It's there we go. Okay. Time 703. We'll call the public hearing to order. And purpose of the public hearing tonight is the Andover Planning and Zoning Commission proposal to modify existing regulations concerning setbacks, modify certain requirements for mining, removing minimum dwelling size requirements, add regulations concerning agriculturally and non-aggriculturally related public and private events on farm parcels. So with that, John, could you call up the, current version of the agro tourism, right? That's where I want to start. And, Okay. So,
how's that?
That that looks good.
And for the benefit of the public that are with us here tonight, this is essentially the same regulation is that we were working with Ryan on. He chose to withdraw his application. He Oh, we lost we lost it there, John.
Sorry. I just wanted to I just wanted to save it locally so I could make some changes to it while we on the fly. Okay.
Very good. So, it hasn't changed essentially at all since we got done with our deliberations on on the regulation. But for the benefit of everybody in attendance tonight, I will go through, you know, some of the highlights that I saw on here. And the purpose of the regulation is to to support our farmers, let them do some things to alleviate financial hardships that small farms experience while having an positive impact on the community surrounding them. Next thing down is the definition of an agricultural accessory use which relates to the agricultural like you know horse shows, wine lectures, stuff like that that's directly
related to farming. And one of the things that we changed along the way here is we were not going to regulate those things at all, but we added we added the requirement to have a site plan review required for agricultural etc uses. So even even in those farm related cases the applicant needs to bring a site plan to the commission and we go through it make sure it complies with the regulations here. Next down is the one that was probably got most interest, the non-aggricultural accessory uses. And these events are not limited to, but outdoor recreation events, weddings, private parties, banquetss, that sort of thing. And a special permit is required for all non-aggricultural accessory uses. So even after we get done with these regulations and if they are ultimately approved, what what that means is that anybody who wants to do any of these things that are
in in this regulation has to come with a plan to the planning and zoning commission. If it's agriculturally related, we don't need to hold a public hearing on it. we just bounce it against our regulations. But if it is a non-aggricultural event, we would be required to have a public hearing with that. if you want to scroll down to 422 then and and for the benefit of those of the public tonight, if you have any benefit of everybody here tonight, if you have questions on it as I'm going through, go ahead and you know, speak up and we'll I'll do my best to address those. The U, under 4.22, you know, section B, we changed a little bit. We were looking for non-aggricultural related uses that would be at least 10 acres and for an agricultural related accessory use it would be 3 acres. So we put a minimum size there on that which was a little different than what we were talking to before. you know, the commission will decide, you know, we'll work to specify the maximum number of attendees based on the application. We've got you know, we refer back to our regulations in section 12 for parking. scrolling down to the top of the next page here, John proposed use shall not adversely affect the enjoyment, usefulness, and value of the premises in the neighborhood. paragraph G there, you know, something we talked about a lot. The hours of operation for uses or events that do not include amplified sound shall not begin before 9:00 or finish after 10:00 p.m. at night. And that's that's the same day, same hours, seven days a week of that. When we got down to the amplified sound,
we we came up with amplified sound be allowed on Fridays between 12 noon and 900 p.m. Saturday between 10:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. or Sunday between 10:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. in between 12:00 noon and 8:00 p.m. on all other days. So essentially Friday and Saturday you can go till 9. Rest of the nights it's 8. Are we going to deliberate this?
What's that?
Are we going to deliberate this?
Yes. Again.
Yes. On the regular meeting,
right?
Doesn't that have to be a long deliberation?
But
we are going to
But we do we are required to
some changes.
Well, you've got some changes you're thinking of.
Yeah. I I was just thinking that Sunday shouldn't be the starting time at 10:00 a.m., should it? So
amplified sound. So what what it has in here if you read on all other days you 12 to 8 Sunday between 10 and 8 p.m. and it says subject to modification by the planning and zoning commission to require fewer hours. So, if there was a reason and in the the item we talked about at the last meeting was if if the event was near a church and the church service was till 11:00, we could specify in the special permit that you know, we don't want you to start till 11:00 on Sunday or whatever. So, we've got that latitude to take care of that. I left it in there you know for the sound attenuation to be consistent with the state limits at the property line and it's up to the applicant to tell us how he's going to maintain that those limits and that sort of thing under site plans. you know the site plan we we talked about in the narrative including setup and takedown so we're not out there making a lot of noise. at three in the morning breaking down an event and that sort of thing. and then just again hit the on the last paragraph here with the agricultural accessory uses. You know the special permit shall be
issued for a trial period up to a year to ensure coverage of the summer season during which ty activity can be reported to the commission may be observed. During the trial period, the license can be revoked following notice to the permit holder and a hearing in which the permit holder will have the opportunity to appear and be heard as to why the permit should not be removed. After the trial period, approval may be made permanent subject to an annual review, inspection, and authorization, and there will be a $100 annual renewal fee. So that was that is where I think we stand on the agro tourism regulation. if any any commission members have any comments on the regulation as it currently stands? Okay. Very good. any members of the public? Baron, you have any comments that you would like to provide the commission?
Sure. I wish to thank the members of the
Yep. And we're having a hard time hearing Baron.
can you hear me now?
Better. Yep. I wish to thank the members of the committee for their recommendations. I know this is an is an evolving process and there are a lot of components to it. I think what really helped in my situation was a type of mutual respect that I had developed with the the neighbor and sort of an understanding of what's you know what's really loud, what's what's bothersome versus what's acceptable things things of that nature. So it's kind of a complex I know it's very difficult to cover in a in in writing but it has been you know u there's other businesses have been worked out where you know there's multiple facets to these type of businesses I understand that whether I have a question I really can't think of one right now, but that's basically what I just wanted to put across.
Okay. Thank you, Baron. And Katherine Hutchinson, did you have any comments on the proposed regulation?
yes, I do. Excuse me. Many of these are going to be a repeat of what I have said at the public hearings that were held on the former application. but bear with me please. The other thing too is with regard to and I'm going to start with the last thing first because I it's something that I mentioned before and that has to do with the excuse me the hours of the amplified sound on Sunday. I note that Monday through Friday, it doesn't start until noon until noon. And was there a reason why it was extended on Sunday back to 10:00 a.m.? Because what I would like to see is Sunday be the same as Monday through Friday with Saturday the only exception of starting at 10.
Okay. I understand the comment and the only reason that we were there was a difference was the majority of people and I don't even know that it's true that it's majority anymore. I was kind of, you know, I I looked I looked at it like the various fairs in the area where during the weekdays, if they're even having the fair, it normally starts later in the afternoon because most people are working during the day and they don't they don't have the opportunity to get over to the event till maybe 4:00 where on Saturday and Sunday they do have a little bit of more latitude to arrive earlier and so we were starting the event earlier. We we had a different ending time on Sunday because we think you know most of the people are getting ready to go to work following week and and we didn't want we wanted that to be more like the the Monday through Thursday wrapping up at 8:00 because people are going to bed so they can get up to go to work that sort of thing where we normally think a little bit later on Friday and Saturday. So that's that's the that's the rationale if you will. we've heard your comment. We can we can talk about that in deliberation. And again we mentioned that if there were the we wrote in on both you know the hours for the event or the hours for
sound that the commission can modify that to require fewer hours. We cannot though make it go any later than the hours specified in the instruction.
So to start an event later than 10:00 a.m. on on Sunday, we can do that
with the with the instruction written the way it is. again with regard to the start time at Sunday if I can just make additional comment and I understand what you're saying but an applicant who is filing an application and perhaps tailoring his or her business or what they're proposing to do would use the 10:00 figure. Whereas if it were the 12:00 being a Sunday when it's supposedly a day of s relative quiet, I would still suggest that consideration be giving to the same starting time of Monday through Fridays and that is at 12. or as I say as I started with last things first because I did comment
but with regard to in general with regard to my comments and again bear with me all please because you've heard this before when of the application Ryan's application but this is a new application and a new public hearing so I'm going to go ahead and with your indulgence repeat repeat some of the comments that I've made in the past with regard to a public act 490. under the statute, the term farmland means any track or tracks of land, including woodland and wasteland and any underwater farmlands used for agriculture constituting a farm unit. It is the assessor that determines what's a
farm under public act 490. Unfortunately, the commission doesn't have the authority to determine what's a farm. It's it's entirely up to the assessor's determination. And the status of a public act 490 farm unit also is subject to change. In other words, farms can go drop off and new ones can come on all the time. At this particular point, and again repeating what I have said before that, the regulations apply to any and all property in town that consists of three or more acres with regard to an agriculture accessory use and 10 or more for a non-aggricultural accessory use. And again, this would permit commercial activity pretty much anywhere in town, particularly under the non-aggriculture accessory use section. The statutes require the assessor to file an annual report with the state
forester. At this point, according to the assessor's report to the state forest that is currently in effect, at this point, there are 37 properties in town designated as farm under 490. 20 of them have 10 acres or more and thus would fall in the non-aggricultural accessory use category. 33 of them have 3 acres or more that fall within the agricultural accessory use. One of the farm properties in town of particular concern is the designation already as a a farm is the Roberts the Percy Cooks property which as you all know is very close to the town hall the community center and especially the school. There are also a number of the already designated as farm under port public act 490 along Hein Road. that property is basically located in the AARD zone on the easterly side of Hebrin Road starting about Lake Road and running to the Hein Town line and that abuts the Andover Lake District and really comes quite close to the Andover Lake District. Excuse me. And there are also a number of properties around town that are more than the 10 acres. And that's why I'm particularly concerned with the 10 acres where there's basically a lot of activity that is non-aggricultural that would be permitted under the proposed regulations. And they're in the Lake District. if they're not already designated, they're in the area of the library and the church close to the Harp River Homes. again that subject to that and even expanding on that any place in town and I again I'm particularly concerned about the non-aggricultural use any property in town that is 10 acres or more under the present regulation would
the proposed regulation I should say would be subject to approval as a public debt 490 farm and therefore any parcel that's 10 acres or more would be subject to what the proposed regulations permit be done and that is a lot of town area and town and I would submit covers pretty much the whole town. So I would again ask the commission to keep excuse me keep that in consideration. it's going it has the potential to affect basically the whole town and the nature of the whole town if put to its maximum use. I am very pleased with a number of the changes that the commission did make with regard to the reduction in the hours that these operations can go on and including in your designation of the year review including the agricultural as well as the non-aggricultural provisions. So I I appreciate that and again wanted to sum it up, make the commission aware that adopting this it could have significant impact all over town. And really that's about what I a brief summary of what I've said in the past but to get the idea across and again getting back to my last comment with regard to the hours on Sunday for the starting time at Sunday. I've already put that on the record. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Katherine. And because I did ponder that issue a while after you raised it during the last public hearing. My thinking was that we are talking so if we have an agricultural accessory use or non-aggricultural accessory use that would tell me you know the intention here is to have provide assistance to somebody who's primary business is farming so that this other thing is accessory to the farming, if you will. And that's going to be something that the applicant has to come in and demonstrate to the commission about just because somebody's got for tax purposes a bunch of trees that are listed as a farm. If that's not his primary business, I don't think that you can say that the
event, whether it's agricultural, not agricultural, would be accessory to something that's almost a non-existent business. We're we're trying to do this where somebody makes a good percentage of their livelihood off of farming. At least that's my intent. and and I thought that having it listed as an accessory use helped us enforce that. So that was my thinking. We can deliberate that some more when we get to it. I got your comment, but why it was fresh in everybody's mind. I just wanted to to take a couple minutes and go through how I was thinking about that comment when you made it before.
All right. Thank you. any other comments on any of the commission members here tonight or John or Wayne? Jed, I would just make one. It's John Gusowski. for the record, just one real minor correction on the on item L, the very last line. I think it's just cleaner to say there'll be $100 annual fee. you put $100 in in PNS, but I just thought you want to add the the board dollar also, but that's that's a minor thing.
Very good. I agree. Okay. so if there are no more comments on the agro tourism section, I'm going to put that aside. And we've got a bunch of little minor changes that I want to go through. And Baron, you you're certainly welcome to stay. It's going to be a while before we get to the deliberation, but you've heard you've heard the comments. You've you've heard the discussion. I think you probably got what you want out of attending tonight.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Okay.
so Jed, do you want bring up you have the you sent me two documents. One is summary of proposed changes and the other is zoning regulations pending 2025.
Just bring up the the zoning regulations document. I'll I'll go through the
summary changes as we walk our way through that.
Okay. Yeah. And if you can blow that up just a little bit more. Okay. So here, you know, and this goes back to you know, a lot that we were discussing over on Hendy Road and so the the applicant wanted to create a lot and it didn't have any frontage on the road and it wasn't really a rear lot wasn't really well it just didn't have any frontage. Yeah, you can have all the width you want on a rear lot, but it's got to have something along the road. And so we wanted to change width to frontage to to be consistent with, you know, we've got to have a given amount of frontage on the road to to safely access the rear lot. That's what the requirement is. And then there's other definitions on the rear lot, but width was not appropriate. frontage was and that's why we changed it there. And you also got to add a T less than he required long rest less than the required L.
So are you at 493?
No, too.
492 a lot.
Oh, right there.
Oh, okay. Put that in there. That'd be good. Yeah. Let me I need to check changes. Okay. Yeah.
Okay. Thanks, Scott. And then we go down to 493. And again, we're talking about we just changed width to frontage there. And so that was that was the change. And that's all there is to that. So any any questions on those particular two changes? Okay, why don't you scroll down, John, to 79 7?
Yep. Where where are we here?
Still four. Okay, I'm still in four. Sorry.
They go after you get out of four.
Seven.
There. There we are. Y. So, I've you know, we've had a couple of people apply for sheds and they look like garages. And and the question in my mind that I wrestled with with Jim Haly a bunch is in this day and age, you know, should we have should you in the Lake District be able to have more than a twocar garage? And it's in my mind, you know, we do have several houses around the lake that have threecar garages in them already. we also I also wrestled with this again when we were talking about the the fella up on Bizola Road with his huge twocar garage in the Lake District. It's, you know, it's really more than a two-car garage. It only had two doors on it, but I thought, you know, if you got a big lot, you're in the Lake District, you want a threecar garage, why shouldn't you be able to have a threecar garage? And so I
put it in here that that was permittable with a special permit. So, you know, not everybody gets to have a threecar garage, but if you got a reasonable size lot, I think that's okay because people have ended up with it already. somehow we're doing that. So, I thought that made sense. Any any comments from anybody in attendance on that particular proposed change? You want to specify a lot size? I did not. You know, it's going to be dependent upon the shape of the house where it sits. We still got the setbacks. you know, if you got these little locks and and most of the little locks, they come in asking for a variance on the setbacks already. And so, I'm thinking that if we just comp if we hold the compliance with the setbacks, we'd probably be okay there in my mind. Okay, there's so this you know this was really this is an offshoot of eliminating the the requirement for you know car lots and had to go to CBA. You know it it doesn't have to by state law anymore. it does by planning
and zoning, but his Wayne was was reviewing that we changed gasoline to motor vehicle fuel in case somebody was just selling diesel fuel or something. So, it made it more inclusive. That might even might even include a charging station. I don't know. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. But it's more than just gasoline. So that's the only reason for that change there.
You could add commercial
vehicle charging station
to those words.
I want to get I don't want to make the deliberation any trickier than it is. I want to get
commercial vehicle charging station something.
But but it may prompt another change and I'm a continuous process improvement kind of guy.
Okay. But any other comments on that particular change from gasoline to motor vehicle fuel. Okay. And so so again what we did here is we changed auto to motor vehicles on the first three things and then we added motor vehicle storage facility and that was included in the ZBA article that we got rid of because no longer required by state and just to make sure that we covered it we put it you know is allowable by special permit in the industrial zone here. So that's that's that one. Any any comments on that particular change? And then we reumbered the rest of them. So that's what the reumbering is all about there. Okay. Hear and none. Scroll down to 10.7.2. Okay. Yeah. So again, we had an application where somebody wanted to build a new construction home in a flood plane. And it it says that you know someplace else it talks about prohibited
things and and it was new construction residential was prohibited in the flood plane but the attorneys came back and said well how can that be true when it says here residential construction new construction you're telling us right there that's allowed. So, in order to preclude that from happening again, because in my mind, we shouldn't be building houses in the flood plane, we crossed out new construction there. So, if you've already got a house in the flood plane, you can substantially improve it. You just can't build new home there in the flood plane. Looking down there, paragraph two talks about manufactured homes. And if we're not going to allow new construction in a flood plane, we didn't need to talk about building manufactured homes in the flood plane. So, I just got rid of that entire paragraph and renumbered somewhere down there. And that's so that's the essence of that particular change. Any any comments from anybody on those? Yay. Yay. It took a while, Scott. I promise you we get there. I guess it's not done yet, but we're getting close. Okay. next up is section 11.1. Oh, all right. Sorry. I I thought we were done with that. Just a second.
Oh, no. We got Yeah, we had we got a couple more to go. 11.1.
Yeah.
Are we on? Is it the table?
No, it's 11.2. We're right above it.
All right, there we go.
Yeah. And so, the state has done away with minimum floor requirements for building a house. And so, we deleted those. so here up on the cop where it had minimum requirement for lots where it specified width. We changed that to frontage. I think at one point in time we were using those two terms interchangeably. now we're not. And so frontage is the correct word there. Over on the right hand side all those blue for floor areas that whole column is eliminated because you know we're not allowed to specify minimum floor area size anymore. going down back. under the open space lot on the front yard feed, the current requirement by our regulation is 20 ft. Oops. You have to go.
Sorry. Yeah. No, I accident I think I I clicked a a link inadvertently. Here, hang on.
Okay. Yep.
All right. Here we are.
So, highlight this.
Yep. And I can't read what that says, but in my notes here it says 30.
Yeah, that's front front yard is being proposed to change from 20 to 30.
And that's because you measure the front yard setback from the center line of the road. And so if we had a 20ft setback with a 10-ft wide, you 20 foot wide road, which I think our roads are probably a little bit bigger. I think they're more like 22. But you would be building a house essentially right next to the road. I don't think that's what we wanted. I think when we came up with some of the numbers in here, we forgot that we measured from the center line. So I changed that to 30. Actually, you know, when we get to deliberation, I was wrestling with is 30 and up. Should it be bigger than that? But 30 is what I went with just to add the center line of the road there. Can can I ask just a
Yeah, it's kind of a silly question. Why is it different than any other lot?
Don't know the answer to that. And and for purposes of this chart, I wasn't going to go there. I figured we well, we wanted to give somebody an allowance to make it easier to build an open space subdivision lot. So, an open space lot, we we made it so that you didn't have to have quite so much square footage, right, setbacks and all that because we're we're counting on getting some open space as part of the deal. and so that made sense to me. Andover Lake open space. Andover Lake Seasonal. Yeah. Okay. Well, Andover Lake seasonal. I deleted it.
And again, I don't think anybody, you know, we used to have something in here that a seasonal house only had to be 500 square ft. I saw that reading through some of this stuff. Nobody's going to build a seasonal house on Andover Lake anymore. There might be a couple of them that are still there, but I think it is really all tribal knowledge that that you know that they're seasonal houses. I think they all in my mind qualify as a yearround house if you look at what's the difference between the two. But what I was trying to avoid also in getting rid of the seasonal requirement is when a person wants to change his seasonal house to a year round house, you have to come in with a special
permit to do that. And when somebody had a variance approved for a seasonal house and now he wanted to build a year round house which required more a bigger lot. He I didn't see how he could get through the hardship thing by doing that. you know, if he if he already had a variance for a smaller lot, now we we've got the requirement for a bigger lot. how is he going to get authorized to do that? I think it's in the town's interest to have these lots upgraded to year round houses. I think that's something that we want. And so, I didn't want to put the applicant in a position where there was he want he had to prove a hardship and there was no way to to prove it. And so we just got rid of the seasonal because every house out there now is essentially a year round house. And I did not get rid of the requirements out of section 7 for upgrading it using a special permit because I wasn't sure what the unintended consequences were. And so this way if somebody thinks they have a seasonal house, they want to upgrade it, we get to take a look at it just to make sure it makes sense. And I was okay with that. I left that in. But I wanted to not get wrapped around all these things because we've got some year- round houses that are on lots smaller than the lots that the seasonal houses are currently on. And so that didn't make any sense to me either. So
that's why I changed that one.
Jed, you might want to look at 7.0.2.
Okay. yeah, we'll let John scroll back. There's 7.0.2.
I should have brought this up earlier. I should have caught it.
Yeah,
So, you to be consistent, you just get rid of that entirely, right? I'm thinking about it for just a second, but I do think that that's a good call. We we can just go ahead and and scratch that paragraph and and reumber the rest.
In what way?
Remember the rest?
Yeah.
Wow.
Good job. good job, John. See, when I go to I try to
hold on. I'm just gonna I just want to save this as as the right version so I I can track it down.
When I when I try to format this thing, a lot of times it's like a jack in a box and things pop out and I spend an hour trying to get it back to where I was. So watching you just do that, I am more convinced than ever that you should be the custodian of the master because I would I would have spent an hour trying to do what you just did. Okay, very good. back to the chart. So, scrolling down to the business adjacent to the ARD and we used to have a 10-foot front yard setback. And as we discussed at the last meeting, if you're if you're adjacent to the ARD, why would we want to allow you to have a smaller setback? And again, with a 10-ft setback and a 10-ft road width, you would be building right out to the road, which we didn't want. So, I changed it to 45 because I wanted it to be the same as all the other businesses. You shouldn't have to have less setback when you're by a residential neighborhood. So that's what I did there.
What's that 751 jet on in
751? That that is a typo. And I don't see where it is.
It's supposed to be super Yeah. Superscript
and refer to the footnote. A footnote down below.
Okay. Okay. When I printed it off, I I missed a little bit at the edge there. So, I but I I know the note you're referring to, Scott. And it's supposed to be seven five
with a superscript up there. One
I'm sorry. Where are you?
Oh, this one right here.
Where? Yeah, that's that one. That That one should be a superscript.
All right. wait, I can format the text. Where is it? I
think you go to Fton.
All right. I'll I'll figure that out.
Okay. And the one above it should be a superscript.
Yeah. But that's one's being deleted anyway, but Yeah. Okay. That's right. Okay. I'll I'll flag it. so I think that's all on on the chart for section 11.2. Anybody anybody got any comments on the changes we just talked about? 16 sand and gravel. Okay. 161 1611.
Yep. So here the intention was is somebody could be having a mountain on their property and wanted to do a mining thing and they said well I'm just removing surplus material so I got level I have to put my house on it. We wanted to eliminate the ability of somebody to do that. So we we said you know removal of material necessary construction of structures yes for which building permits been issued and approved provided such removal does not exceed 1,000 yards of material. And so if you if you're going to be taking more than 1,000 yards in that 1,000 yards, it was kind of arbitrary. But I think we arbitraried on the larger side rather than the smaller side. So I think if with that nobody's going to accuse us of being too restrict on removing dirt for digging a basement or something with 550 loads. And Ched, this is this is probably a minor formatting thing and I'll I'll defer to the construction folks in the room. Should we refer to those as cubic yards rather than just yards?
Yeah, probably
cubic yards is more technically correct. Yeah, that'd be good.
I don't know if the word yard is anywhere else in there, but
no, it is. Yeah. And then they could still get a special permit if it does exceed that.
Right. Good. 62. Okay.
But, you know, just as a rule of thumb, you know, if you're going to be taking a mountain off your property, we need to have a excavation special permit.
Well, special permit. Got it.
That's a lot. That's
Yeah. Several towns have run encountered problems with people buying
land that had gravel on it.
Years later, they're still removing.
Yeah. 16.1.2 is essentially the same kind of thing, but with agriculture instead of building the a building. Then then we reumbered the the rest of the things there. Any questions or comments on that particular change?
And there again, I just picked a thousand yards up. I got you.
Yep.
If anybody, you know, the assembled,
it's going to at least put a limit on what somebody can haul out of their work. We can go in and cite them as being contrary to our
I wonder how many loads they took out of the gravel out there. We don't know.
I've got nobody knows.
Well, what we do know is how many loads of dirt I don't have a number they put back in there. And I was surprised at that just to raise the the level up, you know, the four inches. Oh, god. He had to put at least 40 loads in there.
Yeah. Yeah. 40 40 to 60 loads. It was an awful lot. We came back with more. okay. Let's scroll down to section 19. 1922. Is that where you are?
It's
Oh, no.
You tell me, Jed.
Okay. Well, so wherever you see blue. Okay. So, you know, and this is just kind of a formatting thing. Requirements of section 19.2.6. Yeah, I got rid of that because there was no section 19.2.6. Okay.
And so it didn't make any sense to to reference that. It was just addition to these requirements period. These or this
it's this requirement.
Okay, that's fine. Yeah, because that Okay, whatever. It says this here. Yeah. so when we look at 19.2, so scroll up a little bit so we can see the top of it there. I don't know how we did this. And really didn't care. But when we were talking about BB in his class A kennel or his kennel out on route six, we determined that he was really after a type A kennel based on the number of dogs who was going to be out there. now I'm starting to understand. It says 19.2.1 special requirements. I thought it said special permit requirements there. and we'll take a look to make sure I
don't need to add that there. That's the same as arrest. But what I remember was Attorney Grants when we were struggling to get that going without a public hearing said, "Well, it's not a special permit. It says permitted in all uses except flood broom zone. So you can go ahead and do what you want to do. I wanted to make sure that every kennel got a special permit because I think that's a big deal. And so I put the commission will set a public hearing date in accordance with the provisions of Connecticut general statutes as amended. So we would have that be a special permit. But somebody keep me honest. we might need to when I look at the class B kennel I make I want to make the wording the same. So scroll down to we get to the type B counts. Oops. Let's talk action of the commission here. So the commission will take action on such application in accordance with section 23.3 Charlie 3 which is the the special permit section of our regulations. And again that to to force you back to having a special per and so it is special permitted uses John. So if you go back to 19 2.1 19
2.1 right here
you could put special permit requirements in there because that's what I was reading even though that word is not there. Okay, that's good. So that makes it even better with Yes. type A kennels will now require a special permitting and it goes from there. Okay, very good. Hang on. So if you go to 19.3 I'm wondering if Okay, 19.2 special permitted uses
protect beacons.
No, 19.2
view. If you scroll up to 19.2, which starts that section, special permitted uses.
Yep.
The following uses are permitted subject to commission approval. That kind of covers it, doesn't it?
As far as needing to special permit.
Yeah. In my mind, it does. And adding the the word Oh, I see what you're saying in there. I don't know. because it's it's sub it's you know this is this is underneath 9.2 too. So everything here would apply. So you could just you could just call it requirements.
I mean for consistency I my suggestion is you use the same words that you use in 19.3 Right. So it's right now one says special one says special permit. You could Yeah, you could change, you know, both or neither.
Oh, that's that's a little bit beyond my ability to do on the fly here because, you know, we would be reumbering a bunch of stuff.
no, I don't I I No, I don't think so. I think you Wayne, you're just talking about the the the phrasing, right?
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Just you just copy you just change type B cattle to type A and use the exact same words.
Okay. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
And then it's it's consistent throughout the whole kennel section that way. Well, so there are different requirements like Right. So the the special requirements for type B kennels has A through E, right?
there are different requirements and that's why they're different sections. I didn't want it to be a special permit.
I'm not saying to use any of the a any of the A through D stuff. I'm just saying use the word special permitted uses and that
C section 20 and the line after that that's it. So right this minute 19.2 2 in our regulation says special permitted uses type A kettles which is the exact same words as 19.3 right doesn't say C-section
it does say they both say C-section 23 I believe
oh yeah okay you're right
okay then the filing uses are permitted subject to commission approval I you can leave it like that that I I I withdraw my
well the the sentence that's different is the one right under 19.2 where it says here the following uses are permitted subject to commission approval.
The other ones say following uses are permitted subject to commission approval following a public hearing with the Connecticut general statutes. And I put that in a different spot there for type A and I think it's it's technically correct. It might be worded a little bit funnier, but to get the point across that you're going to have to have a special permit of public hearing.
So, just for consistency, I'll add the longer phrase for both.
Yep, that's fine.
Okay. Scroll down to see if there's anything else there. Okay. And then so and that gets you that refers you into the special permit section rather than you know we tried to spell out a bunch of the requirements for special permit didn't just go to section 23.3 C.
I'm sorry. Okay. So, where we going? Oh, 23.
Are we
are we going down there or are you just you're just talking about the reference?
That is that is all the changes that I made to section 19 were just in the class A.
Now, I may have added section 23.3 Charlie 3 in there in a couple of different places just because 19.2 too. Maybe he was trying to reference it back to the things under the class A can, but you know, we just need to reference the the thing in the special permit section, and that's what that does. So, it's it was kind of a nonchange formatting thing in my mind.
Just a quick question. The type the type A kennel, is that like the smallest?
Yep.
So, do we really require a public hearing for that or
We do. So, if somebody were to put a kennel next to your house, I think you want to have a say about it.
Thank you for clarification.
Yeah. And that that's really, you know, I didn't think it was right to not have a public hearing. If you're talking about having a kennel,
Jed, can I park dogs? Can I just raise like a a short a quick procedural matter?
And so this is you know so this section here where where we say for any of the above uses shall be submitted for application procedure for any of the above uses. So I it should be like applications for the above uses.
yeah,
but 10 days prior to the meeting to meeting of commission.
just is that ju I guess I'm wondering what the what the the the purpose behind that is because it runs a foul or it's a little bit more rigid than than the general statutes would provide.
because the general statutes provide that you can submit an application up to 24 hours prior to the next meeting
and it will be received. Obviously, you you wouldn't be able to decide on it and consider it or really have much time to look at it, but the statutes allow you to get it received.
You're right. And so again I the only thing I was trying to change on this was to make sure we got a special permit. The I think that so if we had a special permit the permit would come in. It could be coming in the day before the the thing and all we would do is say Wayne is the application complete? He would say yes. We would say okay we're going to schedule a public hearing. I think when you did not have to do a public hearing sometimes, you know, if it's just the commission review, you can do that on that day. I don't know. I think we were just trying to get it. So, it always annoyed me when I walked into a planning and zoning meeting and here comes the application that we're supposed to act on that night. And that was the first time I'd had a chance to take a look at it. So when I saw 10 days, I started cheering. I I didn't but if if that's
it's just I you know I think and and again this is something you can ask for it and you can expect it but if if you know someone submits it seven days prior or even three days prior it really can't affect your actions necessarily, you know. those words those exact same words appear in in the type B and type C panel.
Yeah.
Go ahead and leave it there the way it is.
Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, I'm just Okay,
just just note that. Yeah, it it shouldn't affect commission action, but it's you know it's fine. It's fine to ask for it.
A type A, type B, type C. Is that something that's commonly understood that we don't have to define it or is it defined? That might be in our definitions. I can't remember but it is
definitions are are up in that same 19 section 19.0 I think class A kennel is less than six you know then the class B is less than 10 C is more than 10 that's from my memory
basically 10 10 to 20 yeah up to 10 10 to 20 over 20
right thank you
okay all good discussion any other questions on or comments on the section 19 change okay let's scroll Scroll down to section 22. So this is this deletes the items that are no longer required by state to go to the CBA. And so this is the ZBA chapter. We eliminated those things because they don't have to go there. Planning and zoning is going to act on them and that's sufficient. And then we reumbered the rest. And then we did you can see the item D there, the motor vehicle storage facilities. That was not previously in the list of things for planning and zoning to regulate. We added that earlier. Okay. Any any questions on that? so that that completes all the changes that I wanted to make. That doesn't mean there's not a lot more in there that need to be changed, but there were a couple of key points that I wanted to get wrapped up this year and that does it. and so, I appreciate a couple of tweaks that we made on that going through tonight. The, so, so looking back a little bit, I did think we were going to have more attendees at the meeting tonight. the one of the issues that we ran through, we did not get the notification for the public hearing put in the River East where we normally put public hearings. The there's no requirement that it be put in the River East. That's just traditionally what we do. and we missed the deadline and so Wayne scrambled a little bit and he got it in the journal inquir which meets the requirements for we we've got to post it twice a couple of you know within the magic windows in a newspaper that's got substantial
distribution in the town where the public hearing is going to be here to help. So, we met the requirements just not in the method that we normally do. And then it took a little bit to to get the agenda posted online this time for you know some other reasons in there not due to maybe lack of effort. I tried to get it there just didn't show up. And so my question to the commission is we we can technically close out the public hearing now. we could hold the public hearing open to the next meeting just to make sure that nobody that wanted to make a comment doesn't have a chance to do so. I think we you know we we held we got a lot of input and that input was used to generate the procedure that we brought forward to agro tourism. So anybody have any strong thoughts one way or the other on that? move forward. Okay. And certainly we are technically correct. You know, the people that were interested we had a couple of them that that knew about it chose to show up tonight and that Okay. So, anybody opposed to closing up public hearing tonight?
John, this is Katherine. I mean Jed, this is Katherine. I'm looking at John's picture.
Yes.
excuse me. I just wanted to ask if you could ask John whether or not he's aware of anything that happened at the most recent special section session of the legislature that might impact on anything that was proposed particularly with regard to some of the changes that were proposed tonight as a result of the public act that was passed last year last spring.
Yeah.
I haven't seen a copy of the whatever. So, I don't
So, relative to the things that we addressed this evening, I would say no. there there might be some future changes depending on what the town opts to do. there are a couple of sort of mixeduse and transit oriented development options that a town can can opt into that would require some specific changes about you know as of right mixeduse as of right certain densities of residential development conversions of commercial to residential parking caps on multif family, but those are I believe almost exclusively optin decisions by by an individual zoning commission. I don't believe there is any well no I say that well again yeah no there there is a minor change I believe there is a a minimum dimension of manufactured houses like essentially you know trailers mobile homes or mobile manufactured homes that that was eliminated. So we we would might have to check that section of our regulations if we if we include some sort of minimum dimension minimum dimension I think of 22 feet that might have to be eliminated but of the changes that Jed went through just now including the agurism stuff I'm confident in saying the the house bill 802 did not touch any of those things.
All right. Thank you. That was my question. Okay. So, at this point in time,
I have one other question, Patrick.
also even though, we have a pretty solid idea of what the proposed agurism edit is. I know we had talked about a like a trial period and if we don't like it, we can get rid of it and start over or
Yep. That's in there.
It's in there.
Not just for the special permit applicant, but the regulation in general.
let me read it because
Yeah,
I thought that
just want to make sure that you know if we do run into problems.
Yeah. No,
cuz I just want to make sure they're duly addressed and so you're right. Good point. says, "Agricultural accessory uses and non-aggricultural accessory special permit approval shall be issued for a trial period of up to one year to ensure coverage of the summer season during which time the activity can be reported to the commission may be observed to make initial evaluation possible. During the trial period, the license could be revoked try." Yeah. So, it doesn't. 6 months from now had a special permit approved based on the agro tourism regulations
as we did. Could we go back and undo that?
in the so aggro tourism
what's that
his is you want to talk you wanted to make a modification to the agurism section
yeah looking at the very last paragraph and at least it was my intention that we would try this procedure for a year to see how it worked. worked if there was anything that needed to be changed like the maximum you know the times for music or anything like that and at least so I guess if we wanted to adjust within that year this instruction and then the review period came up for the special permit which we say it's only good for a year. We could kind of do that as long as is the instruction would be changed before the the anniversary of the special permit approval. I think I think that gives us there but after that first year does that mean that that it's a so there's no review after the first year? There's always review. We're going back and changing. We're changing y,
you know, procedures every time we find something that we want to do better. Okay.
The thing that you can't do
is if we approve a special permit
on a regulation
and then we decide later on we don't like it, so we change it. The guy's got a special permit.
Right. It was my intention by having the one-year review process that we would know after a year of doing it, no, we ought to change our regulation to do that, we can change it and not continue his special permit, make him get new special permit based on the current regulation. That's how I just double checking.
Yeah, good good question.
Thanks.
okay. Any other last minute things? John? Yes sir.
the last line there'll be a 100 dollars is supposed to say plural.
I don't think so.
Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You're right. One dollar.
Yeah.
Okay. At 8:19 I close the public hearing when we're when we're questioning whether or not there should be an S dollar close public hearing and move on. At time 8:19 I call the regular meeting of planning zoning commission to order. It at this point I'd like to welcome Jay to to our new alternate member to for the commission. Have you been sworn in yet?
Okay, so we're all good to go. thank you for applying. Thank you for attending. Looking forward to working with you. Roll call and seating of alternates. We've got all the regular members are present. Ann Marie and Jay are here as alderates tonight. No alternates will be seated. And I would like to add one item that would be an old business item by Charlie and that is a gravel pit motion to enter executive session. And I've got some news on the gravel pit to share with everybody tonight. And we'll go from that. So, that's the only addition that I have to the agenda. any other changes?
Hearing none. I'm looking for a second to my motion to add the
We'll second.
Okay. Ann, thank you. any discussion? Call for a vote. Anni,
Patrick,
I
Scott,
hi.
Leanne,
and I vote I as well. So, the the agenda's changed. I am going to text Alan Cherno wanted to attend tonight. I think that's a good thing. I'm going to give him a heads up that Did he get the the link? maybe not. They we'll find out real soon. public speak. I think you're the only member of the public still holding with us. You got anything for us at this point? I think she's on and you are on mute, Katherine, if you're trying to give us anything there. Next up is old business. First item, deliberation on the application 25-3ZC and over planning and zoning commission proposal to modify existing regulations. and I'm not going to read through all those things at this point. We spent a lot of time going through it. So, at this point, do any commission members have any
anything that they want to, discuss on any of the changes that we were talking about tonight?
Did we wrap up old business or what's
We wrapped up the old business. This is the old Oh, it's under new business on my I'm just confused. Sorry. H. Just looking for my summary of changes so I can make a decent motion. Jed, I think I I mean I have it the one if you sent it to France, I could I could bring that up. The summary.
I got the right one.
does it have the chapter? Oh, I got it here. Okay, I'm set.
Okay. So, if there are no items for discussion, I will make a motion to approve the proposed zoning regulations that were discussed at public hearing on November 18th, 2025 that changed articles 4.9.2 2 4.9.3 7 Alpha 0.9 8.1 9.1 10.7.2.1 1.1 11.2 section 16 19 and 22 as were discussed during the public hearing.
I'll second that.
Okay. Any other discussion?
Call for vote. Ian.
Hi.
Patrick.
Hi.
Scott.
Hi.
Leanne.
I.
Hold the phone. I withdraw my I withdraw my motion. I want to make sure we heard two comments from Katherine Hutchinson tonight. She suggested that we might consider 10:00 a.m. to noon on Sunday. I wanted to make sure that we had a chance to address that one way or another. I don't really care. I think she's got a a good point that, you know, Sunday should be a relatively quiet day. so think about that for a minute. And, you're right. He doesn't have the Zoom link. I emailed it to him. Well, maybe I can maybe I can text it.
Hey, Alan is Jet. Wayne just emailed you the something with the Zoom link on it.
Yeah, I I'm here. I'm just and I don't imagine you have access to a laptop.
I could text it to him. I can Yeah, we'll we'll try that. might not be great. And it's going to be a couple of minutes before we get there. So, I will just keep this line open and and I'll put you on speaker phone when we get to Well, I'll put you on speaker phone now. just say anything until we get to your your
In the meantime, I'll keep trying this link.
Okay. Yeah. Very good.
Or go to the town go to the calendar on the town website and just click on the link.
He's he's on his phone and it's just not working with the phone. So, anyhow, he's working on it. So anyhow, I I just wanted to my goal is to get the instruction on the sheet on the screen. I don't care whether it's Sunday 10 for no doom. I got you know there's valid reasons for 10 valid reasons for doom. Anybody got a strong opinion that we should change it?
What if we just split the difference and make it 11:00? Okay.
did you hear
what I did not split the difference and at 11 o'clock?
It's not it's in it's in the discussion phase. And so and before I do that, again, Katherine Hutchinson mentioned to all the 490 farms, you know, one one of the things we did is we crossed out the requirement that it was a 490 farm. I thought we were putting in restrictions by making it the 490 requirement. And again, with the accessory thing, I'm pretty comfortable with that. I think we got that covered.
Yeah.
But I will amend my motion to to approve all of those changes with the exception that the 10:00 a.m. start time for Sunday will be changed to 11 a.m. This is all by special permit and review. So we could always do these things individually too, couldn't we? Yeah, they they will be there. They're it's a special permit, so they will be.
Yeah. Yeah. So,
so Jed, if that could if I could.
That is good. Yeah.
So,
so yeah.
so that's the change. All those things we listed, modify the start time on Sunday to 11:00 a.m. I'm looking for a second to the amended motion.
Second. Okay, Scott, you seconded. Now I'll call for a a vote again. We we just that before I concluded that business and
I,
Patrick,
I
Scott
I,
Leanne,
and I vote I as well. The motion as amended passes five serves. thank you. That's a lot of business wrapped up tonight.
So, how how long?
Couple years. Several years.
Yeah.
Could be more as they go ahead.
Good job. Yeah. Good job. Got it over the finish.
Next item. Next item up is on the planet conservation and development. And John, I'll turn that over to you. I know there was some thought that we were going to get together and talk about that. that a little bit since last year.
Yeah. So, we we've basically, you know, I'm happy to, you know, again, so last month we sent you guys all the the the additional draft chapters, so you had another chance to take a look at it. This month we actually have been refining things and and we actually had a lot of comments and conversation with some of the conservation folks specifically Maryanne and and Hank Gruner and met with Hank last week I believe because he wanted to go through a bunch of the language and the maps from our latest version of the conservation chapter. so he just got those changes over to Janal, my colleague, and who who
basically has a new version. I, you know, not not significantly changed. It's really, I'll just show you quickly. so this is from the conservation chapter, the natural resources conservation chapter. a lot of the maps were ad adapted and refined her comments of the conservation commission open space natural diversity. So there so the the there was a lot of you know sort of minor editing and adjustment to maps. So we have I believe made most of those changes. I think Hank and Maryanne are taking one more look at it. but I think we are basically at a point now where we have all of our you know draft chapters complete in order. and so what I would propose is basically for next month's meeting you see the full proposed document again you know informally informally laid out. It's it's not sort of the final pretty version, but all of the text, all of the all the figures will be there and and the the hope would be that you guys basically take the opportunity in December to receive it and schedule it for a public hearing or lock down that date at least 65 days hence.
So, a public hearing wouldn't be until February.
That's correct.
Okay. And and I'm okay if anybody complains that we're late. We'll just say we were waiting for the state bill to come through so we could make sure EOC was consistent with that.
I think that's a good that's a good way to put it.
Okay.
but yeah, no, there's no there's there's there's not going to be any issue about you know, a little a couple months tardy.
Yep. No, I good enough. Okay, that sounds good. We we'll look at it, talk about it at December and scheduled public hearing at that meeting.
Great. Thank you.
Next up under hold business is the motion to go to executive session. And at this point, I make a motion that we enter executive session for the purposes of discussing the gravel pit with the attendees, all commission members, the zoning agent and our attorney, Alan Gordo.
So, if I, unless I'm mistaken,
and our planner.
Yeah. So, unless I'm mistaken, I believe everyone in the room and online is invited with the exception of Katherine Hutchinson.
Yes.
So, I'll I'll ask Katherine if you would you prefer that we go to a breakout room and leave you there or if you have nothing further with this commission, you could step away. It's it's up to you. I don't mind stepping away temporarily, but I do want to be
participating when you're out of executive sessions.
Okay. So, yeah. So, actually, it might be easier, Jed, to that I just bring over run over to a a breakout room so that we don't have to boot Katherine.
Yep.
All right. So, has the I'm sorry. Has the motion been acted on?
All right. So just clarification then I stay on and you're going to go into session so that I can't hear but then you'll be back. Correct.
That is correct.
Oh thank you.
All right Jed, you ready to go?
I am.
Okay.
I have to do nothing. So
no I think I think whoever's running your your present your PowerPoint will have to jump over.
yeah, you've got us recording again, John.
We are recording.
Okay, very good. So, we've completed our executive session and as a result of that session, I will make a motion that the site is stabilized and that upon payment of a bond payment subject to the satisfactory settlement of the town financial requirements as agreed to by the parties, the lawsuit will be withdrawn. Looking for a second. Second and thank you. Any discussion on the motion?
And hearing none, I'll call for a vote. Ann
I
Patrick
I
Scott
I
Leanne
and I vote I as well. Motion passes 5 0. Thank you, Alan, if you're still there. It's been a long time coming.
Looks like he's Looks like he bailed.
Yeah, looks like he's
he can't allow the legal fees. Well, we we already did talk about that. okay. That completes the old business. Up for new business, election of officers per the bylaws, article seven. And so we we meet the requirements of the the bylaws that all the regular members are in attendance. We do have one that's not here. We do have our new alternate that is here, but that we we can go through everybody everybody that's in attendance will vote and the nominated person has to have a majority of the votes to to be elected. So I open the floor for nominations for chairman.
I nominate Patrick Dohy chairman. I'll second that nomination.
You accept that nomination, Patrick?
Oh, yeah, I accept the nomination. Thank you.
Okay. Excellent. Are there any other nominations for chairman?
Nominate 10.
I I've chosen not to continue on at this point. Yeah.
All right.
I have enjoyed my time, but it's time for somebody new, but thank you. Yeah. Okay.
So, we've got a nomination and a second. I'll call for a vote. Ian.
Hi,
Patrick.
Hi,
Scott. Hi
Leanne.
Hi.
I vote I J.
Hi,
Ann Marie.
I Thank you, Patrick.
Welcome.
Congratulations, Patrick.
Thank you. Thank you, Pat.
I only hope that I can run a meeting as smoothly as you do.
Well, it takes a little practice,
but I'll be there to help.
Thank you.
You know, I I lean heavily on Eric. and, unfortunately, you don't have that opportunity. So, I will see, you know, what I can do to, help assist, and make that transition and everything smooth.
Thank you. at this point I open nominations for vice chair. I'd like to nominate Leanne Hutchinson for vice chairman.
Second.
Oh, I was just going to nominate Jed, especially since assist with Patrick's transition.
Jed Jed, how do you feel?
Thank you, Scott.
Run. So, say that again. I missed the first little bit. the the nomination was for you, Jed, as vice to to assist with the transition.
I I just answered Scott's nomination, not with a yes or a no, but by saying since you did just offered to assist Patrick with a transition, that maybe you should be the vice chairman. And then I thanked Scott. I think first we should did we get a second to the Leanne? No.
I I second the nomination of Leanne. Leanne, would you accept the nomination?
Well, I'm not sure how to proceed. I guess you I can't nominate you in the middle of another nomination.
Correct.
put it this way, Leanne. I would prefer not to be the vice chair. I I had thought about maybe doing that because I do want to help Patrick all I can. Sometimes the old guy gets to be more of a thorn than an assistant. that enough, you know, a lot of but but I think I could do that even with somebody else being the vice chair. So, I I would be happy to not be the vice chair. I wouldn't be too sad to be the vice chair, but you know, I think it's it's just time for some new folks to get in there. I've been there a long time. When I took it, I said it was going to be a short time. all things are relative.
Leanne's been doing this for 30 years commission.
Yep. She's she's she's very she's very well qualified. Yep. She probably just doesn't want to be pleaded up to the chairman, but we can cross that bridge. I I protected Ann from having to do that for the last couple of years. And so, we'll go there. But anyhow, so what do you say, Leanne? You we you accept the nomination?
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you, Leanne.
Welcome. Thank you.
And would you be disappointed if you weren't renominated?
No.
Okay. I figured that was I figured that would be it. Yes. So,
all that being said, I'll call for a vote. Han.
Hi,
Patrick.
Hi,
Scott. I
Leanne
I vote I as well. Jay
Hi,
Ann Marie.
Hi.
Congratulations, Leanne. Motion passes 700. You are now our vice chair. Yay. Patrick, I'd be happy to continue on through the meeting tonight and have you take over the December one,
please.
Okay. Not ready.
Very good. Moving on to the 2026 meeting date.
Take a week to the next meeting.
I sent I sent out a list to probably everybody, but Jay, I don't know if anybody had a chance to take a look at it. Every month next year, the meetings, you know, would be the third Tuesday of the month. There were no holidays or anything that I saw that would interfere with us having the meeting as scheduled. One one thing that I'll try to check because it's been requested of me that I do. Yeah. I can't find. So, attorney France always likes us to make sure we're not beating on the Jewish holidays, and I don't think we are. and as appropriate. So, anyhow, given all that, I guess March 17th is St. Patrick's Day. I did figure that that was probably a showstopper to cancel the meeting on. So that was the only thing that came close to being the conflict that I saw looking out there.
And also and also note 12 years of Catholic school tells me that that's pretty much not a Jewish holiday.
Okay. Yeah, probably not a Catholic holiday either.
Is raised in a Jewish household. I can confirm and second that is not a Jewish holiday.
The So anyhow, does anybody need me to read through the dates so you can look at your calendars or you you saw the date so you know how it goes and and it can pretty much work hearing none. I make Go ahead.
Yeah, I said looks good.
Okay. Yep. I'll make a motion to approve the meeting scheduled for the third Tuesday of the month for the year 2026. Second
and seconds. Thank you. Any discussion hearing? None. I'll call for a vote. And
I
Patrick
Hi.
Scott.
Hi.
Leanne.
I vote I as well. Alder don't get to vote anymore. So the motion passes 500.
Just looked up on Wikipedia St. Patrick Bush Jewish. Sure. that completes the new business. Moving on to correspondence any correspondence. I think I'll just say no. Okay. I did have one interesting email that came in yesterday and it was from the reporter of the River East. I hope you are doing well. I reaching out because I'm working on a piece about House Bill 802 and how it may affect local planning zoning practices in our area. I was hoping to get your perspective on a few questions. My deadline for this piece is 8 a.m. Wednesday. So, a response before then would be greatly appreciated. How do you think House Bill 802 will affect the town's ability to control local zoning decisions? And what concerns, if any, may you have about the state's increased rural and housing plan? I I wrote back while I haven't read the bill yet. It is very long. I have looked at the analysis done by the office of legislative research pertaining to the bill. I also wanted to support your deadline. So here goes. Of course, the bill will affect the town's ability to control local local zoning decisions. That's the point of the bill. There is too much difference between small rural towns and big cities for a one-sizefits-all zoning standard, and I am concerned about that. Next question. What challenge do you anticipate in meeting the bill's new housing planning requirements such as
identifying developable land, updating zoning regulations, or creating municipal housing growth place? That's the new plan. It's going to be the growth plan at the affordable housing plan. One challenge is that the new housing plan requirements will require more assistance from a town planner. This costs money and I hope that the funding will be available for towns to work on affordable housing through various grants. We are currently finishing up Andover's new plan of conservation development, which is the town's strategic 10-year plan, and have identified several regulation changes to support more affordable housing. These changes will make housing more affordable, but at the end of the day, developers are not standing in line to develop housing in Andover. So question number three, where do you see the biggest opportunities or risk for the down if additional housing density or new affordable units are introduced under the bill? Particular in areas that may qualify as priority development zones that would be like the transportation zones there. Andover faces several challenges with affordable housing such
as lack of public water and sewers and the lack of convenient transportation to and from Andover. I know this isn't much, but I consider this way too complicated an issue to respond to before the ink is dry on a regulation and in a day. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. So that's that's the correspondence I had. That's how I answered the mail. and we'll see how it comes out this Friday when the story ends. So that's that's my interesting commission discussion correspondence.
That's a good reply. Yeah, very nice.
any commission discussion?
I wanted to know how we were doing with formulating that plan for an explanation to the affordable housing for the selectment
hat I he was going to be involved with that.
Yeah, he was. and and we had said, you know, in the in the minutes from last month that I reviewed, John and I were going to get together and with Eric leaving and trying to wrap up the gravel bit and all these other regulations
that I wanted to put to bed, John and I did not get around to working on that.
We'll try discussing that again here soon.
Yep. Sound good, John?
Yeah, sure. I and what what I would note is that our affordable housing plan requirement the five-year plan that I think the the Andover adopted theirs in what in 2021 or so.
yeah,
so that that it would in theory be due in 2026. That is now off the table. The affordable housing plan is now replaced by the housing growth plan which is primarily directed by the region. So we're going to be We could do our own plan, but it's more likely that we will be participating in the regional plan undertaken by Crag. And that one will be due not until I believe June of 2028. so we have a couple of years to work on that. And there's several steps that are going to happen along the way. The state is going to undergo a a process of determining overall state housing needs. Then we'll allocate that housing need by region and give the COGS the big number say you know 50,000 for the capital region for the 35 towns in the capital region and then the all of the towns in COG will be negotiating and discussing their own analysis that will then filter down to the towns and so we would be part of the process at
Crog that will essentially assign a number to Andover that not only not only a number like you know 200 but you know the types of you know some some apartments some senior housing some assisted there'll be a breakdown and there will be an appeal an appeal process for that if we believe that you know the collective wisdom of Krag gave Andover too many units to target there is an appeal process there and the the state office of GIS is going to have to come up with a system of analysis for determining extent of developable area. and so there's all of these all of these discussions and processes and and rubrics that have to be put in place between now and 2028 when the first of these housing growth plans has to be in place. So, this will be evolving over the next couple of years. and again, it it the bill removed most of the what we would call the sticks, you know, the or else elements. it's very heavily weighted on incentives and really the it seems like the only downside for a municipality if you if we choose not to be a real active participant is we might lose the ability
to put in place a an affordable housing moratorum but that's such a remote possibility for the town anyway that it's it's not much of a not much of a stick. So, anyway, nothing's going to happen fast and and this will be rolling out over a couple of years and and I would strongly recommend that the town stay extremely active and extremely engaged with the discussions at the Crag level, at the regional level. So, that's that's my brief summary of that.
And do you normally attend those Crag games? Well, this would be I I attend some but this would be this is going to have to be a whole new committee of some type. They're they're really going to have to establish kind of a housing working group soon.
Going to have to
Yes. Yes. all all of the COGS will because they're and because the COGS are per per this bill getting pretty significant money something like $200,000 a year per COG to bring in basically housing planning help that I think ideally as staff members I think there is some provision for technical services for outsiders but but the state clearly wants the COGS to take the lead on this and they want to do this with in-house staff if they What defines our region?
state statute. it's the the the state like years ago after the dissolution of county government, there were 15 councils of government or regional planning agencies. Crag was 29 towns, but back about 15 years ago, they reorganized and went from 15 to nine COGS. And Crag got bigger. so Andover and Andover and Colombia are pretty much the the outer outer southeast fringes of the Capitol region.
and who?
Andover and Andover and Colombia are are sort of the the lower southeast section of Prague. but yeah, that that was assigned that was assigned by active state congress.
Okay. And so by being Colombia's town planner and town planner that Yes, they they have close conversations.
We're good to go. Okay. Excellent. And I do think you know the the path that we kind of charted out and the changes that we've got in the POC about changing our zoning rigs, you know, all that's still good. You know, I think
it is. Oh, yes, it is. And I I also note that that Oh, sorry, Jed. Go ahead. One of the things that I was hoping to get more into with, you know, the River East questions was, you know, I think I feel good that Andover's, you know, working on on trying to head in the right direction. but, you know, we're not going to have all the answers. You know, we're not the answers to every affordable housing problem. We'll do what we can, but there's a lot we can't do. And and hopefully that'll be good enough.
Yeah. And I and I also note that there's no reason that you know again we're we're establishing some affordable housing goals and actions in our plan of conservation development those actions we will if we assuming we progressively and proactively make those changes to our zoning we will get credit for that. So, so actions taken between now and the point in which our our housing growth plan is adopted th that that progress counts like it, you know, it's not we we don't have to put ourselves in suspended animation for two and a half years. We can we can make progress and and we will get credit for that progress in in the next housing growth plan. Now, I thought I saw somewhere when it talked about the housing growth plan that if we didn't have a plan or working on a plan that your funding could be impacted.
We we Yeah, I think priority funding will go to those municipalities that have have a plan in place and have done more.
and there's a couple of a couple of transit things that we could opt into.
and so towns that do that will get prioritized. I think they were careful to to not say funding is cut off, but but those communities will will, you know, not receive the same, you know, bonus points.
But I do think that with the emphasis, and there's so much money out there that the state's trying to throw at at housing, that we should be able to get plenty of grant money to, you know, help fund you so that you can help us work on all those good things. Well, that would be nice. I It seems like the bill is directing
those grants, John.
What's that?
You know who's going to go look for those grants?
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
Okay. any other commission discussion? Moving down to administrative reports, Wayne?
just a couple things. me and Joe went out and visited a driveway that was going to be paved on Lake Road. it's a shared driveway between two residences. Turns out that it's too late in the year for them to do the paving, so they're postponing paving till next spring. But we did talk the owner and the paving company into doing a bio retention area at the bottom of the driveway. So So this is we're looking for a plan. This is a a major success where the nutrient allocation worksheet came into play for a guy doing a driveway. you know, we we before we never had the opportunity for Wayne to even be in the loop on when driveways were getting paid. So, I I consider that, you
know, pretty big step in a good direction there.
With with your permission though, I would like to make contact with the author of that spreadsheet, Dr. Courtman.
Okay. Yeah. John Valent.
Well, John Valente got it. I mean, it I have the paper that Dr. Cortman wrote for Colombia.
Yeah.
Kid, he created that spreadsheet for Colombia and over
kind of
I'll let you discuss that with a relief.
Okay.
Anyway,
but I think
I I would like to make contact with Dr. department to to maybe talk over that that worksheet with them and and while it's a requirement, it proved to be very difficult.
Right. Very difficult.
Okay.
So,
anything else, Wayne? that me and Joe kind of we we kind of signed off on a draft site plan for 280 Route 6 which is in between Wales Road and Shotty Mill. so we we expect a site application for that shortly and there's a potential application going going to be coming down the road. or on Lakeside where a a resident is proposing to combine two lots, demolish a house and expand an exist an existing residence, but that that needs a variance. So, if the variance doesn't go through, then nothing happens.
That's scheduled for tomorrow night. Okay,
that's the end of my report. Inland wetlands continues to be pretty slow over there. We didn't have a meeting last month. I guess that exceeded the reduction in meeting length from the 4minute meeting we held the month before.
So those guys know how to do meetings better than we do. I sorry that we couldn't get it done in four minutes tonight. We did wrap up some stuff, but that's so no new news there. Turn it over to you, John.
just one real quick note. I don't know if people had heard Eric managed to depart Andover on a high note. I think his second last day of work, we received notification that the town is receiving a grant through Congressman Courtney's office of a couple hundred thousand, two or three hundred,000. Eric and I worked on this grant that would basically help provide a backup power generator for the whole civic campus. so for the the fire station, the town hall and the new senior and community center will will get a new backup generator, emergency generator so that the town campus can kind of be a you know emergency management center and a and a and a a shelter. so that's good news and and congratulations to to Eric and thanks thanks to him for that work.
So that you
Yeah. Nice.
Yeah. All three all three buildings will be wired together on the same backup system.
Yeah.
so that's that's good news and that's that's all I've got.
So next up is public speak. Katherine,
John, I'm thank you very much for all your input on keeping us up to date. And Jed, you've been great ever since I started participating or at least listening to the meetings since I believe it's been about 19 I should say 2019 2020. And thank you for your patience. I'm sure I tried it on more than one occasion and you've been great. And thanks to the commission members who also have been great as far as being receptive to listen to what I had to say and I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you for your participation. We actually I do appreciate the the feedback we get from the people of the town when they show up. I wish more people did. and but you're there for us, Catherine. I appreciate it. Thank you for coming.
Thank you.
next up is approval of the minutes from October 21st. And I'll make a motion to approve the Planning and Zoning Commission regular minutes from Tuesday, October 21st, 2025. Second.
Thank you.
Did you want discussion or
No, we're going to discuss now. Yeah.
I've never figured out the best way to do that. but hopefully there's Anybody have any comments on the minutes? hearing. No discussion. Call for vote. And
I
Patrick
I.
Scott.
Hi.
Leanne.
can I as well. The motion passes. 5 0. I guess going back to the the discussion just a little bit. So I do plan to continue my time on the board you know at least the next two years till the term is up and I would be happy to continue to be the inland wetlands water course rep. when I first started out, there were some advantages to me going over to attend that meeting because I could start learning before the the thing showed up here, but it's kind of quiet over there right now. So, I'm happy to continue that on as long as as you so choose. Thank you. Next regularly scheduled meeting December 16th, 2025 to be held is a hybrid meeting. any last minute comments?
We want to thank you for your your time as
Yes.
chairperson.
I was going to say it is, you know, in some aspects a reluctance that that I give it up. It's been fun driving a bus.
but you when I started out I had no grandkids. Now I got five. They take a fair amount of time and it gets you as you get older it gets harder to do a lot of stuff. So it was it was time to go. But I've enjoyed my time on the commission with that.
Grandkids are the best, aren't they?
Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's all. So, I I appreciate the opportunity helped out in the town and and, hope to be able to continue do that, but I appreciate fact somebody else driving the bus for a little while. So, thank you, Patrick.
Thank you, Jed.
Jed, this is Katherine. Could I add Oh, go ahead, Liam. You're
I was just I was just thanking Jed also. Okay, Catherine, go ahead. I just wanted to say and this is for everyone on the commission and that is I don't think that the in general it's understood how much time and how much effort everybody that serves on planning and zoning puts in and including the alternates who faithfully tune in in case they're needed every every month and very often stay on for the meeting. So, they keep posting and again I have nothing but respect for all of you and thank you for your service because as I started out by saying I don't think anybody has any idea the time and a commitment that you all put in. Thank you.
Well, I'm trying to keep that a secret for a little while longer. Yeah. But anyhow, hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving holiday coming up next week and I make a motion to adjurnn.
Second that.
Thank you, Ann. All in favor say I.
Motion carries. Five zero zero.