Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Public Hearing
June 7, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Can anyone hear us? I'm just writing it here, Sam. They're hearing a little bit. Yep.
Got we can hear you now. Great job. It's a little it's a little low, but we can hear you.
So for those that that that aren't here virtually, I'm gonna go back and and start start the story from the beginning. The Andover Zoning Regulation. So as the constructed community center and parking with the property in a room is 25 square foot. The proposed project consists of 2,386.25 square foot structure, parking areas, and associated site work. The purpose of the public hearing in January of this year, we amended the zoning regulations to allow a municipal building to be built in the Annover Rural Design District by means of special permit. The town does not have the right to build a municipal building in the end of the Rural Design District, but it builds subject to approval of the planning zoning commission.
Following a public hearing where we get input from the public concerning any concerns they might have about allowing the project to go forward. The commission is allowed to consider input from the public in making a determination as to whether to approve, approve with conditions, or deny the application. This is different than the the Dollar General application where they did have the right to bill as long as their application met the regulations of the town. We held a public hearing because there was significant public interest from the town concerning the building of that and we wanted to have the opportunity to provide questions and answers
to the public. The current application for the community center was received by the planning and zoning commission in our May 22 meeting. Once an application is received by the planning and zoning commission, we're required to act on it. We have sixty five days to hold public hearing, thirty five days to conclude the public hearing, and another sixty five days to act on the application. We'll start out by having the applicant or its representative review the application with us. Following this zoning agency analysis will discuss the completeness of the application in compliance with our zoning regulations. Following this, the commission members should ask questions concerning the application. Then we will have public input. When we get to the public comment portion of the hearing, if you wish to provide a comment to the commission, I would ask you to provide your name and address for the record. For those attending in person, please come up to the podium so we have the best chance to ensure those listening remotely can hear what we're saying. If there are any public attendees we have with you tonight, we'll limit the comments to two minutes. If after everyone's had a chance to speak, someone needs more time to comment, we'll go back to them and allow them to have that opportunity. For those attending virtually, please prevent yourselves unless you are speaking. Please direct your questions or comments to me, and I will redirect those as appropriate. And please be respectful. After everybody wants it to have a chance to comment, the commission will discuss whether or not we have sufficient information to close the public hearing. If it is felt that the commission needs further information or wishes to have the opportunity to have further questions at a later time,
the public hearing can be suspended and continued at a later date, which we tentatively targeted from June 20 if that need arise. The commission is not allowed to begin deliberations on the application until after the public hearing is closed. So if we do not close the public hearing tonight, I
don't know that yeah. I think that's her phone number down at the bottom of the list that and if you're you're there trying to let us know, it it shows that you're new. But for the public hearing, you know, we we won't seat alternates. Every every commission member has the opportunity to ask questions once we get the deliberation, and only those members who are seated will be able to participate in the deliberations at that point.
Thank you. And I should say, you know, I I'm Mark Branson. I'm the news council for Taliban.
Any other questions before we start? Any from the virtual attendees. Okay, hearing none at this point, we'll start to review the application. And Eric, you can lead us off and have whoever it's if you desire.
Chairman Larson and members of the Planning and Zoning Commission, on behalf of the Board of Selection, the town of Andover hereby submits this application for a special permit for construction of a community slash senior center and parking in the end of a rural design district. Representing the town will be the town's attorney, Dennis O'Brien, from BSC Group, Matthew Steppen, right here and from leading edge builders here at arrow as well as Eric Sanders and unfortunately matt the architect from peg arch was unable to attend. And they're also members of the building committee here. So I'm not going to talk a lot about the history of how we got to this point because I don't think it's really relative or relevant to this application. But I will say the seniors and residents of this town have been waiting patiently for a community center for many years. This has already been subject to an 80 dash twenty four statutory referral to the annual planning and zoning commission has been found to be consistent with the 2015 plan of conservation and development, as well as the public surveys and conclusions of the long term planning commission report issued in 2018. We believe we have prepared a thorough and responsible application for the special permit, and we're happy to answer any questions posed by the zoning commission. On behalf of the town, we thank the commission for its careful consideration of the application. And now I'm going to turn this over to Matt Stepan to walk through the actual mapping. Good evening,
for the record, my name is matt seven professional engineer with the bsc group in Boston Barry so I'm just going to walk you through the site plan and. And here to answer any engineering questions afterwards. So the word of me to the plan here North is straight up, you can see School Road is along bottom to the South, the Town Hall Building currently is kind of in the Center of the page. Fire department is over to the West and the elementary school is shown more to the right page in the East. So on this map, the only thing I wanted to discuss is we saw out with the states in the field proposed property line adjustments, so you can see that it's cursor here, you can see that.
That is this line right here that you saw in the field and as we discussed. We're going be putting the pin will be further related over here to address the concerns that the biggest evil would be inside the side yard. So moving on to the actual site plan. Same orientation as before we were straight up and see the town Hall building in the corner there, so what we're proposing is the new site drive will come in from the existing parking lot outside. And you can see there's a new traffic circle proposed to allow turnaround circulation. We're proposing for additional handicap parking spaces along this area additional parking would be supported from the existing town mall parking as well as the fire department, which is all in town property. Proposed building is shown up there with the diagonal hatching you can see that we have. The sidewalk leading up to the front, and we have an entrance at the front, as well as a side entrance on the sidewalk there around the back, we also have an additional exit from the building on the lower level it's a walkout basement and that will provide access to the marketing from the fire department area. Over here around town hall on my cursor, this will be a concrete gathering space, so an extra outdoor patio area. And then we're proposing some landscaping as well, so you can see, we have some trucks along that area, we have an evergreen tree proposed in Center of the traffic circle.
Is Mr w as you move from sheet to sheet just state what she. Oh sure sure so that was sheet see one point zero see
two point zero. This is a grading drainage plan so it's part of the proposal, you can see, we are adding several new cash basis with sums and those will tie into the existing drainage system that currently serves the site and they'll collect all the new run off from the paved area. We are also intercepting there's an existing curtain drain that runs along back here so we're going to intercept that around the building to continue to maintain it. I will actually progress to the next sheets. Sheets see three point zero. So for the sanitary sewer system serving the building, we are proposing to amend the existing septic system that currently serves the Town Hall Building and fire department. So you can see up here shown the site is currently served by three rows of leaching galleries, so we are going to add an additional row to add to the capacity of the system that will that will accommodate the flow from the fire station, the town hall and the post Community Center and this plan has been reviewed and approved by the local health district. To the next sheets. Sheet see four point zero erosion control plan standard erosion controls are proposed around the site during construction, in accordance with the Connecticut state erosion guidelines. So things provided along the toe of the slope, where the subject will be installed, we are showing several different construction entrances for site access based on coordination with the with the builders. And we'll have catch basin inserts in filter baskets in all the proposed and existing drainage structures, as well as sort of stockpile areas also protected with soap fencing. I will skip the sheet. Sheets it six point zero site logistics plan, this is just
a sketch and depicts the proposed construction access during construction see there's two means using the construction entrances, I mentioned on the previous sheet. And finally, come to the site lighting man sheet seven point zero so we are proposing several wedge like polls on the site, you can see here, these are the lumen shown. In order to address some concerns that this parking space is not sufficiently lighted we are going to propose a second light pole right here on this island in order to lighten the site more completed. So that's the second portion of the projects, you know happy to answer any exciting engineering questions, thank you.
So this way to. Is there more presentation, Eric, that we're gonna go through, is it at this point where we should ask agent Alexey to give us his assessment of the application?
Mr. Chairman, I think they have to review the architecture of someone I know the architect isn't here but the applicant's gonna have to review the architectural plans.
Name again for the record. Yes. So my name is Serge or law I work for the media and construction director of business development. The company. I'm here with Eric, a project manager.
So in terms of the architectural plan, again, this was prepared by Peggy Arch. It wasn't in the town, but essentially, the building is a, you know, typical rectangular building to the far left. You've got your foundation plan, which includes an open space with pillars to hold up the structure. And then to the right of the front of the building, you've got your proposed toilet rooms that could be built in the future, and you've got your mechanical spaces. 1st Floor, you've got you're walking through the front door at the far right, walking through a vestibule. Immediately to the left, you've got your your restrooms for the building, which are 88 and my restrooms. I can't I can't see the labels in in the room, but for the for the South or to the the bottom of the sheet, you've got the open and bulk purpose room that would be used for multiple purposes. And then you've got a smaller room with the double swinging doors with smaller meetings and an office room. And the far top left hand corner is a storage room and a veggie walkie way back. We've got a plan kitchen, which I believe we're gonna be providing the plumbing and electrical floor, and we'll be done later. And then finally, to the to the far right is a conference room space. That's essentially the layout of the building. Pretty simple.
And I'm looking at it. Yeah. Oh, and we've got the elevator. It's been where I had a kitchen.
Yeah. There there's a there's a kitchen that's planned, but the equipment will not be installed right away. It's not part of the budget.
So Okay. So for, you know, the integrator here would like to have the applicant be able to get through the application first and then, you know, we'll go back right after the start, you know, the first the first drawing, and we'll take questions from the commission on each of those after agent Allison talked to us. Then when we get done, we'll we'll ask for the public comments question like that.
So this sheet shows the top left hand corner would be the the front elevation facing the turnaround circle that you saw in sight. And, certainly, you've got the the front door with a portico above it, you know, to protect it from the weather. And the facade is is just a regular siding, PVC siding front and typical roof that you would see on on residential house section.
That that's gonna go on the team. That's whoever that is. It's satisfying.
So bottom bottom, I think, here would be the side view. This would be if you were facing looking out the back window right here, this is the elevation you can see. Essentially, it's a soft roof. You've got you've got a little bit asymmetrical roofline, shorter and steeper pitch in in the rear of the building. Excuse me. And then the longer gradual slope in front, which was done on purpose because we wanna capture as much roof space facing the south orientation for the future solar panels that we installed in the building. And then this is just the back view of the building, which you can see it's a two story view. The as as a like, mentioned, it's a walkout basement, which you see the two doors there on either side of the door. And that's the other the other side elevation in the bottom left corner.
Mr. Chairman, the record my brain, I just, you said that the long slope was
on the rear and the steeper on the front. I exactly I don't. That's not what I see. Yeah, no, the the the sharper slope would be facing back and building. Yes, you can see the two story space. And then the longer gradual slope of the front of the south, so we solar orientation.
Okay. Thank you. Agent Halsey, at this point, us your assessment of the application. Sure.
I have worked with the applicant throughout the course of the development of the top shares. The the plans, I I find them scheduled to complete. I I do have some some comments, some deficiencies, and I'll I'll mention them right now. It's suggesting that the parking there should be a a table on the plan demonstrating the actual space parking space. And I have had a conversation with the applicant about that. Certainly, it's culminating on the plan. And the one one parking space appeared to be a little shy of design by a key requirement, and that could be addressed as well. Section 4.17 of regulations of stormwater standards that they call for innovative solutions in low low tech development based on the filtration of of storm water runoff and suggested that the applicant explore that and see if they can combine with that. Something that would address that that concern or that issue. The lighting plan does not include all the lights, the exterior fixtures, and gentlemen, Eric, I believe, spoke about the additional light on the site to the right of the door. We're looking for the the actual demonstration of the plants to showing that the different lumens that are provided. I'm just I was looking for a identified site for the fluid construction equipment on the site during the course of construction. We there's been a lot of discussion about the the interior bottom line between the school and the town hall, and that would have to be basically redrawn in order to accommodate the side yard setback for the conceivable.
There are a couple other minor details, which is pickleball court. I'm not opposed to the pickleball court. There's there's not a lot of detail on there, and it's not really part of told us not part of this plan, and I just thought should best best be removed so that there's no confusion in the future as the role is approved if if should this project, you know, will be approved. Well location seem to be lacking. Well location is actually There's a shared well next to the firehouse, which provides water. Just it's a matter of identifying it on a plan. There's another notation on the plan. The area area of merge with the Andover Elementary School, which currently has been coming out from an issue. And the plans some of the pages don't show a a second shed out here, and
it asked for sort of reallocation of the construction entrance leading from the firehouse of Parker's month. I believe that's not the only concerns that I've had. Well, other than that, I was very happy with with the plan as it is. Any questions there, you got me answered.
Gabe, thank you. Thank you. At this point, I'd like to Eric, if we could share the screen again, go back to the top drawing, and we'll scroll through the different drawings and see what questions that you might have on on each of those as we go through.
Okay. I have a question here, mister chairman. So mister Halsey gave us his a critique a day or so ago. We do have a revised macro. We have not shown it yet because it was not given to the commission, the public hearing. Would it be beneficial for you to see that mapping now? Because I think that will answer a lot of the questions, mister Allison Gray. Is this a the same app with the lot lines on it? Or? Yes, among other things. We have a revised lighting plan and a revised plan showing the modified block lines, location, fueling equipment, a possible approach to meet your desire for low impact development in the rain Garden. And I think Matt can verbally address the big question regarding apartment space. So we're happy to either do that now or later or no, it would be great. Okay. Okay. And here is the revised
plan set based on the questions or concerns raised by the zoning agent Jim Halsey. Do you want me to go through them real quick or have Matt go through them real quick?
Either one of you, that would be great. Then we'll also take questions on each sheet while you have it disrespected the commission.
George. Okay. So initially, as we talked about with the sideline, this represents the revised line, which ensures that there's a sufficient side yard setback to the gazebo. This plan also shows the location of the second shed not always needs the plan set does you know that that's something we can certainly address prior to filing any point. So are there other questions on this, did you understand where the the parking space was that
came out being a little smaller than the regulations required. Matt, think you can probably best address that until we get to that sheet. Sure. Do you want to wait till we get to the blown up sheet for that? Okay. That'd be fine. Yeah. Okay.
Any other questions from the commission on on the computing period? And what sheet number do you have up there, James?
This is the question. I'm looking for a one on one. The number two sheet one zero one. Unfortunately, you
know, we didn't prepare this as a fully weak plan set. We're just addressing the questions that the zoning decision had. This is listed here in one zero one. Do you know what sheet that corresponds to? Yeah. Yes.
They take off the park in the back that the area to merge the land over elementary school, 1.546 acres that take off. Pretty sure that's taken off with this plan, sir. And the pickleball courts are still on the map.
Pickleball courts are still on the map, but this is. Yeah. If you scroll in on the detail. It clearly labels them as future pickleball courts. However, if you want to remove from this application entirely, we're happy to do that. We're just trying to save ourselves future engineering costs if we chose to do that. In the future.
Mr. Jones, learn to Margaret's The, if it's shown its future, the commission can certainly, but if it chooses to approve this, can can make us a condition that that this, that there is no approval for that, think, Sheridan is a a planning document. Thank you.
Any other questions on this particular sheet? And Eric, you just did because it is hard to see displayed there now. But I know there are other E lines and lot lines. And if you could just give us the history of in the past and how we got too many different bot lines up here. I think that would be helpful. Sure.
As many of you know, like, for instance, you'll see something referred to here as the deep line on the map. In around 1946, one of the prominent figures in the town of Andover, actually, Guy Lynn Percy Cook, he did to the town for free the land for the Andover Elementary School. And that was this original beaded line. And roughly two years later, the school decided they probably needed to expand again, and they didn't have enough land in the original beaded gift. So the town quit playing the land back to Percy Cook. And then Percy Cook then gave the town this outline as it is today, you know, to the town to expand the area in which the elementary school was. So that is the reason why there's an extra set of deep lines on the plans.
That answer your question, sir. Yes, it does. Okay. I don't know if there's a better drawing to discuss this, but when I looked, you know, it shows a septic system of the firehouse, the septic system, you know, by downfall, and then you show a proposed new septic system. I didn't see how the septic systems at the firehouse in the downfall connected to the wheat fields that we added up here.
Okay. You're not referring to a septic system. You're referring to probably a septic tank. Zoom in. Septic tank. Yes. Yep. So we'll start off with the can everybody see where I have the cursor. Yep, the fire department has a holding tank for their leach field and is located somewhere around here. There is that line actually connects to right here to the first and of one of the galleys of the overall septic system, system. This feeds a distribution box at this end of this field. The town's current tank is located right here. It's this is the holding tank for the town hall. It currently connects in a line that runs around the building does not interfere with the building. It goes into an existing distribution box right here. So those lines will continue to be active. Yes, they will. The only thing on that line that will change is the town does propose to change the location of the existing clean out there's a clean out halfway between the tank and the leach field that's located. Right around here and that's very close to the core of the building, so the town will relocate that clean out so it's a more convenient spot. The building that's proposed will have an additional septic tank located right here that will go into the same distribution box right here.
There's a second piping connection between here and second row of galleys that are right there. Right now, are basically three rows of galleys, and to handle the additional load. Have proposed a fourth galley, and that has been approved by Eastern Islands Health District as being compliant based on the the total usage needed for all three buildings.
And in the update to the drawing, did did we put the existing dwelling services to the three buildings on that or that?
You know we didn't we intend to do that and obviously I'm assuming that would be a condition of approval that we located on the mapping the well is right about where my cursor is right now It is directly in front of the fire safety complex. That one well will serve all communities.
Yes, it will. Well, we have Eastern Highlands Health District has said it has sufficient capacity. Have notified the State of Connecticut that we intend to use that for a third well, because it's already tested and monitored well. It's just basically a notification form, and you have a copy of that in the files.
Thank you. Other commission members have comments on this page?
Yeah. I don't if it relates exactly, but I'm looking at the rest of the application online from the Eastern Highlands Health District. Their application it says your application has been reviewed plans approved with the following conditions. Have those conditions been met? Well, go through the conditions. One of the conditions field verified the invert of the existing leaching row and adjust the system inverts accordingly to match to be added to the plan. Right. That will be done at time of construction as part of the construction process. As part of the construction? Yes. Okay. I thought it had to be on the plan. Didn't understand it. Thank you. Any
other questions from the commission at this point? Okay. Okay. I'm on the next.
This is basically I mean, we've all had a chance to read it. We haven't changed the narrative of the grading grading narrative. That are there any revisions to this one? You know? This week.
K. Do you have any questions on this sheet? This is just No.
Tree. Kinds of parking. The parking? Like, park. Oh, so the
the zoning agent asked a question about the parking for this first spot right there so.
So the question was raised about this parking spaces zoom in closer. So this one is intended to be a van accessible any path parking space and so per the Connecticut building code, those are typically eight feet of hash and eight feet of unhatched parking space legally involved is considered part of the space so it's really 16 feet of parking, but this is just how the typically configured for the Connecticut building.
So we're gonna buy me again. I was trying to figure out whether the hatch period was a perfect spot or the inside was a parking spot.
A person going to use that space can use any part of the 16 total feet so they're allowed to park in the hash they're allowed to park all the all the spots exceeding exactly
98 degrees right the other vehicle spaces would technically be 15 feet each because they're five to 10.
Okay. One other question and I don't know if it shows up on this or not, but right now we've got two parking spots, you know, right across the way here going over towards the gazebo and they aren't they aren't listed on any of the drawings. Is that intentional?
They're just sort of outside of the scope of the the budget.
The on that in one of the notes on that eight we talked about the Kirby being granted unless otherwise specified. And I see where we've got the two of this concrete for most of it, then we got this concentric curvy, and I didn't understand that much. Any any other questions from admission?
I believe so, because we're we're basically only adding the only partner we're adding is in that parking spaces, so it takes what you have now and as. Think it has all four. Or might have three total because I think one of those is currently in cap space.
But in the in the verbiage to the application, the town requested a variance to the low heat zone. When agent Halsey and I reviewed the waiver. When agent Halsey and I, we were 30 brands, looked through the regulations. We concluded that no waiver for that was necessary. We just wanted to make that clear that we weren't authorizing a waiver. We don't think it was necessary. And so we're good to go on the description that you have to.
Okay, you scroll down the next Brian and very short that was see one point zero just you know next one is see what we can do, I mean I'm sorry two point zero so this plan. As Eric mentioned, we did take a look at the potential for you know, Tom aiding some led tech features, so you can see up there there's kind of those areas with like that. Ash there's one just above the building and there's one over against the curb line for the fire department so. We're going to buy a file filtration swales it's similar kind of things are rainbark, but the idea is that the run off from the roof would be sent to those and they're essentially shallow swales that have. You know about a foot or two depth of like sand media to allow for good infiltration and then the two drainage structures that you see sort of located in them. My person there in there, we would instead of being solid rates for manhole covers we convert them to be high grade and set it a few inches above the bottom, so that it could hold a little bit of water and then during higher flow sales and scale that overflow is the system.
Was your calculation done that you can volume of water would be gained in that respect to the amount of runoff.
No calculation for this. This is just a a concept.
Okay. And and certainly, I what I would like is Yeah. Please. I'm not opposed to the work you've got there. The regulation says that the mitigation measures
have to be approved by the town's engineers. And so I would like him to look into that. You know, there might be some other
creative innovative kind of way to mitigate it. I'm happy to see that you added what you did there just like, yeah, you know, a little collaboration with the town engineer to make sure we're doing it the best way possible. I know one of the one of the thoughts might be that if you mitigate the amount running off to the roof, it doesn't necessarily, in my mind, have to come from it. It could come from running off of a site any place just so we're taking action to be good stewards of the environment and get near the rainwater. And
the intent, as I said, was to pick up the roof water, but you can see from the grading they would pick up additional surface water as well.
Any other commission members have questions on this particular sheet?
Mister chairman, can I make a comment here? So in in reference to the the commission's concerns that we did introduce LID in the design. We did present an alternative right here, which would incorporate two rain guards, which would address that. But what I would also say to you as an American is that this causes some serious negatives to the whole concept of this as a scene to turn. The first, it means that you walk from the upper parking lot down to the lower doors, you're gonna get your feet wet because you're gonna have two or three inches of water there during storm events. And you're still almost slightly upgrading of where the leaching field. So you stand a chance of increasing the separation of the leaching fields. So we we attempted to address the commission's concerns that we weren't considering it. But from a site context, I think it's still really a bad idea. I would actually not want us to build this. We will build it if that's what you tell us to build, but I would really prefer not to because I think that's going to end up with a product that we as townspeople are not going to be happy with.
I understand your concern that we're essentially dumping everything into the existing stormwater system, and we're not renovating any of that before we get to the wetlands. But I would also say that compared to the total surface area that's draining into our system, we're only adding we're only increasing it by someone something like 3%. So if the commission wants us to do this, we're we're prepared to build this as this is or work with the engineer. But I I would prefer your indulgence to not put this requirement publicly.
So the regulation requires, you know, it says for any site plan which convicts more than 2,000 square feet of impervious surface, the building area, main area, the site plan shall include provisions for routine stormwater runoff, so it's produced no increase in the runoff. The methods used to meet this requirement shall be prescribed by the Commission's engineering consultant, which is their town engineer. So that is certainly not my area of expertise. Don't want to pretend that it is. I think if we talk to the town's engineer, we've got him to weigh in on what the best way to proceed is, we could do that. I do know that it's a policy of the town to promote low impact design and innovative solutions. It's always a push when we're asking other applicants to take these costly measures into their site plan. The only way I think town can can encourage others to do that is by doing something along that line themselves. So, I would like to have that discussion with the town center.
Mr Chairman, for me, record markings one thing the reading the regulation that you just read talks about peak run off, which is not necessarily the same thing as like. But I think you're exactly right that this should go to town engineer, both to evaluate the concerns Mr Anderson mentioned about proximity to the building proximity to the leaching field. And I realized that this is conceptual that maybe will become less conceptual that you need to engineer, because. Those are different things l ID seeks seeks to avoid increasing the growth it's also a renovation strategy and there, there may be ways of achieving those with separate structures or in separate locations and that is an engineering matter. So, certainly, the applicant should be, I know the hearing isn't closing tonight anyway. So, certainly, that's something to discuss with the tenant.
Thank you. Any other concerns or questions from the commission on on this particular drawing? Okay. We can go down the next one, Matt. Sure.
So no changes in this one, but any questions I can hover on here for a moment.
I don't know if it's here or on the last slide, but, you know, when we read through the storm water management, there's a lot of there's a lot of inspections that that are done both in the storm water management plan in the Oregon Center. It it talks about the engineer doing it.
Is it a note maybe you saw on the note sheet? I
couldn't find it in there. It's it's generic. I didn't know, you know, normally, agent Halsey is involved in a lot of those meetings. It well, in some fact, he's not involved in a lot of meetings because he never gets invited to participate. But the I am interested in in understanding, you know, who's gonna do the inspections and whether or not those inspections are documented because my incentives that I often see no
inspections done and no corrective actions taken. I'd like to try to get better on that. The the contractor is generally responsible for maintaining erosion control during the site, so they are required to perform their own inspections and make changes and maintain controls provide additional measures when needed. I think the town town always reserves the right to inspect at any time, sometimes the design engineer or a third party engineer can get involved, but that would be a matter of the time. So going to sheet see four point zero road control plan. So to address one of the comments from before. That loads we are showing a area for vehicle during construction. So that will be that is in the parking lot of the fire department so it's on a paved surface and you will have a know you form of so containment around it, so that I think you get into the groundwater or see if you are to the on-site wetlands. And the other comment about the shed it's not shown on the plan, but we did adjust the construction entrance and the soap fence to avoid it, so the final version of this will show that shed and demonstrate that it doesn't flip. So I believe those are the two comments that have emissions.
We just You point where the silk fences are from the editor.
So we have silk fence here, my cursor is all along the perimeter or the reachability installed. And then we have some additional controls here along our towards the school and the side of the site, as well as a little bit of the at the toe of this constructed so appear accepting the fire department. Again it's conceptual but on sheet see five point zero here, this is the detail for the bio swell of you're discussing so you see there's a. Thickness of topsoil as well as a thickness of sand so that's designed to allow water to get in and you know infiltrate into the ground rather than running off directly.
Okay. I'll ask you a couple of questions on signs at this point. And I know somewhere in the plan it talks about it signing that it's either compliant compliance with the Andover's zoning regulations. Think the requirement is in there that if we have the specific sides to the signing, not just concerned about the content. So, there is a requirement to be put decided to design that in there. Now, would we expect to see any construction signs in the construction community? Yes.
Okay. Those to be filmed, you know, on the blend as well along with the other sides for those.
It's going to sheet be c six point zero. I think this will be a good place to show those signs. So we can we can certainly add that to the sheet where the contractor wants to put their instruction signage. Alright. And then finally, on c seven u zero. So here is the actual light bulb that we have discussed adding as long as well as the the lumens shown. So that's what we're proposing. I know we also discussed maybe adding the the lighting for the building, so that's that's certainly something we did add to the plan.
Okay. I know one of amazing Allison's comments, I thought, was to show the light illumination levels that on the spot to the parking lot, that we really can't we can we'll be able to do that.
Yeah, if we show the building lights we can include the
units. And I think the minimum lighting level for the parking area, you require a regulation to point five lumen. And so this is supposed to illuminate the the gas spots here that it doesn't get there. And so, you know, I was looking for laying levels of the requirements. Okay.
Any other questions from the commission on a wedding plan?
Okay. And for the record, those parking spaces, the handicap parking spaces that are shown there, those are the parking spaces that are right there along the building that are currently eliminated by the standards. So the location of them is not changing nor is the lighting for them
change. Understand. I just did. You know, when as a senior, my eyes aren't as good as they used to be. I did have a just one comment on one of the architectural drawings that somebody wants to serve you or pick one up and show Brian Look, there it is. On that bottom here. I don't understand that. It's here. No. The one to the left. Yeah. Yes. I I think that was in the vicinity of the retaining wall or something that I just Well, this this is showing the retaining wall and cross section view. But this is gonna adhere to where the Those are the main splits.
Yeah. That's The mini splits were gonna be mounted to the building. Okay. So the plane so the ground at
the top of this where where it gets to the building is gonna be level with the bottom of that door. Is that the? Yes. Okay.
To plead and c siding that would be going on with that. We would be lower impact in your mind. Even change. I don't know. Up to later dates. Okay. I mean, in truth, we have an alternate that we're looking at that is partial brick facade. Okay. We don't have the money. We eliminated the cost reasons. Okay.
Any other questions at all? It's appointed by the commission.
I I don't like the idea of this group pitch being different. It just seems like a really odd thing to do, and it looks like there'd be a lot of room, even if you made the pitch the same. Instead of a 10 on the back and a six on the front, do the whole thing, and eight back on the.
And may I address that? Yeah. You do it. So do you find it out in this building? Is it matches the roofline of this building? Have you ever noticed this building is multi pitch? Not Yeah. I've noticed it on the inside. Yeah. Right. And it's so Todd. So that part of the reason this was done was to match the existing buildings we had in town, but it also gives us the ability to maximize both the angle and surface area for potential solar roof mounted solar pv system building. So that was the reason why it was done. We looked at multiple. I mean, in truth, I it it was solely my choice. I would have built a shed roof and I would have had a monoplane shattered roof really matched solar. But I got overwritten by the building committee who thought my my government opinions.
So this one would compromise between those two of them.
I understand that it matches this, but I don't know understand why this was built this way either because the front half of the building doesn't have the shape of roof. So Correct. It seems strange to have it back here. I wouldn't try to match it again That's personal. Okay.
At this point, we'll move on to the the public comment for the evening. And similar to what we did in January, I'd like to start by inviting Mary Vermeer to the head of the board of education to
comment. Thank you. The board of education that we give a permission to our representatives Okay?
Yeah. Hi. Hello. This baby here, I'm gonna give you samples of everything that I'm gonna be referring to here. And I think that for people who are not here. Yeah. Go ahead. Yep. I think for people who are not here, it will be easier if the principal is able to share the screen. I'm sorry. Passing around. We will. I I know most of you are Valerie Bruno. I'm the superintendent next door. I'm not used to these meetings, so it's a little overwhelming for me. I'm not in school either. It's a little overwhelming in large. Actually, in case I cough, I may actually get my beverage here so that we don't have this smoke out there. It's doing a lot of allergies. I don't know. So what the intent is to share our perspective so that with decisions made, hopefully, we can impact that by this packet, making sure that we speak to the things that are concerns. First and foremost, it is a thick packet, but this is our perspective of of kind of what's been going on. We definitely are in favor of this senior center, this community center.
We've kind of said that from the beginning. I think it's a great idea. But as the superintendent of board of education, and if I use the word we, I will be using that, you know, to to to speak of the board of education myself and the school community. So I'm not on the board of ed, but when I say we, it's the educational community that I'll be referring to. My job as a superintendent is to look out for the impact that this would have on the children, on the school. It's our job to oversee the building next door, which is the largest building here in town. And so when we go through these things, I I don't know about catch basins, and I don't know about runoff, peak runoff. But I do know that it's my job to look at the impacts that it would have on the school community. So we put together some stuff here. I'm taking my glasses on and off, you know, old. I apologize for that. But on the top here on the first page, and I don't intend on reading every word, which is why I also have some copies there of our perspective. So the top there has five things that we would wish to emphasize to the PNC here. What we wish to emphasize is, first and foremost, what we are looking at from our perspective here as it pertains to this project is about being with neighbors. This is a project in any project that you do in your home, any project we do here, it's about communication between neighbors, and we're a very large neighbor right here next door.
And so the impacts that this would have on the school is very important to us and making sure that we can make sure that this happens with some collaboration and communication so that that impact is number one, lessened, and number two, able to be explained. Because just as Eric and everyone here has explained this to you guys, we have to explain it to our educational community when the project begins and be able to answer questions. The second thing would be us looking at, yep, the law requiring the board of education to be included in this process. We'll talk about that in just a second, but it's not even just being a good neighbor. It's whether or not the table has to include that other board so that we can look at what the impact is because we know school. The third thing there on the top in terms of emphasis would be the fact that the site has continued to change. And so, when we look at the impact to our community every time there is a change it impacts us in another way just tonight. There were changes from last night to tonight with the with the plans. And one of the things that jumped out at me was the fueling area. And I thought, okay. Is this gonna impact us with the fueling area in the back? Is it going to affect my preschool that's out there in the playground? What is the impact? Maybe there is gonna be one, but that would be a conversation that we would have to have because there would be a fueling area in the back now. And I don't know if that impacts us in any way, shape, or form. It's a conversation that we need to have.
And then we really do have to look at whether or not all of the perspectives come together, and we are able to look at the memorandum of understanding for making sure that moving forward, if there is any impact to the school that arises later on, then we're able to address this. And And so that's definitely gonna be something that's important to us. If you look at the bottom there, these are again from the information that we have. These are the inconsistencies that we can see so far that we would really like the p and p to consider. In the application itself, it still says that there's no timeline and that there's no staging areas planned. That's just an example of something that's very difficult for us in the school community. That is a very high impact statement because we are responsible for not only making sure that on a day to day basis, the children are safe, which is what I know everybody wants. But we have long term plans as well. We have plans that get turned into the state, and we have to tell them if on our property, there are things that are occurring. And we haven't been given a timeline, and we haven't been given things, you know, like, is the staging area gonna be up during the summer? Is it gonna be up in the fall? How long will it be up? And these are bits of information that we have to know that is high impact for our educational community.
The space available for emergency vehicles. I did notice that as we were talking or as we were listening before, there was no pension whatsoever on the school. It was mentioned two times in terms of going through these plans, and it was referred to as near the school. We do have a lot of of differences in the ways that we use the grounds outside there. If you did the sidewalk or if you looked at any of these plans, you know that our garage will be shortened there. Use of the garage will be shortened. So no one has even asked what sorts of vehicles do you need to be able to get into the garage? When do you need to get in and out of the garage? Once the staging area is set up, we need to sit down and have a conversation about whether or not something else changes for us. These are conversations that we feel need to occur before a permit is given. Also, on the bottom there, the board event needs to be certain that our drop off and pick up times are not affected,
which can easily be done through an agreement. Isn't something that's even been asked yet. There's been absolutely no considerations at the impact yet in terms of drop off, pickup, parking, and this is this is important. And those questions will be asked in a forum like this, but at the gym where Taylor and I and the board of education are gonna have to answer those questions. So we absolutely need to know if, in fact, those things have already been thought of. And if not, well, let's sit down and figure out what we can do to make sure that that happens ahead of time. Is it possible? Sure. If it's possible, then we'll do it. Maybe the plan might have to be altered in some way, or maybe it could just be part of an agreement. I am concerned about the information that is in there. I'm on number five now on page two. I am concerned about the information that's in there about parking because the school community has a very different schedule from town hall. We have very different parking schedule, two very different needs and uses of our own parking lot. And because of that, I understand that data had to be collected, but I'll show you when we get into the packet here that the data is just not enough data for you to make a decision because it isn't accurate. So we will look at that. So these are the reasons why we do feel that it's a little premature at this point for us to say, it's everything's ready. Let's move forward. We wanna do it. We wanna do it right. And so we need to make sure that although everything seems to be considered
in the plans for the inside and the outside of the building nicely, we need to look at impact. So, again, I won't go through everything, but on page three, there is chronology. And I put the chronology in here for a reason. I know that this dates back to 2019. And I know that that's a sore spot because a lot of people have said, well, 2019, we asked in the interim to be able to use the inside of the school, and, ultimately, we were going no. And if I was the superintendent, that would have happened. I don't see a reason why that needed to happen where they were not allowed to use the inside of the school. But even at that time, questions and concerns arose, and a memorandum of understanding, was the outcome of that because there were concerns that not everybody considered. So if you go through here, you'll see on page four. At the very beginning, the drawing that we were given was this original drawing that showed that in 2019 and 2020 and even into '21 because the bottom of this Yantic River map
says 06/1021. And at that time, we knew that there was very limited impact negatively to the school. This is a great idea. We thought this is wonderful. The community and the seniors are finally gonna get this senior center thanks in part to some of the ARPA money. And so this was something that we supported a great deal. And there were only a couple of concerns from the educational point of view, from the neighbor point of view that I had. It didn't seem that it was gonna have any negative impact in terms of parking or things like that. My worry at that time had a little bit more to do with during construction, was there gonna be vandals that came aboard? Were they gonna be during construction? Were we gonna have to worry about things in the lock itself that were unmanned equipment and things like that? That was it. It was not something that was a heavy impact with that original drawing. Move ahead. And, again, I will save you from all of the things that are in here, but I know everybody loves some light reading. Move ahead to page six to the second rendering. And when we see the second rendering, this is in March 2022, and and this one here was a little bit more concerning, not that the center was being built, but that there was a significant change from the first center to the second rendering.
It turned it on its side, the building. It was directly behind this community center. Hey. This community room here, and then it was gonna move over. And so that was really where as an educational community, we said, now does the impact change? And in looking at it, we saw this wonderful term turnabout here, and we said, okay. That could probably work, but we're definitely gonna have to have a conversation because there is a possibility then that either we would be in the way with that driveway there that goes to our gym storage, or they would be in the way of our driveway. And so we did start to take note then about maybe this project was, you know, morphing into something that would have a little bit more high impact. And so that is something that we looked at. As you go down through on page seven, I did have concerns. And by October 2022, I did start to feel that, you know, maybe in fact, there was impact that we need to have a very strong conversation about. And in October, I did have a conversation with her about this center, and I was surprised at the time because I was told it was a done deal that it had already come to planning and zoning. And, I did state at that time my concern about the fact that there is is there's a law that says that the board of education as an elected body has to be the one when it comes to property that's town property that's already been established for a school. The oversight is the board of education.
And so I called the board chair and said, I have great concerns because it's my understanding that this is just gonna happen without our voices, and I'm starting to think of some impact. And I actually think he told me, calm down because I said, what about this? And what about that? What about this? We said, we'll we'll get together and put it in a letter form. And we did in October. On October 17, we put that in letter form and sent that to this planning zoning and said, hey. We've got some concerns. And we were told at that time, it hasn't come to us yet. So no worries. It hasn't come to us yet. But that's when we really started to talk about concerns.
And my biggest concern was the fact that the school environment is very different. There's a big book on school law. There are guidelines for early childhood or the office of early childhood for preschool. There are things that we do know that aren't catch basins, that aren't anything that, you know, I don't know about. And so we did try to open that line of communication and say, can we talk about this? We called CABE, which is the Connecticut Association of Boards of Ed, and said, we have some free guidance on this or, you know, what do we do? How how do we have conversation? And they said, well, it is the law. So just simply state that, and everybody can come to the table and collaborate. And that didn't work. The conversation, unfortunately, didn't happen. So I we do have shipment in Goodwin as our attorneys. So I did call our attorney and say, okay. Now what? We we went that route, and now what do we do? And they said, our attorney said, not a problem. We'll put it in writing. We'll just remind them that there is this policy. There is this law. There is Connecticut general statute that says they have to invite you to the table. So no worries. You all come to the table. You'll have a conversation. You'll talk about the impact
to the school building and to the school, and everything will be fine. And that's where we were in October. And I know that shortly thereafter, in January, PEGARC was awarded this contract. And so, again, as you can imagine, you know, I got a little nervous as did the board. There had been some back and forth between our attorneys. We did have a meeting on November. And during that meeting, both of our attorneys were there. And during that meeting, we did talk about, hey. Let's, you know, let's decide whether or not we can collaborate on this. And, the meeting didn't go well because at that time, I think the focus was simply on who owns the property. And that was that was all that was talked about was who owns the property. Now I can't say I don't care who owns the property, but I care about the impact to the school and to the children. It was irrelevant. And we we needed to have this conversation one way or another. So on page eight there, when you go through, it kinda really talks about where we were during that fall session. When we get to page nine here, that's important because in February, there were and I'll show you when we get to the packet, but there were some things that had changed, And the board then obviously was having lots of conversations about why we couldn't have a collaborative effort and really just sit down and figure out. We knew that we wanted this for the community and the seniors, and we knew because we see the seniors on a regular basis, that they want what's right for children. So we didn't really understand why we couldn't get to this point.
But the only solution that was offered to us at the time was just leave that land over to us. Just give us the property. And so in February, at a board meeting, the board did decide that it's that that doesn't solve any problems because we're still neighbors, and we still share land. And so dealing it over would not further our, difficulties that we were having with communication. And so, we moved forward from there. On page 10, there is the third map. And on the third map, that shows some other changes that we just added to our list. That is the map that w s c group showed us earlier where, in addition now to the questions and concerns about the roundabout, about the turn, we also had an additional handicap slots that was put in. And this had been told to us that this spot here, well, not to us directly, but we we were told that this was the area that would be the area that would allow us to go into the backyard. Emergency vehicles with our oil tanker that delivers on oil and things of that nature. So, again, there were questions and concerns that are boast about, okay, this change occurred without a conversation. Have you thought of this, this, this, and this?
So moving forward I'm trying to make sure that I don't you know what do everything fine here moving forward today on the end of that particular page there does speak about attorney o'brien's letter which I'll get to in a second. About the fact that he was surprised that we still were not collaborating so we are talking about a couple of years time here and no collaboration to say, have you thought about this. The lot of which I'm referring is on the next page. And, again, I don't want anybody to think that this is about we don't want our property used, the school's property. Because you all know that if you looked at the survey that BSD group did and if you took the sidewalk outside,
you know that it's common knowledge that the gazebo land there is technically school property. It's common knowledge that where the, bus is parked for the seniors that's on school property. It's common. I mean, we know this. It's never been an issue because when we consider whether or not having those vehicles parked there is a high impact in school community, it's not. Doesn't change anything for us, whether or not having senior luncheons outside are an impact to the school, it's not. And so these are never things that we've had to come to the table and have a conversation about because they weren't high impact to us. But the law here states for anyone who who still wonders whether or not that is in fact the law. It said, each town shall, through the board of education,
maintain control, and then goes on to finish it. And I can tell you when I included this page, because just under it, it reminds people that in 1949, it says, public act 1949 it says right there. Added the phrase through the board of education clarify how control of public schools may paint. They did this in 1949 on purpose, because they wanted to make sure that, in fact, no town at all, this is not an Andover thing, could chop up the school's property, could go and move a school to another location, could make sure that they just closed the school because someone found oil underneath and wanted the land. This was to protect schools. This act was to protect schools, but at the same time, to make sure that the town still has control over it. It's just through your other board. It's not through your board of selectmen. It's not through your board of finance. It's through your board of education, which is one of your elected bodies. And so that is why this exists, It's to make sure that there are people that are solely looking out for the school,
community. So that is why that's failing. If you look at the map that's on the next page, this is and you've seen them, but I'm an educator, so I do like to color things. If you look at the next one is that the right one, Jeff? It's not the next one. Oh,
your next one then? Okay. If you look at the next one, Dan, I'm going to order. See that? I will auto organize there and take that that was the need. This was the original one made bigger to show you, and it's in your package to show you that, in fact, the reason why we wouldn't have had major concerns there is because you can see on that picture, there's very little impact to us. So we would not have had a reason to say we've got some concerns here. Very little impact at all to us. If you move to the next one, thank you, superheroes. I'm sorry. Think was wrong. If you move to the next one, and again, it's a little color there because I do like to plug in there. One says draft existing conditions, and it does show you. It shows you the yellow is what is school responsibility. I like to think of it as a responsibility, not control of. It's the board of education's responsibility to oversee this particular piece of land. And then the brown is or the orange is yep? I can't find in my package that map with that kind of yellow. Can you see, Josh, if there's another one there for her? Thank you. Brown and yellow. Yeah. That's what happens. Julia, when you copy it sometimes, the color is off on the printer. I apologize. But either way, it's too proposed. And here, this would be the responsibility
under that act to show you where the school's responsibility ends and the town's responsibility for the municipal portion of it is. So if you go to the next one, Tim, I tried here to show them to the top to bottom because I admit, when I looked at them, I'd have to flip back and forth to see what the difference was. This is the second and the third rendering on your page in there. And I'm showing this to you for a reason because I wanna show you that from the top map to the bottom map in a matter of a year, the reason why our concerns increased significantly. The top one does not have the handicapped spot that I'm gonna talk about. The top one does not have a loss of that little foot of land there that I call it a foot, the little boot that hangs out from the grass outside of the gym there. Those were all intact. And when they were intact with the first one, I didn't worry so much about parent drop off, parent pickup, a change of traffic flow. My only concern with that top one is you notice there is that they originally had two parking spots on the tail end outside the gym there, if you notice in that top one. I did worry about that because if there were cars parked there and our parents were coming out, those cars wouldn't be able to get out. So it would be an impact to the center here. And if, that happens, then, you know, we would be looking potentially at some accidents. We don't need any fender vendors out there.
So that's why I showed you those two. Now I I do know that people have asked me about minutes in in meetings. I put a couple in here that I wanted to refer to this first one, Thursday, 08/13/2020. This is when the proposed site is still behind the current community center. And when we read those minutes, you look down at number four, number five, that does show you that the intent was to build this building directly behind us right here. And so, again, this is just to emphasize. No impact to us or low impact to us. This would be why we wouldn't spend anything at that time. I'd like to give you five minute word Okay. As I mentioned, we were very much in favor of it, but I had one concern. My concern on the next page with the minutes from Kathy Palazzi meeting on May 13 was that I was concerned about security. And so we actually granted we we gave gifted two cameras side of our school so that this property would be protected during construction.
If you go through these are just kind of progress reports or where we were last year Last year. Last year. Thank you. And where the changes were to be made. If you move ahead to the next map that said March 2022, That shows you a little bit more about what our concerns were. The septic tank at that time, if you notice, was still located on the other side, the new septic. So I didn't even have a concern about whether or not that would, in fact, impact us because it was still scheduled to be over here. In May 2022, they began talking about a third iteration, a third alteration. But when they were talking about that third alteration again, it did not include some of the things that are on there now. I've included the letter that some
chairperson from a sense to you. The next two maps, one is draft proposed condition. This was gonna show you the impact on that piece of property in question that the town would respectfully ask us to. However, if you look at the next page, that map this is why we didn't think that was a solution. Because if you look at that map, it's irrelevant who controls that property. Bless you. Who controls that piece of property? We now then if we gave it to the town and said, sure. Go ahead. We'll change the plot line. We now have to ask permission to use the parking there. We now have to ask permission for that land. And so either way, we have to have a conversation and a memorandum of understanding whether it's school or town. We still do still need to sit down with each other and figure out whether or not we have planned for one another. I did include the letter that our attorney received from miss O'Brien, attorney O'Brien, because he said multiple times in here. There's a need to collaborate. I thought you were collaborating. I thought you were meeting.
He says the the town does not dispute the fact that the school does own that property. Is this still how you guys feel? I also included the letter from February 28 from Jeff Ritter, who is shipping in Goodwin for us. And in there, we kept reiterating. We want this. We want it to elaborate. We're just not there yet because we need to make sure that there are some things, some assurances that happen, and you need to be able to see it from the perspective of the school. The next one is the May 22 letter from Dennis O'Brien. Again, in there multiple times, he talks about the need to collaborate, the need to collaborate, and that he thought that, in fact, there was a collaboration. He does not think at that point that it is important that we look at under the town's child under the board of ed, but I'm gonna move to one thing since I know we've only got three minutes left here, and that is the parking, which is the biggest, biggest concern for us. So please look at this map. This is the only data source that you're given from the town administrator to consider when they say in their application, don't worry. Parking's fine. It says right there in the middle. It says that we did a Monday morning, 10AM survey, and and this is this is the result of it. This is a very old aerial view. And I circled some things on there because we've had a lot of changes just on the map there. This is not accurate, and I asked the PNC to have us do that,
data collection over again. Because this one, you can see there are no gardens on here. There are no senior transportation vehicles. There's no staff parking in here. It doesn't have our seating outside. It does not have our playground in the back, and it doesn't have our swings. So this is a very old rendering, and I would very much welcome us to take a new rendering and take a real look at what it does look like when we're parking there so that we don't wind up in a situation excuse me. We don't wind up in a situation where the community center is expected to use the parking lot, and they had no idea that during certain times of the day, we had a lot of people there. So that's very important in the last two things in there. And, again, my notes are written in here so that you can see our thought process behind this. The last two pages in here, and then mister Larsen and I will be finished,
are the last concern that we have, and that is this one here that shows what has been called an adequate emergency access to the back. I don't like the word adequate. I want to see proof that there is space there available between that handicap spot, the the rascinole area, the septic that's there that they're going to put in, and our garage. I wanna know. I don't want someone to say, we think there's adequate. I'd like us to see that because that's very important. And the last one, and then I'll take a breath, is on the last page there. This is a beautiful roundabout, our concerns bomb, and how it will impact us. If you look at that last rendering, it has a fire zone there. So there's no parking in a fire zone. We all know that. And then it has the handicap spot there. There's no parking if you're not handicapped in that spot. But then that would mean that cars would pull up on the right. And if they pull up on the right, will that block access? And I don't know if it's a yes or no answer, but will it block access then while there are events here to what's considered our emergency entrance into the backyard there? And lastly, on the walk through, I've been on the two site visits now. They keep speaking about a six foot fence. And this is great that they've already decided what's the staging area fence will look like. But that fence, as some of you know because you were on the walk, they said it would be five feet behind the stake out there. If it's five feet behind the stake out there, it's gonna be right outside the doors of our gym, which doesn't sound like a problem. But that is an emergency access exit
for not only our children, but townspeople when we use that. And so what I don't know is and we have to find out. I don't know the answer. Is does this mean I can't use that as a fire exit? Because I can't take children out into a parking lot that's full of cars. We also are the emergency shelter for the town. So we need to speak to the CERT team, the fire department, to everybody in town and say, if we had to be the place for shelter for the town, what's gonna be different? And these are all things that are fixable, but we don't believe at this time that there's enough information, that there's enough data, that there's enough back and forth collaboration for us to have the answers to those questions. And I think that we could be creating some bigger problems for us in favors if we don't get those answers first. Thanks. I
should have spoken sooner by now. That's okay. For the record Mark brings Council of the Commission. I understand clearly you said it many times that you're. You're dissatisfied perhaps or disappointed with the lack of collaboration with more slack than the town, yes, there wasn't. But can you tell me
from everything that you presented. What is there here that violates the zoning regulations because that's that's this this Commission can't order the board of bed or the board of cycling to talk and they can't really order anything because that's something they can't order. They can only apply the zoning regulation, so what regulation you feel is not being so I'm not a zoning person,
but this law, the Connecticut general statute says that it's done through the board of education when it involves of the school's property. So the zoning may not be a factor, but the applicant then is, you have to make sure that if, in fact, the school board of education is the person that should be making the decisions on that piece of property, then yeah they have to be considered. The the and and that's an issue that I understand you have with the board select. But
the the town has standing to fly this application there's no question about that they are the owner and owner, it could always find an application, And then this commission has to apply the zoning regulations. So if I understand you correctly, you're not saying any zoning violations being violated.
But I wasn't here. But you have to separate you have to get certain. I wasn't here to cite the zoning violation. I was here to share with you our perspective, and our attorneys who have met with and still stand firmly by that, Connecticut general statute that says that these plants to find out if they are in terms of impact, it it just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do that. And so it's I mean, it's so I don't think there's a senior in this room that would say, we don't really care what the impact is to the school. We just want our center. And so that's what I'm here for. I'm not to pre excuse me. Not to present a particular zoning violation to make sure that everybody is aware that, in fact, we could potentially have some heavy impact
to the school community, to our property. And yet, even though the law says you have to talk to us, you don't have to say you have to not zone something, that hasn't happened. And so I do feel very strongly, as you can tell in my voice, that I am an advocate for that piece of property for the parents, for the children, and for you guys. And so that is why I would like you guys to consider all of those impacts that it has and have us all be able to sit down. Doesn't matter to me what it's the zoning number is.
Ideal children next door, and I need to make sure that they are safe. As long as you understand that this commission can only apply the zoning regulations, that is their only authority. So if it complies with the zoning regulations criteria that they need to approve it if it doesn't they must deny. Well, I think that they need to look and make sure that there are no violations to a school property
in terms of the regulations that are old. I'm just asking them to look at it. I don't know if it's a yes or a no, if it violates anything related to school property. Just asking for them to to take the time to investigate that and not make a decision tonight. I'm sorry, it's their attorney, they can't.
They can't explore that and applications have filed. They have to vote on it. They have to vote on it on the basis of what's in the zoning regulations and achievement. And I don't I will tell you is there. I don't agree with you that board event consent is required
for this, I just don't agree with you. Isn't see and that I think is has been my issue in the educational community is that people think it's just about the consent. There were two pages in the application that gave data to say why the parking was okay. And I've just shown you that that piece of data is not accurate. So I think that taking a little bit more time to get data that's accurate is what the responsibility then is. I don't know zoning regulation, but I do know that if a decision is going to be made on parking, we should at least be using accurate data, not a document that's five, six years old. So Very great. So on the
so this is something that's alluded to me a little bit all along. We're doing special permit tonight, which means we get to consider the input from the public. Correct. Today, Ruth. Yes. As we made that decision. And so wouldn't that seem to say that we can listen to the school's concerns and take those into account regardless of what the zoning regulations have?
Now that last phrase is where you threw me off. Okay. You can certainly consider the comments of neighbors, Board of Ed, obviously being an interested party and a butter, butter but but an operation is there. But but zoning is not a popularity contest if every man, woman, child and handover. Wants you to do something doesn't comply with the zoning regulations, you can't if every man, woman, child, and handover wants you to disapprove something that complies, you can't. Are allowed to use their property in accordance with the law, and the law in this case is the zoning regulation. So that's why my question to Doctor. Woodall was, you know, what regulation you feel is being violated? She has raised parking. She's asked if parking is suitable. She has raised emergency access. That is certainly something your regulations do address. She has she has raised the the circumference of the of the the turnaround Those are all things that you can consider, but the fact that that the board of selectmen of the board of Ed haven't been getting long is irrelevant to this proceed.
So I would ask them that we be allowed to have at the next meeting our zoning attorney to come and speak because I didn't realize that, you know, at this point, there was still a question about you just said your own property, you're entitled to do what you want with your own property. And it's it's the law. And according to the law, then it is the Board of Education that controls that property. And so I don't want us to sit debate that right now. That's not but if you allow us to, Shipment and Goodwin does have a zoning attorney, I would be glad to have someone You you can do that, but but but you can you can certainly attorney Williams can attend and and I'm happy to hear what he has to say. But you get back. You just got you just said it's not about control. You just said it's about control. That's about the impact it won't have. I don't want to be about who gets to make a decision. That's not The
impact shows the legitimation. Before we adjourn tonight, you know, we'll we'll talk about I don't know that we have I don't have the capability to determine what law comes to what law. But I do wanna hear from the resolution public here tonight, and I knew that if we started down that path, we wouldn't get to hear anybody. So, Jeff, do you have your hand up? Julia. Okay. I
yeah. It's like we use the package that's established this together. It's helping me understand a lot about this in Georgia. I don't know. So
we we aren't following the protocol. At least we briefly were gonna try to do, which is that you come up and make your comments from the podium so I think we get a better shot at having anybody that's virtually attending here. So if you could do that, I would appreciate it.
Well, I'm not gonna go into the plan the plans that you brought, but. I do have her live on long. And I would like to, as a member of the audience, you know, here in what's. Yeah. I need some. Keep this area open because you legally have the right to do that for another meeting. And during the time between this meeting and that meeting that Valerie gets to find things that Jeff asked for that you get your lawyer, the board of head lawyers to talk to the board of selecting and have a joint meeting, communicate with each other, maybe when I don't know what was in the first letter they sent, but probably the first plan they looked at was the one that was right off the back end of this building with some patio on your plate. And Valerie did say, and she talked about that one of the first early diagrams that they were presented as to where it was gonna be. It was here, and there was no border issue. There was no lack of access to the back of the school. And there's a a big change in grade over there, and she's right. It's not an easy concept to visualize because it wasn't mapped. But how are the grades gonna affect access to the back of that building if some child is injured or needs an ambulance right away to get through there.
If that isn't built into part of the plan, you're hoping to improve. So my advice is please keep this topic here and open, and let's talk. Let's hope that planning and zoning, you know, board of ed can collaborate the things that aren't really solved yet that are germane to this building
Eric, do you want to make a comment? Sure. Well, okay. Great.
Well, all these. Yeah. A lot of people have made comments and questions about emergency access. If you look back at the plan, said you have the emergency access pathway is there. If you read through the application notes, you would note that as part of that, that is one of the things that is required of the contractor that they maintain emergency access. Those plans have been reviewed by the fire marshal of the town of Andover and be stated, and he sent to actually to Jim and myself a letter stating that that was adequate for fire department's rescue purposes and will accommodate both the ambulance as well as the other fire apparatus that the town has. The town is well aware that during construction, we're gonna make we're gonna have to maintain safe access to the rear of the school. I mean, we're going to need it for the ambulance. We're going to need it if their septic system fails again and has to be pumped out. You know, we're going to need it for any number of things. So that will be incorporated. As far as parking goes, I did put an aerial that I took from the Capital Regional Council of Government site. I also went out there on one day and physically counted every single car in all of the lots pertaining to this. So the data you have was
me physically counting the number of parking spots. However, that's almost irrelevant because what's really relevant is your parking regulations. And in the table I provided, I specified minimum maximum parking and how I felt the sound met the standard. So that's for your enjoyment. Okay. Thank you. And again,
there was a lot of information that that we heard. Dirty branch is is there any problem having a group of people that does not include the planning and zoning commission get together and kind of go through the list From what I heard, it seems like an awful lot of the concerns were probably met and just haven't communicated it correctly. We're easy to fix and I agree with Julia's comment that having some group of people get together to, we could get through the board bed a list of their specific concerns, and then we could address them all. Think I think our the plan that's presented gets it pretty close. If if there's some minor things that need to be fixed, I think it's easy to do, but it does seem that there's been a little bit of a lack of communication with the primary
neighbor, if you will.
The answer is as long as no member of the commission is present for that, There certainly is no reason why representatives of Board of Ed and Board of Statement and Bill can get discuss this. And I also, I think you raised an important point of the way to put the one of the difficult parts of what you heard from Doctor. Bernalis, it would have been helpful and maybe you can still do this to articulate, you mix together issues of lack of collaboration with specific health and safety concerns. It would be really helpful to see you mentioned emergency access during construction post construction it'd be really helpful to see a list of what are the exact land use concerns. Because those are within your jurisdiction mean emergency access is obviously something you consider in reviewing any plan, both during construction and after construction that the adequacy of parking those are things you absolutely are allowed to consider. Didn't hear in all of that I heard that an outdated area of photos used, but I didn't hear how many parking spaces short it is or during what times of the day or what events and that and and you can't solve you can't solve a problem to redefine that problem.
What what are the conflicts that may arise I didn't hear that I heard that there might be conflicts arise, I didn't hear. When they would occur or why or what were teachings of the parking and what was deficient and that and I don't see how any applicants can be able to respond unless they know that sort of information and that's information that the board has. In
that package and then I promise to go on because I do want to hear from the other people with the dam. I know that there were answers to every letter that I was aware of that we had gotten addressing concerns. And so again, we got a letter. You know, they were dressed probably not in a timely manner but they were getting in the package on the website now. But I do do share the thought that a concise list that we could get a team that that when we go to find it later on, we we could get together, make sure we get the right people there that can collaborate. Okay. I would like to I drive.
My my question to this side of the room would be why did we change the location of the community center again? That that seems to where it started. That'll mean when people had no problem initially. So where where why was the candidate? Let me explain that to us.
So the board of some Yeah. So by yourself. Eric Anderson, town administrator. So the Board of Select was appointed a building committee and asked building committee to come up with a preliminary plan and signed with the architect for the building that came out of deliberations by the committee to address two things. One to have a reasonable turning circle. So there was easier handicapping access to a building in that location. And the second thing was it allowed it to orient the building through solar cell and potentially make it a lot more energy efficient going with that work. That wasn't a committee. That was that was the building committee's decision. That's that wasn't. Okay. That's
okay. That's a reasonable reasonable explanation. So, of course, we I'm very much a believer of the senior center as as of all the seniors and probably most of the people at time. We were relegated to the the mold infested old firehouse for years, and there was a there was a bit of contention that before valuance time that the board of Ed ex exercised control by not allowing the seniors to use an open wing in the school. So there's a history of the board of ed liking their control. And that's what we're seeing some of that right here. So but on the same token, can I finish? One second. On the same token, there should be some
Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. One at a time. Go ahead, then he'll go. Or whoever the chairman, Yes. They're not gonna go back and forth. Yes. So so we've we've seen this before. So I think we're all in as far as
conversation, of course, superintendent of schools should be included in the conversation, and and and she really hasn't been brought to the table. That's that's a that's too bad that she should have been that way. Maybe we can we're trying to get to the finish line here. We're trying to get a new building for the seniors and for the town built preferably this year. So if the so negotiations need to go on, then then let's so so be it. But I it sounds like both of our most of our concern have been met. They just haven't been ex explained here in the in the documents of the meeting. So if Valerie and her people, can get it in Eric and his people, Let's let's not roadblock
the town people. Okay? The seniors have supported the board of ed in the school additions and renovations for many, many years. We're the only town in the region not to have a senior center. So let's all of us try to work together and come together and and make that so.
That during the budget process this year, I heard zero comments on building the senior center. And and I attributed that to the fact that the people of the town are convinced we're gonna go do this, and we're gonna get it done. And so if we fail in that mission, that that is just a horrible thing for the the town people. So we can't we can't let that. Jeff, but if you have another comment, I just wanted to I'll get yelled at Dan for Dan. The
Board of Education, the previous Jeff McGuire, 422 Lake Road. The board of education on the previous board of education, when we tried to use the four vacant rooms in the school building, the board of education and the board of selected agreed to sit there and do that. We were defeated by town meeting and parents. So I I just wanna say it was not the board of education. The board of education was in support of that initiative. And I just wanted to make sure we work together. Will sit there and say it's something related to working together. The issue for us has always been tell us what your issues are because this can only be an issue of safety.
It's about safety. And and so from my standpoint, it's about safety. If the board of education would document exactly what their safety concerns are, and we can address them in the plans, and we get this done. It's easy. Write us a list. We've asked for this multiple times. You know we've asked for this. We can be all we want is a list. They can be they can be documented into the plans, and these guys can sit there and vote. That's it. Alright. Thank you.
So two things on that. On the facts and and this requires why they asked them to give them a list. We never received a personal response to that list when it came to the planning and zoning. And the question was, could we just all sit down instead of playing the game of telephone? Okay. You tell me what you want, and then I'll go back and tell them. And then I'll and we said, let's all just sit down in a room. They said no. So I'm Don, I'm absolutely in favor of just all of us sitting down together. Number one. That is definitely something that we need to do. Mister Nedley had asked me about 2019, and I told him that would never have happened if I was the superintendent. I absolutely would have made sure that the seniors had the use of that wing. But we learned a very valuable lesson about that, and that is their rights. The board of ed and the board of selectmen sat down, and they came up together with a memorandum of understanding. It was easy. But then because the superintendent could not answer or did not answer the parents' questions and made sure that they felt that the impact was low, they felt safe and secure, they kind of, from what I hear, revolted. Was not there. But it is my job as superintendent then if that happens where parents come to me and say, what about this? What about that? I need to have the answers.
And Don, we don't want that to repeat itself again like it did in 2019. So you're absolutely right. It can't be a write down your questions and I'll bring it back to one person, and then we'll bring the answers back and Oh, you still don't understand. Let's go. It needs to be done in one fell swoop where everybody sits down at the table, thanks.
Valerie who would you prefer to have is that group that got together to have that discussion.
The well I would say the whole board event in the whole board selected however, attorney grants has already said that it can't be the member that's on the P and C right so with all the respect, you know, not that we're not by you to the party, but I would like it to be both the Board of Education, and the word selecting, because I do think that there are things we don't necessarily think about from a municipal point of view with lands, and there are things that they don't necessarily have to think about from a school point of view so I think that that kind of session could be very productive. And an answer to the question would be a meeting. 30 over right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman I am Dennis O'Brien, Donald turning here for more than twenty years. I was very hesitant to speak tonight. I wasn't gonna say a thing, but my name came up several times. Okay? And I just wanna clarify a few things. I don't wanna take much time. I'm just. It's not not to do that. I can't do that if you let me, and Jeff McQuire knows that. But, you know, I'm I'm not I'm gonna self discipline myself. I've been aware for fifty years. I've been involved in politics at fairly high levels for forty years. And I I what I'm seeing tonight is law, but I'm also seeing politics. Mister Rand's covered the law really well. Tom does own the property. The board of education does not own the property there. The law says that they're they can control the property for the purposes of educating children. They do not own it. Okay. The prop the town's the owner of the property. Most importantly, I've been involved in this thing since the beginning of these discussions. We started out as Valerie Bruno said, talking about this in last November. We had a meeting. Mister McGuire referred to a letter. I have a letter here, November 14. I don't have one topic, but I'd like to submit it if you would approve, mister Larson. Okay. Okay. And I will submit it, and I'm gonna I may approach it. Thank you. Okay. And and in that letter, it specifies to a great extent, it's a long letter from the board of head attorney, what the board of head is concerned about, and most of it is about safety, especially as miss Bruno miss Bruno mentioned during her speech, her whole verbal speech, among many other things, about construction
safety. Okay? And my position on that has always been, and I mentioned it, this first meeting is that that can be dealt with by the Planning and Zoning Commission. You have regulations on that. You have a regulation that it's right here. Believe it's fairly simple and straightforward, but it gives you the the commission lots of authority regarding determining whether something is safe. Okay.
I thought I had it marked here, but it is It is in section 23 of the regulations. It's very short. And you can look into anything regarding safety with regard to any project. And I think this is the place for that to happen. We were having discussions about with the board of education, but based on my experience, fifty years in the law, forty years in politics, the discussions were going nowhere. We were not equal partners to the discussions. We were being dictated to, to some extent, by the people by certain people who were representing the board of education, including their lawyer and including the superintendent. I'll give you an example. You have a letter today that's been distributed to you by miss Bruno dated 02/28/2023 from to me from Jessica Richland Smith, the lawyer for the board of education. Two page letter. And in it, you'll find because you have copies of it, you'll find a statement saying that she wanted us
to pay for experts and also for the attorney's fees for for the board of education while we were going through this process. And we weren't we weren't gonna pay for attorney's fees for anybody on the board of education. That is not dumb. I've been dealing with attorney's fees cases in another past life for many years, and attorney's fees are worn by the party who hires the attorney unless the court of law basically switches over, switches them to the other side. And that that that that's unburdened. But they were asking for us to pay their attorney's fees while we work together to try to make this to try to come to an agreement on memorandums of understanding. When it came to that point with me, I began to realize that we weren't gonna get anywhere. And that besides besides, the Planning and Zoning Commission is perfectly capable, as mister Brantz has pointed out, of determining the application and whether or not it complies with the regulations. And one of the items that the regulations fall for is the determination that the project is safe. And in a project like this where children are involved, I am sure they're gonna bend over backwards to do that. Now if I were a lawyer, I would be a teacher. Education is very important to me, very important to me. My parents did not even go to high school. Okay? But I was lucky enough in this great country of ours to become a lawyer and later a judge for a while, And I've learned a lot about education and its importance. And in my opinion,
we can't save this country without improving our education structure. But but that doesn't mean that the edge that that that the law of state of Connecticut that provides that the property of the town of of the that are used by the board of education to educate is owned by the town. Okay? And and and that doesn't mean that the board of education can control the situation of or in in negotiations with the town of of Anvil. I saw that happening, and that was not working. And then the last thing I'm gonna say is there was an email sent by the superintendent. Now president say this just just before your meeting when you accepted the application. And it basically said that the application should not go forward because we were not a proper applicant, and that is not true. Absolutely not true legally or in any other way, shape, or form. And that's what caused me to take that letter that I had I had written a long time ago and not sent and just bring it up to date and send it to the commission, making it clear that the statutes require the or provide that the town, in fact, is a school district, not the board of education. Each each town in the state of Connecticut, all 169
towns are individual school districts, not the board of education. And another statute ten ten dash two forty one says that among the powers of the school district are to own own real estate regarding schools. The the real estate is not owned by school districts. I dealt with that in six other towns, including my hometown and Wyndham. When we applied for support from the state to to renovate our high school, and we got a lot of support from the state, That application had to go through the town council of the of the town of Wyndham because the town council speaks for the town, and and the and the town owns the school property. Thank Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure to be here, and I'm really impressed by the the ways this item is being handled by the Planning and Zoning Commission. I'm expressing that they will follow the regulations and adjust the follow. We'll soon. Thank you. Mister Kerricher.
Chairman, this is Reggie Morbors. The the section that attorney O'Brien was looking for is 23.4 Point E, and I'll just read it because it's short. Emergency access. All site plans shall make adequate provisions for facilities and access with fire, police, and other emergency protection. Such provisions shall include, but not not be limited to, fire lanes, access drives to otherwise remote portions of the building site, adequate lighting of remote or visually obscured building or site areas, fire hydrants or surface or subsurface water supplies exist, and the like. So those are issues clearly within your jurisdiction, clearly do need to be addressed as long as it's clear what what the issues are.
Thank you. That's not exactly what I was talking about. Oh, mister Branson, once again once again, mister Francis, correct? We've worked in in the past on the option side of things and together. So we know each other quite well. And then in any event, it was 23.4 j, public health and safety. Okay. That's the regulation I was referring to. 23.4 j. But mister Branson's what he said about the access and whatnot is absolutely correct.
Okay. Just for everybody's information, the the letter that I just got from attorney O'Brien is part of the record from the January period that we had concerning the the regulation. So, agent Halsey, if you can copy that or move it to the current folder, that would be good, but that that document does exist online
Both of me. No. Hi, Catherine Baldy Lewis O'Condro. There's a couple of things I have, and one is the fact that mistakes happen. And I think it's all going good to say, well, you can make sure that you could be assured that everything you do, we're gonna do it. Well, Well, yeah, maybe and maybe not. And maybe that's why, especially if I was a superintendent in the school, I may think surely you're doing right. And I don't care if somebody says to me, you don't have to worry about it. If it was my home, I could do the same thing. If it was my home and my children, I don't care if you told me the plumbing's okay or this is okay. I wanna see it. I wanna see that everything's working properly. Bill lawyers that normally are playing games and I really don't care. I care about the school. I care about the seniors getting what they need. And it shouldn't be enough versus them. This is our company and everybody working together to make sure that things happen to the best of the time. It should never be in us versus them. And that bothers me more than anything that it's turned into. And secondly, on a completely different note, Okay. Only other thing is I, but you don't get on. No, I don't. Still. But anyway, the other thing as far as the pending somebody in the regulations
is that I I wouldn't know the matter. And yes, I I wouldn't depend on you to do it. And so me as well, I'm being it doesn't make any issue when you say, well, all I hear is that you wanted her to get along with the the BOS and BOS get along with them. I don't think that's it. I don't think that's what she does with them. She is asking for exactly what's playing and doing needs to do. Please give me we think the respect and the knowledge that I need to know that everything will be secure, that something just isn't adequate, that something will be done and will be done. I will do it. Thanks. Any other regular public? Yeah.
Hi. I'm Roxanne Hoskey. I'm with 114 Whales Road in Andover, and I agree with Valerie exactly what she says, really. She was so clear about everything, but I also agree, we need a senior center. I'm a senior, not that long ago, still I'm senior unfortunately. And you know. Why should we have to beg borrow haysteel to just have our own Center it doesn't seem fair and I'm with Kathy posse because she's been fighting for years to have a senior Center and I agree with her 100% we need a senior Center. And if we finally can all get together and say let's do this thing damn it, we should. We should all get together and say let's do this. That's all I have to say.
Anybody else want to come in? Is there anybody in the virtual audience that would like to make a comment about it? Diane, Brady or mister Handel? Diane.
Can the virtual attendee still hear us? Still can't hear me. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Oh, that's it? Can you hear me? Yes. No. Yes. We can't see you, though, Diane. Oh,
that's a good there I am. You can see me and hear me now? Yeah, we can. I'm Mrs. Bloss. Okay. Merry Christmas. My question is, I know that the building committee used a lot of expertise engineers for everything and I'm sure you've already answered this, but I just need somebody to nod their head and say yes. The cul de sac turnaround in front of the building. Is that radius, large enough to allow a school bus or some large vehicle to turn around in there?
Diane I know a fire truck and turn around here. Excuse me.
I know that a fire truck can turn around that circle
that they'll do it. Yeah, fire truck is big enough. Okay. Okay, but somebody has looked at that that's big enough for that. The other quick question was, I see on a lot of the documentation the maps and things that the, the words senior center are being dropped and it's just being called the community center. Is there any particular reason for that or is that just shorthand? We don't want to lose the senior part of this. Either one care to address that issue. So,
what I would say is the building committee right from the beginning envisioned this as a community center with a very strong focus on seniors and senior. So you may call it anything you want, but but it will accommodate the needs of all town residents, but it will be focused primarily on the senior population. That answers your question.
That'll do. I thank you all for accommodating the zoomers here, and I thought the presentation was good and answered all of my questions that I had. Thank you all very much.
On that note, Diane, I did see in sharing concern with Eric about the name because the governor just put $10,000,000 to upgrade senior centers. And I was hoping that we would not be ineligible for a grant to outfit the senior center because we put the wrong name on the side.
Bingo. Lazy, just don't want us dropped out of sight. Thank you. Joanne Gertz, I see your hand in Raiders.
Hi there. Thank you for the presentation. My only comment is that I'm hoping after listening to everything and knowing about this community center, all the meetings and all the planning and time that's gone into it, that there can be a meeting of the minds. Understand that safety is a concern, of course. So the students, and that should be accommodated or spoken about. But I also want to address all of those faces that I've grown to know and see at all the meetings and all the seniors that are there today represented. I just want to see them get their building while they're with us, you know, and able to enjoy it. And they've given so much time and a lot of them have volunteered
and I've been in town. You know, I believe it's seventeen years now going on eighteen. So I just hope we can get together and get this going and it looks like a nice plan. It's suitable for our town of 3,000 people. I mean, people think the aesthetics look good or anything, but it's just time. So hopefully, you know, and I also want to mention that parents are also townspeople, you know, so there's been multiple meetings if they had any safety concerns. I'm not, you know, chastising anyone, but there's multiple meetings that are held all the time that safety concerns and if parents have issues, they're welcome to go to those meetings and state them. They don't have to wait and you know just for the superintendent. So that's all you know. So thank you. I hope we can get moving on it and get these issues resolved.
Thank you, Julian. Any other virtual attendees that want to come in? I see no other hands up on the participants listening. Anybody here need another Nichols word? No. Yeah. Val.
Jeff Ballard, 174 Lake Road, also on committee for the Andover Community Garden. It's been a lack of communication all the way along. We're making good progress. I wanted to address whether in the new building, will have water and electricity and higher supply. And
my question to you is, is there a violation on the safety issue that this permit go forward or no?
There is no violation, no reason that this permit should not go forward. It is a legally it it's a legal application. The property owners who submitted the application were required to were required to process it. So this permit should go forward. Absolutely. Thank you. Any other questions or comments?
Eric, hate to take up everybody's time. I just wanted to respond briefly. I really hate the term green building because it comes to encompasses a zillion different things, and everybody's got a different idea about what green building is. What I will tell you is that this will be a very energy efficient building. We have prioritized air sealing and the use of upscalation and proper insulation techniques to mean it will be a low energy building. So it will be easy on the wallet to heat and cool. Will be designed with modern heating and cooling, you know, apparatus. So it will also be oriented such that the building will be able to handle a very large solar system, one that will be almost capable of making the building net zero. So depending on what your definition is, yes, we're using vinyl siding. That's a cost savings measure. It's frankly the least expensive exterior planning we had. Yes. PVC, many people don't consider that to be a green building material, but there's actually more body and energy and rent, but that's beside the point. You know you're gonna end up with a good building. There have been a lot of compromises made. The town has worked very hard. Keep the total cost of construction,
including engineering under a million dollars, Because if we do do that, we keep it under the threshold at which Davis Bacon applies, and that is unfortunately breaking the million dollars adds at least $200,000 to the total amount of the building. The town does have a bunch of other money set aside for changes to the building in the future. What you want in the building will be accommodated. It might not be accommodated on day one when the building opens, but that's just in response to what the current state law is about Davis Bacon. So, well, that's it. Unless you have further questions to make.
Okay. So we are at the end of the public comment portion of all of you. You have a question?
The The the the well will serve the fire station down the hall from the. It's.
Question is going from going up to 967 cubic feet of community garden will the well be able to handle the water needs of our six beds.
I think part of the water for the community garden is captured green water that being used for that purpose.
And the second part of that question is they were talking about rain forest or rain garden recapture. Adrian Mandeville has already donated thousand dollars to the roofing gutters and recapture rainwater, both the fire hydrant, the fire department shed and the garden shed. Canvas in design module separate the roof reclaim water from the the parking lot or what groundwater so that we can use it as a reservoir for the community garden.
I thought that I thought that water was being used for the community garden. You're
It's not. Okay. My understanding was that the community garden wanted to use both of the existing sheds and recapture water from the sheds for the community garden. Yes. The building was never intended to be part of any water system. Oh, okay. I missed her. I thought the the the two
sheds with the rainwater. Jim Benning was also on the community and or community guard committee has has calculated how much water we will need and will not be able to do it with collection of coal sheds, which should mean blowing off the the well or or
possibly off replanning off the new center. I would ask the engineers when they get together with the town engineer to discuss the water mitigation to consider that and bring that back to us next time we get together. The end? Was thinking about
for making something a green building, just even adding some more windows on the south and west sides maybe would help get more sun and provide more heat that way. We have a sunroom in our house, and it really is great to have those windows to get more sun.
I I I think that's a comment that the designer could consider. I don't know that they wanna make the change at this point. One of the things that we need to keep in mind when we talk about the safety of the kids is that we need to get the building building and get as much of that done over the summer as we get before the kids get back in school. And so at some point, you know, I like the idea that there's a a point where we have to say, you know, this is the plan. If it doesn't violate the regulation, we can't make that change. Have to deliberate on the plan presented. You know, everybody's got things they might they're both just a little bit different. Okay. My recommendation to the commission is that we do not close the public hearings tonight. We continue to close the hearing. We do that ahead I'm that
can be easily fixed, do do like adding well to the the drawing and and all that sort of thing. The the two big things that I was hoping to hear more from next time in particular are the mitigation of rainwater and the lighting plan to see if we've got good lighting for the parking lots. And then so Eric and the engineers do that complete now in the June 4, get with the down engineer and review that so we get the down engineer to approve it.
We could certainly address the the rain garden if you just wanna see calculations for storm water accumulation there. As far as the lighting plan, the town is if if you really want all that on the plan, want photometric data for all the existing lighting that's going to you know, we're gonna have to hire somebody do that. I don't know whether we get it by the next meeting. We will certainly try to address it. Okay. You could certainly just make it a condition to because that If we have to, we can consider
doing that. Yes. The next thing that that I would hope to hear from is a concise list of safety concerns with the school and then trying to figure out who the right group to get together is I know who can't be, but Jeff Maguire is the is the board of selected willing to meet with, you know, Eric is the explainer and and addressed the board of bed concerns so that hopefully next time when we get together, the board of bed would say, we like that.
Deputy Barber, we can get a list of every concern that you have and we will go over each one and plan. Right? I'm assuming that everybody can sit there and listen and all of its concerns will do that. But what what would be in the meeting now?
Well, since we were going to have a board of select meeting and a board of meetings, let's just do that. So all the board of education members can hear, let's discuss, Sorry, Dennis. You're So as far as I'm concerned, no attorney is concerned. All this is is common sense. This is we wanna get this done. It's common sense. I don't need attorneys. I don't need letters from attorneys. I just wanna sit there and get this done for the benefit of the community. That means everybody because we're all one community. Right? If you could find some things that you're How about that? To say things tomorrow.
We'll schedule a meeting as soon as we possibly can. Okay. Alright. That's fine. But we need to Yep. But we need to have a date that we can get the list of specific concerns
so that, you know, the panel can review them before you get together to discuss them. I can provide notes. You're welcome. That'll do. Okay. Were there any concerns from any of the commission members about continuing the public hearing on this morning?
So, mister chairman, what are the deliverables you want back to the town prior to the next meeting? If you're not gonna close a public hearing and render a document now, what is it that you still need as a commissioner to make a judgment?
I'm looking for a lighting plan that showed that we have sufficient lighting for the new parking spots and again it would be great to see what lighting is provided by the lighting that currently exist out there. One of the things I want to discuss in more detail the next time we get together, and I think you already have the data, is when we talk safety, we're not talking parking and there's I think the parking lane is sound, and there's we can explain it in from that photo that was in the gallery packet. I did not think it was you know, what I saw in the packet was I thought a recent photo that you put in there that wasn't as old as that when it had more cars in the house at the back and what but I know I think there's a good story with parking we just need to tell the folks here so that they understand it. Haven't done a good enough job of maybe communicating the parking plan to satisfy the need. And
then addressing whatever those safety access issues are with whether they that would be yeah that
would be thing whatever whatever the panel and the board of ed discussed at the prior meeting like that that was brought before the division so we know what the concerns were and what the action taken in response. The commission does have, we are required to make sure that we're doing safety.
Mister chairman, is there something about the, what are your actual safety concerns with the plan? I mean, we've presented a plan. The fire marshal was approved yet. Yep. Are there?
No. I'm sorry. I'm gonna stop. Commission is still an open public hearing. They have not reached deliberations. So, I don't want commission members saying now what concerns they have. So, the hearing is still open. They may have other concerns. You may address them or not. You heard the same testimony they did. So you heard what they heard. You address it as the applicant as you think you would do this.
It was a nice Friday. Okay with that we will adjourn the public hearing and repent at 07:00 on June 20