Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting
August 15, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Order.
With roll call, Anne Gremain. Susan England, as an alternate, you will be seated. Okay. Leanne Hutchinson. Here. And
myself. Kevin, I see that that you joined us. Is that correct?
Yeah, the other Zoom link wasn't working. That was on the agenda.
Yeah, that didn't help things any tonight, but so you will not be seated as the alternate. It's Susan's turn, you were seated at the last meeting. Very good.
So that's our roll call and seating of alternates. Additions or changes to the agenda, Jerry Kerme, I see you've joined us here. With that in mind, I am going to put what I currently have as miscellaneous to the discussion of the school ban up into new business right after the letter is supported through the pickleball court. Does anybody else have any changes to the agenda other than that? Hearing none, I motion to approve the changes to the agenda to make the school banners new business stage B, and then the discussion of planning conservation development six C. Thank you, Anne. Anne seconded. Any discussion? Doing a voice vote just so I can make sure that with our people elected, not this whole thing. Can't see the hand raised if you got it. Leanne? Aye. Susan? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. Motion to change the agenda passes five zero zero. We did, I did ask our new town planner, John Guzewski, that that, the name will continue just like everything else is going tonight. To join us here tonight so that we can say hi to him and and we'll be getting started with the process of the planning, conservation, and development. So welcome, John. Anne, are you here with the interviews for so and I know Scott was Stephen England and Kevin, were you here when when we were interviewing for people to help us out with the plan of conservation and development?
I wasn't. I was not.
Okay. Funny. Just for a reminder then, John, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll go on from there. Okay.
Hi, everybody, both in person and online. It's good to be here. So as Jed said, I'm John Gaskowski. I'm a planner and a partner in a little planning firm called Tykey Planning and Policy Group. We're based in Vernon. We have developed a bit of a niche working with a lot of small townships, mostly in sort of Central And Eastern Connecticut, helping basically staff them up. They don't have enough money or enough activity, frankly, for a full time planner full time zoning person, wetlands, economic development, community development. So our practice takes us all around about this half of the state. I've personally been involved in projects in the towns next door in Columbia, in Hampton, in Deep River, in Chester and Essex down along river, in Woodstock, in Ballantown out east, and working on a variety of projects from the plants and conservation development to zoning regulations, affordable housing plans, grants, and I'm just sort of here to help not not really set a direction for the town, but kind of help you guys through that process and then help you implement that that vision. And personally, I I lived in Pompitt, lived in Pompitt for almost twenty years now, and I've spent a lot of time in in the roads of Eastern Connecticut, so happy to be here.
Thank you, John. With that, I don't think I see any public members of the public. Oh, Jerry, if you had a comment at this point, you're welcome to make that.
No, I have no comments at this time. Thank you.
Okay, moving on to new business and the first item up is letter of support for the new pickleball court, which is the agenda item. After after we put that item on the agenda, Eric, you know, I guess it was always intended in his mind to have the project be a little bit broader scope. Is there anybody that did not get the chance to read through the letter of support from the Planning and Zoning Commission that that I sent out to the Commission. Okay, here in here in that I'll assume everybody's had a chance to look at it and I'll I'll let Eric, you know, read this on what it is that he's trying to do there.
Okay. So, I think both John and I could could talk to this but essentially, most of you know, around 2016, the town had a steep grant actually a collection of steep grants that they used to renovate the old athletic fields that Veterans Monument Field. And so essentially they did a complete redo of the field because the the old field had gotten really bad shape. You know, had fairs out there and driven the fire truck around it and come back into the soil. So badly brought in a bit of a setup for baseball, but we weren't really playing baseball in Andover at the time. We're more than 8%. So the phase one of the project basically including completely stripping the topsoil, adding topsoil, fluffing it back up, adding irrigation, putting a walking track in and some fencing and fixing up the parking lot. So that was done and completed in 2017. And this is a follow on Steve brand to increase the utilization of that field. The probably single most controversial expensive
part of that would be to install a good lighting system on that field. If you go by there in the evening when they're practicing now in the fall, you'll see if you're using either one or two diesel powered generator light banks for practice after dark to supplement the two big floodlights that the town has. So their project envisions putting in a high quality lighting system to make it possible to play in the evening, meaning stand that season core effectively both for adult and youth soccer. Additionally, there will be three pickleball courts put in As most of you know, pickleball at Andover has taken off pretty dramatically. It's gone from a starting group of seven or eight people to now, I don't know how many, but David Costanian says there's there's about 80 people on their list of pickleballers in Handover. And because there's a lot of competition for time
in the pickleball courts in the gym because there's also disc golf, kids soccer, you know, the other youth sports volleyball, adding outside pickleball courts would be a really good community addition. We also know that we need playground facilities. I mean, we have some we have a decent facility at Andover Elementary School. But the problem is, is that that's off limits to anybody, you know, during the school day, and when the school program is active and using the field, and also in summer camp is in in using that equipment. So for a large fraction of the year, even though we have a facility here, it's not available to most people who want to use it. And then the last kind of part of that, the last two elements of this would be to run waterline across street and electrical power across the street, so that it is available for irrigating the softball field, because that softball field doesn't have any water, it would not be an in ground system because under that field there are in our bleach fields for the senior housing, so we can't put in ground sprinkler systems in, but we can make water available there, which is what we intend to do. Then kind of the last thing would be to improve that existing dirt parking area. And part of that is by paving that and then putting a paved path to both play area as well as a picnic golf course. We should be able to make all of that EBA accessible, which is another kind of long goal that the town has is, you know, provide more ADA resources to individuals.
So in a in a sense, that's the majority. That's what the project entails. This will have one thing that the commission will have to weigh in on. You know, if we get the grant and we go to actually approve this, and that is in talking with the the electrician and lighting designer because of the width of the field in the location of the running track. In order to eliminate the field, we are going to need to exceed the current maximum possible height for lighting standards that we permit under regulations. So, if we are going to do a good job of field lighting, we would be okay lighting the tennis ball court at the at the at the height allowable in our ranks currently but we would not be able to do a good job of lighting the soccer fields. So, that would, that's going be a consideration for the commission. We would probably ask that you consider modifying the zoning regulations regarding the lighting to accommodate that need. Obviously, we're not going leave the lights on all night long. That would be, you know, unreasonable. And the other reason that we prefer higher poles is that a higher pole, the light angle is more downward, and there's less light pollution off of the site. Even though the poles are hotter, the light can be more directed to the playing field. The lower the light is, the more horizontal it has to shine, which is not what we are the neighbors want. So that in a nutshell is what what the project is and what we would be eligible this grant.
Any questions for Eric at this point? You should limit, you know, land loads to 12 feet. With the special permit, you can go higher than 12 feet, but under no conditions will it be higher than 35 feet. So that's, you know, a significant increase over what our regulations permit allowed. As I was coming back from the dump the other day, I took a drive down 316. I thought I would check out the fields in Eberth over at Graham in the third bedrooms parked across the street. And I found no bulls. You know, they have as far as I could go, they have no lighting on any of their fields, which had surprised me that what I found when I went down there at at both of those places. So I do think 60 feet sounds pretty high. I think 35 feet is your normal, you know, powerful height out there, which is seem to be pretty high. And so
To do elimination, like, the the field has to be higher. I mean, look at what the panel that you Look at Manchester High School. Look at the main other schools they have in their area.
In their eye? Yeah. Okay. Yep. So I'll go check out some place else here. Yes, we did. You know, it it seems a little too high and with, you know, one public works is on one side of the field. There's a there's a, you know, a horse barn with the with the house set well back in the road. So, I was hoping that we would be able to maybe keep closer to 35 feet and still get proper illumination on the field without being too obtrusive to the other boats but we'll have to see that when the lighting plan comes in. But, you know, when when our regs in in I'm not sure what the basis was for 35 feet. It could have been plagiarized from another town that had good regs and said 35 feet was was it. But but that's what we've got and and so we'll see what the town does with respect to asking for a change to the regulations based on that. Certainly easy enough to make. Just a question, do we want to do that? Or how good can we be with limiting the lamps to 35 feet? So that's where we are with the regulation versus is desired at this point. Now, Jim, one of the thoughts when I first started considering putting pickleball courts over there was I don't know what I saw your comment today that playgrounds are, you know, a special permit deal in accordance with our regulation.
Okay. I believe in in in section five under the ARD, so the playground would be a use of right. That's kind of very important. I initially said I think there's there's some conflicting rates. Let me scope that out a little better.
I was thinking that maybe possibly we could consider all that property a recreation field already. And so maybe adding pickleball courts to it and modifying the lights and that might not require a special permit. It may require something less than that. We don't have to solve that tonight. I know that it's a solvable issue. It's just a question of what's the most efficient way to get to where we wanna go if that's what the the commission wants to do. And that's what we started tonight by, with voting on this letter. I'll revisit that in a better answer, please. Okay.
Any other questions for Eric at this point? Okay. So I will make a motion to, approve sending the letter that that that I sent out to all of you and, to, to Eric tomorrow for inclusion in the grant package to support the improvements he wants to make over at Veterans Memorial Field. I'll start with that. Okay. Thank you, Scott. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. Scott? Aye. Ann? Aye. Leanne? Oh, there you go. Unmuted. Okay. May I have your vote be in?
Yes. I I didn't mute myself. I eventually did, but I heard the automatic voice say that I had been muted, so I unmuted myself apparently successfully.
Well, we had a little nekesis with that, and Marina here did as well. So between the two and Jeff, we got your vote. Thank you. Susan? Aye.
And I vote aye as well. Approving passes five zero zero. Thank you, folks.
Next up, is a, I guess, a request by the school, and and it may also involve a change to the regulations. We're not here to discuss that tonight. I'm still working with Jim on the most efficient way to get through that. But, the school has made a bunch of vamps that they would like to hang from the land posts around the school. And I don't have a picture of those who hang out with everybody, but there we go on what is the school would like to hang from the lamp post. Oh,
so I thought those were pretty nice. I would like to try to support the school on that. The schools, they've had a rough go in getting what they want to do with with landing a zoning division, I would say, in the the last little bit. And so I'm trying to improve that, and I I think it's a nice idea, and I would like to to do that. I'm gonna try and share my screen to show photos that are in a different school, which is where we got that. Yeah. My screen shows a nice picture, and I don't see it up there. Okay. Okay. Well, I guess the technical difficulties are continuing to prevail here tonight. I did get some pictures. I will send them out to everybody by email from, you know, Valerie. And they're essentially the same kind of banners that that are posted at the school over in Scott. And they look very nice, but they are certainly higher than 10 feet, which was the max height allowed by our our regulations. The other thing that's kind of, I guess, pricked by our regulations and when we were coming up with these, we we, you know, had some discussions with Margaret's about if you don't want to regulate it, don't put anything about it in the regulation. And we do have a definition of a banner sign. We do have where a banner sign is prohibited,
but in nowhere in there do we discuss where a banner sign can be hung. And so we could we could change that. I'm trying to, you know, look at all all the nine things, try to figure out the downside, but I don't know what it would be, and and we could maybe modify it that municipal buildings could hang banner signs is deemed appropriate. Another potential solution is we could call, you know, when you look at all the different signs we have in our regulation, what kind of sign is this as far as function? And it it could be deemed to be a public interest sign, which the definition of a public interest sign, I think it goes back to whatever the board of selectmen want to determines in the interest of the town. And and it can't be any bigger than 16 square feet. Which this is not just two by four. So it's eight square feet. The So there's once again there there's a solution out there. I think the quickest solution might be to to go to the board of selectmen and say, you know, we want to hang these signs as a public interest sign on all the lampposts over there. There's nothing in
that section that talks about how many signs could be hung. I think there's probably, Jared, you, do you know how many signs we have? I think there's like fifteen, twenty, one for each lamppost. Jerry, Do you have Jerry anything from here to me? Can you hear me? Oh, I can now. Yep.
Okay. I guess the original motivation to put that those artwork banners up was that with all the construction for the community center. It was going to be a construction site nearby. And I think it was the desire of Taylor, the principal to try to make the building and the grounds, attractive. And Valerie saw those done up in Scotland where she also works, and she's seen them in other districts. Are very attractive. They're not really selling anything other than the town of Andover, and our school, which is something we can be proud of. And, you know, you don't want to get into a spot where you're, you're irritating people it's not the goal to irritate anybody it's just to decorate the grounds and make the place feel a little bit more like home to the kids. And there, and the community there. So, that was the motivation behind it. I was noticing there were signs banners, if you will, the entrance of that business on Route 6 right as soon as you cross over into Andover. They have them on the on the ground, and write it on each side of their driveway I forget what I think it's network it's called. Yep. Excuse me. Yes.
Okay. And, you know, they had them up, but I think that you have a sample there people can see that they're really thoughtfully planned and done. And it's meant to be making the school more welcoming place and welcoming the kids the people of the community, and to promote the good values of this of what we proposed as a community. So I would appreciate everybody's sport with letting Taylor put them up. Prior to the first day of school. And I think you'll find that it's be very attractive.
Oh, I would like to you know how high you would like to hang these banners or the yeah, Dan? I
I think that we'd be open to hanging them at a level that people don't find objective that people find pleasing to look at. I think that, you know, we're we're flexible. We just want we want the place to look good.
Okay. No. I I got it. I'm not sure that that I can get around the issue of hanging them higher than 10 feet, and I personally think they would be better hanging higher than 10 feet. You know, if if you were to hang them at 10 feet, that means the bottom of the slide is at six feet and I think that's too low that invites people to jump up and whack the sign and. Yeah. That kind of thing and so, you know, I really think it needs to be up to Similar to what what you've got in Scotland there, which I think is probably 15 or 16 feet. I think it's a 20 foot pole, four foot from the top, and then the the bottom of the site is eight feet from the ground if if I recall that.
Something like I tried to draw here. Do have a bulbous side so centric in the middle? Would that work?
I don't know. Would, but it's but even that so that is higher than 10. Probably. And and so if we're gonna have to change the regulation or provide a waiver to the regulation, That's not, you know, that is a lengthy process as we saw when we tried to add municipal building to, you know, section five of the regulations. Yeah, it takes a public hearing and all that kind of stuff. So I've got to I will reach out in the same area. I I went out there, got up my step ladder tonight, hung it up to what I thought was 10 feet high, which is about as high as I could reach up standing on the top of the step ladder. And and I didn't think that was is I thought you would like it higher than that. If we're gonna do it, we should do it right. You might not be able to get there by the first day of school.
Well, agree with you if we're gonna do it, we gotta make it look good. Yeah, I,
I haven't seen them up, I haven't seen. I would have to physically go over there and look at the different heights that we could hang it and see how it looks. And I think that you're going over there and checking it out like that I think gives you a pretty good idea of what, where, when the way you would need to hang it in order to make a good appearance. So I appreciate that Jed and I appreciate your going out and helping us with these banners to make it look, make the school the homey and welcoming and I think it'll be festive especially in light of all the construction that's going be going on.
So I thank you very much. Okay, so that's all we're going to talk about banners tonight. Go ahead.
I just wanted to say, I'm pretty sure I can get the board of selectmen to agree that this was these were public interest signs in the interest of the town and get approval for that or that's like 15.1, 15 something. If that's the way the commission wants to go and you could get around that, that doesn't get you around your type of requirements. But if you wanted to put them up now,
Yeah. Basically, it says, the town of Anna were acting by the boards, black and the boards designee may erect public interest signs of a size construction lighting being appropriate for the purpose, but in no event larger than 16 square feet. So if they're less than 16 square feet, it seems that the Board of Selectmen can just agree to their placement. Therefore authorize me to agree to their placement either one and get that done. What that doesn't do is that doesn't get you around the issue of the hike. That's a commission decision, how you want to proceed with that and afford that. Decision. But if you want permission from the Board of Selectmen, if you mean those public interest sides, I can get you that.
Okay, well, let me get back to you on that, you know, I'm trying to figure out if by size we can infer height, and that's probably a stretch. It'd be certainly cleaner to add interest value besides height construction and lighting be appropriate for purpose. But again, that's a that's a couple month process to get there.
Don't think Mr. Chairman, don't mind. Go ahead. So I don't want to start my first meeting with you, bending the regulations too far. But I think it might be a reasonable interpretation to say that, you know, fifteen point four point four says no sign shall be higher than 10 feet could be referring to the the height of the sign from the ground, which is to say, you know, you can't have a 10 foot sign mounted on a ground. And this the height of this essentially the the vertical length of it is four. And as long as it's not a 10 foot banner, you know, at whatever level, you you could you could sort of demonstrate that you say, no, that's an important pattern.
I understand that. And, you know, I but if you look at the the sign for Donald General out there, you will know that it was constrained. I don't know how much angst on their part, if you know more than 10 feet high. So we kinda when we drafted that regulation, it was clearly thought at the time to be there when they and I will ask attorney Grange what he thinks is the easiest way to resolve that dilemma.
You could also mount them at 10 feet from now, change the regulations, and put them up higher.
And that would be something that, you know, we need feedback from the school. You you want to go through that. What it would probably do is you would, at some point, remove the bottom post because these signs that at least in Scotland had a hole on the top of the sign and the bottom of the sign to hold it tight and move the bottom pole to four feet higher than which now the top pole and that would put it right where he wanted. And so I couldn't tell from the pictures how it was, how they were attached to the pole. And so I guess I would ask Jerry for some feedback on how you plan to attach him and if that would be something that you would like to consider.
Can you hear me now. Yeah. Okay. Yes, I would consider. I mean I'm open to anything that. And, you know, if we can get them home, and then you want to have them moved afterwards that I don't think that'd be a problem. Okay. What whatever makes it easy for everybody else.
Well, so at this point, I'll ask Eric to get the board of selectmen to consider these public interest signs. And we'll go from there. If you want to hang it higher than 10B, we can address that. I think it's probably going to be another tweak or two to, you know, direct. Eric's already mentioned that we're going to have to do something with the height of the light poles and that so it's another change coming down Roche. I appreciate your time. Thank you very much, dad.
Okay, thank you, Jerry. Next up on the plan of conservation and development is the next up in business is the plan of conservation and development and Marina, do you think it would be possible to call up from our website the current plan of conservation and development? While we're doing that, did anybody you know, I asked everybody to take a look at the first four or five sections. Did anybody have any, any things that they got excited about with that or any big takeaways that you would like to share? Okay so is, as everybody on the Commission knows, I have struggled mightily to figure out, you know, how to proceed with the plan of conservation development, how to get that rolling. John has certainly been willing to help with all he can, but it's something that I think you know I know where we want to end up, we want to have a good. Planet conservation and development that says where we think the town wants to go in his roadmap to get us there. And once we figure out where it is that we want the town to go, I know John will be able to draft for us a fine document that gets us there. The first thing that that I wanted to go through and Marina if you can scroll down to page five. Right right there. The plan will address the following themes. So if you scroll down just a little bit
to get to the bottom of that. So I thought that was that was the the summary of what the plan wanted to do: protect our natural resources, protect our rural character, promote diversity in our housing stock. I read that to be because we're 90% single family homes that meant to me affordable housing or workforce housing or senior housing. Yeah. Any of those nice nice housing in town that didn't cause as much and let let people start down and the seniors have a shot at doing it. Creating a town center with compact mixed use development, that's that area around Center Street, you know, and it envisioned, you know, some shops with the apartments on top and and that sort of thing. Connecting Andover, this is this is Eric's personal favorite that you know we've got some work to do to finish that up. We've made some good progress there
And then creating the identity and sense of place for handover, and that's going to be, one of the chapters in your your homework for next week is to read that one, but but that essentially says we want to maintain those rural properties that we've got, the rural atmosphere. It was interesting to me that in that list was there anything about economic development? And that could have been included by omission. Maybe the thought was we didn't want economic development. I did get some hints of that as I was reading through the document, but but we did have a chapter devoted to economic development, and and they had some things that they wanted to do there. So maybe, you know, maybe we want to address that in the one going forward. The creating the town center, I always kind of thought that was a little bit of pie in the sky. Certainly, with our constrained. Business sections along Route 6. And we have some beautiful farms along Route 6 that we want to kind of protect. And we've got some floodplain along Route 6. Building back from Route 6. Has some advantages to it. I don't know that Center Street is is anymore the right place to do that. We'll we'll allow,
you know, the commission to, to get in with that. But but that's what it said the following things were, and I think if we were to, you know, just tweak on that very subtly, promoting diversity in our housing stock to promoting more affordable housing. I'm not sure what we want to say about the town center. I'm interested in what the other commission members have there. Connecting in over, continuing to complete street thing, I think, is good with the identity and set in place. We wanna protect the natural resources and the rural character. The first two and the last one are really all bucket the same thing, so there is a heavy emphasis on not getting too much growth and that sort of thing. Anyhow, that, there was a bunch of demographic data for everybody to look at. What we didn't have in this was the affordable housing thing. I went back and looked through that again. But right there, Lorena, that is a great chart. That's the only other chart I want to show tonight. When we did our last plan of conservation development in 2015, there was the population growth trend for Andover. When we looked at the affordable housing plan, the population didn't level off. There was there if you look online with the state of Connecticut resources, you know, they're actually predicting a drop off in enrollment in. Drop off in population that. Based on you know a lot of the young families can't food delivery right now. Our senior population is growing faster than most places than any other place in the state, whatever it through there. But but anyhow, I'm interested in what is the current population trend. And also, you
know, what what is the current school enrollment? Because families are having fewer kids now. And and that is going to be important as we make decisions about what's going on with the school and then. Some some changes on the housing or updated housing demographics, which I think is going to show that we're still predominantly single family houses. So you know when I look at execution of our. Housing plan it it depends on how you want to spin it. I can spin it. We got a plus because we hired John to to help us with affordable housing once he gets done with the plan of conservation and development. That's going to be a long ways out there before we get to all that. But if you look at actual things we've done to increase affordable housing, we haven't done very much of what we set out to do in that point. So that's that was my review through the first couple chapters there of the demographics. The real reason that I wanted to get those first four chapters, and then five and six are about the survey that we will do, and then we didn't have anything in the survey for last time we're gonna we'll we'll work on that after we figure out where we think the town wants to go and what are the questions we need to ask to validate that.
Is for the next part. The last two pages of the plan of conservation and development are the list of actions or recommendations that came out of that plan. And. And so. John crafted up a survey that I will send out to you and it takes each of those actions and it says, know, is it done? Is it in progress? Is it still important? Is it you know we haven't worked on it, but it's important. It's no longer important or I don't have enough data to to answer the question. And I know when you go through there and and I tried to to answer the questions before we got here, and it's not a simple task. If you look at the the second item down under chapter seven there in, Brady, you don't have to scroll up to it. It says rezone areas of R40 to R80. Is that done? I know.
We made everything R60, which I think is the intent. And so so I would, you know, I would list that one is yes, we we completed that. But it's you need to look at the questions as you're going through the chapters to to get a sense of of what it's saying and and even then you might struggle with some and when when you get to those just I don't expect it to be a research project for anybody. Put down that. Not enough info and in some cases we'll ask Eric to come back and because I think he's probably the smartest guy on why we did the changes the way we did them. He can probably shed some light on it, and we'll see if that's something we're happy with where we are now and why we didn't do it if it works with the recommendation from the plan and and go from there. But I'd like everybody to wrestle with, I'll send out the the survey tomorrow. I made myself a copy of these last few pages and it's broken down by chapters there so you can look at the items as you read that chapter so you know what to focus on. And then when you get done, you can go out and check the survey, submit the survey, send that into
that'll go into john and he can file all the data for us and tell us where we're at. Can I note something there, Chad? Yeah. So what's what's interesting about these? So these are organized in chapters seven, eight, nine, etc. And something that is useful to note is that that there's a little bit of a disconnect between those those six themes that Jed talked about and the topical chapters. So one of the themes is protecting natural resources. There is a natural resources chapter protecting our rural character. There is no protecting rural character chapter. There is a housing stock diversity one, there is a town center, and there is a sense of place chapter. But then there are also separate chapters on managing future residential growth, which is probably where that that rezoning comes from. Yep. Promoting and regulating commercial development. So there even though that wasn't one of the core themes, it shows up as a chapter. And then finally, there's a chapter on preparing for a significantly older population, and that doesn't show up the theme. So one thing I would suggest going forward, no judgment on the current plan, but to have the have the substantive chapters
flow back into the themes. It creates a little bit of discount. Nope, that's a that's a good point. And I think it should flow one for one homes might might not. And I do think that rural character, when you read through the chapter on promoting It's last one creating, identify, and a sense of place. You know that is maintaining the rural character essentially. But again, the alignment between those bullets up front and the chapters in there, we might be able to help that out in there. The other thing is I was reading through the questions. You know, there there was a couple of times where a chapter four ninety was mentioned, you know, on protecting natural resources, promote use of chapter four ninety in open space workers. Don't have a clue what Chapter four ninety is. Encourage Board of Selectmen to adopt open space plan which would make all partials eligible for four ninety. So since I didn't know what that was and didn't want to do that research project either, I asked John to
hopefully share a few words with us tonight about what what four ninety is. So the very simple version is it's referred to as public act four ninety, which is the state, the state bill that it was given when it was passed about fifty years ago. It basically empowers towns to provide a tax incentive, a local property tax incentive to keep property undeveloped. It's not a permanent designation, but there are three categories farmland, forest land, and open space. Farmland and forest land each have acreage minimums that are set by the state. So if you've got a 50 acre tract of forest, you can enroll that through your local assessor for a period of ten years where you say, promise I will not develop this forest, will not chop on the trees, will not put up houses, but not built there. Then the town basically says thank you. Sign a little contract for ten years and you get a preferred
tax tax rate. So it's not it's not taxed as a development model. It's not prohibited for report. Correct. Yes. That's you should be. Similar
requirement whether it's a state standard. Open space is sort of defined locally. Each town can kind of define what its open space tax advantage parameters are. A lot of towns say basically if you live in a in our Eighties zone or our sixties zone, that's 60,000 square feet. If you have more than 60,000 square feet, so you've got four acres, you could set aside, you know, two and a half of that as open space and get a tax advantage on it. And again, that's it's just that's that's a temporary contract between you and the town. If you then choose to turn around and develop it within that ten years, you'll have to pay some back taxes in order to get out of it. But it's basically a temporary tax advantage situation to encourage people to keep their larger pieces of land undeveloped for a period of time.
Is that similar to current use? Is that It's a it's a called use assessment. Okay. I know I have yeah. Property up in New Hampshire is current use.
X very. Right. Like, percent. Yeah. It's a it's essentially that. Yep. So and so so basically letting people know that, hey, you got a big piece of land, we would like to see that, you know, at least for the foreseeable future, stay open, stay forest, make
sure that people know I find most large property owners as soon as they get them protected, they do this government's program pretty quickly. But
but, yeah, I mean, promoting it amongst those who can give us town some security in terms of its near term development.
So anyhow, that ought to ought to give us enough insight that we can answer the questions on as we go through that as whether or not we like those ideas.
And can I one thing you do? I don't wanna push back a little bit. You said before that the town didn't do anything towards affordable housing. And I don't think that's necessarily correct. I think from a zoning regulation perspective, the commission has actually done a lot. You put in a set of regulations which allows mixed use development that was geared towards convincing market developers that they could get a lot more if they agreed to have some housing, some rental properties associated with it. You enable cluster development in most of the residential homes, which allows smaller scale potentially more affordable housing, and you really broaden the rules for what accessory development units are allowed. So within the regulatory framework, I think the regulations have actually come a long way towards promoting. The problem is, is it still not something that the developer is likely to actually do. And if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. The town isn't gonna happen. It can't be a soft push. It's gotta be a kind of a hard pull from town
to make it happen. Okay. So I'll give you credit for all those regulatory changes. We'll give you b plus, a minus. I was looking at what we've done, you know, as a community since we issued the affordable housing plan, which is minimal, we opted out of the accessory partner things to make sure you could put accessory partner around the lake. That didn't help. So anyhow, we we've got some work to do. A lot has been done on the regulatory thing that the actions that we have in our current plan from the affordable housing plan. He lives.
Sure. And I think that really is, you know, the the issue of the decade is affordable housing. You know, it's gonna be it's only gonna get worse or more important, I guess, you know, if if we're going forward. And and so we've gotta figure out how to crack at it, not just a little bit there. I do think, you know, I know that the economic development group is interested in updating their economic development chapter. I do think the, you know, so that would be one of those summary bullets. And I think the preparing for the older population, that continues to be a very important thing for him or and there were plenty of action to the Affordable Housing Plan for how to help that out, too. I I did read a article in the newspaper over the weekend to talk about all the grant money that, the state was giving to towns to support people upgrading their homes so they could live in it. And it looked like your towns were out there doing that already. Was one of the actions was a fund we were going to create where where people could put ramps going in or grab bars and then give that they pay back and they eventually sold the house and that sort of thing. That's getting that's getting off track at this point. So that's that's where I think
we are with the plan of conservation development between now and the next meeting. And I'll send out a due date shortly before that so John has the ability to co link all the data, and we can take a look at that in our next meeting coming up. Any other questions on the planet conservation and development at this point? Okay, you can close that out for me. Thank you. Moving on to old business. And think it I mean, Catherine gave up on us. We didn't get there. But Jim, tell us what we've got going on with the Bradley.
Okay. There's been no action at the ground today. Prior to the last meeting, I had attempted to discuss with Bill Jena Mason, the owner, his failure to comply with the plan. He made it pretty clear he wasn't doing anything. So at that point, I tried to initiate discussion with Mark Brantzar, his attorney, to see where to go from there. And then shortly thereafter, there was the July meeting, at which point I was directed to to extend the time to allow to to April 15, which I did. And he has meeting. Obviously, which and I did try to schedule a meeting with him to show him exactly and and show him what what's on-site. I don't know whether he's how often he comes up, how often he looks at it. I wasn't able to do that for a couple of reasons. One, he has kept his family and I was away for two weeks. I do have an appointment scheduled with him for tomorrow morning at 11:00. Well, I I mean, I'm still I'm intending to engage Mark, but I'm just here at what transpires tomorrow. That's my plan. I I don't really don't expect that he's going to come into compliance with the plan. He doesn't wanna doesn't wanna bring the task.
Okay.
Any questions for Jim on where we are with the graduate? Seems kind of similar to last month. Next item up is the approval of minutes from 07/18/2023. And I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the public hearing and regular meeting from 07/18/2023. Looking for a second? Thank you, Scott. Any comments? No comments? Going once? Going twice? I'll call for a vote, Scott? Aye. Anna? I wasn't here. Abstain. Okay. Leanne? Aye. Susan? I abstain. I wasn't there.
Okay. And I vote aye as well. The motion passes three zero two with the in for me and Susan England abstain. Next item up is correspondence here. No. Next item up, administrative reports.
Okay, I have the largest. Route 6, Blythe, Barnett property is ongoing and working with Dennis O'Brien on that. But they noticed, you know, it has been notices have been sent. I believe he's in the process of putting together a lien to be placed on the on the land records checked out. Let's see a number of projects that have been commenced without permits that we followed up with and are coming into compliance. I have 241 Lake Road, Don Miller, structure and construction without a permit scheduled for a CVA hearing tomorrow evening.
He's only asking for the structure that he's already built? Yes. Okay. And I know at one point, he was looking to put a a porch or, you know, some porch on the back. Give me three of Okay.
And I guess so when I looked at at that application, he was going from I think the maximum allowed his 10% lot coverage up to 23%. 12 to 23. 12 to 23. Yes. So I know that little little shed doesn't count for 12% of his square footage. How did he get to
That point? I don't know. Okay. Oh, he does have his previous parents for the initiative. I think it's very possible that she's supposed to
Okay. And, yeah, just when I looked at that little shed, and it was going from 12% coverage to 23, and I said, wow. That's a powerful shed.
But okay. Got He was over. That's a good good point. Yeah. K. 85 Lake Road construction without a permit. I do have a letter out to the owners of the 92 Merrick Valley Road regarding a number of vanity vehicles on the road. What was the address on Lake? Where would you sit there with 82 Merrick? No. 285? 85 there. 85. Okay. Yep. Now, I also have on here the two churches. There's no two houses of worship. There's no action as of yet. Is this the time to bring it up?
Right. There. Okay. Might as well. Alright. Heads up what you're coming. Two issues.
Mountain mountain of worship. This is a a a church, a place of worship that's been there for probably twenty years. Yeah. Last one. Probably four or five to Well, that doesn't matter longer. But I I
have reasonably that's different, but it's it's been there for a while. Problem is there's a lot of parking on the room, probably 40 cars at a time. I believe the place in information I have. I don't know how accurate it is, but I believe it's fairly accurate. I've not approached the gentleman at the the it's well advertised on the on the website. My understanding that they were told by the commission to cut back on the number of cars. I don't see that as really viable solution. They're gonna shovel people in from somewhere else, I believe. Remember? Yeah.
Okay. Well, it hasn't been the commission anytime recently. Previously. Yeah. But, well, certainly, more than four or five years, think it was, you know, I've been on the vision for about twenty seventeen.
Well, it's quite a bit. Really didn't get any complaints. I believe Eric had a complaint and took a few pictures sharing with me. I have not heard directly. I I do hear I have heard, like, see directly about it. So in addition to that, all probably recall the Buddhist group that came in looking at the property at 131 And 6, and we're told they need a special permit. And how's the workshop there? Well, they bought it. They purchased it. And they never undertook the project, but they have started to use it on occasion for worship. And I believe they they put up a structure and they put up a, basically, an accessory structure to cover a statue, which might be in excess of height. And it did send up an email on July 20. I haven't heard from them.
I just wanted to initiate discussion with them to see them. They should have a discussion group in place even if it's I mean, as I as I see it, I think what happened is the apocalyptic, the dairy price side, and they're gonna have some difficulty developing it. It's like there's some weapons, and it's gonna be hard for them to put in a service department. And they may not. Nonetheless, I think even what they do, they'll they'll need a special permit. I don't see a huge deal of a special permit that it's it's they they go after incrementally meeting. They they can get it used and and some of the components that are there. And then if if they're able to to convert the house into there's a place of worship in a place where their their most lived opposite the plan. So to follow-up on that, I'd like to sort of pursue these simultaneously so that people appear to treat one differently than the other. Okay.
So yeah. We're able to through.
Of course, have some thoughts there. Those people are bad in there. I have nothing involved with that. I think I have a I haven't had a momentary. I haven't really I was in there a season to set it or something. And she was Now she's back up in there.
So it's questionable whether it is living there. The vehicle is back. In a couple of times, I drove by there, and I installed a light on. But since then, I happened in all attempts to knock on the door and actually contact her and the building pressures that out there and the not zoning, but the Eastern time has helped district rep has been out there. And the fire department's been out there. And nobody's seen hiding or care of anybody. And now the car doesn't seem to have moved. So it doesn't so it seems it looks to me like instead of actually coming back, it's just part of one more vehicle there than was there before. So until we see actual signs that somebody is back living there or not going to the institute of the the primary problem with that. There there could be some very difficult, could it be some white enforcement if if the zoning agent felt it was appropriate. But I mean, the the big problem with that house is that there's no running water, no reading system that works. And it's a
incredible, the disgusting morning situation. So it's kind of a trifecta of of issues. So but right now, there's still a quarter of vacating the fire marshal. There's a
the building official has declared it essentially unfit and Eastern Highlands Health District has also. So that's where it stands and sat there for a year. And the it was clear from the board of selectmen that there was not going to be support for offering her talent support to get some of that addressed and cleaned up. So the town not participating, there's really not anything that I see that's gonna happen that will eventually she gets more closed up. And then something will probably be done. That would be my guess.
Any other questions for Jim at this point? Now pulling forward, you know, from the the miscellaneous while June was out, you're getting some emails going around between Wendy Cobb, Eric Ford, the over and over store. And I think they're using the house there in addition to the the barn is commercial sales retail space. He was concerned about, you know, is that what was approved or what do we need to do to, to make that right? I looked through the files that I had at my disposal a little bit while Jim was gone and and didn't find anything on that. I don't know if Jim, you've had a chance to look at that today or not. Not
I did. Okay? But I'm not sure what I can combine. I mean, there was a there if you go back in the minutes, it tends to be you know, they just say the application was approved, and the application has really no information on it. Right. Experience. But it goes back to, like it's back to 2005. The the myths that I think that go back to 2005. Although, I I know that the the gift shop's pretty they're some very good since then. They're they're
In 2,005, Jan Maskey, real estate. Jan Maskey. Yeah. And that's in the that was in the file. I saw that. Okay. But I know I saw nothing from Wendy in Dubai.
And Okay. I do have yeah. I do have minutes here when you come. But, again, it's to start a business, retail business. Couple of questions. And that's it. Okay.
Now here. There's not yet any action. She came before. So,
so I can give you kind of a quick summary. So Wendy and her husband purchased. So backstory at one point, the yellow house in the front was a real estate office essentially. And they were kind of illegally having somebody live in the back In the barn. Barn there. And at some point, the previous CEO, know, made it clear to them that they could not be they didn't have any authority to have anybody living in bar behind the rest of building. So that person ended up out. The real estate does move elsewhere. They sold it to Wendy and Eric Cott. They approached the commission with a proposal for site plan approval. I think it was site plan approval to utilize the barn. What they were asking essentially is can we go back to using the house in the house because it's more suited as a house than it is in anything else and use the back bar area as essentially a retail sales operation for her brand owner. And they presented us a site plan at the time. The Taddeh Commission was in agreement that that was a reasonable use of the property. And I think we just granted that as a site plan approval. I think that was,
you know, quite a while ago, so my memory could be incorrect. Then that was basically the history of that project. Since then, they've had people living in the house and they have additionally been running the retail sales operation in the back. And then as far as parking goes, the board is selected at one time. But we'll read to both local people allow them to use the existing town parcel right next door Apartment business. And that to my understanding is still in the back. Okay.
It's for the record. It's in in the touch screen. So.
Yeah. So my comment to Wendy, you know, she had a film crew coming out on August 21 to do some one of the Google stories that that they put, you know, on the TV news kind of thing. She didn't wanna have the film in the house, and then we say, oh, you can't use the house. I said, well, I don't know how what the path is to get approval for what you're doing, but if you're in an industrial zone and you have retail and it's both in the barn and in the house and nobody's living in the house, I see nothing wrong with that. We just gotta get the paperwork right to support it. And so
that's what we're ought to do now. And Wendy, you know, she said, well, we applied for a retail business. And then something came back later the follow on meeting and it talked about a home occupation business, which she thought that might be a typo because that's not what they were doing. But, you know, it sounds like maybe the right answer is to to just get a new permit to go. And I don't even think it needs to be a special permit for as little of a retail spot because that is and I don't think there's any big public interest, you know, one way or another. I think we just need to get the site plan that talks about, you know, what you're doing and get it documented.
Don't. We can't stay out of the phone. Currently, there's retail sales in the whole. Yeah.
And nobody's living in the whole. It's two apartments. I think it's all all for well, I'll go back and ask some more questions. You're here. You can get over. I can research it. Yeah. I I think she needs it. But she provided the date for what was in minutes, which you read and have a lot of detail there.
Which is that? There's no action on it. The minutes, I don't know what happened at the meeting. Okay.
So it was very definitely the commission very definitely approved that. Right. The minutes may not do a good job of reflecting it, but somewhere there, you should have record of a site plan approval for the business in the back and explicit approval to have people living in the house and be done in the business in the back.
So that's just like home occupation, even though it was out of business by the people within the home. Well, that might have been how we
how the commission actually thought they permitted. As we go down, the recommendations are more flexible about living and having businesses in both the commercial and industrial zones than they were prior to that. And that was one of the things we both addressed when we changed that regulation.
But I think she, you know, I'm going on memory, but I'm pretty sure she said there's nobody living in the house.
I mean, as an alternative to to a special permit, I I could put together sort of what mean, I have seen this done before. I'm gonna say it's I wouldn't get I wouldn't have a talk to any way in, but just sort of document what what this history is and what what approvals have been made. Give you just a sort of baseline. You know? There there is a site plan. Well, if we yeah. Because it has changed. I mean, it's changed. Changed. That's part of the problem. I mean, it's it's changed over the course. I mean, I think it goes way back before you've done it, but it's
don't know. All all I know is I don't know why she's not using the house as like,
you know, do I have a a vacant unit there? It makes no sense to me. I think I didn't know there were two apartments. I
believe they're what they're basically doing is saying what they want to do is expand the business and use both the house and the rear areas altogether as essentially like an artist collective.
They're there. Then definitely, they they need they should have a special permit. It's no longer sort of a home occupation in the in the industrial with a house. That's really
Well, but you're allowed to have a retail establishment in the industrial zone. By special permit. Yeah. Don't think I have to do that. In the
Right. So she's looking to proactively abandon a residential component, which is to say the home occupation part and go entirely retail, then that's that's her proactive decision.
But I you should also based on our current regulation, should you could probably explicitly be allowed to have 2nd Floor, you know, like the 2nd Floor apartment there occupied and business on the word for and business in the back in that zone, the way our regulations are written down.
Okay. Well, I will I will email her back tomorrow. I'll include you on it as it got to due this time as well. And I told her that I didn't think we were going to require her to move all our stuff out of the house, put it on the screen. Okay. Okay. I'll I'll try to get her to handle what she has and what she's doing there.
No. I told her, you know, it was not an urgent crisis. We would make the paperwork right, and she could keep doing whichever it is she's doing here now because it sounded pretty reasonable. Okay. I can do that.
That's all that we get in zoning agent. Inland Wetlands Watercourse Agency, nothing nothing that would be pertinent to the planning and zoning commission going on there. Next item of public comment, Jerry, you you stuck with us a long time. You got any comments for us before we adjourn here tonight?
I just want to thank you for your time and for the work you do. I appreciate you, Jen, and for your commission and all that they do for us. Thank you.
We're ready for me. Yeah. Okay. So, okay. On behalf of the board of Selectmen, the the board would like to formally ask the planning and zoning and consider or regulate or maintain related to sign off. Now, obviously, you're considering the one well at the banners. Specifically, the one that the the board of selection like they could say the likeability on the veterans monument field to be able to essentially allow businesses to put up banners along events, which is a pretty common practice, you know, in athletic fields and use that money to offset the cost of owning and maintaining the deals. Our current regulations would allow basically be a special permit to put up one single sign. So that the the motor slackman would would like the zoning commission to consider a regulation change that would enable that whether you just restrict it to the municipal properties or or how to do that, you know, would be a commission decision. You know, I'm sure that you could get further clarification from the from the board of selectmen if you feel you need it, but that's ultimately what the board like you to consider. Do you know what the size of the?
Yeah, I mean, think the the 16 square feet per banner would be perfectly acceptable to the board. The existing if you look at the existing chain link fences, they're basically five feet high and 10 feet wide. So if you set your one banner on each one, you know, something you know in the 16 to 24 square foot would fit and look appropriate. I I think that the board would be fine living with the 16 square feet per banner. If there was a regulation change that would allow multiple banners on that same property. But I also realized that, you know, may require input from the town's attorney because you don't necessarily want to
to our regulations are very specific in commercial areas about what is allowed in terms of many of multiple businesses on the property. So that would be what the board would like you to consider. Okay. Yeah, the the other concern with the regulations is that, you know, we don't allow billboards, which is anything greater than 32 square feet. Okay. The ball will be off-site.
Thought there was a regulation in there that said no business can put up a sign off-site.
And I couldn't find the billboards billboards to find this being an off-site. So
you could have a 30 square foot one off-site. Yeah. And it would be a billboard.
I know this come up, and I do have a concern about contact. You know, what are you who's gonna advertise on their screen? Full mouth feathers. Are you doing? Otherwise, you're gonna have to sit there. You can't really. So okay.
The exception obscene or actually marijuana. But if it's the town leasing space, the town would have all the discretion to sell that or not. Okay. Well, I I would suggest not to interject myself too deeply into this, but if you wanted to do this somewhat surgically, you could allow this specific category of design as an accessory to use to give it a public record issues.
Okay. Well, we understand the the request. We'll we'll think about that. And I guess the the next step might be where the town submits a a change request? Is that how that would go?
Well, so we could, the town could formally submit a request for a regulation change. But I think one of the things as I was thinking about it this afternoon, one of the reasons I'm hesitant to do it is the sign regulations are pretty complex. And I can tell you what our intent is, but I can't necessarily tell you how I think you should get there. I mean, I could, but I don't necessarily know that that's the way you want to get there. If you want me to do that, and formally do that, I will. But that's so if you want a formal application, I will present them. If you don't, then you can take it verbally and run a bit you can do that here. Well, I always like having something
to work with that starts as well. Another option, mean, you could ask John to plus b m p t x that unmunicipal.
Oh, right. As a as a so, I mean, just as a as a minor wrinkle, and I I don't know. I mean, this this is an interesting dialogue to see. I don't know how your commission generally likes to consider text amendments. If if you, as you say, you perhaps need to be react to, but does that mean you want the selectman to submit a formal application, which the nuance is, if they submit a formal application, you're bound by the state statutory timeframes, you know, the 30 by 60 by 35. If it's a commission initiative, which is to say funding the commission is the applicant, You can take as long as you want on it. So to a certain extent strategically, I don't know if it's important, involves would like to see this done by
the law or something like that. There's a strategic event having the concessionary kind of important for you.
It started out very easy to improve just a little bit. It had a potential. Right. They had a lot of stuff and peered it back. Yeah, but some middle prompt could be some
starter language to say, okay, this is maybe what we get the selections goal that you're presented as a point of discussion. Yeah. And say, okay, we're ready to turn this into an application. Do that.
But you put in the regulations just opt out municipal uses from the signage regulations and leave it up to the discretion of the town. If you trusted the town enough to do that, you know, that would be the the simplest.
Let's take it the next week on the public interest line that just gives a little bit more latitude to the board of Slack. If we didn't like the way it wanted to go, it's changed back. Pretty small on a big scale there. But Right. You know, we look at that and consider it better. Right? Was that Scott? Could be up to 10. Okay. That section of kind of thing that goes through there. I mean, we've got more than 10 banners going up, but here's you could kind of apply the same kind of thing with the school only gets you put up one banner. And I didn't think that's that's not the right answer either. So I was kind of hoping that we would come up with something that would give the court a spot more discretion on those signs and if they want the, you know, the Planning and Zoning Commission to to make the recommendation to them, we can do that too. But we don't have to solve that tonight. If that gives us a start to do a thinking about it, where it wants to go.
Okay. And then where you wanna go with that. So so I will if you would like a formal application
to the zoning commission for a rate change, I I can provide that. Okay. Any anything else on public health care? No?
Catherine Hutchinson did make her way on. Did you have it? She's not muted from here. She came on and came off a couple times. Okay. I just want to see if back up there.
Okay. I will continue on. If if she joins us before the end of the meeting, we'll have a comment here. One other topic in miscellaneous that I wanted to at least make the commission order of, and and I think most of the commission members are probably aware that the Ann Arbor Elementary School was trying to get the upper parking lot paid. And there were, you know, several questions that came up with with respect to to doing that. And I think, know, if you involve where the proper financial, you know, has for allocating the money to go and and that kind of thing. Eric asked me if I thought that was a planning and zoning thing because we've got parking regulations, and that might be an opportunity to, you know, require fewer parking spots or, you know, stuff like that. And and I chose based on the fact that the parking lot was already there, improved. And only a small section of the entire parking lot was going to be repaved. And quite honestly, I thought that was a good deal for both the town and the school to have the school pay for it. I did not see that as a planning and zoning commission item to address. We didn't have to go get them to submit an application if we go through a group and that they're just essentially renewing in its entirety the parking lot up there. We said that they would like to do and the public works got some involvement in on some things that that we would have probably liked to have seen which is the erosion and sediment control plan that we're gonna get that one sump that's kind of low in the middle of the parking lot there and make sure that
when all the asphalt's picked up, if we had a storm, it doesn't go running down the the drain there. And public works was interested in the construction process, how many layers, what kind of curbing, all that kind of stuff. And I didn't think that was the detail that we as a commission wanted to get involved. So I said we would not get involved. But if anybody thinks I can serve my authority by saying that, but I'm happy to get that feedback and and consider that for future events. And he said, when when they wanted to redo
the rest of the parking lot, the answer might be different because it's not not a real short fuse kind of thing that, you know, we might wanna make some changes to reduce the number of parking spots, changing, and that sort of thing. So anyhow, I did I did that and wanted to let everybody know that I had done that. Think a little out of sequence here. You know, the the next regularly scheduled meeting is Tuesday, 09/19/2023. That's that
is the third Tuesday of the month. We're into into that now. And any other miscellaneous topics from any other commission members before we adjourn tonight? Leanne, anything for us? Kevin or Susan? No. I'll stay here. Okay. Very good. With that being said, I'll make a motion to adjourn. Scott seconds. And, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Motion passes five zero zero. Thank you everybody and I apologize for the the technical difficulties. I would have thought by now. We had it done worked out in the system. We still got a few. We'll see what we can do about it. Few of my no one picks. Few of my no one picks, but we'll try to do better next month.
Thank you very much. You're excellent. Thank you. Good night, everyone.