Meeting transcript
PZC Regular Meeting
June 15, 2020 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
So the public hearing is in support of application twenty-three William and Casey Devine trustee 84 Bear Swamp Road Andover Application for special permit to allow for detached accessory apartment in accordance with section 4.113 of the Andover zoning regulations.
Jed, this is Leanne. I have a question. Yep, go ahead Leanne. About procedure. Don't we usually do the other items first like the roll call and the additions and things like that that appear below the public hearing right now?
We have in the past done it that way. It was a conscious decision. Jim Halsley asked that we do a little different. He thought this was more technically correct than what we had done in the past. And I think it will work. And if we find out there's a problem with doing it this way, we'll go off and do it the old way. But based on the recommendation from Jim, this is the way he wanted to run the meeting tonight. And I agree with him. Okay. I'm wondering
about who is on as a matter of record because it's a public hearing.
I don't think you see people for a public hearing. No. That was one issue. You're
supposed to stipulate that you were at it or on it. Okay.
Have you seen that? Mean, that's easy enough to do.
Okay. That was my main my main concern. Okay. Linda
also gave me an alternate format, which would work. And you where you recess public hearing. I was just concerned that that I didn't like the way it was structured. I didn't think it was correct the way the way that I've seen other meetings here. I mean, they're basically separate events.
Okay, well, like I said, we've done it this way for a long time. And that was my main concern about, you know, who was on record. But if there's a, you know, a reason to do it this way, then you must have.
Run it by early as clerk and she agreed with me. Okay. All right.
And to your point, Leigh Ann, I will remind everybody here that the meeting, the public hearing is being recorded. And if you have a comment to make in support of the hearing as a member of the public, please identify yourself so we do have on record that we know who that is. Last time we did a public hearing, I asked Amanda to call up each of the documents in our folder so that we could see what the public record is. I'm not going to do that tonight because the public record that's listed in our application section of the website is fairly extensive. All those documents are part of the public record. And if there's a question on any item that should be part of the public record and you don't know whether or not it's there,
we will try to call that up so that we can take a look at it. But I didn't want to spend the time calling up each individual document when it didn't necessarily add anything to the conversation that we were having.
Mr. Chairman, this is Linda. Yes, Linda. Would you like to seat Susan? I see she's joined us.
Well, we didn't see anybody yet. And that was one of the discussions that I had with Jim was that he didn't think that we actually seated people for the public hearing. We will seat the people to go into the regular meeting where we discuss what we're going to do about the information that we got at the public hearing. But that's how we
to do that. But what if you make the determination not to close the public hearing? You'll have to have a vote. Okay.
Well, and I think It's to you. But, Norma Yep. I mean, know, thank
We will vote to close the public hearing, and I will seek Susan as a member roll out the board. I am here. Anne Creme is here as the vice chair. We've got Scott Persson and Leanne Hutchinson and Susan England is the alternate, and she is seated as the fifth member. Any other questions before we proceed? And again, don't mind at all having the questions come up so we can make sure that we're doing things the way that we ought to. Okay, with that in mind, Bill, Mr. Devine, I would ask that you just briefly for the public record explain to us what it is that you're trying to do. And then we'll go over to Jim Hollisley and he can tell us what the status of your application is.
Okay. Thank you. The William and Casey Devine Family Trust, owners of 84 in Andover, are respectfully requesting a special permit to build a separate detached accessory apartment at our 6.96 acre property on Bear Swamp Road. The purpose of the building to be constructed, subject to receiving, obviously, the special permit and then ultimately the building permit, is to provide a spot for our son, who we hope will be our caretaker in our dotage, which I hope is a lot longer than our mid-70s where we are now. That basically is the project we're looking to do.
Okay. Thank you, Bill. Jim, can you give us an update on where we stand with respect to his application?
Sure. As you know, this is the first application before the commission for detached accessory apartment. Mr. Divine is Mr. And Mrs. Divine, seven acres of land and bear swap Opposing e cash unit about 700 with seven ninety two square feet. I do have a checklist which I had pulled from the old application, which I'd be happy to go over. This one does have 57 items. I can make it fairly quickly though. And it, but it does address all the issues in the regulations. So I have completed and signed application, payment of fees, evidence of approval of Eastern Highlands, it's posted. Evidence approval of the Inland Lettons Commission. We're going to speak on that later. Fire Marshal. Fire Marshal request. We sent a request for review. He has not responded. No other regulatory approvals. We have a draft deed on the record, which lists any restrictive covenants, which there are none. No hazardous materials of note. Architectural elevations are provided. Landscape and plan is is really not applicable. I didn't plan is really per per billing code. We're talking about a single unit. Distance from from the road. Yes, is on the plan. Rodent sedimentation goal. Our water management was not necessary given the extent of of excavation. Sanitary waste disposal again was approved. No off-site improvements, no same driveway or the same existing driveway will be used for both,
both units. So there's no additional curb cut site line issues. So the only request for a waiver that seems to apply is is the the A2 boundary extending 200 feet beyond the property boundaries. And we do have that request, which has been posted. We have a location map. Our soil tests are on there. There's no outside storage areas. Underground utilities are shown on the plan. Water supply is shown on the plan. That would be a new well. Well, so there's a well, a septic system for the existing structure.
Tim, could I interrupt you for a second? Absolutely. Initially, I thought they said they were gonna use the well from Bill's house. Now they're gonna put in their own well in? Actually,
no. There there's there's water Bill, can you address that?
We're using the same well just as we said in our original application.
From the house? Yes. By mistake. I thought you I thought there was an existing well there from when you said existing well, thought it was for an outbuilding. I thought it was for the the shed out there, my by mistake.
And does he need a does he need any kind of well test for that for his well? I think we're all set.
I recall Mr. Devine said he had a float test done the that had adequate capacity to support both the house and the accessory department.
Pretty much addresses the checklist. Okay. Mr. Vines provided a lot of material. Seems to comply with regulations.
One of the issues that has come up with this application and has absolutely nothing to do with anything that Mr. Devine has not provided to us is we probably don't have well defined the process for which we get approval or recognition from the Inland Wetlands Commission that he does not need any clearance from the Inland Wetlands Commission. And so I was hoping that we would have had a letter or something tonight to put in the public record. And we don't have that. And I talked to the chairperson of the Inland Wetlands Commission on Saturday. She is aware of the application that we were going to talk about it tonight. She did not feel that it was necessary to have any specific documentation for when somebody had an activity going on outside of the 100 foot from the wetlands regulated area. Jim is the wetlands agent and I both went to the sidewalk since we got together last time and inspected the property looking for any signs that there might be wetlands closer to the area of activity. And so I just want to make it clear to the public record that we do not have a statement in the public record and that this verbal discussion that I'm having now is suitable and acceptable in my mind that we have done our due diligence to make sure that there was no impact on any of the wetlands and I did not want that to delay Mr. Devine's moving on with the plans that I know he is eager to get started on. So that's where we stand on the record of that.
I will work with the chairperson over there on inland wetlands and we'll figure out how do we get clearance in a more formal manner from that commission when there's no regulated activity for that commission to act on. And in this case, there wasn't any. So that's where we stand on the public record with the Inland Wetlands authorization. I was going to ask next if there's any member of the public that wanted to speak or ask questions with respect to the application that we have being presented tonight. And I see a hand up over there. Must be Mrs. Ross. I see Jim Ross on my screen. Go ahead.
I don't know. Okay, you unmuted up. But we are at 81 Bear Swamp Road. And we're very pleased with what Bill and Casey have going on across the street. And we are just wanted to be on record as being in support of what they're doing. It's a beautiful old house. They're taking care of it. It was falling apart before. They're lovely people to have in town. And I'm looking forward to their application going through and being able to settle in the way they would like to across the street.
I appreciate your comment. And it's nice to hear that Mr. Devine's application, at least in concept, is absolutely in keeping with why we developed those regulations so he could do exactly what it is that he's trying do. Yeah, we looked at,
went through the paperwork on the website and didn't see anything that concerned us.
Okay, thank you. Mrs. Ross, this is Linda. I'm taking the minutes for the meeting. Can I just get your first name? Joan, J O A N. Thank you.
I don't know that there's I still got this box that says owner. I don't know if there's anybody there that might be from the public that would want to make a comment. And hearing nothing, I guess that is it for the public comments by the public. At this point, is there anybody in the Commission that has any questions for Mr. Devine concerning his application?
This is Leanne. I have a question. Go ahead Leanne. Somewhere, I I don't I I haven't been able to find it again. I saw a reference to the size of the proposed building, and I couldn't find either any requirements we might have or whatever I saw that was in reference to this. I don't know if it's in the documents that we said we weren't going to bring up all at once or I don't know where I saw it. Does this sound familiar to anybody as far as the size, what we look for for size in the first place and then any reference
to that since the last meeting? I'll address that, Leigh Ann. In our regulations, talks about the gross floor area being between two fifty and eight hundred square feet. And it talks about being less than 33% of the gross floor area of the single family dwelling. And I forget exactly how big Bill's house is, but it was certainly adequate enough that the 33% of his total square footage allowed him to build the maximum accessory apartment of 800 square feet. If my memory Okay, I seeing that. He
came in at, I think it was seven ninety eight square feet. Seven ninety two. Seven ninety two. And that included a porch on the outside as well. So while it was close, he is within all the guidance that we provide concerning that structure.
Okay. I remember reading what you just said about the percentages, etcetera. I just thought that that was in reference to something that was already part of an existing building. I must not have seen the differentiation about the newer thing that applies to Mr. Devine where it's a detached building. You're saying that
applies to this? It is. And in fact, you are remembering exactly correct. It is under the section in our regulations where we talk about an accessory apartment attached to the main dwelling. What forces him into the special permit situation is that he wants to have a separate apartment. And it referenced those requirements, reference you back to he's got to meet all the requirements as if it were attached to the house. That's the basics there. So that's how you get to those requirements for what he is trying to do. Okay, thank you.
Any other questions on the application? And I've only got I've got one question for you Jim. When you were were going through the checklist, you had mentioned getting the fire marshal out there to take a look. And I recall the regulations requiring that if he had a driveway, I think it's in excess of 200 feet, 500 feet, something like that. He does not have a driveway of that length. But I think it might be something that Mr. Devine would like to have happen just so that he can make sure that if he did need to get a fire truck out there to the accessory apartment, he knows how he would facilitate getting that out there to best do that. So while I don't think that's a requirement for his application, that might be something that he would appreciate, having the fire marshal out there to take a look. How long is the driveway?
Actually, the existing driveway is really pretty short. That's the one that you all came in when you came in into the sidewalk. But I can also tell you that we're going to put in a driveway. As much as I did not want to do it, I really didn't want to spend the money, it's been added to the list of things for my builder to do, and it will be done when the excavation starts. That driveway will probably be oh, I I don't know, mister Person. I'm I'm gonna have to guess. I mean, you walked the property with everybody else. Couple 100 feet, maybe? I'm guessing. Yeah. It's probably a couple of 100 feet, maybe a little bit more. Roughly 200 feet, yes. On the
new Jerry Hardisty site plan that we did, you can see that there is literally a driveway marked out on that. Jerry and I had lots of discussions about the driveway. And to be real honest, really did kind of arch my back not wanting to put one in. To be blunt, I didn't want to spend the money. It's about an $8,000 project to put in that driveway. But I got to get concrete trucks out there. I got to get a propane truck out there with regular deliveries. There's got to be at some point in time, a few years down the road when a septic pump has got to be done.
I had to bite the bullet and give up some other stuff and say, Okay, we're going to put in the driveway. There will be a driveway. It will be sufficient to support a concrete truck, which tells me it would probably also be sufficient to support a fire truck. If Jim would like to have the fire marshal come and take a look at what we're going to do or look at any of that, obviously I'm more than willing to accommodate anything requested. Suffice to say, from my perspective at least, there will be a driveway.
Okay. I didn't pick up on that detail as I was reviewing the
new site plan that you sent out. And I'd have to go back and look at the requirements. I know it's not in our zoning regs that would require the fire marshal. I think that shows up on a rear lot design. But I do think it would be helpful to you to have the fire marshal out there to take a look and make sure he can turn his truck around and get the people in there to take care of you. Yes. The reason I did it was on the checklist, so I tried to follow the checklist. Okay. I mean, fire marshal has
no real stay over one two family dwellings, but he can certainly make recommendations to planning his own commission. That's that's why he's it's included in the loop.
Very good. Does anybody else have any other comments concerning the application? Hearing none, Linda, is it proper procedure for us to make a motion to secure the public hearing?
If you have no intention of continuing the public hearing, you are either going to close it or continue it, and you would need a motion. Okay.
In that case, is somebody willing to make a motion that we either close or continue the public hearing?
I make a motion that we close the public hearing. Thank you. Anne? I second. Who
seconded? Susan England. Susan. Thank you, Susan. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, we'll call for a vote on the motion to close the public hearing. Anne? Aye. Leanne? Aye.
Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. And I vote aye as well. The motion passes five-zero-zero. So that completes our public hearing. Now we will go and open the regular meeting where we will take action on the application that we just discussed. Mr. And Ms. Ross, if you want to stay, you're certainly welcome. If you don't understand that as well. But at 07:28, I'd like to call the regular meeting to order. Roll call and seating of alternates. Present is myself, Anne Cremay, Leanne Hutchinson, Scott Persson. In alternate Susan England will be seated is the fifth member of the Commission. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? Hearing none, we will move on to public speak. And at this point, is there anybody from the public that would like to talk on any subject other than the application that we'll be discussing in just a minute? I think maybe we lost the rest of our public. So with that we'll move on to new business which is the application twenty-three,
the application of William and Casey Devine, 84 Bear Swamp Road, Andover. The application for special permit so as to allow for a detached accessory apartment in accordance with section 4.11.3 of Andover Zoning Regulations.
Jed, at this point, could we put on record who was present for the whole public hearing? Or are you saying that you think that announcing that it's being recorded is enough and that nobody joined, when it was almost through or all through. It's still seated.
I might have missed the point there. We did have a roll call in seating. Are you looking for who from the public is here?
Okay, I guess we did. I just wanted to make sure that it was part of the public hearing record itself. Guess that's what I'm Yes,
The only people from the public that had joined us were the Ross's. And we got their names when Ms. Ross, and I forget what her first name was, but she gave it to us, Joan, I think, made her comment as she was supposed to do. So with that, Jim, I don't know if you got my voicemail that I misplaced the draft motion. Hopefully Amanda has
Amanda, do you have pull them up? Please. Okay. Can you see my screen? Yes. Okay. So which document was it?
I don't know that we're gonna find it there in the listing. Looked.
This was sent today Amanda. Draft motion was sent today. Okay then I don't believe I have it. Okay. Did you send it out to the commission?
No. I sent it to you at if it came back, there were a number of documents that I sent, and I sent a couple to came back, I made a point to send it to the end over the Gmail address.
I did not get it in the Gmail. Did you happen to send it to anyone else? Perhaps someone could forward it right now? No, I didn't.
I didn't. The draft motions, it just show up when there's an intent, when there's an intent to move on an application.
Is, do you have a hard copy of that with you, Jim? No,
I wish I did. I mean, can get back on this. I can get back on the Zoom.
They should be able to Jim, I'm gonna call you right now so we can get your email, and I'll pull it up. Okay? So just give us one minute. Do you have your phone on you, Jim? Hello? Yep.
You are on mute Amanda if you're trying to talk to us. See your lips moving but I don't hear anything.
Just on the phone with Jim trying to figure it out quickly. Okay.
Mr. Chairman? Yes. This is not my place, but I've been on so many boards of directors and various places where this kind of thing could happen. Is it not a simple motion to say, the motion would simply say that the commission approves the application of the William and Casey Divine Family Trust, application number 23 for the construction of a detached accessory apartment in accordance with section 4.11.3 of the Andover Zoning Regulations. Such construction to be done at eighty four Bear Swamp Road, Andover, Connecticut.
If we don't score a victory on coming up with this thing, we will do exactly that. We're trying to work on that process for how we do this a little bit. And we do have some standard conditions that we normally put in for approval. And I can't recall them all off the top of my head. But they do make a little bit of sense and there's some things that it says you're going to do after we approve it that we like to have recorded so that we can make sure that we do our follow-up.
Thank you. Linda. Jed, this is Linda. Yes, Linda. Probably in the future it would be helpful if the draft motion got copied to me as well. Because that's probably something that you don't want put on the website because it's just a draft motion.
That's correct. And I'm not exactly sure we had a couple of failures here because Jim did send it to me. I even sent it back to him and for some reason I can't find it in my sent file going back to him or what he sent me. So that's
But it would be helpful for me to have it I understand.
Especially for you writing up the minutes through that, that would be good. Yep. Okay. Thank you.
Jim is working on it right now, and I apologize for the delay. We've probably talked about on a meeting before, but the town has been having email issues, which is probably why I did not get it. Office three sixty five is being installed this week, so thank you for your patience.
And Jim, if you can't get it emailed to Amanda, I'd be happy to have you just read it to us.
I think that is our best bet, Jed. I think that's a great idea. Jim, what do you think?
He's talking to somebody. I thought he was talking to you. It's not me anymore.
Jim, you have to unmute yourself. Jim, are you able to unmute yourself? Jim, in order for us to hear you, you have to unmute yourself.
I don't know that he's hearing you, Amanda. It doesn't look like he's reacting to anything you're saying. I'm calling him back. Jed, are we gonna add Hi Jim. Conditions to this? Yes.
I have a list of them here. The things that we haven't spoken about already.
Now you can hear me. Right? Hi. Got you now, Jim. Yep. Shows you're muted again. Okay. We can hear you now, Jim.
Okay. If you look at it, I'd be happy to put together a draft motion right on the fly here. Okay.
Okay. Generally, I mean, it said is, vote move to approve the application of Find Family Trust before Beer Twomb Road application for detached department under section four eleven three of the end of our zoning regulations. As many reference to the map, I don't have in front of me. But it would be would be accessory apartment. Anybody has that? And do you have that map?
Okay, which one is it? The final site plan three June 2020. Right here? Yeah, that could be it. Okay, can you see that? Yep. Can't read it, but we can see it. Can you blow it up Amanda? Yes.
So I'm referring to the proposed accessory unit, William And Casey Divine 84 Bear Slop Road and over Connecticut prepared by civil engineering services LLC and then dated 02/2020.
Where would you like me to zoom in? Somewhere over here. Pretty good. Oh,
all we needed to see was really read the title plaque. In the right hand corner, proposed accessory unit. Okay, what are we looking at here, Jim?
Pictions would be, to that the applicant file the mylar in the land records prior to issue issuance of a building permit. Okay. It has built a foundation has built provided upon At the time as the foundation is installed. The soil and sedimentation control measures shall be installed and inspected prior to the commencement of work. Now there's one that I'm just throwing out there for discussion. In the regulations, says that the two units stay under common ownership. What I've typically seen with accessory apartment that wouldn't preclude somebody from selling both units, sell the parcel, not reside on it. And I don't think that was the intent of the commission.
It was the intent of the commission to have the owner live on the property.
Right. So what's in the regulation is that it just remained under common ownership. That doesn't include somebody sell for selling the parcel with both units and moving to Florida. Right. Right. But yeah. So what I threw in there a condition which which doesn't which basically echoes the regulation. But I'm bringing it up because perhaps, I mean, if the Commission sees fit to just say that the units alone, that the owner has to live on, I mean, I can live in the other unit. That's how these typically work. But the the The owner has to be owner occupied.
The owner occupied. Right. One of the buildings has to have the owner in. Either the principal or accessory unit. Right. Amanda, could you put that print back up there, please?
Yes. I apologize. I discovered a way to get into Jim's email, and I have the draft motion. But I will go back to the map for now. Okay. Is that good? I move it down
so we can see where the accessory apartment is. Yeah. We're I I think we're all set with with the site, man. It was only called up really Joyce, to read
Right. Read read the title box for the for the motion. But but I wanted to see where the stockpiling area was in the ENS for that. Okay.
And I don't see it. Mister chairman, this is Linda again. Yes, Linda. I just have a question. Is this a revised site plan? This is
yes, it is. Okay. So I don't see any mention of any revisions on this site plan that would show that it is a revised site plan. I'm guessing the revision is the driveway.
Well, let me go back on that. This is not necessarily an improved site plan. This could be viewed as the original engineered site plan. We didn't really have what we would call a completed site plan as of the last meeting. We asked Mr. Devine to get one, and he went out and did. Yeah, there would be no revisions indicated on this plan. Okay, just checking. Thanks.
So anyhow, I know I want to get us regrouped and moving forward here. I know Scott was indicating there might be a couple of additional conditions to put on the motion. What I'd like to do is we I think if I recall, we had a motion. I'll ask a question to Linda. Did we make a motion to approve the application? No.
No motion was made, no. Okay. So we were to the point of looking for the draft motion.
Would Amanda you like me to pull that up? Pull that up now. Okay.
And so when Amanda gets that up, what I would like to do is if somebody is willing to make a motion based on this and then we get a second and then we can have discussion on
the motion. I have one question for you, Jed. Yep. Would we need to make a motion and address the issue that there is a waiver request for the A2 survey before we take up the motion? Or is that included in here? I don't know. I would What are you waving? I
think, yeah, by asking Mr. Devine to have an engineered A2 drawing, I'm not sure that he initially
He initially requested a waiver of the A2 survey. And
then we did not grant that waiver. We asked him to come up with one, which he did. So as far as I can tell, I don't think we are waiving any of those requirements.
The the one waiver that remained in place for request would be cobalt be extended off-site. Right.
That's no, that's what I was because you had mentioned that earlier. So do we need to act on the fact that he had requested a waiver for the 200 feet off-site? Do we need that? Would say yes.
You're asking me again. Say again, Jim. I would say yes. Okay. I mean, that would be that's a good question, yes. The answer,
Scott, are you aware of any other waiver items from the site drawing that we do have the authority to waive any of those that we deem? There was something else specific you wanted to address, now would be a good time to do that. Just for the record, that waiver is in writing and it is
posted. Part of the material on Part the of Mr. Devine's file. Our
acting on that waiver is not in the record though? No, not at all. Okay.
On the print, Jed, there's no place for stockpiling the fill.
Mr. Devine, was it your intention to stockpile the fill somewhere? I know you briefed us that you were planning to spread it around on your site for various places.
The basic place where it's going to go is up by the existing house. We're going to get rid of a contour so that we can do a little more planting. That's where the good stuff will go. The fill that is taken out for the foundation and for the septic tank, which is not suitable obviously for growing anything, that will either be used as the base fill in that area by the house or it will be trucked to the contractor's house and he'll use it as fill. Okay.
There was some discussion between myself and Mr. Devine regarding that and certain that it wasn't gonna be placed in area. A
When you say in a review area, what do you mean by that, Jim? Within 100 feet of the wetlands. Right.
Was right out there. Do you still have that indicated on his A2 site plan? It's not on there.
No, I know it's not on there. We can waive the requirement to put it on there or we can No, just put it in as a condition. Add it to the site plan.
Another thing, thing Jed, which is a small thing as a condition is, you know, you have to have a lighting. There had to be a lighting review. Lighting? Gotta tell where all all the external lighting is gonna be. And were the were all the neighbors notified? The adjacent neighbors?
Yes. And chief letter. And I have documentation that effect. And as part you know, and
these are all things that we've already spoken about, but as part of the special permit, you have to have the fire marshal, So, that's part of the condition. Yep, I agree. The building, know, building, what's the building that has to be put somewhere, what the, you know, somewhere has to be documented, what how the building is going to be constructed and you know, the stockpiling has to be put on the frame. Those can all be conditions.
But I think in one of the documents that's in the record, I recall a building plan. Mr. Devine, am I correct on that or am I thinking of a different application that we've been looking at here recently?
There are architects drawings of the property of the house. But I thought you had a sequence of events.
I know I don't remember doing a sequence of events. I mean Okay. That must recall that I
guess obviously the driveway has got to be put in first and then the excavation. Well, actually the first thing that has to be done is the silt fence has to go up around the back part where the construction will be based upon the site plan that Jerry did. Once that's done, I guess that has to be inspected and to ensure that it's there. And then the next thing is to proceed to put in the driveway. Once the driveway is in, then they do the excavating for the foundation and I guess proceed from there.
Right. Somewhere in that sequence is your establishment of the erosion and sediment controls. So I would recommend that we would put that on as a condition as well. But the only thing that I'm hearing that's a waiver is the 200 foot outside the drawing or outside his site boundary.
I don't have everything in front of me. Jim does have a copy of the waiver request. And the other part of the waiver request, I believe, was Section six, which addresses a whole number of different things that appear to be very much appropriate to very different kinds of construction than a simple little 800 square foot detached accessory apartment. But that's part of the waiver request that I made.
Waiver request should was posted as well. Yep. It was. In fact, it was a preliminary I I say that it was sent. It may not have been received. The the mister Devine had provided one with his initial application or prior to that, no. And then they submitted a revised request, which was sent whether it was received or not to Amanda for sharing. I don't know whether she received it.
Okay. Well, I want to go back. Let's I'd like to entertain the motion that we waive the requirement to have 200 foot outside of Mr. Devine's property line on his drawing. Are you making a motion, Jen? Nope, I'm asking for a motion. This would be an individual motion? Yes.
Not part of the main Not part of the approval.
I would like to make a motion to waive the 200 foot extension of the A2 survey for this application.
Thank you, Susan. Second, this is Leanne. Thank you, Leanne. Any discussion on that particular issue? Hearing none, I'd like to call for a vote. If we're in favor of the motion, Anne? Aye. Leanne? Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. I vote aye as well. The motion passes five-zero-zero. Now we'll move on to the motion with respect to approval of the application. And if you call that back up again, Amanda. Can I get anybody to make the motion as it's displayed on the screen now and then we will have discussion after we have a motion made and seconded? I'll make a motion that we accept this as it's displayed.
Thank you, Anne. Second? Thank you, Susan. Any discussion on the motion?
When are we going to add the rest That's of the
what we're going to do now. First, let's take a look at the conditions that are listed there. We'll talk about those and then we'll talk about any other conditions that might need to be added. And I would started to discuss the certification of the requirement that both buildings remain under common ownership. I think it's a little cumbersome to ask the owner on an annual basis to provide us with an affidavit that he still owns both of those. My feeling was that if somebody were to sell part of that lot, subdivide it so that somebody else could own a section of it, we would know about that. And the burden should be on us to not allow that to happen because it's contrary to what our regulations are, as opposed to the town tracking it and Mr. Devine having to go off and send us a letter once a year that he still owns both of those. So my preference would be to eliminate condition number five as it's currently on this letter. Any discussion whether anybody thinks that's a good idea, bad idea? Is that lifted from the regs, sorry Anne
I was just gonna say I agree that we should eliminate stipulation five about certification I don't think that's necessary
This is Leanne. I was asking, is this lifted from the requirements, or is this something that came up and was inserted?
Not required. Certification isn't required. But the owner, it does, the regulations do require that the primary dwelling and accessory apartment remain under common ownership. What I tried to get at before is nothing in the regulations include Somebody from selling both. Selling the parcel and not residing there. I just thought I'm putting that out as a.
There's nothing. In our regulations that would preclude that. You're right.
I'm just trying to understand because selling the property you want to deal with in the future? I don't know. So our point is that we don't want an absentee owner, correct? Correct. We want the owner to live in one of the two. We don't care which dwelling. That's the point, right?
That's the point, but that's not the regulation. Regulation is that the principal dwelling and accessory apartment shall remain under common ownership. We put nothing in here because at the time, I think, and I do recall discussing how we would like that, we thought this particular regulation, you know, building the accessory apartments would not come up very often and we didn't think that would be an issue. Now it could come back to haunt us, at which point maybe we would have to change the requirements to be a little bit more specific. But the requirement that we approved and put in our regulations was that the principal dwelling accessory apartment
shall remain under common ownership. I mean, now that I'm thinking about it, I mean, there's nothing under the regulation that would prevent somebody from coming in for an for a permit for an accessory apartment on a property that they don't reside in. Yeah.
I don't I didn't mean to get too far off track here.
Well, I think for now, we have to go by what the regs say. And then if we've discovered one or two things that we think don't add up, address them, you know, soon. Mr. Chairman, may I make a comment? Yes, Mr. Devine.
Look at this whole thing and obviously I absolutely agree. This property has to remain under common ownership, period, end of statement. But I can also see a situation where my wife and I may wind up in a nursing home. And we wind up in a nursing home, but the property still remains under common ownership and it may be that my son is here. Maybe my sister needs to be taken care of. I don't know. I think that sometimes things in an attempt to preserve and protect what the commission and what the town through its zoning really wants to do can sometimes become so ironclad that there's no room to recognize things. I think the current zoning regulation, which stipulates that it must remain under common ownership makes all the sense in the world. If I need to go into a nursing home and my wife needs to go into a nursing home, it's still the property is still owned under common ownership. But do we put somebody else in the main house? Does our son stay in the accessory apartment and somebody else lives in the main house? I bring my daughter from Portland or heaven forbid, I decide to rent the main house to somebody. I mean that to me would all be legal legitimate
and appropriate under the current zoning regulations because the property does remain under common ownership. And Mr. Chairman, I must say I very much appreciate and thank you for your concern about me having to write letters every year. That's a relief and it's a good relief. And as you pointed out, if there were ever an attempt and there will not be by me, can tell you, to try to subdivide this property, that would require flat outright approval for a variance. My file that I've gone through in town, the file of 84 Bear Swamp Road, and apparently somebody at some point in time asked whether or not this property could be subdivided and the notation was cannot be subdivided. If you can't subdivide it then you certainly couldn't split the ownership of the two buildings that are located on it. So I guess my bottom line is I think the zoning regulation right now is probably a pretty good one and I think dropping
number five is, by me, very much appreciated.
Okay. Yep. And the jury will remain out. We'll see as we go through. This is our first run through the accessory apartment regulations. I'm confident that with this application, we're not going to have, at least for the foreseeable future, any problems with any of those things that we were concerned about. And if going forward we decide to change our regulations, that's fine. But we have to live with the regulations as they exist
for right now. You probably don't need it because it says it right here in the regulations.
Right. So I'm going to propose, and we're in the discussion phase, that we eliminate condition number five. And when we get to voting on approval, if somebody doesn't like that, they can disapprove the motion and say, nope, we need to keep that in. But I'd like to move on to the other conditions that we think we need to add to the motion at this point. And I know, so we've got the sediment controls here, we've got the as built drawing. We said that Jim is in here what you were talking about with providing the mylars. I don't think I didn't see that one in your draft. Is it number one? Is that number one what you meant by that?
Yeah, the above action plan would be a Mylar. Okay,
very good. We would need to add having the fire marshal. Fire marshal, that's under condition. My
suggestion is if you're gonna add fire marshal, address the fire marshal and lighting and stockpiling, that it would be actually before the filing with the plan because it might entail provision of the plan. Just sequentially, those conditions of belong prior to that, prior to filing. I mean, I'd like to follow the conditions in some sort of order.
Okay. Tell me what number you think the the fire marshal should be there, Jim. Well, mean, if if you just move everything down and press
the fire marshal is number one. Number one, stockpiling number two, lighting number three, and just move everything down and whatever else.
Okay. Well, I'd like to discuss the lighting. I know that that is in our special permit checklist that we review the lighting plan. And as I recall, the last time that we reviewed a lighting plan was for Josh's home occupation, whatever he did up there behind the ball fields. And we wanted to check out the lighting plan just to make sure that he adequately had lighting to protect his employees going out, getting in their car at the end of the day and that sort of thing. We can certainly ask Mr. Devine to put a lighting plan on there that he's going to put a light on the house or something.
Can I touch upon that? Yeah, Joe.
The minimum requirements would be sort of safe egress or, you know, entry into the house. Any any entryway would be lit. Typically, the lighting is a problem with zoning commissions. It's generally a commercial, personal patient and generally lighting that creating off-site prop problem for neighbors.
That's that's the big thing. Can't you can't move your light to someone else's property.
So by simply, I mean, certainly there could be a condition in there that, you know, lighting be
not. That's all I wanted, Jim. You should be able to review that, but has to be in the condition that, you know, that we have gone over it. That's all. Okay. Lighting lighting be acceptable to the It can't be, you know, he can't have his light going on to his father's property. He doesn't want he doesn't you know, if they get into an argument, can't be bothering his father. I
was more worried about the neighbor, but Or the neighbor. I mean, it's simple enough to address that. I don't I got you. I don't know how you wanna do it, but I mean, just if you wanna say that lighting
it help if you're you're recording this? Will it help if I tell you that my intention from day number one has been to put two exterior lights on the house, one by the front door and one by the porch door. That's the intent.
Mister Devine, that's that's great. All this has to be documented someplace, so we have just has to be documented. That's all. I can I can do that? Right.
It has to be shielded lighting. Yes. You know, it's- Oh, yep. It's, it's 25 23.5 b one through b b one three. You know, there's a lumens and all that stuff. And mister Devine, we apologize for being pained about this, but this is our first one and we have to really be complete as we can.
Honestly, no no apology is necessary. I I do understand and I appreciate it. My frustration is only that that so much of this doesn't really apply to a tiny little personal health. But, again, you know, you need to you need to do your due diligence. I've been in in yours kind of shoes before and I I don't fault it, and no apology is necessary. Although I appreciate you. Thank you. The condition could be that he just follows the lighting regulations and that, approved by the zoning enforcement.
Then the last thing we talked about was a construction sequence. And we kind of verbalized through that, we should have a construction sequence that's approved by Jim.
And same thing, it just has to be written down. Yep. It has to be written.
So that we get the driveway in before we bring in those heavy cement trucks.
Okay, just so I'm clear. The lighting, I mean, would be a condition, but it's not requiring a revision to the plan as I understand it. Correct? The condition does not necessitate a revision to the plan. It's just simply a review. Just a condition. Yeah. Just a condition of the of the application. And the stockpile about stockpiling. Okay. The sequence of construction.
The stockpiling is usually put on the on the print. Right. With the ENS.
Okay. So as condition number two, Stockpile plan be revised
to indicate stockpiling materials. Yeah, where the erosion control is going to be placed.
I believe that it was on the plan. It's on there. All I saw was the tree cover. They were yellow hay bales, think. Yep. Am I Sam?
Am I correct in that the big concern here is obviously when we remove the soil and we put it somewhere that there be erosion control around that pile? Right, so it doesn't go off-site. That would be additional E and S, yes.
Good. To me that's an easy one then. All I'll do is to make sure that, for example, when the driveway is done, I'm not going to get rid of that topsoil. That's certainly usable on my property. But precisely where? I don't know. I mean heck, I think when you did the site review I had three piles of stuff in my yard. I had a pile of mulch, I had a pile of compost, and I had a pile of topsoil. Most of that's been used up. So when the topsoil is stripped to the driveway, we'll probably put it somewhere near that driveway area and then I'll make sure that there is a silt fence around that pile. The material that's being removed from the, for the foundation and the septic, that will either be put exactly where it's going to go, which is up near the house, or it will be trucked off-site, one or the other.
Okay. So that should be added to the site plan. I don't know if you could get Jerry to add a couple of those comments on there.
May I ask? I hate to go back to Jerry. I really do. He has been so good. I must admit I was so upset when I was required to do this. But now that it's done I am so delighted I have it and I think your suggestion as a commission that it needed to be done was absolutely 100% correct. But I really can't ask him to show me, to put on the plan where it's going to go until I know where it's going to go and I don't know at this point. What I would prefer rather than having it put on the site plan is me put it in writing and I'll get it notarized if you want. I mean whatever, I don't care. I can tell you where it's going to go and I can verify, certify that I will when it was necessary put in erosion control around it. There is no way that anything has any way on earth to go into anybody else's property. When you walk the site, you know how big my property is. And there's only two places
that I think that that material three places for the material. The topsoil, that's going to go somewhere between the building of the accessory apartment and the main house. It will go in a pile. It will get a silt fence put around it to control it and then when we finish the leveling up outside the house, we'll put that topcoil over there. The material removed from the foundation, if it's going to be used here and it probably will, what I need to do is stake that out and get a feel for how many cubic feet it's going to take to level that area out behind the house. Once I know that, then I'll know how much of that removed material can go there. Scott Legace, who's probably going to do my construction, we had a meeting today. We talked about that today and he has literally told me that the material removed from the foundation and the septic, if I can't use it right there, he will take it to his own property and use it. I would love to do this with a piece of paper. And
I'm learning a lot. And when we brought up the discussion on putting the stockpile on there, I struggled to understand why that was important because quite honestly I thought you could spread that dirt all over the yard and I'm not sure that it would have bothered me any. But sure as anything, if we don't put where the stockpile is, somebody will go put it exactly where you don't want it and then you get something untoward happening to somebody else. So however we determine that it's not going to be right out of the boundary line going downhill into the neighbor's yard, I think that's fine. And we know where you're wanting to put it, we just need to record that somehow. It doesn't have to be extremely precise, but it ought to be relatively close so that we know you're not putting it over on your boundary line. I can do that.
And Jim, Jim Allicy, how do you feel about that? I'm comfortable with that. I mean, if
to add some language for it, I mean, refer to staff approval of of of material of
any material. Right. Because you're gonna be going down looking at it. You're gonna wanna know where it is and if erosion control's been put around it and if it's in the right place, if they're following the guidelines that, you know, the structure of the construction.
Yeah, Mr. Devine, take it out for me. I'll take a look at it. And then, you know, ask ask him to do some fencing and maintain it until till the the area is seated. The materials gone in the the base is seeded.
Right yeah so it's still a condition he can deal with it as long as you're alright with it Jim. I'm comfortable with it thank you though. So. Still a condition though, you judge you put it on the? Yeah no, I gotcha. So at this point,
Jim, hopefully you've been taking some notes on the conditions in the order. If you can briefly run through what we've got there because you changed the order on a couple of them and that way we can know what it is that we're gonna be voting on. Well, hopefully I can do that, yeah.
As far as the fire marshal? Yep. I don't believe we verbalized that, correct?
Just want the fire marshal to come out and assess the driveway plan so that if he has to come out and put out a fire, he can get his trucks in and maneuver them around where he needs to go. And he has to just write a little letter. Yep. And put it in with everything.
You had a good example of the fire marshal letter is in the Grimaldi application. Right exactly. It was like two sentences.
And we were over there Jim that day when he came. Yeah. Oh yeah. So
I'm looking for language. K. The applicant shall address any concerns raised by the the fire marshal. For for emergency emergency access. Okay. Which number two, Jim?
I thought that was one and two. Backpiling in the fire marshal. Yep, okay. So I'm on number three. Yep. You want lighting? Lighting show. Commissioner person suggested we just refer to the regulations. Yep, that's fine.
That lighting be installed per section 23 of the end of our zoning regulations. No spotlight showing on the neighbor's yard. Yeah, that's the big concern. That's where complaints.
There's a lot of complaints about that, Jim. There really is. People don't realize how many complaints there are about lighting and you can't do anything about it because, well, we can now because we have regulations. Okay. What's your next one, Jim? That's all I have. We just moved the other four down. What about the building materials?
The building materials will obviously have to be covered with a building permit.
Right. I guess I'm not clear as to what the question is. I mean, have we have pretty good actual renderings.
Uh-huh. Mister chairman, this is Linda. Yep. I'm just getting a little concerned of the way this conversation is going because the public hearing is over. So the applicant should not be participating. I mean, I feel as though it's really you're determining what the conditions are, period. That's it. Because if the applicant is speaking, but no one else has the opportunity to speak because the public hearing has been closed. Just 2¢. I understand. Thank you, Linda. So Scott, was there a concern about materials? Yeah. I guess it just says preferred materials.
I'm not sure you know, I don't recall seeing that on any other application that we've had. Yeah. Alright. Yeah.
Doesn't doesn't mean it's right or wrong. We'll talk about a couple of those here. We're done with this, but
I'm trying to complete with this first one, you know? Nope, I do understand that. No matter how small it is, this is the first, this is the first.
But I'm not sure that, you know, if a guy was going out and building a house, you get involved in what his materials are. But this is a special permit so. All right.
So Jim, somewhere in there we were going to come up with a construction sequence of events. And you can use, you can sort of go off the Grimaldi application for an example of what that might be. It happens to be written on his site plan. Doesn't have to be there. So That one was and it was very basic.
Okay, so the applicant shall provide the town with the sequence, construction sequence prior to Yep. That's simple enough.
Okay, so how many conditions of approval do you have now in total?
Well, we've eliminated five. Yep. And then you've added four prior to number one. Okay. You had four before one. Yep. Then one becomes five, it becomes six, three becomes seven and four becomes eight.
Okay. Now how do we, so we've we've talked through all these conditions and we're going to vote on what we've talked about. How do we as a commission see that what we've all talked about gets gets put into the letter that you send Mr. DeVine saying that it's approved with these conditions.
Lyndon, are you looking for language specific that you have?
I'm a little confused. I'll admit it. Okay. I will tell you what And I, because basically, really, you should be doing is reading the whole motion and all the conditions into the record. Right. Before you can approve it. You can't really approve something that's still not finalized.
Right. Is there any way to, edit this on the screen?
I I I don't think I can. I I I mean, what I have for for the new ones that you've added, For number one, I have the applicant shall address any concerns brought up by the fire marshal for emergency access. Number two, plan shall be revised to show to dish show additional E and S stockpiling area. Three, I have exterior lighting shall be installed per section 23 of the Andover zoning regulations. Number four, I have applicant shall provide the town with a sequence of construction prior to the start of any work. And then five, six, seven, and eight are the ones that were already listed that have been renumbered. And then the last one, which was the old number five, was taken out. Right. So you have eight conditions.
Could you read number two of the E and S one? I'm
not really sure. I just said plan shall be revised to show the additional E and S stockpiling area.
Okay. The the stockpiling area and additional and additional erosion control measurements measures required. Okay. Great.
Is also the is it a William Mckayce's divine trust or something like that?
The the believe that the owner, yes, that I mean that's the Oh, family trust. Yeah, okay. The top.
Hey. And just so you know, Linda has these draft motions.
Okay. Yes, Amanda emailed them to me, so I have in front of me. Okay. Very good.
So, Linda, do we need do all of us need to see what you have written to approve it?
Let me see what I can do here. I can maybe send it to Amanda.
Amanda can put it Linda, do you want to share your screen, or do you want me to type?
Hang on a second. Because I mine mine's embedded in my minutes, so I don't have I don't have it by itself. Copy and paste it, maybe? Yeah.
Bear with me. I can't really share it on the screen because I'm working off two computers. So
let's see. Can you send it to Amanda and she could? Yeah. That's what I'm gonna try to do.
Alright, Amanda. I'm getting ready to send it through web mail. Is that alright? Yes. Alright. I just sent it.
Okay. I'm refreshing now. Here it is. And I will pull it up in just a moment. We're almost there. Okay. So let me know when you can see it. Cut it now. Yeah. Thank you, Linda and Amanda. Welcome. Welcome.
We're a team. We got your back. You you two are the team. You're lucky.
So on condition number one, I think that comment should end after emergency access period sequence. Yeah, I'll take that. I will edit as they go to. Thank you. Thank you.
The the top thing, says application blah blah blah William Casey Devine. Is is there a common needed in it? Is it called the William and Casey Divine Family Trust? It's called William and Casey Divine Trustee. May I speak? Speak.
Application is in the name of the William and Casey Devine Family Trust.
Alright. So get rid of that comma. Just lose that comma.
On This special permit twice in there. Probably lose just the board special permit.
And that's, accordance with sections four one one. There's no three. Just get rid of that point three. And is that the right date on the print? It's the twenty seventh? Yes.
Jim, on number one, it as long you're gonna have the fire marshal look at it and get a letter from him. Just as he'll address any concerns, but you need, you need the letter actually. Right? Yes.
If you want to refer to written comment in there, that's fine. Who's the editor tonight? Where did you want it?
Like number one, Scott, are you looking for something to reference a written comment by the fire marshal?
He he should there should be a letter from the fire marshal. Right, that's good.
Okay, on item two, I think the period should be after stockpiling area. Do we need additional E and S controls for that or is that covered down on, I was thinking that would be part of paragraph six.
That's fine. This was I mean, the reason I called for that was sort of a separate. I mean, the stockpile was.
Okay, I got you leave it in. Independent. I understand.
Could you define revised plan? My understanding of the discussion and I'm sorry if I'm sticking my nose in here again, is that Mr. Chairman, you felt and I think the others agreed that I could do that by a letter with as precise a location in my letter as I could do, that it would not have to be modified to Jerry's site plan. Yes, I agree with that.
How about applicant provide details provide the town with details showing additional showing stockpiling area and additional units
roles. Right. Right. Period. You just need documentation to show Jim. So I get a sketch
and I say it's okay or I have an issue. I'm sorry, can you repeat I
think it's okay is Yes. Is red. Between the applicant and Jim, they're going to go make sure that we know where we're putting the stockpiling in that. K. I don't have any other comments on the conditions.
One I have one comment to end with a period. The comment the condition should end with a period. Of semicolon? Yeah. Okay.
Actually, write it so that it's one sentence, and I use semicolons all the way down.
Okay. Yep. We're beyond the niceties at this point. We've got to figure out a better way of understanding the condition before we get to this point and do it like this. And I'm not sure how that should be. I just know there's got to be a way that it's not this painful. Good point, Jed. Any other discussion on the motion? Nope. Hearing none, I will call for a vote. Anne? Aye. Leanne? Aye.
Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. I vote aye as well. Motion passes five-zero-zero. Mr. Devine, when we started out, I know I told you I was hoping that this would be a quick and painless process. Think we did okay on the speed given all the coronavirus things. Painless, maybe we've got some work to do on that. I appreciate your efforts in trying to do something that we as a town in building our regulations want you to be able to do. I look forward to seeing how it turns out. Regardless,
Jed, you couldn't have gotten it done any faster. No, we could not. It was done in a timely manner. Yep, I got you there.
Thought that when we started out it would be smooth, but we gave it the rigor that it demanded with the first time going through that process.
Actually, it's all done within the timeframe that John Valenti told me it would take back in October when I checked with him to make sure that this was possible because if it hadn't been, I'd be sitting here and we wouldn't be building it. We wouldn't have bought the property. So the two and a half to three months that John told me it would take, he said it was not an easy process, but it would be approved and it would take that time. So it has. And again, I appreciate what the five of you are trying to do. It's a big responsibility
to take on the whole role of the zoning. And I applaud the way you've done it. Mr. Person, I must admit I was frustrated when you raised the question of a professional site plan. But I got to tell you in retrospect, I'm really glad that you did because learned a lot from it and it has given me material that is helping me do a better project and it also made it very easy for me to get preliminary review of the septic plan done by DHHD. So again, I'm appreciative.
Okay. We're glad. Moving on, I have nothing on the agenda for old business. Mr. Dwine, did you have any one other comment?
Have two questions, if I One is I know that before I can apply for a building permit, I have to have a certificate of zoning compliance. The regulations say that that certificate of zoning compliance can be issued by the zoning agent or by a member of the commission. And that's my question number one is, is who will be issuing that and when will it be issued?
Jim, you want to address that? I will be signing that as part of the building permit. The zoning application is actually on the back of the building permits, and that will constitute your
Okay. My second question is, I've heard a difference in the number of days from today before the appeal period ends. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that in the last meeting, I think you told me it was ten days. I think the zoning regulation said fifteen days, so I'm not sure. We looking at ten days from today when I can apply for the building permit or fifteen days from today? I think,
as I recall, that fifteen days is the right number. That's assuming that we get this posted tomorrow so the public knows that we have taken action and they have their two weeks to respond after that. I can't imagine any public pushback on the project, but they're allowed to have that opportunity. You can go down and get all this paperwork. Yep. So you should Get it all filled out. Starting about fifteen days from now. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to administrative report, Jim.
Let's see. Couple of things. Town hall is opening for staff on Wednesday, I believe. I don't believe there's any date for public access as of yet. My understanding is community room can be used for meetings. Don't know that for. That's what I read. I'm just throwing it out there.
I don't think that that's been established really for yet. Really? Okay. And they've they've talked about it, but
depends on what new regulations come up, I think. Okay. I I should've referred to you on that anyway. I just wanna kinda touch upon the the use of the website for materials. It seems to be working well. And I've had some conversations with Amanda and others regarding maintaining the material in sort of a library. So past applications would be accessible. That way, it wouldn't be on the on the website. Well, I guess it would be. But it would be an archive. Mandate, feel free to jump in if I'm if I'm misspeaking here. But we thought it would be a pretty good resource to have.
Mhmm. Go back and look at how something was handled in the past. I think it's a great idea. And I also wanted to point out that our website is in the migration phase. And once the department and commission pages are completed, I'm going to send it to the board chair. So I would send it to Jed. And that way, we can get feedback on it before we go live. But it's looking really good.
Okay. One comment. I guess a question and a comment. Did all the commission members, were you able to find the information, both the agenda and the application information in preparation for tonight's meeting? Yes. The only comment that I would make, Amanda, I think it would be helpful if we had the newest application on the top. So that if stuff's come in, you know, we're not having to go further and further down the list, the new stuff's on the top and the old stuff will figure out how long it has to stay there before it goes to archive so that it can be available to us. Great idea. I agree.
Okay. And I have to admit, I'm not sure if I'm willing to change anything on the current website. We're only a few weeks I understand. Yep.
Happy to wait till we get the new one. Yeah. And if anyone has any other
advice like that, keep sending them in so that as we're working on it, we can fix those things. So I will I do, Amanda. Yeah. I will fix that.
It kind of affects us. It kind of affects this commission, I think. What what is that, Leanne?
If you go and put in Andover, www.andoverconnecticut.org, one thing comes up. If you put in www.andoverct.org, something else comes up. And they're both Andover, but they're slightly different. Now I say that I don't know. I'm trying to do it. I've seen it several times before. I'm trying to do it right now, and I'm like all of us. I have a lot of windows open, but I don't know exactly with respect to this commission what the difference is, but the homepage is different. The andoverct.org has a summation from Scott Yeomans about the town's history, and it's slightly different in appearance. In the planning and zoning information on both?
I'm not sure. I had trouble finding that this time. And that may be me because I'm not used to doing it because I think one or two of us questioned it last month and I was able to find it readily right away during last month's meeting. I couldn't find it tonight, so I tried before the meeting. I couldn't find the things that Amanda pulled up. So it may just be me not being used to looking in the right place.
Are you seeing this email, Leanne? Leanne, can you see my screen? Let me come back back to the meeting.
It's going to look different soon, but for right now, I just want to show you where it is. I've had similar experience. I've had experiences just like
I I don't know. I say I don't know because I have a little box. Now I'm on one the Andover websites. I'm trying to get into the meeting itself, and I have some kind of a little box. And I don't know if that's Amanda or not.
Do you see me moving my mouse? No. Think you have go back to your Zoom account. Your screen is minimized or something, Amy. Okay. I'm trying.
But if you go to boards and committees, go down to elected, and then highlight planning and zoning commission. All the documents are here. And what we'll do on the new website is instead of adding the new applications down here, they'll be on the top and not listed all like this. They'll have their own page.
Okay. I'm getting a little confused, I'll take it up with Amanda later. Okay. All right. Thank
you. But I just wanted to point that out. Two things. One, there's two different Andover, Connecticut. And two, I personally was not able to pull everything up before the meeting. And again, that may be me not being sure where to look, but to me it wasn't readily available. But again, I'll take it up with Amanda later.
Okay. Thanks, Leigh Ann. The other question I'd like to ask the Commission with regard to what Jim was discussing there is I also read the email or whatever. I saw something about town hall starting to open back up. And I was curious as to what the commission thought about meeting for our next meeting in town hall, if that was available. I think there's pros and cons. Obviously, it's easy to hop on this without having to go over to town hall. I think there's some benefit to being able to sit around each other and share a look at things without some of the technological problems that we've had shared information here. But I wouldn't want any of the commission members to feel like we
were not trying to be safe and prudent in getting together. Anybody got any thoughts on that?
This is Leanne. My preference would be to wait another month. Right. Because the governor moved up, know, as we know, the the the second phase from the twentieth to Wednesday the seventeenth And this literally changes every day. So my personal preference would be to wait another month and see, you know, what happens. I think he's handled it very well. But, you know, some states, not us, but are seeing a spike and it just changes every day. So I think I would rather wait and do it this way even though it is cumbersome. I'd rather wait another month. No.
I I feel the opposite way. I think if it's opening up, we really it would be better for us to meet in town hall and just spread out a little bit so that we have space.
Agree with you, I I have some underlying health conditions and I'm concerned about showing up, so I'd rather wait at least another month, and I'd like to know how we would handle applications if a large number of people were coming in for a public hearing. I'd be very uncomfortable in a situation like that. I do. I don't mind the Zoom meetings at all either. Certainly,
I'm not going to make that decision tonight. We are not unanimous on that. I'll see how that plays out over the next couple of weeks. I guess my feeling at this point is that while it's cumbersome and all that, it's probably not the end of the world for us to do one more of these meetings because I don't think there will be any public hearing at the next one. It's just going to be a meeting for us discussing stuff unless I get a surprise coming up here. But anyhow, we'll dedicate Appreciate
the input. Yes. Yeah. This is Linda. Can I put my 2¢ in? Go ahead. You bet. Okay. So as your clerk, I don't feel comfortable coming back to an in person meeting until there's a vaccine. I have an elderly husband. I'm not I'm no spring chicken myself. So, you know, if you guys decide to meet before there is a vaccine, I probably would have to resign. Okay.
Appreciate it. Don't want you to resign in London. Well,
understand. Okay. That's good input for me to think about. That's what I wanted to get from the commission and the staff tonight.
Got it so the Zoom meetings work really well, I think, myself. It is cumbersome, but they work really well. It's in more of the town
This is Linda again. I don't mind helping out Jim in preparing some stuff
for the meeting if he wants to reach out to me. We just need to make sure that we've got all the documents available to put up. And we'll get better at that too. And again, I don't think we'll have a big presentation for the next meeting. But okay, I got all that input. Appreciate that. Anything else, Jim, you had on that? This is your nickel.
Okay. Along the same lines, I think we are moving back to using River East for posting notices. That's not to say, we will still continue to use the town's website. Ended that under the governor's executive order we were allowed to. And that is still in place to the best of my knowledge, but a lot of towns are moving back. Anyway, I haven't forgotten, I did indicate I would provide paper copies of zoning and subdivision regs. Hopefully we'll have those. I'm hoping that, I mean, haven't had any admin support in the town hall to speak of. Hopefully, that'll come back and Capies will be made. You expect a subdivision application coming in Webster Lane. On the town line process town line. It'll be interesting. And also, there's an application for the Wetlands Commission to work in the floodplain. And I am trying to sort out the zoning regulations,
how they apply. It seems to me there's a lot of inconsistencies in the regulation itself. I'm just trying to sort that out, I might perhaps bring it to the Commission in the very near future. Don't know what will be coming forward as far as an application. Where is just that Jim? Recently
57 Hendy Road, You know, former Widom property. Right. Yep. They're proposing a home down there? Yes. It actually filling in floodplain. Seen that completely and invaded with water before.
That's why they're looking to put in a lot of fill. Yeah. They I mean, they it's just fairly complex, my opinion anyway.
Something coming down the pipe. You know, completely filled with water in there.
Okay, well we'll cross that bridge when we get there. We're starting to get a little late here. I want to move on down the road. Any other topics that you have, Jim? And I don't want you to get short. I just don't want us to get sidetracked too much more. That's all I got. Okay. This is Leanne. I have a question for Jim. Yep, go ahead, Leanne. Jim,
is there any activityupdate with anything at the gravel operation at Extramart on Route 6?
No. I I have seen I saw some activity there yesterday or today. I hadn't haven't seen anything going on to speak of. So I I am gonna stop down and see what's going on
the next day or two. Are they still on the first phase in there, Jim?
Yes. It should that's that's what I have to find out. They they indicated they were wrapping it up, but I haven't seen any activity since. I mean, I'm I'm gonna have to take a look at the plan and see how that Quired when they when they move from one phase to another. Let's just forget.
Okay. Any other questions for Jim? We move down to approval of meeting minutes, the regular meeting of 05/18/2020. I'll move to approve the minutes of 05/18/2020. Thank you, Leanne. Yes. I second, Susan. Thank you Susan. Any discussion on the minutes?
There's a couple of small things. One was let me pull it up again. Under I think it's number seven, Administrative Report from Zoning Agent on the topic that I just asked about. It's the minutes state he, Jim Halsey, said that there was material being sifted and leaving the site of the gravel pit operation on Route 6, and E and S measures are in place. But the actual address isn't identified. If we could insert that. I I want to say it's 497 Route 6, but nobody quote me because I'm doing that from memory and it could be wrong. But if we could just make that change to be reflected and maybe agree on it next month, unless somebody has it right there. I don't.
But if we could just somehow identify it so that it's on record because it just just refers to the site of the gravel pit operation on Route 6, but it doesn't say where.
Leigh Ann, this is Linda. I'll check with Susan to get the correct address.
Okay. Thank you. And there's just this is just, something minor. A couple of places it refers to, and it's not wrong wrong. It's just I think it has Anne's first initial where mine should be and mine's where Anne should be. There's one or places where it says L. Creme and then a Hutchinson. So I'm actually LA, and she's a. So not a material change. It's just a an initial. Okay. I I have under number eight also, I think. Yes, I see it. Yep. Okay. That's it. Thank you. Any
other discussion on the minutes? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Ann? Aye. Leanne? Aye. Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye.
I vote aye as well. Motion passes five-zero-zero. Minutes are approved as amended. Next item is the approval of the special meeting sidewalk of 05/23/2020. Do I have a motion to approve?
I move the approval of the minutes of the special meeting, sidewalk, May 23.
Thank you, Susan. I'll second that. Thank you, Scott. Any discussion? Hearing none, call for a vote. Anne? Aye. Leanne? Abstain.
Scott? Aye. Susan? Aye. I vote aye as well. Motion passes five-zero-zero. Under miscellaneous items, I think we're due to hold election of officers next month. So if anybody has a desire to be either the chairman or the vice chairman, please let me know. We'll go through and do that next month. I'm also, Amanda, working on the annual report. I'm sure that at some point somebody's going to say, oh, we need one of those. Hopefully by the next, it's my goal that by the next meeting I have that for all the commission members and staff to take a look at before we submit that to wherever that goes. The subject that's always been confusing to me is what is the difference between a subdivision, the rules that apply to a subdivision and the rules that apply to a free cut? Maybe everybody understands the free cut issue, but if a piece of property has not been subdivided, you can break it into two pieces and not have to go through the subdivision rules. You would still have to go through all the zoning regulations, but the subdivision rules would not apply. Prior to 1955?
Right, yep. When our subdivision rules were approved. And so there's an interesting subdivision rule that we will have to discuss with an application coming up soon would tell us that you can't put a well or a septic system within 100 feet of wetlands. And that's, I don't know that we as a commission have been applying that rule in the past. My thoughts are that if we had been aware of that rule when we were discussing Grimaldi application, that would have been a hard spot for us to get past because we put the septic system 50 feet from the weapons there. If it had been a free cut,
that rule would not have been applicable. But it wasn't a free cut, it was a subdivision. And right this minute, we've got a subdivision regulation that requires septic tanks and wells and that sort of thing to be 100 feet from the wetlands. Are we discussing that now?
We can discuss that now a little bit. It's a fact that it's a rule in our regulations, subdivision regulations that you can't have a septic tank within 100 feet of the wetlands. So that I guess is the big deal between the free cut and following the process of applying for a subdivision. The rules are a little bit different. I was always a little bit hazy on that. I went back and looked through some guidance that I had gotten from our attorney branch. He And says, we have to apply with all the zoning regulations, but you would not have to apply for a free cut to meet all the subdivision regulations. Now, the next part that I was wrestling with myself is do I like that rule? Are we trying to be too restrictive or are we not in general being protective enough of the wetlands and we need that? Or are we being too restrictive and not helping people develop property and that sort of thing? I think go this next
ahead Scott. We've already seen that people are aggressively going after that breaking up of larger parcels and I'm kind of relieved that that 100 foot thing is still in the subdivision regulation.
I I share I that thought a little bit. I'm all in favor of promoting, you know, having building going on in town, but I do think I've been a little uncomfortable with some of the stuff we've been doing. So anyhow, Leanne, do you have a thought on that? I'm sorry, me? Yep,
I saw your little box light up. I didn't know if you wanted to I say something or didn't even know that. I don't even know how to do it, but I didn't know. But anyway,
no. The only thing that I I guess, it's just a question is is is the 100 foot versus the 50 foot thing dependent on whether or not it's a free cut or not? And if so, then I think that's where we need to start out. Do you see what I mean? Like is it a question for anything or is it a question for whether or not something is a free cut in the first place? The
question as to whether or not it's a free cut in the first place goes back to Scott's comment that if a lot has been subdivided into two lots after our subdivision rules went into effect and it's back dates 1955 or somewhere back around that timeframe, then you can't get a free cut. You have to go with the subdivision. And that's why the Grimaldi's had to do a subdivision as opposed to a free cut is because that piece of property that he owned had already been divided once before after our subdivision regulations were approved.
Okay. I don't know if I could repeat that, Brent. Yep. Well, and I
had to think about that for a long time myself. So I don't know that it could be clear to everybody tonight hearing it for the first time, but we will talk about that some more. That's going to be an issue where we talk on Webster Lane.
Well, I think this and is Leanne still or again and Jim is obviously on the call. It seems to me just for reference that obviously the Grimaldi application was recent, and I think there was some, disagreement between Jim and Jerry about this whole free cut thing. And Jerry, some point, I don't want to rehash the whole thing because I don't remember it, that Jerry found out Jerry changed his stance on it. So again, I don't know offhand who said what, but I think it was kind of a learning experience. So I think it's something that the Commission should revisit. It was
in since we don't have an application yet, we can I guess talk about this a little bit without violating any rules? Jerry thought that this Webster Lane application was going to be a free cut as well. Don't know how he got enlightened, but he is now recognizing that it's not a free cut and he's going to have to apply using the subdivision rules. So, it was a free cut, went back and looked at it again. I don't know if Jim poked him to go look or whatever, he looked again and he has concluded that it is going to be a subdivision. Was he aware of the 100 foot subdivision?
I don't know that he's aware yet. Jim and I are meeting with Jerry tomorrow morning to have the initial conversation on this application.
My question is, is the purpose of the 100 foot rule because of protection of water or is it just to keep from making smaller lots?
It would, it has to be for protection of wetlands.
Protection of wetlands because why have a 50 foot for one circulation and a 100 foot for another? It doesn't seem equitable
It doesn't. Or But one of the things that, you know, thinking about this a little bit, as we divide over history, you know, we used to not pay any attention to the wetlands. We didn't care what we did to them. We were filling them in to make housing lots. And we found out the wetlands are important and we started taking more care of them. And so it makes sense to me that if we're going to design a new lot that we want to design it to be protective of the wetlands. As Scott was saying, maybe we need to be a little bit more protective of the wetlands right this minute. We seem to be cutting up all these small lots into smaller chunks using the open space subdivision thought that gets you down to a threefour lot. And I understand what the thought process was when we made this open space cluster development was to have like a 100 acre parcel. You put all the houses in one spot and you leave 60 or 50 acres undisturbed that you can do hiking trails and all that stuff. That's what intended it to be. Yep, and so the only application that I've seen to it was on a 10 acre lot
where we've got the town, we've put in, I forget the terminology, that it can't be developed, but it's not benefiting anybody in the public to have that. And so this Webster Lane piece of property is less than four acres. So now we're really talking about a small lot that we're trying break up into chunks. But all that started to become a little bit more clear is I've been thinking, do we like the outcomes of what our regulations are providing. Kind of like when we were doing Bill Devine's thing, are we going to like the outcome of this regulation where it's common ownership? That may come back to bite us that we didn't put more controls in there, May not. But one of the things I like to do after every application that we do approve is see did we get what we thought we were going to get and is it good for the town and the people around it and all that kind of stuff. So that was the thing that I've been thinking about. It wasn't clear to me. I thought maybe it might not be clear to all of you guys. Probably not clear yet, but I wanted to start you thinking about that. And that's all I had under miscellaneous items.
Jed, this is Leanne. I think there is some confusion and as you said, certain things arise from certain applications. I would like to see us because we've done this all the time in the past when something comes up, whether it rolls out of an individual application or not, is to discuss it as an agenda item next month or no later than the following month. And then also, there's several things that came out of the divine application tonight, such as the ownership of the property and who actually lives there. And there's some wording in the regs right now about the purpose of this is to help out elderly people. And then I think we found out that people are going to sell property and not everybody who lives there may be elderly. So what do you do then? And is there really any harm? So I think these deserve to be separate agenda items in the next month or two. Okay.
I will take on for next month to try to, either myself or Jim will put a little bit more meat on the bone on what the free cut gets us and what is the difference in making a determination between the free cut in a subdivision what is the difference from our perspective. And again, a guy goes in for a free cut, we may never know about it. The only reason that we found out about it on the Grimaldi is because Jerry came in with what he thought was a courtesy to brief us on it and then we started asking questions and we
learned. So he did us a big favor by trying to brief us a little bit and now we're going to all get smarter because it's going to come into play more and more often. And we need to know what Jim is doing when he's working on the free tech rules that we never see.
Yeah, I have a comment about the accessory apartment type thing. We built our house fifteen years ago, which I guess was before you did all this accessory apartment thing, but we have an accessory apartment on our house. It was built for my in laws. In the fifteen years since then, they've both passed away. So it sat empty for a few years, and now our daughter's living in it so there's a young person instead of an older person living in the accessory apartment we can see where someday she may be out of there but we're planning on keeping it to family you know whether it be cousins and things like that
And you can envision a case where at some point she has a family and your family is smaller and you might go into the accessory apartment and she takes over the house. You talk about that. That's a great plan too.
Or if she moves out and we can't afford the house by ourselves, another cousin might move in, it'll be family still. We're not up to renting it to anybody that's not family. Okay, great. But I know that's probably some of the things you were thinking of with this regulation. I know we did have the same limitations on size when we built. Couldn't be over 800 square feet, to be you know less than a third of our total of our house part. So I know that part was in effect back fifteen years ago.
But the state and the country are kind of you know we've got a housing crisis and they're trying to solve it using these accessory apartments. We're trying to protect citizens of Andover from making sure that it stays like you're describing how we want it to be good for neighbors in the town. Right. I've got nothing on commission vacancies. We have worn out all the public, so there's nobody to public speak. Any other commission open discussion? Hearing none, does anybody want to make a motion that we adjourn? I guess not. We'll stay here. I'll second. Leanne.
Okay, who made the original motion? Was that you, Anne? Yeah, I think so. Okay, Anne and Leanne. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries five-zero-zero. Thank you all for your help. I think we did a good job on Bill Devine's. We put it through the rigor that it should have being a first time thing. We knew the concept was right. We just had to set the standards so that the next person who the concept isn't quite so right when we are meticulous about making sure that we do everything right, they can't point back to a previous case and say, well, didn't do that before. Why are you doing that now? We need to have the right standard right from the get go. So thank you all for that.
I guess we'll see you all next month. And Jim, I'll see you at nine tomorrow morning over at the gazebo. Office. Okay. Okay.