Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting
August 17, 2020 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Roll call, I see Ann is there. Scott is present. Susan is present and will be seated as a regular member. And I am here and we're missing Leanne at present. So we've got four voting members present for anything that might need that. Moving on to additions or modifications to the agenda. Does anybody have anything that needs to be added or modified for the agenda this evening?
Can I ask a question? I was wondering what happened to the Webster Lane application which was scheduled for public hearing tonight.
Okay, when we get down, I was gonna do that, discuss that when we get to the liaison report, but it hasn't, the wetlands liaison report, but it hasn't completed making it through wetlands yet is the bottom line. And so we did not have that on the agenda for this evening. Do we need to resend a date to complete acceptance?
How's that going to affect things? We'll talk about that when we get down to the liaison report from the wetlands and But go yeah, we will make sure we sufficiently cover that application while we're here this evening. Any other additions or modifications? And thanks for keeping me honest on that, Susan. Jim and I talked about whether it needed to be a specific item on there and I said I would just cover it when we get to the wetlands liaison. Okay, hearing none, the agenda is as it is. Moving on to public speak. I see nobody here from the public. Linda, do you have anybody hiding that I don't know is here yet? And Linda's muted there. No, no, I don't see anybody. Okay. Thank you, Linda. So that's it for public speak. We'll move on to new business. And did everybody get a copy of the bylaws that I updated and sent out to everybody?
At least I attempted to.
I I didn't yeah. This is Linda. I did not get a copy.
Okay. Then we I'll make sure that I get that over to you, Linda, because I think we specifically signed you up for a couple of things. I want your input And on I guess before I start talking about it at all, anybody that did get a chance to read it have any comments on what you saw? I didn't. I didn't have any.
I've only given it a quick skimming because I was
We lost some of your vocal there, Susan. I'm not sure why we're not hearing you. Susan, I didn't hear anything that you were saying after you started. For some reason your audio cut out. Susan is experiencing some bandwidth issues. Okay, yeah. Then that can happen.
Yeah. Jim, this is Jim. I I did, I did have one thought. The the regulation in the bylaws, you allude to taping hearings and meeting minutes and such. And I'm wondering if we might be given the just the evolving nature of the executive orders and changes in technology, I'm wondering if we might not be better off just deferring to to the state statutes. Just a thought.
Okay. Yep. Well, one thought I had going through these is that for the first three years that I was on the commission, I didn't even know we had bylaws. And so obviously not something that we referenced an awful lot. But I was trying to just have that be a reflection of how we did business here. I know we used to record the meeting when we were doing it live over in town hall and with the Zoom meetings we're both video and audio recording. And so I'll take a look at that, Jim. But I'm trying to look forward to the day when we'll eventually be back in town hall and just doing an audio recording. And so I think I left that in there that way. Because what we're doing now is above and beyond what's required by our bylaws. Is that Leanne that I see has joined us? I'm trying. I still can't see you. Can you hear me? I can hear you Leanne and I can't see you either but I can hear you.
Okay. I joined by phone and now I'm joining by the computer. So, you can never see me, but how are we now?
It looks like it's working on getting you here. I see the line going up and down. Okay. But no, is the answer still don't see you? No, I don't have that on this device. Okay, I got you. And this will be fine. Okay.
We'll go from there. So it's 07:05. We will seek Leanne so that we've got a full Commission attendance tonight. Leanne, we were just talking about the bylaws. I don't know if you had a chance to look through those at all. No, didn't. Sorry.
Then I would ask then that I don't think there's anything controversial in there. As I say, I tried to update it with what I thought we were doing. I tried to make the process and I can't remember exactly who is going to send it out. But I wanted to specify that we had gotten the agenda sent out to all the commission members because we had kind of missed out on that for a couple of meetings here having that the way it was in that. I probably gave that to Jim. And so again, the people that I really need to take a look at just to make sure I haven't signed yet to do anything that I'm not supposed to be signing yet for is Jim and Linda. And I'll get Linda a copy of those as soon as we are done here. Am not sure how I missed that but I guess anything is possible.
Do we need to have our attorney go over this?
I think yes is probably the answer. And I don't think it will take him very long. But I wanted to get it the way we wanted it first before I sent it over to him. Anyhow that completes the bylaws discussion.
And I didn't see anything about minority representation is that not in here because it's in the Charter?
It's probably not in there because it wasn't previously in there. And it wasn't in I thought Megan did a very nice job updating the inland wetlands and so I plagiarized from hers very highly. And so I will take a look at the minority representation. I know we've got that as an issue on the Board of Selectmen. I don't know that that's an issue for us on the Planning and Zoning Commission. Quite honestly, I'd be happy if we could get a couple of extra members so that we're a little bit fuller in our roles there. I'll check that out. Thanks, Guy. I'm going to move on to new business 5B, which is the explore the acquisition of property situated on Merritt Valley Road. And I got a call, I think, from Scott somewhere between last meeting and this meeting saying that there was a nice piece of property for sale over there. And so, Scott, if there's anything you'd like to discuss on that and I think I've got a couple of maps that we can pull up and maybe show where it's at if you need us to do that.
This is immediately adjacent to you, right?
And I wanted to address that. Property discussing is owned by Peter and Susan Clark, adjacent to me, and I purchased my current home from them. And wanted to make commission aware of that and the record reflect that. And I will be acting accordingly.
So Jim, you know about that property. What's your take on it?
Well, it's a nice, certainly a nice beach property. There's Frontejon, Merritt Valley at two different areas. Two different spots, right? Yep.
Did you make a map of that that you can share with everyone? Mhmm.
I didn't make a map, but there there was a boundary survey in the land records. Right. That That we got. That you should have.
I have them. I'm just wondering if we can if you have one. That I was unable to with the whole committee. I actually
don't have access to my work computer from here. I couldn't get on the
emails. I got it today. I got it. It was sent separately. I sent that out today.
Linda, I think you've got my host participant screen sharing disabled. So I'll put you in. Hang on. Let me. You're all set.
Okay, can anybody see a little map? I tried to post a map up here. Has everybody got that? Anybody got that? Yep. Okay, and so what you can see and this is out of our plan of conservation and development. And I think this is showing the current use of the different properties. And the property that we're referring to is up here where the cursor is, up off of Merritt Valley Road. And you see it's right next to the town property that comes over to School Road with the town hall and goes all the way over to Merritt Valley Road. So as I recall that piece of property was about 33 acres in size. Does that ring a bell Scott? Correct, yep. Immediately adjacent to the town's property. And
you can see that it's listed as current use of resource recreation. I don't know that that's any special thing that that the owners did. That's just how that it is happened to be lined up there. And then I mean, map that you're looking at now is showing the I think this is land that we would like to have for open space. And it shows that there's a Western Highlands open space corridor. And then up here at the top, there's an Eastern Highlands space corridor. And then there's this little place in the middle that doesn't really have a corridor association with it. But but it does show that that we've got this. And it says undevelopable bull or protected land and I couldn't really tell from from my copy of the the document that I was taking this from. You see over on the legend that there's two different shades of green and to my eye, they all look about the same on this map so I couldn't tell. But it does show that that it's some, you know, open space right up there next to the town line. And so then I went to, you know, looking at the verbiage in our plan of conservation and development
after it was talking about all this stuff and it had conclusions and recommendations. It says Andover is 18.2%. Now this is based on the document that came out in 2015, I think. So it's five years old, but I don't think that we've added an awful lot of open space to our role since then. We have a couple of other pieces of property right up here in this corner of Route 6 in Lake Road. But it says we've got 18.2% compared to the state goal of 21% that we should be trying to reach by 2023. To reach this 21% open space goal in Andover, an additional two eighty four acres would have to be acquired. So, is this a reasonable goal over the next ten years? So, I think, you know, from what I see looking
in our plan of conservation of development, getting this piece of property would certainly be consistent with the goals that that document
is spelled out for us. Right, exactly. And it is a very nice piece of property also, like Jim said. At one spot, well I think that's two wetland spaces. One that connects to the wetlands that are right behind the school, then there's a smaller one that goes across the base of the property closer to Eyre Valley. But you know sloping all the way down and know I've been on it. It is a nice piece of property also. What's the asking price?
I think when I looked last, it was like a 180.
Okay. I thought when I looked online, I saw 159. But I could be could be wrong on that. No, you could be right. It's in that ballpark. The last piece of property that we acquired, we acquired it somehow and I'm not sure exactly how that happened. I went looking through our minutes and didn't see too much on it. But we got the property before it was ever put on the market. In this case, it happens to be on the market now. Right. The last piece of property that we had talked about trying to acquire for the town was on the 12 Center Street property. And what we had done as a commission was we authorized a $5,000 deposit for somebody to go out and try and negotiate on our behalf to get that. Yeah, so we move to request the Board of Finance authorize a refundable $5,000 deposit for potential purchase of 12 Center Street for open space from the town of Andover's open space fund. And I don't know how much money we've got in the open space fund.
We certainly don't want to be cavalier about spending it. But when we bought the property up on Merit in Lake, I know it was a pretty substantial sum of money. So we do have some money to support doing that. Scott, do you have any idea what the way ahead is on something like this?
Well, the commission has to vote on it because, you know, everybody has to be on the same page and then then we got to sell it to the board of selectmen and get a leak 24 referral and see if everybody's on board. You know, don't know if you're gonna find another piece that's going to be as valuable as this It's sitting right next to town's property, know, could be used and it doesn't have to have some great use either. Don't I don't believe, you know, it it it could be open space and then it could be used as open space. Yep. I don't think that you have to, I don't believe that you have to have a use for it.
I'm sure that you don't. It just, you know, how often is something going to come up that lines up, you know, with what the town already owns a substantial?
Exactly and anytime that that happens we should probably that's my opinion though that you know everybody has their own opinion I
think it sounds really good is there any kind of house or building on the property at this time? No. Nothing. And
you could easily put a couple houses on it. Right, Jim?
I would think, yeah. I mean, it would be I don't see a substantial amount of development on it. Certainly a few homes, yes. No big lots, probably.
Okay. I thought somebody said it was unbuildable, so you could theoretically put two residential homes on it? I I don't see any reason not. I mean
I haven't seen a That was probably a comment from me, Leanne. And so there's two keys on this map. One says land eligible for open space preservation. And underneath that it says undevelopable, undeveloped well, yep, slash protected lands. And it's two different shades of green. And as I look at the map, I can't tell which of those two lines that would line up with this piece of property. It
appears to the property, the bounce property and net property are the same color. The same color. Yep. It appears to me that everything on this sheet is the same color. So, I think it's probably eligible for open space preservation. Right, right.
The property could be like in April, you know, forestry or something like right now. Maybe that's what maybe that's why that's in that color. Historically it's been in April. All right so that's probably why it's protected it under that but that doesn't mean that you can't put homes on it.
Okay. And so, and I know Jim was, you wanted to make sure we knew that he had purchased the property from the owner of that property, purchased his property from the owner of that. I don't know if at some point it would be ethical or desirable to have Jim Jim knows the guy that owns it and he could see if maybe the guy is willing to give the town a deal. Or we could just go through the realtor and check it out that way. I'm not sure what the best way to do that is. And we don't have to have an answer to that tonight. All we have to do is decide whether we want to recommend the purchase of the property if we can get it reasonable at price. And so, I think that would require that we have a motion to do something with it.
This is Leanne. I have another question, maybe for When who's more familiar with the
you say that there's room or the topography that's capable of and it's permissible to build, say, two regular homes on it, is the land that most closely adjoins like the town hall and the school area, let's say we put a senior center or community center there just because that's one of the spots that comes up all the time. Is the land that most closely adjoins that something that would be useful? In other words, what I mean is flat enough or something like that to be helpful if a facility like that was there? I mean, I'm just wondering if it does it totally drop off and the more area that would be like level enough to build a couple of houses on is further elsewhere on the property? Or I don't know if Scott and Jim are familiar with it enough where it adjoins what the town owns now.
Yeah, Leanne, I recall from when we talked about this many years ago, the big issue with just the town land was that after we left the complex that's already developed, we were gonna be running into problems with wetlands crossings, and that was what was making it difficult to get over to where the buildable land was. And I concur with what you're saying. Perhaps in the future, the town could use it enter from Merritt Valley as opposed to from School Street.
Well, that was part of my question, too. I didn't put it that way, but that goes along with what I was saying about, you know, what the most accessible parts of the property would be.
Well, maybe we should all go take a walk on it. I think that that's probably a reasonable idea. Sky. Is it tick free? No, no, I'm sure not. I wouldn't really think so. I was looking
I found on another map there the natural features map that came from the same spot as these other two maps, and it shows that part of it is probably going to be like a 15% slope, so it's rather steep. Or maybe that's the part that the town already owns I can't really tell the line but there's some interesting maps in here Can't quite figure out right where this lot fits. I was looking at the map called natural features map.
That's one of the ones that was sent to us oh it was it's on the website with the page is it on there and it's a page where's the page number looks like 21 or thereabouts
I'm going to be brave here I'm going to stop sharing this and I'm going to try and call up our town website and see if I can get to the page that you're talking about. Okay.
That plan of conservation and development. The next one, that one. The green lines up with the purple wetlands map that we just got. What was the feature on
was trying to figure out where that brown section that is the 15% slope, if that was on this piece of land or if that was on the neighboring piece already owned by the town.
So given you know the I think Scott raised the question maybe we ought to go take a look at the property. Yeah that's probably a good idea. Is that something that we should do before we make a proposal to the town to get it? Can we do that in parallel so that we're
Probably could do it in parallel. I'd just be curious to see what this thing looks Nope,
I would be too. Normally we do the site walks on Saturday morning. I've got a little bit of a conflict this Saturday from like 09:30 until one And so I'd have to get out there maybe at 08:30 if we were to do it or we could go at 09:00 the following Saturday. I don't suspect that that piece of property is going to sell within the next week or two. But I do think it would make sense for us to go take a look at it so that we can see what it is that we're recommending to the town that they go ahead and buy before we actually make a recommendation and somebody said well did you go look at it? Nope, it looked good on the map.
So the brown is areas of more than 15% grade or 15% Yeah, right.
And the green is wetlands? Wetlands. Yeah. You know that property comes up to the back of the school I think and there's a huge grade there.
Yeah. It does come up to back of the school. Pretty close. Is there a driveway through it now?
There's an old Hall Road from Merrick Valley. It's a Hall Road, Logging Road. Is it like clear? No. No.
I mean, few years ago you could drive a truck up there. I do have a suggestion, think if if Commission's serious about recommending it, it seems like the Conservation Commission have engaged as well.
Jim, I think you should have everyone over for lunch because your house is so pretty from the outside, then we can socially distance. And maybe we can see enough of the property without getting Lyme disease or something. Okay. And we could walk around your lawn or something.
Does somebody want to make a motion that we do a site visit?
Yeah, I make a motion we make a site visit this property. I'll second that.
What date would we want to do it? That should be in the motion too. Yeah. I'm happy to do a week from Saturday.
That would be like the twenty ninth. Is 09:00 too early, too late? 09:00 is perfect for me. Yeah.
Jim, this is Linda. I mean, Jed, this is Linda. Since it's in the hands of a realtor, don't you have to go through the realtor before you walk on the property?
Well, we either need to clear it with the I guess the property owner or the realtor. I think just because it's for sale doesn't mean the property owner can't let somebody go take a look or we could we could have the realtor
What I was thinking is the realtor might even have aerial views or something with a drone.
I'm sure that if we were to go into Google Maps, and I'm not willing to try that one on the fly here yet. We could get a pretty good satellite view down what the thing looks like.
Right. Well Jim Halsey, it possible you can call up Mr. Clock and ask him if the Commission could take a walk on the property?
Yeah, I would think it'd be more more appropriate to go through the realtor at this point, or at least start that way. I mean, he's got the listing. He's he's been the point of contact. Mister Clark travels a lot. I I can do either. I I I'd be happy to contact either party. Yeah.
Okay. Well, certainly, you know, having it a week from this Saturday, on the twenty ninth gives us plenty of time to set that up with the realtor to go out and take a look. I do think that we need to make sure we're clear for one of those two people before we go out there and look around. Who knows, the realtor might have some good documentation on the property that he could share with us if we went out there and talked to him about it as well. I can do that. Okay, so we're back. Does anybody have any time before the twenty ninth?
I'm basically free anytime but it sounded like that was better for Jed.
Well, no, it's better for those folks who might actually have to go to work. My schedule's pretty flexible and I can go out there anytime. I'm just trying to make sure that it works for everybody else and that's just kind of the routine we've gotten in. But can go earlier than that if if that's
Can anybody make it during the week, like in the mornings or evenings or midday?
I can make it I can make it, with the exception of Wednesday and Friday mornings, I can make it Monday, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Susan, are you available any of those times? Yes, I am. I'm available almost all the time. Okay. And Anne, how about you? Yeah.
I'm available most times this week. Next week, I'll be away from Sunday to Thursday, but this week I'm available. But the only time I can't do is noontime on Thursday.
So if the majority of us can make it sometime this week and we would just get it out of the way then Mhmm. And save the weekend.
That's fine with me. Yeah. Jim could maybe ask the realtor or mister Clark what day is available and we can and just go forward because it sounds like we have a lot of availability.
Yeah. All of us are it sounds like all of us are available.
So something like 09:00 on Thursday morning, that gives Jim a couple of days to, get it set up and confirm. Yeah. Fine with me. Yeah.
Okay. Hearing no opposition to that time, Anne, would you like to modify your motion so that it includes a date and a time now?
Sure. I move that we have a sidewalk on the aforementioned property on August 20 at 09:00. I'll second that.
Okay. Any further discussion before we call for a vote? Hearing none, we'll vote in Anne. Aye. Scott. Aye. Susan. Aye. Leanne? Aye. And I vote aye as well. Motion passes five-zero-zero. Whereabouts do we meet for this?
I thought we were gonna meet at Jim's house and he could have tea and crumpets for us. What's his address? Yeah.
I'm at 50 Merritt. There's there's parking right along the there's a sign at the Hall It's probably easier to go in the Hall Road. Okay. It's a lot of prickers otherwise. Yeah, so we're hiking boots and long pants. Yeah. So
that helps out because the weekend's supposed to be hot again. So the weather's pretty nice this week. Right.
So there's a real estate sign? There is yes. On Merritt Valley Road? Yes there is. Okay. The C21.
Okay, so with that in mind, is there any thought that we should do something further than that at this meeting? Or we hold off making a motion for purchase and the discussion of that motion until we get to next month? Yeah, I don't know what, you know, we should.
What kind of motion could we make that tonight so that we don't have to wait another month to get to next meeting?
Well, my recommendation would be that we do a motion exactly the same way that we did for the 12 Center Street property. And Scott, you made that motion And it read request that the Board of Finance authorize refundable $5,000 deposit for potential purchase of Merritt Valley property for open space from the town of Andover's open space fund. So moved. Second. Susan, second. Okay, thank you. Any discussion on that?
Yeah, this is Linda. Yep. Did you maybe amend that to say pending the results of the sidewalk on the twentieth or something? No? It's just a thought. Yep.
And I'm thinking and my thought is that if we were to go over and do a sidewalk and conclude that it had some fatal flaw to it, I don't think anything's going to happen between now and Thursday because I don't know how we get it to the finance committee, but certainly the Board of has to get a cut on it and they aren't going to be meeting until the start of next month.
We're to get a meeting in the next week or so. So if the Thursday meeting goes well, I could possibly add it to the meeting. What meeting was that Scott? I missed it. The last meeting was postponed because of the I got you. Okay.
Nope, that sounds good. So we're going to be rescheduling it possibly next week. Okay.
And then Leanne, I think it does warrant modification to the motion to include pending the outcome of our sidewalk this Thursday. That just makes it cleaner. We can all get together and say yes, we all agree that the recommendation should go forward to the finance committee after we're done. Does mean we need to have a quorum at sidewalk. But that just makes it cleaner that it's not a done deal at this point. And we can have that discussion as part of the sidewalk visit.
Yeah, this is Jim. It was my intent to advertise that, well, it would be a special meeting, I would think. It would, yep. So I would have to post it accordingly.
Yes. And I think there's a forty eight hour time limit on that. It's twenty four, only. Yeah, it's twenty four hours. Okay. I understand it was forty eight and I was correct. Okay, well, that's better. That gives us a little more time. So if we get the special meeting posted tomorrow, and then if the realtor can't support us getting together on Thursday, I don't think that, that that's not possible. They'll get somebody out there to show us around whether it's the listing agent or not and we'll go do that. And then how would we get the word over to the Conservation Commission so that they could join us if they want? Send it out.
Okay. So Ann, third time's the charm. Can we get you to add just a couple more words on to the motion that we've got pending here? That was Scott's motion. Oh, okay. Guess Ann had the sidewalk. Scott's got this one. Yep. And so Scott can probably say so moved.
Yeah, just finish whatever you said and then we'll just add pending pending the sidewalk. Pending the outcome of the sidewalk? Right. Pending the outcome of the sidewalk.
So Linda, do you want to read back what you've got for a motion there or I can try and
I think you're going to have to because I didn't catch the whole thing. Was just going to go back and listen to the audio. Okay. So
I think it's going to be Scott Persson moved to request the Board of Finance authorize a refundable $5,000 deposit for potential purchase of property on Merritt Valley Road for open space from the town of Andover's open space fund pending outcome of site walk through on August 20. That sounds good to me. Okay. Is there a second to that motion? I seconded and I accept the modifications.
Okay. And so Susan seconded. Any further discussion? Then we'll call for a vote. Anne? Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. Leanne? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. The motion passes five-zero-zero. Any other discussion on the property on Merritt Valley? Okay. Moving on to old business. The only thing we have on the old business is the status of draft lake regulation revisions. And if you got the email from Jim this afternoon that had the maps of the property on it, you've got the current version of where we stand on the Lake Regs. And I know Scott, would discuss possibly getting John Valenti back
as a consultant to assist on that. Do you have anything extra on that at this point? No, I texted him this afternoon to verify that he still was on board and he is. Okay. You know the COVID thing came up and he was away and now he's going to be back and he's more than happy to work with Jim on doing this. Okay.
And I told him how important it was because you know that's one of the things when I got involved with this that I always you know many years ago I wanted to get some regulations for the lake and you know very close and I it would be good if we could get it done. Yep and that's
gonna involve a little work with Jim, I and John before we bring that again to the Commission because we want to make sure that we're ready to answer questions and stand a fighting chance of not wasting your time as we go through those regulations. So unless there's any questions on that. Isn't it mostly just that nutrient allocation worksheet?
I think so. There's probably a couple other inconsistencies through there, but it is getting the nutrient allocation worksheet and it's understanding what's going to trigger all the different things. And as I walk around the lake, I see a lot of people paving driveways. And I'm not sure that, I think that's one of the more significant increase in permeable surfaces going on right now. And I'm not sure how we tap into town hall to get that covered. But I just wanted to make sure that all those things that we wanted to trigger a nutrient allocation worksheet, we knew how that was going to get triggered so that we could protect the lake better.
There's that and allocation worksheet, I think, are the two issues.
So maybe Jim could reach out, send John an email and ask him when he would be available. Certainly.
Yep, we can meet and discuss that Jim, it's still good weather out there at the picnic table. Right.
Okay, Moving on to the Inland Wetlands Watercourse Liaison Report. As we mentioned, talked about the agenda, we did not have a public hearing tonight on 12 Webster Lane. The thought was that we would have a public hearing if that application successfully made it through the Wetlands Commission on their last meeting. That did not happen. The applicant is asked because we are at the end of all the time that we as the Wetlands Commission had to act on that property, including the ninety days extra that we had got from the governor for the coronavirus without taking action on it, we're in a position where we're going to have a special meeting on August 31 to discuss that application again. And if successfully get through that, our next meeting is on September 21, which is the sufficient number of days after the Inland Wetlands special meeting that we would be able to have the public hearing at our next meeting on the twenty first. Jed, what is our meeting on August 31?
The Inland Wetlands meeting is on August 21. They're having a special meeting to address the application on 12 Webster Lane. Oh, okay. I thought you said we did. Okay.
And when I when I said we Jim and I are both members on that commission. So we've got plenty of liaison. What day is that?
Jed? That the thirty first is a Monday. That's the fifth Monday of the month, so that gets us, that's normally free of any other meeting conflicts. Oh yeah, you're lucky. Yep, sometimes the calendar just works out for you.
I have a question though procedurally and I don't know what the answer is. Do we have to do anything tonight because we had a public hearing scheduled? Do we have to open and then recess? Do we have to take a new motion to reset a hearing date procedurally? What is the appropriate course of action?
I am thinking that the appropriate course of action is to, similar to what we did at the last meeting, we would make a motion to hold a public hearing at our next regularly scheduled meeting of September 21 pending successful approval by the Inland Wetlands Commission on the August 31. And that was the reason that I didn't take action to postpone the public hearing because we didn't meet the requirements for actually getting to do the public hearing because we didn't get it through the the wetlands commission. So when we're done talking about it, I will ask for a motion to to do just what I had said because that's what we did last time and I think that just makes it procedurally clean.
Yes, I know historically, but things have changed. It used to be that for a certain date we had to start the hearing.
We have got plenty of time left from the submission of the application to us. I think if we're at the next meeting, we're not even into the ninety days extra that the governor gave us because of the coronavirus. So we're I just want to make sure we cross T's and I all forget if we're in I think it's sixty five days that we have to get started. And I don't know where we stand on that. But that will be the second meeting since we've made it so it's got to be just at about the sixty to sixty five day point for us if we do it next meeting.
And the Wetlands Commission wanted them to move it away from the wetlands?
They did. And so we had both a letter from Hank Gruner and we had an independent engineer review the site plan and they both recommended that if we move the property a little bit to the Southwest, we would be essentially outside of the 100 foot upland review area from the wetlands. And so we were expecting to see a drawing taking those recommendations into account and discuss from there. We did not have that at the last meeting.
Have you heard anything more about the driveway thing down on MD? Driveway where?
Down on Hendee Road. Should we talk about that administrative report?
Yeah, I have heard that I'm not sure that I am familiar with an issue of a driveway on Hendy Road. The guy's trying to get a lot on and
he only has 46 feet on the Oh, okay. That was going be the next piece of my liaison report. Okay, after we get done with 12 Webster, I'll go on to that chunk. Okay.
Any other questions on 12 Webster? Okay, that moves us over to the lot on 57 Hendy Road. Oh, We do. Thank you, Susan. That's nicely done.
Okay. I'd like to make a motion that we hold a public hearing for the application on 12 Webster Lane to be held at our September 21 meeting.
Any second? I'll second. Leanne. Leanne, thank you, Leanne. Any discussion? And I think the words I did not hear on your motion, Susan, were pending approval by the Inland Wetlands Commission on the August 31. I'm successful having that added to the motion.
Okay. So moved. And Leanne, are you still good with the second? Yes.
Okay. Any other discussion on that particular motion? Hearing none, we'll call for a vote. Anne? Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. Leanne? Aye. And I vote aye as well. So the motion passes five-zero-zero. Now we'll move on to 57 Hendi Lane. And we made Well, know Jim and I happened to be over there. Jim and the engineer were discussing a piece of property on Old Farms Road And after that discussion that we had with the homeowners, Jim and the engineer were talking about 57 Hendy Lane. And I think the takeaway I had from listening into that conversation was that there were several options available to the property owner to achieve a successful conclusion to being able to build a house back there. None of the options that I heard discussed seem to be of interest to the property owner, But I think that's their issue and not our issue. I don't think this is an issue that will come before planning and zoning. And I don't think well, they have to come up with a satisfactory plan that justifies what they want to do. They have not successfully made it through the inland wetlands review yet either. So it's not ready to go any further than that. And again, we had had an engineer take a look at that. There some modifications made to that site plan at the last minute. I don't know if they were posted any earlier than a lot of the stuff got posted Monday
afternoon, just before the meeting. Some of it didn't get posted at all. And so we didn't act on that
application either. You can't talk about the things that would have to be done for that landowner to have a lot done over there?
I don't feel comfortable doing that because I'm not sure that I should have been in that conversation because I'm not sure that that's something that's coming before the zoning commission. I can ask Jim take a look to brief us on what he thought the outcomes were.
It became fairly complicated, in my opinion. It was the issue with the front yard back of the building line in the front in the lot width, which are intricately defined. That was complicated by the fact that there's an old piece of town property in between the road, the actual pavement and his lot. A lot was created back in the 30s. So it didn't have to comply with much of anything at that time. But what further complicates the situation is what they want to do in conjunction with that, which is to re draw the lot line. Essentially, the owner has two parcels there. One of them with the house, the other larger parcel which has furniture on both sides of the house. What they'd like to do is redraw the lot line so as to give the house lot the bulk of the land.
So it would be effectively reducing the lot width, which they can't render it less than the two hundredth required today. And then there's the issue, I mean, they could possibly put in a rear lot. But again, that involves, what they're trying to do is maintain access to the river for the house lot. And they have to make a decision. And I don't know which direction they're going. I mean, they could, they need to go to ZBA. They may need to come in for permit for a real lot. They have to decide what they're going to do.
The other thing, Jim, that you had mentioned to them is they can approach the town on buying that piece of property to increase their frontage. I did that, yes. So
there were at least three or four different options that could go to a successful outcome. I think the only one that would come before planning and zoning is if they chose to make it a rear lot.
Well, it's not a lot. It's not a lot at all, Jed. Somebody said it was just a lot in 1930. That was the line was drawn on that piece of paper, two years ago when the guy's been trying to get it to be a lot, but it's not a lot. Never been a lot. It always was hooked up to the Harris property. And the problem being is that the only way that they can get the correct frontage and have a tiny 45 or 46 feet, the only way that they can get the correct amount of frontage on the road is to buy that piece of property from the town. Plus it's so close to the river that it's in the review area there. It is and that's why we were No and there's a reason why that was never a lot. It's always the same thing. There's always a reason why a lot is never a lot because of some reason and that's the reason.
I know I spent time looking through our regulations on, I was looking for the difference between a lot and a building lot and a lot of record. And I couldn't get myself straight the differences there. That would be something that if it comes to us, I will have to reach out to Mark Brandt and get some legal advice on because
It just turned into a lot, but it was never a building lot.
I could not tell from our regulations that there's any difference between those two things. Well, it's not an approved building lot.
No, it could. I mean, you take the steps to get it approved. I mean, it doesn't have to come to the Commission if it was created back in the 30s.
That that lot was not created in the 30s. It was created two years ago. Steve Whidom created that with John Valenti. But they only put a line on the sand and then they were trying to get into a building lot. Can't be because
I think the only line they drew was that front line. I'm sorry, they drew the front line for the adjacent parcel.
Right, but those were two different lots. The Parkinton House was on one lot, Jim, and the other lot is on the Harris property. The one that he's trying to get with the 45 feet in front of the town property is from the Harris property. Those weren't joined together in any way. We're two different properties.
Let's take another look at that. Yeah, I'm not smart enough to know how you can go out and buy a piece of property and not have it be a lot.
It can be a lot. It can be a lot, but it's not a building lot. Okay, yep.
And they just made it into a lot. Might be on paper, but it's not a building lot.
Well, I'm not sure we've got anything in our records that reflect that based on what Jim has gone off looking at.
I'm gonna have to take another look. I'm calling it a horseshoe lot because the lot that we're looking at now is basically enveloped around that house lot.
Jim, those parcels were not connected. The split was right in the middle of that town piece. The one to the right uphill to the north was the Parkington property, there's a stone wall right there which is the boundary line. The one to the west was the Harris property. Those two properties were bought by the same owner and now he's trying to trying to
turn it into a building lot. How far back are you going with the terrace property?
It was the Harris that's just who used to own that big piece of property that used to be the tree farm. But it wasn't changed until Steve would have did it, you know, three or four years ago with John Valenti. He changed the floodplain, floodplain district or something, then he tried to sell it and it would never sell because it's not a building line, it's the line in the sand. And if you look at the print, whatever that print is, there's gotta be a date on it. So if somebody's telling you something that's not true, Jim. I'm gonna have to go back and research it.
Okay. So that's what I know about the 57 Hendi Road property. The last one that I see coming our way is the one that we had discussed on 26 Old Farms Road with access off of Pine Ridge. Think the applicants actually purchased the property at this point. It has not gone through wetlands. I do think that they've got a preliminary concept plan that meets what we need from zoning to make it a subdivide of a lot. But there's a lot of things that have to happen before that comes to our commission. And they're just getting started on that. But that one is down the road. So my goal is to get the 12 Webster Lane piece done and then we can start working on the 26 Old Farms Road whenever that comes in. But that's what I've got for the wetlands liaison report. Any questions on on any of that? Okay. With that, we'll move on to the zoning agent's administrative report.
Yes. I did mail out hard copies of the regulations, both the zoning and subdivision regulations today. I mailed them out to Scott, Susan, and to Leigh Ann. I did not mail them to Ann because you indicated you didn't need them, correct? Right. They just went out today. Thank you for that.
You're welcome. The Webster Lane, pretty much covered. And you wrote and spending a lot of time on both of those projects. They did speak to the owner of the gravel pit at 05:17 Route six next to the global stage. I have a number for it now because I realized that I'm the one who gives them street number. I was able to be able to do that. And I'm hoping to go out and meet with the wetlands agent, Hank Gruner, and a representative from the owner of next week, early next week. Nick Bruner had at a recent meeting, I believe, the license commission, indicated he had a concern about the timing, the seasonality of it, the fact that the project's taken longer than anticipated, and it may impact comments as far as internal migration.
Going to address that. And as far as my conversation with the owner, basically, he just said things haven't haven't been done. He's into phase two of the project, but it had been pretty much shut down for the most part, the last three months. I mean, there's been occasional truck coming and going, what he hopes to be, and running in the near future. Other than that, there's a number of additions going up, fair amount of activity, seasonal, etcetera. That's about it. Any questions I'd be happy to address?
Tim, did you say that Hank Gruner raised the issue of the project taking longer than than was intended and not starting to interfere with the turtle activities? Was it Hank who brought it up? Well, he said it potentially could.
I wanted to take a look at the schedule of updated schedule to see if might have impact on the turtles. Okay. Thanks. Welcome.
Okay, hearing no other questions for Jim. Moving on to item nine, approval of minutes. We've got the July 20 regular meeting minutes.
This is Leanne. I'll move to approve the minutes of 07/20/2020.
Thank you, Leanne. I second. Thank you, Susan. Any comments on those minutes? I had one very minor administrative comment that was a correction to the previous minutes. On page four zero four, paragraph 9A, the second subparagraph after that, it was agenda item 12, and we've got Jay Larson, Susan England, and then we had some confusion on Leanne and Anne Cremay and then Susan England again and Scott Bersaun. And so it was really the hard copies of the zoning regs should have gone to me, Susan, Leanne, and Scott. And that's who Jim sent them out. So we took the right action and And that's that about that. But other than that, I had no other comments on the meeting minutes. Thank you for sending them out, Jim. You're welcome. Bill's taking a while these days. Yep.
We'll take those ball victories wherever we get. Hearing no other discussion, I'll call for a vote. Anne? You say Anne? Oh, Leanne or Anne? Anne. Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye.
Leanne? Aye. And I vote aye as well. The meeting minutes are approved 05/2000. Next up is the special meeting sidewalk on July 25.
I move approval of the minutes of the special meeting with the sidewalk on July 25.
Thank you, Susan. Do have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Scott. Any comments on those minutes? And I had none. Hearing no comments, call for a vote on approval. Anne?
Wonder if I should abstain because I wasn't there for that. Okay. You can abstain. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. Leanne? I abstain. I wasn't there either.
And I vote aye. So the minutes are approved. Three zero two with Ann and Leanne abstaining. Moving on to miscellaneous. The only thing I had for miscellaneous is I did get an email that requested our commission annual report due to the town by September 17. I had that pretty much prepared. They've asked for a specified format, so I'm tweaking that so that it aligns with the format that the town has requested and should have that ready to go. I was hoping to get wrapped up any administrative review from you all on the bylaws before I confuse the issue by sending out the annual report. But sometime before the next meeting, I will get those sent out. I will try to get the due date extended to the day after our next meeting so I can get feedback from all of you on the annual report that I send you before I submit that to the town. So we're on track with that. It's just a question whether I can give permission to
submit it a couple of days late so that I can get feedback from you guys on it during our meeting where we have a chance to discuss it. Any other topics anybody has for miscellaneous? Okay, moving on to commission vacancies. Jim, we have how many approvals, how many applications did we have come in in the last month? None.
Did, one of the guys I run into when I'm out walking periodically named Joe King. He lives on Lakeside Drive where it intersects with School Road there. He said he was interested. I told him he should put in his application and and hopefully he will do that. But it would be nice to get another couple of people to fill up our alternate role and we got the one remaining position on the Commission itself. So we could use up to three more people. I see the next item is public speak. I saw we had a member of the public joined us for a minute and I guess he is gone now. I think that was Kevin and he was probably interested in what we said about 12 Webster Lane and he's off and running on that. No public speak. Moving on to Commission open discussion. Anybody have anything that we should be discussing tonight? Hearing none, we could be setting a record here, but you will take a motion to adjourn. I'll motion to adjourn. Okay. 19. You. Leanne.
Leanne seconds. Thank you, Leanne. Assuming there's no discussion on that, vote in. Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. Leigh Ann? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. Motion to adjourn passes five-zero-zero. Thank you all for attending tonight. And for those that can make it, pending an email from Jim announcing the special meeting Thursday morning, 09:00. We'll take a walk on the property over there on Merritt Valley Road. And I look forward to going over and seeing it. It looks like it's certainly in a great location for us to maybe add that to the town walls. Thank you. Okay. Very good. Good night, everybody. We'll see you Thursday morning. Bye bye. Yep. Good night. Good night. Bye.