Meeting transcript
IWWC- Regular Meeting
September 1, 2026 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Machine-generated transcript — check the video if in doubt.
I call to order the General Wetlands Commission meeting at 07:00 on 09/01/2026. Vote call seeing alternates. We have myself, we have Bill, is gonna be seated as commission member tonight. We have Jed and Dan Stein. Additions or changes in order to agenda. The agenda that was sent out, you updated that so that's gonna reflect,
correct? Yeah, for old business, instead of saying permit 20Six-02W as listed on the website, it should be permit 20Six-03for 11th School Road Chamberlain Park And Lot maintenance. Okay.
I need a motion for that. I don't think so, right? Any motion to accept just Okay. As agenda
I make motion to adjust the meeting minutes in the old business section to reflect '26 dash '3 as the new agenda. I'll second it. All those in favor? Aye. Motion passed. Approval of minutes from July 7. Anybody seen changes that need to be made? Okay, here we go. Okay, making motion to approve the minutes here on July 7. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
Okay, so moving on to public comment, if there's any public comment, correct? All business discussion permit number 20 Six-three 11 School Road, Chamberlain Pond Parking lot maintenance.
So I can introduce it just very quickly. I mean, I think you guys are aware of this. It's been an ongoing application, but 11 School Road, the Chamberlain Pond parking lot is kind of eroding quickly. So if you want by say, you saw large puddles in there and it needs to be maintained. It's used as an access point for the fire department to be filled with their tanks from the pond. So there is a new proposal. DPW is here to present it and I'll let him speak in more detail. Thank
you for having me aboard. I think a couple months ago I was here, talked about it. You guys wanted more information, maybe like a small map to see what I had planned on doing. I don't know if you guys saw any of this in packet or Yeah, we have in our base there. Okay. All right. As you guys know, you saw the pictures of what it looks like basically tonight as it's underwater pretty much. The plan that I have is I'd like to put approximately five, excuse me, what it needs is approximately 500 tons of either millings or processed stone to bring the area up and to pitch it. That area in there, if you look at it, it's kind of almost like a bowl. That's why the water doesn't really move anywhere. We would bring it up, we would kind of pitch it for the map, you guys saw the map
kind of almost in the center. So everything would be picked at a diagonal would be pitched. I know it's tough to see because it's a little smaller. I have a bigger, I have a bigger map of it if you guys would like to see it. Is it possible we can play it on the screen?
There he goes. Be The pictures are more just of the flooding,
right? Yeah, the pictures are more just of the flooding, what it looks like, the other side, it's not even at That's
more relevant. Megan, are you able to zoom in at home to kind of see it better, or is it too hard see? I can't. I actually have it on a separate window, but if you hit control plus, I was having the same issue with it, like, jumping either all the way in or all the way out. If you hit control plus, it may zoom in less. Ah, no, like, no. That's better. Thank you. Nice. That worked. I gotta bear with my rudimentary drawing. Good. Oh yeah. You. So as you see in this kind of diagonal,
the whole park lot would be pitched to that to like a gentle swell, I guess you could say, to collect the water coming from both sides. It would go to the corner In the corner there would be like a silt retention area. What we would do is dig two feet down, line it with a six to 10 inch modified rim grab. So all the water and silt and even runoff from the parking lot would go into there, settle out and then whatever water came up would be clean and slowly leach out into the brook that's coming out of the pond that goes underneath Route 316. The green checkered area next to it is the existing vegetation. Some people have asked me if we could take that out. I guess people like to hide back there from when I was told which I've driven by many times and you can basically see everything even with the vegetation. But some people have asked to take that out again, that'd another request you guys. Do
that or not. If we do do that, then these, then the tonnage for the parking lot goes up along with the tonnage for the paid apron that we would have to put in for the state DOT because you have to have a paved apron coming off into the off, they call it a state highway off 316 into the parking area, which would be 10 feet. So with the vegetation that it stands now, that would be 70 feet long by 10 foot wide. And again, if you tack on another 30 feet, if we were to remove that existing vegetation With that as well, we'd have to put in two paid handicap parking spots. The millings are not tight enough or processed, whatever you would like to put in there, aren't tight enough to have somebody that's handicapped, accessible to get out and do that. ADA requires you have to have two and there has to be plenty of movement when they open the car doors or their van or, or what have you. So that's 35 by twenty, twenty five feet. One is, so for the apron, you would need 15 tons of asphalt for the paved apron and you would need 17 tons of asphalt for the paved handicap parking area. We would then put large rocks around the whole outer edge to keep people from driving off the parking area into the pond. There's an existing fence all the way or it's a, by the proposed
paving windy path that's starting to fall apart. We've been asked to take that down or do something with it. There's a, there's like, you guys have been in there. So there's like a hill that goes up behind it. And then there's like a hill on 316. So by putting the rocks there too, we would keep people off and go up in there. We do have rocks down at our lay down yard. So there's plenty of those. I know one of the other problems that you guys had too was you wanted a bigger buffer zone from the pond to the parking area. The problem with that is I've had conversations with the fire department. One of my guys is actually a member of the fire department and the problem is these fire trucks are so big when they come in, they need that space to get into that fire hydrant. So as you can see, it's, there's, it's 15 feet from the pond to the parking edge. And then I put another measurement in, it's 25 feet from the pond to the fire department on hookup. From what I'm told is, and I, I went, I was a fireman at Coventry years ago. You heard this fire hydrant is used. This is their main one for a town. So if they go back to the station, they have to get water, but you have multiple like other agencies agencies using this. So not all fire connections are at the same spot in every truck. So that, to have that buffer zone be any more than 15 feet, it will not work for the fire department. There was also some talk about putting stone like clear stone in there and have drainage. The problem with that is we have to plow it in the winter because again it's a fire hydrant, main fire hydrant down and we would have 500 ton
walls around the whole one side edge of her do that. Unfortunately, I think that's pretty much it. Questions, concerns, my rudimentary drawing.
I guess, you know, I didn't think about the plowing aspect that you just mentioned and I know right now that probably what has helped develop the bowl out So what's going to keep us from plowing the millings all up around the edge and
out of there. Millings actually tighten in better. What we would do is we would get the screen millings put in there and roll it every two inches or so and just pound it and pack it right in there. Again, being a stone based product, it doesn't matter if it's processed or even melons, you are gonna plow some up. I'm not gonna say it's not gonna happen. Like any other dirt road or any other like dirt or I say dirt parking lot, the parking lot process or any type of milling is in it, it doesn't need attention. There's just nothing to do with that. Unfortunately, we can't pitch everything away from the time towards the road because as you guys see driving around town, there's certain driveways in town that are pitched towards our roadway and there's twenty, thirty wheelbarrow loads in the streets at any given time. So
we have to contain it within
our boundary. And we'll be able to maintain the bench that runs through the center wall of the plowers, is that something again,
we'll probably have to go in and touch it up every year, unfortunately, because again, the ground's gonna move just, you know, you're gonna get some people in there like the golden air blow dull nuts. We have, I see that down the park, down the park there where the millings are, mornings I would come in and drive by there and like, oh the kids went in there and blew the components last night. It is what it is. In the spring when the frost comes out of the ground and it's kind of, you know, kind of mushy, it is gonna move a little bit. We got a, you know, a wet snowstorm and the frost is coming out. We are gonna move it a little bit. Are you gonna take out any of the soil that's already there? No, it's again, it sits in a bowl and we're looking at almost eight inches. We have to bring it there to get it to the grade that we need to get to that soil away from the road or away from the pond.
Is that the buildings that's out at the transfer station now? No, that's what those are. Those were the sweepings from the,
when we chip sealed the road. We did two different types of chip this year. I'm sure you guys have noticed one is a rubber chip and one is a standard chip. The stuff that you initially saw down the transfer station was left over from the rubber chip road. That's the coated black stone and the other stuff is kind of a coated stone and it helped when we do a standard chip, it helps bond to the emulsion better. And all you guys know, it keeps the dust down a little better than normal.
When you go to do the two ADA spots, are you putting process down anywhere or do you do billings?
I would like to do process, fanatic with that. You can save over millings. That's just my take with it. Same thing with the apron, I would do process there as well. Because again, that's what the state's gonna want. I have, again, I have paved over millings and it doesn't hurt. We're gonna actually reclaim Ridge Road in a few weeks. So what they do is they come in, they grind up the existing pavement, they grade it out and we use that as a process too. So it doesn't hurt it, but old school. In process, yeah.
Do like the plan at least taking the water away from the waterway? What are your guys thoughts? You like the plan?
I had a question. So when I'm looking at the dimensions, even though in the drawing, I mean, I know it was hand drawn, it's obviously not the scale. It seems like the parking area is gonna be pretty... The paved parking area is gonna be about a third of, know, in one direction and, you know, maybe let's call it a third between a third and a half in the other direction, like what essentially much larger than what the way it's currently drawn. Given that, has any consideration been given to just paving the whole lot and then pitching it towards the road? So we're not then worried about the debris entering the road, but then the water is not being directed towards the water body?
If we were to pave that whole lot, would probably cost us $80.
How much is it going to cost to pave the handicapped spots?
We're, I think all in all, I figured that again, this is just rough estimates because I wanted to wait until you guys, you know, approve or what you want to approve. We're probably looking at about to do everything. We're probably looking around $30 to do the millings and the paving. Because again, as it stands, because so we wouldn't do the paving, we would prep for it. We're not set up as a public works since we're too small to do paving. We can do like little pieces here and there. We actually have a, we actually have my contractor that came in to shim the roads do this. So we pay, we pay $91 a ton per asphalt. More than likely we would have to at least bring the apron to three inches because that's what the state's gonna want. So we would have to do it in two layers and the same thing with the paved apron. I like to do two layers. If you put one down, it tends to over time get broken up. I don't, if I do this project, I wanna do it once and then I have come back.
Well, that's my concern is this project has been before wetlands before, and it seems like we just kinda keep redoing the area, and the current design is directing the storm water towards the water body, which is concerning. I understand there's an infiltration area, but I just wonder if it doesn't make sense to just pay the upfront cost to not keep paying the recurring costs of fixing it after each snow season and having to refill in the ruts and all that.
It would be very expensive to pay it. I don't have the, I apologize, I don't have the total number of what pavement square footage would be, but again, it would be very, very expensive. And I understand that, you know, we have, you know, every year we have to go in and touch it up and everything like that. One of the, you know, we have a couple other big projects we need to pave. One was the school parking lot as you guys see, that's gonna be coming up. Something this big, but with what the pavement would have to be, would probably have to go through CIP. So if we were to even pave it, it would take, it wouldn't happen overnight.
Another question, how deep does that swell in the middle of it would be?
It would probably, actually, you probably wouldn't even see it. So what what we what we plan on doing is just gently grading everything to the center. Like, you're not gonna have like a... And I put that swale there. It's just everything is gonna kinda go to the center of that and it's just gonna kinda, so the whole parking lot's gonna have like a gentle curve to it, guess you can say, to keep the water kind of in the middle and kind of pitching it all towards the one corner. We are lucky in that sense because everything as you small, it's a hole anyway, so we can kind of pitch the water however we want. Again, over time, just again, driving on it and people going in there, just, you know, having to maintain it. Might there be a little water come out into three sixteen? Possibly. Again, it depends on the winter. We could, as you saw with the roads this past winter, the roads were all over like they came down for the most part, but we did have some problems where they did stay heat up. And again, because it's a stone based product, nothing is guaranteed unfortunately.
What do guys think of? I guess the other question I have in my head is this little screen that's going out and you were directing the contaminants in that whole screen. I don't know if that's, if it's better to go to the other end further away from the stream or where are those going to end up? Why is that better than putting in the pond?
Well, thought was, and again, this is again subject to your guys approval. If we put it over here on the other side, because it's kind of, again, but I don't have the topography on this map, but it kind of goes uphill a little bit. So if any water were to get in there, it would just fill up, fill up, fill up, and then we could, you know, we get a good inch or two rain, we could have something like this in the other corner. So it would fill that area up and just, and it could look like this because if we pitch everything that way, then nothing's gonna be able to back out. You said you're not opposed to doing process? Oh no, don't let go through process at all.
Because if we could process, would it be burden or refund?
Oh, it would be all regular, the interim report. So
my thought is if we did process, we would get away from essentially this whole issue with the millings leaching into the waterway. Please process. Yes. And I wouldn't be opposed to that at all because you don't have your leaching issue. That's the whole reason we were concerned.
Yeah, on the stream or the pond, you don't really want the water that's thrown in. Right. Unfortunately, there's really nowhere to put the water on this property safely. Again, I looked at it everywhere. There's no catch basins or anything that we can run something into the state actually. If you're not up top below, actually has a ditch line running right into that stream there. And I think, you know where that telephone pole was when the tree came down, where there's an actual ditch there that three sixteen runs off of it runs into that, runs into that ditch and goes under the road. It's kind of tough to see because they really haven't mowed and maintained it much, but sure.
Would you guys be more in favor of, would it process rather than the millings? Because then it's just stone you're putting down?
So you said an inch and a quarter, are you talking about the The stone itself, yes. So it'd be a stone dust mixed with like inch and a quarter. Three quarter, We could just three quarter inch and a quarter. It's just the size of the stone, angular stone.
So the process would be your stone that they crack down all the lines that are with it so compact. Yep. So it makes a solid base. And that way you can at least pave over as well. Then you plow and all that? Yes, we
actually do, we go out in the spring and we go out and fall over on Lakeview Drive because that's the last dirt road in town. And when you first drive in, like anything else it gets a little wheel run-in rough marks over time and that's where you use the instrument quarter cylinder to fill in the wheel once we plow over that all in. Again, it gonna move? Is it... Are you gonna plow some of it up? We are. There's just there's nothing you can do about My
thoughts are even if you do plow it up when you're plowing, if you're plowing straight in eventually over time you're gonna make a basically a berm preventing water from flowing towards the waterway anyway.
And over time we're gonna have to add to it. My question to you as the board is, we do have that permit for to do maintenance with that fall under like, if we were to do this, would that fall under that maintenance or will we have to come back to you guys over here and ask for, or every time we wanna do, you know, we would probably do it more, I wanna say like April or May, because then the frosts are not around, things have kind of settled out. I'm sorry, because that's basically what we do with Lakeview Drive. We go in there like late spring and then we're gonna go in there probably the end of September and just start touching anything up for winter. So that way you have a compaction.
I have to look how that reads because it's... I thought that was more of like storm water control rather than... Okay. Yeah. Have to look into it rather than like a parking lot maintenance. Yeah. I haven't read that yet.
As far as in the Button Ranch go though, you do have the ability to maintain Mhmm. If it's like an existing area. Right. So the maintenance remained within the confines of where it is and the material didn't change when we were bringing it. You can maintain that once you receive your permit.
I have to work and see how the language reads for that, I would certainly discuss that later. Yeah. I would say I'm more in favor of if we do a dead process for the whole lot rather than millings. Because again, you don't have your leaching issue or contaminants eventually going into the water. If you're just using natural crushed stone. What do you guys think? I
support that as well. My only concern was I was just looking at the application, the application itself repeatedly says mailings throughout, so I don't know if that needs to be redone or if it is sufficient to just put it as a condition of approval.
Yeah, that's a good question. It would obviously be a condition of approval, but if you would like to have a risk biased application make it clear, don't think that's
such a difficult thing to ask. Do we wanna make a motion to have Savannah approve the permit if we just fill out the permit when you use different language and say process rather than millings? We can modify it. Are you guys in favor of that? So it doesn't have to come back from the meeting once we just fill out a different void? You guys in favor for that? Can we do that? You can vote.
Yeah. You guys wanna take a vote for that? Do I make a separate motion for that? Can that all be in one? No. All in one? Yep. Do I make a motion to approve the parking lot remediation with the contingency that we have to read or you would have to reapply for the permit with different language stating that's gonna be processed rather than millings and allowing Savannah to approve that permit once it goes through. Okay. One second. Closed in favor?
I don't think that'll work because if they're reapplying, then it's a new application.
You can do a modification to an existing application. Okay, that works. It's a modified. So we'll modify it from that.
Can we make it explicit that millings are not authorized? Yeah, I can add that as a condition. Yeah, do you want that in the motion? Yeah.
Chairman Mayes said, what are your guys feeling about taking out that head row over there?
I'm thinking that probably would have to be a second motion.
Right, I'm just wondering what your thoughts were on it. I've had some people ask
I understand the privacy concerns, but especially since we're directing the storm water there, I think it's better to keep as much vegetation in that area as possible to assist with filtering.
Yeah, I kind of agree with that. What do you think about even just mowing it, Megan?
Grass doesn't really retain a ton of water. I mean I know it's, I think it's just gone off memory. Think it's primarily invasives and stuff anyway, but I could be wrong. I would say if they removed the existing vegetation to make it more so that you could see into the parking lot easier from the road, I would want to replace it with other vegetation that maybe is of a lower height. So it still allows visibility into the parking lot, but something more than grass potentially. It's
gonna take a little more than just going in there with our roadside mower and knocking the boundaries, some real nasty stuff in there. It's not gonna be fun. Plus I think there's a tree in that vegetation, that swale as well or that vegetation area as well. So
what are your guys thoughts? The tree should probably be in cut there. Okay, I'm gonna get something you guys, you want. Just... I have a picture here, you can kind of see it in the, you guys stand in the corner a little bit. There's a tree, like I said, some nasty vegetation in there. So it's not gonna be something that we're just gonna go in with our roadside mower and knock it down. We're gonna have to go in there and really chainsaw it, chip it, things of that nature. It's gonna be a little bit of a process.
I think under that permit, that general permit, you guys can remove trees if it's blocking the water, right? Sorry, I won't bring it with me. No, that's fine. If you review it. I think it is on water.
I'm sure. We can discuss on Thursday for when we're allowed to remove just for that permit. Okay. Is it a visibility issue for that?
So, and again, from what people have told me, I guess people try to park and you guys can see like park in the corner there and try to hide, I guess. I don't see what you want. Sure. Okay.
If you wanted to allow the removal, one suggestion might be that you can plant native species. I mean, I looked at it today. It's all invasive. That's it. So I think there was some of obviously, buckthorn and we... Looks the vibe with scratch and everything. Bittersweet. Yeah. So... Stuff that the chipper hates. Mhmm.
Mhmm. I'll tell you that right now. That we propose some haters instead that they'll grow to like a...
We've had... Maybe... We could do something like that. Alright. So you wanna... So like some people, I guess, want to extend the whole parking lot out. So if you wanna leave what's there, keep the existing footprint and just knock down the vegetation. Just all clear. Is there any advantage?
Some people want to make the parking lot bigger. Oh, I see you can bring that parking lot right out to 316. Yes. What are your guys thoughts on changing the footprint of the parking lot? You're breaking it up, making this
Well, last round of conversations were focused on reducing the parking lot footprint, so I feel like this is heading in the opposite direction.
Yeah. That's a good point. So maybe we're better off, like Savannah said, putting in Just change the more native species.
I mean, cut down the basis and put some low growing. Can discuss the list after the commission has recommendations. Yeah. Sure.
I'm just looking at Google Maps, the street view. It looks like there's one tree in the corner there and then the rest is probably invasives. Beer and paper removing the invasives? I'm not opposed to removing the invasives.
My thoughts are if we're removing the invasives and doing excavation and site work, just to plant something back where we're better off, just not disturbing the area to begin with. Okay, at that point.
Yeah, like I said, I'm leaving it up to you guys.
Just so you know, pulled up the general permit and the tree removal aspect here is being a tree removal within a watercourse in and around structures where it determines that the tree and the root system may have a negative impact that may create a hazard to said structure. I think the tree part you were talking about, but that's structure related. Structure related. Okay. Yeah. And then it's like brush removal and soil, sediment removal and soil, stabilizing slowness. I don't see anything else that would be.
Yeah, so I think I'm more in here, mean, leaving it than if we're just gonna end up excavating the area, risk sedimentation and then planting something back again? Megan, is that kind what you were thinking too?
Yeah, I think if there isn't really a good plan here and it honestly doesn't sound like there is in terms of removing the vegetation and replacing it. I think maybe come back with another permit if you have a plan for that, but right now it just seems kind of like a And
I would only remove that tree if it really needs to be removed because the tree's going to do a lot more to absorb runoff than grass or kind of lower rooted vegetation. Shallower, I should say, rooted.
I mean, I have a crew to work to take a look at it too, just to make sure it's still in good shape if you got delayed.
Sure. Yeah, I think we're better off doing that and is leaving the vegetation for right now. Unless you wanted to come up with a plan of remediating the area and planting something back and having something kind of like you have spelled out here. I
mean, I'm not always either way of what you guys wanna do. So it doesn't, doesn't take it right. It doesn't to me either way, whatever you guys are like, okay, whether you wanna leave or you wanna, we can work around it. It's not imperative that that has to come out. It was asked of me by some town residents and some other people that, hey, could we widen the parking lot and take that vegetation out? And I said, well, I'm going to the wetlands board and see what the thoughts are on that. So that was, that's kind of how I'm proposing that. I
mean, from a use perspective, other than when there's utility vehicles in there, I've never seen that parking lot full. So I don't think there's necessarily a need for additional parking for use of the park itself.
I mean, one vehicle you're gonna see in there is fire trucks. Right. That's, I would say that's gonna be 90% of the, sometimes you'll see the state guys in there because they're mowing. They'll leave their, they'll leave their mower in there. I have seen people park in there. I've seen two or three cars that must be walking through the trails. Or eating lunch or something. Yep, I've seen some teachers cars over there eating lunch as well.
So I made a motion to leave the vegetation the way it is for now. And if you wanted to change something to come up with a plan and apply for a permit at future use.
There was a motion. There was a motion after. Second. All in Aye. All right, Mark's not saying. I
don't think we have voted on the original motion to approve the application.
We have to reword that correct. So for the original one, I make a motion to approve the parking lot project and change the language in the original permit to state process rather than millings? Just process. Processed, Tonya. Second. All in favor? Aye.
Motion passed. You want to move that millings are prohibited. That's an additional.
One more That's okay. So I make a motion to continue the parking lot project and use process stone and prohibit millings. For Savannah to approve the modifications to the... Yeah, to include our PDAs as well.
Yeah, pull up as we're gonna process it. I wouldn't have process it. I wouldn't access to that. Again, knowing's work, it's not that I haven't paid them. It's just an old school, like something that I feel would just hold the asphalt better. Sure. Can I cover that motion?
All right. And basically just approving the permit with the condition that the proposal to use millings will be replaced with process stone. Yes. We'll I'll second it.
Did we do that again? Yeah, Jed seconded it, right? I seconded the first two, three.
Okay, go off the motion that Megan made. Jan, you want to second that? Sure, I'll second that. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Okay, we'll get it right back. We got there. Maybe it's too late.
Does the board have any other questions from this? Well, no, I'm saying just in general here. You guys have any questions? Thank you.
Well, now that we're doing, that's what I'm gonna say, if we were doing millings, we probably wouldn't do it till it started till next year only because the problem is by the time you get it in and you pound them in now, there wouldn't be enough sunlight and warmth to lock them in. The best time to do the buildings is probably around May because then you have all summer to come in there. We got a little bit of road work left to do open. Mean, we did, if the weather holds up for us to probably, it's gonna be like a fall winter thing. Oh yeah. If it's... Because again, it's a bowl, so really not haul anything out or more hauling everything in. The only thing that'll hang us up is taken. Worst case scenario, if I can get the, because I'm having get a permit from the DOT. First case scenario is we can get the apron in and then we can take the handicap spots in the surrounding. Have a little more road work to do whatever trying to come out before we pay.
Thank you. Thank you. All right, the next thing is our new business for permit twenty six-seven is building a pole barn and outbuilding a property for storage 175 Long Pell Road.
Alright, so the applicant is here tonight, so rather than go over it. I can go over it quickly, and then if you have anything to add, do you want me to add? The proposal is for the installation of a new pole vod, approximately 1,800 square feet in size. So, I look at property to view the location because site plan that we have on file is from 1989. A delineation was done at that time, but it was specific to the house, which you can see on that plot plan. It's behind the little images there, but it was pretty far away from this proposed storage bar. So they didn't actually delineate on that side. It is wet down there. It is not wet in the precise location the barn is. It's wet on about two and a half sides. And then on this side where he has the 60 feet marked, if you can see that closer to the house, it's dry for maybe 10 feet, and then there's an iffy area, drainage swale, I pulled some hydro soils, some upland soils, so it's iffy. It's not delineated on that side. It's not delineated anywhere. I can say confidently that the storage farm is in Upland, but it is very close to the wetland. The idea was to bring it before the commission, accept the application and discuss, does this need a delineation? How do you wanna move forward with it? Yeah, and Tyler, do you have anything to add? No,
I think that's about, I think you're about right. I think you have the actual pictures I took. I think the closest spot to where, I've been there like maybe four years now, five years now, I'm obviously trying to keep it on private. The closest spot where it's in relation to, like you said, what's actually wet and what you were pointing out was considered like wetland vegetation growing is if you look at like the top of the back left corner of the barn furthest away from Long Hill. From what I flagged out, it's about 15 feet from that corner to like where the like wetland vegetation kind of starts. And then that area to the right where I drew the 60 foot mark that she's talking about is actually between two stone walls. I don't know if you could see in some of the pictures that I have. And there's actually a... What I'm understanding to be an original barn foundation and that was like a down run or something. So that's just significantly below grade from my yard and everything else. So that kind of became this. It's been in the woods for fifty years and now it's just wet in there.
But the general, everything else, the general like topography of the land kind of works its way from the house and kind of that direction. Like you said, back where the wetlands were originally drawn, it's just that over the years, I think it's kind of crept in.
Yes they do. I have an aerial too, which might help.
Yeah, had a question because looking at the aerial, it looks like there's a surface water body. I don't have an orientation on the map, I guess, to the east of the parcel coming onto the parcel, and it seems like it would flow kinda to directly where the proposed barn location is. Yeah. The stream. Yeah. Yeah.
So that stream is probably a 100 ish feet or so to the... I don't know which direction that is away from the house. The bar would be somewhere. Is that your cursor that's actually right there? It's sort of in the north, so west.
I mean, east side. Yeah. So where you see, like, the... Kind of where the woods began, the barn's really only gonna be, like, sixty, eighty feet in from where the lawn stops and the and the woods kind of began. Because as you track towards that stream, it it does get wet because obviously everything works. You can kind of see the stone wall that you were talking about here.
Do you see that working with magnifying glasses? So it's just how many feet on the other side of the... From there down to the stream? No, to where your barn is at the post. Oh, 15. It's
pretty much right there. So about where the cursor is. But there are a lot of associated wetlands with that stream, which is why I say they're probably about five to 10 feet off from the proposed limits. But the contour of the land is down towards the stream, so he's up from the stream in his proposal.
You're planning on doing the 3rd Floor or full foundation?
It's gonna end up being 4th Floor, I think. It's gonna be, you know, a sealed building. So I will probably end up pouring the slab within the interior and then, you know, the skirt around, it'll just be processed. And again, that kind of upland area, I think as it is, one side kind of works its way into that little sheep run that's on the south side and then the rest of land already works its way down towards that stream anyway. Tyler, was there proposed tree removal? Yeah, so in the area like directly where the building is going, obviously, I need to clear out as if they would be running until we got through all this, but in the direct area where that upland area where the building's going, we'll clear trees, but other than that, everything else is gonna be left natural to kinda try and hide the the barn and within the land.
There's no better land closer to the house than it's dry that you could put it on? The way that everything
works that way, there is, I guess, in my in my lawn, I could cut things out and level, but I don't know the relation to, like, a leach field with septic and everything too. Because my septic and my leach field all kinda work that way. I forget what the measurement was as it is now. I have plenty that went through Eastern Islands already, but I don't I don't... I guess I don't know what the allowances are, but it moves, you know, more towards the house. Is that light blue? Is that your... Yeah. Yeah. Bottom is the bottom.
And is that the house on the bottom? That... That's the house on the bottom. Correct. Yeah. I know. I'm thinking the same way Jed is... Seems like
you're going into What? Where you used to go to the barn? I mean, you're you're gonna have to get in there, in and out of there all the time with all your equipment.
Is that what you're building it for? Put equipment in? Yeah. A like a tractor or something like that. Yeah. That side. I'm trying to keep it close to the road. I I have it... It's 50 feet from the center line of the road that I need to be back. So I've been drawing at 60, which keeps the back of the building all on that help in the area. And then like I said, the clearing would be... I'd have to obviously just put in like a temp paper and so we could get in and pull the trees out that are sitting on that upland area. And then once all that is out, there wouldn't be anything cleared left or right. It would be like a, you know, direct access that 40 feet. It's about 40 feet from the edge of the road to the proposed front of the building. Oh, I see. So you'd be coming out. Correct. From Long Hill. Yeah. Because I don't place it that little... What I'm calling the sheets around that that wetland area that's in between what is the yard and the perceived area. That is low as well. So that's kinda where it...
It's not like I could just move it up a couple of feet. There is that weapons area in between the two that is in my way as well. So this is like the one upland spot that I have. My thought is to put it there on that upland spot and then access it directly in and out and and leave all other sides. Because that's kind of the one little plot I have. And the size of the building and everything is kind of in relation to to what I have there without affecting any of the wetlands directly.
I think at minimum, the access should be staked out in a site visit performed because there was a little finger wetland that kind of runs parallel to Long Hill and a little bit in front of where the barn was. So you'd want to make sure you weren't actually crossing that with your access. You guys mind on the sidewalk? Yeah. Maybe we can help. You're more than welcome. I'll buy all the chainsaws.
Yeah, I think that's not a bad idea to do a sidewalk. Yeah, we get our eyes on the police.
Yeah, I do have a generally flags where the building is. Like I said, it's kind of dense in there. There's a lot of invasives like right along the road. So I do kind of give or take a couple of feet, have it flagged. It's not perfectly squared and everything because I'm trying to work around But people that only perform, you know, if you saw the pictures, there's quite a tree for it and a little bit all too. So trying to pull measurements around that, but give or take, there are... It is flagged out down there too at this point.
So it's gonna be pretty close to the dimensions of what the barn is gonna be? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The the words flagged is basically the exact dimension of barn. Yeah. Okay.
It's just give or take without kind of relation to the road and like the square to the road. So, know, forgive me. May be off a couple degree. You know what I mean? Because I'm trying to look through the invasives. As it says, give or take, we're basically right there where it's brought. Yeah, not supposed to do any sidewalk cuts.
But your plan would be to take a driveway which is apart right after the roof not come down to the house and go. Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah, It'd go direct to the road.
Prior to discovering the wetlands issue along that... Along the house side there, more for me and in Riverwest. It's kinda hidden. It's kinda tucked in there. So I I had no intentions of cutting anything. I'm actually probably maybe potentially bring more vegetation in because there is a woods line there, but to try to fill that gap between the underneath of the tree line. But yeah, no, I have no plan to take anything out if anything adds stuff in once it's in there to kind of tuck it in.
Have you been in touch with W Greenland for work within the right of way for the access from the road? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's...
What's his name in zoning? I've been in touch with them. Yeah. So that again, we'll have to include on the on the building permit side that that, you know, we'll get a tab paper. So it's DOT compliant or whatever. And then ultimately, it would have to be... At minimum, the apron would have to be paid. So that's probably about as far as we go with it. But yeah, that's that's on the building side. But again, none of that's been touched yet, just waiting on everything else.
Yeah. So we're looking for, is a Saturday best for the commission or is it some evening? Anything works for some of us? For some of some people still have to work. Probably,
I would say evening works best for me. Just probably easiest to plan something out for me and I can make it work.
Can we do it, you know, Friday evening? Is that too soon?
I won't be in town Friday evening if you wanted me to attend, but I said I'd move. I Now if I could do Friday evening. We would need someone to record so that we have minutes because if you have all the permission numbers, there would be a meeting. Are there no... Oh, sorry, Savannah. Are there no That's probably a good day we go. Tuesday evening?
What were you saying, Mary? I just didn't know if there was public noticing requirements for the site visit.
Yeah. There would be. So, yeah. We'd wanna schedule it out two weeks. Yeah. We can We're try to find everything for that meeting. So
the only evening I'm not available on that third week of September is Tuesday because that's planning a zoning meeting. Other than that, yeah, I can make it any day that week. I can only do Monday that week. Monday is that the meeting or Manning, do afternoons work for you?
No. Well, it depends what you mean by afternoon. Later than four is ideal. Later than four. Okay. But the fourteenth would be okay?
Yes, as long as I assume we would be with light changes, but I wanted to attend the board to select my meeting at seven that evening.
I make a motion we schedule a safe visit for the September 14 at 04:00. I can do 04:30. Is 04:30 worse? Safe visit for the fourteenth at 04:30.
I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, we can make that work. So we'll do a site visit and come take a walk in on the fourteenth.
Is there anything else you guys didn't dare besides yourselves?
I don't think so right? No, just we can get our eyes on and kind of move the plan. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Agent enforcement actions, 64 Longfield Road, trees cut and placed in New Orleans.
Yeah, so this is a situation where I got a call from Wayne because a resident I included something in your packet. And I'm sorry, it's not on the website, Megan, because there were no letter issues, but it was kind of a phone call and then a site visit was performed, but it's 64 Long Hill, if you wanna pull it up on the map. Essentially, this lot is right next to the stream and the slope of the lot, and it's on the opposite side of the house. It's a very steep slope down to the stream. So he had a lot of trees that weren't kind of hanging over the house because there's not a lot of space in between and he wanted to get those removed for a safety matter. He didn't realize that he had to go through wetlands when he was removing trees from a 100 foot property from the wetland. So he came forward and talked to Wayne and then Wayne called me. So he, you know, was very minimal. I called him and went out right away to his property to see what he cut. I want to say probably about 20 trees. Oh, yeah. Maybe more because there were some small ones cut too and a lot of them were sloped trees. So the root systems were obviously pretty important for the slope. Luckily, trees were cut and their roots were left in place as it stood when I visited. So I advised him, the root systems must stay in place. They can't be removed and the slope integrity would just be destroyed.
And then the material was left in the stream. So my recommendation or my advice was that that material had to be brought out of the stream because it was essentially filled in a wetland. He has already begun this work and he has been mulching it and removing some of the mulch. He's keeping some on-site. And I said, you know, don't place it on the slope. We want native vegetation to grow back in. So he's gonna place some of it in his lawn area or his yard area because the tractors, I think kind of brought it up that area. But yeah, he's working towards compliance. There was misunderstanding. He didn't know he had to come forward. So a letter is not formally issued just because it was able to be handled by the person, which has always been my recourse if I'm able to. Find sometimes the enforcement letters aren't 100% necessary when someone wants to compliant, but I'm new to this commission, so if you'd like a different course of action, you know what mean?
Sounds good to me. Sounds good to me. Something you're on top of. Sounds like when. Megan, did you have any thoughts on it?
No, I'm fine with that. I, yeah, I don't think an NOV is necessary if they're being compliant with correcting that situation.
Sure. Yeah, as long as he's just doing what he needs to do.
Usually I just point out. Yeah, schedule the follow-up visit for the one being suspects at all. Yeah. Complete. Okay.
Cool. I don't think I need a motion on that, correct? No. No, just to fill you guys in. Okay. All right. Commission discussion.
I did have one item. So right before this meeting, there is an email sent out from a Tara Goldberg. I'm not familiar with her, but she sounds like she may have been an alternate on the commission and was wondering if she is still needed as an alternate. Does that name sound familiar to anyone?
Yeah. So she came to, I think, one Twenty eight. I think when Joe was still here. And then we didn't hear anything from her. I just... I don't know. Think we just assumed she just... I don't know. So it sounds like she may be interested.
Yeah. But I did see that email come through. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. We could see... We should know her if she wants to be enrolled and she's on the meetings.
Sure, because she said she... If I remember correctly, she said she reached out to Joe but Joe not obviously... That's what the email sent to him. Right, so I don't know maybe she kinda lost some translation that Joe was leaving so. I'll chat with her. Okay. Yeah, then because if she's still interested in being part of the board, I'm 100% on board with that, so. Cool, yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I almost forgot.
Did she... Yeah. I guess Savannah, she'll just need to, if she hasn't already, submit, I think, a formal, you know, email of interest essentially to the town clerk.
Yeah. Let me go through the old emails and see what the history is with Joe, if she ever said that. And if not, I'll... I think...
I'll I'll have to check my emails because I I think she did. I think she sent us a letter in her background and stating it's her... Yeah. We just never saw anything from her. I just... We had never saw anything after that, so I just thought she just wasn't interested anymore. Okay, good.
So maybe we could invite her to the site visit and then the October meeting if she's still interested.
Yeah, definitely that's a good idea. And we'll do that. Awesome, thank you.
Savannah, have you had any interactions with this group that's looking to put apartment buildings
No. Well, they started to reach out to me because they wanted to attend a meeting here and kind of get like preliminary thoughts from you guys because they don't have a formal application yet. But I reached out and they haven't contacted me back since. So I haven't heard anything new. My guess is they're very focused on zoning right now because they're trying to actually change some of the zoning regulations to make it easier for them too.
And I looked through all that trying to find something about, they had made a comment one time about they would prefer to get zoning approval before they get into wetlands. Which isn't typically. Zoning is going want to see wetlands. They
haven't officially asked for that yet but it would be nice you know it doesn't look like it's a very hard thing to work our way through
but we ought to... There's a lot of wetlands on that site from what I've seen from this site. There are and you
know it looks like that where they would have to because you get a house here and a house here and they want to enter the property in between these two houses yeah but I think you know it can be done It's just a question of putting the energy into it. Yeah. Yep. But I didn't know if you heard anything about that or not yet. Is that that Kingsford? Rosewood I think. Yeah Lindholm or Rosewood Acres a couple of different names there, but there's worse. We're around 87 and around six.
Like condos with shops and restaurants. Yes. Pretty large proposal. But yeah, I've reached out I think twice now and haven't heard. So they've been invited, you know, to come forward and speak with the family.
Okay, so let's see what time until I guess. They
want it bad enough, they'll be here with us. Yep, yep.
Okay, anybody else have anything else to add or? Mr. Chairman,
I want to just go over public comments. You guys have a great global business. I'd like to discuss Matt and Food and Conservation Commission. Sure. Absolutely. So for the record, Hank Brunner, I'm representing the Conservation Commission. What I wanted, what we wanted to do was start initiate discussions about weapons regulation changes based on the National Resource Inventory that the Conservation Commission undertook over the past couple of years and an analysis, we had recommended a series of potential regulatory changes and those were included in the plan of conservation and development within the work plan for that. I met earlier with Savannah to share some of the documents that we produced related to vernal clearance and some of the mapping that we did. But I wanted to initiate and start a discussion because that's a formal process obviously for regulatory changes To bring it to the attention of the Wetland Commission to consider that as part of your work plan going forward and seeing when you might want to schedule to start that review process and more formally undertake consideration of those changes. I believe there would be two areas that would be changed. One might, I'm not sure depending on how it goes, would be a change to the weapons map not the soils map, but because we produced a burn pool map that would be another map that was included so whether that would be considered an official change to the wetland map, I don't know we'd have to look at the in the regs or whether that's a separate thing and then there were a series of regulations that we've made recommendations to change. Yeah, I would feel good to reviewing that.
Thank you for calling us along. I
do think that we would, I don't know whether there's other, because there is a formal process that starts a clock ticking once there's a formal proposed changes to the regulations, then it gets on a clock for the commission to have at for a certain period of time, there's a public hearing and so forth. So what may be prudent to look at are there other regulatory changes I heard reference about some of zoning changes somebody may be considering so that maybe some of those the process could be timed so that when a public hearing is scheduled it could handle multiple regulatory changes rather than having to focus on one that was wetlands and having to schedule another public hearing that would do zoning changes or other changes that might be considered. I'm just not aware of what those might be so it might be worth looking at where they may sync up so that the timing of these regulatory reviews can sort of occur at the same time. We don't have any, there's no preference on our side from the Conservation Commission as far as the RUSS, we just wanted to move the process along to you know for consideration with those changes.
I've seen it done before where there's a breakout group essentially of commission members who might meet to review the regulations and propose new ones. So I would attend those meetings and then I could type formally the proposed regulation revisions. Then those would be presented at a regular commission meeting and that kind of buys you the time, as Hank's saying, to review things and really add in what you think is needed before you bring them forward to the commission. Yeah,
I think that's exactly the way. Think you want to review process for it before you make decisions on whether you're making changes and what the changes are and then formally move those into the approval process.
What a good way to start be to have you come brief the commission on those changes that are proposed in the land conservation development and I think we probably looked at those ever so briefly when we were coming up with the plan of conservation development but it would be nice to take those few things and be able to have a discussion with you before we went forward to actually drafting changes because what you put in the POCD is very good and we just need to have the opportunity to to discuss it amongst ourselves and
yeah I'm hoping I'm open to what however the board wants to do it you know if you want to you know formal presentation we come in and go through some of that or you set up a smaller working group that we engage with and then that brings it back however you want to handle it. There is some correspondence I think before Savannah got here with with Joe he had submitted some stuff so and I met with Joe to go through that and formally responded to that. Joe Savannah and I sat down a month or so ago maybe two months ago to go through some of that but it would be good to so but however you you're comfortable as a commission happy to come in and present overview what they are or work with a working through. There was only like five to 10
things were negative. Yeah, there were yes, but I think part of it would be there's the specific recommendations around regulations in particular sections within the inland wetlands regulations, but I think there's also the question of the rural pool maps, how they're used, I think becomes is that part of the wetland map that's posted and where is that up, is that on the website? How is that used? How can the public access that? How the public accesses that? So there's I think two sort of pieces to it because of that one map that sort of is instrumental towards part of the review process. So however the commission would prefer to go forward and at whatever timetable we're open to it's we just wanted to start to initiate the discussion that you we're ready to work with you on that.
Would that be something you want to put on the agenda for next month to have just this little briefing I think? I won't be here on the sixth, I'll be out of state so it would have to be November.
Yeah and I'd recommend the discussion item if you want go that route to begin with you know we can just discuss the charges
rather than doing a breakout group. You could do it that way. Sure. Yeah. If I wanna present something at the... What what was that person November? November. November meeting and kinda give us a rundown and Sure. Have a discussion about it and what we think, what you think and
does that work for everyone? Yeah. So that's the November 3, that's election day, so I hope Is
there any change scenario with, I know some commissions when there's an election. Yeah, the last time we've got over Yeah, did
feel like That's fine with me, but I just wanted to talk to What was that Megan? I'm sorry.
No, I was saying that I recall us discussing that I thought we just had said we would just go in the community room at the. Is
it the you're the first Tuesday or the second Tuesday first first Yeah. November 3. Okay. It's on the calendar. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, that would meeting that. We can title it the plan of conservation and development and wetlands actions. Yeah, because they were kind of put in their attention for us to do, truck is considered, but you know, that we could be reviewing that, figure out the way here.
That sounds good. Great, thank you. Okay, thank you, Sheena. Thank you. Okay, is there any other further discussion or anything else you need to add? I have one thing to break up. Oh, I'm sorry. You go ahead.
My name is Mark Goodison, I live on one grade center in Columbia and there's been some surveyors next door. Mr. Gravaldi is listed. I think it's Mr. Morrow's properties next down or south, what should be, south north of my property.
And they explained to me that if there is a movement on a subdivision after a certain amount of years, the surveyors have to go into it again before they can get it approved again. The last time, I don't recall when they initially made the subdivision, but they, he's only got a limited amount of, road coverage on 87th. So he had taken five large tracks and funnel them down to 87 so there's five little bits of property on 87 so we can get the, get the, they're able to get the permits, I assume, or some of them are planning on zoning. But my concern is that there's wetlands in there and I don't know how exactly he's going... If if if he's even still thinking of doing that because I heard a rumor that they were banging or doing something further down, so I don't know if maybe, don't they... If they use wetlands somewhere else, can they conserve another area, like a set aside another area to to account for it? Is the wetlands wet? It would have to come to his commission if anything like that. Is that something that I'm just in my mind out of my mind? Is that a way? I've seen mitigation allowed, but it would have to be approved. You do have to present something that would come to us before they Right. And nothing has, I assume. No. Okay. But the... I just want the last time anybody's... From in... From Wetlands, I don't know if anybody even looked at the property when they approved the subdivision the last time. They have that uncommon driveway that's gonna come in, and there's a tollbird going under 87,
there's a mile marker from the 17 Hundred's up on Lower Hill there and back in the sixty's a guy named Griffin came in and dug, took out a lot of property out, a lot of standing ground off from behind there and, and did some test holes, dug out a big, a spring basically that stays open year round. That was around 66 probably. So I don't think that's listed anywhere, although the guy was doing the surveying had ribbons that said wetlands, wetlands, you know, and it was in that area. So I just wanted to, I just hate to see a driveway going in. I mean, I don't care if it's, it's, I have a tree, so it's not like it's gonna bother me, but I just hate to see the wetlands getting paved over in there without at least somebody being aware that there's a spring right there. And then I don't know how he's gonna put a driveway in because it it slopes up to my property at a pretty steep slope. So he's gonna have to either
cut a bunch of the bang of it out of it. And I guess I would have to talk to the planning zone and see how close, how, what the setback has to be for him for a direct fire, maybe we're gonna drive by and, you know, paying the butt end right up to my property line or is there a certain that be ten, fifty feet, 75 feet, 20 feet,
that would be something for planning and zoning probably? Yeah, I mean zoning. You should and so I'm on the planning and zoning as well and I haven't seen the agenda for our next meeting yet. That's coming up on that third Tuesday of this month. Okay. But you might go you might go to the planning and zoning website and look, there, we've seen some drawings in proposed, you know, conceptual development type of things. And I can't remember, I haven't looked at the website for a while to see if it's there or not, but you might look to see what's in the appropriate file there under, you know, we, and we, we, the other, I guess I would call Wayne and the,
see what what he can help me out with He's the CEO. He's the zoning guy. Gotcha. And... But we... They are out doing a lot of work and I know the the focus of the next thing that they want the first thing actually that they want to bring before the commission is a bunch of proposed zoning changes that would help them do that. And they're looking at, you know, so they, we don't actually have an application yet. They're just in the initial stages there. But I think there might be some information on the website that would help you understand what they're looking at doing to that weapons area and when they were talking to us they didn't want to talk about the specifics at all yet but they're out there you know you see them out there they're out there they're they're actively working on getting something together. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Well, mean, like I said, I just... I mean, I can see from my property, I can look down the hill and there's this one spot that it's even in 10 degree weather it's open, it's a little you know so it's a definite area but I just hate to see that get get covered over and the fact that it you know who knows when the last actual mapping was done in that area. Probably was... Because he dug a bunch of holes and it was too wet. As a matter fact, the USGS just came out and put a test well on my property and they only had to go down six feet before they had water. Was a ground... They were groundwater testing. But, it's... So he didn't... He couldn't do anything in there because... But what he did do is uncover all the weapons. He he dug it all up and made it even more sure that it was 1966 or earlier.
Now another interesting point, mister Grimaldi came to us and we dissolved that subdivision that you're talking about. Okay. So right now it is back to one big piece of property. Gotcha. For what it's worth. Well, that's Because it wasn't, you know, nobody was gonna be developing the way that it was Yeah. The way was designed there, you know, in Who's covering the common driveway that's gonna go 200 feet further? So right this minute, it's back to just a big chunk of property. Oh, okay. Interesting. What's the address on that again?
Pardon me? What's the address on that allow? Like, is it a bit shorter? Yeah. Lindholm Corners is what it's... Lindholm Corners is what it's commonly referred to.
Yeah. That used to be Lindholm's house, that big one that's on the corner. Yep. And he built that little ranch right out... Right above it to live in wings because it was too big a house for him.
It goes way better. I haven't heard from anyone yet on that, but obviously, they're delineating wetlands, they'll come to us eventually. Well, yeah,
that's why I was... I I just couldn't see how it was economically peaceful to have... You got five pieces of the property that all... They all just went in 100 feet or more and then opened up these huge tracks, but who's gonna... Who's... Was a there was point at the time that just never went anywhere. Yeah. You can go to the building department too during open hours and there might be those old files from the sixties that you could look at and see if you were curious, you know, about like the old plans. About what? The old plans are in the building. Oh, yeah. Wasn't... Shouldn't be. This was... It wasn't that far back. I mean Oh, okay. I'm talking about the the guy who dug up all the property was back in the sixties. Oh. So it wasn't wetlands. Subdivision active. Yeah. Don't Subdivision after. Know, 2015
maybe. I
think it was well before that. Yeah. Was it? Yeah. 2006.
I guess I haven't been on planes in the admiral. It's been a few years. Yeah. Could have been, I don't know. But over the last couple of years, we dissolved the subdivision. Good. All
right. Well, that's all I got. Appreciate your time. Thank you.
Okay, I didn't mention anybody else back to me, right? Okay. All right. Any other discussion?
I have one administrative point to bring up. Okay. It'll be brief. I was doing a couple of agent approvals and I noticed that the legal ad fee is paid by the town for these agent approvals. We do have in our regulations, the statement that the applicant is responsible for the office of publishing the legal notice of the commission's decision and the parcel amount of this notice will be assessed at the time of filing. You could easily modify that into commissionagent, I think, and allow the fee to be passed to the applicant if you prefer. It is what most towns do. So I was kind of surprised that the town was footing the bill for it. But if that's what the town wants to continue to do, that's fine. It's just something the commission would have to vote on as a modification to the regulations. And maybe that could go with board of select, and if it's, like, ingrained in the finances. But How much does it cost to put that in the river? Like, 185 ish. Wow. Okay. Yeah. It's not small.
I can't I can't imagine the town not being happy about that cost to the applicant. Right. You know, we're working hard in planning and zoning now to try and put other fees on to the applicants instead of the town being stuck with all those charges. So that would be consistent with what we're doing.
So we're working into those revisions we were talking about too, we could do it all a one fell swoop sort of thing if you want to discuss it at that time. I But thought I'd bring it up.
How procedurally would that work? So would we have to get a check from them? Essentially
the... Like, yeah. Go ahead. No, that's a good question. The way I do it in Columbia for their wetlands is I write up the legal language for them and I send them the legal language and they have to actually contact the paper, post the ad, and then they send me the receipt of posting. And then after I receive that, I'll approve the application formally,
but I wait until I receive it. Yeah, was trying to think, like, how do we force them to do that if they've already got an approved application so that that works. Yeah.
They don't be able to put in an application fee?
They already paid our... Yeah. Yeah. No. You can just tie it into that. It's gonna be... You know what the remarks are gonna be for That's another way. Notice.
And then, you know, if we tied into that, then I would just send the notice and, you know, we bill it internally.
So that's what I would think. That might be easier to do it that way, right? Yeah. I think
it would be good. Yeah. You know, one person is familiar with dealing with River East to the other people that don't know anything about doing that.
Would we refund that portion of the fee if the permit was denied?
No, the legal ad hasn't. I mean, well, this is for admin applications. So the legal notice is posted after, like when they're approved in the approval process. They have to post that this was the approved application. So after we approve anything for the commission, that's posted, but it's also the same for agents' approvals.
What about... Because aren't we often posting... Are we posting applications that we're considering in the newspaper? Only if there's a public hearing. Okay.
So the last one would have been Chaney Brook. That one had to be in the paper.
Which is a town project, more or less, anyway, so...
Pathways anyway, yeah. Yeah, but... We do have it that if the commission makes a decision, the applicant has to pay. It's just we could change that to commissionagent because we do agent approvals for just really minor stuff anyways, so.
Could we make it a condition of approval that they need to... I I don't know how that would work.
I'm sure you could go about it that way too. Yeah. I think there's a lot of ways to do it. But you said most towns... Put the fee on the Yeah.
Yeah. Instead of just cutting... Yeah. Is this something we've talked to the administrator about or we just make a decision as a commission?
If the commission wants to move forward with that modification, then yeah, I can just bring it to them and say, you know, this is what the commissioner Are is referring you guys all paid for that? I think if you wanna do it now, we can do it now. It's just because it's pretty simple or we could do it in that big lump sum of right revisions that we're gonna end up doing in November or December. Yeah, that's not a bad idea. We'll do everything for it.
Yeah, what you're discussing sounds too easy. Yeah, I know we're planning the zoning and it's gonna end up going with town meeting before we get it has to be an ordinance, you know, with town meeting and all that kind of stuff. How it could be so easy, I don't know. That'd be great if it was.
Yeah. It's it's just a matter of language. Well, because the fees are there. I think that's the difference. Yeah. Because, like, the fee for the legal ad already has to be paid. Like, that's requirement for wetlands in the state of Connecticut. Like even without an approval, you have to post the legal ad. So... Okay. Yeah. Okay. It is not on our fees. Did you say...
Like, so you gave the example of you had done a site visit for the Poll Barn application. Are we charging applicants? He
was charged the full application fee, which would include, for his application, includes the legal filing because it's coming before the commission.
No, but I mean for your time to go out to his property. I'm looking at the application fees that we have on the website now and there's a monitoring and inspection didn't correct that. That's always...
But that might be more for an approved permit that you're going out and checking on. Are they in... Yeah.
I guess my thought on that was, and you guys tell me what you think, but if I was going out repeatedly, that would make sense. The site visit is kind of in order for most applications. So I don't know, I've never seen the site visit charge before, but if you wanted me to use it, I could.
It's another like sort of projects where Joe was going out
consistently. Yeah. I can see that. The person was giving an attribute issue. Whatever. Yeah. But I can see that. Or like a really big subdivision. Right. Sure. Right. You're really out there feeling a lot of time. But it can be just go once. Yeah.
Yeah, I think especially because what... How many hours do you currently work a week, Savannah? Seven. So if there was a need, and I don't know if this is allowable in your contract or anything, but if there was a need for you, especially to go beyond those seven hours to be, you know, monitoring a site, I think that would definitely be a case to charge. Mhmm.
That's true. That's a good point. Yeah. It's kinda discretionary, so we could add more boundaries to it so I know where... When you want me to apply it.
Okay. So it sounds like, do we need to add that to it? Because it does look like the fees are built within the regulations, so we would need to add that to the regulations? Yes, for admin application. Okay.
It's in the regs now for commission. Just to know, since we were talking about anything, another thing you could look at is if you wanted to add a concept of retaining a good soul. And for some of these big products that might be coming in, if Rosewood Acres actually comes forward, that there's a possibility of having a consultant who could come out and then the applicant would pay for that review of their delineation. So would be a third party that wasn't associated with the applicant to review the wetland lines or whatever you want them out doing, the ecological value of certain sites and things like that.
We could look at in right revision. Are we able to use Hank for something like that? He's a consultant, independent consultant.
Because he's a town herpetologist, so I don't know if... Can he consult on wetlands like that? Don't know. I
I don't says conflict of interest. That okay? Not a commission too.
I don't know. Okay. No. Well, I think if it's for, like, wetlands delineation, you'd want a wetland scientist. You want someone that's... I don't know if Hank has that credential. I... I'm not sure.
And you might have to put it at the beginning. Yeah. Go for it. It's okay. Yeah. I wasn't sure how that But just something to consider for, you know, right, revisions, and you'd want it to have some.
Okay. Is there any other discussion? Second. Hearing none, make a motion to adjourn meeting on September 30. Second.
08:32 p. M. I remember when we used to be striving for that six meeting. Yeah. All those in favor.
Aye. That's good. Aye. And Jennifer's quick on that one. You got it quick. Have a good night, everyone. Good night, everyone. Good Bye.
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