Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Meeting
July 18, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
There we go. We've got the recording going. And three things on the public hearing tonight, and we'll take them just as in the order on the agenda. But the first item up is the discussion of proposed amendments to the zoning regulations, more particularly section 15 signs in their entirety. So that's what we're going to talk about first. Abby, if you can let me share my screen. Okay, you're all set, Jed.
Okay, and so this is the latest version of the sign regs. So I just wanted to give a little overview on what we were doing and walk through. I think there's a couple of people here that are probably interested in what we're doing with election signs and political signs. And so I wanted to address that and then we'll take whatever comments anybody has there. But during the last two year election, we discovered that there were some unconstitutional aspects of our signed regulations. And essentially, though we had put a limit on people being able to put their signs up to about thirty days prior to election and that's certainly not conducive to when the campaign season starts anymore. There was some confusion on the number of number and sizes of the different signs. And then during the pandemic we saw a lot of signs going out. So one of the things I thought I would do when I started tackling design regulations is fix all the ills. I rapidly discovered that was not going to be possible, so I cut my goal back to making sure that we didn't have any violations of anybody's constitutional rights and so that's where we're at and we did make some changes to try and improve a few things but anyhow. So we noted up here in the intent while ensuring constitutional right of free speech is protected. I came to find out there were really two kinds of political signs. There's political signs where people are stating their views or opinions, and then there's signs for
candidates. And we broke those two things into two different sections here. So, you know, the political position sign, that would be a sign something like we support the police or defund the police or any of those kind of things that you might see that that provide a political viewpoint. And then then there's the signs that we would put up prior to an election. And that's that's what we show there. You can see here that I did find some last minute errors into my numbering system, so I fixed that up as I went through getting ready for tonight. We also did away with a roof sign. Know, nobody in Andover's got a sign up on the roof. We didn't think
that was what we wanted to see here, and we eliminated that. A vehicular sign, if somebody's parking a big box truck with an advertising banner on it near the road for an extended period of time where it's not normally parked, we wanted to do that. I did add, you know, a word on banner signs. And it was tough to figure out when does a banner differ from a flag and all that kind of thing. So there's probably going to be some differences there. I just didn't want any political banners going up over the Andover Rail Trail Bridge. And then I took a sentence out of one of our ordinances that I figured if we had an ordinance about no signage being at the Veterans Monument, I would put that in our sign range. I thought that was a good place for that.
Here's a part that probably will be, you know, a little bit of concern to some folks and this is no change from the preceding version of our regulations. It says all signs or part thereof shall be clear of all street right of ways and no closer than 15 feet to the lot line. I know there are signs that, you know, we have right out next to the road in the town right away. And since we haven't changed any of the wording on that, you know, my thought was that there hasn't been any problems in the past, might not be any problems in the future. My rationale and I was going to take this out, I left it in because I thought that with the, you know, all the political statements everybody wants to make and put a sign out there, I didn't want political signs. I didn't think political signs should be on town property expressing people's views. And so that included, you know, with the right of way out here too. And if I allow one sign to be in the right of way, I have to allow for freedom of speech any sign to be in the right of way. And so that's why no change, but I didn't get rid of that restriction either. Coming down, you know, we used to specify that a temporary sign which included an election sign
couldn't be up more than thirty days prior to an election and we got rid of that part. Now say that, you know, no more than seven days after the event the event has concluded, whether it be an election, tag sale, you have it, the sign should be removed. Now we get into the size of the sign. So for an election sign, you know, can be a freestanding sign up to 32 square feet in the business area or industrial zone and 16 square feet in the residential zone. Last time around, we said that everybody could have a 32 square foot sign because we thought it had to be equivalent to the largest sign in our town. It turns out the ruling on that's been clarified a little bit, and so we have to allow election signs to be as big as any other sign in that zone. So in the residential zones, maximum size was signed with 16 square feet, and so we reduced it down to that too. The other thing that we continue to allow is I know people want to put up multiple signs for multiple candidates. And so we allowed if it's in the business or industrial zone of 50 square feet total. So you can have a 32 square feet sign
that gives you 18 square feet for other two square foot signs. You can have another nine little signs if you want. In the residential zone, we lowered that to 32 square feet total. So again, 16 square feet, that gives you eight more little signs to put in your yard. Oh, I added no trespassing signs. As I walked around, I saw a bunch of no trespassing signs. Thought that would be pretty reasonable. Political position signs. Each lot may have one sign, maximum 16 square feet in residential zone, 33 square feet in a business zone. No political position sign shall be allowed on publicly owned property. And so that's it. That was our thought on that. That doesn't mean you can't put up the fire department steak fry, you know, sign that I frequently see over at the dump and that kind of stuff when time comes around for that. So, I think that's what I wanted to point out in here. The, you know, going back to the rationale for what we did with the election signs and that, you know, it is recognized when you have zoning laws, zoning regulations, that a regulation may not be optimum for every lot in the zone. And that's why anybody who has a planning and zoning commission also has to have a zoning board of appeals.
And so if you think that your lot isn't is special, needs a special consideration with respect to our zoning regulations. One of the actions you could take would be to go to the zoning board of appeals. The other thing you could do is you could put your sign up in agent Halsey is pretty. He has a lot of discretion about you know where he sees violations and which ones he's going to pursue and that sort of thing. And if you're doing the best you can to comply with that just as in the past you probably won't won't hear too much about that. But I did want to have something in there that if somebody put in a sign that we thought was totally inappropriate, we did have a mechanism to at least
push it back onto their own property as opposed to having on the town right away. The other thing that we did is in our current regulations, there's some words in there that say if you do put a sign up in the town right away, the zoning agent can go take the sign down. And we remove those words, just like we think that, you know, we have the approach that if you you don't like the words in here you can appeal to the zoning board of appeals. Agent Halsey has a process that he goes through if he sees an infraction of the zone and so that's a little more cumbersome on his behalf too. So I would like to think that we can with these protect free speech, allow you to put up lots of signs as early as you want supportive of an election and live happily ever after. And with that you know I am happy to entertain any comments from the public. And I guess I see, well, I'd like to try and have people raise their hand. I'm going to try and avoid having Abby call on each person individually to save a little time because we've got three hearings that we want to go through and I'd like to
to focus on those folks who've got a comment on the sign regulations at this point. Anybody got any comments on the signs? Carol?
I understand and the 15 feet from the road but it's very hard when you live like around the lake or your driveway is just the driveway and you're right at your, you know, there's trees and bushes and everything on your property. That means that if like for me, if I put it up 15 feet from the road, which I try to do, I'm almost into my facility of bushes. Yep. And other people, they've got their dry, it's just their driveway and then they have all the trees and the bushes that are right along the road and 15 feet would mean they're into the woods. So nobody would see their sign. So when they try to put it where they don't want to block their view from getting into the road, other people's view in the road. What was the sense of them even getting a sign if they can't put it somewhere where it could be seen?
So, was out doing my morning walk today and I knew you would ask that question so I paid particular attention to your percythia bushes as I walked down that way. And I have seen election signs out in front of your house before. Would ask that you, right now there's a River Valley Tree Service sign out in front of your house that's kind of overgrown with the percythia bush that's kind of even hard to see but it's been there for a long time. Yeah, I'll get my son to get that out of there. Okay, but anyhow, so if you were to trim that lower stuff and you put it just on this side of the prosithia bush, I think agent Halsey would probably give you credit for having tried your best to meet that. I think agent Halsey's got enough irons in the fire right now that that's probably not the the biggest issue that he's got. Well, the only issue would be is that the town supposed to mow my front of my property
and it's in need of being mowed and I don't know when the town's going to go around mowing sides of the road efficiently and high enough to make it be seen. It's not my I can't mow my front of my rocks. I can mow maybe near my forsythias but I can't mow the rocks and the rocks have the weeds. Nope and you put you normally put your signs
behind the rocks in front of the bushes. Right but they got to get mowed so they haven't seen. Okay yep well
I'm not here to solve the weed know that's Eric's issue. But I understand and I worked, tried to work very hard on how to accommodate those different situations like yours.
Because I know some people on the lake, another RTC member, 15 feet is basically at her front door.
Well, and so I was hoping she was here so I didn't talk about her with her not being in attendance. Don't see her here, but I noticed that's where she has two or three signs right now. Because she saw your probably the email I sent out so she made sure she was putting them. Yep. But then it's on you you you don't see really see them unless you're
you look at our house. This is where I I you know when you go around the lake and you see people their driveways go down their yards go down and 15 feet down is is down and it's like nobody's going to see a sign there and that's where it gets a little hard. Okay. I understand the site and everything but all we can do is try to work with it.
In the town will, I'm sure. Yeah. Anybody else have a comment on that?
I also do. I wanted to mention also the issue around the lake. Not only are they short, I'm sorry, one of the problems at the beginning of the lake where there are people who have really long driveways, you don't see the homes and the trees, the heavy woods goes all the way to the road. And it's not just around the lake, but a lot of people in Andover since we're so country have the same issue. You're not seeing their house and their heavy woods goes all the way to the road. So I just don't think it's fair that not everybody will be able to participate in putting up signs of their choosing.
I didn't say that you couldn't participate. Said that you would be able, if you wanted, you could go the more cumbersome route, which would be to take your lot to the zoning board of appeals. Don't necessarily think you go that way. I think you do the best you can with putting your signs out there and agent Halsey is yet to go make a fuss with anybody without sitting down and talking to him about what his concern is first. And I'm sure that would be his practice in this case. But as you mentioned the woods thing, know, on my walk there's a sign out there right now. Don't know who it came from, but it's in a heavily wooded area on Lake Road and it talks about, let's put a clouse on your house. You know, don't know who put it there. Been awful tempted to just go yank it up. It's been there for a long time, but I haven't wanted to do that. I'm just trying to get the zoning regs put in so that they're not viewed as unconstitutional. I think that's the bigger issue.
I mean, perhaps go ahead. I don't think it's a great idea to tell maybe a quarter of the population that to take it up with zoning appeals. And that since there is no better description of what the discretionary process will be, I don't wanna the woods literally goes to the road. So if I'm to stick it five feet, 10 I mean, where what is the discretionary? I understand he can use it, but what is it? As we're handing out signs and as people are interested, Do we tell people oh well you know five feet it might be taken 10 feet it might be taken.
There has to be taken is going to be taken from somebody other than by the town. Okay.
Yep. And the line is 15 feet. There's an awful lot of lots that can comply with that. Again, have not been under the impression that this has been an issue in the past. But with some of the political signs out there, I want to at least have recourse when there's a sign up there that people are extremely unhappy with that we have some grounds to go out and do something about it. Understood.
Anybody else on signs? Anne, is your hand up there? No.
Okay. With that, I'll move on to the commission members. Any comments or questions from the commission members on signs? Hearing none. I'll I'm looking for, I will make a motion to close the public hearing on signs. Second. Thank you, Anne.
And I'll just quickly do a roll call. No, I'm going to do it by acclamation. We haven't seated members for the public hearing here. If any commission members opposed to closing the public hearing on signs, let me know. Hearing none, we will move on to the second of our public hearings tonight, and that is concerning Section 17, alcoholic establishments and location of establishments intended for the sale of cannabis products. Just very briefly on that, you know, we're making that particular change. Last year, the Board of Selectmen issued a resolution that said the town was in favor of supporting. The sale of cannabis in town and growing with a micro cultivator cannabis in town. Thought that to get out in front of that. We discussed it with the commission, and we thought that the regulations we had for a package store that sold alcohol would be about the same restrictions that we wanted to put on for
selling cannabis. And so we added that to the list. A couple of other things that we did change in the regulation. We removed the restriction that bars and package stores needed to be greater than 500 feet apart. We only have one package store in one bar in Andover, and they are, you know, within about 100 feet of each other. And we thought that that was okay, didn't need that regulation, so we removed that restriction. We also changed the restriction on being within 500 feet of a school to specify the elementary school. I know at one point in time we had a little dance school over there at Andover Plaza. And I don't think that was the kind of school, the commission didn't think that was the kind of school that we were concerned about having the, you know, within 500 feet of the package door or bar. And we changed the distance for it to the Hop River State Trail Park you know it said, you know the 500 feet requirement was. Was with all state parks churches schools and that sort of thing. The Commission was concerned that at least at one point in time somebody came and talked about wanting to put a winery in a piece of property along Route 6. And as it turned out, all the property along the rail trail
sort of encompasses our business zone. And so we reduced that to 200 feet to support that effort if it ever came to be and make it a little easier for somebody to put an alcohol establishment. Peskin: near the rail trail. Michael And I think that was that was it with respect to the changes in chapter on alcohol and cannabis. And if there's anybody from the public that has any comments or questions for me on cannabis, now would be a good time to address those. And again, if you can raise your hand or speak up, happy to hear your comment. Okay, I see nobody wanting to address those. So at this point, I'll open it up to the Commission. Any Commission members have any questions or comments with respect to alcohol and cannabis? Okay, very well. And then in that point, anybody who is opposed to closing the public hearing on alcohol and cannabis regulations say aye. Hearing none, the public hearing on alcohol and cannabis regulations are closed. We'll move on to the public hearing on opting out of Public Act 20 one-twenty nine. And this is, a. Let me. Okay, so public act 2,129 put out an awful lot of thoughts that that's the public act that actually you know put a deadline into place on making an affordable housing plan.
It had a lot of stuff in the public act. One of those, one of the items in there covered accessory dwelling units. If somebody, if there's anybody that doesn't know what that is, that's putting, you know, a little apartment attached to your house or in the upstairs of a garage or a barn or something like that. And Andover has regulations in our zoning regs now about how we go about doing that. But the public act put in a requirement that I didn't think was in the town's best interest. So the Public Act 2129 requires that each town designate locations or zoning districts within the municipality in which accessory apartments are allowed. Then it goes on, provided that at least one accessory apartment shall be allowed as of right on each lot that contains a single family dwelling.
Then it goes on to say no accessory apartment shall be required to be an affordable accessory apartment. So in our Lake District, you know, we've got a lot of very small building lots, as you're probably aware of, some of which, you know, downwards, you know, a fifth of an acre or something like that. And and so to put essentially a second house on that wouldn't be. Peskin: conducive to maintaining the water quality of the lake Our current regulations specify that we can put an accessory dwelling unit in the Lake District if the lot is greater than three acres. Some you can argue that that might be a little excessive that's the number that the Commission came up with to to maintain the water quality in the lake is as best we could. So. The process to opt out is that the Planning and Zoning Commission by two thirds vote votes to initiate the opt out process. We did that in our last meeting. Public hearing is held. That's what we're doing tonight. Once we've gotten input from the public, you know, the Commission can decide whether or not to opt out within the ordinary statutory deadlines, which is sixty five days after we close the hearing. We must state on the record what the reason is for making that decision.
And, you know, primarily that reason is to maintain the water quality of Andover Lake by preventing accessory dwelling units on the very small lots in Lake District. We've got to publish our notice of decision, which is something we routinely do. And then it goes to the Board of Selectmen that by a two thirds vote, to approve our results of the opt out process once we take it to them. If we have not done this by 01/01/2023, the requirements of the Public Act 2,129 go into effect regardless of our regulations and all those things that are in the Public Act go into effect, essentially rewriting our regulations here. There are some good ideas in that public act that we might want to consider, but at this point, I just want to give the town and the commission the opportunity to opt out if that's the path that we would choose so that we don't get forced into
putting in the regulations that the state is specified. And with that, I'm ready to entertain any questions that might be on the opt out process for accessory dwelling units. Eric, I see your hand raised.
Sure. I just wanted to state that the town already has a set of regulations in place to deal with accessory dwelling units that were thought of carefully. Can you just cut your sound Scott? Getting a lot of feedback from you, Eric.
Wait one sec. So I think it's the town has already gone through the process of putting in a thoughtful set of regulations to deal with accessory dwelling units, which allows them and set some pretty decent parameters on them. I think there are things in our accessory dwelling regulation that could change going forward, but I think we also meet the spirit of what the state is trying to do. I agree with Jed's argument that the Lake District, the lot sizes are too small to really safely be able to add the additional coverage for an accessory dwelling unit. So I'm in support of opting out at this point and maybe further tweaking the regulations related to accessory dwelling units. But you got to act now or you're gonna be stuck with it from here on going forward. That's it.
Okay. Any other members of the public like to comment on the opting out? I'm having a hard time hearing you, Katherine.
Nope, I have nothing, I'm sorry. Okay, your light was flashing, somebody was talking. Oh, sorry, Jed. Nope. Okay. I don't even know how. I'm on my phone, so I don't even know how to mute this because I've never joined Okay, I gotcha. I'll try.
Any commission members have any comments or questions about the opting out? And again, for the commission members and the alternates here during the public hearing, everybody can ask questions. Once we get to deliberation, only those members that are seated will be able to participate in the deliberations at that point. Okay, hearing none, I make a motion that the public hearing for opting out of the Public Act 20 one-twenty nine be closed. Second.
Thank you, Steve. Any commission members in opposition to closing the public hearing? Hearing none, public hearing is closed. And that concludes our public hearings for tonight. At 07:36, I'll call to order the regular meeting. I see we've got Anne Creme, Steve Nelson, Scott Bersand, Leanne Hutchinson, and myself. So all the regular commission members are present. Alders will be seated. Additions or changes to the agenda? And I have none. Okay, hearing none, moving on to item four, public speak. Any member of the public want to make any comments on any of the items that, any item that might not be on the agenda for tonight, but for the Commission's benefit. We have a question. Okay, go ahead Louise. We
have a concern about anybody who may have property, not next to the lake but up with that on the watershed that might feed into the water? Would those regulations apply to them as well? What regulations are you referring to, Louise? You said around the lake area?
The opting out of the accessory dwelling units? Yes, yes. Those would apply to anybody that's in the Lake District. And so if you go to the zoning regs in the back of those, there's a map that shows the different districts, but the Lake District does exceed beyond just the surrounding houses there. Okay. That includes around all the watersheds?
There are portions of the watershed that are not in the Lake District. Lake District is an area within the watershed, so there's a few people in the watershed that are in the Andover Rural Design District that aren't in the Lake District, but they're far enough away from the lake that, you know, we stuck with the Lake District, which is consistent with our current regulations, is our rationale for opting out. Okay, thanks Jed.
Any other questions from the public before we start? Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to new business item 5A, application 20 two-two, proposed text amendment to section 15 of the handover zoning regulations. I make a motion that the. Section 15 to the draft of section 15 to the Andover zoning regulations on signs be approved. Second. Thank you, Steve. Any discussion from the Commission members? Hearing none, I will call for a roll call vote. Anne? Aye.
Steve? Aye. Scott? Aye. Leanne? Aye. And I vote aye as well. The motion passes 500. Item 5B, application 20 two-two proposed text amendment to section 17 alcohol and cannabis establishments. I make a motion that section 17 of the zoning regs draft for alcohol and cannabis establishments be approved. Second.
Thank you, Leanne. Any discussion? Hearing none, do a roll call vote. Anne? Aye. Steve? Aye. Scott? Aye. Leanne? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. New business 5C. 8Dash8Dash24 referral referral repurpose the old firehouse located at 15 Center Street for usage parking for the town's senior transportation vehicles and auxiliary storage. At this point, I will turn the discussion over to you, Eric. I saw an update to the 08/24 letter that I thought had some great information in it. And if you could share that with the Commission, I'd appreciate it. Certainly. Can I share my screen here?
Yes, you can. And Scott, if you could mute yourself so we won't get that feedback, that'd be great. Thank you.
Hopefully you're looking at a picture of a memorandum from me. I'm not going to read the whole thing but I'll just go over the highlights of it. What this is, is a statutory referral on behalf of the Board of Selectmen for municipal improvement at 15 Center Street. So, the town already owns the land at a property and existing structure at 15 Center Street. That existing structure originally dated back to the earliest parts of it were from around 1860. It's been expanded multiple times since then. The town has owned it since 1938 and we used it as a fire station for like fifty two or fifty three years before it was abandoned in use for that. We continued to use it as a senior center after the 1990s. It currently has the ability to park.
It has four bays in it currently. So, in 2018, the town did a survey of the property because a number of people have been complaining about mold in the building. And based on some environmental studies determined to stop using it for a senior center because of the excessively high mold counts and problems with it. They looked into both remediation and eventually determined that it was not worth due to the age of the structure and inherent problems, it was not worth trying to fix it up. At this point, the structure is deteriorated to the point that we're concerned about the roof on the Far Bay actually caving in with vehicles in there. We're looking to address this sometime sooner rather than later. The board of selectmen has authorized me to apply for a steep grant to demolish this building and build the new four bay vehicle storage facility at the same location. Because this would clearly be a significant improvement, the Planning and Zoning Commission has to ensure that it is consistent with the plan of conservation and development. So, there's some other stuff that's going to need to happen. It's going to need to go before ZBA for some variances, both the use variants and then variants for the side and front yard setbacks. But what we're going to build in its place is a smaller structure than what's there now
that will decrease the nonconformity of the building. It won't eliminate it, but it will decrease it from where it is currently. What we're talking about building is basically a 36x60 foot wide parking garage, but do it in such a way that it has some so that it looks appropriate for that neighborhood. We're not just going to build a, you know, a big metal shed to put all the vehicles in. Understand that this is a residential neighborhood. One of the reasons why we're looking at this location is because this location currently has three phase power available. And with the state's push towards electrification of vehicles, we're cognizant of the fact that we're probably going to need to at some point install DC fast chargers so we can charge, you know, senior transportation buses, electric buses, because I think that's coming, whether it comes next year or five years from now, the town's going to have to deal with that in some form or another. So, the question turns to what does the POCD say relative to this application? So, I went through the POCD and looked at the areas where this is in conformance. And then we'll talk a little bit about where it's not quite in conformance. First thing, the POCD is clear that the median age of residents is increasing dramatically and that there will be an increased need for senior transportation. That is really why the town is anticipating the need for a couple of buses and a couple of smaller vehicles going forward. The other thing to note is that the town of Andover has very little business in industrially zone land, less than 9% of the total land area.
We're predominantly residential. So, the reality is any spot we're going to put senior transportation in is probably zoned residential because there's just not a lot of industrial, you know, or business zone property where we're likely going to be able to put this. So again, in chapter 12, the POCD talks about the case for the aging population and the need to be able to provide transportation services for them, which is exactly what this is pointing towards. In chapter 10, remember this POC was written when this building was in use as a senior center. So keep that in mind that go back seven years, this was a functioning building. And although we talked a lot about where we were going to potentially put a new senior center going forward, we still had a senior center available to the town. There is a mention in chapter 10 about developing the Center Street area as part of the main central kind of hub of the town. And, you know, the indication that it would be a good area to allow both multifamily housing, as well as mixed use development. In this case, well, that's I think a good worthwhile goal. This is impractical on this particular lot due to septic constraints on the property. So, as many of you know, the town at one point tried to buy the property across the street, 12 Center Street,
because that's what it would have taken at the time to have a big enough leach field for us to put in a reasonably sized community center with the kind of stuff that we as a town wanted. Without that, when we looked at it initially, we determined we couldn't put any reasonable building there. That's another way of saying you probably could tear that building down and put in a single family house, but you're probably not going to be able to tear it down and put in a multi family or a bigger structure in there. So, while the POCD would envision more intensive development for that property, I don't think that's really practical because the topography is in the way and you have a series of septic constraints. The other thing I would note is that among the uses that are appropriate in the area designated as town center, which is not just Center Street, Center Street plus 316
plus the area of Long Hill. You know between there and the ball field is governmental uses and a parking structure for senior transportation would definitely qualify as a government, you know, a governmental use. And lastly, this plan would also allow for future construction of a playground on the upper area of that property. So again, where this is contra indicated is chapter 10 item number seven of the POCD, which seeks to encourage housing in and near the town center. And this definitely would not encourage housing near the town center, but it would take just a single buildable bot for a single family house out of that. So while it would be possible to create infill housing at 15 Center Street, I think that it's more valuable to the town to provide, you know, a centrally located senior transportation hub. So, that's kind of the argument we're making regarding the POCD. And this is a picture of what it looks like now. Most of you know driven by there, it's a pretty dilapidated structure. The front facade is in rough shape. The whole thing's kind of in rough shape. So, that's what we have now and I'm going to share real quick a picture of what the town is anticipating
putting there. And so that is the facade. You can kind of get a feeling for scale. And this will be built into the hillside. So although it looks like a pretty tall building, remember due to the slopes, the backside of this building will only be exposed. The roofline will only start about two feet or three feet above the earth. The front facade will be exposed, but it will be set into the hillside in roughly the same position it is now. That is basically all I have unless you all have questions for me. Do you want me to leave this image up or do you want to go back to being able to see people?
Let's go back to seeing everybody here. Thank you. Okay. Any Commission members have any questions or comments concerning the presentation that Eric just put on for us?
I like the idea and especially that you could possibly put a playground in on the upper level in the future that would be good we need that. Okay Anybody else?
Yeah, Eric, you mentioned that there were limited other town properties that could house a facility of this type. Did the town explore that and are there any other options or is this pretty much the only place we think we could put it?
The public works foreman and I took an extensive survey and walked and looked at all the town properties that are potentials. The conclusion we reached is, so our original goal had been to locate this at the public works facility, because we already had a disturbed, you know, kind of industrial site. And it was next to the buses and it seemed like that would be, you know, a smart plan. But when we really started looking at that site, looking at where the existing driveways were, where the five hundred year floodplain was for the building, because we're not going to build the thing in a floodplain. You know, and took into account the side yard setbacks in that zone. We really didn't have a good option. It would have been possible to put it in that facility, but it would also have been, we would have had to shoehorn it in between there and the next neighbor.
That would have required variances also, and it would have caused us problems plowing and getting access into the back of the area behind public works. We kind of looked at that and said, realistically, it would be doable, but it's not a good site. It's kind of a poor fit for what we were trying to do. We also looked at the area around the nature pond, the Doris Chamberlain nature pond. And again, there's physically enough room to locate the structure there, but it would eliminate the parking at the nature pond, which is desirable. And it would also have some pretty serious negative impacts potentially on that wetland ecosystem there. And we also looked at the area in and around the town hall because as you know, behind the town hall building, the town owns roughly 70 acres of land that the town's owned for a long time. And if you remember from the plan of conservation and development, that is an area that the town had specified as a potential area for a senior housing complex. So, and that would be a good solution for senior transportation, except for the fact that the initial ask for that is about 800 to 1,000 feet of road because you have to get clear of the power lines and clear the first set of wetlands before you can put it in. And the cost to do that, the development cost for putting something in and bringing it up to town standard
is quite a bit more than the town really has the capability to fund. If we were really being forwardly thinking and thinking that the town itself was actually going to develop that in the near term, say five years, it might be worth considering putting it back there. But without that, it's a tough ask to spend the money that it would take to get back there just for a parking garage when we have an existing area we can do it. Does that answer your question? Yes. Thanks, Eric. Okay.
Any other commission members have any other comments on the referral? Okay, Eric, I know you mentioned the variance request with the ZBA for the use of the facility. And I did not see that in the posting for it. I just want to make sure that the Commission members are aware that if you look at what's allowed to be built on a lot in the Andover Rural District, a parking garage is not in that list. It's not in that list of, you know, by right to go do where we could put up a single family house, and it's not in the list of those things that are to be done by special permit. So, I guess, you know, my big concern is to make sure that we clearly get that resolved through the zoning board of appeals. Do you agree, Agent Halsey, that that's the right way to handle that?
Yes, and it did come up. It came up late in the game and did not make it into the legal notice. I thought we could figure out how to handle that moving forward. But that's a good point.
No, I understand. And I struggled with this application for a little bit. You know, if you put your mind to it, you can always come up with a reason to not do something. But certainly, the plan of conservation and development is not like our zoning regulations where, you know, the zoning regulations are very clear cut, you either need it or you don't. And if you don't, you've got the option to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals. But short of that, you know, from the Commission point of view, we vote on the merits of the application, which is not part of the referral process. We were asked to look at it from the plan of conservation and development. So, given that, any other questions before we call for a vote? Any other comments? Hearing none, I'll call a roll call vote to approve the referral 824 for the reuse of the old fire station into a parking garage for the senior transportation vehicles. Second. Thank you, Scott. Calling for a vote, Anne. Aye. Steve. Aye. Scott. Aye. Leanne? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. The motion passes five-zero-zero. Thank you, Eric. Thank you for your consideration. Commission, month of lives.
Next item up is a recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission to the Board of Selectmen regarding opting out of Public Act 20 one-twenty nine accessory dwelling units. And I will make a motion to opt out of Public Act 2,129 accessory dwelling unit requirements because the specified right to put an accessory dwelling unit on every building lot is detrimental to the water quality of Andover Lake. Second. Thank you, Steve. Any discussion?
I had a question. Only affects the building around the Lake. We still would be following all the other regulations to do with the affordable housing. Is that correct?
So the if we opt out of this portion, it means that the regulations we currently have in effect with respect to auxiliary dwelling units continue to be in effect. This was an action from our affordable housing plan to do this. It's also recommended by our attorney Mark Branch that we went this direction as well, but it has no other impact on any other aspect of the affordable housing plan. Okay, thank you.
Any other comments or questions? Jed, I just want to point out, it's not just the Lake District. I mean, anyone with a very small lot in the town, you know, this would allow them to have an accessory dwelling unit. By opting out, it protects us from having to approve something that may not be beneficial to that site.
So where do we have very small lots outside of the Lake District? I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm just trying to I know there might be a couple in the town center area. Right. For instance, you know, the fifteenth Center Street, I think Eric told me was 38,000 square feet, just shy of an acre. I can live with that as long as they can make the public health code. Right this minute, you know, our regulations today require that outside of the Lake District, somebody have a 60,000 square foot lot to have an approved accessory dwelling unit. The recommendation from the state was,
I think, a one acre lot. No, well, no. The recommendation of the state was as of right, everybody got to do one. So, that's our regulations today require 60,000 square feet. We had a case come before us where somebody with the old lot approved in the ARD of one acre, we did not allow to build one. And that would still be the outcome with respect to our regulations here. Because accessory dwelling units are viewed as such a big piece of the affordable housing problem that the state has, we may choose to reduce that number back down to, you know, one acre. We may put it that anybody in the ARD could. That's a discussion for later, but for right now, the existing regulations we have would stay into effect.
Right, and that's my point that if we buy into this state regulation, it would give everyone the right. And there may be cases within the town where we don't wanna do that even outside of the Lake District.
Yes. But primarily the rationale for opting out is to protect the quality of the lake. Right. Okay.
Any other questions or comments? Abby, did we make a motion on this particular item? Yes, you move to opt out and then Steve Okay, yep. Very good. So at this point, I'll call for a roll call vote. Anne? Aye. Steve? Aye. Skye? John Aye. Leigh Ann? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. The motion to opt out of the public deck requirements for auxiliary dwelling units passes five-zero-zero. Next item up under that concludes new business. Moving on to old business. This is the application of William Genovese 517 Route 6 gravel operation. Review proposed restoration plan for the ongoing gravel operation at 517 Route 6, and set sidewalk prior to acting upon the proposed remediation plan. So, Chris, I'll turn it over to you to walk us through the proposed remediation plan.
Okay. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. My name is Chris Bell. I'm a professional engineer from Higginham representing the applicant, William Genovese. Permission to share the screen with my drawing, Mr. Chairman? Yes, go ahead.
Hold on just a second. Okay. Alright, Chris. You're all set. Where are we? Can you see that? Not yet. Oops.
Maybe I'm doing this wrong. How do we do this again? Haven't done this in a while.
So you should see on the bottom of your screen a green Yep. That. And then from there, you'll select which window you'd like to share with us all.
Oops. That's AutoCAD. Oh, I guess I don't have it open. Oh, that's what happened. I closed it accidentally. Where am I? How about now?
It looks like it's working that way, yep. Okay, good.
Thank you for the help there. Yeah, this is a plan I developed a restoration plan back in the spring, and I did a little tweaking on it before I submitted it a few weeks ago. I just noticed that this note over here is no longer applies, this was from last year and I guess I was so concentrating on the plan I forgot to take that one off. Can
we ask you to increase the size a couple of clicks there, Chris?
Sure. Okay, yeah. That's good. That's better. Yep. Good. Now you didn't even see the note that's over there. What I did was, I guess it was about a month and a half ago, I went out and took some existing grades out there. Let's see what how the operation was doing. I located where the excavated areas over here. And what I should have added to this note, guess it was obvious to me, but was pointed out by Bill Genovese, this on the excavated area, this is the area that's gonna get leveled and spread throughout the site to bring it all up into an even grade, which I'm trying to show here with these notes. This area here already been graded and seeded
from last year. There's no contours here because it's extremely flat. This is around elevation 95, 95, and it slopes up as you can see at the site, it slopes up onto a hill, which eventually stops all activity up at the top of the hill. And that was the agreed area 95 feet from the Vernal Pool area that we stopped all activity and it's all existing here. Because that's the site here had been cleared off of debris, we did grass that area, that's why that grass symbol is shown throughout here. But this is the grassed area, which initially came up pretty good, but now didn't have a good second year growth at all on it. This existing topsoil pile is still here. The area that's shown mostly in white here is area that has been excavated out. This was initially excavated for the detention Pond and this is approximately what the location and contours are, it was pretty much built according to grade. The idea here is we did not excavate into that buffer area very much, that 50 foot area that we did get approval to go all the way to the property line. And the intention was to stop at a certain point when we felt that the amount of material that's here would be sufficient to just grade this whole area up to the proposed grade, which I'll go over now. This line that exists that we show here with the arrows
on either side, this is a high point that we want to bring from basically the beginning of the project at Station 0 all the way through the site and to the existing hill that's there. Mean right now it does flow in that direction here in the existing area. We might have to change that a little bit as we spread this material out through this entire area. The intention here again, as I said, is to create a high point here and flow in both directions, both left and right. Now it was important to keep the old pre existing contours on because I wanted you to be able to see the direction that the water flowed at that time. This was a high point here, and a high point here, and a high point here. In between is what we call a saddle. It's kind of a low point, but it's still pretty high. Now this is the direction that the water was going before we did any grading whatsoever. It flowed on either side of the high point in both directions and that is the point of our grading it in the same direction. The point we're trying to make here is that this whole area is gonna be basically flat. There'll be about a half a foot grade between the high point and the end of the grading, which here will be the existing access road. We're not going to go any grade beyond that, that's an existing grade, and we're not going to go anywhere beyond right along
the property line because that is the existing grade there. What we're trying to do is create an elevation of 296 at the middle and then grade back to an elevation as existing, which is about elevation 92 in this area and an elevation of about 94 in this area along this property line. We show a slight difference of grade of 96.5 to 96 here, but the intention really is to make this a high point in the grade that way, and to grade that way. I would expect that because of the type A soils here, which are all sand gravel, the amount of water that went from the high point to the right, towards the wetlands, and then the high point to the left was a certain number. We never really computed that, there was really no basis for that, but because of the high slope, there would be more runoff going to the left and right in the pre existing condition than would be today, because the land is a lot flatter, the water will detain on the site a lot longer, What we call in hydraulics is the time of concentration is going to be increasing a lot, and more water will seep into the ground for this proposal, which that would be as natural as taking down a hill.
The amount of water falls on it the same amount, but the water that actually goes into the soil would be a lot more. It would take a lot more because of the slope is basically no slope would be pretty flat. I guess we had some comments that I have a lot of notes here, but I thought it was important to put the notes in rev cloud so you could understand that this is what we're intending on doing and is a direction to the contractor, so he makes sure he understands it. I will be meeting the contractor out there before he starts grading to make sure he understands exactly what the map says. I've already met him in person at his office in Britain
and he said he understood it and he believes also the time I stopped him from grading any additional material out, he said he believes he has enough material here to grade the site as we're proposing. If anything, the grade might be slightly lower than the 96.5, 96, it might be closer to 95.5, which was actually still a little bit higher than what we're intending on the site. We want to make sure we're way above the floodplain so we don't render the property useless of being in a floodplain, which it never was at the time. So I guess that's about all my presentation. If you have any, well any questions, actually that we did talk about doing the grading probably at the end, after August. So when we'll do the last thing, we'll do the plantings in the turtle area towards the end of September and October when we have a better chance of the junipers holding without drying out, and it should have a good chance for it to take during the fall. Mr. Gruener, Hank Gruener agreed with our proposal to put it off till the fall.
With that, I can go through just quickly through each note here. It's intended to fill in that conveyance channel that we had going through the detention pond because it's no longer needed. The swale here at the end of the level spreader is going to remain. The level spreader here will remain. It's no sense taking it out. It'll be overgrown in a matter of a few years and probably you'll never know it's there. The same thing for the truck turnout area. The storm detention pond will be backfilled and graded to the former elevations, and the plantings that are proposed along the street and the plantings in the back of the
turtle nesting area will be done at the of the grading. Now we, of course, we don't want to do any grading, any topsoiling until the Commission is happy with the grading, and I will not allow the topsoil to be put in until we approve the grading, as will finally be done when the contractor is finished. But there's plenty of topsoil to be on-site. None of the topsoil has been removed, so we keep out plenty of topsoil. With that, I guess we'd entertain any questions.
Okay, at this point, do any of the Commission members have any questions on the plan as we were briefed here? Hi, this is Leanne. Yeah, go ahead Leanne.
Hi, Chris, could you repeat what you said, the few sentences that you said, starting with the part about the level spreader Right now you're planning to leave it there and you think it'll become overgrown in a few years. And then what did you say shortly after that?
This existing truck turnout area, which was put in for the access road so that incoming vehicles could pull over as vehicles are exiting and vice versa, that can remain there. It was just leveled out a little bit so that the truck wouldn't be, you know, going down into a buried area. And again, the sediment basin over here will be filled in. I could add to that saying that when the site is developed, and depending how it's developed, would probably require another sediment basin or detention pond to be built for whatever use is there, say if there was a lot of pavement to be put in for a store or any kind of building. And let's see, oh, forgot to mention the anti track pad
will stay there because basically it's just a gravel based track pad, that'll grow over the years also with vegetation and probably pretty much disappear as time goes on. And there's really no use in taking those items out, the anti track pad, the turnout, and the level spreader.
Chris, I'm not familiar with what the actual level spreader is. Is that just an area of crushed stone that's put in there or? Correct. Okay, I was originally thinking it was maybe a concrete structure or something No, like
it's detailed on of the, it's detailed on the detail sheet that shows basically it's in this configuration. It has about six inches of stone, actually we got from the site the round stone and probably a little bit of crushed stone, but I think it's just like a two to four inch stone that's there. And actually you can barely see it there now, because it's been overgrown, it's done its job. It prevents erosion that's for the outlet for the pipe, which actually the basin's never, we never noticed any water in the basin because the water just went right through the soil, never got over there, Anything else, Leanne?
Yes, just where you have the four arrows, Did you say that after the elevates the various elevations are completed that you expect the water to run? I'll call it east and west or basically to either side of where your arrows are positioned.
That's correct. Actually, there's, from the elevations I took out there a month and a half ago, maybe two months, I'm trying to, I can't remember, it just remember it was really hot out. There is a high point that exists from just about here outside the estimated area, all the way through here, there is a high point, which was a good idea just to start forming it. But this area over here has to be brought up a little bit, and this area down here is a little bit lower than was existing, but we could keep it low, it doesn't matter over there. But pretty much the elevations is, you know, it's going to need about a foot of grading throughout here to get it up to 96, and there's plenty of material to do that here. There's about 2,000 yards we estimate here, which should cover this area quite well. Then adding also the topsoil should bring it up to the final elevation. Okay.
So, Leanne, did, well, I guess I'll, Chris, I was a little surprised that the plan has this high point in the middle. I thought, you know, the last time we talked about a restoration plan, we had showed the water flowing from the hill down towards the road, and we asked for a little bit of a higher elevation over towards Miss Hutchinson's property so that we would minimize the water that was headed her way. We did talk about that. And I
thought about that for a while. And I guess I don't know the advantage of taking water away from the wetlands, which that's where it goes now. I think environmentally thinking that, I guess I don't think that's a good idea to taking water away from a wetland instead of letting the water go as it always had, has gone towards there. Since the amount of water is gonna be considerably less, I mean, I didn't really calculate it and could. I don't know what the advantages of that is and it seems to be more, makes more sense to keep the water going in the direction it was going. I mean, I don't know why we want to reduce the water going that way. There was never given a reason why we want to do that except her request to do that. I mean, there a specific advantage to doing that?
I'm not sure, only that I know the adjacent property owner is concerned about water runoff onto her property. And I was thinking that we might have addressed that concern by, you know, having a gentle slope so that if it wasn't level, it was slightly pitched away from her property. That was my only goal, I guess, in asking for that.
Yes, I agree that we did talk about that. At the time, I didn't see any problem with that. But since then, I just don't think that's that good of an idea. And I don't know what, I mean, I still can do that. It just, I wish someone could convince me why that's a good idea. I mean, can do what the commission asked me to do. It's I I don't think that's a problem doing it. I'd have to take away the high point to do that. And I'd have to make the high point along here. And actually I can't make a high point here because it's really low over here, it's like elevation 92. Guess that's the advantage of that, because normally, you you want the water to go towards a wetland, to feed the wetland, you know, with with drainage water that's clean. And and if there's a concern about its development, I mean, we can still control the drainage water during the development so that, you know, if that's a concern, to make sure they put a curb in here against any asphalt to make sure it goes to a detention pond that'll serve the same purpose that this is to filter the water.
And this is actually the ideal grading officer for a development of the property. And still controlling the water. Mean, say a building was put back here and the septic was out front, you would still have a curb around it, could be required, and make sure the water, all the water goes towards the detention pond and goes in that direction, therefore no water would go towards her direction. It would go to the detention pond and eventually go out. Again, in the future, you'd still want to put a detention pond in this area and the water's got to go somewhere as an overflow. And it would go towards this direction because the water doesn't go in this direction, it goes in this direction. You could flow it towards all the way to the front of the property that eventually goes into the wetland. You tell me which way you want the water to flow, and I'll make it go that way, but
Well, it might be such a thing that I need to get help from somebody who's smarter on that subject than me, understanding that I had in what we try to do with water now is that we don't necessarily want to direct it towards the wetland which would flow into the Hop River because the wetland soil doesn't absorb the water, and we would rather have the water in have the property graded so that it might even make a small detention ridge where you've got a high point to be a low point so that that water could soak in and recharge the groundwater, which I think is a concern. And agent Halsey, isn't that, you know, when when we were looking at this drawing today trying to figure it out, wasn't that your understanding?
Well, I was under the impression mistakenly that that it drained towards the center, and obviously I was wrong. So I I see your point, but I mean there there's the converse point that, you function of the wetlands is mitigate.
And I could also add that, could leave a detention area here and leave this whole system in here. And we could grade everything towards, you know, I can take and grade everything towards the detention area here and just make this probably a little bit smaller. It doesn't need to be so big and just leave it to, you know, we had discussions about leaving this detention pond area there way back a couple of years ago, and we could revisit that. Just as a suggestion. No, that could be done. No, well,
so we were not planning to actually act on this tonight. It gives me a little bit of time here, But I'm asking myself why we don't have a wetlands input on the restoration plan. And at the last wetlands meeting, did brief them that we were working on a restoration plan here, but it would seem like and I see your line there 200 feet to the watercourse from the Hop River, so most of what we're doing is not in that, wouldn't get their purview, but I think I would at least like to get some, maybe we invite you know the wetland agent to the next meeting or Hank Gruner to give his thought on the best way to do that because if I do it, I'm making a decision with very limited knowledge. I get that, I just, it was different than I was expecting from a couple of different respects and that'll allow me to go out and do a little research before we get together again, I guess.
Yeah, know you're willing to do, you know, whatever it is that we want, Chris. Just want to make sure that we ask you for the right thing. Sure, sure. I am,
well, as my old saying goes, know, picture's worth a thousand words and a site visit's worth a thousand pictures. You know, we want to have a site visit before the next meeting. Maybe you could understand what I'm talking about. We could actually see it there and maybe kick it around a little bit more, which we could do. Like I said, we're not planning on doing anything until the end of the summer anyway, so. Yep, I understand. We got plenty of time and you can even talk to the town engineer, see what his thoughts are about that.
Okay, any other questions or comments from the Commission on the proposal that we're seeing here? Okay, hearing none, does the Commission have any thoughts on should we be scheduling the site visit at this point? Jed? Yep, go ahead, Scott. Can you hear me? Yep. It's too much Yep. You're you're echoing a little bit.
Hang on. There's a box up there that says planting in the turtle nesting area in the spring of twenty twenty. I think it says '22 or does it? Yeah, it says '22. That has to be changed to '23.
Yeah, that's yeah. Again, that note is a little outdated. I should have taken that off because we've already determined we want to do it this fall. Guess we'd like to do it this fall.
For the record, I did have a conversation with Hank Rohner this afternoon who indicated he would like to be prized of the the site visit, and I indicated I would let him know when when that was scheduled. So he has every intention of being being present.
Okay. And what's going to happen with the road that was built for this application? Well, was pretty much there. Just made it. Now it was moved 100 feet of existing road was it's on the print right there so it was moved 100 feet to the south. Yeah, the curb cut in
the new road that was put in there. Yeah, the new one that we to move the access because the town wanted it moved further away because of site distance. I believe that is gonna stay. I, we had no plans to remove that because that would be the entrance to the site for any new development, because at least that will meet, you know, site distance requirements. Well, the apron's gonna stay there. And that's why we're just keeping the anti track pad there. There's no reason to take it out, I guess. So that would be there for future use.
Is there a North arrow on your drawing, Chris? Should be.
Yeah, it's over on the side here. Okay, there it is, yep. I don't about you, but I get turned around when I get up there. Yep, this little different. Okay, got it. Anything else, Scott? Oh, so the road is gonna be left there?
Yeah, that's, I mean, it's just a gravel road. Yeah, I didn't put any note to take it out. So it's just, I mean, I don't see any reason to take it out because it could be used as an access as the site is developed. Okay. No.
Any other comments from the Commission? Anybody think we should be doing a site walk? I'll go. Yes.
So would you make a motion to that effect, Scott? What day?
Well, normally we do Saturday mornings. We could do this Saturday, we could do the following Saturday just to give Hank or I would hope Joe Wagner would choose to attend with us. Anybody have a problem with doing it this Saturday morning early before it gets hot? I'm going on vacation this week. Okay. We'd like I to have you there,
think we should do it in a week or two. Okay, so I prefer that myself.
About the following which I think would be you know the July 30. Are you back then Chris? Yeah, I'm back the day before.
Yeah, given that it's summer, would it make sense to do it during the week at like 06:00 in the evening or something? I would love that. I'm not opposed to that. That would be helpful.
Okay, what, so Mondays and Tuesdays are not normally good for me. I could probably do Wednesdays or Thursdays if anybody's got the preference.
I don't just give me a day and I'll look on my calendar make sure it's not taken. What about the twenty seventh. August. Go ahead. Hold on.
I'm gonna be in Maine next week. I'm gonna be in Maine for a week. I come back on the- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. August, About August 3. Third? Yeah. Yeah, that's good for me. 06:00 get done before the bugs come out. Sounds good. I can do that.
So then the motion Scott is to do a sidewalk on August 3 at 6PM. That's it, Chad. Okay, we have a second. Second.
Okay, thanks, Leanne. Guess it's quicker just do a roll call vote. I'll go Anne. Aye. Steve. Aye. Scott. Aye. Leanne.
Aye. And I vote aye as well. That motion passes five zero zero. Okay. I think that, thank you, Gresh, and I think that takes care of
the gravel pit for tonight. Okay, thank you, Commissioners, Chairman, and have a good evening. Thank you.
Next next item on the agenda is discussion among commissioners. And I've got one item, but I'll let the other commissioners, if you got any comments, now's a good time for that. Okay, the only, well, the only, it will take you longer than we'd like. So you probably noticed there's some activity taking place on the corner of Lake Road and Route 6 at 580 Lake Road. I had not signed the MYLARs for that yet. The applicants have met with Jim and they have addressed doing some initial work there that he is approved. But at the Zoning Board of Appeals this Wednesday night, the applicants are requesting a variance from the section of our zoning regulations that would require a common driveway at some point that we put in as a condition of approval. And I was just I'm praying, you know, I could get emotionally invested in that because we put a lot of work in to that thing and it might be more work than it's worth, but I just, I remember one of the members made the discussion that if we couldn't require a common driveway for this application because the applicant thought it was messy and they didn't want to, with the rationale we could ever hold anybody to get a common driveway yet. And Talking I, to Jim, he thought that one of the things that we could do is make a motion on some wording and provide that to the Zoning Board of Appeals to recommend that they not issue that variance if we felt strongly about that. And so I was curious as to how would the Commission thought. I see your lips moving, Scott, but you're on mute.
I thought we left it at that at a future time they could maybe have a common driveway.
It was specified at future time and I guess they're trying to take action. Don't know how strongly they feel on it. Obviously, they're not going to decide not to build at this point. But they don't like to have what they consider that X over their neck on having to go through with a common driveway to the best of my understanding. And I think, you know, the odds are maybe small that a common driveway would be put in there, but I do think it's the right thing to do. And so we approved it that at some point in the future, if Ben Franklin needed to come to the Commission with a site plan modification, that part of that modification would be to work with the retail store owner to put up a shared driveway. And my thought has been all along, I was hoping that they would choose to do that now. It appears that I was overly optimistic on that and that's not what they're interested in.
I'm trying to make that ugly as you just go away. Go ahead, Leigh Ann. Scott, were you through? Yeah, I am.
Jed, if they don't use a common driveway, what are they proposing as an alternative? Are they proposing to just have the other driveway that they wanted, which was too close for comfort to the commission overall, to Route 6. I was encouraging the common driveway all along, but that's not really the way it went. So would that be the alternative if they don't have a common driveway is that they'd be closer than we allow to Route 6.
No, the well. I don't know that we've got a specified distance from Route 6. What they would, what they are wanting to do is put the driveway exactly in the place that they had briefed us to be, which is less than 100 feet away from the Ben Franklin driveway. Okay.
And Yeah, I don't have the regulation up. I was trying to remember if the regulation was that there was within 100 feet of the existing driveway to Ben Franklin or if it was gonna be within 100 feet of Route 6. Okay, so at this point,
and Abby, am I still set up to share my screen? Yes, you are. You should be all set. Okay, so I spent some time working on a draft motion that we might want to send to ZBA and it turned into more of a research project than I was thinking. But Leanne mentioned, you know, what does our regulation say? And I changed the order just a little bit, but the regulation is right here. Just to, I will take a moment to read through it. So everybody, you know, we stay together as we're going through. All driveways, parking areas, paths and sidewalks be interconnected and or combined where possible with adjacent parking areas, driveways, paths and sidewalks for similar uses to minimize curb cuts and maximize pedestrian vehicular movement between adjacent site without excessive curb cuts, access motion and congestion. Provisions shall be made for such interconnection and for extension of any road or driveway terminating at or upon the subject site so as to serve adjacent undeveloped land in the same or comparable zone. I know we got a letter from, you know, the lawyer from Ben Franklin that the sites are different, know, one's a store and one's a plumber, but our regulation here says in the same or comparable zone, they're both in the industrial zone. So I think we have the right to do that. Such provision shall include rights of way to the town and or the adjacent property owners. In the interest of public safety, the number of driveways onto public streets shall be minimized and in non residential zones access to the adjacent sites shall be by common driveways wherever feasible. The Commission may require that any driveway be designed and easements to adjacent properties be conveyed in order to facilitate present or future sharing of such driveways.
And that's what we put in. We put in so that if Ben Franklin wants to do something in the future, they have to come up with a shared combined driveway, common driveway. In,
you know, I think, you know, what we found out is it would have been most appropriate to bring this up as an issue during the subdivision thing, but I went back and listened to the hearing and the deliberation following that. And we did ask about two or three different things. I can't remember what they are right now, water drainage and a couple other things, and it was always, we're just asking to divide the land. All these other things will be taken care of when we come for the site plan. Then the third paragraph, which in our regulations is between the first two that I read there, is where we get into that 100 foot thing. No driveway
onto a public street shall exceed 30 feet in width, excluding the radius fillets, and no proposed driveway shall be closer than 100 feet to any other existing or proposed driveway, unless the site is of such width that compliance with this requirement would preclude access, in which case the separating distance between the driveway shall be the maximum feasible for the site. So you can say that because we don't want a driveway any closer to Route 6, it is it's most feasible to put it where they did, but that doesn't deal with the common driveway, which our regulations say we have a right to request. So anyhow, that's what the regulations say. Having done that, you know, up here in the introduction little paragraph here, I say that the driveway to the proposed retail stores and a short section of road near the intersection of Route 6 and Merritt Valley Road that is already a rail trail crossing and an entrance to the Franklin plumbing. Additionally, areas supporting the rail trail is located opposite the entrance area for the store. As the existing driveway was less than 100 feet from the proposed additional driveway entrance, moving the driveway further away from Franklin plumbing entrance
would be less desirable due to the proximity to Route 6 Intersection, requiring the common driveway seemed to be not only a good idea, but also provided a solution that would comply with Andover zoning regulations. And then I provided additionally a variance to the regulation should have been obtained prior to the site plan approval. I asked the applicant more than once if they wanted to extend the window for the site plan approval to pursue a variance, and they did not. If the lot had not been purchased at the time of the site plan approval, the property owner could have worked with a potential purchaser of the lot to construct a common driveway to his satisfaction prior to the sale of the property.
During our deliberations of the site plan, it was noted that if we did not require a common driveway because the applicants did not want one, this would be a poor precedent for future site plans where a common driveway was specified. Therefore, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommends not granting of the variance for the common driveway. So that's what I came up with. You know, we can send that, make that a motion to provide it, to have Jim provide it to the ZBA. We can remove any of this other stuff down here at the bottom if that doesn't add value? I'm kind of looking for your thoughts, but I, one, I don't understand why they're so hard over on not doing the common driveway, which as Leanne said, you know, I think is is a better, safer thing for the town. But I didn't want to necessarily allow them to go to the ZBA and not at least provide comment. Because we should be able to justify our point of view from the first one. And we said in our condition of approval, if you don't do this, we can't approve the site plan, which is why I have not signed the MILARs at this point. So any thoughts or comments?
Yeah, I would definitely include the additional information you added at the bottom and maybe point out that this was a condition of approval to begin with.
Okay, yep, I think that's a good comment, Steve. I did not say in here anywhere that, you know this combined driveway was a condition of approval for future. Site plan. Okay, any other comments.
I thought that was already in the conditions that went through.
It was in the conditions that went through. I'm not sure if the zoning board of appeals is that familiar with the conditions of approval. And I just wanted to pass on them some information on what we did and why we did it. Because if we're not telling the story, the only story they'll have is what they get from the applicant.
That's probably true, So just to be sure, they want a driveway off Merritt Valley Road, but they want their own driveway.
They want a driveway off Lake Road, but they want their own driveway. Yes, neither wants property to deal with the the whatever the mess is the word they used, it's messy to have a common driveway. And according to our attorney, it's not messy, it's easy. And Also, I have heard that in another. Application that they recently. Got approved it also required a common driveway and they put in a common driveway so maybe they think they're smarter now on getting out of it or something. I don't know. We got very little feedback from Oman why they were opposed to minimizing the driveways.
Basically, we conditionally approved the separate driveways under the condition that in the future they would do a separate driveway if Ben Franklin ever asked for approval for any changes, right? Right.
Approach we took was that since we had already subdivided the property and Ben Franklin was not involved in the site plan, you know, we couldn't reach out and tell him that he had to do it now. I was hoping he would just do that so that they wouldn't have to worry about it in the future. And who knows, they still could if we don't grant them the variance. I don't know how this will play out. I just didn't think that we should allow it go unaddressed. And again, we put in the conditional approval, if you don't do this, we can't approve the thing. Now they can get a variance for the
100 foot thing maybe, but still the driveway on the site plan is not 100 feet or is not the common driveway. So, you know, likely it will come to pass that the driveway goes in exactly where Ben Franklin never comes in with the site plan modification and it never becomes an issue, but they apparently want to make sure that it never becomes an issue and just eliminate it. Any other discussion on that?
Okay. Think, and I think I said this at the time last month or two months ago or whenever it was, that whole thing about making this conditional about if Ben Franklin ever does anything was the only word I can think of is far fetched. I know it came from Mark Brandt, but I just thought it was a little bit odd that it was done that way.
I did too, and I'm not sure that, you know, if we'd have made it a condition of approval flat out that may, you know, whether they would have decided to not buy the property at that point or not. That seemed in my mind that was such a small issue in the big scheme of things that I couldn't believe we were even, you know, running up against each other on that. But we did. I can't believe they would have walked away
over that. Well, don't think they'll walk away now. They got a lot of money in that line.
I think it is wise Jed to fully brief the zoning board of appeals because it almost feels like I didn't get the answer I wanted from dad so now I'm gonna go ask mom. Yep, that's exactly
what I'm trying to make sure doesn't happen. And if they'd have gone in, when I listened to Leanne's discussion on the value of the common driveway, you know, have grown since the night we approved this to be even a more strong proponent of the fact that that was the best answer. And so I do appreciate the input of the different commission members. That's why you know I think we should go back I don't like the fact that we're not getting the common driveway. But I don't want to eliminate that possibility of ever getting it when we were so specific in our condition of approval. And who's going to brief them? I'm expecting Jim to provide this input to them.
I have initiated conversation with the chair, and I was going to provide a copy of the regulations as well as copy of the site plan. This is kind of a lot for the ZBA for compared to what they what they typically hear. I also do expect that the applicant's attorney will be there. And I did have a conversation with with Chairman DeRosier about getting Mark Brandt's there. I don't know whether Mark is available or not. And this is Wednesday night. There's not a lot of time here. So
let me do the best I can. It's not it's not that hard. It's you know they're trying to push us in a corner to get what they want. And yep. Condition was already approved in one way.
It was too difficult. I'm sorry, what I'm saying, it's a lot for the commission to, it's a lot more than they typically
address as part of their application process. But the ZBA does not need to act on this tomorrow night. They can have the public hearing on it. They don't. Well, Wednesday night. They can get the input on it, and they can choose to act on it the following meeting when Mark Branch is available, if he's not available for this one.
Sixty five days after the close of the hearing. Double check that, but I believe that's the rule.
The issue that I come up with, and the words in our regulations are that within sixty days, the applicants have to provide a set of mylars to the town. If they're not signed within ninety days, our regulations say that the application is null and void. I'm not sure, well I guess if I, my goal is to have them signed before the ninety days because you know I don't want to be obstructionist and all that kind of stuff, I just want them to live with the conditions that we specified for them. And I was worried about a legal action if we didn't meet the ninety day thing. You know, it sounds like it's their action to get them filed. If they've got an abstinent planning a zoning chair who won't sign them, it doesn't really address that scenario. But I plan to that, I plan to have them signed within the ninety days, which comes up about the August 1. So anyhow, at this point, I will make a motion that we provide this information with the lead in discussion that it was a condition of approval that the common driveway be pursued at some future date if the Ben Franklin
owners ever brought forth a site plan modification. And that we couldn't approve it if those words weren't in there. Provide this to Zoning Board of Appeals for their information prior to acting on the variance requested by the property owner. Aren't they also supposed to show a hardship?
They did and their hardship was, you know, don't want to sound facetious at this point, but the hardship was that it was hard and they didn't want to do it. That's what I thought.
It isn't worded exactly that way, but that's what I took away from it. It's pretty close to that. Yep. Is that a motion you just made?
I do have a motion on the floor that has not been seconded yet. Seconded. Okay, thank you, Anne. Okay, Anne. Any other discussion on this? Hearing none, call for a vote. Ian? Aye.
Steve? Miss and Steve? Where'd he go? Where'd he go? They don't know. Okay, well, we'll continue down the list. Scott? Aye. Leanne? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. Oops, here comes Steve's reconnecting here. I was gonna I was gonna give you an abstention, Steve. We've I've all
been having trouble with my internet all night. It's cut out like two or three times.
Well, know you're not the only one. Know Scott looks like he's over at town hall because he had internet problems. My computer failed today. I was scrambling to get it repaired and back online so I could do this tonight. But anyhow, we've all voted. Steve, you might not have the benefit of hearing how that vote went, so we'll put you on the spot.
Okay, do you want me to vote on the motion or? Yes. So I'm in favor of the motion as it was presented.
Okay, So the motion passes five-zero-zero. And Jim, I will tweak on this a little bit tomorrow morning and send it over to you tomorrow. Okay, thank you.
Any other discussion items? Approval of the minutes. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from our regular meeting on 06/20/2022. I'll second that.
Okay. I had two comments, Abby, under members present you've got Susan England listed twice. And one of those should be replaced with Scott person, he was there. And then on page three, the third line down, when we have a steep grant, I'm assuming with the words you wrote out there, that should be STEAP as opposed to STEEP. Correct. And then know write it down at the bottom of that little discussion sequence is steep again so there's two places where that should be changed to EAP. And that was all my comments. Anybody else have anything on the minutes? Hearing none, roll call vote on approval of the minutes. Anne? Aye. Steve? Aye. Scott? Aye. Leanne? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. Motion passes five zero zero. Any correspondence, Jim?
We did get a letter from telecommunications provider that owns the tower behind up on Bunker Hill Road. They're just switching out some of the equipment, and that pretty much goes through the Siding Council. The county is just notified as a matter of course and a comment. That's the only correspondence I have. Okay,
and I actually got one correspondence here and it's from town administrator and it's just early notice of potential bridge replacement, the Town of Andover is contemplating a project to replace Lawyer Road bridge over the Hop River in the Town Of Andover. And if the project is undertaken, the design would be expected to begin fall twenty twenty two with construction likely in 2025 or 2026. So that's just for your situational awareness on that. Moving on to administrative report. Jim.
Okay, I haven't had a lot of opportunity to for enforcement, been real busy in the office. Our folks building, asking a lot of questions. I am working with Steve Barnett on a cleanup of his property on on Route 6, and I have a few other, properties that I I intend to contact, property owners I tend to contact or follow through with the more formal letters, citations. I did get an update on property owner ad on Hendy Road, know, William, Bill Phillips, I'm sorry. If you may recall that it was an issue with the measurement of the width of the lot, and there was some floodplain issue. Anyway, the the owner has given up the whole concept of of developing a second home on that parcel, and combine the two parcels of land into a single parcel. Just an update. Another matter of another point is appraisal for Lugano property is moving forward at this time for the open space grant that the Conservation Commission is seeking. Did you pick an appraisal company, Jim? Yes, we did. Good. And
what was the quote? $4, dollars 4,000. And when did they say that they could start working on it?
Probably next week, they're hoping we'll have it done within four weeks. They initially had said five, and we tried to to to get them nailed down to to four. Now there still is a this does bring up another issue. The commission authorized up to expenditure of up to $5,000 out of the open space fund. And I still, the conservation commission still needs to get a review appraisal. So I'm not sure where that, any any cost in excess of $1,000 will have to be found somewhere else. Review appraisal?
A review appraisal. Yeah, basically it's kind of standard with government acquisition that an appraisal that appraisal that is done be reviewed to to be make sure that it's done in conformance with standard appraisal guidelines. They're not reappraising it. It's just that they take a look at it at certain standards. I don't know what they are. So is that gonna be more than a thousand dollars, you think? Not sure. I haven't, I don't have any quotes on that as of yet. It was very difficult to get quotes on on this quote yellow book appraisal, that's the term they use. Folks are are very busy and and I had a lot of trouble getting getting quotes.
So we're going to be within the time frame that it needs to be done?
I believe so. Yeah, it's going be tight. Yeah, I believe so. Yes. Very good. That's all I got.
Jim, this is Leanne. It looks like Eric has left the meeting. Do you have any more information on what it would take if we ask, as we've discussed in the minutes, to because of the Dollar General project, to have the 40 mile an hour limit extended down just past that area from where it is now?
Yes. I did have a conversation with him today after reading your email, and he suggested that, a request go to the board of selectmen and that they direct an inquiry to the to the appropriate party. I'm not sure it's some subset within department of transportation. I'm not sure who or state traffic commission.
Okay. Is that something that they'd be able to find out once they got a letter or what have you from us?
Yes. Or you I mean, you can do it individually. It doesn't matter. Is that something we could do tonight?
Sure. I see no reason not not to. I mean, just ask that that a request go into the to the BOS, revisiting the speed limit on on Route 6 in light of the development on the corner of Lake And 6. Right.
If Commission's in favor of that, going out under their name to the BLS, that's fine.
I guess the the only question I have on that, Jim, is has the traffic study that was conducted by BL been approved by the state? Have we seen anything on that? I would hate to ask the question of possibly lowering the speed limit if that came out as an item from the state that they were already gonna do. That's again,
would have take another look at that material, but I don't believe it came up. I don't believe there were any any real suggestions, but I will review that. Okay,
that that would be my only issue is to make a request of somebody and then find out what are you doing that for? We took care of that in the traffic study response.
So do you want to hold off on on requesting that that, or do you wanna make a motion or have hold consensus based on a contingency that there there be no such ruling in place or condition in place.
Based on the length of time before access to the site gets to be problematic because it has to be built, my thought would be unless Leanne has an objection that we try to find out what we can about the traffic study between now and the next meeting. And if we don't have anything as of the next meeting, then we can put that action into effect. But everybody's busy and I just don't want to be caught having somebody say, well, you didn't even look at it, we took care of that. And I think the odds of that happening are pretty small, but I just think we owe it to ourselves to make that look before we ask.
Jed, is this traffic study you're referring to the one about the curb cut onto Route 6 because Route 6 is a state road? Yes. Know, Are they they the same thing? Okay. Yep. Yeah. As long as we can find that out, if, you know, if Jim or Eric knows where to look and lets us know by the next meeting, I think you're right. That would give us time. But I think it's if we could use all the help we can get with having people obey it the way it is now. And then with this new retail business, hopefully we would have an answer by next month.
Yeah. Traffic study would be the comments on the traffic study, I believe. What? It wouldn't be the traffic study per se, it would be the comments on the DOT's comments on the traffic study.
As to whether or not this proposal was already concluded?
Yes. No. Okay. If they were already on board with doing such review or whether it was addressed in any fashion.
Whether it was specifically addressed to continue this that's the point right? Yes.
To continue the 40 mile an hour zone Okay, it sounds like something we should be able to find out by next month. So that's fine with me. Okay. Okay.
Anything else, Jim? No. And I have nothing for the Inland Wetlands Water Course liaison tonight. I see owner present, don't know who that is. Is there anybody that wants to do public speak at this point? Hearing none, next meeting, I think we agreed the sidewalk August 3 at 6PM. And the next meeting would be August 15 at 7PM. And before we adjourn, once again, I'd just like to recognize the super job that Abby's done for us. This is the last meeting that she will be with us. She's moving on to greener pastures, but we certainly appreciated the great job you've done helping us out with the minutes, the coordination of the public speak when required, and just doing an all around great job for us. So thank you, Abby. You. And thank you all for teaching
me and being patient with me as I've learned so much.
And with that, I'll make a motion that we adjourn. Second.
Thank you, Leanne. And all in favor, raise your hand or Leanne, you're going to have to say yes so that I can hear your vote Okay. The motion to adjourn passes five-zero-zero. Thank you everybody. I think we got through a lot of stuff tonight and I guess now it's time to start thinking about what's next a little bit. But appreciate all the help and support and we'll see you on the third. Good night, everybody. Good night, everyone. Bye.