Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting
October 18, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
01, so I will call the meeting to order. Then I see we've got Scott Persson here, Steve Nelson. I do not see Anne Cremay. So I will see Kevin for Anne. And I'm going through I will also see Anne Blanchard. And then with myself that that rounds out the board. So item three addition changes to the agenda. Does anybody have any additional hope I see and cremate just showed
up. Okay. Yeah. So I will unseat Kevin, who I think I put in for Anne. So the voting members for the time being are myself, Scott Persson, Steve Nelson, Anne Blanchard and Anne Creme. I think Leanne's here, Jed. I
am. Can you hear me? Oh, I can hear you now, Leanne. Okay. So then, Ian Blanchard is unseated and we have Leanne here. Sorry about that.
Okay, we're on. Abby, did you get all those changes to who's seated? We're back to our five actual commission members are all present now. I got it. Yep. Okay.
Item three, addition or changes to the agenda? And I have none. Jim, were you able to get ahold of Chris Bell? Was he
playing I any a message on his phone. I did not speak to him. Okay.
Is part of our discussion tonight, Chris Bell may pop in and give us an update on what's going on at the gravel pit. We're trying to sort that out. But we'll put that in as part of our discussion. Item four is members for public comment. Are there any members of the public that are not here for a specific agenda item that have any other comments to share with the Commission at this point? And I don't think there are. I think I know why everybody's here. So we will move on to item five, whole business, the sign regulations. I just wanted to say on that that Jim and I met with attorney Branch a week or so ago and went over. We had a discussion about the sign regulations. He's out trying to update those for us. He thought maybe he would have those for us by now, but I didn't get them from him. So I couldn't send them out, but those will be coming along at some point soon. Whole business 5B, the affordable housing plan. We're in the process of getting the contract signed with Bill Warner. And I expect he had a couple of unexpected losses on his town where he's working with the town planner, and so he's going to get a little bit of a late start there. I expect him to join us for our December meeting
to hold a kickoff on that, and we'll really get going hot and heavy in the affordable housing plan after the first of the year. And going on to 5C legislative update, Jim, I can't remember if you wanted to say something on that or not.
I really didn't. I just wanted to keep it on the agenda for just sort of an ongoing basis, or at least until we sort out what happened in the last legislative session. I am trying to figure out what's going on as far as cannabis, cannabis law, as I know you are, Jed. I don't have anything in particular, no, at this time.
Okay. And Jim, I saw an email from you that indicated that maybe you had the journal inquiry article from Saturday's paper on cannabis? I did.
I could get a copy of that. Sure. I wouldn't mind reading through it. I don't get the journal inquiry, so I don't have it. But I heard it had a lot of good stuff in there. Anyhow, that's it for old business. We're going to move on to new business. And the first item is the application 2103, Korean Lateszka Subdivision special permit. And the action item is request for filing extension And discussion item, request for minor modification proof subdivision plan. So, George, I didn't see Eric here, so I assume you're doing the discussion on the filing extension. Yes. So we are requesting an extension of time. Civil engineer
slash surveyor Andrew Bushnell is still working on our, our project, and we weren't able to quite make the I don't think that we're going to make the ninety day time limit.
Okay, yep. And I know we voted to approve that application at the June meeting. So I know we're getting fairly close. And I've been talking to Jim, he said you were having some issues with the utilities in there. Yes. You have do you know how long an extension you think you're gonna need?
I'm not quite sure, to be honest with you. We're sort of at the mercy of other people. So I don't know exactly how long. Think in my mind, if we were granted another few months, I think that we can do that.
For the record, the applicable section of the state statutes allows for up to two ninety day extensions. So I would suggest to stay with the ninety days. The way I read it is you apply for ninety, and if that doesn't work, you ask for another ninety. It wasn't up to ninety, it was ninety days. And just to refresh anybody's memory, the special permit component is George's application involved two rear lots, which required special permit as part of the subdivision. That's why they're both there.
Okay. When we get around to taking action, we'll talk about a ninety day extension, just keeping clean with that. Yes. And George, because I happen to be a member of the Wetlands Commission as well, I know that you discussed with Agent Wagner the modifications to the culvert, the box culvert that was going to be put in for the driveway. And can you lead the commission through that? Because, know, one of the things that we have to do with the change to whatever plan we approved is we have to make a decision as to whether or not it's a substantive plan or an insignificant change in the plan and take action that way. If it's a rather insignificant change as determined by the commission, we can allow our agent Halsey to adjudicate that with you. If it's deemed that that's a significant change from the original application, then we have to go through the process over again. And that's just the way our instructions are written out on how we handle those changes. So if you can brief the Commission on why it is that we're changing
the box culvert, I'd appreciate that. Sure. So our original
plan we submitted on a four sided box culvert where we were going to have the driveway go over the top of the culvert and we would use native materials from the wetland area to create a new invert for the water to flow through underneath the driveway. Unfortunately for us, there's been more price increasing on on the box culvert. It's gotten to the point now where it's almost out of reach for us. So I looked into an all terrier or an alternate method. And that would be a three sided culvert. It's an open bottom three sided culvert. In going with this route,
we would do most of the work ourselves. Basically, we would be casting in place the culvert and we would not be disturbing the natural invert that's there now. The natural water flow invert would remain, and we would actually build over it. In my opinion, this is less invasive into the wetlands. And it would be a tremendous cost savings for us.
So when I looked at the drawing that I saw, and I can't remember if that was on our website or the Inland Wetlands at this point, It looked like there was a foundation to be dug into the wetlands the side of the two upward sides would go into?
Yes, so if you look at the drawing there, we would excavate down below frost depth on both sides of the natural invert. So we would dig down about three feet. At the bottom there, you see that there is a it's a it's a spread footing. It's basically a footing like you would use in building a house. From there, we would build a wall on top of that. That wall would be probably it'll be about five feet tall, five and a half feet tall. And then we would build a slab on top of that. This this drawing here has been designed by a structural engineer to meet the h 20 load rating that Brandon requested and requires. So essentially, they would be they would there would be three pores.
We would cast the footings, we would then form and cast the wall, both walls, and then we would form and cast the cap or the top.
Okay, and I think it is still a true statement that you have not gotten the wetlands approval for the change in the driveway construction yet? That's the truth. Okay, so,
at this point, the first, I'd like to make a motion that we approve the ninety day extension to the filing of the drawings that's requested by the applicant. Second that. I'll second
Leanne. Okay, thank you, Leanne. And any discussion on that issue? Okay, hearing none, a call for a roll call vote to Scott Person. Aye. Anne Gremay? Aye.
Leanne? Aye. Steve? Aye. And I vote aye as well. That motion passes five zero zero. I guess I will make a motion that the request for the minor modification to the approved subdivision plan be considered a minor modification and turned over to Agent Halsey for adjudication with the applicant. Second.
Okay, thank you, Steve. And so is there any discussion on that particular motion? And again, know, Agent Halsey can't do anything until it's gotten wetlands approval. And I would also expect agent Halsey to touch base with our engineer just to make sure he agrees with the changes that are made.
Yeah, Chairman Larson Hallisey, I just wanted to point something out just to refresh people's memories. One of the conditions of the approval of the subdivision was that our tunnel engineer approved the final design or final specs on that culvert. So there is a condition in place already, but just pointing that out. This further just enforces that. Okay. Any other discussion on the second motion?
The first, yeah, we can talk about this, right, Chad? Yes, absolutely.
The first approval was through wetlands, there was no excavating, it was all filling as I remember. Now there's going to be excavating in the, correct? The wetlands?
If we would still have to do excavation in order to install the four sided culvert, there's actually less excavation required to do a three sided than it would be to do the four sided.
Well now you have to dig below frost, put a footing, so that's four feet. The other one you're just moving the material, flattening it out. No,
we would have to, we would be digging down two to three feet, the full dimension of the box covert in order for us to place native materials back into the box covert to maintain the natural water flow invert.
The old drawing said it was one foot below grade to
the bottom of the box. Right. That's what I remember. But it has to sit on a foot of stone. But okay. I didn't see the subsurface and the plan last time.
So there is, there's going to be substantially more excavation than the prior application. And you're gonna pour this in one piece and you're gonna pour it yourself?
Yeah, it's not in one piece. It's gonna be three pores.
I know what, no, the deck. Yeah. The deck. Yes. The deck is gonna be poured in one piece. Yes. Does the wetlands know Jed did you go to that meeting?
I did go to that meeting and I don't, we did not have, the applicant was not present at that meeting and so we didn't have opportunity to address what the changes were and Agent Wagner, I don't know that he had the drawing that we just looked at to describe to the wetlands group what was going to happen. And that's why we deferred that action to the following meeting where we expect, you know, one of the applicants there to address the questions of the Commission. Right. So now you're gonna be digging 42 plus a foot for material below it.
No. If the footing can sit on undisturbed native soil. It is? The footing can, yes.
I thought it just said in the document that it was going to be 42 inches in the ground.
Yes, so the bottom of the footing would be 42 inches. Yeah. Okay. Jed, can you bring that print back up?
I think Abby was the person who displayed that. So Abby, can you bring that back up to the drawing? Yep. Hold on just a second. What was the total length of the culvert? 21 feet. Okay.
So you'll probably need to remove some material in the middle so that you can get all the formwork back out after the pour, right?
No, I don't plan on that. I plan to dig. So that footing there's see 23,000
only have a two foot window to work in right. I'm sorry, say it again. Like you only have a two foot window to so you'd have to like crawl, you know, lay Yeah, we would dig the footing. The excavation would be about four feet wide.
But you'd need to take soil out of the middle to get your forms out, unless you're gonna leave the forms in place after you're done, right?
No, there would be enough space so we can maneuver the forms out of place. The intent is to leave the natural invert intact.
Okay, are there any other questions for the applicant at this point? Where where's the grade on this map, this document? I don't I don't believe the grade is
the yeah, the grade is not depicted on this drawing. This drawing is solely for the construction of the culvert.
But we know the grade was fairly much level when you get down to the bottom where
the stream's running through there. Yeah, if you were to highlight a little bit more on the footing, there's a dimension that's given there from the bottom of footing to proposed final grade, which is three foot six. So the grade is there at three six?
That's just what that number has given you is the is what the engineer is requesting for a bottom of footing from the finished grade.
Jim Jim Halsey, have you ever had a footing put on grade?
Give me a second here. I mean, frost protection is 42 inches under building code for for residential structures. Okay? Is that I mean, that's where this I don't know if I'm assuming this is where the 42 inches comes from. The quest my I don't I'm not trying to avoid your question. Have I ever had a a footing put on grade? No. Not that I recall. No. I mean, structures are placed placed on grade. Garages are dropped on, for instance, sheds, garages are dropped on paths or stone, but there's no footing involved. Did I answer your question or did I avoid it? No, there's
no footing, there's no footings, no modern footings. The only footing that wasn't put on grade is a haunched footing. It's an old style footing, they don't use them anymore. It always has to be below grade. Any footing has to be below grade. Footing this
is going to be below grade also, it has to be. You can't put a bridge above on grade unless I'm missing something here.
The footing is three foot six below final grade. The bottom of footing is 42 inches from the finished grade.
Okay so there you go right? So you're so you're going to be digging then? Yes. Right and on the last application there was no digging was going to be put on just a little bit on the stream bed that was it. Then the whole structure was going be put down, the stuff was going to be put back underneath the bridge. That's all I'm trying to get at here. You're going to be digging substantially more, 20 feet wide and you know three six deep minimum plus there's going to be more material underneath the group that structure because you can't put it on native soil, native material. So, it's going to be you know a foot every every footing is always put on you know around a foot of material.
But I think that's an issue for the Wetlands Commission to decide upon. Yeah. And that it will be reviewed by our engineer to make sure that it's structurally sound. And one of the options is we can hold the decision on this item in abeyance till next month. Sounds like we're not going be ready to start construction. You know, we're asking for another couple of month delay to get the documents signed to start the project, so I don't know that it's the end of the world if we wait until the November meeting to decide on this. I wanted to make a motion so that we could have the discussion that we're having now.
Well, if we approve this, our engineer still has to review it and approve it and Wetlands has to deal with it as well, right? Yes, Wetlands needs to
agree to this before the Commission or our zoning agent would be able to act on It has to be beyond that point. Right. So the question is, do we allow Agent Halsey to do that after Wetlands has approved it and the engineer has agreed to it? Or do we want that decision to come back to the Commission? And so the discussion the the motion was to make to consider it a minor change where it would be handled by the zoning agent after Wetlands approves it and the engineer concurs in the design. And we can wait another month to make that decision as to whether or not we give that to Jim. Certainly the discussion has indicated that it's not a trivial matter to put those foundation supports in there. Although I do think that on the same note, if you were to do a total volume removed to support the construction, I don't know that George would be wrong in saying that there's less this way.
Certainly, one is not way out of bounds with respect to the other. So, you know, I think it's probably fairly close either way you cut it. It's about the same disturbance of wetlands. One might be a little deeper, one might be a lot wider, and so how that comes out, I'll take George's word for it, that it comes out to be less disturbance in the wetlands. But that's for the wetlands agency to go off and take a look at. So, I worded, as I will always word motions, in the positive because if we were to make a negative motion and then the negative motion failed, we don't know where that puts us. Is there any commission discussion before we vote as to whether or not we should hold off? Well, I guess I'll ask George first. That do you think if we were to vote on this at the November meeting that would delay your plans at any extent at this point? I don't think so. Yeah.
Is there any reason we would want to delay and have it come back here? If Wetlands approves it and the engineer approves it, would we have any reason to have it come back? Or can Jim just execute on the plan?
Only, well, there's probably no reason to come back. The issue would be if we were to be so concerned about the change in the construction technique that we thought that we would not have approved it had that been the original one, and we want to disapprove the project because of that, then we might want to come back. But we've had a good discussion on it. I'm certainly a lot smarter on the whole issue than I was before we had the discussion, so I'm very glad that we did have that. But I think your comment, Steve, is still germane that if it comes back to us or it goes to the zoning agent, as long as it gets the approval of wetlands and the approval of our engineer, I guess that might be our concern unless you voted no on the issue of turning it over to Agent Allisi,
then we would ask to come back for us for further discussion. But I'm not sure what we would gain by having further discussion on that particular issue at this point. I think we're all as smart as we need to be to make that call. Agreed. Okay, any other I discussion before we
have a question that may not be exactly with this, but it's got to do with the site and the drainage is to ask George, how did the area fair with the big rainstorms we had this summer since this was approved? I was wondering, I had like a river in my backyard and I don't even have the kind of area or the hill that they have. And I was wondering if you saw anything about how much water came through there. Does this design carry all the, take care of all that water?
So I went, we had the two big storms, and I, I went a few days after each of the big storms, by the time. I think after the first big storm I want I went down there two days later, there was no more running water that down in the low spot. And there didn't seem to be a whole lot of like leaves and twigs and sticks displaced or piled up the place. The area didn't look really any different than it did any other time I've been down there. And so then we had the second big storm. And I actually went down there the following day. There was no running water, but it was wet. And again, wasn't really any large displacement of leaves or piling up of sediment or anything like that. And actually, Andrew Bushnell went down there the day, maybe two days after the second storm, and he was, he had the same opinion as I did, you know, that it really didn't seem much different. Which surprised me because I thought it would be, actually, thought I was worried after the first storm because we had so much rain that you know that I didn't know what was going to happen down there to be and
so. Okay.
I will go out on a limb and say I went down there the day of the big storm because I was curious too what we were going to learn from having this significant event. As George just said, I was surprised by the lack of flow through that area. I lived next to a little brook here going into Andover Lake and it was running like I had never seen it run. And the Hop River was the same, but I did not see anything near what I thought I might see down there. So I was convinced that the openings that we designed in the driveway were more than adequate to handle anything that was coming that way. And I did all the due diligence that I could do. So I agree with George's assessment there. Any other questions? Any other discussion?
Okay, and again, the motion is for us to turn over adjudication of the issue to Agent Halsey. And I'll start out roll call vote with Anne. Aye.
Scott? Aye. Steve? Aye. Leanne? Aye. And I vote aye as well. The motion carries 500. Okay, thank you, George. Good luck with getting your plans.
Thank you, guys. Everyone have a great night. Thank you. Next
item up is request for feedback on a potential meditation center accessory uses at 131 Route 6. And I think Patrick is here to run us through a presentation on that.
Jed, I'll start off. Actually, we'll start. Okay. Jed, are you able to share screen enable screen sharing by any chance? To have you share the screen? Yeah. Yes. Yep, I can do that. Go ahead. Awesome.
All right, you should have the ability now. Yeah, I can. Thank you. I'm just going to start off without the screen while I introduce myself. Thank you, Jed and Jim for having us here today. Jim also thank you for answering our questions and sort of all the guidance you have provided thus far. My name is Nilakshi Parnigamagaya. I'm a resident of Bridge Connecticut where I live with my husband and two kids. I also serve as the Chief of Staff and an Associate Provost at the provost office at Yale. I am here today as a community leader associated with the Connecticut Meditation Center and a representative of two monks, Venerable Kundanja and Venerable Sumeda, who are here today as leaders of this Connecticut Meditation Center. We call the Connecticut Meditation Center CTMC, and we're all here today because the CTMC is actually under contract and would like to purchase White's Tavern, which is located at 131 In Route 6 in Andover. I will take a few minutes to introduce you to who we are, describe the functions of our meditation center. Patrick will then take over and give you a brief overview of the properties location and our current conceptual plans. In the end, we'll have some questions for all of you and we'll have plenty of time to answer any questions or concerns you may have.
I am, as I said, joined by several of our community members here. Let me just share my screen. Several of our community members, including the two monks who lead our community. So who are we? We are the Connecticut Meditation Center, which is a meditation based Buddhist temple based in Connecticut. Most of our members are Sri Lankan heritage, although the center serves both Buddhist and non Buddhist communities. We are a thriving community and have been active in Connecticut since about 2014. And we're registered, the center is registered as a nonprofit religious organization. Our total membership is around 150, although I must admit we only gather as a community of about 75 to 100 no more than two times a year. The monks who lead our community have served us served in their leadership capacity at the Connecticut Meditation Center for many years. They have had temporary residencies in temples in New York and Boston all of these years, and frequently and often visit community members in Connecticut for extended periods of time. But there has been this great need for all of us to find a physical home located in Connecticut, And we're very hopeful in this moment that White's Tavern might be that much needed home. One of the reasons that it has taken us a little while to find our home is we we sort of wanted to find a community where we could respect the nature, find a community that would welcome us find a community where we could sort of be good neighbors to
each other. And so we're very excited about White's Tavern. The easiest way to describe how this property will be used if CTMC purchases the property is that we will it will serve both sort of as a church and a rectory. For the rectory part, they will be about one to three monks who will reside there. And Buddhist monks, just like pastors and ministers of other religious traditions, do not draw any wages and our monks have been and will continue to be more than supported by the CTMC membership. The church part of the property will support our community activities in two ways. One, it will support our existing community, will be a gathering place for meditation and fellowship. And it's also sort of a place where we will continue to seek the wise counsel of our monks. But in line with lots of Buddhist temples and gathering places, we really hope to open up the property to residents of Andover as a community gathering place as a community space where if anyone is interested, they can have communal events too.
The center will host meditation and yoga workshops and classes. The center will not be a profit making endeavor that is sort of antithetical to our practices, and any services like yoga and meditation that will be offered to the larger public will be free of charge to any members in the local community. So our center supports sort of a family based Connecticut, a group of Connecticut residents that are really keen to respect the environment in which Whites Tavern sits and very eager to serve as thoughtful neighbors to all of you. I'm happy to answer more questions about who we are at the end of the presentation, but I'll hand it over to Patrick who will walk you over sort of a property overview. Great. And are we sharing screens now?
Can you see it? I can walk you through the slides, Patrick. Do you see it? I don't.
Does anyone, everyone else see it? I hope everyone else has been able to see it. I see it. Yep. Yes.
Okay. Great. So we're on the property location overview slide. And just to kind of frame the discussion here, this is obviously a meeting intended to gather sort of informal feedback from all of you. We have not done any detailed site planning. Everything we present here is purely for discussion purposes. We're looking for feedback and advice from you all. As we go through the process, we're looking to hear any major concerns or roadblocks you have. But in order for you to give us that feedback, we wanted to give you a good idea of what our high level intentions for the property are. So as you you I'm sure you all know the property better than we do even it's located at 131 Route 6. It is in the business zoning district which allows churches and schools and other uses with a site plan review. Its current use is listed as a two family residence. There are currently people living at the residence and so we are under contract to purchase it. And I understand it's a total of seven acres. It's not just the one parcel, but it's actually the three parcels
together. So the one with that blue marker is and then the two parcels to the north of that and east of Route 6. Okay, so we can go to the next slide showing the conceptual plans. They're going to see that? Yes.
Yeah. Okay. So again, this is this is purely for discussion purposes. But basically, what we will need for the site is a place for the monks to live, you know, for one to three months to live safely. And then we will also need a place for religious services and education. And for the latter use in particular, we will probably require a new structure. We don't know exactly how large it would be or exactly where it would be placed. But this was just our initial thinking was that it'd be close to the road for easy access and to utilize the existing driveway. And then there would be parking. And obviously, the size would have to be determined based on the size of the temple that we built. There are some existing accessory structures on the property. We are still kind of investigating those to see whether there would be of any use to us, but we're still kind of reviewing that. And we're also trying to fully understand what is needed in terms of repair to White's Tavern itself. So those are the kinds of things we're saying we're thinking of. But basically, we're looking at a place for the monks to live and some kind of temple structure to be located on the site and with the necessary parking to serve that temple. Over the very long term, perhaps we would want to build additional structures, but that's what was our discussion for the moment. So that is kind of an overview what we intend to do, what we intend to use the site for. And so our immediate questions for the town and I'll kind of read through these all at the same time and let you all give you all a chance to respond as first is, do you all see any
major concerns regarding this use at this location? And the context of that question is really, we are under contract to purchase this, but if you believe there are major roadblocks to us securing approval for this, if you have any major concerns, we would like to know that now before we close on contract, of course. We know that the Whites Tavern is very old, dates to 1792. So we want to understand if there are any obligations or restrictions that the town imposes because of its historic nature. And then the two other key questions are, if we think this is a use that could be approved, what's the best way to do that? We've spoken with Jim about possibly approving it as a church use, which is know, an improved use under the business district with a site plan approval. But I understand that there may be other ways to do it that you find appropriate. So we'd like to hear your thoughts there. And then the last sort of key question we have is we know the site plan approval process would take some time. And we are wondering whether in the meantime, the monks could move into the existing residents even before that site plan would be approved. So maybe there I'll stop and give you all a chance to answer some of those questions.
So do any of the commission members have any comments at this point?
Did the government put any restrictions on its uses or you know changes when they deemed it the White Tavern? I wonder if there is any I'm sure that you know the busks went through you know, ten years of trying to get it onto that historic, I don't know what you would call it, but I'm wondering if there is any restrictions about what you can, what the changes that you can make to it or whatever. I don't know. I'd be happy to address that. Yeah. Go ahead, Jim.
Halsey, as far as I'm not exactly sure what designation it has, but assuming it's on the National Registry, there are really no restrictions per se. The registry designation mostly comes into play as far as making it eligible for tax credits. There are certain types of use, usually it's commercial use. Other than that, I mean, does give somebody should folks standing should they choose to take issue on it under the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act, which gives anybody standing in case against it for historic preservation issues. But no, there's nothing, no federal money was used in it which would have triggered covenants of restriction or anything of that nature. So I'd say no.
Good. And I'll just say we did speak with her name is Jane Schofield at the State Historical Preservation Department. That's not the exact name, but she indicated that it was listed on the National Registered Store Places and the State Registered Store Places, which enabled it to receive tax credits, but that there were no restrictions or obligations placed on the owner because of that.
In fact, the section of our regulation section 4.15, historic preservation by way of adaptive historic reuse. It seems to be very liberal in what it would allow. It talks about allowing for things outside of what would normally be allowed in whatever district it's in. And so I think that invoking that particular article, which would require the special permit with the public hearing, probably gives you the most latitude in the way to go there. But I saw no roadblocks.
Steve, you had a comment? Well, I was wondering, even if there are no roadblocks or restrictions, is there any intent to preserve any of the history that's relevant to the site?
So I think we can say we would absolutely respect the Whites Tavern and we have no intention to demolish it or anything. I think the only issue there is cost, right? And we haven't fully investigated it. So, you know, we can't commit to anything per se. But I can certainly say we have no you know, if it's in our power, we will certainly not do anything to harm White Statham, I think is the short answer. But beyond that, you know, until we have better idea of what the costs would be, you know, I wouldn't want to commit to anything.
How many parking spaces were you gonna put in there?
So that was a We don't know. And that's partly a question for you all. I know that the zoning regulations said for a church use that it would be something like one space for every three seats. In truth, until we actually size the building, we won't really know. So, but I guess I would say, that's something that we would discuss with you and Jim and make sure that we're providing the appropriate amount of parking for the people that would be visiting.
The entrance would be off of Route 6 or Hutchinson Road or both? What where was the access to that parking space?
If I understand it, the just looking at the map, the the driveway connects between Hutchinson Road and Route 6 would be accessible from both. Okay. Again, I say that as, you know, if there's a problem with that, we can change it because we're, you know, nothing is set in stone at this point.
Any other comments or questions from any other commission members?
Hi, this is Leanne. I have a comment and a question or two. Yeah, go ahead Leanne.
I think it was Mr. Lynch, could you just repeat your answer, I guess I didn't quite catch it, to the last question from Scott Person about whether or not you would have, people entering from Route 6 or Hutchinson Road or both.
So the short answer is if there's a concern from the town, either way, we would respect that. I think as we look at it now that there's a driveway connecting Hutchinson Road and Route 6. So from our standpoint, they could enter from both or either road, which whatever is preferable to the town. We have not we really haven't gotten that far in the site planning process to give you a more definitive answer.
Okay, thank That side of the property is the driest side. The other side is wet, very wet that towards the east it's very wet. The other side to the north is dry.
That are you talking about in terms of the driveway?
I'm talking about where they they proposed to put the parking lot. It's a lot drier on that side. They decided that they proposed to put it on it. It's a better location. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you. And then I have under immediate questions for the town, I have a couple of questions about number four. It says, could we begin work on making an existing structure habitable before the site plan approval is granted? I guess I have a kind of a two part question. I don't know much about real estate, but when you say you have a closing in a couple of days, because this proposal seems to have a couple of different aspects. One is the house that would be used as a residence. And I don't think other than number of people in the house, which isn't an issue, that we can tell you who can live in the house. So, I think you could, if you go through with the purchase, go ahead and make improvements or, you know, make it habitable, depending on what it looks like on the inside now, as a home for the MUC. So, are you going to go I this is I don't know if the Commission is planning to take this beyond tonight or if we're going to need to. I guess I'm just wondering if you're going to go ahead after the twentieth, depending on what we do tonight. And I guess the second part of my question is and I'm asking the Commission because I don't know I don't know because we don't have this come up, where someone asks to put, you know, a church or religious building on a site like this. I'm just asking.
I don't know that this has ever come up before.
So the last part of your second question, Leanne, was about putting a church on a piece of property like this? Yes, I'm just asking. I'm not speaking either way.
Yep. No, all I can tell you is that, as Patrick said, the church is one of the allowable uses by site plan in a business district. So it has to be allowable. If there was a question before that on item two, I don't remember what it was, but I think it is allowed by our regulations.
So it sounds like all we would have jurisdiction over is the amount of people in the parking area.
Yes, and you know, it sounds like Patrick's done his homework, saw our section 12 on parking there, and I think you're based on the number of 120 people that he had listed, that would, by our little chart, anywhere from a low of 24 parking spots to a maximum of 40 is what I think comes out for that. So there's, you you've to go lay it all out, but you make it big enough to accommodate all that, and I think you're in business.
Okay. Thank you. So I guess just my only other question for clarification regarding what you just said about having a church on the property is, so we're not mentioning any constraints right now. Again, I'm asking. I'm not suggesting anything because that is part of what they would like for feedback. Since they would do that in the future, would we just address that separately at the time or would we be doing that tonight?
Well, think the intention tonight in the applicants can correct me if I'm wrong. Well, they aren't applicants yet. We don't have an application. They're interested in purchasing the property. And I think they've got until the twentieth to make a decision on whether or not they want to make an offer is the way I understand it. Actually, have until Friday. I we have until Friday
listed that by accident. That's my internal deadline to make the decision, but Friday, this Friday. Okay. Yeah. So if there was something that we saw that said, nope, it just ain't going to work, they'd be interested in hearing that from us tonight. I think for me personally and a lot of the other commission members, this is the first time we've looked at zoning regulations in regards to all these different aspects. And so that doesn't mean we're, that means that I'm not real familiar with how it's all going to play out, but I can't see anything that stands in the way of getting to the finish line one way or another. You know, you with a land use engineer or whatever would have to determine
which of the different articles in our regulations that you want to peruse, and it's probably going to be your portions of each so that we're complying with everything. Obviously, the town would like White's Tavern to stay. That's a pretty historic structure. If you were to, I guess my question, reading through the historic section, that article 4.15 talks about any other buildings being constructed on the property be somewhat consistent with the historic nature of the tavern. And I'm not exactly sure what a Buddhist temple looks like, but I'm not sure how we could blend the two to make it look like a historic New England building? That is a very question,
Jed. If you were to go to a Sri Lankan village and ask what Buddhist temple looks like it'll be something very different in this instance it will be just a New England home a place where the monks would reside would they have a community kitchen it would just resemble a home It would have an area like a large living room or if we ever sometime down the line have a second structure a gathering space where about 2,030 folks can gather and engage in fellowship or talk to the monks. Architecturally there's, there's nothing unusual in the plans and as I said, one of the reasons we really like this location was also there's so much nature and it's sort of unobtrusive existence is sort of part of the philosophy of
our community. So I can I there are a few things I can guarantee about so many of these things just because everything is such conceptual planning but I can guarantee you that it's not going to be sort of an eyesore of any any sort? The goal is to blend in and be good supportive neighbors and nothing less. Yeah,
so as I understand it, the idea is that for the tavern, which is a residence now, to be a residence for the monks, and then you would build the gathering place or the temple that would be the new building that you would be putting on the site.
That is currently the plan depending on how this approval process works and sort of fundraising and what our eventual plans are. What we definitely don't anticipate any massive structures. It will be either White's Tavern as the rectory and a separate space for a church, like a large gathering hall with the kitchen and bathrooms. That is currently the plan. Again, we haven't done a ton of digging into the state of White's Tavern and what it would take to get it up to a certain level, but that's absolutely the goal. Okay. Now,
the other thing in line with that is if we had a site plan that included a temple on it, the expectation is that the temple would be built. One of the things that in discussing how, you know, with our attorney, how to proceed with this, the question came up, so if we don't have the temple building constructed and we're just looking at the use of White's Tavern to be the facility, how much of the facility is the church and what portion of the facility is the residence, thinking that if it's going to be a church, the church would have a bigger
footprint than the living spaces. I'm not sure that the tavern is conducive to that at this point, but that was one of the things that should come into the consideration for our determination of what it is that we are approving.
Fair question. So the site plan would include this other structure and the goal absolutely is to have a second structure. We the White's Tavern by itself would not suffice in the longer term as both a church and a rectory. It's very much a home. And so it's a matter of what is our timeline and get it getting breaking ground and getting the construction going. So I might ask a question from you when you say, know, if you approve a site plan that has a temple, will a temple be built? The answer to that is absolutely yes. Is there a concern about timeline? Do we have to break ground immediately? Is it sort of a, know, within six months? That's the part that I can't 100% guarantee just yet, but maybe once we get into the site planning process, we'll have a little bit more clarity.
Okay, Agent Halsey, I know you went through some extensions to site plans and special permits for our previous discussion there. All I'm familiar with is what our regulations require, and it talks about, you know, if construction isn't completed, I'm thinking it says within a year, you know, the approval is null and void.
Would assume That's two years, but I would like to double Okay, check yep.
But is there a way to extend that in the case of building the second structure on that as well or would you have to go
and get that? I'm going to have to look into that. I don't recall. I would hope that there's some flexibility. I would hope so too.
I would like to point out one issue. I know that folks are looking for as much information as you can. One thing that will in all probability be required by the Department of Transportation is a change of use because Route 6 is obviously a state road. I don't have any reason to believe that's prohibitive. Just don't throw it out there.
And what was that, Jim? You said a change of use? Change of use from
the either the state traffic Commissioner DOT. I would assume when it would be required. Okay. To operate a religious.
Jed, they have they they have an actual application in right now or just a plan? There is no application. This is the pre NDA The plan is a temple has a temple written on it. I saw that. Right? Yes. Yep. So I mean right now if they took the temple off of that, all we would be is okaying is the use as a residence for the three monks and at a later date they could come back and give us another drawing with maybe an application when they're ready to do the rest of it.
But I'm sure that they would like before they invest in the property to understand that we would be favorable to having, you know, they don't want to go move into the tavern and then find out they can't build the temple there. They want to know, you know, I think that they're good to go for the whole plan. And again, there's got to be flexibility that we can build in that somehow with extensions, everything gets built in a day, but. Right, yeah.
I mean, residential use is currently a use of right right in the business section of the zoning regs, which is any structure in existence or any residence in existence at the time of adoption of this reg, which is circa 1970 or sometime in the seventies, is a use of is a use of right. It's not a nonconforming use. It is a use of right. They certainly have enough property so.
Yep. I don't see any reason why a temple couldn't be built there but if it's a big hang up tonight.
Nope, I agree with you Scott. Patrick, did you have any further slides that you wanted to go through with us? Let me just share the last slide.
Yeah, I think we've touched on most of it. I think the other questions, maybe we've touched on all these already, but would there be any additional or specific requirements because of educational activities? We would have some classes there. It'd be something similar to Sunday school, but also for adults. And I spoke with Jim about this earlier, but there are some smaller sort of accessory structures on the property, which, you know, we don't know the state of that. We don't know whether they're of any use at all. We didn't know whether there would be any problems with removing them, assuming that, you know, we determined to have no use.
Okay. I would like to address you you're asking a number of questions regarding fire marshal, etcetera. I mean, it would fall in building code questions. I mean, this, I assume, would fall under assembly use, which triggers a number of requirements, which I'm not prepared to you know, they fall outside the realm of the commission. But, you know, there certainly there certainly are requirements, and, you know, you're obviously trying to get a better hit you know, a handle on on everything you can here, and that's something an architect is probably in the best position to answer. I try Right. To go to the fire marshal and say without
a plan, you know, and say what are the requirements. Yep.
Again, those are all good questions and yes, the answer to all of them is probably yes. We've got requirements for all those things. But again, it's all fairly straightforward. Don't understand.
Anything that would come as a surprise to you that and so that's all secondary. Yes, you're going to have to go through all these issues here, again, as far as the big picture of living in the tavern and building a temple, I can see nothing that gets in the way other than picking the path you want to follow to get there.
Right, and so that leads me on to, I guess the last question is, in terms of picking a path, should we do that in consultation with a land planner and perhaps in conversations with zoning agent Jim? Is that the best way forward for us? I'm assuming today you're not going to decide on what the whether it should be a church or an adapter for use or or one of these other options. You're going to need a surveyor,
a wetlands guy, and then an engineer to engineer your whole plan, know. But it's like Jed said, it's not going to be a big deal. These are all standard things that we deal with every meeting.
So with that, and I know one of the questions was, so what is the way ahead? Generally, we wait, so you put in an application and then the Commission would normally come out and we do a site visit to look around to see what you're talking about. And then if we have to have a public hearing, there's a time limit between the submission of the application and public hearing. If there is not a public hearing required, then we've got another time limit on that that we would go through. But it's a matter of, you know, several months, I would say two to four months process, you know, depending upon whether the public hearing is in there to get an answer. And again, the answer is not going to be no. We might have to negotiate some changes so that we can get to yes. But that should all be doable. Can't see anything that would prevent us from getting there. If you said you didn't want to install a sprinkler system in the temple, that might be your showstopper. Think you would be inclined to put in the sprinkler system to protect the attendees, and that would be the answer to that one. So I think, you know, all of the applications have a little give and take in it, but generally we get to the desired outcome to the satisfaction of everybody. I would think we could in this case as well. You very much. So do you have any other questions? Do you have any other questions for us before we let you go? Have a Yeah, question,
go for it, Vanessa. Yeah, okay. So a couple of questions. Site plan approval, do we have to meet your section 23, basically full blown site plans, signed by a licensed land surveyor and a PE. Is that the way you.
That is yes, with the project of this size, there's a lot of significance to building a temple. It's not like if we were to put a shed in somebody's backyard, we might not go through all 57 items in there. If there are things in that checklist, and there's a checklist of, you know, 57 things that the site plan approval or special permit application form that you don't think you should have to go do, that's where you go and discuss that with agent Halsey. And then, you know, he yes or no based on that and, you know, he comes to sell the Commission on why he thinks he agrees with you that you don't need to do that. So there's probably some things in there that you wouldn't have to do, but we would be looking for a fairly professional application to come in that we would be acting on.
One last question. For the site plan approval, is there a public hearing and who makes that decision?
If we feel that we need to have a public hearing, the Commission has the right to hold one. There is not a public hearing required for a site plan approval. Right.
If you take a path that like, if you look under the historic preservation section and going out on a limb a little bit here, it talks about there are ways to have a special permit in the historic sites that is different than what would be normally expected for that business zone. We could do that with special permit. The church is a function that is authorized for site plan approval in the business zone. So right off the top of my head, I am guessing that we don't have to have a public hearing, but we might choose to have one based on what we see the site plan looking like and whether or not we thought there was concern about the neighbors and that sort of thing. But that's something not required, might be warranted based on the application that we see that comes in. But you have no neighbors, which is really good. Yes.
Thank you. Any other questions for the commission before we let you go?
No, thank you so much for having us. If all of this works out, even though we may not have adjacent neighbors, we're sort of hopeful that we'll be good neighbors to everyone in Andover. Whatever plans we come up with, they'll be very thoughtfully done and intentional with sort of a long term view as opposed to something done shoddily in the short term, because we've sustained our monks and our community is thriving and we're sort of doing well as it is and this will just be sort of a much needed next stage for all of us. So thank you. Thank you, Jed and thanks, Jim. Thanks all of you.
Thanks for the presentation. Of course. Look forward to working with you. It was very good. Take care.
Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The next item under new business is a report discussion item, blight citation ordinance. And Jim, you were going go through that?
Yes. Town meeting the other night with a number of ordinances, I believe 17 of them, possibly more, one of which was a revision to the existing light ordinance specific changes included redefining what felt underneath. Blight. And it included trees and dead trees and it expanded sort of the definition of junk to include a lot of things that just simply don't work. In addition, there's actually the ability to cite for the light enforcement officer, who happens to be me, to cite folks, and impose fine, a fine. This involves a public hearing officer be appointed, which could overrule any citation. What I wanted to point out is that this is sort of I I don't have a lot of information on this. I I sort of brought in towards the end, but my understanding is this is potentially a precursor to using the citation mechanism for things, such as weapons, and actually violations issued by the state police officer on town roads. Think what I understood it to be representative was that, what it's like we wanted to just kind of feel it out and see how it was working before they expanded the citation ability of or the application of the citation. That's about all I have, but I'd be happy to answer any questions if I can.
Any questions for Jim on the Blight Ordinance or the citation process?
Hi, this is Leanne. I just have a couple comments. Go ahead, Leanne.
Jim, that's interesting. That's the first time I've heard that expressed that way about what you just said about some of the other items in town. Just so other people know, a couple of comments about this in general and the whole process. I was at the town meeting and spoke against this ordinance. Jed and Jim were there. I don't know if any of the rest of the members or alternates were there and I didn't see you or haven't met you yet. For a couple of reasons, just for your information, I think that this ordinance is overkill. I said that in my remarks, did speak out at the town meeting. A couple of the selectmen for a couple of reasons. It's such a small town. I think this kind of thing could be handled on a case by case basis, which I also said at the meeting. In addition, a couple of the selectmen spoke out in reference to a specific property in town
that they want to have quote teeth on quote, which was their word to address. That might be fine except that we already have an abandoned building ordinance. If that was their concern, I don't know if it would fall under that or not, but they did set a specific property, that they wanted to use forward, but obviously it's not just that property, it would be anybody in town. And again, I think it's just too much. Another thing I want to mention is that this commission was not brought in on this. So as some of all of you know, we put forth a proposed flight ordinance several years ago. It was pretty soundly defeated at a public hearing. And I don't think that we were this was on our agenda that we were consulted since the Selectmen started this process over the summer. I listened to one of their meetings, I believe it was May. Scott, I don't know if you remember which meeting was which, but, another selectman brought up a certain property in town, not the one I was just referring to that had a hole in the roof and he had a concern about that being a safety issue. And then somewhere along the line, this draft ordinance, which was passed came about. I don't if it came from, you know, the town attorney. It came from somewhere. So just so you know, those are my concerns
and observations.
The whole ordinance and all the ordinances were drafted by our attorney. Okay.
And they were drafted, this particular ordinance was drafted because the ordinance that we have now has no teeth and we have liens on different properties in town and it still doesn't do anything And they needed to get something so that we could get some of these properties straightened out in town.
No. I read the advantage, property ordinance today and I don't have it up on my screen now, but is there no mechanism right now for the zoning enforcement offered officer to actually accomplish anything other than.
Oh, they send them letters, they sent them letters, Leanne and they and I'm pretty certain that a couple different properties owe the town. The town has liens now on those properties and they're still not doing anything with them. So, you know we needed to do something to get some teeth and be able to try to straighten out these properties once and for all.
Well, I mean, for explaining that. Again, I think it just appears to me that again, a couple of things. One, the commission wasn't consulted and two, we I'm not sure why the select matter that we'll call it the town can't address this. Again, don't know the whole legal process, but can't address this without having ablite ordinance that applies to the whole town. I understand you have to have somewhere to start from.
I guess I know what's coming up with Yeah. Places in Townley and that have, could have done something with the last ordinance and you know you send letters to everyone and nobody does anything. Jim you know that John Valenti sent out a bunch of letters sent them all fines and they still don't do anything.
Is there anything in the statutes that lets us have some more again with or without a blight ordinance when letters are sent out by the zoning enforcement agent? No. I don't know of any.
Don't know if any. It falls to civil litigation bringing the town attorney. Yeah. But the citation That's allows what happens? Yeah. The citation ordinance bypasses that. Sorry. It bypasses what?
The need for litigation. The need to draw bring the town attorney into into the process. I I'm not saying that they wouldn't ever be drawn in, but but on they don't need to be, you know, on a simple case by any means.
Okay. Well, thanks again. I guess my only other comment is I'm not sure. I I appreciate what Jim just said about the difference between litigation with a town attorney and bypassing that, but I guess my only other comment is I'm not sure why that wasn't addressed in 2017 under the building ordinance. I understand that that's not exactly the same thing as a flight ordinance, but again it's that's just.
The other ordinance only addressed, you know, actually safety issues with structures and people getting in them that addressed the roofs and making sure that all the windows and doors were closed off, the roofs were covered over, it was more like a safety thing.
The way I saw it Leanne was that the previous blight ordinance, we were not successful. And I'm not 100% sure that we've got enough teeth in the one that we just crafted. We'll have to see how it goes. But there are certainly a couple of places that should be addressed. And I think we need to I know the, I think it was Jeff Murray or maybe Adrian was talking about, we're trying to crawl, walk, run. You know, we're trying something out here to see how it goes and then build on that, you know. But there's a couple of places around town that I'd be happy if we had success, we at least have to have a framework so that we can handle each of those cases on a case by case basis. I don't think, you know, the average person in the town has got to be overly concerned about overreach. I could be wrong on that. And that's why we have that other process by if you think that you have been cited in error, there's a process by which you as the property owner can go and have somebody hear your case and give you a chance to make your case and resolve that. I thought it was okay, but it's kind of like we put some lake regs into effect. I know there were some people who thought the lake regs were too strict. My concern is that they're not strict enough, and we're going to have to go make them more strict because I'm not sure that they're having the desired effect yet. And it's going to take a while before we figure that out, but
I thought it was an okay step forward.
Okay, well, said what I was gonna say. Thanks. Okay.
I'm going to move on. And hopefully this won't take too long. The next item on the agenda is proposed amendments to the zoning regulation. And Abby, if you can allow me to share my screen. You should be able to now.
Okay. And now, if I was on no, I don't think I can split screen and share and get two documents up at once. But I think I sent everybody should have seen this little table with what I was proposing that we change. And I don't want to shortchange the discussion at all. I can certainly, I guess, so everybody's got this. I've got a copy in front of me. What I will do, unless somebody has a better idea, is I'm going to call up the markup copy of the regs and just scroll through the different articles. And we can talk about what we changed and why. Some of them are very easy. Most of them are pretty easy. So I don't think it'll take too long. I just thought I could share two screens at once and I think that's certainly beyond my capability at this point. So we're going to try.
Jed, if I could suggest most of these seem to be, you know, administrative really, not material changes. Would it make sense to just go over the ones that have a material impact?
Well, yes. We'll do some of that. And so I'm going start out with 4.9.2. And this is, you know, in the definition of rear lot, I changed the word wick to frontage. Very minor change and probably, as Steve just said, not worth saying a lot about. What I am concerned about, and any of you folks that can back me up just a little bit, is you're reviewing through the regs. If you see someplace else in here, I didn't change very many places to talk with the frontage, only two. And I thought I would have to do more than that. And I'm
trying to make sure that when we have the next contentious discussion about if a lot's the right shape or not, that I've got all the corrections made because we wanted to go with frontage. I'll say no more on that. I won't say anything about four eleven(two) that just got rid of the little c because there is no c to make that correct. I'm going to go down to 10.7 here. Let's see. Because the first one was what we were talking about. We wanted to do to get frontage. The second thing we wanted to do was not be building in the flood prone district. And so, down here, we in Hendy Road, we had somebody who wanted to build a house in a flood prone district. They went to the zoning board of appeals who
they argued while our regulation did not allow building in the flood prone district, if you look here under specific standards for residential construction, it talked about new construction. So if it said new construction, obviously that meant you should be able to build in flood prone district. We talked about this as a commission afterwards, and we thought that we did not want people to build in the flood prone district new construction houses. So I just crossed that out. Now, if you've already got a house in the flood prone district and you want to improve it, you can do that and there's some rules you need to follow. But the Commission conveyed to me that we thought that we didn't want new construction being built in the flood prone district. Is there any comment on that particular point at this time?
My thought is, I'm looking at that, the next one, number two, is manufactured homes. That would be also a new construction if that came in. So is that something that needs to be changed also? Well, and that is why I eliminated that whole paragraph.
Because as you just said, if it's a manufactured home, that would be a new construction thing. Since we weren't going to permit new construction in a flood prone zone, I just got rid of that whole paragraph. I didn't realize that whole paragraph there. Yep, so we got rid of that one. And then I tried to repaginate the different numbers here, and I'm going to save that for Abby to do because I worked on it longer than I did the rest of these changes and couldn't get the different numbers to line up there. So that was that for me. But that was the change that we wanted to make on the flood prone zone was to eliminate the ability to build a new construction house. And I think we've done that. I'm going to move on to our little chart. And all I did here was I crossed out width and I put frontage.
And there were a couple of different places where we do need width, like when we get into the rear lots in that, but that is covered elsewhere in all of these different things going down through here were frontage along the road, and I thought frontage was the right term to put in there. So that is that change.
Jed, I believe April also needs to be locked with change to furniture.
Okay, we'll go back to that after we get down to the end, And if I forget, and I just marked it down on my sheet, remind me and we'll go back and do that. Thank you. The next couple are changes that I wanted to discuss based on our kennel discussions. And that's So, of the commission members may have been a little confused at the last meeting. I know I was, not everything was really clear. When we came to the meeting, I thought I had a good rationale for not holding a public hearing based on the fact that we had a public hearing before. Our attorney didn't tell me whether or not he agreed with my rationale, but he said, here's my rationale. If we went through the special requirements and what to do the application procedure, it didn't talk about holding a public hearing or having a special permit in here like it did in a B kennel or a Charlie kennel.
Even though I said, well, up here, it said special permitted uses type A kennel, which to me means special permit. The attorney said, yeah, well, I just read the application procedure and you didn't have to do it for that. And I was happy with the outcome of our discussion. But as I thought about it after, I wasn't sure that I wanted anybody put in a kennel anywhere without a public hearing and the opportunity for the public to weigh in on that. Scott Beebe had 200 acres of land out there in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't concerned, and we had ten years of experience, that he had no complaints about the noise from the kennel with the neighbors. But if we did not make a Class A kennel have a special permit in a public hearing, anybody with three acres or more, no matter where that was at, had the right to have a Class A kennel and put housing for 10 dogs there. I didn't think that was the right way to go. And if somebody were building a kennel next to me, I'd like to have the opportunity to discuss that and weigh in on that to make sure that it wasn't going to bother me too much. So I added the words that were right the same as the B and C kennel. The commission will set a public hearing date in accordance with the provisions of the Connecticut general statutes. So that that would, going forward, the next guy who comes in and says I want a class A kettle, we would have to go with the special permit and we'd have to have a public hearing.
Of the Commission members have any comments on that thought process? Okay, I'm going to move down to whoops, 19.1.6, I did something. Oh. Okay, so this talks about parking spots. And it just referenced an article that didn't have anything to do with parking spots. So I said this section, and that was that. So think that makes that workable. Okay, so we're still under the Class A. Commission shall take any such action applicable in accordance with Section 6.2 of these regulations, which talk about the time limits for holding a public hearing, making a decision following the closing of the public hearing, and all that stuff. And nineteen point four three was again changed the reference number to the right thing. Okay, so if there's no other concerns about kennels, I'm going to go down to
the special permit process. And that was the last couple of things that we have not talked about before. Okay, so this said, currently our procedure says that we are going to notify property owners who own adjacent land with certified mail. Our attorney says that's not required and I don't know all the work that Jim has to do to do certified mail, but it makes his life a little easier with the certificate of mailing because of all that. And so I just got rid of that point. If anybody has a concern about that, let me know. But the next one came in to play on an application we did not approve, and our instruction says the Commission shall state on the record the reasons for its action and shall publish notice such actions as required by Connecticut General Statutes. When I was concerned that we failed to do that, the attorney branch said, oh, you shouldn't be doing that anyhow.
Because if we put anything in our minutes about the specific reason for disapproving an application, when we disapprove it and we get challenged in court on that, the judge would only look at the reasons we put in our write up for reasons for refusal to decide whether or not we were correct. If we don't do that, and it's not required by the Connecticut statute that we do, then the judge has to go back and review the entire case to see whether or not we were proper in the determination that we came up to. So that just protects us a little bit so that if we didn't do that and somebody said, well, your procedure says you had to, even though the Connecticut state statute says you don't, then we'd probably lost that for not doing that. So that's the reason that I got rid of that words. Then it's just fine tuning a little bit, but that's what I like to do when we actually use the procedures and we find out there's a little thing in there that's not quite right, we'll keep it down and when we get a bunch of them, we'll go and talk about those. So, there any whoops, yep, so I'm going to go back to 4.9.3. Okay. Each real eye shall comply with all requirements. Yes. So Kevin, you were saying we changed this width to
frontage. Yeah, because the intent is that we're gonna use frontage now instead of lot width, right? Yep.
And I can't correct why I'm on screen this way. And so I will adjust that one and add that to our list there.
And then there's a couple other spots too. The building setback line definition. Do you have an article number on that?
It's down in the definitions for building setback line. Oh, okay. So under section 23 or whatever? Yeah.
Any other definitions back there, Kevin? So then would we be removing the lot with definition and adding a frontage definition?
I will go and look somewhere. I'm not sure of the answer on that. And we wrestled with frontage seemed intuitively obvious to me until it isn't. But when we were working on the Pine Ridge application, because it was a very small driveway back there, you know, we concluded that frontage had to be as measured at the road. So if you got a little curvature in there, it's not just the distance between the two parallel sides of the driveway. You've got it a little bit bigger frontage because it's distance alongside the road. That definition is in here someplace. And it agreed with what we came up with. I just can't tell you where it is right this minute. And I don't want to remove the width definition because as we talked to Attorney Branch going through this, he said, maybe you want to have width and frontage. Both of them there, yep. For odd Yeah, gauge
because if you have a lot on a skew, then you could have someone with a 45 degree skewed frontline and then they have a ton of frontage, but very little, but then, you know,
of the width. Now, it turns out, there is a lot that is just like that that's for sale on Lake Road right now, right where, no, Lakeside Drive meets School Road. It's got a lot of frontage because it goes around a very pronounced curve, and then it goes back to a point in the back. So it's got a lot of frontage, goes to a point. And I haven't really decided, well, that's an existing lot, so it doesn't make any difference. But if we were to change the rules so that when we're designing lots, we make them all rectangles. Or should we allow a funny shaped lot?
Or should we make our regs require rectangles and somebody goes to the zoning board of appeals if they wanted to, you know, they had a piece of property that didn't make that, they could go to the zoning board of appeals, state their hardship, and maybe get a variance. Anybody got any comments on that one way or the other?
I think it would be incredibly difficult to do pure rectangles. I think it's got to some compromise.
And that's why I was going to leave the definition of lot width in our regulations. And I wasn't I didn't feel smart enough to act on that one way or another. I knew we wanted frontage requirements, but I wasn't sure we wanted to get rid of all the width discussion there. And maybe give us a little flexibility.
Okay. At first, I thought your intention was to swap, to get rid of it completely and just Nope. I just want to put a frontage requirement on all the lots that we design
or applicants come and propose. Got it. So that's what I'm trying to do there.
Good. Can I just suggest that we keep in mind that we have the open space subdivision provision, which really encourages flexibility, which I really think you wouldn't want to lock into a rectangular lock?
Well, it wouldn't have, yes. I hear what you're saying. And if you had a huge lot, like a seven acre lot, it can be just about any shape you want. You've still got adequate frontage and width. But as we have not wrestled with that in any kind of negative fashion yet, I think our if we incorporate frontage for all of our lots, that was the only intent I had to do. That was my only intent at this point. So, so that's what I did.
In the space requirements chart, would you want to have a, add a column so that you had width and frontage listed in that?
I, We may go that way. I wasn't ready to have that discussion yet. That's fair. Next piece is I was going to wait until we had a public hearing for some other reason. There's nothing that says we can't hold a public hearing in November and get all these changes. I'm not sure there's anything so significant that we need to have these changes implemented soon. But my general thought would be once a year, we go through the list of all the little changes that we've discovered through the years' worth of operations and make a bunch of administration stuff, which is what I think we really got here. Anybody got any thought on that? Should we go to public hearing next month or should we wait until we have an opportunity
for another one coming along? I have a comment.
Ahead, There is a notification requirements of both budding towns and regional planning agencies or council governments. And I believe it's sixty days or sixty five days.
I think you're right. For zoning changes. I don't know where that is written down, but I remember that we struggled with that on the Lake Ranch.
Yeah, it's writing statutes. And the other thought I have is, if it's very possible that the subdivision regs allude to specific sections of the zoning regs, which would have to be changed in conjunction with the zoning changes.
I'm not sure that I changed anything here that would carry Yeah, I will look. I will look.
Yeah, take a look. And if there's something there. So I guess my takeaway is we will not take any action on this tonight. But I've got all these. I will add a couple that Kevin mentioned. Jim, I know you were talking at one point about trying to take the fees out of our regulations because they're all wrong. And if we get a list of those, we can add to this and do it. I don't want to go through the administrative burden of notifying the additional adjacent towns and the capital region and all that stuff for little changes when we should be waiting until we have a bunch. But I know there's been some desire to get the frontage and the flood prone zone updated. So I went off and did that and
we'll head on down our merry way. Thank you for doing that too, Jay.
You're welcome, Scott. Thank you for being that little pride to keep me honest. Okay, well, so I think that's all we'll do here. And I will update a couple of things that we talked about. Jim, if you find other things, take a look at the subdivision regs. And we'll talk about it again next month to any additions or corrections. And then we'll send it off to do whatever reviews that you need to have the other folks do before we take it to public hearing. At some point, after we're happy with it, I'll run it by our attorney too, just so he gets a cut. And yeah, I really thought we were gonna have sign regs to talk about and we do it all with the public hearing for the sign regs. But anyhow, we do have a start there. I'm going to stop sharing for now. Next item on the agenda is approval of the regular meeting for calendar year 2022. Okay. So, was what I put together and I followed the current what our bylaws say is we'll meet on the third Monday of the month. As this past year, January and February, the third Monday is a federal holiday, and so I moved the date to the fourth Monday. I stuck with Mondays because Monday for me is town meeting day. Inland Wetlands meets on Monday, we meet on Monday, a lot of other Monday meetings, and so I keep my calendar clear of Mondays for nothing but town meetings. That doesn't mean we can't change the bylaws and do something different if this is a hard spot for anybody. But this is what I was looking at for the coming year. I guess the only other month that's worth noting is, again, just like this year, we've got a planning and zoning meeting on Monday before Thanksgiving.
And I think that's better than the Monday after Thanksgiving, so I left that as it was. Any comments on that schedule? Okay,
hearing none, I'll make a motion to approve the schedule as posted. I'll second that. Okay. Thanks, Scott. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any
opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries five-zero-zero. Okay, the next item is the Planning and Zoning Commission endorsement of the multiuse path along Route 316. And I sent out this presentation The town has been working on and went to in Abby, I forget what was that presentation we had that Saturday afternoon? It was by Sustainable CTE Committee.
Right. And so there were a bunch of people that talked about a lot of different things going on. Ed, what's Ed's last name? Jerisling.
Talked about, he gave, went through this presentation that I sent out to all of you. I won't go through it in detail now. Ed offered to come to the meeting tonight and walk us all through it. I told him I didn't think that would be necessary. Anybody who's ridden a bike or walked along 316 with those curves there, you know, to try and connect, whether it's you're coming off the rail trail, the Center Street to get across to, you know, the ball fields on the other side of Route 6. You know, if you do any riding on Route 316, you know that's not a good deal. And Eric Anderson is trying to submit a grant that would get some funding because it's fairly expensive for a portion of Route 316 to have a little multiuse path away from the road so you don't have to be on that. So here's the letter that I was going to submit on behalf of the Commission saying that we supported that plan. We've been working on it for over forty years trying to get all the streets so that it's more than just cars driving on it, that people can safely bike and walk and hike around town with the ultimate goal to kind of connect
the East Side Of Route 316 with the West Side Of Route 316 and have a little community center in there and it connects up safely. So that's what I drafted. I just thought I would run it through the Commission and get any feedback from you folks on that before I send it off to Eric to support his trying to get a grant.
Okay. You want a motion for that? I do want a motion for that then. Yep, Scott. I motion to approve the letter from Planning and Zoning Commission to approve the multi use plant track along Route 316. Second.
Thank you, Steve. Any other discussion before we vote? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And the motion carries five-zero-zero. Okay. Now I'll stop share. Next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from our meeting of 09/20/2021. And I will make a motion that the meeting minutes from 09/20/2021 be approved. Looking for a second. I'll second it.
That was you, Scott? Yep. Okay, thank you. Any discussion on the minutes? I guess my only discussion on the minutes and I didn't look real hard, Abby, but I could not find even a typo going through there. I thought very nicely done. Thank you.
And with that, I'll call for a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? This is Leanne. I abstain. Okay.
And the motion passes five-zero-one with Leanne abstaining. Next item on the agenda is correspondence. Jim, we have anything there? No. Okay. Going on to administrative reports enforcement actions.
Pretty busy in the building office, a lot of construction going on this time of year. A lot of accessory structures, lot of building and trying to come to grips with the new permitting program and looking at perhaps new staff, a new hire in the very near future. Enforcement, to work with Mr. Steve Barnett on Route 6. He's moved some things, but now he's looking at the, and I have not brought him to the new blight ordinance to his attention as of yet, will certainly cover some few of the items he has out there in front of his property. Other than that, I just I'm open to questions.
How do you think that new permitting system is working, Jim?
It it's difficult to I mean, part of the problem is well, I I think it'll work fine. I just haven't figured it out. I don't work with it enough. You really have to work with something like this regularly. I think it'll work out fine in the long term. Just or just short term, it's it's a little problematic for me, but I'll get over it. Yeah. I think it's a good idea. I think it was a good decision, as much as I hate to say that.
Any other questions for Jim? Hearing none, I'll move on to item 11, Commission discussion and miscellaneous. And I'll start out with one miscellaneous topic that I started talking to Jim about that back in June, we approved a six month extension to the gravel pit operation. Oh, yes. So I started thinking that I hadn't seen a lot of activity going on over there recently, and maybe we should start working on the extension again. And I'm going to let Jim discuss what conversation he's had with Chris
Bell. Yes. I should have brought this up and I forgot quite honestly. I did have a brief discussion with Chris Bell, the engineer for, Genervisis, the owners of the gravel pit. And they were at one point looking at extending the removal of gravel, closer to the the gas station, but needed permission from the owner and could not find him. I think he's for whatever reason. So they just basically dropped out of it. But I was assured that they had a new operator there, a new removal contractor, and that they would plan to be done in a three week time period. If you looked at your report that was actually just posted today, believe. I believe two or three loads were removed last week. But nonetheless, somebody is back on-site. And I was told is if they're not done by within their allowed time period, they're just not gonna remove they're just gonna leave it as is. That does not take into account the remediation. So I will
be in contact with with them regarding that. I mean, had right now, I believe they have until the end of December. They had a six month extension from the end of from July 1.
Right. Because they said that they were gonna bring it to the to one grade. Right.
I think concern as a commission is that when we started down the path of allowing the gravel pit there, we had an understanding of what the site would look like when it was restored. And if there is some thought that that's not what the applicant intends to do, you know, we should be hearing from Chris Bell so that we can start on that discussion on what he does think is going to be and how we get him to make it look like what he said he was going to do.
Okay. I I will speak to him this week and and make sure he's he's got our November meeting on his calendar. Okay. Jim? Yes.
This is Leanne. Could you repeat did you say that they they can't locate, if that's the word you used, the actual owner? Or we had discussed in the past that there's somebody whether or they're there, you know, five days a week, kind of oversee the property. Which person is it that they couldn't locate?
It's the owner of the property with the guest. It's Marshall Martin who owns the the property upon which the extra month sits.
Okay. So he still owns the whole thing for for what we're concerned with? Well,
no. Marsh Marshall Martin sold the the auto parts facility to the Genovese. Right. But he retained ownership to the property upon which the extramarate sits. And the gravel pit was purchased from merits by Genesis.
Okay. So Marshall Martin just owns the property where the Extremart is? Correct. And so what is the
And over auto parts and the all the excavation area that's been under under this topic all this time? Can you say that again?
So Marshall Martin owns the Extramart location. Correct. I'm I'm I'm asking you. And then He owns the land. Leases own Andover Auto Parts and the area where the excavation is.
Yes. They purchased it sometime before they came in with the application.
And so why do they have to get ahold of Marshall Martin?
Because, well, I think it's in our regulations. Well, Chris seemed to think that he needed his permission if he went within 50 feet of his property line. Quite frankly, I didn't look it up. I was going to wait until I found out if they he didn't seem to think he was going get ahold of Marshall, so I didn't get around to it. I figured if he did, then I would look it up.
Okay. So Jim, are you saying that just to backtrack for a second, they've taken out x amount of travel or something and then they don't they haven't taken out more now to remediate. Was that the question? Because they haven't reached Marshall Martin?
No. They would have needed Marshall Martin's permission to expand to to take out more than they originally had approved. It would have required a modification to the plan.
Okay, so it would be to take out more, not less?
Correct. Okay, thanks. It was the 50 feet. It was the materials sitting within 50 feet of his property.
Okay, so I guess I said the same thing in two different ways, but you answered that. Alright, thanks. So so Jim, they're they're saying that there's gonna be a mound
left there. If unless Marshall Martin gives the permission to remove it? Yeah.
Yes. That's how I understand you. I will take another look at the plan.
That I don't think that anybody on the commission would have ever would have ever thought that it wasn't ever gonna be anything but at one level.
Yeah. I I understand what you're saying, and and you're right. I mean, it it
doesn't make sense. We're gonna be leaving a little peak in one spot there.
And that's the other thing that doesn't make sense is he's concerned about modifying the permit to take moreover by the Extramart. We want him to just remove that big mound of material he's got out there like he said he was going to do. Just want him to execute
the permit that he's got. It wasn't that he was looking for the He was looking to provide a more complete marketable site. It wasn't really the additional material they were looking at. But yes, and he's well aware that we do have to he does have to bring it back to the commission to alter that tension plan which was discussed.
Where did this ever come up that about the 50 feet? Who brought He that
called me up last week and he just said he might be looking at the possibility of it.
He can't find a buyer, is that the only reason you think for that material?
No, no, no, no, no, no. Was looking at the possibility of extending the excavation 50 feet further. I mean, I did not go back and look at the plan at that point in time. He just said he would get back to me and
I'm gonna have to look at the plan now that these questions are raised. Because I would have thought that the 50 foot thing would have the first person that would have brought it up was the Planning and Zoning Commission, not not the s actual excavator. Right? I mean, would, I wouldn't think that he would take all the material he could. Right. So something's amiss.
And that's why I think we need Chris Bell to come. I will refresh Refresh my my to the six month extension. With respect to the plan and the regulations.
We we wouldn't have approved leaving a mountain in the front of there, certainly.
Yeah, now they mentioned it doesn't make sense. I didn't question it when he brought it up. I just kind of was waiting to see what. What he was gonna do, what he planned to do and I and. And he would be here. If that would. If you plan to move forward. But we have what $25,000 of their money. I believe so. Yeah, so that'll do it.
Okay, so we'll put the gravel pit discussion on the agenda for the November meeting. Can I ask any other questions? Yep, go ahead, Leanne.
Scott or Jim, or probably Jim, is this mound that we're talking about, is this something that's already there that that he he's brought up, or is it something that they've moved soil or gravel or what have you?
This property is and created this. No. It's existing. It it was not created by the by the exclamation process of the operation.
Okay. So we're gonna leave it that you're gonna try to have a discussion with Chris Bell?
Well, I will, and it will also I will have him attend the next meeting and have him clarify what he's looking for. Do you have there when the extension is up?
I believe it's the end of December. It's six months from July 1.
And it was for August, September, October for six months?
Yeah, we voted on that at the June meeting, June 21.
Okay. So we wanna make sure that things are proceeding the way that we want. Yes.
Leanne, that would the 50 feet would probably leave some of that peak there. It's not that wouldn't look very nice.
Yeah, I think you're right Scott, I think it is a new issue.
It is, we wouldn't have approved it I'm sure they told That's us why I'm questioning why he's saying something about 50 feet where he even came up with that.
Right, our expectation was that the lot would be level. Exactly.
And so now, you know, I'm hearing maybe that's not true, time to get Chris Bell back here to help us understand what it is he's thinking the way ahead is. Go from there. Okay, any other miscellaneous topics? Any feedback from the Commission for me on how we go through the different items and that sort of thing? Are we doing that in a reasonable manner? I know tonight we referenced no procedures. Last month, we referenced lots of procedures. I think we didn't have reason except maybe, you know, should we have looked at a couple of the things that where the requirements come from that the Pine Ridge development, you know, has to come back to us so that everybody's clear on that? What's the thought on how we're doing on going through the meetings? Too much, too little, just right?
I think that every application we should go over some of the regulations, how they're written to show everybody exactly how we come upon these answers.
Okay, yeah, I agree with that. And I think we didn't have any applications really to go through the procedures with tonight, so we kind of got a buy on that. But I know discussions with some of the members, after we think we're doing that, you're not totally, well, none of us are totally familiar with the procedure yet, but sometimes we still go through them too fast to make sense. So, I would encourage each of the Commission members to, you know, ask questions as we're going through on why we're doing different things. And hopefully, Jim or I will always have an answer, even if it's I don't know. We'll try and do better than that, but that's that. So, I think we're pretty much on target then. I guess anybody from the public left here that wants to talk? I think everybody else has gone away. So I move that we adjourn. Can we have a second? Second. Second. Any opposed? And I appreciate all the members showing up tonight. We got everybody but Susan here and the attendance has been very good. I know sometimes it may not be all that as exciting as we hammer through all this different stuff, but I think it's important to the town and I appreciate Abby's great job on getting the minutes and all that stuff documented as we continue on our merry way. So with that, I thank you all for participating.
And so long and we'll see you in November, the Monday before Thanksgiving, whatever day that happens to be. Which day was that, Scott? Good night. Good night. That's a good day. Okay. Good day, everybody. Yep. Good night. Thanks, Jed.