Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting
February 28, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Alder next. Thanks for getting the recording started. Yep. And I see Ann Cremay is present. Steve Nelson is present. Leanne Hutchinson is present. And I am present. Kevin or Ann, you have any idea? I'm supposed to rotate through. We haven't had a chance to seat an alternate in a long time. I don't know who is if either of you have never had a chance, let me know and I'll seat you tonight. Think we've both been seated.
Right. What was that, Anne? I didn't catch it. I think we've both been seated before. Okay. Then Anne, we will seat you tonight and you will be our alternate. Kevin and Susan, certainly welcome to participate as much as you desire there so that as we go through, we won't be voting on any public hearing type of things tonight. Sure.
Moving on to the addition or changes to the agenda, then I would like to move old business Charlie and Delta, the sign regs and alcohol cannabis regs until after new business 6A. So I'd like to get those folks who are joining us tonight done before we get into talking about signs and regulations and that sort of thing. So does anybody else have any changes to the agenda? Hearing none. Chairman.
Yep. I believe the owner of the gravel pit had submitted a application to extend the gravel permit. I don't know if they ever got on the agenda or not. Haven't seen the agenda. It on the agenda. Oh, that? Okay. Sorry. Well,
it's under there Chris's restoration plan and so we'll move on that when we get to your Sorry question on about that. If there are no other changes, we'll vote by unanimous consent. All in favor of those changes raise your hand or say aye. Aye.
Any opposed? And the motion to adjust the agenda passes five-zero-zero. Anybody with us tonight from the public to speak about something that's not on the agenda? Okay, at that point, we'll move on to old business. First up is going to be Bill Warner on the affordable housing plan. And Marina, if you can let me share the screen, I will try to get the presentation up.
All right. I think I have to make you a co host. And then I believe you should be able to share your screen now.
Okay there we go and at that point I'll turn it over to you Bill.
Very good. Thank you very much, and good evening, everyone. To summarize, I did this presentation a few weeks ago, and I've been working on the implementation section. And that's going very well. And really, the nuts and bolts of it, how to get things done and how we accomplish some of the things that we're going to talk about tonight. And I think I'll have a final draft to you by the end of March. So we're way ahead of schedule. They did amend the latest statute had affordable housing plans due to the state by June 30. So we're in very good shape. The first slide in front of you just summarizing what we've done in the past and what the last presentation talked about. And as you know, we talked about that there is sufficient affordable housing that is priced at a point that would be affordable to people making 80% immediate income,
but it doesn't meet the state definition because it is not deed restricted. So we saw a lot of housing that works for affordability, but not deed restricted. It doesn't meet the definition of state affordable housing. But as we'll talk about tonight, there's still a lot of people that are struggling that are maybe in those houses, but they're struggling to make their payments. So that is another need for affordable housing. These aren't necessarily homeless people. They're in their house and they're paying far more than 30% of their income to pay for housing costs. So that's a key issue. From the last meeting, we talked about the cost of construction, the land costs are going to make it very difficult to have to build affordable housing for any developer. The lack of a down payment credit and student loan debt will also make it difficult for people looking to purchase houses is going to be difficult. There is no meaningful diversity in the housing stock
in Andover. So it's pretty much all single family homes, a small handful of apartments in town. And new apartments could add diversity to the housing stock, both not only for young people that would like to stay in Andover, but also for empty nesters that would like to downsize and stay in town. And we we learned from the AARP that's in that I've a recent survey show that 80% of empty nesters and people wanting to downsize have a real desire to stay in the town that they've lived in. They do not wanna move to Florida or South Carolina. They don't wanna move to adjacent cities. They want to stay in the town that, they've spent their life in, and that that will be very difficult in Andover. So the next slide. So this what we're going talk about tonight is setting up what how many what is the goal what is the need for affordable housing and what should be our goal for this plan. I've reviewed probably 15 or 20 affordable housing plans now. And none of them really set a definite goal of we want to build this many houses. They talk about changing the regulations and hoping something will happen. I'd like to be more realistic about it and really start to say, Okay, this is what is reasonable that could be built, actually built in Andover to start addressing some of that need. So to set the basis for that, we have to look at what's been going on. So population growth in the last ten years, the population in Andover has declined and it's projected to continue to decline out to 2,040. So we have a declining population in Andover. Next slide. We also have an aging population.
Everybody understands the aging baby boomers. We've been talking about this for thirty years that we needed to plan for the aging population. The baby boom generation is getting older and older. So as you can see on this chart, I can't read it, but I think it's 1970. I think the median age was 28. That was when all of you were coming to Andover and building houses. The median age is half of the people are above that and half of the people are below that. So '28 was the median in 1970. You have now grown all the way up to twenty twenty to, I believe it says 44 or 48 is the median population. So half are above, half are below 48 now. That is very significant. 43% of your population in 2020 was 50 years old. So in ten years, probably half of your population with the aging population and younger people moving out, probably half of your population will be 60 years old. So you're going to have a lot of people that are probably starting to struggle being in a single family, in a large single family home on a large lot, which is the predominant housing type that you have in the town. So you're going to start to see that where people would like to downsize and don't have any options in Andover. Next slide. Building permits. So so so as we talked about before, we have a declining population, we have an aging population. And now you look at building permits and this reflects exactly that. Since 2010, the great financial crisis, this is not unusual for every small town in Connecticut.
The number of permits being issued for each year for new homes is down significantly. So from prior to 2010, you were building about 20 to 35 permits per year. When I was there working in Andover, the big one was the Haverhill subdivision on Long Hill Road. That's when they came in and they said, okay, we're going to divide the land and we're going to build houses. Completely on speculation, they didn't have contracts. And that's the way you did it before 2010. Everybody people would come build it and they'll come. After 2010, after the big financial crisis and all the banking reforms and everything else, it just became very, very difficult to do that. So from 2010 to the present, you've averaged about three to five permits per year. So going from 20 to 35 to three to five from 2010 to 2022. So that's a real significant decline in building permits. So you're not having a lot of houses aren't being built. So it's very hard for us to say we should build, you know, 10 affordable housing units a year when the market is only building three or three to five houses per year. Next slide. So as I talked about the speculative market was the Haverhill subdivision on Long Hill Road. The speculative market has not existed since the great financial crisis in twenty ten. So it's going to be very unlikely that Andover is going to meet the A-thirty gs goal of 10% of your housing stock being affordable. So you need 82 more units to be of additional affordable units to meet that 10%.
The statute requires that every project have 30% of the units as affordable. So what that boils down to is if every new development town had to be an affordable development with 30% of the units affordable, you'd have two seventy three new units with 191 of them being market rate and 82 of them being affordable. All you have to do is go back and look and see what the market is supporting for the last twelve years, three to five units a year. You're not going to get two seventy three housing units in a very, very long time.
Can I interrupt you for just a minute? Yeah. And then, so we've got 30% of a development needs to be affordable, you were saying. I think what we've really seen in Andover over the last bunch of years is one house at a time being built. Know, I don't know that we've, maybe this thing that you were just talking about, Haverhill, was the last subdivision that was even attempted.
Yeah, it probably was because that was right around 2010. And yeah, would be a
possibility we get no affordable housing because all we're doing is building one house here and there. Yeah, that's the speculative market. So the speculative market is
builders coming in buying land and putting in a subdivision with 10 houses and just knowing that people will show up and want houses. So they'll build houses, knowing that people are gonna come and buy them. That ended in 2010. And I would bet that 90% of the houses that were built in Andover since then, were people either downsizing and building a smaller house or people coming, selling their house somewhere else and building their dream house for themselves. It wasn't builders investing in building houses hoping somebody is going buy them. So it's just completely changed. You're right. So that's where we are with that. Okay, thank you. So most likely will always be subject to a dash 30 gs. So there a long time prior to 2010, a dash 30 gs has been around for thirty years and the goal of small towns throughout Connecticut. And even if you read your
your plans of development that I wrote in 2005 and 2015, we talked about how get out of the not be subject to eight dash 30 gs, achieve that 10% because it was realistic before the financial crash. But now it's probably not realistic. You're always going to be subject to eight thirty gs because understand, even if you have 9.5% of your houses as affordable, you're still subject to eight thirty gs. And if you get 10 houses built, that increases your 10% number. Let's make it easy. So if you had 100 houses built, your eight thirty gs number would go up because you had 100 more market rate. You'd have 10 more needed for affordable. So it's
always something that you're probably not going to reach that goal. And again, it's the market really. So in other places, might read and I know Jed pointed one out in Marlborough or Colchester, where there is a strong market and somebody is building something with an affordable component under eight-thirty gs. And that's a question of the gap between the delta between the market rate units and the affordable units and what the prices are. So if you have a large if you have a very, very strong market, let's say in Fairfield County, you can charge a lot more. You can get a premium on your market rate to cover the cost and the reduced rate for the affordable. So if there's a wide delta between them, you can do that. But in Andover and like most small towns in Central Connecticut, the difference between affordable and market is not that much. So you can't make it up in the market rate. And then the huge one that prevents any significant density and multifamily, which we learned when we did the incentive housing study, is the lack of public SOAR makes density very challenging. Next slide. So who should we target for new affordable housing and how many units should we create in the next ten years? Now, this is just my recommendation of how we should handle this.
But what I think you need to do to get buy in for an affordable housing plan is really talk about the people of Andover. Not talking about solving the what people like to say, doing your fair share, the region's affordable housing issue and etcetera, etcetera, and affordable housing for people in the region. It's really comes down to in small towns is solving the affordable housing problem and helping the people of Andover. So this what I'm writing, this is really focused on helping people that are in town that are struggling. And so what I'm doing is I look at it and say, who should the Supportable Housing Plan target? So we look at the Andover age distribution. And what I'm recommending is should be targeting young people that we hope want to stay in town and also baby boomers that are looking to downsize. The other ones are here or already established probably. The age demographic that I'm looking at in particular is ten to nineteen. And I say ten to nineteen because this is a ten year plan, you should be planning for the ten years. So ten to nineteen, these are going to be your buyers going to college coming back and buying houses are hoping to buy houses or looking for a place to live in their hometown.
And what that tells us is that there are four forty three people in that demographic, ten to nineteen year olds. And then under the fifty to sixty nine year olds, the baby boomers, the generation that would be looking to downsize in ten years. So it would be sixty to seventy nine in ten years. That population is a total of eleven seventy one people in your town. So these are people that are actually in your town that are looking to either stay in town when they come back from school or looking to downsize. So those are the people that we're targeting in this plan, if you all agree with my recommendation. So next slide. So some of those people may be perfectly fine and need any help in terms of affordable housing or downsizing. They may be affluent, they may have places to live, they may be okay. But we know in Andover that that 18% of your population is paying either mortgage or rent in excess of 30% every month for housing. So that is when the housing crisis starts when they're paying more than 30% of their income
for housing. So we know 18% of people are paying between 3050% of their income for housing costs. Okay. And then we know another 4% are paying over 50% for housing. So that's really staggering. So if they're making percent of your income in a month goes to paying either your rent or your mortgage taxes and utilities. So those are the people that are struggling with affordable housing. They may have housing, they may be in those houses that we identified as affordable sales, but they're having a real tough time paying the rent. So then this goes into some numbers of how we figure out that. And I take those numbers. And I think those numbers are probably fairly consistent, and they probably will stay true as we move as we as we go through through time. So we took that 10 19 year old age population.
So four forty three people between 10 and 19 years old, we apply 4% of that is 18 residents and 18% of that is 80 residents. That's the number of people that would need help with affordable housing. And then same for the baby boom generation, where we take the eleven seventy one. Now, probably the majority of them are two person households. So we divide that number by two to come up with households. So that's four fifty households between fifty and sixty nine that need affordable housing. And that comes down to 18 households at four percent and eighty one households at 18%.
Another question on this slide is, you had 18% that spend between thirty and fifty, and 4% spending more than 50, wouldn't be the high end of the need for housing be 22% as opposed to just 18%? It looks like all of those folks need helpers, that 4% included in the 18?
The four is in the 18. Yeah, it probably would have been easier to put them together, but I just wanted to show create a high and a low. Yep, okay. So the severe, the high, we know I guess it's just the opposite. The real need, the severe need is the 4%. And that means we have a need of 36 units. So there's 4% of your population that's paying over 50% for housing costs. And that comes out to 36 units. And then on the high end, where they're paying between 3050%, that's 160 units. Okay, so next slide. So it's interesting to look back at eight dash 30 gs and it's easy to say, well, eight dash 30 gs is unrealistic, we will never build that many, but it's pretty accurate in terms of what is needed. So eight dash 30 gs says the Andover needs 133 affordable units. And the math that we just did prior to that says we need 196 units because based on need, based on people that actually needed are paying a lot for housing. So HS30G in that sense is pretty accurate. And we know that HS 30 gs we only have 51 affordable units in town now. So you'd need another 82 to meet that goal. Next slide. Hey, Bill, can I ask a question? Yep.
So you're talking about the the targeted market. We're talking about the the very young and and the older crowd, but aren't there subsets of the other age brackets where we would need to address as well? Or are we assuming they don't need affordable housing?
Yeah, there certainly are, I'm sure. What we're trying to do is say, okay, for the next ten years, how many do we need and who are we really targeting on this? So, you know, and I think really what's going to happen is is it's going to be the empty nesters for sure, because that's going to be the majority of the town. And then the younger people that we would like to keep in town. I think the goal of the plan, you say, okay, well, who is the population that we're going to focus on? And the focus is going to be on those two groups. Yes, in the middle, probably you have a lot of people in the middle that have two incomes that are doing much, much better. So I think the two focus groups are the ones that are the most sensitive, but certainly there are people in the middle that are struggling too.
Okay, thanks.
This slide is just a it's just a timeline just just to show that if we take our numbers and we say between thirty six and one hundred and sixty units, 36 units per year is four per year. And 160 units is nine sixteen per year. And then we think back to what we talked about how many houses are getting built in town. Does this make any sense? Does it can it can it happen? Can we really make a recommendation that, you know, this is how many we need and this is what we're what our goal is. And it really doesn't. The next slide I say let's be realistic. And I think that's that's what a plan should be a plan should be realistic you can come up with all these which unfortunately a lot of planets do, they come up with all these pie in the sky ideas about building all this affordable housing and we need to do this and it's all these reasons why it's so good, but they're not realistic. They're not based in the market and the market is going to dictate how many get built because it's not going to be the government building them. It's going to be the market and hopefully when we come up with our recommendations,
how we can attract developers and people in the market to create more affordable units. So again, if you look at on left market rate units, those the actual numbers from 2,009 all the way up to August of last year. So there there just aren't 36 four four units per year or between four and sixteen units per year of affordable. So that is actual market rate units that are being built. So 2009 to 2021, you had 49 single family homes built. So rounding up to 50 units in ten years. So roughly 50 units in ten years was built by the private sector. That's an average of five homes per year.
And we're looking at this and I'd say, okay, so how many of those five homes should we realistically say we want to target? How many affordable units should we create? So A-thirty gs says 10% of all new units in in the town should be affordable. So that's that's one of the goals of a dash 30 gs. So that equals a half a dwelling affordable dwelling unit per year. And then if and 30% in a development, a dash 30 says 30% of all the units in a development should be affordable, so that would come out to 1.5 affordable units per year. So that's about as realistic as you could get. I mean, I can't picture the market completely turning around and young home home buyers flocking to Andover. I don't think we're going to see a lot of change. The state doesn't project a lot of change. The population is projected to continue to decline and continue to age. So I think what we're looking at is a realistic, a small town in Eastern Connecticut, making a realistic approach and a realistic goal to providing some affordable housing in their town, which I think is about all that really can be expected of a town in the Andover situation of Andover size. So what we have is the next slide. Andover's affordable housing goal. So the goal is to create between five and fifteen affordable units in the next ten years, targeted to Andover's empty nesters interested in downsizing and Andover's
ten to nineteen year old age cohort also known as generation Z. So in the next ten years, five to 15 affordable units. So if you think about that and you say, well, that's nothing. Well, that is a lot based on the current market and the fact that there have been no affordable units created in probably the last thirty years in Andover. So it's a way to start making a difference in the town. So the next next meeting, what we'll start to do is talk about how to do this. What kind of strategies could the town adopt to start taking this seriously and making a change? And, you know, lots of towns, and I'm sure this is exactly what's going to happen. Lots of towns are going to achieve their goal of affordable housing plan by June 30 and put it on the shelf and be done and wait. And and then in five years, was, oh, we gotta update this and they'll come up with some kind of update and that and that's all that will happen. I think in Andover and in small town like this, you have the ability if there's the energy to do this and the need is identified to say, hey, let's let's let's do this. So the recommendations I'm going to make be making are are implementable and things that could really create
an interest in doing it and a way to do it to start creating an affordable unit maybe every year or two or three units every year, depending on how aggressive you want to get. At the end, we'll also have an aggressive option, which gives you an idea of how to really go about it and aggressively go after something. So that's what that's what's going to come. And like I said, I think end of March, I should have a draft report and be ready for your next meeting to present the how to, what's next, where to, where and how do we get this done. And I'm open to any questions.
Bill, what comes after, you know, we get the plan, let's say, you know, March 21, the next meeting. And then at some point, I know before we submit the plan, we want to hold a public hearing. And I'm trying to figure out where does the public hearing and what are the other big wickets, you know, was there a brief to the Board of Selectmen or Board of Finance? I couldn't remember, but what are the big chunks that we as a commission have to hop through before we can deliver the goods and say we're done?
Yeah, I mean, think I know it's a tough time with the budget and everything else, but I really think it's critical because the recommend planning and zoning can only do so much. The recommendations that I'm making are going to involve Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen as well. It's because it's a financial thing. It's a tax thing. It's it's favorable tax assistance, grants, etc. So it's going to involve all three boards, Board of Finance, Board of Selectmen and Planning and Zoning. So I think before you really initially, know, kick it off with the public, that's discussion, a discussion or something, introducing it to the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen is critical. And then public workshop or public hearing, probably a workshop without the formality of a public hearing because you don't have to have a public hearing on this. But you can advertise and everything, but maybe be more informal with a public workshop to explain what needs to be done. And then from there, go forward with probably ideally, PNC would approve it and Board of Selectmen would approve it, and then you'd send it off to the state for telling them here's our affordable housing plan.
Okay. Any any of the other commission members have any questions of Bill while we're on this topic?
Yeah, Bill, once again really nice job, very comprehensive presentation and you know well organized easy to follow. Question I have is if we put together an affordable housing plan and it doesn't get us to close the gap from where we are now, and, you know, are there consequences with the state if we don't have a plan that gets us to, you know, be in compliance with eight dash 30 g?
No. There are not. No. So the only thing is you're subject to eight thirty eight dash 30 which I, in my opinion, all of you are always going to be no matter what your plan says, because you're just not going to build that many houses. So there is, there are no penalties. Even if you, even if you didn't do this plan, you said, I would, we can't be bothered. The only penalty is that if you apply for a grant, you have to include a letter saying that you did not, you are not in compliance with requirement to have an affordable housing plan. That's the only teeth that this has.
Okay, thank you. So as long as we have a plan, we're in compliance, and then it's just a matter of how, you know, whether we're addressing the need.
Exactly, and that really comes down to the town. And like I said, I, there's, there's a lot of opportunities right now with COVID money and grants and there's, there's a lot of money there and there is a way to put together funds that can create affordable housing rehab programs. I'm starting to go into all the stuff that I'm going to talk about next month, but you know, a lot of different programs that could help people because you know, you may have an affordable, you could say you're going to give a, for instance, I'll just give a quick one. For instance, let's say you have a couple that's in a house that is having trouble getting upstairs. I think my own parents, they couldn't use the stairs anymore. So they had to create a bathroom downstairs, a full bath downstairs, move the bedroom downstairs, move the washer and dryer from the basement upstairs. And they had to do all that. Fortunately, they had the ability to do that, but there are some people that may not have the ability to do that.
So you could create, and this would be completely eligible for low to moderate income, a grant program, tax be even type program that would all help them to do those things in exchange for putting in a restriction on that unit and then you would be creating an affordable unit. Very good. Thanks.
Sure. Anybody else? I did have a couple more questions comments for you, Bill. And what actually does it mean when we say that a property is going to be deed restricted? What does that mean to the person who owns that property?
What it means is that the unit can only be increased, can only increase the appreciation in the value of the house, can only increase by the consumer price index. So right now that would be very unfavorable. Past ten years, it'd be, wouldn't be too bad. But, but right now, because we have the consumer price index at 8% housing costs going up like crazy, that would be the concern.
And for the Commission, I did attend Marlborough's. They had a working session. I thought it was a public hearing, but it was only, you know, what Bill referred to as the information session. I thought that was pretty good. It was pretty basic, you know, the stuff that we talked about in the last two sessions. But there were a couple of things that I took away from that, maybe just because it's the same information was presented a little bit differently. And Steve, when you asked the question about aren't there people in need through all these different age groups, I think the thing, you know, this presentation showed median incomes for the different age groups. And one of the things that I took away, and it shows that Bill's targeting the right groups, is that, you know, the median income
for the retirees, you know, is significantly less than the Andover median income, which is like $100,000 a year. You know, the average for a retiree is 50,000 or $60,000 So, you know, all the retirees are down below the 60% threshold on that. And you can envision a similar thing with the young folks just starting out. So, not only do we have big age groups there to target and keep in Andover, but those are certainly the ones that are struggling the most with buying. I guess another thing that I took away, and Bill showed us a bunch of pictures that, you know, what is affordable housing? You know, it was nice looking stuff. This is nothing that you wouldn't want to live in. And I think the way it was described at this other presentation was if a guy makes a subdivision in the market price houses are all 1,800, 2,000 square foot, the only difference in the quality between that and the affordable is most likely in the size of the house. So to get the house down in size, they would just reduce the square footage. And they might not put a garage on it, you know, leaving the ability to put that on afterwards. And that's how, you know, the developers are getting down there. Maybe this is all stuff that Bill was going to talk about next
month, not sure. And then the third thing that was kind of funny is there was a guy from the Board of Finance at the presentation. And, you know, Marlboro, just like us, talked about the increasing age population and they discussed the number of kids in the school going down. And this guy said, you know, I just went to the Board of Education meeting last week and they showed how the school age population was projected to increase over the next ten years. And didn't really have an answer to it. The answer that was provided was well, they're not right. These are the right numbers. You know, these are provided by the state. But it was, I'm sure I read the story in the River East a week or so ago and it talked about, you our population was no longer declining at the school, but in fact was going up a little bit. So, it's pretty similar to what
we had. And at the same time, they were looking at, you know, wrapping up in June, having public hearing in June to submit the plan. So, we're pretty consistent with what I saw over there. But that was a very informal session that allowed people to ask questions. Well, I guess the other thing that was a lot of discussion at that meeting was how do we incentivize people that have the naturally occurring affordable housing to put a deed restriction on their house? The thought was that just didn't get to happen. And in fact, the discussion was why would anybody, you know, when the American dream is to buy a house and build equity in it sell it for more than you bought it for, why would anybody buy a deed restricted house? And I thought that was a pretty good question. Now, were indicating that you could only go up 7.5% over what you bought it for. And they didn't really explain that maybe that was on a yearly thing based on the consumer price index. So that discussion thinking that if you owned a house for twenty years, can only sell it for 7.5% more than you bought it for. And that certainly didn't get anybody excited.
Yeah, no, 7.5% would be this year. Yeah, this year. Yeah, it's an annual.
It's an annual. We all just got our tax assessment, so we know that the house prices are going up. But again, thank you, Bill, for a great presentation, very enlightening. I think, you know, I'll work with you offline to try and figure out how do we build the presentation for both the public and the Board of Select and Board of Finance get that and And so when June comes here, we can declare victory. Sounds great.
Sounds great. Any other questions for Bill before we let him go? Okay, thank you, Bill. Enjoy your time down in Florida. Thank you very much. Good night. Good night. Thanks, Bill.
Okay. Let me that's old business. First up was the discussion. Next one up, Chris, you're on for the for what you want to talk to us about with the gravel pit.
Okay. My name is Chris Bell. I'm a professional engineer in Haggenham, Connecticut representing the applicant William Genovese, the owner of the property. The last meeting I was at, we, were talking about, the restoration plan to be a little bit clearer about how the drainage patterns were going and a little bit more clear about the whole plan itself. So I did submit a plan, it was February 14 is the date of the plan, that basically shows the same restoration plan with just a lot more notes on it and a lot less notes that don't pertain to the restoration plan to try to make it clearer. I've got some drainage arrow directions, so help to see it better, and some, just a bunch more style elevations so you can understand which way things are going. The other issue I wanted to talk about was we talked about,
I think just mentioned that we might want to come in for an extension on the pit. As you've probably read through the reports from the time that we had the extension back in December until now, there was a lot of great intention to get a lot of material out, but we did not. We started out pretty good, but then the job shut down that they were bringing the gravel to, in the last month and a half, the trucks broke down, they couldn't get parts to repair them. It's been pretty blanket problem across northern, around New England, they just can't get the parts to fix the trucks, now they only have two trucks out of five repaired as of last week, and they're going to try to make a go of it from now between
now and March 17, the end of the permit. So we don't have a lot of time to get the material out, we'd like to get out, actually we're not probably going get half the material out, we'd like to get out by that time. And so I had the owner fill out an application for extension and it's been sitting around and we like to get that extension. I said, you probably need at least a three, so he said, we'll ask a six just to make sure we can get it done in time. So we have that request out for an extension. And as far as the restoration plan, I can go through that. If you'll let me, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to share the screen with you. I'll put it up, unless there are some questions before I do that.
No, let's go ahead. Yeah, go ahead and put up your plan This
is Jim Halsey. Just for the record, we did in fact receive the application just confirming and a check. Wasn't able to be posted because our webmaster was gone for the day. That's all I got. Okay, thanks Jim.
Okay, I've had some discussions with Jim Halsey about what's happened between now, between the last meeting and today, and I guess I can go through some of the things we've talked about with my presentation here. Hopefully, I can get this thing up. Apparently, that wasn't it. I think I have to make you a cohost. Let me see if I can Hold on. I didn't get it on the screen and I haven't hit share yet. Hold on.
Yeah. Marina needs to make you a cohost before you can hit before you hit share or it won't pop up. Let me I removed you.
Let's see. Okay. Chris, you should be able to share your screen now.
K. Let me get what do I hit first? The my screen or the share? I don't know if I can do both. Oh, now I can't find the share screen. Hold on. Oh, there's a share screen. Are we on? Nope. Nope. Nope.
So you should be able to click on, once you go on the share screen, click on the drawing that you want presented. Oh, And you'll I hit share.
The drawing. Oh, there it is. Okay. There we go. You got it? Yep. Everybody see it?
Yep. If you could enlarge it a little bit, Chris, that would be great. And maybe one more time.
It's going to get probably too big on my end, but let me see Okay, go ahead and talk where you are. I think we could see.
Well, can also, well, this is a good size for me at this point. Let me see if I can, yeah, it's the best I'm gonna get for right now. There we go. How's that? Nope, that's good. Okay. At least we see the whole site. Okay. Basically, the first thing I'd like to point out is these dash lines here are the pre existing contours. What I mean by that is those are the contours that existed before we started any work at all on the project. That was all this this high mound over here that's elevation 310, and there's the high mound over here that's elevation 314. Both these hills have in between them what we call a low point, it's a saddle, and then the drainage goes from this direction to that direction, then comes from this high point from here, and goes out. So basically, the property is pretty much split, the whole area is split down the middle between going towards the left and towards the right. And what I've done is to show the arrows and how the drainage is going to go now, that's what these dark black arrows are. Before the drainage, you know, hit the top of the hills, and they went to the left, I'm sorry, to the right, and they went to the left. Again, all the way down here, left and right. So basically, it's a three point, just over 3.2 acres was the whole area of disturbance. 1.58 acres goes to the right, and then the other half goes to the left. It's pretty much split down the middle. I did a little quick calculation before the meeting, and I ran some drainage numbers. But let me go over how this is graded. This is the slope that starts from the high point and slopes down. That's a big slope area you see out there from the high point where we stopped 95 feet from the wetland. We stopped there and we graded back down
from the top here elevation of around three zero six or so. It was three fourteen, but back here it's about three zero six, and we dropped it down to approximately 196. And it goes from one ninety six pretty much flat all the way to where the existing material is being removed right in this area. This hatched area is the area that has not been removed, and it's still, some of it has topsoil on it, and a lot of it's been removed getting ready to excavate. Again, this is pretty flat going from the bottom of that slope all the way to where we are now. That's almost
300 feet from the bottom of the slope all the way over. The drainage pattern is still going to be approximately the same. Instead of going this way, and that way to the left and the right, it's going to flow all the way to this point, where now it picks up where the drainage divide has been, and we're proposing to be. We're going to make a high point here, and then drain all the water coming from the middle of the property, drain it to the left, drain it to the right. The intention is to get it to go in the same direction it's going now. I mean, I'm sorry, in the pre existing, and finally when we get to the bottom. But the difference of going from the left to the right, like in the pre existing, we're going to bring it all the way to almost the front of the property on a dead flat area. What that does, it lowers what we call in hydraulics the time of concentration, so that the water gets a chance to seep into this flat area, dissipate into the ground, because this is a sand gravel soil, very permeable, and by the time it gets to over here, we can split it up and then go towards the left, towards the right, and getting that property all the way to the property line will easily be able to drain it to the left here,
and easily drain it to the right once this gets filled in. That's pretty much the plan, it's all going to be grass. I had, I ran some rough drainage calculations, because it's such a small area, it's only, this side is only an acre and a half, it's pretty easy to run drainage calcs on small acres like that. And just for for numbers, the the existing flow for a twenty five year storm from all the area that was existing goes towards the right was miss Hutchinson property. The twenty five year storm I had 0.61 CFS. And when I put my drainage in my grading in here and put the grass on, it goes from 0.61 to 0.14,
and that's with some pretty rough numbers, but conservative. We could, and that's saying that the grass is going to, and the low slope being very flat, is going to take up a lot of the water before it exits the property. In most storms, you won't see any water exiting the property, it just is never going to get to the property line, which is still, you know, way over in here. It's going to get to the road. It's going to start going down, dissipate in into the Genifee's own property. It's just going to disappear. It's only going to start generating some storm water when you get into the higher storms, 25, fifty, and one hundred. I estimated the one hundred year storm for the acre and a half would be about 1.9 CFS, and with after the restoration, and actually the way it is now after the restoration, it will be about a half a sea of this, so it's going to be about a third, a third upon the amount of water. And I kept the drainage going in the same direction because you pretty much do that, you don't like the chain direction of storm drainage, and you know run a lot more towards where this is all pavement, because as soon as it hits this property line, it's going to really increase a lot of drainage over on the paved area. Even though it's a reduced amount of drainage, by the time this property drains, it'll be less, but if you add the rest of the property, the other acre and a half to that, it's going to start being an increase on this property. And the owner doesn't want to do that.
Frankly, I don't blame him, I talked it over with him a couple of times, he said, can't we just keep the drainage going before the project? And I said, yes, that's the way I did it. So that's basically that in a nutshell. I don't know what happened about it getting reviewed by somebody else. I didn't get any phone calls regarding that, any questions in the past couple of weeks, so I don't know if this was ever reviewed by anybody else or not. You you do have your town engineer who I'm sure will, well, it's your town engineer. He wasn't involved early in the project three years ago, but he's been on board with what's been going on since April when he came on board. Okay. So, one
of the things that would be very helpful to me, Chris, is that, as you mentioned, all those all the topographic dash lines are pre existing topography. And for me to be able to get a feel for, you know, how the final property is going to look, it would be helpful to get a drawing without all the pre existing topography on there so we can see what the new proposed topography is going to be. And that will allow us to see where or where not it might impact Ms. Hutchinson's property to the east there.
Okay, I do have proposed contours and elevation shots on here. There's no contouring here because it's dead flat. It goes from, you know, 96.5 to 96, there's no contour lines until it hits down where the existing is 192, and then right above it's 194 in here. I mean, can make a map taking out all the existing lines, make a PDF and put it back on here. I'm probably saying I'm more skilled and time quick than maybe I am, but I could probably do it in a few minutes if
you want me to do that. That would be helpful to me to just make sure that Sure. I think there's got to be a transition between, you know, the flat place you've got there and how it, you know, as you say, it's going be a very steep drop off going over to the property to the west, which this guy owns, and also to the property, you know, I don't know what the transition is going to look like going over between the edge here and Ms. Hutchinson's property. No, it's not steep at all. Okay, this is steep
it would be here and here, it's steep, this is like a slope, but from here all the way to here is basically a half a foot drop in 300 feet, and basically from here over we're going to slope it from 96 to 94, 96 to 94, which is about two feet in 100 feet, about 2% here. Like I said, I could produce a map and just take off, I'll shut the layer off for the existing contours and hopefully easily make another PDF and bring it up. Maybe you want to move on to another subject and come back. Nope, I
don't. You know, I talked to Agent Halsey about this a little bit today and you know, I think that having you and he get together and I think Jim knows what I'm looking for and what my confusion is. I thought at the last meeting that there was going to be a meeting between Ms. Hutchinson's engineer or land use attorney, I don't remember which, but she had somebody that she wanted to have meet with you. That's what I heard. And
I'm assuming that did not happen in the intervening month.
Jim did talk to me this, I think it was late this morning, actually early afternoon, he says you want to meet today and I go, can't, that's a little too short notice, I really could not meet today, but I, you know, I can, and may, you know, Mr. Chairman, I've got to say very frankly, I don't see the need to resolve this restoration plan tonight.
Mean I agree with And that's why I'm not asking you to do it right now while we go on to something else. Sure. I just wanted to lay my concerns about this drawing out because when I look at Ms. Hutchinson's property, I see the elevation of 288 going through there. And somehow there's got to be a transition from whatever she has on her property up to this two ninety six flat spot that you're putting in there. And I cannot look at this drawing and figure out how that transition is going to take place. So I could understand it, Mr. Chairman.
I've given you a chance to walk through the drawing, given you a little feedback on what I'd like to see at some subsequent meeting. But when you asked for a six month extension, that did sort of eliminate the urgency of talking about this tonight, but I want to at least bring it up here. So, I will hold the restoration plan in abeyance and I will make a motion that we approve a six month extension to the gravel pit operation for the purpose of removing more material from the site. I'll second the motion, Jed. Thank you, Steve.
And I guess my only discussion on that motion is I think it behooves the town and the property owner to get more material off there so we don't have so significant a discontinuity between this property when it's leveled out and the property on each side of it because both property owners are concerned about water running off of this property down there. And I do think it's going to be better than it was before it started. I think, you know, Ms. Hutchinson's probably, I would think, been able to watch over the last couple heavy rains, and I don't know when it was flattened out there at the north end of this, but she's getting a feel for is it better or worse than it was before? And she will certainly have a good feel for that before we get to the end of your next extension. So, any other Commission members have any questions or comments on the motion that's on the floor? Hi, this is Leanne. Do.
You hear me? I heard this is Leanne and then I didn't hear anything that you said after that.
Oh, didn't. I just want to make sure that you could hear me. Yep. As part of this, haven't we had discussions about directing some of the runoff kind of a two part question pointing the swale away from the adjoining property and also having some of the runoff from the back of the property that Chris Bell has all the arrows on a little bit some of that toward the river instead of having it all come down to the front and possibly off to the side?
We can't do that. I would love to brought that hill down, but wetlands won't let me take the hill down. That's the only way I'm gonna get the water towards the river. I mean, really, we were taking away water, water is no longer flowing in this area towards the Hutchison property, it did before. Matter of fact, this whole half of the one and a half acres, about three quarters of an acre, was flowing directly there. We're directing it towards the middle so that it seeps into the land that's there on both sides before we get over here and direct it in both directions. We can't really, you know, take this whole hill down and push it towards the river, if that's what you mean we can't do that. And we can't direct the flow, we can't dig a channel to go this way, direct it that way, towards the wetlands, because we're redirecting the flow closer to the river, and who is not gonna like that? I've got to go by FEMA regulations too of not making anything worse than what it is, and right now we're making everything better, and I'm really concerned. I can't work in the floodplain, and I'm avoiding working in the floodplain because this is so nice and high, I can bring it down above the floodplain level, but I can't start working in the flood and redirecting flow. So, you know, I hope that answers your question, ma'am.
I think so. Yes. You've explained about the wetlands, and what about the positioning of the swale? I looked at this map earlier, Tay, that you had submitted, and, you know, I could make it a little larger at this point, so I'm trying to,
you know, remember what I looked at earlier this afternoon. What about the position of the swale? Well, what we showed here in this note that the swale was only meant to convey water from a bare piece of property for the gravel pit. We assumed worse conditions that two whole sections were going to be uncovered, owner takes off, the contractor takes off, and we've got to deal with all this water, so we put the trench in directly to the detention pond area, sediment pond, and that's what that was put in for. And obviously it also made sure that it didn't send anything towards this direction, towards the Hutchinson property. But once the whole gravel pit is finished, this note says to as it was before, what happened? I lost my picture.
Did I do? Didn't do anything. I did too as well. You did lose the picture, and I guess that means we've talked enough about the restoration plan for tonight.
Well, yeah, the trench is getting filled in, and that was always the plan. It was never meant to keep it there, it was just to get it to the detention pond, which is going to be filled in, so if we kept the trench there it wouldn't be going anywhere, and just becomes a hazard because it is three feet deep. There's no reason to have it, because all the drainage is going to be draining towards the middle, then over, so there's really no reason to have it there. Again, I'll say it once more, as I've said in every meeting, when he sells the property and someone goes to develop it, you know, the commission and everybody's going to have another shot at seeing what's going to get developed and make them do a storm water detention make sure it's done right, which we have no control over, obviously. We'd like to make it properly as nice as possible for selling. That's what he wants to do. So, that's all I have to say. Thank you.
Agent Halsey, did you have any comments for us on the extension before we actually vote?
No, not at all. It'll be time to meet with the various parties and come back with something that's very clear that everybody's Any okay
other commission members have any questions or comments before we vote? Hearing none, roll call vote. Anne? Aye.
Steve? Didn't hear Steve. I don't see him there. Don't see him there. Oh, okay. I'm good. Oh, there he is. He's coming. Steve, we're looking for your vote on the motion to extend the application for six more months for the gravel pit operation. Aye. All in favor. Leanne. Aye. Anne? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. The motion carries five zero zero. That gives us time get the trucks working, get the gravel out, and come up with, a clear and concise restoration plan. Agent Halsey will be working with you, Chris, to get a meeting set up with all the applicable people to make sure we've got that clear before we come back to the Commission on that one. Okay. One thing I'd like to note,
next Monday, I'm I'm having heart surgery again, so I I don't know what my schedule's gonna be after that, but hopefully, I'll be in fine shape to go out and have a meeting in the springtime, and I'm looking forward to that. But that's the only day I can meet you. I'll make sure I'm after that.
Good luck on your surgery. That doesn't sound like that's more fun. Hopefully we didn't contribute too much to you needing that.
No, no, I've learned how to deal with stress these days. Thank you, Chris. Thank you very much. Thank you very much to everyone. Good night.
Okay, we're going to move on to new business site application for property at 580 Lake Road. Matt, are you going to lead us through that tonight? I see you've got a group of folks here.
Yes, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me clearly? I can, yep. Okay. Yes, I'll start off but yes, with me just for the record, Matt Bruton, I'm an engineer from BL companies. With me as well is Matt Ucolito, the developer and applicant Doug Grunert, our architect and Robin Pearson, our project attorney. But I'm happy to start whenever you want me to, Mr. Chairman. And I figured I'd give a brief introduction as needed and answer any questions you guys may have. Know this is the first time seeing it for most of you.
Okay, yeah. And just before we go, for the information, I guess for discussion with the commissioner consideration, we would not necessarily have to hold a public hearing on this application. The building in the industrial zone gives the latitude to not go to public hearing with this kind of a project. My thought is it might be warranted, you know, where there's a lot of towns where building a building like this is fairly routine. This is probably, you know, the biggest thing that we've had happen in Andover in many, many years, and we hold a public hearing for putting up an accessory apartment
over a garage. And so, with that in mind, after Matt gives us his brief, because the materials he provided us are very extensive in that sort of thing, Before we leave this topic tonight, I'd like us to consider whether or not we want to hold a public hearing because we think that would be in the interest of the town. So with that, Matt, go ahead. I just wanted everybody to know where I thought we were going to end tonight.
No problem, Mr. Chairman. Happy to start. Let me just share my screen. I think it'll be, oh, can someone allow me to share my screen? It says it's disabled.
Yep. Yeah. Let me get Chris off, and I'll get you on. Unless he left the meeting already. Okay. He must have. Okay, Matt. You should have the share screen. There we go.
Yes. Okay. Again, for the record, my name is Matthew Bruton. I'm an engineer at DL Companies. We are headquartered at 355 Research Parkway, in Meriden, Connecticut. I'll walk you quickly through this. If you guys have any questions, feel free to, feel free to stop me or or or wait till the end, whatever you whatever makes sense for you guys. So if everybody can see the screen right now, this is just a Google aerial just to kinda give you context. So, this is the site, 580 Lake Road. I'll just move my mouse here. So Lake Road is kinda going from left to right across the screen, and Route 6 is running diagonally. The the parcel we're actually particularly looking at is this grassed parcel that I'm circling right now, with my my mouse, and I'll just drop down to the street view. As you can see, this is the street view image of the subject property. As you can see right now, it's it's a pretty recent aerial with the with the snow. So to kinda give you a recap of where we've been before we've come to you tonight, We have officially subdivided this parcel from one lot into two. I'll show you this map here just for context.
Route 6 is across the bottom of the screen, and Lake Road is on the left hand side. The existing building here is the plumbing, the plumbing business. A few weeks or months ago, we officially subdivided this parcel, to create a 1.2 acre parcel that is adjacent to Route 6, but also Lake Road. I'll just circle it briefly here so you guys can see it completely. It's roughly this parcel here. So that lot has been created. After that, we also went to the Inland Wetland Commission. There is no wetlands per se on this property, but there is wetlands across Lake Road here. So there there was an upland review area
that did fall onto this parcel. We were successful there, and now we're, applying for a site plan approval from your board. So just in general, if I wanna stick here to the existing conditions and move forward here to our survey. So, again, Route 6 across the bottom, Lake Road on the side. As you can tell from the aerials and from the street view pictures, it's it's a vacant lawn currently full of snow. In general, the topography goes from, the South to the north. We're roughly in the range of 298 towards Lake Road and then a low spot around 292. As I mentioned, there are no wetlands on the property, and we do have frontage on these two roads. If I move forward to the proposed condition, what we're looking to do here is the proposed retail building of approximately 10,640 square feet. It's highlighted here roughly where my mouse is. We have 35 proposed parking spaces that falls right in the range of your minimum and maximum for a retail establishment. We also show two driveways to access the property. I'll just zoom in here a little bit so it's a little bit more clear. We do show one access drive to Route 6 and one access drive to Lake Road. Obviously, the, access drive to Route 6 would require an encroachment permit from DOT. We have started that process to run concurrently with this process. I just wanna point out a couple of items on this site to give you some orientation. The main entrance to the building is here
with the appropriate handicapped parking spaces, and this area here would be the loading and dumpster enclosure area. As mentioned by your chairman, this use is allowed in the zone, and the zone is I industrial, and all the butters also fall within that zone. Move forward a little bit in the plan set for any of you that are following along. So, up next is our grading and drainage plan. So this is a plan that is created, for the post conditions. The goal of this plan is to comply with the 2004 Connecticut stormwater quality manual and 2002 sediment and erosion control guidelines. And, basically, what those, guidelines and regulations are trying to enforce is we wanna mitigate peak flows off the property. We wanna, match mimic drainage patterns. You also want to apply 80% TSS removal, and TSS removal is total suspended solid. So this is the grit, grime, sand, trash that is normally, produced on a on a commercial parking lot. We wanna make sure that all of that stuff is captured in the stormwater management system and cleaned before it is discharged off the property. So I'll just zoom around here and highlight a couple of features just to make sure everybody's aware of what they are.
So, how we're going to accomplish those goals to comply with that with the 2004 Connected Stormwater Quality Manual, we are providing catch basins with deep sumps and hoods. So there's a variety of these catch basins, spread around, the parking lot and driveways. We're also providing hydrodynamic separators. This is a proprietary device that separates storm water, from those particulates that I talked about in terms of 80% TSS removal. All of the storm water is directed into a, subsurface infiltration basin. I'm gonna highlight that here in blue. So this is the, the rectangular blue box here. This is a system that is, precast concrete chambers underneath the parking lot that are h 20 load rated. Water flows into the system then then will, infiltrate into the ground, and, the size of the system is used to, make sure those peak flows are mitigated from existing conditions. And in general, the system does flow out in this direction,
to the Route 6 Strange System, which is regulated and reviewed by the DOT. In addition to the stormwater management system, we obviously have to provide utilities to support the proposed developments. There are some utilities available, some that are not. So in general, electric and telephone are available, from Route 6. So we are proposing to taking services from those. Sanitary and water are not available in town, so we are showing a septic system, and we are showing a proposed transient noncommunity well. And move a little bit further forward. So in addition to, plans that are showing the existing conditions and the final proposed conditions, we do also show a a sediment and erosion control plan. The goal of this plan is to make sure that, while construction is happening, while earthwork is is being, pursued, that any, exposed soil vegetation is not going to be, negatively affecting the abutters or town roads or state roads or state drainage systems. So, the the plan here and the subsequent narrative describes how the contractor should approach this site
during construction. So things that are included on this include construction entrances, silt fence, silt sacks, sediment traps, stockpile areas, erosion control blankets. All these devices are intended to help keep, exposed soil on the property, whether it's from rain, wind, or some other means. And these devices should be maintained and kept in good working order until the site is stabilized. And what I usually mean by stabilized is buildings constructed, pavements down, vegetation is growing vigorously in terms of grass, things of that nature. One other plan I wanna show you, we do show a landscaping plan as part of the as part of the set. So this is showing a variety of, grass, trees, and shrubs to make this an attractive and inviting property, for the, for the retail building. So, mister chairman, that's a that's a high level recap of kind of the site plans. I'm happy to go into further detail as needed. And we do have the project architect here as well if you do want to see the exterior elevations of the proposed structure.
Okay, thank you, Matt. Do any, I guess we'll start with Agent Halsey. Do you have anything for us at this point?
I just wanted to make a few comments. There were some logistical issues as far as posting this material and the paper plans were somehow got lost in transit between the printer and the town hall. So I apologize for last minute distribution. Also, the plan was forwarded digitally to Brandon Hanfield for review only recently. Eric Anderson, the town administrator who was very much involved with the town's connectivity plan is very concerned about that this development fits into that plan. And it has been brought to the attention of the applicant. And they've certainly made some changes. There may be some more additional comments on that. I do just want to make a comment in case of any any confusion as to how I how I named this. I use the assessor's map block block of the whole, the entire subdivision because the subdivision has not been filed as yet. And as such, it doesn't have a unique
designation. You will probably be, you know, the same map in block with with lot 2 A or something of that nature. Just just pointing it out in case there's any confusion. Other than that, that's all I have, I believe. Jim? Yes.
Hi, it's Leanne. Could you just repeat? I just missed what you said about Eric Anderson.
He's been very, when he saw this plan come in, he was very much interested in how it played into the town's connectivity plan. Hence the sidewalk along Lake Road was added, and I believe I haven't spent a lot of time reviewing plan, I believe there's a bike rack. Maybe there's not. I don't know. I haven't gotten that far yet. But nonetheless, it's the applicant is is will be working on that. I'm sure.
Matt, did you have a bike rack in there? I know I I read it someplace and then I didn't see it.
Yeah. So great question. Thanks for the reminder, Jim and and and the chairman. Yes. I'll just highlight this real quickly. Yes. The roughly in the orange is where we are adding the sidewalk on Lake Road as the suggestion from town staff. Then we are also providing a bike rack. I just here it is. You state bike rack. So the the speeds are adjacent to the main entrance here facing facing Lake Road. I am aware that you guys have do have a recreation area in this general area and then a little further up Lake Road as well. Okay. Thank you. Anything else Leanne. No. Okay. Any other commissioners have any questions or comments?
This is Jim Halsey again. I do just want to make the distinction. Know the town doesn't get a lot of commercial applications. While this was a site plan review process, site plan application and special permit application are essentially the same. But that doesn't mean they are the same, in fact. I mean, they're very different animals by way of the statute. Commission has a lot less leeway with site plans than they do with a special permit. Just pointing that out just so that it's clear. Mean, a public hearing does not make it a special permit. It could be easily an easy mistake to make. And I just wanted to point that out. Thank you. Okay. Yep. Thanks, Joe.
I did, you know, see a copy of a letter from the State Department of Transportation to the project and I see where they were asking for a traffic study to be included. And I know, I think you know the traffic is probably the most significant concern I can imagine the town would have in. But it looks like the state's already asked you for that, so I don't have to. I think that will encompass it. But for the delivery trucks, and I remember reading something that said maybe one a week we were expecting to have come deliver. Would they be coming from the West or from the East? Or do we know?
Mr. Chairman, that is a great question. I can't definitively say one way or the other. What I will say, though, is that we do show, if you can see my screen here, we do show a truck turn plan. And the reason I show it this way is is not to, definitively say whether they're coming from the east or west, but I wanna show the most conservative truck turn. So, having it turn in from this side of the road and then leave on this side of the road is is the hardest turn for a truck to make because they don't have the full width of the road to use. So what I'm demonstrating on this plan is that the proposed driveway and, site development does accommodate a WB 67 once per week. If the trucks were to they they they certainly can access the site from the other direction as well. I'm just demonstrating the most, difficult movement for them to make to come onto this property.
Okay. And, yeah, the, you know, if it were coming from the west, I think it might be more difficult to make the turn, but certainly safer from the traffic issues. I am hoping that the traffic study talks about what time of day we would expect these trucks to be coming in and it's not in the middle of rush hour.
No, Mr. Chairman. Trucks, as you mentioned, are typically once per week, and they're off peak hours. So a peak hour for a business like a retail business you would expect is most people are hitting it, kind of around the time that they're going into work and then post work. So this is kind of like the, you know, four to 6PM time frame in the afternoon. And then on Saturday, it's usually, like, eleven to three when people are out doing their normal shopping activities. So, these trucks are typically scheduled off peak to make sure that they're not conflicting with, the general congestion of the roads and of the parking lot to make sure that it's obviously a safety logistical concern as well.
Okay. And I'm thinking well, so it would be it's probably not reasonable to expect that the trucks would exit the facility on the Lake Road driveway? Is that not the preferred way to come and go if they're going to have to go across traffic?
Yeah. So obviously, Mr. Chairman, is an existing traffic signal at the intersection of Route 6 and Lake Road. But given the placement of the loading area and the dumpster enclosure on this site, which I'll circle again so you guys can see it. We intended we, intentionally put this over here to not be, you know, putting the least attractive side of the building away from the roads, from the visibility of people passing by, but also so the truck could directly access kind of the more appropriate road of Route 6 as opposed to going on the smaller town road, a lake road. So it doesn't need to go that way in our opinion and that's why we've planned it out in that fashion.
Okay. Is it premature to ask which store is planned to go in?
It may be Matt Ucolillo, the developer. Don't know if you want to address the chairman directly about that question.
Yeah. So it is a national retailer. I still it is a little premature until we get permits in hand. Am bound by NDAs not to not to state what is, but we do have an agreement with a national retailer.
Okay. And I know you've done a wonderful job with the stormwater management. I guess, you know, and I have not had a chance to take a detailed look through the all the information that you gave to us, but I know we're using pervious pavers. And it looked like the site you pretty much used at all. You know, there's not a lot of grass and landscaping out around there. I know the limit, and it says you're under it, was 50%, you know, which is a lot more generous than what we would do for a house lot. But I guess my thought was, well, it's just a concern that I'd be able look into, and I would expect that we'll talk about it the next time we get together, is how effective are these pervious pavers at letting the water sink through so that it does sink in and replenish the groundwater supply as much as we can. Yeah,
Mr. Chairman, I'm happy to speak to that. It's a good observation. Yeah, so we are showing a portion of the parking lot as pervious pavers, which, as you've mentioned, promotes infiltration of surface water through the pavement into the ground. So we've done some extensive soil testing on the property related to the septic system and also for the stormwater management system. We found good, sandy loam type material on the property. So we're we're confident that the, pervious pavement, will be effective in in allowing water to infiltrate. But with that said, I'm just gonna flick forward here to our our grading and drainage plan. So with that said, the majority of the pervious pavement is kind of in this area over here. If that were to completely fail for whatever reason, say it's an ice storm and, you know, it hasn't been cleared yet, right, so the water can infiltrate, we do show catch basins, drainage structures, piping, all of that is still present in the parking lot. So if the pervious pavement isn't functioning because of whatever reason, the water can still surface flow to catch basins into the pipes and into the subsurface infiltration system,
this system wouldn't be wouldn't be affected by an ice storm or a quick freeze or anything like that. So storm water could still get to the subsurface system, which still does, promote groundwater recharge, which is great. And then as I mentioned before, any excess that can't be infiltrated would would flow through pipe, to the system in Route 6. So it's kind of a belt and suspenders approach, for storm water, and it also obviously is included to it to adhere with your coverage requirements from your zoning regulations.
Okay. And I saw a couple of drawings that discussed varied signage, you know, for the parking signs and all that kind of stuff. I did not see anything that talked about the signage advertising the actual store. And I know it's premature to say what the store is. Would we expect to have in a plan that's approved the actual signage for the store at that point?
Yep. Great question, mister chairman. I'll just point out a few things here. So we do show signage on the plan set. They're mostly related to the required handicap signage for the, handicap accessible parking spaces. And we also do show on the site plan, this freestanding sign here by others. The applicant and myself is not responsible for any signage design. So we're we're showing proposed locations. What we typically say is is someone would come under under a separate permit and request a specific signed permit that would reflect your zoning regulations.
Okay. And then, you know, my last comment, and it's only a perception comment, on that, on the drawing that you just had there, if you blew it up one more piece, I was surprised when I drive down Route 6 for Lake Road, it seems like the existing Ben Franklin sign is about as close to the road as you would want anything to be, yet on your drawing, it shows it, you know, well into where the parking lot is. And so we we don't regulate based on concerns, but I was just surprised to see how close it appears that the parking area is going to extend out towards Route 6.
Yeah. So, mister chairman, I'll just zoom in here so you can see it because that you mentioned it. Yeah. So, what you can see here in in this really soft gray is called out a billboard sign. That's that's, a layer on our existing conditions plan. So, this area that I highlighted in red is that plumber's sign, that you saw, from Street View. Let me see if I can pull that back up just so you can so you guys can all have context. That sign obviously would come down. I think we talked about this during a previous meeting, mister chairman. That that can't, stay as it relates because it would be an off premise sign. So this is the sign you're talking about here. So that is in this area here. So we do show I just highlight roughly in blue where our proposed, parking, limits would be our curbing.
The right of way for the street is roughly in green there. So, yeah. I guess it's a little bit of perception, but we do comply with in terms of your your setbacks, and parking regulations in terms of placement of parking building and future signage.
So Matt Jim Halsey that this plan should in fact show the relocation of that sign correct.
Jim, a good question. We are not proposing to relocate that sign. We're we're proposing to remove it and return it to the owner. If he wants to put it up somewhere else, I I think he would need to come back to you guys to speak about that specifically. But he is aware that it cannot stay on this property as it's no longer his property.
Okay. I mean, and shouldn't there be a sign saying a ban that it would be abandoned? Yeah.
Sorry. I flicked too quickly for you. On our demolition plan, do call out here. I'll just highlight it so you guys can We do say remove existing sign and return to owner and it's pointing to the sign. I did see it. Thank you. Yep. You're welcome.
Okay. Any other questions for the applicants at this point by the commission members?
Yeah I'm wondering if for the building itself have you done any do you have any plans in terms of environmental impact to use renewable energies or any type of green building techniques for sustainability?
Mr. Nelson, that's a great question. We do have the project architect here. If you guys would like, I'll pass the baton to him to talk about the look of the building and then the types of materials that that is okay with everybody. Sounds good.
Can somebody, set me up with the sharing? Oh, never mind. I got it.
Nope, I don't. I'll make you a, cohost here. Okay, Doug, you should be good to share. Perfect. Can everyone see my screen? Yes. Excellent.
Well, thank you. For the record, my name is Doug Greer, and I'm with the firm of BKA Architects. We're headquartered in Brockton, Massachusetts. We're the architect of record for the project. And I'd to speak with, with you a little bit about the, the previous question regarding, the building materials and the design. I'm actually going to start at the lower portion of the page. This is the side that fronts on Route 6. This is the main entry sign. As you could see here on the left side of the building, this is the main entry doors, that's a dark bronze sliding door. Flanking on either side is this, brick veneer, reddish in color. We're doing a brick that's going to be height of the, the top of the storefront to about a certain extent, and we're going to drop down to about three and a half feet for the rest of the building. The other materials we're using is a cementitious, Hardie Clapboard, it grew light gray in color. And, we're doing, an element over the entrance to, appear, like a gable almost for a for a signage element, for the future tenant.
The lines, the horizontal and the vertical lines are cladded in Hardy clapboard, I'm sorry, Hardy trim board in white color. We have a lot of, Greek, revival elements in New England, and, we're going to show that on this building as well too. So we basically have an exposed rake with a Greek return, adorned at the top by a decorative cupola with a rural themed weather vane. Here is a rooster, actually. On the adjacent side, we have a overframed adjacent gable, and, we're going to be cladding it with a dark gray asphalt shingles, peter gray is the color.
Along the side of the building, we're going to do window boxes, with light gray spandrel, glazing and, dark bronze frames, adorned with shutters. It's going be full height, walls inside because of the retail use, so the, glazing, will not be transparent inside the building, but it'll just have frosted gray film across the front of it. Towards the right of the building, this is the egress store painted the same color as the clackboard. And we have a continuous line parapet that is actually screening the rooftop equipment. Going up to the upper right corner, this is the adjacent side that's fronting on Lake Road. Basically we wanted to have the two The nice sides of building a fronting the intersection again you're going to see the the angled entry right here, the same storefront package. And it's the same element basically full height bricks to the top of the frame, the gable element for proposed signage, and it's a smaller side of the building, so we have less window boxes there. This line is indicating the roof slope beyond, it's essentially it's a flat roofed building, So it drains from a high point to a low point with a rubber EPDM roofing, and it drains to a continuous gutter that you're seeing right here in this vertical element. And again, I'm keeping the parapet continuous all the way up to continue to screen the rooftop equipment. And this side is is pretty much the same side as you saw before, but with the other gable element beyond. I'm going to the this side here. So this is the, the drainage side, so you can actually see, the long linear gutter element here.
And this is cladded with a vertical batten metal panel, dark gray in color. And, you can see beyond, the, the profile of the gable, with the EPDM roofing, some trim elements, so you could see those from beyond the parapet. And then last but not least, the, side where the receiving is. Again, we're going to do a vertical metal batten, panel and, dark gray in color. The, the two, receiving doors, three zero seven, oh, double swing doors, we painted to match. And again, you can see the EDM profile on the rear to say, will not the screening of the rooftops will be. Mostly. Unvisible from the intersection of Lake Road and Route 6, you will see one in on the receiving side, but the side is not visible from the road. We have shown lighting here to show give you an idea of the heights. These are wall packs, dark sky compliant LED. We defer on Matt's team to actually develop the photometric package based upon your zoning, so the locations will vary, but that's just an idea of one of the sides that's going to receive the lighting. And then a couple more lights along here as well too.
And, with that, I, I welcome any questions you may have. But again, the question in terms of sustainability or?
We're using a low energy, rooftop equipment, and, the rubber EPDM actually is a good absorber of heat energy, so it actually allows the building to be, heated a little bit easier because it's a absorbing material. And, we're using a, GAF product, which usually is recyclable for the, asphalt shingles. I believe Hardieboard is also, it's a, it's sustainable product as well too. Nothing lead, but manufacturers that usually use sustainable products is what we're intending to use. Okay, thank you. You're welcome.
Dougie, do you consider using solar panels on the roof?
I will defer to Matthew Collier for that. I don't believe the tenant is looking to do that, if I'm not mistaken.
No. Generally, the tenants are against solar panels because they have a tendency to leak through the roofs when they're installed, unfortunately. Yeah, I've tried talking to them about that, but.
Okay. Thanks, Matt. Any other commission member questions? Okay. So, I know when you just got the information fairly recently and there's a lot of it, you know, haven't had a chance to take a good look at it, so I was not planning on taking any action on this proposal tonight. But I had mentioned earlier the thought about, you know, do we as a commission want to hold a public hearing on this? And so I will make a motion that we do hold a public hearing at our March meeting on this application. And I'll look for a second and then we'll follow that up with discussion on that motion. Second.
Thanks, Steve. My thought was, you know, that this is a significant event for Andover and rather than have the questions come after we approve it and I have to answer them. We've got the experts all available. I would let the public come in, and if they had questions to ask, we could benefit from what they'd ask, and we've got the experts here to answer for it. As I say, I think there will probably be a little concern about the traffic in the area, especially, you know, we're trying to develop a lot across the street as well. And I know there's, you know, a couple of things that aren't ready for tonight, but do any other Commission members have any thoughts they'd like to share on whether or not, you know, we hold or do not hold a public hearing.
My thought, I don't mind whichever way we go with the public hearing, but I'm thinking the public hearing probably should be in person now after this month that we should leave the Zoom and get the public hearing where people can come in and talk.
Okay, well, we'll take that up as a separate matter. Yeah,
I think, well, I don't know where the applicants are all at. Certainly getting in on Zoom is easy if it's from a distance. I think there's probably some advantages as you say, Anne, and we'll talk about how we want to go on that. As a separate matter, you know, and I were talking a little bit about do we want to come back and do in person meetings and Jim's concern was that we not try a hybrid one yet. Could probably go either way, but I'm not sure we're ready for trying a hybrid successfully, although I do know the Board of Education has done that.
Mr. Chairman, the majority of the project team is based in Connecticut or Massachusetts, so we're happy to accommodate hybrid or in person, whatever the Commission feels comfortable with. Okay, thanks, Matt.
Gary, no other other, Kevin, did you have a question? I saw your light flash there for a moment.
I know I actually I saw it too. I'm not sure why it did, but it did. Okay. Well, good I guess I do have maybe a it's not really a question or a concern, but a statement that I feel if if and when we do have a public hearing, probably one of the biggest questions that we might see out of the public hearing is everyone's going to know want to know what it's going to be. And so just something to think about for the future. I don't know if we can be constructive about it because obviously there are NDAs in place and we can't say what it's going to be and we're not making decisions based on what it's going to be, but whether it meets our
regulations or not. So just something to think about.
No, and I think it was a very attractive building, the way they got I agree. Yeah,
well put together plan in my opinion and attractive building. Okay,
so we'll vote on the motion to hold a public hearing. And I'll take a roll call vote, Anne Cremay. I guess aye. Steve? Aye. Leigh Ann? Aye. Anne? Aye. Can I vote aye as well? Motion to hold a public hearing passes five-zero-zero. Jim Halsey, is there any reason we don't think we would be ready to do a public hearing at the March meeting? I know we've got only three weeks instead of the normal four because we're doing it so late in the month of February here. But I would think from the Commission perspective, can be ready to go. I feel confident We'll be ready to go.
Okay. I guess the other thing I was looking for on the website, Jim, was the actual checklist for a site plan approval. You know the 57 questions that you go through? It is on the website.
Okay, I was not able to find that I looked. Okay, I have
Yeah, I have not been through the checklist as of yet. Oh, okay.
It's there. I did see it. Okay, so the applicants have submitted one. Yes. Okay, very good. Yeah, I did not see that and just wanted to make sure that we had the benefit of that before we come together. Okay, so if there's nothing else from the applicants, I guess we will see you on March 21. We'll let you know whether it's online or in person. And thank you very much for your presentation tonight. Some of it next meeting, if we have anybody from the public that attends, it will probably be a little repetitive. But I appreciate the opportunity to allow the commission, you know, the input you gave us tonight as we review your plans over the next couple of weeks here.
No problem, Mr. Chairman. It's been a pleasure. And Jim, I'll reach out about making sure we correctly notice this public hearing in the timeframe we have. So any who want to come can come at the next meeting. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, everybody. Yep. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay. Actually, so the next item old business is signed regulations and I had just a I did not spend a lot of time on signed regulations in the last month other than pondering them. But one of the things that a comment that we worked out is we were under the impression that a political sign was allowed to be as big as any other sign that we put up in Andover. And with the help of our attorney Mark Branch, we took another look at that and he has agreed that a sign that's posted in the residential area doesn't need to be as allowed to be as big as the sign that's out there at the gas station. It should be limited to the biggest sign that we would allow posted in the residential area. Sure. And so, what I have done is I reduced instead of 32 square feet for a sign and 50 square feet total signage, I was going to reduce it to 16 square feet and 32 square feet total signage because that cuts it about in half and I think it's still plenty big. And certainly that 16 square feet is bigger than any other sign that we allow in the residential area. So that's the way I'm waiting for the draft that I'll get out
to you guys in the next month. The gas station at the corner of Lake Road, you know, I went out and tried to figure out how did we get those signs there that were so in excess of what our zoning regs would allow. And the answer is they went to the Zoning Board of Appeals. And the Zoning Board of Appeals said, yep, it makes sense. And so they allowed it. And I guess I don't have a lot of heartburn with the big, you know, price sign up there. It does exceed what we would allow, but it appears that they took the proper avenue to get there and the ZBA allowed it, and that's the end of that. I didn't look to see if the other gas station, you know, how they got the window signs everywhere, what documentation they had for that. But anyhow, if somebody didn't like our signage regulations, they could always go to the ZBA and try to get a variance. And then the last thing, I don't know if anybody driving down Route 6 towards Manchester
had noted the Hop River Shepherd's bus for, you know, it looked like a big box truck. I'm sure it was his bus, but I've only driven down the road once and saw that. I said, wow, that doesn't look like, I'm not sure that's what we're going. But anyhow, I was thinking about putting in something that did not allow that to happen because I didn't think that was conducive to the beautiful rural characteristics we were seeing as we drove down Route 6. And I made some other changes, I didn't work too much on signs because it's one of those black hole kind of topics where every time I look through it, say, well, we ought to tweak this here too. And then I start working on that and it just keeps growing. And I am now all done. No more changes. I'm going to see if I can get Abby or Amanda to help me put it in the proper format so that it all looks pretty and then we'll get it out to you again and we'll take a look at that. But that's it for signs.
The last thing on our agenda, I think for the whole business was alcohol and cannabis rings. Marina, if you can allow me to share my screen again. I sure can. Should be good.
Let's see. So the last time we got together, we were talking about you know, possible winery and that sort of thing. And I think it was either Ann Cremay or Susan England who mentioned we were trying to do something at some point and we were stymied by the proximity to the rail trail. And that was a park. And that one caught me by surprise. I said, that does look like a park to me. But anyhow, I copied this out of Google Maps today to just show the proximity to Route 6 of the rail trail as it goes through here. And in our current regulations say that you got to be at least 500 feet away from a park. And you would see that just about anything down here and you can't get the full grasp because I see the little boxes, at least on mine it's, but it's about a one inch equals 500 feet. So down here where we were looking at the winery,
you know, that's about a quarter of an inch, you know, the 500 feet goes way down in the property here. So anyhow, that's just to give you some perspective on the rail trail to Route 6. Then I, so I blew up, you know, I went closer to look at this and sure enough, there's the label for this thing. It says Hop River State Park Trail. I said, well, I guess that removes all doubt as to whether or not that's a state park. So, for the winery, for the pizza place, for anything else that, you know, any place somebody want to build a nice restaurant or something on Route 6,
it's certainly within 500 feet of the rail trail if you're going to do it in Andover. And then I just copied the page for, I don't know, just to talk about it here. This is our zoning map, and it's not very clear. I know you can't read it very well. I couldn't read it when I copied it. But it does give you, you know, the orange is the industrial, the magenta or purple, I guess, is business, and it shows where those go just so you can see that, you know, wherever you would go in Andover, the rail trail is close by. So that's just for perspective. And I think I sent to everybody, you know, the feedback I got from Mark Branch when I asked him and he said, you know, really the alcohol regulations were all kind of a leftover from, you know, our Puritan past, if you will. And so I just wanted to take, so, you know, one of my thoughts was we could just probably do away with the whole shebang, but I wanted to go through one at a time with the Commission tonight to see if there was any pushback
before we headed off that way. But the first one was the boundary line of the town of Andover. And as I said, I looked at Columbia's. They didn't have that particular requirement in there. And so, you know, I think we can easily eliminate that one. No need for it. The other towns would have to get a, you know, they'd have to look at and comment on our regs before we would approve them, but they get a chance to push back on that if they will. Second item was a package store establishment selling liquor and again the reason I wanted to get rid of this one is, you know, I think we can only have one liquor store in Andover by, you know, the state licensing it's already within five hundred feet of the bar. The only one of those we have in Andover, so I figured, well, why do we keep that rule there? And then the third one is church, school, library, park, playground, or lot having frontage in a residential district. And I don't think there's any place that you could build near the church, near the school, near the library, within 500 feet to park you can. Playground, no, not within 500 feet of that. We're allowed to having frontage in a residential district. Yeah, it probably could do that too. But is there anything, you know, and I don't want to cavalierly just say we should get rid of all this stuff. I'm trying to think if I were a resident,
would I want the liquor store right next to me or a bar right next to me? You know, I've seen on the news in Hartford where, you know, the bar is right next to residential areas and trouble happens. I don't know that that's what we would be getting in Andover. I don't think we'd be getting any more anyhow, But I look at it as maybe an impediment to the guy wanting to put his winery in there if he were to buy all that property. But I'm looking for Commission input on what kind of restrictions, if any, should we put in our regulations. Anybody got any thoughts?
Jed I agree that getting rid of the you know package store adjacent to a liquor store within 500 feet the only case that we have already violates that so I would agree that we should get rid of that. Okay. How about some of the other stuff, Steve?
Well, I think the C at church, school, library, park, I think that's legitimate and if you know somebody wants to take issue with it right they can always appeal it but I think it's good to have it in there.
I I was concerned about the park with the rail trail being a park and there's nowhere in the business or industrial zone that's more than 500 feet away from the rail trail.
What if we just reduced the 500 feet to a more reasonable number, like 200 feet?
We could do that. Anybody else have any thoughts on that? I'm almost wondering
if it's worth for the park having a D and, you know, making that number smaller because I think when you're talking about a school and having seen on the the news, some of the towns that were trying to do the cannabis regulations and being close to the school, leave the 500 for the church, the school, the library, like for the park, have that as a D and maybe go down to 200 feet or as Steve was suggesting. I'll it out as the state park or the state rail trail. I agree with that. Okay.
Yeah, I feel about the same way. I think that
the 500 feet is good for the school, especially for the school. The church, the library, you don't really have children or the social life around those that you would have with the kids in the school. And a rail trail is such a long skinny thing. I would almost say it could be 200 or 500 feet away from a park, except for the rail trail. Because the rail trail is more like a road than it is a park. And make that the exception.
Okay, yep. And again, just looking at the school, I think we all assume that that's talked about Andover Elementary School where there's no area within 500 feet that you could put a bar or a liquor store because it's in a residential area. But leaving it in there just eliminates or it shows that we are concerned about our school kids and the environment they're in and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. The residential district, what do folks think about that?
I think it should still be 500 feet from the residential.
Okay. Again, maybe, yeah, somebody could go to ZBA, which would require a public hearing to get the, if they wanted to, I'm trying to, I don't have a good feel for where are the property lines on this subdivision that the guy came to talk to us about and how it relates to there are a couple of houses over there in that vicinity, but I guess we could do it with the ZBA public hearing. Jim, do you have any insight on that? You know, I thought, you know, we all kind of thought it was a good idea to have the winery with an event place, event venue, but I don't want to have drunken brawls show up in the backyard of the folks that live over there either. We want to protect those folks.
Well, the only dunk that comes to mind residential depth. The property, the old gravel pit property, we speak, I'm talking Route 87 And 6, does back up on residential street in Columbia as well as homes along Route 6. Did I answer your question? Was in the process of looking up school when you were discussing that because I had a concern about looking to see what our definition of school was. Okay, yep.
Look that up. I meant to say on the school, you know, all assume that's talking about Andover Elementary. I know there's a dance school over at Andover Plaza and and again, that's not 500 feet from the rail trail. Yeah, So the definition does include five from
the bar, I guess, Yeah, or the package store. It's right between the two, but you're only like 100 feet apart. That's probably not the kind of school we're talking about there. I think we're talking about Andover Elementary. And I could even put it in there, the Andover Elementary School. Get absolutely Okay, clear that's what we're talking did you find anything on the definition of school there, Jim? Yeah, well, does include private.
So I mean you could simply say public school, would think. Yeah, definitely. I'm not sure you you'd want to protect a private school. I mean private school in Andover in all probability would be a you know a gymnastics class, dance. So I'm not sure they would warrant protection personally.
Okay, so to keep me from getting confused, do we think I should limit it to Andover Elementary School or should we leave it to schools and somebody can get a ZBA process if they wanted to put a school between our bar and our package smart.
I think Jim had a good idea with having it be the public schools.
Okay, That's good. And if we were to get some prestigious private academy or something move into Andover Academy or whatever, then we could probably modify the requirement just for them. But the odds of that happening are probably not real high. Okay, very good. Okay, that gives me the input I need to go. And so, with those restrictions, I guess my thinking is that the cannabis shops would meet the revised restrictions that we're talking about too. What's good for alcohol is probably good for cannabis.
One quick question for you, Jen. Yep, go ahead, Kevin. The 500 foot rule, is that an envelope around the building of which it's being sold out of? Because, you know, for something like a winery, wouldn't want to save 500 feet from the property if they've got acres worth of
Right. Fines or talks about, and I think it was somewhere in the Andover regs. I may have seen this in the Columbia one, but I think it talks about 500 feet from the door. Okay.
The very bottom line on my screen seems to start to define premises. Yeah,
yep, there we go. So I should have just read a little further. Jed, you're
still trying to maintain the 500 feet from a town line? No. Okay, thank you. That's out.
That's my thinking. Don't think I heard anybody suggesting we should keep that. Okay.
Okay, that's all. That's good impact, good feedback for me. And again, whoever it was that brought up the rail trail is an issue of concern, give me a chance to look through that. I think that allows us to do that just right. Okay, so I'm going to stop sharing my screen and we'll go on. Discussion. I forget what we were supposed to be discussing here, Jim. Is this your section? Nope. This must be like the miscellaneous discussion. Yes, I believe it's miscellaneous, yeah. Anybody
else got anything we want to talk about tonight? Okay, we're going to move on. Approval of the meeting minutes. And I'll make a motion to approve the regular meeting minutes from 01/24/2022. I'll second, Leanne. Thank you, Leanne. Any discussion
on the minutes? I do have one comment. Is a reference to the separation distance, the 500 foot separation distance between a park and liquor being a state regulation, whereas it's in fact a local regulation.
I don't see 500 feet. Are you in page two?
No, am going from memory Jed, I am sorry. I shooting from memory on this one. Okay. I sent it to Abby, not realizing she wouldn't be here.
Okay. Yeah, I do not see anything in there that I think is problematic. Okay. May entirely not what I said, but I think it gets the point across that we were looking at those regs and I was hoping to get feedback from Mark Branch and he gave it to me and I've shared that with all you guys. Any other comments on the minutes? Hearing none, I'll call for roll call vote. Anne Kerme? Aye. Steve? Aye. Leanne? Aye.
Anne? I'm going to abstain. I wasn't here the last meeting. Okay.
And I'll vote aye as well. The motion passes four-zero-one with Anne Blanchard abstaining. Moving on to item nine correspondence, Jim, anything there?
Actually, yes. I got an email from Hank Gruner this evening, which I wasn't able to distribute, but he's looking for help identifying vernal pools. There's looking for volunteers. There is a workshop. There's actually a training on it March 12 from two to four I believe in the afternoon. If anybody's interested, it's a pretty minimal time investment. You have to go out and take a look at a few vernal pool or few areas and help determine if they are in fact vernal pools by looking through them. Can send out, I'll send it out to everybody if anybody has any interest then I'm sure there's contact on it. That's it for correspondence.
Okay. Item 10, administrative reports, Jim. Just sending out a few
letters, just telling people that the citation ordinance is in place, asking me to contact, asking them to contact me. I'm sort of just in the process of doing a few of those. I also want to point out, and I don't think this came up before, the ZBA did have a had Bart Grants come in a little while back and sort of went over the role of the Zone Board of Appeals. And a primary import of that was that really what a hardship was. And at the last meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals, they in fact turned down an application, which is probably the first one they've turned down in some time. So I just felt the need to report that. That's all I have. Yeah. Then then if take any questions.
A comment on that. It was interesting. At that training session, one of the questions that Mark Branch was asked was of cleaning up, you know, all these properties where we've got junk there and Mark Branch went through the fact that probably in a lot of cases, any of those cleanup things would end up going to court and, you know, the person just not gonna go do it. And I thought it was interesting. Again, I get most of my education on planning and zoning from the River East and I don't know if anybody saw it on the Hebron section from last Friday's paper. Illegal camper must go. And somebody was living in this camper on the backside of a fence on Church Street and
they've been working for years to get that guy and they finally made it through the court process. And now the courts told them to cease and desist and to get rid of the camper. And so we'll see how long it takes for the camper to actually go away. So we're not the only one that has problems with that. Jim handled it much better. I think that camper was gone over there on Whale Road or whatever, Townsend Road, can't remember which one it was. But that's on that. So, you're done, Jim, on the administrative reports? I am. I'm looking Any to answer any
other questions for Jim? I guess I am the Inland Wetlands Watercourse Commission liaison, and I think at the last meeting I was able to report that, you know, 580 Lake Road had passed through there and was coming to us right this minute. I don't, there's nothing going on over in the Inland Wetlands Group that is headed our way, so no heads up on that. Now moving on to public speak, I don't see anybody from the public that stuck around this late, so we'll move on. Next meeting, March 21, 7PM. So, this is where it says held virtually until further notice. I think Anne Cremay made the comment that maybe we should consider holding a public hearing in the town hall. If we get to a public hearing for
our affordable housing, and we will, it's just a question of when, I think doing it in town hall would be appropriate. I think that works a little better for getting the interaction with the people. What do the commission members, how do we feel about going back to town hall? I don't know how Ian feels.
Certainly think for the go ahead, Steve. Well, I think for the public hearings, I think it's a good idea. I mean, Zoom is very convenient for us, obviously, but when you have a larger public forum, I think it's good to be face to face, or at least have the option.
Yes. And the I guess my big concern is, and I think we can get around it, I have everything on my desktop computer at home and I can just call it up on Zoom. I don't know if I will be as successful getting everything on the website or to whatever laptop, you know, I'm kind of comfortable with my technology that I have and I can make my computer work. Going in to use a different one, not sure if we'd have the same success or not. I don't know that we've, I guess we probably got two laptops that we could use, one for, you know, the clerk and one to actually present stuff because it's not fair to the clerk to have to call up all that stuff and try and do that. I guess even the applicants, you know, it's so easy for them to use their own computer to call the stuff up, but I do kind of like with the numbers continuing to go down, headed into the right direction where we could spread out enough in there. I don't know, Jim, are we still, you know, masks required in town hall for guests coming in Nope, or is it all gone masks are not required.
Okay, optional. Okay, so Today, today. Today is the day, I don't get to speak for any next week.
Hi, this is Leanne. I have a question and a comment. Yep, go ahead, Leanne. I'm personally okay with, I mean, I am out in public all the time with my job, but some people still have reservations about this, and there's that new COVID variant out there. So just a couple things. I don't know what it involves to have a hybrid meeting, which Jed, I think you referred earlier to that the Board of Ed does it. If we met in the Town Hall community room, if we had a public hearing, we never know if anybody is very concerned about the, you know, still doing the six foot distancing thing. We you never know how many people you're gonna get at a public hearing. So the distancing might not be possible at that time, but that goes back to the other part of my question about what it takes to have a meeting where if you want to show up in person, you can, And if you are uncomfortable but you want to participate and you can do it from home, I'm assuming that's what we're talking about?
Yes, but we would allow other commission members and applicants to attend virtually as well. So the hybrid meeting is those that want to show up in person can show up in person. Those who don't, don't have to, and we figure out how to have that happen that way.
Okay, so that was part of my question. So we could figure out how to do that if we needed to. Maybe, you know, I I won't I've
I can I put a word in here? I've with my husband being board of ed chairman, I've seen how the hybrid meetings work for the board of ed, and they do have to have, you know, a large screen with the camera and they have a large microphone that they put in the middle of where all the people are sitting. And still there was a little bit of difficulty with hearing sometimes, but you do have to have the equipment for that to be able to do a hybrid. I had been thinking of just doing completely virtual, you know, completely in the room and not have anything on the computer anymore. But I guess some people are still nervous about it. So have to wait a month or two more.
I have a question regarding the hybrid, the board of ed. Can people speak at public hearings in the hybrid Yes.
On the big screen, they can look at the list of participants, and one person keeps track and goes down through the whole list and asks each person to say if they want to say anything. And they do go through asking every single person who is logged in, and they get a chance to speak. Thank you.
Yep. Anne, is there the people that are in person, is there a large projection screen is what you're saying with the Zoom? Yeah. So
they have a large projection screen like the smart board in schools because these schools have those. I don't know if they have that town hall. Well, have a
not huge screen, but we've got bigger than your TV screen hanging up, you know, kind of high on the wall in the that community might work. And that might work. I guess I'd like to try it in steps where we were to meet totally in person and make sure that we're comfortable making all the technology work to support a meeting in person. Once we got through that, then we could take it to the next degree and try to make it hybrid if we wanted. I think for the most part, you know, is we would be sitting in the community room, we would be looking at a screen essentially like the Zoom screen. We would see participants, unless there's a tremendous number, which we don't often get. And when somebody's sharing their screen, know, but we would share the, I don't know how it would work for us to share the screen and have those virtual participants win. And I don't think the Board of Ed frequently shares screens for presentations. They're just there talking, I think. Yeah.
I haven't seen a lot of sharing screens on that. We could certainly make it work. All we would need is one host laptop to be all of our file sharing, and we would all be consolidated onto one block, a meeting, and then we would share all of our material from that one host computer and display it to the meeting.
I do think that for the public hearing on the seventeenth, I don't know that we would get more than half a dozen public attendees there. The last public hearing, you know, I guess it's been a long time since we had anybody other than the applicant attend a public hearing that we have held. Maybe it's been one or two people for forum, but that's it. So I don't think we'll overcrowd the room. I would hope to get more attendees when we do a public hearing on affordable housing. I don't even know that that's necessarily true. So I will think about that. I'm going go over the community room, see how many chairs we can set up with what the arrangement would potentially look like. And we'll let you know in a week or two how that plays out for which way. You know, I'm also, I know that, you know, for each of you guys, it's easy to go to your computer and log on at the last minute, not have to drive over there. I appreciate the good attendance we get in our meetings.
We'd hate to do anything that would cause that to suffer. If you guys want to provide me private feedback by email where you think about something after we get done tonight, please feel free to do that as well. Okay, but our next meeting will be on March 21 at 07:00 and that'd be that. I do note, looking at my screen now, that there's a possibility that Ms. Hutchinson is still with us. Katherine Hutchinson, are you still here?
Yes. I have been listening. And at this point, I'll wait. And I'm glad that you gave the extension so that we'll have time to review everything that is submitted with regard to the issue that I'm involved with. And I will say that the reason why I wasn't in touch with anybody is because until Wednesday, the map that was filed dated the fourteenth wasn't available. And I did not was not given a copy of it or known, even though it was available till Wednesday afternoon. So.
I understand the concern and that I don't like it when as a commission member, I get the stuff at the last minute and don't have a chance to look at it either. So I share your concern there and we'll do better on figuring out when the right folks can get together to talk about what that plan is before we bring it to the Commission again. All right, thank you very much. You're welcome.
I think that brings us up to adjournment and I will go with unanimous consent. I'll make a motion that we adjourn the meeting. Can I get a second? Second. Second. Thanks, Steve. Yep, that's a second. All in favor, raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries five-zero-zero. And and thank you very much everybody and we'll see you on March 17 if not before. Good night. Good night. Thank you.