Meeting transcript
Planning and Zoning Commission - Public Hearing & Regular Meeting
March 21, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
This meeting is being recorded.
Okay. So I've got 07:00. And at this point, I will open the public hearing. And the public hearing is to address soliciting comment on the application of 580 Lake Road. The applicant seeking a site plan approval for a permitted use in an industrial zone. So Abby, if you can allow me to share my screen.
Yep, hold on just a second. All right, you should be able to.
Before we start tonight, I wanted to go through just a couple of things from our regulations because we are not required to hold a public hearing with respect to this application. And I wanted to run through our regulations so that people had a little bit of an understanding of why. And if your screen looks like mine, you're probably covering up some of the words over on the right hand side. But what it says is down here in the second paragraph, site plan review requirements must meet all criteria, excluding public hearing requirements. However, the commission may hold a public hearing regarding any site plan submission if it should, circumstances warrant such hearing. And I thought that there would be some interest in what was going on. And so I wanted to hold a public hearing so that the people could understand what was coming to town, get a chance to ask questions of the applicant, and understand that while we can be interested, the Commission, you know, when it comes time to act on the application, it's not a question of we like this plan or we don't like this plan. It's a permitted use because we didn't need to have a public hearing with a special permit. And so if the applicant meets the requirements of our regulations, we are bound and obliged to approve the application. So that's the way that that works. It makes no difference, you know, how we feel as commission members about the application itself. It just, it has to meet our requirements and that's
what we're looking for. So if we go down here and it says that it's permitted, any of the uses permitted under section eight, which we'll get to in a minute, are permitted by site plan review. So section eight takes us back to the, I think it's business, business or yeah, business zone. So the retail store is we will see is permitted under the business zone and in the industrial zone, those those permitted. Businesses are are by right allowed to. Bill. Bill. So that section nine. Bill. Backing up to section eight, use is permitted by site plan review in the business zone. Then you come down here, retail sales with a completely enclosed building. And so that's what the application is. That gives them the right to do it. And we'll go, so that's our starting point on what the Planning and Zoning Commission will be looking to when we make our determination on that. Not the least of it.
When we get to the public comment portion of the hearing, if you wish to provide a comment to the Commission, I would ask that you provide your name and address for the record. Is the applicant has a legal right to get what they seek if the regulations are satisfied? Comments should be informational directed toward the criteria of the regulations. And I see there's a fair number of people here tonight. So, you know, I'm hoping that, well, we will give everybody a chance to have their say. I would ask that you try to keep your comments to two minutes or less. Anne Cremay will be keeping the time tonight. If you start to get to the two minute point, she'll let you know. So hopefully you can wrap that up. But we want to make sure that we have plenty of opportunity for everybody that wants to comment to be able to do so. You saw that we're recording the session, so it will be on the record. Please mute yourself if you're not speaking, a lot of people on the line and background noise can get a little excessive. Any questions that you have, please direct those to me and if I think they need to go to the applicant, I readdress them that way, but you should ask your questions of me when we get to the comment point. And I'd ask you to please be respectful. I guess that goes without saying. So at this point,
I'd like to turn the presentation over to the applicant. And I think Matt, will you be addressing?
Yes, Mr. Chairman, can you hear me? I can. So
if you can run through your application rather quickly, I would ask that you focus on characteristics of the building, the parking lot, and I think that's where most of the interest will lie. I know that we got a lot of information from you today that I have not had a chance to go through, and I don't think the other commission members are even aware that we got it yet and have it now posted. But if, you know, one of the big concerns as we talked about was the traffic study. I know we've got that now, 90 some pages, so I didn't get a chance to review that thoroughly today. But if you wanna give us a brief overview on the traffic patterns going in and out of the store in addition to the building, that would be great.
So Matt, take it away.
Absolutely, Chairman. Yep. So for the record, again, my name is Matthew Bruton. I'm an engineer from BL Companies. We are headquartered at 355 Research Parkway in Meriden, Connecticut. Do I have the ability to share the screen? It looks like I do. Okay. Hold on. K. Can everybody see my screen? Yes. I got a thumbs up. Thank you. Yep. Okay. So, mister chairman, I'll just I'll do a a few minutes just a a high level overview like I did last time. We do have our traffic engineer here who can give you a quick overview of the traffic study because I know it is a thick book. And we also have our project architect here as well that could describe the characteristics of the building. So we'll start off here with the plan that you see in front of you. This is the subdivision plan. This lot was previously subdivided at a prior meeting. Just for orientation, for those of you who have not seen it before, I'll just drew some drawing here. Route 6 is across the bottom of the screen where I'm drawing yellow now, and Lake Road is up on the left hand side of the screen, the second yellow line. This is, currently, a one a little over a one acre lot. I'll just circle it here quickly, in green for everybody. That's created, at the corner of Route 6 and Lake Road. This is formerly one larger lot that was, controlled by the current plumbing business, Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, which is, roughly just, where my hand is circling now.
Just to give you context, as I'm sure you guys are all familiar, this is a vacant parcel. I'm just showing you quickly the aerial image from Google of this plot that we're speaking about, and then jumping over to street view here. In general, this vacant, grassed area is where we're focusing of our projects. In general, just to give you some context, topography runs from, the South to the North. So in general, in this direction, from 298 to 292. And with like as I said, frontage on Route 6 and Lake Road, and there are no wetlands on the property. And then move forward, to the site plan and just zoom in here. So, again, just I'll trace the, trace the the rough green outline of the property. Route 6 still at the bottom of the page, Lake Road still on the left hand side.
So we are proposing a little over a 10,000 square foot single story retail building. It would have 35 proposed parking spaces that conforms with your zoning regulations. We do show two driveway entrances. I'll just circle them roughly here in red. So there's one to Route 6 right here and one to, Lake Road, both full access driveways. Obviously, the Route 6 Driveway is a DOT controlled road, so we would need to, secure an encroachment permit from the DOT. As mentioned by the chairman, they have started their review, and they did request that traffic study, which has been provided to this commission as well. So their review is going on concurrently with this one. I'll just point out some features of this proposed site plan. So as I mentioned, 10 a little over 10,000 square foot building. Main entrance is roughly where I circled in orange,
proposed handicap spaces in the square, and we do show a loading and dumpster enclosure area in this upper right hand corner. Speaking of the improvements to the site, we are complying with your, your zoning regulations in terms of setbacks, building coverage, parking spaces, things of that nature. We are not seeking any variances, to any of your standards. Should I move forward, to the storm water management grading and drainage plan? So as I mentioned, at a prior meeting, because we're increasing impervious area on on the property, we do have to comply with 2004 Connecticut stormwater manual and 2002 erosion and sedimentation control guidelines. The goal of those, guidelines and manuals is to match existing drainage patterns, mitigate peak flows, and provide 80% TSS removal. We're we're we're hitting all of those marks. We're doing that by providing a storm water management system on the property. So that's a series of catch basins with deep sumps and hoods, hydrodynamic separators, underground infiltration system, and these all are depicted on the plan you see in front of you here. I'll just highlight some of those features, some piping, catch basins, underground storm water system. And, again, this will all discharge through six as a site currently does today, without any improvements on board. I'm just gonna move forward to, the utility, utilities plan. All utilities are either available on-site or in the street. So we are proposing a septic system for this facility. I believe the town received some confirmation from the health district earlier today or over the weekend about the adequacy of that system. We are also proposing propane on-site for, for gas, for heat.
Electric and telephone service is available on Route 6, and we will need to provide a well because there is no water service in this area. So it would be a transient noncommunity well, that would be permitted through, through the state, which is ongoing. I move a little bit further forward into the plan set. We do show an erosion and sedimentation control plan, which is the plan that the contractor will need to, adhere to, while major earthwork operations are going on. The goal of this plan is to make sure that any loose soil that is, exposed during a construction operations is not a detriment to any, public street, city street, and and a butter. So, things that the contractor should be able to install and maintain throughout the the life of the construction project are things like a construction out entrance, silt fat sack, silt fence, sediment traps, soil stockpile area, erosion control blankets. The goal of these things is to protect,
as I said, and they should be in place until the state is sufficiently stabilized to the town standards. In addition to that, we are showing a final landscaping plan as part of our set as well. That's a variety of grasses, trees, shrubs to make a visually attractive and inviting property that also complies with zoning. Mister chairman, I know we did receive a handful of comments from the peer review engineer. I'm happy to just quickly move through those if you would like before passing it on to traffic and architecture, if that if that makes sense to you. Yes. Go ahead, Matt.
Okay. Here. Alright. So as I mentioned, the town did forward our application and our plans to Yantic River Consultings, who did a very thorough job, and we responded, to this. So I won't go through every individual comments, but in general, I think we have, replied to all of those, hopefully satisfactory. So one of the items is sign information. So we did provide that on the plans, but I will show you those to you shortly. Another one was in, related to plan areas, so per pervious pervious pavement. Just to point out to the commission and to the public, we are showing, pervious pavement as part of this project. I'll just, go back to the plan here to show you exactly where that is. So, to comply with your coverage requirements and to also help promote groundwater recharge, especially in an area like this, which has decent soils. We are showing a pervious pavement, that will help aid in that condition, when the ground isn't frozen, and then a regular pavement in other areas of the property. So that was a comment related to your peer review engineer. There was also comments related to parking and drainage. One of those was related to the size of parking spaces.
We had shown, spaces that were nine by 20 feet, and and shrank them down to nine by 18, which is the the requirement of your town. So we were going a little bit bigger. But in in regards to trying to reduce impervious area and and comply, we we have made that adjustment on the plan. We do show, parking spaces that are required, between the minimum and maximum for your regulations. And we're also showing the amount that, we we believe is going to be needed for the success of the, of a future business here. Let's see. The another peer review comment was related to the frontage sidewalk on Lake Road. I'll just show you that very quickly. So we were showing I'll just highlight it here in a color so it stands up to everybody. We were showing, the addition of a sidewalk on Lake Road as requested by the town.
Peer review engineer, wished that we would extend this slightly further, to the corner of Route 6 and Lake Road because there is an existing pedestrian crossing mechanism here. It's a ped stop, and I can show you here on a street view just so you guys have a understanding of where that is. This is right to the corner here. So we have, modified the proposed frontage sidewalk to extend, down to that area. As part of that extension, though, there's not enough town property, between the property line and the edge of pavement, as you can see here. I'll just highlight it quickly. This is the property line, and then I will highlight here in blue,
the rough edge of the edge of the road. So there's not enough room to provide that connection without crossing into private property. So the applicant would would would need to provide some, land and an easement for the town to make that connection as requested. Happy to do so. Let me just skim through the rest of these here. Traffic access, peer review engineer asked us to take a look at reducing the width of the, the driveway that connects to Route 6. We did so. So the driveway here shown on the plan is modified for that to, again, reduce some further impervious, but still accommodate the truck turning, movements that are, that are anticipated to support this business. Let me see what else here. There is, some request about a final engineered design for pervious pavement structures. It's been kind of under a prior to building permit. We've acknowledged that, that we will provide that prior to construction. There's also a request that the design engineer oversee the installation and certify that it was constructed substantially in accordance with the design.
We've acknowledged that we will do that as part of the engineering group that will continue on during construction. The same note goes for the subsurface detention system. There's also a request to provide operation and maintenance plan. That was part of our storm water management report. So this is a manual that will be followed by the owner of the property to implement to make sure that the system, operates as we designed it from day one to year two ten fifty, to make sure everything is is working properly. So that is, something that's that's been included as part of this application. I think that really that's that's really the the overall gist, but I can I can obviously certainly dive into deeper ones if anybody has any questions? But,
mister chairman, that's kind of a quick overview of the site plans. I'm I'm happy to answer any questions or just pass it along to our traffic engineer and then architect. Is this the engineer? I guess so. At
this point, Matt, can we pass it over to the person who would be showing us the actual building construction? Absolutely. Doug, are you on the line?
I am, Matt. Yeah. Can you have me pass over the screen sharing to me?
I think so. One second. Yep, I got it. Are you able to you're all set?
Can everyone see my screen? Yes. Can everyone see my screen? Okay, good. Thank you. For the record, my name is Doug Brunner. I'm with the firm of BKA Architects. We're located in Brockton, Massachusetts. We're the architect of record for the project. And, these are the proposed elevations. So I'm going to start in the upper right corner. This is the side that fronts on Lake Road. As the site plan indicated over here, it's a corner entry, so you can actually see the, the, sliding doors are actually dark bronze cladded. The building materials are start with a a low brick base, thin brick base, reddish color, about three and a half feet to about, less than two thirds of the base of the building. And then it jumps up to, the height of the the head of the storefront for the full brick there. And we do have cementitious clapboard, light gray in color, trimmed with cementitious Hardie board, trim as well too. It's white with, verticals and horizontals. We do have some Greek revival detailing, some Greek returns, like exposed rake. We're doing a asphalt shingle for the, gable portion, pewter grain color, and it's adorned with a decorative cupola. We do have
a light gray spandrel fenestration on the sides to, break up the facade. These are spandrel glass, so it's actually a pig, so you're not gonna be able to see inside, due to the use of the building, is retail. Most likely gonna have full height walls in the, in the, on the other side. On the side here, you can see it is a vertical gutter and downspout. I'm sorry, vertical downspout and gutter, which actually collects the, the roof runoff. This line here is angled line here to show the flat roof beyond. I'm going to go down to the lower left corner, and this is the adjacent side that fronts on Route 6. And so this is the other side of the corner entry. And the materials continue. And there's just more fenestration on this, as well as the egress door that's painted the same color as the clapboard. The height of the parapet is high enough, so any rooftop equipment will be screened, majority of the screened. You're just going to see a little bit of them on top there. Popping up here to the opposite side of this, this is actually the rear of the building where you can actually see how the roof drains. It's basically a flat roof beyond, cladded with rubber EDM
roofing. And then you have the horizontal gutter to basically take the entire roof water flow. Then it has these vertical downspouts that connect to a the storm water system. Beyond here, you can actually see more of the trim boards for the gable roof, as well as another view of the cupola. And the last view is the, receiving side. It's not visible from the street, and it's collided with a vertical batten metal panel. And the, two, three zero seven, pair of three zero seven, oh, swing doors for the receiving, painted to match the, the, metal panel. So it's actually, intended to blend in. Here, you can actually see the adjacent gable as well as the vertical EPDM. And again, another view of the shinnel roof.
And that is pretty much the elevations and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you, Doug. I think we'll hold our questions until we get through with your presentation here and then hear what we have for comments from the commission and the public. Sounds good. Thank you.
So, mister chairman, our traffic engineers here is our is our last professional. If you would like to hear from her about the traffic study, if you'd like. If not, we're happy to answer any other questions.
No. I do think, you know, traffic is one of the big concerns here. So if we could get a brief run through on what we expect when we actually look at the report, that would be great.
Okay, I will pass the comment to my colleague Pat then. Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes.
Excellent. For the record, my name is Pat Padla and I am a professional traffic operational engineer as well as professional engineer. For today, I created a quick PowerPoint with few of the major comments. Can you see my screen? Yes. Excellent. So the purpose of the traffic impact study is to determine if the land develop proposal event land development has any impact on the adjacent road roadway network. And if it does, we recommend any type of mitigation that is needed. So for the analysis, we usually perform three scenarios, existing conditions as they are today, no build conditions, which means in the future year without the build without the proposed development, and build conditions with the proposed development. For this particular development, we considered three time frames, where we looked at the morning peak hour, which is between seven and 8AM, afternoon peak hour, weekday afternoon peak hour between four to five p. M. And on Saturday midday, which is your peaking shopping period. So again, this is just a site from a different viewpoint. So when we do the analysis, we look at intersection geometry, traffic control devices such as signal controls and volumes on the roadway. We collected traffic count information in 2022 within the last few weeks, and we also applied an annual growth rate of 1% for future years.
Noble conditions, as I mentioned before, represent the conditions without the project itself. However, they do take into account that one year of growth, which is one percent. We have also discussed that with the we reached out to the Connecticut DOT as well as the town to find out if there are any other projects in the area that we should consider in the traffic report, and there were none. So that said, we utilize ITE trip generation manual that provides us with potential proposed trips generated by the proposed development. In this instance, we're looking again at AM peak period, PM, and Saturday. So the development, the proposed development with the square footage of 10,000
square feet generates about 25,000 trips in the morning. That's 14 entering and 11 exiting. 56 trips during peak period with 29 entering and 27 exiting. And on Saturday, since the manual does not provide an actual peak hour time, we estimate that it's one and a half times of peak, which means we've estimated the trips to be 84 during that timeframe. So now having those trips generated by the proposed development, distribute it across the network. So when we distribute them across the network, we utilize a software called Syncro that provides us with level of service, how well the intersections and site access points perform. So it's based on the grading system where level of service A green means good, level of service F means congested. So just for ease of viewing the assigned color coding. So for this particular site, we have one civilized intersection, and across all scenarios, existing, no build, and built, it performs at level of service a, meaning there is no congestion.
This is also true for the site driveways, both of them coming off of Route 6 as well as Lake Road. We also looked at the the request of the town at, site lines, and, when we look at the site lines, we take into consideration two values, stopping sight distance, the distance that a vehicle needs to come to a stop, as well as intersection sight distance to spot another vehicle or for maneuvering. Because we're looking at two site driveways with two different posted speed limits, we have to assess both drivers separately. So at Route 6, the posted speed limit is 50 miles per hour. However, a design speed to look up those values is 55 miles per hour. And for a stopping site distance, the required distance is about 500 feet, and for intersection site distance, it's about 600 feet. In both instances, when looking at
the Route 6 to the east and west, you have over 1,000 feet of shed. However, on Lake Road, the posted speed limit is 25 miles per hour, and when looking for site distances, the required distances are 200 feet and three thirty five. Because of the proximity of the intersection with Route 6, we don't have that distance in the northbound direction. We have about two twenty feet. And also on the southbound location, we also are limited by the geometry of the roadway, meaning there's some curvature in the road, and therefore we're not meeting it. And it's something that we we it's out of our control. So this is just to illustrate that it's that horizontal curvature that we we don't have means of extending the distance. The only thing that we could do is ask the neighboring property to possibly trim down the hedges, and maybe that will improve the site length.
So overall, I think the from the traffic perspective, the level of service is A, meaning that the proposed development has no impact to the neighboring network. Thank you.
Thank you, Pat. And just one point, I thought that the town provided to somebody maybe that at least at some point in the future, we were looking at commercial development in which the gravel pit across the right across Route 6 at this point, I know the intention is somewhere down the road to sell that piece of property and have it developed as well. I don't know how that factored into a traffic study.
How soon would it be built? Is it built within the next year or two? Therefore, then we would consider it in the traffic impact study. If it's still in the design stages, we don't have information to base it on.
I think it's probably still in the dream stages. You know, the guys trying to get the gravel out of there to make the site look developable. And then at that point, we'll put it for sale and sell it. So it's a little ways off, but that is something we as a down have to consider when we're looking at the traffic on Route 6. Sure.
So, mister chairman, I would say that if that project ever does come to fruition, it would be on something to your commission to keep in mind to make sure that they do also provide a traffic study based on the size of that development to make sure that it's still appropriate for for Route 6.
Understand. So at this point, I would like to turn to our zoning agent, Jim Hallisey, to give us his review of the application and to do we have the materials we need and are we meeting the requirements? So take it away, Jim. You're still muted, Jim.
I still am in the process of reviewing much of it. Some of it I only got recently and there's been some corrections, some updates to the plans made in response to my comments. I do have a couple questions through the chair, if I may. One of them is in response to the town engineers. The fact that you're reducing the parking, which would change the permeable, I'm sorry, the pervious versus impervious surface ratio. But my question to you is, does it really change it? I mean, you're just shrinking the spot, you're not shrinking the parking lot, are you? You're shortening those lines and those parking spaces are a different lane. Wrong Am about that?
Again, Matt Bruton for the record. Mr. Halsey, yes. So your peer review engineer asked us to shrink the parking spaces from nine feet wide and 20 feet deep to nine feet wide and 18 feet deep. So Right. We we would be shrinking we would be shrinking the amount of pavements required for those parking spaces of the parking lot size changes with that you're saying?
Correct. The parking lot size was driven by the size of the spaces. So if we're making smaller spaces, we would be shrinking But the size of the parking
with that said, we were asked to add additional length of sidewalk and connect the Lake Road sidewalk to the front of our building. So overall, we did still reduce the amount of pavement on the property, but not as much as if we had just changed the parking size spaces. Does that make sense?
But the sidewalk is off-site. It doesn't play into The sidewalk Yep. Does cross into town property now. Down by Route 6. Okay.
All right. Yep. And Mr. Halsey, we did extend the sidewalk onto our property to connect the sidewalk adjacent to our front main entrance to Lake Road. So we added we added a decent amount of sidewalk onto the property.
Okay. You indicated you were waiting for some approvals, one on the community well through the Department of Public Health, I believe. And a couple of DOT approvals. Would that be both the curb cut and a drainage? Yeah. So That's for the cross cover. I'm curious if you could give me any sort of timeframe as to what those the review process is on that.
Absolutely. Yep. So, yeah, for the for the DOT, we are applying for one permit. It's a it's an encroachment permit. What they look at is the entire project holistically. So they're looking at the site plan, the traffic, and the drainage. Each of the departments in the DOT will review in all of aspects of the plan and issue us one permit. They've already reviewed this once, have have requested a couple of things, one of which was the traffic impact study that we just talked about. That was all resubmitted to them as well. Typically, they take two to three months to review. So I would expect that, given what we just resubmitted, it'd probably be in another, you know, month, month and half, we would have an approval from them. The second approval that we need to obtain from the state is, for the well at the transient non community well given the retail use. This is a three step process. It starts now, which we've started with our well designer, but it doesn't it's not completed
until the well is installed, the water is tested, and the plumbing is actually functional. So it's a three step process that that that goes all the way until building a constructed NSCO is issued. So that is not something that this commission could wait for because it's incremental as the progress progresses. But that would be done concurrently with this, the DOT, and then a building permit and then construction. But I'm happy to answer any questions if you don't think I answered them for you.
I have one more. You did indicate that you would provide a volume page on the easement for the drainage easement, the down gradient for the down gradient property, property on the other side of Route 6. And there's a drainage training, a right to drain also called that you offered actually in your response to Mr. Hanfield's report, I believe.
So Mr. Yep. So I believe the peer reviews comment is in regards to the property adjacent to us, not across Route 6. So the comment is a culvert is proposed at the southwest corner of the property, which receives flow from the developed property to the south. So that is referring to the plumbing business that's already there. I'll just share my screen real quick just so I can point this out so everybody can follow along. So one second. So that is comment number c one from the peer review engineer. So I'll just jump back to the the plan here. So currently and I'll just draw this in blue so everybody can see. Currently, this property is higher than this property. So in general, right now, flows in this direction. Yep. In in the right in the right now, if I go back to let me just see, to the to the survey. Second. So you could see my previous arrow. Everything flows to the culvert here and then goes under Route 6. Obviously, as we develop this this property, we the water from the neighbor still needs to flow in this direction, and we still wanted to connect to the state system in Route 6. I believe the goal of that comment from the peer review engineer was to make sure that
we're still allowing that to happen. So I'm just going move forward to our grading and drainage plan real quick. So the majority of their water does flow along a swale along this boundary here. We obviously want to make sure that that water doesn't affect our building, but we understand that the water still needs to flow through our property to the state system. We are making provisions for this water to continue to flow onto our property and then down to the state. That response about the right to drain, we are happy to provide language and an easement so this neighbor is protected and can still let his water pass through this property that we're trying to develop.
Okay. One question. Maybe it's there and I didn't see it, but who makes the assessment that that culvert can carry the water? I mean, it's a DOT culvert.
Yes. The existing culvert that is under Route 6, that is the DOT pipe, that drainage system is being reviewed by the DOT.
Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, I just want to mention the fire marshal. I know that you had made inquiry of the fire marshal who responded with with a number of questions, two of which I answered and the others of which you answered. But we don't have a definitive answer from him as yet. He hasn't had an opportunity to respond seeing as I know that I only responded to him today. So when you note that that's sort of, that's an open question at this point in my mind. Yeah.
He hasn't given it to And I can just, yeah, I can let the commission and the public know that the fire marshal was asking about a Knox box, which is a box, obviously, that would be mounted to the building or a door that would have a key in an event of emergency that they'd be able to access and get into the building. The applicant is happy to provide that at a location specified by the fire marshal. And then the other question the fire marshal had was whether there would be a fire alarm as part of the building and our response that that it was not required. There's we don't have of putting it at it at this time.
But you went into my point being is he went into where all this water was coming from in the event of a fire and and there was no definitive answer as if I you know. Didn't really come to a conclusion as far as I could tell. Wanted to follow-up on that and just make sure that that's in the record. That's all I got. You very much.
Thank you, agent Halsey. Anything else for us now that you've asked your questions of applicants? Or do you have any more information you want to share with us at this point?
I do not. I just, I may be premature, but I do. I did post comments. Written comments that were submitted to me are posted on the website and I just wanna make sure they get into the public record in some fashion, Whether they're read into the public record, whether they're read by commissioners, I believe it's up to you.
I will read those into the public record after we get done hearing from the other members of the public who are with us here tonight. You don't want to forget about that. You.
At this point, I'll open the meeting up to the commissioners. Any questions or comments that you might have for the applicants this evening? And Ann, because not everybody wants to talk at once, Ann Cremay will let you as vice chair go first.
I don't have any big things. I've been watching all of these presentations and looking at all the plans, and it looks very good to me. I can't see any problems. Doctor. Prasan, any comments or questions?
I had a bunch of questions, but most of them have been answered except for one. The water that flows from the west to the east along that swale, is that all that water is going to be going under the highway? It shows that it goes into that subsurface galleys also. So is it going across the highway or is it going into the galleys? That you want to take that? Yep.
Absolutely. I'll just share my screen one more time and just go back to that plan. So mister Pearson, right, so the blue arrows obviously indicate the water that we're receiving from the plumbing business. So that will continue to flow in that fashion. Matt, that you're not As the architect
Oh, oh, oh, sorry. Wrong screen. I'm sorry. You think after you think after two years at home, I'd be better at that. I apologize. So let me just show that again. Right? So the water from the neighbors, I'm gonna do this in blue. The as mentioned by the architect, the roof pitches this way. Yeah. So the water from the roof is gonna be captured in this pipe and go to this swale and follow along the same path as the blue arrows. The the water that does fall within the parking lot, so any of the new paved area for this business will be captured by the catch basins that are that are spread around. All of that water flows to the subsurface infiltration system, this pink box that I just drew. This is an open galley system, so we're hoping to push as much water as possible back into the ground to recharge groundwater. That's that's really the goal. Any water that would not be able to get recharged would discharge and flow into Route 6 into this into the culvert under Route 6 following the the blue, green, and pink arrows. So That's why it shows this. Goal of this is obviously
yep. Go ahead. That's why it shows it's still connected to the underground Yes. Stormwater. Yes. Absolutely. It's overflow there. It's going across the highway. Correct. Correct. Yep. Okay. And
alright. Yeah. And I and I had the same thing, the fire marshal approval. You're still working on that though. Right?
We responded. We got those comments today. We responded this afternoon And as Mr. House said, I'm just waiting for his final confirmation back. Okay, I'm all set. Thank you. You're welcome.
Steve Nelson, I saw you joining us. Don't see your picture right this minute. Are you here?
I'm here Jed. Let me turn my video on. Yeah, one question I had and as a commission, We've been doing a lot of work on the signage allowances. This is a retail space. Matt, could you talk about the, what your plans are for signage.
Absolutely, mister Nelson. So I think it was mentioned oh, sorry. Let me do that again. Mentioned by the applicant before, there's no defined tenant at this time, but we did wanna talk about that. I know it was a request from the town, so I'll just show you a couple different things here. So this is the site plan. So we do call out, a proposed, freestanding sign location, as you can see here at the at the corner. So that would be one freestanding sign that would be proposed. Obviously, the the size of that and the height of that would be per your zoning regulations. So I will show you the other plan that we have here. We did we did create a mock up of some plans. So we would we did create this monument freestanding sign, brick base with some gooseneck down lighting for a future tenant here, right, eight foot overall height, six feet wide. And then here as well, we'd propose to have one building on the sign as well, Black lettering, gooseneck lighting, I guess, obviously, size to conform, to your zoning regulations as well. So we did provide that, mister Nelson. I don't know if that answers your question. It does. Thanks, Matt.
You're welcome. Anything else, Steve? No, I'm good. Thanks, Jed.
Did Leanne Hutchinson join us? I didn't see her in my crowd here either. Yes, I'm here.
Any there you are. Okay, I recognize that number now. Any comments or questions, Leanne?
I guess, not I just have one. It's kind of a question and or a comment, and I would know without having seen the things that I guess most or all of us haven't seen yet on the website. I'm just thinking out loud. I'm just wondering about the idea of having one entrance on Lake Road and then entering this proposed property versus having another driveway cut on Route 6. So again, I'm just thinking out loud. I don't know if one would be quite a bit safer than the other or not.
That's all. Leanne, I'm happy to address that if don't mind, Mr. Chairman. Oh, go ahead and Go ahead, Matt.
Yeah. So I'll just jump back to the site plan here. So, Leanne, the original plan was when anybody that would come on that road. So that would be the one driveway that we'd want. The getting further into the the design process, we were aware that the town is pursuing development kind of across Lake Road in regards to the walking trails and bike trails associated with this area, and that a secondary entrance here along with the sidewalk improvements that we're proposing to make, would be complementary to, the future kind of development of this area. Again, we don't see this as as the major entrance. We see this as more of a secondary entrance, especially given
that it's close to the adjacent business that's already there. So I would say that the two are both important and do play a role with Route 6 being the more important one. And if I just want to move a little bit further forward, just so the public can see this, we do anticipate for a business of this size, one delivery, tractor trailer delivery a week, and that is accommodated only by the Route 6 entrance. And you can see the truck turn that's displayed on the screen now being able to enter and leave from Route 6. This is showing the conservative path. If it were to be moving in the other direction, it would also be able to make that turn. We do not anticipate or want to promote any truck traffic on Lake Road. But there are two entrances that could be used by employees and shoppers.
So just to be clear, would you this is Leanne again. Would you be sharing the existing driveway entrance on Lake Road?
No. The plumbing business, Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, they have their own driveway entrance. We are looking to add a second entrance to Lake Road dedicated to this business. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Susan England any comments or questions.
Yes Jed I just wanted to say that most of the questions I have have been already answered through the presentation and most of mine did concern traffic issues and I will be looking at the traffic report now that's going to be posted. And I also just wanted to add for the record that I thought this was a very well thought out proposal and addressed our regulations very thoroughly.
I'll say thank you Susan, I'm sure Matt and his team shares that thank you. Anne Planchard, any comments or questions?
I don't think so. Like Susan, most of my questions have already been answered by everybody else's questions and their presentation.
Okay, thank you, Anne. And I'm looking for Kevin Arneson. I didn't see him here. Are you with us tonight, Kevin?
I'm here, Jed. I was just hiding in one of the corners. So no, I don't have any questions or comments at this time. I thought the application was very thorough, so I can turn it over.
Okay, thank you, Kevin. I guess I'll look at my notes here to see if I have any for tonight. Matt, in one of the response comments you made reference, the question is about the berm going from the sidewalk that you build on Lake Road up to Lake Road so we can have the crosswalk going across into that parking area. I thought you had put some comment there that referenced that you didn't think that was was a safety issue to not do that. I didn't understand that comment.
Yes, mister chairman. I can bring that up as well. Hold on. Let me see if I can find the exact one you're talking about. Yes. I believe it was, this comment here, number three Three b. C. Yeah. So, I'll just read it out loud for the public if you can't see it. So it says, a new sidewalk landing connecting the proposed sidewalk with Lake Road at the southeastern corner of the site is recommended to allow the interconnection to the rail trail corridor with the new sidewalk. So, mister chairman, I'm just gonna bring up the site plan. So we did oh, let me just change colors here so that's actually you can actually see it. Hold on. So we are showing, obviously, a sidewalk along Lake Road, and we had stopped it here previously. We are continuing it on to the push button,
which I believe is already it's installed and and used now even though there's no other sidewalks. I believe the peer review engineer was looking to add a kind of a curb ramp and exit to have pedestrians essentially cross this way as I'm drawing the arrow, which which would be across Lake Road. The only reason we kind of pushed back a little bit on that is, I'll just change colors here slightly, across across Lake Road, and you can see here in orange, I'm highlighting now, there's an existing guide rail there, and curb, and there's no other opposing sidewalk area. So I I know that this is a resource area for you guys, and you're looking to make improvements over here. We just didn't think pushing people or or allowing them to cross in this area would be the safest just given that there's not a lot of room across the road here with this guide rail for them to stand, nor is there any other sidewalk, I think, planned in this area. I you know, if we were to do something, I think it'd be more appropriate a little bit further up, but, you know, those mid block crossings are always a little a little bit hairy. So, that was our our thinking with response to that one comment, mister commissioner.
Okay. Thanks, Matt. I think, you know, the town's desire was to have that that extra extension out to the road up where the crosswalk would be in the vicinity of the entranceway off of Lake Road so that we can get to the parking area and the others. Yes, right in there is be where I put That keeps it as far away from Lake Road as we can, but it would kind of tie into allowing us to cross over to the parking area, which we think is where the people will be coming from that head that way.
Sure. If that's the intention, Mr. Chairman, we can certainly make that revision.
And one other question, you know, going back to the picture that you just had up there, can you tell how much room there is between the sidewalk and the edge of Lake Road? I know our public works folks were concerned about how much space there is there to put the snow in the winter and not have it go all over the sidewalk.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, the peer review engineer recommended a minimum of an eight foot wide grass shelf for, I believe, for that reason, obviously for maintenance. So we are providing that along along this side. The only issue, obviously, as I mentioned before, is that does force the sidewalk to come on to private property, but we're happy to provide an easement to make sure we maintain that grass shelf along Lake Road for for future maintenance and snow removal.
Okay. And then I guess my third question goes into that maintenance that you just brought up. Town would certainly prefer that the store maintain the sidewalk clear of snow in the winter like you do the rest of the sidewalks in your parking there.
Okay. I will, I will I guess I don't know how that works. I I know I shovel my own sidewalk, and I don't own the sidewalk. So I I think that makes sense. So I think I think most of the most towns do require businesses and residents to maintain sidewalk along their frontage. So I'll just confirm with the applicant, but I think that makes sense, obviously, if you guys don't have crews that would be shoveling public sidewalks.
Okay, I think that's it for me. At this point, we're gonna open up for questions and comments from the public. Abby, do you have the ability to help us call on the different folks one at a time and make sure they're unmuted so that we can hear them and we can start hearing from the town members?
Yep, sounds good. I'm just going to read these off of the participant list order I have here. So first, we have Maureen Kay. You can unmute yourself when you're ready, Maureen.
Okay. I'm ready. I just have one question. I'm just so confused trying to locate the space. I'm not there. I can't drive by. Is it in the lawn of Benjamin Franklin? Is it across the street? Is it on the other side of Ben Franklin? I know exactly where Route 6 and Lake Road come in. I just can't figure it out.
Yes, Maureen. They're talking about the big grassy area in front of Ben Franklin, right on the corner of Lake Road and Route 6, that big grass field.
Beautiful. And is it possible to know which business national business is thinking of moving in there? Otherwise, it really sounds good to me. It sounds really nicely thought out. But I'm just curious, is it possible to know which business might do it? And can there be more than one business located within that building?
Well, will only be one business located in the building. Will turn it over to Matt as to whether or not, you know, last time, a month ago, we asked and there were some nondisclosure agreements in effect. I don't know if we're beyond that or where we are on that. So Matt, if you could answer that question.
Yeah, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for the question, Maureen. Yeah, so we're planning on having one retail tenant as the chairman said. The the the applicant is pursuing a few, has not settled on one yet. The ones that we do have are obviously in negotiation, and we do have the NDAs that are still standing. So, at this time, no no businesses are are ready to announce themselves at. Get it. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. That's the end of my questions. Thank you.
So next, we have a phone number that's ending in 3526. The whole number is, we just lost it.
Okay, well, think they're gone now. Yeah, go on to the next one, Abby, and we'll give anybody who we missed a chance at the end. Okay, great. Next is Bill Warner. Bill's our consultant for the affordable housing, so I don't think he is going to ask any questions here on this one. Okay, next is Carrie Crompton. Go ahead, Carrie. I don't have any questions. Okay. Thank you, Carrie.
So, next we have Kathleen with a C. Kathleen, I don't have your last name. The Rozier's, no question. But great presentation. Okay, next we have Chris Bernard. Bernard.
Good evening, Chris Bernard 58 Merritt Valley Roads on the property directly behind Ben Franklin Pline. And as I spoke to before, my primary concern is with traffic. And so I'll definitely want to take a look at that traffic study. But with any addition of any business, while we looked at traffic studies specifically on six, we all know there's a problem with people kind of flying through that stop sign at the bottom of Lake Road there and an increased traffic traffic is going to increase that. I also have a problem myself personally, not that this is your all's problem with just people turning around my driveway. Probably have a people turn around my driveway weekly and increased traffic's just going to increase that. But the real question I had was, and you kind of touched on it, but there's a lot of parking that goes on across the street
for the rail trail. That going to cause any problems with cars coming in and out of that given how they currently park? I could very easily see someone backing out and someone coming out of the store or even Ben Franklin for that matter, But there will clearly be more traffic coming out of the potential retail store. So, there any definitive plans that have been posted yet? Because I haven't seen anything.
There has not been a definitive plan posted yet. I know the town has plans in the works to pave and improve the area across the street there. I think what is going to occur is a big improvement for the parking situation that is there right now. So I think those modifications will only improve the traffic safety going forward. Okay, thanks. Next we have an email which is cmag lewis. Catherine, go ahead unmute yourself. Hi,
thank you for doing this. I'm appreciated. And apparently I was very mistaken because I was under the impression that anytime a commercial building went up that the town had to vote on it. And obviously I was way off because we don't, but it has to fit into a PNC plan. So I guess I have a twofold thing is one is, especially not knowing, which I think is bizarre not being able to be told what's going in there. What happens if it's something we don't want. I mean if it could be a strip club for all we know because nobody's telling us. And if that's the case is it something that we have to alter what is acceptable to PNC, because we don't get a chance to vote on it. So that's my main concern that we don't even know what it is.
Well, we do know that it is a retail store and we know that it is not a strip club because we in fact have a regulation section that I think it's entitled adult something or other. But if it was going be a strip club, there are more regulations that they would have to go through. But that's why when you look at section eight on the business district, it has a list of things that whoever crafted the regulation and it was done before I came on board, but I think it's a pretty reasonable list. The Planning and Zoning Commission came up with a group of
things, whether it's offices, medical buildings, drugstores, retail stores, whatever, that somebody in the business district would be able to do as of right if they meet with the regulations that the Planning and Zoning Commission put into effect. There are some other things that are a little we thought the public might have a little more concern with. And so that would be done by special permit. And in that circumstance, there are some attenuating factors that the commission can take into effect, the impact on the surrounding community. And we might be able to hold that applicant to a higher standard. But that's not what we're talking about in this case. This is on the list of things that if they meet our regulations, and they're ours, they have the right to put in a store. And so that's what the applicant is doing. And so we're looking to see whether or not he meets all our regulations, but
what we've seen so far, he's coming pretty close. We might find something, but he has done a good job of presenting this case. Okay, my only other question was about the water going at Route 6 or under Route 6. If anything does happen to Route 6, whose responsibility is it to fix it? If Route 6 is impaired in any way.
My Are you referring to the water pipe that runs under Route 6? Yeah, I was just curious.
Yeah, Agent Halsey, can you help me on that? My assumption is that that's a state issue, But I'm just taking a guess and you're still muted, Jim.
The state of Connecticut would be responsible for that. No doubt in my mind.
Thank you, Katherine. Abby, we're on to the next one. Next is Diane Greiner. Diane, you can unmute when you're ready.
Oh, I think I'm there. You're all set. You can hear me? Okay. First, I'd like to thank the Planning and Zoning Commission for holding this public hearing. I realized you didn't have to and I think there's a lot of interest in town for this development. And again, like to start by thanking you for that. As most of us know, residents in Andover have been asking actually begging for tax relief in the form of new businesses for years. We've made it very clear I think what we want and what we don't want. Did not want and made it very clear, a natural gas infusion station located in the same area. We did not want a dynamite
detonator factory that had been proposed at one time. We don't want a big box store. Don't think we want a marijuana retail store, a strip club biker bar, and there's a variety of those things we know we don't want. What we really do would like in that area would be a restaurant, which is very unlikely, of no sewers no city water, a family owned business would be nice and, you know, cute, A bank would be wonderful. A lot of people would like to have a bank there. But that's again unlikely since the bank in Columbia just closed. The one in Hebron is cutting their their Saturday hours, and the people's bank and stop and shop is left, and people are just basically doing online banking nowadays and so there's not going be a bank in that location. A pharmacy is something that people would like but again I don't see a pharmacy a doctor's office would be nice a small boutique lawyers office real estate office a little family market, we have a lot of things that we would like there.
But one, one thing we had that antique store shop over almost on the corner of Lake Road on Route 6 for sale for quite some time, which would have made a wonderful little lawyer's office or real estate office or something like that. But actually, there's been no interest whatsoever in that property. Nobody has applied for any of these things that we want. What we do have is this retail strap up stone, please. Okay, okay. I'm getting here. The real store, which would be something into the idea of a Dollar General. And I think what we do want from there is to have it look nice we don't want to cinder block building and I think you've done a good job with that. We would like to ask that the back of the store, which is always a utility stuff the dumpster on not be visible from Route 6 you know block it with vegetation on bucket place a fence around the dumpster, so that it's an unsightly so we don't have to look at that. I'm very concerned about the curb cut on Route 6 it's a very dangerous intersection, but I'll let better traffic minds than mine. Address that. We know that's a dangerous intersection we know that on tractor trailers park on Route 6 there to go to the extra mark. I hope they will not be parking on this side to run into the retail store. I would like to see a bike rack installed since we have the bike
trail right up there but I'm sure the bikers will be using it. I like the cupola and I think you're doing a good job. One of the things I want to make sure that you look at is that when we extended Lake Lake Road past Benjamin Franklin, the archaeology archaeological department from the state took a look and found a historic building there. They did a whole summer worth of archaeological digs, and they were very very pleased with that. I don't know if they looked as far down as the empty lot, and I would like to make sure that somebody has contacted the State Archaeological Department to see if there's any significant findings down there. Basically, I think it's a good job and I'm all for it and like say just a few little things and that would be wonderful. Thank you very much.
Okay, so Diane, I think Matt was shaking his head up and down to a lot of the things. I don't know if you had a chance to see them or not. I do know there's bike racks going in there. But the comment that I would like to make addresses the laundry list of things that you said we would like to see. And one of the things that this gives me the opportunity to talk about is a town planner or a town economic development coordinator who is working. There's an awful lot of towns out there that have these staff people working as their job. I won't say, I don't know whether it's full time or part time, but they're out there trying to recruit the businesses that the people of the town would like to see to come in. We don't have that, and I'm thankful that as you started out, we've got a business that wants to come into Andover that I think has a nice looking building that will help us out with our tax base. It's been a long time since we've had any glimmer of commercial development in town, and I think we'd like to see more. Think we would like to, you know, have that from the list that you mentioned, which is in the town studies that we've done, but we've got to get somebody that's going to go out and work on that because the other towns do have people that are going out working on those things.
We also have a limited area for commercial development. I mean, it basically has to be along Route 6. And as you had pointed out earlier, we do have that sand lot right across the street from this that there's plans to have that developed soon so that I mean, we're going to have the.
And I'd like to cut you off there Diane, I'll give you a chance after we get to everybody else I want to make sure everybody gets a chance. You for your time. So next up we have Eric Barry.
Hello. So I sent an email in, but I guess I can just read that now since you're calling on me. I will I will say I'll I'll admit that, you know, in my email I did have, as the rumor mills are churning Dollar General in my email, but I'll use future tenant. So I will say that that logo in the presentation does look suspiciously similar to the Dollar General logo. Anyway, my my comment is this. I grew up in town on Lakeside Drive where my parents still live. My wife and I would spend so much time in town visiting family, friends, neighbors. We recently moved back to the Lake area in 2019. And we look forward to starting our family here, mostly because in many ways, Andover is an idyllic little New England town. What's not idyllic or quintessential New England is future tenant and their business model of heavily saturating areas and you know, offering cheap throwaway goods and substitutable quality chains destroy community charm and distinction. Future tenant can never be a once market. We all remember once market. I'd love to see a new business that enhances our community coming to town, not one that sends a message of economically impoverished areas as we tend to see.
We see the future 10, you know, end up showing up in poor urban and rural communities, offering those cheap and unhealthy food options to those with limited economic means. I don't think that's a message we want to send to our neighboring towns and residents. Aside from the unhealthy effects that food items have on the community litter, the deterrence of better suited healthier stores and markets are the byproducts. And so I just would say, you know, I urge you to consider the long term effects of of a kind of a big block, you know, chain store and in Andover. And I guess, yeah, that's it. Okay, thank you, Eric. Next we have Erin Boris.
Hi there, Erin Boris, Dogwood Drive. As someone who lives closer to this area, my concern is around the entrance on Route 6 relative to both of the entrances to the mobile. It seems like there are three entrances slash exits prior to that light. And my concern is there's already been quite a few accidents, some of them pretty significant. And I worry about the utilization of that Route 6 entrance and the basic entrance to mobile right across the street. Graphics are difficult to sort of look at on the Zoom, so I apologize, but can someone speak to the whether or not that turn in is between those two turn ins for mobile? Do they align? Because I mean, there are many people that sort of jam their brakes thinking that person is getting close to the streetlight when really they're turning left into that mobile heading east on 6. And now we're going to have someone turning right and left possibly prior to that light. So that's my concern.
Can you address the issue with the driveway relative to the mobile station.
Yes. Mister chairman, again, Matt Rutten for the record. If you guys can see my shared screen right now with the aerial, this is just the best way to show it to you. So the Duncan the Duncan and the mobile, you know, there's two entrances on Route 6. We are obviously developing the the grass patch here. So the the driveway on Lake Road would be roughly where my my mouse is right now. The Route 6 driveway is roughly where this this car and vehicle are where my mouse is hanging over now. So they're they're not lined up. They're south. The the the mobile driveways are almost directly across from the tree farm. So, the reason for your concern, I think, is the same reason, the DOT requested a traffic study. I know that there's been some accidents, along Route 6. So, but I'm confident now that we have the study completed and we're resubmitting it back to them, that they will be looking at that and agreeing with us that the proposed development won't have any detrimental impacts to the surrounding areas. Thank you.
Also, just to add on that a little bit, I was surprised, I expected the traffic study that we were briefed on tonight to be not quite so green with respect to, you know, I had the perception there were several significant accidents in the vicinity out there too. The traffic study didn't show that, and so I guess you will go review there. Was kind of hoping that at some point that you know the traffic exiting onto Route 6 would be a right turn only as people entering from Route 6 would be a right turn only into the lot. But that's a want and that is not what we base our decisions on here. That's why I wanna take a good look at the traffic study before we wrap this up because it's different than what I was expecting to hear.
Alright. So next we have Jennifer. I just don't have your last name, Jennifer. So if you could tell me that, that would be great. It's Jennifer's iPad two. Okay. Can circle back to you once you're once you're good. So after Jennifer, we have Liz Lokiak. Yep. Hi.
Yeah, I just would kind of echo the traffic concern. I'm all for bringing business into town. And Jeb, you said exactly what I was thinking that the the driveway in front of Route 6 maybe could be just a right turn only. Maybe that's nice to have. I am concerned about crossing traffic with there being, you know, the gas station across the street and now with the potential of future development. But otherwise, great presentation and I look forward to the tax dollars. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Liz.
So next we have Joe. Joe, if you could arrange your last name, that'd be great.
Yes, my name is Joseph Poland, and I'm located at 300 Lake Road. My I'm quite concerned about the amount of traffic that's gonna be dumped on Lake Road. Right now, Road has excessive traffic on it. It's a small rural road that winds around the lake. It has excessive traffic in the morning and in the afternoon, people are trying to access Columbia with a shortcut through Lake Road over to Erdoni Road. And it's a hazardous situation. They're they're going through there well over 25 miles an hour. And I'm very concerned with that or the additional traffic that this retail facility is going to dump on Lake Road. And let me point this out between 3PM and 5PM on Route 6. We frequently have backups at both stoplights down at 316 near the post office that backs up beyond the post office, and we have backup backups at the stoplight at Lake Road and Route 6.
We have these backups there, what it's going to do, it's going to prevent retail customers to exit onto Route 6. So what they're going to do is they're going to exit on to Lake Road, the alternate exit, and then go. They're going to use Lake Road to go over to Columbia. So Lake Road is going to become a thoroughfare for Columbia residents, and it's going to be totally untenable for us residents that live on Lake Road. Doctor. Apparently the traffic people did not look at the backups that occurred during a maximum between 3PM and 5PM in the afternoon at both of those lights, which is going to preclude the use of the exit to the retail facility on Route 6. So everything is going to be processed out through the Lake Road exit, And then that's going to create a problem with all people who are parked at the town facility for the rails to trails. They'll be backing out of the parking spots for the rail to trails
while the retail customers are coming out of the Lake Road exit. Okay. Two minutes is about up.
Let me point out one other thing. Right now, there's a safety hazard right there on Lake Road. There's a stop sign at Merritt Valley Road. There's a a pedestrian stop sign that the rails for trails there within 50 feet of each other, this is terrible traffic. Handling terrible and it's going to be worse with the exit onto Lake Road from this retail facility. I'm totally against that exit and for the lot. My final point. We do not want tractor trailer traffic going down Lake Road. There should be signs put up preventing traffic trailer going down Lake Road. Thank you very much. Thank you, Joe.
So next up we have Catherine Hutchinson. Is she not on anymore?
I'm muting. Thank you. Was having trouble unmuting. I have no questions. Thank you, Catherine.
So next up we have Louise. And Louise, if you could tell me your last name, that would be great.
Hi, Louise Goodwin, 91 Lakeside. How you doing? I got a question in regards to handicap parking and if the building is going to be handicapped accessible. That you want to discuss the accessibility.
Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. Let me just pull up the plan here again. So as I mentioned before, I'll just circle it again real quick. So the entrance is obviously here in the corner. We do show two handicap accessible parking spaces with a handicap accessible path to the main entrance of the building. For those of you that are familiar with the handicap accessibility, the number of parking spaces on the entire parking lot drives how many are required. Anything under 50 parking spaces, you require two parking spaces, which we have shown. If we were to have more, we would have been required to have more. But we have 35 spaces. We're showing two handicap accessible slots. It will be handicap accessible to either a handicap employee or customer.
Anything else, Elise? No, that should do it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next, have Marcy Miner.
Marcy, you can go ahead. Hi. Yeah, I got it on mute. I just wanted to thank you planning and zoning for putting this meeting out here I know you didn't have to and really appreciate it. Really good presentation looks like you've answered all of a lot of questions and questions we didn't even have so appreciate it looks good. Thank you. Thank you, Marcy. Next up we have Maria Tollman.
Hi. Yes. Maria Tolman, 139 Hebron Road. I just like to say that I would I agree with the comments made by Eric Barry regarding a retail store in town. I think it would change the character of our town a lot. I'd be more in favor of some of Diane Granier's ideas such as restaurant or doctor's office, but not a retail store. Thank you. Thank you, Maria. Next we have Pat Grimaldi.
Hi. Thanks for having this meeting and giving the townspeople a chance to see what's going on. I have my semester with Joe. I'm really concerned about the park. I'm having a hard time hearing you. I don't know if you can get closer to the mic or turn your Oh, sorry. Is that better? Much better. Okay. Sorry about that. Just again, I wanted to thank you for putting this meeting together and giving the townspeople an opportunity to hear what's going on. I had been down to Ben Franklin area and the sign for the meeting had been knocked down. So thanks for the town for also sending out the electronic notifications. But I have the same sentiments as Joe as tractor trailer traffic is a concern coming up Lake Road in the event they have to go a different way. The last accident which involved an accident in front of the Dunkin Donuts, the traffic was derailed, came around Lake Road and it had to be a large truck or tractor trailer knocked out both mailboxes to our properties at 357 And 353 Lake Road. So if there's anything that can be done to deter tractor trailers from taking a right hand turn out of the Lake Road entrance, would be wonderful. Maybe taking down those big trees at Ben Franklin in which people just have the habit of throwing their nip bottles under would be wonderful to hopefully we can see more people coming on and off that trail just to make it a little bit more safe. Thank you. Thank you, Pat.
So next up we Richard Wilson. Richard, you can go ahead and unmute yourself.
Hey guys, how you doing? Rick Wilson, 428 Lake Road. Two biggest concerns. One was definitely the traffic. The traffic report that was done or that was resubmitted back. Will that be posted that we can take a look at it anywhere online?
That will be posted if it's not already. You know, I saw it for the first time this afternoon, and so it might not be posted yet, but it will be. Okay. I believe it is.
It is posted? Okay, perfect. I mean, going back to Joe at some absolute valid points about the lake my personal concern is that curb cut I think that's just a nightmare for it's going be a nightmare disaster waiting to happen. My second main concern is really with the non disclosure that's fine you you want a retail store they can meet all the requirements of planning and zoning however vape shops, very intimate pleasures, all of these will fall into the retail category. What say do the townspeople actually have in deciding what kind of retail store we find acceptable to keep the charm and character of our town and furthermore can we alter section eight of planning and zoning to go back to a voting style, go back to voting for what specific businesses us town people wanna see in the town?
Well, answer your question, of course we can change section eight of the regulations. It would have no impact on the application we're talking about now. And I would have to look to see whether or not changing, you know, what we would change and whether or not it would make sense. We could restrict it more, but I think when the regulations were constructed, a retail store in a business zone, that's about as benign as you can get. So Depending on the business. Depending upon the business, but a retail store is a retail store. And again, you know, I think we have been looking for something to provide tax relief coming into town. I've lived in town only twelve years, so I know I'm still a new guy. Right after we got here in 2010 was the experience that Diane talked about with the gas infusion plant. And certainly,
you know, the town made it clear that they didn't want that I don't know how that actually played out wasn't that familiar with it at all. I remember clearly but if they crossed their t's and dot their i's you were saying that the townspeople wouldn't have a say but we did we stood up and we shut it down how are we able to do it for the gas plant but not a say a retail business that we don't want in town?
I don't know what happened to the gas plant. All I can tell you is that with our regulations, the way they are written today, I don't think they're bad, there may be an unintended consequence here, but I think our regulations are sound. The town people don't have a say until they, there's a couple of options. You can volunteer to get on the Planning and Zoning Commission and have a say in what those regulations are. And we will be coming up, the other guiding document for the Planning and Zoning Commission is the town's plan of conservation and development. And that's also listed, that's posted online on the planning and zoning website.
And that is a document that gets updated every ten years. The last one was issued in 2015. So as it turns out, we're gonna start working on the next edition of that coming up within the next year or so. And in that, we're gonna be reaching out to the town, and I hope we get just as good a participation then as we do tonight to tell us what the town wants so that we can make the regulations support what the town wants. And that's how the planning and zoning works. We take our marching orders from the plan of conservation of development, which is crafted with the input from the town to try and give the people of the town what it is they're looking for.
No, I appreciate the appreciate the response. And the presentation was very good and, you know, everybody's comments were very good as well. So thank you. Thank you, Rick. So finally, have someone on their iPhone, who's Steven. Yeah, have no questions.
That's everyone I have, but please let me know if I skipped you or missed you.
Yeah, I see Catherine's raising her hand again. So Catherine.
Thank you, Jen. I appreciate it. Here's my only, that's not my only, I always have something, but here's my thing. For a long time I've hoped, and that the EDC and the PNC would work closely together, and we don't and I think we need to. Other thing is, I wish that we would wait and look future, look long term as to what Andover needs and what Andover would be like and could be like. I am currently working with UConn, who is coming in August and this is the coming in, and it's a professor of landscape and architecture to see what they can do to revise Andover. I have a big picture in my head of what I would love Andover to really look like. And it would be quaint with nice shops with the bakery with a coffee shop. And not I think what we're looking for, but I would like to wait on anything else if we can't wait on this one to see what what plans we could make for Andover and what Andover could be rather than just what it is now. And let's see, they're going to come up with 12 different possibilities and we can choose one, we can combine them, but I think it would be good to work with you guys and with Yukon and do workshops
and see what we can make. Hopefully I'm also working with some people to maybe get a group of developers, investors in here that because that's the only way we're going to do anything in Andover. So I would really like the the ability to work together on that if we could. Thank you.
Thank you, Catherine. And Diane, did you have anything else you wanted to share with us?
Oh, I think I'm done. But like I say, I thank you again, and I think this was a great meeting. I'm glad there were so many people came out to participate, and I think they did a good job with the presentation. Thank you.
Okay. Did we miss anybody? Anybody here that wanted to comment or question and didn't get a chance?
Did I bring up again the comments that are on the website?
Okay. And so I will try to get there again now. Abby, if you can allow me to share my screen again.
You should be able to still, but let me give it a shot and let me know if you need help. Looks good.
Well, I guess first for anybody who doesn't know about, you know, our town's website, this, when you click on the Andover website and you go to government, you get the different, you know, we're under boards and commissions, planning and zoning is elected. And so we can click on that. That gets us to the planning and zoning commission. And then click on submitted pending applications if you're interested in what's coming down. And the only one that we've got listed there right now is the one we're talking about, 580 Lake Road. Sue Feinberg sent in a comment your thought that a commercial building where we already got traffic light could be a wonderful thing. She just wasn't sure that I guess her comment is similar to Eric Berry and several others who weren't, who thought there were better things that could go in there. What we've got is somebody who's wanting to come in and as long as they meet the requirements, they'll be allowed to do that. So that was Susan's comment. I know we had James Cole here. We got a comment from Abby Cole, Similar comment about the kind of retail store that we were just talking about. Marcy Miner was here tonight. She was able to speak to hers as was Eric Berry and then Ryan Fitch. Brian Fitch is the owner of the tree farm next door and he was just hoping
that possibly the applicant would put up a six foot fence to keep people from coming over onto his property. He was concerned about theft of trees in that. So anyhow, was Ryan's comments that he provided to us. And I think that was it. So we've heard from the public, we've heard from the commissioners. Let me get back to my agenda here. Think so we're looking to close or continue the public hearing. I'm going to stop sharing so I can see all you folks again. I intend to continue the public hearing to the next meeting because we do have significant interest in the traffic and we do want to have a chance to to you take a good look at the at the traffic study and the response to our engineers. Jimmy: letter and that sort of thing to make sure that in fact, while the applicant is trying very hard to meet all the regulations we have, we want to give a fair shot at making sure he does that, as the people of the town would expect. So we will continue the public hearing at our next meeting,
which is April 18. And following that, we will adjourn the public hearing. So we will immediately call to order the regular meeting at 08:45. Leanne, did you have a comment or question?
Yes, before we move on. Just quickly, two quick things. It just occurred to me after people speak, I don't know if it's a possibility to have the 40 mile an hour speed limit extended to this currently to the center of town, extended down to the area that this would entail. And I know someone on, I believe, Lake Road had concerns about possible tractor trailer traffic. I understood Matt to say earlier that there'd only be one tractor trailer a week, you know, dropping merchandise off for this store, whatever it is. So if that's correct, Matt, that made me feel a little better because I just was assuming that without knowing what it is that there'd be more tractor trailers than that. And I realize that that's not the same thing as if there is an accident and then more tractor trailers, whether they're related to this project or not, may get rooted around the lake. I realize that's a separate question. I'm just mentioning a couple more things for next month. Thank you. Okay. Yep. Thank you, Leanne. And I
should there is no intention that the tractor trailers leaving the retail store would turn right on Lake Road and go that way unless there was an accident or something. They they would all hang a left and go right out to Route 6 to go back wherever it was that they came from. Right now, I meant everything else. Yep.
And and I I also agree that one of the easy things for the state to do, and it's a state thing, would be to start that 40 mile an hour speed limit a little further on the other side of stoplight instead of on this side to slow traffic down and give everybody a fighting chance. So, okay.
Yeah. Chairman Larson, is it fair to say that under new business, we will not be discussing this application any further? And I'm asking for the benefit of the applicant who I may not want to sit
do not expect to have any further discussion. I think we've had plenty of discussion, good discussion. Whenever I had a public hearing and got input from the people, it's always been very beneficial. Know, there's always something that comes up that I hadn't thought about and gives me a chance to think about it. So I appreciate the input from all the members here, but I think we have probably exhausted our discussion on 580 Lake Road for tonight. We'll take it up again next month. So with that in mind, the public hearing is adjourned. 08:48 now, I will call the regular meeting to order. Roll call seating of alternates, I think I see an increment is here Scott person Steve Nelson we and Hutchinson and myself, so we we've got a full Commission will be seating no alternates. No addition or changes to the agenda. I'm going to.
Bill Warner, are you still with us here at all? I may have lost Bill already. I know he had something else he was going to do. I was hoping that we could get him on for a few minutes before he had to take off at 09:00. He may have recognized that we weren't going to have much time for him. But so addition or changes to the agenda, we will eliminate the new business. And with no Bill Warner here, we will eliminate the update on affordable housing plan. Jim, did you ever get ahold of Chris Bell for an update on the gravel operation? No
activity. Hopefully things will start again shortly. And we basically agreed that restoration plan would be more appropriate when end products sort of a given unknown. You know, he was putting together a restoration plan based on some assumptions and there was some concern about that. So hopefully we'll know exactly what he's taking out of there before that restoration plan comes back to the commission.
Okay. That's it. So we'll eliminate item five, new business, item six A and B under old business, and we'll vote by unanimous consent. Anybody opposed say aye. All in favor raise their hand.
I'm sorry, Jed, what is this to do to move on?
Oh, Yes, this is just to move on. These are eliminations from our agenda for tonight. Okay, as as
Chris Bell and the Extermar property, he would this I'm assuming Jim that this means he wouldn't come back all in one night and expect this to be approved. He'd come back when he has more to go on so to speak and when he has more information about what's been removed from the site but not wait till what might be their last night to do all of this at once? Correct.
To tell us about all of us. Okay. So there would I be mean, did request,
it was received a six month extension, which gives him a lot of time. And know this is he's had a lot of things slowing him down. But hopefully, this is the season to get material out of there and hopefully he's on it. Okay, thanks.
I just wanted to establish that I know we just did the extension last month. I just wanted to establish that there's going to be at least one more opportunity before that's up where he's going to come speak to us again. Yes, that's true. Okay, thank you.
So getting back to the elimination of the three items we just talked about, all in favor, raise your hand. Aye. Okay, aye. Any opposed? Motion carries five-zero-zero. Next item up is actually our alcohol and cannabis regs. And so anyhow, everybody who joined us for 580 Lake Road who doesn't want to stay, certainly you can leave, or if you just want to see what else the Planning and Zoning Commission's up to, you can stick around and we'll share a little bit of that with you. But I'm gonna try and share my screen and call up. So at the last meeting, got, you know, we talked about the alcohol cannabis regs
and I think I put everything in here that we had talked about. So we've got, excuse me just a minute. My dog is wanting to go outside. So I gotta go find Janet and see if she takes. We go. Anyhow, so for bars, nightclubs and taverns, we got rid of the difference from the town line. And down here we changed the radius of 200 feet from the Hop River State Park Trail. And so that was intended, we noted that the Hop River Trail was within 500 feet of our business section, and we wanted to give them a fighting chance to put in that restaurant that we were all looking for and serve some alcohol and that sort of thing. So we loosened up the restriction there. But does anybody have any questions or comments on 17? Okay, I'm going to go to the package and cannabis stores. And we did about the same thing. We kept a lot of the 500 foot requirements in there.
We did, you know, like up above for school, we specified the elementary school so that, you know, the dance school that we've got halfway between the package store in Andover Pizza, you know, isn't an issue. We specified the elementary school, which I think we were concerned about. And then we also reduced it down to 200 feet from the Hop River State Park Trail. Now I know during the public hearing, somebody mentioned the fact that we might not want a cannabis shop in town. The Board of Selectmen issued either a letter, ordinance, or something saying that Andover would be pleased to have one in town. And so I didn't put anything in our zoning regulations that would restrict that. Because we thought that's what the people of the town might think was reasonable. And oh, by the way, the town gets 3% of the 3% tax on all the sales at a cannabis shop. So that is what I'm thinking for the cannabis rich.
Can I just make a comment? I noticed what I had the opportunity to travel to the state of Washington. A couple of years ago, and out there they already had the cannabis stores. And there was one right above a restaurant that we went to one night, and they have a lot of signs up saying you can't consume it there or around that area. You had to bring it back to your home and use it there. It was an interesting thing that I don't think know if anybody's thought of around here yet, but they seem to be pretty common out in state of Washington. You often saw places selling cannabis, but they had signs saying that had to be consumed at your own home. That's probably was zoning too. Yep, well,
and I agree, Ann, and my take on that is that that might not, I don't think that's a zoning issue. I'm not exactly sure where that goes, but that's, I think that's either a state issue or it's gotta be determined by the Board of Selectmen on where you can consume cannabis. We're talking about where you might be able to sell it. Right. Okay. I did not want to get into where we might consume it, but I'm sure that there are some strong feelings about that. I stood clear of it because I didn't think that belonged in our zoning regulations. Probably not.
Already is a regulation into town, no consuming of cannabis on town property.
Yep. Thanks, Scott. So, back a while ago, we had run through a bunch of odds and ends from the changes to, you know, add frontage, to eliminate being able to build in a flood prone zone, a lot of different, you know, little things there. I still got that list and I'm gonna put the alcohol cannabis stuff with that now. And the third piece of the pie that I'm gonna work on in one grand gesture is going to be the sign regulations. And I'd like to run through there tonight to just highlight for you what I've added since the last time you looked at it. And as I said in the email when I sent them all out, I am done working on it now. So when the Commission is happy and has no other comments, we will send them to Mark Branch to get his concerns with all three of the different items here. Then they have to go for two months out to, I forget the government entity, the CROG that gets to have a chance at reviewing our changes, and then it would be a couple, so that would take two months, and then sometime in July maybe we can go to public hearing and discuss the comments on our regulations and get them implemented. So that's where we are there. Stop sharing. So this is the latest and you should all have it. Just going through in
section 24 of our regulations are a bunch of definitions. And Mark Branch crafted this new definition of what is a sign. And I was going to put it in chapter 24. And I came to, you know, I wrestled with do the definitions go in the individual sections or do they go there? And I made my decision based on if a definition was only in one particular section of the regulations, that's where I would put the definition. If the definition like frontage or something like that was sprinkled throughout our regulations, then that should be in section 24. So with that, I cut and pasted the sign definition and added it here. And I think it makes sense that we had some idea of what a sign was. The next thing I did was I added a political position signs. These are signs pertaining to public policy issues, excluding those for which an election or other date certain event has evolved. So this is a sign like we support our police or defund the police, all those kinds of things. That is a political position sign. And we'll see that everybody has a right to have one And we won't constrain what goes on that sign, but we will constrain the size of it a little bit. Next, I added special event in election temporary signs, because I wanted the political position signs, I can't say when you take them down. I wanted to make sure that while people wanted to put the election signs up sooner, that we got them taken down seven days after the election. So I defined the election temporary sign that way. Special event signs like tag sale,
the firemen having their steak fried, that kind of stuff. And then I noticed that we had a lot, you know, every now and then properties got a no trespass sign. I thought that didn't have a bracket in it, so I added words about a no trespass sign and so put some regulations on that as well. Also added banner signs and here is, I'm not exactly sure how these are all going to work out yet, but what I wanted to make sure we didn't do was have a big banner draped across the bridge on the rail trail over Route 316. And so we've got, so I wanted to define a banner sign which also includes flags and that sort of thing, but I didn't want somebody hanging the banner up on our walking trail thing. Oh, and I also noticed that I got the numbering off here. I tried hard to get all my stuff looking better, but I got two fifteen point two point one. So I'll have to go, I missed one there and that makes all these wrong too. But anyhow, the other thing when I was talking with Mark Vrance about signs, he seemed concerned about an artificially illuminated sign being directly illuminated or indirectly illuminated. And while I put no restrictions on these definitions there, just say illuminated signs. At some point we might, and so while I had examples of definitions for those, the directly illuminated sign is sign that's got a light bulb internal to the sign and makes it show up. Indirectly illuminated is where we put a spotlight on the sign. But in all cases, we want to make sure that those, that lighting doesn't interfere with your ability to drive down the road and
have good night vision and all that stuff. So I added those. Let's see. Vehicular sign. We had talked about, I think we talked about the Good Shepherd's Kennel or something in, I saw the bus parked out on a little area next to Route 6, didn't think that was appropriate, and so I wanted to define what a vehicular sign was. So I put in that as well. And the following signs are prohibited and we've had we had mechanical signs before sky signs. I added roof signs to that. That was based you know Mark Brandt said are you sure you want these? And I looked at examples of roof signs, which are roof signs mounted on the roof of buildings and that. I said, no, we could do without those here in Andover. So I eliminated that too.
Billboard signs before, here is my stab at the vehicular thing. And I said any vehicular or other sign on wheels when repeatedly parked or displayed in a manner that may be in public view, you're not in the location which is used for transportation purposes, which is customary for said vehicle. I don't know if I got those words perfect yet. Know, there's always gonna be a problem where you got the box truck, especially for a home occupation, the box truck parked in the driveway that's got the advertising on the side and that sort of thing. And that's why I put the words parked in a place not normally where the vehicle would normally be parked there. So anyhow, that's that, take a look at that. If we get any, you know, if you've got any hard spot to think that's wrong, let me know. Hey Jed. Yes, Steve.
Question on the roof signs in the public hearing we just had on the new commercial property. The lettering they show on the roof, would that be considered a roof sign? That that is not a roof sign. Okay. And
I see if it jumps out at me here. It is a flat sign, which is the sign placed on the wall or other exterior surface of a building extending no higher above the roof level than the eaves or the top of the parapet. So we can still, and I would expect to have signs there. In fact, the one that really came into question was when you go down to Andover Plaza, I questioned whether those were roof signs on the top because they're on the shingling, but it's on that steep shingling on the side. Talking over to Mark Branch, he convinced me that those were not roof signs. Roof signs are things that are mounted on the roof going even higher, which would in no way be able to meet that 10 foot requirement that we've got in our regulations that apply to all signs.
Okay, so in the case of this new development, it would be on the gable end, so it would be a wall rather than the roof, right? Right, yep. Okay, thank you.
I put no banner signs except we're specifically authorized by the Board of Select. There may be, you know, we've got a big anniversary of Andover coming up in the not too distant future. Maybe we would like to put a banner across the highway or something, I don't know. But if the Board of Selectmen want it there, we can probably do it on a temporary basis. And then I added what was already in an ordinance, no signage, she'll be at the Veterans Monument. And that's it, you know, we've already got a town ordinance, but I was thinking, if we're making sign regs and we don't want signs there at the Veterans Memorial, why don't we put that in our sign regs? So I did. Let's see, 15.1. Up here, yeah, I put no sign will have letters taller than 15 inches. Now I think on the presentation that Matt showed us tonight,
those letters may have been 18 inches. We don't have any restrictions in our regs right this minute at all. And so 18 inches, you know, would have to be fine for the current application out there. 15 inches, know, Mark Branch was, he's not big on a lot of signs for, you know, he doesn't want Andover to look like the Las Vegas script. I don't think any of us do. And he says, go down and run through Willamantic at night, look at the signs there in Manchester. And I did, and the most outrageous sign to me was the McDonald's sign with the huge golden arches all lit up, just about blinds you as you're driving down the road. But most of the signs I thought were pretty reasonable, but I agreed 15 inches is a big enough letter that should be okay. So I put that in our update here. Signs permitted in all zones. I don't know if I lost all the ground. We tried to make temporary signs all into one bucket. And then as I was working on it, we had all these little different things that we wanted for temporary signs. And so I split them out under the temporary sign bucket because I had little things in the comment that really came back to me was we got an election coming up. The people that want to put an election sign up, we shouldn't have them guessing at what the regulations mean.
Let's just spell it out for them so they know. And so that's what we did. So I put down some words on your real estate sign, one freestanding sign advertising, you know, not to exceed four square feet is not lit up. Election signs. Oh, this is this is a big change from before, you know, we should just because we authorize a 32 square foot sign for a business. Does that mean that somebody in a residential area gets to put a 32 foot square foot sign up in their yard for an election? And the answer turns out to be no. You are allowed to put a political sign or an election sign as big as the biggest sign we allow in that specific zone. And the biggest sign we allow in a residential zone is 16 square feet. And so that's how big the election sign can be in a residential zone. So that's a little different. I also cut down on the amount of square footage based on the residential zone two. And instead of 50 that was the max anywhere out in the commercial, I cut it down to 32 square feet. And I figured, if everybody's got three square foot lawn signs that we normally have, that's 10 signs you can put in your front yard. I think that's plenty. And so when we go to public hearing, we might get some feedback from those folks who get passionate about election signs that that's not enough, but at least I've got a basis
that I was happy and didn't seem too excessive than I thought was reasonable. So anyhow, that's a bit of a change and hopefully it'll never even become an issue, but just in case it is, there you go. Special event signs, freestanding up to 16 square feet construction. In the past, Jed, there has been election signs that have been 32 square feet.
And those have been primarily in the commercial zones out along Route 6. I don't know that I've seen them in the residential zone, but I expect, you know, I'm going make a personal invite to the head of the, you know, Andover Democratic Party and Republican Party to attend, you know, our public hearing so we can get feedback from them on can they live with this? Last year when we talked to them about signs, I think they were pretty reasonable. They just wanted to know what the rules were. And so we gave them some. I'm cutting that back a little bit. The biggest thing that I think that is going to be probably providing heartburn to those folks who want to put up their political signs is, and it's not a change, we've got words up here somewhere, I can't find it off to make sure it's still in there, but it's no signs in the town right away along the roads. That is not a change. We just didn't know it was in our regs when we were talking before. Right there. Street right of ways. What's the number?
All signs or part thereof shall be clear of There all you go, okay, yep. And so,
in, yeah, in addition, no closer than 15 feet to the edge. So I know we have some different right of way distances for different roads. Certainly if you're 15 feet back from the road, you're clear of the down right of way. My concern was that you see some vulgar signs being posted. And I don't think those signs have any business being in the town property at all. If you want to put up a sign like that, it should be in your own yard, your own private property, and that's your business. I still may not like it, but I didn't want it on the town right away. And since that was already our regulation, I just left it there. So there you go. And then the political position, oh, no trespass, signs not to exceed two square feet where multiple signs are required, intervals no closer than 20 feet apart. Again, I just kind of made that up thinking that sounded reasonable to me. But people, you know, we do have no trespassing signs posted various places and I wanted to cover it. Political position signs, each lot may have one sign, maximum 16 square feet, residential 32 squared in business. No political position signs shall be allowed on publicly owned property. So even if you're out of the right away, you know, in the town hall down at the dump, I don't think we should be putting political position signs. I'm not saying we can't put up election signs, but I didn't want to, you know, some of these political position signs I think are getting a little carried away and
don't think they should be on the town property. Town shouldn't be taking a position on those political position signs other than that they shouldn't be posted there. So that's how I handled it. And again, open to any feedback on that. That was just what I thought we kind of wanted to keep that quaint town that everybody wanted because we were going through. Application procedures. I got two questions for Jim here. 15.6, okay, here's signs permitted in these districts, the ARD and Andover Lake District condition those allowed by, you know, in all districts. And Jim, it says down here, special permit required, an application. And I think we're talking about identification sign for uses other than single family dwelling. So it will be construction sign, an apartment building if we had it in a residential area or something like that.
I think what it really means is if we do a special permit, that grants the authorization. If we don't do a special permit, they apply through the zoning agent. You certainly don't need both. Right.
Again, that's Let me take a look at that. That's no change. That's what's there today. I just didn't understand what that meant. Yeah, it's
a bit extreme to require a special permit for some of these signs, my opinion. I'll take a look at it and I'll get back to you. And I tried to
stay silent. Know, I don't want a guy who's gonna have a tag sale puts up a sign to come over looking for a permit. You know, something more than that, the home occupation sign, the construction signs, the bigger signs that are gonna be around for a while. That's what this is trying to identify here. But these are, I mean, you're talking like apartment buildings or I mean, condos. Yeah, I don't even think, you know, when are we gonna see an apartment building go up in Andorra? Certainly not in a residential zone, at least I don't think, but.
It would be a mixed, the floating zone if it happens.
It could happen there and that would be out in the business areas. Yeah. But anyhow,
think about that I'll a little make sure I give you a better answer, give you a good answer. And
then down here on the permit procedures, it says a detailed drawing and then you got three choices for the sides. I didn't understand why we needed three choices there. And you don't have to give me an answer tonight, Jim. Just There's no reason. Mean Probably don't want it a five by seven. I don't want a 24 by 36 inches. Do it for you? Yeah. Okay. We'll do that. And that was all legal size. Right?
Yep. Yeah. Go back to the window signs and the business window signs. 25% of the available window.
Yeah and again my eye is not jumping to it what paragraph are you reading? I'll up. Okay.
Slow down slow down. Woah woah woah woah right there. Window signs.
Oh right here, 15.7.1. Okay, yep, go ahead. Those are business signs, right? Yeah. Yep. They are. They're they're to address the signs at the gas station.
They would obviously exceed that now, right? They do. Yep. And
I don't know if we will be able to, you know, I got to go look into what They certainly don't comply with any regulation that we have today. I didn't, the mobile station, I didn't check to see if they went to the zoning board of appeals. The Extremart, I don't think they're as entirely out of control as the other gas station was. But I did want to cover window signs. I got confused a little bit because in the definition of window sign, says it's on the inside of the window. And so I was thinking, well, what if it's on the outside of the window? You know, does that mean we don't have any regulations? And then that means it's one of those on the side of the building signs that, and I forget the title of it, but they can have the flat sign, which goes on the outside. So if it's on the outside of the window, it's a flat sign, it's on the inside of the window, it's a window sign.
But either way, we can restrict the amount of it. So I put 25% of the available business window frontage to a maximum of 50 square feet. And the thought was that, well, somebody's going to put a lot of windows in their place just so they can plaster, have a lot of square footage to put into signs. That's why I thought maximum 50 square feet. And we've been living with whatever we've had over at the mobile station for a long time now. If we could get that down to 50 square feet, I think we'd be doing great. Do they have 50 square feet to?
Oh, yeah, they got to, you know, you look at each of those windows, and it it's well in excess, know, two or three sheets of plywood. So, you know, they got, they probably got 50 to 100 square foot on each one of those little window things that goes across there. They have a lot of square footage. And it's all covered. And it's all covered, yep.
I guess I don't really have a problem with them putting signs in their windows. I'm not sure why we need to restrict the ones that are in the windows. I can see the signs on the post outside. What's the purpose?
Well, so I wanted to put, I wanted to have something that covered window signs so we could, we could not, we could allow the signs that say open, closed, lit up, you know, that kind of stuff. We have significant restrictions on this total square footage of signage. Matter of fact, the maximum square footage in these regulations is 50 square feet total. Includes the freestanding sign out front, the flat signs, you know, square footage less than 50 square feet. And Mark I, Branch kept pushing me, says, you're making them too big, you're giving too much square footage here, you got to reduce it. I said, why? It doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I go look at the Extramart signs and that didn't appear excessive to me. His feedback to me was go drive around Glastonbury and look at the signs they have there. And they have plenty of people going to the stores with little signs. You go to places with big signs and that doesn't necessarily mean they have a lot of people doing business there. So as you have a tasteful store with a tasteful sign, the people are going to go there, they know where it's at, they're going to go there, that sort of thing. So I thought, okay, you know, we want to continue, and we heard a lot of that tonight, have our town looking clean. I think Yeah, the building that was presented tonight, I thought it looked good. Know, if anybody would have pressed me on that, my comment would have been, what's it got to compete with? The gravel pit, the junkyard, and I guess you should across the street.
It doesn't take much to look more quaint than those. And so But I do think that we don't need to have every window totally windowed over on signage now, which is what we have at the one place. So that was my thinking. Yes, Leanne.
Hi. I was I was mainly going to agree with Anne. I don't personally find these, you know, the gas station signs the way they are now particularly bothersome or unattractive. And I don't know we know we're combining this discussion with window signs and also any exterior signs on the brick or whatever else the rest of the building is made out of. But, you know, I think they advertise a lot of things like beverages and firewood and that they take EBT and ATM inside. I think that does provide a service. I suppose somebody could argue that any other business like a tradesman or an office or something would want to have as many signs as they could also. But I think in most of those cases, those people are just advertising like one I mean, it's a small town, but you know what I mean? Like one item, like did they do one thing at their office or one thing at their carpentry shop or something? So, again, I just personally don't think that it's really a nuisance to have the gas stations have the kind of signs that we see now.
Okay. And I guess my only response to that would be in the case of the Extramart, they felt the same way that you did. They went to the ZBA and got relief. And so there is an out if they think they've got an exceptional hardship because of our regulations there. If the majority Go of the commission
ahead. I guess I didn't realize that the Extramart went to ZBA about their window signs.
Not about the window sign, about the size of their signage out front in general. We say they can't have more. I think right now it might be 80 square feet, but, and we say a sign can't be higher than 10 feet. And you look at the sign out there, it is much higher than 10 feet. And so they went to the ZBA and got relief on there for the sign plan that they wanted. ZBA agreed with them and said, yeah, this looks okay, and allowed it.
Okay, well, I didn't realize that. I mean, I was the one several years ago who mentioned to John Valenti that the subway had put up, like, five of those big feather signs, I think they're called. Yep. You know, right out in that little grassy area right along Route 6, and they were just big and billowing and tall and repetitive, and it was overkill. But I didn't and then they did they at the time, they took them most of them down. I don't know if were one or two or one on the other side of the driveway or some such thing, but they took some of them down. But I didn't realize that the Extramart had gone because that's different. That's an a sign identifying the business right next to the road, so to speak, is different from advertising individual things, you know, the kind of thing I was mentioning in the windows and otherwise on the exterior. I mean, could have the same thing. You could say, This is the Shell station. This is the Extramart right next to the street. Then you could have a sign that says Shell or Extramart on your building. So, it is kind of two different things. But one identifies the place and the other one talks about the kind of things that, again, that I just listed. So, again, I don't think that that's particularly offensive. I guess some some people could think it was overkill
or draw a comparison to some other kind of business. But right now, I don't think it's, you know, particularly a nuisance. That's all.
Okay. I'm open to other thoughts. As I looked at the mobile station down there, they probably got five or 10 different signs scattered around the property out there in every window covered over with signage. Thought that, to me, thought that was a little excessive. So I thought that's not what we wanted on a routine basis. If the majority do want it, it's easy to eliminate the window sign. You know, we don't have anything discussing window signs in there now. Was trying to make it so the guy can put the open or closed lit sign in there and have a basis for putting some nice signage in the window. The hardest part about eliminating it from our regs is I'd have to go through and renumber all those paragraphs again. And I'm willing to do that. The
one thing that I have a question about with gas stations is I can't really picture the size of our regulations compared to what the signs are out there, but I know as a customer looking for a gas station, Two things I'm looking for. I'm looking for the big enough sign to see it's a gas station, you know, mobile sicko whatever the brand is, and I want to see a sign that tells me the price. I want to be able to read the price and not have to pull in to find it on a pump. I'd like to see that we make sure we allow visible signs for the gas station and for the price. I'm not sure what the size comes out to be, but those two things are important for most customers. Agree. Then the stations that don't have that, and it's hard to know where to get your gas, especially if you're not familiar with the area. Nope, I agree. And
again, that certainly has not been a problem with either of the gas stations that we have in town.
Right. I just don't wanna make the regulations too tough for somebody in the future that area.
Very good. So even up through, you know, the point where we get to public hearing, we can change these things a little bit and tweak on them. But so
I should probably try to figure out what the size of
the signs I'm thinking about would be. Well, I think the signage out there is probably 15 feet tall. We limit it to 10. I don't know if a 10 foot sign, you know, where you put the price out there, how big it would have to be to be there. I don't think we're going to get any more gas stations in Andover, so I don't know wrestle with We got the two that we are going to get. That's better. Scott or Steve, what do you guys think about the window signs? Should we just get rid of it?
Should we Jed, keep I think it's a good idea. And if you think about it from a public safety standpoint, you know, fire and police, they probably need to have some visibility into the building. And if you cover it a 100% with signage, that's I think a concern. But I think maybe 25% is too restrictive. I don't know what the right number is. Maybe we need to put a little more thought into the percentage, but I think 100% sign coverage in the windows is probably not a good idea. Right? Yeah, I'll go, go ahead, Sky. Especially at that gas station. Yep,
I'll go back and look. I think 25% is a number that I took from a different either Mark Branch's model regulations or another town that he said had a good set of sign regs. I didn't make that number up. I might have made up the 50 square feet and I can't remember if I was bigger or smaller than the, I think Marks had a blank for that. He said just make sure you put a total square footage so the guys don't play games with you on the number of windows trying to totally block out, you know, the ones that are right along the road. So I'll go back, take a look there. I think it's in the ballpark
with what other towns are doing. Because I tried not to be any more creative than I had to be. I guess the other thing I'd like to just talk about on signs, and again, I don't know if we're ever gonna have this issue come up again or not. If you go to a lot of towns, most towns, and you see a sign for a plaza. And it's got, I'll just say, Andover Plaza, and then underneath it, it's got the list of all the things that are there. And I was saying, how come, you know, we don't have that here in Andover? And the feedback I got was because we don't want that in Andover, we want, if you're looking for Andover Pizza, you know it's in Andover Plaza. So you put a big sign out there that says Andover Plaza, guy pulls in, then he finds where Andover Pizza is. If you put all the stores that are in the plaza down there underneath the Andover Plaza sign, the guy's driving down the road and he's trying to read all these different signs and he, you know, not paying attention to where he's driving. So I thought that kind of made sense to me. And so we've got it to where if you got a plaza or something with multiple things, you got one sign advertised the site, and then you put the business specific signs on the businesses. I thought that was kind of interesting. I hadn't thought of that that way. But I do know a lot of towns have all these little
establishments listed under the heading there. And I do find myself, you know, squinting, trying to look, see what's there, maybe I don't need to do that. Maybe the ad needs to say located in Andover Plaza and then you find that and then you look at it when you get in there. Any other comments on the sign range?
Well, going to that point, Jed, I think that really is a good practice on busy roads like Route 6 And not that we have anything here in Andover, but if say you're in Glastonbury and there's an office park and you're looking for a doctor's, you know, which building that your doctor is in, I think in that case, those signs make sense where you can list all of them on one sign. But I agree in a high traffic area like Route 6, it doesn't make sense. Yep.
Any other comments on the side rails? Jed, one more point going back to the individual lettering, the 15 inches high restriction. Yep. I was just thinking it might be a little too restrictive. You could take a the 32 square foot limit and do a two foot high by 16 feet long wall sign and end up, you know, with something like that versus if we allowed 18 inches or more for individual letters. In other words, if this, if we told these folks on this new commercial building, a retail building 15 inches high and they say, well, we wanna go 18 or 24 inches, we'll just put a wall sign up instead.
I would think that that would be less appealing and we don't wanna drive them in that direction. So we might want to consider opening up the 15 inches limit.
Okay, I'll think some more on that. Again, I grabbed that right from Mark Ranch's model regs. He was in all things signs, he keeps trying to push us smaller rather than bigger than that's not necessarily the right answer, but
Yeah, no, I agree smaller is better than bigger. I just don't want to push them towards, you know, gaudy wall signs versus something which might be a little more tasteful.
Is, I looked around, well, I'll let you know. Talk about that at the next meeting. Thank you. Any other sign comments? Okay, that is that. And I didn't think we'd be talking about science tonight, but since Bill Warner had to go, he had an appointment tonight at 09:00 that he couldn't get out of, made that opportunity available. We're on to discussion. Jim, any discussion we need to have?
Well, as long as you brought it up. The, We've moved to this where everything is posted on the town's website. And I think it's working out pretty well. I just want you to know that I'm certainly open for suggestions on that, anything that would make it easier. And now we're getting links. BL, for instance. So we used to get these PDFs, and now we're getting links. I'm trying to keep up with this, the changes, the tech changes, but I'm just, I also presently keep paper files, and I'm not sure that I will do that forever. But I was just looking for feedback on how easy it is for folks to find everything,
if there's any need for improvement.
Well, I guess I like sitting in my easy chair with a highlighter on a piece of paper and making comments all over the pages as I review it. I can't find that easy to do when the things are posted online, so I end up printing everything off. And then I got the traffic study today, 98 pages. And I said, holy cow, you know, so I'm gonna go use a whole ream of paper and my toner cartridge on this thing because he's not providing it to me. Did So I, I see where he says he sent you a bunch of copies. Is that true? Do you have those yet? Or did those not show up in the mail yet?
I didn't get him in the mail. I think he sends them on the link. No, he said he provided
paper copies of all this stuff. Wait, I'm sorry, they provided paper copies of the plans. I'll go back and figure it out, but Which were distributed.
But certainly, yeah, I didn't feel like running off a copy of the traffic
study. Right. And some of the internal documents call for 10 copies and we have gotten 10 copies posted. And it's been a little problematic. So we're working through those.
All things considered, I like having everything posted online. That gives the public access to it, that gives us access to it, and that's a good place when you go back to to reviewing something that's done in the past. I like it. I just don't like having to run off the big copies to do a review. And if we were meeting in person, maybe it would be easy for us to pass them out, but that still doesn't give you the opportunity to, at your leisure, review it before we get into the meeting. So that's that's the only thing I don't I'm not fond of on it and that's
it. Okay, I guess my point is, you know, it's a new process. And it's, you know, like to be able to do whatever works best. So I'm open for suggestions.
Okay. Anybody else got any suggestions for Jim on that at this point? Guess the other thing that like how you get it posted. I don't like the fact that it comes in on Monday afternoon and I didn't even think to send out to, well, I knew I wasn't going to have time to get through it tonight, so I wasn't going to entertain acting on that thing until we had a chance to do that. We'd let you know tonight, but these things just kind of pop up and you don't know it. As long as you always put the new things at the bottom, so I can go back in and it's not hidden in there so I can look back to where I was looking last time and know there's nothing new hidden in there that I don't know about.
Make a point to put them in sequentially and to be in format where it makes the most sense to me anyway. Anyway, it's an ongoing, it's a dynamic situation. I
think the website's working well. I like it. All right. Next up is approval of the minutes from 02/28/2022. And I move that the meeting minutes from February 28 be approved. Looking for a second. Second. Thank you, Steve. Any comments on the minutes? And I did have a couple. I'll start out then. Under others present, I show Does everybody have a copy of the minutes or do we need to post those up on the screen here? This is one of these cases where once again I like my paper copy that I can scribble on as I'm reviewing. Hearing none, I'll go through. I don't think Hank Bruner was at that meeting. I think we talked about, you know, Jim was going to send out, you know, something for Hank Gruter given training on going over and look at the vernal pools, but I don't think he was actually there to make his case. I think you're right, Jed.
Okay, so we'll scratch Hank Bruner. Under old business, On page four, the second line down under section 17, alcohol cannabis. Steve Nelson stated to remove item B, package store next to a bar currently violates regulation. And then it's got the word suggested lowering from 500 feet to 200 feet. That was about something else. We just got rid of requirement that the package store couldn't be within 500 feet of the bar. So eliminate the words suggested lowering from 500 to 200. In the next line down, it says Susan England suggested to leave item C at 500 feet, add an item D for, and it said parks except, and we need to cross out parks except, so it says add an item D for the rail trail and lower the radius to 200 feet. And then down so did you get those, Abby? Yes, thank you. Okay. Down on item 11B, Jed Larson updated that there is nothing happening in the Inland Wetlands Commission. I might have said that, but I hope I didn't. I hope I said nothing happening that affects the Planning and Zoning Commission. So we need to add the three words that affects PZC at the end of that statement. And that's it. So I thought Marina did a great job filling in for you, Abby, But there were just a couple of little hiccups there. Anybody else have any comments on the minutes? Correspondence and administrative reports, Jim.
No correspondence. Administrative reports, just spending a lot of time, new projects in the spring, a lot of people looking at lots and trying to figure out if they're buildable, which is time consuming activity for me. There is some I am moving on to an enforcement letter for five, Matthiasin for blight. And I have not as yet sent a letter out to gentleman on Route 6 with the with the RVs near the road. I will hope to send that out tomorrow. Basically, a letter just saying, give me a call. Let's see if we can work this out. 12 Center Street, I believe, is the demolition has commenced. Actually, no enforcement, but certainly, had been in contact with the owner. It's my understanding it's been started. I have not seen it myself. Other than that, that's all I have.
Okay, you did not mention a letter to the property on Route 6 across from Parker Bridge Road. And Okay.
And that that letter those letters two letters are going out basically together. Okay. Yeah. And
I don't know the numbers off hand, but but yeah.
Again, we we heard a lot. We all feel that, you know, the quaint town of Andover most people's impressions of Andover is driving down Route 6 and those two places don't look quaint. No.
Anything else, Jim? No. Okay, I think everybody from the public got tired and left. I don't see anybody for public speak, so we'll move on to next regular meeting, April 18. And I make a motion that we adjourn. Second. All
in favor say aye. Raise your hand. Aye. Okay. Any opposed? Thank you very much. That was a little longer than I was hoping tonight. Well, actually, knew it was going be this long. I just, I will need to figure out how to get us back on track with Bill Warner. I was counting on getting this presentation tonight because we do have a due date coming up in June where this project needs to be done. But I think we'll catch him up on the next meeting and we may have to schedule an interim meeting to get caught up on a couple of things to get this done. I don't like doing that, but the calendar's rolling quickly down the road and there you go. So everybody, thank you for showing up and attending and supporting and have a wonderful evening. Good night, everybody. Night. Thank you. Good night, everybody.