Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning- Regular Meeting
June 16, 2026 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
welcome everybody. I'm going to call the Andover Planning and Zoning June 16th meeting to order and we're going to do the roll call. Present Dan Larson. I think William Hutchinson absent. Scott Pan called out and so we need to seat an alternate. Marie, would you be willing to get seated as alternate today?
Is Kevin here?
or Kevin seated last time. He might be online.
No, there's only those four that just there's only those three.
Yeah, I'm fine.
Okay, thank you. You're welcome.
Moving on to item three. We're going to add the agenda under new business add a B and we've received a special permit application. So, we're adding that for new business item B. All right. Public speak.
I I was surprised since there was no item on the agenda for filling the alert position. Thanks.
It's going to be posted this Friday and the Friday after.
Okay.
For I think have to be in by July.
So,
thank you.
It's on the website, but I haven't paid close attention to whether or not it's been print media. So, apparently didn't.
No, I didn't get in the timeline. I didn't get it in and so it has to go this week. public speak. Anything that's not on the agenda?
Hearing none. Moving on. All right. Item five, old business. we're starting off with Scott Electric Press.
All right. I send I believe email.
I should just show you this over here.
All right. that roll out post
what I share with you.
Jonathan, you let me share.
yeah, sure. I think we've seen this, right?
Go for it.
All right. So, I'm assuming everyone in here has driven past us a bunch of times on six. we're enter I've found the construction that we've decided to go ahead with on this expansion project. We're looking to add about 11,000 square feet to our current footprint. we proposed this addition in this floor plan layout that you see right here. And essentially just looking to kind of keep the straight line from the latest edition all the way down to the end of the parking lot, but we would like to keep the little slight rumbout from the restaurant. This would bring our total footprint we believe to 34,000 square feet probably.
So the restaurant that was there that front that def facade that's going to stay the way it is.
It's going to be
it's going to be torn down, but we want to keep that footprint.
We're going to keep the same footprint.
We're not coming closer to the road.
No, just keeping that same footprint. We'd like to keep that front for like a break room for our employees.
Wayne, I I I don't believe this is shared with everyone. I I can see the the overhead projector on the screen, but it's not shared on Zoom. Do you want to try sharing your screen again?
Okay, here. I'm sorry.
Okay, here it comes. Thank you. Yes, you'll see on the both edition there's that slight bump out there. That is part of the the restaurant of the floor plan that we would like to keep in our expansion project. So, my zoning only question for you guys really was u the to do with the parking mix that's going to be in front. How far from the edge of Route Six is that do you think do you think is this just an exceptional? Yeah, I have this screenshot of
it's actually further away from West there now.
So, if you look at that little floor plan right there, you'll see in the front of the current the old restaurant that we actually have parking already out in front of the building. The parking will eventually go up along the perimeter of the latest addition. So, it'll the parking lot will be closer to the building than it is now.
Okay. So, where you're parking now in front of the the restaurant?
Yeah. That's no longer going to be there. You're going to be along the perimeter of the building
on the of the latest edition.
The right hand side.
Yeah. Right here. This gray part right here.
Well, this over here.
no. But this is route six. So right here is existent pavement that comes around. So this is all going to go away. So what's paved there is kind of being pushed back and there's a lot that's in over here right now. Correct.
Which is
that way that's all building,
right?
Yeah. So So we're we're a little further away from
Route six than we we are now.
Okay. Correct. We currently employ around 50 employees and by doing this we believe we get up to 75 to 80.
You have to add on like you set there you will
I I believe what they have there will will work but we'll have to look at it. I I think they have a 100% reserve build. You do have to they right now they have a pump within the proposed addition. So that will just be moved out
and brought out. So
right
but that's something we we're talking concept right not talking actual
correct. Yeah
this is going to change.
This is going to look different. This is just like a highle idea as to you know what we want to accomplish here in the coming months. you will you'll likely have to I don't know if it's the state that actually or is it Eastern Islands that does the
for the septic
? Yeah.
We'd have an engineer design it,
right?
And then and then it would go from there,
right? So the study has to be done and to be deter.
It's it's going to be almost certainly local approval. it would have to it would have to kick up over 5,000 gallons a day
to have to deal with the state
and septic for industrial business type buildings is pretty
Yeah. No, it's just it's just about flow. It's just about what how much what's the volume put into the ground.
Wayne, last time we were talking there was a question came up about the distance to the road.
Right. Right. Did we find anything in the existing file or anything like that?
I believe there was an allowance in the last edition from 2010 I believe was 66 ft or so from the road.
Yeah. So there's been like three three different additions to this.
That's correct. Yeah. the one of them was done with site plan approval because it met all setbacks and two were done with special permit and in I sent it to you guys section 23 something the commission has discretion to reduce the setbacks for business and industrial. So, if they're not going any closer to the street than what already exists, I think they should be okay.
I don't disagree with that. I'm just trying to figure out how the logic, you know, got us there. It was a surprise to me to hear that for the business zone, it was 100 ft from the edge of the road, right? as opposed to the center line which is everybody else. I didn't know if that's an error in regulations or whatever. So I curious what you found out looking back at that.
Yeah, I I I sent that section of regulation to the commission. remember that allowed by special permit for the reduction in that 100 ft setback. So that's how I believe that the that's how I believe that that the restaurant was placed closer than 100 ft to the road. And there went another addition that ended up being closer than 100 ft to the road that was approved. This addition isn't going any closer to a road than what's already there as I can tell.
No, it's not. What you're looking at is essentially what it's going to be, right? So from my perspective, I think this
is going to square it all off.
This proposal can be supported by existing regulations.
Yes. The only other thing going through my mind is there probably a requirement, you know, for some storm water remediation because the addition that's going into it. Well, they have in the back corner that you can see they have an existing retention basin, sedimentation basin. So I mean we may have to increase the size of
Yeah.
And then that goes down into the hot bird right
so we would just need to see those calculations.
Yeah. I mean that's something for the civil engineer to think about.
Yeah. You're going to be adding impervious surface. So you'll have to do something in an industrial business zone to handle any additional storm water.
So you said this is a concept that we hoping to break ground
probably spring.
Spring of next year. Yeah. We just last week now it's been going on for a few months now. But last week we just got the financial appro approval from our owner to go ahead with it and we gave Zlotnik the green light to start going ahead and finding a some design team to move forward. So hopefully this time next year there's some metal frames going up and we're in there by next fall or so. And here just kind of an idea of what we're looking for the front. Dress it up a little bit. So it'll look much cleaner on route six.
The existing building footprint was
It is really
Yeah. They just kept adding on wide variety of different 67,000 square foot additions over the course of time. Yeah.
And now we have more than enough work and looking to bring on five more employees here in the coming weeks. Scale up to next year, be up to 80. So we have a lot of exciting things going on.
your business hours currently are just first shift. Just first shift.
First shift. Yeah. 7 to 3:30. you guys are anticipating a second shift and whatever say 10 years down the line 5 10 5 years down the line and something we might have to consider but not in the immediate term at all.
Yeah, I was just noticing like we didn't address lighting. I mean I know these are specifics but these keep it in mind.
Yeah.
under new constructions we have dark sky compliant in our rights. So that's just that in mind.
Yeah. Well, there's that light they put up there at the intersection right in front. That's temporary, right?
Oh, the traffic lights.
Yeah.
Well, I guess it was a dream that it wouldn't be per
No, I know. I know. A while back, we tried getting a piece of land bought off from them to the there's the lot adjacent to us
e for parking, but it's under forestry agreement, I believe, for the next two years. So, the owner doesn't want to sell. All right. Any other discussion from the commission?
All right. Okay. So, so next step for you guys at least from the zoning perspective. Well, you do need you need to go to wetlands first before you you come to you go to zoning to zone. So you have to make the application to inland inland wetlands commission and you can make the you can do the fill the forms out at the same time but they have to approve this or it has to be approved by in the lands before zoning can act on the application. Sounds good. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Evening chairman. Miami is Peter Valley and I am president CEO of design professionals incorporated happens to be an 18 person multi-disiplinary practice to offices in South retained by LK Holmes LLC of Mansfield John Callahan secretary one of our three clients to perform planning civil engineering architecture and land surveying services are associated with the development they previously presented to him in April conceptually before we're involved. Also with me tonight from design professionals or VPI is Lauren Melo to my right. He's a licensed professional engineer in Connecticut and other states. She's our director of operations experienced civil site civil engineer and she is also accredited with the congress on new urbanism which is at the forefront of some of the stuff that
people are doing with respect to site design. our clients here. well, we mentioned Sean is here on Zoom is Gavin Duffy. He's was on earlier. I think he's still on
and not with us tonight. He's the last few.
Oh, he's on too. Okay. He's zoomed in. Okay. The four is also on the third of the three. so as they explained in in April, it's a large site on the south side east of Route 87. This can be signal signal at the in the back of properties of Columbia Town line once known as Rosewood Acres, a subdivision that was approved by expired and and is therefore null void designers. So that's that's the fun. we're here to present to you our thoughts and preliminary layout for the concept layout for a mixed use development hat our clients are proposing and they would like to develop it under the and under Andover's mixed use floating zone. That's sections 26 of your regulations. major components we talk about only highlight those. Lauren's going to get into much more detail than I am, but 110 multif family units along with a commercial component with a 15,000 foot building up along six for a visor retail or office or other uses. We believe the uses are listed in the B commercial zone are the limited uses. and also a 40,000 foot self storage facility also along Route 6 but accessible and by one of the new streets
that Martin will go over. and that may or may not require a zone the B zone. It's a little bit gray area at my reading of the regulations. I've been doing this for 50 years attending government and 40 since we started this 40 years ago, but it looks like we might need a zone change for the underlying zone Bzone for the commercial areas. If not, if it's just what's allowed into the B zone, even though we're the underlying zone is residential for almost every part of this little exception. and then facing northwest corner on Route 6. we may require a zone change to the B zone first along with some zoning text amendments that I'll talk to the new about in a minute. also the self storage use although the definitions identify self storage in your regulations they have a maximum unit size for self storage units. I don't see this in the B zone and I don't see it referenced anywhere in your clothing zone either. So I would think that that would need to be added to if you were want to entertain the self storage to beef up our commercial part of this component this I would think that would require a zoning text amendment relatively simple process to allow in the B zone. Therefore then I think it's automatically allowed in a floating zone if you were to prove that. So,
so going back just a minute. Yeah.
I was trying to keep up with you when you talked about the visit
and that would be to to because the storage units that you've got there are in the residential are not. So, the entire property is in a residential zone with the exception of a tiny piece well under an acre. I don't know the exact size we've done on the survey, but the northwest corner six. So
where the where the stores are.
Yes. Yeah. Okay.
So So what we're proposing is that u and and this is my thought on reading it interpreting the requisition and you guys wrote it and I I didn't but I'm reading it as we're doing it for the first time. I I'm suspecting that we might make it clean when we go for a zoning text for some things that don't work for this development or it could be better written in terms of getting through the process with the commission. Maybe not make it quite as long, but we'll see. But at least it's crystal and clear what we're doing. It's allowed by the regulations. I I think it maybe needs to have a zone change wherever we're proposing commercial into the B zone as the underlying zone. And then there's overall you would approve the overall development under the mixed juice flooding zone. It's an overlay zone. So I that's my interpretation so far. John I spoke to him briefly this afternoon. He may agree with that or may once we get into the week I'm a player. face planner a long time, but maybe we can work past that out and see what they think and he can confer with Mr. Guardian and other commissioners how you may want to pursue on that point.
Could I just jump in real quick?
Yeah.
So, for the record, John Gusowski, town consulting planner. I there so there's a couple of things that I think need to happen. The the first is whether or not this property needs reszoning, which is to say a a designation change. My read is not. and I'm going to read specifically from section 26.2, which is applicability for the the mixeduse floating zone. This says this floating zone may be applied to any lot or assemblage of lots with owner consent located in the area designated business or industrial on the Andover zoning map or which has fee simple frontage on route six. The recommended minimum size is three acres. However, the commission may
consider smaller lots. So, there are two criteria. either you're you're zoned industrial or business or you have frontage on Route 6. And whereas as you know this you pointed out this is not entirely zoned business or residential. There's there's a split but the overall property now that the subdivision has been dissolved. This entire property has direct fee simple frontage on Route 6. And so by virtue of that, it is my interpretation it does not need a a change of zoning district. It is eligible. I'm I'm happy to hear arguments to the contrary. It's at the top of the next page, Wayne. it's the first paragraph. but but there are some text amendments within section 26 the mixeduse floating zone that will need to be changed to enable this specifically relative to runage on town roads because there there will be a subdivision necessary for this but I think broadly within the master planned concept it's possible I think you know some text amendments will be helpful to make this cleaner And then the second element is right now there is a cap on the blend between commercial square footage and residential square footage that we would need to amend in order to enable something that is by far more
residential in terms of its square footage. So we but as Peter said we can hash out those specifics. but I think to the first question about eligibility as is I think it is eligible as is. I I like what you're saying and I saw that. I saw the French thing, but I didn't want to go too liberal of a determination on that or interpretation of that, but I like that. So, if you're of the opinion and the commission shares that that we don't have to go for a zone change to the underlying zone to B because it's in the B zone, anything's in the B zone, that's great. We still need to do zoning text matter. Another thing is it says reference is three acres. That could either be the overall
track size before you can apply or it means individual lots you create within this zone the floating zone.
I I think it's I think it's the assemblage of lots should be you know the the lot or assemblage of lots to land the zone
and then we'll discuss some of these plots are under three acres that we're going to be proposing. So that's important. okay then that's very very helpful. Thank you John. so we are so the regulations call for a mix in the end of them I noticed mix of studio one and twobedroom units we have been talking to our clients about all two-bedroom units they have some experience in the multif family in this immediate area and they like the market for two-bedroom units they've had some other unit styles that been slower. They don't allow threebedroom units by the way according to the regulations. So and they had some issues with those renting them. so we have discussed the possibility of maybe adding some studio and onebedroom units but it's the question is your regulations right now read a mix of studio one and two bedroom
units whereas right now we're only thinking about two bedroom units approximately 1200 square ft of size or so. So the question is, are you okay with doing all two bedroom or do you want to adhere to have some more studios in one bedroom? A lot of places, a lot of communities in Connecticut have never hit studio units. So we don't know what the market is. There's not much in the way of apartments in this town. So we don't know exactly what it will be in Andover, but the overall area of a sense for that. So there are a lot of benefits to studio units. I've got other clients who've done them. and also onebedroom units. but I I I don't know what the thinking was for the commission when you first went through that exercise of adopting these regulations. Do you truly want to see a mix? We could do that, but the question is how many how many unit studios and one bedrooms would you require? And we don't know what that is. Maybe that's what we work with John on and get feedback on a commission may very well be the way to go. so we can continue this process. Well, unless anybody has a strong feeling on that, we'll just move on to some of the other items.
We have a question. Go ahead.
I was going to ask you before you mentioned that why you were you were proposing entire nothing but two-bedroom units. I would think it would be a little bit easier for you to market dump if there was some I don't have a percentage in mind, but if there were some onebedroom or studio units, it just seems to make a little more. But the population just started down
from my perspective. I think if we're doing this number of units, I think the market some studio one bedroom the question is how much if it's not a large requirement. They have an experience of like doing this in this immediate market within 10 miles or So they're concerned about getting into a commitment for units that may not rent in and over 6 and 87. So I guess maybe it's maybe it comes down to discussion about what kind of percentage you want or how many units or if you want some if it's you know if it's a relatively modest number you know that we can certainly discuss that but they they're comfortable with two better units and I know in the planning conservation development it's pretty strong you want to also as many communities around here we're an aging population like to get some families in here and I admire that you also don't have the problems that some communities around here have like where our office is and where I live reside where they have overcrowding schools and they don't want they just built four of them and they brand new ones and they're overcrowded and they don't want to have any children coming into town right now because of the the overcrowding but
bringing kids into the community I I like communities that have young families and children and welcome them and that's what I think you're trying to achieve with the surveys you've done and with the play concentration development. So I think that's a great idea to do it. So the two bedroom does that but the onebedroom and the studios tend to take tend to not accommodate children. So that's one factor looking back at that. But you know you need every every community in Connecticut needs additional housing of all types. So, I think this is a good starting point and I think we can maybe get some feedback. John can confer with you and get some feedback on what you prefer, what you'd like, what you're comfortable with. so that could be part of the U zing text amendment.
And we've had a lot of discussions on the commission in the last several years and even more so recently about, you know, what's affordable by definition. you know, seniors or people just starting out. from an affordability point of view, people who want to stay in town but want to downsize.
people who don't necessarily have children, people who are, you know, minimalist, but I think for those reasons, I'd be interested in some percentage of it.
Okay.
Smaller than two bed.
Yeah. We had discussion the other day in our office and so it's not new discussion. So, we already know we we didn't make any decisions and we wanted to hear from you first and from John as well and Wayne about what their thoughts were on that. but yeah, it's out there right now. The regulations say that if you want to change from that or if you just want to say, yeah, we want we don't need to have a large number of studios in one. I wouldn't want to have for example all studios or all one bedroom. I can't be a big mistake. but having some in there may be prudent and a good idea for the community and because there's some single adults, kids who get out of graduate from your high school school system here, random and stuff and they may they can't afford much other than maybe a onebedroom or or a studio or even with someone else. So, and that's what if they have a roommate, which is what my kids did, they had a roommate and they shared it even though sometimes they're a stranger. my daughter, you know, ran with another young lady and they had a twobedroom. They both had their own bedroom and worked out in a shared kitchen area. So, so that's why two bedrooms work a lot
of times. they tend to always work. but the cost is higher and there's there are different markets. Yeah.
You also require them all to be two stories, which is what they're thinking of, twotory townhouse. But if we want to do a studio or one bedroom, we start getting unless you want to get into stairs or a second and I've done those developments in the last 10 years, plenty of them where you walk up to the second floor for a different unit and then we were proposing and proposing a garage with every unit attached garage and it gets interesting when you get into studios and one bedroom and some are above others and can you fit in another garage or not? Do they are are
the lower cost studio units? they have their own garage or not. Those are those are questions we need to address. But I I think we can I think I think we'll be able to accommodate a lot of your concerns. In fact, in order to get approval, we will. So, no question.
We we just we just kind of need to know what kind of numbers you guys are looking at. I mean, preferably leave the studios out is what my preference would be. but to go down to the the handful or so onebedrooms
and and what Peter was talking about, we we had the discussion office a couple days ago was to put those onebedrooms kind of in a section by themselves so that if there was a husband and wife who had a child, they're not on the outsides of a one bed. So we, you know, if if you sat here and told me, "Hey, we need seven one beds at a for you guys to move forward with this project." We would find a spot, well, like this one over here or something, and those would all be one bedrooms in that whole something like that.
So in that case, they wouldn't be dispersed throughout the room, but they'd also one bedroom would be you're not you're unlikely to have a second floor. I would thank you. So, one bedroom would likely be a ramp style unit,
which is a different architectural style.
There are other there's considerations like that.
And did you say there's a garage proposed for every single unit?
Yes.
Attached right there with a unit.
Yeah.
This is the original. I mean, we obviously we just took this offline, but that
architecture
looking to build.
All right.
Now, I'm not saying it's going to be the exact same, but that's roughly what we're looking to do.
Underneath there with your entry door, two bedrooms upstairs,
and that's in that document presented in April.
It'll be a bath and a half.
And so, if you go into studios also, they're proposing a bath and a half. And I like that idea of a bath and a half for a two-bedroom unit. if we go down into a studio, I've never seen one with more than one full bath. Yeah. When you have to have a full bath, and I've never seen one and a half baths for a studio, but they probably exist. actually a real high-end house once it was 5,000 square feet, but it's different on the coast. But, and I'm sure they couldn't sell it to anybody else after that, otherwise had a beautiful view, whatever. But, yeah. And in a onebedroom, typically those one bedrooms are one bath instead of one and a half. Since
you get two or more, I it's one and a half or two or two and a half bathrooms. So,
which is fine. It'll just be a slightly different design the architect than what we're going to be building in other areas. That's why I I would prefer not to have an architect do five, six different designs because obviously that gets very costly. So, if I can just do, hey, these are all one bedrooms and they're one bath and you got a row of six, you got a row of seven, there you go.
With a nice steep pitched roof, which is what I think you encourage a ranch style one floor living for a building like that could be very attractive. And they're only talking to people, architects, prospective architects who do really nice work and they're beautiful. So,
so are you on the commission when we approve this session? No.
Okay. So, I know the the original village no mixed use commercial residential was the intent was more like
single people that might be working in the shops there, you know. So, this is like a different application. You know, the original intent of I think 15 or 20 years ago was a lot different than it is now, too. Plus, the market's changed. there's less brick and mortar commercial property. So go ahead say you so I don't think anybody here maybe the average involved in that but this the first go through a mixed huge thing so you're you're giving it a hard look. Yeah, they're coming up with good questions. You know, whenever you write the procedure and you never really used it, you do the best you can. I thought it was pretty good. But, the, there's going to be a lot of things that we're going to have to, you know, sort out with you a little bit. If we have to
change it, you know, and Lauren and I learned for 13 years and me for 50 years, 10 years in regulatory investing. I've seen a lot of res and our firm has done about a thousand residential contracts that could be as little as an addition house all the way up to a large multif family development registry all that stuff. So we we have a lot of experience in there we'd like to share with you as we go forward. some other things. yeah, in terms of the mixture, John mentioned we may have to do a text member regarding the mix. If we had
right now, if they're all 1,200T units, we'd be and based on we have a self storage 40,000 ft and a 15,000 foot building, could be retail, could be medical office, what have you. out front six. and that's 55,000 ft of commercial total. if they're 100% 1,200 square foot twobedroom units would be slightly over that ratio. You want 66% residential maximum and 33% commercial minimum. so it' be a little bit worse that if we if we add in some studios and one bedrooms the total square footage drops and for example if we did all 1100 foot units we'd meet that threshold without a zoning tax for that. So just food for thought. So if we go into some studios which are typically like 500 square feet or whatever somewhere in that range or 450 500 600 ft per studio and one bedrooms can be you know a bit larger than that but not much larger they don't need to be 800 ft but still those those we can we can reduce it. So that alone may bring us to meet that requirement without needing a zoning
text amendment for that because I've seen zoning regulations like this where you like to have a good ratio. You want to have about a third commercial and 2/3 residential max. This is not not that atypical for regulations that I've seen. I remember from the last time you guys were here that this represents phase one, but you have some other land here that you were thinking about for for later development. So, so what we ended up doing was was was Lauren and Peter got together and they actually moved, if you look on the on the bottom here, this this was in our original, we've got some houses here now.
Yeah.
And they moved the storage units down towards the loop six here so they can be seen from group six.
So there would there would no longer be a phase two.
Okay. It's all one large savannah without any land held in escrow, but they will have to face the building to building for financing reasons and marketability. You can't you drop them all on the market units or pay taxes on and building permanent fees ahead of time before they leave and they don't like
I like where you put them because where where the original proposed was is it's backing up Colombia.
Yeah. and like eight different properties and they all have back porches. They will be looking right on the storage room. So, I think that was smart to put them in the front just by personal opinion.
Lauren did that.
Yeah, I tell you what, she she's really talented and she's running our whole site design unit now studio at the office. and it will show as she goes into that. so also, oh, by the way, so we're still talking about the multif family would be sprinkler. you're still talking about that.
We're going to have to sprinkle.
That's right. with a tank in the basement and then a
well it's again I don't think if
these guys are going to care either way more the fire marshall but
depending on on what we can do it will either be one very large underground tank
and that would feed all the sprinkler structures we'd have to run pipe in the ground to feed everything or it will be tenants in the basement on separate pumps which may just get way too costly to It'll be up to the fire
and like a lot of people we've been doing which are owner occupied housing and stuff. They're retaining ownership. They're invested for the long haul. they're they're coming in the whole thing maintaining all that. question because we were talking about text amendments and and stuff like that. So, I have up here this 15,000 square foot limitation on retail space and you're proposing 40,000 square foot of self storage.
I don't know if that's considered retail space or not. now even so that's it just seems to me that I don't know if it it shouldn't be an impediment if if the commission you know is isable but but it seems to me that that 40,000 square foot of of self storage either should be reszone business or something needs to be done to the mixed use mixed use section to accommodate that.
Well, it's not going to be one 40,000 square foot building or even three of them. It's it's they're going to be broken up. I mean, on on the
same the 15,000 square foot retail space and and then you have some additional space that is going to be commercial commercial use. Let's put it that way.
Yeah. Yeah. And and I think that's the intent of the regulation was to have that third of the development square footage to be commercial,
right? But it doesn't exactly that,
right? And jobs.
I'm just saying it doesn't the regulation has written I don't think specifically addresses.
I agree.
So you think we need to address the regulation on the square footage for the commercial building? I think you need I I would like me I would like to see words in there that that address commercial uses other than that retail space.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what we intend to work with you and John on.
Right. Okay. That that's all I'm saying.
Yeah. No, that's good. Thank you. so because it's it does anything that's allowed in a business zone or an industrial zone is allowed in a mixeduse zone, but neither one of those zones talk about self storage.
Yeah. Right. Yeah, we definitely add that somewhere into the regulations. You have a great definition, but it's not applied anywhere in the reg. I don't even think it's in the industrial world.
No, it's not. Lauren knows. and also and Lauren could get into that. You know, we're going to be having a wells and septic system that makes it a lot easier when we design development projects on public water and public sewer. There's no comparison. Lots of issues come up. There are a lot of soils testing allar. And also it kicks into can we handle it with was it Eastern Highlands? I think the the health district here pretty sure we dealt with them a lot and dealing with them where we have to kick it up to the state D which means we won't be seeing them break ground for a long time because the pro it's a long process get approval. So if we that's why we want to split it up into lots one or two buildings for the residential will be on a building lot and that's why we we need to address that with wing and and also with John about how we address that and whether or not it's on a municipal street which would be easy to carve out the lots or if it's on a private street we have to have regulations that allow for a private street and then frontage on a private street which is irregular but it's done.
So there are those issues here, but we have to have them on separate lots so we can have the maximum per lot not he needing was 7500 or 5,000
7500 gallons per day per day. as soon as we kick into that over that we're at D and she's been through a long process on other projects. We don't want to go there and he does Sean does not want to go there. It'll be a lot of money, a lot more money, a lot more expertise and and and we don't know when we'll put a show ground. It's too far in the future. based on our collective experiences. let's see.
if I might add, we had our economic development commission meeting last night and that got brought up. there's at least one maybe two local companies that can do those kinds of systems if you need it. So just
system.
Yeah. for that that capacity. There's there's newer techniques and newer systems I mean that are more efficient.
The more prices you can get from people down be obviously better.
Yeah.
People are at least very mobile next time.
Well, this this was electric over here, right?
Guys were here for electric.
I don't think they're electricians. Do they build?
They're manufactured.
Yes. Electrical component manufactur. But yeah, I'll have or you reach out to the economic development chair Ela Bark and she'll get you some names.
Yeah, they they want they want to have list of vendors so they can get local prices as much as possible and and and and have reasonable price cost for the overall development. so we're thinking about right now there would be three planning and zoning commission applications. So the first one is definitely a zoning text amendment that requires public hearing by state law. And after we work it out with Wayne and John and they confer with you, we'll want to go forward with that. hopefully they can confer with you so we don't have to have another informal because it's just another month, another month, another month. So we're hopeful that they can work that out with you and get the details we need for the zoning text amendment we would be submitting. so that's one of them. and it may be a
zoning application to the Bzone part of it, but John is telling us he doesn't think we need to do that. So, if that is indeed the case, then we want to do that. We do it concurrently. So, that's the first application. Second application before you would be for the zone change itself to the floating zone and also for the master plan. And most communities have very similar regulations to a master plan. Master plan is basically a preliminary engineering plan. It's an advanced concept plan. it's not more detailed than that. You don't want to get into the heavy duty engineering learner staff to do that at great expense to our clients before we change. So we try to keep that down. But and and also in most towns we don't go to the wetlands commission for even though we're we're as she explained to you we have one proposal crossing of weapons to get in for route 87 but we don't go to the weapons commission for an application first because typically for weapons commission requires an
engineered cycle and you won't be level engineering to get all the details you need for a wetlands application. So we've typically done that after the zone change in master plan or general plan or advanced preliminary concept whatever you're going to call it. We go to the wetlands commission before you do approve the engineered site plan which you have in your regulations as a special permit which also automatically requires public hearing and we'll also be doing under that at that level we'll be doing the subdivision application. It's not a resubdion as Lauren had researched I guess the survey department. it's because the the the old subdivision's gone. We're not creating more lots. We're not changing the configures, whatever. We're starting from fresh from scratch. There's been no division of this property other than maybe one to first cut since the effective date of subdivision law and regulations in town of Andover. So so we see three that stand all required public hearings. First one being the zoning text amendment hostile zone change to be zoned which may be ruled out. We hope it is. second one is the the master plan concept and the zone zoning map change. and that is for the flooding zone to be applied to the property with the overall layout you've approved and understanding what we're doing without super detail
everything in details because they've been engineered and stuff like that. and then the third one would be the site engineered site plan with special permit as your regulations to read right now. If you want it toain remain a special permit has been public hearing by state law. If you decide again just enter your site plan because you've already seen the layout multiple times before that you've already liked it. You've approved it with the master plan and zone change application. So the question is do you need a special permit as well? it's just one a third public hearing, a third night. it extends it all out to meet once a month. Yeah. So we're talking about the long process for them get through wetlands and planning and zoning already. And then after that we have because we're over 100 multif family units, we automatically we'll have to go to the state office of office of state traffic administration which is DOT for a state traffic permit. and that will take within four to five months minimum after our engineers traffic engineers not our office another office has more expertise in that who will be or really adept at that and that'll take them once they submit it's probably after we get our engineered site approval maybe before that maybe after master plan but I think engineering site that's another four to five months and possibly concurrent with that probably concurrent with that will be the DP permit which is I call it storm water discharge firm weather but there is storm water pollution prevention plan anyways it's it's got one title on that but that's because it's over 20 acres of disturbance of the site it's
a big site large site is will get into that's about 4 and a half months process probably for us to do the u storm application for them DP application then give it to a third party review another engineering furnace to review it and That's like a month and a half minimum. And then we submit and it's about 90 days because it's over 20 acres. Is that correct? Is a 90-day process. Normally 60, but with these pig application. So that' be so so we're talking another 4 and a half months. So about same time frame as a step. Plus it could be even longer than that. and there are other steps involved. We need to look at it. Does state historic preservation office require an archaeological study? we can't submit
to the EP without knowing that. so there are other consultants involved. So it's a it's a long process and we want to get going on that. this site could be the this property could be the highest taxpayer in town handover. I think the highest right now is ever source because of lines you run through. I don't think they have any major substations here. well I'm pretty sure they don't. because I saw their number just AI this afternoon looking at it said the highest top taxpayers in town. it doesn't sound like there's enough to justify that they are covering a big substation. So this this probably will be one of the top one, two or three taxpayers in town.
So I think it's good. And also a lot of people don't take into consideration you get the motor vehicle taxes for one or two cars per household. You'll also get the you get the real property taxes, you only get personal property taxes for the commercial. it's the inside elements of of building whatever you have in there equipment for an office what have you retail and then also the building permit fees for something this large sorry and he knows that he pays them all the time but Sean and and Gavin and and Leslie that's a big number and a lot of people don't
consider economic development commissioning talking about that but I do a lot of projects and they it's a big number for the building permit fees so much per thousand value of the work and it's a big number also. So that's a benefit to significantly to the town. It's a res it's a revenue source for the town. we report on the plan conservation development you already know you've seen it but it really supports this type of development wholeheartedly and has other reasons we said I'm not going to get into a lot of details but the master plan the plan conservation development is a great guide for land use and I think it's consistent what we're proposing here is very right on the money for that and and I think it's a great location for it in Andover there are a lot of locations where it could do something like this and this is one of them. A lot of challenges with getting septic systems to work and wells and stuff we code but it certainly looks as doable. So I'd like to do without me talking any further like turn it over to Lauren because she's the one who laid
this thing out beautifully in consultation with Sean and his partners and myself and even our landscape architect. So why don't we just turn it over her so she can explain what she came up with and why and how.
Thank you Peter. for the record, I'm Lauren Melo, registered or licensed professional engineer in the state of Connecticut. so Peter talked a lot about text amendments and the plan of development for Andover similar conceptual and preliminary engineering that we did for this. so the site which is outlined in a thick red outline that holds 56.5 acres. the property breakdown you see is a lot different than you saw in April where it had 10 lots and they were all like single family units on that old map that it's subdivision map. right now we're proposing 16 individual properties not including what we'd call public rightway that we can discuss with you tonight. and those are separated by the more the thinner red lines internal to the property. two of those like Peter mentioned are for business and commercial use. the remaining 14 of them will take beyond the residential. it's important to note there's
significant grade change. It's about 200 ft from the southern area of the site down to route six. So we're looking at a lot of rate change. on the plan green areas are shown for designated open space in recreation areas. it's they were really intentionally placed in areas that we think will be slightly flatter that people can gather. You can have like a playground or some kind of gathering space for people. the green clouded line would be the tree limits for the site. As you know the whole site is currently wooded. So that would be the clearing limits. we'll try to existing trees as much as possible. We want to limit breaking as much as we possibly can. the gray area is of course the roadways. Brown areas are the buildings. blue shaded areas are for storm water management. I'll get into that a little bit more later. the small blue circles, little blue dots are wells
that were strategically placed to avoid other utilities with setbacks to property lines and buildings and under drains that we would have to consider. there's a couple really thin, hard to see rectangles on this plan. Those would be the septic fields. There's one septic field per lot with exception of the the storage property, the storage building property lot because there's no there will be no septic and no water proposed for that. and then finally the thin black lines you might see are conceptual retaining walls wherever we think retaining walls might be. all right. For roadways, traffic circulation and pedestrian access, we know that was important to you in April, especially concerning emergency vehicle access and public school bus transportation. I would also add I'm sure mail delivery services and delivery services are important too. we would suggest a 20 foot maximum roadway width to com comfortably accommodate all those vehicles. The subdivision regulations currently say 30. but we find that doors appropriate, especially in a residential area to really slow down traffic. however, we're also trying on this plan or we considered a 6ft designated lane on that roadway that
would be dedicated just to walkers and to bikers and any kind of pedestrian living in the area. You can stripe that off. You can narrow the roadways with striping. but personally, I live in a subdivision. The roadways are 30 ft wide. We have sidewalks and no loop system because they're hard to maintain, especially with the very many streets. so we're proposing all that walking space really to be on the roadway for less maintenance for either the town or for the property owner. the roadways we'd like you to consider making them town roads mainly because you have more control over maintenance plowing at the width that we just talked about. We can always discuss that you have more control over what the actual design will be. and you really have the final say in how they're taken care of. Plus, with all these properties going in, one goal is to attract families to help that that plan of development. And of course, there'll be a lot of kids. There'll be multiple school bus stops throughout this because there's a considerable amount of roadway. There's over 6,500 linear feet of roadway here. and on the plan right now we would be within 6.7 acres of you'd say public rideway or it could be as Peter discussed earlier private roadway area. moving on to the connections. So we know that that's very important especially on Route 6. we're showing only one entrance and exit off of Route 6 and that is by lot one. and that will encourage access to that lot to that business development. that is about 1,200 ft from the Route 687 traffic light. There's there'll be plenty of sight lines. and we'll have to get the traffic engineer to look at it later on in the design. though we
feel like it's enough distance to avoid any kind of traffic indications there. the second main connection is on 87. That's on the south part the bottom of the page. That will require wetlands crossing. You can see that wetland line with the the thin line with like the little flags on it. There's a wetland scientist out there now flagging. and it's preliminary results are showing that the town math wetlands which are what these are based off of are relatively correct. so we're not expecting major changes to wetlands based on his analysis and his findings in that intersection. So I'm sorry going back to the wetlands crossing that'll either be in a form of a bridge gold crossing there will be template impacts the wetlands in that area for that. and that intersection is 2600 feet from the route 67 track. So it's well distributed. and then finally, we're proposing a third connection to the Lyn Homes Corner. that's at the top of the screen. There's currently a 30 sack there. Wayne Wayne and I spoke about this a couple weeks ago. and we encourage us looking at this just for another way out of the development. We're currently showing the only connection through the the roadway network. There's no direct connection between the lot one and that road. only to discourage any kind of delivery like large delivery trucks, tractor trailers
or box trucks exiting that area because there are a couple residential properties on that corner. but if you wanted a different design, it would it could be accommodated there, but there was a be something that we discuss.
I just suggested you think about it.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, it was a great suggestion. And on the grids work really well for that connection down there
only because it would make egress easier at the traffic light.
Yeah, absolutely.
But things may change and ultimately it's the commission's wishes that you you have to
follow. Yeah. So that needs to change. We can accommodate that too. We can make it loop. We can also we like to avoid golds just because they take up so much area for the
fire truck to maneuver to 100 foot diameter or just pavement.
so we probably connect that roadway back up either to the north or loop it around itself or do something different with those two buildings on lot two and then lot 16 that we're showing. but back to Lyn Homes Square that is where Lynh Homes connects to 87 that's 400 feet from the pathway to 87 and6.
Yeah.
How many miles of roadway did you say the development?
We have 6,500. So it's a little over a mile.
Yeah.
That's a lot of money.
Well, I guess that would be my next question. There you go. Do you build the road and then maintain it by the Dallas
by contractors? If you have public water and public sewer, the whole enchilada, all the utilities in more urbanized community, they're they're quoting off, to $1,200 running foot to build. In this case, without that 700, maybe $700 running foot to build a road without sewer and water. I'm guessing without swing mark to build the road $4 a square foot what $2 something dollar square feet.
Yeah. Yeah.
Lauren, can you the width of the road you you were planning for a 24 foot wide road? We'd like to for the commission and for John you commissioner 24 ft wide for the vehicular terminal paths. Yeah.
The six foot lane for pedestrian bikes whatever is something that that in your mind is optional.
Optional. It's really it would be really great connect connectivity between the entire site. you know that the residents are going to be walking.
Would that be pave or gravel lane? It looked like the street just pavement markings on it. Y
okay. So you would there'll be a 30 foot wide road with with a 6 foot wide like pedestrian lane
and all over the place. They're taking big wide streets and then they're creating multimodal pathways for bicycles for people to walk and all stuff all over. It slows down traffic a bit too. So you narrow them down the street. The traffic speeds go down and there's also a safe area where you have six feet so people can walk up rest and not be in the street. And and a typical 4ft sidewalk doesn't really work for a lot of things. Bicycles
trollers,
strollers you know three people walking together side by side. whereas with six feet we find that to work very well.
But there's no barrier, right? There's no barrier between that and the the street, but there would be markets.
I'm not a traffic engineer, but the way this is presented here, it would not present in an attractive shortcut between 60 and 80s.
No,
correct. And the roadway right turn on red.
The roadway was deliberately laid out to work with the grades because there's such a grade change. it was really the pathless least resistance. The subdivision regulations call for a 15% or less slope on the road here.
15% is pretty steep.
It's very steep. It's very very steep. The maximum we have here based on available LAR, which is a little iffy, is about 12%. The worst% steep.
It's very steep, but it's a short section.
It's a short section. It's right around the curb on lot 10 between lot 10 and lot
nine
the skiers who live there.
Yeah. Yeah. so we did
look to minimize the roadway slopes. other than that it'll max out around 8%. Besides that in the 12% area it's around 8%. there's several areas of 5% everything in front of the buildings. we just assumed was very flat. so you'll have like that long stretch like right in the middle of the screen right there. Like that whole stretch is very you can walk that and you probably wouldn't be able to tell there's pre change. so it and it the scale is 100 one one to 100. So it's deceiving. but again there will be sections of steep life. it's unemployable
and that'll be all planned by Lauren once she and her staff have the survey to all done survey graves. Yeah.
And then we can refund.
Have you have you worked into the plan snow storage
a little bit? for lot with the storage built units we definitely did. so there's like a little bit more pavement on the end. our land of architect actually was in snow removal for a short amount of time. So, she operated the truck, so she recommended having a large area. They just push snow off in in that section. On lot one, you can see like there's that big white area kind of in the south of the lot one corner. You can pile snow there. That blue rectangle would be underground detention on top of a problem. And then for interior state really any of the open space areas could be temporary snow storage at some point.
the the reason why I'm asking is the concern about the walkability. I could definitely imagine that the the road the the clouds come by, it just piles up where that walk where that walking space is
and then the kids have a known trying to get to each other. They're they're walking in the street.
That that should be a rare occurrence. They should be plowing the full 30 ft and pushing it off to the sides. So, as soon as they get to a break in the driveways and stuff. So, I I think that should be a problem with, as we all know, we live in New England. Sometimes we get a 30-inch snowstorm and it surprises us. And then it's a problem for every site. What do you do with accumulated snow? It's not designed for a 30in snowstorm or a 24 in for that matter. In fact, the equipment can't even move through it. You got to bring in front and loader. So that that's special circumstance, but there are lots of areas for you to push snow off of the roadway and off the multimodal pathway as part of that 30 ft.
Yep.
Width.
Yep. Any anywhere you really don't see green space. I shouldn't say any area, but a lot of the area would be steep slopes. So like 5 to1, 31, and you can push snow down there and it can be out of the way. open space requirements is a 15% or less slope in those areas. So we we show the green areas wherever we can where we feel like we can flatten it out a little bit. So the white areas there's opportunity for
and there's a lot of road for that driveway.
Lots of the the open space in the the center. Yeah.
it looks like I can't see it very well. It looks like there's some topology there. Is it are you going to be flattening that out? So
that's a great question. on the original mapping, it's kind of hard to see if there's like this, thin dotted line in that green area if it's conference.
And we need to do a little more research, especially with our survey department, to really understand what that is, if it's actually in place, if it needs to be m maintained and untouched. if it it if it is okay to develop in there. we'd recommend putting some type of storm water detention and management feature in there. There's a low spot. I believe when we were talking with Sean Leslie Gab at one point they were saying that it was an old gravel pit. so it is a depression in the very long sloping area that is screaming for storm water management. so you can have a beautiful open space area with walking trails and stuff in there.
Can't tell she's a sibling. so yeah, but right now we're leaving it as green space just to reserve that area in case we can't currently wooded.
It's all wooded. Yeah. Yeah.
Right.
So that may it may have been proposed part of the subdivision.
Right.
And then maybe said hey I put an ement there all stuff
and an easement doesn't exist is my understanding unless it's been recorded. and you know it's usually indeed for that purpose without just because it's not a map doesn't mean it's needed. I think this space for the space he was giving wasn't he giving land John
with the subdivision typically that would be like a dedicated area that's converted to open space that that would have been a requirement back for that back
it's still a requirement for a subdivision either open space or fee in lie of open space we have we have plenty of time for open space
I'm sorry did did Wayne just answer the question or or was there a separate question for me?
I think I answered the question about
Okay. Yeah. Subdivision.
Yeah.
All right. Great. moving away from the roadway and just like focusing a little bit on the lots. lot one shows a 15,000 square foot building, which is the maximum currently allowed into the business zone, which we spoke about earlier. you can have multiple tenants in there or it can be a single use like a medical office or something like that. it's yeah, lot one next.
It's a commercial building.
Commercial building. It's that big table away from the 90,000 square feet. That's the loft size. That's confusing. Yeah. Yeah.
It just happened to be it just
over.
I didn't place that. so what you can see on the screen, you can also envision that to be a grocery store. There's a space for a loading area. we're showing 78 parking spaces which is greater than Angelber's regulations which allow for I believe it's two to five spaces for small commercial centers. and right now we're at 78 which is three over the the five limit. hitting the maximum would have been 75. So we're three three spaces extra. And then you'll notice all the parking's behind the building as per the regulations. we talked a lot about the storage units earlier. but I just wanted to touch upon the parking really quickly. there's four parking spaces proposed. and like we said earlier like the text amendments to really better define what self storage looks like and what's allowed is kind of needed. four kind of typical three to four for other towns in the area. So we show that. We also showed dumpster locations on both sites and accounted for garbage truck removal and garbage
truck maneuvering and refu removal for that. and then lot one's about 2.1 acres and lot three is 4.9 acres in total. and then for the residential buildings that's on the remaining of 14 lots. It totals 41.1 acres. the lots are anywhere between 1 to 5 and 1/2 acres each and that's really dependent on the spatial requirements for utilities and what's available in the area landwise for those buildings and lots. Each building contains six to eight units. and basements are being considered. and then finally, we tal we spoke about each of them having a garage, but each wall have a 25 foot long ride. so you'll have that extra parking space in front of their garage. architecture is still being discussed. Sean, Gavin, and Leslie have been talking a few architects and are getting one on board soon. so everything may change. but we've also discussed together walk out basement and using the buildings as retaining walls or retaining back some of the grade in some areas to really working with the grade. and then finally, there are 10 really small parking lots like scattered throughout the development. You'll notice they're in like near near open space areas or between units and that's for consideration of like visitors. Yeah, visitor lots. and there's 55 spaces total for that. okay. So, then just talking a little bit more about grading the topography. our goal, is to minimize earthwork like we mentioned before, but also retaining walls. Like, we want to grade the site out. We don't want massive retaining walls and just any wall in
your backyard. that's never a good book.
And they're expensive.
They're expensive. and then we talked a lot about open space, but we're also committed to keeping a lot of open space areas with that less than 15% slope. and then my only other note on that we talked about was the conservation ement that we'll address when we get more into survey. and then just to finish things up on like the civil conceptual level, I just want to talk about like storm water utilities and environmental things. as I mentioned, the wetland scientist is actively delineating the wetlands on site now. He's finishing up this or next week. afterwards we'll do an A2 boundary survey along with T2 or topography. It depends on where we are on the site. T2 is a little more detailed. T3 is a little less detailed. So T2 will use in those areas that are more sensitive like near the wetlands, near Route 6, near 87, you know. for storm water management, those are the bigger blue areas you'll see on the screen. we are suggesting that there are at least two townmaintained or property owner maintain large detention basins. ones right there in that green square. that could also double as open space. That pond there would manage all of the storm water runoff from the roads, a
vast majority from the buildings because it would all flow down there. we can manage it in order to clean it, detain it, slowly releasing it to the Route 6 state system that's in that roadway. the second one, we have a smaller one a little bit down as well. And then of course we can do one in the open space conservation easement if they can flow too. we're envisioning those doubling as the fire suppression ponds for the bumper trucks when they they need water. There's ways designing those basins so they don't infiltrate and they hold water in their wet ponds. so we can look into that. and then for lot one and lot two, the commercial pieces, we'd like to handle the storm water separately for those. Quite honestly, it's because they're down slope of everything, so the water is already running that way. lot three would be easy. You can do a a surface pond close to Route 6 before discharging to the state system and that roadway. And then lot one be subsurface. And you can see that blue rectangle there. we can put a subsurface storm water
system in there. and of course we're open to working with Wayne and with John on those systems and what they'd like to see with them. Peter talked a little bit about septic and I just want to kind of reiterate that the the layout of these lots is very deliberate mainly because of the septic systems. We want to stay under the 7,500 gallons per day that is maximum allowed right now. It was just updated by the state for those systems. Otherwise, you go into deep in that permitting process for a large centralized system in last years. There's public hearings. the last project I was on, they it took so long to get deep approval that they had to go back to planning and zoning 11 and get reapproved for the the project. zone. We'd like to manage the septic individually on each lot. so all the septic that's laid out is in consideration with setbacks, separation distances to well buildings to under drains that sort of a thing. and they're all very conservative umly laid out and shown. so those testing is still needed. recommend at least a couple test performance engineered design. perhaps for the master plan phase, we may do some soils testing to confirm that what's out there can handle septic just so we're sure. we'd also recommend doing at least one domestic well test so that we make sure that the roofer can handle it development. and then finally the last thing is electric telling data. It's always a question from commissions. we'd pull from Route 6 or 87 wherever it's
available and everything would be underground. there'll be each site would have it own transformer pad close to the building.
Question about that. any thoughts about solar?
We haven't talked about that.
We've talked about it internally and it's just the amount we would need for this. we don't have the footprint to do
and and the cost cuz I have solar in my house and the cost seems to be just way too much.
We we we don't we don't have the footprint to be able to do. So we'd have to we'd have to take a minimum of like 16 acres.
Oh. If you're going to put it on the ground.
Yeah. Assuming the profiles the the roof lines aren't going to be useful for rooftop. Well, not on the designs that we have on these buildings because they have dormers on the top of each one of them. We did look actually look into the ones that sit there and pivot. They're up on on stands, but now you're going to have to line those up and and now you got a bit of an eyesore issues.
Snow load issues, too. when you have things like that in the roof.
If if there was another 16 acres of land fairly close by, I mean, we get to a solar development, it would help feed this develop,
right? As far as putting it on this current property was just not would have to start scattering all over the place. And
and on rooftops, when you think about it, not every roof will work because of the tree stands and how they face. And there a lot of they they they they twist around a lot on the site. so some units could have solar and some not and that could be problematic or how do what do you do with the power and just it's insufficient for the whole complex. What do you do and ongoing maintenance and the cost associated with it? They pay for all that they're paying you and all that stuff all the time and gets very complicated. Unfortunately might be a different story. They're all going to be sold units and individual owner say, "Hey, I want solar on my roof." then they pay for it as a add-on. but these are all rental units and this means more people can get into them. They don't have to have that big down payment. and more people can afford these units because they're right there. You just have to basically pay. You don't require big huge deposit or anything like pay advanced payment or anything.
A couple years. Okay. So, so you can so these would be available to a lot of people who don't have great wealth and don't have a lot you know in savings or high income. Okay, which is the idea and unless they have to put into some of these other costs such as concrete sidewalks off the side of the road, the more they put into units and keep the cost of the rental costs down and you know with what's happening since CO started. I mean the cost of building these things is out of just out of control.
Do we require sidewalks and subdivisions? We haven't had a subdivision in quite a while.
Yes. So there is I know you said nobody uses them but are they included in here?
we didn't include them in here. We included block hole area and the 6T path in within that pavement area in the roadway.
So that's instead of the sidewalk that's included in the 30 ft that you
Yeah. So it's 24 foot two two-way. We've done a lot of that many developments and then and then it continues to you know just look this part of the pavement be market to differentiate you probably have some signage and and then that's that's a multimodal path bicyclist walkers skateboarders I suppose
it's one of the things we discussed in the April meeting that more than obviously you guys didn't give any answers something felt it was more than acceptable to the sidewalk.
Okay. So that's kind of in L of sidewalks.
Yes.
And then what
would the pavement consist of?
It wouldn't be the vehicular traffic, but for the people walking side
le the way I understand it essentially it's a 30 foot wide road with a 6 foot wide pedestrian bicycle lane
correct built into it.
Okay. All right. Thank you,
lady. 24 ft for vehicles.
Two-way traffic. Yeah. And that's that. We do that all the time. Multi family developments all over the place. 24 ft
as a concept.
Everything's a concept right now,
right?
Even the master plan will be an advanced concept without the full engineer. So going back to the question about solar. So you you wouldn't at least consider solar on the storage units and the retail space.
Well, Japan will as far as far as the retail space, we would be looking at putting AC units up there. It' be a flat roof, AC units, heating units, and stuff like that. there there may be room for solar. We really didn't after looking at
I'm just asking questions.
Well, I'm not ask if I can jump in here. This is Leslie. And so we did. So just if you look at the the from a an an energy or from a power perspective, the the marginal cost to set up the solar across not just the housing units, but both the retail and the the self- storage units. it it's it's really cost prohibitive for what we're trying to do here. And so it's just not feasible in any way for this project based on just the initial assessments that we've done for the the various intended use that we have we have all around. And so I just you know I don't I don't want to you know lead the conversation down that path when we've already been there and and we know that it's it's cost prohibitive in this specific case.
Thank you.
And also the your regulations imply a slope roof on everything. And the idea as of right now, we're talking about the main commercial building, the 15,000 foot building, and then the self storage units, we're talking about a relatively gently sloping, not a speaker roof or anything like that or a commercial building. They don't necessarily put bright orange. We don't know that. That's what they all were with storage years ago. Bright orange or red need sunglasses to look at something.
Any other questions? like the so we had talked at one point at least as a question about designated affordable housing. They're all they're all affordable units but would your company be willing to go through the administration required to designate some affordable so that the town would get credit for a couple of those.
We're not doing very well right. We we we talked about this in the April meeting and and you guys were looking at what how many units you guys were thinking if and that was something you guys were going to kind of come back with and say, "Well, can you give us eight? Can you give us 10?" So, it was it was something you guys were going to kind of discuss internally and kind of throw back at us and say, "This is what we're kind kind of like what we talked about today on the on the one. you guys are going to talk about that kind of kind of throw that back at
us and say just what we're looking for.
So the state is hung up on 10% number,
right?
No, not necessarily.
Our housing affordable course drives the gold. So
you have 3.85% right now.
Yeah. 51 units last I checked this afternoon. and in a band it's gone down that year too.
Yeah, but if we were to get you know 30 that
and I don't think you're going to agree with the the cost that you're going to ask is consistent with what it would be to be designated affordable anyhow. It's just there's more advent that goes on. They'd be they'd be affordable for 40 years. Y
at 80% of the average median income. Y
which means they and it used to be not that long ago and I've talked to the most perhaps the number one affordable housing attorney in the state of Connecticut. He's very highly regarded, great guy. He told me years ago when I first talked to him, he said 80% average median income for the it's a Hartford, West Hartford, East Hartford market, rental market area. It used to be you could break even on those units, the developer. You just here's your cost and it's a wash. Okay? And then you want to make you make money on the other units. Now everybody loses a lot of money on 60% if you go to HS30G it's 15% at 60% average median income you lose your shirt and then the the 80% you also lose your shirt which is worse with the 60%. So, if you don't get low income tax credits and other special cut rate financing, CHFA and that type stuff and and all kinds of other gimmicks they have, if you don't do that and these guys are not used to that, you can't you may not do a project.
Okay, it's that extent. So, it's tough. and you know, at 10%, you know, we're talking about 110 units, so we're talking about 11 units. That's they'd be losing money on all 11 units of substantial farms. So if we provide a lot of units and they're not too big and they're accessible to a lot more people, they don't have it now. We're making a lot of progress. If we if we go with 10%. That's a lot of units and they're they'd have to do a costbenefit analysis. See if it makes any sense.
Yeah.
So can I jump in on that?
Yes, John, please.
So yeah. So, and again, I I would take I would take our eye off the the 10% ball a little bit because that's it's it's a little unrealistic and it's not truly a target. That is really just a threshold that that separates communities that are subject to 830G and communities that are not subject to 830G. We're we're about to go through an exercise through the COG and through the state in which each municipality will be given a target number for new developments new new housing development. We don't know what the number is yet. obviously we know that we need more than the, you know, the number in Andover is going to be more than 51 or whatever the current the current restricted number is for a a project like this unless you know the
state is going to drop a giant bag of money onto the project to help subsidize it. You know, I just because these guys aren't necessarily and I push back a little bit on Peter, just because these guys aren't aren't necessarily familiar or used those tax credit programs in the past, I wouldn't dismiss out of hand the possibility of considering it. That said, I think, you know, we would very very much welcome and appreciate some set aside. and I think in the in the relatively near term before you get too deep into the engineering of this, I I would appreciate sitting down with, you know, even in a relatively informal way to look through, you know, your broad proformas and what you hope and anticipate renting these units for because if we're using if we're using
the lighter criteria, basically the incentive housing criteria that Peter described, which is an which is you know somewhere 20% or less of the units at 80% of median. you know it could be relatively close to the market rate rents that you will be seeking. and you know, just as an example, and again, you know, new construction is a little bit different, but the the the woman, and I I forget her her name, that owns the owns the existing apartments in the in the western part of town. her her rents that she's charging right now, something like 1,600 bucks a month to 1,800 bucks a month, actually probably are would be affordable to the 80% median. So her her market rents are technically affordable except that they're not restricted that way. So I would just be curious and well more than curious. very interested to to get a sense of and you don't have to answer this now and I'm sure you you know this is going to take us number crunching what the anticipated market anticipated market rents are and where we are relative to our 80% median. because I
think it you know the the the only real heavy lift there might be that they will be restricted going forward. But again if if your if your target rents are basically affordable you know as the state might define it then then the lift is just will we you know take on doing the the necessary paperwork. so I I would encourage you I you know I'm not necessar and because you know these things are extraordinarily expensive and you know if a town gets too heavy-handed with its affordable requirement it can very very easily kill a project. but so I would just encourage everyone involved and particularly developers to keep an open mind about what their
you know their proforma looks like and and leave open the possibility that that some of these units could be pretty close to affordable and then and then maybe it's you know you you increase your market rents 50 bucks a month and and your affordable you drop them 50 bucks a month and and you're all set. so I would encourage sharpening of the pencils a little bit just for the the sake of understanding if this could work before we before the town sort of drops the hammer and says, "No, you got to do it."
I I like that idea, John. Just I looked up I' I've looked at them before, you know, the average median income for the area and then they have it by how many bedrooms there are in it. And they also say that you have to deduct for utilities,
right? So,
it's an all-in, right? It's an all-in number.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you have utilities and I I couldn't understand whether or not you have to deduct for the heat heating system for the unit. I didn't they weren't they were unclear what I was looking at today, but you so you take the market rate and you may have to deduct for utilities and for some other factors such as heat. I'm not sure about that. so it can bring it right down where they're taking a loss on everyone. and it could be substantial. I just don't know that. And you also have to pay you know attorney and other people to come up with a commitment for 40 years and the regulations and all that stuff and who's going to be monitoring it and all that stuff you have to get for somebody for that. So there are other factors, but I like your idea, John. I think we it's worth looking at. they don't know what the rent might be because right now we are we're a ways off from construction,
right?
So we don't know what the cost of a 2x4 is. and let alone fuel cost, diesel or whatever for the equipment you know the cost of the road. We don't we don't know that stuff right now because it's far off to know where the rents would be and what's the marketplace at that point. So, it's really early to to forecast that. so there are a lot of factors here, but it's worth taking a look at. You're right. But you must have some kind of you must have some kind of math in your head to be able to move forward with the
project, right?
It's almost math in my head.
So, so far they're still going forward. they've se they've seen a lot of costs. are starting to get those costs in, but they don't have all of them yet. So, they're still going forward, but you know, it could be a point where hey, it's not profitable.
all the all the the units have electric heat electric
many typical mit or there other brands. There's just ton of them.
It's because I know there volume.
So there'll be'll be'll be green.
It'll be considered and that's be outside and and the plan will be to put the condenser right up behind it the apartment itself.
And that's considered green. It's not oil furnace.
It wouldn't sit on the ground. It would be mounted right onto the house and brackets.
Sure. And they they're used all the time now. on there. They tend to be very very efficient. Now you can even have the cold cold weather they still operate. Whereas they used to not went below freezing was a real problem.
And then you heat your AC off more.
Yep.
So installation costs aren't bad.
So you end up with a better unit at a lower cost. that it
questions what I mean my what do you what do you guys think this something that we we can make these changes where you know John and Wayne and this is something we all can get behind I mean I I know you guys can't give approval right now just inform.
I mean, because because if if this is something you guys can get behind, then we can really start spending some money on the engineering and and and all the things that need to get done during these three months, four months. I don't know why Peter's got 26 years going on this project. But, you know, we're really just trying to get a good feel for for what you guys think, what you guys are going to allow, you know, and if this is something that you think you guys can all get kind of with the text amendments and stuff. I would like to start pushing forward. Well, if if I could say something like this is this is a big project for this little town.
It's a huge project. It's something that I don't believe any any of us have
right tackled and there are some things from the commissioner's perspective from the town's perspective. This is going to need to to go go by our the commission's attorney. It's going to need to go by the town engineer. It's going to need to go by DPW. that isn't to say that that should be impeded. That should just be the normal process that that it has to be looked at by by people with more expertise than than any of us have and frankly that's going to be an additional expense. I I know you're you're you want to get moving. I get it. I get it. Money time time is money.
And u you know, as far as getting behind it is concerned. My job is to do what the commission tells me to do. So I can kind of say it's up to these guys. you with saying that. I mean, like the town engineer and the town lawyer, they're not going to be somebody who would be able to say no. They're just going to say, "Well,
well, if you guys point, they'll adise the commission. I mean, at some point, you're going to have a cross-section of what the road's going to look like or you're going to need an engineer to look at that and say, "Yeah, that that'll work." And all right, and all that good stuff. Our engineering because this this is a big project. This isn't a driveway. the green.
Yeah. I mean, you fully expect a third party review,
right,
done on a detailed site plan,
but that that's going to come later.
Yeah.
When you do your master plan and then ultimately the application for either the site plan or special permit and you have the actual engineering to look at you, we're not anywhere close to that yet.
We are the town engineers for towns. We do that type of thing. I get it. We have our own
Oh, no. I know. We're not saying
We use We use Barton and Legudas primarily, I believe.
Excuse me.
I don't we use Barton and Legudas for review.
Well,
currently it's Brober is doing the bridge on Lake Road. So I'm assuming he for the town, right?
Probably start.
Yeah.
Well,
whoever it is, I'll figure it out.
Yeah. Yeah. We we'll deal with whoever you guys select. Yeah.
I haven't had to consult an engineer yet. This will be the first time. So, I'm just going to throw it out there because we're a small town and this is like everybody's already agreed this is like the biggest development we've ever seen. And so furthermore, we still have the small town mindset on like, okay, well, I I get that we you would like to have the town plow the roads, but I'm kind of seeing this more like like a condo association where they take care of their own road for plowing and maintenance and as maybe maybe there's some legal requirements for the storm water management, ponds, maintenance. I'm not sure if we're capable of that. See where I'm going with that? So I know we there's a little bit of back and forth hashing that has to get done there. besides the zone zone change and tax amendments and the change of the master floating plan. but I think that you know we are in line with our plan of conservation development. If you would agree do you agree with that statement John?
yeah I think absolutely. So personally I I mean I personally would like to see this go forward and if we can just work out all these details and you know then we are going to have to have some public hearings and then I don't like you were stating about we might need three as of right now absolutely three unless we combine them and that's a greater risk for our client by doing three we have time frame but if we do the
zoning text amendment maybe not the zone change to be. and we do it concurrent with the master plan and the zone change application which if we if we agree if you you agree with John and Wayne and us about reducing the requirements for the zone change and master plan the master plan elements they require all kinds of sophisticated reports and every one of the pages of those reports that recorded in the town cler's office they make $60 a page during FY11 something like that you if we can cut in some of those requirements for that stage and leave it to this engineered cycling stage. we can maybe do that. and and and and exposure with Sean and his partners is a lot less and timeless money for them. More applications we have, the more timeless involved consultants and more expensive it is.
I gotcha. And and just, you know, full disclosure, you know, all the commission members are elected. We don't get paid for this. So all the burden of these text amendment changes are going to be on John Kiscowski and then we're going to vote on them. So
just keep that in mind. I mean we're what do you you think you're going to be able to handle the workload, John? Would you and your
Well, I you know I I it depends on what we're talking about. I mean you know the answer is yes. Of course. I wouldn't I wouldn't suggest that I would be writing the revised language. I would not be preparing the application for a text amendment. This would come out of conversations with the applicants and Wayne and I will, you know, look at what they want to do
and and advise them advise them of the areas that would need change in order to enable this. That's that's our role here is to review their proposals relative to current regulations or their reg their proposed regulations relative to what the town is envisioning you know per the master plan and and per what they want to do. So yeah of course we'll we're you know as far as I'm concerned and and hopefully as far as Wayne is concerned we are happy to engage with these guys but we're not you know we're not preparing their application for them. We'll write them and we'll present them to John and Wayne and then we'll discuss it with them. See if they are comfortable with it or if they suggest any further changes and we'll rewrite them working with other clients.
We do that all the time.
So c can you just quick go over what you were talking about as far as combining things.
So in so
I think I missed it.
Okay. So you're not allowed to apply for things unless you're conforming to zoning. So, but it because before it's an engineered site plan, you probably can apply for the master plan if it's predicated on a zoning text amendment first. So, if we apply for that, maybe it maybe it's currently maybe two separate applications. Maybe they're handled backtoback hearings. So, you have the first hearing. I'm thinking John out loud here. you have the first hearing. You have for the zoning text amendments. We don't need the zone change for the B zone. Then we do the zoning text amendments. We have that. We have the hearing on that. and then you have the hearing on the other which is the master plan and the
master plan and the zone change itself to the overlay zone. Okay. The floating zone. but before you act on the zone change and the master plan, you have to first act it on the text amendments. That's for attorney. Mark Prince is your attorney. You said so then he'd have to come and say yeah he's comfortable with that. If he isn't then we have to go back to three steps
okay
with the plane zone and we also have to be comfortable with not going to the wetlands commission at each step that we actually wait till we have an engineered site plan which would be the third step or maybe the second step if everything is combined.
So sounds like what you're really talking about is having the public hearing for the text amendment and the public hearing for the master plan on the same at the same meeting. That's the only way I can see to cut it back cost for these guys and
but not necessarily combining any you're not skipping any step.
No.
Right. Yeah.
No.
All right.
But attorney Branch has become I'm sure he'll say, "Hey, you can do it that way. We apply under that regulation, but you've adopted the regulation before you act on it." And he may say, "Oh, the appeal period has go by before you can act on the second one." I don't know. At least
let us know. the presentations can be done in one night.
Yep.
And having the consultants there where they have an architect there, a traffic engineer, all stuff, if it can be done in one night, you know, they can buy an hourly basis for that type of work and it saves Sean and his part as well.
I I get it.
And it saves a lot of time. Time is going
Yep.
One more question. I think these are just month-to-month rentals. Is there like a lease agreement? We would be looking for 12-month leases and then obviously once the 12 months I would like another 12 months but you know we can't force everybody to sign another lease
right so it's your problem
sounds good 10 year leases
occasionally have a tendency bills or nuisance to neighbors whenever came around there
and this is going to remain under your control.
Yeah, we have no we we have no plan on selling
because I know there's there's a few LLC's involved, but so it may be transferred between LLC's that you and your partners are.
We we have not created the LLC for this yet. So, we are under our different one of our different LLC's right now.
So, you
we're going to create a whole new LLC just for this typical.
Okay. All gotcha. Okay. All right.
Well, this has been very helpful. Thank you so and for coming and thank you John and Wayne for your been great.
Thank you.
Yes. Thank you very much guys.
Can I make a comment then?
Oh yes. Go ahead.
Marcy from economic value.
Oh hi.
personally I see this as very positive. there's been a lot of people that have been trying to encourage businesses in town and obviously like you said being dos there. the one thing that I actually got a text from a whole bunch of people when they first heard about this just yesterday and they were all freaking out because they're worried about more kids in the school. So, I think that, you know, to encourage you to to lean more towards more efficiency apartments, more studios in one bedrooms. I know it's a popular thing. I think the Whisy Hills, they have garden apartments and they're looking to add because they fill them up. They never have any sites. I mean, we can definitely take a look at that and do the market study, but what we've been finding a lot of is people are sharing apartments. You know, friends will get two bed brothers or sisters will get two bedrooms together so they can split all the cost of everything just because the cost of everything is so high in countries.
Yeah. On people that live like there are going to be inexpensive requirements. So if we look I look I looked at the plan conservation development it was just it's not very old 2024 right and they did a survey of the town and public hearings and the commission elected commission adopted it and they said that the problem is we're losing kids in the schools elementary and in RAM and middle school and the high school we need children coming in we want to be a place for families population is aging we want to be welcoming to families and for people who grow up in town, be able to stay in town. That was important. So, so there's an element in town
you're listening to.
Yeah.
Okay. Everyone's got their own business. There's there's that element in every town.
Right. Right.
Yeah.
They think more kids going to make their taxes go higher no matter what. So, but
yeah, I I I get some towns where I just every time we get hammered about anything to do with children. you know, most communities supposed to be, you know, for families and stuff, but you know, we get I I tell you, I need a flat jacket.
And she's put my
I put my kids through the schools and they're done well. They run off to college and stuff like that, but and I'm still it's been over 20 years I've been paying for other kids, people's kids. That's the way it works.
I have noticed you guys talked about was roundabouts. we have room for roundabouts about doing those instead of stop signs. We didn't think about that. personally, I like avoiding them because they take up so much space. If you get a home,
like if you like
the smallest you can possibly go is the disaster that's in Glastonbury. I'm sure everyone heard about it. The trailer
and those are about 75 right. get a tractor trailer through a roundabout like not that there would be tractor trailer but it would be a 200 foot wide radius
for and then for fire you would need a minimum of 100 ft to maneuver that. So, we can look at it. I it's just something that we just didn't think out there.
They're done at They're done typically when there's a high volume and you have like three, four, five intersection coming in. They got great Ellington five corners, for example, is a great example. I love what they did there. I used to go through it there all the time. You live in Vernon, right? I used to go there all the time. and and by putting in that that roundabout fantastic traffic flows through fewer accidents everything goes less energy use for everybody and it's a great idea but in the middle of a a relatively this is relatively small develop for Andovers it's huge but it's a relatively small development the traffic volumes are going to be very small I I don't see the need for that in this development going to slow the traffic
down if people push speed through some of these straight lines some bumps.
Yeah. And when we first Lawrence design and we're working with the grates too, it worked out very well. You're not going straight through here. There's no strip here. And also by taking the 30 foot wide street and narrowing down with markings and other things, signage and stuff, you you you slow the traffic down the speeds. And there are many ways of doing that. You ever been to Evergreen Walk? You see at the intersections, you know, they run a stop sign. People go across stuff, but they they narrow it down. They bring things into it. Landscaping, sidewalk, stuff like, and people go slower through there. You only see going 60 through the middle of Evergreen. They do a nice job on Evergreen Walk. I think the other thing too is you get all the best beans are off the street crossing, too.
So, they're all
they should be.
They should be.
They shouldn't be off the street,
but they're out there on their phone in the middle of the street. That's natural. But you know I I think the the trick is making sure that that the traffic is moving a safe space. So people are on the road even if it's on a designated shoulder that they're going to be all right.
One thing just one thing about people opposed because they're concerned about kids and it costs money to educate them. the population has gone down overall although it's a little bit uptick I think in in they go down so the number of kids in each classroom goes down and so you have fewer kids in elementary school the cost to operate that school still the principal still the heating unit teachers just smaller classes you may find out the cost per goes up a lot when you the population is here right now
same That's what she told their first everyone's texting me saying this is you know so another thing I wanted to mention what I like about this
that they it's not going to be our case and a lot of people are concerned about our coins now and so like you know I think that you know if you accentuate that that you know the view you're going to see from the road is that be just a sore which was the exact intention. We want the store front and center so there can be customers coming off the roadways. Even the storage units be pulled back off the road. It was a little bit better for the design. and there'll be a sign on the fix they know to get up in there. But the goal is to really hide those storage units because the rest of the living arena neither. So we'll come up with the design and kind of tuck them
away, have the units tucked away. So like you said, like if you drive, right, you drive right by and you don't even know there's access to want to do that. We just have interior.
Yeah. Yep.
People know they're not a lot of that.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you guys. All right. Thank you guys very much. Thank you. We do a lot more technology and thank you. No, I think we learned a lot.
It passed. It did pass.
Oh, good.
It ran past AR now. We don't know about others.
Thank you. Okay.
Thank you. AES
.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
But yeah, I got a whole bunch of messages yesterday.
I just got Roy C.
Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, no.
Not too many.
This would be a huge deal. But I think it would be great. I think it would be one in our meeting. Anyway,
yeah. Thanks for the information.
Thanks, Mar.
Is there anything on the agenda you all want to skip? like go to uniform. Well, how about this? Can you brief? I mean, I I looked at it briefly. The the the tour reform and I guess we could push that to the next meeting if wants to review.
Okay.
Sure.
Curious. We've got a form.
Yeah.
I think that's predicated on a special permit application. Is it not? Well, it could be for both. I I I have the form for for either either a a farm related event
or a non-farm related event which requires a special permit. Yeah.
Right. Okay. So, you know, the concern I have is be is I look on Facebook and I see a string of concerts going on over Farm this summer.
Yeah.
And I see no special permit application come in.
You haven't? Have you
and I'd like to head off that being an issue?
There's something later coming to that effect.
Okay. not specifically to that but but that is related to that property.
So we would be skipping that.
It's going to come upon a report.
Yes.
Okay. Skip that.
Hearing no objections. Moving on to new business B where you received a special permit. Go ahead, Wayne.
yeah, 12 Center Street. originally Nahan Orto had in 2024 had originally applied for or his original application in 2024 included a an accessory apartment. it's my understanding that Jim talked him out of that or for some reason he removed that special apartment, that accessory apartment and the single family dwelling was approved by in and as of right approval. wants to go ahead and put the accessory apartment in. he's not changing the footprint of the building. Footprint of the building is going to stay the same exactly the same. And the area above the garage is going to be dedicated to the
accessory apartment. I I have the the site plan. I have the elevations and the floor plan. Everything is checking out so far. I did ask his his engineer to go to Eastern Highland Health District to make sure that nothing nothing would change with that because the number of bedrooms is going to remain the same. with it's it's going to be yeah, the number of bedrooms is going to remain the same, but I just want to make sure that Eastern Highlands is okay with it. and I have no reason to think they wouldn't be. So, right now, we're just looking at accepting an application and set public hearing date. Sounds good.
And I've had some conversations with the engineer that's involved with this and hopefully this project is going to move ahead. He did grade around the lot. He got that bulldozer going and did some did some grading, cleaned the lot up. Looks much more presentable now than it did a couple weeks ago. at least from that perspective. But it's still just a shell. It's been a while. It's been a almost two years in various stages of construction and it's right now it's still just a shell. So we put in the application and we need a special hearing because he wants to do this as a market rate accessory apartment. And the fellow who is the applicant is planning on living in the house. Oh. yes. His daughter. His daughter.
I think our regulation requires that the property owners live in the house.
It does. It does.
I can't answer that question.
Yeah. Okay.
That question can be answered public hearing.
Yep. at the public hearing or before the public hearing and that question can be answered and that will will inform whether there actually will be a public hearing. Let's put it that way. Because if the answer is no, then Bob's going to say, there's no point in having a public hearing now, is there? You want to tenatively put it on the schedule for July?
I'll make a motion that we put public hearing from the department on the schedule for July 8 second.
Yeah, the application is withdrawn. It's withdrawn, right?
All in favor? Henry
I motion passes 500.
All right. Correspondence. Very long. but maybe this is the time I can correspondence. school.
I might have left that.
Well, actually is running.
Yeah. Why don't we Why don't we table that for for my zoning agent report. Can we do that? That has the correspondence that's included in some nasty I recently sent out. So, you want to do you want to skip one and include one and the other?
Yeah. The correspondence really is about some letters I I sent out concerned violations.
Okay.
And you knew or don't talk about that now?
Yeah.
Well, we can talk about it now or talk about it when I do my zoning agent report.
Okay. That was my question. Okay. So, we're tableabling the rest of correspondence.
Yeah. There is well there there is no no correspondence. I'll say
can I can I'm sorry. Can I can I jump in real quick?
Yeah.
And Wayne, could I ask you to stop the share? I I think you don't need the special permit up there right now.
All right.
so just technically speaking, the referral that we got you're closing the window, not stopping the share. What am I doing? Did this a wrong
red box at the top?
Oh,
thank you.
the the you know, technically speaking, the referral that we got from Bolton about their proposed middle housing regulation would probably fall under correspondence. It's it's not technically a mandatory referral. A lot of towns keep sending those things out. They don't have to, but I would just note it that it was and I believe Wayne distributed it. so that's that's an item of correspondence of note.
Thank you, John. Go ahead.
Yep. The town of Halton has done some regulations. They made a referral to listing.
Yeah.
All right. I guess we'll go on to commission discussion. So,
okay. I I had sent the commission members a draft of or really it was my thoughts when I when I look at the regulations and the ability to recover costs legal of the for for reviews by professionals. I didn't find anything in our regulations except when it came to storm water management that specifically said the commission going to recover cost for engineering or or legal review. I I approached attorney Brandt about that and he confirmed my research in that the town actually has to have an ordinance in place to recover those costs. The current ordinance that talks about fees as far as zoning is concerned only empower only sets fees for proc receiving and processing permits. It doesn't specifically say anything about recovering legal costs
for engineering costs. So to that end, I drafted a a proposed ordinance really not a zoning regulation, a proposed ordinance that I'm looking for input from from the commission and u ultimately u approval by the commission to to send it to the board the selectment for that process could turn it into an ordinance. as we learned as we had today with this project here, I believe the town's going to reverse some significant costs involved with engineering review and legal review. And I and I believe that the commission should shouldn't want those kinds of reviews for a project like this. So I did not print it out for you guys. I have it here.
You did email it to us. So
I did email it to everybody.
And I don't know if anybody's looked at it. You guys want to if I'm going down the right I'm going down the right path.
If Brg agrees with it, then we go. Yeah, I'm I'm right there with you.
Well, attorney Branch has not reviewed these exact words.
I got to
he said a few words which were several pages more than I got here.
Okay. So
do you mind if I get back?
It's just this draft is just kicking tires.
Yeah.
basically I want the once if the commission is okay, I'll I'll send that off to attorney Brand. He's probably going to want to add a lot to it. look at the John, have you looked at it?
I only looked at it briefly. I I I didn't I didn't spend much time with it.
Yeah, I I borrowed a lot of those words from towns around us. No sense reinvent the wheel. Was there something about a certain dollar amount for subdivisions and then a certain dollar amount for the first three lots on a subdivision?
Yeah, that's that's the current the current fee structure in actually our fee structure is an entire we're charging fees that aren't in the ordinance. I I thought it said you're what you're charging now is like $10 higher than what's in the ordinance.
Yeah,
we're charging like $150 for something.
The ordinance says
140.
I don't know how we can do that, but we're doing that.
RP ridiculously low compared to other towns. I have
I know you sent out a bunch of examples from your town, right? It would be nice spreadsheet that says I tried to do that. You know,
they do things a little different. It's hard to hard to compare
big round. And it's hard to compare, you know, specific
well ike we'll we'll take we'll take this planning proposal for an example. the the tax money coming in after they get something built should in theory cover any of our engineering double-checking fees and attorneys fees.
That's most town. No, no, I I did research ordinances and I got
and every town I checked town that borders this town.
Yep.
Has an ordinance.
Yeah. that that that authorizes the recovery of legal fees.
We don't have that.
And Jay brought up a good point. If that the development doesn't happen and we spend all that time and money, then it's gone. I get it. So,
do we vote on some of this to the board? I
don't think you need to vote on it. What I'm not what I want is
does the commission support what I'm doing?
I do.
And I will forward this on to attorney Grants for to get his eyes.
Okay, sounds good.
And then bring it back to you next meeting as a more formal proposal.
Thanks, Wayne.
Thank you. I've seen some things in the past, but it wasn't to do with what we're talking about now, but and I don't remember what they were, so I can't really say anything, but sometimes I think things can be a little too high, but I can't remember what I was looking at in the past.
Zoning fees aren't the zoning fees aren't so high. Building permit fees are a lot.
Yeah,
maybe that's
o people out there, they're pretty significant. So, isn't that what's theoretically supposed to cover the engineering costs, the the building permit fees?
Well, we're paying I don't know where that
No, the the zoning zoning fees and building permit fees could should be kept separately.
Okay.
and and I just I just weigh in. I I think it's important to have an ordinance like this to cover the town, but I do think it should be relatively narrow and we can we can talk to attorney Brandt about this and and only triggered by a basically a vote of the commission that this is necessary. Like if it's a complicated enough project that we need a third party attorney, third party engineer, third party, you know, environmental scientist, whatever. it should be basically decided at the time of application receipt when we know that this is a complicated thing. and and you know, it should not be open-ended so the developer is not just on the hook for you know, tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars of environmental review. should be a a one-time, you know, fee in escrow that would cover technical review. There are there are good examples, and I think Wayne's probably gathered some of them, but with complicated projects in a relatively small town, you know, with with, you know, we don't have in-house engineering, you know, we don't have in-house attorneys. It it is important for the town not to go too far out of pocket on this stuff. So, I I think it's a valuable exercise. Thank you, John.
That's all I got. I believe John's up there next. Go
ahead, John.
So, yeah, and and this may this may be a longer discussion than you guys really really want to start at 9:20. but I will just note that I so I forwarded around yesterday a a a draft markup of the zoning regulations. So because of public act 251 that passed last November, municipalities have to make a couple of changes to their zoning regulations in the relatively short term to accommodate modifications to parking and modifications to what's called middle housing which is two through nine units in in commercial districts. so what I have provided to you, and this is maybe something that you guys want to
put off until next month to do sort of a full walkth through, but what I prepared in markup style with your with your zoning regulations, basically any new language I've proposed in red here, that is basically the minimum reasonable in my mind, the the minimum reasonable number of amendments that you would have make to your zoning regulations to get you compliant with those provisions of public act 251. and and they you know the the major thing is well there's two sort of major things is one you need to allow middle housing in the business district by by a site plan. so I have proposed in section 4 I a new section 4.23 23 here and I can make it a little bit bigger if you want and and again I don't want to go through this whole thing because it's it's already late section 4.23 how we define what middle housing should be broadly speaking including some considerations of impervious coverage landscaping and architectural design elements. I'm I'm drawing from our existing regulations on architectural design in the business district which is section 83. and then and then basically enabling
that in the business zone which is the only zone you are required to allow this. You don't have to put it in residential zones. You don't have to put it in industrial zones. it's business and mixed use. And the only landed, you know, obviously we have a mixeduse overlay that's not landed. the business zone is the only landed zone that this change needs to apply to. so and again, you know, the the the referral that we got from Bolton is really elaborate. That's sort of, you know, buying a buying a you know, a Range Rover when the state is really only asking for a small Toyota. it's it's a it's a a complicated set of regs. I'm I tried to keep this as simple as
possible. but this is something that we have to address and adopt sooner than later. so I'm I'd really take your guidance on how you'd like to proceed and it maybe if you know right now the only thing that we've got on the agenda next month is that the you know the public hearing for the accessory department. It might be worth setting aside time to walk through these next month. But I would ask I would ask I would ask you all to look at the the markup that I distributed to you all yesterday.
Yeah. And I've gone through but I think that everybody should take the the next month to really go through and figure out if they want to add to it or subtract it. And I Sounds good.
All right. Thank you, John.
Yeah.
Keep that. put that on the agenda for next month.
Okay.
And we're on to administrative reports. All right. got there is I only have one the one on the top is the most interesting one What's that?
No,
I'll just tell you. I'll just tell you what this corresponding to was it was not looking for payment of this bill of Holler and S's bill. That was the Yep. Okay.
an unpaid bill from
I thought we cleared that up last month and that the new town treasurer took care of that.
apparently only one of the bills was taken care of.
Okay. I I do understand that they're still playing catchup.
Okay.
But we're going to need that.
I saw Brand said we're back in his good graces. That's what I remember from last month.
He did. He did. We were okay. Now we're not okay. We're back out of the good graces. So that I mean I wanted I wanted attorney Branch here today to listen to this.
But he didn't get paid.
But I'm not going to
Oh, right. We don't want to add to the bill if we're not ready. Right. I have sent a note indicating that the car storage was violated zoning regulations and inviting the owner of the property to apply for a special permit which
is it installs
among other things that go on on the property. So I guess we have to start up we have to start for lack of a better word progressive discipline. issue issue formal notices of violation and start down that road.
Wait, what's the address you talking about?
Excuse me.
What was the address you're talking about?
it's a fun road. the site where the pitch family farms Yeah. As you can see, I made it to Facebook for that letter. So, this issue you're talking about isn't about the the the bands or the music.
Well, that's that's another thing. this right.
This is about using a portion of the property to store cars that are presumably moved looks like they're being moved from auction to here and then being moved to car lots wherever.
Yeah.
About between Oh, I don't know. 10 and 15 maybe even 20 cars at any one time may be parked there. So
viewable from the road
and the zoning the zoning regulations clearly state clearly say that car storage requires a special permit and property zone industrial and specifically says in the industrial zone we have to have a special permit to do that activity and the business and the business alone says the same that previous letter had going out regarding event an event the funky monkey that occurred on that property. again inviting them to apply for a special permit to hold that event.
Yeah, I thought his his position was that that was not his event. That was the over and over event.
The letter to both of them. Okay. I didn't care who did somebody. Did those two properties related? Hand over and over in the farm.
No, they're not related. The the the funky monkey event happens on both properties.
Just spills over.
Yeah. They've kind of been advertising each other's activities. Like if there's an event at one I mean I'm not saying in every instance but there have been times when there's an event at one and then the other one would hold an event and they kind of cross advertise for each other.
I was unaware of the till Jed brought it up the Facebook about the concerts. I I don't I personally don't do Facebook that Facebook posting is something my wife found.
You're better off. You're saying you're better off
without Facebook.
so and you requested that they you sent a letter to both of them saying you need a permit to do this. You haven't heard back from either party.
Oh, I heard back from Mr. Fitch.
Fitch and then and you posted Facebook, but you haven't heard from Andover. So did maybe between your two you can refresh my memory was it position applying for two different things and didn't he kind of drop one of them?
Well yes he he started out applying for the agro tourism regulation.
Okay.
And then he withdrew it. We approve it.
That's the language. Okay. and but we thought we needed a regulation anyhow. So we just continued on down that path and read the regulation.
Okay. And is that what this form has to do with that we switch to?
Yes.
Okay. The form. Okay. And then also I don't remember if it was under that umbrella or not. We had a discussion about like if Ryan did get permission to do certain things, would he need a a permit for every single event or would be left that permit or something. Yeah,
that's that's what you're talking about.
Okay. So, that's still up in the air.
Well, I think you can do a special permit for a series of events.
Why not?
I think that's some of the discussion we had. Were you here?
Yes. If you if you know what date, if you know when the events are going to occur, I don't see why you can't have them all in one application.
And again, that's what's still in the name.
What's up in the air
about whether you need to do that?
Well, he has he has to put in a special permit application. That's what I'm getting at. Yeah.
So, that's what we're we're talking about. So, that has nothing to do with the car storage. Well, that's a different that's an unrelated issue on the same on the same.
Okay. So, we're talking about both whether or not we finish talking about it tonight or not. But
when I move it when I when I go ahead, I'm going to put them they're both going to be on the same.
Okay.
I'll address them both with the same notice. So, do you want to wait and discuss that when we discuss this agurism form or is that what we're still deciding?
The the applying for the permit I I don't think is dependent upon the form. You can still apply for the special permit.
You should I think that's a prerequisite to using the form. He applies for a special permit to do X, Y, and Z. And Paul said he wants to do W. He puts in the form. He's already got special permit approved, new events, maybe that covers it. And as far as the additional vehicles and the parking where they're not supposed to be parking, is that that's going to be handled separately? Correct. like because it is a business own. He is allowed to have vehicles, but now it's an automotive transfer station like you were describing. That's a different story, right? So, there's a couple vehicles related to the business and a truck coming in once in a while, but it's not what we're talking about, right? We're talking about a bunch of cars parked in a carrier parked there and
that out to a sub like a sublet
or then
he needs to get a special permit for that then, right?
Okay. And that's just as simple as getting a special permit and bringing virtually.
It's as simple as applying for a special permit and then the commission decides whether to grant a special permit or not.
Yep. Okay, everybody's up to speed on that and we'll wait for the special permit application.
I've been waiting.
Okay. Yeah, as you said December from the So, just to be clear, he hasn't done that for this season. I'll call it yet for events. Thank you.
Just giving you guys the heads up cuz I'm sure we're going to be on Facebook again. Do we have a precedent how to deal with this kind of thing?
It's it's a zoning violation. So, yeah. I mean, it's
Yeah. It's it's as simple as they're they're not authorized to do what they're doing. That's a zoning violation.
Okay. Notice a zoning violation. If it continues, then then I guess it goes to a cease and assist.
And this letter he sent was from May. So he's he's had time to go live. I remember that Facebook post that wasn't that long ago. Like I said, I'm not really in tune to Facebook except I do use Facebook Marketplace, but other than that, not much. A lot of these cars on Facebook Marketplace from location. I haven't I haven't you know mostly looking forward to that and then there there were several others. There was a correspondence haven't gotten a reply yet. I talked to him over the phone 115 hill silk fences down we put putting single family residence there and silence along the driveways down promised me it would address that they it would be addressed hasn't been addressed so check that he shel station on Route Six. The windows were This is something Jen brought up to me some time ago. The windows were you can only cover 25% of the up to 25% of your windows with advertisements and stuff. That has been abaded.
That's what this packet was.
That's been abaded. And then and then Benjamin Franklin sent that letter. Mr. Benushi gave me a call again. He assured me that he'd have his engineer work on on the necessary modifications. and come to the commission to modify the special permit that was initially issued to for that building and property. now that he has additional land to
go the other direction
spread out onto and then remediate where he dug into the embankment leure. So we cancelled our most recent meeting because it was on the same night as town finger.
All right, final planner. John, you're up.
so not much in additional I obviously had a number of conversations this month with Peter Dali and Lauren, the representatives of the the developers. So just talking through the process. met yesterday with economic development and looking forward to helping move some of those priorities forward. I also participated in the first meeting of the regional basically assembly of planners. that's not a formal name but the capital region council of governments has invited all of the regions town planners to come and start talking about the regional housing growth plans that are we're going to have to start ramping up and kind of walk through the process. there's nothing really to report at this point other than you know the the we are all kind of waiting for the office of policy management OPM to develop its buildable land criteria and its big big housing growth need numbers.
Both of those things aren't going to happen until the fall. so it was really just sort of an initial level setting meeting with the region's planners and and we will obviously keep you guys informed as as you know plans and information progresses but but just wanted you to know that I was participating in a meeting on behalf of and over for that. I think that's that's primarily it for me and obviously I I I developed the draft of the the proposed zoning rags but we'll talk about that next month. Thank you. and also I went through that state the firm that state hired for the housing analysis study.
that housing analysis study was is is being superseded. The the the one from Eco Northwest.
Yeah. That's that's sort of put to the side. OPM is kind of re redoing it. But I mean it's it's good that you reviewed it, but that's Yeah,
I just got a big takeaway. I think I brought it up in economic development last night, but I wanted to just put it on the record that one of the things they did mention is besides the lack of housing, we need better paying jobs. So, I just wanted to throw that in there, too, like just keep that in mind when we're looking for development to get more jobs, high paying jobs in town if possible.
Sure.
It's my two cents anyway.
well, I think that electro
Yes. They're going to add some jobs.
Definitely.
Yeah.
Okay. Any public speak online? Nobody's here.
I got one. Go ahead. If you haven't been out to take a look at the playground and the pickle ball courts and all that, you ought to go see it. That is really turning out nice.
Down the South.
Yeah.
I didn't know there pickle ball. That's great. They've got four courts in there and they got this big playcape thing for the kids. Just a real nice facility for the den. Excellent. That was a good news story.
Thank you.
All right, moving on to approval of minutes. Make a motion to approve minutes for May 19th, 2026. Second by AJ. Okay. Thanks. Discussion.
No discussion but I will abstain as I was not there.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Like they're good.
Yeah. Very good.
Just Oh, I forgot not to do with the minutes. Just a housekeeping thing. Annay is still getting our emails.
Oh, I'm sorry. That'd be
It's probably just Yeah,
that' be my bad then. Yeah,
before it's no big deal. I saw her somewhere and she didn't she didn't mind. She just said, "Hey, I'm still getting your emails." So,
yeah, I noticed that afternoon.
I I noticed that this afternoon. She was on a couple of them.
All right. All in favor of approval of minutes.
I am motion. Motion passes 401. And next meeting July 21st and Wayne or we going to add just make sure you add the what John wants to talk about next month
zoning revisions.
Oh the
public act 251 zoning revisions.
Yeah 251 discussion. Yeah.
Thank you. Are you gonna There's still going to be in the discussion phase at that point, right, John?
yeah. I I mean, and yes. you you may want to you wait, I don't know if we need to if we to turn it into a formal application. Do we need to fill out a we need to fill out a form?
Yeah.
I I don't know if you just for efficiency if you wanted this is entirely up to you. I it it's totally fine if we do sort of a discussion presentation and you guys sort of say, "All right, this is the direction we want to go or you want to pick a different direction." If it's the direction you decide you want to go, you could just turn it into an application and and and schedule it for public hearing the final the following month if you wanted. But
yeah, it's it's really up to you. Sounds
good. Last chance. Anything else? Motion to all in favor. Second by Liam. All in favor? I. I.
Thank you everybody.
Thanks everybody.