TranscriptFebruary 8, 2021 ~ Land Use Ordinance Public Hearing

do it. Oh, it's been stopped. Tammy, are you able to let everybody turn on their videos? Ruth, it's under Ruth's account. It's under Ruth's account. Okay. Um, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to. Well, when I initially logged on, it said the host made it so you couldn't until I was made co-host. I wasn't able to either.

Okay. So, make all the panelists co-host is what I'll do to it around that. And then the attendees won't be able to do the video. So, just the panelist. Sorry, Tammy. You're really hard to hear. It's okay. You guys should be able to start your video now.

There's everybody. All right. Turn mine back off for now because I'm meeting. Fair. Fair. All right. Um, so welcome to the February 8th, 2021 meeting of the Durham Planning Board. We are here to talk about four proposed land use ordinance changes and we have um decent attendance for us which is very exciting. Um, the goal of tonight

is to go through each one, talk a little bit about the changes, um, and what the planning board's intent was, and then to take public comment. And at this point, we may be able to make minor modifications to the ordinances, but we're too late in the press to make anything major. We did hold numerous workshops on these um and it would have been great to get more public input earlier, but that that is what it is. Um and so tonight is mostly to take comments, answer questions, and hopefully um help people make up their minds based on

good information when they vote in April. Uh these will all be on the ballot in April. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take each one of the ordinances one by one. I'm going to talk through the changes. Um, planning board members and George, if you have anything that I've missed, please feel free to jump in. And then what we'll do is we'll take public comment on that one item. We'll close public comment on that item. The planning board will discuss it and then we'll go on to the next one. So, that's um that's how we're going to proceed. And I'm guessing most of you are here for the homebased businesses. So I'm actually going to start with that one. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to share my screen so everybody can see. First I'm going to talk through what currently is and then I'm going to talk through the changes. And so the reason behind these changes are I've been on the planning board for I don't know

somewhere between five and 10 years. And we've had numerous businesses come before us to get approvals. And some of these businesses are brand new. And some of these businesses have been operating for a short amount of time. And some of these businesses have been operating for a very long period of time. And they had just never received the required approvals. So my understanding is is that since the late 70s, early 80s to run a business to run almost any business, there are exceptions, um in Durham, you needed a permit. And so you needed either a permit from the code officer or from the planning board for conditional use approval. Now, there are a lot of businesses in Durham that don't have that, and we know that. And that frankly is not the planning board's problem. It's not something we can address and it's not something that this intends to address. Um, and it's it's just not within our

jurisdiction. But what we did see is when these businesses were coming to us, they were having to get conditional use approval and it was hard. Um, and sometimes it was much harder than it should have been for the nature of the business they were running. Sorry if my dogs are loud. Um

and so the first step in that was making um easier. And we already did that with George's help. We split it up into site plan and conditional use to make that process easier. But we also found that home the homebased business pieces were confusing and they were too strict. So, if you had a homebased business under the current ordinance, you could get code enforcement approval. If your business did not meet that narrow definition, then you had to come to us for a conditional use approval, which was much more difficult. So, the goal, and ultimately you all need to decide whether we've accomplished the goal, but the goal really was to make it easier to have a homebased business in Durham. And so what I want to do is first I want to talk through what the current standards are and then we'll talk through what the proposed revisions are. So I'm going to share my screen and the first thing I'm going to share oh I need

to bring it up first is the current ordinance. homebased businesses and basically a homebased business will um be permitted if it um if it meets all the requirements of this section 15.15. That's where it lives in our current ordinance. So, um B is the use of the dwelling

shall be clearly incidental and subordinate to use for its residential purposes. That's currently a requirement. may not alter the residential character or change the character of the lot from its principal use as a residence. Um, it has to be carried on wholly within the principal structure. And this was actually an issue we saw, a big issue we saw with this is if you were running your business out of a garage or out of a barn, um, you couldn't qualify as a homebased business. And it didn't matter how minor your business was. If you were packing seeds in your barn and nobody ever saw you come and go and nobody ever knew that you were running a business, if you were in your barn instead of your home, you would not qualify as a homebased business. Okay. Um sale of products limited to what's crafted, assembled, or substantially altered on the premises. you couldn't have traffic more than 20

trips per day. Given that the average residence generates 10 trips per day, getting to 20 is not a lot. So, if you ran um, for example, a hair salon or something that had more than five customers coming to your property a day, you would easily exceed that 20 trips. Adequate off- streetet parking is required. It could not use more than 30% of the total floor area of your home. Again, that was the principal dwelling, not a barn, not a garage, and then no more than one full-time employee or the equivalent outside of um

on the premises. In addition, there were standards. Um standards, George, was there a screening requirement in the old one? I thought there was. prohibits any outside activity or storage. That's right. So, the current ordinance prohibits any outside activity or storage. So, if you're storing your trucks or your equipment or your mulch or your firewood or your customers vehicles or anything like that, you can't run a homebased business. Now, you could run a commercial business, which would require you may be able to run a commercial business, which would require you to come to the board for conditional use, but again, that was much harder. And so, as the board over the past couple years has worked through some of these approvals, it some of them have seemed silly to us. So I remember um I don't know five or six years ago we had a gentleman who was literally conducting agricultural trades on his computer in

his home and he had to come to the board for conditional use approval. I can't remember which standard he didn't meet but it was silly and it was a waste of his time and it was a waste of the board's time and it was entirely too much bureaucracy for that. Um, so what the planning board has tried to do with these changes is make it easier to have a homebased business as long as it's not likely to impact your neighbors. And that's the balance that we always find ourselves in when we're hearing these applications is property owners wanting to conduct their business from their home and neighbors who say, "Well, I don't want to listen to someone processing firewood next to my personal home um you know, at all hours of the day. I don't want to see the glare from the headlights coming into my driveway at nine o'clock at night. I don't want, you know, 15 commercial vehicles parked in my driveway, you know, parked next to my my

lot line um permanently, right? People live in a residence and many of them expected to stay residential. So, the goal was to make this easier for homebased businesses that are not going to have a substantial impact on their neighbors. And so, what we came up with

are these changes. All right. So, these are the changes proposed. The underline language is the new language and anything crossed out is the language we're taking out. So, um same purpose. Again, this is all subject to code enforce. If you meet these standards, you get code enforcement um approval, which is much easier and much faster than having to come to the planning board for conditional use approval. So the size, we've increased the size. Previously, it was 30% of your principal structure and now it's 50% of your principal and accessory structures. So your barn, your garage, your shed, whatever. Um, but we did cap it at 1500 square f feet. Um we specifically put in provisions for home daycare and that's for child or adult daycare services um up to 12 children. They would qualify as a homebased business. Um and we the reason for that

is homebased daycarees are fairly common in um in Durham. So employees, we went from one to two employees. Previously, you were only allowed one. This will allow two. Um the appearance, so clearly incidental and subordinate. That's the same standard as in the current ordinance. May not alter the residential character. Same standard as in the current ordinance. no exterior display or storage of materials or other indications of homebased business which is in our current ordinance except we added exceptions. So now you can have some exterior storage but you need to fence it and it's limited to 1500 square feet. You can't have more than two commercial vehicles. one amllet sign and outdoor activities for um child and adult daycare services don't count towards this. So again, this is more lenient than what is currently there. Right now for a homebased business, you cannot have any exterior storage

materials, parking, any of it. Now we're letting you have it within certain restrictions. Okay. Traffic, we've gone from 20 daily trips to 40. Again, we've increased it. Parking, we put a limit on parking um to make sure it's staying small, which should be easy for everyone to meet because you're only having one outdoor one extra employee and you're only having up to 40 trips a day. Um hazardous waste is a standard that exists elsewhere in the ordinance and we just put it in here. And then we added some nuisance standards to make sure that most of which were pulled from elsewhere in the ordinance. So they already applied. Um but these make sure that again it's going to be a homebased business. It's not going to infringe on the neighbors unnecessarily or unduly. Um and they're pretty basic, right? You know, no outstanding, you know, incredible odors, no smoke. Um,

and then we made it clear that if you don't meet these standards, you're treated as a commercial use and you can still come to the planning board for conditional use approval. The process is just a little bit longer and there might be more restrictions put on it. So, that's my initial summary. I saw that I'm going to stop sharing, but I saw that Chief Moore had his hand up and I don't know where he went.

Did you still have a question or comment? Um, so George or planning board members, do you have anything to add to that before I open it up for public comment? there's a little raise your hand function on Zoom. you can go ahead and raise your hand and I'll call on you and then um you can speak. So Lee Fischer, you're first. I'm gonna allow you to talk. Somebody else did for me. So you can go ahead and unmute yourself, Lee, and then let us know.

Okay. Thank Thanks, Ann. So my question is um the 40 trips per day, is that a cap at 40 or is that an average of 40? 40, right? And nobody's going to stand outside your business with a clicker counting the number of um cars that come and go.

How this is going to work is if your neighbor sees that you have a 100 cars coming and going a day, they're going to call the code officer and complain. So, but it's right. It's generally speaking, you should not be exceeding 40 most days.

Okay. And my follow-up question is, if I want to run an Airbnb at my home, does that fall under the home business? So, probably not because bed and breakfast are currently allowed um under our ordinance. And if I were you, I'd say that's a residential use, not a business use. But I can't can't answer that question for you. Um, but either way, this doesn't impact it.

Okay. Thank you. Sure. next. Yes. I'm I'm new to this Zoom thing, but I am very curious if this is grandfathered to existing businesses. I have a home on a private road and it's not allowed commercial access to to a a an enterprise that has been using it for a few years. and I'm wondering if this would apply to

them. So maybe it depends on what their status is. So if this business either is not required to have approvals under our land use code, there are very few, it's mostly agriculture, embedded breakfast are the two big categories that aren't required, or they already have either code officer permit or conditional use approval. This does not apply to them. If they're not a legal business, if they're not properly permitted and they come in for a permit, this would apply to us considering their permit or to the code officer considering their permit. Does that answer your question?

It does. You know, it's it's it's you know, it's a family farm type of thing. And I was just wondering if that if it would apply because I I own the road. It's not commercial access. I mean, it's been a big to-do with a prior owner, but uh but yeah.

Okay. Well, agriculture agriculture is one of the big exceptions that does not generally need to come to either the code officer or us unless it's in resource protection. But if it was a different type of business that was required to have a permit, this would would um impact them.

Thank you. You're welcome. Yes. Okay, great. So my first question is in regards to the current ordinances. Um I have run a business out of my home before in Durm and then I got rid of it and we have opened up another business in our home. Um under the current ordinances, what is it that requires a business to currently come in and apply to run a business out of their home? Or is there anything that currently states that or are we adding this to it? Nope. That's been, like I mentioned, that's been in the ordinance actually since the late 70s, early 80s, the requirement to get approval to run a business.

And what kind of business? Because the first time I came into the town, I was told that it was a consulting business and I was not going to have customers in my home. So, they told me that I did not need to get a permit because I was not going to be having people visiting me at my home. Um, so we have a land use table in the current ordinance that lays out all the different uses. I will tell you that

in the past some code enforcement officers have not understood the impact of that. Um, but either way, that land use table, which is what says whether you need a permit or you don't, that is not changing. Okay. So, I I guess when I came in, they never told me there was a land use because obviously I would have gone to that. So, there's a land use permit uh excuse me, a land use table that did that says what businesses specifically need to have a approval from the town.

Yes, it's part of the zoning ordinance. Yep. Okay. So, my next question would be um we currently run a it's it's an HVAC company out of our home. Um it is just the current home is a home base. Um we do not perform any services here. Um we just do all of our paperwork and it's where my husband has his van. Um currently very small, not something that I feel is a large impact um to the neighborhood or area we live in. Um, so under the current ordinances, we if we were to have stuff outside, we would not be we would be against the current ordinances.

Well, it's um that you wouldn't qualify for a homebased business because we have what outside? What kind of specific materials would dequalify us for that? things that you're storing for your business as opposed to your personal use. So, if you're storing HVAC equipment or things like that, um you would be you would need to come to us to the planning board for conditional use approval as opposed to being able to um get code officer approval

if we wanted to store stuff outside of our prop on our property the way the current ordinance is written. Yes. And in the and you're saying in the updating ordinances that you guys want that we're we're currently speaking on that makes it easier to store stuff on the property,

right? So it allows you to store items outside as long as you put up a fence and it's limited to 1500 square feet. So are current businesses going to be grandfathered? Because my one concern that I have is that I feel like a lot of these ordinances and I understand you guys are saying that these are giving it's giving businesses more freedom, but there are a lot of people in town on their own properties that are maybe they're businesses and maybe they're not that store a lot of stuff. I mean, we personally keep our property very, you know, clean and organized. And then how people maintain their property is none of my business, but I feel like this puts a lot of extra work onto a business that might be living next to somebody that doesn't even do the same for their own personal property. So, I just I feel like that's really asking businesses to have to do extra just to be able to operate. I mean, we don't have customers

that come to our property and and this is something that we just started. We don't we only have a van, you know, we have a garage, but that garage is just where we hold stuff. So, I feel like that is grouping a lot of businesses into one category and asking them to do things that, you know, maybe if we had customers coming to our property, I can see that this would be changing the use of the property, but we live here. We just park our our vehicles here. So, I feel like that is asking us to do something extra that really is not any different than we would do if my husband was bringing home a company vehicle from another company. So, that I I just feel that's my two cents on that. I I really feel like businesses should be brought to the table in the town of Durham to work with them to identify what we can do as a community to at a minimum at least differentiate better what kind of businesses need to have stricter

regulations and what don't. There are a lot of businesses in the town of Durm that this these ordinances are going to change and it's going to ask a lot of them. I mean, there are people in the town who have been running businesses here for a very very very long time and these would these would impact them as well. Um, so I just feel like businesses should be brought to the table to be able to work with them side by side to make ordinances because it's going to impact a lot of people.

Okay. Thank you, Christa. Hi there. So, uh looking at specifically uh 5.15 section C uh size for the home daycare. So, I see that you have it listed as no more than 12 uh no more than 12 children or adults. Um there's nothing else listed in there is uh in regards to looking at the requirements for the for the town approving that um approving that as a homebased business. And when we start to look at some of the differentiations between the the terming on the fire marshall's website of daycare centers, group daycare homes and day in a daycare home uh which is offering care to six or fewer children or adults. the um the egress requirements, the fire protection requirements vary a little bit, but overall they're still pretty standard. Is there anything um I'm not seeing it. Is there anything in the ordinance that's citing that they're going to have to speak with the fire marshall's office about this? because I

feel like the town getting into the getting into the stance of approving a daycare like that or or any type of home care situation without really looking at um the fire protection and the life safety requirements puts us in a position of liability.

So this is for land use purposes and not fire and life safety purposes. you and the fire marshall through the state adopted codes and I can't remember if Durham's adopted its own version of NF of the NFPA codes but those are separate from the zoning pieces and those are separately enforceable and the fact that um

they get a permit from the code officer to be able to do the use does not mean that the fire and life safety or building codes or anything else are appropriate for running a daycare. So, they would need both. Okay. Maybe I I know you're not looking for major changes at this point, but maybe some sort of wording referencing that because the way this reads to me right now, if they were going to have 12 or less clients, either adult or children, um it almost seems to give someone in the public the impression that they can go ahead and do this in their home by and and circumvent the fire marshall's office by doing so, which I really don't think we want to set that precedent.

No, absolutely not. George, did you have something to add to that? Yeah, I just wanted to point out that this is going to be administered by the code enforcement officer and one of the standards that Ann you and the board members put in under nuisances is number nine which refers

to safety and it says a homebased business shall meet all applicable fire and life safety standards including but not limited to those addressing flammable and combustible materials etc. So, the code officer in his review is going to look at that and he's going to look at that or he or she are going to say, "Oh, this is a daycare. Therefore, it has to meet the state uh fire marshall regulations for, you know, emergency lighting and all of those other things." So, I think it is specifically addressed there.

As as long as the board feels that's been considered, then that answers my question. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, George. And thanks, Chief. That's a that's an important point. And Ann, just to clarify on that, these uh the homebased businesses that are listed in this section doesn't mean that people are free to just uh have one of those if they meet those guidelines. They still need to go to the code of enforcement officer and get a permit.

Right. Exactly. a question or would like to offer a comment or anything else before I close the public session on this one? No. All right. I'm not seeing anything else. So, I'm going to close public comment on this one. Um, planning board members, did you have any comments or questions or want to respond to anything from the public comment?

to add? No. Okay. I did just want to respond to something that Christa said that we should bring businesses to the table. Um, we have had four or five workshops on this particular ordinance and we have had businesses come to the table and provide public input and this was shaped largely by them as well. Um, it is important to us and the more public comment we get in earlier the better. Um, but I do want to reinforce this is not changing anything for current businesses. Um, this is making it easier

for either new businesses or businesses that are not currently legal to get approval and that is our entire goal. So, um, George, do we need to vote to adopt this or is it just this is it and it goes on the warrant? I believe that you've already sent the draft um warrant articles that the board the board of selectmen have put on or voted to put on to the ballot. So this public hearing process is required for any ordinance that's going to be on the ballot. And you do, as you indicated, have the ability to make changes to this. Um if you're going to, you know, completely change policy direction, then that would really affect it. But something like the fire chief uh suggested adding more clarification on the safety standard requirements which is in there. You could certainly add language to that effect or other clarification language. So I think that you don't need to have a formal vote on any of this at this

point. It's just a public hearing. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. So the next one I'm going to turn to is the roads and backlot standards. Let me and for this one, I'm actually just going to show you the red line version, the crossed out version, because I think it's a little bit easier to talk through. So, if you're looking at section 5.7, which currently has our backot provisions, um, the Well, actually, let me go up further. I'm sorry. So the first change we're doing we we're proposing is that there will be no new

um private roads created except in connection with subdivision and the reasons behind this are a couple. One, you can still create a driveway and driveways are um easier to build. there are fewer standards for them. And the process for private roads

before was that you came and presented to the planning board a and basically a a road agreement and we didn't know what to do with it. The property owner didn't know what to do with it. We didn't know what to do with it. It wasn't clear what standards we had to approve it or disapprove it. Um, and driveways can be built to a lesser standard than private roads. Um, so that was our goal there. Um, if you're going to build a subdivision and you're going to have a bunch of houses on it, you're building a full road. If you're going to have one house on a back lot, it's a driveway, you can still have it and it's going to be built to a lesser standard.

ordinance is in section 5.7. Um this language is just rearranged and hopefully clarified. Um dwelling and associated accessory structures may be constructed on a back lot. That is similar to it's the same principle but hopefully clarified as the existing language which is struck out which said if a back lots

accessible only by a rightaway which if it's not only accessible by a rightaway it's not a backlot. Um it may be used for one single backlot family dwelling. Didn't mention accessory structures but the idea is the same. You get one house not a back lot. That's the same in the existing ordinance and the new ordinance. The back lot must have at least 50 feet of frontage on a private town and/or state accepted or maintained way. It must be deed in fee or by easement. Um

and it has to stay the minimum of 50 ft for the entire depth. So clarify the language that I've highlighted where it's um not counted towards the road front edge. Actually, I guess that gets at my next one. So the next one is the land over which the back lot access is created by deer by easement may not be counted towards meeting the road frontage for the front lot. That's the same rule that's existed here. It basically says you can't reduce the front lot um front lots road frontage with the back lots right of way. And we just tried to simplify that and make it more clear.

one right ofway for back lot development may be created out of any um front lot unless the rightway is 350 ft apart and the road entrances to the town um are I'm sorry if it has 350 ft extra feet of town road frontage so double the road frontage and the entrances are 600 feet apart The change we made was that you can only have one back lot per um front lot

basically. And the reason for this is we have not seen that it's good development to have people plugging in back lots every 600 ft. you still have the option to go to subdivision. And we find that subdivisions are much more thoughtfully planned. The roads are better planned out, the spacing is better planned out, and it winds up better for um for development and for neighborhood development. But that is the biggest substantive change that this section is making.

depth is the same as what number four used to be. Um same thing as the five acres. That's the same in new and old. We just tried to make it more clear. Um and then we put in a driveway standard. So instead of having having this um simple 20 foot rightway

with certain amount of aggregate and base, we've narrowed it to 16 ft which is consistent with um NFPA standard and Chief Moore can correct me if I'm wrong on this NFPA standards for driveway. Um, and then you have the same 12 in of aggregate subbase and 6 in of base and appropriate drainage. We also added in, and all of this is for life safety purposes, um, a turnaround so your fire trucks don't get stuck in your driveway. Um, the fire chief has to make sure he can access it. We don't want people living on backlets to not be able to receive emergency services. Um, and then some other basic standards that um, maybe George or my engineer friend on here can better explain, but this is basically just saying you got to build it to a certain standard without any crazy geometry or um, or anything like that. planning board before planning board and George before I move on to the rest of the road pieces. Do you guys have

anything to add on the back lot changes? um our current road section which was confusing and not up to date and my understanding is not in line with DOT standards and what we created. Um this only has a minor change to appendix one.

site plan. Um, which is if you are building a new commercial building or you are creating more parking or there are only certain things that are subject to site plan approval. Does not apply to homebased businesses. For one thing, this does not apply. Um, but if you're doing that, our current standard was pretty informal, basically like make sure they have adequate parking and we didn't really know how to do that and people didn't really know how to comply. And so we wound up with these amorphous standards where neighbors would think there was too much or not enough and property owners or business owners who wanted to um start a new business didn't

want to build as much parking. They thought there would be less than we thought. Um, and we didn't really have any standards. So, we tried to come up with standards. And George, you pulled these from somewhere that existed, right? We did not make these up. Yeah, these are pretty typical standards uh for uh suburban rural communities like Durham. So, they're they're just came out of uh sample ordinances. And, you know, they're all based on uh traffic engineering studies that have been done nationwide. But uh these are have have been adjusted for main small communities. And I would also point out that this whole section was in the roads appendix

where nobody would ever look for it. So this has been moved to site plan review just as part of the reorganization to make it easier to find. Yeah. Thank you, George. Um, and then we have road classification instruction. And um,

can I help you out with this one? Yeah, please. I'm just going to say our goal with this was try it was to try to make it easier for people to build roads that made sense. so that you weren't having small roads way overbuilt and you

weren't having large roads underbuilt. And that was the goal of this. And I'll let George explain um what we actually did. Okay. Um the previous ordinance um had its road standards based upon the growth management program that the town just repealed. And basically it differentiated between public roads which would be accepted by the town and private roads that would have to be maintained by the subdivision lot owners. Um, and when the town repealed

that growth management ordinance, which said the town would only accept roads in the growth district, which is um the area pretty much from the elementary school down to the river along both sides of of Royalsboro Road, that area. So, the ordinance wasn't really relevant anymore in terms of the road standards. So what we did was took those two basic categories of roads which was the public road standard was 22 feet of pavement and the private road standard was 20 ft of pavement and then the associated dimensions of shoulders and other things that go with them. So we just substituted for public uh the local street and for private the

minor local street based on the width and of the other standards. And then we added a third classification because you may at some point in the future get a larger subdivision that has 20 or 30 lots. Um, and so those road

classifications may not be adequate to suffice for larger developments. And so we added a subcolctor category which is 24 ft of pavement. So you got 24, 22, and 20 depending on how much traffic is going to be on that road. No community in Maine builds collector roads. Most ordinances have a collector and arterial road standard, but those haven't been built in a long time, and they're not likely to be built in Durham. So, uh, these road standards were kind of revised, refined to meet. We looked at several different area towns, everything from Brunswick to to, uh, Po and just kind of looked at what are the basic standards for subdivision roads, and that's what is put in. Now, since the growth district was repealed, it's my understanding that the board of selectmen and the planning board have not proposed a process for accepting roads for public maintenance. If you were to choose to go forward with that,

there are ordinances that can be provided that would say what the developer, say developer of a subdivision wants to have the town accepted. The policy currently seems to be not to accept new roads and take on that responsibility by the town, but that was a process that planning board members suggested that's for the board to select them to decide if they want to move in that direction. So all it's all of these roads are intended to be private and the design of it is going to be based on how much traffic it's going to or how many lots going to be built on it.

standards that were in there before with some adjustments. you have anything to add to that one before we take public comment? All right. I'm going to open this one up to public comment. If you would like to comment, please raise your hand. Um, Jane Rice, you are first. Go ahead,

then you can talk. hear you. to hear you. Do you have is your microphone enabled? gonna mute you and go on to someone else if you want to see if you can figure out your how to talk or you can call in on the number and we will um we'll get back to you.

because Lee was able to talk before. yourself? This is late. Okay. Hi. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for your patience. I I had to log back in. Um, two things. Do the discussion tonight about um subdivisions and back lots, does that does that negate the

possibility of a family bringing a family subdivision um proposal to the board? That does that I don't think that affects it at all or would that would we be totally done with that that quote unquote category? George, are you aware that we have a family? Do we have family subdivision?

And maybe that's what maybe that's just been a colloquial maybe we've just called it that. Maybe there isn't really such an ordinance for such a thing. Uh let me try to address that. So I think everyone's familiar with the concept of a single backlaw for one single family dwelling. We've just discussed those amendments to just clarify that. And I think everybody's equally familiar with a full subdivision with 20 lots and the roads that have to be built and the process to get that approved. Um, in between those two things in the main subdivision law and in every local ordinance, there are a set of exceptions to having to get a legally approved subdivision. And one of those is gifts to a relative transfer to an abutter. There are several different exceptions and so you could create three or four lots. Say you uh or there's the homestead exemption. If you've lived on the property for five years as your principal dwelling, then

that lot if you split that out of the rest of your land, that law doesn't count. So theoretically, you could uh create sell off your house with a with two acres uh give two different lots to your children uh and then sell another lot creating four new lots and three of those lots might be on a private road which was the issue that you just referred to an and that these ordinance amendments address. So you can still do that and it's unclear uh this set of amendments says you can't create the road without going through the planning board subdivision standards for creation of that road with full public notice and public hearing and people have an opportunity to say wait a minute that drainage is going to uh all come onto my property or that is on a dangerous curve all those issues that come up on a subdivision ision is reviewed. So the technically there will still be the same exemptions and whether

the planning board would give a partial subdivision approval for the road creation through the subdivision process. I don't think there's a clear answer on what the jurisdictional issues would be with that. But the intent of this set of amendments is to say those family lot or other types of exempt subdivisions being created with a new road is something that the ordinance should not be providing for. So there other towns have a what they call a private way set of standards and a process by the planning board to approve that. That's something you could look at in the future if you wanted to. I had discussed it with the board back a year or more ago when we were preparing this information. So you could have the private road standards. The problem with the current ordinance is as Ann pointed out there's really no process. Uh there are standards in there which not all make complete sense but

the biggest problem is there's no process. uh the road commissioner can approve a private road without any public input and it it wasn't aligned with backlot provision. It seemed to circumvent that limitation. So this is kind of an in perhaps an intermediate step where you're going to have back lots and you're going to have subdivision roads. But at this point in time until you develop the capacity to regulate this and the ordinance language to do it effectively uh that middle program of development is not going to be uh available.

Okay. Thank thank you so much. Thank you for clarifying that. Um, so Lee, before you move on, I just want to add a little bit to that. So while this doesn't directly impact a family, what you've referred to as a family subdivision and basically what George has explained as statutory exemptions from subdivision rule,

you would not be able to create two of those parcels that you divided out could not be back lots. you could have one back lot and everybody else would need to meet the road frontage requirements. Um, and the driveway standard can only serve two dwellings. So, if you had a big piece with lots of road frontage, this does not impact those family subdivisions. If you were going to do what you referred to as a family subdivision by chunking up three back lots with one front lot, this would impact that. And we did that intentionally because we find that

right eventually those back lots get sold, right? Um and they get sold off from family members to completely unrelated people and you wind up with development that was never planned. it was just, you know, here's here's the the lot to kids one, two, and three, and I'm just gonna divide it up evenly, and everybody's going to share the driveway, and it's no big deal. Um, and we haven't seen those, frankly, go well, um, or be particularly great for thoughtful development.

So, I I hope that answers your question. Yeah, sure. Makes perfect. Yeah, makes sense. Makes sense. Y and can we assume that roads that have already been constructed and met standards would be fine? We wouldn't we wouldn't be assuming any new standards to an existing private road?

Nope. If it's a lawfully approved road and it was legal at the time it went in, this will not impact it at all. Okay. And the standards we're talking about also would not affect a public road, a a road that is that is currently being currently currently accepted by the town, maintained by the town.

Right. Any any legally existing road, whether it's public, private, driveway, anything like that is not impacted by these changes. Okay. Thank you. Yep. you are next. That would be me. Um, thank you very much. I apologize. I am new. I'm new to this Zoom thing. I'm not young. I'm fairly elderly

and I guess I'm having an issue with this backlot thing. Um you know I think it this is precoid if it had come to to vote in town meeting blah blah blah but you know it's a different world and that's what it is. So, here I am new to Zoom, but

I'm a little concerned about this whole backlot issue. And, you know, I'm not a new Durham resident. I love Durham and I don't have hundreds of acres or anything else that I'm going to, you know, subdivide. However, I've been through a number of code enforcement officers, you know, from Danfeny to I don't know how many to

Bob. Um, and it was always my understanding that a private road could could be accessible to three lots as long as they were five acres or more. And as I say, you know, I'm I'm elderly. I'm not going to subdivide or blah blah blah but you know this is this is you know is my my retirement in is my kids inheritance

that type of thing so I don't want to come into something that is so restrictive that the land that I have cannot be maximized to their benefit. So, I'm very concerned about this this whole backlot thing that's going on. Um, I have a lot of road frontage. Um, I have probably an L-shaped lot with a lot of frontage on the road, but some some deep lots. And I'm very concerned about this backlot thing that, you know, you can only have one back lot per driveway. I have no no

problem with the with the 20 foot. You know, you know, you need to have 20 ft to get to to homes and whatever else. But I'm very concerned about this one backlot issue that has been proposed and how that could affect my family and

and you know my my family's financial viability going forward in terms of my investment in Durham. from. where you got the three back lots of five acres. Um, because that's not the way the current ordinance is written. That was that was from a prior code enforcement. It may actually have been Bob, but it may be the one before Bob.

Uh, Paul, maybe. I don't remember at this point. Paul, it was Paul. Yes. Thank you. We have We have gone through a few. We have George, I don't think that's in the current ordinance, is it? Well, the current the current ordinance actually before the overhaul last year gave the road commissioner authority to approve private roads without without any process other than they had to bring the maintenance agreement to the planning board for approval. And so different code officers were interpreting it differently over the years as I understand it. and uh there were private roads approved that had three twoacre lots um just just on a private road. So that's part of what this set of amendments is trying to clarify and get it clear in the ordinance so that everybody knows what the rules are and everybody goes by the same rules so that you don't have one code officer comes in and one road commissioner uh interprets

it one way and then the next one interprets it the other way. zone. This just simplifies it, clarifies it, and again, this can always be changed in terms of moving forward for those family subdivisions that have been described by a couple of the members of the public. There are standards. I've personally done private ways. Uh, and in t most

towns, you have a process that the planning board reviews. They don't have to meet all of the subdivision standards, but they do have to meet the standards for the construction of the road. And generally for three lots, it can still be a 16 or an 18 foot common driveway, but there are clear design standards and a process for the approval of that where the neighbors have an opportunity to have say into it. Durham currently doesn't have that and that could be a future project for you folks to work on to to go to a private waist standard that is consistent with the ordinances.

Y the only other thing I wanted to qualify and I I have no idea how this would impact your particular property. You said it was one back lot per driveway. It's one back lot per front lot. So, if you have a lot of road frontage, you can create a lot of front lots and each of those gets a back lot. So, you may still be able to do what you want to do. I have no idea. Um,

well, that's the problem. I do have a lot of frontage, but when I talked to Paul, he allowed me or said I could do and I have cuts already in the property that would allow me to do three back lots of five acres per each. And I think I really I I really feel strongly not that I'm going to do anything immediately, but I think that we should be grandfathered. We should be allowed to say, "Okay, this is what was told to us. This is what we can do and we shouldn't be we shouldn't be applicable to these new rules because that is unreasonably restrictive to me." And as I say, I'm not a a new land owner. I'm not anything that I'm going to develop, but you know, this is this is my legacy to my children. And I want to be able to that to to to allow them to maximize the potential of this this small property that I have in Durham. And I'm not a big land owner, but I want to be able to let them maximize this. And I don't think I

should be applicable to these new restrictive regulations. voted on it and for folks who have already created backlots, it doesn't apply, but for folks who plan to create backlots, it would apply. Anyone who hasn't done it already. So, um, we understand your point. Uh, is there anything else we can answer for you?

I can't say anything else. I'm dismayed. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for participating. uh, Chief Moore, I have you next. And just so I can clarify this for my own thinking, is the intent of doing this to reduce the potential for uh basically people getting around the subdivision approval?

Absolutely. Absolutely. One thing I'd like Mr. CNY and everyone else listening to think about is the one of the reasons why I think this is important for the board to approach this and and make this amendment is when we start to put multiple structures on a property and it and it basically becomes a subdivision in and of itself. Fire protection becomes a significant issue. Um not just getting apparatus in there but for the very limited amount of water supply that we actually have in this town. We don't have pressurized hydrants. We have dry hydrants that rely on rainwater and ponds actually holding their their amount from the year. So when people start to put multiple structures on a property um they're they're actually adding to the fire load and the potential risk and makes it very difficult for us to actually manage an emergency situation. That's why with the subdivision approval, we have, you know,

we have discussion with these developers as to whether they need to put in a fire pond, whether they're going to consider residential sprinklers. So, um I I appreciate people's concerns about being able to use their property in in the way that it uh the way that they would choose, but it also when it starts to impact public safety in general, they need to take that into consideration. Thank you.

really helpful. Um, my comments focused on the the planning aspect of it and what Durham looks like as it develops, but Chief Moore is absolutely right. Um, one of the consequences of development without review is absolutely life safety challenges um for our department. Uh, Jane, let's

try this again. I think I'm unmuted. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So, um and maybe Lee hit this. I don't know because I had to log off and come back on. Um I'm reading um the piece that went out on all things Durm. And basically in one of the sections it says similarly code enforcement office officers and the board of appeals have interpreted that for any lot to be grandfathered against a 2acre lot and 300 ft road frontage requirements it had to exist prior to 1976. So pre-existing nonconforming I think is some verbiage that I heard from Bob at one point. Um, is that stating this that

where does the 1976 verbiage come from? George, did you? Um, and Jane, this is um, we haven't gotten to that part of it yet. That particular provision is in the miscellaneous provisions, you know, but it has to do with land use ordinances, correct? Yes, but it's it's part four of this set of land use ordinance pendants and we will get to that.

I'll hold my I'll hold my question then. Okay, great. Thanks, Jane. Yeah, make clear existing roads are not going to be reclassified under this ordinance. Where does it say that? Um, that's just the nature of a zoning ordinance. If you don't make it applicable retroactive, then it only applies going forward.

So, existing public roads are going to be treated as they are now. Yep. if they're legal, which they they should be. They're public roads. They're public roads, right? Okay. I just want to make sure show that's perfectly clear.

Yep. We're not going to take a local road and make it a subcolctor road. No, this is for new roads. Okay. All right. Honestly, I can't imagine we're going to have a whole lot of sub new subcollector roads anyway. No. No. But Yep. All right. I want to make that abundantly clear.

Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Nancy, you are next. Actually, it's going to be my husband, Matt. Okay, great. Matt, uh I have a question. Uh you talk about on their back lot, you talk about private road into that back lot. And then if you layer over it the homestead,

you're saying it would be a driveway that's permissible with a drive off of it. And I'm just wondering, you know, what kind of laying you can do there. Or am I incorrect with what you're what you're uh saying is doable? I guess maybe I'm not understanding your question. So if you if you have let me let me try to to summarize what I think you're asking and then you can correct me if I'm wrong.

Okay. So if you have um 500 feet of road frontage and you have 10 acres and you're going to keep you have a house right next to the the main road, okay? and you have a driveway to that house and you want to create a back lot, you can do that and give that back lot a 50-ft rideway to that house that's going on the back lot. That 50 foot rightway only has to be built to the driveway standard.

asking? Yeah, my question would carry over to the uh homestead exemption part of this where you can have a driveway uh to another home in back of it. And I guess my question is uh with a designation of a private road, would that allow you still to have the back lot plus a homestead uh exemption on u

the lot in front of the primary residence? When you say homestead exemption, are you talking about a subdivision exemption? No, I'm talking about this whole um you know road uh situation where you're saying a family um can have uh secondary res residence

behind the primary residence uh as long as it's off the common drive. George, do you Yeah, let let me try to take a crack at this. Um, so what this set of amendments will do is say, look, you can do one single back lot. The standards will be easier. Right now, people have to build a 20- foot road to serve a single back lot than a home on it. And that's just very difficult for people. Um, so this says no, you could put in a single back lot with a single family dwelling and only have to do a 16oot driveway with the 50-foot access out onto the main road. Um the landowner can still do more development. Um they will just have to apply to the planning board to upgrade that road. You could have it the same access. Uh they're allowed to do one single family lot with one single uh home on it. The back lot has to be at least five acres. And so the minimum lot size is two acres. So, if they wanted to

upgrade that, they'd go through the planning board, which they don't haven't done in the past, and you'd look at that road standard, and they'd be putting in a minor local, which is the 20 ft, but it's going to have multiple lots on it, and there'd be a review process for that. That's that's the biggest issues. This doesn't say you can't do it. It just says if you're going to do more than one lot, you're going to have to go through a regulatory process with the planning board to make sure that the road is appropriately designed and maintained and that the fire safety uh issues are addressed as as with any other subdivision of land that the board

reviews. So, what you're saying is uh is that there's no overlap. In other words, you couldn't get that um real real rear lot, excuse me, uh as well as a home uh private family lot to the rear of the primary. So, you could not get both.

Well, the intent is to limit each lot, each existing lot to a single back lot. Now, as Ann pointed out earlier, I think Ann, you were pointing to the fact that let's say you have 20 acres and you split that into two 10acre lots, each of which has at least 350 ft of frontage on the main road. Each of those 10acre lots would be able to do a back lot.

it. Thank you. Okay, thank you. think I just heard you say that a 50 foot road could actually service 35 acre lots. Am I incorrect? If you went to the planning board for approval for a subdivision and you were creating three lots, each of which had five acres on a private road going back in, that would be approved by the planning board as a subdivision.

Could not be done as a back lot. Oh, so now it's just a subdivision as opposed to a backlot thing that Paul told me. Well, well, that's palatable. That's actually very palatable. That that works. Oh, I'm sorry we weren't clear on that. Yes. No, there's definitely a way to do it. The goal is just we don't want people just plopping back lots anywhere. We want to look at the whole thing. And you can do that through subdivision. I mean, you can create two acre lots through subdivision.

Oh, god forbid. Even smaller. So, god forbid. I'm sorry that wasn't clear. Is there anything else? No, no, that's that's very that makes me very happy. That's very palatable. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. All right. Do we have anyone else with comments or questions on the roads and the back lots? I don't see any more hands. Planning board, do you have anything else? Oh, I do have one more. Um Nancy,

um again, I guess I don't quite understand. Maybe you can clear it up this way. If you have uh a single ros uh residential lot obviously as a family property and you want to put a second house on that same lot is that legal or is what's the deal there? Because I don't think it's real clear.

Well, that's a little you know that's a little bit of a different question. If you want to create a separate lot for that second h second second house, you can. If you want to have a second home on the same lot, what does that become? A two family dwelling. What does that become, George?

Well, you could build a duplex, but you could not put two single family homes on the same lot. You'd have to have a separate lot for each each house, right? But this change does not affect that. No, but you could create if you've got a home, you can split off one lot to build a second home. Does that

if you have if you have the frontage on the existing if you meet all the standards. If you don't, you could use a backlog provision to create a back lot, right? Does that make sense? So in fact you could not do both the back lot and the family uh family lot behind the primary

uh residence. So you get two residences. Are you asking about three residences? Yes, you get two under this provision. You get two. Okay. just just the primary residence and one other um which I assume is what you're saying as opposed to the family lot behind the primary lot and using a back lot. You can't you can't do that because your provision provision seems to read that way,

right? There was never a provision in our ordinance for a family lot. There was a back lot and that was that was it. Okay. So yes, you get if you don't have enough road frontage to create three separate lots, you can use the back lot provision so that you have two maximum of two. The existing one and then the back lot. If you have enough road frontage, you can divide it up however you want, you know, within subdivision rules. But

um does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. You've uh u Okay. Yeah. taken part of it out of the out of the scenario, which frankly I'm fine with. I was just trying to see essentially if uh the backlot would override the uh family private lot situation, which apparently it does not,

right? We don't we don't currently have one of those provisions in our ordinance, right? Okay. Thank you. Okay, great. Thanks, Ann. Is there anything in the new ordinances that would um that would keep an a a land owner from having to tar their road, which is one of the major obstacles for for any any dividing

your land at all. So, yeah, for a back lot, yes. Um, so in our, and George, correct me if I'm wrong on these, but my understanding is in our previous ordinance, a backlot was serviced by a road and was supposed to have been tarred. Um, which is not practical. And now we've created this. It's a driveway and does not need to be tarred. But if you're creating a subdivision, it still has to be paved. And the thing that would that would trigger quote unquote subdivision would actually be would actually be what?

Um well, there's a a subdivision statute on what defines subdivision. If you're talking about the back lot piece, if you do not have enough road frontage to create um multiple lots and have each lot conforming as to road frontage and you want more than one back lot, you would need to go through subdivision approval and you need to build a road. And under the current ordinance and under the proposed revisions that private roads can serve up to three lots and still be gravel.

Oh, there you go. If you go if you go to the fourth lot that has to and one of the clarifications in this set of amendments because this is where the planning board had struggled. Let's say somebody does a small subdivision with three lots or or it has one lot out on the main road and then three lots served by a road. So you've got three lots using the private gravel road, then they extend it and add a fourth lot. Do they just pave beyond the third lot or do they pave the whole thing? It doesn't make any sense to start the paving after the first three lots, especially if the main row is paved. So this says if you add a fourth lot, you pave it all the way out to the main road.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Great. Thank you, George. I'm elderly and I'm not totally current on these things, but someone mentioned about um doing a second dwelling on their lot and you talked about that, but I thought that I don't know if it's federal or just Maine, but I have a a a a a friend

who actually did this s this scenario where he has his main dwelling and he has another um dwelling for himself and it didn't require any subdivision or anything else. It was just allowed. So, I'm just I'm just doing a followup on that the prior question.

Well, um I mean we do have accessory dwelling units which are smaller dwelling units on the same property, but either way, this does not impact that this change. asking. three houses with one lot with road frontage. Oh dear.

And you can't. You can get two. Thank you. One front lot and one back lot. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And Ann, just to clarify that when we talk about backlot, that's creating a separate lot. There's still not two houses on the same lot,

right? Exactly. Yes. All right. I'm really closing public comment this time. Planning board members, anything else on this one before we move on to the next. Okay. bit easier. Um, I'm going to do the appeal section next. and let me share my screen.

this arose because we had an appeal of one of our decisions and I I went and attended as the chair of the planning board in case the the board of appeals had any questions and they really struggled with what their authority was

under our current ordinance. And um I talked with them afterwards and I I won't hold them to this and I hope some of them are here tonight in case they have strong feelings about this, but we talked about making these modifications to their jurisdiction. So it was really clear. And what basically happened on this one application is when the planning board considers an application in front of it, we have all this information. We um we have documents. A

lot of times we'll do a site visit. We have public comment. Um, and in some cases we have two or three or frankly 10 depending on how disorganized the application is um on the applications in front of us. When they get appealed, the board of appeals doesn't have that in front of them. They don't do a sitewalk. um they do take public testimony and they do see what was in front of the planning board, but it's a little bit different. And so the goal of this was to make their jurisdiction make sense and um to make

it so everybody was clear on what their authority was. So, running through it quickly, all of these deletions were just redundant provisions in the ordinance and so we took them all and we stuck them at the end. So, I'm going to run to the end.

So, a lot of this is just clarification. It was taking out redundant language. The substantive change here is the language used to say Let me see if I can find it. in there that was confusing to everyone. So initially it said the board meaning the board of appeals shall not conduct a denovo review but shall act in a purely appellet capacity and shall limit its review to the record evidence that was before the code enforcement officer or the planning board or the road commissioner whoever it was reviewing. And then it said in acting on administrative appeals the board of appeals may sustain modify which was the word that created so much trouble or reverse the action of code enforcement officer planning board whomever. And so we change that

to say so this sentence is essentially the same shall not conduct a denovo review um shall act in an appellet capacity. Shall limit its review to the record evidence. And then it says in acting on administrative appeals, the board of appeals may sustain or reverse the action of the decision maker or remand for further proceedings. And then the the clearly contrary standard was in there before. So that is the substantive change that we made. The rest of it was just reorganizing um because it was in 15 different places and said the same thing 15 different times which was not helpful for anyone. I'm going to stop sharing that. George or planning board. Did I miss anything on that? Is there anything else?

that one up to public comment or questions if there are any. Not expecting this to be the most controversial one we talk about tonight. So hopefully I'm not wrong. Okay, I don't see any hands. So I'm going to close the public comment session on that and then we'll move on to the last one which is our miscellaneous changes.

thought of as minor changes um and mostly housekeeping. And maybe I'm wrong on that. So the first one, this um pre-application sketch phase is for subdivisions. It's already a process in place. And really all this changes is we want to make sure that people are submitting us digital copies of their plans in addition to the print. Um, one because we're trying to get items up on the web ahead of time before if you

wanted to know what the background was for a planning board agenda item, you had to come into town hall and look at the printing copies. We're trying to be better. We're not perfect, but we're trying to be better about getting those up online ahead of the meeting so people can look at them. It's also easier. Um, if anyone's watched me try to manage paper at a meeting, it's a disaster and it winds up everywhere. Um, digital works much better for me and some of the other board members prefer it. So, it's just um requiring that same thing for the preliminary plan. Again, this applies to subdivision applications. Everybody's submitting um printed copies as well as one electronic copy. Um this is just uh so again this is subdivision topography at 5 foot contours. We just moved this was always a potentially required piece that that

we would typically require and frankly need to evaluate the site. Just making it clear that five foot contours um and then two foot contours for alterations and that's pretty standard for any plan. um in a subdivision and that language was taken out of this section. So we literally just moved it. Um and we also

changed this language. What we were doing before is we had this huge long checklist of items that you had to submit for subdivision approval. And half the time they weren't applicable unless you were doing a really large subdivision. And so the board would have to go through this process where the applicant would request a waiver and we'd grant it for each and every single submission requirement. And so we've changed this around a little bit to basically say the board can ask for these studies if it's relevant. Um so a highintensity soil survey, maybe we need it, maybe we don't, but we can ask for it. um instead of requiring the applicant to go through the process of asking us for a waiver. Um we just hoped that would make it a little bit more efficient particularly for those smaller projects. Um this section 6.9 that's just a digital copy again. Um 6.9 uh I think we just took out that language because we can wave anything.

Is that right, George? Yeah, that was confusing language. Okay, so that was just a clarification. Not intended to change anything substantive. Again, we're back to the digital copy. Whoops. Digital copy for conditional use. So, same thing. If you're um

doing a conditional use application, you're going to submit it in hard copy and electronic so we can get it up on the web and circulate it. uh for our conditional use review criteria. Actually, one of the select minute expressed concern that it wasn't completely clear that applicants needed to meet the rest of the land use ordinance. I think we had all interpreted it as already necessary. Um but this just removed any question that

you have to be in compliance. Site plan is the same digital requirement. um site plan review. Again, this just moved things. Is that right, George? Yeah. Again, this tries to clarify these these are things that you don't these are not the things that you can get waivers for. And so, these are just now standard submission requirements for which you can get waivers.

Yeah. So, again, trying to clarify the things that are typically required versus the things that may not be required. They were already in the ordinance. We just move them around. Um okay. So I'll do this last one. Um this is the

um shorland zoning. The town had been in violation of the mandatory shoreland zoning act. We went through a process of rewriting the land use ordinance to bring the shoreland zoning regulations into compliance with state law. The D has approved all of those amendments. Thank you. Um and they did require one small change and so that's being incorporated into this. The provisional order of the DP requires that streams and uh freshwater open wet lands have the same frontage requirements as a lake or the river. Um and so this language just adds that into the ordinance. It's in the provisional order. So it is enforceable.

asked that we put this in here because he is con uh needing to have something he can point to. There have been a whole series of interpretations by boards and prior code officers that March 6th, 1976 is the date at which you had to have a twoacre lot with 300 feet of frontage. If you had a lot before that, it was grandfathered. If you created it after that, it had to be approved. And that is

why this specific date will help everybody understand what that date is. That was Jane's question. So, George, if I'm summarizing that in a different way, that is when those requirements first went into effect, March 6th, 1976.

Yeah. The language that's being struck out says the effective date of this ordinance or amendment there too. That language was added in March on at the March town meeting in 1976 apparently. Right. So we're basically same intent

and effect just trying to make it more clear so nobody has to go back and look at through history and figure out when the zoning ordinance went into effect. Am I summarizing that right, George? Yep. Okay, I think that's it on that one.

So, board members, anything on that? No. Okay, we'll go to public comment and Jane. Whoops. You can go ahead. Okay, so I have yourself again? Is that better? Yeah. No, that was my fault. I apologize. Okay. All right. Um, so I I think I have two questions. Um, the pre-existing nonconforming um just alarms me because um right there it's stating that conforming you're just talking about the 200 the two acre and the 300 foot road frontage. Correct. But there are other ways to have a pre-existing nonconforming lot, I believe. Um,

so I I just want to make sure that that pre-existing nonconforming lot does not is not held to that 1976 date. on what you're referring to. So, this section that exists in our ordinance basically says if you have a vacant lot that's one acre and doesn't

meet road frontage you can still build on it. Mhm. Now, if you have like an existing structure, your home for example doesn't doesn't meet side setbacks or something like that, that's a different section of the ordinance. that deals with that. Um, are there other types of nonconformity? Same thing if you, you know, we talked about businesses earlier. If you have a pre-existing business that was legal,

th that's addressed in a different section. We have separate sections of the ordinance dealing with other types of nonconformity. This just says basically an undersized lot, a lot with um not sufficient road frontage and a lot with or a lot with insufficient shore frontage, doesn't mean that it has to stay vacant forever. You can still build on it.

Okay. So, I guess my question is if I have a lot that was deemed as a buildable lot, not prior to 76, um, but now due to new shorelands, wetlands, or whatever they are, um, that may impinge on what I can do there. Am I still covered with pre-existing non-conforming because we had a it was sold as a buildable lot and I don't know if we had building permit at one time or not. Um but is that

does that cover me for that? It has plenty of road frontage and acorage and all of that. It's more the um the zoning, right? The zoning. And I I guess when I spoke um previously, I was told it was pre-existing non-conforming. I'd be covered. But that verbiage in there makes me wonder whether it wouldn't be at this point. Then

um so that's actually going to be a different section entirely and it depends on a a lot of fact. This section doesn't impact that. Um, but shoreland zoning doesn't necessarily prohibit buildings automatically. It affects uses. Um,

well, and setbacks, h, right? It it affects setbacks on where the buildings can be. Yep. It also affects setbacks. Okay. So this verbiage of 1976 only pertains in the ordinances for Durham for the lots that were preapproved at 2 acres with less than 300 ft road frontage. Is that correct?

No, it's minimum lot size, road frontage, and shore frontage. But you're right, it does not impact setbacks. But when you say shore frontage, that makes me wor wonder about is there a difference between shore frontage and wetlands.

frontage does not equal setbacks, right? Those are two different concepts. Okay, maybe I need clarification on that because shore frontage to me dictates in wetlands that you have to be so many feet back. Nope. Yep. Those are two different things. So shore frontage in certain sections

Yeah. So, if you're on the river, you have to have, and I'm making up a number because I can't find it quickly in the ordinance, but you have in order to build in order to have a lot on the river, you have to have 250 ft of shore frontage

or something like that and a set back of so many feet and a setback of 75 or 100 or 250 ft from it. So, they're two different concepts. Okay. So, wetlands does not depict shore frontage. Correct. I I think we're saying the same thing. A setback from a wetland has nothing to do with required shore frontage.

Okay. George was going to say something, I think. Yes, Jane. Let me try to clarify a couple of things. First, DP imposed shoreland zoning on the entire town of Durham in 1994. And that ordinance that was imposed upon the town had shore frontage requirements. Uh in 2019, the town revised the land use ordinance to comply with what the state had imposed upon the town in 1994. So if you had a lot created before 1994,

then that would not be subject to these shore frontage requirements. If it was created in 1986, excuse me, uh 2006, it would have to have the shorefrontage requirements. and certain open wetlands 10 acres or more. And I know Jane, you're in an area that has one of these controversial uh things that were imposed by the state. Um that also requires shore frontage.

As far as the grandfathered status of it, establishing March 6, 1976, whatever that date is, that only applies to those grandfathered lots not related to shoreland zoming, I think. because that's a separate set of regulations.

So, George, actually now I have a question. Okay. Is there a different date that we need to be using for shore frontage? Well, the shoreland zoning provisions have their own sets of dates for nonconformity in article 9. And the only place that shore frontage should be relevant is in shoreline zoning. Right.

Correct. That is correct. So then that se that change we're making is incorrect right forage. No it it applies to the standard zoning of minimum lot size front and uh lot area and frontage. Um does not structures are like you said are a separate issue. Uses are a separate grandfathered issue and shoreland zoning has its own non nonconforming section apart from this article. Holy crap.

So, so George, is shore frontage relevant in any section other than this one? It's relevant in article 9. This is article 16, I think, for non-conforming laws, right? And my question is, so this 1976 date applies, we all, we're all on the same page. It applies to lot area and lot frontage, correct?

Correct. What I heard you say is that shorefrontage should be 19904, So then this is incorrect, right? As well if you go to article nine, there is a section on nonconformity within the shoreland zoning. Yep, I understand that. But I don't want I don't want competing nonconformity provisions. That will just lead to confusion. So if shore frontage is only relevant in the shoreland zoning article,

I don't want someone having to read both chapter section article 9 and this section and say, "Well, which one applies to my shore frontage?" If shore frontage is not 1976, I don't want this saying 1976. It does. There are other nonconforming issues in shoreland zoning that need to be addressed like replacing a camp that's too close to the lake. Those are the types of things that are addressed in the nonconformity provisions of shoreland zoning that don't apply to other properties outside of shoreland zoning. So we can take a look at that going forward and determine whether or not the separate nonconformity provisions of the shoreland zoning which are required by D guidelines can stay in the shoreland zoning section and not create a lot of confusion.

Well, I'm not I'm not concerned about those non-conforming sections, right? They are what they are. Yeah, I'm concerned about the language in this one that says shore frontage is 1976. I don't think it does say that, does it?

Yeah, it says lot lot size, road frontage, and shore frontage. Yeah, this this one should I think we should strike the shore frontage part of this one. Okay. And I'm uncomfortable doing that right now. So, I guess my recommendation is

that we issue a I mean, and this this change was solely to make it easier for people to figure out what date applied. It's not actually changing anything. Correct. So, I think rather than trying to muck with it right now and risk screwing something up without fully thinking through this, I think I would rather that the planning board issue a recommendation. I don't even I mean, can we just take that out, George? Can we take that section out of our proposed?

Yeah, these are these are proposed changes. If you want to withdraw that proposed change, I don't think there's anything that prevents you from doing that. All right, planning board members, are you all comfortable with that?

Yep. Yeah. Okay. So, we're going to take out the change all together for that section the rest of the changes will go forward to the warrant. Is that right? And then we'll look at this more carefully. And there may be other ways to address this. You could get an advisory opinion from the town attorney that this is the date that everybody should be using. Have that officially approved by the board of zoning appeals. And there's other ways to deal with this.

Well, and I think it's it's a good policy to have it in there so everyone knows what it is up front. I'm concerned about that shore frontage piece. And again, just like Ron said, it may be as easy as striking shore frontage from that paragraph, but I don't want to do that here before we've all thought about it more carefully. I agree. Yeah. I took the date that Bob gave me and put it in there. He asked for that change, so I didn't really spend a lot of time looking at it.

Yeah. No. And I think it's a good idea because again, it will make everybody's life easier, but I don't want to make that change. Um Yeah. I don't want unintended con. Yeah, we should look at it closer. Exactly. We can do that. My gut gut feeling is that if you're in the shoreline zone, you follow that one section. If you're not, you follow this other section and we could just strike the shore frontage piece. But

Exactly. Yep. So Jane, thank you for making us think through that a little more carefully. We appreciate it. Well, I still have I still have a question because I guess I'm confused at the shoreland. The whole big thing that changed in 2019 or 2020 was shoreland ordinance and that

spoke about wetlands and having setbacks for buildings. the this shoreland that you're talking about is like water frontage, not wetland setbacks. Am I correct or not? Because I I think it's still I still think it could be used to say that um that date would be 76 for wetland ordinances. And I I just want clarification on that. So,

so yes, shore frontage and setbacks are two different concepts in the ordinance. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um, is there anyone else on this one? All right. I'm going to close the public comment session. Um, planning board, do you have anything else for tonight? So, I think what we've agreed is that we're sending the first three um drafts as they're drafted. That

fourth miscellaneous section, we're taking out the last change all together, the entire thing, and we'll put it on another agenda to discuss. Um, and then that one is going the rest of that's going as is. Everybody else agree? Okay.

George, do you have anything else or need anything else from us? Nope. That's good. Okay. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Can I have a second? I'll second it. All right. All those in favor, roll call. Juliet,

yes. Ron, yes. Wes, yes. And I am a yes. Thank you everyone for participating tonight. George, thanks for all your help.