Planning Board Meeting ~ December 7, 2016

2016-12-07 · Planning Board · 31:33 · watch on YouTube →

A short planning board meeting with a single item of new business: a conditional use application for a wood recycling and composting operation on the old Durham Paving Company site, land the applicant is arranging to acquire from Crooker by swap rather than purchase. The applicant described grinding stumps and brush from house lot clearing into products such as a substitute for silt fence and a carbon base for compost, moving a firewood processor onto the site, and taking leaves and brush from residents. The board worked partway through the submission checklist before finding that the signed abutter list and certified mail receipts had not been filed, which the applicant said was a misunderstanding on his part. It also told him the plan needs to cover the whole business across the 39-acre parcel rather than just the three-acre area DEP regulates, and to consolidate everything onto a single map. The application was tabled to the next month's meeting and the board adjourned.

What was discussed

1. 0:05
   Call to order and minutes

   The chair called the meeting to order with a quorum and the pledge. There were no amendments to the agenda, and the minutes of the October 5th meeting were moved, seconded and accepted. Todd asked it be made clear he would be a participating voting member for the meeting.

2. 0:05
   What the applicant is proposing

   The applicant, Mr. Bowie (?), said his business clears house lots and has spent three years looking for a way to recycle what it now burns (stumps, brush and pulp) rather than pile and burn it, which is difficult in a dry summer when the fire chief will not issue permits. He described five or six products, the main one being ground stumps used in place of silt fence around construction sites, which can be levelled out afterwards to keep acting as a filter.

3. 0:05
   Composting and the firewood business

   The other line is composting: grinding brush fine and mixing it into windrows as the carbon component. He also runs a small firewood processor with his son, currently set up in Topsham, which he would move over once the wood stockpile there is used, and noted there are about four other similar operations in town.

4. 0:05
   Taking material from residents

   The applicant wants the site open to the public to receive leaves, lawn rakings and small brush piles from spring and autumn cleanups, so residents have somewhere to take that material instead of leaving it in the back yard.

5. 5:36
   DEP permitting

   The applicant took the Maine compost course last summer and his sons will take it in the spring. He said DEP regulates composting and wood grindings under two separate permits, with requirements stricter than the town's (he contrasted the town's 100-foot commercial setback with DEP's 500 feet from any well) and considered that good oversight.

6. 5:36
   How the land would be acquired

   There is no purchase and sale agreement. The applicant has a verbal agreement with Crooker for a land swap, trading property he holds in Topsham for this site, together with a letter giving him permission to pursue the permit. He said he wanted to get through the town process before committing, since DEP will not look at an application until the town has approved, and that if the swap fell through it would mean the site was not suitable.

7. 11:07
   Soils and the water table

   Asked what role Mark (?) had played, the applicant said he is a soil scientist and site evaluator who prepared the soils work and will pursue the DEP application. DEP requires at least 24 inches of separation between the water table and the surface, and wants soil that is neither heavy clay nor too fine to hold water; six test holes were dug four to five feet deep and none reached the water table.

8. 11:07
   What is on the site now

   The site is a levelled area where the Durham Paving Company set up, also used as a stockyard for crushed stone, sand and other aggregate, and a gravel pit before that. A paving contractor operated there for a couple of summers before Crooker bought them out. The applicant knew of no existing conditional use for the site.

9. 11:07
   The plan and what it shows

   Working down the checklist, a member said a more developed plan showing contours would help. The applicant said the site is already levelled with the entrance established and the sand base in place, so there is little to do beyond taking off regrown vegetation and setting a two to four pitch, and that DEP's main requirement will be a six-inch gravel surface.

10. 16:23
    The three-acre limit

    DEP allows a maximum of three acres for stockpiling grindings or wood chips before a different and more involved process applies. The dashed square on the plan, roughly 350 by 350 feet, is that three acres. Whole-tree stockpiles and the firewood processing can sit outside it, but once material is ground it has to be on the pad, with a gravel access road between the windrows for drainage and access.

11. 21:48
    The board wants the whole business shown

    A member said the difficulty is that the plan focuses on the three acres DEP cares about, while the town has to consider the entire business. There is no line showing the extent of the wood processing area and no setback dimensions to the abutting property on one side, even though the parcel as a whole is 39 acres and the distances are plainly well beyond the 100-foot commercial setback.

12. 21:48
    Stream, wetlands and access

    Members asked whether the stream shown had been delineated on the ground rather than taken from a topographic map, and were told it had, with no wetlands found in the area proposed for use. The only access is the existing double-wide driveway entrance, which the applicant prefers to keep as the single point of access.

13. 27:06
    Abutter notification missing

    The board asked for the signed abutter list and the certified mail receipts for anyone who could not be reached to sign. The applicant said he had misunderstood what was being asked and had returned only the list, having dealt with a neighbouring town that handles it differently. Without the notification the board could not take the matter up, so it had to go to the following month.

14. 27:06
    Put everything on one map

    Members told the applicant he may well have all the pieces, but the ordinance requires them to be on the plan, and that piecing the proposal together across several maps had been a challenge. They asked for everything on the application checklist, including drainage and the setbacks, consolidated onto a single map for the next meeting.

15. 27:06
    Who could vote

    There was brief confusion over whether an alternate could act as a voting member, given the board's size and the absence of one of its members.

16. 27:06
    Tabled and adjourned

    The application was tabled to the next month pending abutter notification, and with no further business the board adjourned.

What was decided

• 0:05
  Accept the minutes of the October 5th meeting. Moved, seconded and put to a vote.passed
• 27:06
  Table the conditional use application for the wood recycling and composting operation until the next month's meeting, pending notification of abutters. Moved, seconded and put to a vote. The board also asked the applicant to bring everything required by the application checklist on a single map.tabled
• 27:06
  Adjourn. Moved, seconded and put to a vote.passed

An outcome reads "unclear" where the recording does not state it plainly. The recogniser drops short words, and "the motion does not carry" is one missing word from its opposite.

Motions the minutes record

The town's own written account of what was decided, taken from planningminutes7dec2016.txt. It owes nothing to the recording or to a model: the clerk typed it, with the vote. Where the summary above claims a decision this list does not carry, the summary is the part to doubt.

• Approve the Minutes as presentedcarried 5-0

  Moved by Mindy Woerter, seconded by Michael Fitzpatrick

• Table until next month, pending notification of all abutterscarried 5-0

  Moved by Anne Torregrossa, seconded by Todd Beaulieu

• Adjourn at 7:33 p.mcarried 5-0

  Moved by Anne Torregrossa, seconded by Michael Fitzpatrick

Worth knowing

• 27:06
  The application could not be heard because the signed abutter list and the certified mail receipts had not been filed. The applicant said he had misunderstood what was wanted, having dealt with a neighbouring town that handles notification differently, and the board moved the item to the next month rather than proceed without it.
• 5:36
  DEP regulates composting and wood grindings under two separate permits, and its requirements are stricter than the town's: the applicant contrasted Durham's 100-foot commercial setback with DEP's 500 feet from any well. He cannot apply to DEP at all until the town has approved the conditional use, so the town's decision comes first.
• 16:23
  DEP caps stockpiling of grindings and wood chips at three acres before a different permitting process applies. That is the dashed square of roughly 350 by 350 feet on the plan. Whole-tree stockpiles and the firewood processing can sit outside it, but anything that has been ground has to stay on the pad because of the water table rules.
• 21:48
  The board's substantive objection was that the plan shows only the three acres DEP is concerned with, while the town must review the whole business on a 39-acre parcel. No line was drawn around the wood processing area and no setback was shown to the abutting property on one side, so the board asked for the whole operation and all the checklist items on one map.

Motion language found in the transcript

Located by pattern matching, with no model involved: "I move that", "I'll second", "all those in favour". This is an independent check on the summary above: 2 passages of motion language, against 3 decisions summarised.

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