Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen Special Meeting
February 21, 2024 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Okay. Sure. My bag. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the, Town of Andover Board of Selectmen special meeting, which is a rescheduled, regular meeting. We're gonna start on February 21. We're starting at 07:02. And, before we get started, I would ask everybody to mute themselves when they're not speaking so that we don't have any back feedback. And you're all gonna speak right now, so you can leave it on. So we're gonna start with the, pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and
to the for which one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all. Okay. We're gonna move on to item two, which is public speak. And Elaine, we'll start with you because you're in the upper right corner. I know you might contribute in other areas, but do you have anything you'd like to talk to? Yeah,
but when it comes to the farmers market, we still don't have a market master. So so far, no, no market this year until we get our act together in a couple of months. We'll we'll stay tuned. And then we're having a chili fest on May 4. May 4 be with you. It's going to be at the Andover Community Room. And so we're going to be putting out information for that. And the we is the Andover DTC is going to be doing it. We we did like four of them in a row a while back. And, and so we're, we're gonna do it again because it was a lot of fun. So we're gonna be looking for people for chili recipes and chili contests and coming out in their full garb and bringing their friends and family to vote for them.
Absolutely. I'm sure Paula will bring her Mandalorian, chili with her, no problem. That'd be great. Jed Larson.
Nope. Just, here to listen. In particular, was interested in the affordable housing discussion coming up a little bit.
Okay. We'll go to, Jeff Ballard and, The Garden Club. I know you're gonna talk with us later, but you can go ahead.
Okay. Can you hear me now? Yes, sir. Yeah. We're the community garden, not the Garden Club, just for a little clarity there. And what we are requesting is $2,400 in early April so that we can put up a fence around the garden. We have been losing over 40% of our produce to the pantry that would be going to the pantry because of critters. So we were asking for permission to put up a fence and $2,400 to fund that fencing materials. And that will be installed by the community garden members. Okay.
This is very similar to the line item that you gave us last year for the construction of the garden beds. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Anything else? Yes. We also have a budget request.
We have that on the agenda. We'll actually talk about that at that point So in do you have any points you wanna bring out to the public to us other than the budget request, Jeff?
Just that with the limited funding that we've had, it would be $4,500 from the town of Andover. We have really come a long ways. We've got six twenty by 12 gardens that are producing for the pantry, as well as a workable restored, renovated garden shed on premises. All right. Thank you. Diane Grebner.
Okay. I hope everybody can hear me. Absolutely. I'm so technologically challenged. Just a couple of things. I noticed on the minutes for the January 17 meeting, they've got me zoomed in as attending and labeled the library board for the library board. When I do zoom in here, it is not for the library board. I do not represent them in any way. I'm just a general public resident. So, whoever does the minutes, if they would kindly not list me as a library board member. Thank you. And the other thing is, I just recently noticed the sign at the Veterans Memorial Park. Nice sign. Good job. Whoever is responsible for that, it looks really good. So, I appreciate seeing that. I'm sure everybody else does as well. So, thank you very much. That's it. All right. Thank you very much. Bill Penn.
Good evening. I just want to say a couple of words about the issue with the burnout book. There was a posting on Facebook about the no trespassing there and the like, and I understand there are some discussions and works about possibly securing that property. I just could say it's, you know, I'd like this whole length of 20 and a half miles of the rail trail multiple times, thousands of times probably. And many of my friends and many people feel that that is one of the the the highlight of the entire length of the rail trail. And I hope there's I hope we can find a way to come to it. A mutually agreeable response with property owner to to get that resolved. And I hope the prop you know, if we don't, then the only person who have access to it is the property owner. But I think it also needs to be considered that property for him is
not usable for anything except admiring the history there of the arch and the stream and the river and Burnout Brook there. Either he gets to enjoy it or he can open up their heart. That group can open up their heart to maybe see a little bit so the rest of the world can appreciate the beauty and history that is there. I'll close with that. Thank you for listening.
All right. John Gaskowski. I hope I pronounced that correctly.
Yes. You did fine. I'm sorry. I didn't have my camera on. Hi. For folks I haven't met yet, my name is John Gaskowski. I'm the town's consulting planner working with Planning and Zoning Commission on sort of some day to day stuff as well as updating the plan of conservation and development as well as doing what I can to help your town administrator with some grants and and moving some projects forward. We were recently successful in getting the steep grant for the upgrades at the rec fields. That project is moving forward and and I hope I haven't talked to Eric after 02:00 this afternoon, but hopefully we got the WOTCIP grant in for the multi use path between the town recreational or the town campus and the Hop River Trail. Go ahead. Well,
I know John, you're scheduled in, I think, item 7A and we're not Okay. Yes. So I appreciate, I love hearing from you. Thank you very much. And we're going to hear more from you. If you hold on, we'll be good. So last but not least is Joy and Ebert. I'm all set. Thank you.
Okay. Alright. Dennis O'Brien, I know you're on the phone, and I know, you're listening. I just want to confirm that, when we want to move items to executive session, we don't have additions and deletions. So, do we do it just when we get to the item? When you get to the item, yes.
Okay. Alright. Then let's let's move on. So, we're gonna do item three, a board and commission presentation. So, Jeff Ballard and friends from, the community garden, I I would hate to call you a club and be offensive to, to your senses. So, let's let's sit there. And they did call it a garden club in my agenda, Jeff, so I apologize, but I did state the correct item. So the next time we do the agenda, Eric, we have to make sure that it's a community garden. Right? Okay. So Jeff, I know you already went through it. So, is there any other questions from any of the other members to the garden club, the the community garden before we move on? And because we'll we will actually vote on this tomorrow. I would imagine would be better a better position for it. But does anyone have any questions for the community garden and what their plan is? What kind of fencing is it gonna be, Jeff? It's gonna be a a six foot high fence,
two two inch by three inch squares, a wire fence, the four by four pressure treated posts every eight foot with a two by four railing around the top, a 10 foot gate for access for a vehicle the closest at the end of the garden beds and a four foot wide gate for people to go in and out of. Just Are you using John Bolton's fence as a model, which is coming up three sixteen on the right, the white colonial house that has the
It's at the intersection with Center Street, the upper end of Center Street, the beautiful historic house there. It's going up the hill. Has a really The same kind of fencing? Yes. Exactly the same as what he's done there. You buy three box wire?
Yes. Okay. So, Eric, I'm gonna ask you because I know online item 60389055990 is community Garden. There's a $1,500 budget currently in there. Correct. Okay. And Jeff, you're asking for in this budget cycle, not next budget cycle. You're asking for funding.
That's correct. Dollars 2,400 to fund the materials for the fence, just like a line item that was done last year.
Well, okay. So Jeff, just so we're all planning correctly, you got to sit there and be in advance of your budget. And so if you're thinking of projects, you've got to push them out a year, because you're really going to push us to find additional funding to fund it in this current year. So we need to be out ahead of this. I'm not saying we can't sit there and look at finding the money, and Eric, I would ask you to sit there and look at finding the money, but I also sit there and I am personally concerned that, there's going to be a significant amount of still work done on the landscaping related to the new community center. And are we going to have a problem putting up a fence and then having all of that work done around your area, and it causes us a problem. So I'm just saying that I'm bringing that out as an an issue, not as a showstopper, but something that we should consider that there's gonna be a lot of
movement back there in the next. Okay, I've already excuse me, Jeff. I've already measured out and put stakes in of where we're proposing the fence to be. And there's one stake that's inside the anchor fence that's there now.
Yeah. So that's that's one issue. And then, I would ask Eric to, Eric, if you could, could you look at what the proposal is and where the stakes are and come back to us next meeting and let us know if you have any issues related to what their their request is? And then, in the meantime, also sit there and try to determine if there's a possibility for funding for this out of some other account that maybe we can actually do and use. All right? So I can answer part of that right now. Well, don't answer part Don't answer part of of it. It. I want I would rather you come back to us next meeting and answer all of it and so that we can just vote on it. I mean and you okay. Go ahead. Answer part of it.
Okay. You're talking about putting a fence and post up in the middle of a leach field. I don't think that's a very good idea. I would never approve that.
Okay. However, you may. So so that's what we need to know. So let's, look at where the requests are for the posts, and let's sit there and see what's up, And then we'll try to work a solution that might make the community garden happy. All right? So look at what they're doing and come back to us next month so we can see what's up.
All right? And, and Eric, probably the best thing to do is to go down there with them so this doesn't continue. We, we, we have an overlap and those guys can, you can tell them what you think.
Either the gardens adjust- I already told them what I think, Scott. So,
okay. So, let's, let's sit there and do this. How much of the current garden do you believe is on the leach field? I, well It's not I'm not asking you. I'm asking Eric.
It depends what you define as the leach field. Is it directly over the pipe? Not necessarily. It's a little bit to the side. But would the fence line extend over where the leach field is? Yes. Does that current construction fence have to be moved out when they install the new leg of the septic system? Yes. So that existing fence line is going to move anyway. The temporary construction fencing.
Okay. So what I would ask you to do next meeting at least have, your recommendation for the board so that we can sit there and and have under have a vote on this to sit there and say yes or no as to the funding. So come with your recommendation. Jeff, I already know yours. I've already seen the plans. I looked at the information. Yep, I saw it.
I've got a map. I've got the surveyors map for the proposed senior center, and it's showing the reserve field. So of the requests on our package was that the pipe be moved. It's my opinion that by putting the two feet of post in the ground without cement, with crushed stone, or with a silt barrier, there would be minimal, invasion in leaching field area.
Okay. All right. Good to know and understood. And let's sit there and, Eric, get the information back to us, sit there and see where, what account the potential money could come out of it if it's available, and we'll vote on this next meeting. And Jeff and company, I'm assuming you're not planning on doing this in March.
No. We wanna get it done before before Memorial Day, before the planning season. Okay. Alright.
No problem. I understand you're wanting us to project, but we didn't know. We we planted the garden in the first February of June, so we got a late start and we had no idea the damage was gonna be that bad until later in the year. Okay, understood.
Hey Jeff, I just have a quick question real quick.
How, you know, I know the garden is built on top of the leach fields and, but, is there any, agreement that there's gonna be no stakes or anything driven into the area that they're actually gardening? Because, I mean, I know the fence is there, but there could be stakes and other things driven and should, you know, it's a concern of mine. Like, are we going to start driving things into the considerably in the reach field? Yes. Yes, Jeff. I see your map. Yes. But the leach field goes underneath the garden and, you know, I just don't wanna have somebody driving, you know, tomato stakes or iron stakes in there and damaging the leach field. I mean, it's that's a problem. So, you know, I think we almost kind of need to put agreement together that there should be nothing really driven in the ground in the garden bed area. So excuse
me, the garden beds themselves are, from my understanding from the surveyors map, are well outside the garden beds. The garden beds are raised off the ground by at least a foot, and we do not penetrate any deeper than eight inches.
Okay, I'm just asking the question because I just don't want anybody driving stakes in the ground and damaging the leach That's all.
There's no part of the garden that is on leach field. It was all filled material. The leach field stops well above where that gar those gardens are.
You have a map which shows the perimeter of the fencing extending at least 10 feet in all directions beyond where the community gardens is.
That does overlap. That, now, now that could, a fence pole or two, could possibly go into the leach field. And you can't have any holes going in to the actual field.
Okay. So so so let's get the real information so we understand because the Leachfield, there's a reserve and let's just make sure we understand this right, because I know I'm one of those members that I just want someone to come to us and say the community garden isn't going to damage the leach field and cause any issues if we allow them to do this fence. That's all I'm asking for. And I know that it might be, there might be slight differences of opinion. But, Eric, I'm asking you to sit there and understand what they're trying to accomplish. Let's help them get there, and let's make sure that we don't do any damage to Leachfield. We we still may not have the money, which is a different issue, but let's try to help them as much as we possibly can. Alright. Jeff, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. The Commission, 3B, Commission on Aging, Elaine.
Yeah, the Commission on Aging, we had initially we were asking for some alternates. And I know we had a meeting, you had a meeting, and you kind of said it's okay for alternates to be on the committees, your appointed committees. And that was kind of across the board. And Carol Lee looked into the Commission on Aging and it is not an appointed committee. So we're going on technicalities here that, oh, the reason it exists is cause the state said, hey, every town needs to have a commission on aging. And it's actually to the purview of the Board of Selectmen to do the appointing and the decision making on the members of the Commission on Aging. And so currently, we have Linda Armstrong who would like to be an alternate, and we do need alternates frequently that, you know, not everybody, regular members can seem to make it to the meeting. So I said, okay, well, I guess I'm asking the Board of Selectmen to go ahead and say, it's okay for us to have alternates, number one, on the Commission on Aging specifically, and that it's okay for Linda Armstrong, that, you know, she's appointed as an alternate.
I'd like to make a motion to appoint Linda Armstrong as an alternate to the Andover Commission on Aging. I'll second that.
Alright. A further discussion from any of the members on Linda Armstrong being named as an alternate to the Commission on Aging? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Okay. So, we're done. That's that that's part one. Let's go. Welcome, Sal. Yeah.
Part two is that if, you know, that if you give us as the Commission on Aging the authority to go ahead and appoint our own members, get it out of your hands.
Well, where is this in the charter at all? Like, just so we're not in violation of anything. And that's what we gotta look at. So, I mean, let's have Dennis take a quick look at that for next week and next month, and we'll vote on, if we can authorize you guys to appoint your own members. Okay. That would be great. Thank All right. And then let's move on to, 3C, the Economic Development Committee, and the sign as part of that. So, before we get going on the rest of Elaine and her her letter that she sent to us, I make a motion that we appoint Elizabeth Cargill and Megan Lally to the EDC.
I'll second. All right. Further discussion on those two appointments? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. So five, nothing. Okay, Elaine, welcome, Saad.
Okay. And now just back on the EDC, the reason you guys had to do that is because we only had two members at the time that these other two members wanted to join. So it's now going to be back in our court to take care of our own member appointments from now on in the EDC, as long as we have at least three members to vote. The Andover sign has been designed. We took into consideration some some comments that Paula had made about the fact that it looked like it was just a snapshot of the bridge that was, and it was, you know, but now he's fully changed it to be what it will be, which is a painting of the bridge, and it's a much simpler and it's a little bit wider, a little bit bigger view of the bridge on the sign than it was on the initial one that was sent out as an example. And we have all the dimensions, and we also have a list of materials that have been sent to us of how it's going to be made and what warranties are on it. And so, we're looking to hand that over to Eric and John, our planner, Giszkowski, to go ahead and run with it and get it done. Okay, let's,
we'll take that information to our budget meeting tomorrow and sit there and see what we can do on that one. Does anyone Well, is, well, the budget's there. The money was put for the 4,002 and $50 for this one sign. We already, that was already approved last year. It's part of the CIP budget. The second sign we would like to have done in the next budget and that is a budget request for an identical sign for
next year. Then Paula, are you good with this design?
So Elaine, I'm just trying to remember what, I don't have the previous one in front of me. So the text was bigger. And I think we talked about maybe even taking the covered Bridget off, remember where we landed with that.
Well, the EDC felt pretty strongly brand wise that the covered bridge needed to be on there. The original sign that was designed four years ago when we started this process actually had a green metal roof that looked just like the covered bridge on top of it. So I mean, so that's kind of why now a picture of it has been brought into play because it no longer looks like the covered bridge. And the other sign that had been the larger sign, it even had the rivets and the metal, it looked like the covered bridge. But, so that, you know, we couldn't afford that because Okay. I
think we were having the discussion that, that area is approximately two feet, the painted bridge, and were you going to see it in a traveling car was the question.
So what's, but I'm sorry, Elaine, I don't have the other one, the original one here in the packet, and I don't have it in front of me. So what were the changes from that to this was the, what? Well, what he had before,
it was kind of a smaller picture, actually, it was literally just it was a picture that he had on there because it wasn't the final design. And, you know, it was kind of like, it's going to be like this. And then when you looked at it, you said, it's just too small. They're really determined. Is that a photograph? I mean, I remember you asked me, and it's like, well, yes, actually it was a photograph. So I sent the bridge design that was used for the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary over to Art to take a look at and see what he could do with that. And so he basically took that and went ahead and designed that to be the picture.
Okay. Yeah. Because I think talked about also taking the picture off because, and I mean, that's just my thoughts and opinion. I don't know how everybody else feels, but when you're trying to look at what the picture is, you miss the welcome to Andover text, but it looks like the welcome to Andover text is bigger. Again, I don't have the other one in front of me. So I think the text is better on this one. It's easier to read, but in the context of looking at it on a piece of paper to what the signs are gonna look at, it's just hard to say. But I think the concern about the covered bridge last time was it was smaller and you were, it was conflicting with what you wanted to read compared to the picture, but I mean, I don't wanna split hairs here and get in the woods with this. Well, do. I do. I wanna, I wanna get in the woods Paula, quick big,
The trees the trees on your graphic need to go. I mean, if you took the trees out, Elaine, I think what you'd end up with and took the whole green behind it, like you have that whole green, it's like your trees, then you would sit there and get a bigger potential for people to understand it's a bridge. I'm just telling, I'm just saying that's my opinion. So, and I got a little bit of fall on the tree, on the tree. I mean, there's no, there's no, it, there's no reason why someone can't sit down with the artist and
talk about those. I mean, the the sign doesn't exist yet. It's just on paper. I guess what we're looking for is the go ahead to do the sign. Then If that's
we vote to give you the go ahead, then the graphic is done without input.
Oh, that's not that wasn't the that wasn't what we were looking for. We were looking for to go ahead to go ahead and just do the sign and work and work with him to get the sign done. You know what I mean? It's like it's not it's not in stone. We can certainly talk to him about, you know, and I don't know who you want to be the one who sits down and makes the decisions with the artist.
Let ask this, Elaine. The vendor you're working with, do they have a graphic designer that can pull out the background? Cause I know you're just sending them a file that you have from the one No, 170
this, this is a one man show. He is the graphic designer too. So he's building, he's designing and building? Is the designer,
yes. He's the creator and he's building it, yes. So we don't need to give him a file with the background removed. He can remove the background if we're asking him to. Just gotta ask him to do it. Yep.
Yeah. Like I said, it's like you had mentioned, is that a photograph and it looks too small to even figure out what it was. So I mentioned that to him and sent him the graphic that was much simpler to him from the January. And so he said, oh, okay, I'll use that. And so he used that. And he had, on the graphic on the January had kind of a more of a squiggly, it didn't look like a road, looked like a river. And so he fixed that, you know, he changed that. He responds to anything I tell him and ask him to do. So he could certainly, like, you know, Jeff said, get rid of the trees.
Right. I my my take on this is you should just illuminate the bridge photo altogether because you're gonna have two seconds of people driving by. I would take the script of welcome just to regular text and just put a welcome hand over. You're talking a four foot high sign. Nobody's ever gonna see that picture. To be honest with you, I've done a lot of signs and graphic design over the years, and you're just taking up space that nobody's ever gonna see, to be honest.
Okay. You may disagree with me, but that's- I I I I don't disagree with you, but what I would ask is if the CDC would like to see that bridge, I'm just asking them to come back with an option to us. One option, one one option with limited amounts of of background noise behind the bridge, and then maybe you have a shot at seeing it. I
would agree with you, but that's what I would ask. I mean, 50 miles an hour going through, even like, you're not even see it. I mean, just
asked to be honest with you, you're not gonna consider it to be lowered in that area. I agree, but the issue is it's a four foot high sign, it's four feet wide,
nobody's ever gonna see that. And to be honest with you, we actually have a large bridge that people see when they drive by every day. So we really don't need a picture of it because the monument is there. I'd rather have the sign basically saying welcome to Andover. People are gonna see the bridge every day when they drive by. They don't need a picture of it. Okay. I
have a suggestion or something, a comment. What if we ask Elaine and the EDC to ask the vendor to give two more proofs? One, remove the logo or remove the covered bridge, bump up the text. And then option two, leave it on there and remove the background and put, put something behind the bridge so it stands out a little better without, I think the problem is in the bridge photo, there's a lot of green and then the sign is green. So it's just, we need a gray, you need a gray background or the of the text that says welcome. That should be the background. So the bridge stands out a little better. So what does everybody, if we get two more proofs, option one, option two,
how I'm does our with you. Go down to next one. I like that. But I would sit there and say, if you're gonna try to make the bridge pop, it's the trees. Like, you can see where he tried to design the trees into the hill. Like, I don't mind the hill. I don't mind the road, or it looks like a river, but, everything below it that's like a hill, I don't mind. Everything that's on that hill that comes up into the bridge and is behind the bridge, it just it just washes it out. And Jeff is a 100% right. It's a one foot by two foot image that's taking up the top of the sign that you're gonna have trouble seeing. So Elaine, if we don't get the bridge to pop,
you're never gonna see it. So. Well, that's why I think let's take, let's, can we vote to say we're gonna move forward with the sign pending two proofs? Sure.
He's in the budget. Let's go. Yeah. I would like to, I'd like to suggest that the welcome should be plain text because the, the, the brain, you gotta figure when somebody drives by, got two seconds to process what they're going to see. And when you do things in script, it takes longer for the human brain to process those letters than it does in plain text. So if it's in You plain want the Yep, the font. Because when it says welcome, people are gonna, it's very, it looks great, but if you're trying to make an impact and trying to get somebody to recognize it right away, it needs to be in plain text.
And the fact that everybody under 25 has no idea what script is. Correct. Nobody does cursive anymore. Well,
what the, what the vendor's trying to do is use different fonts because he's trying to break up the sign. So that's why You're making it pretty. Yeah. Yeah.
It's okay. So to Elaine, Elaine, you know, Paul, if you want to make that motion and you want to vote fine. Elaine, you heard what we're asking for. So next, because you know, not for not, this is not a trivial thing that we're trying to decide here. It's, it's a sign that should have been in place for years, but we're going to put it in place. So it's got to be right because we're not going to be And I'm looking at it. Yeah.
Paul, if you want to make a motion and you want to vote on that, it's fine. Yeah, I think Anne, before
that, Anne, got something to say. I was just saying, I really think that it could do probably without the bridge drawing because you get the bridge feel from that sign anyway. It's got the little pitched roof, it's got the green color, it looks like it's a bridge on its own. So I'd say take that, see what the two proofs look like, but I would really go for the one without the bridge picture and just use the shape of the sign and welcome to Andover. Right. Paula, what do you want to do?
I make a motion to move forward with this welcome to Andover sign with two proofs. The first one, removing the photo above the word welcome and possibly getting a different font for the word welcome. And then the second proof will have the photo above the word welcome with the background changed and the word welcome in a different font. I'll second that.
Okay. Further discussion? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Elaine, thank you very much. Appreciate all you do. Thank. Item four, appointments. Eric, do we have any appointments?
None that I know of. Alright. Item five, resignations. None that I know of that you don't already know about. Okay. Item six, town administrator's report.
I did not prepare a report. I've had my head down trying to get a grant application out the door, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you all have. Okay. How did we do with plowing?
Okay. I mean, we plowed most of the roads, you know, got a few complaints on one of the dirt roads, but nothing significant.
One of the dirt roads? We only have one in town. Exactly. So you got a complaint from the dirt road. Yeah. All right. What other issues do you have, Eric? Anything you want to share with the board and the public?
Not at the moment. I mean, it's been a fairly quiet winter before we had this storm. I thought we did a pretty reasonable job of snow removal. The town crew worked pretty hard. You know, we're still within our budget and our budget for salt allocation. So I don't see any major issues there. Everything else is running moderately smoothly.
All right. Anyone have any other questions for Eric? Well, I actually have a question for you. The and Scott, this is related to what you and I had spoken about, earlier. There's a washout of a culvert on, Boston Hill. The state is looking to do work? Yes, correct. That's, aren't we talking about that later?
That is on the agenda. I am sorry, Paula. Thank you very much. All right, jump in. I was going to go at my town administrator to ask him about that because I was interested in that information. Okay. All right. Anything else for Eric? And we can move on. Old business, item seven, A, staff discussion on affordable housing with Tom Planner. So John, you're now up.
Okay. Sorry for jumping the gun earlier. No, you had to jump. Just get excited We're when a very flexible group. You can jump anytime you want. I just get excited when people talk to me. So it's hard to set up after that. So I jump into a little bit of a presentation, but I'm happy to answer questions that the commission or that the board of selectman may have. But I want to, with respect, and I know we have some members of planning and zoning who I think are probably a little bit more aware of some housing requirements and things like that. I'm gonna assume that that the board of selectmen has has a very, very cursory baseline of what affordable housing sort of means as far as our responsibilities from the state and as far as some of the tools that are that are available to us. And I'll present just a couple of things and then we can talk through some details if you'd like. Absolutely. Okay, so affordable housing is defined formally by the state as housing that is available to residents spending less than 30% of their annual household income on housing. If you're spending more than 30% of your annual household income on housing, whether it's an ownership situation with a mortgage or a rental situation in your apartment, you're considered cost burden. And the state has thresholds of 80%, 60% of the area median income that it labels as moderately affordable, or I'm sorry, moderate income, low income, and then there's, you know, very low income and that sort of thing. So the state has sort of definitional thresholds for what it means when it refers to affordable housing, but it's generally
pegged to a percentage of the median income and 30% of that income spent on housing. There are actually very few specific requirements that any municipality has relative to fair or affordable housing. One of those is the Fair Housing Act, which was adopted around fifty five years ago, fifty three years ago. That basically just mandates in sort of broad terms that every unit of government, state, county, town should affirmatively act to further fair housing goals. What that means, what does it mean if a town is is doing this in good faith? There is not has not really been legislated that much, particularly in Connecticut. But there is sort of a fair housing mandate out there in the federal government for five decades. More locally, the Connecticut general statutes require a couple of things of municipalities, largely acting through the planning and zoning commission. The first is mandating that a town does a plan of conservation and development every ten years. And one of my first tasks as joining the town as a consulting planner is to help update this process. The last plan of conservation and development in Andover was adopted in 2015. So we're we're due to adopt one in 2025 and that's our target. And one of the requirements of that plan of conservation and development is to plan for specifically multifamily and affordable housing, not only in the town, but sort of looking at affordable housing regionally. So exactly what form that takes or how that consideration is given to the mandatory plan of conservation and development is left a little vague, but the POCD must consider these things. In addition, zoning regulations, when the town writes or updates its zoning regulations, the zoning enabling statute, which is section eight dash two of the Connecticut General Statutes,
requires that a municipality have due consideration for multifamily housing and affordable housing. And again, what that means, what that looks like, you know, what's the difference between an Andover and a Manchester or a Little Mantic and how does each town, each town's responsibility for including this in their zoning, it's vaguely defined. And so it's sort of town by town up to the town to figure out, up to each planning zoning commission to figure out how its regulations will consider and reflect consideration for for multifamily and and affordable housing. And the last must do relative to affordable housing is a relatively new law passed in 2017, which is section eight dash 30 J of the Connecticut General Statutes that requires every municipality in the state every five years to produce or update an affordable housing plan, which is also sort of vaguely defined, but it basically says every municipality has to come up with a five year plan to increase the number of affordable housing developments in that municipality. It doesn't say by how many, it doesn't say by what percentage, it doesn't say what type apartments, condos, accessory apartments, senior housing, it doesn't say any of those things. It just says come up with a way to produce more. And the town of Andover completed this, I believe, oh, Jed, about a year and a half ago. And so the town has its first affordable housing plan that was adopted and has a number of recommendations for what can be done
to create an atmosphere of having more affordable housing in town. So those are the must dos. Then there are sort of the or else, the stick, in which in many cases is the perception of what's called the affordable housing appeals act, which is section eight dash 30 gs of the statutes, which is a law that's been in effect for some thirty five years or so. I think it was 1989, 1990 that it was put in place that says basically, if a municipality does not have a minimum of 10% of its housing stock designated as affordable, which is defined as deed restricted, income limited, or government assisted housing. If it doesn't have 10% of its stock in one of those categories, it is subject to the appeals act, which would allow a developer,
should they wish to put a development in town with at least 30% of the new units deeded as affordable to essentially, to sort of make a complicated matter simple, to essentially do an end around around your zoning regulations to allow this development to happen. You know, and so the town generally doesn't allow, the town of Andover currently and many rural towns don't sort of allow multifamily developments as of right, and certainly don't allow higher density multifamily developments at 16 units to the acre, at 20 units to the acre or something like that. But if a developer came in and Andover at the time of application did not have 10% of its housing restricted as affordable, As long as the developer could prove that such a development could be built without violating public health code or traffic concerns and things like that, it basically would be approved. As of the last state report, the town of Andover was at about 3.8 or 3.9% affordable. It had basically 50 units restricted as affordable as as as far as the town counts it, as far as the state counts it. And that includes 18 units of senior housing, which is over on on Riverview, I believe. And 32 households that receive have CHFA, Connecticut Fair Housing or Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, or USDA mortgage assistance. So currently the town is a little under 4% of its housing stock. So the town is subject
to this state mandate. I'm I'm sorry. It's not a mandate. It's a tool for for developers. But I would note that that this law has been in place for thirty five years, and the town has never, to my knowledge, been subject to one of these applications. So whereas this is sort of hanging out there, I think the demographics and the soil conditions and the cost of doing developing in Andover has essentially The market has sort of prevented Andover from being a glowing bull's eye for developers interested in doing doing affordable housing. But that tool has been out there for for some three and a half decades. Just as a question from my end, how many other communities have you heard of or seen developers do the Ender-round?
I am in the middle of a lawsuit surrounding a project in the town of Chester right now and and have been involved in eight thirty g applications in in Essex, in Deep River, in, boy, in East Windsor. I've I've I've been part of or or been involved with and and and sort of on the inside or the outside of of several leave. Madison, Clinton, yeah, there's there's been a number. I would say in Eastern Connecticut, sort of Southern Tollin County and Wyndham County, particularly Northeast Connecticut, it doesn't happen as often.
So Andover did have one application for affordable housing about fifteen years ago. Okay. That fell under eight thirty gs. The zoning commission denied the application. It went to court and the town lost, quite dramatically, actually. But the good news for the town is the developer couldn't actually build the project even as an affordable project economically and ended up folding his tent and going away. But, you know, so that's our only experience with it as a town so far.
So, you know, it works. However, development development is expensive and development is complicated and so it it, you know so anyway, so that's that that law is is out there. But again and I think as as as we've seen increasingly without, basically without sewer lines that can really enable significant density, there is just not enough, to use a a development term, delta, between the the market rate units, the the cost of developing a market rate unit and what you can sell or rent that as, and the restricted affordable unit that you have to basically lose money on the development, it's it's it's really tricky. You have to have the right market combination of density and basically a hot real estate market or an attractive real estate destination where you can make enough on the high end to be able to afford to build the the moderate low income end. And it's just a tricky time right now. So even if you wanted to encourage affordable housing. So that the town, so, you know, beyond that, you know, sort of potential stick looming out there, the town created an affordable housing plan, approved an affordable housing plan,
and has a number of goals that it wishes to do in terms of putting the town's thumb on the scale to try to encourage more housing. And when it's, you know, housing, restricted affordable housing is kind of the gold standard. And if done successfully would sort of get the potential monkey off your back from the state. But I think there is an increasing recognition that towns like Andover, aside sort of pure restricted affordable housing, just need a wider variety of housing types to meet its changing demographics and the type of people that it would like to encourage either moving to town or staying in town, folks like the young families. And we currently have a plan of conservation and development survey out there where people are identifying, you know, empty nesters, seniors, retiree downsizers, and young families as being household types that we'd like to encourage to stay in Andover or come to Andover.
But in many cases, there is not those smaller units, the starter homes or the retirement houses that are, you know, relatively small, compact, one level, in many cases accessible for those demographic groups that clearly need them. And so a lot of, I think the town's efforts in not only in drafting its plan of conservation and development, but looking at zoning regulations is gonna be looking at how can we sort of put our thumb on the scale or maybe adjust some of these dials to make some of those housing types easier to do and to work with developers to say, we are interested in this type of housing. Here's what we're doing from a regulatory standpoint, maybe from an incentive standpoint, which is where the board of selectmen or board of finance might come into play. How you induce that demand or reduce the regulatory barriers that would make Andover a more attractive destination for this broader variety of housing types, including those that are affordable. And so there's a variety of things to do, you know, is you know, making certain things easier in zoning, moving stuff from a special permit category to an as of right category, increasing density of housing developments in some types, allowing for multifamily possibly for putting in place what we would call inclusionary zoning, which would be basically a mandatory set aside of affordability for any larger development. So you're doing a 12 unit apartment, you could require via zoning the restriction of two of those units or three of those units, or what have you, as affordable
as a way to incentivize or induce some of these things. And then finally, that housing is extremely expensive to build, one of the most significant costs is cost of land. And if so, if there are municipally owned, nonprofit owned, you know, sort of mission based organization owned property that could be available to partner with a developer to make that land extraordinarily cheap or essentially free to to encourage developers to do a a larger scale development and multifamily development, including affordable, maybe seniors, maybe maybe starter homes. That is a way that the town or some or some nonprofit partner could put their thumb on the scale and reduce housing costs, reduce construction costs or development costs enough that might make the math work. But the the problem that we're dealing with is is the math is difficult even in a hot market. And Andover and and many of its, you know, relatively rural suburban neighbors are just not hot markets right now. So
there's there's, you know, that's that's sort of the conundrum is how can the town put its thumb on the scale and attract and work with developers to do the types of housing at the density, location, and style that might be suitable and welcome and helpful to the town. So those are the things that planning and zoning and ideally the board of selectmen will be thinking about.
So John, what would your recommendation be for the board of select, and, you know, we have to invest money in this affordable housing. So, do you have recommendations to help us make a decision on investing this money? I know you hinted at that in the last couple of sentences you said- Right. We almost have to get developers and talk to them and lead them along to show them that, what they could do and what, what opportunities there could be.
Yeah. So there are, and I'm, I'm not sure, Scott, with, when when you say we the town has to spend money on this or or invest in this. That's I don't know if they have to. I think, you know, the to to move the ball down the field, I think the the town, you know, is sort of faced with a position of needing to have some, you know, ought to have some skin in the game somehow. I don't know if that means, you know, a cash investment in something like that. But I know I think one of the principal recommendations I would make is to sort of inventory the town owned properties or their you know, and I'm not looking to to, you know, you know, get rid of town town recreational fields or town parks or or designated open space, but to you know, the town has a number of fairly large properties. You know, some there there's a transfer station that's on part of one. There's, a you senior center on part of one. There are big chunks of land that I think the town could investigate for their development potential. And to you know, if there is a broader number of five, six, seven acre piece with decent soils and, you know, not wetlands and not really steep slopes or
rock outcropping. So it's something reasonably developable where you could put in a decent sized septic system. Could look at making a a piece of land like that available for a public private partnership and and try to induce a developer or invite proposals for a public private partnership to to to have a a developer put in some units, you know, that they would and and some of them would be available for affordable or senior depending on the needs. That's it's something that that has worked relatively recently in Lebanon where the town near the Lebanon Green area, the town made some land available and the developer is working to to put in not that many units, maybe 16 units or something like that. And and in that way, you know, the the incentive for the developer is they're getting, you know, real very, very cheap land and a number of of units. The incentive for the town is it gets, because of the town land, you get some design control or concept control within reason. But that's, I think, where I would probably start is kind of take an inventory of what's available of town land that wouldn't, you know, sort of take away from some other key civic or or or, you know, conservation function. Right?
John, I'd like to chime in a little bit here and just give you my 2¢ on the proposal. You know, I work in an engineering company and, you know, we have a lot of millennials and a lot of younger people that are starting to work for us. And, many of them, when I tell them to live in Andover, they say, you know what, I can never live out there. I don't want to live out there. There's just nothing out here for me. I mean, most of the younger people want to be downtown where there's bars and restaurants and that type of setup. And I think Glastonbury, Rocky Hill, recently with the development of the old Ames property, they're putting multi, like high density apartments in there. Same with Newington, they're doing a huge development. I just think we need to find out who our target audience is for this and who we're going to serve by this. Is it seniors that want to stay in Andover? And do they want to get rid of their house and get rid of the responsibilities of doing a yard and upkeep and
be able to stay here with their friends and their family. You hit on the fact that we don't have a city water, city sewer, we don't have any natural gas, we have no bus service. I mean, it's hard to try to entice somebody from Manchester, East Hartford, in a rural urban area to come out here where there's actually nothing. I could, I mean, you spoke to the transfer station and the area behind the community center, but I'm trying to think of it as somebody that would try to go down and get a dozen eggs or a gallon of milk. Like, where are they going to go if they don't have a car? And most millennials and younger people don't have a car and so does, I mean, lot of seniors don't drive either. So I'm trying to find, you know, I'm trying to wrap my head around this and try to get a balance and try to figure out,
you know, what our target is and, you know, like who we're trying to serve with this. Like, I have no problem trying to find affordable housing for people that want to come to Andover and want to live in Andover, but I don't want to try to put something in just because we have to and try to entice people to come out here and then have them be stuck out in the middle of the woods and not be able to go anywhere. I mean, that's an issue for us. Sure. So, I mean, that's kind of my 2¢ on the whole the proposal. And, you know, and the stuff going through the legislature now, I I saw there's a proposal going forward now where I mean, even with affordable rentals, they're putting the proposal together now, like when your lease expires, that if you're a landlord, you can't even evict a tenant. So, I mean, the laws right now are very anti landlord or property owner and that needs to change, number one. And then number two, we need to identify who we're gonna actually have for a target audience who we're gonna design this affordable housing for. So, I mean, that's it.
Yeah. And I think in response to, I think, your very first point, I think a bit of a a market analysis is necessary. And I think that's we would probably want to to meet with some developers, you know, informally, folks that develop, you know, rural or suburban multifamily housing. I had a conversation actually with the developer who's doing the eight thirty gs multifamily affordable in Chester. I also worked for the town of Columbia and brought him to Columbia to sort of look around and talk about what kind of opportunities he'd see there and what kind of market he'd see. And I think those kinds of conversations are useful. But the thing with, you know, looking at senior housing, you know, not necessarily, you know, not nursing home housing, but senior independent, you know, active adult sort of single story or little bungalows, you know, of 1,200 square feet or something like that. The benefit of building something like that, particularly because you do have, I think a market locally
for downsizers, people who have a 25, you know, a 103,000 square foot house that they're kind of rattling around the bone in and would like to downsize, but wanna stay in town. Every time you create a unit, you know, let's call it a retirement unit for someone like that, a larger household is up for a younger family or, you know, a, you know, a family that's that's, you know, maybe doesn't wanna live in Manchester anymore or wants a little bit more of a country experience. I mean, because the the the benefit here is we're not dealing with big numbers, and of course, not a big place. So, you know, we're only a couple of dozen, you know, new new households or, you know, migrating households from, you know, downsizing seniors that create, you know, housing opportunities for for young people. It's that that market is not necessarily hard to fill because the numbers just aren't big. But anyway, so I think, you know, housing for a targeted group like seniors also has that benefit of creating housing opportunities for others, for younger families or people moving up the housing ladder. But yeah, And I think I'll agree with that 100%, John.
And I think that's the direction we should probably look to in our planning for this, because I just think that the millennials are just not interested. And there may be a few people that may, younger families that may be interested in coming out here, but for the majority, a lot of them want a walkable, bikeable, bus service type residents. And I just don't think we have that now unless the state decides they're gonna offer bus service down Route 6 between Womanic and Manchester. Yeah. And
that's an issue. I mean, that's a huge issue. Yeah. But
some of those major, you know, swings like, you know, putting in a a sewer line, water lines, public transit, you know, would be appropriate and necessary if the town wanted to get 20 times size in terms of population. But, you know, Andover just wants to, you know, largely remain rural residential, grow a little bit, have a little bit more opportunity. And that's why, you know, I think we don't need to think about adding adding, you know, 4,500 new people. You know, we need to talk about add a couple of, you know, 200. And, you know, of those, you know, maybe maybe
forty, fifty, 60 could be moderate or low income. You know, the numbers aren't enormous. Yeah, like seniors that wanna age in place and then maybe- Precise it. Consize a little bit. Yeah, that's I think the target audience we should be going for for this plan, so. Okay, and just so I understand the number,
to meet the threshold, we're talking in the range of 100 total units?
If you're talking about the number of new affordable units that would put the town over 10%, I think you're talking, I think it's around 90.
Okay. Around 90. That makes sense. Because you said we have 28 current units. You have 51. 51. I thought we had 1,100 total residents. Oh,
units in town, any housing units out there in town? And then I was just taking 10% Hold of
on, I can get you the actual it's in your affordable housing plan. The town has eleven seventy one housing units. So 117. Wait a second.
No. That's that's about right. Well, I don't mean exact. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's gonna fluctuate somewhat anyway, but let's say 120, and we currently have 28, if I understood your earlier comments.
You have no. You have 51 affordable units in town. You have 51 currently? Yes. Alright. So we're really about 60 from a number. Yeah.
Okay. All right. And, so you want to do an inventory of of the town properties of where we could potentially build those potential units. And depending upon how it's structured, I mean, I kind of agree with Jeff Murray on this one that if we're gonna do something like this, we should do something for seniors in place, seniors in our town that want to reduce their overhead and sit there and have a place to go and would like to stay in Andover if they could and give them a better location and a better single floor layout that might suit their needs as they age in place. So what do we have to do to do that?
So okay. And I I I would say I I don't know if I'm forwarding this as a formal proposal for action, but if if the, you know, the board of selectman is is so inclined, I I would certainly encourage it. I I think the the task would be, you know, I work to work with the with Eric and the assessor to essentially do a a GIS data dump of of townhome properties, and we can kind of, you know, do a 30,000 feet look at them. Okay. This one's a town park. That's the school. This is the fire station. Here's where we keep the buses. Like, and start to sort of narrow some of these things down.
If we come up with, you know, two, three, four potential properties that have excess acreage that could be good. And, you know, we'd turn on wetlands layers and endangered species layers and, you know, flood plains and things like that. So we'd sort all those things out. And if we come up with, you know, two, three, four potential properties for additional investigation, then it may be worth investing a little bit of money. And here I'm talking about, you know, the range of $2,500 a a parcel or so to do a preliminary layout to to sort of see what, you know, an engineer and a like a landscape architect could envision, could could reasonably fit on a property like that.
And then I would say we'd we'd probably invite some some developers to kind of talk through what would induce them or what would interest them about a town like Andover and what kind of development they would see. You know, all very non committal, very preliminary. Okay.
All right. Yeah. And simultaneously to that, I think there are, you know, other things that, you know, planning and zoning can continue to work forward on it. You know, they've ongoing discussions about things like accessory apartments. And, you know, when you talk about affordable, you know, the state defined affordable housing, the biggest chunk of that in Andover is CHFA and USDA mortgages. So these are private people, private citizens who own single family houses that, you know, got mortgages, it's our first time home buyers or got, you know, sort of lower income mortgage assistance. This costs nothing to the town. And so working with realtors, working with, you know, perhaps people in rental housing in Andover or surrounding towns, let them know about these programs. One's a state program, one's a federal program to use those programs to buy property in Andover and become affordable homeowners. And those numbers boost boost Andover's Andover's rating as well with you know, the town doesn't have to invest anything. That just has to be a a public information effort.
Alright. I think we should was actually thinking about that. Why doesn't we why don't we just give people a buy houses with those? So I agree I agree with that from a marketing perspective. So, Paula, let let's put that one on our marketing agenda. So moving forward, just so we understand from the Board of Selectmen, I know Planning and zoning and Jed and that team run this, but we're gonna be as supportive as we can just to understand that, you know, your biggest issue is what you stated before that someone would try to do an end around the zoning rules to sit there and get something done. But that's highly I I mean, I I would I never say never, but it's highly unlikely in the town of Andover. Yeah.
Know? In in thirty five years, it's happened once unsuccessfully.
Yeah. And it was before I was involved. So Eric Eric, I'm sure, was on the you know, probably chairman of the planning and zoning, so he probably had to deal with it directly. So alright. Let's let's sit there and move forward, and and I I I would agree that you probably wanna do the survey of the town properties. Eric probably knows the majority of the town properties that are already suitable, so the search should be fairly narrowed. And let's see what we can do to support that with reasonable objectives. Maybe we'll have to do a little bit of marketing too. I think that's probably in our best bet. So does anyone else have any questions for John, specific questions related to anything that we discussed today?
So, I have a question, and that is, would the Board consider utilizing a piece of town property for an affordable housing development? I mean, obviously it's got to go to a town meeting because it's a public, you know, it's in the public interest. But the question is, is the board willing to consider it? Because if you're not willing to consider it, it just doesn't do us a lot of good to put the time and effort into that. So that's really my question for the board. Is this something you're even interested in pursuing? I'll answer for
and I'll answer for the board. We're not closed minded group. We're going to listen if there's an opportunity put in front of us that can benefit the town and benefit town residents. So I don't think anyone on this board is going to say no out of hand. Yes, there's work involved upfront and we might say no at the end because of multiple issues, Eric. But until we understand what the opportunity is, we're not just going to say no. I mean, I would doubt it. Anybody here want to say no?
I would say no on the two properties that we have currently, because I don't think they serve what we're looking for for housing.
And I'm sure, Jeff, you know those pieces of property intimately. I don't. And I would like to understand what could be done. And if it costs us $2,500 to get a rendering of what potentially can get done, I think I'd be for that.
I mean, for a case study, if you had a parent that was in one of these units and behind the community center and they needed to go out and get a half a gallon of milk or a dozen of eggs, well, how are they gonna get it if they don't have a car or they can't drive? That's the thing. Need to consider locality to, you know, shopping and be able to get food if they need it, walkable, bikeable type of arrangement. And those two properties that we have currently just don't suit that.
Well, I would sit there and I would come back against you, Jeff, and go, we have 28 units or however many units are done on Riverside. And how are those individuals getting places? They either have cars or they're taking the town transportation?
Where they can walk. I mean, if they wanted to go. They can walk where? Where can those individuals walk? I mean, they could walk to the store on Route 6 if they really wanted to. I get it. I'm saying it's not going to happen, but for a planning standpoint, why would we want to put a bunch of people in the middle of the woods where they can't access a store? It's a transportation
don't think it makes a difference. It does make any sense. It makes zero sense. It's not for us to decide if they want to be there. It may not ever happen, Jeff, but we should sit there and listen to the opportunity for it, and a developer is going to come in, and so now let's go to the capitalist way. The developer is going to come in and sit there and say, Hey, it doesn't make any sense. We can't do it. But at least we've done our due diligence to try to get to the state mandated number. Whether we get there or not is a different issue. Understood,
but I don't want to waste time doing that. If we're going to do it, let's do it and be smart about it instead of just sitting here wasting our time looking at property that I don't think is really feasible.
Okay. Well, that is your opinion, and I respect that. But I also sit there and go I look at those properties and I go, Hey, if I had a parent that lived in this town and could get a very nice 1,200 or 1,000 square foot house there, I mean, my mom's 90 years old and she I took her to the eye doctor this week. She's so happy she's still got twentyforty vision. She's ready to get back in the car and go. So it's all different stuff, Jeff. Different strokes for different folks. And not everybody's going to be taking a bus. And let me tell you, if I'm 90 years old and I can still drive, I will be putting the pedal to the metal and moving on out.
Understood. But we need to look at those people that can't do that as well.
Yeah, I'm with you. Sure. I don't think Jeff will say no to the two properties, but then the issue is from the rest of us, I still believe that even those two properties should be evaluated and we should evaluate any of the other properties that are out there.
I think there's just more suitable properties in the town of Andover that would be more suitable to this type of housing. That's all. Okay. And I don't disagree with you that there's some privately owned pieces of property that would be more suitable.
How does how do, you know, And but we don't have control over those to sit there and and and offer them to a developer. So, you know, then I'd go back to you, John, and go, are there ways that we can incentivize the those land owners that might have properties in town? And what would we do for that if they might be interested in selling their properties or working with a developer to build those units? Well, yeah, no, I mean, if
you determined that, you know, for various reasons and location isn't important, that the town properties are not suitable, then, you know, the next question is, okay, so what properties are suitable? And, and you look at, you know, maybe something near, whatever shopping, near town hall, the schools, the library, the senior center, you know, you sort of do a geographic study. And if you found a privately owned piece of land, there's a variety of things you could do. I mean, the town could seek to acquire it, you know, just outright buy it, but, know, bond your funds or set aside sinking funds to do that. There could be a regulatory tool if the private entity was sort of development motivated. We could create some sort of, you know, incentive housing overlay where you have, you know, certain density and actually Columbia is looking at doing just precisely this right now. Doing, you know, some kind of very attractive zoning incentive that would create, you know, a a, you know, no arbitrary density cap kind of creative solution that would really get a developer interested. That's and that, you know, that's one tool. So, you know, either the the talent look to acquire it or really create some sort of created some sort of density development incentive. You know, there are other other ways to to skin this, but as you go further down that road, you're a little bit more market dependent if the town, you know, sort of doesn't control the cost of the land.
Okay, understood. All right. Jeff said he would be opposed to those two properties. Anybody be opposed to Eric doing some legwork on trying to move this forward on even those two properties and any other town properties?
Not opposed to. I think we should investigate it and see if it's possible.
Okay. And in fairness, I'm happy to help Eric. He doesn't have to do legwork by himself. No problem. Okay.
Scott, you good? I'm good with that. Yeah, I feel the same way Ian does. Paul, are you good with that?
Yes? Okay. Alright. Even even without Paula's verbal thing, her shaking to her head was fine. We'll take it. Alright.
Does anybody have issues with the renderings and the concept scheme that are in the town of Andover's affordable housing plan? Because basically, Bill Warner has done that on, I think, four different properties and showed you conceptually, you know, on those properties, what it would look like if you did do a housing development and how it would look.
Can you bring those four pages to our next meeting? Yeah. In the affordable housing plan, right, Eric? Sure.
Yeah, pull out the PDF pages and bring them to our next meeting and we'll have moved this item from, know, we'll continue to keep it in old business. I'll
send you those pages in the next couple minutes. All right, John. Thank you. Any other questions for John? John, thank you very much for taking your time to be with us, sorry we took so much of it. No, it's great to great to be with you guys. Alright. Thank you very much. Thank you, John. Alright. Item 7B community center construction update. Attorney O'Brien, I know that we're interested in moving that and another item to executive session.
Yes, I I I agree that the FOI Act authorizes executive session for both those items, seven B and seven E. So I'm going to give you the citation from the statutes for that just so it can go into the record. It's general statute section one dash 200. Forens six, Forens Capital B, and Forens nine, Forens Capital C. Okay, and the upshot of all that is that the agency's consideration of action to enforce or implement legal relief or a legal right may be subject to, it is subject to discussion in executive session, provided, of course, that you hope to go into executive session. So I would recommend actually that for item B, which from what I understand, there's going to be some discussion based on e mails I received regarding some issues with the construction contract with the implementation
of the construction contract under item 7B. And of course, we're all familiar with the 7E item regarding a potential lot line agreement. So those two items to me are eligible for treatment under the FOI executive session. And that's up to you as to whether or not you want to do that, both of you went to executive session and invite others into the session who you think may be necessary or or helpful such as the town administrator and possibly even myself. Alright. That's it.
Yeah. I'll I'll make a motion that we move item seven b and seven e to executive session. Second, Dennis. Wait. Wait. I made a mistake because I was laughing. And invite town administrator Eric Anderson and town attorney Dennis O'Brien.
I make a suggestion that you push that to the end of the meeting? Yes. Yes. Go into executive session now and then have to go back and restart. No. That that's how I that's how I was perceiving that we would work this. It would be, after public speak.
Okay. Who who seconded that? I'm sorry. Did I Scott did. Alright. Any discussion on these items? Alright. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. All those opposed? Jeff, are you gonna vote or no? I'm in agreement. Okay. So five five nothing. Okay. Let's go to item, seven c, discussion of blight and level of involvement. Eric?
So I did send the board separately from the packet a copy of the updated blightzoning violations stats. So you should have had that to review prior to the meeting. Sorry, didn't get it from Jim early enough to give it to you earlier. I think Dennis can talk about where we are with probably our leading contender in the blight issue, which is the Barnett issue that has gone through the, you know, the citation and citation hearing process. And the property does or will in the next day or so have a lien attached to it for $5,500 for failing to meet the blight statutes. And so that's where we're at with that right now. If you have any other questions regarding any of the other properties, I will answer what I can.
Oh, well, congratulations to you and Dennis on getting, the citation system set up and and working. I think that's that's a that's a valuable move for the town. We've made progress. So thank you very much on that part.
So wanna tell you that I wanna thank, Mark Risley, who is our citations hearing officer. It's very difficult in some smaller towns, especially to get anyone to serve in that position. It's a semi judicial position, and I did train him, and he did a wonderful job hearing his first case on February 13. First case ever in this town. I'd like to make some suggestions in the future to expand the scope of the hearings major into other areas other than blight and to I was gonna make I'm making a survey of all of our ordinances to see if fines should be attached to them and we have zoning as well and move into that area and use that to help induce people to follow the the rules and regulations of the town. And if not, they'll be fine. But I think after a while when the town is taking these violations seriously and has a process for dealing with them. I think that we're gonna get more compliance. So, I'm really pleased with the outcome of that one case that went on for quite a while and also the work of Jim Halsey, our flight enforcement officer who also is our zoning enforcement officer who did such a nice job with Attorney Branch in the recent case we regarding the community center in the zoning area. So I'm I'm very pleased with that result, and I'm, looking forward to, more cases and, well, hopefully at some point, none where people are all following the rules. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you.
Anybody, have any questions for Eric related to blight issues that they're seeing out there? Okay. Alright. Thank you very much. Let's move on to 7 D, Hendi Road, Buddhist Road impacts.
Eric, anything? So that is on the spreadsheet. The zoning agent sent them a letter stating that they needed to come into compliance with the town's zoning regulations. Because right now, even though what they're doing would be permittable, they still haven't applied for the permits for the occupations that they have. So that's really the first step, Bring them into zoning compliance. And then as part of that, deal with the parking situation, preferably on-site.
What do we have for the cost of those permits? I don't know. Okay. So next meeting, can you come back and just we we should be setting a reasonable fee for administrative services on any of those types of permits, and then we should bring Dennis into if they fail to get those permits that we value correctly. Then I would assume Dennis that we would be able to sit there and bring this to the compliance officer, for hearing.
Yeah, the process is relatively complicated. It's authorized by state law but it keeps you from having to go to court on every one of these cases and I mean, they can be brought to court by the violator but most of these cases in my experience when I was set up a system in Mansfield that worked quite well. Most of these cases are not brought to court. I think I only had one out of maybe oh 30 or 40 cases that we had over in Mansfield during my tenure there. So, it's a great way to enforce the zoning regs and the town ordinances that provide for a fine but we need to make some changes in the town ordinances as I said before and we also need to bring zoning into it and that is that is really important and that I've
already drafted an ordinance for that awaiting our next special town meeting at which I'll try to make other presentations, additional presentations on first to the board of selectmen on ordinances I think should carry a fine and should be enforceable under this system. And one of them, mister First Selectman, is the one you mentioned and that would be people who do not get permits. The people who don't get permits when they're supposed to get permits for almost anything can be fined brought into the system. And I think that's a great idea because there is a lot of violation in that regard as far as I know.
Thank you. The question that I would ask you first, Dennis, is we, I would assume, are the board that would set up permit fees or approve permit fees.
Well, actually, it it to some extent, it would be it would be the board but it would also some of these things would have to go to you you would start the process with approval of a proposal say from me for example and then it would have to go to town meeting. So we're going to need at some point a special town meeting. I remember we had half ago, we put a whole bunch of very good provisions on the agenda for a special town meeting. I remember it well. We had a large turnout. We passed a lot of really good legislation. And I think we're gonna have to do that again pretty soon. It's around time it's about time to do that as far as I'm concerned.
Okay.
Eric, you were gonna say? I was gonna say the ordinances currently give the power to modify the fee structure for, you know, zoning and zoning applications to the board of select. And so you could approve a different, you know, fee schedule for zoning applications if you so desire.
Okay. Jed, I believe is still on there. Well, I would like to review that, and I would like to make sure that we're Obviously, types of events create other problems or certain different problems, and there's administrative costs to having permits be applied for, so I think we should sit there and look at our fee structure for those types of items at a future meeting. But that is something I'd like to look at down the road. Is there any other questions? The
Buddhist road property. Buddhist property. I'll be looking at all that myself, and I'll I'll report back to you as soon as I can. Alright. I I noticed that no one has been
at that property since it snowed. So I don't know if the monks moved out or
Right. It's too cold, they froze to death. It's very sad. Well, I'm not worried. I'm not worried about, not worried about the residents. What I'm worried about is the excessive gathering that is requiring of a permit.
And if we talk about this and put it on our agenda again, we probably should put it on that it's on Hutchinson Road.
Correct. I I would think. It's off of Hendy, but it is Hutchinson's that is the problem and causes the problem with the the traffic. Alright. A seven f, stiff account update, Eric.
No real update. We still have the vast majority of our money in the STIF account. We're still making $1,415,000 bucks a month, in interest fees from the STIF account. So happy, happy joy joy there. Yes. So what the what was it last month?
I can't give you the exact figure off the top of my head. I don't have it. One second. I'm not sure if it's in the package. I didn't see it. But I know there was $250,000 additional funding moved there. Don't know if they're putting it in the top. I don't have a number. They don't have a monthly number. So there's seven months, $129,946.43. So I'm sure, you know, as more money and more money gets into that account, it's it's different. The last month is a larger number. So but if you divide that over the seven months you have, you almost have 9,509.
Yeah. From that number. Yep. I was wondering if we built it up slowly
because we have a problem with our M and T account. There's only so much we can transfer in one shop. Right. So it took a while to get up to having the majority of our money in that account. And and listen. It's a it's a it's a
it's very positive thing It's for the community that we excellent. Yeah. And so good job by Eric and the treasurer. Right. Very good.
Jeff, before we move on, is there any update on the Skinner Hill Road parking lot? Because I saw it in our packet, but I don't see it on the agenda. Yeah. I was gonna say that, Jeff. I read that. I think we need to move that to next the next month's meeting.
Alright. Do we have an update on that as with as far as the construction fees for the parking lot or anything with that? So
all I can tell you with that is when you move the board of select meeting, you picked a date with which con conflicted with several of the people at Joshua's Trust that would have been here. So they could not make tonight's meeting, so I told them we'd have to do it at next month's meeting.
And and that's fine. So Okay. I just You know what I mean? We're taking care of it. That's all. Yeah. And Yep. I would also sit there and and go. You have the information in our packet on the the the civil engineer, the, yeah, the Jacobson. I don't see it on the agenda.
That's item A under new business state and local bridge program.
Got it. I didn't see Jacobson all the way out to the right. My bad. Okay. So we're done with CIFICAL. We're gonna move on to item eight. We're going to go to item 8A, state and local bridge program approval discussion of contract expansion to hire, Nathan Jacobson.
Okay. So I'll give you this real quick. So there's kind of three things at play here. The first is the town's purchasing policy. The second is the contract we signed with Nathan Jacobson to provide engineering services. And the third is the actual cost for the design for the engineering services. And so, I went to the Board of Finance, you know, last time, last meeting, because I think that this, I want an agreement by both boards if we're going to proceed with this without going to RFP. So, basically, when we hired Nathan Jacobson as our civil engineering firm, we hired them primarily for their expertise in the federal local bridge project, or the state local bridge project, because they have a really good track record of getting designs through, getting state, helping us to get state funding, and facilitating the actual construction of projects. The problem came in is that we made our original contract with Nathan Jacobson in a period where the cost of bridge projects has been ballooning. In fact, we had a presentation by the state DOT not too long ago at one of the CROG policy board meetings and also at the transportation board meeting, where they've noted that the average cost for a major culvert replacement has gone up by a factor of four in the last six or seven years, which is crazy. What's driving that in large part is design requirements and permitting requirements, you know, are a lot more significant than they were even, you know, eight to ten years ago,
especially stuff that requires Army Corps of Engineer permits. And what they do is they typecast you into much more expensive structures than what would have done before. I mean, what's there now is a couple of squash metal pipes that got stuck in there filled with earth and, put a road over it. And you just can't do that today. So what I would like to do is just authorize Nathan Jacobson to do the design work for this bridge or culvert, because that's what we hired them for instead of going out to RFP. And, you know, but knowing that it's over the cost threshold that we originally signed. So, I originally had up to a $75,000 threshold for engineering design services for a project before I had to go back out to RFP. And this is about 128. But if you look at the state guidelines, you know, it's still 60 or $70,000 less than what the state says we could charge for engineering fees on a culvert of that size and complexity. So, I think the proposal they gave us is actually pretty fair. And I really don't want to go through the RFP process for this, because I think Nathan Jacobson can actually deliver and get us a design, you know, and get us to build in a year or so, which is my objection, and get us through permitting. So that's what I would like to propose, and that's what I would like to discuss here.
So and this does not violate our purchasing policy, and the board of finance has already motioned to approve it. So now I'm coming to you and say, is this something the board of selectmen will consider?
That's it. So so your your issue is that the RFP process will take you too much time and energy to, and I, and I don't say, I might, maybe I've said that wrong, Eric, but you're trying to avoid the whole process of the RFP.
I am and I'm not. And by that, I mean, we spent a lot of time interviewing engineering firms before picking Nathan Jacobson. And we picked Nathan Jacobson specifically, I mean, they had other traits, but in large part, we picked them because of their expertise with navigating the state local bridge program. What we didn't, and we had tried to set a high enough threshold that most of the projects, the engineering for most of the projects would automatically fit under the threshold, and we could just hire Nathan Jacobson. But we did it in a period where the costs were going up dramatically, in large part because of regulation. So, you know, the threshold we established just isn't realistic in 2024. It was realistic, you know, in 2020, but it's not today.
Okay. And so the state is saying that a potential design for a culvert of our size or this size is $160,000
So they said it was, I think if. If you go back to the, the state approval. Oh, I don't have the cost basis in that shit. Excuse my language. Put it in the tip jar. Come on, man.
Totally. I'll totally put money in the tip jar for that. That is killing I'll donate it to the seniors. Killing me. But yeah, when, when we looked at the budget we submitted to the state, for the local bridge program, which they accepted and agreed to fund half the cost, the design costs built into that based on their guidelines were somewhere around $180,000 you know, per the DOT guidelines. But what Nathan Jacobson will actually charge us is 127. 127. Well, 128.
Okay. Does anyone else have any questions specifically to Eric related to this? Jeff? I'm good. Alright. If it makes your life easier, Eric, then I'm okay. So I'll make a motion that we allow the town administrator to expand the contract to hire Jacob Jason Jacobson. On which culvert, Eric? This is the one on Lake Road by Basola. For the Lake Road culvert. I'll second.
Alright. Further discussion, anybody? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Yeah. I have nothing. All right. Let's go to 8B, the Youth Services. Okay. So
I threw in the packet, it is on page 28, the proposed budget for Youth Services. And I also invited all the Board of Select members and Board of Finance members to attend their budget presentation. So this is the summary of what is proposing. As most of you know, is the Youth Services Bureau for the town of Andover. It's a tri town board, but Columbia is part of it also. And that is what they are proposing. As most some of you may or may not know, the way the organization is structured is the Board of Selectmen has one vote in approving the overall budget, and the Board of Finance has one vote. So ordinarily, I cast the Board of Selectmen vote, but only after you as a board authorize me to cast a yay or nay vote.
And then the Board of Finance decides who they're going to have cast their vote.
So we're talking about a $5,000 increase in our overall expenditure for them? Correct. And do they have did they provide you with any usage data? How many of our residents utilize services?
Not directly as part of this. They've supplied that in their annual report, but we don't have that yet.
Well, it was a $5,000 increase. It's it's over a 5% increase, for the community, for the town. But Correct. I know they provide a significant level of services, especially to our residents and to other residents in the school. Were there any issues Eric raised at the budget presentation that you want to come back to us and tell us about?
No, I mean, we had a pretty good conversation about it and, you know, what programming they were doing. I mean, I think a large part what they're kind of focusing on is just overall youth mental health, and trying to staff up that. They did get a grant from Hartford Foundation for Public Giving to develop kind of basically a business model, where how they could provide that service without really spending a lot of money. So they've been working on instituting that. And I would also note that, you know, even though Andover is 16% or so of the population, you know, of a $1,820,000 budget, Andover only spends about $100,000 The rest of the money that they budget comes from, you know, state sources, federal sources, or fundraising sources. So they derive a lot of their money from outside events. You know, so to me it seems like we're getting a reasonably good deal, but youth services is not really my strong suit, you know, in general.
Did they talk about why their health insurance went down so substantially?
I think part of that was they have some real staffing issues right now, and they've been using contractors in place of employees in some cases because they can't hire. So I know that was part of the factor. I don't see anything else that would drive their health care costs down because they are on the same health consortium that we are on.
Okay, so that means they have less participants. Okay, because our health care went up, what, 16%? Correct. Wow,
That math is tough for me to work out. Okay. Anybody else have any specific questions related to the budget for Okay. Does the board want to approve this tonight or tomorrow in our budget meeting or vote on it tonight or tomorrow? Well,
we probably won't have more information tomorrow. Right? No. So then I say either we vote on it tonight or we ask for more information and vote on it another night. Well, there's no, I mean,
me, there's no additional information. It's a program that's established. I would assume if Eric came to us and said there was significant issues by the board and the discussion group that met over this. And if he's not, then basically, Eric, everybody approved of the overall budget proposal for There was no specific was there any organization in Hebron or Marlboro or Columbia that put up one of the other entities that was in disagreement with one or more of the parts of this budget?
No, I mean, the biggest issue was Marlborough. The town administrator just had a lot of questions about the organization because he's a new town administrator and he hadn't really interacted with So there were a lot of questions about process and procedure that we all talked through, you know, and why the vote was the way the vote was and whose authority it was to actually approve these. So, but there weren't, nobody was really having an issue with any of the specifics of the cost structure of the agreement.
Okay. And so you guys, the the the group that was there listened to the presentation from and is now coming back to the respective boards to get approval. And you're gonna go back and say yes or no. Correct.
Alright. I vote to authorize, the twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five youth services budgeted amount for the town of Andor to be a $102,528. I'll second.
Alright. Further discussion on the program or the budget for the twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five? Anyone? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Eight c public meeting on March 12, 7PM, Route 16, related to the Route 16 connectivity project.
So what I would like to do is hold a public meeting on that date in the community room to solicit further feedback regarding that project. Now, we have already submitted the grant. So, you know, because we were under a deadline, there's no way we're having a big public meeting before that. So, we talked to the homeowners directly, with one exception that we tried to get ahold of multiple times and were never able to make contact with them. So, we've taken into consideration the best we can, the input from all the homeowners along that project. But we also want to broaden it out to the community because I've had a bunch of people ask me questions, you know, and we want to have a public meeting to discuss and have the engineer present the preliminary, you know, preliminary plan, and then get further feedback before we go into survey and design. Now, because we have more money available that we have to spend by the end of the year, I am trying the end of the fiscal year. I am trying to expedite this and get this as far through the design process as I can. But I want to get as much public input as I can before I do that. So that was our goal in that. And public has a right to know what it is, you know, the town's trying to do. So that's that.
All right. I'm just going to keep going. I'll make a motion to schedule a public meeting to discuss the Route 16 connectivity project on March 12, 7PM, in the Andover Community Center. I'll second. Further discussion? Correct. Correction. Route 316. You said Route 16.
My bad. Route 316 connectivity grant connectivity project. So please correct that when you hear this. The phantom person that's going to write this up, please correct that. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Eight D, a date for discussion to meet with the fire chief and the fire, and the Andover Volunteer Fire Department staff at the firehouse. So
a little correction to how that's worded on the agenda here. So Eric and I were talking. Chief Mike was asking to meet with the board. We've never really sat down with them and he wants it to be the chief and not the entire volunteer staff. Just the officers. Just to kind of meet and greet, we never really kind of sat down with them as a board, get to know them, they get to know us and he just wants to sit and have a cup of coffee for an hour and just chitchat. So, the idea was get thrown out there on a Sunday at the firehouse. I think originally they were talking about Sunday morning. I asked if the afternoon would work just because I'm being a little selfish because I go to church Sunday morning. Anybody's in the same boat, Anne's in the same boat. Chief Mike said, you know, he was, they were available Sunday afternoon as well. So just looking for probably two dates after budget season. I said to him, you know, right now we're in the, in the mix of meetings and he said that was fine. So in March at some point, looking to give him a couple of dates to see what works with him and his officers. Let's look at the calendar.
So I'm gonna say the thirty first is probably out for most people that are celebrating Easter that day.
Yeah. All those days are tough. Do the 10 can we do the tenth?
I'm available the tenth. Can we try and give them two two dates with a majority of us?
All right. The seventeenth is St. Patrick's Day. It's not gonna work. That is The seventeenth. I'm assuming for the fire department and the guys. The following day is Palm Sunday. The following Sunday, the twenty fourth is Palm Sunday. The next day is the thirty first. That's Easter.
So Palm Sunday, I don't unless people are doing dinners and stuff. Mean, if if people are doing Palm Sunday stuff, it's probably in the morning, but I don't know if anybody's got, like, a dinner, but just throwing that out there. So we're saying March 10 is a yes. Correct? Yeah. Twenty fourth is a maybe for me. Okay.
I'm not sure about that one right now. Okay. What about?
St. Patrick's Day in the afternoon, you think would be an issue? I mean, I'm just asking. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Well, maybe people are celebrating a little early later in the day. We don't know.
I don't know. I'm trying to I mean, I would think it would be more of an issue on Monday because everybody'd be hungover.
Well, listen, we're trying to be diplomatic here, Eric. That's tip in the jar there for a senior lunch. Okay? Killing me here.
What about a date in April? Why don't we, why don't we say the March 10 for sure? And then something in April. The April 14. Fourteenth. Yeah. Yep. Okay. The fourteenth? The tenth and the fourteenth work. What time are we thinking? 01:00. 01:00. Okay. How about 01:30? 01:30 maybe. 01:37. Yeah.
That's different, Scott. One 01:30. You got you got a pickleball tournament here at? What what's wrong with the seventh? What's wrong with 01:37? Okay. All right. Let's move on. Okay.
So I'm going to tell them March 10 and the fourteenth as two options at 01:30. Jeff, do you have any thoughts on any of this?
I'll just try to make whatever work. I don't really plan that far ahead, to be honest. All
right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Paula. So, we're gonna move on to, eight e. And, Eric, just as a point, there was information in here in the packet related to, from the fire commission, I believe, related to their
abatements? That's not really actually coming from the fire chiefs. That's coming from the fire company, and that's part of what I think they would like to discuss with you. They would like the board support so that the next time we go to a town meeting, that is one of the ordinances that is considered. And if you look at it, they stated upfront that they would make it effective the twenty five-twenty six budget year. So it wouldn't affect, because they know you're probably not going to get it through the decision making process early enough for it to be instituted in this year, nor do they have any real desire.
Okay. So that's why that information was in there. Okay. So we'll have that discussion when we sit down with them.
However, I do have one question for the board, and this is something that didn't come from the fire chief, that did come from the Board of Fire Commissioners. And that is, you know, we have a chief that's been a volunteer in the town of Andover for many, many years, like twenty six or '20 seven, But he does not live in Andover. So even though he's the chief, he doesn't get a tax break. And the Board of Fire Commissioners asked me whether I would pursue with the town of Bolton, no, not Bolton, Columbia whether where he they, whether we could come up with some kind of arrangement so he gets that equivalent tax break in Columbia. But I don't think Colombia is just going to blanketly give them, you know, a rebate. You know, we would have to reimburse Colombia if we're going to do that. So that question
came from the Fire Commission, not from Ron Mike. I think Ron Mike doesn't necessarily think he needs it or wants it, but the Fire Commission feels it's an issue of fairness. And they also think that potentially it's an issue of ability to recruit firemen from other towns.
Okay. Let's sit there and have that discussion when we're there with them, and let's figure out a way that we might be able to work it out. But, I mean, I read their requests, so let's let's deal with it later at that meeting. Eight e local traffic authority approval for the detour for a detour and closure of Route 3 603 Boston Hill Road. Correct. So basically
the DOT did a culvert inspection because I had a complaint from somebody that there was a little bit of a cave in. They went out, looked at it, and decided that it needed emergency replacement. And for some reason, they don't seem to care too much about state or federal regulations. They just want to do it. However, they can't do it without a detour. And only you, as a board of selectmen, can approve a detour because any detour has to use town roads. So that's why it comes to you as the local traffic authority to approve it. And the DOT said they would probably post within, sorry, within a day or two of the approval by the local traffic authority with the intention of doing the work in about two weeks, you know, after they get approval. How big of a culvert is it? I think they're twin 48 inches culverts.
Twin 48 inch culverts. Right. Can you find out how much money it's gonna cost them? A lot less because it's there's no bureaucracy,
Jeff. I know, I get it. They're just doing it. I love it. Percy Cook's gonna pull up with his excavator and take care of it.
I mean, I mean, I'm just interested in what's the state gonna, what it's gonna cost.
Not lot. I stopped down and looked at it. It's pretty interesting, what they're doing.
Okay. So what you're saying, Eric, is we have to go through all the regulation and the bureaucracy to get our culverts done, but the state doesn't appear to be going through the same level of bureaucracy. So does I that mean that want Eric to answer Yeah, That seems like a pretty fair statement. Yep.
Okay. Alright. Unless it's a safety issue? The safety issue, then
I I mean, you know The lake had a major culvert washout. Like, if Staddlebrook blew out completely and all washed down into the lake, I bet we could replace that in an emergency basis and just get away with doing it. You know, but short of that, you know, I have no desire to go make big rocks in little, you know, into little rocks. So, I
have no problem with it. So I'll make a motion that we approve a detour for the closure of Route 603, Boston Hill Road. I'm sorry. Let me go backwards. I make a motion that we authorize a detour to allow the state of Connecticut to close and repair Route 603 Boston Hill Road? Second. Okay. Further discussion? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. All right. We're going to move on to item nine, approval Jeff, of
just one quick do we add an item 8F, approval of Board of Selectmen member to CIP?
We can't add an item, Jeff. Okay. Okay. Can do that at the next because it is a special meeting. Just want Yeah, because it's a special meeting. Understood. Understood.
Okay. So let's move to item nine, approval of minute meetings for and we'll do them all. Well, can we do them all? Were we all at the mall? Okay. I'll make a a motion that we approve the minute meetings for the 01/17/2024 special meeting, the 01/22/2024 special budget meeting, and the 01/29/2024 special budget meeting. I'll second.
All right. Further discussion, all those in favor, aye. Aye. Okay. So I have nothing. Let's move on to the treasurer's report. Eric, anything specific related to the treasurer's report?
No, not really. I mean, the treasurer's report and the check register are in there. The treasurer was back in a couple of days ago. She had to come up from Florida for a couple of days. So, spent about a half a day working on-site. The Tuesday, I think Tuesday, we got a bunch of questions, or I got a bunch of questions answered. And we had some further discussion with the auditor. The auditor is hoping by Friday to issue the draft audit report and have it in our hands. He was just doing a final review before he released that to us. So I if I get it Friday, you will get it Friday, and you and the board of finance will have that to review and ask questions of.
Okay. Anybody have any specific questions on any of the line items? Okay. Let's move on to item 11, the tax collector's report. And before we get to the refunds, I wanna talk about the reports that are provided, Eric. So, the report that starts on page 66, can you ask the tax collector to look at the section that's called uncollected taxes by year? And they don't appear accurate to me. And I say that because I don't, I can't believe 2022 is there's still $8,000,000 uncollected for 2022. And when I look down at the next report, which is this nice tax five dashboard, it shows me a total due of 2,300,000. So, I'm thinking that the information that's provided
here has been static and has not been changed on page 66.
So, if you can just have a look at that. It's Yeah. That does not look like it's up to date. Yep. Yeah.
So take a look at that. Other than that, it was a big collection month. I'm assuming because there's no section off to the right that the tax collector is having a better time balancing her numbers out.
The tax collector has managed to successfully balance the books on a regular basis. I love it. Good job.
Alright. So we have another, set of tax payments due and all unpaid taxes from the last let's see, we're on payment we're on payment two. Right? We're, yeah. We're on payment two. No. Payment we're on payment three, and we have one more to go. So 2,500,000, 2,300,000 looks right, not 8.4. Right? So, anyway, anybody else have any other questions on the tax inspectors report? Okay. Tax refunds, there are four of them. Refund of excess payments to the okay, so I won't make the motion on this one. I hate this one.
Sorry, if I can get to the right page. Hang on. 68. My Internet is not stable, so it's not bringing up the right page. Scott or somebody else has to do it. It's not bringing up my packet right.
Come on, Jeff. You can do it. It's good for you.
I'll make a motion that we approve, tax refunds, for excess payments to four taxpayers in the amount of $697.83. Second that. Second that. Okay. And? Okay. And seconded it. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. All right. Departmental reports that are out there, anybody have any questions related to any of the reports that were in our package? I'll sit there. I'll just make a general comment. So, were 15 total building permits issued in the month. Are we still using the online system, Eric? And are we having any problems? No. The online system is running pretty smoothly.
Okay. Alright. And then we had Department of Public Works report that Jay issued in his his log. Any, any issues with Public Works that we need to be made aware of, Eric?
So, the only thing I think we should have a discussion, because I know we were going to have a discussion tomorrow with Jay Tuttle anyway, because you had asked him to come back and provide you some more details in terms of budgeting. We should have a discussion about the chip seal contractor. Basically, we got bids on the state bid list last year, both vendors were essentially identical cost. We went with Gorman because Gorman, you know, in truth, Joe Gorman, Jay thinks Gorman does a better job overall than Comer. I'm not sure I agree, but they didn't, they were not able to do the work this year. So we're out of that construction season, we're into the new construction season.
Comer has the state bid contract this year, but their costs are up. So I would prefer to use Comer because I think Mormon's kind of, what's the word, been underperforming the last two years in a row, and I really don't want to reward that behavior. But Jay and I disagree on that. And because Gorman has agreed to honor last year's prices, if we do it this year, it will be about $30,000 cheaper. So it does offer us a significant savings. I personally feel we've had enough issues with them that I don't want to do that, but $30,000 is $30,000. So it's gonna be a question of do we roll the dice on whether Gorman can actually perform, you know, or not. So I think that will be tomorrow's discussion, or part of tomorrow's discussion when we get to that portion of budgeting. Okay.
Just so everyone's aware, the Andover Senior Transportation report is included in our package that was prepared by Kathy Blasey. And we also have one by the registrar of voters, and there there was also one before public works from the assessor's office and the building department. So just letting you know which ones we have in our packages. And then, Eric, what's the last page? So after, the registrar of voters, what's the last page in the packet related to?
So that is a list that I get on a monthly basis for all of the crumbling foundations that are in the town of Andover. And unfortunately, Andover is part of this giant Excel list. And we didn't do a great job when we cut off and put that in, you know, of X ing out of transferring the header information that should have been on that pack. So basically what it is, is it's a list in Andover of how many houses have registered for the Crumbling Foundation program and then the notes, essentially the progress notes on it. And the reason I bring this to your attention is because if something is in that crumbling foundation, we are obligated by state law to give them a pretty huge tax abatement until their crumbling foundation is dealt with. So this list essentially goes to the assessor's office and the assessor's office has to reduce bylaws, has to reduce taxes pretty considerably on those properties. So that's why I've given it. I've given this to you before. I don't give it to you very often because it doesn't really change much with time.
Can if I'm counting the ones, which I'm assuming are the number of properties, there's 22 properties in Andover? I thought our list was 31 properties.
Right. If you get us if you can get us that list next time, that would be helpful because another unfunded state mandate, basically. Are they funding us for this? Are they refunding us for the property tax dollars?
No, I don't think we're getting any. The only thing fortunate thing in Andover is we actually have very few houses that are eligible for the rebate because it's only the ones that have real significant spalling and cracking and actually get recommended for replacement, and there aren't that many of those in Andover. Okay. In a lot of towns, this has made a significant impact on their grant list. Okay. So in Andover, it's a relatively minor contribution.
So since you provided it, I would ask you for next month, can you provide it again, or not even provide this, can you just give us a list of these are the number of houses that were in, that are in Andover that are impacted by the crumbling foundation and the concrete issue, and these are the houses these are the number of houses that we have to give an abatement to and tell us, you know, round numbers what that total is gonna be. Okay. I can get you that info. Alright. Appreciate it. Alright. Item 13. Any, correspondence? None that I am aware of. Okay. Item 14, public speak. So, Elaine Bucardt.
Hello. I just wanted to mention when they were talking about the affordable housing that when the UConn students came and gave us those 13 different plans, most of them were on town owned property, and most of them had some affordable housing as part of their plans. They had multifamily and smaller houses and little communities with, you know, play areas, things like that. So, it's valuable information I think they came up with. And the students themselves were, interestingly enough, they thought that this would be very attractive to, you know, graduating UConn students in the area to come and live in Andover. So, you know, just I heard the discussion and it was like, yeah, you know, they seem to think we have some valuable, you know, something to offer. And they certainly, you know, felt like, you know, the river and, you know, just the area itself and the bike trails and the walking trails and the rail trail, everything was conducive to young people. So, I thought that I just wanted to mention that. So, we should, you know, take another look at those 13
different plans that they came up with. All right, that's it. Thank you. Diane Greiner.
Yes. Hello. On the planning discussion there, I thought that was great. Thank you for John the town planner coming to give us that information. Very informative. Always disappointed that there's not a lot of residents that zoom into these meetings to hear these discussions. Unfortunate. I know that the planning and zoning is now have their survey going on for the plan of development. And I hope that's going well. I think that that'll give the assuming that enough residents actually participate in that survey should give the planning and zoning and the planner some valuable information about what we as residents want our town to look like. Also, comment on the blight issue. Yay, kudos to whoever's instituting that and making that all happen. It's noticeable. Noticed many homes in town that are blight stricken, have you, have been being cleaned up. And I'm glad to see there's some teeth in it now. The one property there on Route 6 has been an eyesore for quite some time. And I'm glad to see that some teeth have been put into that. And again, the Blake ordinance was a good idea and it seems to be working. And it shows people see that. Comment about the Some of the services that they offer. It's not only for youth. Last year, I had a couple of knees replaced, I had to contact the youth service. They have a program called chores that match up senior citizens like myself with some teenagers to come do some yard work, free to the seniors. There's a grant that pays the students. They get minimum
wage. It was a great thing. They came on time. They were responsible. They came with water and tools and everything they needed. And it was a great experience. And I'll be using them again. I hope all the people use their services as well. It's great thing. And again, seniors in town, I think are taking advantage of that. So it's a good thing. So I encourage you to support them. I know you've already voted yes, and that's a good thing. So thank you all. And that's about all I have. All right. Thank you very much. Joanne Ebert.
I just wanted to echo too that I thought the town planner gave a really good presentation. It was great to have you all ask him certain questions and him be able to really explain things, you know, right on point as to steps the town could take or just to, you know, he went step by step of what the town could do and it is important. I also think that Andover, I'm kind of in favor just on a personal level with the senior housing type thing because I sort of agree that'd probably be more of the market for the townspeople, but not to sell everybody too short either because people do like the small town charm and appeal and I don't think everyone needs to walk everywhere. I know that seniors or young people, even though they can't maybe afford luxury houses, they definitely will probably have some kind of car so they'd be able to get around and do things. So I really enjoyed it and learned a lot too. Thank you.
All right. Thank you very much. Did I miss anyone? All right. So, Diane, Elaine, and Joanne, thank you very much for attending. I appreciate that. I'm gonna make a motion to go into executive session to discuss items seven b, community center construction update and items, seven e, the lot line agreement for the King property. I'll second.
Second that. Okay. All those in favor? Oh, do you have to say who you're inviting in? Oh, we're inviting in. I'm sorry. Thank you, Paula. We're inviting in the town administrator, Eric Anderson, and the town attorney, Dennis O'Brien. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. The Board of, Selectman is, leaving executive session at, 10:32, twenty twenty one. I'm gonna make a motion to authorize Eric Anderson, the town administrator, to finalize a property, to finalize a boundary line agreement and property conveyance, agreement between the town of Andover and the King family to which references the last map presented to the Board of Selectmen at the 01/08/2024 regular meeting. I'll second.
Alright. Further discussion on this issue? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Since I made all most of the motions today, want to make a motion to adjourn. Second.
Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you very much. We'll see you guys. Night. Night.