Meeting transcript
IWWC Regular Meeting
December 2, 2024 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Monday,
12/02/2022. Time. So you have to get the the approval of the minutes to be deferred. So we have a motion. Maybe we can defer the approval of the minutes for another call. Why don't you wanna do that tonight? Wouldn't she wanna be the one to show the things that are incorrect on me? Who? Marina? Here. Think she's here virtually. I'm here. Okay. I'm sorry. It's okay. Eric has changed my name to fearless note taker. Okay. Okay. Alright. So start with September. Well,
there's a couple of rules. What I saw at least the September 10 meeting, I noticed the address that the 72 Old Farms Road for the for the house that's being built back there. And I think that should be 72 Pine Ridge Road instead of Old Farms Road. I think you're probably right. Because they had to change it because they're not going in on the back road. And that's that was in September 10 meeting.
But does that property actually front? Because it runs on both roads. I think we talked about the official address change to Pine Ridge. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I
don't think it runs on the on the Oak Farms or whatever it is. It had an easement that the guy had to travel to get through that. And so he's not doing the easement anymore.
So and then on November 4 meeting, I noticed we had to bring in a a alternate to be seated. That wasn't shown to happen.
Yeah. I looked it up. Brad is an actual member, not alternate according to the website. Oh, so he didn't okay.
Alright. So so in theory, he didn't have to be seated, which is okay. I just I wanted to double check when I did the minutes too, so he should be good. Okay.
That was all I understood. There seemed to be off to me anyway. We the September ones.
September 10 for any means. I'll second. Now make a motion to accept the meeting as of November 4. I'll second. Public comments.
Well, let's go to a permanent application, IWWC 24 slash 10. Eric Anderson, town of Andover, Bunker Hill Road, replacement of the existing bridge over the Hawk River. We had a presentation by Greg last month. We got to ask questions there. Did you have any question you wanted to ask, Jay? So I watched
the video, and I guess my my question is I didn't hear any discussion on whether or not this was a significant activity. Did we talk about that last month? No. And while if you take a look at the bridge now, we'll take a look at the bridge when it's done, there's probably not an awful lot of difference, new and bigger. But I think in the interim, there's gonna be an awful lot of disturbance of the wetlands going on. And my my sense is this is the most significant wetlands issue to be very on the commission. And what that buys you is a public hearing if the commission were to determine that it was, but I thought the it should be at least discussed and we can make sure that we're doing what we want is not an oversight, that it's not a significant activity.
So my understanding last time was that it was open to the public. I believe that they asked for public comments. I'm just trying to, you know, just want to clarify that there's a difference of distinction between that.
There it was not a public hearing. Okay. It was public meeting. And again, it's got nothing to do with your presentation. It's got to do with how the commission pulls those things. Understood.
Think we might have not considered it, but this is just as a significant change because it's it's an already existing bridge, and then they're gonna replace it. And
the watercourse itself, Besides the water, the river itself, all around it was really wetlands. There's there might be a couple of that they're gonna be in. There aren't yet. There's no federally or state regulated wetlands on-site. So the water course is the all I'm passing to the water course and to the Upland Review area. And you said it wasn't gonna increase or slow down the flow. Right. 1%. Right? Was very Right. Correct. The water surface is slightly reduced, velocity slightly increased. But, you know, it's really benefit by removing the three the three cell structure opening up open bottom structure. You know, it's it's much more beneficial to fish passage. There's quite a bit of benefit to the hydraulic sands. The environment is creating riparian shells so the critters can pass them to meet the the bridge. We discussed a lot of this, you know, last week. Do you think, Jared? Which angle are you looking at?
Just I think when the job is in progress, if we go over and look at it, we're gonna say that is some significant activity going on in the water. Right. And when it's all said and done, you know, it's not gonna look an awful lot different than well, I hope it looks a little different than it does right now, but but in the big picture, like and and so I'm looking for a little helping Joe on that. That's, you know, my suspicion is it could be a significant activity, but I don't know that for a fact. But
Well, it's it's it's up to the committee. There's Yep. Committee to decide or or the the other thing would be a public petition for Correct. Which there is notice published that the application was received in the referees and then it's also gone through an extensive review process. No, am
not criticizing, I'm just criticizing it our commission to do what we're supposed to be doing. And that gives, you know, that gives an opportunity for the public and frequently when you have public hearings, nobody shows up anyhow. I think you look at the alternatives with this too.
I think you have to consider that you know like not building a bridge or you know okay it kind of needs to Yeah you're missing the point you know. We've
got to build a bridge no doubt about It's just a question whether it's a significant activity in the watercourse. And I look through in our regulations on all these different things, and it's kind of wishy motion, you know, in my mind. It talks about any activity including but not limited to the following activities which may have a major or significant event. Any activity involving disposition or removal of material which will or may have major substantial effect or significant impact on the regulated area. Any activity which substantially changes the natural channel or may inhibit the natural dynamic of the waterborne system. Any activity which substantially diminishes the natural capacity of the inland watercourse to support fish, aquatic wildlife, or other biological type. Any activity that is likely to cause or has potential cause substantial turbidity,
sulfation or sedimentation of weather or water pores. Any activity which causes substantial diminue of flow of an actual water force for groundwater level. And again, when we're all said and done, the answer to all those questions is no. In the interim, I'm not so sure. And so I guess what I will do is I'll make a motion that we determine that it is a significant applicant and then we vote on it one way or the other. And if it's voted down, that's fine. We've done our we've had our discussion on it. We've made our decision. We go about our business. But if we think that all that major equipment going on in there, and again, gotta do it. We gotta fix the bridge. But but does that warrant us declaring that a significant activity?
So if we I think it's pretty by what you just read, it is a significant activity.
Just using that logic. But what would what happens then? The only thing we'd have to do is we'd have to set a public hearing for next meeting. We have a public hearing, probably nobody show up. We'd vote to to approve it.
You know but just what we've said we've gone through the process we've gone through the process yep and I think yeah I was gonna say it sounds like then we should.
All right I mean I'm all for it after reading that getting that description of what you're talking about. It's absolutely a significant
application. Okay. Yeah. We would still be done with we'd be able to make a bid. We would be able to vote on it after the public hearings closed. Yeah. So it's I don't think it's We're not we're not impacting the job that gives us a chance to do when we are When is this job proposed?
If so, the the construction begin in April or, you know, this this this spring. This may have an impact on the construction schedule. Tom Walden is actually with CJM and he's the project engineer. He's got his hand up. I don't know if he wants to weigh in or if we we can let him do that. But he's part of the design team and was heavily involved in submitting the the the permitting application. So I don't know who submitted his significant activity or if that's a choice you guys make. But so I imagine this that that would mean we'd go to another meeting, need to send notices out.
We need to redo the presentation too. We have to go through because you'd actually again only decide on how to present the hearing.
So this may very well impact the standard. The town was planning on doing the tree clearing for this starting today. That got pushed back because we didn't have items in place, which we have now, we would have scheduled distinct tree care to cut all the trees along there probably Wednesday or Thursday. So if you are pushing that off and you're going to affect that, you'll have to let me know, but that will utility relocation will take place probably starting February 1. So the tree clearing needs to be done before that. The reason we're doing it now is we have a very narrow window when we can satisfy the NDDD for the turtle species and the sting species and the bat species. So we work very carefully with the herpetologist to establish that schedule. So if you put it off one month, maybe it'll still work. I just say though, do we have would we have to impact what why would we have to stop the tree cutting? That's still gonna have to be done. Because that's in the web. So if you're not gonna grant the weapons permit with that Okay. Can I add something, though? I just think,
like with that that wording it's a lot of it has to do with post construction impact.
That's what I So if you're changing the water for second fleet, let's say we're doing Right. But it's not. Yeah. It's not. It's changing it a little bit. Good for the better.
That's part of the bridge. But not the not the flow. Right? I mean Right there. The fell is basically staying the same. Flow is gonna be better. Better. It'll be improved. Right. Instead of trying to make the river go where the bridge is, it's letting the river go where it wants to go, just opening it up a little bit on one side.
Yes. So that's changing the wall, but it's Yeah. I think, like, a significant impact would be, like, say, building a dam there or
building a bridge and narrow the channel. Or maybe a significant impact on it would be, like, build bridge somewhere else. Just Yeah. Like, long term impact. Now we're gonna just leave this old bridge and let it decay, but we're gonna build a new bridge. And then I would say maybe significant, but it's I suppose if you look at it as the bridge itself is already creating significant. It is. You know? So it's already been done, I guess, and then we would go there, film it in, film it in, changing everything up. It's not really either.
Has there been any negative? I mean, obviously, people on Bunker Hill know what's going on. I mean, has there been any no. I mean, they want a new bridge. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest complaint would be the disruption of the whole project or the fact that it's been one lane since well since I've worked here. Right, right.
We're also talking about something that's had Army Corps of Engineers. Right. It's hard to measure deep water quality deep fissures. That's a defensive problem. Just bring it up and we just go.
What's that? What if you just? Well I've got I made a motion. Right. Okay. Nobody has to second it. Oh. And if it's not second the motion doesn't exist.
Or you could second it and vote. We could do that as well. I'll second it. Okay. So okay got it.
So we got it? Okay. Yep. Okay. Alright. Miranda get it? Got it. Alright. Thank you.
Okay. So that means that with any more discussions? They had a discussion about the the bridge and what's I I I was wondering about the you were saying they're gonna cut those trees. Every one of those trees that were dead, are they all gonna be cut down?
So there's a little bit of a nomenclature on that, but all the ones that have tape around them are getting cut. Yeah. But it's only one color. There's two colors of tape. It's pretty easy. The ones that are the most of the colors are getting in the cups. Which I thought is red and white, like candy cane? Yeah. Those are getting in the cup. Okay. Yes. Yeah. I guess they have to be cut. And a big part of that is simply they have to bring in pretty large crane. And the clearing, the limited clearing is based on the crane that they need to set the actual prefab deck sections. Will that just, like, one day, or
is it I don't think it's very long. No. They they just pick them up and call them. Yeah. I know. It's pretty quick.
Tom's a construction guy. You want the construction, the answer is I don't know if you can type them in. Marina, there's someone we're wondering if they wanna talk.
Who? Tom Weldon, the like the one that's on there. Oh, he should he's on muted. He should be able to talk.
Oh, okay. I didn't know whether I could see it. That's quite alright. Thank you for the opportunity. In regards to the clearing of the trees, that work probably shouldn't take more than. Probably a couple of days to a week at most. The limits of the clearing were determined based upon the recreation of the. The new slopes that are going to need to be created. As we worked in conjunction with deep fisheries and with the state DOT OEP to create, excuse me, the armament of the slopes to protect the existing abutments and to formulate the proposed critter crossings on both sides of the bridge. The utilities are the at the immediate onset are the primary reason for the clearing on the upstream side because their present location adjacent to the downstream side of the bridge would make it impossible to remove the existing three culverts and to in order to build the new abutment and wing walls on the southwest, I'm sorry, the southeast corner of the bridge is gonna require the installation of a temporary earth retaining system. And with the utility lines overhead near immediate vicinity, it would make the placement of that material almost impossible. So in conversations and numerous field meetings with the overhead utilities,
the the locations were were deemed to be located to the upstream side while we complete the reconstruction of the bridge in total. And then once we're complete, the plan is to move the utilities back to their original location on the downstream side of the bridge. In addition to relocating the existing fire standpipe, etc. From the Northeast corner back down to the Southeast corner. As far as the overall impacts, there will be the erosion control fencing that we're using to control the siltation that may or may not occur. The siltation devices are being used to to keep any soil material from escaping to the river and causing siltation there. That same fencing will be used as exclusionary fencing to keep once the herpetologist that has been hired for the duration of the project to perform regular sweeps, the whole idea of the fencing is two part. One to keep the turtles and the snakes out of the work zone while we're working, as well as siltation control devices or sedimentation control devices. The water handling systems that we're proposing to use are basically sandbags, so there won't be any actual disturbance of the stream bed due to the vibration of sheet piles, etcetera, stirring up any silt or whatever while we're basically in a unconfined scenario, which we're allowed to be, we can work unconfined in the river from, I believe it's June 1 to September 30, and we're allowed to install our coffer dams by deep basically any time of the year. That's pretty much the job in a nutshell. I mean, we're gonna be working in the dry. We've gone to great lengths to ensure the protection of not only the.
The surrounding area of the the regulated upland areas on both sides of the bridge. We've we've designed the best bridge that we could that would not cause any further impacts to the upland impact areas that currently exist. To make the bridge truly hydraulically efficient and prevent overtopping from occurring would require us to raise the road approximately five feet. And at that point, the amount of fill that would need to be placed to create the slopes to hold the road would basically be overfilling the floodplain In that area within the Upland impact areas, which we've tried to avoid at all costs and excuse me our total impacts to the upstream impact areas. If I'm not mistaken, if I remember correctly, it's about eleven thirty seven cubic yards of cut. We're not placing any additional fill in the in the in the floodplains. And I I don't wanna ramble or take up any more of anybody's time, but is there any other specific questions I might be able to answer?
I think we're good. I think we're good. I'll make a motion to approve permit 24Dash10. Second. All in favor? Aye. Got it. One. Thank you. You.
Just write up, like, an approval letter and send that over. Yeah. I usually have to look at perm and then Right here. Okay. Mhmm. There's Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Next on our with some new business permit application, IWWC24Slash12, Robert and Pamela Mayer, 5 Sunset Lane. Are you here? Okay. They're not here, so we'll
I don't what we got. We can we can discuss it, and you can receive it. Well, as far as I know, I think we'll put the did you see the drawing that was submitted? Yeah. Mhmm.
And then he was waiting on all my approval. I don't know when they see or when I haven't got that yet. I asked him if he received it, and I didn't hear anything. Last time we we talked, he hadn't got it yet. We put in for it, so we kinda need that before we can approve it anyway.
Oh. Since it's in the late, and you have to wait till next time. Okay. So hopefully, it'll happen by then. Alright. So we'll this. Skip it. Yeah. I mean, you can make a motion to it. Make a motion to receive it. Yeah. So it's just replacing a five foot by 16 foot wood dock with a four foot by 16 foot aluminum and composite dock in the same location. So I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to receive that. K. And, really, I can't think of any discussion we could have on that. Alright. So seven b is Did you wanna make a motion? Motion to receive the
application one I w w c two thousand four hundred twelve permit I'll second it All in favor? Aye. Aye.
The b permit application IWWC 24 slash 13, Andover Field Committee, Veterans Memorial Field, worked in up upland review area to construct a free pickleball courts, playscapes, and a pavilion area for multi use community enhancement. Excellent. Sounds great. It's still there.
So from the town's perspective, I'll refer to Christine and Scott,
I have I have a question I have to ask about this area that it's that you want to build all this. Is that it's all about the ball field.
By the. Is that is that area of blood? Is that a flooding area? Yes.
Everything here floods. Is it considered blood question? Yes. So you wanna go, you know, blood question? Correct.
Allowed by your chimney bridge. And, you know, if you if you look at what you can do in floodplain, in parks and recreation areas are one of the things. It's not like people are living there Right. And they get displaced. You're not gonna be able to play pickleball pickleball when it floods, but the water goes away and you you can get it and brush off the court and you you can play. And so Same thing with a play skate or
anything. Yeah. Yep. And so if you want to find the example of that,
if you've ever been to Riverfront Recapture in Hartford, that entire park Floods. Yep. Is in a floodplain mode. Their 80 pathways can be six to eight feet underwater. The entire Ground Floor of the building they have there is designed to float. If you look very carefully on the side of the building, even though they pressure the water after the water goes shut down, you can see here Ground Floor gets six or seven feet of water in the building. But it's all constructive of materials that account for that? Yes. So the first thing is that it is in the flood zone, but it is not really in the flood way. And the difference is the areas where the paddleboards are are not because they're separated from the river by a pretty significant burn.
They build flood, but they're not going to see current,
which is why we can get away with putting fencing up in that direction. Obviously, it's problematic putting a chain link fence, you know, in a river, for instance. But if it's just in a pond, it doesn't really matter. So that area has flooded from time to time, but when the water recedes, it's back to normal. So we understand that the lower part will go underwater, if not every year, every two to three years. The upper level, in my lifetime where the playground is going, in my lifetime, I've never actually seen that flood, but that is within certainly within the five hundred year to double flame. So all the structures the only real structure that we're building there is a pavilion, and the pavilion can withstand Right. Flood. And the lighting bases that are installed will be installed and the concrete will go above the ordinary flood so that the lighting and the electrical portion won't flood. There is an existing electric panel and electrical equipment there also, but that that the level of that is above the flood twin. So it's designed to be underwater just like the existing running the practice on the water. The existing soccer field,
existing sprinkler system that all goes underwater in big.
Are you guys expecting the pickleball courts to sell over if it floods over?
It wouldn't surprise me if it gets a little mucky on the ports.
What what do you guys propose to wash the ports? I guess, like, remove the mud.
So that's a good question. I mean, I think the the fencing should accommodate at least our little our little three wheeled excavator so that we can muck it out. You know, I've watched them at Riverfront Recapture when they're mucking their trails back out, and they use just a giant pain loader. They sometimes get a foot or two of of silt on top of their trail, so it's pretty ugly. I don't think we're gonna have anywhere near that problem. I mean, I don't see any reason why we couldn't just pressure wash it off too. We certainly have that there that works.
They're they're normal plugging down here. But you would need any sediment. They cannot track what's down here. Okay. I clean up the mess. Yeah.
I mean, you know, we need some work other than that to do that. When's this scheduled for? Like, what time? We're assuming we're gonna be construction sometime in the spring for public works working on it. The goal is to use public works for the town's portion. We have a half million dollar steep grant from the state to help us out with this, and the town has to contribute about a 150 or a $160,000. So largely, public works will do the clearing cause there is some brush clearing that's required for this down there. And then they will do the excavation, put up the self and stuff like that. And then we'll sell out the actual core paving and probably some of the sub base. Yep. So that's the basic plan at this point. That's gonna be bought. Yeah. It should be perfect. Yeah. It's something it's something that was envisioned in the first
go around when they redid the appeals, but there was no money available to do it. So this is basically the second phase of the original project. And even if we don't get that right up front, you know, that kind of stuff we can add with the time. I think it's great. And a playscape? Yes. There'll be two playscape. One for Little regions two to five and then five to 12 collection. Great. Great. We have worked with town's consulting herpetologist on this to make sure we're minimizing any impact to the local snake and turtle pocket. Haven't seen it with turtle pocket. Yeah. Yeah. They actually go by the courts. They go across the street, and they dig in that big lawn area in front of the the assisted living with the senior living complex. No. That's great. They've been spotted down there. Yep. Okay. No. I think it's great. Okay. Get it done.
Yeah. We have the one up on the view. 69
Burnout Brookwood. It's a long existing gravel driveway with the wetlands crossing well, upstream crossing, and they paved the
I'm not sure if they did it yet, actually, but I remember even the size of the driveway or anything.
I think typically the commission moves to the second and Tuesday, but that would put that meeting
pretty far into July if we did that. Like the middle Well, the second Tuesday, which is after the first Monday. So it's moving at one day. But,
you know, I got no problem with being here on the seventh, Yeah. What
what day is it for? Do you have do you have another? Monday people are back.
We'll leave it for the seventh. Okay. Right now. Does anybody have another copy of the dates?
I can make a copy. I'll make it, you know, go on. I mean, you might have sent it to me. I didn't get it. Alright. I didn't Yeah. I don't know. I think I just sent it. Okay. Yeah. If you could just go to put in my calendar. Yeah. That'd be great. That'd be great. Jeez. We're getting a little bridge.
Yeah. That that would be fun. Yeah. That would be fun to you know?
I could pick up all the game last for years. Yeah. They live in Ellington. They're full of tennis court that we've all Oh, okay. It'd be nice to have something, you know, something nice in town. The Playscape, I kinda
question I guess because didn't they just put one here at the school? I think they just yep yep right and so it was like do we need another one I mean I know there you know there are a lot of money to put in whatever. I don't care. I don't really care.
At the school here? Yeah. I don't know what they put there. Right. I haven't been. Right. I haven't been yet. But, yeah, I mean, they put something, and I would assume it's pretty nice because they're all updated and even did theirs. Mean, everybody's been updating those different Columbia. Columbia. Yeah. And they're and they're never
I was just saying, I I kinda questioned the the playscape only because Andover just put one here at this school. It's like, why do we need Mix it up.
Like you're saying, I mean, I have grandkids, so I go to the park. You're usually one by yourself or maybe there's another family. I mean, they're never it's never like there's 20 families at a time so to have too close it was like maybe they could spend the money somewhere else but not my fault I'm not on a committee I don't care but I questioned it. Well probably when that dream left the station
they didn't know about this. Maybe. Yeah. That could be very true. Yeah it just seemed to have two in town was but yeah I again I'm hoping they have something my grandkids like. Alright so we're gonna leave the July 1?
July 7? Yeah. Yes we changed the time. And b on another business discussion on the annual or like a minute. We have to vote on the meeting dates? Yes. We do. We can. Yeah. Doesn't matter. I make a move. We accept the meeting dates for 2025. So I'll check that. All in favor? Aye. Discussion on the Hilla related regulations.
Okay, so again, watch the video from the last meeting, you know, it's first meeting I wasn't attended in, in a long time, all kinds of stuff was going on, but Marina, do you have those, copies of the two driveways that you could possibly show?
Yeah. Joe sent it to me, but I don't think Eric gave me full host capabilities. It's not giving me the option to share my screen, but I have them up. So I don't know. Joe, if you're able to get up from your seat there and go to the participant list on the screen, and I think you have to make me, like, a full host to share. Eric just has me as co host slash fearless notetaker listed there. Nick Host? Yes.
Do I want to change them yet? Fearless notetaker. Yeah.
I'm like, can you change my name? And they put this back. Let's see. Why is it still not giving me
Did you hit yes or did you hit no? I swear you hit no. I
you hit no. That's what it looked like to me. Yeah. It's still not giving me option. We think it hit the wrong button. What's the It
says host. Yeah. I don't know why it's not giving me. Maybe it takes a minute. Or Share ops.
Yeah. It says host, so I can't you can't get it back? Yeah. I have now I have full
full power, but I don't know. Yeah. I don't know why I don't have it, but whiteboard. I don't know what that is. Unless you wanna sign into your email quick, Joe, or if they're on the are they on the town website at all under that application?
One of them is. The other one isn't because there's no I'm not on the application for it. Oh, okay.
Yeah. I don't know why I don't have access, which is weird.
I could print them out. Well, I I've got a copy here to to pass around and we'll do that. Okay. So it was just, it would have been nicer a little bit if we could have had the big cut there. For a dozen copies. I don't think it's necessary for the discussion. So so anyhow, the so last week, last month, you were still reporting on a driveway over at, I'm gonna say, 60 File on Lake Road, where they put put it in. And and I know you can't see this yet. I'm passing around, but the driveway, it goes out to the street and it everything just drained right down to this storm drain that runs, you know, dead shot right into the lake. And so I said, well, that doesn't look right. You know, it it didn't used to look like that. And and a couple of years ago, we created, you know, the lake regulations to to mitigate nutrient runoff into the lake because the lake, you know, it keeps getting it gets degraded, and eventually, you know, it's not gonna be as clean as it is now. And so we we made these regulations that gave the town the opportunity to have somebody that was going to increase the impervious surface on their lot, account for that, and do something in mitigation so that it wouldn't all run off into the lake and continue to get the algae blooms and and that sort of thing. Our process hasn't worked real well, you know, and there's in the wetlands is the least offensive of all the guilty parties here. But I wanted to let this group know that I think it's important that we maintain the quality of the lake because that's a really nice resource
for Andover, and the people that live around the lake are contributing nicely to the tax rolls in Andover. So, you know, Andover Andover wins Andover wins by having the lake maintain good clear quality and that sort of thing. And I don't know if Joe we'd be able to do something like, you know, when a guy comes and he's paving over his gravel driveway and he's in the Lake District, we make it a condition of approval that he has to comply with the late rigs in the zoning thing.
Usually with that one I talked to Jim and we were like we were going back and forth he was like I'm not sure driveways fall under it and then we decided that they do.
And it specifically you know as an example in the regs it says when you pave the driveway you're creating an impervious surface and so it's got to be mitigated. It is
that was specifically addressed in there. So now that's clarified. Yeah usually what I do with the stuff that needs the nutrient allocations, I know it changes the plan that comes to wetlands. Like the Forest Sunset is pending. Where they're putting a shed there and we're working on the nutrient allocation. So I was like wait to do the wetlands, know, we'll kind of work together and get to the plan because it's going to change what comes to me. So
that's kind of what we do. Okay, and there was two driveways that kind of you know, got me a little bit as I go doing my walk around. So that was that was one of them where, you know, clearly any, you know, there's three, three bad things that can go into the lake. One is nutrients that make the plants grow. One is the pollutants from oil and that kind of stuff that drips on the driveway. And then the third thing is the sediment that goes in there. And this clearly is aggravating all three of those things,
you know, on the lake. That one's yeah. That one was a tough one. It may be better for sediment. I was thinking because Yep. Of you're taking the gravel out and putting a surface. But, yeah, you're definitely temperature and
possible pollutants. You know? And and I know that a gravel driveway after it gets back down, it was not the most permeable surface in the world. It's not great. Yeah. But it but the the point of the regulations are it allows us the opportunity to help make the lake cleaner. We say if somebody's gonna go do this, they you know good go. Water going into the lake should be better than it was before they took action to do whatever they did to make the impervious surface. The other one is on Lakeside Drive. I think it's 33. And there's a little blue house here, and they they paved the entire width of the lot. You know? And have no more grass. No more grass. Yes. And it was so
that that bothered me, and and I don't know if it's within the 200 knots. It's outside. Just outside. Even there even back by the house where they're doing it. Yeah. Yeah. They have to go in front of the I was gonna say, why was that approved? They don't say no. They have to go, you know, they have to work with the zoning agent to come up with a plan on how they're gonna mitigate that. And the best way to do that is to drive up. The other thing I like about the mitigation is that instead of running off into the lake, which runs off into the river, you know, it goes out to sea, if we have a dry well or a detention basin, you know, we're restoring the ground well. So I think that's important to us too. But when I saw this, you know, that's not going to happen.
And so I wanted to highlight that so that we can help. And I'm working with with Jim on how to improve the process on that. The other thing that the nutrient well, the weight regs allow there's there's several different things, you know, the impervious circles are bad. And we also expect when a guy is redoing his house with significant degree, part of the money that he's going to put into upgrading the house goes into keeping the lightweight. And so if and I know when we wrote the regs and they're far from perfect I had a big thing in there couldn't figure out how to make many better like but again it's the opportunity that we have to make the lake better And it says when you renovate 50% of your household for ten year period, you have to go do a nutrient allocation worksheet to mitigate. And and the end result has to be 10% cleaner water than you started with. And it's tough to tell where there's 50%, but there's a half a dozen houses around the lake that when you look at the ad that they're you know, when they sold it, said completely renovated. So to me, that removes all that over 50%, you know, and and we expect, I expect that we're gonna be putting something in to help make the lake cleaner than it was before we did that. That's part of the thing there. So so that's my pitch. We're struggling there a little bit. We keep working on it, but there's, you know, it's there there's places I can think of at least three houses that were completely renovated, and we didn't do any nutrient mitigation
at all initially. Jim tells me we did we did get one one of them fixed
up. That may be the one I was thinking about. That's where I was was trying to think of a way to address it, but like there was one that was it kind of fell on electrician to come up with. Yeah, no, it it falls
on the phone. Yeah, but it was like she was deferring to him and they And were trying to I don't expect
any homeowner to be able to understand these regulations. It's all gonna fall on the zoning official to work with them to come up with a plan. For the guys doing a big project like the bridge or the ball courts, you know, and all that kind of stuff, the engineer could do that very easily. The only guy I saw come up with a, you know, when I asked him, and we talked about that here at this meeting it was the guy at 17 Lakeside Drive Nick and yeah I forget his last call Wiki or something and he said yeah I had no problem filling it out. So, you know, he came in with a couple of drywalls of that and and just did a bang on Jim. But he's he must be the exception to the rule because everybody else you know, Jim is still struggling to figure it out a little bit and we'll we'll he's he's gonna retire and work on getting the new guy there. But we're missing those opportunities to keep the lake clean and that's my point that we
we should be enthused about that because that's good for handover. Taxes, all the elected people, all that kind of stuff. So that was all that I wanted to share on the late breaks tonight. If you wanna read them, you know, they're in section seven of the zoning breaks, but I don't think you do. They're we're not that good.
So they're a lot better than they were. They yeah. They used to be nonexistent.
You know? So it it's it's there for us to take advantage of, and we should be. I think one of the hard things is translating
that you get a bunch of numbers and then trying to translate that like you have a zoning agent that's like translating it like a rain garden. Yeah. Like where's what kind of rain garden will work on the site? Is it flat? You know is there a place to put a rain garden? Know it's like it's kind of just like a rain garden is this much but it's like it kind of depends on it. Yeah it allows
the the regulations allow the zoning agent to specify to work with the property owner to say here is the best place to put a drywall or a detention base or whatever. But then you're almost get into like engineering too. You are. Yeah. But you know, and it's not hard. You take two inches of rain on all the impervious surface that you've created and you say that you've got a you do a calculation
of that many gallons so the but then you have to because it's that part of it and then there's the phosphorus part so you have to like infiltrate all the water and then you have to do the phosphorus too And that's like where there are two kinds I of know.
And I could be wrong, but I think if you infiltrate the water, the phosphorus isn't going to flake. It's going to filter through the ground and go wherever it goes. And so all we're trying to do is keep the water keep a given amount of water to run it in the lathe that's at least as much as what you're allowing to by creating the newly impervious surface. So that's
I'll call taking a bigger step on that. We'll try to figure out a way to get those drains not going into Down down
That was the hard part of that driveway. That's like that's where you would put the
infiltration system, but it's it's just a pipe. I I would love to do that. You know, one of that one of the questions that that still I'm not sure I understand as well as I should is when we take stormwater runoff, you know, and we frequently run it into wetlands. I don't think that's the right answer you know because the weapons are really great soil it's not soaking it we want to take that storm water runoff you know put it in a detention basin or something where it soak into the ground and do something. You don't want to dry out the ones so that's the problem. Don't want to dry it out. Run out. Don't want to take all the storm water runoff and put it in there in in there.
Kind of like I think the goal would be to keep it as close to the pre development conditions that you can. Yeah. So if there's any extra you store that.
Yep. But if if you're you're paving the driveway, I'm not sure we want that running into wetlands. I just assumed capture it, let it go back into the groundwater. Right. But if you
put it into the groundwater, the water will over time discharge into the wetlands because it's still moving downhill. So it is recharging and it is ending up ideally, you don't want to move is move something from one drainage basin to another artificially. You want to keep, you know, because what Joe said, you don't want all of a sudden divert water that was naturally flowing into a wetlands Yeah. So that now the wetlands is no longer or what's even worse is if you do it to vernal pools, you know, you want those vernal pools to fill up with water so little froggies and amphibians live there and then dry out in the summer.
But if we paint a bunch of area you know we don't necessarily want it all go to you know in the lake or something where it's going to flow away we need to recharge the groundwater. And I tried to study that whole process up, and it didn't make any sense to me on how does water get to the groundwater. I don't think it just goes all the way through, you know, the dirt getting down there. Whenever I dig, you see water down maybe half a foot and then you're into dry dirt. So I'll never be that smart on that topic, but I do know that we can make a difference and keep the runoff from going into the lake. So that's that's all I can make sure. I I agree with what Derek was saying because you're
creating an internal surface like the driver. Yep. And you wanna hydrate that ground under it because you're basically with the driver shedding more often. Yep. And you have that storm drainer carrying it away in somebody's house, and you wanna keep your weapons wet. You don't wanna dump it away. It's kinda fine line. That's interesting. They don't have a well underneath the driveway.
Well that's why if on on something that's less than 100 square feet of new impervious surface, it talks about you can, you know, do a lot with fresh snow to get get that stuff to go in under the shed or whatever, then and that's fine. But I didn't wanna make everybody experts on those regs. I just wanted to say the opportunities there, and we need to capture everyone we can so we keep the lake in as good shape as we can first of all, as we can. Absolutely. Yeah.
Really continued public awareness and awareness of people in the lake that they really should not be using high nitrogen, high phosphorus fertilizer, you know, anywhere near the lake zone. You know, with a quick look around the lake you can kind of see who's got nice green lawns and who doesn't. I need to make a pretty good guess that you know, where the fertilizer has been bought.
Last summer my yard was looking pretty good all the weeds but we look good because we have lots of rain. But generally you bet yeah you can tell we've got fertilizer. Yeah
if you don't see ablated grass out of you know, order in a lawn and a lake, can tell that that's a pretty high maintenance product. See, then they could pave their whole front yard. Or they have a pet.
Some people have, you know, landscapers. Yeah. That's interesting. This happens. Right. You know, some people have every week they have the landscape recovery needs to come around. It's been a week or so. Then the guy next door I know what you've done. The future. Well,
he did that because wants to be able to drive in his garage, and he's got his garage full of stuff. And so he's always talking over here. But but the end result of his entire front yard is asphalt then. And Yeah. Where is that? 33 Lakeside Drive?
That's quite a. Can I shoot him over? I don't think it's shooting.
I don't know what that is. Yeah. It's a parka that.
Wow. But those are saying why would they get approved? I mean because that isn't a drive like you're saying, it's not a driveway.
What what I've seen is there is oftentimes a disconnect between what gets approved
and what gets done. It's like the two people, you know, never talk to each other. Now did you look and see whether a driveway permit is actually pulled for that?
That's the hardest part. I I don't know. I know Jim looked into too much surprised when I showed him that photo. And it might not have been. Jay with the
the I mean, I could see that on some side road. But at the lake, I would think they would be pretty cantous that David
Public Works gets the call before he digs one. So that's usually how we figure it out. Saving companies don't come to us. So they'll explain it and be like, here's one, here's one, here's one. So then then you can track it. I mean, there are some
ethical paving companies like Fuller, for instance, will always permit their work. They will always get them inspected. Anytime anybody right up to a town road, technically. So a lot of that paving is in the towns right away. Right. And therefore needs to be permitted. And Jay goes out and measures those and sign supposed to be signing off on them before they get paved. And then, you know, but he's only signing off on the apron. You know, so if they pave further in, you know, they could pave a quarter inch of pavement and Jay wouldn't care because it doesn't affect the town road and that's not his jurisdiction. But if it's But that's certainly a wide, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Wired in the house.
And he's putting a basketball Yeah. They could. Maybe that's what he was thinking.
Well, I mean, that that's that's not right. I mean, that is beyond not right. You know, and even if you Yeah. How do you mitigate? There's no way you can mitigate for that much additional impervious service. Well, like, suspicion is that his lot no longer meets the coverage that will have.
I think he's got too much lot covered up, you know, for So the Yeah.
It doesn't look like it. Well, it sounds like you need to give him a zoning cease and desist and start with that. You're right. It's it's kind of different. Cool. Yeah. If you'd like to
to move us there changing a driveway from gravel to cave. Like you said, that's a parking lot, not a driveway. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So step number one, Jed, I would find out whether they actually go down and talk to Lynn and find out whether permits were actually pulled for that. Okay. If they weren't, then that's easy. That's just a straight zoning violation and a violation of But what is that? A fee? Fee? Not I mean, you wouldn't make them take it out, would you? Why not? Would you? Would I? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With the town?
It was well so the guy hard to see. There's a little dent in the back of the house sticking out there a little bit. Mhmm. He came to get a permit because,
you know, he went in to put side yard? He needed a barrier permit
to have that sticking out that four feet depth. Yeah. And and so the guy, you know, he showed that he's willing to work with the town. I think he probably just maybe he didn't even know that he needed to do anything. I mean, is amazing how some people don't.
Used to be one of those guys. But but Companies say that. They're like, you know. Yeah. Yeah. But it yeah. I mean, that's on the paving contractor.
And our ordinances now allow us to find them both. We can find the homeowners and we can find the contractors who do stupid things like that. And me, I would be holding the paving contractor responsible. If they didn't pull the fireman. If they did. Well
I'll go ahead and look and see you know most driveways are 20 feet wide or something like that.
I'm just saying if they pulled and it was approved then nothing you can do. Right. We have a 40 foot drive wide. How often they would do You
you get a permit and we've done that you get a permit and while you're getting that done you think oh if I could just put a you know you know, you think, oh, could you just do that? And I mean, that happens. It's
you know, and here's an example. There's, you know, 161 Lake Road, and that's one of the ones that was a total reefer. And they didn't sell it. The guy, you know, I guess, who bought it and he's living there over there.
But With that garage, is that what they're trying to do? Nope. This is this is just just a bull
house. And but it was a total redo on it. And he got a building permit within I forget what it was, but, you know, very, very insignificant thing. Minimal. And then the next thing you know, you're it's a total redo and so they just be very much cheap. And
there's a lot of that, you know, and that is why the assessor normally looks at all the houses. You know, we were just discussing that today because there's a lot of stuff that comes through, you know, and he's like, well, they pulled, they said the construction value was $10,000 They built a 32 by 48 addition on their house with a separate kitchen, bathroom, two bedrooms, all for 10 over, you know, a garage with 10 foot ceilings. He's like, yeah, you know, and now that puts me in an awkward spot because I go in and I whack the appraisal way up and they're like, well, got permitted for $10,000 you know, so it's, we all have to kind of work as regulatory agencies. They did the work themselves.
Doesn't matter. I I don't they don't charge themselves. Yeah. If I apply with $10,000
But when they go to sell, house is certainly gonna Yeah. They than $10,000 on your branch. Guess why would my dad But it it doesn't matter because it's still the fair market value of the additional I know it. Yeah. I mean, did real estate. It was the same thing. I mean, people would upgrade their houses and, you know, don't tell anybody because you don't wanna pay taxes. But when they sell it, you know then it was
I put a million into this. But you look at real estate listing and says total yeah okay did they do 50% or not? Right. Yeah it depends who you're talking to.
That's We all know that. That's why that is. Yep.
Yeah. That would be a constant battle. Yep. Yeah. Don't think you'll win. You might chip at it, but I don't think you'll win the battle. Tell you what, I watched the assessor from time to time sit there with Google Earth, and the assessor cards going down property after property, zooming in on it, looking at the assessor cards like, oh, there's a deck. There's a pool. That's not on the card. That's not on the card. That's not on the card.
That's not the ad click between the year. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't feel that way actually.
Yeah. And obviously we get like there's one on Lake Road that, you know, we're battling with a little bit that built the whole separate garage. You know, that was on permanent. That has caused us a little grief. That's the thing. Why would especially around the lake. I mean, Yeah. Okay you ready with your agenda? I second. All big? Big. I
did that just for you Marina because I keep forgetting to do it in my meetings.
Does I didn't hear. Did you make the motion and then January 2? Yeah. Okay. Got it. You got it. Thank you. Bye, Marina. Bye.
Have a good night. Happy holidays. Thank you. You too. You too.