Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting
October 19, 2020 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
For roll call, I see Anne, Scott, Leanne, and Susan is the alternate who will be seated is our fifth member and myself. So we've got a full commission tonight. Item three is addition or changes to the agenda. And on the agenda on item five, it talks about an open public hearing. We won't do that tonight. And Item seven, the executive session, we'll not do that tonight either. So does anybody else have any addition or changes to the agenda? Hearing none, we'll go on to public speak. Hank or Mike, do you have anything you want to talk about other than referral that you'll talk about as the next item? No, I'm all set.
Okay, so I'm here. Good. Moving on to new business. The first item is, as we mentioned in our last meeting, I got a request for an 08/24 referral from Eric Anderson for a couple of properties are abutting some town property just north of Oak Farms Road off of Boston Hill Road. And so I asked Mike to come and make that proposal to us. I think everybody here should have had the opportunity to read the report that was put out and quite extensive but Mike I'll turn it over to you.
Well okay well thank you. There's a nice report from the ERT team and Hank and Carrie within my group were part of the reporting. They each have pieces in there. But we got good reviews from that and that the land is good. It contains some things that should be saved. It's a young forest, they're saying. So it's when you put the three pieces of the land, the land trust has two pieces, one is a little over seven acres and another one is just about an acre over by itself in back of the Paula King area. The Talbot property is a gem of the whole thing here and we got a lot of good things said about that. Saw a lot of nice place and as Carrie put in there that it's pretty well free of you know the barbary and some of the other invasive species. So it's it's you know, we have water on the property. There's rivers. It's just nice to be whole, but when you put those three pieces together with a couple of stone pieces, it's kind of like a horseshoe over 37 acres long. It's just nice property, and unfortunately it's landlocked. There's a couple of things they suggested, but one of them buying the Ouagana property is out of sight right now. So we have to be satisfied with what we have. Okay. I don't know if there's anything specific you want to talk about.
I I jump in Mike. Just like to also add that, you know, this this these properties are part of in the town's plan of 2015 plan of conservation and development. There are three John P. Designated open space corridors that are included in the mapping. One of them is called the Western Highlands Corridor. And that's where these properties fall within there in the northern tip of that that corridor stretches from the south western boundary of the town where the whole Bishop Swamp system is which has a lot of protected land that goes over into Camp High Hodi over on the off the border and it runs north through the Monument Hill area up until the into Bolton. So that core these properties are associated with that northern part of the corridor a budding town land in that which which is the Burnett Brook Watershed.
So from a strategic conservation standpoint, they help to build some some protected open space within a corridor that, you know, ideally, would be able to build out through other conservation easements or acquisitions or or purchase development rights down the Road.
Okay, thank you, Hank. Any questions or comments from any of the commission members at this time? Hearing none, and I didn't have any either, would somebody like to make a motion that the town accept Hello? Yes, Leanne, go ahead.
Hi, I guess I was on mute and I didn't know it. Yeah, I have a couple questions. Where was the report?
It's on the website. I have copies at my house. I made a few copies of the report but it's on a website under the Conservation Commission.
Leanne, I tried to send that to you by email as well.
I didn't get it. I have two emails on file, an old AOL one that's still active and a Gmail one and I didn't get it at either one. Okay.
I will, after we're done here, I will look to see what email address I sent to you on, and I will do a test to send out. It was a very impressive report. It was like 30 pages maybe Leanne, if you send me an email, I can attach the report to it and get it back to you. And that way I make sure I have the best email to send stuff out to you going forward.
Okay, because I did get something recently from you about the bylaws but this that we're talking about now doesn't sound familiar so I'm not up to speed on what we're even talking about, I guess, other than I'm familiar with the Talbot property. We had done a if that's if that's the same is this the same property on Long Hill or is this somewhere else that he owns in town?
This is in back of the where the Giles and Paula King live in back of that area.
Yeah. Okay. So that's off. Well, I don't know where Paula King lives, I think I know where the Giles live. Yep. Mindy,
can you allow me to share? I'm going to try and share a picture from the report.
Yep, I'm making you the cohost so you Okay, can be able to
so this is one of the pictures in the report. Can you see that Leanne?
Yes. I mean, it's really tiny, I can see it on the I screen. Can't read
was going to try and get something off of Zillow and just chose to go with this. But you can see here where my cursor is, is Oak Farms Road. There's a big piece of property at the end of the cul de sac there. Here in red is a town property. Here's another piece of the town property. Here's the town property that we're talking about that joins those two together. And then the Northern Connecticut Land Trust has got this little upside down L shape here and then this little sliver over here. So it does make a bit of a U. I don't know who owns this in the middle, but it does connect these two downpieces. And so with the, you know, the value of the land, you know, being good from a conservation perspective on its own, the fact that it ties two town pieces together and makes it one larger piece, I think, is a great deal for the town. And this is the Talbot property?
Yes, the Talbot property. And then these two other pieces here, this long sliver just to the west of Talbot and town property. And then over here further to the west is those are both from the Northern Connecticut Land Trust. So all three of those properties would be donated to the town.
Okay, so are these related? I know you said one belongs to Tom Talbot and the other one belongs to the land trust. Is this a coincidence that they're being potentially donated and considered or was this some kind of coordinated thing to do with trying to match up existing town land?
They both came to us, Leanne. Both the land trust and Tom.
Okay. I was just wondering if they happen to I mean, if they, you know, they talk to each other, so to speak, I mean, I mean, not make a material difference. If this is just a coincidence that they both came forward or
Yeah. There's they happen to. There's no indication they talk to each other. As matter of fact, I had to get Tom the information so we could talk to the land trust during the process. Okay. Thanks.
Okay. With that then, can I get a motion to accept the the three pieces of property that are donated to the town pursuant to the section eight twenty four of article 126 of the Connecticut State General Statues? So moved. Okay, thank you, Scott. Second.
Was that you, Susan, the second in it? Yes, it is. Thank you, Susan. Any other discussion on the referral?
Just one other thing, Leanne again, are these completely being donated or is there any portion or any other consideration that there's any town money involved?
We're going to have to do a deed search on these things and the town will come up with that. Tom is going to pay all the transfer fees and everything of his own property. If we there would be very little to do from the town
Okay, so it would be more like maybe real estate costs or something like that than it would be acquisition money. That's right Okay.
Any other discussion? Hearing none, call for a vote. Anne? Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. Leanne? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. The motion carries 500. In anticipating the recommendation that we do pursue getting the land, here's a draft of a letter that I came up with to send back to the Board of Selectmen tomorrow after our vote tonight. It says that. So I'll give you just a minute or two to look through that. I plagiarized heavily out of Mike's letter to the Board of Selectmen and the report. And I was just pleased that both Mike and Hank showed up tonight. Is as we're looking at these properties and starting to get a feel for how the Conservation Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission can work together to make these things happen. Any comments on the letter that I've got there?
I think the letter's fine, Jed. I think it looks good. Okay.
Thank you. Nice letter, Jed. Yep. Thanks, Scott. So I will get this off to Eric tomorrow to pass on to the Board of Selectmen that'll be that. So Mike and Hank, thank you for joining us tonight to get this to a happy conclusion.
You have the little piece of land on there. See the 748.4 and the 7.8 or three there. Yeah. Little piece.
I thought the It's included in that whole strip was in the 8.54. I think it is. Yeah.
Yeah, you're probably right. That's right. Yes. You got it. That's there's only two numbers there that you'll give us like 16 acres. So that's correct. That's correct. Yeah. Okay. Right.
And on behalf of the Conservation Commission, I'm sure you know, and I both appreciate the time and the opportunity for you to consider the, you know, the properties and working with us as a commission.
Sounds good. Thank you very much. And you're both certainly welcome to hang around. But if you got other things to do, I understand that as well. Okay, thank you. Thank you.
The next item on the agenda was the proposed regular meeting dates for the coming calendar year. Jim And or Mindy, can you get a copy of that put up for us here so we can take a look at it? There we go. Asked, well, So Jim and I were talking about coming up with our calendar for meetings next year. Jim said he'd put together a list in January and February where both our normal meeting date would be precluded because of a holiday. And those are the only two months that that becomes an issue where we're not meeting on the third Monday of the month. Jim asked me when I thought we should have the meeting and I said, well, we've been doing
the following Monday as a matter of course and I thought that worked out pretty well. So that's what the list has for the January, February would be the fourth Monday instead of the third. And other than that through all the third Monday.
This is Chairman, do have a comment on that. Yep. The bylaws call for a meeting that falls on a holiday to be held the following evening.
It does and so congratulations. I was wondering who else probably looked at the bylaws to
see what was in there. I didn't look at them until after I did the
list so. Yep yep so you were trapping me Jim. You got me to violate the bylaws. So I thought we would discuss that a little bit tonight. We've got a couple of options. We can delay the meeting by twenty four hours and go on Tuesday nights or we can go to the following Monday and we could change the bylaws to reflect that. The thing that I thought was nice about going to the following Monday as opposed to the twenty four hour delay is that sometimes after you have a long holiday weekend, there's a bunch of other stuff that you're behind on now because we've enjoyed a holiday weekend. And maybe that
first day after the long weekend isn't the best one to hold a meeting. That was the only downside I could come up with it. And I really didn't care one way or another. I can support either. I just wondered well, I agree with Jim. We ought to do what our bylaws say. And since we're ready to issue a revised set of bylaws, I can make them change them to reflect the following Monday, if that's what works best for everybody. Anybody got any thoughts on that? LEONARD
Leanne, don't we usually just do it the following Monday? As long as I've ever done it, I think we did it.
LEONARD L. Well, I think we just sort of it seems to me we've done at least several of them on on the, like, the following Thursday. I don't think we've always done it on the Thursday or the Monday. I do remember some Monday meetings like you're talking about, And some of it depends on whether or not there there's a room available. Right. If there's So I think we've done I think we've done a couple things. It's on the calendar.
Yeah. I was gonna have a when I was on before, there used to be a commission that met on the fourth Monday, and that's why we could never do it that way. I don't know if that's changed or not.
Jim, you said you were going to be looking at the town calendar to see if there were any conflicts with us holding it on the fourth Monday?
I did. And the only conflict was the Republican Town Committee and the Planning and Zoning Commission could bump them. But if we meet by Zoom,
it's not going to be an issue unless it's an issue of somebody having to attend another Zoom meeting. But I mean, just speaking for myself, I'm pretty flexible. I don't have any conflicts that come up routinely.
What was conflicting meeting, Jim? I don't really want to bump anybody out of their normal spot. It's the Republican Town Committee. Okay. Yep. And so they don't require the services of our board clerk. So the board clerk would be available for us to do Zoom. I think with the perturbations in the schedule being January and February, we would have we're still going to be doing Zoom meetings at that point. I'm very confident of that. And so I don't think we're in an issue there. So I guess I would prefer to go with the following Monday just because I do think that's what we've been. I do recall Leanne where we were meeting on some Thursdays there for a while when the room's not available. And maybe I'll provide some latitude in our bylaws to give us, you know, say something like we'll be held within a week. And that allows us the flexibility if rooms
get tight again and that sort of thing. But given that, is somebody willing to make a motion to approve the calendar for 2021 regular meeting dates for the Planning and Zoning Commission? So moved. Thank you, Scott. I second it. Thank you, Anne. And any other discussion on that?
Yep, this is Jim. I just want to note that I will file this with the town clerk as required by the FOI, Connecticut FOI Act. Yep. So these will be the regular meetings. Yep, very good. Any other meeting will be a special meeting.
Any other discussion? Okay, call for a vote. Anne? Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. Leanne? Aye. I vote aye as well. So the motion for the calendar meetings is approved, five-zero-zero. Moving on to old business. First on the old business, I put in here the property of Susan and Peter Clock. Scott, did you have anything you wanted to add on that at this point? No,
called the real estate agent and he said that they have a deposit on the property.
Okay. So I guess that will preclude any further discussion on that, then that opportunity is come and gone. So moving on to 6b is the bylaws review. There were there were did everybody get the copy of the updated bylaws that I had sent out this week?
Jed this is Leanne and I did get that and I just that came through on my AOL email and now I'm seeing something from I guess Jim today it says zoning about the calendar that we just discussed and I do have an email from you talking about the donated property that we just finished talking about but there's no attachment. It's like you forwarded a message from Eric I think I minimized it but So I did get that from you, but I don't see a report attached. If it was an attachment.
It was. Did the other members get the attachment that went forwarded with what I sent out? Yes. I did. Yep. Okay. So we'll have to figure out, Leanne.
I got I got an email from you, Jed, with no attachment, but somewhere along the line I got the I got the report and read it. Okay. It's entirety.
So one of the The one I heard the attachment on was titled Forward 8Dash24 referral.
Yep that was the one and that had the attachment at the bottom. And I know with different email accounts sometimes it's hard to find where those attachments get hidden. They aren't always jumping right out at you. Anyhow, the other comment so with my recommendation is that we discuss to approve the bylaws that were sent out. I think in the email I sent out the bylaws on, I had Lee Ann's comments and how I adjudicated each of those. I had sent out I think Susan had made some comments on the bylaws before. No, Susan's comments were on the annual report. So we talked about that previously. The only comments I got on the bylaws were from Leanne. And then if everybody's happy
with the version of the bylaws, the two things I would like to consider. We already talked about the wording for the calendar on when the meeting would be if it's perturbated by a holiday. And as I say, I think I can make it that we would have the meeting would be rescheduled for within a week. The second thing that came up is Jim was recommending that we put in the in the agenda that's listed in the bylaws, Jim thought we should add executive session. And then nine times out of 10, we're not going to have an executive session. And it wouldn't be an issue. As I was thinking about that originally, I thought maybe, hopefully, will never do an executive session. And I could if we did have to, I could do it in the addition changes
to the agenda, because I think it would be case specific as to where in the agenda we would want to have that. I don't know that it would always fall in the same spot. But I'm not I don't feel strongly one way or another on that particular issue. Happy to add it, happy to leave it off. Was looking for some input from the other commission members on that. Any thoughts?
My thought is that it's only rarely used then probably just being able to add it in at the additions and changes to the agenda. Way to do it. Any other thoughts.
The only reason I suggested is in the case of a special meeting, we wouldn't be able to do that. And it would just be there as a placeholder of sorts.
So you're saying, Jim, that if we were holding a special meeting and we didn't have it on the agenda because we can't add to the agenda, we wouldn't be able to do that. Right.
Understood. Hopefully it's never an issue. It's very often done.
And I would hope that if we had an item where we need to address the executive session that Jim, you and I would be smart enough to add that into the special meeting agenda because it ought to be near and dear to our hearts. It wouldn't be something that would be overlooked. I do have one other issue. Go ahead.
Membership paragraph section one, speaks to CGS nine one hundred sixty seven. I believe it should actually be 167A. And if you read it, the math doesn't really work. It talks about four members out of five, generally two thirds. Two thirds comes right out of the statute for more than nine members. It only has, the statute actually has a chart. It goes from three to nine, this is the number of total membership and then maximum for one party. Okay, so we just simply add the A to 167.
Well, I just met Jim because I want to I'm gonna try and bring up the article that you're talking about. And so right here, I think is the CGS9167. Limit to maximum number of members generally two thirds of the total who may belong to the same political party. For a commission of five members, this means that no more than four may belong to the same party. And that came right out of that chart that you were looking at, Jim. Because I knew that it was going to be tricky math of two thirds of five. Okay. Did have that chart in the statutes, the town charter that I took the number four out of rather than just putting the whole chart in there because Okay. Always a commission. It's just the two thirds
when they speak of two thirds talking of members of nine members or more. HAB It just looks confusing to me. It's not a big problem. HAB that's why I put the answer in there. Okay.
Yeah. Now, is it you're technically incorrect that I don't have the A after that 01/1967?
I would say yes. Okay. There's not a dot after it's 167 a. There's no dot after 167. There's no parentheses or anything like that. Okay.
Yep. The okay. So I will again, what I'm going to look for here is approval of the bylaws with additional changes that we agreed to tonight. And at this point, I've got the 167A and I've got the timing of the postponed meetings. Any other comments on the bylaws?
I'm still trying to look at what I had written to you and then this. Okay yep. I thought you had kind of combined them and maybe I'm I had your email up from just recently now that I found it and I thought you had drawn some arrows or something regarding what I had said.
No, I'm not talented enough to draw any arrows on that. Going back to you. Let me see. If there
was a specific comment, I can maybe remember what I did. I know there was one about the assistant town administrators and I changed that. And then the first comment was several things look confusing. When I talked to Mark Branch, we did take it directly out of the charter. So it is what it is there and it matches our Charter so that way.
Okay, well that was my main other question and I thought I had something at the end about maybe I can't bring this up I see something that's really, really tiny. I can't read it, I'm trying to bring up again your email. My only other question that comes to mind anyway was, and you had you said you double checked with Eric about the wording of the charter because I thought the selectman made a change to the part about how any vacancy gets filled. But you said you've since then talked to Eric and he said the charter as it appears that you pulled it from is what's current. That's correct. Scott, the Sleptman didn't make any change over the summer about what you do for people submitting their names when there's a vacancy?
Yeah. I think it was just that it all goes through the town clerk from now on. Doesn't go to the Okay. Board chairs anymore. Okay. Clerk.
The the other question that you had, Leanne, and and it's a good one to to discuss, I was trying to find it in here. And and I can't stumble into it right off the top of my head, but it talked about when can alternates participate and vote? So let's say we were fortunate enough to have some alternates that were upsetting. If we were having a discussion like this, they would be able to participate in that discussion with us even though they weren't seated and were not able to vote on anything. The only exception is if we had a public hearing, the alternates can all participate in the public hearing, but when the seated Commission members discuss acting on the item that was discussed at the public hearing and the regular meeting that follows the public hearing, alternates who are not seated cannot discuss at that point. It is only the seated members of the Commission
that are able to discuss the application that we had the public hearing on. They can discuss it because they're going to vote on it. And so that's the only exception there. And I tried to make that a little more clear. I just can't remember where that is Right this minute.
I'm assuming that's a statutory that mirrors the statute. It's not something that's kicking to Andover's planning and zoning commission.
It is not. That is statutory. That was the feedback I got from Mark Branch as well is that that's the one time that they can't participate. So and it's you not you would think it would be in Article eight and So here we go. I think this might be it. Unseated alternates may take part in commission discussion except for deliberations on an application in a public hearing which was held in close. So anyhow, that's what the words mean. And so I think we understand it and maybe it's a little confusing where it's written there, but we've got a feel for that. So given all that, I would
If you go back to the membership, Jed, you say there's five members and two thirds which would be 3.33 or four. Yep. So wouldn't it be three and not four? Nope.
3.33. Three members is not twothree, which is 3.33. It takes the fourth member to get that extra third. And so that's why it has to round up to four people. Because if we only had three people, we wouldn't have two thirds. I guess.
And it's just a function of the small number of people we have on the commission that the math goes there. Not as you would expect there. And that's why I put the answer in there of that means four people. Now it also says, just so everybody knows, that we might end up with five people all from one party if we don't have anybody from the other party that wants to be a member. We don't have to hold a seat vacant while we're trying to get somebody from a different political party to sign on to the commission. Are you sure? I am sure.
I've just never heard of that before. I don't know differently. I've just never heard of that being the case before on anything, not just us.
Yeah, well, because Scott, on my initial draft of the bylaws, I didn't have any of the words about the political parties in there. And Scott asked about that, so I went back and took it right out of the charter. And so the bottom three lines here, the law does not guarantee a minor party representation on the board, however, and the number of parties that candidates represent during election does not change the requirement. So I think that means that if all we had were Democrats or all we had were Republicans and we didn't have a mix that that doesn't preclude us from filling the Commission so that we can do the Commission business.
Did you say that came from the statutes into the Charter? Or do we know how it got in the Charter? All I did was look at the Charter. So
I didn't take the Charter back anyplace else to validate that the charter was correct. Just used the words that were in our charter. And what section is that?
Don't know off the top of my head, and I'm not prepared to call up the town charter right now either.
Okay. It just sounds strange to me. I had pulled up the charter because of what we I was questioning in my suggestions about how to fill a vacancy. I have the charter up, but if you don't have it right there, that's fine. It just sounds it doesn't sound familiar to me that you can do that. Historically, it hasn't been done that way.
Historically, I think we've always had a mix. And again, you can have four of the same party, so it's not hard to at least have one from the other party. But right now we've got a pretty good balance, think. So we're in pretty good shape on that. Just wish And the other thing that's come up
go ahead. Nope. I just wish we had more alternates so that maybe we could worry about that.
Well, I was going to say it's come up over the years. Again, don't know what the law is exactly. That's why I asked if you knew whether or not this, the language in the charter was pulled from the statutes. I've just never heard of a member like whether it's us or the board of finance or anybody, an elected board being allowed to have five members of one party, whether it's just custom in Andover or whether that really is the case that you can do that. It seems to me it's come up. I know it has over the years that we took the political affiliation of the alternates into consideration also as far as doing the kind of math that Jed was just doing? Again, I don't know what the law is offhand, or maybe it's just always worked out that way
that you don't have five democrats or five republicans and and, you know, nobody else unless they're an alternate. But I guess we're not gonna solve it tonight. Like I said, it just sounded odd to me. It
does sound a little odd. Hopefully we don't get into that predicament but the bylaws, those words were in there when I sent it over to Hart Branch for his review and he didn't have a comment on I'm not sick. I just swallow something funny.
I guess at this point, I'd like to have a motion that the bylaws as presented be approved with two subsequent changes, that the article of the statutes 01/1967 be revised to 167A and the rescheduling of town meetings be stated that the meeting will be held within a week of the original date? So moved.
Thank you, Scott. I'll second, Leanne. Thank you, Leanne. Any last minute discussion before we go to a vote? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. Anne? Aye.
Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. Leanne? Aye. I vote aye as well. The bylaws passed five zero zero. And we didn't have to get into the tricky math for whatever the percentage was in the last article that talks about proven bylaw changes. Okay, we're gonna jump down to item eight, administrative report. Jim?
Ongoing permitting, one home going up, a number of additions, etcetera. I do have one recent complaint regarding people living on on a property in in trailers at 44 whales. And a letter went out with a date certain to contact me. So I'll be working on that.
You say you did send a letter out to them, Jim? I did. Yes. Okay.
And I will follow-up on that. And I did, I actually went with the wetlands agent to the sand pit at 517, the gravel pit at 517 Route 6, just to familiarize and tell for the site. And we're working with the engineer, Chris Bell, the applicant's engineer to put together a restoration plan. Did Bell meet you out there? I'm sorry?
Did the did the engineer Bell meet you out there? No. You did not.
So, Jim, can you say that again? You went out there by yourself or
I went out there with Chris? No, I went out with Chris Pell about three weeks ago, I believe. I'm not Mhmm. And then more recently, I went out with just with the Wetlands agent.
Okay, so Scott or someone started to ask you if Chris and the agent have met together and you said no. So how did everything look out there, Jim?
Well, looks like we need to start restoration. Other than that, it looks fairly fairly good. Hopefully, they'll be wrapping it up soon.
Does the property owner agree that we need to start restoration?
Well, the engineer did. The engineer was agreed to put together a plan. Okay. So how far are they through the project?
I would say they're on phase three. So it's roughly a 100 feet each phase in the back in the back of the property towards the road. So they're in phase three. K. But, I mean, seems to you know, silt fence is intact, the berm is is holding waters, there's no water. There's no water anywhere. Right. That's all I have.
What and what did you find? Did you go up to up to 44 Wells Road yet? I did. There's Was it was it a valid complaint?
Yes. I mean, I'm certain it is. I have not been able to contact, the gentleman that filed the claim. Just his phone doesn't appear to be working. It's something yes. It appears to be a valid complaint. No. Unfortunately, that that particular site, it was you know, it's been operating over the years as as various well, as as various things and never really had a site plan per se. So it's hard to have them clean up other than sort of health related items, but the specific plate was people living on the property. And that's a prohibited use
under section four of the regulations. Right, it's always been a garage ever since I can remember for sixty years.
Yeah, was the old school bus. It was for school at one point. So kind of and then it was septic. Leon was making, you know Palmer was making septic tanks there concrete Yeah. But but the the trailers are prohibited. Right? Yes.
So is that the actual violation, Jim, that they're out there living in a trailer? Yes. Okay. There might be some septic related additional concerns.
Yeah, I mean, my plan is to initiate conversation and go from there, whether I should bring the health department in. I mean, if he agrees to comply, then the health issue goes away. If he doesn't, then I bring in the health department. Okay. Anything else for Jim? Moving
on to item nine, approval of the meeting minutes from 09/21/2020. I'll move to approve the minutes of 09/21/2020.
Thank you, Leanne. I have a second. I'll second it. Thank you, Scott. Any discussion on those minutes?
I do have a comment. On page two, second full paragraph, talks about a waiver request pertaining into soil erosion. I think the I think off-site topography should be inserted there. Pertaining to off-site topography, I believe that's what that would be the waiver request. It's being referred to, I believe.
Okay, so where would this specific To waiver. So it would read about a waiver request for topography
pertaining to okay pertaining and then see to to off-site topography.
Oh, I see. Yep. Any other comments on the minutes? I've got one comment on the same page, fourth line up from the bottom. Mindy, at the second to the last word, you've got an and that's missing an M. And then on page four, the bottom paragraph, second sentence and format of the it says wetland mission statement, I think that should be planning and zoning mission statement. And those are the only comments that I had. Anybody else?
One thing that I was puzzled with maybe I just missed it before under eight for discussion talking about the 57 Hendee Road there down a little bit it says there was a mistake made they need 400 feet of frontage I thought it was that was needed that
I think you're right, Anne. The requirement is 200 foot of frontage.
I believe it not really was, doesn't in front of me. Believe the reference was to Jason line as well.
That that we certainly were we're talking about that. And that's the one that was approved without sufficient without any fun. But I think that's what what the mistake that was made.
I think that I made that comment need 400 total on there.
It would be 400 feet of frontage for two lots then. Two The
one that was improperly approved and the one that they're trying to get approved. Maybe it needs to be So
I think there was a mistake made they need 400 feet of frontage for two lots and they currently have 46 feet. And again, doesn't that doesn't provide a solution that just shows how much frontage is lacking.
Reflects what was said in the meeting. That's all. Yeah. Okay.
I do have one other comment. Go ahead, Jim. I thought the minutes were done very well. I just thought I'd point that out. Mindy's second second crack at them.
Thank you. And they out, I think within a day and a half or a day or so. Excellent
job, Mindy. Very well done. Very detailed. Yep. Probably more detailed than is specifically required. But I do think it's good from a historical perspective on being able to go back and try to figure out what it was that we were talking about. So I agree. You. Much better to have too much than too little.
So with all that discussion, I'll call for a vote. Anne? Aye.
Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. Leigh Ann? Aye. And I vote aye as well. Minutes are approved, five-zero-zero. Moving on to item 10, miscellaneous items. I have two things. One, I did not get it ready so that I could present it here tonight, but hopefully everybody saw an email where I got ahold of Thad King about the septic tank issues, you know, and when sampling is to be required for our discussion over on 12 Webster Lane. And while that given point in time, well, guess it doesn't even say it's preferred, it just says if in general, you can sample any time, but here's a bunch of attributes, and if these attributes are present, then it has to be sampled during the period March through May or whatever was in our regulations there. But our regulations where it talked about approval during that period did have the caveat unless directed or specified by the town sanitarium and Thad King is our representative for the town of Andover over at the Eastern Highlands Health District, so I consider him to be essentially our town sanitarium
and make that call to go out and do that testing for us. He did, you know, I did ask about the distance from the wetlands and he really didn't have a big concern about that so much one way or another. He thought that was a wetlands agency decision. But he also volunteered to come and meet with us and talk septic systems at some point in time. And I've spent a bunch of time working with Jim on the lake regs, which has a big section on septic tank improvements. And so I figure when we as a commission get around to discussing the lake regs and we get to the septic tank section on the lake regs, that might be a great time for THAAD to show up, join us and help us understand
and make sure we're doing all the right things to protect the lake when we get to that section. Unless somebody had a desire, a burning desire to hear from them sooner. The second thing I add for the miscellaneous discussion is I am hopeful that by our next meeting we'll be ready to start talking the late regs again. Spent Jim, John, Valeni and I have spent a couple of Wednesday afternoons working on trying so that I understand how the nutrient allocation worksheet works the regulations that we're trying to put into effect. And I think I'm starting to get an inkling where I can at least discuss the regulations where we left off with all of you folks and it makes some sense out there. And so I'm counting on doing that at our next meeting. And
so maybe we won't get done in an hour on the next meeting. And I'm hoping we wrap up pretty soon tonight. This is money in the bank for the next meeting that may run a little on the long side. But it won't exceed whatever our bylaws say. Think it was $10.30. And we'll be done way before 10:31
way or the other. Thank you for doing that, Jim and Jed. Very important.
Well, so the last part of the RIG's discussion is I did give the presentation to the Alma Alpoa meeting this past Wednesday. And aside from some technical difficulties where I thought we would be doing a Zoom meeting and it turned out to be some Google meeting that I wasn't familiar with how to present on, And for some reason, my microphone wasn't compatible with that system. And so it sounded like I was breathing in a helium balloon and then talking. I called in on my cell phone and had the discussion that way. The discussion went very well with them and they were very supportive. The lead into my presentation was when Linda Derrick, who's the president of Andover Lake Management Association, was briefing on the water sampling that was done this summer and the amount of weeds growing in the lake and the algae growing in the lake to the people who are doing the sampling. And that was done by Hillary who works for George. They got something to do with the lake stuff. They found the amount of weeds and algae at a shocking level. So that made it pretty easy to go in and get the support of people around the lake for trying to keep the lake cleaned up and get it there. So they were all in favor of that. It's at a shocking level, the weed growth?
Yes. And we did have a lot of weeds this year. The water clarity was very clear. The water was probably as clear as it's ever been. And maybe that contributed to the sunlight getting down there to the plants to help them grow. But we did have an awful lot of weeds growing in the lake this year. And part of it was attributed to the lack of a good freeze last year. You know, the lake never really froze at all. Yeah. But it made a receptive audience. They were all interested in what we could do to make the lake better. Was the wheat growth different from other years?
I don't know. I do know that at one point in time where I lived, was a big algae bloom that went someplace else fast for a while. But I think it was still kind of in place when they were doing the sampling. I saw them out there sampling one day and there were a fair amount of weeds there. I have had in previous years piles of weeds blow up onto my shore that I've raked out of the lake And I didn't have that this year. But so I think it comes and goes. But if the scientist can say that we had lots of weeds in the lake, I think that's a good thing to get people on board with supporting the lake. Right, it is, yeah. And so I have asked Linda to send me the report so I have that and I can use that as part of the discussion on building the regs. But all in all, that went pretty good. And so I do think we are ready to start. But I think they're very close. We'll just get started on that again and see how it goes. That was it for my miscellaneous items. I don't see anybody from the public here. So I'll go on to item 12, commission open discussion. Anybody have anything out there that they would like to talk about tonight? Is
there any information or anything going on about that property that sort of went between Thorns Road and Pine Ridge? Jim, you wanna answer that?
Yes. It's understanding that the owners of the property, current owners, are preparing to go to the next wetlands meeting. Whether that happens or not, I I don't know. For for crossing wetlands permit. Okay. They would the next step would be a subdivision. Yeah. They may or may not make the the next the November meeting. So any other group go ahead Ian.
So it looks like it would be quite a while before they would be actually building on that piece of property. It would take
That's great. I mean, if it takes three months to get through wetlands and two months to get through the Planning and Zoning Commission. They put them sometime in March, I believe.
Because one of the owners is looking to get some relief in the tuition for their child at the school. And they're saying, no, they're going to be building. And we just didn't want to be giving it. The Board of Ed is concerned about giving a tuition break to somebody who has to be a teacher.
I don't think it'll be for this school year. No, I didn't think so. Unless we were too far away.
Anybody else? Hearing none, I guess we have no choice but to ask for a motion to adjourn. I'll move to adjourn at 08:08.
Thank you, Leanne. I'll second that. Thank you, Scott. Any discussion? Hearing none, call for a vote. Ian? Aye. Susan? Aye. Leanne? Aye. And I vote aye as well. The motion passes five-zero-zero. Thank you, everybody, and have a great rest of your evening. And look forward to discussing the lake regs for you next time around. Good night. Thanks. Good night.