Meeting transcript
Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission - Regular Meeting
November 1, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Good evening. Time to call this regular meeting of the Andover Inland and Water Corners and Governance Commission to order 07:00 on Monday, 11/01/2021. First order of business, roll call and seating of alternates. I see that members, commissioners Judd Larson and William Monroe are present for the meeting. So we have a quorum. The next item of business, changes and additions, in this case, to the agenda. We have two additions to consider. And I will move that we add to the agenda IWWC 2123, which is a town of Andover Lake Road parking project, and IWWC 2,124 from Garrett Holmes for subdivision and development on 580 Lake Road. These, I think, were distributed to the commission by Agent Wagner. One of them came in both of them came in too late to be added to the agenda, but we should, I think, consider them at this meeting since it's a matter of simply receiving the applications. And Agent Wagner noted that the agent for the engineer for the 580 Lake Road project would be in attendance at the meeting. So, having moved, I would ask for a second to make those additions to the agenda. I second the motion.
Commissioner Larson seconds, so I'll ask for a vote. Those in favor can signify by simply raising their hand visible to the camera. Okay, the motion carries unanimously. Next item on the agenda, approval of minutes. We have the 10/04/2021 regular meeting minutes that were distributed by email and of course are available on the website. Again, I will move to approve those minutes, and I'll ask for a second. I'll second. Okay, we have a second from Commissioner Larson. Any discussion, any corrections or suggested revisions? Okay, I have none and seeing no others, I'll go ahead and call for vote on the motion to approve the minutes. Again, those in favor and signify by simply raising your hand. Okay. So, the minutes are approved unanimously.
Okay, next item on the agenda, opportunity for public comment. I don't see any members of the public other than applicants or concerning parties. So we will take it that there are no public comment. Okay, moving on to item number six, new business. Now, here's where we get down to business. The first item, 6A, an application from James and Abby Cole at 83 School Road to repair and rebuild an existing stone stairway that extends into Andover Lake. We have, of course, the application as well as a site plan and a number of photographs that were submitted as part of the record. I trust that commissioners have access from the web. I'm just pulling those up now so my screen isn't too cluttered. And I see that applicant James Cole is on the call.
And I'll ask if he has would like to walk us through what they intend to do. Abby, could you unmute Mr. Cole? Yep. Got me. Good.
So there, as you saw from the photographs, there are some steps that are leading into the lake that we want to rebuild, make them more regular. As I said in the application, it is merely using stone replacement from the property. And they'll be about four feet wide and will be done without any heavy equipment involved.
Okay. Do you have a contractor for this project or Yeah, I do. It's Jeff Dondero from Glastonbury.
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, Jeff. You know his work. Got quite a few Jeff Dondero projects on our property. So, okay, we'll assume that, typical predictions. Do you have or have in progress approval from the Androval Lake Management Association? We've submitted.
Okay. Well, hopefully that will be received in time for us to actually consider the application. As you're probably aware, at this point we are receiving the application. At our neck, right, either knee, we can actually consider and vote on the application. State statutes, are prohibited from approving, or for that matter, disapproving an application until a period of time of at least two weeks has elapsed. So that means essentially we would, have to wait till a subsequent meeting to actually, vote on your application. Okay. Okay. Okay. Commend the submission of the extensive photographs, which I think will probably obviate the need for a site visit, unless I hear from one of the commissioners that it would be desirable. Again, you could just kayak in or walk in and take a look from the dam, which is right downstream. And again, that's very helpful. And again, knowing that it's no equipment involved and basically simply relaying the existing steps, which we can see are somewhat uneven and not appropriate for aging in place. That's exactly right. Okay, So any questions from the commissioners?
All set. Okay. Jed, I think. I'm all set. Okay.
Well, then thanks for informing us, and we will look forward to, again, considering the and actually acting on the application at our next meeting. You may feel free to check out the meeting at this point if you wish. Great. Thank you. And, yep, thanks.
Okay, very good. So, then moving on, our next application for, again, 'twenty one, 'twenty two. This is, again, work, that involves, intrusion onto the lake floor, basically repair of a oops, hold on a second. I've tried to open the application materials. So again, obligation number 2122 we're receiving. It's from Jeff Miner and for a lake repair on the property of Gallinets at 326 Lake Road. I don't see the applicant or agent on the call. Maybe, Agent Wagner, I guess you're probably as familiar as anyone with us. Yeah.
I just I sent the applicant a text message to see if he would attend, but I haven't heard back. So, yeah, basically, there should be some pictures on the website. I visited this site on it was last week, on twenty sixth during the the rainstorm. So, basically, this this involves rebuilding. There's a 75 foot section of wall that goes it's kinda in the middle of the property that's crumbling down. It's kinda just needs a it's it's in disrepair. So basically, they're gonna rebuild that section of wall. And then you can see in the pictures, I took pictures of each end of it. So you can see, like, to the left of the picnic table where the
where the wall kinda curves in, that's that's gonna be kind of the end of the wall, and then it'll go over to the right of the picture. There's a like, if you scroll down a little bit, there's some more pictures. Yeah. You can see the the both ends, see the end of the wall here. So that's the section of wall that'll be rebuilt. It'll just basically be restacked with mostly the existing stone that's already there. Jeff told me, he said that's pretty good stone, so they shouldn't need to bring much at all in. If they do, it's gonna be the same height. He's gonna put a soap fence between that and the water once the water's let out let up, put down. And then there's gonna be straw and hay bale as needed for erosion control. And then any equipment will egg if you scroll back to the pictures on the I think it's the last picture. Alright. There. That's the end of the driveway. You can see in the in the foreground of the picture. That's where they're gonna enter with any equipment, the excavator that they're gonna use to get down there.
So it's pretty easy access to the area.
Okay. And they intend to follow the existing contours. I noticed this is a bit of a cove there.
Yeah. Yeah. They're not planning on changing anything. I guess the applicant's the only only reason she wants to redo the wall is because her grandkids play over there, and she wants it wants it to be safe. So they're gonna keep everything basically the same and just gonna restack it and and make it solid.
Okay. And, again, of course, Alma approval will be required. I'm sure you conveyed that to the applicants. Yeah. It's important. We're on that now. Commissioners, any questions?
I did have one question, George. Go ahead. And Agent Wagner, do you know, I read in the application where they were putting the typical crushed stone before the wall. And I didn't know if they were removing dirt to put in the crushed stone or if they were planning to extend, you just put the crushed stone after they get to the edge of where the existing wall is and then move the wall out the foot and a half or whatever it was going to be there. It looks like they're going to do
Actually, I can address that. It says in 8B of the application that they will be removing approximately eight yards of material from behind the existing wall.
Do we know what they plan to do with that? I'm not sure.
Sounds like clean fill to me, but that's a good question. We might ask Mr. Miner to address whether it's going to be relocated on the property or removed. If that was my only question.
I can, I can send him a message and ask him that? I'll make a note of it.
Okay, I didn't have any other questions, so I guess we can, then move on to the next, item. And again, bear with me for a moment while I open the materials. Next is an application by the town of Andover for essentially creating parking area on Lake Road between Merritt Valley Road and the Jonathan Trumbull Highway, as we know it from, Google Maps, to, improve access to the rail trail and, town owned property, between Lake Road and, Cheney Brook. So, I see that Eric Anderson is on the call, and I'll ask him to walk us through the project.
Sure. Can you bring up the site plan from Yantic River Consultants? George, and then I'll talk you through. How we can do that. Perfect.
Okay, so as most of you know, the town acquired this property about three years ago from one of the Merritt family members, with the intention of kind of doing three things. The first was preserving much of the land around Cheney Brook. The second was to address a parking issue that the town has with access to the rail trail, and the fact that we have inadequate parking wide for the rail trail. And the third thing was to put in a small low impact just picnic table area near the rail trail near the the old historic Stone bridge and Merritt Valley Road. So as most of you know from driving by cars park there regularly. And from time to time, public works has gone in and just flattened out the area again after there's been erosion. What we're what we're planning on doing is just taking the existing situation and making it better. Because right now, you know, we're definitely getting gravel movement and erosion. And the goal is to regrade and improve the gravel parking area to increase its capacity a little bit. Then also create a silt sedimentation basin that will be cleanable in the future. So any sediment that does come down, know, will collect in one spot and the town can remove it from time to time prior to it getting into Cheney Brook and getting into the overflow area, which it's doing now. We would also envision doing. You look at the, the parking area closest to Route 6. There is a lot of trash in that area there, you know, at some point in the past and electrical contractor use that as dumping ground.
We've already taken out a pretty enormous amount of electrical wire waste. Know, we propose to do some more cleanup at that location also, You know, at the same time we do the improvements. Second part of it is if you look that little green pathway leading off the rail trail, That's an existing former gravel road that dates back to probably the colonial times. And what we're doing there is we're just clearing it. So it's accessible again, because it's gotten a little bit overgrown. And there's a couple of pine trees in there that are really pretty. And we're not planning on taking down anything large at all. We're just doing selective clearing of the underbrush big enough to make a picnic spot for one picnic table, you know in leveling that area a little bit. You know so that's basically what the town intends to do we had the town engineer put a plan together to mitigate any damage, while we were actually working on it during construction. And then, also with the intention of taking the what's happening now with it in mitigating that going forward by dealing with any silt that does come out of the gravel area so it doesn't end up in, Cheney Brook. So that's basically what the town is proposing to do here.
Okay. You know, Agent Wagner, I think you noted this is all, basically activity that will be within the 100 foot, upland review area, And potentially, this is something that you could, approve on your own recognizance here. And I'm glad the commission had this chance to view this, and I think it's definitely a worthwhile activity. Any questions from the Commission about the plan that Eric just walked us through?
Am I a mistake, Eric? But what are the purple lines on that drawing?
As far as I know, that's a really good question.
I was trying to determine if the activity is in wetlands or in the upland review area of wetlands.
So that's going to be one of my questions for the commission Jed is that we couldn't get this wetland flagged already. But we have somebody available to do it if we if we need to. So if you want to see this, you know, wetlands flagged and you want to do a sidewalk in the area, we certainly can do that. That's, that's, you know, it's not inexpensive. If you aren't going to do a sidewalk, we probably wouldn't wetlands flag it. But if you want to do a sidewalk, we certainly can.
Jed, if I could comment on that. I was one of the party of volunteers that spent a bit of time clearing nasties, like, well, particularly Barberry, from that area several years ago when the town acquired it. And I can again, speaking as a person with an actual PhD in soil science, I can say that this is probably not wetlands. It is upland. It is upslope. They're well drained soils. There's no sign of until you get down right close to Chaney Brook, there's no sign of typical wetland vegetation. And I personally would not expect a need for formal wetlands flying by a certified soil scientist. I'm not a certified soil scientist. I just have some expertise in the area. So long story short, I don't think we need wetlands flagging.
The purple lines dotting around the area are kind of enigmatic. We might look for a little clarification at some point from the town engineer just to satisfy our curiosity. But they don't seem to correspond to any boundaries of either distance from Cheney Brook, distance from Hop River, or wetland delineation.
I think I saw a chat comment probably from the person representing the application across the street. I do think it might be worth knowing whether the place we were putting the picnic area, it would be nice if it was not in a wetlands area. I think that would make that easier and more straightforward. I don't know that we need to have the whole thing flagged, but it would certainly, if there's a better place to put the picnic table, we ought to consider it before rather than after we approve the plan.
Well, what I would say Jed is that an elevation that's actually higher than the rail trail there, because it slopes up quite a bit towards Merritt Valley. Okay. So I don't think I think if there was any area I question whether we were in either the floodplain or the natural wetlands area, it would be the lower parking area, the parking area closest to Route 6, because the reality is that section of Route 6 is in the one hundred year floodplain, or parts of it are. So I would not be surprised if that area that parking area is in or very close to the five hundred year flood plain. But I don't, it does not have the characteristics of being a wetlands area, certainly from, you know, a soils overview. And I'm not a soil scientist either.
I'm noting that the upper elevation of the I'm sorry, the lower elevation of the lower parking lot appears to be about two ninety five according to the denoted contours on the site plan. I don't recall from our discussion of the gravel pit project on the other side of Route 6, But it seems to me that that elevation would be out of the floodplain. You know, it's high enough to qualify as being out of the floodplain. Again, that's a good point, Judd, and we'll I think it would be good to have at least direct agent Wagner to make sure that those conditions, that is to say, the site for the clearing for the picnic area and the lower parking lot, don't run into any problems with either a wetland impact or floodplain potential.
I agree. And it'd be nice for Agent Wagner describe what is on, I did not look at the GIS map online for wetlands to see what it shows there. I do have a little bit of a concern, though, that we maintain a similar standard between what we expect the town to do and what we expect every other applicant to do with respect to, you know, marking, flagging the wetlands. I don't think it would be right for us to have a big discontinuity in those expectations. One of the things that, know, and again, I'm not interested in frivolously spending money, but I would think that the town, we should expect to live to a higher standard, at least as high a standard as we would expect anybody else coming in with an application on that respect. So whatever our standard is, it ought to be the same.
This is true, but again, as I said, I think this is a project that would be an upland review area project and not a wetlands impact project. And We don't know that, George.
I okay. I don't know that in the sense that, no, we haven't had wetlands delineated. But again, as Eric pointed out, given the elevations and the soil and vegetation characteristics of the site, it seems highly unlikely that any of the proposed impact would be in wetlands per se. Nevertheless, I think that, you know, again, either a sidewalk or a further inspection of the site, or our agent, could clarify that, without having to necessarily involve a certified soil scientist.
That's up to the commission. I mean, if you request it, the town will have a soil scientist wetland flag it.
Okay. Jed, do you want that level of scrutiny, or would you be satisfied with less formal I
just want the level of scrutiny for this application to be the same as what we expect from anybody else. And I know
we've gone through some discussions about when a logger wants to cross a dry wetland crossing and put some corduroy in there, you know, we have gone through the, we have expected and had the wetlands flagged the map the whole bit. Right, the wetland crossing.
And in other words, those are projects that involve direct impact wetlands, not on the upper limb review area. So I would say that the closer level of scrutiny would not be required of any other applicant in this kind of situation. Mean, if a private landowner wanted to put in roadside parking, if that were impossible, I don't know. But, you know, I I don't think that that level of scrutiny would be required for any project with these characteristics, namely activities in the upland review area of Cheney Brook.
Okay, so the next time an application comes in and the applicant says, well, doesn't look to me like there's any, you know, wetland soils there, but I'm not a soil scientist. I guess we'll accept that is okay.
If it appears to be in an upland review area, we can, you know, I think, ask our agent to
Well, let's ask our agent. What's the what's the agent have to say about the wetlands on just to to review that. Yeah. But okay.
Did I, have myself, you know, have walked this with the wetlands agent, so, you know, he should be able to be able to give you a verbal description of the area in question.
Yeah, and I agree with George's assessment that it's it's steep there and the proposed picnic area, the trail and the parking area are all well well above the brook, and then looks to me like there's a there's no wetlands in the area. But either way, it would be I mean, everything is case by case. You have to look at all aspects of the application to determine what you know, what level of scrutiny is required for each one. Applying like a blanket standard to every application, I mean, you'd probably under undervalue certain things on certain applications and you'd overvalue certain things on other applications. So you got to just kind of take it as a whole. When you decide how much scrutiny how much
research is going to need to go into each project. And this one's pretty, I mean, most of the work is already done in the existing parking areas. There's no real major clearing or anything other than for the picnic area and some trails. So, yeah, I don't I don't see, you know, if they're constructing a bigger, you know, like a bigger pavilion or something like that there, then, you know, that that would be a different story.
I agree with you, Joe, I agree with George, and I agree with Eric. What I don't agree with is we are the Inland Wetlands Commission. We've got a site plan here and we don't have any wetlands delineated on it unless it's that purple line it's on there. And I think that is the wrong standard to set.
Well, you can ask then ask for delineation on this. That's easy. I mean, can do that. Okay.
Right. I'd like to see delineation on the map. If the commission wants this wetland flag, what I would suggest is that you schedule a sidewalk, and we'll get it wetlands flagged. And you can verify the on-site conditions prior to making a decision. The town has no issues with that. If that's what you want.
Good. Commissioner Larsen, you want to propose a sidewalk for this application? I
guess Iwell, no, I guess I'd like to go, you know, I'd like to go back and review our instructions, you know, and we're not going to act on the thing tonight. I don't know how much time is of the essence, but I want to go revisit myself. My expectation was when a site plan comes into the Wetlands Commission, it has the wetlands delineated on it. So we can say, is the activity taking place in the wetlands or is it taking place in the upland review area? And I think that is a standard that I certainly need to have for myself. I would think that everybody on the commission
would expect the same thing. So, we can either wait and I'll conclude that at the next meeting or we can recognize what kind of standard we want to come before the Wetlands Commission and make that motion tonight. But I guess that's where I come down. So I guess with all that said, I do recommend we schedule a site walk and have the wetlands delineated so that we can properly do our job.
Is that in the form of a motion? Yep. Okay, second it for the motion? I'll second that. Okay,
and then, without further discussion, I'll ask for a vote on the motion to schedule a sidewalk. Those in favor, aye. Okay, motion carries unanimously. We have to schedule a date. Typically, we do these on Saturday mornings if that's agreeable. What would be a reasonable time, Eric, in terms of getting that at least, obviously, don't think it's required to have entire delineation of the entire wetlands in that area, but certainly the ones that are relevant to the application, proximity to the parking and picnic areas. Sure. The lead time is like that.
Time I checked you know, with the town engineer, his standard wetlands guy was backed up four to six weeks, but we did give him a heads up that it might be coming down the pike. So if you scheduled it for the 2000, that's Thanksgiving. Oops, no. Probably don't want to do it over Thanksgiving.
On the twenty seventh. It's possible you could set it up for the December 4. Prior to the meeting. I will not be there. I will be in Minnesota, but I can certainly probably have the town's engineer be at that also. So if that worked for the commission, which was December 4. I'm not positive I haven't cleared it with the town engineer or the wetlands guy to ensure we can flag it before then. But that would be my objective.
Well, we can certainly pencil it in for the fourth and then, well, if it isn't possible, well, we can delay it or defer it.
Right. And let's be honest, this has been on my wish list for the last three years. So if it slips a couple months and it takes me three months to get through wetlands, that's fine. Because it will be the holiday season. So let me see whether I can accomplish it by the twenty seventh. And Joe, I'll try to get back to you in the next week, if that's acceptable to the commission on when we can set up the sidewalk.
So, let's tentatively schedule it then for Saturday, December 4, 9AM. And again, with the understanding that there may be variables that we can't control. So, if the area isn't flagged, we will postpone it, CNAD. Okay. So, any other questions or comments regarding the application? If not, we can proceed across the street to the application for subdivision and development on 520 Lake Road.
And thank you all for your indulgence, by the way. I'm much obliged. I will. And I hope we can get moving on it.
I see that Matthew Brennan, the engineer for the project, is on the call. And would you like to again, this is a project that is in the Upland Review Area, distinctly in the Upland Review Area for, I guess, barely for the Hawk River and for Cheney Brook. But Agent Wagner wanted to bring this to the attention of the commission as it is a fairly extensive project. So project engineer wants to begin walking us through it. I'll take a moment to pull up the plans and so forth on my screen.
Mr. Chairman, this is Matt Broome. I'm happy to share my screen if you want, so I can point with my mouse. Yeah, I'm talking about the screen.
I'm I have a separate screen where I keep track of these Sure. Things.
Sure. Okay. Well, I'll get I'll get started. And if you guys have any questions while I'm talking, feel free to interrupt. I'm happy to stop and answer as I go. For the record, my name is Matthew Bruton. I'm an engineer from DO Companies here on behalf of the applicant. I'm just gonna share my screen because I think it'll be easier for you guys to follow along. But, again, feel free to stop me at any point. So the parcel in question here well, let me let me step step step back first. The applicant here is looking to divide a a parcel into two so he can create a padlock for a future for a future development. So we have a subdivision application in front of the planning and zoning board. As part of their of their review and approval of this, it needs to come to Inland Wetlands for your review and approval. I know it's a little bit strange because we're not proposing anything at this time other than splitting the lots in two, but that is the process. So I'll start off with that base. So what I'm showing you here is a a map of the the current
sites for orientation. Route 6 is across the bottom of the page, and Lake Road is on the left hand side. I'm tracing it with my mouth my mouse right now. The the prior application you were talking about was across the street where my my hand is circling right now. So it's currently a a 2.6 a six acre lot that includes the red and the blue on the corner of Lake And Route 6. It's currently occupied on the southern end by a commercial plumbing business with associated parking utilities, landscaping, things of that nature. What the applicant is proposing to do is to split this lot into two. So the red area that I've traced here will be the plumbing business that would stay as is, and then the blue area would be a new parcel that's created with Frontage again on Route 6 in Lake Road. I'm just gonna bring up Google Street View so you can see what I'm talking about.
So I'm on Route 6 right now looking at the parcel. The commercial plumbing business is in the background where my mouse is hanging out now. And the majority of the lot that we are proposing to subdivide for future development is this grassed field that I'm kind of tracing with my hand. I'm gonna jump over to Lake Road. I believe this is the area you are looking to improve as part of that trail area, So we are across the street. So this is this is the parcel that we're looking to subdivide. As mentioned by the chairman, we don't have any wetlands on this site per se. There's nothing that has been found. It's obviously a grass field. But given the Chaney Brook location, the Upland Review area definitely clips this parcel to to include the Upland Review area in this. So again, not looking to propose anything at this time. We're just look looking to subdivide the parcel from one lot into two. If that is successful here and at planning and zoning next month, we would come back with full detailed plans that would include site plans, grading and drainage, storm water management, erosion control, landscaping, lighting, basically everything that you would normally see, but we're splitting this into two. Subdivision first and then we'd come back for a site plan approval, and we would have to visit you guys because we do fall in the upland review area. So that's kind of, you know, a quick thirty second high level, recap of kind of why we're here and, you know, what we'll be looking to do.
But I'm I'm happy to answer any questions you guys may have.
Any questions from the commissioners? Jen, I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty of this from planning and zoning perspective. And again, I think this is fairly straightforward. And as I noted previously, since it's distinctly in the Upland review area, it would be something that the agent could approve. And again, since this is really a matter of making sure that we get wetlands permit approval before planning and zoning, can look at the subdivision request, I think it would be highly appropriate for the agent to do that on his own recognizance rather than having to wait a month until our next regular meeting. Any again, any questions or comments from commissioners regarding this application? Okay. Well, Seeing none, again, I think we can thank Mr. Burton for his presentation. And we'll look forward to hearing, about the next steps, in this project.
Absolutely. I'll happy to come back when we have two lots.
Right. When when when there is potential for real impact.
That's right. Yeah. I I know that's what you guys care about.
Okay. Okay, then. There's no further discussion on this one. We can certainly let you go, Mr. Bruton, and move on to our next item on the agenda.
So, Mr. Chairman, just so I'm clear, are you recommending this go to Mr. Wagner for agent approval, or would you like me to come back again?
Well, for this step, since it's it's just, again, a it's in the upland review area. All we're talking we're not approving an actual project, just kind of getting ahead of the subdivision request. Yeah. My opinion is that Agent Wagner can take it from here, and that we won't need to hear from you unless and until there's an actual proposal to do something on that lot, and which currently appears to be used only for the occasional display of used vehicles for sale.
Yep. Fine by me. Just wanted to make sure I understood you were pushing it to Joe. That works for me. Again, I'll come back when we have an application with proposed development for you guys to review and judge.
Thank you. Okay. So, item seven on the agenda, enforcement actions. I don't see anything specified. Agent Wagner, did you have anything new or any comments? I noticed that the previous meeting's enforcement action still seems to be, how shall I say, in abeyance. The last time I drove on Townsend Road, which I do frequently, I noticed that the shipping containers were still at on-site at at 93 Townsend Road.
Yeah. That's the only the only thing. There's no nothing new. I I spoke with him on October 5, so it was probably right after our meeting. And he plans to move them. He agrees. He thinks they're an eyesore, so he told me, especially with a new house. So he wants to get him out of there. I guess he had some I think he had back surgery. But anyway, he was recovering and couldn't empty the containers out. So he needs to empty them, get his belongings out, and then they could move them because, I guess, it probably would damage whatever was inside of it. If you try to move it with with it half full or quarter full or however full they are now. He was planning to move them, and if he could get clearance from the doctor, he was planning to do it late October or sometime in November, hopefully. Now like you said, they're still there. I drove by there last week. I think they're still there. So, yeah, I'll keep keep tabs on them. I sent them a letter, so he knows we're we're paying attention. You know, hopefully, we can get him moving for the winter. I'll probably give him another call this month and see if I can get an update from him.
Okay. I don't view this as urgent, and I don't I don't think he's really trying to shine his on. No, I don't think he is. He seems to rather keep touching bases on it and resolve it eventually. So and no other new actions? No, no, nothing new.
Okay, then moving on, agenda item eight, review of the frequently asked questions, the fact section that agent Wagner prepared. I did a little editing and response on that. Did it get circulated to the board for review at this point or? Okay. So, Agent Wagner, just bring it up and throw it against the wall, as we say, see if it sticks.
Yeah. The review? Yeah. Basically, I tried to there's a bunch of documents that that kind of that are on the website that a lot of them say the same thing. They say the same thing or they say it in different words. And it makes it a little hard if you're changing something or if you need to update something, somebody has the wrong paper or they're just looking in the wrong spot and there's like, you know, three things on one and the fourth things on the other, you know, it's just confusing. So my thought was to put try and put as much information on one page and try and put it in, you know, in plain English, try and cut some of the legalese out because there's there's always a lot of confusion on, you know, what the wetlands actually does and when people need to apply for permits and stuff. And I've kind of been here long enough to to get start getting the same questions all the time. So that's why I kind of tried to write it to just kind of guide people through the process, at least give them a place to start and then referring them to the regulations to, you know, make sure we're
we're not skipping that. So, yeah, it's basically what I have. Then and then so you would scroll down. This would all be on the home page of the website. Like if you're applying for a permit, you'd click on the wetlands section. This would show up, and then you would scroll down through it, and then you'd be able to apply for the permit at the end of it. That's my thought, and I'm definitely open to suggestions. This is kind of a work in progress.
Okay. So, any comments or questions, from commissioners? Mister Monroe, you, indicated that you had a chance to look at them. Did you have any questions or comments regarding?
Reading the part that I'm interested in right now again, cut trees down. But no, it doesn't really relate to what I need because I am not in a wetland. Commissioner Larson, did you have any?
Well, I think it's an excellent product and very helpful. Kind of like cutting the trees down where Bill was just talking about that, you know, I do think you can cut a tree down and not affect the wetlands if you leave the stump there. If you're going to do something with the stump, that might be a different issue. So a little bit of fuzziness there. But as we got called up, question that I'm still wrestling with, and I'm not sure, and I don't know the answer, how do I know if there are wetlands on my property? We go back to the town property, we know there's wetlands there because there's a brook running through it. But what do we really expect to do? Now I have a little brook running through my property as well, and when I looked at the GIS drawing online for the wetlands, it shows, you know, the wetlands is just being the brook. We say in this thing on the wetlands property, the town does not have an official map of the wetlands and watercourses. I think that's a requirement that we do have that. Is that true, Joe? I don't think it's a requirement that you have it.
I remember, I think in our regulations somewhere,
maybe it was one of the old documents or it was in our regulations, I'd have to check, it said that we did have an official map and we don't. Yep. Okay. Yep. So I think that's maybe that's where you're getting it from. We're not required And yeah, that online GIS stuff is, I think there's a disclaimer on it that it's like up to 10% bigger or something. Forget the exact thing, but it did. It has like a disclaimer on the paper map version that kind of gets lost in the website that tells you that it's not really accurate. Yeah, I mean, really the best, you know, if you really want to know if there's wetlands on your property, you have to pay a soil scientist or
be a soil scientist and delineate it or, you know, a lot of a lot of newer properties, you know, you can find it on a map. So, you know, the problem is usually the older ones.
So I guess the the process is that somebody who's got property, he comes and checks with you and you would say whether or not we should get a soil scientist involved based on your review of the GIS document. Does that help? Should possibly be the right way to go? That's usually what I'll start with GIS
and then aerial maps. You know, I'll take a ride by and then you know, through the maps here at the town hall to see if I can find it on on a you know, either on their property or on the neighbor's property or on a subdivision.
Having wrestled with this issue a lot and having to potentially deal with it on my own lot, I'm just trying to make sure that we ought to have a good standard on what we should expect to come in. And I don't know that that's hit it on the head quite yet. It's close. It talks about a lot of different issues, but it doesn't say this is what you have to do. And maybe this is what you have to do is come talk to you. And that might be the right answer.
Well, it is because it's very subjective. I mean, I mean, someone's, you know, they look for just the wetlands regulations in general, you know, is it is it a significant significant impact? Well, that's, you know, that's really subjective, depending on who we are and what your interests are. I gotcha. Yep. And Yeah. That's our determination.
Yeah. In the little training session that I went to, they made a big deal on talking about, and you cannot tell by the plants there, contrary to popular belief, that it's a wetland soil or not, it's based on the actual soil composition and you got to be the soil scientist to determine that. Yeah, the soil scientists are allowed to look at the vegetation. And they're like, yep, they're the professionals that we
They're allowed to say, hey, that's skunk cabbage, Yep. Marigold. We know all these things. But you're right. And, you know, given the I don't think it would be practical for the town to have an official map. We have to start with, like, the CROG, you know, the GIS approximate mapping and take it from there. If you needyou know, if you're really going to try and put something in a wetlands, you either better concede that this is the wetlands and the project is going to impact it, or get a soil scientist to delineate the wetlands so that you can say this project will involve part of the wetland, will be partly in wetlands, and it's going to impact x number of square square feet
of wetlands. But I think it is helpful that the fact section does include a discussion of what constitutes wetlands in wetlands and watercourses in the state of Connecticut. And I think the other, you know, key piece is when in doubt, ask the agent to get you started.
So all in all, you know, think it's an excellent initiative. I really like it. I think it will be helpful to you and the people of the town. And it may not be perfect yet, but it's awful good.
And so this is something we can revise, you know, as it gets used, then, you know, you'll find out because people will bring it to your attention where there are ambiguities or where there's any opportunity for confusion.
If we did have a town map of the wetlands, every time one of these applications come in and somebody does have to take the time to go out and get the soil scientists involved, we could kind of update our map with what we're learning from the different application processes. So I just ask you to consider if we want to do that or whatever, you're the agent. Yeah, the maps are so highly property specific. Yeah, I understand. They're
only good for a few acres at a time. I think it might be a long time before we had an aggregate overlay. But yeah, if somebody with GIS skills wanted to start assembling the information from our maps, we could give Agent Wagner a few more hours in the week to tackle Okay.
I think I need quite a few more hours for that. I guess. Okay, that was all I had on that.
Okay, so yeah, as far as I'm concerned, it's good to go. You could certainly post that on the website and, you know, well, see what happens. All right.
Okay, moving on. Well, we're still with the agent, so any other items to bring to our attention for the agent report?
I don't think I have anything else. There were no Upland Review permit approvals this month, so I don't have anything to report there. Let's see. I did meet with with Eric and the town engineer and Hank Bruner, and then the construction company for that Andover connectivity grant on Route 6 in Long Hill. They're starting that soon. So we walked the property on Thursday last Thursday. And then just I wasn't there when that was all approved before, you know, before I started. So I was kinda getting almost getting a tour. I know the one thing that you guys might be interested in, there was a Hank Gruner had expressed concern with a drainage. I don't know if you remember there was a drainage
basin at the let's see. That would be the east end on the Long Hill Road side in the public works garage there. And he wanted he wanted the sediment piles to be removed, and the town engineer was looking at it and realized that it doesn't drain any water. All the water drains the other way towards the river, which is probably something to be fixed in the future future issue. But so, yeah, so they decided to raise that catch base and basically get rid of it, like raise it up, put a manhole there, and then, we wouldn't have to worry about any, point pollution getting into the wetland across the street because that's where that would go. So that kind of takes care of that issue with potentially, you know, contaminating the wetlands on the other side of the street from anything from the public works. I think that's all I have.
Okay, thank you. And then moving on to item 10, elder business, we're going to revisit the change in the culvert in the previously approved application, IWC 2036. Essentially, again, as you recall, it was switching from a box culvert to a culvert that would be constructed on-site with no bottom. We have, and Adrian Wagner distributed a letter, from Brandon Hanfield, acting as review, engineering review for the town on that. Again, agent Wagner, do you want to speak to that communication?
Yeah. I just got it this afternoon. So, yeah, it's, basically, I asked engineer Hanfield to, perform a review, on behalf of the Wetlands Commission, And then the purpose was to evaluate in particular what you know, wetlands impact. So would this culvert design change negatively impact the wetlands? So that's what he focused on when he provided the letter.
It Okay. Appears that the conclusion is that there would be essentially little or no difference in terms of wetland impacts from either of the construction designs, correct? And I see that our applicants are on the call. I understand the motivation for this is that the, originally proposed box culvert, which was in the design that we approved, that the costs involved in installwell, yeah, basically the installation cost for a box culvert had gone up substantially since the time of the original plan development, and the open bottom culvert design would be less expensive to install, if not less convenient. And that was what essentially motivated your request. Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct. Essentially, the purchase price of the four sided box culvert has gone up astronomically. And you're right, it is. It would be much easier to install the four sided culvert. But unfortunately, the cost of it is just gotten too far.
And according to, Agent Wagner, your research showed that the, three sided bottomless culvert is actually preferred design. So, this a learning experience for us on the Wellington Commission after all. You know, we're finding out things about engineering that we never knew we needed to know. So, again, this seems to be a preferable design. So from that perspective, it seems to me that change that you're proposing is an improvement in a way over the original. Commissioner Larson, I think you expressed some concerns or questions about the modification.
I did. And I do have several questions and concerns. I guess the first is, should this have been one of the alternatives that we considered in the initial design of the project? If it's if it's better and it ends up being cheaper, you know, why didn't we consider that when we were developing the the proposal?
I think at the time it wasn't really cheaper. I you know, I think we felt like we were coming out ahead purchasing something that was precasted and setting it in place as compared to casting you know, having an engineer design a plan and casting it in place. The math on all of the the economics of that have just changed. And why, I don't exactly know, but it but it has pretty dramatically changed. And it's, I think, brought us to the to the point where this this just made more sense cost from a cost effectiveness perspective.
Eric, can I get you or Abby could do it, bring up the actual drawing that you provided us? And for you and the Commission, George's comment about we're finding out about the engineering. Fortunately or unfortunately, you had the opportunity to listen to a lot of this several weeks ago at the last planning and zoning meeting. And so it's given me some time to ponder the input that we got there. And I did have just a couple of questions from the engineering perspective with the effect on the wetlands that I'd like to go through tonight and make sure that I'm clear on.
Sure, so I don't I'm not in front of my computer. I don't have the document, but I think it was being pulled up, and I'm actually on my phone, so Okay. I think that
we could get that from the archive applications section of the website. Yep.
There we go. Yep, scroll down towards the bottom then. Is that Abby you driving it?
Yeah, it's the second from the bottom. Second from the bottom.
There you go. Okay, can you blow that up just a little bit so we could see the picture at this point? Yeah, one or two more clicks on it there. So anyhow, if I look at this and one of the things that was a surprise to me, and as I went back to look at the design we approved, a surprise to me there, but it shouldn't have been. But with this design, we're having to dig down at least 42 inches below the wetland surface now to pour this foundation in there. And I somehow had concluded we talked a lot about the fill that we were going to put in the wetlands, but I guess I didn't understand that even with the box culvert we were going to have to scrape off a foot or so to put this box in and maybe more than that. If we dig down 42 inches for this footer, notes on this, in the notes for the original one, talk about all footings shall bear on undisturbed natural material or controlled structural fill having allow
able bearing value of 20 tons per square foot. And I wondered, Ya'uan, how do we tell that? And what if we dig down 42 inches And we find out that we don't meet that requirement.
Well, we, we run into this on all of the commercial projects that I work on it. Essentially, what the engineers asking is that we dig down to a bottom of footing of 42 inches. If the materials at that elevation are undisturbed or natural sub soils that was are allowed to be built on. But if you were to dig down that far, and you find tops oils, or organic material, or imported fills, then you need to go deeper until you get to natural or undisturbed soils.
So this might have actually been a bigger problem with the original design because we had the same kind of wording in there where you have to keep digging down till you get to some.
Well, before we had gone down there previously before the first design, and the top soils are only about nine inches deep before you get into the subsoils. So we knew that if we excavated those topsoils out, plus an additional eight inches for the thickness of the casting of the bottom of the culvert in one foot of stone so we would have been digging down to roughly two foot eight to install this four sided culvert.
Okay, and I know on the picture from the original design, it said that we should expect two and a quarter feet of clearance from the bottom material to the top of the culvert. By the time you you put some
materials back in there. Yes. So, as of right now, my intent is to. So, at the site, we have the natural flow line of the water, the, the invert. My intent is to leave that intact and not disturb it, and to dig on either side of it so that we can cast a footing and cast a law.
Okay. Now on the the left hand side of the drawing here with the dimension going up, know, it shows three foot maximum between the bottom material and the top of the slab. And with the slab being indicated as one foot thick, we're showing a culvert opening now down to two feet. I'll have to talk to engineer about that.
I would have thought that would have said three foot minimum. And my question to you would be, we originally started looking at a four by eight culvert, which for cost, we went down to three by eight. And now we're getting even smaller than all the design we did. It would be nice if we were to go back up to the original four foot so that we had a three foot opening as opposed to a two foot opening
going through there. Well, I think that that's that that number needs to be changed. That should be three foot six.
Yeah, the intent here is to match the designed opening with open box culvert. Or I'm sorry with the Albert forgive me.
So when when Dan had generated this structural drawings, Dan Morrissey is the structural engineer that did this for us. He didn't have a copy of the approved drawings that that were that you guys had approved for us. So that number there that was just a number. Well, I'm not sure why he put that number there but it that it needs to be three foot six so that we have or actually three foot 10 so that we have a two foot 10 opening because that's what we need.
Okay. But it shouldn't be a max that should be a myth. Correct. You could go up to four foot if you wanted. Yes,
I have to talk to him about changing that and then we can send a revised drawing along with the stamp because I there was another one of the the can items that Brandon had asked for. Yeah.
Now, if we roughly dig out this footing, you know, thing in the hole is full of water, what would we do about that?
Well, we're gonna have to wait for the dry season.
Okay. Yeah. Which which it said on your plan anyhow, you weren't gonna do this until summer. Yeah, we're it seems like we've missed our opportunity.
And it's got two foot of material on top of the slab across there and I didn't know what that represented. Just the driveway.
With that, I think I'd have to go back and look again. It was my thought that from the drawing where you said the top elevation of the driveway through there, that was like four foot on top of the box culvert as opposed to two foot. But I could be wrong. I just thought it was deeper than that. And that might go to the bottom of the trench for the utilities or something. Don't know. I just thought there was a lot more material from the previous drawing on top to get you up to the driveway grade than two foot on top of that.
No, it was never four foot. Okay, it was always more to two to three feet.
Right I don't remember the exact dimension we ended up at but for us definitely higher than I we were ever playing.
Okay. And then going back, you know, onto the general notes. And, yeah. Certainly, there's a lot of these that I still don't understand, but under the loads, codes and standards, I would think that it should say, what our regs require is it's built to support 70,000 pounds of load. Well, that's what the H20 loading is.
So that says that equals 70,000 pounds of load to an engineer so that. That's also a zoning requirement, not a wetlands requirement. I got you. Keep us on keep us on asking.
In Brandon's application, we had. There's Brandon had responded to our application and in his response, he requested it an H20 load rating. Yep. And that's the standard that this structure is built to or designed to.
Okay, won't belabor it anymore, but to say that that is, you know, there are words in our zoning regs, and I'm looking at this, you're going to come to this, well, it's going to come back over to zoning there. I guess I will go down to item six under foundations. And again, so it talks about the bottom line there under six to achieve XX tons per square foot bearing capacity. I would think there's probably a number that goes in there. Yeah, that's number two. That's the same thing. So
basically, what he's saying there is that if if there's existing uncompacted fills, which I'm confident there's no uncompacted fills down there, that the uncompacted fills need to achieve XX tons per foot bearing capacity, which would, that's number two, which you would want two point zero tons.
I would think it would be all compacted fill down there because nothing's come through to compact this. Yeah, I'll probably be the first human down there. Okay, well, guess I will defer those to the zoning engineering review of it. But I, certainly there's some engineering challenges to what you're looking to do. I do agree that not having the whole slab on the bottom is probably an improvement. Was surprised that we were going to be digging trenches 42 inches down, not knowing what's going happen there with the water and all that to put that in. So that's it. That was all of my comments that I had.
So essentially, this is going to be a slab on top of a foundation.
Well, that brings into a whole new thing. How do you pour that slab on top of that two end supports? But we'll let, and I did not see that engineer Hanfield talked about any of those challenges. Think he was just looking from a wetlands perspective. So, that's all I had. Any
other questions or comments regarding this? I think it's been a learning experience and something that, well, if we're ever faced with wetland crossings of this sort again, we'll have to bear in mind. And again, I think the key question here is that been a lot less hoo if we had been aware of that alternative originally by way of comparison. So, we're trying to play catch up on this thing that it becomes a challenge to review. But again, I think based on our attorney's written comments in communication with Agent Wagner, this is a field modification that doesn't really impact the wetlands crossing per se. We'll still have the essential water flow characteristic, unimpeded water flow, and roughly equivalent disturbance of the water course in the wetlands during the construction. So, it seems like a reasonable, and especially again given the changes we're all aware of, energy and materials costs having risen dramatically, and precalcised concrete is certainly one of those. So, appreciate the opportunity and response to our questions regarding this modification of your original plan. But again, it doesn't seem to be anything that requires a new application or modification an application or modification. We can take it as a field engineering change without further ado. And when it finally does dry out, you'll be able to go ahead with the project. Of course, it may be seen after this last, summer, how long that will take.
I'm sure the water table is pretty close to the surface at this point in that area. So, okay, any other questions or comments? If not, we can move on. Got to go get back to the agenda here, She's now gotten buried several. Okay.
Excuse me, George. I do have one quick question. So, just so that I'm clear, as far as wetlands, we're okay to In to
my opinion, I'll, again, I'll, ask if there are any, objections from the commissioners. But since then, based on, my understanding of the situation, this should not require further approval from wetlands. So, you know, this field modification, you know, insofar as it, meets the design characteristics with respect to unimpeded flow of water. And I think we've addressed that, making sure that clearances the water coarse surface to the top of the culvert are adequate, you know, or equivalent to that was in the original proposal. And the dimensions and location are the same, you really haven't made any substantial alteration in the wetlands crossing. So bottom line is no further don't need to submit an application for modification here.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We will get an update to the, to the design out to, agent Wagner as soon as it's available.
Okay, and we'll trust him to stay on top of it, henceforth. Well, then, our, well, Item 11 is simply to announce that our next regular meeting will be on Monday, December 6, same time, same virtual. No, we'll have a new meeting location, so new, let's say, new Zoom number for the meeting, but basically same time, same place, and we'll see you all then. With that, I can ask for a consensus on the next item on the agenda, which would be adjournment. Any objection to adjournment at this point? Nay.
We will again adjourn by unanimous consent. Thanks all, and look forward to seeing you well, on December 4 for the sidewalk, if that gets pulled off, or on the sixth for our meeting regardless. And with that, we can say goodnight and click that little red button down in the lower right hand corner of the meeting pane. Thanks, Abby, and I look forward to getting the meeting motions in minutes next week or later this week. Thanks again all, and good night. Doctor. Good night, everybody. Good night.