order as we resume the application for Veil soccer property at Long Hill Road Riverside Drive the applicant seeking special permit for lighting at the soccer fields now I I see there's one person listed in the virtual audience that I don't know labl okay she's not hi I'm just here to observe thanks for having me okay very good thank you so is there anybody here from B soccer club to discuss the application yes here so I can speak to that veale soccer club has made a decision that will they will no longer use Handover Fields so they have packed up and moved to Cotton so this application from my perspective they have no intention of submitting a completed application so I would guess you could close public hearing and deny the application and move on okay thank you Eric Jim do you have any I'm not think I'm not thinking there's going to be a lot of discussion here but I'll give the commission members the opportunity to to provide comment if they if they want I have had no communication from any inqu should be very good hearing hearing no comments or questions or any discussion on the application other than what Eric just provided I will close the public hearing and that's at time 7:02 and I will call the regular Planning and Zoning meeting to order at time 702 roll call and seaing of alets I see we've got an CR Scott Patrick see Le you're here with what just just making sure you're you're electronically connected to us and
you're here okay and myself so all five regular members are here I see Susan England and Amory dagel I do not see Kevin with us tonight so Kevin's absence Susan and Amory our president's alternat and no alternat will be seated item three is additions or changes to the agenda and I've got one addition I was just going to included under discussion but we've got a couple of other things labeled there so I would like to add item 10 C under discussion is a discussion on signs any other additions to the agenda if I might Mr Sher yes can you hear me I can yeah okay so I my understanding is that the town is bringing on a new zoning enforcement officer if if he is going to start
before the next Planning and Zoning meeting it it might be appropriate to go ahead and formally appoint him as a as a zoning enforcement officer so he can hit the ground running but good point John and what I I meant to do of course I didn't write it down in my note so I don't have it here is to introduce the new zoning enforcement officer to be that's Wayne cassic our side of family pronounce is kachuk kasic okay and and he is here tonight now so so he will be taking over for Jim at some point in the future that will not be between now and the next Planning and Zoning meeting you know we I will give Wayne the floor in just a minute to sort of introduce himself to everybody but he does not have a lot of zoning planning and zoning experience at this point and so we're going to have a little bit longer turnover than we might normally have so I'm aware of the fact that we have to appoint him at some point but that that won't be tonight and and I do expect you know somewhat on the order of if Wayne had his way and I had my way
it would be like four months before he takes the Rings he's got a little bit to learn so with that Wayne you want to say anything to can they all see and hear me from here or should they move or it's easier if you're sitting at the table but y you should be visible in the audience yeah once once he starts talking the camera should find him okay well hi my name is Wayne kachik I've been living here in Andover for about 12 years now prior to that I used to work on one of the dairy farms here in town on Road I'm just happy to have gotten this this job I haven't been appointed yet but I I fully expect to be able to meet the expectations of the board and the Town Administrator as been said I I don't have any specific experience in zoning my background is with the connetic at Department of Agriculture as a regulator so I'm hoping to I'm hoping that that experience and training bodes well for for this position okay thank you Wayne yes back to item three additions or changes to the agenda I'll make a motion to add item 10 Charlie signs under discussion and and that would be the only change for tonight looking for a second to the motion no second thank you an any discussion heing none I'll call for a vote an i Scott hi Patrick I Leanne oh yes I'm here I thank you and I vote I as well the motion passes 500 next item up is public comment on any items other than the agenda anybody from
the public want to speak at this time and I see Joanne herbs here you have any comments for us Joanne no I'm off set I just want to listen to the meeting thank you so much okay and then bata bata M Bata I don't have your first name here but first name oh that is your first name okay very good Bata do you have any comments for us tonight no thank you Jed okay then we'll move on to Old business first up is action on the application of ve soccer and again and I think I will make this a part of the standard routine just so I don't I can't be accused of influencing the vote in a negative Direction but we always vote our votes full the positive so if if you're not going to vote in favor of the motion then don't vote in favor of the
motion I'll make a motion to approve the application of Bale soccer for the lighting at the soccer fields discussion hearing then I'll call yeah go ahead Leanne yeah I must have been signing in right at 7:00 I missed what you must have immediately convened the public hearing and then I was on the call when you closed it but what was the reason for the basically no discuss then the reason for the no discussion was the veale soccer club is chosen to move over to Vernon where I guess they have lights cry and so there's nobody here to discuss the motion no further action was taken since the last meeting okay thank you so I we'll call for a vote to approve the application for the lights at the soccer field Dan no Scott no Patrick no Leanne no and I vote no as well motion fails 0 five next item up is yours John the plan of conservation and evelopment okay thank you Jed so I am going to go ahead and share my screen going to do a short hopefully relatively short presentation let's see let me move this over so I can see it all right does this look more or less like a PowerPoint presentation on the screen yeah okay here I'm going to start it you go to full screen it might be bigger so we can read it a little better yeah let's see swap all right how about this that's better that's better okay so so what we're talking about today is the first of the six substantive chapters or substantive sections from the planet conservation and development as we have outlined it you'll recall
that in our vision state we had six we envision statements that covered a variety of topics including Housing and Community Resources and natural environment conservation and this one included this this this Town's Road Network and it included the statement we envision a safe and vibrant Andover that connects the community through a network of complete streets and enhances the the town's Civic campus on both sides of Route Six at its heart so this is sort of again one of our the the topic sentence essentially of one of our six topics for discussion I'm going to go through a little bit discussion about what complete streets is and why we're kind of using this as the framing device of the the topic and then we'll have a little bit of discussion on on sort of key areas of focus so first what our complete streets and I'll not read the whole thing but again it's it as it sounds it's complete it's meant for all users of streets in a safe way all ages and abilities drivers pedestrians bicyclists or public transportation Riders and the idea is from the beginning from the the conception and planning of streets to the actual construction and operation of roadways make sure that all users are considered and their safety and efficiency is at its heart so it's it's an approach to planning
constructing and operating transportation networks why are we doing this and I and I will pause quickly by and by way of thanking Eric Anderson for all of his work and advocacy on on complete streets not only in and over over the last many years but also regionally and a lot of this information comes from various presentations that that Eric has assembled over the last couple years so why focusing on complete streets is because our our streets are not fantastically safe not only an endover but but you know Statewide Network wide the top graph is fatalities over the last 10 years and this I believe is Nationwide and and so you see after covid in in 2020 traffic fatalities have have dramatically increased and there had and the bottom chart shows you again the the the jump in in pedestrian accidents pedestrians fatalities bicycle fatalities and cars and you can see the purple and the green your your less traditional users of our street networks pedestrians and bicycles are tremendously more at risk than vehicles and they had huge huge increases again since 2020 or so it's it's never been great but since 2020 those those numbers have jumped significantly in particular in Andover we have been focusing on complete streets since the 1978 plan of conservation and development and that established a clear goal of making and over more walkable and bike friendly but not a lot of progress has been made over the last 45 years or so the Planning Commission recognized about 10 years ago that the PCD did not properly ad address complete streets and so in
2016 the the first and over complete streets program was adopted with a goal being Safe Streets or complete streets and making the road Network making the road Network work for everyone and so again the complete streets is the concept the approach is the Safe Streets system or Safe Systems approach and you can see the the the graph there that you know death and serious injuries are unacceptable humans do make mistakes humans are vulnerable responsibility is shared safety is proactive and redundancy is crucial and so it's it's kind of a holistic approach to looking at our transportation networks
and how can we do this in a way that that makes everyone safer without sacrificing efficiency the traditional approach is to certain extent kind of a a shrug or looking at kind of best case well people just need to do the right thing in all circumstances people you know need to perfect their behavior looking at preventing collisions and and focusing on individual the the driver or the operator responsibility and basically saying well you know stuff's going to happen traffic deaths are inevitable however a vision zero through a Safe Systems approach it recognizes that people will make mistakes that drivers are going to make errors and so the the idea is to anticipate these mistakes by designing better systems better
road infrastructure vehicles to make those mistakes the risks and the implications less severe so that when a mistake does happen a crash does happen the safe system that we put in place reduces the impact so it's slower speeds it's it's different approaches on on collisions or or intersections and this is something that again if you bake this into the whole system it doesn't necessarily have to be expensive because you're planning this from the beginning so it's again it's a it's a different way of approaching the street Network so our complete streets goal again starting with with the the overall goal of A Safe Systems approach is we need to change the municipal policies that in a way that includes the needs not just people on in vehicles but also I should say motor vehicles people on foot people on bicycle people in buses or or other forms of trans Transit making sure that this works for people of all ages and abilities so that there are more options than just getting into a car that you can get to to school to work to shop to recreate in in multiple modes in a way that is safe and to then use this complete streets approach to increase the quality of life for andov Resident so people don't feel stuck particularly if they don't have ready access to a personal vehicle so that they can feel like they can walk safely they can ride a bicycle safely there are Transit options and then to make sure that the public works department as they are the ones that are
going to be primarily responsible for enacting this stuff make sure that the public works department has the appropriate guidance that they can make the improvements in the way that will improve the system so again with thanks to Eric basically since the 2016 First Complete streets plan there have been a number of success stories completed projects including and again I'm not going to read all of these several bicycle and pedestrian Crossings across Route Six particularly you know to get from the north side to the South Side Long Hill or vice versa the the north side at Long Hill accessibility improvements at the library access to the rail trail The Hop River a variety of pedestrian and bike safety signs and and Road treatments around the lake working on connecting Town assets again the the recreational Fields the library churches Town Hall the schools bike racks at at at public locations way finding signs and then then again again more recent recently the the ebikes at the community center which Jed and I were were fortunate enough to take out a couple of weeks ago and hopefully others have have gotten a chance to try those so those are all success stories there are more and and a lot of this is in again in process we have a a nearly $300,000 connectivity Grant signalization upgrades a a study for the root 316 connection and that that plan has basically been complete the more recent Grant following up that connectivity plan is a three three million lsip Grant to
actually build out the multi-use pathway and that should be happening over the next couple of years a more recent Grant from the de to design the improvements of the Percy cook Trail which is again another way to get from kind of the Civic campus Town Hall area out to the hop River Trail and then some of the policy changes incorporating straight safe complete streets into the road network design decisions changing zoning regulations that includes bicycle parking and pedestrian access rail trail Crossing as well as speed signs and and other Trail improvements so a number of things have happened already and so the town I think largely under under Eric's Eric's leadership and Direction as well as public works and planning and zoning has has really moved
forward on a lot of the the complete streets goals and connectivity Mission but there are still a number of things that need to be addressed and these are some of the things that that ideally will be put into the plan of conservation and development I'm going to put this on the screen and we're going to come back to it in a little bit again that while while the the crossing around Long Hill has been added to Route Six there are several other Crossings of Route Six that are going to be important in order to knit the town more closely together in the future again the safe access installing the safe access to town resources particularly again the W
Fields Town Hall the Community Center Schools Library Etc safe access from a number of places on the rail trail you know both both on the North and the South side of Route Six as well as those those smaller connections using Roots using the Hop River Trail to connect to town businesses and we're looking at particularly places like the Shell station and the Andover Plaza looking at other safety improvements in the Lake District which is of course the most highly High highly populated highest density area and the area with the largest you know population of of current and P potential pedestrians as well as adding connections such as secure bike racks public transportation wayf finding and then looking at addressing issues of speeding running stop signs and and visibility issues but this is sort of a a short list but it's you know it addresses some of the things that are kind of shortcomings in our complete
streets system right now let me interrupt you for just a minute John and the the previous slide had a picture of the state trooper down there somewhere probably on Lake Road you know and it was funny because a couple years back you know when we started asking questions about what are the problems in the town everybody was talking about speeding especially around the lake and then you know so our state trooper goes out there and and watches and gives out a couple of tickets and everybody's in an uproar because you're not supposed to be arresting us you're supposed to be arresting those other folks that are driving around the lake fast yeah I thought that was kind of humorous the other thing well two other points before we get too far you know can has made the news
recently with 2023 had a record number of traffic fatalities and 2024 is on track to beat that so that shows the importance of us approaching the vision zero that Eric had put in there and then lastly the last comment I want to make is as we go through the PD you know he's got a list of issues you've got a list of issues to address here and is that helpful when it comes time for us to make that 824 referral that our plan of conservation and development supports something that we want to go off and do if it's specifically listed it's very easy if it's not specifically listed or not in the pocd at all it makes it tough to go out and fill those 824 referrals that we have to do when we're going to you know make substantial improvements in the town spend down money that sort of thing so having had to go through and try to justify a couple of the things I was not on as firm a ground as we might have been like Eric's got these issues spelled out we need to make sure if something's important it's in the plan
of conservation development so when we go off and do it we can we can say that yep we looked at it this is what we want to do and that sort of thing so enough of my Interruption go ahead John okay no well that's that actually cues us up nicely Jed to the next steps and actions which again could could take the form of essentially that that list of recommendations those list of improvements that could filter nicely into grant applications or 824 referrals if we're making improvements on Municipal assets so again so we put this in a couple of broad categories would be traffic calming and lower speed roads because again if
you're taking a complete streets and a and a safe systems approach part of the part of the way to reduce fatalities reduce severity of of accents and mistakes accidents and mistakes is again to reduce speeds and so you know in in in so far as we don't control the speeds on Route Six or on Route 316 or other town roads work obviously work with the state on on calming those those speeds down lowering speed limits traffic calming sometimes with physical changes to the road and those things could include I will say could include things like speed humps or speed tables roundabouts sherrow which again are those markings on the streets where you see sort of Arrow like a double arrow and then a bicycle icon that indicates that the road the full width of the road is meant to be shared between bicycles and and Motor
Vehicles as well as Road striping and Eric had had discussed with us a while ago and I don't know if this was at the at a public meeting or a private meeting that we had or a you know a a a staff meeting that very often Center striping encourages higher speeds because the the the path of the the the travel path is a little bit better delineated and people feel more comfortable to drive more F more quickly but Edge striping which is essentially you have no Center stripe but you just stripe the edges of the road and so the center portion of the road is essentially a two-way shared it it not forces but it encourages people to slow down because there is no you feel a little bit less certain which part of the road you're on or that you're giving oncoming traffic enough enough with birth and it so it tends to reduce speeds and so that could be a a different approach in the way that the town delineates its roads so again these are these are potential next steps a couple of other categories again multi-use path and Trail connections again recognizing sort of over and over in a lot of our discussions that the Hop River Trail is a really critical spine not only for transportation and Recreation but also in many ways Economic Development and and sort of fostering the the sense of place and community and and over
and so looking at those connections again route 316 between Town campus and the Hop River Trail that is in progress but it's possible that we're going to need more more support and more financing for that looking at at connecting the Andover Plaza which is one of the major potential commercial drivers in town connecting that to the rail trail far going farther down Route Six from hendy Road hendy road is going to become important particularly as the as the bridge on Long Long Hill is going to be under construction then getting from the the gas and convenience stores again looking at some of the the commercial connectivity as well as the the potential development at Route 87 in
lyol corner and then looking at sidewalks whether it's on on Long Hill Road to the Recreation Complex would connect the the the Town campus and then well out at hendy Road as well and then again some of the physical improvements to town roads that that we discussed on the previous slide that would include traffic calming such as edgeline striping Sher but then also trail head parking areas so people can drive put you know leave their vehicles get on bikes and or start walking more bike racks and Senior Transportation as well as electric vehicle charging opportunities particularly as we try to as we see more and more electric vehicle traffic on the Hop River Trail and in town in general so there's a number of specific actions and specific locations we can focus on so that's that's in again in Broad Strokes that's the idea again focusing on our transportation systems improvements and our connectivity in and over as a holistic thing taking a complete streets and and Street
safety approach or safety Safe Systems approach and then and then you know filtering it down what are the ways that we can improve our systems and our streets to make things more efficient and particularly safer for the community so with that I will stop with the presentation part and and open it up if people had thoughts about about key areas or elements of our town you know from a transportation standpoint that we should also be focusing on and this again again you know feel free to to identify a stretch of road an intersection or or group or a circumstance that we want to make sure that people are that the that the plan picks up so I'll I'll shut up for a moment and just take notes if people have things to offer Eric did you have anything you wanted to add at this point oh plenty but you're the commission I'm not the commission so I think it's better to hear from all of you first okay any of the commission members have any comments on what would John walk us through there I had a thought that doesn't really maybe going with plan conservation and development but I thought how 100 years ago the railroad was the lifeline for getting in and out of endover and now we're looking at the rail trail doing a lot of the same kind of thing providing a way to get around town and a safer thing than being on the main roads for people on bicycles and walking it's an interesting connection that's a good I like the Thum I remember when I was a kid my father telling me he
would come in before his parents moved to Andover and they would take the train in from Hartford get off at Center Street and walk up to my parents or my Uncle Eddie's Farm which was on wheeling Road you know the the problem with Route Six is it really divided the town kind of into two equal you know and that's been the case almost since the day it was built I mean I know when I was a kid when I started off the Only Rule my father had bicycling was I could not ride across Route Six so everything on the North half of town and much of centry was mine but you know I couldn't go to the school you know and I couldn't visit my friends that lived over on shotty Mill CU I wasn't allowed to ride across the street so there was no light back then the
lights are new yep so and and kind of the other thing is I've been kind of looking at the big picture and you know first of all we we talk about the safety issues in the town Andover as a pedestrian and as a cyclist and they are real but I also don't want to over you know overly sensitize people to this because of all the places I ride my bicycle and over is a genuinely safe place to ride overall are their problems sure you know there's no question that you know there are always some risks but you know so we have a relatively safe and most of our rural roads are fine for walking and cycling you know if you have a
culdesac it doesn't really need anything you know in terms of complete streets it's already basically a complete streak if you were going to do anything you could drop the speed limit a little bit but that's basically all you have to do there's nothing more so what we're talking about is kind of the backbone roads you know the shoddy Mills and the Long Hill roads in the hendes of the world and saying okay what are the things we can do to those roads to make them work for a cyclist or pedestrian or somebody on any kind of micro Mobility device you know and then how do we how do we change the focus and how do we adapt to the fact that ebikes you know are now a thing and if you start looking in any cities they're a a significant component of the mobility you know in cities and certainly if you look to Europe a bicycle you know and a scooter or an ebike you know become a significant fraction of the population you know traveling and that and so what do you do as a
municipality to kind of encourage that you know without you know we're still going to spend 96 % of our transportation dollars on roads to make cars you know to repair damage done by cars and make it work for cars but we need to be spending a portion of it to work for everybody else and that's really what what complete streets is if you've never heard of the term Vision zero that was something that came out of that was a European concept came out of Sweden initially and it was a response to School moms that were complaining actually not in Sweden and Holland I'm sorry that were complaining that too many of their kids were getting killed you know on Dutch streets and so the Dutch government really took that to heart in the 1970s and said okay we're going to figure out how to make this actually work so everybody can ride their bikes and everybody can be safe and if you go back to 19 19 7 and compare Holland in the United States there was very little difference they were both predominantly car-based cultures and they had similar pedestrian cycling and automobile F fatality rates and then you forecast to today where they've spent the last 50 years working on that you know and it's now seven or eight times safer to be a cyclist in Holland and it's 10 or 12 times safer to be a pedestrian in Holland so we have the potential you know to save a lot of
lives you know and at the same time start reforming how we deal with automobiles on our roads because the reality is you know the majority of people that are killed on roadways are still drivers of automobiles and so what Vision zero is is the concept that basically people are going to do dumb things whether they are texting or whether they are just tired or whether they are just daydreaming about the problems they had at work I mean I know a couple weeks ago I drove through a red light I was completely zoned out drove right through the intersection realized I have I the guy coming the other way put his braks on and you know and and I've been the other guy too so we all we all make mistakes the idea is to make the roads in the intersection such that if somebody makes a mistake it's not going to kill anybody and that's really kind of the goal in
a nutshell one of the things that that I don't think has gotten any significant press but is always a concern of mine especially with the windy roads is the number of landscape companies or tree companies that they Park the big trailers right on a curve and you have no visibility going around the curve and you just kind of hold your breath and and go out around the guy hoping that there's nobody coming the other way and frequently enough the traffic slow enough that there is nobody coming but I every time I go around one of those guys it's on a curve because they always Park you know where it's convenient for them not for for the traffic it bothers me yeah and don't know what the solution is but I do feel more at risk at that particular moment yeah okay well I wanted to go through the complete streets first because I knew Eric had a good product ready to go and and I knew how you know we all know how passionate he is about this and
so I know it would be a good product ready to go and it was it is and so that so okay a couple of things if I might Jen Y so first thing in in the in the chat I just note that anarie had posted a sort of a question to comment saying you know I we we talked about the state roots and and she didn't think we could do anything about state roads for example Boston Hill is awful with people speeding it's not safe at all to walk I you know and obviously we don't control those and we don't necessarily call the shots however a lot can happen on state roads if the municipality is a is a forceful actor and I would I would point out you know example number one right now is that the town got you know $3 million from the state in order to make a state route safer at at basically our initiative but but the state is very willing to see investment although you know they don't necessarily make the make or prioritize the investment themselves but if it's directed by the town in this case a grant that we helped write you know the the improvements can be made to State routs you know for for safety pedestrian friendliness and and that sort of thing and I can I can note in many many of the towns I work in most of the sidewalks that we're getting funded and installing are on state roads so a lot of that stuff Can Happen you know again if
if it becomes a state if it becomes a town priority and a key way for it to become a town priority is again inclusing including it in the plan of conservation and development so that's that's Point number one Point number two is again if there are other comments I'm I'm happy to add them I don't want to cut things off although Jed's the chairman around here what I would note is I'm going to take these comments as well as sort of the outline we created in this PowerPoint presentation and start roughing out an actual substantive text chapter of the planet conservation and development for your review ideally in advance of the next meeting and at the next meeting we will have a conversation about another one of the six vision statements and and you know that's up to that's up to Jet I believe that that you know we're going to be inviting the
Conservation Commission to you know an upcoming to an upcoming meeting and they're going to talk about natural resource preservation and open space yeah I sent out I sent out an email within the last couple days to Maryann guile and haven't heard back from her yet but offered her opportunity to come talk to us his early as next meeting okay so then that that I would point out for influencing you know things on the state route is when we were putting in the Dollar General store you know that we had the 50 m hour speed limit picking up right before you got to Dollar General and the extra Mart across the street and and all that and and the town sent something off and it was really from the comments of the people at the public hearing Planning and Zoning sen it to the board of selectman board of selectman sent it to the do and they lowered the speed limit a little bit not as much as I was hoping they would you know he asked to go down to 40 but they lowered it to 45 so you know that was a little bit of an area where we were able to put some shapy minded stuff in there right so the town the town does have some some ability even though we don't
own the streets but yeah know if the if the town is is putting its essentially its Grant dollars and its and its local policies forward in a way that would sort of push the state to make some of their roads safer that's that's something that we can definitely do and my hope is you know sort of with a semi amateur eye on this I I do get the sense that the dot has become at least a bit friendlier to some of these some of these improvements and Eric you can correct me if I'm wrong but I think the the commissioner I think that the last couple of Commissioners have been at least very friendly to the to the concept they're under a lot of heat now because the traffic fatalities are so high well yeah there are a couple things one every time the state fails it's so every year the state has to propose to the federal government what it's what its metrics are for safety on state roads and they have to get Buy in from all the regional councils of government so every year they put these things out and they haven't met their goals in like a long time and their goals are not aggressive I mean you know their goals
are kind of pathetic and the state is not meeting them and every time that happens the the repercussion is the state funding from the Federal Transportation dollars an increasing fraction of that has to go into safety counter measures on state roads because State's not giving you money to build new stuff until you prove the stuff you have has been made safer so there is more money in the pipeline the other thing that's the commissioner the do commissioner is named Gary ukalo he's been in for about a year and a half he was hit by an automobile in Washington DC and hospitalized for a considerable period of time so he as an individual has internalized the ramifications of not having safe streets and the directive right now at do is every time they have a construction project they have to either meet the state's guidelines for complete streets and safe Street systems or the only two people in the do that can grant an exception are commissioner uko himself or the chief engineer for the state of Connecticut those are the only two
people to authorize you know if there's some reason they can't meet the Z so the state has made a 180° shift from where they were 5 years ago which is very refreshing so does that mean we would have more Pole now adding more crosswalks over Route Six like like at Lake Road maybe one over the other the other side of the library you know going for the other direction on Route Six we talked about it last time I was on planning zoning and there was a lot that wasn't as it wasn't didn't seem as doable back then and now we're looking at 3 316 improvements and Y bunch of the towns around us have this the unon side roads where there's a especially the rail trail that hit a button the lights Flash and Y so I think those are very effective yeah they're they're more effective than because I go down to one of those I'm looking for somebody can't always see them but boy I see those flashing may not be able to do them everywhere but you know and they're on the street with the higher speed LS right especially yeah yeah yeah cuz one of the things that was very interesting is the federal department of the Federal Transportation actually Federal Highway safety administration did a nationwide study of crosswalks and what they were
trying to determine in the study was whether making the crosswalks more visible in other words the difference between basic crosswalk what they call an enhanced crosswalk which is not the the flashing yellow rapid flashing beacons but just you know better look bigger more visible yeah more visible whether that would increase the chances of somebody stopping for a pedestrian in a crosswalk at the same time they had a camera set up and they had a radar at the intersections and what they published was very interesting is that at a crosswalk if the the biggest difference is how fast the car is going irregardless of the speed limit on of road if somebody's doing 30 m an hour there's only a 15 to 20% chance they will stop for somebody at a crosswalk regardless of whether they could see them or not because they did all the test crosswalks where there was plenty of visibility so you could see the guy a quarter mile away waiting to cross and people blew by it as soon as you get the speeds down to around 20 M hour around 75% of the people stop for so the biggest determination of whether people are going to stop for somebody in a crosswalk is vehicle speed and because of that the federal highway safety administration has a series of
more enhanced counter measures based on the traffic count of the road and then how fast the 85th percentile speed of it is so okay I think I'd like to call the complete streets a wrap at this point and move on to the next item which is Jim the Gravel Pit update okay two things one is Alan Cho from p and Sage will be fing has prepared a lawsuit a complaint I believe is right term and will be it will be served sometime Serv and filed Court in the next week I believe he was waiting he Incorporated some changes based on suggestions from both Jed and I and the appeal period may or may not have been a factor in the the timing the second issue is Bill genes has applied four variants to basically seeking relief from the requirement that 2 Ines of top soil be placed placed on the site that's scheduled for hearing tomorrow night before the CBA see how that goes we do have an opinion on that we have questions say again we ask questions sure yeah so what's his hardship might okay his hardship I believe it stated that he just made the
the argument that the the site will be reused it's a waste of time I'm not I'm not he has no hardship okay you want my opinion okay but that's what he used the hardship is sort of self-created and we made him we being the town made him regrade that property and the top soil was lost when in actual fact it was regraded because it was was PR wrong initially it wasn't wasn't functioning according to to plan I mean should should that variance be granted he would then the up would then have to come back to to the planning loading commission
once again now I thought about going to the zba meeting in didn't really want to go because I think that's you know I like the fact that planning or zoning is separate from zoning board of appeals but we've certainly put enough time in on this that I was thinking about going in to make sure that we covered all the rationale for for not having a hardship I was advised that that was not a good move and so I won't and Jim I don't know if you saw the later in the day there was email you know from Mark BR with some other I did I did see it okay other stuff pertaining to you you at that meeting so I I was thinking about going and and now thought better of that and we're going to count on Jim to to provide the right input there yeah quite frankly I try and stay I don't try to stay out out of the opinion side of things on CBA for the same reason that ched does but but in
this case I can at least prepare a background statement get some information out there which I think we'll be pretty much say it all right okay move on goad Jim if your staff why would you want to stay out of it isn't that the point for you to you know you're the land use staff so aren't you going to be there in that capacity yes I understand I agree with you to to an extent it's that I mean there only word of appeals is the whole concept is when is this when do these regulations when are they too honorous or when when do they not really F what's unique to this parti and I I leave that argument to the applicant right Jim Jim's job is to enforce the regulations as they are and and zba's job is to essentially say when they shouldn't apply as strictly as they're written and so it's not that's not really Jim's job but obviously he can go by way of background and say you know why the applicant is being held to this standard because of the regulations because of the conditions of the of the special permit but yeah again it's it's zba is in a Judiciary role sort of saying when when the rules should not apply because of something unique to that property but I guess what I'm saying is you know Jim I guess I I I sort of understand and I sort of don't as you said the job is enforcement and it's up
to any given applicant to show why they shouldn't have to do something not just because it's in in convenient for them so you know I think I don't know I think there is going to need to be some reinforcement because there's so much going on with this application and that needs to be made very clear who's going to explain to the zba that he allowed under all his cop soil that would be me I mean explain that whole thing that I'll how it transpired I'm not going to give the whole history I see no play that I think it's personally I think it's more cut and dried than that you know it's an issue of the regulations for Good Reason require at least two inches of top soil then there's no two inches of top soil there and there's no reason with that configuration of a lot that they can't have two inches of top soil there right so I you know to get Jim can certainly get into that history but we gave him a year of opportunity to prove he could grow grass on with that top soil there and that experiment didn't go very well you know the whole the whole reason that there is a cbaa is is so that an applicant property owner has the opportunity to make their argument to somebody somebody else other than his Zing it's another which is why I I try not to get too involved Jim's job is to ensure that we don't have to go and appeal the decision that that would be right his is to present I guess I'm not understanding about I'm not Jim I'm not sure if you Ed the word abstaining or refraining or
something because I I just want to make sure that the information comes across because otherwise they're just going to be hearing from the applicant I understand I think a background statement is will will do that and is that coming from you or from one of the attorneys both actually I I mean the attorney did the attorney did say that and we have some pretty stute folks on on the zoning board of appeals that have that grasp what a hardships all about I think in the last few years the board has gotten a little stricter with respect to granting variances and Mr chair okay Jen can I jump in for a second yeah yeah so the the other thing and I mean yeah I would I would second I don't know I don't know the zba that well but but I think ZB in general have gotten better at understanding what hardships are and particularly there there's been some there's been some legal Publications recently over the last two three years that have indicated some some 80 to 90% of of variances are granted inappropriately where there is no legal hardship and and should it be appealed which is to say if you know if for some reason this slips past zba and ZB says oh sure that's a hardship you can you can skip putting this top soil down if if the town chooses to or
if anyone chooses to appeal it and and in many cases I've seen Planning and Zoning commissions appeal zba rulings if there's no hardship the judges work that out quickly so so I I would not if if the overall goal is to prevent you know this this variance from occurring you know the zba should take care of it and if not the courts will will quickly take care of it okay thanks any other questions on the gravel bin Mr chair this is Katherine Hutchinson I will can make those at the public speak at the end if you prefer okay I want to move on to new business
at this point and the playground improvements at the Andover Elementary School and John if you can post the grind that I sent you this afternoon all right can you see that I can and yeah I could see I can see enough what we need to do yeah okay I can I can zoom in where where needed if you'd like so so so this you know I I think it was last Thursday I became aware of the fact that you know the for of Ed and the PTA were were trying to put in some some new playground equipment at the school and the initial thought was that it was
an expansion of a playground and so we I was I was looking into this a little bit over the weekend and and I went over to the school yesterday morning seems like a long time ago now with celest Willard who is I think correct me if I'm wrong Celeste PTA president and the chief chairman of the board of EV and and we went over to look and I was thinking that what we were going to do was put something in because when I talked to Celeste she said it would be entirely within an existing playground area and so the the drawing that I was looking at only had the two two playay areas that are over on the left hand side of the school behind the spool there there a couple of boxes and I know you can't read them John you might be able to put
your cursor on it to say play areas over there there's one there's two yep that circles of both I thought it was going to be in there but it wasn't and and so where she where the the school wants to put the playground equipment is in all the way over on the right hand side of the screen where it says play area it's right behind where the little basketball court is there and no further over to the right all the way to where they your curse all the way to the Border there more to the right right there FL area in the back behind that basketball thing and and that's where the equipment is going to go and and so this is a a fairly new drawing this is is the drawing that the town had done when we were doing the lot line correction you know is part of finishing up the survey that we did to to build the community center there and this little play area showed up and so my thinking is that so we're going to put some new playground equipment into an existing playground area and that probably you know is not an item that's of a concern to the planning is own Celeste was kind enough to come tonight just in case we had any questions on it you know she's we're we're learning to work together better it was still a little bit of a short fused item I think the stuff shows up if it didn't show up today it's
within the next day or so but but we're working together to try and you know make sure that we're we're doing things right and I appreciate celeste's effort on that and she's here in case anybody had any questions about that what what you know I was trying to avoid was stuff going in and and people saying what's going on over there we don't know nothing about that and and so she came tonight to make sure that you we had the opportunity to ask any questions that that we might have so do any of the commission members have any questions for Celeste at this point on on what it is that she's actually putting in and it looks it looks like there's no questions here Celeste so I think you are off and running you you need nothing else from Planning and Zoning with respect to the playground area thank you thank you very much Mr Larson and members of the the board I appreciate your cooperation and thank you very much for your time tonight and thank you for putting this on the agenda so quickly thank you okay J could I go ahead yeah J I believe that it would still require a zoning permit it would be an administrative function would there would not be could be done very quickly but the equipment would probably meet the definition of a a structure and such should require a permit and a Zing permit is something different in a planning is zoning permit so you know that I'll let Jim get a hold of you to to tell you what that is but it's got nothing to do with the zoning regulations and that they'll be relatively simple selest very easy
selest okay as long as it's very easy okay so who do I who do I contact for that M Mr hesy yes okay I'll give you a call tomorrow and work with you on on getting that and is it ANC application process or what what is the if you could just give me a simple one page one page form yes application okay do I have to post a sign or anything or or anything like that no so you should WR okay I'll be are you in the office tomorrow briefly in the morning yes okay all right I'll give you a call thank you very much everyone appreciate it good day thank you have a good evening bye next item up is the approval of the minutes from the public hearing on September 17th and the regular meeting on September 17th so I'll make a motion well let's let's go through see if anybody's got
any comments first and and then I will make a motion to approve them as amended I have comment yet okay go number nine Patrick dordy asked to rejoin Economic Development commission I I believe I thought he was looking for guidance as to whether that was appropriate it was more of U how do I go about it because the the economic development commission was down on membership and okay they it was a a letter in intent was written by me to the town clerk but my My ultimate question was any kind of conflict of interest in right talking to or or addressing any proposed additional usages for the agricultural business that would that came to talk to us so but he'll he's being addressed by the planning zoning commission separately and we that's I think on the agenda for plan conservation yeah so I'm just suggesting the minutes better better reflect that all right and tomorrow night's the meeting for that commission I think Elaine the the chair of that commission went to the board of selectman to get recommendations and I don't know that was done or not but yes the board of Selectmen you are appointed oh thanks to the EDC great so Jim did you have a specific wording recommendation instead of asked would how about we say Patrick I already mentioned he planned to rejoin the
economic development commission that's fine we okay it looked just very incomplete sort of dangling there I'm G add like our conflict or no just you know it gave us a chance to to consider it and we consider that it was fine any other comments on the minutes and I did have I did have a couple up at the top public present for the regular meeting as I recall Katherine Hutchinson attended the regular meeting too I could not imagine that she would not attend while we were acting on that well so I didn't go back to watch the video but I'm fairly confident that she was in attendance and then down in paragraph two the second line in the non-bolded stuff it says top soil grass and loan that should be loan L and then in the next line down instead of a to address application and restoration plan instead of reclamation plan d then the at the very end of that paragraph Katherine Hutchinson comment regarding addressing how the property is currently graded and reviewed as built regrading will need to be done to conform with plan filed and I had mentioned that the grading had been done over the last several days on the site and those were the only comments that I had anybody else have any comments on the minutes hearing none I'll make a motion to approve the minutes as
amended okay we'll let and do it this time Scott had the last one any discussion hearing that I'll call for a vote an Scott I Patrick I Leanne hi and I vote I as well the motion the minutes for both the public hearing and the regular meeting are approved as amended next up on the agenda is correspondence Jim do we have any correspondence to discuss none none okay administrative reports we did not have a Inland Wetlands meeting this month so I think to report on that Jim zoning agent report I am following up on a few complaints specifically sign complaints were numerous signs down in the corner of Lake Road and Route Six which some somehow disappeared I I don't know what happened to them in all honesty but they're gone also gotten a few complaints regarding election science which I'm I'm following up on what I do intend to do hopefully tomorrow morning is is send out a copy of the the recently adopted sign well the existing sign regulation
to the chairs of of the two two party the two chairs of the commissions just as a reminder I I had I did meet with the owner of Protek I'm sorry Benjamin Franklin regarding a violation notice and he is working on a site plan to to bring that site into compliance Al so got a few light complaints which I'm I'm chasing down that's all I have open Ed questions any questions for Jim okay next Up's Town planner John I don't have much additional to report other than working on the pccd I will note that I had a good conversation with Mr Kier sha who is the current owner of the Andover Plaza just as a matter of of sort of Economic Development Outreach he is looking to put some new tenants in is going to update the signage apparently the Chinese restaurant is going to be replaced by a a Thai or Vietnamese restaurant a a place that they sell F primarily and he seemed very open to opportunities for connectivity if he was he was willing to talk about connecting to the airline Trail I'm sorry the Hop River Trail as well as looking at maybe some some Municipal cost share or some incentives to do some facade or facility improvements so we're going to schedule a time for Eric and I to go and visit with him on site to talk about some of these opportunities but he he certainly seemed willing to you know to to try to be a a more active property owner in improving the the plaza he did Express some Financial issues that basically they bought the plaza right before covid basically at the heat at the height
of the market before retail crashed entirely so he's a little bit financially strapped but is certainly willing to to try to make improvements as he's able but we'll follow up on that okay anything else well this is I I did I have been working with Ryan I'm sorry Fitch thank you about some potential zoning regulations to for AGR tourism or event facilities on Farmland I don't is that later on the agenda it is and it's G to be the very next thing so that that we'll we'll shift from administrative reports to commission discussion miscellaneous and first up is regul to allow uses in sillery to a farm operation so I'll turn it over to you John okay so again you'll recall at last month's meeting there was
some discussion about the continuing ability of the fitches to hold concerts weddings other special events at their at their one of their tree farm properties and that's currently not enabled by the zoning regulations and so there was some back and forth and I had sort of offered to assist Mr Fitch in putting some ideas together I don't know if he's there today but we we went back and forth on email and I and I shared some examp excuse me some examples from other communities and with a little bit of input from Mr fit tailored it a little bit and pre presented to Jed and I
think Jed you forwarded this around right draft aggr tourism regulation based on something that I'd written last year in no geeez this is October so earlier this year in the town of East Hampton I'm I'm happy to put it on the screen if you'd like that it's kind of goes through kind of two categories of farm farm based uses one being you know with with some Nexus to the farm whether that's you know hay rides or or you know a pick your own or corn maze or things like that that are sort of farm related that you know sort of play up the the public interface with the farm itself which could be an as of right type use a zoning permit type use and then other other activities that use the land but don't have a clear Nexus to the farm and this would include things like concerts wedding events special Gatherings you know private parties that sort of thing that would require special permit and I kind of detailed it a little bit but before I don't want to get too far into this because again I I had done this
initially as a a favor or some technical expertise to offer to Mr Fitch with the idea that he would be the applicant on a proposed text Amendment but I you know he he didn't seem to grab that I and I don't I don't want to go too far into advocacy for this because again I you know I don't know if the commission wants to take this up as as a topic of their own you know of their own leadership of their own initiative or you know would you prefer to have this presented essentially by Mr Mr Fitch or someone else as a private text Amendment application so I I didn't I I wanted to be careful about which side of the fence I was on here when in preparing these rags
so having you know given that a little thought I would prefer that we the town you sort of take the lead on coming up with a regulation because that way we can have a better shot at making the regulation what we think is reasonable not that what you proposed isn't reasonable but you know I think I also sent around to the commission the the wedding venue regulation and the Agro tourism regulation for Colombia and and they were both in my mind more I was going to say significantly more restrictive than than what the proposal that you agreed to with working with with Mr Fitch and so you know I think you know one of the concerns I had and I know Jim made the same comment on it was you know we do do concerts here at the Town Hall in the summer a couple of times and we do them over at the link and somehow you know I would like to avoid the comment why are you regulating me but not the town and and I don't know what the answer is there I was going to ask you and then I forgot to send you an email yeah how does Columbia Columbia has
concerts every now and then I think somewhere don't even know where it is but how do they regulate those maybe they don't I I don't think they do actually I think you know sort of oneoff type of Municipal functions and that was that was my thought about the town you know we maybe do two or three concerts a year the lake does probably two a year and and so none of those are a big hardship on anybody and I think in both cases are probably done by 8:00 in the evening on Fridays or Saturday nights as opposed to Mr Fitz wanted to go to 9 or 10 I can't remember but you know we maybe we have a concert from 7 to 9 6: to 8 something like that but we certainly don't go to 10:00 and it's very limited in number so I I would like to have something that we do that limits him but other than that you know I thought the tie in to the non-agricultural things the way that you had it was good I see the signs are up
for the funky monkey thing going on soon and and I think maybe Mr Fitch you know thinks he's got what he wants now we didn't tell him to stop anything and so he's got no incentive to come to us with regulations at this point and you know I'm thinking that he probably won't have an outdoor concert until next spring late spring summer and so we've got some time to come through what we think is right he can he can come talk through US public hearing on that but that's how that was my cut I I'm open to you know thoughts from the commission after giving you what I thought about that anybody anybody else have any thoughts there yeah Patrick I I wasn't able to find it quickly in our our RS but is it currently our noise ordinance 10:00 p.m. for the town we don't have a
noise or oh okay so you know and and that gets into into the difficulty with measuring sound and I know John and his draft talked about the the state State guidelines guidelines and I spent some time trying to figure those out and it wasn't easy for me they had different you it was more like industrial Machinery inside a building or something but I I didn't see how we would apply those necessarily I think we I don't know I'm Still Still stumped there that that I don't want to recreate the wheel but I need to have something that I can understand as well what it was going through Scott and lean any any thoughts yes but not about I I have a question and a comment while we're still in open in commission discussion but it's not about Brian Fitch or the you know I read the materials you sent about weddings and AGR tourism Etc but I my comment and question is about something else okay we we'll get to it in a minute or two then yeah I just thinking of one thing about the idea of you know the town has concerts at the Gazebo would he say well why AR you regulating them I'm thinking when the town has stuff at the Gazebo they're probably not charging for
the concert or the use of the facility whereas Fitch down there in his farm he's probably charging somebody to use the facility so that makes it a different situation and we probably do need to have some regulations for that well and in his comeback when when asked about that was we don't charge anybody it's donations and he says he takes donations yes he doesn't charge anybody he just accepts donations which which is kind of that's the the standard boot B for anybody who does those kinds of things yeah but still I think there's something about you know sometimes when people are going to have a noisy party in their yard they go to all the neighbors one they invite them yeah and they make sure that you know they're they they get them on board before they do that but you know I think what I've seen the lake do what I've seen the town do I think they few and far between the one neighbor that come to talk to us is concerned about how often are they going to be having these concerts you know it keeps expanding and and I didn't think that our concerts went very late at night and we not not anything there petry's had some discussions or problems with a winery up in comentry there and they with their events and things so I don't know how they managed to solve that if they have well and and I think I think it was a winery down in Columbia what John sent you know they talk about
having the the musical venue inside the building and if they put it in a tent outside it's got to be what's considered a soundproof tent so there's there's one example of you know trying to mitigate the noise I think I I was talking to somebody might have been an Marie at one of the recent but probably the last meeting we were talking about this I know the neighbors out at Carter Farm in marbor have complained and and they either limit their their thing their their concerts to earlier in the day I went online looks like one they're done for the year but you they'd have some Friday night things that I can't remember when they went but it might have been 8 or nine o'clock certainly not 10 o00 and that sort of thing okay and then you know Columbia took the approach here's one for AGR tourism and then they did another set of regulations for the you the the wedding venue place that they want to build and again that's all indoor noise but everybody's concerned East Hampton just you know the river last week talked about the people who were going to put in the the venue to have concerts pull the permit because they got so much backlash on that so any that's that's what I think about about that and I would like to regulate the gamut but I think concerts all a special place in there because they are noisier and affect the neighbors more than the other stuff does anybody else you're going to wait until he approaches the commissioner no I I I intend to you continue working with
John to try and you come up with with something and and I would like to by next spring we've got a regulation and we're going out to the neighbors and him for public comment on it but it's what we think is reasonable and that's that's a that's what I'd like to do we got a couple of months to work on that just like I was hoping that we had a couple of months to work on the soccer lights but we chose not to do that until we wanted to go put the lights on again right unfortunate a little bit any other any other comments on the farm operation if I should or not oh go ahead I I was wondering if anybody has if any contact has been made with Phil Chester in Leon because they they have a lebin is a largely agricultural Community Y and they they do have a lot of zoning liances revolving around agriculture in town okay I don't there's something John can look at I know he sent out to Columbia things because he's a town planner for Columbia as well so yeah I mean I've worked with Phil for 20 years and and have found this the L and zon regulations if it's not strictly agriculture it tends not to be particularly Progressive it's very protective of Agriculture and supportive of Agriculture as agriculture but it it doesn't tend to be particularly supportive of broader activity something about noise I know that sure but yeah happy to work with you on J on it Jed y corn growing is very quiet so anyhow yeah that's that would be my goal John is is over the course of the winter in all your spare time we have a
chance to sort out how we might at least recognize the town and the lake are doing some concerts too and and maybe it needs a concert regulation in in section four of our RS or something but but those are the goals that that I would be shooting for and not necessarily driven by Mr Fitch I think if we wait for him we be waiting a long time okay sounds good next item up is just I wanted to quickly address seasonal dwellings and you we we've got we're going to have an application at some point the fell at 268 Lake Road it's a little three season house and he wants to rebuild put into a Four Season house and so the first question you ask yourself is how do you know it's a three- season house and the only answer I can come up with is because it's always been that way which normally isn't a very good answer certainly there's there's nothing in the town records that show which houses are three season and which aren't way back when Andover Lake first started there were a lot of people that built little cabins didn't have heating on them or any of that stuff and and they used them during the summer and we've got the definition of a seasonal dwelling which is a house that is occupied from May through October doesn't allow June through November or or anything other than that but when you ask yourself what a three- season house is you know it probably doesn't have heat not well insulated all those kind of things and I
don't think there's any of those out there right now the two the two seasonal houses that I'm aware of the other one is I think it's 290 or 296 Lake Road right down the other side of me and and it's a very nice house very small Lots both of them and the but you know the small lot that's 296 is maybe a quarter of an acre the house right next to it which is a yearound house is 0.8 Acres let me write down now and so now if you look at the at the chart where where this person would have to go to get a
variance it's got you know a significant difference in in size of the number of square feet on a lot but the square feet that's required in either case is much bigger than most of the lots that are on the lake and so my thought is that the time for seasonal house regulations is come and gone you know we don't have seasonal houses over there as long as they can meet the sanitation requirements they're good to go anybody that's going to build a house on Andover Lake now is going to build a nice house that that that's all year round so my my thought was to have that conversation a little bit and probably not in a crisis manner but and I don't know when Wayne's going to come and do that but I think we should just get rid of the seasonal requirements because we don't know what houses are there and and they're all they can all meet the definition of year round because they got heat water and all that kind of stuff at least I think I'm not I don't know how we would even find out see which ones don't any any comments from the commission before I start Ping around with that a little bit say there's hardly any left that are seasonal well I say I have a word of too and it's just by tribal knowledge out there that you they've always been that way you somebody says show me something that says at the seasonal house but I couldn't do it it looks like seasonal and year round definitions of permitted uses are virtually identical I didn't verify that
yet but yeah if you look at the so it's the it's the chart in section 11.2 where you get into different fundage requirements and that sort of thing but they're all way in excess of what the majority of the houses are on the Lakes the only the only place where seasonal dwellings comes up in the regulations other than the definition is conversion from seasonal to year round is a special permit used in the lake Zone the only only reference that I'm aware of but we were talking at some point Jim about the fact that if he's got a seasonal house he's already got the variant to go to that smaller lot and now he wants to build a full season house he'd have to go to the zba prove a hardship in which which anybody that's building the house on the on the lake 90% you know don't meet the requirements they're all something and so why you know why make it all that harder for something where these houses are are bigger than a lot of the year round houses yeah I think initially it may have been a great idea was a great idea time's com and gone yeah my thinking okay so none of them make it most of them don't make most most of them don't make the space requirement yeah not even close and so anyhow I'll start working on that and and just so you know I went through the rest of the chart of all those things that we wanted to put in the r that we had identified were problems including in the flood
zone and you I got those ready to go on the next edition of whatever comes down the bike and and so maybe it'll be seasonal dwellings and concerts but we're I'm ready to take care of the flood zone issues I think okay moving on to 10c is signs and Scott you were asking you to have that on the agenda anything in particular you want to talk about with the with the signs I just wanted to you know to clarify to everyone you know there's a difference between political signs and election signs which if you read it you would think political sign was an elri election sign but it's not political sign
is no different and that the square footage requirements are different and and there's also something that needs to be talked about with the on Town property and you know apparently the board of Selectmen had a meeting and they addressed signs on the town's property and that's not in the regulations either okay so you know I'll start out by saying I don't like our town regulations although I had a hand in crafting them or trying to reshape them a little bit after you about four years ago the issue came up with respect to the complaint was we need to be able to put our political our election signs out earlier because we're doing early voting and all that kind of stuff and and that was true and so we about that same time we also started wrestling with the free speech requirements so somebody can we can't regulate content on signs at all you that's that's a free speech issue you you can put whatever you feel like on the Sun but is Scott mentioned political signs are different than election signs and election signs you can now put up as early as you want and I appreciate the fact that you know folks around down toown showed admirable restraint and not putting them out there starting in May but once one person you know once I saw that first sign go out there was a proliferation of signs and they all started spreading fast so it's like anything else once somebody goes that everybody else goes too but we do have a requirement that the election signs are taken down within seven days of an election just like any other temporary
sign that's taken down within seven days of completion the event now we don't have any time requirements on political signs difference between a political sign and election sign is a political sign States your your point of view where an election sign talks about a candidate and there's an end to the election sign and the other requirement that came with both election signs and political signs was they we had to allow them to be as big as any other sign that we allowed in the district so if we allowed a 16 square foot sign we had to allow a 16 foot sign and a 16q foot election sign and in 16 square foot is for the residential areas because that's as big a sign as we allow there it's 32 sare fet into business and industrial areas because we allow 32 foot sign there I thought we restricted putting signs on Town property I went looking for that this afternoon and and we don't restrict signs from town property what we do have in our RS is there are no signs on the town right away or within 15 ft of your lot line Eric you had a comment so my comment is simply that the town Board of selectman in a sense acts as any other land owner so the right away you get to regulate but you can't say what it's the board of Selectmen that gets to say what signs are on Town property as long as it conforms to the rest of your sign RS yep yeah so there's probably a lot of political sign that we don't want on
Town property because we don't want the town taking political stance on all the social issues but they might allow election signs we P three when we do but but our our regs forbid putting signs in the town right away and that's where most of the signs go and so you and and we knew when we put that in there you know I would have just assumed have no temporary signs into town at all that probably wasn't the right answer but they shouldn't be we said you should be putting your signs 15 feet back from the road because that's normally what the town right away is along the road and you shouldn't have it within 15 ft of your property line because we want to know who's who's putting that sign up shouldn't be confusing between you and the neighbor whatever so so that's what I about signs in in in association with with the election coming up and
I'd be happy to try and answer any questions we have but it certainly is not clear and easy to understand as you go through there I'll be the first to rent hat any comments on signs glad that we had the conversation so I actually have a question question one which it it's almost like an interpretation question but so we have a regulation that says in the the residential district in the Ard the maximum size for sign is 16 square feet and in the business industrial Zone it's 32 square feet but on a particular Pro property you can have a maximum of X number of square feet of signs yep so so my question comes in when it comes to town property it's fine for an individual H homeowner or business owner to say I will let these people but not these people this but not that right but as a town the town can't be making a decision to put up this sign versus that
sign so given that there's a specific you know on Town property that same limit applies how is that or could that be enforced because you know I sort of look at that and say a maximum of X number square feet per candidate or per what because if it's total the first guy that comes along that puts up a 32 square feet and a 16 square feet locks up that entire piece of town property for everybody else really that can be only construed one lot even if it's Town property right yeah well I mean the town owns individual Lots but that whole area between route 316 and School Road that is essentially all a single lot single lot so the question is how do you or how does that get interpreted in terms of what is allowed and what is not allowed right because the the board of Selectmen may say yeah we're not going to regulate that which is what they've said in the past Y and I'm still going with until they change their mind but how does the commission interpret the total limit on the total square foot of signs is that per candidate or per total or per party or per what it says a lot it it says per lot and and so my Approach was I wasn't good worry about that until we were serious about
enforcing all the signs that were in the town right away you know we it's it's written for hes you know and and I haven't gone out to count the the square footage there but certainly if you've got a 16 square foot sign you're significantly Limited in how many other signs you can put out I haven't seen any anybody that I thought was in violation of the total square footage thing yeah as I was driving around you I've seen maybe five or six little signs but that's that's as much as I've seen so I I haven't gone off to prove myself unhappy with anything yet and if I saw hundreds of signs in front of the Town Hall then I'd have to go think about it a little bit because something's not right there but I haven't seen that yet well ordinarily both parties just before the election start you know condensing all the signs and moving a lot of the signs into that small area so I'm just saying what is the zoning commission what is the zoning agents take on that before that happens because I know I'm going to get the complaints about it on Election Day potentially what does of the other complaint is that it well and last year there was an issue of putting putting signs out in front of
the school the school didn't want them out there even though that was Town property it has to be okay by the school why because it's in there no it's Town property well the school board education it says has a right to say what's what signs go that's what in there it says that any right I pretty sure it says the board of education has the right to have a say I'm not looking at the regulations so I can't tell you exactly that's my recollection I don't see it signal I did I'm not aware of that in there Scott I think I read it okay it could be there's stuff in there that you surprises me all the time put in that board of education in the in the science thing see if it comes up oh I know where it says it and my my copy's out of date I don't have to do it we put it in there because because of the banners because of the banners you we didn't want yeah that's right we wanted the to get the school yeah so what's it say any signs placed on an of elementary school building or grounds shall require prior notification to board of education or their designate and such sign such signs shall not impair to the elementary school building operations determined by the zon enforc okay y I have to go look at that
that I forgot about that you know certainly we we didn't want to put banners up here that the school didn't want right whether how that plays out in the election I don't know right and remember the area thank you the area in front of gazebo is school property so that is largely I don't know how that gets dealt with but that seems like a commission and Theo yeah I guess I have to think fast on that one because that's going to come up quick luckily I'll be out of town on Election Day I don't know I I'll think about that a little bit that certainly was not the intention of why those words were put in there we we didn't want we wanted to give we were trying to give the Board of Ed control over the banners and and those kind of signs around here it had nothing to do with election signs at the time and maybe we shot ourselves in foot maybe I did but there you go wouldn't be the first time won be the last why wouldn't they have say there's signs on you know
they're only because you you're saying that it's the town's property it's the school property what the Gazebo is I'm just saying if they put them up on the hill or something y so maybe that's something we'll have to work out with the Board of Ed a little bit before we get there and we have certainly been Cooperative with the chairman of the board fed for the last couple weeks last couple months so I I think taken that we we actually when we crafted those words we tried to put in something that gave all authority over signs to the board of education and the feedback we got from our attorney was no they don't don't get to say what signs are you can get feedback from them but it's a Planning and Zoning commission that says what kind of signs you put out and so that's why we we modified the words a little bit to give them a say in that but there you are I'll talk to thank you it's another bad subject something that's not really hav seen the h yeah just says prior notification so oh they got 66 yeah they got that little
spot that sign Central okay any other comments on signs maybe you could have 32 feet for 32 square feet per [Music] per what every every person yeah per person per party party yeah party person party it wouldn't be too too hard this this election but I may not get there time for this a harder I will at least contact Celeste to see if we can put move the election signs up along here and not just be in front of town hall go with that couple of gray areas lot there there's a lot of gray areas and that's what you know I started making the sign regulations worse instead of better when I was trying to get rid of all those gray are just impossible to do I just don't like it we running down to Rabbit Hole I'm GNA move on to public comment
Katherine Hutchinson are you still with us yes I am would you like to make any comments tonight yes yes I'd like to make the comment that I agree with the commission that it's very important that Jim go there to the to the meeting tomorrow night because this is a situation in which the background information and what led up to where the applicant is is brought before the zba when they're hearing the application for your variance not only as you all know that the hardship issue but also the requirement with regard to it not being a self-created hardship and I think with the background information Jim can EXP exp laain with regard to the original approval of the plan was 4 in the regulations have already always provided for the two in requirement of the loan and that the party be reclaimed the parti be reclaimed upon the completion that he knowing that chose to go forward with his project and now is asking for relief from the zoning regulations because of the way the operation was done he now doesn't want to comply with not only what the
commission's original approval was but what our zoning regulations have already always provided that is the at least the two inches so I'm glad that commissioner is having Jim go there to present some of this background okay yeah and there's a you know final comment on that the original application that was approved had that piece of property divided up into six sections and the applicant was never supposed to have more than two sections Disturbed at one time one section was to be restored before he s he went on to the next one and so it has really been not quite what we were expecting for for a long long time yeah yeah I I think the point you just made is an excellent one that and that they need to be made commission the CBA needs to be made
aware of that in addition to the other we don't know if he sold any of the top soil off but we do know that he covered it up what he did have left so the Great up but so that's why again I I Pro pleased that the commission the Jim is going to be there and provide some background and thank you for sending him to go y needless to say I'll be there but thank you okay you're welcome any other public comment Jed yeah J this is lean can I just go back to my with the comment I was going to make under commission open discussion
yes it was regarding I'm going back to the complete streets topic I wanted to mention that I think in addition to the driving the aspect of of people driving the inex in Access speed is is inexcusable but I wanted to say that I feel that some of the responsibility lies with pedestrians as well I see it much more so with pedestrians and bicyclists but I see people wearing on Route 6 and other streets mainly Route 6 at dusk or after dusk wearing no light colored or reflective clothing I see people walking two or three people you know in in the street people you know listening to music or whatever they're listening to certainly people on their phones I've seen people in Andover and elsewhere walk right out into the road I saw an entire family in a crosswalk at the stores downtown area very recently the light was green they were right in the middle of the crosswalk their light was red two children just complete lack of personal responsibility I've seen it people especially on phones just walk around out into traffic so I wanted to make one last point that because John was making a list that in addition to doing as much enforcement whether it's know ticketing and the you know the physical conditions of the roads I think people especially pedestrians need to take some personal responsibility too absolutely takes takes all parties to feel responsible to make the environment safe you know and and I think another thing that people underestimate at least when your eyes get to be as old as mine are they don't see as well in the the
Twilight or whatever and I have been shocked at times I'll come around the corner or somebody pops out in front of me that I didn't see no was there and I guess you know I just fortunate that one that they were walking facing traffic and and moved over to the side of the road so that I didn't hit them so you know even as safe as I try to be I've got shortcomings in those areas and I think when you're young you don't appreciate that so no and I think you just mentioned something else not It's Not Unusual to see people walking on the wrong side of the road as well yep absolutely so yeah it takes everybody needs to take ownership for making the road safe that's that's the way it has to be and thank you for your comment lean you're welcome thanks Mr chair this is kathern Hudson again could I we get back to public comments in a minute of course I believe it was Eric talking about his dad talking about the town's people making use of the railroad when it went through there are times a couple of girlfriends and I would get on the train and go to lantic to go to the movies and that there was no train coming back later that night so one of our folks would have to come pick us up but also when my dad went to high school we all went to
Windam my dad went to high school they used to take the train to lanic to go to high school so w just a little bit of trivia but also to show how the importance the train was during that period of time to the town of an and that it's great that the rail trail is there now and it's just becoming so such a significant part of the town as well thank you Katherine next up is meeting date and venue the date is November 19th hey Jed it's Joanne Hebert can I just say one quick thing oh yes Joan thank you no no it's that I love that fun fact of that she just brought up about the the take in the train but no very informative meeting I just wanted to stay through the end I always like learning a lot thank you so much I mean I don't have much to add but since I waited I thought I would just let you know that I did learn a lot thank you for the informative meeting and good night I appreciate you attending it's you know nice to have some people show up to see what we're doing now and then appreciate it thank you Joan thank you so the next meeting is November 19th venue is to be determined it I'll look and see if we can do a run through the new community Senior Center if it's not there it'll be here then my plan going forward after that is December through March probably will be Zoom only for the winter months and then in April maybe we'll start trying to to meet in person again but and at the next meeting I'll also go
through you proposed calendar dates for for next year and I look through in moving our meetings to Tuesday really made it great with all the holidays we don't have to redo any of them and and it works out being the third Tuesday of the month all year long there was no no interruptions to that but I'll I'll bring a formal listing so that we can vote on vote on that next month any any other comments before we adjourn here hearing none I thank everybody for the sport as always thank Ann for setting up you know that we could use the room an and Marina got over here 6:30 so we could make sure all the technology worked and we got her going so I appreciate that John thanks for the work on the pccd and the the concert rig such that it is and Wayne great to have you as part of the team and look forward to working with you here and with that I'll make a motion to adjourn second Patrick Patrick
second all in favor say I I we are you with us on ready to adjourn well maybe not so I I'll call it a lean abstaining until unless she jumps in here before we wrap up and the motion passes 41 with be