TranscriptPublic Information Meeting - Land Use Ordinance Amendments

Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. Heat. I have boots. I'm good. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Thanks. Was this this year? Wow. Some towns have like four different bins to recycle. One for paper, one for regular trash.

trash. So we could probably go two weeks. right now. All set to Thank you. Right. Um, welcome to the November 12th meeting of the um, Town of Durham main board. Um, um, all members are present. Uh, this is a non voting or voting during this meeting. It's informal public meeting. If you could just uh, stand for the

America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. of our October 22nd planning meeting. um annually be it um amend or enhance sections of the land use ordinance to bring them into either legal compliance or supplement sections that need help. Uh this year we hired a consultant to assist with some codification issues. Uh our calm planner, Mr. George, have been working very closely with that consultant on on these codification issues. Um, we as a board have been working through these proposed updates since the spring and tonight, Mr. Starge will present several of the proposed administrative um updates on proposed updates. Um, after the presentation, uh, each section will be opened up to the floor for public comment, uh, for any clarification and meaningful meaningful dialogue. Um any substantial changes to these sections that we discussed tonight

uh will be incorporated and sent to the select board for their review. Um this is currently to be uh this is currently planned to be the last um informal public hearing regarding the land use [snorts] ordinance updates. Um once we hear back from the select board um it'll be a more formal public hearing uh prior to the um town meeting in the summer.

Um so uh any amendments to the agenda? Are we good to go with this right now? Yep. Great. Um, so if anybody in the public wishes to make a public comment, uh, please, uh, stand up, speak loudly, clearly, state your name and address. Um, and we'll head from there. So,

Mr. Marge, if you wouldn't mind moving forward with the with the agenda. Sure, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, and public. Um, I'm here tonight to uh present some of the research and proposal of the planning board on what we're calling proposed administrative changes. And I'll just walk you through the process as uh Brian outlined. Uh the town has hired a company that does ordinances for I think around 32 communities in Maine and the purpose is to digitize that ordinance so that it's much more workable and available uh on the town website than it is now. Sorry.

Uh so the consultant has already completed what they're calling an editorial and legal analysis where they look through all of the text of the ordinance and they identified uh typos and grammatical areas errors in areas where the local ordinance is not in compliance with state law and they came up with a list of 139 different points that needed to be addressed. So uh last summer I did work with a consultant and provided responses for some of the typographical and grammatical things such as it's inconsistent on uh reference to the select board uh select men select board use several different terms. So they're looking to get consistency throughout the ordinance on things like that. And then as I mentioned, uh there are areas where the town is not in compliance, particularly in the area of uh affordable housing and mobile home parks, those sorts of things. So we're looking at the need to make changes to the ordinance to address

those uh legal issues. As part of the project, the planning board um [clears throat] sees the opportunity here to address what we're calling minor policy issues. So these are things where they do involve policy, but it's not along the ma order of magnitude of what the town has done in recent years on solar farms and battery energy storage systems. And we did uh hold a public meeting on October 22nd where the town u

presented those minor policy issues. And both those and the administrative changes that we're going to talk about tonight will be treated as a separate warrant article from the codification itself. So the codification will be limited to the technical and grammatical issues and any of the anything that kind of raises itself to an issue of questioning policy then those will be handled separately in a different warrant article which could pass or fail. about the codification. Uh the town has invested quite a bit of money in that process. So that's part of the reason for handling it as a separate warrant article. Uh as I started to mention the planning board did hold a public uh information meeting a couple of weeks ago and um explained the at that time there were seven minor policy issues. Uh at the last planning board meeting based on public input in part the board uh decided to pull noise regulation changes uh off this set of

minor policy issues. And all through the process we've been kind of looking at if issues get more complicated than can be handled through this fairly straightforward process given the magnitude of the overhaul of the ordinance. The board uh was really concerned with getting bogged down in some issue. So if any of the issues are too uh complicated or controversial, what we'll do is basically hold it off until after the codification is complete and then uh take it up separately such as with the updating the noise regulations. So tonight I'm going to walk you through 10 proposed administrative changes. Uh the first is the codification itself. So the uh pretty much the land use ordinance is currently in a Microsoft Word format that every year whenever changes are made I manually uh go into the word document and update it and then produce the PDFs and then those are posted on the town website as a as an

entire ordinance PDF. So it's not very user friendly in terms of the ability of anyone to do searches and cross referencing and all of that will be uh put into the new digitized version which will be much easier for the public to use and more effective for it. They you will be able to download either word or PDFs of the entire ordinance or the individual sections and articles. Another issue that we've just tal touched on were the 139 areas. The current ordinance because it's just been uh written over several decades uh contains a lot of typographical and grammar grammatical errors. Those will be corrected. Extensive corrections will be made throughout the updated ordinance and it will be uh checked for consistency as well both internally but also the consultants have identified several areas such as flood plane management and uh affordable housing requirements of the state that uh those need to be updated and there are

outdated citations to various uh trade journals standards uh like UL listings and those sorts of things that need to be updated. So this uh overview and update will address all of those inconsistencies. And then as I said u the minor policies and the administrative changes in the last two uh boxes at the at the bottom the rows that's pretty much what we're looking at as part separate from the codification itself and any these are areas necessitated by legal reviews but there also opportunities to look at and address recurring issues that come up during planning board project reviews. So, uh, as I stated, all of the minor policy issues will be treated separately from the technical codification of the ordinance. And again, here tonight, we're going to be reviewing, uh, the administrative changes, which provide the opportunity to streamline some of the processes the town uses to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

And as I said, all of the administrative changes will be treated separately from the technical codification of the ordinance. So administrative change one is the digitized ordinance itself. The second administrative change is to update the town's road standards and uh those have been reviewed by both the road commissioner and the town goral palmer the town's engineering peer review and uh one of the first areas is to look at the road classifications. Currently, the ordinance still follows the uh repealed growth management policy where the town back in uh around 2005

basically established a growth area where the town would accept roads and all other roads outside of that were to be private. The town doesn't do that anymore. And so the the standards will under this new draft will be based on the traffic levels, which is what most towns do. They don't have private roads and public roads. They have either um minor local, local or subcollector depending on the level of traffic anticipated to be using it. And correspondingly right now the town has straight 50 ft rightway for all roads. Uh if you go to a subcolctor with a wider road for very large projects, then uh the right of way is typically expanded to make more room to fit everything within it. Pavement widths currently is 22 feet for what are called public roads and 20 feet for private roads. This would follow the 20 feet for a minor local road uh 22 feet for a local and then 24 ft for any sub collectors. And the reality is

subolctors are most likely not to be uh built in Durham because they serve like over a hundred homes, one road and many communities have collector roads and arterials like Portland. But certainly you're not going to see any collector roads like um Quaker meeting house road

or some of the other major roads uh or arterials like the state routes. So, all you really need in the subdivision regulations are the actual classifications of roads that are going to be built. Uh, shoulder width. Currently, it's 4 feet for public roads and 2 feet for private roads. The town's peerreview engineer suggested that 2 feet would be appropriate for all roads. Currently, the ordinance uh establishes that before a building permit can be issued on any of the lots within the subdivisions, the entire road must be completed except for paving, uh the proposed revision is to say that the road must be completed up to the law where a building permit is um is requested and then uh as long as the fire chief verifies to the code officer that it's it's fully accessible by public safety uh emergency vehicles then they would be able to get that building permit even though the road is not complete. Current policy also says that

if a road uh is serving uh three or fewer lots then it can be retained as a gravel road uh but uh it goes on to say that anything above that has to be paid. So what's come up in the past is that you have an extension of that road gravel road serving three lots and there's been a lot of confusion. Do you pave it from the main road or do you pave it from after the three lots which doesn't make sense. So this would say that if you go beyond the three lots then the whole road must be paved out to the main road. And then the [clears throat] next issue is the road base. Currently the ordinance talks about aggregate base and aggregate subbase with 6 in for the aggregate base and 12 for the subbase. Uh the public works director said that really doesn't make sense and you should have 3 in of surface gravel and 15 inches of base gravel. So based on his recommendation that's what the ordinance would say. Uh similarly culverts are

very outdated. talks [clears throat] in here about 12 inch zinc coated metal pipe. Pretty much the industry standard now is [snorts] uh it's high density polyropylene polyethylene excuse me with and public works director says it should be um road commission excuse me says it should be 15 inches minimum and obviously the planning board has uh authority to grant waivers. So if there is a condition where it doesn't make sense to go with that large of a culvert because it's at the top of grade and uh there's ledge there then the planning board can grant relief to that. Uh parking is currently contained in the uh subdivision appendix and uh really the only time that comes into play is when you start dealing with commercial uses. So, this proposed revision will move the parking standards to site plan review, which is where you'd be looking at calculating parking requirements for various non-residential uses. The

ordinance uh currently allows turnarounds at the turn uh excuse me, driveways on turnarounds, which causes problems for plowing. both the town engineer and the public work, excuse me, road commissioner uh indicate that those driveways should either be prohibited or at least closely uh monitored and improved by the road commissioner. So that's [clears throat] the proposal in this draft is to say that if you're going to put u a driveway on a turnaround, then you have to get the road commissioner to approve it so he can make sure that it's going to not interfere with snow plowing operations. And then finally on the road standards is the issue of uh entrance site distances. Currently there are site distances in the road uh subdivision road appendix. There's uh as we'll go on and show in the next administrative change when it comes to driveways. There's a separate listing of site distances and neither of those are

consistent with the MDOT standards. So this proposes to uh have sorry again this proposes to have uh all of the uh site distances included and then to simply match the MDOT standard so there's no confusion. So that is the uh limit of what is being considered in the subdivision road standards. We've provided the summary which this was taken from and the uh actual text of the

changes is available on the website. So just keep those down there and with that I conclude the presentation and open it up Oh, I'm sorry. Did I jump right through? comments or questions or concerns on the first issue we talked about [clears throat] which was um editorial changes to the codification process?

Lane 31 Garrett Lane. Um it it it doesn't relate to this first page. So we just Does it have to do with the the first issue that George brought up regarding the cotification process? No. Sorry. Okay. So then I'm going to back up or move forward.

Um any questions or comments to the subdivision road standards administrative stand changes? Mike here. Just the question, George, was uh this proposed reclassification of the roads for subdivisions. Uh I know that some of the minor policy changes we discussed at the last meeting, uh the requirements are are based on whether a road is considered public or private. Um so are these reclassifications just for within a subdivision or is for the entire town? Well,

how would they affect the proposed policy changes? Okay, so um what would happen is this would primarily apply to new roads that are being built in subdivisions. It's in the subdivision regulations. However, what we talked about as the minor policy issue is updating the back lot multiple lot access standards and those currently refer to the subdivision appendix and road standards. So currently if you have a five lot uh what

Durham calls a back lot multiple lot access road most towns call that a private way it's outside of the subdivision doesn't trigger subdivision that requires the um the the construction to meet the standards for what is currently private roads which is the 20 feet with two foot shoulders. And what this will do is still have that as a minor local street. Um, so it will meet those standards, but it won't be called a private anymore. It'll be called either minor local. That would be most likely what you'd be building with a private way serving five lots.

Okay. So basically it ends up being the same standard, right? I get that. I think um so currently if you look at the the the map uh of the road map for the town there's private and well roads are I think if they're a certain color they're public or private right so are they still is the map going to change to

No because all the maps as I think I explained to you in an email all the map does is reflects two things it reflects the assessing records right uh and it it it reflects the 911 address, right? So, the road names are for those two purposes. And the public work, yes, public works, the road commissioner has a map of all the roads in town in terms of who maintains what. There are gravel roads or paved roads. There are paved roads that the town maintains. There are paved roads that are maintained by private subdivision associations. And there are paved roads that the state maintains. And so, all of those will remain the same. All this applies to is when new roads are constructed. They will have to meet these standards whether it's in a subdivision or in a private way. This is purely for the construction of new roads, not reclassification of existing road zones.

Okay. So, if a new road is built off a say a private way or a public way and yeah, will that now not be a private way? It will be a minor local road. It just seems like we're adding complications. Mhm. Uh well, you you can't get away from complication when you're dealing with rogue issues. That's just the reality.

But but the the policies that we talked about I'm not trying to I don't try to understand that's all and there is overlap. Uh right those those policies are based on the requirements are based on whether a road is a private way or a public road. So, it just seems like now we're going to have new roads that are neither public or private. They have these other classifications. So, how do those policies apply or not apply to those new types of road?

Actually, I I don't think that's accurate in that those policies don't depend on whether it's private road or public road. They depend on whether it's a road meeting the definition legal definition of a road. Whether you can do a back plot off it or not doesn't relate to is it classified as a public road or private road. It's just if it's a road and if you have legal rights to it either because it's a public road who everybody has rights to it or it's a private way where people who own it give you permission to extend off it. That's a separate issue from the construction standards that we're talking about you're dealing with is legal rights to develop these. That's a different issue than what construction standards they have to go to. Here, all we're talking about is the construction standards.

on to the next. You want to do that or do you want to have more discussion at the end on all of them? I think we have discussion after each one. It's probably more efficient. I didn't seem like there was any more comments or discussions about move on.

same lines is the current driveway standards for the town. And the first thing that's very confusing is the current wording which says that the driveway standard apply to all town quote unquote roads. Um and so the question becomes the road commissioner has been confused as to whether he's supposed to be issuing uh driveway permits on state roads, statemaintained roads, town maintained roads or private association maintained roads. and the ordinance isn't clear because a town road does that mean any road in town or does it mean road roads that are maintained by the town. So that confusion will be cleared up by saying that the u the driveway standards and the requirement for a driveway permit will apply to any road over which the town has jurisdiction either through town maintenance of it or through a planning board approval of it. Uh those are the roads that the uh road commissioner will have authority to

require a driveway permit on the T and it will clarify that the town does not issue driveway permits where the main department of transportation issues the driveway permit. So it will only be required for roads that are under the jurisdiction of the town. Second issue is the safe site distances. Uh I mentioned just on the roads that right now the tables are inconsistent and both with the ones that are in the ordinance as well as with MDOT standards. So this will make everything consistent with MBOT standards. Right now uh the driveway grade at the road entrance which is from the pavement shoulder and then through the right of way. This ordinance current currently allows a 10% grade to intersect with the road, which is a formula for someone on a slippery day skidding out into the roadway um or are trying to gun up over a hill onto the roadway. So, most communities have within the road right

away. Some extend it further no more than 3% grade. So, that's pretty much the the safety standard that's recommended. And again, the town engineer and the uh road commissioner have reviewed these and make support these recommendations. The road commissioner currently uh if you have the safest intersection angle, if you come out onto a road is a 90 degree, which requires someone to stop, look both ways, and then pull out. uh you can in certain situations um whether property boundaries or others indicate you [clears throat] need to have some angle to it. Uh generally the safety standard uh by traffic design is 75 degree maximum uh excuse me minimum but uh current ordinance says it can go below 75 if the road commissioner approves it which could open up the town to liability issues if it's not phones sound safety uh criteria. So this would require all driveways to be at least the minimum safety standard of 75 degrees

from from perpendicular. Uh the paving [clears throat] of the driveway apron currently it says that if the grade exceeds 5% it must be the what they call the apron which is the area within the road right ofway. The road commissioner has said that doesn't make sense. If the roadway is paid then the apron should be paid regardless of the grade. even if it's not if the road is not paved, then it doesn't make sense to pay the apron. So, that's his recommendation that we've put into the ordinance. Erosion controls are repeated in the driveway standard section as well as elsewhere in the ordinance. So, this will simply put in a reference to the erosion control standards that are contained uh that apply to every every other use. And I think that was it for the driveway changes. Any

public comments on the driveway standing changes [clears throat] from the board? Oh, one question. I want to look at the pavement of driveway apron doesn't specify how deep that should be. I mean the minimum of 2 ft minimum 5 ft.

It would be whatever is within the right of way of the road. edge of pavement. That's pretty much typical. Well, one of the apron when I see [clears throat] when we when the town resurfaces roads and they do do aprons on driveways, those aprons only look like they're a foot, two feet at the most. They don't look that deep to me. I know that it's not looking. It's if you anybody observed that they didn't realize that is not certainly isn't uh 8 or 10 ft tall.

It should be everything within the road right away because that's where the jurisdiction of the town ends is at the road right away. So so all four wheels is sitting on asphalt when they're taking off right out of the subdivision.

Right. Yeah, I'm just The reason I question it because I don't believe it's being adhered to. it. And that's why I'm saying I think there should be a [clears throat] a distance of feet the depth of that. Okay, I can look into that and make sure that it's specified.

Thank you. Yep. Thank you, 250 stock road. Um, did you regarding private waves, did the lawyer have anything to say about um maintenance agreements on on private roads? subdivision? No. Any private private way? of private play maintenance.

You want me to address that? Sure. Please do. Okay. So, uh I think it's important to recognize that the current ordinance is what we're starting with and a change in policy to say that maintenance agreements for private roads would not be required would be a policy change that we've not discussed. Um, I understand that the town attorney sees problems with uh if someone is going off an existing private uh road that that or

way that does not have a maintenance agreement, then to impose that on the existing property owners is questionable. [snorts] However, under the ordinance, both what's currently in place and what's proposed is that whoever's proposing to extend or establish a private way that others use currently, they are required to make an offer to that the other property owners to be to participate, but it does not stop them once they've made the offer and record an affidavit to that effect. They can go forward. So that was her one main concern with it is the is if you require everybody that's [cough] in there to become part of the maintenance agreement and they're already there then you can basically stop someone from doing their private way that's being proposed that they may have a legal right to do it but when she heard that the town basically says you're not required to join it you're just required

to make the offer she was okay with it's response. Is there any any uh policy changes that plenty of [snorts] other policy change? My problem is maintenance agreement is between individuals. It's has nothing to do with the town because the town isn't going to take care of it.

The town's not going to take care of any private road and you're you're imposing standards. Sure. But as far as maintenance, they're not taking care of it. inappropriate exercise of public policy, then you can consider that and make that as as another policy change. I think that would maybe be more than a minor policy change if you're going to say does does it only apply to private ways outside of subdivisions or does

or does it apply to roads in subdivisions because right now the town requires all subdivision roads to have a maintenance agreement. subdivision. There are plenty of private roads out there with room maintenance women and we all take care of ourselves. We don't need the planning board or anybody else to tell us what to do. I know we as planning board we've had some individuals come to us and ask about maintenance treatment and they were looking for recommendations as to what to do and if you have a couple of private road dirt road and there are two parties two or three parties that own that

one of we just bring to their attention that if that if someone sells a piece of property on that road and prior owner owners were in a maintenance agreement, they need to be aware that they're responsible for maintaining it. But that that again is amongst those individuals that own the road. [snorts]

What if you most private roads have no maintenance? I know that that's true. There have been very few people that have come to the planning board and asked for recommendations. actually. about this maybe at our next meeting, but this might be more than a minor policy, you know, might be something that we want to pick up next year. You know,

the whole issue of maintenance agreements. Yes. Yes. Like I think that we want a little bit more time to figure this out. Yeah. Smartly. Yeah. I think depending on our agenda for next month, we can add it to our agenda just to briefly talk about some of the highlights and see where we can go from there.

But it's separate from this. Yeah. It's important issue, but I don't I don't I feel like we don't have enough time. Well, I appreciate the comment. where it goes from there. Thanks. Sure. Any driving standards, questions? [snorts]

Okay. So, four. Number four is the shift of responsibility and authority for determining the precise boundary of the location of zoning districts from the board of appeals to the planning board. Uh currently under the ordinance if there's a dispute over where the boundary is like say the edge of the resource protection district um on the zoning map the line itself is probably at a scale of 100 ft just for the width of the line. So, uh, whenever there's a question someone's going to be building very close to that or they need, uh, to have a determination of they've got they need more buildable land on a lot, they can actually appeal currently to the board of appeals. And what they do is they hire a consultant, surveyor, engineer, wetland specialist to come in with documentation and the board of appeals has authority to establish where that boundary is. Uh since I've been working with the town

about seven years now, there have been four occasions where it uh came before the board and uh I think one of the property owners actually sitting here tonight. Um and uh the the board of appeals just really struggled with the whole issue and the concept because they felt that uh really it's a change to the zoning map which they thought has to go to the town meeting. But most communities that I've worked with have this uh field determination of boundaries uh vested with a planning board. The planning board's more used to dealing with these types of technical issues and working with consultants. It has professional staff assistance uh that the board of appeals typically and the board of appeals meets like once or twice a year at most. So the planning board in terms of having the availability to to uh the board to deal with this, it just makes a lot more sense to have the planning board make

this determination rather than the board of appeals. And that is the proposal that's being put forth right now. question Mike. Thank you. Uh this being being clear this is to this isn't to propose changes to zoning. This is just to interpret the current zoning maps how it applies on a

on a particular property. Okay. [snorts] from the board? Questions comments? This makes sense to me. Thank you, George. Yeah. Okay. proposed administrative change five is the subdivision solid waste containers. Currently, there uh have been issues of multiple subdivisions where the concern was that uh the town's waste hauler would not serve the subdivision. And so, uh, Winfield, I think it's Windgate Farms on Royalsboro Road. If you drive by there on trash day, you'll see the u the containers right out on Royalsboro Road, which has a 50 mph speed limit at that point. So, it's uh the planning board has dealt with this [snorts] and struggled with it. And so, currently, there are no stipulations on where trash containers can be uh located. When the subdivision is approved under the proposal, uh it would either it would have to be at the curbside within the subdivision or the developer would have

to submit a plan for waste management that would show uh how it's going to be handled. Uh currently there is no plan required and this would either require a readiness to serve from Cassella or whoever and this is very typical in more urban communities, suburban communities where you have to get a readiness to serve from the Portland water district for example or the sewer district. So here you get a readiness to serve letter from the solid [clears throat] waste management company that's doing the towns and if they for some reason are not willing to drive their vehicles up that road then the u developer would have to come up with a plan uh and that plan would actually include uh right now there are no restrictions where they could be located. That plan would actually uh indicate that we would not be allowed outside of the subdivision. So, they would have to perhaps they'd have a commercial hauler, an

association. They'd have a gated uh what do they call those? The trash uh bins, the larger can't bring. Yeah, they have two dumpsters for the subdivision. Everybody throw the trash in there. Commercial hall come gets it one comes and gets it once a week. So, they would have but they would have to get a plan, submit it with their subdivision application, and the planning board would approve it. Hopefully they would all be readiness to serve letters, but this will cover that if that's not forthcoming.

Yes, sir. just got full. Um I'm on the salt waste committee so I know a little bit about this but [snorts] casa to go down a private road casola has to be totally indemnified from any damage [snorts] to the road. Their 100,000 pound trucks are going to do damage to every private road in

every one. So, I don't I don't see [snorts] This is something that would have to be worked out. I think it would make more sense to go in there with a smaller truck and uh to pick up trash and subdivisions and private roads

trash truck going down the road every week whether it's February, March, April, August, they're going to do damage. and Cassella doesn't feel that they're liable for anything. So, repair their own road. I don't think there's a better way.

[clears throat] asking the um um developer Yeah. to reach out to Cassell or whomever the waste management company is to um agree with a developer go into the subdivision um and pick up waste. Um I don't know are there any issues now in subdivisions where there's been damage to roads in this situation?

Well, they don't go they don't go in private on a private way. It won't [snorts] go on. subdivisions, but I think there's a better way. the subdivisions, for the HOAs to decide, right? Like if they do want if they do want a small truck, they can they can

get a small truck to come down there, right? Or if they would want to sell it, but I mean I think you're right. I think they are it's not only not only subdivisions, it's every private private ways, right? All this would apply subdivisions that come from board.

Yeah. But Cassello's policy extends to every private group, right? So if Cassello won't serve it, they won't get a letter. They'll have to come up with a plan. Okay. The other option is is to, as you mentioned earlier, is to come up with a place where maybe there's a dumpster that's on the end of the road [cough]

doesn't have to go into the subdivision. They want that one issue from the cell. They're going to go to the mechanizer farm and I don't know the smallest truck that would even exist to do that. I because they're going to go out and they're going to purchase new vehicles. It's a good question. Ward a truck dumpster way though. Well, if you had a dumpster, it have to be a dumpster multiple homes. They have to be a dumpster truck, not the one that they're going to be using with the uh roadside pickup. It'll be a separate truck that

this? I mean, [clears throat] we have this proposal that's, you know, looking to um be presented to the town at the summer. Um, where's the Cassella contract deadline? So that's happening sooner, right? So So it was moved up.

Moved up, right? So it means sounds like there's a select board, solid waste committee, whoever signs the contract with that needs to be worked out. [snorts] We need to know the details before we can say what what's going to happen here. It's also a really good point, too. And I know that the slug board's talking with Cassella, I [snorts] think December 9th or something. So, it's coming up. But that is a really good point. We're going to want to align what's happening.

Yeah. What does the contract say? What are they willing to do? What are they not willing to do? Um, George, maybe this one the table. [clears throat] Well, yeah. Sorry. I had one more thing too to add. So the topic the name of this um change is subdivision solid waste container storage admin change. Um if it is referring to private ways as well should we make it you know

this is this is just for this is just subdivision it's only in the subdivision regulations. Okay. So for private ways then it's we're just not covering that right now. No. Okay. So that we'll cover maybe later next year.

Well, that's that's a completely separate issue, right? Separate is this is just subdivision. This is an issue that's come up on multiple subdivisions. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. I just wanted to make that clear. Thank you.

But it's going to come up with Cassell. Yeah. We've got more private ways than we have public. the concept of the ar you know if that's that doesn't happen if that's not in the contract then either way it changes how you need to look at what happens

up the side of the can arms come off the side of the truck pick it up it's supposed to know what's in there. watch especially neuroproies. that the developers the subdivision needs to figure out how you're going to deal with trash regardless of whether it's an side arm or not.

Yeah. And the big thing is it prohibits it on main roads. They can't put their containers out under this or mean like state roads or Yeah. outside just the rooms or um look at the language. You mean the right of way, right? like 136 it would be the right of way of 136 has to stay out of that is what you're saying what we're saying

allow rules outside of subdivision currently in there now says collection within subdivisions all new subdivisions shall implement a solid waste and recycling collection system that ensures waste and recycling containers are collected from within the subdivision either in front of individual homes on privately owned and maintained roads or at a designated centralized facility. Under no circumstances shall solid waste or recycling containers from properties within a subdivision be placed on main public roads or state boots for collection. So that would pretty much be most of the town collector roads. And we can specify more if you if you think it's necessary.

right of ways, right? Like the right of way associated with Well, the language says it has to be done within the subdivision. So that's outside the right way. Yeah. Okay. [snorts] this or is there more discussion? That way is doing before you discuss it ourselves.

Sounds to me like it doesn't matter what that contract is related to subdivisions and what they do with human subdivision. Correct. That is true. The contract is going to be with the town. The town properties not outside

regardless of the subdivision or I should say outside the subdivision, right? You could further give further consideration to the sub as we go along in the process. [clears throat] And this is just getting the public input on what the planning board has proposed. is still going to go from here through probably March and even April with the codification process and discussions with the select board. So, we don't have to resolve it tonight.

Okay. Talking about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's good to keep it as is. I don't think there's any major changes we need to make to it tonight. We'll just follow it and see what happens through March. six is the scope of campground reviews. And the goal here is to streamline the process. Uh where right now the planning board and the state of Maine both approved Camp Brown construction and expansions. And what these changes do will pretty much limit the focus of the planning board to to Durham's issues which are primarily zoning related and leave the sanitation and environmental reviews to the state. So currently uh the planning board does a conditional review uh conditional use review of of a campground uh construction or expansion the establishment and the planning board looks at it under the general criteria of potential impacts on noise, traffic, range and visual quality and that will

that will continue uh under the proposed revisions. But what happens now is the planning board is under the ordinance is required to give a site plan approval to the campground. And the site plan review stands of article 8 look at really more commercial uh installations and so it deals with parking lot lighting, parking requirements, uh traffic circulation and engineering design. Campground is a whole different creature. And so uh then it goes to the state where they do a full review of all the engineering. So uh the most recent campground the person was up at Vesta for almost two years and the planning board required them to bring back the engineering plans that the state approved and that's the basis on which you granted it. So this would basically keep a conditional use review. Then they go get their state permits and the state deals with all of those issues of campground sanitation uh environmental and campground

management. they have campground licensing that deals with that. So, uh this would exempt specifically exempt a campground from going through site plan review and would not have regulations where the town is monitoring their u their client list their that all that those things that are done by the state and the state will continue to do what it has been doing and does quite well. So, that's the proposal.

Road. Um, so right now the the town of Durham defines campground different than the state of Maine. State of Maine defines campground as five or more sites. The town of Durham defines campground as more than one site. I'm wondering if you consider to align the state of Maine's definition because then it creates this kind of uh gray zone that exists where [snorts] if you're under five sites, you're not actually a campground by the state of Maine, but you're a campground by the time of Dar. It seems like it's uh you know makes a

uh for particularly given that like you know more kind of small couple site uh campgrounds that people do [clears throat] through pit camp or other services like that that it creates a kind of prohibitive barrier for that for those that

through the process kind of lining this at the state and town level and having a a shared definition of campground. look into. Yeah, I didn't realize that. area between one and one and five. Yeah, I think I I was I was trying to go through the land use and I think the town says right now it's like you have one one campsite. That's not a campground. But if you're at two, that's a campground and you have to do all these things at the state level. I just looked up the state the state says five or more is when when it's considered to be a campground.

So what's less than five? I wonder what's less than having some campsites. It's not Yeah, it's not I mean it doesn't say anything at the state level. Um, but it's not a license. Like if you had less than five sites, the state wouldn't give you the license.

Okay. I say we talk about this further next. I don't know if we want to ask somebody. We can look into those definition. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. submissions. the um amendments will provide for the plan board and staff additional to process subision additional use applications. Currently the deadline for getting on the next available word agenda is 14 days. [snorts] Um I work part-time and it's very difficult especially where we have to develop findings of fact extensive pages of findings of fact. It's very difficult to meet these deadlines. Uh so most communities have at least 21 days some have full month and that's a proposal to give really and staff have

the time to thoroughly review applications. Similarly right now there is no deadline for if the board says something's missing uh developer or applicant can bring in the information at the next meeting. uh and the board has no review. So they end up table. So

this will be that any time for processing that new information and then uh in the opposite direction. Right now the ordinance requires 10 printed copies. Most of those we end up on because most of the board members are nonersions.

staff works as well as fire and code enforcement but reducing it to five copies. seven. usually. So we see there's any chance to get to ask if you're going to make quarantine days. And those have to be sent out to more at least seven days before leaving. So that's that if you had seven days that would have time to review uh

so that's why provision. Uh if you look at the ordinance is posted online right now, you get the definition. corrected until the next day annual sound. So for things like that where it's clear it was an error. I think the current we reumbered when we did the solar and our contract zoning. So that

thing so now back law access refers to section 5.23 is now actually 5.24. Again, that can't be corrected until it goes to the next meeting. So, uh this would this change would give the uh select board recommendation of planning board attorney to make sure it's not making substantive changes to what was approved that we made. But we give this life the ability to make corrections that are just purely corrections to the errors in

Yes. planning board first as a recommendation and then the select board Perhaps we could just [snorts] say that a little bit more to that. Again, these are just summaries to let you know the specific language is posted on the website. So after each of these summaries, the text of the proposed change is there. Here's what it says. This is a very short one. Um it says this is the administr administering agencies select board. What it does is court upon recommendation of the planning board and review of the town

shall be authorized to make non substantive corrections to the text of disordance including but not limited to correcting typographical errors [snorts] misspellings incorrect cross references and updating references to state statuto citations. [snorts] I mean there are 139

confiration have never been taken care of over 30 years. So that's then it goes on to clarify such corrections shall be limited to ensuring accuracy and consistency of the public text and shall not alter the intent meaning or substantive provisions of any regulation that county. The board shall

maintain a record of all such directions include this and that is proof of payment of taxes. So, one of the criteria for getting a conditional use permit or a submission approval is you have to show financial capacity. Someone is not paying your taxes. That's official evidence that they don't have the capacity. So what this will do is is require that there has been at least one case where uh the person did not have subdivision approvement not pay taxes on two years anticipating that the lean process would take at least 3 years and by that time will pay for it. So this is kind of close to that and that was actually happening in Europe and most towns do require paying taxes as condition for getting

proof that the current property owner is paying taxes on the property yet but they buy property which taxes asking proof that they got the actor. we can current sure that the tax I pay [snorts] for the purchase that the responsibility lands on lands on the buyer. So as a division application for a year

and then the taxes closing and that whole process you're you're putting your trust in the property taxes actually and that's actually going to raise question in terms of do they afford title because it is existing on property potential for

that triggers a whole another issue but quieter than the developer you actually the current regulations more broad. circumstances like that, you can negotiate something to prior to release of the recording. For example, you can say the taxes must be paid. So you have the ability to work through those type of situations

case by case. Yeah. listening to the discussion. Uh to confirm that issue this is for subdivision right under law. administrator before they any type or even they have to have some vested property right in that property that they're for and that can be an easement which gives something they have a purchase and sale agreement contractual agreement terms or

they have to demonstrate interesting to actual likely situation [snorts] Additional use submission requirements. So, currently the plane board back in 2020 uh because of frustration over applicants coming after additional use permits uh not bringing in adequate information or details proposed. uh develop a set of submission requirements and put those in a set of instructions. Um the town attorney has advised that if you're going to impose submission requirements including a site plan that should be authorized any ordinance which is subdivisions and site plans. And so this would simply take the submission requirements listed in the current instructions here.

there confusing uh whether or not it's the code officer. It says the code officer determines that it's complete and puts it on the agenda and then it says that after the planning board can determine that it's not complete and uh national information. So that is confusing for everyone. So this will clearly [snorts] establish that it's the planning board that determines the completeness you know as I do for all subision use applications. I go through the application and advise the board assume whether or not all materials required by the ordinance is checklist for subdivision site review

checklist for uh commission use applications as well as the applicants that you need for complete application they submit it and the plan has waver authority on solutions. So for a small project where you know going into existing building you can wave that requirement if they ask for waiver and justify why should this will give more clear to this requirement [snorts]

so I think the other open the agriculture committee comes out of the congress process which over the last two years formed committee last year board and board charter that approved the committee. Um, and we reviewed the comprehensive plan.

Um, the 2018 recovery plan look at um what was in there. One of the pieces of that [snorts] was through the ordinances to look at essentially how to not live in agriculture in your own and uh how to also support. So that's paraphrasing

what it says but um so that was through view among us and also some other team as one of the priorities of of the um committee and so myself and David Coulson community co-chairs of the committee and we've been meeting monthly uh this year and one of the things that we identified really as we started review the ordinances is really looking at the definitions of agriculture and how agriculture is defined um in the town of Europe and recognizes the definitions

now what agriculture looks like in the 21st century um and that it's important to you know get on the same page in terms of as we were talking about agriculture what are the different aspects of agriculture um and so that's really where this um list of definitions came from. And what it also came from though is also reviewing uh [snorts] the ordinances of other towns and communities that made it as well. Um and so um through the support they were able to get us definitions from other towns to review and look at. And so we spent quite a while going through these and um and and developing these different definitions. Um I don't know if it's something all right now or or you know what would be helpful to you all. Um I did review the uh your meeting from last week. I saw there's some confusion about like this is one part of it and changes proposals would be another part of it. We're I mean you know we're doing so

we're also trying to figure out how to do this and follow you know George um so we just starting out we need to know what we're talking about agreement and then look at what what changes through these ordinance table are then appropriate and working collaboration with planning board and others to really determine um what that is and so you know just to say that too that right now agriculture you know is in there in a certain way our intention is not to say here's all the definitions about agriculture and what's in apply all these recognize that different aspects of this might need different treatment different um you know reviews processes um so yeah I guess that's the background of these

[snorts] to go through them each. [snorts] I'm just trying to see if I have that table that I provide yet. So uh if you look at the current regulations on agriculture you see that uh part two establishes the rural residential and agricultural district as the primary district mostly town pretty much everything resource protection. Um and then there's a article three there's a table that lists within each of those uh resource protection residential agricultural aquifer protection shoreline residential resource protection. So in that table it goes down through specifies where agriculture is permitted use and where is a condition use. Now if you expand to add six other uh definitions [snorts] that decide where drones will go into and whether it will be permit use or condition. And then we get down into the performance standards uh which is our five currently is very

basically talks about storage spreading disposal and water. um that probably needs to be looked at. Some of these additional uses uh in subdivision regulations. It only requires mapping of farmland soils to say what you can't do with a subdivision as we discussed in recent cluster subdivision. someone in common space that needs to be included in the open space but there are no regulations even state law

subdivisions and how agriculture is treated within them. Uh the trilling zoning has some special requirements uh protecting water quality obviously. Uh so they they have some specifications in there. Indian acquer protection has [snorts] special limitations on pesticides and slide spraying for concern about the effects on acquer uh and then I think uh then currently there are three different

said a lot of the modern applications of [snorts] returns and those sorts of things. So definitely there's a need for updating it, but there's a lot more to it than just adding new definitions. So I did speak with Christa Chappelle who was on the department trust today and uh

she indicated that they have been available to the uh agriculture committee will continue to do so. If the agriculture committee wants to move forward and trying to get something on the next county meeting uh agenda ballot work then uh they would support the agriculture committee in addressing these other areas and trying to put together a proposal. So if the agriculture committee working with support trust can put together a complete package then that could be considered possibly at the next [snorts] town meeting. we would probably take some pretty uh dedicated time to get get all [snorts] that put together. Uh if not, I don't think just adding definitions would change anything because it would just be a set of definitions going anywhere. So if it's not possible to work on that short time frame from now and probably the very latest the town will have to finalize those propos April uh then it would have to be probably

year. So by take these definitions and then look at lenu table and say here's [snorts] here's where we make these changes to table. Um getting that can we repeat that timeline of these changes that have been worked on the last fall now

process and these are going to be presented [snorts] to the story of January. uh the uh cification we're [snorts] going to get this comes out the end of January hopefully that's what contract it's already over so uh this is planning we'll be looking at cification process in their actual revised

that process all that and then planning work has to hold public hearings on anything that's going to be proposed at least uh no long no less than 7 days or 30 no more than 30 days before the town meeting. So it's tight window but speaking of Chanel they can put something together for to consider and work through and then get a proposal to the to the planning board as soon as you can produce it and they got as you know they

got a lot of experience through many something together is acceptable. Balancing out agricultural interests with neighbor interests that's usually a process that involves a lot of discussion is a big issue. uh not backing this time frame is taller.

Yeah. is, you know, I think but I recognize like that one might take more conversation. there might be lower any proof that we did look at or changes um and move forward on um you know to just really we our charter is to be guided by the comprehensive plan and so you know officers are following comprehensive plan and taking those not just nice things to say but actually put into action so that's what we're trying to do in the future Um so again you know and just a great resource we also have a great great committee as well experience farming here in so we have people that

so I guess well I think uh yeah go back to the committee if we can uh plan to work on those changes like we made those [snorts] And so this is where like we get those to you. We get those to you like I I ago like I know people didn't get them until just before last meeting. So I was wondering like how you ultimately it's board that decides whether to put something on the town board. So they very much committee putting something together. Um and typically it goes to the select board and there's refer board if they want to pursue it. So and and just following up on earlier discussion of this, [snorts] if you can scale it down to what is essential for change immediately uh and do that on this town meeting and then after that work on other stuff that less critical, more expansive than obviously the less controversial potentially going to be. So maybe just some food [snorts] for meaningful ultimately I

pretty much channel the information to all groups. So if you want to send it to my attention, I can along both the whiteboard as well as good collaboration hard at that between the conservation commission, the planning board for its own,

cooperation between all groups trying to pull together [snorts] or are they major policy changes? [snorts] And if you can put together administrative or minor policy changes that probably work better clarification what mean? Well, I was just noticing that there's [snorts] two definitions um that are already in the ordinance uh agriculture and then agricultural community. So, I took a quick look. They look very similar. I'm not sure if they're exact, but like you know for those

maybe not to like raise them as the example because the existing examples that exist and so by you know it's like like saying that it's like oh first of all they're corporate complex they need to put in here not they do a corporate complex of buildings and like I mean that's a much larger facility that hopefully a lotor operations they have

agriculture there but they also I mean [snorts] question but I say like it's important to not like raise and we have we do have that's happening here that's faced various challenges because kind of like comes to [snorts] the play like well we don't know how to deal with that to do this we're trying to get that place like how can these proposals come forward there's clarity and cooperation working together get right you know right size operation so you know our goal is to say any and all

is you know you can do anything like just put this in here but really That's where the standard become. like a definition that we're not really talking about yet. We haven't seen much of yet. Um we are going to need to update the comprehensive plan within the next couple of years. So I know it might be longer than we might want but it might be a good pairing right is to start talking about these things and plan to include in

that right because that's going to include public public lots of talk about these topics and people get more interested and more educated about these topics in that process. Yeah, I mean I do do know from the community this is trying to move forward sooner because it's already happening in how we support it whether it's having

you know doing workshops how do we you know do that in a way that's you know clear and farms have end these little right should have a shortterm goal. I don't think we have mentioned updates. So they they they coales [snorts] between chapters

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean again I think recognizing you know further education and you have to look at what was I think this one was actually based on um code uh and we also start and that's one of the one of the tools that both you know because we have a huge labor shortage in farms main and obviously housing crisis And so how do we you know create housing that that be affordable to farm members, farm workers

so that something at the time meeting Then the state again proposes. I do worry about time though. Um I don't know how things resources far. for committee chairs or committee? Yeah. Please tell me right now her if you folks can kind of critical

things to change [snorts] up like just reduce the telephone like new [snorts] I'm sorry. Um [snorts] And we're dealing with this is by John and I anticipate some coming. Could you take a second just [snorts] Um, I just found out be out of town that week. Um, so I would be able to get [snorts] a small team here. So I love that.

maybe Perfect.