nothing
to move that ball down the field.
There's more than there was
I don't know. I'll see when I go up there visiting with individual. It would it would be nice if we had kind of a a spreadsheet of all these. You know, we expected something to be done as part of this thing. He's he's looking, okay, I'm good to go with my home occupation. No, no, he's good. He's good to go with building the garage to put all the stuff that supports his home occupation.
He's not he hasn't he hasn't filed on the land records yet.
That's my point, you know. So,
my point is that he hasn't even got he he kind go.
Yes. He's he's happy. He gets his whole occupation and he's doing his thing. No, that was predicated on on doing some other stuff.
Is there like a timet or anything?
Well, there is, you know, I think it's the 60 days or 90 days.
We can I think we can go back and revoke the the home occupation that say you have
Does a home occupation become effect? Doesn't it doesn't become effective until it's violent? Okay. Then you tell them to get all the crap out of there. you know the other so so that was one thing for a spreadsheet but you know another one that comes to mind is
Ben Franklin seems to be morphing into more stuff along the rail trail where they carve out I don't know what
hat piece of property
eah that it you know and we've been talking about they were supposed to come with the revised site plan about what they're doing with the parking and all this stuff. you know, we've been talking about that for a year or so and you know they're working. So they just are ignoring the fact that they're not in compliance.
I believe the commission or I they can be brought before the commission.
Yeah. Okay. But I think we need a way to track these things because they kind of slip off,
right? There's no timelines put on it.
Yeah,
maybe the applicants aren't aren't aware of the timelines.
Do they have are they operating under a special permit or they were they were they grant authoriz?
So yeah, I mean if they're if they're if they're exceeding the the parameters of the special permit, we should let them know.
No, they don't. Yeah. Okay.
But they can be brought before the commission for Right. Sure. for not living up to the conditions of especially that could be revoked,
right?
All that stuff is being put in the new building,
right?
And there's old.
Yeah. How long has that been?
Oh god. 6 months at least.
Six, eight months.
Since he got the approval. It has been
excuse me. since since he got the approval for the for the
was he was approved for his home occupation and for constructing a a garage. there were conditions put on it though that he had to do had to have an official A2 site plan submitted and stuff like that and he's got to file that.
Oh, he hasn't filed it yet.
No, he hasn't put it on the land records.
Okay. So, yeah. So,
so it expired. Is there any department? Doesn't expire. It just
it just sits. It's not active.
Gotcha. Right.
So, I'll be going up to see.
Oh, also on the on the website, you guys probably noticed that that the application is all back up there. back up there. Yeah,
the
that would be very helpful.
The
right
permit link people put a like a disclaimer on the entry page to the permit system that requires the user to check a box acknowledging that they read it so that that they know that there's these scams out there and not the not the fault for it. And it's good. They were prompted by many towns other than Andover asking for something. So they did it. Yeah. And that's the end of my report.
Thank you, Wayne.
we're out of job.
Go ahead. So, well,
almost nothing to report because we canceled our meeting this month because there was nothing going on. But, you know, there was a surprise to John, I guess, that we have no wetlands agent for the town right this minute. And, I don't know where we stand on replacing him, but, one doesn't exist currently. I don't know if we have a temporary one or
when are you when are your speeches? the first Tuesday of the month.
That's my essence planning. I I'm I'm a I'm a certified wetland person. I
So you have more any more time in your schedule? I don't I first Monday first Tuesday of the month is Essex for me but I you know but if you if you need a warm body to write enforcement orders or to sign out and stuff like we could talk about that but you know the meeting presents a conflict point but I could you have any idea who we could get I've been calling Tac over there trying to get a hold of people that could
Oh the conservation district.
Yeah. That's not a bad not a bad option. Joanna should be out.
Do you know anybody else that might be interested in doing
What is it, Wayne? 10 hours a week or
No, it's it's probably not that.
Yeah. Or five hours a week.
10 hours a week.
20 hours total, right? Period.
we could look at that. My I mean, one of my colleagues, Robin Newton, who's a a planner, zoning officer, wellness officer, lives on, Bunker Hill in Coventry. maybe we could we could see if she's willing to stop by, but we can we I you know that we can we can talk about that. We you know maybe have some resources.
She interested in being a violence officer?
Oh, hell no, she's not. But you know, but you know, if her if her boss informs her that this is something she's going to do, that may be something we can make available. But yeah,
until we get one.
Yeah. So we could we could talk about that.
Okay.
But I think, you know, reaching out to Joanna at the conservation district is a good idea. But filling the position is the board of select correct.
Yeah. Yes.
We we have a lot of things going on right now.
So I understand. Thank you, Jed. Sorry about that. Moving on. Town planner.
Yeah. I don't I don't have that much additional. I you know it'll be important to have eyes and ears at Prague because this you know the state is going to be coming forward with its housing numbers in the next six months or so. it's really important to stay current with Krag on on what their plans are with original housing. yeah, but otherwise you know we we did our we did for those for anyone who participated in the session last Wednesday on on public act 251. I know well Jen you were there. I don't know if anyone else was there. the resource the recording of the the the of the session is on my website. So, if you go to tikkeypplans.com and go to resources page, there's the the full PowerPoint presentation, the full recording of the session and some other guidance on on the public act. So, I would encourage people to take a look there and that would also account for your training hours for that that would give you two two training hours for your your commissioner training requirement. So one of the thoughts that so one of the big takeaways is Prague is going to come up with a plan. The housing growth plan is that the name of it and and so a town can either accept that plan or they can come up with their own plan, write their own. And you know we talked about well this is easy, this one's hard. And my thought was, we're probably going to be in agreement with the plan. We just aren't going to
like the numbers that we get assigned.
Everyone's going to think the numbers are too high.
Yeah. And so we could just we can make it our own plan by taking 98% from the basic plan and just change the numbers. There's two numbers in there I think that we need to put and then that's our plan.
but then Krog has to approve.
Yeah, I got we case
the trick is you have to you have to make the determination if you're going to opt in or opt out before CRO writes the full plan.
The the only thing you're going to know really is the number before you opt in or out. So, but if you opt out and say you're going to write our own plan, CRO's not going to involve you in the original plan. So,
you you won't be able to get to the 99 yard line and say, "No, that's our plan except for
90%." Right. We have to tweak.
Yeah. So, but but this this will be, you know,
basically over the next
year, we're going to have to have that discussion.
Yeah. So
now the state is has put a bunch of money into Krag for this.
Yep.
And
and they're not providing any mun direct municipality grants. So yeah, so if you're going to write your own plan, you have to figure out how to pay for it.
It would be very good.
That's that's the encouragement to go with the chronic plan I guess is it's free. Make a motion to approve the February 17, 2026 maintenance minutes.
Second.
Thank you, Jay. Thank you, Deb. Discussion. Okay, hearing none. Let's take a vote. Approve the minutes.
All in favor? I
motion passes 500
and the next regularly scheduled meeting is April 21st and I'd like to ask everybody to if they can make it in come in person that way you get to see this cool stuff in person. and Make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor?
I
Thank you everybody. Make sure to say that I together.