Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting
June 20, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Okay, well, have got 07:00, so I will call the meeting to order. And the first item on the agenda after that is roll call and seating of alternates. I see Anne Cremay is present. Scott is here. Steve is here. I haven't seen Leanne yet. And so, at this point, I will seat Susan for Leanne. I am present and we also have Ann Blanchard who will not be seated tonight. Next item is addition or changes to the agenda and for the sake of completeness, I would like to add new business, item six, Charlie and Delta. Charlie being a referral under eight-twenty four of the Connecticut General Statutes improvement to property of the town of Andover located at 15 Center Street, former firehouse. And Delta being use of local open space funds as a match for the proposed acquisition of the Ladano property located on Shawty Mill Road. These two items were on the agenda that got sent out to all of the Commission members. However, as I looked online and on the calendar today, the version there did not have those two items.
I printed it out and it's here. Think it was added earlier this morning. Well, sometime this morning.
I looked 06:30 tonight and did not see the updated version on the website. So anyhow, just to avoid any miscommunication with anybody, I'll make a motion to add those two items. I'll second that. Thank you, Scott.
All in favor, raise your hand. Okay, and that's the motion passes unanimously 500. Item four, public speak. I don't think we've got anybody from the public here that's wanting to speak tonight. I think, Hank, your only interest is probably in the open space acquisition coming up later on. Hello, Leanne, is that you? Moving on to Item five, old business. The first item is update on proposed amendments to the signed regulations and that is just to remind everybody that those signed regulations will be brought to public hearing prior to our July meeting, and we will have the public hearing and possibly take action on those following the public hearing. The old business 5B update on the gravel operation 517 Route 6. Jim, do you have anything for us on that? Well, I did have a conversation with Chris Bell,
today as well as a few weeks back. No material is leaving the site and he plans to come in with a revised restoration plan and do the restoration hopefully in the fall, late summer, and seed it at such time as nominate the turtles to seed it in September when the seed's gonna take. We just wanna seed it prior to August. So we will see that. I don't wanna say August, but I don't want to say July, but believe it'll believe we will see it July. I did indicate to Ms. Hutchinson, who has property adjacent, that she would have an opportunity to review the plan prior to that meeting. I made Chris aware of that, that he needs to get it in in time to do that.
Okay. I know in last month's meeting minutes, it talked about Chris, Jim, and Hank going over to look at the gravel pit operation together. Did you guys get a chance to do that yet, Jim? Or is that being held in the bay and spending the deferral till July of the restoration plan?
I would like to do it with the with the plan in hand.
Yeah. Is that okay with you, Hank? Yeah, I agree. I've been on jet. I've been because the net that you know once once the turtle nesting season broke, I was down there pretty much most nights because I wanted to monitor to make sure that nobody was getting around the fence and into the active area and also to see what we were getting for turtle activity in the back conservation area. So I agree with Jim. I'd like to, you know, have the plan and then and then meet Chris in the field. There have been some persistent issues with integrity of the barrier fence that separates the
conservation area from the from the work area, where wind is primarily been causing it to pull up where it's not towed in. I sent an email out, I think was it yesterday, Jim, the day before, I can't remember now, to Chris sort of indicating that, you know, a part of a section needed to be fixed after that last windstorm that we had. But I haven't heard back from them. But the turtle activity is kind of slowed down in that area.
Okay. I guess a comment I would make to the Commission members, and I was wondering if we should do a sidewalk over on the gravel pit either before we discuss the restoration plan or maybe with, you know, Jim and Hank after we have a restoration plan or something to see how all this is going to wind up, or do we wait till the whole thing is done? Anybody have any thoughts on interest in a sidewalk?
I'll go. I think it would be a good idea, Jed, and it might also be a good idea to have a final plan for the restoration showing the elevations because we weren't sure how much more material was going to be removed before they did the restoration?
Yes, and that was certainly, you know, I think it would be good to see what's going on there have a fighting chance of making the best decision on the restoration plan. Do we think if we were to get the plan presented to us in July, Then we do a site plan or a site visit after the July meeting and vote on the restoration plan in August. Does that sound like a reasonable plan of approach?
I think that would work. I don't think that would. Okay,
so we'll do nothing else on the gravel pit at this point until we get the site plan and Chris can walk us through that. And Jim, I think that Chris promised us to have a spot out there with
that two ninety four elevation there also. Yep. So we could all see.
Yeah, it would be good to have Chris, you know, lead us around to
show us the plan after it's ready. I would also go remind Chris, Jim, that I was hoping to see a restoration plan that just had the final site, what the final site was going to look like and not have all the intermediate So, stuff in it's easier for us to take a look at understanding what we wanted to have there. Leanne, are you with us now? Yes. Okay. So, are you ready to join the commission? Yes.
Okay. So, at time 07:11, we will see Leanne Hutchinson and Susan England will go back to being an alternate. I also see that we have had somebody named Keith join us. Did you have any public comment for us before we go on down the road, Keith? Or were you here for a specific item on the agenda tonight? A specific item. Okay, very good. Keith is here for Rosewood Acres.
Am here to address that. It rang a bell as soon as as soon as I asked that question. I said, okay, I saw that name on some documents here. Moving on to old business 5C. Set public hearing for proposed amendment to Section 17 of the zoning regs alcohol establishment and changed the title to Alcohol Cannabis Establishments. I would like to make a motion that at our July public hearing, we also take public comment on Section 17 of our zoning regs. I forgot to make that part of the motion last time. Jim has set those regulations out to the other towns in Groggs for review, we've got that working.
But as long as we were going to do the public hearing on the sign regs, I wanted to do the alcohol cannabis changes at the same time. So my motion is to add the changes to Section 17 of the zoning regulations to the July public hearing. I'll second that. Thanks, Steve.
Any discussion? Okay. All in favor, raise your hand. Leanne, I don't see you. You have to tell me yes or no. Yes.
Okay, thank you. So the motion passes five zero zero. Moving on to new business. And first up is the lot line revision of Rosewood Acres Subdivision. And so Jim, do you have any preliminary information on why
this is coming to the Zoning Commission? Sure, just for some background, if some of you were involved with this, others weren't, back years ago, I don't recall when, ten or fifteen years ago, there was a 10 lot subdivision at the corner of Route 6 and Route 87. There's also a little street in there, Lindholm Corners, which goes down in cul de sacs, off 87. Well, they're short lived on those three streets. There were eight residential lots, two commercial lots. It improved. No, it didn't require any municipal improvements. No lots got sold, no improvements were made, no driveways were installed. As it turned out, it's extremely difficult property to develop in accordance with that plan anyway. Long driveways, market conditions, have you. So the owner, Keith Grimaldi, who is present, approached me about combining the lots, sort of starting over. And initially, he talked about just combining it into a single lot. And and then there was some discussion later on about retaining the commercial lots. I was I didn't know how that would how to best handle it. I do I had gotten some guidance from Mark Brantz on a previous property that lot line revisions of or the avoidance of subdivisions does require commission action. This was a little it's kind of
was a little different, and I did go back to him, and I I told him what was being proposed at this time, and he suggested that first, he he said that there's nothing in the statutes that would specifically address this situation. Kind of throughout sort of a common sense approach, which was to bring the revised plan to the commission to be approved or deciding. Now, I'm not I mean, I had a conversation with mister Romali earlier today, and I think he's still trying to decide, what the best approach is to do as far as whether he wants to combine it into a single lot or retain those commercial lots. But what I what I'd like to suggest is that back with the commission's blessing, come back with a plan, showing what he'd really like to do, and I would in the interim come up with a draft letter of approval that would kind of address the conditions. And specifically,
what I'm getting at is, I mean, there was open space requirements in the initial approval. Somehow, I think that they would have to be void, and there's a requirement that a cistern be installed fire protection. And that would have to be somehow at least clarified that it's no longer a condition of approval. And I would take that proposed letter and also it off Mark. He owner, mister Camaldi, also had a concern about if it might impact a lot I'm sorry. Curb cut from DOT, curb cut approval. And I no way I could have answered that question today. So I mean, that would be something I'd have to address, kind of walk through the old conditions of approval and address each of them. And I can't say that would I mean, it would be up to Keith as to when he comes back. Mean, could say July, but I don't know whether he'd have a plan in place or have a plan drafted by then. And I believe he also wanted to speak to the commission, sort of get a feel for what the commission might like to see happen on that lot. And that might drive his decision as to what his revised plan would show. Does that sound right to you? Mister Grimaldi, guess Oh, yes. I'm sorry.
Yes. That's what we discussed. Again, this is all new territory to go backwards like this. But since all the reg changes in the last few years are now making this more viable for regular development versus what was basically the only option back in 2010 to make long quarter mile driveways with eight acre lots and so on and so on. Obviously that never became a viable scenario, so that's why it's been sitting there. But now with the new the floating zone, the, you know, the mixed use opportunities, so on and so forth, I figured it I would have to go down this road to go with another plan to dissolve all of this. My biggest question is, if I were to try and retain the approval on the front commercial lots, would that then be holding me to these 19 conditions that were applied to this subdivision back in 2010? And if that's the case, then I'll just I'll just go and dissolve the whole thing and start all over again.
Okay, well I certainly am not aware of what the 19 conditions were, you know, as we were coming to talk, you know, on this tonight and I hadn't discussed the details with Jim, my thought was it probably shouldn't be a Planning and Zoning Commission item anyhow. When we normally take two lots and make them into one, that doesn't come to the Commission. But I think with the discussions that you and Agent Halsey have had, they're probably I can see that we should you know, bring an application to the Commission with, you know, what it is that you specifically want to do. I would ask you to coordinate with Jim on those 19 conditions of approval and get his input on what he thinks with respect to that. But until we have a specific here's what, you know, I would like to do from your perspective as the property owner, it's kind of tough for the Commission to
weigh in on all those different issues. So I would hope that it's some future meeting. July might be, I don't know if that's doable for you. I'm not sure that it will be doable for us. I think the July meeting is going to end up being kind of full, but if you're ready, we'll try to squeeze that in there to get at least a brief from you on on what you want to do and figure out the way ahead. But you know, certainly. I don't think it needs a public hearing to undo a subdivision, but. And I will be talking with Jim and we'll we'll talk to attorney Mark Grants on that as well in the interim to make sure that we're headed in the right direction. If you had any further interest, I know somebody came to the Commission several months ago about potentially putting a winery in on that property.
Is there still an interest on that or is he I think he was abducted by aliens.
Okay. So you haven't heard anything from him recently? I'm not. That's I don't even consider that a viable alternative anymore. He just kinda just disappeared, which is pretty much par for the course in this. Yep. Nope. I agree with your goal that
probably now having a bigger piece of property with all the different options that are out there that we didn't have ten, fifteen years ago, that might be a better option. I'm sure Eric is the town administrator, doesn't look forward to losing the tax revenue that brings us, But I can see why you would want to go that route, and I think that does give the town some better flexibility to actually get the get the property developed.
Yeah, and with the with the new regulations now I can put a regular subdivision in there that has a road and has a lots and, you know, it doesn't have to be seven, eight, nine acres. It's acre and a half, now. So, I mean, it just opens up the possibility to present something. And again, like Jim mentioned earlier, I want to see what would do you guys have any suggestions for what the town would like to see there? Are you open to affordable housing? Are you open to, you know, what what is there anything that you can throw at me that that gives me some idea of what would be relatable to the town?
Well, I'll speak from the affordable housing thing. I am interested in seeing where we can find a spot to come up with a place to actually get some affordable housing in Andover. So I don't think anybody would be opposed to that. I think that'd be a great idea.
I mean, ideal scenario would be get something in there that everybody wants and then be able to use that front four or five acres and just put like a little strip mall with Starbucks or a grocer or something along those lines. And that's about the limit of really what I've looked at to this point. Unfortunately, with the rising costs in the last eighteen months of anything to do with building, Affordable housing numbers are are not what everybody thinks they are anymore.
I understand. Yep. And we'll see we'll see how all that plays out, but I understand what you're trying to do, and I think it has merit. Okay. Thank you.
Good. For clarification, you indicated you were looking for an application. We we have no application for what he's proposing to do. I mean, we could use a modification to the subdivision. I
mean, just need to have, know, our job as a commission is to take a look at what an applicant wants to do and Yep. So I think a narrative would be of a plan.
A narrative and a state plan. Yep. Yep. Okay. It specifically it should address the, you know, the previously designated open space area and the conditions of approval. Anything else on that, Jim? No. Okay.
Else, mister Cabaldi, before we go on to the next item? No. Thank you for your time, and I'll try to get something to you next month to get moving on this. Okay. Thank you. The
next next item is opting out of Public Act twenty twenty one dash 29 for the accessory dwelling units. And Abby, if you can allow me to share my screen. Okay, you should be able to.
Okay, so anyhow, one of the actions in our affordable housing plan was to opt out of accessory dwelling unit requirements that were specified in Public Act 2,129. And so, you know, why do we want to opt out? I think you probably all remember discussion in there that talked about if we allow those requirements to supersede our regulations, every property owner with a building lot would be allowed as of right to put an accessory dwelling unit on any lot that contains a single family dwelling. And, you know, I'm not sure if most towns have zoning regulations right now that discuss the accessory apartments or accessory dwelling units, but Andover does, and I think they're pretty good. I think there's a couple of things in the state recommendations that we could do, but there's an awful lot of very small lots on Andover Lake, and we're interested in trying to maintain the quality of the lake. So, you know, moving on here, our current regulations say that if you're in the Lake District and you've got a lot greater than three acres, you can put an accessory dwelling unit on that property. Andover has several very small building lots in Lake District in and so allowing those on those very small lots would not be conducive to maintaining the water quality.
So we get into the the process to opt out in, and this is the process that I would like to start tonight. The first on the list, it says that planning and zoning commission by a two thirds vote votes to initiate the opt out process. So that's all that we've got to do is I will make a motion when we get to the end here that we initiate the opt out process and we'll see if we can get, you know, a two thirds majority to vote on that. The other thing that I'd like to talk about tonight is that the opt out process requires that we hold a public hearing on this. And as we mentioned a few minutes ago, we've got a public hearing coming up prior to the July meeting to talk about a couple of our regulation changes. And I would like to include this in that public hearing as well. It just no reason not to. I don't think it's going to be a very long discussion. And so, know, when we get as part of that motion, I'll recommend that we hold a public hearing in July. Then it just talks about some of the admin, you know, if we decide to opt out within that sixty five days after closing of the hearing, we must state on the record the reason for the decision, which is what we've been talking about. The small lots on the lake. We'll publish a notice of the decision like we do for all the decisions that we make here. And then we'll take that to the Board of Selectmen for their ratification. And I talked to Eric about this a little bit. The legislative body for
Andover is a town meeting and it says here the Board of Selectmen if the town meeting is the legislative body. So I think the Board of Selectmen can ratify that, but Eric was talking to the town attorney just to make sure that we do that properly. If we don't complete the opt out process by the January 1, all those regulations, Public Act two thousand one twenty nine, go into effect regardless of our regulations. And so, this point, you know, while I did say I think there's some things in there we might want to consider, I don't want to get into those discussions right now. We've got enough on our plate. All I want to do is opt out of them, make sure that's done before we get to the end of the year so that we can go on our business and modify the regulations in due course. But as of right now, we've got a good set of regulations that are doing as well. We may want to tweak on it just a little bit, but they are certainly very good, better than most. So with that in mind, I will make a motion to initiate the opt out process
for the accessory dwelling unit regulations per Public Act 20 one-twenty nine. And in the same motion, schedule a public hearing on the opt out process for the public hearing scheduled prior to our July meeting. I'll second that. Thank you, Scott. Any discussion on that motion?
This is Leanne. I have a question just to be clear. Go ahead, Leanne. This is mainly to allow for not having this happen on small lots at the lake and then also somewhat secondarily so that people, even with larger lots, don't build the accessory units without us knowing what they're putting in?
Well, the second part of that, you know, right now, our regulations require that anybody who has a accessory apartment, accessory dwelling unit attached to their house has to come to the planning and zoning Commission with a site plan, and we can approve that. Our regulations also require right now that if somebody wants to build a detached accessory dwelling unit, for instance, the well, it could be a standalone accessory apartment or it could be in the upstairs of a barn or a garage that's detached from the house. They need to come in with a special permit. We have to have a public hearing and go through all of that. So, we currently have the facilities in place that anybody wanting to create an accessory dwelling unit, we should know about it. That will come before the Commission. So, that won't change. But the primary rationale in our affordable housing plan is to avoid
giving every homeowner the right to put an accessory dwelling unit on their property regardless of the size in the Lake District. Okay, that's exactly what I asked. Thank you.
I would also add Leanne that one of the changes to the that the state is recommending in the public act would be to eliminate the requirement to have a public hearing and a special permit for a detached accessory dwelling unit. That's got some merit to it. We'll discuss that later on, our procedures are perfectly adequate, might be a little more cumbersome than someone might like, but they're good for now. The other thing we have to come through is how do we entice those people to do a ten year deed restriction so we can take credit for affordable housing on an accessory dwelling unit. But anyhow. Okay, so the last thing you mentioned is a separate item. It's not involved in this motion, right? Right. Only thing that we're going to do right now is opt out to make sure that all of those regulations that I sent you out for review do not go into effect on the January 1. Okay.
Okay. So, for this, any other discussion? Hearing none, I'll call a roll call vote on the motion. Anne Cremay? Aye. Scott? Aye. Steve?
Aye. Leigh Ann? Aye. And I vote aye as well that motion passes five -zero-zero. To opt out of the public act requirements and to hold the public hearing in July. Okay, moving on to the next item, and this is referral under Article eight twenty four of the Connecticut General Statutes Improvement of the Property of the Town of Andover located at 15 Center Street. And Eric, it's all yours.
Okay, folks. Thank you for entertaining this. As you know, the Board of Selectmen is required to refer things to the Planning and Zoning Commission anytime they're planning on doing something that could be classified as a, you know municipal improvement and what we're talking about does qualify for that. I'm going to see whether I can share my screen here. You should see a PDF that shows Center Street and the existing, what has been referred to by many things, but it's it was for a long time the old firehouse. And then after it was the old firehouse, it was in use as a senior center and meeting center. As many of you recall, this was about five years ago, four years ago, the Board of Selectmen made a decision to discontinue using this extremely high molts and the building was getting making a lot of people very sick or uncomfortable, myself included. So, it has been in use since simply for parking of senior transportation vehicles. What the town would like to do is apply for a grant from the state of Connecticut to tear down the existing building that is there and replace it with the parking garage that is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood and preserves the upper flat portion of the lot for other possibilities. So I'm going to stop this share and then go to what were bring up a document. Hang on a second. Okay, so the so on behalf of the board of selectmen, I am making an 08/24 statutory referral to the Planning and Zoning Commission for municipal improvement at 15 Center Street. And as a lot of you probably know, this is a building
that has undergone, you know, at least three expansions since it was originally built. There are portions of this building, you know, that go back until right around 1800, But there were modifications in 1800 in like the 1890s, again around 1938 by the fire department, and then twice more by the fire department as they expanded the capacity to more and more bays. So, the structure there does not comply with current zoning because it doesn't have the required front or side yard setbacks. So, it's close in front yard setback but it's definitely non compliant inside yard setback. The goal is to build those footprint right there is about Can you say your last sentence again?
I said the goal is to build back a smaller structure than what is there now. Currently what's there is around 50 by 71 feet, 49 by 71 feet depending on exactly where you measure it because it's not square. And the goal will be to build back a 36 foot deep by approximately 60 foot wide parking structure. So, this is a residential area and it is not going to be possible to hide the fact that this is a garage, but there's a couple different possibilities to make it blend in. The first thing is that the entire neighborhood doesn't have any real theme. There are a couple of capes, a bunch of colonials, a bunch of buildings with no apparent theme whatsoever, a couple of buildings with hip roofs. So there's nothing aesthetically there that we can consistently match either in color or in facade look or anything. Given that the location to the railroad, the only thing I could think of would be to put a building back in there that looks like kind of a traditional parent house. And that's probably as close to matching anything as you can do there. So, I'll show you a picture of that in a second, but I just pointed out on the document that I gave you a couple of the notes in the POCD where the desire to build a structure for senior transportation or to expand senior transportation makes sense. The first is just the fact that our population is aging rapidly and the median age for residents will be over 50 years old, you know, within the next, you know, three to five years.
And because of this and because of the year over year increase in need for senior transportation, we're going to need more vehicles than we have. And what we're anticipating is needing two small buses and then two smaller vehicles which is a little bit more than what we have right now. But we'll also have a vehicle where if we have to we could end up with three buses and two vehicles because of the depth of the building one of the bays could accommodate two passenger style vehicles whereas they can only hold one bus each. So, the other thing that I think is important is that if you look at the plan of conservation and development, we note that there's very little business in industrially zoned land and it's predominantly residential. And the reason this is important is that a garage of this type would typically go in a commercial or a business zone area, but given this relative size of our business zone and our industrial zone, I think it's more likely that it's going to end up being in our residential zone somewhere. So, we've also taken a really hard look at all the town properties that we could potentially put a garage on and the public works director and myself Jay drove around and you know basically put boots on the ground on each of these sites and looked and said, okay, could we do it? What are the pluses and what are the minuses? And then we brought that back and their decision was put it back right where it is now, which does two things. One gets rid of a building that's quite an eyesore. And I'll give you a look. Is, do you see that on your screen?
Yep.
This is the building that is there now. It's basically a partial cape that's been extended in the back and then it's been expanded to the left of the picture twice over the years. Frankly, it's a pretty ugly building and the roof is, you know, in the process of caving it. So, it needs to be, you know, torn down anyway. And if we're going to commit to tearing it down, we might as well reuse that same site. So, that's basically the plan. What we're looking at doing is something like you should see a picture of a white carriage house, something that matches that rough aesthetics. It's not going look exactly like that because remember it's going to be partially built into the hillside but something that looks semi historic in character along with the other houses in there. And that is basically what the town is
trying to do and so it's back before you guys for an 08/24 referral and I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Does any of the commission members have, you know, questions of Eric at this point?
Yeah, Eric, do you know how much the setbacks will you said the setbacks will be improved, but it will still violate the regs. Do you know what the actual infringement will be on the required setback?
I don't know. Measuring it the other day, it looks like the building's actually set back around 43 feet now. So, I'm guessing we're going to be set back at least another two feet farther than where we are, but I don't think we can go the whole seven feet back. Because part of what we're trying to do is not pull the whole building forward, but not put it all the way back to where the existing exterior wall is. And that allows slope down to the building and reduces the structural load on the back wall of the building. So, side yard setback, I don't know what it is exactly and part of that is as part of this process, we are intending to survey this because we don't have an actual survey of this property because it's been in the town's possession since long before zoning regs. We do have partial surveys of the two houses on either side, but we don't have the town has never surveyed this part. So, we'll be able to give exact
setbacks you know, which will need because it will need to go to ZBA but I don't have them for this meeting. Okay, thank you.
Eric, would the plan be for, you know, the drivers to drive their private vehicles over to the garage, leave them parked someplace in the vicinity and get the bus? Is that how that's going to work? That's correct. That's what we do now. And we will do the same thing during this.
Right now the parking area in front of the garage is wider. So, we're going to end up with basically the same width. We should be able to accommodate at least a card card than the other side.
And you said that the you you said the demolition would be covered by a grant. The the funding to rebuild is that covered by a grant too?
Yeah, so the goal here is to apply for a steep grant which is small town economic assistance program grant that will fund basically 80% of the cost of the demolition and construction of the building.
Other questions from the commission? Okay, so Eric, would it accommodate your timeline be acceptable if we took a vote on this at the next meeting? Then that gives me some time to prepare a response that I think is consistent with our plan of conservation and development?
Yes, you could definitely respond at the next meeting. That would be fine. Just I wanted to give it to you as soon as I could so you had a chance to review it and if there are further questions if you bring them back to me I'd be happy to address them.
Okay. Any last questions for Eric before we close out this topic? Okay,
hearing none, Eric, if I could get you to stay on the line for the next item too, just if we need a little help understanding the procedural process, that would be helpful to me. Okay, I can certainly do that also. So,
next up is discussion on the use of local open space funds as a match for the proposed acquisition of the Ladano property located on Shawneeville Road. And at this point, I'll turn that over to you, Hank.
Thank you, and I'd like to thank the Commission for providing us the time, the Conservation Commission, the time to present at the meeting tonight. Abby, am I able to share screen?
Yep, you should be able to, but let me know if you can't. Okay, we just call up.
The Conservation Commission is recommending that the town pursue a purchase of the 162 acre Ladano trust parcel, which is located on Shoddy Mill Road, primarily through an application to the Connecticut DEP municipal open space grant program. Just recently, the the deep announced the new grants would be available with a timeline of applications due by September 30. There is, I believe, 5,000,000 in the 2022 state budget for open space purchases and 5,000,000 in the state's open space purchases for 2023. This is something they've been doing pretty regularly throughout the years. This so this would require a match from our open space funding that we have in town, which when I last checked, which is a while ago was somewhere north of $230,000 If I recall. This this acquisition would be very consistent with the priorities set forth in the town's 2015 plan of conservation and development, in particular, the goals of maintaining and promoting rural character of the town, protecting ecologically important parcels of land within designated open space corridors, and protecting water quality of the Burnett Brook Watershed, and finally promoting outdoor recreational and educational opportunities for residents. Not sure what folks are aware of, but we have a goal in the town that was stated in our in our plan of conservation development of acquiring two eighty four acres of open space over a ten year period
to date we've acquired. By my calculations 25 acres of open space, which is less than 9% of meeting that goal If the Ladano purchase were to come through, if we're able to put together a deal there, would bring us to within 66% of hitting that goal over the ten year period of time. The grant to just put a couple of images together just to show you where the property is. You can see Shotty Mill Road in Boston Hill Road and the Ladano parcel sits between townland, which is in totals about 38 acres, and I forgot to color in the little where the W in town is there. That little strip there, that rectangular strip, that's also town land. That should be brown, light brown. So that's all town land on that western boundary. You see the 162 acre Ladano parcel and which is undeveloped, doesn't have any structures on it's primarily forested with wetlands and some some rock outcrops. And then across the street from Shotty Mill, there's an additional 80 acres of town land. That's the town land that the town dump sits on on the on the far southern side of that. If you take a look at from a conservation perspective. If I could scroll this down a little bit here. You can see this here all the dotted black lines are the Western Open Highlands Open Space Corridor. Our plan of conservation development, there were there were identified three open space corridors to focus on open space acquisitions, This is the western where you can see the Hop River Corridor in the in the middle there. And then there's the Eastern Highlands over on the Eastern Northeastern border of the town. So you can see the juxtaposition
of the Ladano property connecting the two town parcels and then getting down towards starting to fill out more of a quarter wide connection down to the large state owned property Bishop Swamp Wildlife Management Area and the Hartford neighborhood centers, is private, but right now is is is considered a sort of undeveloped open space. Down there on the far southern Southwestern quarter that abuts Hebron so Those are the locations of it. As I mentioned, this would require a grant proposal to the state, the Conservation Commission is willing to take on the writing and preparation of the grant obviously working closely with various representatives from. This Commission and from the town, one of the requirements that we would be needed fairly soon would be an appraisal of the property. And they require what's called a yellow book appraisal. And I'm a little out of my league here, I can speak well to the conservation side of it, but when it gets to properties and appraisal and stuff that gets a little bit, little bit out of my league of expertise,
but they require a yellow book appraisal, which we would likely need authorization to utilize open space funding to pay for that appraisal to be done. We can't use the grant if we were to get any successful award from the state. We can't reimburse any of those that the full money from the state, pays a maximum of 65% of the fair market value can really only be used for the the the purchase of the property. So we would need so we would need to cover the costs of an appraisal and we would need guidance from the Commission on the Conservation Commission, we would need guidance on the process for undertaking that appraisal and. Michael And further the process for going through the planning and zoning Commission, which really has the responsibility for open space acquisition,
the Conservation Commission is advisory and provide recommendations. And obviously, we would note need to this would need to go to the Board of Selectmen and eventually to a a town vote. So that's that's kind of where we are. Just as another side note, is this isn't something that just came out of the blue for the Conservation Commission. We've been undertaking a natural resource inventory in preparation for the 2025 plan of conservation development, where we've been starting to look at parcels associated with the open space corridors. Based on the natural resources, the recreational potential. If you're familiar with the vertical pool survey we recently completed in the townwide, that was a natural resource layer that we're wrapping into that process. So this is something that's been on our radar for for a bit, and we're very active on the working with the land trust in the town to accept donations of the additional eight or so acres that that are west of the Ladano property. And additionally, you'll see there's a Talbot, you see the Talbot four, that's four acres of Talbot property that's landlocked. If you recall, Tom Talbot is donated property on to the west of the Ladonna was part of the the recent acquisition with with the Northern Connecticut land trust. Think we could also get Tom to agree to a potential donation of that that interior land landlocked piece associated with the Ladano should we should we move forward with the Ladano piece and be successful on on that acquisition?
Hank is the property currently for sale and for how long it is It's for sale for
I believe it's on the market for $690,000 It's been on the market for my understanding off and on for the past twenty or so years.
And you said that the state would match whatever we were putting.
The state matches up to 65. They will match. It will cover a maximum of 65% of the fair market value. Michael So we would be responsible for the remainder of that and the fair market value needs to be determined based you know that's and they require a yellow book, which is I guess what they use for federal and state standards for appraisals. That's what that number would be based off of. Would need to provide that as part of the application.
Yep, so yeah. A little bit concerned whether we got, you know, you said, you thought we might have about 230,000 in there. Yeah, that would come close.
If Yeah. By my calculations, it would be close. If the state paid, assuming a $6.90, if I mean, you know, which is, again, without any negotiation with the trust and without any appraisal, but if you assume the $6.90 that means that the state I had done a rough sort of. You know, I think it was here. They've done a rough calculation on that, and it was the state it's 65% that's a little over 448,000 that leaves 241,000 and some change remaining So we'd be slightly shy of that. But that again assumes no negotiating with trust. And it also, you know, assumes that $6.90 is is the appraised rate.
Well, sounds like it would be a nice addition to the town. Eric, do you know if we have already, I know we had authorized I think it was $5,000 for the work that was done over on Merritt Valley and Lake Road for the parking and the picnic area. Have we taken that out of our open space funds yet? Yes, we have.
And I don't know what the, I should have thought to give you a final total. I can certainly ask Marina tomorrow what the final total is in the open spot. Don't know what the top of my head.
Any other Commission members have any questions or comments on what Hank's presented to them?
I have a question. With this land that's there on Shawnee Mill, would that ever be able to be used to develop a park for the town of Andover? We have nothing. I look at the parks like in Hebron, that they've built on an old farm, And I was wondering if we could develop a park and a land like that.
On the Ladano property should we purchase yeah yeah I part of the grant is that if you have to make the property has to be publicly accessible. You know, they only will fund stuff that's publicly accessible. I do think that in the in the Conservation Commission, we had actually talked about a vision. We have, you know, tying together the the town land there, not the 80 acres that the dump sits on, but all the contiguous land there, which would be, you know, I think it's like two zero four acres. That could be a conservation area that we could put a small parking area
right off of Shotty Mill there's a gate area there. There's already some trails in the Ladano it's a very scenic place it could easily be utilized as a nice nice passive recreation. Area for not only town residents, folks from the region.
Yeah, and I've been to the Burnt Hill Park in Hebron with various functions, and that is a beautiful area. I was wondering if we could ever get anything like that in Andover, you know, has ball fields, it has picnic areas, it has areas for recreation.
Yeah, I don't. Wouldn't want this of the type of land it is, you wouldn't want this for ball fields. It would be more for passive, like hiking, things like that. You could put, you know, you would want it to be, I would think more of a passive than an active recreational.
But Ann, I do think we have some pretty nice ball fields over there, you know, by the Public Works Building in that. Yeah, that's a big soccer field, right? Yep, and I know we had talked with Eric a year or so ago about using some open space money to put in a playground over there. Certainly, we do this, we won't have money for a playground at this point in time. But I was happy to hear that we've already paid for the other stuff that we committed to. Any other questions or comments from Commission members?
This is Leanne. I was wondering where the access would take place as far as driveways and parking.
The parking would be located off of Shotty Mill. There really isn't access off of Boston Hill Road. So the axe any access points would have to be and that's currently where the there's a gated area there that you can see where there's an old sort of forest tote road that goes through the property. That's the that's the area where there would would need to be access provided.
I think it's nice that that piece of property then does give us access to the town property that we just, you know, acquired. It kind of ties it all in nicely there. Yeah.
Eric or Hank, do you have any, or Jim, I guess, do you have any idea of what would an appraisal costs? I don't. Something of that nature, no, I don't.
I think the last time we did one was the appraisal when the town was contemplating the purchasing the larger Talbot property. And I want to think that was in the 4,000 to $5,000 range. It was not inexpensive. I don't know what it is for this property. You know, we would have to would have to figure it out if that's something that the commission's willing to consider.
Well, like everything else these days, that shot my estimate by a factor of 10. I was hoping it could be done for less than 1,000, but I guess wow, that's a fair amount. Just trying to think in my head. What does the Commission think about, you know, doing a sidewalk out to take a look at the property? I would support that.
I would support that. Better. I'd happy to go with go with the you'd have to get the agent Yeah. And
get the agent to agree to it. But Yep. I don't see any reason why you couldn't. I mean, the other really cool thing about this eventually is that that gives you an the ability to put a spur Trail right off of the East Coast Greenway that goes all the way up from the Greenway up across the road and all the way to the back of the property. So, you could put a pretty extensive loop trail in there, you know, and stay completely on town property and only cross one road, which would be pretty cool.
And that I think would be a big asset. Eric with the grant. I know the Greenways connections are one of their one of their objectives, I mean that's what if you look at the scoring sheets, they look at that. Yeah. My only concern is a timing one, so I asked the Commission, you know, with a September 30 deadline for application for the grant application. Know. You know, needing various levels of sort of approval in a town vote, you know, I think we need to get a sense pretty early on about, you know, cost of an appraisal and time to get that would be a very crucial first step. And then followed by, you know, we would need some authorization to be able to negotiate with the with the with the trust, you know, connect with the realtor and try to get some negotiation with the with the trust. And we would want to think through who best to do that. My sense is, this should be, you know, the Conservation Commission is advisory, I'd like to, you know, have some level of support or be working with somebody from planning and zoning, or certainly from the town, because we don't have the expertise with the, you know, property acquisitions or, you know, there there's aspects that that we will be less able to speak to from just a conservation standpoint.
Jim, is that something that you would be able to kind of coordinate with reaching out to figure out how to get this yellow book appraisal?
Sure, I can do that. Guess I'm concerned about what's required as far as town approvals. What's I mean, does that go to, that goes to town meeting? Yeah, it would have to, I think. Right. Yeah. So when, I mean, I, when you said September and then I'm looking at what's required.
I don't think we have to. Don't for the grant. The grant has several. Not everything has to be completed to get it necessarily get a successful award. So for example, the money we have to just have sort of a an indication of how we're going to have that money available. But you know if we need certain votes, you know they could be pending on certain votes. So there are there are certain things that we could we we could put in place. We'd have to look at the grant application very carefully, Jim, but there are certain elements that don't necessarily need to be in place on the thirtieth. You know that they can follow within the first, know, six months or a year of the grant. So there's there's there's I think they seem to recognize that there's some approvals or acquisition of matching funds that that that could be delayed slightly. I think that. You know, we would need to I mean, I think that the. The appraisal is probably the biggest thing, you know, because that really drives the numbers, because then we'd know whether you know this is something that's feasible or not based on what we have in our in our open space fund and what the state might potentially match. You know, we can get a sense of that and that and the negotiation with the with the with the trust are sort of key before we even attempt to try to write put together the grant and all the pieces to it.
Does that make sense to you? Yes.
So, should we, any thoughts from the Commission on whether we prefer to do a sidewalk first or should we make a motion to authorize funding to go off and do get the appraisal done and risk up to $5,000 if you will. Is that a motion, Jed? Well,
I'm just trying to sort out my head the way forward here. I know I think Eric's got a town meeting planned for some time later in the year for, you know, a school board member item or something. On this property, Scott, you seem to know most of the land
around here pretty well. I know all those boundary lines. I've marked all the boundary lines on that property and I'm all in favor of it, Hank. So if you need any help with me I will definitely help you. I'd like to see the open space fund used soon. I really would. I'd like to see a parcel block and that's parcel just like you indicated with all your maps. So if you need any help or me Hank, I'm happy to help. Appreciate it.
Can I ask a clarifying question on the state grant and how that works? You mentioned that they match up to 65% of the fair market value, but is it a one for $1 for dollar match or they cover up to 65% regardless? Correct. They cover up to 65%.
It's not a one to one. Okay. Thank you. Mhmm. If we bought it, if we could get it for, you know, 600, the town would be responsible for $2.10, the state $3.90, if you could get it for 500 the state would be responsible for 3 and a quarter and the town 175. So that gives you some idea that you know they're not going to sell it for $6.90. The town wants it, it's probably going be, you know, 600 or something and the town has that in the open space fund. Perfect, thank you.
Now is this a two step process where there's one motion to approve money for the appraisal but not depending on the appraisal? Tonight we wouldn't be spending the money, right? Or would we?
Would be authorizing $5,000 if we make a motion to fund an appraisal. And that's assuming we can get it done for $5,000 You know, everything's going up, but I would certainly think that we ought to be able to Get that done for $5,000 I don't know how much engineering goes into that, but but that would be. A motion we could make tonight to get the ball rolling. Then it's a question of when when you know would we do the site visit after we get the appraisal and find out whether it's even feasible for us to go forward or not? Know, if it's a good piece of property, it certainly meets our goals with every respect and makes a big chunk of our goal on how many acres we're trying to do. So I guess I will make a motion that we authorize up to $5,000
to conduct a yellow book appraisal of the Ladano property. I'll second that, Jed. Any other discussion on that particular motion?
I have one question about the land itself. This has come up several times in the past twenty or so years, as Hank said, and one of the main comments in my recollection has always been that there's a great deal of ledge on the property. So, and I know he also said that it would be better for passive and active recreation. So, you're saying there is a lot of walkable property that would be reasonable for many people to hike and tie in with the rail trail. It's not one big, you know, one big thing that would be hard for a of people to It's perfect
land for hiking. Yeah, it's gorgeous. Yeah. But you couldn't, I don't think that you could find a spot on the property to put a baseball field on it. Okay,
I'm just wondering because as I said, it's my recollection that that's been the main comment when it has come up before because it has come before the town before but for more money. It's a real pretty property really. It has a lot of nice features. Okay, thanks.
Any other comments or questions on the motion on the floor? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. Ian Cremay? Aye. Scott? Aye. Steve. Aye. Leanne. Aye.
I vote aye as well. The motion passes five zero zero. And so Thank you. Policy, if you can look into what it takes to get the appropriate appraisal done on the property and if Do you're less than $5,000
that would be great. That gives us a little more flexibility when it comes to bargaining time later on.
Jim, I can share with you the document from the state that has links to the yellow book and you know that there's like an FAQ on that. Okay, guidance that might be helpful. That would be great. You know, I think if we got a cost and also how long it would take for something like because the timetable I think is a key one. Yeah.
And if you send that to me also, that would be great. Okay, will do.
Think one other question just you know, just wrapped up a budget season. Obviously, the town budget has not had any money to fund open space for a while. And I know the budget's been pretty tight, but I remember it's either in the long term study or the plan of conservation and development when the folks of the town were asked, what would be willing to fund a tax hike on? One was, you know, maintaining the school, one was open space, and I think the other was the senior center or something. But I guess my comment is that we, whether it's to the finance committee who then goes out to sell our case, we need to be vocal in trying to get more money into the open space. This is going to wipe us out. I would be happy to say that we actually spent our open space money wisely. I hope that comes to fruition. But there's always going to be the next piece out there that, you know, we need to start funding a little bit at a time to get there and more voices speaking on behalf of funding open space would be helpful. Eric, the last funding that we had was 50,000?
Yes. And that was a while. That was a number of years ago. Right. Yeah. But I think the other thing too is that if you go back to the town and say, look, we spent the open space money, but we also leveraged it, you know, and got two thirds of it paid for by the state. So, we're using your money very responsibly. We will continue to do this, but we need to fund this. You know, I think it's an argument that's sellable to the town. Yeah.
And Eric, do you have a target date for the next town meeting?
I really don't. We are going to have to have a town meeting to replace Ram, one of the Ram Board of Education members has resigned her position and that has to be filled and that can only be done at a time of meeting but we just got the resignation today. We have to advertise for it. And the other thing to consider too is that I don't think we're ready to take this to a town meeting. We'll take this to the town meeting when the state approves the grant and we're coming to the town for the final authorization to buy it. Up to that it's going to be the the Planning and Zoning Commission has to agree to it then the Board of Selectmen has to agree to it then they have to send it back to
the Planning and Zoning Commission officially as an 08/24 approval you know and then it goes to the town at town meetings.
Okay so that's that was the piece that that I was interested in having you stick around for. So I know we probably want to get the grant so we can get the grant money and all that stuff before we go to the town meeting. So we Okay.
And I think Jed, I think we would have to in negotiation with the trust we would have to enter into some sort of agreement that you know a tentative agreement that would be, you know, you know, subject to town approval, subject to a successful award from the state type of thing. You know when you say trust what is the trust you're referring to there? The Ladano trust. The the property is in the trust. I think there's three members in the family, so it's in a trust. It's called Ladano trust. So I think you know the negotiation with them if we're able to reach some sort of agreement would have to, you know, be subject to, know, several approvals and you know successful grant award type of thing, which is is certainly
I mean in looking through the process I followed. I'm I'm working with the ER team on several projects in Hebron and Middletown and I looked at how Hebron recently purchased. Some property in the process they went through and they had a similar agreement tentative agreement with the landowner pending the town approval. So it's, you know, it sounded like it was something that was was doable.
I would like to be able to go back to the people of the town like everybody else and say we're actually using that money for something and this does look. Nice. Think probably a little premature to schedule the site visit then. We can hold off on that for the time being, but
do you have everything you need from us tonight, Hank? I do. Thank you very much for your time. Okay.
You for bringing it to us. Certainly. And that's all I have for new business tonight. Next item on the agenda is approval of the meeting minutes for our meeting on 05/16/2022. And I'll make a motion to approve planning the zoning commission regular meeting minutes from Monday, 05/16/2022. Ted, have a happy evening. Okay, thanks for coming tonight, Eric. You're very welcome. I'll second.
Okay, thank you, Leigh Ann. Any comments or discussion on the minutes from the May meeting? And I have none. Okay. Hearing none, we call for a vote to approve. Anne? Aye. Scott? Aye. Steve? Aye. Leanne? Aye. I vote aye as well. The motion passes five-zero-zero. Next up, correspondence. Jim? None. I have none to share. Okay. And administrative reports, item A
lot of applications coming in busy time of year. I did receive MYLARs for 580 Lake Road, which is the Dollar General's question as to whether they would appeal that. They did not. That should be moving forward near future. There are a number of enforcement actions in place, moving forward, And you in the queue, Route 6, the Barnett property. I'm working with the owner, Center Street. I still have not as yet gotten out a cation. I did send an initial letter and the other people had developed permit, but there hasn't been a lot of movement on it. I thought I would kind of move that along with with the site take. Number of others. One other issue is we are looking for a board clerk for all three, land use boards. I believe we we have coverage through August, as far as I know. Does that sound right, Abby?
Not through August, up until August. Up until August. Okay. Nice try. Up until August. One more meeting, sounds like Abby. Yep, that's right. Okay. So
we had a hustle and find somebody. I know Eric is working on that. But if anybody knows of someone who might be interested, please let them know that the position is available. That's all I got. Any questions? I'd be happy to entertain. So could I Who was that?
Could I ask you a question about was just gonna ask a question. Go ahead, Scott.
About the Barnett property, does that stand? Have you gotten ahold of the landowner?
I have, and I've met him and we've sort of agreed to meet on a monthly basis and evaluate progress. And I have to, now that I'm mentioning it, have to do that. There has been certainly some progress. And did you show him the regulation?
Yes. I I'm actually using more the the play ordinance and zoning on it. Lands itself. Right. Simpler when it comes to.
And 12 Center St the have you have you asked him about his and how he how he's doing with that demolition?
Yeah, he's assured me that it's moving forward, but it hasn't. That's why I'm moving to. Hasn't moved at all? No, I mean, he started it, but no, there hasn't been any, I haven't seen anything over there in a month. Right. So is there a timetable on that,
Jim? No, that's why citation would place a timetable on it.
All right, and you expect to do that soon? I do. I intend to do it this week.
So there's no citations at the Barnett property because he's not working with you? Right.
Right. And what are the properties are we working on with that? Blight ordinance.
Well, I am going to move on a property on Wheeling Road, burial property. I have not as yet. And a property on Long Hill Road where it is open to the the roof is open. Been brought up over the years, but the owner is in Texas. But I'm just going to issue a citation where that goes. Yeah.
I have a chicken on Center or chickens on Center Street, which I haven't pursued as of yet. And some motor vehicles on on Merritt Valley. I have yet to issue a a notice on. Yeah.
And you expect to get those done soon, all those letters?
Yes. And my I'm always to send out an initial letter just notifying them that, you know, I'm aware of the fact that you know, make them aware of of the the polite ordinance and the fact that there are are, penalties. And then move you know, if that doesn't occur, move to the citation. Right. Okay.
We have all this written down some place, right? You have a, Excel sheet or something? I do. Actually, that just created recently. All right. Thank you, Jim. Leigh Ann?
Yes. Jim, have you had time to look into what the procedure would be regarding the Dollar General approval if we were to ask for an extension of the 40 mile an hour speed limit that currently ends at Bunker Hill Road? No. Okay. It's just it's know I know you have
excuse me. Sorry. You just told me you have a number of things It doesn't ring a bell. Am I supposed to be doing this?
It's in the minutes from last month, and I had asked what it would take to, you know, what the procedure is, if anybody knew to apply for that, because, you know, we did get the extra martyrs across the street, and we did get Kurt Dowling, who's very active and a former fire chief telling us that they responded to a number of incidents there. So I had floated the idea of asking for the 40 mile an hour limit to be extended down to there. I do recall that coming up. I just I wasn't aware that I was I I can check with Eric. Eric might have a better handle on that. How that process works. Yeah. I think that would be useful. Thank you.
Anything else for the zoning agent? Okay, moving down to the Inland Wetlands Watercourse Commission liaison. And I am pleased to announce that I have seen my first nutrient allocation worksheet since we implemented our lake regs a couple years ago. And the fellows applied to, you know, put, I'll call it a barn on his property and in with the application came the nutrient allocation worksheet. Not only did he have a worksheet, plan has two dry wells going into the property to mitigate the runoff from the roof of the barn that he wants to build. And we didn't have to ask for it so I am assuming he heard about that from going to the Alcoa meeting or something and put that in. I asked him if it was a hard process to go through and he said no, it was fairly easy and straightforward. What number of Lake Road is that? I think it's 17. 17 Lakeside.
Lakeside. Yep. Nick Alwicke? Yeah. Nick, the Marcias prior were the prior owners.
Yep. So Right. He wants to take down a shed and build a bigger one, guess, for his tractor out there. But very nice nutrient allocation worksheet. So he set the bar exactly right and we should be expecting. So who filled it out for him? He filled it out himself. Wow, good.
I don't know what line of work he's in, but he said it was easy to follow the procedure, easy to follow the worksheet and he's taking good action. So I thought that was a success. That's great.
I guess the other thing going hand in hand with, I have not heard about board clerk replacement interviews yet, but I picked up a flash drive from Eric this morning and he's got 13 proposals for being our town engineer. And so we've got a lot of good interest in that and we'll be working to come through that. And so I know the Charter Commission revision is going on and it used to have some words in there about the advice and consent of the Planning and Zoning Commission when you get a new planning and zoning agent, zoning enforcement officer, whatever. And I think Eric has been doing a very good job of you at least allowing the responsible parties to come in and have input on the selection process for those kind of positions. Any questions on any of those issues that I just brought up? Okay, I don't see anybody from the public for public speak. Next meeting is on July 18. We'll have a public hearing starting at 07:00 with our signed regulations, alcohol cannabis regulations, and our opting out process and needing to follow. And with that, I'll make a motion that we adjourn. Second.
Thank you, Steve. All in favor, raise your hand. Leanne? My hand is raised. Okay, very good. Thank you. And motion passes five-zero-zero. We have one more opportunity to have the help of Abby before she goes on to bigger and better things and thank you all. It looks like July could be a pretty busy meeting for us. We'll send you out with a bang there, Abby. And thank you all for the support tonight and see you next month. Good night. Thanks, Julie.