Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Commission- Regular meeting and Public Hearing
June 19, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Okay. Good evening, everyone. It's 07:00.
What you like to call the public hearing to the center at 25 School Road Annual. Proposed project consists of 2,386 square foot building, parking, and associated site work. If if you haven't signed in on our little attendance list up here at the top of the freezer, please do so we know who we had here tonight.
You're you're fine. Can you just wait one second? Just coinciding. One sec.
Well, the people that are here at town hall, we're trying to get them to sign in so we have a attendance list. If if when we get to the public speaking, if you're speaking, we'll make sure we get your name for our minutes. What I thought we would do tonight is we'd have the applicant update us on the changes of the site plan since our last meeting. The commission will ask questions about the updated items. I'd then like to review the list of concerns that we got from the school superintendent following the last meeting in the town's response to those. Then we'll have public comment and the commission will decide whether or we're ready to close the public hearing and and proceed at that point. Any questions before we start?
As well, mister chairman, the record Mark Branson. We ask people to sign in so that the secretary had those on the speller names and so on. The Freedom of Information Act doesn't allow us to require people to sign in if they don't intend to speak. It's helpful to know who's here, but if for any reason you don't want to sign in and don't plan on speaking, you don't have to.
Okay, if there are no other questions or comments, I'll turn it over to Eric. Those people that joined us virtually, if you can make sure you're on mute until you're trying to talk, I'd appreciate that as well.
Okay. Chairman Larson and commission members and members of the audience. On behalf of the Board of Selectmen, the town of Andover is back to present the second half of our application for a special permit for construction of the community slash senior center in the Andover Rural Design District. Again, representing the town will be myself as town administrator. The town's attorney Dennis O'Brien is here to answer any legal questions. Matthew from BSC Group is here representing the engineering firm. Serge and Eric Sanders are here from Leading Edge who's the builder. And Eric Sanders, I believe, will be the construction supervisor on this project. In addition to being a town resident and parents of an AES student. Additionally, Matt from Peg Arch, who has seen our detective record on this project this year. So I thank you, and now I'm going to turn it over to Matthew,
and he's going to walk you through the, you know, site engineering changes that have been made since the last meeting.
Good evening. For the record, Matt Stepan, project engineer with BNC Group. So we'll just go through the the changes to the plans that happened since the last meeting. Let's go to There we go. So here we are on sheet one, this is the draft purpose division survey plan So as we discussed last time, we have added the approximate well location. Seeing first one is seen right there. That has been added to the plan. And then we have also removed the pickleball courts
from this plan since they're not proposed to start this project. And we are showing a the the proposed drainage that helps.
So moving on to the next sheets. This is G one point zero. So we have added a legend for the project set as requested. So this legend covers all the line work and shapes and hash styles that we use on the rest of the plans. And then we have also added a comprehensive parking table to this plan and it basically demonstrates that currently the town this property has more than minimum requirements spaces and actually exceeds the maximum number of spaces so by removing a few as part of this project we're actually getting closer to. The what the maximum would be, you can see there's a negative
net gain. So we moved on to sheet c one point zero. Another thing I wanted to discuss was the lot in her base area. We are showing a significant reduction in the percentage of lot coverage considering the whole parcel. So you can see The existing parcel is about 64% of our coverage and once we merge the parcel and account for the proposed improvements or we reduce it by about 40% to 21% lot coverage. So on Sheet two point zero, one of the comments we had from the town of Virginia was to provide some form of water quality treatment. And so what we've done is on the previous plan, if you remember, there was a couple of conceptual rain gardens on the one over here and another one over here. So we've eliminated the one on this side. Instead, what we're doing is we're going to formalize this one a little bit more, make it deeper, this one on the side here. And rather than capturing a roof runoff, which is relatively clean to begin with, it's gonna actually capture the runoff from the parking lot. So you modify the drainage system so that during local opens the new catch basins will collect water from the traffic circle
discharge directly to the basin. And that's been signs that will the water quality system right water quality treatment as that water fills up it'll start to spill into the beehive grade here to overflow and then as well as. In this catchment in here we actually have an overflow pipe for higher flows, so that would be able to discharge directly into the the main line of backing up into the parking. And then for the what we've done with the roof now is we'll be collecting all the downspouts with the roof here collector, and we'll be piping it off towards the north. Scroll down. So that around over here, it kinda goes through the pickleball courts were originally shown, and that'll discharge to a level spreader, which is essentially just a, you know, a piece of concrete, roughly 10 feet long that allows the water to dissipate and flows without any energy behind it rather than channelizing the flow decreasing the velocity and the worst of potential. The
last time was we showed the little nation only from a single standard. So we did hire a label designer to come back in and kind of reassess the whole site holistically as well as model the existing flood lamps that are currently shining on this area. That is what this diagram is. There are some caveats in that, and that is that we can't get the exact fixture descriptions from the utility company. Us the number of lumens and everything else is a is an estimate, based on the actual fixture type. What the designer did say was that there's a trade off between how high you angle them and beyond a certain point, you're no longer dark sky compatible. So, you know, he basically set this up the way the lighting is now. But he also said there is a concern that in the lowest in the first two handicapped spots there, you might be closer to the minimum end of the lumen scale. And he said you can easily tilt up the light, but that that should be done after all the lighting is in. You basically put a light meter on it and adjust the picture till you've got the the intensity that you want. So we also show the egress lighting on the back, and we don't show the egress lighting on the front, but only because it's encapsulated encapsulated in in the the circles from
the two existing standing lights. But you can see right on the side, there's one there, and there's a second one basically right there at the two exits of the building. Does that answer that question? Yep. Do you have any other lighting specific questions? Okay. In that case, I'm going to turn it over to Matt and Peg Arch. He's the chief architect on this project, and he can talk you through the rest of the building stuff since you didn't have the opportunity to hear from him the last week.
Good evening, everybody. My name is Matt Pegalow of Pegark Architecture located at 236 Main Street in Portland. Can you spell your name, please? Sure. It's p e g o l o. So as part of the design build team of Getting Edge, we worked with the town fairly closely on these plans. I'm not sure, I wasn't able to be here at the last planning and zoning meeting, so I'm not sure exactly what was presented in terms of the plan or if any questions came up in regards to the results. Very briefly walk you through the design as to what we ended up on as it goes off. The building is two floors. We have a a basement level, which is a walkout at the rear. And then we have the main level, which is at street level. And then you would access the the main level from the front. There's kind of one main entry with a little a gable over it, I was Very quickly, started the front elevation. So you can see, you know, the little dormer over the main entry. So that considered the main entry. Once you walk into the building,
you see the cursor there up there. Okay. Yeah. So once you enter the building, you have a an air lock vestibule to help keep the the conditioned air inside. There are two ADA accessible bathrooms in in this facility on the 1st Floor, as well as an ADA accessible transfer shower, which you see located in one of the bathrooms. On the 1st Floor, we have a conference room. We have a small camera small kitchen. We have a storage area, an office, a small more multipurpose room, and then the majority of the 1st Floor is the large multipurpose room. In terms of the the layout, the layout is very close to what was initially presented to the town by the previous architect. I think it was Moser Pylon who the town paid for the designs. We're merely bringing it to the next step, providing a lot of detail and making it making it real. The building was heated and cooled with ductless mini split systems, which are very energy efficient. So there will be no real fossil fuels being burned in this facility.
The ceilings is something interesting I want to kind of talk with you about. The ceilings in the main multipurpose room, the large area. We are proposing a vaulted ceiling. So similar to this, I mean, the ceiling floats up to the center. The rest of the building, so the other, you know, you know, portion of half of the building will be a flat ceiling. We are doing this to make the multipurpose room feel bigger, larger, less confined. And we're also hardwiring some ceiling fans and, you know, it really help help with that space, which is all being done via trusses a truss system. For the Basement Floor, in order to avoid lots of columns and lots of interference with the open space, We are doing a center steel beam running up the middle or in the middle of that open space, which you can see here.
And then the floor joists are in a way where they're flush with the beam. And then they are bearing on the secondary wall, which helps frame the downstairs bathrooms, downstairs mechanical room, and downstairs storage room. So we were pretty creative in trying to find a way to restructure this building to avoid a lot of columns in the basement, maximize the open space for whatever that that space will be used for. The in order to avoid elevators in this building, there are no stairs connecting the basement, the 1st Floor. I think that's pretty important. I wanted to kinda point that out to you guys. The basement is accessible. Like I said, do those two means of vigorous at the rear. We We have a double door and a single door. And then, again, we have the ADA bathrooms downstairs. Both floors are a flush condition to the grade, which means the wheelchair can very easily go in and out of these doors. There's no step, there's no additional ramps, none of that would be required. And then I'll just briefly talk about the exterior elevation. And there is a small small pains that I did to the exterior elevation,
which involves the signage. So you see let me see if I can zoom in here. So this is the plan that was presented last time. I do have an updated printout, but the change is relatively small. So we essentially just made the signage a little bit smaller. I put a border around it and I added some dimensions to that elevation. So it's 15 square feet of total signage. It's at Andover Community Center. Some of you may be curious as to why the roof is asymmetrical. Right? Typically, you'd wanna see the ridge in the center of the building. So this is done to maximize the solar solar capacity of solar panels that would potentially come in the future. That's part two of this project.
So this is to maximize the exposure to the southern sun. So when we do put solar panels on this, we can really maximize that area. We avoided putting any plumbing penetrations on the roof, again, to maximize the solar panels, but we do have two very small vents for the bathrooms. We felt it was appropriate to vent that out on the roof, but as opposed to the socket, it likely won't interfere with the solar panel system itself. And you also don't want that exhausting close to the sidewalks or street level. In terms of plantings, what we see here in the elevations are placeholders. You know, I'm sure there will be, you know, nicer plantings than what I'm showing here from our three d modeling software, But I just thought I would point that out. And then in the rear, the two entrances into the rear elevation top of your screen here. Both rear entrances also have a covered canopy over them to protect from rain, you know, protect the hardware, the door. Part of this product, I believe it's an alternate. There is a
stacked block wall along the west the west elevation here, and then we are proposing a concrete slab, almost like a little patio to be a basement in the building there, which could be used for outdoor activities with even the potential for a pergola pergola or a tent or something like that in the future. And then that retaining wall helps bring the grade up so that whole side of the building is level. And we could really utilize the landscaping there for an outdoor event or gathering or something like that. You can see this lab a little bit here in the rendering kind of those two lines, that one there.
In terms of exterior finishes, you know, everyone's curious what this thing is gonna look like. In order to keep pots down, we were asked to provide, you know, horizontal vinyl siding, asphalt shingle roof. We did try to accentuate the trim, former trim, some trim across the gable ends that help kind of break up the facade. And then we also have an alternate if the budget allows for either a different type of siding, maybe it's a shingle siding up in the gables, or where you're looking at an alternate with like a thin brick base. But again, that's all very budget dependent. So if the money is there, the town would likely make the decision to go that route. But right now we are just discussing kind of like the main base bid. Notifications So and some perspectives.
So are we taking questions now? If we're done there, what I'd like to do next is ask agent LHC if the concerns that he had addressed at the last meeting would be satisfactory. Yes. With with one exception and it has to be a lot of it.
The the has shown that they're they're reduced overall lot of funding on the combined line, but yet it still exceeds the 10% max allowing for the regulation to progress. Eric, let's speak to that.
Yes. You are correct. It still is greater than the
existing coverage. Greater than existing. I mean, that could be the existing greater than
what the what it allows, but it also depends on how you define the block. And that's what I'm trying to share is So what I wanted to talk about is all the individual parcels that composed this greater piece. The first one is 11 School Road. That is a 70 acre parcel. It's got just under a half acre of impervious surface, which nets out to about point 7% block coverage, 17 School Road, which is was the original 40,000 square foot building block for this building. Point nine two acres about point five eight one acres of impervious surface, which nets out to about 64% lot coverage. So way over our regulations. 25 School Road, which currently has affected with zero impervious surface. This proposal, if we make it, would add roughly 5% lot coverage to that parcel. And 35 School Road, which is the end of elementary school has approximately 3.2 acres of the previous surface, which is just under 30% lot coverage. So currently, the town property and the school property do not meet the zoning regs in the air view or air d. They do need it if this was an industrial or commercial zone, clearly is not, and it means it if this was
a industrial or commercial use next to the air zone. But it does not as it is. So the the question becomes, what is the property? And the town is arguing that the the property is really the contiguous municipal property, which is a total of about 84 acres. It contains about 4.5 acres of impervious surface, which gives you a total lot coverage of around 5%. And you can also think about this if you take away the school property from the equation and just think about everything else that the town owns. The town, plus the fire department, you know, comes out to around 1.8% block of tree. So pretty small number. However, if you take just the combined parcel, which is this piece right here that we're standing on, plus the parcel we're planning on merging, that does equate to around 21.8% lock coverage. So that's the basic explanation. It really depends how you as a commission decide to consider this, whether you consider just the property or whether you consider, you know, all the properties together or in what fashion. So does that answer your question? Yes. Thank you. Okay.
Well, I guess just to explore that a little bit. The I think the town defined the lot by putting the property lines for the the thing on the town. Would there be would there be any downside to the town to merge that 70 acres with you know we're gonna merge the town hall property and the community center property is there any downside emerging another big chunk of land bring that into compliance with the regulation at this point?
So from my perspective, the biggest downside is we don't have accurate survey data on the big parcel, and that's a really expensive proposition if you wanna, you know, go back out and now survey another 78 for partial. If that is the direction that commission wants to go, then what would be possible to do would be roughly to merge not the entire parcel, but using the last reference point that we have on this that was surveyed. Which is right there, basically just draw a straight line between that and the initial lot quarter. That would not be a subdivision because it would not create extra parcels. Parcels. It would we are essentially starting with a total of four parcels now. If we did that, we would reduce it to a total of three parcels, and that would be just under the 10%. So if the commission is adamant that we get under the 10%, that would be how we meet that.
From a practical standpoint, I'm not sure it really does the town any good, but that's that's a commission decision that is not a need for something. It only does it down in Arbor.
Barely gets the benefit of complying with the regulation. It's what we're here talking about.
Perry Grange? At the record, Mark Grange. Just a clarification. We're staying up above the need for the serving work. But if I saw that, could you start correctly? The parcels combined like 1.77%. Correct right and and the maximum is 10% correct, so it doesn't seem like you would need a survey to establish compliance when you've got that big margin.
Well, the question just becomes. You know how do you so we know this area is well defined and well surveyed because we just paid a contractor to survey. All the back line is not surveyed, and we don't have that. So now, I mean, ideally, I would like to post a map that I trusted and was accurate. I wouldn't necessarily wanna post something without actually surveying the property and knowing exactly what it is. That would be my only concern with it. I mean, and that's that's legitimate. The only thing I'm
pointing out is that as long as the condition can find compliance, and you've got when when you're when you're within compliance by a factor of five, it's doubtful that sodium is gonna produce subject huge discrepancy as taking from 1.77 to over 10, and that would be astonishing on a partial this size. So that's that's just an I'm just putting that as an option. However, you change to do is fine, but but I don't the survey is is is necessarily required for that. Okay.
So, I mean, that would be it. I mean, if if the town has to merge the parcels to get zoning approval, clearly we'll merge the parcels. We would prefer not to go. We'll leave that at that.
Okay. Thank you. At this point, I'll ask the commission members if they have any questions or comments. Karen, you Scott? Ian Blanchard? Specifically on the plans? Yes. Okay. Incorrect.
I just said with the inside of the building, what provisions are they making for acoustics? Putting a large ceiling like this, looking at the echo in this room. How are they going to prevent that problem in the new building? Yeah, would you like to address that?
So that was actually I'm sorry, I'm either a mandible flood board member. And I've been quite personal on this project. So we actually addressed on a couple of ways. Some of it is going to be material on the flooring. Another thing to get is one of the reasons this room suffers so much from its issues is because there's so much glass area. Glass reflects, it's very hard surface, it's very clean. So that's part of the problem. Also, although Matt says like this building it's really not it's a much when we talk about when we talk about a pitched room. It's going to be a scissor style truss, whereas this is just an open frame So it's going to be much lower than this. The angle is not quite as sharp. And really a lot of it's also how you place them. If we still have an acoustical concern once the building is built, we can look at the trade breeze and things like that. Much less expensive to do than in a building like this because we actually priced out big base for the room and it was almost $14,000 to get a close to this in here. So
going with normal windows, things like that makes it a little more manageable. So we we feel that it's not really gonna be an issue in the space. But if it is, we are we are we already kinda have plans. We've done something. Is that circumstantial? Anything else, Jane?
The outside, have they considered something else to make this a bit more with the town, Like, maybe shutters on the windows or a on the top, something like that, or would that be added on later?
We can think about it. We actually did look at a lot of different things. We stay away from brick because brick is a from a from a long term point of view, really an Eaton Institute, and it's a much, much more expensive build up. Our hope actually is that we've sort of we've sort of given you the most basic design. Hope is that as we come out of the ground, we haven't had any issues and we're gonna have some money in the budget to make some more. And we have those as alternates in our in our design plan with the with the architects. And we've gone from budgeted, you know, but something as simple as just changing out that siding, for instance, it's it's like a $12,000 app.
I'm thinking of shutters. I don't think they're terribly expensive.
So yeah. So we didn't really look in that direction because if you look around with the surrounding buildings, it's just not something that's on them. We're trying to sort of fit, you know, like if we had smaller buildings that had shutters, we certainly would have looked at that. I mean, that's one the reasons we looked at the roof, for instance, is that it it did serve a secondary benefit from the solar point of view as well. Match this. So we certainly wanna look for those details, but we're hoping those details are things that, you know, we can walk away at down the road. You know, the goal was to keep the building under a million dollars because as soon as we cross a million, there's almost a 40% surcharge when we go to Davis vaping, which is still a bill of labor laws and kind of get four of the government.
So we're trying You had anything in plan saying, well, in the future, we'll do this or in the future, we'll try that. I didn't see that. Is that why I used Yeah. No. It is it is in our contract agreement, but it's certainly not.
We want to present you with what we know we can at least provide, and anything we can get beyond that is certainly a plus. Does that answer your question? Is any other questions as far as littlething or
Leanne Hutchinson, are you out there or did you have any questions? I thought I saw your phone pop up on the screen a couple of times.
Yes, I am. I just have a minor point. It's just a question. Is there any significance? I see that it's called Andover Community Center. And I think at our June 7 meeting, I'm not positive that was the meeting, but I think someone asked Eric Anderson about it being used as a senior and community center. His response was, Yes, it's both. But it's a little bit more of an emphasis on the senior center. I was just wondering if there's any significance to not having the word senior in there just for clarity, especially for somebody who might, you know, be coming from out of town or something saying we're not gonna have a separate senior center?
No. So I I actually saw that, you know, it's actually something I've addressed with architect after the fact that we wanna make modifications to that, that it's gonna say both. It really is both, and there's reasons for having both names on there, certainly for grant purposes and funding purposes. So we wanna try to have both on there. So, yeah, thank you for bringing it up. That's actually something we just need to do. Okay. Thank you. Can I just point out one other thing I didn't notice in the plans? On the exterior plans, there's two parking spaces that are along the school side.
Those are actually being removed. And it was something that was brought up. We did a sidewalk with the school a while back and this brought up as a safety concern. And if they. You know, kids, you know, kids coming out in between the bars and because we're already over on the parking spaces, we'd like to remove those. So are those spots removed from the drawings we looked at tonight already or something bigger? When it was brought up, and I don't know if they're on the part set. I didn't have to. So Thank you. That's that's too much. Sorry. Did you did you call on me?
Yeah. I guess I ask you if you had any other questions while it was your turn. No. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Judith? I'm good with plans. Okay.
I know on the community center side when we were looking at the architectural drawings, I did not see the box around it. And I only asked that, you know, when I went through and did a calculation from the previous thing using the height of the building is my guide for you're close to 10 foot. He came up with 32 square foot sun. We're saying we're down to 15 square feet, which does meet the regulation now, but I didn't see where that was included anywhere in the drawing board.
So we only got that today. So it was not included in the packet, but I didn't have time to put it in the packet, but there is the render. Yes. So there they are. I'm
not sure if people online be able to see this if I don't move too much.
Actually, I think if you go back and put it on here, the camera was focusing on you, and it was showing up okay. It is.
So the yeah. So the sign is here. I made it smaller, put the box around it. So it is six feet wide and two and a half feet wide. And I aligned the top of it with the headlight open windows and then signed it. Signed it with windows there. Okay. Very good. Thank you. And then with the with the change, you know, I'll I'll maintain that same square. I'll just change the the verbiage.
And I know at the last meeting, we talked about there was a desire to put some construction signage up for the project, and I didn't see anything about that in the updated site plan.
So Eric Sanderson, project manager leading edge construction. So typically what we do for on-site signage is we have all the stakeholders right so we have the town, part of school and we have the residents of the town. What we'd like to do is have what we call submittals. And in those submittals, we will have properly placed documented signage that as we start to begin, we go into contract final contract on the construction drawings, we will present those in a shop drawing to say which type of sign will have in specific locations. Those would have to be approved by all the parties before the constructive process begins. So if there is any comments from any people, meetings, specific signage, we're happy to accommodate. And that's ideally how a normal construction project goes for.
Now would these signs be signs that list the project team or are these signs that are saying warning, don't jump over the fence? No. So I'm
not personally gonna put my phone number on there and be like, you know, probably team call me. Yeah but the right stakeholders will have those numbers. You know all we are more than willing to meet with the school like I said I have children that go to the school and another one going to the school next year. More than happy to meet with the town and the school on a regular basis to talk about the next three weeks of construction, what we can do to make it safe. But the signs are mainly going to be liability signs right so things of construction access no parking. Know we're we've been talking to the town about potentially putting up Jersey barriers between this section
of. I guess, you'd say the parcel and the school to eliminate that access for parents and alleviate that concern. As the project moves forward, we'll start to change the plan a little bit construction fences will start to move in, the signs will slowly change as we start to get up.
Okay. Scott, I heard no comments on monumentation. Good, good. We're good there? Very good. Okay, great. The And I think that's all my questions at this point. Eric, if we could, what I'd like to do next is go, you know, call up the list of questions we got from the school superintendent last week and go through the town's response to those questions. And I see that was documented in the record, but just for the other folks here, and to give us the opportunity to ask questions if you go through that. I'd like to do that. We wanna take a lot of time on this one, but I wanna make sure that we hit those.
Okay. So first of all, both fire chief and, I believe, fire marshal are both in the room. So if you have any questions regarding their responses, I would suggest you ask them directly because they are here.
Do you want me to read the responses, or do you just want me to put them up on the screen, or what would you like me to do? For this one, let's just everybody well, I don't know that everybody back here. Why don't you read the response? Okay. I think I can see it, but I'm a little closer them.
Okay. Fire chief's response. Hello. We can certainly work on the evacuation plan with your EOP. I believe this usually comes over to me to sign in early September at the beginning of the school year. As far as bringing a truck up to turn it around in the proposal area, that will not be done on grass. Truck is too heavy to take off and pay the service. There's a vehicle parked there. It will be tight but not impossible for the truck to get through, run the Mike fire chief. For our marshal response, I measured the distance from the fire pond to the end of the parking area at Town Hall where the proposed senior center is being proposed Or where the sorry. I misspoke that. Same sentence, though. It's less than three tenths of a mile or 1,584 feet. The layout of the senior center looks good. Egress door sizes are not provided. They should be a minimum of 36 inches. There are no mechanical or electrical drawings in the prints. They will need to be done for project sign up. It will be done as part of the building permit. Access to the rear of the elementary school appears to be adequate. A lower no curb should be considered in a single handicap parking spot and the access to the garage under the school's gymnasium.
If you remember from the schematic, that actually had only about half of that curb. The lower half going down towards the garage was uncurbed for that reason. The town also proposes to switch to a Cape Cod style curbing, which is a much flatter curbing section in that area. Is that on the plan now? That is on the plan now. Access to this area will have to be monitored during construction. Plan review will be performed when the permit for the project is submitted.
Okay. So before we go off the bat and Jerry, I don't know if you want to talk to this or who to have Valerie, but I was curious as to what the evacuation plan was today. I'm trying to envision how it changed when we put that interaction fence around it, trying to make sure that we we take care of the ability to get to to others. Where do the kids go now? Time blocking.
It depends on the type of evacuation. There are the fire drill routes are easier to maneuver in terms of where the kids go. It is the evacuation where it is important that the children of our crisis situations be evacuated from the property and they go over to the fire department. And that becomes the safe refuge place for the children and so right now they leave our building and they move to the fire department via the empty space that's here now. So that's what we would have to work on together, making sure during construction, and then after construction, those bar cells. And yes, it is required that it be on file with the state. The first week of September is what we usually don't make sure that you guys have that assignment. Now,
one of the so when I looked at the drawing that showed the construction dents, Thinking back to the sidewalk that we did, you know, know we had a discussion where the fence was going to be five feet beyond that point. And then when I looked at the drawing, it showed the construction fence much closer to the school, but it looked like we still had 10 to 15 feet between the school and the construction fence there. From what I saw, that was okay to get the kids out of that emergency exit door of the gym.
So we did talk about that when the fire marshal visited. The problem is not having them leave that door that we need to make a change with. It's once they leave that door for a regular fire driller evacuation where they go to safety because children can't go into the parking lots. It's full of parked cars because there's three to five girls that come out there, plus we have a child in a wheelchair. And so we did come up with some ideas for what we might do. It would and I think that might be one of Jersey barriers came about too. Remind me again what you call it. You say you have to have a
point of what? Public
way. That's right. And so if you exit that door, there needs to be a big shift public way. And we talked about using temporary fencing, like the yellow and the orange temporary fencing and creating a an access way for public entry way so that they could go over to the gazebo area. From there, and the fire marshal said what we're going to do then is to have more of the temporary fencing that would also go around the handicap exit from the gym because right now there's a gap there, and he said he would want to see children jump off and come close to the site here. So we just have to make sure that we have a way to do that. But, you know, in talking it through, that that is the concern for going in that direction. And what we would need then is just simply
during construction and after construction, what is our method of getting the kids to the virus. And you were satisfied with the feedback from the fire chief and the fire marshal with respect to the turning radius in the circle down in front?
Well, he said we wouldn't get any vehicles into the backside there, but that we didn't need it, he said. So it was just an answer of it's not gonna happen. We won't have that. Okay.
Well, if, you know, there were there are things we could do, but I think, you know, the drawing, that's why we have the, you know, scale drawings and so we can do that. Those kind of calculations and and he said it was a standard turning radius for emergency equipment. So I I think I trust that as opposed to you have to do a cross circle down the number of the parking lot and see if the the the ambulance can navigate it or whatever. But just try to find how close we are to thinking that you're convinced we're trying to take care of the kids.
Well, I I definitely believe that, but he was he was he was clear, though, we would have to find another way to get back there. But the emergency would wouldn't go back there for a variety of reasons. Where where is back there? From the right now. From from the circle back.
Okay. So I guess I thought we had a and Eric, this is for you, I guess. I thought we had sort of a path that you showed it going back there behind the school where we we would, you know, potentially take a ambulance or something like that Whether
they choose to take the ambulance on that is is up to the fire team. I'm not Okay. Yeah. Be responsible to get inside, but they certainly have the capability to get back there. I mean, they have a four wheel drive rescue vehicle. They also have a a it is probably a little a PV
with the thing or, you know, so they can certainly access that. Did they have everything everything they have today, they will have after construction? Correct. But okay. Go. Got it. See if I can let's go on to the next one here, Gary.
Okay. The next response was the response from PSC Engineering. I'll let Matt come up and read that. My voice was shot anyway.
Audience. And that will be I know you put the fueling station on the groin. We didn't point it out, and we probably should have, but at the time, I think that would surprise sort of reading your verbiage. We just want more feedback here from the school that that they agreed that we thought.
So okay. Do you want me to go back to the plan and and and that? To begin It didn't change from the last time. It's still in the area indicated. Can talk to you about it. Actually
why don't you just walk through here because everybody in the room will be able to get a sense of where you're talking about putting that I think what I saw on the drawing because talk us through where would be why you chose that. Sure, so we'll be located in the existing
parking lot of the fire station. You typically want to be feeling areas in a pain surface because in the event of a spill now you're not having a game into the ground or anything like that, so it is sort contained. And now that's considered you know, assuming the secondary containment measuring measures of the feeling area have also failed, so you know the feeling is always protected with multiple measures. What's likely going to happen is the contractor actually just deliver fuel mostly just diesel to the site to fuel up you know excavators and other equipment like that. And that delivery was in place and then it will be there are they going to store fuel on-site so it's really just an area that's designated
during construction that's just. A temporary place for the different vehicles to fuel up so there's there's no storage of fuel there's no big fuel tank or anything like that sitting on-site.
Does that answer your question? It does. And Jerry, we're okay to be okay with that. Okay. Thanks. Guess next next question concerns the schedule. Eric? And one of the question was, so what was the Well, so the the school And and when I say the school, I do, you know, sincerely appreciate the questions that we got here because it was from a different perspective. It caused us to think about things that we might not have thought about other. And so so one of the things that I was envisioning probably maybe falsely was that when if the project got approved, how soon would the excavators start doing the site work? Because one of the ways to protect the kids would be to get the site work done soon.
It's a great point. Right. So the construction process works at this. Once we finalize if we get approval, we move forward with the project, we're going to go into the RFP stage, right? So we have to bring it back up to bid for all of our subcontractors that is going to take a few weeks. Once that happens, we can mobilize quickly and then we go right into clearing and grabbing the site, we get right into our deep foundations or excavations which would be any deep manholes excavating excavating for for the foundation and then into our shallow excavations of which would be any utilities are biggest deliveries are site work concrete frame. Else is very small deliveries with very minimal crews. We are looking to a nine to ten month schedule for the whole entire project finished and close out.
The sooner we get started, the less disruptive it would be. And, you know, we again have to go out the bid, we have to do have the right fiduciary responsibilities to keep this under the budget that we want to keep it under, but we are looking forward to getting this started as soon as possible. So
a good deal of the summer vacation, unfortunately, the older one way or the other, by the time we actually start the excavation will probably be not days, but close to a month before something actually starts happening. Potentially. Yeah. Potentially. Okay. I didn't understand that you're starting over from the request with proposal needs and
Sort of. We have finalized drawing so initial phases were based on a certain percentage of drawings. Now that they're finalized we have all the input from the town, then we can go back out to bid again.
Jerry, did you have any other questions on the schedule at this point? Not that info that I didn't have before. I have a question you asked and I appreciate that.
I have no other questions. I I just don't see
Okay. I'm gonna try to speed up the process just a little bit, and the the next question that I see here was, you know, the seats running or anything equipment during drop off and pick up point. And it sounds like, you know, the construction team re put that into the RFP to make that a requirement. So I think that probably met your desires
with respect to that. Wait a second. I don't believe you've agreed to that at all. Okay. So we are idling during pickup? No. The the town would be happy to agree to not have deliveries that can likely pick up, but we can't stop the construction site twice a day for a half an hour or forty five minutes while we get done. So by the cost basis, that is way too high to consider.
I misread it says the RV no deliveries could be made between those those dots and I I do think that's a satisfactory compromise to that. I was having to do the jury I said okay I'm just being concerned with the kids things there. No, know. And that's the only thing we're concerned with that too. We had some good questions. And so I appreciate you having questions. If the one discussed the principal will need by monthly updates on construction and share regularly with families in my what? Yeah. That that should have said biweekly, not bimonthly.
Okay. That probably I I think that's what we read earlier than that. And and what I was hoping there was being the same report that the same report goes to everybody. We shouldn't get one report going to one group, then another report going to another group where we're we all want to see the same information and I think that makes it easier for you and so as long as is that comes in in a written format so we can all share I thought that was a great response. Where will the dumpster be located during construction? This could be a hazard. The the responsible location of the dumpster will be within the construction zone secured by February 10. Any other your concerns about that? And for the commission members here, if you've got concerns as we're going through those safely, please bring them up too. I only wanna go through the list once. The loading zone, can the time we posted, please to avoid issues. And I may have been, I thought you were talking about a loading zone following construction.
Were you talking about the loading zone during construction or both? Okay. Eric, I don't want to talk to the town anymore, but I've already done. I'll let you talk about the loading zone concept following completion of construction.
So following construction, we have proposed that, for instance, we're we're not anticipating major deliveries. I mean, given the types of use that occur in a community slash seniors that are, you know, we're not talking about large point deliveries. You know, the only real loading and unloading would be the seniors and residents when they come to events, and we will bring up the one of the senior buses and and unload seniors in the circle. That's really the the intent of that area. We did add per the request of concern that there'd be people potentially parking in the circle that would block access either to schooling or to an emergency vehicle. We did add, you know, you know, no parking signs. Essentially, there are no parking striping
on the whole surface. It was clear that that is for temporary loading and unloading only. It is not designed to be to add any additional parking to to satisfy that request.
Okay. And I think that makes sense. Is there somebody that would be wanting to talk to those I guess, construction, there is no loading zone. It will be going in through the construction fence and dropping off materials. Is that that's right. Yeah. So it's not the loading zone during the construction, it's it's not there. Okay. Next on my list was the additional comment from Leading Edge, and it is from Sergeant who just talked about New Jersey barriers in there, and and Valerie had already talked about the evacuating murder evacuation plan to make sure that the the the kids can evacuate their safety. So I thought that was good.
And the only thing I would note is the title we use mafia blocks, jerky barriers, jerky barriers, a specific item. Okay. Lockwood block is just a large square of concrete, but it will accomplish the same purpose of prohibiting vehicle traffic from getting repaired. We're using those because we already own a bunch.
Okay. Sounds good. To the regular breaks. Your your draft motion says concrete barriers or approved equal to prevent. Okay. So it's that that's your draft address that. It's about whatever whatever is most practical thing.
The next comment had to do with the two mature trees over by the school and what I read, they won't be impacted by the construction. I think that's far enough away. Any concerns about that? Okay, then the these are probably out of order a little bit from what they came to us. The next one concerned documentation on the proposed septic tank and its exact location. So, can see this in reference to playground And again, I think the the punch line was that the septic tank work is all inside the construction fence separated from the playground by fairly good distance. So it looked like that would have no impact on the safety of the place. Fueling station we talked about, emergency vehicle turnaround in the plumbing area we talked about. Please we talked about. Will there be partly designated to the community center, we do not wish to say that any and all elementary school parking is also community center parking. Eric, would you like to address that one more?
Well, at least from the town's perspective, we are always considered that all the parking in the municipal area is essentially shared parking. The other day during graduation, we run all the parking slots along here with Phil because the whole lower parking area at the end of elementary school was in use. So they use ours. We use theirs. You know, sometimes we spill over to the fire department spots. Sometimes it spill over into ours. So I think that we've demonstrated that regardless of whether you take in Woodhouse parking or in school or not. We're well within the regulation in terms of minimum parking spaces provided.
And I think because combined between the school and the existing town hall in the fire department, we're considerably over the maximum number of spots allowed in our regulations that, you know, adding additional spots would not be you know, if anything, we should be removing more spots to meet the regulation not added in. So that would be my response. Okay.
Anybody from school have any concerns about that? I thought that was
a reasonable question. Ish, Karen? Thank you, Dave. I was gonna raise a point of comment, but people are. That concerns common parking. They will well, twelve point eight point four requires legally binding documents and evidence that status dot COVID twelve point eight point five a memorandum of agreement, memorandum of understanding is required to address at least the parking situation, if not all the other situations that we proposed to reverse life and require an insolent woman came during our joint meeting last Wednesday. But I would point out twelve point eight point four, this commission has a fine that there is when there's a spatial overlap of peak parking periods, we don't know if that's case. Legally binding documents satisfactory to the commission
have been prepared for filing on the land record. So in my opinion, and I'm a lawyer, that doesn't mean that you can have draft documents. You have to have documents that are very compiled on the land records and satisfy the commission's requirements. Twelve point eight point five in requiring perpetual cross maintenance. And, again, I think it's it's down to the difference in opinion of various lawyers who were involved here. The board continues to assert to this day that the triangle that is referred to in all the documents, we believe is under the control of the Board of Education. It's separated out. And I would just say that the town's own masks and site plans
show that it is under deedlines and whatnot under the purview of the Board of Education, but that continues to be an issue. I would ask if that's not the case. Why the warranty needs and the survey that was done by the town? And the warranty needs are filed under the town's land records, refer to land as political school grounds, or refer to school lifeguards. If in fact, it is all the town's property, which is what the town continues to assert, I don't think there would be that legal distinction. Secondly, why is the school responsible out of its own budget to spend it separate from the town budget for the maintenance of school grounds and students through parking lots. Even in fact, it's all town property, that can be the case. And we are currently responsible for all of that. We're responsible for contracting with our own maintenance of grounds for lawn keeping and whatnot. And you've been responsible for all maintenance of the upper parking lot and lower parking lot. And again, that brought me to my earlier point, which was I believe the two zoning regulations that suggested not require that an agreement be reached between town and school about the shared parking and the common parking that will need to be required for the community center center purposes.
Thank you. You. Mister Jamie, I comment on that. Yes, please. Record Mark Grant's Council Commission.
You can't the same owner can't grant himself an incident. You can't have a contract between one party. Has to be an order for there to be cross seasons, there have to be two owners. Is only one one. Therefore, you can't have an easy whatever whatever side contracts the board of Ed and and General Town want to work out maintenance and things like that is is certainly up to them it's not a zoning issue but there there needs to be across easement for one owner of five Again, have a contract with yourself. Okay, so I, so I think that the 12, I, I think, I read the 12.85 is, is a, I think it should be addressed in your motion approval, if you see, to approve this, then I provide I'm working on some language now, but I don't think that I don't think you need crosses you can't get one. Doesn't exist. Okay, thank you, Eric.
I just like to reply really quickly to the comment about maintenance. The town maintains basically all of its own paved surfaces. Town of Andover Public Works plows your lots. They salt your lots. Sweep your lots. They clean the drainage basins on your lots. They want to be repaired when you had sinkholes in your lots. To state that the town doesn't maintain your parking areas. I don't believe that's a correct statement. The town plans for all its paid services. Now it may not maintain it to your satisfaction because you know we have somewhere around $17,000,000 worth of paid services in town, the Witcher portion, And we're not maintaining them all with perfect standard. We get that, but we definitely maintain it. That's all I wanted to say about that, unless you have further questions for me, Mr. Chairman.
No, I'm all set. Thank you. Next item was gonna sign for the handicapped spot near the garage to be placed on a building fencing building freeing up that area for wider vehicle heat wave backyard. And the the response is the contractor will use Doesn't sound to me like that answered the question that I was expecting. I've been talking to you. In the sign with a handicapped spot near the garage, you placed on the building so you have that area for a wider vehicle to weighted backyard? Can somebody address that particular question?
Would that be appropriate to drive over the back of the handicapped spot and then try to drive down the home? The brakes are are two seat there for vehicular traffic. So that would not be possible either way.
Would there be do we put the sign on the building? And I thought there was probably a regulation that said where the sign for a handicap spot has to go. But Well, there is that also, but even if you could, because the the signage will be in two points. The first would be painted on the roadway,
and that doesn't affect where you can ride. And then usually at the end of the parking spot, there is signage for indicating that it's an anti theft accessible spot. But the school has asked if that that sign would be moved and put on the side of the building. But then, a, do not line up in the parking spot. And b, even if you did remove it, it would not be safe to use that to drive home for for egress anyway. So the town doesn't believe you gain anything by doing that.
Okay. Thank you. Next question involves smoking on the school side of the construction site. And after the community center building walked the town to alder extent on smoking to align the school property during the school second time. And with that, you know, that's a down ordinance, not a zoning regulation. And so fingers would not solve that.
And I would happily support no smoking on cattle property, personally, but that's not my my decision. That's a town decision.
We already talked about maintenance on the the parking lots in the question about that, you know, talks about the CTS ten twenty two twenty wording about the need for an MOU. I want to hold that in abeyance at least at this point for a few minutes. I think I certainly understand the school condition that that they would like to have an MAU maybe Shannon's the comment about parking. I think there are a couple of places a couple of places probably not appropriate for zoning. Sounds like maybe parking is. I'd like to take a look at those words and go through there. With that, with that, I think it is the list of comments that we got from the school superintendent in I guess at this point, I would ask you, you know, the Board of Ed Gary or School Superintendent Valerie, if you had any other concerns or questions, I do think you kinda worked together to come up with what I think are kinda satisfactory answers.
What? And you know I sent you a You did. Yep. And then I I just wanna say, am in favor of this community that you have done. I'm a danger to my job,
mouth. I don't feel. I'd like to say it's us all work together and bring that and to that. Thank you, Gary. And and I don't go if it's appropriate, or not to say, but your letter, we started talking about where where we might have started going off the rails a few years back. And I think it's time where we tried to put the senior center into the elementary school. I thought that plan was going okay and got derailed. But the letters I've seen, know, whether it's Dennis O'Brien's letter on the support for the application, He thinks that Mark Grant said it does it well, that the application from zoning perspective is good. I know your lawyer and you folks have a different viewpoint on that and I don't really know how to reconcile that but my desire would be to hear from you say, Jerry, exactly what you did, that you had a good meeting, and maybe we're starting to get over where we were working at odds and and work together because the three takeaways I took from our last public hearing were down one in a community center, the town wanted to take care of the kids, and the town wanted us to work together to do both of those things. And so I'm hoping that we can find a way to do that. And that's all I'll say about that right
now. But I appreciate your letter here. Thank you for submitting that. So at this point, you does anybody on the commission have any other questions or concerns that we should talk about before we talk about closing the public hearing?
Some comments or things, but I don't know if it goes now or during the declining zoning condition later.
Good where we can get some feedback on it before we close the public hearing. Are any of them feedback? I
know that in the past, like, Eric had said at one point that no MOUs were necessary, but I've looked very carefully at the plans for the community senior center and would have a few points that I think need to be addressed. In the past, when we had superintendent doing, she offered the use of AES senior center, they had MOUs to agreed upon. I think you could do that again. The town of the school should be good neighbors and agree upon a variety of questions by using MOUs. I agree that we can't probably easements because the chat room does own all the property, but we can use MOUs. And it's several reasons we needed them. One, first book needed land in the town for a school. At some point after the original, the increased the area for the school slightly when it was needed and then gave another large portion for the town hall on the firehouse. It's true that the town owns all the land, but the portion for a yes is now dedicated to the school, and that line can't be moved just because of a new building project. Connecticut law prevents anyone, including the town from taking back land from a school or when the school is closed and the building is not needed for educational purposes anymore, and the Board of Education return a property to a town. The piece of land in question here, this little triangular piece may be small, but still under the school's jurisdiction. Just as you cannot will be a little bit pregnant you're either pregnant or you're not this small section is still under the jurisdiction of the town of the school. AES is willing to cooperate by agreeing to an MOU,
and then it would be great. They'll they'll let they're not saying that you can't use it, but we wanna have an MOU list. We being
I think that we, the town, the public plant, I'm not sure if the planning and zoning, or if we should require the town to set up the board of selectmen to do the MOU with the Board of Education.
Not sure if that's that's a fine suggestion, but it's not something that's only condition can impose this requirement. It's something why should American. It's not as though it's not as long as it's okay. We can't impose.
We can't say two parties you two have to agree. You two have to get together and reach you tomorrow.
Well then number two thing was the common parking section twelve point eight point five. I read there that is by special permit the applicant may submit plan that the Commission will have common parking for multiple purposes and multiple uses. And talking about the perpetual process easements but. I think that it has to include access and maintenance agreements That is where they need to have an agreement, the MOU. And I think that our regulations can require that.
Even on this new plan Yeah. And I think that that the the things you're discussing are probably better covered in the deliberations amongst the commission. Those are things we have to consider there. Alright. I'll hold on. I'll go out on a limb though. We we've talked a lot about the MOU. Shannon mentioned the parking thing which is is a planning and zoning concern. I didn't see any other comments about what kinds of things should be in the MOU, and I was particularly looking to see what the planning and zoning item might be because I don't think that you know the yard work on the school property is a a planning and zoning issue certainly you know, and I'm I'm a fan of MOUs because the devil's always in the details and and that's where he is. But I tried to come up with, I think we addressed the safety issue, which the zoning regulations require us to assess. But I was looking for other things that might be a zoning topic.
And and I was hard pressed to come up with that.
It it I don't know if it was made available to you, but we certainly can make it available to the commission. That would be that would be helpful. It's irrelevant. They're kind of back inside.
Would would kind of oh, okay. I guess it would be do we have a copy here so that if if we were to close the hearing, go to deliberation, we could we could see the MOU that that could be part if we want that to be part of the planning and zoning discussion, we ought at least be able to see what it is. There might be pieces of it that are applicable, pieces of it that aren't, but we are talking a lot about an MOA or an MOU. And I certainly don't know what it is.
We're we're we're saying that we should hold up action on the application because of it and and I don't know what it is. But what what difference does it make what it says if you can't condition your approval on forcing two partners from reaching you? You're right that safety issues have been issues have been raised in our zoning issue of access, construction, safety, and so on and so forth. Yep. But how how does the zoning commission compel two parties to to sign them?
That's that's a new one I need for fifteen years. Well, don't know. It might be just that there are things that that both parties can't agree to. There might be some things that both parties can't agree to. And in that case, you eliminate what you can't agree to and put in it what you do. Well, don't know. To the extent, to the extent that that any of those are zoning concerns, you've asked people to tell you what they are.
And they have. And the applicant thinks they respond to them. Now you may decide what happened. Okay? But I mean it's incumbent on someone to tell the commission. What other zoning concerns, a little bit of health and safety concerns they have. Okay. And and and who's going to plow what is not a health and safety concern. That is a that is a matter of who plows and who maintains what? All those kinds of things are legitimate issues. I'm not demeaning the issues. They're just not selling the issues. Okay. Before
we address further whether we should close the public hearing, I know I have ignored those folks who attended virtually. And is anybody out there in the Zoom frontier have any comments for the commission at this point? And I've been looking for hinge to go up on on the screen there to let me know that you might wanna talk. Good. Good policy. Can I add for something into the public record?
It's from the town engineer. It's his comments on plan revisions Okay. That were provided to address the stormwater management concerns. That way, if if anybody, I'm assuming, has a comment, would like to have it on this. Okay. Go ahead, Jeremy. Okay. Jay Pauzy, billing official. 17 School Road, mister Gardiner Community Center, 17 School Road here Connecticut. Mister Halsey, as requested, we review the following information received in the subject property at our office through 06/19/2023. Item one, calculation chief for rating card assignment, 8220 June 2023, verified BSC. Item two, set of 13 drawings titled, Hanover Community Center from 17th School Road, Hanover, Connecticut. Gales had a notice, 80 the eighteenth two thousand twenty three. Last revised, 06/16/2023, verified by PNC. We have the following comments. One, calculations should be submitted from the seismic stormwater piping systems along with the bypass of elements. We'll catch page number four, the proposed rain garden. Two, the constitution submitted for the sizing of the rain garden with regards to the storage stage storage discharge to demonstrate that the basin will maintain one foot of freeboard and not overtop and impact the adjacent parking area. Four, three is missing, but provide a standard detail for the proposed level spreader. Five, for consistency of terminology, detail on sheet five treatment plan with graveyard as opposed to bioinfiltration soil. Six. We would recommend the optimal soil layer for grain garden, 12 inches of depth, and the length of 50 to 70% sand, 33%
topsoil, with an average 5% organic content. The soil mixture shovel underlaying by six twelve units. A clean wash ground is a planting plan should provide pollenant native crops, grasses, and herbaceous mites. If you're ever reflecting, please go to contact
Thank you for listening to my little public speak part. As a citizen Andover and been present at a multitude of meetings, you know, regarding this project. And you've all I give you all credit for coming to all these meetings, answering probably the same questions over and over until the satisfaction of everyone. Know, I was present at the Board of Ed meeting last Wednesday, I believe it was. And you know, Jeff McGuire was there along with Paula. They did such a great job of working together, going through point by point of any question that would be raised, answered it again. You know, the committees presented this. I'm just hoping that everyone will come together
for everybody that's volunteered, put in time, put in massive amounts of hours. I understand everybody wants everything to be safe, and I really have no doubt that it will. So with all of the time invested, I really would love to see the senior center slash community center go forward for the people that I've known the seniors I've known in town for over seventeen years. Thank you.
Thank you, Joanne. And I see no other hands raised on the screen. Is there anybody out in the Zoom that wanted to make a comment? Gary Nunn. Okay. So we're back to the commission. Is the is there anything that the commission feels they are lacking that we need to discuss before we would close the public hearing so that we don't get ourselves in the situation where we did with the Dollar General and we wanted to ask a question right off the bat and we're not able to. So it's eight now or forever hold peace.
Desianna? I just wanted to note that I saw that the
inland wetlands agent indicated that there is an existing application now that the fueling area,
gray guard, and the tracking pattern in the upper end of Butte area. I don't know if anybody's accept that yet.
I I did with mister Halsey. He was telling me some of these adjustments would require probably agent approval, And and he was asking that you give him machine approval. It could be. But my response was wetlands compliance is required when you make a condition of approval. So he completed the motion or not.
Okay. Thank you. Just the record. You get to be an agent approved. Okay. Within the other will be better. Thank you.
And if the commission wanted to address it, commission. There's no reason the fueling area can't move another 30 feet to the south to get it out of the upper view area if that's a concern.
Okay. Thanks, Eric. Any other questions? Adrian, this is Paul O'Connor. Again. Paul O'Connor. Okay.
So as someone who's been involved in this product from the very beginning, and then literally going to meetings for over two years. We have done everything possible to be inclusive of all of our. All of our meetings were open with the exception of construction means that we're we're close in public because it was it was been required. But even in those meetings, we actually spoke reached out that they wanted somebody on the on our committee and so we took a representative from school and it's actually very helpful Chris brought up this live kitchen stuff because he had some background there. And you know Chris also gives a lot of input as far as safety things. Know, we went so far as actually put in our construction agreements that, you know, a whole paragraph is done on school safety and the fact that, you know, the contract we're next. So from the very beginning, we've been very much aware about the bird doing work and and what the end end result needs to be, both from Sydney's endpoint and the town standpoint.
I think my concern when we talk about what use is that it feels like that it feels like there's a push to put an MOU on this. When really those are the issues that are being addressed, don't really have anything to do with community center, they have to do with talent school things they haven't worked out on their own, for whatever reasons, whether it be the school not reaching out to the town and asking for it, but the town not being clear about what they do and don't do for us, you know. And in the end. An MOU on a triangle, a piece of parcel doesn't work because that building is not going away. And the implication in the MOU since they've always been come across that that somehow an MOU is a memorandum of understanding, but it can be repealed. This will change their mind. Right? Remember, know it's been King Common Belt. This building is going anywhere. I mean, it was the school. I mean, it was the town. You know, we're we're entities that need to work together. So the idea that we have an MOU on a triangle is making sense.
Should the town get together with the school and figure out what their parking situation? Yes, I've been saying for years, I said it wasn't before that the school to be going to the town and talking about, you know, when we do paving that we talk about paving the world. You know, I tried to get the town to address when I was in the school board that, know, where the where the buses are over there, there's a little sinking area. That's a problem where the where the where the trash containers are picked up when the truck picks them up, his wheels are sinking. So there was two areas in in parking lot that needed immediate attention, but those were never fast. And, you know, candidly, the school member actually reached out and said, hey. We really would like to get these addressed specifically or sent the letter. Right? So there's communication issues on both sides, and those need to be addressed by the town on their own terms.
It should be something that's forced and and it's inappropriate for this commission to weigh in and discuss it. Personally. They need to do need to be addressed and I think you're right, but I don't think this is the place to do it, and certainly not under a gun. Know they're not permitted to whether that will get built it's not a safety issue it's it's a problem with communication, but it doesn't affect the goal, you know we're shipping. So that's my take on it like I said, our meetings were open for two years, you know, and I don't know what the animosity that started this, I wasn't privy to those meetings that happened at the beginning.
But, you know, when I was approached about whether or not we wanted to include school, what we could do. Like I said, we put somebody on our meetings. And I even went for the effort of trying to do a specific sidewalk just for the school board. We'll walk them through the documents, walk them through where things were up here. Sometimes it's hard for people to understand things unless you you see them, you walk around. So we took the time to mark things out, mark up the turning circle, things like that. And I hope that helped in some way towards adjusting to your safety concern. You know, the parking had come up, let you park on spaces and, you know, blocking off access to the other side and and all this. So it sounds like we've had at least some some agreement on those, and I'm glad to hear that. But I think beyond that, I think, you know, that's where the submissions duty box is is where it's where it's going so far. You know, that's my own table. Okay. Thank you.
And I do agree with Adrian's comment that the problem communications issues on both sides, as I look at the different letters that have gone back and forth, I I see that each side thinks they've been trying to be collaborative. Each side thinks the other side hasn't been as collaborative as they would like them to be. And and hopefully we're an improving trend with with respect to that. But going back to to the commission here, I I don't see where anybody has anything else that they want to get input from before we close the public hearing. So at this point, at 08:44, I will close the public hearing. And at 08:45, we will open our special meeting to deliberate the application. Okay well I'm seeing forty four closing up. I would like to call the special meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission to order. First item is roll call and seating of alternates. I see we have Anne Permeet present Scott Bersand is present Leanne Hutchinson is present Steve Nelson is absent Anne Blanchard will be seated for Steve Nelson and I am president as well. Next up is new business. Discussion applications now to Van Gogh. The applicant is seeking a special permit to construct a community center consisting of 2,386 square foot structures of the apartment site work of 25 School Road in accordance with section five of the Andover zoning regulation.
I guess, you know, I'd like to start out. Do any of the commission members have any concerns about any zoning regulations being met? I do think there's a couple of things or solutions that that that we can put into some dishes or removal, but I think as far as safety of the footage, we've we've done
accessed, but there should be a driveway back there. I mean, they've got the stay arrow on this map, so there must be access, but I don't know if it's a matter of grade according to our regulations, driveways can't be over 15% grade. And it looks like it might be more. It's not gonna be harder for me to figure it out. So that's what our regulations.
Okay. And and that's another great question. We probably should test before we close public hearings. We could've got We didn't say the thing, Orest. I I think, you know, what what we talked about during the public hearing was that the access will be at least as good to the back end of the school as it is today. I'd have to go, you know, get out the the topographic map, which but it looks like is looking for It looks to me like your branch off branch off in the right
Not not saying fire trucks have to get back there. Just a vehicle in the future should be able to get back. Yep.
It is never and then they didn't lost another fire machine. Fire sheet kind of been on. They didn't get the they're satisfied with the action.
Well, I think what they said was at least what Valerie had told me that they're not gonna put a fire truck back there. They don't care about the building. They can get the kids out, but they don't care about the fire truck getting with the bat. But what I heard tonight was
we won't we won't get the fire truck back there no matter what. But we we need I thought I heard you need to set fire alarm. That's
what they're saying. What I'm saying is can anybody else get that? Smaller vehicle.
I think an ambulance people back there. Yeah. That's really what I'm worried about is, you know, if there's a medical emergency or something that that the ability to get the ambulance. Oh, that one's
I just I'm really troubled by this triangular piece of land that the town says they're gonna be taking. I mean
I'm gonna so I I share your concern, and I can absolutely see that from the school's perspective, they would have that concern. So here's here's what my focus is. There's only the the school is concerned about setting precedent. We spent a lot of time going over the school's concerns with safety of the kids. I'm sure that we have heard from our land use attorney and the Gowns attorney that there's a little bit of a difference. There's a difference of the committee there that that we're not the only way you would get that and that wouldn't even be satisfactory is if it goes to the Supreme Court. Like the little house down in New London, next to. Okay. The and and so my hope is that we worked together with the school to address their concerns for the safety of the kids. And they're not in opposition based on the zoning application. If the board of Ed were to agree with the amendment, that's not set in the president. They can save that precedent for some time where they disagree with it. I would hate to see point zero eight acres be the downfall of everything that everybody works so hard on in the town and all of us in this room say we're in agreement Yeah. Of doing it.
I guess the plans are good. Why does it the town think they got a redraw the line? That's
Well, there's they'll just say, well, shouldn't open. I guess the gazebo the gazebo would have been less than the required setback
from Yeah. But why not just keep the line where it is? So what if both of the circle? The the gazebo would then be violating your setbacks.
That would exist. No. This is on this is on the turning circle, Mark, where we we put that that one state over.
And I think I know you changed I changed it to avoid the gazebo. Right. Why not just then just keep it where it is? Why are you doing this?
Did you you needed to ask them that during the volunteer?
I think that I will I think that lie in the down five is weird to have the project all before.
And the full board said they weren't gonna give them away.
You know, said that it's the down on the ceiling. I'm speaking for attorney Grant Syrian, attorney with Ryan. We that's what I got out of the fourth month and know them is that the town owns the land. And I can't bridge that gap here with the zoning commission. That is that is a different issue. I absolutely see where the school is coming from. If I were on the school board, I would have that understanding. But I don't think it's a zoning thing based on what I've heard the jury grants discussing.
Don't see why they're moving along. You can't go to a neighbor and say you're changing the line. Why the school has jurisdiction over that link? I know it's owned by the town. Yeah. But the school has jurisdiction, so we shouldn't be taking that.
And I'm hoping that the school will say the project to go to senior center is important enough for the school and that whole triangle is small enough, but that's not where we're going to make it to concern. And I could be wrong, but that would be disappointing
for Probably a little But just not that piece of link. I'll go back and ask attorney Bransigman.
Doesn't the town have the legal right to change the lot line as they have suggested doing in this case? Yes, any property owner that owns petroleum properties can reconfigure and actually the the supreme court actually addressed that in context of the other thing is based on the staff report because you're an issue with coverage, lot coverage. There may have to be additional mergers of these parcels in order to meet the locker. And then the people, the fact that going to have, there has to be, there has to be some additional merger so that the person, whatever person ends up, complies with your 10% lockdown. So, that's something that that that has to happen whether they run or not.
When the town wants to.
So I know there's a disagreement, I could be able to come up with an answer, but I, firstly, have to go with the advice of our attorney.
That's the the schools are not paying to have another attorney here tonight. They don't have their attorney here.
And if the attorney was here, they would tell us exactly what we heard in the superintendent's comments and from Shannon tonight. And we're not gonna bridge that gap here in this meeting. I don't I don't know that that's a zoning issue. I don't know what it is. It's not a zoning issue. And I do think and I don't like the terminology the talent and the school because the school is the talent the talent needs to work together in a lot of areas and not be it odds over that small thing. We gotta see if that disagreement were bigger than
If it was five acres of their land of the town of the land under the jurisdiction of the school. Just because the bigger piece, they wouldn't do it anything about it. It's just because it's a small piece. That doesn't make sense.
Does does making that small piece have any impact on the stool? And I tried to I tried to look and find where that impact may be, and I probably see. I guess it's the first.
I I sure is. And and I understand that. I I yeah. If if I were there, I would feel exactly like a
but I would be trying to work with teacher for thirty one years, so I feel a lot of connection to school. Yep. Yep. I got it.
Okay. Any other questions from the any other discussion points from the commission? Okay. Just for point of discussion, I will make a motion to approve the application subject to conditions that we can discuss. Just because I made a motion to approve it doesn't necessarily mean that I would vote for it. It just means that when we make a motion, we have to vote to approve it. And if it's voted down, it's voted down. If we make a motion to not approve it, and it's not approved, then we don't know where we are. And so that's why we do it this way. So I will make a motion to approve the application subject to conditions of approval in attorney branches. I will second it. Thank you, Leanne.
Mister chairman, since mister Halsey prepared a a draft motion that has a lot of conditions that are right in discussing. Yep. Okay. Copies. Well,
hold on. Because as you've been talking to scene about certain conditions that you feel you need to add, I've been add to what you've drafted okay so. Can start with the policies but it's somewhat I'm ready to share screen with things that I added based on what I heard tonight again there it's your emotion, but you know, I find this happens during journeys. People say, would you make that additional movement? And then at the end, ensuring that it all. So, I've been putting them in as we wait so that we we would have them when when we reach this point.
And I appreciate that because we always make a good point. We want to hurry to get to the end. Then then we're left not remembering what we talked about. So I do want to take the time to go through these with a little bit of rigor. Okay everybody should be able to see the draft motion. And the first condition of approval is the pre construction meeting the contractor relevant subcontractors, and applicants shall meet with the town staff and its representatives prior to the commencement of construction to go over schedule, coordination of construction, and any other matters deemed permanent by either staff and or its representatives, the contractor for the applicant. It is expressly agreed that the representatives of the Andover Elementary School and or the Andover Board of Education will be provided the opportunity to participate
in said meeting. Noted will be provided a minimum forty eight hours prior to all meetings. Any comments on the commission for that condition? Okay. Let me scroll down to the next one. Contact information. The contractor shall provide town staff with contact information, including names, phone numbers, and emails for twenty four seven emergency contact. Any update in such information shall be provided to town staff in writing. Any comments on that? Number three, the revised plan showing modifications to address stormwater management concerns shall be reviewed approved by Eastern Highlands Health District prior to endorsement by chairman of the planning and zoning commission. Minor revisions to the plan is determined by town staff shall be incorporated into the final plans.
Point of typo on that. There's a red parenthesis that could be removed. Private show. I didn't know if you wanted to add more concerns or or I'm just adding any conversion. I I was going to I I I originally had thought for this year. After concerns, it yeah. Probably better. That's my original.
Okay. I was waiting for it to change up there, but I recognize that Mark's screen isn't showing up there. Yeah. So run by side, what you wanted to do there, Jim?
Yes. The revised plan is then parentheses showing modifications to address stormwater management concerns. End prime. Okay. Shelter reviewed and approved by Eastern Highlands Health Commission.
Primary worship by the chairman of plaintiff's own commission. Got it. Okay. Number four. Prior to the issuance of the certificate of occupancy, the contractors shall make necessary adjustments vertical and horizontal to existing lighting at the CLP Pool Number 598 so it can meet the lighting regulations contained within these zoning regulations and provide the counter band over with documentation of same. So that's what increases the lighting. The the lights on the top of that pole swivel up and down. You can rotate so we can put the light to shine where we want. I think that will fix up the lighting. Number five instruction meetings interim
instruction meetings shall be held bi weekly and include the contractor relevant subcontractors young staff and board of education representatives so as to discuss progress future schedule in any issues that have arisen or made conclusion the contractors will provide written updates of the project schedule at such meetings Item six, lot coverage. The perimeter lot line shall be relocated at the north side of the subject property so as to break the lot coverage into compliance with section 11.2 down zoning regulation. And I think probably happy with either the two options that that Eric showed there if one's cheaper for the town to do both
options you know you know Maybe you want to say let's see. Where'd it go? Shall we relocate it or parcels merge or otherwise to achieve it with? I don't care if you care how they achieve the plans. They just have to achieve the plow. It's up to you. Shall we relocate in the North Side of the property or parcels merged so as to bring something?
Okay. Now, in the perfect world, I don't know if we're collaboratively ready to cross that bridge yet. But I was hoping we would take that seven neighbors, emerge it somehow with the school property to to eliminate all the the imperfections. I don't think we need that for this, but if that was something that the Board of Education would want to pursue to come into compliance with the lot coverage, and again, grandfather didn't wear the RS. It's
just that we have a building, so we're increasing the service.
Building. We got 70 acres that oh yes right there there's a way out there I haven't looked at it and somebody wanted to to look at that and maybe it was a
lot line shall be modified so as to I'm not I don't know if it matters which line they move to you anyways but
that's something to consider a career to consider whether or not that happens
is not germane to the issue of being. I do what they do. The perimeter law line should be lived in the respect of subject property or otherwise so as to bring them on government.
Okay. We'll do that. Number seven signage. The applicants are provided down with signage detail that determine compliance with the downside regulations detailed with the down zoning regulations. Upon reviewing staff approval, the sign details will be added to the final plans prior to reimbursement. The condition shall apply for all signs including construction signage. I was satisfied with the presentation tonight that showed less than 15 or less than 16 square feet on the building. So the sign on the building, not a concern of mine anymore. I just wanted to know what kind of construction signage we're planning on putting up.
You need to you wanted to meet that condition then if feel it's addressed with you?
You can. That would be fine. Yeah. Because I am satisfied that there's there's nothing new that we need to do to to sign on the wall based on what we saw presented tonight. But, you know, what about the customer? Yes. Yes. That's what I'm thinking too.
Did I get a comment on number five? The school board's question requested that the principal be involved, and I didn't see that the principal is listed in construction meetings instead of the DOE rep.
The board of Ed wanted to have other people like the superintendent or the principal in addition to members of board of Ed think that would be appropriate. Traffic circulation to contractors shall provide and install concrete barriers with group equal so to prevent traffic flow between the annual enrollment in school parking lot in the town hall parking lot. Group equal shall be adjourned by a zoning agent. Barriers general approved reflective markers on both sides to maintain visibility. Jim's condition, good. He wanted to put on the concrete barriers some reflective tape or something so that somebody driving in there can see the barrier ahead of them after dark and not hit it. Okay. No. I'm sorry. I'm just I've I've had about actually plugging circulation between school
and the town hall parking lot. I agree with what Mike said, I don't know where that comes in the process, but certainly before school starts, we do agree on with the evacuation plan. Yes. And I know that the school reached out to you for for help on that. I think we can add it. It's a safety item that's gonna get done. We can put it in as a divisional approval. It's kind of number one, but it's it's yep. We can we can add that being very specific. Item nine construction fence construction fence shall be field located so it will allow the. I'm sorry before you I
wanted to say I know that in addition to one we just put together to go. I was saying, the country dividers saw concrete barriers are So, I put during construction. I don't think you need Jersey barriers forever. You mean during construction. Yeah, I I know that's okay.
But the way it's written, it could mean that the jail barriers are perfect. You gotta do it. Yep. So, I had to do it. Look forward to getting those removed as soon as possible okay nine construction finish construction finish shall be field located so as to allow Andover Elementary School vehicular access with the basement garage and provide ingress egress requirements details of any and all operational emergency plans adopted by Andover Elementary School. If we need to make adjustments to the beds, you know, to support that, I don't know that we will, but I'm sure that construction seems to be amenable to that as long as we give them their five feet distance from where they're working. Do have anything else on that Jim?
No, didn't know what to use for the term as far as porta bed plans. I just kinda tried to cast a light on that. Okay. I think you could put evacuation. Operational slash emergency or evacuation.
Item 10, by documentation, all live corners shall be binned in accordance with the Andover subdivision regulations prior to the issuance of the building permit and be shown on the as built drawings.
Prior I didn't have priority. We do. So just Yep. I noticed
that was prior. So change from what you went up earlier this afternoon. Item 11 project address provides the address of the project so it's bereaved 25 School Road on the cover sheet of the plans. Item 12 filing final plans shall be filed in the annual demand records and words with statutory requirements. Item 13 has built drawings prior to the issuance of the certificate of occupancy and as built drawing prepared in accordance with day two standards will be filed on the end of the land records.
Yeah. I've got a previous draft. Opened this came in 02:30 today, so I don't know how we could have something that we need to have. But okay. I'll do it prior. Had Talk about the press. Yep. Prior to English. I'm confirming. Okay.
That's alright. So at this point, mister chairman, I'd suggest I share my screen. Okay. And let me do that. Let's see now. Oh, I've had some meetings open here. So Something more computer literate than mine. Okay. Alright. You can't hear me. Let's see if I can share screen. It's. It's So
I at at thirteen, I just modified it to conform to the subscription bill. Then I added a 14 per the applicant's presentation. The two parallel parking spaces located in the west wall of the school shall be removed from the final permits. Okay. 15. During construction of the facility, there will be no truck deliveries to the site during the time period students are being dropped off and picked up at the school, but construction activity may not be suspended during that time period. I think that's what I heard. I do remember. At sixteen, in accordance with section twelve point eight point five, the commission includes shared parking for all of the townhome persons and finds that the various uses have different periods of peak occupancy. The emission fines perpetual cost easements are not required because all the relevant parcels are in the same ownership and it's impossible to send order to break an easement to itself. I'll discuss that one. Okay? And I said, need all items contained with letter dated 06/20/2023 from the challenging year shall be addressed in the final plans and the satisfaction of the challenging year. Okay?
And then prior to the issuance of this ticket, certificate of occupancy, the town, the board, education, and the fire marshal shelter buckets and evacuation home for the school. It was based on what the fire marshal was sent to.
On that one, I think that is too late. Well, with the earlier condition, it talks about a vaccine during construction. Okay. This is post construction.
So, this is a new plan. It may be because evacuation during construction will probably be different than after construction. So, Jim already addressed the jury construction. This is what Mike said. He wants before it's occupied. He wants to know how it's going work permanently. So, that's what I told them. Well, yeah, but is the kids in the community well now? It doesn't doesn't serve doesn't serve more than 15 people.
It's a community well now but I think it had to be resubmitted based on the fact that you've added a building to the you're you're if it were a new community well,
yes, you'd have to condition expressing health department. But if it's an existing community well and you're just changing occupancies or or whatever, then, you you don't, you can make it commissionable. You don't have to because the department has that jurisdiction anymore. Okay, we'll leave that out.
I know that the the form submitted and Sam Gary thinks that that you know, anticipates that, you know,
did you have any other changes in the first year 13 that we should look at to for how By the way, took out that last thing just because that's gonna be some explanations and a part of the motion. And 13 yeah. I I I now have let's see. Can you see? Yeah. Prior there we go. I I added the language in this version prior to where did it go? 13 as built for once. I added a prior to the new shoes off, they see no. It's just so. Which is what what Jean's version said. Bridge section since there's a change from when Jennifer told me about it. Correct. I would send you probably more. So it's pretty.
Any other commission members have any other conditions of approval that should be included? Okay. So the motion on the table is to approve the application of the town of Andover constructed community center parking associated site work in accordance with the application plans entitled Andover Community Center 17 School Road, Andover Connecticut dated 05/18/2023 and revised through twentieth twenty twenty three and prepared by the PSC group with the following conditions. I'm not going read through the conditions today. Any other questions or comments? Hearing none, I call for a vote. Any increment? I vote aye as well. Motion passes five zero zero. I I know I heard the comments from the school superintendent that she thought the application wasn't quite ready yet. It was getting there. I agree with that comment. I think we've made a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks.
I hope you've made enough. Appreciate all the hard work that everybody's put in into this project, but certainly what the people of the town expect us to go through. So with that, move on to item four on the agenda next meeting. So July 17 on the agenda, really July 18. That is on the town calendar is the eighteenth. So that's a Tuesday. Anybody have anything for miscellaneous discussion? Hearing none.