Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning- Regular Meeting
October 20, 2026 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Machine-generated transcript — check the video if in doubt.
Good evening and welcome to the October twentieth indoor planning and zoning meeting. Calling the meeting to order at 07:01PM. Members present, Patrick Dougherty, Jed Larson, and I will be seating Henry Mabel. So we have a quorum. Okay with that, Anne? Thank you. Yes, thank you. All right, thank you. Looks good. You can still see her. Yeah.
You can still leave Henry seated. Okay. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? I have none.
Thank you, John. Any public speak? The public, no speak. Hearing none, moving right along to whole business. All right. We have our one candidate. Was there any other applications? Received one? I don't think. They wouldn't be able to work. We
have two more members showing up. And we will now see, we still have an opening. Can. Yes. You were looking at me and saying that.
We have CBA there. We have. Let's, we're gonna CBA at him. And now we're moving back to the regular agenda, old business. We have one candidate to my knowledge. Yes, thank you. Okay.
There's... I've kept each. Perfect. Thank you. Read it. Me too. Yes, and the same. It's the last one.
Well, us about yourself. Yes. Why you want to be in the mission? Well, I
would Talk still to me. You're supposed to talk to him. Well, I would go with the same as what I said at the previous
interview about myself. I grew up in town. 55, grew up on the Andover Lake, very familiar with the town, inside and out basically, followed that over the most. Grew up everywhere in town. I'm not really sure. I had my paralegal degree, worked at different businesses in town. I'm trying to remember everything I said the last, I was under the impression that I couldn't go through the scene. Is there any questions different that you have for me from the last time? Nope. The rest of the commission... I wasn't completely prepared to go through the whole.
That's okay. Anyone have any questions for Jacqueline? Any other discussion?
Was able to read up a little more on, you had asked me the last time bylaws, on I got pretty deep into the zoning regulations. Yes, I'm more able to say I'm familiar with it this time. Thanks. Excellent. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Would we like to vote? I'll make a motion that we approve Jacqueline. Is the vote in member? Second. All in favor? Aye. Henry? It's an aye, motion to have... Aye. Say again? Yes. Thank you, Henry. Thank you.
Sorry. And welcome to the planning zoning. You are your alternate. Awesome, thank you. I'm- Thank you very much. You're very welcome. And we go to the town clerk, you get sworn in at your earliest convenience. Okay. Definitely by the, before the next meeting. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for your service
to the town. Moving on to new business. Have nothing. Nothing Wayne. No kidding, John.
Sorry. I do not. Other than other than to noting other than noting that the changes to the zoning regulations that you guys approved at the very end of last month have... Will be made active as of November 1, and Wayne and I have been finalizing incorporating those edits into the official document so that that that you guys will have a new copy of the zoning regulations for November.
Thank you very much. And I did send out your last... Is that still a draft what you sent me? What I sent you this afternoon is,
late this morning or early afternoon, is the version. Those are it.
I sent that to everybody. Sent it to you. We have some of new regulations. You said it today? Yeah. I just just got them today. So
I don't think I've got it, but I will begin. Yeah.
I sent them as I was setting up for the meeting tonight. So
And so it was It Now they were minutes ago. Yeah. Okay. Then I probably have. On this Friday seventh. Any other new business?
Patrick, I just wanted to point out the agenda that you sent out for today's meeting. Says January 20 at the top. Was... Avery, that that was me.
Okay. I have I have this nasty habit of reusing things and forgetting to change things. Oh, okay. I like to see, I did see some back and forth on that. Wasn't sure what the topic was, but I was nervous I had the wrong one up, so.
Now that you have the right one. The the agenda is is correct. Thank you. The date was wrong.
Okay. It's much easier to reuse the same format. You just update the info and do the same. This is the corrected one. Oh yeah, but that's... Listen, if I get everything else changed.
Okay. Wayne was playing Britney Spears. Oops. I did it again.
Got to be three times... Three tries this time. The third time was because of... We had a move. Yeah.
Well, thank you. Any other business? Hearing none, moving right along to correspondence. Start with John.
Any correspondence or nothing? I have received no items of correspondence.
Thank you. Wayne? Everything I had I sent out to the commission members was that the document that Historic Atlas you know, sent that out to the. Pretty interesting. I took a quick look at it and went through it. There's quite a bit of stuff in there and that brought me to, led me to look at our historic building regulation which it is what it is. I mean it's it's permissive. It's it's compulsory. So, anyway, that's it's okay. I mean, that's what the commission decided at that time and we really don't have much in the way or we don't have a historic district or any buildings that are officially recognized by the town for preservation purposes. Okay, thank you. As far as I know. Very good.
Any other correspondence of anyone now? Hearing none, moving right along. Commission discussion. Any updates on...
No, there's nothing. Nothing from our developers there? I haven't heard a word from them.
John has Rosewood, the Rosewood people made any contact with you?
Not recently with me although I do believe they're in correspondence and Wayne you may have been looped on this with Savannah and the Wetlands Commission. I believe they're planning to come in for a discussion with Wetlands in early November. Right, that got pushed off to November.
So I think their first step, and again, I don't think they're ready for a formal application yet. I think they're going to sort of talk through the outlines of their proposal and seek some guidance from the Wetlands Commission before they make a full application to planning and zoning, which I think is the appropriate order of operations.
Now they did say something about possibly asking to amend the subdivision regulations dealing with roads and sidewalks.
Yep, no, they've quiet on that since their approval of last month. Have they formally purchased the property yet?
I didn't see it. Well, it's been the land trade story. Yeah. That's been recorded. Let's put it that way. Good question. There... I do... I have a letter on file from the land owner designating them as their agent more or less.
Okay. The land owner is the Rosebud Woods agent? They're they're they're self represented. The landowner has designated, the Rosewood people, which is actually design... Design professionals. Yeah. Design professionals as their... As his agent. Is represented in the real estate transaction? To the commission. Okay, the commission. No
worries, just want to make sure I clarified that for myself. Thank you.
Yes, got one more submission discussion. I was hoping to wait till the end, but this has a possibility of being my last meeting to say. I really enjoy working on landing the zoning commission, but I'm moving to be a little bit closer to my grandkids and it forces me to give up my place on the lake. Then, but the no later than closing date is the eighteenth, which is the day after our next meeting. And if we close a little early, might not be there. So we have three alderdents in attendance tonight. I want to make sure we have the deck stacked well before I took off and there will be an opportunity very soon to
have an opening on the regular division we'll go that way. And if I can, if we don't close till the eighteenth, that'll be at the next meeting. If we close earlier than that, won't be able to. So that's that's that but I really enjoyed the time working with the town on the town's behalf. I've lived in Andover longer than any other place I lived in my life which it was only sixteen years but that's the way it goes when I was in the Navy moving every two and then move on at this point so I'll miss it down, miss the people but I'll enjoy the evening. Thank you for all your hard work. I'm
very pleased with, you know, a couple of projects that seem to be in the offing year that take a little while to get going, but, you know, very good news for good news for the dam, I think.
You. Miss you. Thank you very much for your leadership. Yes. Thank you. Your leadership. Thank you for your leadership, Jed. We appreciate you. Thank you. Hey, we have two
administrative reports. I'm going watch the, as John pointed out, the regulations will the new multi use floating zone regs become effective on the November 1. They were published last week. Roberta published legal notice. The new zoning fee ordinance became effective on the thirteenth. The vendor has to do some work still on the online platform. So we are still proceeding under the old numbers for now. Should happen pretty quick. That is basically all I have.
I just wanted to mention that as far as the zoning fees, I think I had brought it up late spring or early summer, and I watched almost all the SelectRents meetings and I was unavailable to watch the August 1, and we get in the meantime, and I voted no at the time, and that was only because I, you know, it's my doing that I brought it up and then I did visit them right away, and I saw after this witness meeting that they did discuss it, and I didn't realize that they were on top of it as much as they were, so I didn't vote no, and then I disagreed with what he put forward. It was just, I wish I visited sooner because I didn't know they were paying attention to it and then go around right away. And there may have been some things that I think my initial comments, as I said, when I first brought it up was that some things were probably too high, but I wasn't voting against anything that you've done specifically. It was just I didn't expect it to go to a vote that quickly. Yes. Wanted it.
Know? Sure. And they pay attention to some things right away and other things, they go Oh, thank you, Wayne. Thank you, Meehan. Mhmm.
So I'll... I can still look at them and make suggestions, but I I just need to select my line and move on inside. Mhmm.
They did. That's that's it for me. Thank you very much. Alright. Anyone who happens to Bartos?
So we were supposed to have a meeting this month to talk about the project over here at Lindholm Corners and it's a request to the applicant. They withdrew that but we didn't have a meeting But next meeting is November 3, I should be able to make that one. And for everybody here, I am the planning and zoning liaison with Inland Wetlands Commission. So somebody from planning a zoning ought to fill that spot. And I think it's a good thing because when I first went on it, it gave me a chance to learn what was going on and have a little bit of time to absorb things before they ended up coming to planning the zoning and I found that very helpful but I do think the two are tied together and it's a very nice fit so if somebody wants to take that on when I took that on that had been a vacant spot for a long time then I think it does good by having somebody on there to know what's going on in the Inland Islands. So that opportunity will be coming up shortly as well.
You were a member of the Inland Islands? Such a regular member. Liaison wouldn't necessarily have to be a member, right?
The way it's written is it is a full participating member. Oh really? Yeah. Well, a member of Blanding Zone and comes
in as a full member of the commission. Wetlands gets things first, typically before DZ gets done so it does help. Okay thank you very much. On you Mr. Gustafsson.
Okay just a couple of quick things. First, and I just sent this to Wayne, but I wanted to give our commissioners a heads up and particularly the new commissioners. No good deed goes unpunished, and because you have graciously volunteered your time and efforts to planning and zoning, we are going to require you to get some training per state So there are multiple training opportunities. There are some online ones, but the state just sent around notice that there is an upcoming training on Saturday, November 21. It is a, you know, a fine way to spend your Saturday before Thanksgiving. It's a nine to 02:30. It's both in person in Middlesex... At the Middlesex Extension Center in Haddam or online via Zoom. This will take care of your entire training requirement for the next four years and is... It's $55. The town has training money in its budget, so the town can reimburse you for these fees. But... And and so it's something you must preregister for. So so it's, again, November 21, that's a Saturday, and I sent around the link, of the information as well as the link to register to Wayne. So hopefully, you can distribute that, and it's it's both planning and zoning commissioners and ZBA commissioners. So if you've got any friends out there in the ZBA world, they need training as well. So that's coming up. And then the other thing I wouldn't Connecticut
Bar Association training. Would it... I mean, looked like different topics on there.
There are... Yeah. This isn't this isn't the one... This is put on by UConn, the the CLEAR, which is the Center for Land Use Education and Research. So it's UConn Extension. They did partner with a number of lawyers who also do the bar training but that is every other year. I think that's probably going to be next spring.
It's a central program too, that you participate in that training every Yeah, few
that's a worthwhile training. There's going be a lot of I mean that one's sort of soup to nuts. This one is, I think, a little bit more legal procedural, but it will also cover some affordable housing stuff, which is one of the required four hours of training. The other thing I'd note speaking of affordable housing is that the Capital Region Council of Governments is continuing to do their initial research and coordination. I participated in a meeting last month, on behalf of Andover, as well as on behalf of Columbia, with basically the the, you know, a number of other planners in the Capital Region to kind of go through what the capital region planner's process will be for understanding the state housing expectation numbers that are going to be distributed regionally, and then the the overall process for the Council of Governments, Crogg,
to break down that that regional expectation into a municipal number that will be, assigned to Andover over the next six to seven months or so. Again, at this time, October, we have not received the big number from the state, to the COG. We anticipate that over the next month or so. And then there will be a lot of fairly intensive analysis and discussions amongst the other municipalities of of how to break down that number. And I can I can, you know, go into some some more specifics if you have questions? But but again, at this point, we're we're just sort of tracking progress and and, making sure everyone's on the same page in terms of assumptions that the COG is going to be making in terms of their breakdown of municipal resources.
That's regarding the new housing regulation, John, that was passed. Say that again? That's regarding the new housing regulation for Correct.
Correct. So I mean, we did a couple of regulatory updates over the last couple of months, but the, yeah, this is, so you may recall, Beata, that that the town did a an affordable housing plan a couple of years ago, I think back probably 2022 or so. The, that was a meant to be a five year plan. The housing, the the affordable housing plan has been replaced, you know, per this state law that passed in November by what's called the housing growth plan. In which is going to be a little bit more specific. It's also a five year plan but it's going to have a specific target number for each municipality to try to hit over. And it's odd because it's a ten year target, but the plan itself is a five year plan. So we'll update it sort of halfway into this target number. And again, it is to control things that are within the town's control and not necessarily to let's say Andover gets assigned 100 affordable housing units over ten years as just a pick a number out of the thin air. It does not require the town to build that number of units. It requires the town to identify ways in which to enable the market to build those units or to incentivize the market to do that, or or, you know, if the town, you know, found itself with an extra $150,000,000, well, sure, we could build it ourselves. Great. You know, job done. But,
barring that, you know, it's about regulations and incentives and things like that. Thank you.
I have another question if it's not too much trouble. Going back to the required training. Yes. I saw that fair housing practices are required if you've already completed that specific training for the CT DCP.
Can that be used towards the training for this? When did you do it?
I do believe last year was a CE year, so it would have been in the last three, that's a two year cycle.
They might be talking about two different DCP, it's more in the lines of red control and stuff like that. Is is it... Do I have that right?
No? I love exactly the same title as what Yeah. Yeah. And
and so it's it's... The answer is probably, and I'll say, Biana, that there is actually no officially sanctioned curriculum for this. Commissioners are required to have four years of training about land use practices and law. And one of those four hours is concerning fair and affordable housing. I would say if you forward me, you know, some information about that training that you undertook, we can we can kind of make a judgment call. But it's it's... This is all self reported. So, you know, if if you believe and and, you know, we can attest that this training covered covered those materials, then, yeah, then we'll claim it. But, again, yeah, there's no there's no sanctioned curriculum to to compare this against.
But the Yukon, what they're putting on, in November covers commissioners
Yes. For the Oh, yeah. I mean, it it is, you know, and and, you know, sort of the, you know, the the assembled wise people of Connecticut in terms of land use law, UConn Extension, the Connecticut Bar Association, Casio, the zoning enforcement officers, CCAPA, the Connecticut Planners, CCM, Connecticut Conference for Municipalities, we had all gotten together to kind of go through an outline of things that we agreed should be in there. But again, the governor is not signing off and saying, these are the topics, there will be a test. There are no sanctioned topics, there is no test. So it's self reported, but there is sort of a general agreement of, yeah, this stuff should be covered. Thank you. Did you serve on CBA?
For a very short amount of time. Not long enough to take this class. No. You've already taken a photo. That's all I have Mr. Chair.
Anyway, as far as the training out, I'll reset stuff out. What I will do, and I'll up to any... All commissioners, not just new commissioners, you know, anybody who wants it, and I will get get the information from you guys. I will sign you up and pay with the Town P card. That's how I did it last time and that seemed to work. Yeah. Thank you for reminding us. Thank you John.
Moving right along to second public speak. Just gonna take the opportunity to remind everybody, especially alternates to attend all the meetings that you can so that in case you do get seated like tonight and we have to vote on something, you're up to speed and that you don't have to go and watch the video or reread the notes again and especially if you know, there's this... Hopefully there's no unfortunate circumstances where a full member is out for more than a couple meetings in a row in anticipation of any things coming up. That way everybody's up to speed and you don't have to go cram and study for the next, etcetera. And once again, I'd like to welcome everybody, the new people aboard and thank you Jed for your service. Definitely. And
everybody thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for helping me learn the ropes and how to run the meeting and make sure that we're staying the course here. Yeah. I appreciate that. And also related to that, remind everybody that, think about, would you even talk amongst yourselves after the meeting who might be interested in inland wetlands watercourse agent. And I think I've used up enough the public speak. Anybody else? Okay. Moving right along. Approval of minutes.
Yeah, I do not have the September 26 minutes. Right, that was It's part of my best efforts to get them. So we'll have to table that for the next meeting. I'll
make a motion to approve public hearing and regular meeting minutes from Tuesday, 09/15/2026. Second. Thank you. Discussion?
We can abstain because I was just voted at that time. Okay. Yes. And I'm going to abstain since I was not present.
You guys have gone quiet. There... Is... Are you still there? Yes. Sorry, everybody was just double checking reviewing the minutes. Okay. I thought... Typo, but it's just missing the T in the... On page two, I don't know if it's on page two, there's... When we were section 24 definitions 24.3, just language and building, height of, it was missing the T. It's the only addendum that I could see. Corrections for the minutes. Okay.
You have a motion and a second. Thank you. And all
in favor of approving the minutes. As amended. As amended. Aye. Motion passes. Three zero two. Very good. Next regularly scheduled meeting, November 17, the held as hybrid meeting.
Thank you, Board of view, adjourn. You can do it by unanimous consent too. In favor, aye. Motion passes. Five, zero, zero.
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