Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting
March 15, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Good. Are you. Jay, you may have pointed this out, but there's no roll call on here, don't believe. I did see that. So I think you mentioned it to me, yeah. So we'll just I think you just rolled it into the call to order, I think.
I will. Okay. Leanne, are you there? Yes. Okay, very good. And so it is 701. I'll call the meeting to order. And with that, we'll do a roll call. I see Vice Chairman Kerme on the line with us, Commissioner Persson, Commissioner England. We've got Commissioner SmithHustansson and myself. So we have a full commission here this evening. We've also got alternate Blanchard absent is Kevin. So there will be no alternates tonight being seated. The next item on the agenda is public participation. Judy said she was joining us. She's going to be a newcomer to town. I think the other members of the public here tonight are associated with the application we've got coming up, so we'll talk about that there.
But does anybody of the public want to say anything at this point?
This is Judy Conley. Thanks for letting me join. I'm very excited to learn more about how things work and getting to know the community.
Well again, thanks for joining. I hope we do you proud by showing up tonight and make it worth your while. I'm going to move on to additions and changes to the agenda. Does anybody have any additions they would like to make at this point? And I would like to make one change and just to best use our time and make sure we cover the most important things first. I'd like to move the new business up before the old business because that application is the most important thing on our agenda tonight and I want to make sure we don't shortchange any of the time that we need to spend on that. I looked, I think somebody could get by. Who has the music playing?
Leanne, if you can mute yourself via your phone or just be mindful of your background noise, please.
Oh sorry about that it's how do I do that? Are you on a landline? No I'm on a cell phone.
If you're on like an iPhone there's a mute button.
I'm trying to move away from it while we do this.
Well, have succeeded, Leanne, and we don't hear anything else now. So you either muted it or you got far enough away that it doesn't bother us. Okay, sorry about that. Yeah, and Mindy, our roll call records, I see Kevin Harnessen has joined us now. And Kevin, we did not seat any alders tonight. But I would like to have a motion to move the new business before the old business so we can make the change to the agenda official. So moved. Okay. I didn't see who said that. Leanne. Leanne, thank you, Leanne. Why I didn't see you say it. You seconded. Thank you. And all in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Okay, so with that motion passed five-zero-zero. And the next thing on the agenda then would be the new business to receive the application and set public hearing for application 20 one-one for fifty seven Hendy Road. Agent Halsey, can you give us a run through on the application for
that and what the status of the application is with respect to being complete or not?
Sure. The application is for a special permit to allow for deposition to fill and construction of single family residence in a flood zone. It also involves reconfiguration of the lot lines. We're starting with two lots, they're ending with two lots. More on that when the site plan is reviewed. Just for the record, the applicant went to ZBA for variance so as to allow this use under a special permit. It was listed as a prohibited use under, I believe it's 10.4, and unless it's section 10. So here we are. I'm going go through the checklist one by one. Be happy to answer any questions at any point along the way.
By doing that, Mindy or Jim, can you put the checklist up on the screen so we can look at it as you're going through it? Yeah, I can't. I'm using my iPad.
It on the website? It is. It's under pending applications and it's either the first or the second item under the 57 Hendy Road. Can you guys do that?
Yep, that's great, Mindy. Thank you. Okay, go ahead, Jim. Okay.
I'm gonna start. Number one, completed signed application by applicant owner, yes. Payment of required application fees, yes. Check-in hand. Three, evidence of approval by Eastern Highlands Health District. I'm gonna defer to the applicant on this towards the end of the, as I finish up. Four, evidence of approval of application in the Wetlands Commission for approval by wetlands agent. This did receive wetlands approval some time ago. I will make sure that the ruling is on the website if it isn't already. Fire marshal review, I said was not required. Length of the driveway did not kick in for a marshal review. Copy of required application to other federal or state regulatory approvals, not applicable.
All draft deeds for any roads, road widening, easements, drainage, not applicable, or municipal improvements. Existing and proposed covenants or restrictions, not applicable. Okay. Nine is for text amendment, not applicable. 10, hazardous materials, none, not applicable. 11, copies of all reports including hydrology, hydraulic and drainage, not applicable. 12, architectural elevation drawings of closed buildings should be on the website. Pretty detailed plan. Number 13, landscaping plan. Really very little landscape involved. I mean, it's a single family residence. I do see a check mark. I have not gone back to review the plan to see what what that might include. Perhaps I will I will go defer to the the applicant on that. Architectural floor plans, again, it seems to be a redundant listing. Existing trees, 10 inch in diameter. I I said not applicable. We I will verify that there are limit limitations of or the limits of of clearing on the plan. I don't know for a fact that's that's there. I will we'll make sure that that is number 16, lighting plan. I believe there's a note. I to I went through this with the applicant and asked there be a note on the plan just indicating that that lighting would would comply with the town zoning regs. E and S plan is on the is on our plan. Stormwater management plan, not applicable. Sanitary waste disposal plan, it's plan is we have. And again, I'm gonna follow-up. I'll have the, you have to follow-up with the status of the Eastern Highland Highlands. Number 20, cost estimate for installation of E and S. I believe I have that. Traffic impact, not applicable. Number 22, site plans. Okay, we do have it. Again, A2 boundary survey, again, it's a site plan location map that was added as an extra.
It was provided, it is on the website. Title block is on the plan. Number 26, if applicable. 27 is covered. 28 is covered. 29 scale is there. Overall site plan. If it doesn't fit on one sheet, not applicable. MAP is one one inch equal 500 scale. There's a check mark there. That's just for location purposes. We we have that. So original and revision plan dates, revision explanations. Again, those are on on the the plan that are are on the website. Existing and proposed grading, we have. Structures and features existing. Okay. That's just NA because there are none. There are no existing. Okay, exterior HVAC equipment, not applicable. Exterior existing and proposed driveway entrances shown on the plan. Site distances, I believe that's shown on the plan. Soil test locations, again, have that on the plan. Existing proposed sewage disposal on the plan outside storage areas. There's a checkbook there. Don't believe there were any, but I can have the, I'll defer to the applicant if that had, if I'm mistaken on that. Underground overhead utilities shown on plan. Water supply shown on plan. System wells and disposal systems on other properties determined that was not applicable. There's nothing in in the immediate area. Existing of proposed footing drains curtain drains if you remember because of the nature of this project, the proposed project being in floodplain. The the house that is proposed is is raised ranch with not entail footing drains. Hence, that's not applicable. Existing and proposed drainage systems, any affected floodway or floodplains.
Not applicable. Although we do have the base flood elevation. Jim, excuse
me for a second. Are we gonna be able go over these things other than what you came up with?
Well, I would like to perhaps answer any questions, but I mean, there's the public hearing, know, should the application be accepted, then the information would be gone over in further detail at the public hearing. Okay. Which would be the norm. Mean that is up to the chair.
My intention on going through the checklist was just if the agent made a block NA that any of the Commission members feel should not be NA, now is the time to speak up. So we are going to try to center up on what are the expectations that we expect from the applicant. And then we can all go off and study the drawing before the public hearing and make sure the next thing we're going to do is I'm going to ask the applicant to present his application with the site plan to us. But we're just looking at I've asked Jim to go through the checklist, give us his cut, and if we don't agree with it, now is a good time to ask questions about that as we're going through it.
Item 46 would be not applicable, bridges and culverts. 47 is proposed signage, applicable. 48, fences and walls with dimensions and construction details, not applicable. Zoning district boundaries should be shown on the plan. Number 50, table shown on plan. Check mark here. Have not reviewed that as yet. I'll have to check on that. Table of plan of parking. This is not applicable here. Yeah. That's clearly the that's not applicable. Mean, clearly parking is shown on the plan nonetheless. Bicycle storage areas, bicycle storage areas, not applicable. Sidewalks and pedestrian ways. NA, fire lanes, applicable, off-site traffic improvements, not applicable, limits of wetlands are on the plan, one hundred year flood is on the plan. We have a number of plans. I understand that they're difficult to read at the scale and they don't always expand well. So one of them is color coded. Think the chair is going to speak to that as well. With that, I'd like to defer to the applicant really for the, or through the chair and update on this the septic system and the Eastern Highlands review. Okay. Thank you.
Bill, were you going to speak for the applicant on that as the applicant, I guess?
He's still having some technical difficulties. So he wants to talk, but is coming through a little garbled, I think.
Yeah, we can hear you. It's a little rough, but I think we can get you. Okay.
Okay, I've had a little trouble hearing what you said. But something about presenting the application.
Yeah, the question was on the sanitary and approval of the septic plan. Yes.
I just heard, I can actually speak to that. I just heard back from them today. Andrew told us there was an original septic plan that was approved earlier. The septic hasn't changed. That's back when the previous owner owned the property, but he thought we should apply for a renewed one. The septic hasn't changed though. So they asked just a couple more questions that they wanted us to answer them on. So that's already been filed with Eastern Highlands, but it will be hopefully approved very shortly. It's not any different than what they approved before.
So there should be no problem getting that documentation before the next meeting? Nope. Okay, very good. Yep. Megan, I hear you loud and clear. I don't know if you'd be able to go through the, I see online there was a site plan for I think it was called the special hearing or something that you'd written up. Would you like to talk through that?
I can share my screen too if you guys would like to or I don't know if it's easier for someone else to pull it up.
No, if you want to do that Mindy, if you can allow her to share her screen with us that would be great.
And I will say my dad is the technical one on the plan so I can try to make it through. Right you should be able to now. Let's see. Can everybody see that? Yep. Yes. Yep. Perfect.
So as we're looking to the screen to the left hand side is where the existing 57 Hendy Road house is. And it's the U shaped parcel that goes around it is Parcel 2. It's kind of cut off on the screen a little bit. But the lot line revision, we're looking to go up about on this line here. It meets all the requirements that you guys were looking for as far as setback square feet. The septic is over here, which is where it had been proposed originally to Eastern Highlands. Your well over here, the house, the driveway is proposed pretty much exactly where there's already a cut through in the stonewall there now. And so as Jim mentioned, it's a four bedroom house, slab on grade. So it would be a raised ranch built up above base flood elevation. So the intention is to exceed all FEMA and local regulations.
And the construction of that, and you guys do have a section, I think it's 10 maybe seven, that has your own regulations too, which are very similar to FEMA's. So we'd be exceeding all of those. As well, Andrew mentioned about the septic tank being pinned down, those kinds of things that you would need to be working in a floodplain. I don't know if we can hear you, dad, if you have any more to add to that with the plan or if you guys have questions on it from what you see.
I did have a question on the repositioning of the lot line up at the top near the river on this. Know agent Hallisey said when we were talking we were going to end up with two lots. The way you've got that extra line moved over there, it looks to me like we would have three lots. The lot where you want to build the new house, the lot with the existing house, and then you've got this other lot off to the left there.
It would only be two lots. The line is going straight back from the street to the river. I'm wondering if that looks like a degree line that's on there. These are not my forte of reading these plans, but it's definitely one straight line or one line coming back from the street to the river to make it'll keep it two parcels.
I think the plan will have to be we will have to be noted on the plan that that line is limited essentially that lot line. There will no longer be a lot line. Where presently exists on the back of the house lot. Yeah, I was not being I mean that'll have to be identified on the plan. That's all. And it's not it's not except.
Okay, so just taking out that rear lot line on the plan, but that definitely is going away. Oh, so
Jim, can you address what Jed just spoke about? Sure. I mean, we're starting out with two lots, the existing house lot and a U shaped lot. Yeah, the lot line that you see directly behind. Okay, you got two so far. I'm sorry. You have two so far. Okay, so the lot line that you see sort of to the right hand corner of the existing house lot leading from the house lot to the river. Yeah. Is is the side yard for the proposed lot. The lot the line that you see behind existing house will be deleted. I mean, will will no longer exist. You know, a deed will be a deed will be drawn up for each of these two lots. You know, going from the river down, you know, the house lot would go basically from the skunk, you know, follow the skunk down to the hop, down to Hendy Road, back up to the point. So this is
a lot that the house is being built on, Jim, Is it gonna extend all the way West to the Hop River? No,
it's gonna extend back to the scope and the lot line. The side yard will be immediately behind the house almost. It's the line that you see. Just off. If you follow the side yard of the house, of the proposed house from Hendy Road back to the corner to a corner, which is the outside corner of the existing house. And you head back now towards the Hop River And then follow that lot line, you know, 90 degrees towards. The skunk so within that is approximately it has to be 60,000 square feet, so that'll be something Well, so there's three lots there.
No. Apparently I'm not being clear enough here. That once that okay. When that lot line is drawn, the one behind the existing house. Lot line everything towards the river becomes part of the house lot.
I'm going to share this plan Jim because it shows it a little clearer. It's not it's zoomed out so you can see kind of the square.
But so the. And I understand the confusion because it or at least I don't. I haven't seen where these lot lines are erased where they should be. Chad, do you understand what they're saying?
I do. And it's certainly not an issue that we have gone through before, but I can't find where there's anything that prohibits doing what they're asking to do. So if you look at the north and the west boundary on the existing house lot that they're now, I think they're discussing the proposed final would have those lot lines removed. So the existing house would go all the way west to the Hop River lot. So it's actually about seven acres there and then a small 60,000 square foot lot to the east, which is where they're going to build the new house. So we're two lots now, we're going to end up with two lots and the reason this is important, if it was three lots it would be a subdivision. With two lots you know.
So the line on the existing house is going to be moved to the west all the way to the upper room?
Either you can say it's either moved or it's eliminated you know it's the same thing. The house lot's going to go all the way west of the Hop River. The existing house is going to take all the frontage on the road. Yep. With the exception of that 40 feet. So, makes sense. They going to redo this print?
Well, and so that was going to be my first suggestion here. It would be helpful to us to have something that showed the existing lot lines today in the proposed lot lines for the final product. So it's clear that with the expansion of the existing house lot looks like in, I don't know how you show an erased line, but I guess you can hatch through it and show that it's going to be eliminated. But the drawing ought to be clear on what the property is going to look like in its current state and its final state so we don't have any confusion on what we're actually doing.
Yeah, so the proposed lot line should be clearly labeled and the elimination, the two lot lines that are eliminated should be clearly noted as well. And that should clear up the confusion, I believe. So was this on the checklist?
What do you mean? I'm sorry. A complete print. Yes.
And now we're going through to see what we need to add or modify so that Yeah,
I mean, go through the checklist and see if it's there. I have not yet reviewed the plan in its entirety to determine if we have everything, if it's accurate, if it's in compliance. Keith does
have two here. It's just zoomed out a little bit, but it does show noted proposed property line here on this one. Okay. Yeah. That zoomed in. Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, these would be taken out, obviously, which it says in the application that this all to the left would be attached to the house. But we can show those crossed out, you know, what it would look like.
Any other questions on what we're trying to do with moving the lot lines? Because that was one of the tricky issues with respect to this application. Okay, Megan or Bill, if you want to continue on.
Sure. So we've written a memorandum at the time that we went through CBA that was just explaining as well that Don and Bill own the house. They've owned it for a couple of years at 57 Hendy and how Donna was attracted to the property's unique natural beauty and the house was dilapidated in need of significant repairs. And now it's been fixed up. It's no longer a blight on the town. And since it's been refurbished, I've been living in the house, renting it from my aunt in hopes of being able to build next door. And then Donna's intention is to move back to this house and have it be sort of a family kind of compound. So that's been important to us and constructing the single family raised ranch home. We showed the color coded map that we had that kind of shows a little bit clearer. It's more zoomed in than this one. The intention of what we're doing. Back to that map, Megan? Sure.
And the proposed house lot will be approximately 1.3 acres. I think it was about 66,000 square feet. I do remember Andrew saying that he added a little bit more to it because he wasn't sure how much into the river counts as part of the property. So, he added some to it to be sure that we were above 60,000 square feet. So I think we were about 66,000. The remaining 7.1 acres would be attached to the existing 57 Hendy Road when the lot line modification is complete.
Okay, if I could just wait for just a minute there, Megan. On the application, it says the size of the subject parcel is 1.3 acres. Yep. And when I ran through my little calculator here, that comes out to 56,628 square feet, which is below the minimum allowed. And I know on you just mentioned 66,000 as opposed to 56,000.
I'm thinking our engineer did his calculations wrong then when he put it to acres because I had heard 1.4 something originally from Andrew. 1.4 would be great. 1.3 doesn't quite cut it. Yeah,
I think he did his calculations wrong because I do remember 66,000 square feet and like we said, making sure he went over because he wasn't entirely sure what counts as part of the land that's in the river. Yep, and our regulations
have the requirement in square feet vice acres and the minimum allowable is 60,000. So we got to be clearly in excess of that amount.
Perfect. Oh, yep, 60,287 there is one of the volumes on the property line. So let's see. One of the other things we're looking to do is to do geothermal. We'd like to be do some eco friendly stuff. We had looked at potentially doing solar on the house, but when we went through wetlands, it was shown that they would like as little disturbance as possible to the lot. There is a lot of tree cover here. So we decided not to pursue that at this time. So our intention is On
that issue, Megan, because I see you have this little red line with the little arrow heads on it or whatever. It shows the extent of I forget what you He said proposed line of disturbance?
Yes. If I were to look at that and look at your drawing that talks about the first thing you're going to do is cut down the trees consistent with what the Wetlands Commission was asking for that you limit that. I can't get a sense from the drawing on how many trees are going to be taken down or how extensive that clearing is going to be. And what I've seen on some other ones are a little line showing where the trees would be cleared around the house just so we have
a better feel for that. This red line is that and it was the same as it was on the wetlands print at the time that we got approval. We did do a walk through with wetlands as well where we actually paid the engineer to come out and mark where that area of disturbance would be. I know for wetlands they'd actually come and walked through and seen it live. So that definitely is something in that was considered as far as as that in Mark Dunn. So his proposed limit of disturbance is this red line here. So I will say from being living here, there are definitely some old trees that like I was walking my dog yesterday, there's a lot of branches that fall, so I think some of that was keeping maybe some of the dead trees away from the house kind of thing. There's some very dead trees in the mix in the woods here. So is what you're saying is that the pink
line in there is going to be the you're going to clear everything to the road in there?
No, I don't think that we would clear everything to the road in there. He just said that that's the limit of where we would be disturbing anything. So like over here, most of it to the right is for the septic and stockpile area. I mean, if you look at the house, it's not too too far back from the road as well here and actually there is that whole section to the right that's not even ours where we're not touching that red line is goes back at a pretty steep angle away from the road towards the septic.
Okay and one of the things we'll talk about after you're done presenting is whether or not we as a commission want to go do the sidewalk on the property as well. Okay. Okay,
I would say that that's probably the main thing that you know we wanted to share is that you know we we definitely love to have this project work out work and I would love to live in the town and live here next to my aunt. Are exceeding every. Code that we've been asked to and will continue to exceed everything as far as building codes with the floodplain my intention is to go through fema and. You know, make sure that that is we've exceeded all their regulations get the letter map revision after the fact. We are it's important to us to do that we're building up. Even a foot more above base flood elevation because we have been told by our engineer that FEMA will most likely be redoing their flood maps at some point their firms. These plans are essentially the same. You're seeing the color coding and such now to help make them a little easier to read but they're essentially the same that we've had since
we first applied in May of last year.
Okay and that drawing I see where you're going to go to an elevation where the house is proposed of 325.5 feet. Yep. And then there's another it looks like a proposed elevation of three fifty four that I see down on the south side of that. I don't know if does that extend around? I don't see where that elevation extends around to the back of the house or whatever. Or does it just drop off fairly abruptly on the backside of the house down to whatever the elevation there is, 322, I think. Yeah, 324
he's got on the front and then three twenty three around the side down to three twenty two in the back. So yeah, it does go down. It looks like two feet.
Okay, so that'll be a sheer drop from the slab down about two feet at that point. Yep. Okay. And the flood elevation is three twenty three?
Let's see. Yeah, I think it was 323, 321 maybe. I apologize. The engineer has all that. I think I saw it on the other map. Yeah,
I thought I saw 323.5. So they were two feet above the listed flood height. I assume you got that from FEMA. Is that where that number comes from? Okay. It
looks like you're going to be clearing half the lot in the front there. It's all going to be cleared. One boundary line to the other is going to be cleared off, looks like. It
does look a little more extensive than I was expecting based on the comment that we didn't want to disturb any more than we had to. I know they got it cleared to get the septic reserve but I am surprised that and we'll have to go back and look at the wetlands
approval. I can't remember exactly. It's been a while. The limit of clearing is from one property line to the other and right out to the road. Yep. The one to the left, just so you guys know too, there is not very much trees to the left of the proposed driveway right now. There's a little bit, it's lot of like Pachysandra and more sparse on the trees. So I mean over there, you know, probably be clearing just as much as I need for the well over there. So, as Andrew put, this is the limit of disturbance, not necessarily exactly what we would be.
I've always seen clearing limits on every print I saw always had clearing limits not limit of disturbance.
Yeah and I think that would be that's why I was asking the question earlier about the, you know, checklist talks about the trees 10 inches diameter and more. Right. We had some of the mature trees, it would be nice to have those left in here so that it wasn't a clear cut area. Right
now it's showing that you can clear cut that whole area.
Yes, and I know we've been surprised on a couple other lots in town where we didn't think that was going to happen and we got a lot more of the tree taken down than we can. But we'll see if we want to do a sidewalk here in a few minutes and that can be one of the things we can look at when we head out that way. Anybody else have any other questions for the applicant at this point? And I did have one other request for the applicant. Somebody did an excellent job of preparing a write up on all the different requirements. I think it was section 10.8 when you went to the zoning board of approvals. As I look in our regs 10.7 I think it is has as a list and you said they pretty much mirror the FEMA requirements that you would be all exceeding. But I know I had a hard time checking through all these different requirements for the development standards here for this chapter and telling whether or not they were fixed. And that was, know, new construction shall be anchored to prevent flotation and something like that. It would be So very helpful to us to have that write up when we come to a public hearing to have that be part of the record that addresses those different eight things in there, just like the zoning board of appeals.
That was one thing that zoning board of appeals had asked too as well. It was important to them. Don't know if it is as much for you guys, but I'll mention it that one member had asked if the town felt that they would have any legal, you know, repercussions if the house ever flooded or whatever and the answer to that is no from the town attorney that there's no liability for the town as far as that goes because we're showing that we're building up out of flood elevation so that the structure structure is is safe. Safe. Okay, yep.
I also wanted to point out, I reshared the old map. This is the same one from wetlands. It does have the same exact limit of disturbance on it or limited clearing for the trees as well.
I look at that map it the clearing is just slightly behind the existing house that's not very very far back.
Yeah and when you're here you know like I said when we've just had a few wind storms there are some very big trees here that that would worry me being maybe a little close to the roof in a couple of cases. That's actually the existing house. I'm in now there's one or two we need to look at soon that are dead and big.
Okay. Megan, can you just scroll your drawing one way or another so that I can see the notes on it? When I tried looking on the website today to read all the notes on the drawing and I blew it up to where I could read the letters, they all they were sort of unreadable. And I'm just and so I'm going to ask and so I can read that. And so I don't know why when I looked at the Down website drawing, I wasn't able to get there. It looked different to me. But anyhow, I would ask that you know we get copies of the drawing for each of the commission members. I think it said we asked you to supply 10, that would be more than enough that we can go through and at least read all the notes. Because as I say earlier today, I tried to read the notes and
it didn't turn out readable for me for whatever reason.
So Jed, you'd like 10 prints, like actual printouts of it or emailed to everybody?
Paper prints. The hard copy, bigger print so that we can you'll see it you'll have the chance to mark it up and all that kind of stuff and. Okay.
It says number eight right here, clearing limits shall be flagged by a surveyor prior to any site disturbance.
And those are, it's done too. That's all flagged here on-site and the house is staked out as well which we did for wetlands back in.
And does it say who the wetlands, the soil scientist was on the delineated the wetlands?
Jim Iany. John Aany. John Aany, there we go. I knew I got the J wrong when I said it. Where's that noted on here, Jim? Let's see.
John Aiani right here on the bottom, certified soil scientist.
And is there a drawing where he's actually signed that or we've got some documentation for that? I am not sure I would assume so.
Yeah I don't know why there's not a signature there I will check into that.
Okay. Any other questions for the applicants at this point? Do you have anything?
When we bring it back in the public hearing, that's when we can go over the checklist, Jay?
Was going to discuss with the commission after we're done with the Phelpses here on how that checklist discussion could be more beneficial. You know, we had Jim go through and show us what he thought was NA, what he didn't think was NA. We can certainly ask any questions about the checklist at the public hearing. I don't know that we want to go through the entire checklist, all 62 or whatever blocks there are there, I'd certainly be open to anybody that had questions on any particular issue on the checklist. We can go through there as far as any other regulation
that went up. I just wanted to make sure that we thought we were close to having all the materials we needed so that if we chose to schedule a public hearing at the next meeting, we would be able to and we wouldn't be scrambling at the last minute like we sometimes are trying to get all the stuff we need to successfully build the public record. I was hoping to get that done in a little more orderly fashion this time. So if Jim said something on the checklist was NA and you felt strongly, no, that's not right. We ought to hear about it tonight so we can ask the applicants to bring that to us.
Well, lot of them I thought were accurate but I thought that there was quite a few of them that since it wasn't a flood plain that it was kind of almost more important than being in the wetlands. Like any of the drainage stuff.
If there's a specific things I thought on the checklist that when it was talking drainage, was really talking about subdivisions and that kind of thing as opposed to just a piece of property draining.
Yeah I believe the checklist referred to proposed drainage meaning drainage improvements. There really were none other than maybe some minimal grading at the driveway.
But certainly as we go, you know we've got a month before the next meeting if there's things you think should be there you can email Jim or myself and we'll see what we can do to make sure that we're prepared to discuss those issues one way or the other when we get there.
So all I'm saying is that can we go back through the checklist at some point? Yes we can. All Jim did was read it.
Okay, well that's why I had it called up, but we'll do that here in just a minute after we're happy with what we want to ask the applicants. Okay.
I have one question Jed, if I'm allowed to ask it. Yep, go ahead Kevin.
I saw that the lot width was drawn behind the house. I saw that too.
Doesn't our definition say that it shouldn't be in front of the building line?
Are exactly right because I had the same question that you just asked, Kevin. And I said well that's not right it's behind the house. And I went back and looked at the definition and it says not in front of the house. And so I had a different thought in my head I expected to see the lot width line right as it came to the front of the house going to the East West property markers there. And then I went back and said, well, let me check that one, the definition that we have listed here is correct and it jives with what we've got in our actual regulations. And it is correct. It does jive with what's in our regulations. And it just says, will not be in front of the house. So it really doesn't say how far behind the house it is. But I concluded that the width line that they had here fit the requirement. And again, that's my layperson understanding if there's somebody here that has a different take on it but I had the same question in my mind as you just raised Kevin.
I can say too that our engineer worked directly with your town attorney back and forth to get that definition worked out because initially when we were talking about it I know Jim Halsey had some questions on that so he deferred us to Mark. Yep, I went back and reread
our definition and it looks good to me. Yeah, I met with
the applicant and their their folks and Mark Brantz and that came up and Mark was happy with how it was proposed.
Okay. Any other questions? And again, none, we'll go through the public record at the public hearing. Megan, if you can we're done with your shared screen. We'll go back and I'll ask Mindy to put the checklist back up.
How would you handle the front yard requirement of 50 feet when it's in a triangle like that?
So the 50 foot setback, is that the question, Kevin? Right. I think as long as the house isn't within 50 feet of the road, I considered it okay.
Okay. I was just curious since it came to a point like that.
And again, that's why we have five members of a commission. If a question comes up and we can vote on it and that sort of thing to make sure that we're complying. Okay, I see we've got the checklist back up And let's look, any other questions on the first 12 items on the checklist there? Okay Mindy, if you could scroll down to the next 10 or 12, whatever fits on the screen good. Oh, this is the bottom. Okay, that's good right there. We'll finish up that page. Okay existing trees of tenant in diameter.
Yep and that's, you know I am interested if there's some large trees out there that we might work to retain those. And I am used to seeing on the drawings, you know, where large trees are specifically drawn into the drawing. But we'll take a look when we get out there for a visit, if there's interest in doing that. So I agree that's
a concern, Scott. Okay, number 18, stormwater management. No stormwater management.
I believe four seventeen isn't triggered until there's an acre of disturbance. That's why I said it wasn't applicable.
I think we had thought from our site walk throughs too before that there weren't any trees that were 10 inches or bigger here on this side of the property where this would be.
So on that particular question on the section 4.17, it says the following activities are exempt from these standards and it's development of a single family home. So my sense was that for residential construction of one house not required to have a storm management plan. Okay, Mindy, if you could scroll down to the top half of the next page. Okay, you move down to the bottom half of that page, Mindy. Okay, head up to the top portion of the next page. And I did have a question. Were the utilities going to be overhead or underground for this particular house?
Right, that was one that I had. Jim was reading it so fast. Couldn't. Yep. I understand.
I honestly I don't recall off the end. This came up when I went over the checklist with Megan.
Yep. Do either of the applicants recall whether the utilities were underground?
I believe that they were supposed to be underground for a new home, but then, you know, Jim and I had discussed whether or not in a floodplain if they should be different. But then we, I think Jim, you mentioned a few recent ones you had done that they were underground so that is the right answer to it so it's whichever the code is but we believe that to be underground. Well subdivision would be underground. I think we were going to defer to the engineer on that if I recall correctly from our conversation. That might be it or the utility company that comes because they were kind of the ones that actually put them in right to the house. Yes.
Well, thought is utility company will do whatever you ask. You ask underground, it'll just, you know, I think that's more expensive than overhead.
Prefer underground obviously for storms and such, but I would do whatever you know, you guys say. Can
we get an answer to that question for the next meeting? It's just you'll confirm that the utilities are going to be underground? Yep. Parking was listed on there. Jim, you remember?
On the print, I can't remember. It's just it's not. No, it's not identified. It's it's a it's a single family home and there's I mean there's a driveway with parking shown which is not titled as if I recall correctly. I mean understand you know this this checklist is for any any special permit so I mean it's designed to cover any commercial application as well.
So should a residential home have a bump out on the driveway to allow parking beside what goes into the garage? Yes, yes every house is supposed to have a turnaround.
Okay and I don't recall that being shown on the drawing.
He does have it a bit wider there. Could make more of a bump out off the
side of the house, No problem. Normally, what you see on houses are it goes out two spots perpendicular to the driveway. Yeah.
Anything else on what we see here? Then go ahead and scroll down to the bottom there, Mindy, please. Okay, that's it. Okay, yeah. Any other comments on the checklist, Scott? No.
It was just going so fast I couldn't. Okay. I'll
take another look, you know, how best to do that. Because once I said we're spending too much time going through a 57 thing checklist we just need to make sure we're all looking at it ahead of time so that when we go through it quickly, we're ready to do that. This is the first time we've actually made it through a checklist. So I thought this was a tremendous victory. Okay, very good. You can go ahead and close that up, Mindy, please. And if there are no other comments I think that concludes our discussion on the new business application for 57 Hendy Road. Is there any interest in the commission about conducting a sidewalk on the property? Oh we should definitely right.
Okay, so is that a motion that we should have a sidewalk?
I'll make a motion that we have a sidewalk. Okay.
Can I have a second to that? I'll second. Thank you, Susan. I did watch the weather tonight. You know, this Saturday is the first day of spring. Looks like it's going to be dry, reasonable temperatures. Is Saturday morning convenient? Is there anybody that Saturday morning is not convenient for? Doesn't have to be this Saturday. This Saturday is just the one that we've got a weather forecast for and it looked nice. So I would propose what we've normally done. Saturday morning work for the applicants? Megan can you help us out with that?
I can't hear what Bill said. I'm not going to be here but as long as he is I'm going be away this weekend but as
long as he's here. If you're going to be here, Bill, shake your head up and down.
Can you hear me? Can you hear me? This is Bill Phillips. Yes, I can. It's coming through garbled, but I can hear you.
So garbled because that's how I'm getting it also. But yes, this Saturday would be fine with me.
I would propose to the Commission Saturday morning at nine unless we want to make it ten because we just shifted to daylight saving time and the sun comes up a little later. If either of those work for me, I guess we could split the difference and even make it 09:30. So
for purposes of the discussion, have the motion propose a sidewalk this Saturday at 09:30. So I'll move.
And Susan, you second Okay, that Bhattavad so we've got that out there. Any further discussion on the sidewalk? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. Anne? Aye. Scott? Aye. Leigh Ann? Yeah, you're on mute, Lee Ann. And I can't see you, so I can't ask you to shake your head. I'm going go on for just Can a you hear me now? Yes, I can. Yep. Okay, sorry. Yes, aye. Okay, thank you. And Susan? Aye. And I vote aye as well. So the motion carries five-zero-zero to have a sidewalk this Saturday at 09:30 at 57 Hendy Road. Next order of business is should we tonight schedule a public hearing for the next meeting? And so I would look for a motion to hold that if we thought that was the right thing to do.
I move to have a public hearing at next meeting.
Okay. Thank you, Anne. Looking for a second. Second. Thank you, Susan. And let me just make sure there's no holidays making us go short where we don't get the notifications out right. It looks to me like looking at my calendar, the next meeting would be on Monday, April 19. I see that's Patriots Day up in Massachusetts, but I don't think that would preclude us from doing anything here. So that gives us plenty of time to get the notifications out and that sort of thing. Any discussion on holding a public hearing? Hearing none, call for a vote on that. Anne? Aye.
Scott? Aye. Leanne? Aye. Susan? Aye. I vote aye as well. The motion to hold the public hearing in the April meeting passes five-zero-zero. Any other comments on the application for Hendy Road before we close on that and go on to our old business? Okay, that's it.
Thank you for your time and consideration. We appreciate it.
Well, I know it's been a long time coming from you. Really did get the trifecta. You get to go to Inland Wetlands, SUNY Board of Appeals, and your planning and zoning as well. Let's So see if we can get it wrapped up expeditiously
for you. We appreciate that very much. Thank you. Thank
you very much. Yeah. Okay, going back to the agenda. Now we'll head into the old business. The first item is an update, use of town owned property. Jim, did you have anything to share with us? Any communications with the Sheehan's over on Wheeling Road since the last meeting?
I did provide one of the Sheehan's with a letter indicating what the commission's decision was on that. And I believe there is an application forthcoming. Have not seen one as yet an application for for a single family home. And I did address. Comments that were raised along that time relative to to notations. In the both in the I think in the deed and the. On the plan and there there were there were explanations. That cleared up any concerns that folks had.
Okay, any questions on the Wheeling Road and use of town owned property? I'm going to move on to the sign regulations. And Mindy, if you can allow me to share a couple of things here. I think you should be able to.
Yep. Okay. Last time I gave a little PowerPoint presentation on signs and I thought what I was going to do is just address the constitutional free speech issue with respect to the small signs and I started as I walked around I paid attention to signs and I said wow there's a lot of signs out here. And so I did a little bit more in-depth look at our sign regs and I wanted to just go through, spend a few minutes going through the different types of signs and that with everybody, look at some changes that I'm thinking
we would make to the regs so that you're all kind of with me and having a conversation with you, getting some feedback, pushback allows me to make sure that I'm heading off in the right direction. So I do have lots of pictures but I wanted to start out with the different kinds of signs and that sort of thing in our regs. And then maybe we have a little quiz show what kind of sign is it when we put up a picture of a sign. But anyhow, this is from our current regs and heading down through the regs, what I did on the very first intent paragraph is just added the words while ensuring the constitutional right of free speech is protected. So what that's going to do is that's going to ensure that we have we can have rules on signs but we don't have rules on content of the sign. And we're making an effort to protect free speech there. So I thought that was pretty easy and hopefully no comments on that one. But again, if anybody does while we're going through this, speak up. I'm not sure that this is the best way to go through this but I'm open for better practices and that sort of thing. Then we got into sign function definitions. And so we had a business sign here and I won't read through that. You can see it but I thought that was a good definition and I wasn't going to change. As far as I know, we have not had issues with business signs. We could use a few more businesses in Andover where we could put up some signs, but right this minute there hasn't been a lot of comment about business signs.
So I didn't spend a lot of time on that. The billboard, the key thing here is it's a sign larger than 50 square feet is a billboard and billboards are prohibited in Andover. Construction sign, just as a sign at a construction site and we've all seen those. Again, I'd welcome the opportunity to put up a few of those if we were building something. The next one I struggled with a little bit figuring out what it was talking about. Directional. A sign which guides or directs the public and contains no advertising. And so I thought what this must be talking about is when you come down Lake Road and you get to School Road, we've got a sign that says school and fire station, that sort of thing. If we had a hospital, you'd have the hospital sign or something like that. But I think that those are pretty much, you know, that the town puts up and shows where things are.
Okay, going on to identification. And this was I made a change here. The sign on the premises indicating only the name of a professional or office building, an occupied residential development, industrial area or park, commercial shopping center or name of a school park, church, hospital or other public or quasi public facility. And I said, gee whiz, we are asking people to put road their street number sign out in front of their house so the ambulance can find them in a hurry. But I didn't see anywhere in our regulations where it talked about that. So I added a line here on a residential lot assigned displaying the street address of the property. And I did not put any
size restrictions on that. If we get concerned about that, and I do have a couple of photos later on of different kinds of street address signs. But I thought it was important that we added those signs because if we say no signs are allowed in the town right of way, then we wouldn't be allowed to put up all these street signs that we ask people to put up. Next one is nameplate. Sign on the premise indicating name activity of the occupant or occupants of a professional or office building or the name and nature of a home occupation. So as I walk around and
see that we've got a couple of home occupation things, I highlighted that. I didn't add these words here. I highlighted this because nowhere in our regulations does it have any regulations with respect to nameplate signs. And so I thought that when we got through, we wanted to make sure that we could put up a nameplate sign if we had one. I was looking for the home occupation. What are the rules on those as I walked around? And there were no rules. I think they comply with stuff probably. We ought to put that in there somewhere. Novelty, okay any sign, banner, pennant, etc, you know, displayed for a short period of time and so that to me looks like a temporary sign and we'll talk about that a little bit more. I put a little banner out front of my house saying welcome spring, happy St. Patrick's Day, stuff like that. And I think that's a novelty sign.
Public interest signs of a temporary nature, political education, civil, religious, or similar activity or event. And so I saw some article that I was reading where it's talking about the free speech. It referred to some of these signs and I agree with it, they're ideology, ideological signs. And so maybe we would add that here. I didn't know if a tag sale was a public interest event or not but I thought I would add that in here too just because it's a temporary sign and that sort of thing. The other signs that we'll see show up later on, a guy has somebody come out to their house, do some work and he puts a sign out in the front yard out there normally in the right of way, you know, talking about tree service, home repair, all those kind of things. I guess that that's a public interest sign too and we can make that go there. I didn't know that it was particularly in there but I don't see that anywhere else. Like a guy's building a house?
Yes. And we'll show I think somewhere it talked about in the construction one and it must be down here under construction signs. We'll get there in a minute. Public warning, I take this to be like stop signs, speed limit signs, curve signs. But then you get into no trespassing signs and stuff like that. So some of them are by the town, some of them are by the homeowner. In our regulations, we talk about the town can put these up. We don't say anything about homeowners being able to put these up. And the town probably doesn't put up too many no trespassing signs, but homeowners do. So we'll want to make sure that that gets, you know, we're allowed to do that if we want that. Sign offering for sale, yeah, we got that. That's pretty straightforward. The roadside sign looks like that's
for the farm stands. And then we come down here next is a bunch of types, definitions for sign construction. And I'm not going to go through this. I didn't any, I didn't see where we had to change any of that because again there's not a lot of them and I think we're doing pretty good on those. It talks about sign lighting, just natural and artificial, you know, and I thought those were all okay. And the reason I'm going through here is I know we're going through quick. I don't want to put everybody to sleep too bad tonight. Trying to point to where before the next meeting you can take a look at these things.
I will send this to Jim so he can post it on the website and you can see my thoughts and you can figure out what's missing, what we need to do differently and be ready to hold that discussion. So General Regs. So it says here, in addition, and where I highlighted, I just highlighted to make sure I talked to everybody tonight on that. In addition to specific sign regs is set forth in the following subsections, the following general requirements apply to all signs. And it tells how to measure the height and width on a sign. Okay, so I got that, no problem there. The next one is really where we need to come through what we as a commission want. And this is where it says all signs or part thereof shall be clear of all rights of way and no closer than 15 feet to the lot line. And I added the words except we're specifically authorized in these regulations because we have all kinds of signs, the majority of signs pop up into the town right away along the road. And as we talked at the last meeting, we like some of those signs. There's probably some signs that we're not as fond of. But again, that's the content. We can't regulate that. I took away from the discussion at the last meeting that the benefit of putting signs in the town right away outweighed any detriment. And so my thinking is that the Commission thought that we ought to not make it impossible to put those little temporary signs
out in the town right away. I do think no closer than 15 feet to a lot line if we're talking about on each side of a lot. You know, if you're putting up a sign you ought to be proud of it. Ought to be in the center of your yard, not next to the neighbor's yard so you're annoying the neighbor. And I think that's pretty easy to comply with. So I like the 15 foot. I thought our discussion said we like putting them in the right of way. At least to a certain extent and we'll talk about that again. We talked about signs, you know, not obstructing or impairing vision with normal flow of traffic. No signs that flash, flutter, blink, distract, that kind of thing. No sign shall be permitted which is directly or indirectly illuminated manner which may create a traffic hazard. Again, I thought those words were good.
Mechanical signs and billboards are not permitted and I guess I had visions of the Las Vegas Strip where you have all kinds of signs doing all kinds of things. We probably didn't want that here. The next paragraph starts out intentionally left blank and it talks about a sign that's erected prior to the effective date of this section, five years and all this stuff from 1958. So I think the goal was probably to take that paragraph out because five years from 1958 is long gone at this point and no longer applicable. Okay, it talks about no construction signs displayed for a period exceeding eighteen months, unless the Commission grants an extension.
Construction signs shall be removed immediately after building project or last house subdivision issued certificate of occupancy. Okay, got that. Signs shall be designed in harmony with building and established surrounding development. All store units in the same building and separate buildings on the same lot shall have uniform design and placement of signs. The second part, that all sounds good. I'm not sure. I'm a little Having signs in harmony with your stuff is probably like zoning regs maintaining the character of a town. Know, that's kind of, I don't know that we can say it's going to be in harmony with free speech. I'd be happy to hear anybody's thoughts on that as we go through here if we need to take that out. I know it's a good thought but maybe that conflicts with free speech. I saw a couple of signs before the last election walking around that they didn't think promoted harmony but there you go. And it just says that any violations of this in the next section, officer can go around and issue fines and it says the temporary signs, he can pull those out. That's down a little low. Okay, so now that's general signs. Now we're into the signs permitted in all zones.
It says the town of Andover may erect directional signs of a size construction and lighting deemed appropriate for the purpose. And I said maybe that's I started to ask myself who deemed it appropriate for the purpose. And that's, you know, when we're doing that's kind of like the zoning commission. We can't do waivers anymore. We've got to have requirements and we spell it out and we can have different levels of requirements. But I didn't know who was the appropriate official for doing that. I thought I went out and measured a stop sign and it's two and a half feet across. And so I was going to say, you know, these directional signs should be less than six square feet. And that would include the stop sign and that was about the biggest of the bunch. Again, think about it. I'll update these some more, put in what I think it ought to be and you guys can tell me where I'm off the mark.
Down of Andover, May Rec, public warning signs. Signs. Now again, this goes back to a public warning sign was a no trespassing sign. And so I would not expect the town of Andover to be putting up trespassing sign, but we should allow residents to put up a no trespassing sign if they want to. So I've got to change that in my estimation to include the ability and I've got a couple pictures of no trespassing signs.
If there's no trespassing signs on some down on property that aren't supposed to be trespassed on.
And I couldn't tell, I didn't know what those were. And the trees that I saw, these no trespassing signs posted on, all appeared to me that they were not in the right of way, they were back on the private property itself. And so I considered that issue because we didn't want homeowners speaking for the town saying no trespassing on my town property out here. Thought that was inappropriate. That's where I had the concern about the public warning signs is that it, again, I don't know who deems inappropriate for the purpose, but if the town put up something, we ought to be able to and we thought it was clearly out of line. I thought we could probably have a discussion with that guy and maybe he'd reconsider and we wouldn't have to
have a rule for it.
But what if the town has problems with trespassers on a property that nobody's
supposed to be on for some reason? Well, and certainly the town can put it. Thinking where that might be would be over. The transfer station has a Yeah, that's the only thing that I can think of might be and maybe if they want to put some signs over there, I guess they're certainly welcome to do so. But I would go so far as to say I have never seen a no trespassing sign that wasn't nailed to a tree. When we come down here, signs shall not be attached to trees or telephone poles. Wow, we got a lot of them. And I understand that the telephone poles belong to the utility company. But if you got your own tree and you're putting a sign, I don't know that we want to preclude that. I'm anxious for feedback on that too. We get down into temporary public interest in novelty signs and I added it used to be just public interest signs and so I changed it to temporary public interest because I thought they were all temporary and novelty. And I put their subject to the following additional conditions. And here I crossed out a bunch of times and I gave up. How
long would we like these temporary signs to be up? And I came back to the last election where our previous regulations always said thirty days. And clearly with the new rules for voting in that, if you don't put a sign up until thirty days before the election, most people are already voted at that point. And so I'm looking at maybe thirty days per quarter and that way you could have the two quarters that go neck and neck and that gives you sixty days before the election or whatever. Or we could just eliminate it completely but I didn't think that eliminating it completely is good either because I go around and I see tree work signs that have been up for close to a year and you know they're looking kind of ratty and at some point we just ought to stop advertising for the guy that cut down your tree a year ago and giving him that advertisement. So I think we need to put something in there. I just don't know that I have the right answer in there yet when I put forty days. And I felt that it was inappropriate for, you know, at our discretion we could extend the total allowable time period by ninety days. I thought that was inconsistent with the free speech thing. That's regulating content. I thought we would be not well served to have that allowance in there.
So that's what I was trying to do for the temporary signs. I think we need to limit how many there can be, how long they can be up and we need to have a discussion of whether there is a difference between a temporary sign on the town right away or on private property. Okay, coming down further, all these rules for all zone signs not be attached to trees or telephone poles, I think it should just be telephone poles or we could put trees but it's going to be problematic enforcement. No sign shall be erected as to negatively impact sightlines. We heard that in a previous, I think that's a little redundant. No sign shall exceed 16 square feet. And that's
common to a lot of I thought, okay, so that's half a sheet of plywood. That's a good size. That's for a temporary sign. Maybe the folks for the election want to go, last year we allowed up to 32 square feet, which is a full sheet of plywood. I didn't see too many of those as I drove around town. I don't know if they push back and want to go the full 32 feet or not. But if we get up to 50, that's the billboard. I can see where a business might need more than 16 square feet but for a temporary sign, I thought 16 square feet four by four, that ought to be plenty. And then we got the zoning enforcement officer authorized to remove signs. Now we go down to signs permitted in our specific Andover rural design in Andover Lake District and it talks about the construction signs. And again, if we had a big construction project, they get 32 feet. Each subcontractor
may display one freestanding sign not exceeding four square feet. That to me looks like the little stick them in the ground signs. And I did not think that's what we wanted to apply but it could to the guy. This is the best place in the works for the guy who's the tree trimmer comes by and puts up this sign in your front yard. He's kind of a subcontractor to you. And you come down here, it says height 10 feet, illumination natural, a permit from the zoning agent is required. Now I would love to see us make a requirement that somebody comes in and gets a permit every time they put one of these temporary signs up in their yard. That would certainly cut down the amount of signs. But I think that's probably not to be expected. And right now, I think the temporary signs
we should not expect a permit for. If it's a permanent sign, you get permit. Temporary sign, no. Identification or nameplate, that's where we added that sign that talks about the nameplate sign was the home business sign. And so I see Sears landscaping as I walk around. I see Yeoman's Tree Farm as I walk around. I think both of those places comply with all these rules. So I said, okay, we'll just put nameplate on there and that covers our home business things. And it's got Just those two and then this talk about apartment buildings or multiple family complex. I haven't seen too many multiple family complexes around, but I think we probably got one and I don't recall what the sign is over there. But permits are required for identification or nameplate signs with the exception of the property number sign, oh, I did put a size in there, less than one half square foot. And so that's where I thought that anybody who had the bigger home occupation sign, needed to get a permit, you want to put your house number out front, no permit. Real estate, and I could talk about that. Oh, this is 12 foot here. I was thinking we would change it to 10 feet just to be consistent with every place else. And that gets us to the end of really talking about it. So there's only a couple lines in here that talk about these temporary signs and I don't think we've got it nailed
what we want to do. So not to bore you with any more words, A little blurry. I apologize for that. I guess I blurted out to protect the guy who I'm advertising has had his sign out there for, you know, a good six months or so. I would assume that's in the town right away. And that's when when we set out, I was thinking that was that was the sign we wanted to most come up with what we want our standard rules to be. And so do we want to allow that? How long do we want to allow that? Need feedback on that? Here I'm not commenting on the content of the sign. It was just the sign that I saw multiple varieties of as I walked around. So here, this one is in the town right away out by the road. It's also within 15 feet of the property line. So currently it would say that one should not be allowed. This one up here is back 15 feet from the edge of the road, 15 feet from each of the neighbors. Clearly, I think that one is Okay. Jed, are you sharing those or sharing pictures? Oh, you're not seeing those? No.
I got it. I called it up. Now, how do I back out without having this all we will stop sharing that. Thank you, Scott. Okay, there you go. Now can you see it? Yeah. Okay, very good. So this is the little temporary sign that we want to have our discussion about. What do we want? Here's the one that's within 15 feet of the adjacent property line and it was probably within three feet of the road, so I think it's in the town right away. Not sure that's what we want, but it might be. Up here, we've got it 15 feet away from the neighbor's property and well in excess of 15 feet back from the edge of the road. Clearly that one is on private property and I think that's okay. Here I think this guy got tired of having his sign swiped and so he put it up next to his house and that's clearly on his property and my sense is that's okay, too. So again, it comes back to like the last sign, do we want the signs to be in the town right away out by the road? And then to beat dead horse, I was curious, did we want to have a limit on how many signs somebody could put in their yard? And the example regulations that I suggested that I look at limited it to no more than two signs. I can live with two signs, I can live with more, but it ought to not be
100 signs. So do we want to make a reasonable number? Is two or three enough and when we go to public hearing I will go out of my way to invite, you know, the heads of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party so we'll get feedback from them but I'd like to understand what the Commission thinks is best before we go to public hearing. These are the little identification signs that I've seen. And here's the little one you get from the fire station to put out front, that one happens to be, I'm sure that's in the town right away. It's out fairly close to the road. Here's another one that's not quite as good a look and sign but I guess it does the point. I don't think he is pointing to the story right down here. I think he's pointing to the house up the hill. Anyhow, that's probably okay. And here's a little identification sign by Screw Brook. I don't know who put that up but that's probably Town.
That's probably okay too. I thought that was kind of nice. So anyhow, those were identification signs and I didn't really want to adjust what we were doing with them. I think people are doing the right thing. I just thought we ought to put it in our regs that you could put it up and you don't need a permit to put it there. And it could go into town right away because that's I think where we want them. Here we get into these warning signs. And this is down, I think that's on private property, I think that's Alma property, but this is going down to the dam and probably not the best looking thing. I think a lot of the signs they put up now and the different rights of way are much nicer but it certainly shows that on occasion we violate the no putting a sign on a tree rule. Here's a newer private property no trespassing sign again on a tree and I couldn't find a no trespassing sign on anything other than trees walking around.
And here's a little canine, you know, electric, the invisible fence thing. And I like knowing when the invisible fences are there. So I'm walking around and the dogs are out barking and that sort of thing, they're not going to come run after me. So I thought we wanted all these things and I was going to make the regulations reflect that. These let's see. So here's my little St. Patrick's Day flag out front. While the stand stays out there year round, the sign, if that's a sign and it looks like it meets the novelty things, gets changed frequently so I don't have it up there for an extensive period of time. But we could limit that if we limit temporary signs. Here's a flag that's been flying and this has got, you know, a piano keyboard and some music stuff out here. I don't know if they're advertising a home business that they get piano lessons or not by having that out there. But
certainly that's a flag that falls into the novelty sign category. And if we want to limit that in any way, and I don't know that we want to, but again it's going to have to be consistent with all we do. But that gets on the verge of I guess it can be taken down but it's been up there for probably two years now. It's there. And then here's another novelty sign on a tree, on private property. Why the chicken crossed the road? Rooster. And on the other side it says, Why the rooster crossed the road? Chicken. And I don't know that we want to discourage that. I think it kind of gives the neighborhood a little character. On private property too.
Well, but our regulations don't specify anything different between private property and the town property. I did not read our regulations to say these are the regulations if you put it on town property in the right of way. I assume that the same regulations apply to private property because when we're putting up all these business signs in that, the gas station or any business in that, it's all on private property where they put their signs. Think, I guess they got multiple signs. They get the sign out along the road and then they get the sign in the back. But do we think we should make a distinction between private private property in what we allow in the town right away? I don't know the answer to that. Nope, these are the warning signs. It talked about the town putting up. And so here's a nice one put up by the town, stop sign. Here's a nice one, slow children at play. And it talked about the town can put these up. I don't know that I got a problem. This is on a telephone pole. So that's not so good. Drive like your kids live here. I thought those signs were good ideas. And here's your homemade slow down blind driveway sign. So again, right now the only thing our regulations talk about are the signs that the town puts up. Here's the Sears town, the home business sign. I think it complies with all the rules that we've got listed in there. Hopefully he's got a permit for it.
Here's the Omen's Tree Farm. I think it looked to me about 10 foot high. It looked to meet the size requirements. And it's certainly back off, not on the road there so I thought that meant that. Andover Lake, I didn't know where this sign fit. I guess it's kind of a nameplate sign that's the 32 square foot one. It looks old enough to be grandfathered with just about any regulation that we put in there but I'll try to fit that in someplace. Anyhow, there's, you know, put this up at the last meeting, went walking around, it had blown down the next day, it's no longer up. So that one's gone. That was really a temporary sign with all the wind that we had. But anyhow, those are some signs that I saw as I walked around. Again, I'm surprised at how many things are out there that we can call signs. And with that, anybody got any feedback for me tonight? Anything I said, look off target? But I think the real heart of the matter is, with these temporary signs, how many, how long and on town property or not. And if you want, I will take a stab at putting something down on paper and then we can throw darts at it next meeting and see whether or not we think that's appropriate. My suspicion is most people don't know we have signed regulations and so anything we put in here isn't going to impact a lot. But I do know that the political parties pay close attention to it and they were eager to get their signs up last election and we'll be going forward. So any questions for me on signs? Okay, That's all I wanted to cover on the new business on the signs.
I will stop sharing. There we go. Going on to frontage requirements. I have not done anything. We decided we were going to make a frontage requirement. When we go to a public hearing and do some zoning changes, I will put that in there. I think that's a very easy change to make. When is our next
public hearing that we could do that? I look at that being when we do the sign regulations. I'm going to do signs and any other changes to our regs together and hopefully if we need any changes to the link regs we would put that in if we discover that there's any holes in that.
Can you have or are you going to write up the frontage regulations?
Yes, yep I'll take care of that. I think that's easy. Moving on to commission vacancies. I did get a copy of what looks to be the ballot for the election in planning and zoning. Kevin, you did not get your name on the ballot this time around. I see there's three names, two Democrats and a Republican. Lee Ann is a Republican running again, Brian Biggs and Steve Nelson, both from the Democratic Party are running for our vacancies. And we'll have two open vacancies coming up. And Susan's name is on the ballot for the open alternate position. So run those names by me again Jed. Steve Nelson,
Brian Biggs, Briggs? Yeah Briggs, b r I g g s. Those are new names and then Leanne. Her term is coming up and she's running again. And is Steve Nelson a Republican or Democrat?
I think he registered with the Democrats. I think he's an independent.
But he registered. He's going to be running as a Democrat? Yes. He went to their caucus and
asked to be put on the ballot. That's just from a conversation I had with him out walking around the lake. But I think he, I recall he said he was an independent. And what about Brian Briggs? He's a Democrat. So
has the official cutoff passed, Jed? Yeah, it has. Okay, yep. Because I actually forgot about it and I emailed the, I forgot what their name was, the Republican representative for the town today, but I guess it was too late past the cutoff. Yep.
I think it was the first week in March was where we made all the running official there. But anyhow, you'll get another chance, Kevin. It'll come up again at some point. But I'm looking to have a complete lineup, which is great. That's good. So that's all I have to do on commission vacancies there. Training, workshop, follow-up. Scott, what do you think about the the training? Yeah, the Connecticut Bar Association Land Use Training?
It was very good, very interesting, a lot of information.
I thought the same thing and so actually I forgot to look to see. I know they said at the training you would be able to get a link to go to it. I know at least I would recommend it to any of you. It was irresponsible of me to be chairman without having attended that training ahead of time. I didn't really have the chance to but I sure feel much better after having gone through that and they give you a nice thick handbook 600 and some pages that has got all kinds of stuff in it that I really feel much, much better able to have a clue about what I'm supposed to be doing now that I've attended that all day training. So Jim, can I ask you to see if you can find the link and maybe post that on our website? Yes. Somebody wants a book and I highly recommend it to anybody who's on the commission
you Yeah, get I'm ordering a couple of books one for for Anne because she hadn't can't we. I'm ordering one for Anne and one for Bill DeRosier from CBA. If there's anybody else would like a book. There's money in the budget for it. Let me know. But Jan. And Cremay? Yeah. Cremay. That's good. She had intended to sign up and somewhere. Yep. Miss. That way if I get the coronavirus and die,
my relief will be nicely trained. I'm not counting on getting that coronavirus. I got my shots. I'm ready to go. Okay, anyhow, that's all I had on that really good training. You want to book, want to attend, let Jim know and we'll see if we can fix you up. And that completes the old business. Moving on to approval of the minutes from the regular meeting of February 22. Looking for a motion to approve the minutes.
I move approval of the minutes of the February 22 meeting. Thank you, Susan.
I have a second. Thank you, Anne. Any discussion on the minutes?
I have one very my age on page two, item 4C, filling vacancies. I believe it should read Democratic Town Committee Instead of democratic commission. Okay,
you're correct. I think we probably said democratic commission but we probably should have said democratic town committee.
I have a couple of comments. One is page two, second paragraph. Yep. Use the term quick claim when it should be quick claim. What?
The minutes use the term quick claim opposed to quick claim. I'm saying quit being Q U I T. Okay.
Yep. That's always been a mystery term to me. Okay. And
three, paragraphs two and five, there's an 824 referral and it should be 824. Okay. And if I know Mindy reported what was what was stated, but I don't know if there's a way to put in that, you know, for somebody who's reading the minutes, that it's a reference to the Connecticut general statutes. Just so that it's clear for whoever reads it reads them.
So how about so after the eight twenty four for referral we put in brackets?
That's what I was thinking. Yeah, Connecticut General Statutes. Connecticut General Statute. Yeah, just so they read. Yeah, that's my.
Usually it's written before it, Jed. Okay, we can put it. We can put it before but I know we didn't say it. I know the minutes reflect exactly what was said, but you're right. And so if we put that in brackets, that does help clarify what we're going for there. That'd be fine. Okay? Any other comments on the minutes?
This is Leanne. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, I don't have the minutes in front of me, so I'm doing this from memory. Okay. I think just a minor point. I think it was possibly under the signed discussion where it talks about referring to certain sections. I think it's just repeated twice. I think the same sections of the regulations repeated. It's 20, maybe 20 Okay, I see what
you're saying there. We've got yeah, so Mindy, on page four of six, discussion, right in the middle of the page, the following regulations were reviewed and discussed. And we've got 23.2.1 and 15.5.3 listed twice.
So it's not wrong it's just a little repetition. I appreciate it. Then right at the end I think maybe Scott Mader seconded the motion to adjourn and his name his last name isn't capitalized.
Correct, yep. See that one, Mindy? Okay, very good. Any other comments? I would just like to recognize, and you've heard this before, Mindy, what a super job. I can only imagine as I read through this, it can't be easy to summarize what it is that we're talking about and get it concisely down so that it only takes six sheets of paper. And so I thought you did just an incredibly nice job on capturing what it is that we talked about. Well done. Thank you. So with that, we'll call for a vote. Anne? Aye.
Scott? Aye. Leanne? Aye. Susan? Aye. And I vote aye as well. The minutes are approved, five zero zero. Next item on the agenda correspondence, Jim. Done. Okay. Administrative report, Jim.
Enforcement actions, 137 Chatty Mill Road. There was a utility shed that had gone up without benefit of permit. It since taken down. And 44 Wales Road, there's an outstanding complaint regarding someone living in an RV. And that was agreed upon with both the commission and the owner that he would take care of that by April 1. So
when we come to our next meeting, we should have clean bill health over there.
Actually, I have both of those. My plan. Yep. Other than that, there's a lot of springtime activity. I do expect a house permit coming in for Wheeling Road. A number of folks are looking at lots for development, both old existing lots. Scott's Tree Farm apparently recently has transferred, and I got a call from a gentleman who wants to do something there. So Vince, I haven't talked to him as yet. I just got the email today. They indicated they would give him a call tomorrow. Other than that, just so so folks know, we are now dealing with we now have the the town of Bolton building inspectors representing or or covering the town of Andover for the time being, and I don't know how long that is going to last.
We had some turnover in the office as far as the land use administrator has left. So we're dealing with that. Can anybody hear me? Yes, yes, Okay.
With our land use and sorry. Yeah, was gonna ask what's the name of the land you ministry with that or was that Susan Susan Madry that was her title.
I believe I don't know whether it was land use administrator or building administrator.
Jim, this is Leanne. I have a quick question about what you just said about Scott's Tree Farm. Did you say it's been transferred?
Well, that's what according to a gentleman that sent me an email. Does that mean the whole property has been transferred?
I'm actually, I believe I don't know how much of property. I don't know whether it's the property on Route 6 or whether it's I believe it's the property on Route on Bunker Hill. So I don't know how much of Russell's property he has purchased the new owner.
Okay that's what I was getting at because usually when you said transferred I just wondered because it's not the same thing as a transfer but there's that a cut above place that operates out of there so that wouldn't be a property transfer unless it happened to be the same guy. Was just wondering if what you were getting at is that an application was coming for additional office space for another you know activity or something in there but you're saying it's actually been a transfer of property? To my understanding, yes. Okay, thanks. You're welcome. On
the shed that's being taken down, did we offer that guy the opportunity to put in an application? Or is it just a place that you know it was no good? I mean we I hope we didn't go out there and just say tear it down.
He was just given the regulations and he said I'll take it back there's nowhere I can put it and he took it down. Okay. It was a metal shed that he just took it apart and I don't know all the details. I'll pop up someplace else. We're getting there.
The Inland Wetlands Watercourse Commission Liaison Report. I've got nothing to report at that point. At this point, I do expect that the property, and we had talked about it a long time ago, up on Pine Ridge Road, an application for a open space rear lot subdivision. That will be coming our way soon, but it has not yet made it through the wetlands over there.
Quickly interjecting, I don't know if we had a motion to approve in a second for the minutes.
I made a motion. Yeah, we did have a motion. I thought it was Leanne and Susan. Could be her, Anne and Susan, one of the two. I made the motion and Anne seconded.
Okay, cool. Sorry, I didn't I'll get watch the recording to get it down. Thank you.
Next item is miscellaneous. Anybody got anything else that we should be talking about tonight?
I have a question, I'm not sure I should go here or somewhere else, but I know Bill Phillips personally. So I'm assuming I would have to recuse myself if I was seated.
Probably that would be the best thing to do. Yes. Knowing somebody that covers a wide spectrum of we all little towns, lots of people know lots of people. Certainly we would not second guess your judgment to recuse yourself. And that always sounds like the best case whenever there's any doubt in your mind on that. Okay. That's all I have. Okay. Any other for miscellaneous here? Jed, oh shoot.
Yep, I can hear you, Leigh Ann. Now your microphone just went off. Oh, I was just going to mention that you and I listened to that forestry webinar. Yep.
Which was pretty interesting. It was a little bit technical, which we had been warned about, but it was interesting.
Yes, and so funny you should mention that because before that webinar, I downloaded that application on my phone and I thought I was good to go. After that webinar, I tried to use it and I couldn't get it to do anything that we had talked about. So I didn't try but yeah that is interesting. So when I mentioned that to Jim he said oh you want to talk to Scott. And so Scott I know you've application. I don't know if it's the same one that guy talked about but I tried and failed as far as getting my phone to have all the applications that you used when we were walking around out there on Merritt Valley. Right. I might be looking for a training session on that out of you at some point here. Well, what was it called? Force? Well the application is Avenza Maps.
Right.
Is that the one you use? The state uses that a lot. Yep that's what they were talking about and I just couldn't get it to map. Is webinar on the internet now?
It should be. And you'd have to go, I'd have to go back and figure out what group it was that we put that on. I think it was DEEP. How much what was the application?
How much did it cost? It was free. And you had a lot of neat stuff. I'm sure that they were recording it.
I'll see if I can drag it down. I think the free one is probably a trial for seven days or ten days maybe. No, it's
not as good as the professional. But the guy who was giving the presentation said that it is a great thing and he was all in favor of you don't need anything any better than that. Yeah. So I guess I could always go back to him, but I had enough other things going on that I hadn't felt like
dealing with it. And I was going to do that webinar also but I've
done too many webinars lately. Yep, there's been a lot of good training opportunities out there. Burnt out on webinars. Can probably forward it to you from last month.
I'd like to try the AdVensa thing because other people have told me they use it but the one that I use is real easy, it's accurate.
Yeah, a it's fair to be incredibly useful and accurate and I'd like to have it just for going out hiking around if nothing else. Won't get lost. Okay, and I know it's not on our agenda but I will ask Judy if you had any other comments for us. Stayed with us to the end here.
I did And I really enjoyed listening to the conversation and the items that you all care about. I learned a lot from plan review. And I know that everybody's now over two hours here and that's really quite a commitment that the board makes and that's very impressive. So not that my opinion necessarily means anything to you, anyway, I find that to be impressive. So yeah, thanks for what you do. You really care about
the town and it shows. So thanks for letting me listen in. And you now know who agent Allisi is so when it comes time for you to build on that piece of property,
it would be awesome. I actually emailed him today. Oh, okay. Very good. I had no idea he'd be on the meeting but yeah I have a bunch of questions a lot of things to learn but yeah I'll get there. Well welcome to Andover. Thank you Jed.
And with that does anybody want to make a motion that we adjourn? I'll make the motion. I'll show you more sign stuff. Anne made a motion to adjourn. Any second? I second. Okay. Thank you, Susan. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you very much everybody and we'll see you this Saturday 09:30, 57 Hendy Road. Good night everybody.