Meeting transcript
PZC Regular Meeting
May 18, 2020 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
First item is the roll call and seating of alternates. I see Ann is here, Leanne is here, Scott is here, I'm here, And Susan is here. So we will seat Susan as the fifth member of the Commission tonight. Moving on to item three would be any additions or changes to the agenda. Jim, did you have any changes you wanted to make on that?
Yeah. Can you hear me? Yep. There should have been a memo that went out from the finance office regarding the release of any unspent funds under the legal line item for planning and zoning for this fiscal year? Yes, I saw that.
Okay. That would require action I believe by the Commission. Okay.
So we will add that under item nine, the miscellaneous items. We'll discuss turning money back in. Now one of the things I forgot to ask Amanda before we started, are you doing the minutes tonight? I did not see Linda on here.
I'm here Jed. Oh, okay. I didn't see your name showing up there. Thank you, Linda.
Jed, if you try to go to the grid view, you can see everyone. Try on your top right. Yeah. Well, let's.
Okay there we go yep that Perfect. Everybody wants how nice that is.
Who the the name of the person is owner? Do we know the other person on the call? Just double checking. Carry on. Okay.
One other minor change to the agenda on item eight, approval of meeting minutes, it says April 23, I think the date of the last meeting was April 20. So with that, no other changes to the agenda. Is anybody from the public here and that would probably be owner, whoever that is, Is there any public speak? And Bill, we'll talk about your you have got the main item tonight so you don't have to talk about that here. You'll get plenty of time in just a minute. Excellent. Thank you.
Okay, hearing nobody that wants to speak on behalf of the public, we'll go on to the new business. And Bill, that's yours to brief us on however you'd like. We're ready to accept the application and I did see Jim that the application form showed up in the file late this afternoon so we did get that on top of the numerous other documents that you sent to us Mr. Devine. I'm Bill. Very good, Bill. Don't need the mister.
Just for the record, is Jim. The application was in fact submitted prior to today.
Yep, I understand. We're just trying to Got lost in the abusive computer.
I'm happy that we found it and got it posted before the meeting started tonight so that when we get to you, Jim, you can tell us the status of having a complete application and we'll go there from that. But heading back to Bill at this point. Quick overview, Mr. Chairman.
I'm not hearing you as well as I was before, Bill. Well,
let's see if I can I'm on speakerphone. I'm hearing you better now, yep. Okay. I'll just hold this up. You want me to give you a brief overview of what we're Yes, please. Okay. I got to back up a little bit and tell you that this is our tenth house. Did not expect to have a tenth, expected to stay in our ninth, which was a 1769 Georgian in Bosco in New Hampshire. We spent nine years restoring. One quick sentence about that, the people who bought it had an appraisal and the appraisal report that it was built in 1769, but the effective age was eight years. Think about that for a second. 1769 house effectively eight years old. That's how much restoration we did. So why are we before the commission tonight and what motivated it and what's the plan? Well, the plan is that we have a 51 year old son, graduate of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. Jason has never borrowed a dime in his life. He paid cash for everything he's ever done. He wants to get out of the city of Baltimore.
He worked for us at one point in time back in the early 2000s as a shipping manager for our catalog company. And he wants to get into organic farming. And we saw an opportunity to do a number of things, one of which was to have him closer to us and at middle 70s as my wife and I are. We figured we were going need a little bit of help eventually, not today, but eventually. Our daughter is in Portland, Oregon. Jason wanted to farm, wanted to get of Baltimore City and we said, okay, let's look for a place. We are Casey, my wife and I are very much dyed in the wool and native New Englanders. We will not live anywhere else. We've looked at other states, we've lived in other states, Missouri, Illinois, New York, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire and now Connecticut. Connecticut, we wanted to come someplace where it was a little warmer, someplace that had another old house because we are hold house people. And you can't go any further south in New England than Connecticut. So that was part of the reason for looking at Connecticut. The other was looking for a property that had an old house that we could do what we do best with and that's restored, that had enough room for our son to be able to start
a career as an organic farmer. And we needed a place that either had an existing accessory apartment, second building or one which had enough space and a town that was willing to let us do it. When we bought this house back in the fall, we closed December 4 and one of the three contingencies that we had when we bought them, when we made the offer on the house was the ability to build what we were calling at that point in time a caretaker cottage and we still think of it that way. We met with Jim's predecessor the last week that John was here. He walked through it, told us, yes, you can do it. It's a lengthy process, plan on two to three months, but you can do it. Warned me that the application was going to be a pain in the neck. So with that we removed the contingency. The other two that we had incidentally had to do with septic and weld. We didn't care about the house. We've done this enough time that we could go through it and we knew the kind of stuff we were going to have to do to make this restoration something we would be comfortable with. So with all of that, we chose Andover very carefully. We spent more than nine months looking for a property. And in fact, when we came to look at this, we had a full price cash offer on our house in New Hampshire that we didn't sign off on because we didn't have a house yet.
And we looked at this one and one in Hebron as a matter of fact, the last two. And if this house had not been right for us, we would not have made the move until probably now sometime. So that's the background. Our son is ready and eager to come. We're waiting for this crazy virus malarkey to go away or at least enough so that we can get him up here. We're planning now sometime in mid to latter part of June. If all goes well, if the members members of the commission agree that we have a project that is worthy of being done in Andover, Connecticut. We hope to be able to break ground in early July and have him in his detached accessory apartment to us, Caretaker's Cottage by early fall. Obviously no farming work until next year. That's the overview. I do want to say before we get into what questions you may have, I really want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and the members of the Commission and especially Jim for being open to allowing me to try to put together an application that seemed to me at least to answer all of your questions and concerns without having to go to that ungodly expense of doing some of the things that for a good reason are in the site requirements of the zoning regulation. I'm ready for your questions.
Well, I would hope that when we get to the end of this process that you would conclude that it was one, not overly lengthy and two, not overly a pain in the neck. So I am going to jump to Jim for his assessment of the completion of your application. But it looked like you did a lot of good work preparing for what you sent to us and we all appreciate that. Thank you. Jim,
what's your conclusion after reviewing the materials that have been submitted?
Okay, I met with Bill number of times over the course of the last few months and spoken to him and I did visit the site briefly. He put together very thorough application. Neat. As some of you know, the application is coming for you. This is the first time anybody has applied for a special permit for a detached accessory apartment. This is the revision 4Point113 allows that under certain parameters. It seems to have met those. I believe we're still waiting for final approval on this septic. Is that accurate, Bill? I'm sorry. Still waiting for what, Jim? Yes. An approval on the septic plan?
The other improvements? Approval. Oh, the approval. Oh, yes. Well, no, I think the only other approval that is out there that I'm aware of at least is the wetland certificate, As I've shown you and done, and we've talked about this, the wetlands are Okay, in
I'll touch base on that. Currently, I am not authorized to sign off as wetlands agent. Trying to work through that. What I've done on other properties is look at information that's available in recent subdivisions. Nothing on file for this particular property. I did walk it, both site is well over a 100 feet from what appears to be wetlands in my opinion. I say well over maybe 125 feet. That's about right. Site itself is a fairly large lot and it's fairly flat or at least a good portion of it is. It seems to lend itself to the bill's intent here. Just as a point of record, the application came in under the name of William and Casey Devine Family Trust. There's not any other name out there associated with application, was my error. At such time as did the commission choose to accept the application, that's the name that it came in under. That's about all I have. I still am continuing to look at it, but it looks very thorough.
Okay. Would any of the other commission members have any questions for the applicant here this evening?
What exactly are we gonna go over tonight? I mean 20232 b is a long list of things that that have to be put on a print.
And that's a question that I would put back to Jim. I'm a little not certain myself when we're talking about an accessory apartment. Do all the requirements of a site plan need to be complied with as you go through the special permitting thing? It says
in 4 Eleven-two, which is the accessory apartment that it tells you to go back to 232 B. And 232 B is, you know, there's 10 or 12 things that are missing.
That that is absolutely correct, mister Person. That section 23.2 B, the site preparation thing, as I mentioned I guess when we first talked at the last meeting and when I had numerous discussions with both Jim and his predecessor that, you know, I'm an old dude and I've done a lot of stuff in my life from writing major grant applications to owning and running radio stations. And I got to tell you in my 74, I never panicked over anything in my life. So I looked at that site plan requirement. And it was when I had the advice that and when I read the section and I've forgotten what the proper number is, where the zoning regulations and I think in their wisdom when they were written gave the commission the opportunity to waive any sections of that 20 three-2B site requirement that they felt could be waived. And if I had to hire someone to go 200 feet from my lot to try to determine the height of people's houses, where the septics were, where the wells were. If I had to do the diameter of all of the trees that were three feet at chest height and identify all the flowers and the fauna,
I couldn't have done it. To have someone who prepares these kinds of things do this would probably have cost us, I don't know, $40,056,000 dollars $7,000 and at that point that would have made the project with our budget that we have for this, which is I think a pretty significant one, it would have made it inadequate. So I guess, Ms. Person, the answer to your first comment is yes, The actual regulations do have a number of points in them that have not been addressed by my application. What I think my application does do, consistent with the zoning regulations as I've read them, I think they do give you everything that you need to do your due diligence to decide whether or not this application for a detached accessory apartment meet the spirit and the letter of the zoning regulations. To be blunt, to be honest, I believe they do. But you are correct, sir. It it it does.
I I would say that what you're saying is accurate, but, you know, it clearly states that all the things in twenty three two b have to be met, And it's not like it's a lot. It's, you know, an A2 by a professional engineer, you probably have to have the test bits where they're located on there, the height and type of construction of the building, building coverage on the property, which is not a big deal, the plan for the cars, where the cars are going to be located. E and S, that's a requirement 4.1. To test, I know you had a water test done for, I don't know what if it was just for gallons per minute or the quality was done, but that has to be done. The approval by wetlands has to be done, lighting,
where the lighting's gonna be. Mr. Devine, this is our first accessory apartment and I think we need to do it fairly adequately. And and all that stuff you know a surveyor can put that on a piece of on a drawing very quickly.
Sir, I do not disagree with you. You need to be comfortable with this. I absolutely concur with that But I think that the framers of these sections of the zoning regulations recognized that there were certain projects that were much bigger and certain projects that would be much smaller. That's why I believe that the Commission was given the authority to waive any portions of Section 20 three(two) that it decided to. As I went through Sections four, five, and six, I believe those are the three ones that I dealt with, I don't know what to tell you, sir, but I guess I when you talk about lighting, where does the lighting need to be? There isn't going to be any lighting. There isn't going be any lighting. There are so many things that are by our town zoning regulations permitted by special permit that it's a huge shopping list, huge shopping list. And obviously if somebody wanted to build a I don't have the regulations in front of me. So I apologize if I'm saying something that's way off base. It's not a nursing home. It's a seven ninety two square foot apartment. That's what it is. I don't have to worry about access and parking and how much is going to be permeated and all the kinds of things that someone building or wanting to a special permit to build something
bigger would be. And
I concur with what you're saying, mister Devine. I'm only one of five. You know, if other people have views, know, everyone's views should be brought up and I'm open to any, any new information. I always am. I'd like to hear what everybody else has to say about it. Thank you.
This is Jim. I just wanna note that that, mister Devine did request waivers in in this randomly. I mean, he did specifically request waivers. And the way the process is structured, waivers are granted until such time as the application is the public hearing is open and the commission is deliberating. So that's how we got where he is. Right.
I've heard of waivers being granted for scale or a two foot rule on the topography or some stuff like that, you know, wetlands if there's none in the vicinity. All those things are things that I under This is building, mean if you're gonna put in a shed they have to have it on a piece of paper someplace. With the building, you know, style, what you're building it out of, know, everything has to be there. This is gonna be a dwelling. Just think that there should be a little bit more information on a little bit more information given. That's all. That's all I'm saying. Scott,
he did provide a copy of the architectural plans. He provided a map that showed where this is gonna be located. And so I thought most of his waiver requests were very reasonable considering 790 foot building. But and I thought the architectural build design was very attractive and in keeping with a historic site of this type.
Right and I'm glad that you're saying that Sue, I'm happy that somebody else is saying something. One thing that it does say is that it's supposed to be a professional engineer that you know Connecticut registered professional engineer that has to sign off on this. If you want to waive that also that's fine with me too.
Oh I think we had the did you have an I can't I don't have up in front of me right now. I did study your plans this afternoon. Were they done by an architect or an engineer?
The house plan was done by an architect. Okay. The the A2 survey of the lot, that was obviously done by a professional surveyor.
Maps that he used were copies of an eight of plans prepared by an engineer for the best part of the subdivision years ago, I believe. They were just reused.
And we've done that. We've allowed that repeatedly in the past take plans that existed, older A2 surveys and have gone with them. I
don't have any problem with that using that one. I think that you could, you don't think that adding an additional structure to an existing state to by a professional engineer is anything that you'd like to see?
On the drawing for the caretaker's cottage, I see where it looks like put it's up by an architect. And so if we go back to the start, I agree with Bill, I agree with Scott, I agree with Susan, and I agree with Jim. And so as I look through the information that Bill provided to us, I thought that he hit most of the high points on all the requirements that I could find in there. As he mentioned, you know, at one point when we were looking at the property, and I forget the fellow's name where he's got the home business, And one of the things we specifically looked at over there was the lighting around the big garage that he was putting up for his home business over there off of Long Hill Road. So there are some things in there that are clearly not applicable. I tried to go through our checklist to see how did that do for getting the things that we were looking for. And you know that checklist tries to be one thing, it tries to be the answer to everybody's prayers on how to get ready for an application and I wasn't really satisfied
with my walking through that either. And so the way the process should go is that all the materials come in, Jim and Bill would have sat down with the checklist, gone through item by item and they can have a discussion and say yes, it's applicable and we got it. No, it's not applicable and here's why. And we need this one and it will be submitted before we get to the public hearing. But the checklist wouldn't have done an item by item look like you did, Scott, when you were looking at that particular section there. A couple of the things that I went through, you know, and it said each special permit will have the erosion and sediment plan. And I went back and I looked at Bill's notes that he provided. And I thought he had a satisfactory discussion in there on erosion and sediment controls. And essentially, you don't need much to go do what he's looking to do.
So I guess it would certainly be easier to do that if we weren't in an environment where we couldn't get a couple of us sitting around a table looking at a drawing to do that. And I was hoping that by now we would be back to the point where we could do that. We're not there yet. What I kind of like to think the model should be, would be that when we do something like an accessory department, and I agree this is the first time through it, we need to do a pretty close look, Or even the subdivision that we went through for the first time a month ago with the open space issues. That we have that discussion and we go item by item and we say, yep, this we need, this we don't, and we can come up with a small list. But as I went through all the things in that section you cited, Scott, I was hard pressed to come up with something
that I thought was important that he didn't include there. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be out there looking for it. That doesn't mean we shouldn't figure out how to have the special permit. The first special permit I went through my feedback to the group after we were done was it's a free for all. We didn't pay any attention to any of the requirements. We just went out and said, okay, go ahead. And so we are looking at going from one extreme to the other and trying to find what makes sense going through there. If any member of the Commission had, you know, I guess the other thing that I was thinking of as I went through here was the question on topography and do we have a drawing that specifies the topography of the land. And that concerned me a little bit with the development of a sediment erosion control plan. But I heard the comment either Bill or Jim made that it's fairly level. And one of the suggestions that I was going to make here tonight is that ask if there's any interest in having the Commission go over and do a sidewalk on the property because I think that would help us gain a better perception for what are the important attributes that we need to make sure get included in the final plan. Are we happy with the information you provided us there?
I'd be delighted to have you come look at the property.
So how does the commission feel about doing something like that?
Jed, this is Leanne. I have a couple of questions. Yes. Go ahead, Leanne. Is excuse me what paperwork has been submitted. I'm looking for attachments from last month and if anything was sent today or even since the last meeting regarding this, I didn't get it. I don't know if it's something came today that Susan is referring to. I also, as you know, didn't get a copy of the meeting notice for tonight. So I don't know if something is not coming through to me. Are there drawings? Are there waiver requests that others received? Others on the commission? Okay. So Leanne,
if you and I know Scott and I had a conversation on that earlier today too. If you go to the planning and zoning, go to the town website, click on planning and zoning and then scroll down underneath all that introductory stuff, you will find a section that has and it's right above the different applications that you could click on. I think Amanda is trying to call up that screen
now maybe. So this is not the section with the It meeting
is not. No, and that was one of the things I was going to talk about later is, know, Jim and I have been talking about what should we be talking about, and it's the process. Because how do we bake this stuff in a cogent form where it's easy for us to find it? We need to talk about why the emails aren't getting through to the people that need them and that sort of thing. But you see up on the screen now the Planning and Zoning Commission and I think Amanda if you scroll down. Yes.
So I just wanted to share that Leanne does have an AOL account and it's not her, it's us. Our town email has trouble getting through to AOL and Yahoo account. Sometimes that happens.
I know reference, I do have a Gmail account that we can use, and I it's just been the last mean, it's just been actually this month and if anything was sent, as I said, other pertaining to this application that we're talking about or something else that I didn't get since our last meeting because in the past I haven't had any trouble. But no, I haven't seen anything regarding this application at all.
So up on the screen now, Leanne, is all the information that was submitted with respect to this application. Okay.
And there's a lot of it there and we're just talking about accepting the application tonight. But there's a fair amount of information there. It might not be everything that's in accordance with that section 23.2, there's a fair amount. And I went looking through something that troubled me that I couldn't find. And as I say, I was struggling with the topography, but my suspicion was it was a fairly level lot. And that was commented on here tonight.
Okay, so if we're not finalizing anything tonight, we're just accepting, then I have time to go in or somebody has time to send these things to me to another email address.
You do. Just to go back to the point on the email distribution, we need to standardize how we want to do business. Sometimes all the documents get emailed out to us. For this case, it's all here in one spot. And I think that's good. Scott and I were talking earlier about for the Board of Selectmen, there's a folder for the meeting. Well, I think after I thought about that, I like the way that this is laid out here because all the information on this particular application is in one spot, whether it came in the last meeting, this meeting, or in preparation for the next meeting,
anything you want to see is right there. I would share that I also did not get the email from the town. Well, did get it. Somehow every now and then one from the town goes into my spam file and I don't get to see it. And so we'll look on getting the email problem straightened out. But I thought we had a pretty good documentation justification for what Bill was looking to do. If there's I'm like Scott said, I'm one vote. But I thought he did a pretty thorough job. Certainly neither Jim nor Bill know how to read my mind yet as to know exactly what I'm looking for. But I thought he came pretty close to getting it there. Don't want to give away the farm but I don't want to make it such a pain in the neck process that we can never get through it either.
So that's kind of where my feelings are on the subject here. I want to have a good standard, but I don't want to make it excruciating where we're putting the same amount for a caretaker cottage that we would for building the Taj Mahal.
I mean even down to the Aspville. What are you going to do for that?
Yes, the As Built, in fact, I don't know whether it's part of all of this or not, but I know I had discussions about it. What I am willing to do, and again, I'm not sure that I put it anywhere in there, there has to be an As Built. It ought to be done by an engineer or by a surveyor after the foundation is in. And I think that may be one thing that you really want to see plus to be honest if you look at the A2 survey and you look at the actual, what I call the location, which is the aerial map, you can see that the existing barn is not positioned correctly on the A2. So there really should be an as built, which is done after the foundation at least is in maybe even beyond that. I don't know. That's up to you folks to tell me when you want it done. But there should be an as built done. I agree with that. If
you have an engineer come for that, it would be very simple for him. If he's going to do the as built, he can put in a lot of stuff real quick. It doesn't take long for an engineer to put a few different things in so that we can see that a lot of these things are on the print. Yep.
And in the, you know, the septic test holes. Where are they located?
You have those. The the test holes are on the the the testing locations.
Right. I I I read all that, Bill. But it's normally just all on a print. And he could put the cars where the parking is going to be where you it only takes those guys very, very short period of time to do that kind of stuff. That's that's that's all I'm having a problem with is just, you know, something documented, more documentation is all I'm looking for.
Can can that be done this person? I mean, after the foundation goes in?
Bring them there at one time and have them fulfill all these requirements and I, you know, that's fine with me. But you had, I read through every document that you had and it all looked really good. But then when I go back to '23 to be and it specifies that they want these things. And that's all I'm having a problem with. The rest of it was fine. I think you did a great job. You did a much better than a lot of people I've seen.
Thank you. Honestly, appreciate the comments and I really did did try my level best to answer all of this. There is some stuff that I could not do. There's some things that no way I could do in any kind of reasonable timeframe, like the topography stuff. I mean, looked at all the maps and it was at that point when I looked at all the maps that I began to have a I hate to admit this because I'm a pretty calm guy. I had a panic attack and I looked at that 52 item checklist and I went through it. And just as Chairman, as you said, I went through and I checked off all of the things and I wrote NA beside the things I didn't think necessary or at least from my perspective, I didn't. And any engineer can overlay photography on a map.
Well, I do agree that there should be an as built. I guess my questioning at this point is it's a kind of a rock and a hard place. I'm willing to do it. That's not the question here. I'm just wondering whether or not it provides the town with a more accurate, better record and provides this landowner with a better record if the as built is done after the foundation is in place for the building. I'm also waiting for the actual drawing from DrainWorks from Justin in terms of the septic stuff. I mean he's been here, he shot the levels and Thad King had told me where he thought the tank should be and where he thought the leach field should be And of course, Justin has all of that. And when when Thad King was here, I actually used a couple of driveway stakes to mark what he had suggested for the actual locations. Then when Justin came and configured the whole thing, it's
And the engineer can put all that stuff on the document for you, make a better document.
Yeah, this is Jim. First of all, I'd like to address Leanne's question earlier and I apologize you didn't get a copy of the agenda which would have directed you to the town's website. But if you send me your email, I'd be happy to get it out. But there is one item that is not on here, which Bill submitted, which is the request for waiver. And the reason it's not on here is because I didn't have it posted quick. Part of it is we just started doing this. Wetlands commission for instance, the beauty of this is that it goes back. In wetlands a lot of times there's applications that stay with them for three or four months. And folks have trouble going back and finding finding the right documents. So this way they're together by, you know, they're lumped by application. So so they're like, if if the commission intends, I mean, it sounds like they're looking for, well, at least some folks are looking for additional information. And I mean, this had come up, and I'm wondering if sidewalk is gonna transpire. If I had a checklist in place at that time and got a better handle on exactly what
waivers would be entertained which just wouldn't. And if we could that early on and try to accommodate the applicant here.
Again Jim, the model that I would like to go to is where you and the applicant sit down ahead of time using your best judgment and then you come and brief the Commission on these are the that we didn't think would be appropriate for this application and here's why as opposed to us going out and hunting for which ones weren't being complied with.
Jim, what were the waivers anyways and what were the applicable
actions? What were the waivers and where were they located in '23 to be? I don't have the numbers. Don't have that. I have that information. I'm sorry. Well,
I can go upstairs to my office computer and print something out, but I can't pull it up on Yeah, no, I think again, if Amanda Amanda can open it up and share it. The third thing well, Oh, here's question.
Where you got your arrow. Open that up. Yeah. There's
actually two different documents. The one that Amanda is pulling up right now, the waiver request, that was done back in March. And I would admit to being ignorant when I did it. I simply said, I want to waive the whole four, five and whatever it was. And the more I looked and then I had discussions with your zoning officer and it became obvious to me that I was not very intelligent when I simply did that blanket. And I did a second document, which Jim has and which I do have in my computer upstairs, which walked through and specifically identified which individual ones that I wanted to do. Well, actually, no. This may be, yeah, actually I'm looking at this up on here now. See I said items four, five, and six all and that's ridiculous. Okay? That's ridiculous.
Yes. And this is the letter we talked to last month and had that discussion. Yes. And
I think at that point last month I was a lot more clear in terms of my concerns. And in fact, as I recall, my discussion was, it seemed to make a lot of sense to be able to take the A2 and do all of the basically to do the flight plan on the A2 with such additional information as would be necessary to really give the commission the information it needs to do the due diligence that I understand and appreciate you need to do.
Okay. So we're saying there's a document that requests more specifically items to waiver than the one we're looking at on the screen right now? Is that true?
Yeah, I did. I did one. Again, it's I don't even remember now because I went through. I mean for example, the one I did back in March said all of Section four. Well, mean Section four, I think Section one, two and three are all basic information things that would have to be there. So there's no way that the commission is going to waive every single item under 20 three(two). You have by the regulations the right to waive anything you wish under 20 three(two). What the regulations say you cannot waive is so gee, I don't even have the numbers in front of me, but it was the sections that I addressed in one of my notes as a matter of fact.
Is there anything else that I should pull up right now that would be helpful? Any of these?
Well, Amanda, I'm looking for a drawing and it's got number two eighty nine on it. It's page eight of 14. And that shows the little subdivision over there, it looks like. Jim, do you know which one that is?
Try that location map, Amanda. That be at there. This
actually gives you, I think, a little bit of a sense about the levelness of the site. Mr. Person, you raised a question at one point about that. And I think Mr. Chairman, you mentioned that you thought the lot was pretty level. That location one, which Amanda just pulled out before, really shows I think how level that is. This is the A2. This is the survey that I referenced back in the April meeting about what I thought I would do. And what you have here, you can see where the three arrows converge. That's the location of what I call a caretaker's cottage. Yes, right there. That's it. The reason that there's a line there, there's the building and then there is a six foot porch and a six foot deck. And then the arrows tell you how it's positioned relative to the property line for my abutters. It doesn't show the distance, which is approximately three fifty nine feet from the back of that to the back of the property. The I tried to show the yellow is the proposed septic system to support the caretakers cottage. I have the existing house, septic system marked in a rectangle down below to give you a sense where that might be. And then the arrows in the driveway, that was one of the things, this person that I think you mentioned. There's an existing garage, which also has a 10 foot addition to it, which was done in March of this year with a proper building permit.
And what I have done, I've had Ron we had horrible, horrible bittersweet and that area to the front side of the garage where there's some, yeah right there. That was a mess. I mean there was a torn up doghouse in there. There was rubbish. There was the tailgate of a pickup truck, rubber tires, bittersweet like crazy and trees, but it was horrible, just horrible. I had Ron come in and Ron took his bobcat and cleared the whole thing out. It's not been contoured quite yet. But my hope and my expectation is that both construction vehicles and if ultimately we decide we want him to be able to drive out to the house or whatever is that we would use that access to the front of the garage and then go along the tree line, just on the grass. And if that didn't work, then I have a second way which is between the septic system and the garage. I prefer not to use that for a construction vehicle because it's a little too close to my lease field. I prefer not to have a heavy duty vehicle like that. So anyway that gives you a pretty good sense of what we're looking at and where the the the detached accessory apartment, the Divine Caretaker cottage was was very, very carefully positioned.
Another thing, Bill, is you you need to have the location of reserve septic area on a print.
I'm sorry. What do you mean by a reserve? The reserve area for that septic.
Eastern Highland must have dug for the reserve system area, right?
Okay. The reserve system, you mean the leach field? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The reserve area for the leach field? Right. Right. That's usually located on a print also.
I don't know what a reserve is. I know that there's a tank and there is a leach field. I said to Jim, there is as I've read all of the zoning regulations and I think I've read all of them very, very carefully as it applies to my project that there was no requirement to have a septic design there. There was a requirement to have a soil test, which we do have. I've gone a little bit further than that, although I don't have the evidence for you because Justin didn't deliver it when he said he would. And I emailed him today. By going further, I mean, I literally have a design coming with the specific locations for the septic system and the leach field.
And they must have dug a pit for the reserve because they don't do it without having the reserve on. They always have a reserve.
I'm sorry. Don't I still don't I'd be happy to I'd
be happy to work with Bill and address checklist. Go through twenty twenty three item by item and come up with a recommendation based on your comments this evening. What the commission needs and what might be waived.
Appreciate that, Jim. And Scott, I appreciate I your looked at this drawing and I said, well, that tells me what I need to know. And I didn't have the experience to think now there's probably a couple other things in there that we want to have with it. So I guess my goals are now cut in two. I know we can't make it so there's not a pain in the neck process. The best we can do is make it timely. But Bill, is that drawing that Scott's alluding to something that you think you could have done within three weeks so that we can have it in place to support?
Number one, I don't have a clue who I'm going to go to to have that done. But I will find someone.
Bill, if you know where all your pins are or some of the pins? Yes, sir. I know where all the pins are. I have to tell them. That's very helpful for them. All they have to do is set up those pins.
Is no be able to look for a surveyor to do this. If it's a surveyor, there's no problem. I can find a surveyor. Well, you're not. You're not really proposing any drainage. No.
A piece, I don't believe would be necessary. I think an LS would would meet the other record regulations. I believe. I can double check that.
Well, just just Jim, it just says professional Connecticut registered professional engineer. Okay. So it's gonna be Pete.
Ken, I I don't know how to say this other than than honestly and and and respectfully and and bluntly. I am right now very, very concerned about being delayed another month. Tried to start this process back in March. Jim was working with me. The virus stuff got in the way, so I did not have my April meeting in March as I had hoped to. It has been my original hope to be able to break ground in June. I know I can't do that now. I have no problem with the delay. But if you folks aren't comfortable setting a public hearing date for the June meeting, I'm going to lose another month. And if I lose another month, then I mean, I'll live with whatever I have to live with. I admit that. But gosh, it's going to make it difficult for me. If there's any way that I mean, if the public hearing is at the June meeting, that would be June 15. If I back up ten days, if I can find
a Connecticut registered engineer who can do the as built I just want to be really clear that we all know what it is you're asking me to do. So I don't come up with something wrong. I really live in fear of additional delays right now. That's not your problem. I know it's not your problem. I'm not trying to make it your problem. I'm just trying to be as open and as honest as I can. I guess with what's required for the timeframes and everything else, is it possible for you folks to accept this application with a provision that an as built be in the hands of the zoning officer by a date certain and tell me the date,
so that the public hearing can be scheduled for June. Otherwise, I'm going to lose a whole month. Am I totally out of line?
I don't think you're totally out of line Bill. Then,
If you can get all these things I'm sorry. The Asbills is after you put the before you start framing. Soon as the cement's done, you put do the as built.
That's what I that that had been my plan, and that's that's what I wanted.
How are you gonna know where to dig the hole if you don't have a stake in the ground? I do. I've staked the house.
Well, if you staked it out, you know, the surveyor can come over and and locate those stakes on a drawing. Yeah. Very easily. All these things, all these stakeout things that you have, all they have to do is transfer them to a drawing. All you have to do is stand there to pick up a couple pins and then go your stakes and put them on the print. Okay.
That's all they have to do. And then you've got to fulfill these things and I think you can easily.
When you say registered professional engineer, is that also what I normally refer to as a surveyor?
Yeah, you can probably ask Jim Hartman at Allisi Hill. He can point you in the right direction. Okay, sorry. Will.
You have to have the reserve system on there. You have to have you know you should write down all those things in twenty three-two B. It doesn't have the EHHD should have given you dug the holes for the reserve they should tell you where the reserve will be and he can put that on there also. This is a real live house it's not a shed. Correct. Correct.
Okay. So kinda regrouping here. I think there's two issues. The first of which would be we need a motion to accept the application. The second issue is do we want to do a site visit? And I'm not really particular about which order we do those things, but I think those are the two things that we have that are the next steps. Anybody have any comments on
that not being the way ahead here? What about the other the wetland review, Jim?
I was going to have Megan take care of it because she took the DEP course. Yeah. She's signing off.
She can sign off if it's it's out of the area. Do we also yes?
Think she still has to be designated by the commission when that can take place. Yeah.
Actually, I think what we have to do is we have to get some directives from. My understanding is next The time turning from Mark Brantz.
He's on the first side. And we will leave that meeting with an answer to the wetlands. Okay. You know, there's about three different ways that we can get through that. I don't think to come to a finding that the wetlands review doesn't need to take place should take the lengthy process that it does if the wetlands review does have to take place. If you go back to the Crogg diagram and it seems to have a pretty good sense, I would think, a stream over next property over to them that's on the far side of that property and it's got wetlands around that. There certainly was nothing around Bill's property to do that. That's good. Yeah. And so I think we can come through that whether it needs a whole board decision that it does not need to be acted upon through wetlands where Megan does it herself. That
will happen at June 1. Kind of be out of the 100 foot Trunk View area, doesn't it? Yes, and it looked to me like it was.
What I can do is ask Megan to take a look at it prior to that June 1 meeting. No matter. So it can be addressed. No matter what. What parameters there are? Whether she needs Commission action or not. I mean, she does. She's not gonna. All she might be looking for is designation, not a. Not enough.
Jim? Yes. Is Megan taken training to become the Wetlands agent or you know to apply for it? She took the training. Mean that's not her intent. Okay.
But she she was able to take it quite frankly because she's a DEP employee. Oh, she is. Okay. And she was able to do it sort of in house, I believe. Okay. Or it's just not available right now.
Okay. I don't know her. I was just asking because we've you know, John left and then the other person left, and then, you know, you had mentioned her taking the course right now. So I was just asking for my and anyone else's information.
I think we can come through the wetlands issues before we get to a public hearing. So let's take the easy question first. Is there a desire that we go do a site visit? I think it would be helpful to me. Jim, I know you've already been out there.
I don't have any problem with going out there I would like to go shave too.
Fine with me. Yeah it's okay with me I've driven by it I've just never been on the property.
Yep. Well, Bill's already said he's got the location for the house staked out and I think that just the situational awareness of going out there and take a look would be helpful for all of us with understanding what it is we're talking about. Okay. So with that in mind, we normally is Saturday morning convenient for folks to go out and do it? And I know this is a holiday weekend with all the social restrictions in place. I don't know that that makes an awful lot of difference. If we were to do something like 09:00 on Saturday, would that work for everybody? That's fine. Does that work for you, Bill?
I am happy to have you folks here whenever it is most convenient for you. Okay.
Jim work for you? Jim, does Saturday morning work for you? Yes, it does. Okay, very good.
Jed? Yes. This is Leanne again. Should we have the sidewalk before the public hearing?
Yes, we should. In fact, that's the way our procedure has it be done.
Okay, because I think in the past we've done it both ways. Yep.
But I think the more information we have before we go to a public hearing, the better the public hearing will be.
I understand that part. And if you have a public hearing that is not continued, then you don't have a chance to have a site walk as part of the public hearing. I understand that part. Maybe I'm thinking of times when we did have a continued public hearing only in that that can be useful because and again, it's a moot point if we're not going to continue the public hearing, which we probably aren't, I shouldn't speculate. But anyway, I won't make that point because it's probably not going to happen. Okay. So we'll do a site visit this Saturday, 9AM. Excellent.
Is anybody there willing to make a motion that we accept the application?
I'll make a motion. I would like to move that we access accept the application of the property of the estate of William and Casey Devine, application number PAndZ3Dash20 for the creation of an accessory apartment on 84 Bearswamp Road, aka Assessors Map 34 Block 27 Lot 6.
Thank you, Susan. I'll second that. Thank you, Sky. Any other discussion? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Anne? Aye. Leanne? Aye. Scott? Aye.
Susan? Aye. And I vote aye as well. The motion passes five-zero-zero.
So Jim, you're gonna go over 23B with the Yes, I will. 232B, I mean. Yes.
I agree with Scott. Well, I guess it's easy once you get somebody to come in and make the drawing to put a lot of that information that's in there on it. It would just sort of happen. But I'm still a little and I don't like embarrassing myself in a public meeting like this, but you know we talked about having this as built drawing after the hole gets dug in the ground. You you kind of got to have the application done before you start digging the hole so I don't know how we get ourselves around that. But if Bill's got the place staked out where he wants it, I think we can get a picture that reflects that, reflects the septic system on there with the leach field and the reserve field in case that leach field fails. That way you've got a place to put in another leach field. Guess that's what the requirement is. That should put us in pretty good shape. Right. And I know Jim can point you in the direction of a couple of engineers. There's one right in town.
Go ahead, Bill. It looks like you're trying to say something we didn't hear.
I was just going to say, now I understand the reserve meaning a second place for a leach field if the first one fails, which is why obviously they do three different test pits. We only did two test pits. I looked at Thad King and said, We don't need a second or third one. We've got two good test pits. And he said, Fine. You know, you paid for free. You can have a third one if you want one. And I figured I didn't need to have the man that I had hired to come and dig the test pits to dig a third one. So we didn't do it. Now I understand what you're saying and there's no problem given the fact that where the two test pits were in space.
Okay. Any other discussion on the application that we've got here? And again, in conclusion of that discussion then, I still want to go back and thank Bill for all the hard work he did getting to this point. To have the information we've got on the night that we accept an application, I think we're heading in the right direction on what it is we should expect to get. Think that was, for the first scrutiny of that, very, very thorough and well prepared. And so I think there should be no reason for us that we can't get to that public hearing on June 15. Thank you.
A couple of comments on that. Jim, does the town have the signs for posting on that? No, we do not. Okay, so
No, I can try and take care of that though.
And again, we're still operating under the coronavirus executive order, which if all you have to do now is send letters to the neighbors, and I don't think you need to have a sign, I think you'd be well served to put one up just in case there's any public interest. I don't know that there would be any, but Jim will go through with you what the requirements are for posting and notifications for the public hearing. You have to notify the adjacent landowners.
And I saw one of the attachments was the adjacent landowners, so I know you're prepared to go out and do that.
I did speak to Bill about that and I am going to send him a copy of the executive order that details what he has to do. And I believe the signs are still in order. Extra mail is not sent by regular mail. Pretty clear. You have to get him a copy. Okay. Anything else?
I will find a registered engineer. I'll start tomorrow. And maybe, Jim, if you've got some suggestions. But I will find someone, and I will do my absolute level best to have that done and in Jim's hands for transmittal to the members of the Commission hopefully no later than the first week in June. And I will do that. That would be great.
Thank you very much. And that completes our item five, new business. Bill, you're welcome to stay, welcome to go. One of the things that I probably should have mentioned right as we started tonight, the session is being recorded. So it's all on video, if anybody cares to go look.
Can I ask for clarification, Mr? Chairman? I'm not sure that the public hearing has been set, has it? I don't know whether that takes a motion or not.
I don't know either. You got any insight on that for me, Linda? You do have to set a public hearing date. Okay. And so we need a motion for a public hearing? Yes. Okay, very good. Thank you, Bill, for keeping us honest there. Thank you for keeping me honest.
Anybody care to make a motion that we hold a public hearing on June 15 at our next regularly scheduled meeting? So moved. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Any discussion?
I'll note that I will take care of posting the the sidewalk.
Okay. Can I just have clarification of who made the second because everybody was talking over each other? I thought it was Susan. I made it. Susan. Okay. Thank you.
Hearing no discussion, we'll vote on the motion at hand, which is to hold a public hearing on June 15 at the next regularly scheduled meeting. Ann? Aye. Leanne? Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. I vote aye as well. The motion passes five-zero-zero.
Thank you for your trust that I will do what needs to be done and thank you for your confidence And thank you all very, very, very much for these two approvals tonight. I won't let you down. We're going build something that Andover is going to be very proud of. It's going to be very, very consistent with the 1747 historic property. Thank you all. I'm going to wave off. I'm going go get my dinner.
Thank you, Bill. Okay. Moving on to old business. The item of old business is late regulations And both based on the timing and a couple of other things I want to talk about and the fact that I have not had the opportunity to spend time with Jim making sure that both he and I have a good understanding of the lake regulations. I want to do that before we bring that and spend valuable commission time reviewing that. So we will pass on that tonight. I understand that that is a high priority thing for us to get done, but not tonight. Moving on to item seven, administrative report from the zoning agent, Jim.
Out of activity, just springtime sheds additions, is a subdivision application coming forward in the near future. The gravel pit, there is some, what I see is, well, too material leaving the site, but I see it being sifted and such. So I will be monitoring that just to be maintaining erosion control team community gaining after storms. They do make a point to walk by on occasion.
So the subdivision that will be heading our way, is that the one over that we walked for Westchester Yes. And
Farms Road, I guess? It's expected to be a two lot subdivision actually bordering, battling the Bolton town line. So it'll be interesting.
Okay. Yeah, that was not Old Times Road. What road was that on, Jim? I can't remember. Webster Lane. Webster Lane. Got it. Thank you.
Jim, what was the second item you said about the gravel pit after this is next to the Extramart, I assume after material leaving the site seems to be being shifted and we're It's just being processed. What I see is is material being processed.
I thought you said something about after something happens, something else happens in addition to the part about the material leaving the site. Mean, I assume The CMS we measures? The the in place hasn't blown out. I'm sorry, the what is? The SILFEST, the erosion control measures. Okay. Okay, thank you. You're welcome.
Moving on to the next item on the agenda, approval of meeting minutes from April 20. I'll move to approve the minutes of April 20. That was Leanne? Yes.
Thank you, Leanne. That's it. Thank you, Anne. Any discussion on the minutes?
Just one tiny thing. I have about five windows open at this point. I think it was at the top of page seven or near the top of page seven about the Pine Ridge Drive. There's just one spot where it's called Pinewood. I think every other Every other reference has Pine Ridge. It's just a minor thing. Oh, I see it. Second paragraph? Yes.
Okay. Yeah. I see it there too. Okay. Very good. Any other comments on the minutes? And I got one also very minor comment on the attendees and I thought we should have Amanda listed in that group of attendees. So if we could add her because I know I couldn't have done the meeting without her being here and I appreciate her showing up.
I agree. I realized I had done that today. I'm glad I picked up on it. Okay.
So Linda, last time with only the minor corrections that we made, you let us vote on the minutes as amended. Is that correct way of doing that? I've always done it that way. I'm happy to do. With that in mind, we'll vote on accepting the minutes. Anne? Aye. Leanne? Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. So the motion to accept the minutes passes five-zero-zero. Moving on to item nine, miscellaneous items. Jim, you want to talk to turn in the money back in? The acceptance of yes. Do we have a copy of that memo?
If not, I have a copy here and I can a hard copy and I can just read it. It's not very long. Okay.
So here goes. Good morning, Amanda. I was wondering if you could help with something. I'm trying to get an item added to the PZZ meeting. I do not have email for Linda, our current Commission Chair. Purpose is this, the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance have asked that any available unspent funds be reallocated for other purposes. Planning and zoning has a large balance in the account 8010, legal professional. It would be helpful if they could make a motion to relinquish anything remaining. I will check on any outstanding bills to be paid before actually making a transfer. So the motion could read up to current available balance of $4,375 What was that number again? Thousand 375. You want to make a motion?
Yes. So let's make a motion and then after we have the motion, we can discuss it.
Are they asking to relinquish it at the year's end or prior to the year's end?
I think they're looking to get that now. Our year end on the June 1? Yeah, so and again, well, we'll discuss it. But my assumption is that as soon as we approve it, that money is going to be allocated to other things. Right. It's the legal fund? It is. Want me to make a motion?
Make a You mean, sorry, this is Leanne. You mean our year ends June 1, not July 1?
The fiscal year? This is Linda. It ends June 30. June 30, okay. June 30, yeah. That's all.
So did you make a motion, Scott? I can't recall.
I make a motion to relinquish $4,375 from the binding and zoning legal fund. What else?
That would be it, but I think it should say up to the current balance of $4,000 Okay. Just in case we have any bills that need to get paid out of that money going forward. All right, so I move to relinquish for up to $4,375 in the Planning and Zoning Legal Fund. Is there a second? I second. Thank you Susan. Any discussion? Who sent that to you anyways Jed? That's from the town treasurer Barbara. Okay.
And my only concern is I know when we went through and made up the budget for this year, we did not put any money in the budget for the extensive legal review. When we created the budget for this year, and I'm getting my this year's and next year's moved up, but the current budget, we put like $5,000 in it expecting that Park Branch was going to do a complete review of all our planning and zoning regulations.
Right, that money is going be put back in the new year, Jed. Okay,
so if that's going back in for the new year, then it doesn't make any sense for us to retain that because I don't think we will be having Mark do that between now and the end of June. Correct. Okay. So that was my concern about the request and it looks like we've got that adjudicated properly. Any other comments on that request? Hearing none?
It sounds reasonable if we're going to be able to have our money we need next year. It does. Yep. I thought that was a smart thing to do.
So with that in mind, call for a vote. Anne? Aye. Leanne?
Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. And I vote aye as well. So the motion passes five-zero-zero. Any other miscellaneous items to talk to tonight? I thought that the acceptance of resignation from That's item 10. Okay.
We'll get there in just a minute. And we also have commission open discussion coming up. So you've got a miscellaneous item that you're not thinking of right now. We've got other opportunities to talk about that. Hearing none, move on to Item 10. Jim tells me that yes, in fact, we did get a resignation letter from George Knox. And so
I guess at this point, we will accept his resignation and go on from there. Moving on to item 11, public speak. Anybody from the public wish to speak? I have one Connie Dixon?
Yes. This is actually Kevin Artisan, from 927 E Street. Hello. Hi.
Jim is already aware of the application for 12 Webster Lane. It's not an official planning and zoning application yet. Right now, they're doing wetlands. But, during the sidewalk, there was some confusion whether it would take a subdivision or a free cut. I know this can be handled offline. I was just wondering if the commission could clarify clarify if it was in fact a subdivision or a free cut. And I don't expect an answer tonight. Just wanted to bring it up. The law was worth $19.55.
I'd be happy to address that. Thanks, John. Great. It was actually the wetlands application indicated that it was a free cut, but the engineer, Jerry Hardisty indicated that it was in fact a subdivision. Okay. So it is, I mean, he would not, I mean, when plans are submitted it will be reviewed in its entirety, but he wouldn't go through the subdivision process if he didn't have to.
Okay, that may be the case, just wanted to bring it up.
All. That's It's the harder way to go. Apparently he wasn't aware of it at the time that he submitted the wetlands application and it's not a big deal really. Mean it's picked up somewhere along the line. Fair enough. That's all I have. Okay.
Thank you. Moving on to Commission open discussion. Anybody have anything to bring up to the Commission that
we should talk about? Did we hear any more on the Pine Ridge Drive thing?
No. I'm surprised. I do have an issue. I'm not on the commission, but I'd like some feedback on now placing materials on the website. Does that work for folks? I mean, the future, the idea is that all the material would be there. Meaning any letters in the case of Mr. Devine, the waiver request that apparently wasn't posted, which I didn't post, it didn't happen. But the idea being everything is there in one place. The agenda is sent out and directs people's kind of a reminder that there's a meeting coming and where it is because we're not going to be doing this forever. Thing and but direct people to the website. Now if people want packets, that's not a problem. Just looking for feedback.
What what does everybody think? A packet or how it was tonight?
I really liked the way it was tonight. I used to hate drowning in paper. And very often when we were review we were reviewing in the past, we didn't have all the documents that would come in the packet. They'd show up for the first time the night of the meeting. And I appreciated having everything available to me and having the time to go through and study it. And I felt much more prepared than I used to years ago. I think it was a very good move.
I think, Stu, what we're referring to is you put it instead of having an under planning and zoning, you can have it underneath the meeting agenda where the meeting schedules are in a packet with all the all the prints and any other information from the applicant in the same place. It was just you can either have it under you know planning and zoning or you can have it under planning and zoning in a different place.
My only hesitation with that I think it would be great but my hesitation is if things are coming in last minute, then it might be hard to get the packet together. But what works for the Board of Selectmen and Finance is having a deadline for submitting materials for the packet. Does that make sense? Yep. Yeah.
Yeah. This is Linda. I don't know if that works for the land use commissions. I think they go by a different set of rules as far as submissions go. Right. You can't Well deadline. And
it's easier for Amanda to put it in if she just throws in one piece too.
Something to consider for all boards. Right. Especially with our new web site coming soon she doesn't have to open up one and put put it back in right
I thought the way it was done today was good I just didn't know about it ahead of time so I didn't see him until the meeting but I think it is a good way to do it the way it was done on the website now.
So I think Leigh Ann I think oh are you done?
Well I was just gonna say that I could see some of the things under the divine property there were from earlier and then some things were just put that in but it was nice to have them all in one place which if it was under the agenda we would have had some last month and some this month just kept them all together
Susan, do you have any thoughts? I guess you said you liked it. I liked it and I fully support everything Anne said. It was just so nice to have it all there and I could trace the whole history and not be missing something and having to go back to a previous meeting to try to find an attachment. I thought it worked very well. So
I was gonna talk about the same thing that Jim brought up there. I liked having all the information for one application in one spot, whether it was last meeting, this meeting, or going forward. I thought that was very good. And all the other stuff, if it's not to do with an application, should probably reside in the same place that the agenda is. So if we would have had a copy of this email that was asking to turn the money back in or George Knox's resignation and all that stuff, supporting documents for the agenda could be with the agenda because there's no other file for them to go into. And so it's kind of putting the packet together. It won't be as good as the Board of Selectmen where they're getting it well in advance. But I also was always frustrated when we showed up at a meeting, found out what was going on, and that was the first time that you had a chance to look at the documents and you could not be prepared at all. So I thought this was a big improvement over that. The other, I share the comment that we didn't advertise very well what we were doing. I know I was hunting in different spots and I spent enough time hunting around that I eventually found everything that I was looking for. I think it will be easier in the future because I know those places to go hunt. It may turn out that there's a better place to align all that information and we'll figure that out as we go but
I thought as a next step it was very good and I appreciate that organization. I was a little thinking that it would have been nice to have had Bill's letter that talked about all the things in his packet and then everything was aligned so that you just went page by page and I said that may be a bridge too far at this point that that was pretty hard. I just went through copied them all off and stuck them together in the right order so I could find them. But I appreciated that. The other question I wanted to ask of the other Commission members is the good side of having a packet prepared when we get back to meeting face to face is that I didn't have to print any of it off. What I was always doing was I was printing the stuff off ahead of time
and then Amanda would make another packet of stuff and so we were getting, I was getting two copies of everything and I think it's not a tremendous financial burden to print it off ourselves. Although you would think that it would be nice to have the packet there. But if we're going get the packet, we're only going to get it on the night we show up. And I think that's not when we want it. So my sense is if you want a hard copy, print it off yourself. And that's just part of being a good volunteer. Anybody got any comments on that thought?
Is Leanne. I have just a couple. I kind of see what you mean, but depending on what the Commission members want to print out, I think that could really add up. A long time ago, we used to get everything. We might not get it until the day of the meeting, although we usually did. We used to get things several days in advance, and that was ideal. And then we started getting
We stopped getting much of anything as a hard How did it? Did you get it days in advance, Leanne?
Well, depending on what it was. If there was a deadline for somebody submitting something, then we, you know, would get it in our packet. If something could be submitted the day of the application, then no, we didn't.
How did the packet get to you? Was it mailed to you or did you stop No, by and pick it was mailed. Okay. Yep. I have never received a packet
in the mail since I've been on the Commission. No, it's been longer than you've been on here since this happened. Okay. And it used to be really convenient. So I think the but that hasn't happened in a long time and I actually asked a couple of times over the years to have it done again and no one did it. And then so again, I can see depending on how many drawings and just how many items we want to print out that it could add up. But I think you used a good term a few minutes ago about supporting documents. I mean, today we heard that I didn't know what was out there until the meeting. So then Amanda was able to post all the documents with the Divine application. And then as we were talking, I was able to go in and start clicking on them. But since this was the first month that I didn't even receive a notice of the agenda, think first of all, it's kind of strange in this day and age that the office has been having trouble for months sending e mails to anybody with a Yahoo e mail and now they're having trouble with somebody with an AOL e mail. So that's kind of inconvenient in this day and age. And also, I think there needs to be some mechanism to let us know that there are supporting documents, whether it's under the on the website that Amanda just pulled up under those items or if it's supposed to be part of the agenda. So it's kind of a catch 22. If we're not on getting emails
because Amanda has asked us several times to forward certain things to somebody else on the commission if we see that they have a Yahoo email because the office isn't able to do it for whatever reason. So it's almost like we don't know what we don't know. So I just wanted to share my frustration about the email,
but it is going to be fixed in the near future. Right, Scott? Eric Anderson is working on a new email provider. We all know it's necessary. So hang in there, and I'll keep using the Gmail account for now for you, Leanne. But I also just wanted to make sure did everyone get the email that came from Susan on Thursday, May 14? It said, please see attached agenda for May's meeting. All of the application packets can be viewed online. This is Leanne. I did not.
Okay this is Anne I did not see it but I got Jed's email today and I had also gone and searched for the agenda on the website Now tonight, I have because of somebody's comment, I went and looked at my spam and sure enough, there was Susan's email from the fourteenth. So now I made a note on there and told that it was not spam so then it came into my inbox.
So I probably will not have a problem in the future. Okay and I need to learn that trick because mine went in the spam file as well and all I did was move it back over to the other side and send it out to you guys. I think it came through as from Kathy.
Mine came through as from Kathy also, Kathy from the building department. Right and so who would know you know Sue's there and Kathy's been gone for a year.
And this is Linda and I'm not getting anything from building department.
And mine, this is Leanne again, mine was not in my spam folder either.
Oh mine came from Kathy I see that yeah. Is it Kathy on the on the header right but then
Susan Mowgre signed it. I'll work with Susan to change the name of her email. There you go, Amanda.
And Amanda, can you asked her to add me. I
actually sent her the commission contact list for the land use commissions and just reminded her to copy everyone so that shouldn't be a problem going forward. Okay great thanks. And
I think it is important that we get an email just to remind us that we've got a meeting coming up and and that sort of thing. I'd like us to continue doing that. Having to go to the website to find all the different stuff
okay. It's new, it's new but it's very informative. All the information is there. Just everybody needs to know where it will be found.
And somebody mentioned that some of the attachments and the documentation is fairly lengthy. And one of the things I've been forgetting to do while we're all blocked out of town hall there is I was going to ask for my own hard copy of the updated zoning regulations and subdivision regulations so I could have an updated copy because I like having a copy where I can make notes in there on this, you know, when we update it next time, fix this, you know, we had to struggle with this and that sort of thing. I for one would like a hard copy of updated regs and subdivision regs and I don't know
about that. I would like one too Jed if you could get that. Yeah,
I called Eric or emailed, I forgot which it was, and he dropped off at my house a notebook with the updated regulations. He just asked him to give Okay, it to
very good. Maybe so Susan would you like one of those too? Sure. So maybe Jim or Amanda can go pull the right lever to get Scott, Susan and I a copy of that. Ian's already taken care of. I would like one too.
I didn't see your smiling face there, Lee Ann. It just reminded me when the phone rang. Anything else that you want to do on So we can out of discussion, Jim.
No, but I just want to follow-up. I think what we will do is send out a test. Make sure we have current email addresses. It's possible that the reason there's problem is Susan's working remotely and I know she's had a lot of problems with her computer. I don't know if that's the issue or not, but. It's not it's not uncommon to have of late. We've had a lot of issues. Okay,
we've been working on them. I I I'm gonna speak better to that, but We had the special election ballot question on funding money for the IT upgrades. And everybody agreed that that was important. So hopefully those are in progress if not They are. In completion. Super.
Getting work on right now as we speak, I think. Yep.
And so we talked about the lake regulations and that being an important thing. The thing I'm trying to understand and make work as smoothly as possible here right off the bat is our process of handling applications. All the things that we talked about tonight, you know, we've got a bunch of things that are headed in a good direction. Again, I was pleased with all the work Bill submitted to us for the night when we got an application submitted. That's pretty nice and we will work on raising that bar but the process ought to be well understood and get us all the information so that when we come to the meeting we've had a chance to review all the documents
and we can have a good conversation about that. So that's really where I would like all of our energies to be going forward for a little bit there. The last two things already mentioned, know, appreciated Amanda's support and when I read the minutes from the last minute, the last meeting, I said I don't know what meeting this was, but it sure sounded a lot better than the one I attended. And so I appreciate Linda's work on making that sound so nice and having all the right information in there. So thank you. Thank you, Linda. Thank you.
Go Linda. And I also I just wanted to mention to the commission that the new town website is literally being worked on as we speak. So all the information is being transferred to the new one. And we should have a live site to look at very soon, and we can start working on all the pages and get everything set. So it's getting closer. Yep. Great. Sounds good. Almost there. Thank you. Good.
Any other discussion before we move on to adjournment? Would anybody like to make a motion that we adjourn? I'll move to adjourn at 08:51. Thank you, Leanne. Thank you, Scott. All in favor? Aye.
Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion passes five-zero-zero. Thank you everybody for your help. Stay safe. Thank you. We'll see you for the Sight Walk this Saturday morning, 09:00. Thanks. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Good night, everyone.