TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ October 4, 2023

Corum Arizona were the first team will they so they they must be you know offspring of the Chicago [Music] minute I don't it are either of you missing people that you know I suspect yes okay all right well we'll go ahead and uh we'll do the Quorum in that piece before we get to either of the the two uh petitioners so we have a quorum there's three of us uh m go and may join us later you would make the fourth um so just to note when we go to vote our rules require um the majority is three out of five so because that's our formal membership role so uh if and I I don't know how it'll come any of these votes to come out but uh if you're counting three of us have to vote Yes for any approval so when we get to that point if mros is here it's three out of four for approval so we have a quorum and moving on to any amendments to the agenda I do okay um I'd like um if we

could possibly at the end of the meeting today to um have George give us an update on um the GP Cog um Municipal Vision plan something that we received few months ago and I'd also like to have a discussion about repercussions on developers who do not meet their are you able to take that on Mr sure okay excellent and we'll do that after um the draft land use or Tyler any no sir okay do we need to

vote on that am they have the amendment you can vote to add those yeah okay uh do I have a motion to add the amendment uh to amend the agenda second I second any further discussion if not raise your hand if you you approve and unanimous 30 uh so we're on to then acceptance of the minutes of Prior meeting September 6

2023 I vot to accept the minutes from September 6 2023 second second it's been moved and seconded any further discussion seeing none uh if you want to do that raise your hand it is unanimous we move on to informational exchange on n on agenda items is this the time to do that go ahead do that what Brian just asked you oh no I'm sorry you wanted to add those on the end of the agenda for board discussion wherever it comes out so for Town official position uh reports

um the code officer as you will recall under the comprehensive plan comprehensive plan we're uh advising the planning board on a monthly basis in terms of housing starts and there's only been 13 new single starts this year so far and no duplexes

so well well under the cap of 45 which is a trigger for looking at do we need to do something and it's been plateaued there for a little bit too for it's it was like that up to 30 I think last year last I'm plus but it's down considerably probably because of interest rates being so high um we I did attend the Conservation

Commission meeting and John attended as well to talk about the standards for solar energy systems and the Conservation Commission uh has after our discussion has agreed that I will focus on the standards and they had they looked at topsum uh ordinance and I've looked at several other sources U and so I will be

Drafting and currently drafting the final proposal to present for public comment uh which will consist of uh actual design standards and actually submissions um applicability you know how are you going to different size of systems and then also um what the performance standards will be and the Conservation Commission is going to go beyond that over the next year and look at some of the stuff that topsum has doing included uh uh it

included zoning treatments in terms of protecting agricultural lands for example U that was beyond the scope of what we had discussed doing uh and secondly they have some kind of a conservation mitigation fee system where people doing solar Farms pay pay a fee

and that land is used to purchase conservation easement again Way Beyond the scope of what we we were looking at and then thirdly they're also going to be looking at invasive species and Topson has them do a survey for invasive species if they find and they go to do mitigation it's questionable whether you should just be doing that for solar farms and not all development so they're going to look at that as a bigger issue too so uh John and I are going to be meeting with the leaders of the various groups uh next week and we're going to be seeing where that all is um I will be

meeting with the select board next Tuesday uh the town manager has asked me to give them information on the town's historic preservation regulations so I'm going to be giving them a briefing to explain uh what the current programs are and recommendations for possibly moving forward with that program and then finally just quickly yeah and I will be as well that was a last minute request from them and so as I said we'll be meeting with uh justess Costa actually Mike friendley of the Conservation Commission is gonna meet with you as well as um we've invited Barbara Schneider of the board of FS I our understanding is that the historic district commission does not have any leadership at this point so we'll be meeting on the other with the others next week sounds correct um this would be a good time Miss toosa has joined us so uh in the only Power that I have as chairman of the planning board uh I

would uh I will raise you to the voting membership and barring any complaints or rejection by your supposed friends sitting on the other side of you any any concerns thank you um so that was to you're done with Town officials uh residents are there any residents who want to talk about something that is not now not on the agenda noting that the two new business items are not public com comment so does anyone have any

comments about planning issues or whatever that's not on the agenda okay and that includes also the land use ordinance changes so all right moving on um we are into non non-residents other than the agenda seeing none we are now on to new business the first is which is subdivision amend to change lot line at turnaround in Woodland Acres section two map 9 lot 9

K1 public comments will not be taken uh we'll start with an introduction from uh the petitioner a brief introduction if you would I'm not sure if you were here when George mentioned that you need to there's a very small Zone where we can hear you when you're talking in the mic so don't get too close don't get too far away speak loudly so please introduce yourself your address your role and that's not happening so okay

I'm Wayne Wood surveyor on the on this item for representing Cohen Bailey and for the purposes of what we have to do John liby as well and I was expecting either of both of them to show up and I'm not sure what they might anyway well somebody sitting behind you right here oh you are yeah then get up here didn't see you and you are either John Libby or mren Bailey okay please introduce yourself your address and your role I'm Coen Bailey uh 18 June Cru drive and uh homeowner for this project okay for this and for this project I think it was spelled out in what George's stuff had said that the house was constructed at the end of the end of the road on the lot number 9-3 and it was a tad bit closer to the end of the road than your current setbacks would allow so it causes an issue for titling everything else so they came to me to figure out how to correct the problem and see if we can move that

forward my suggestion was to kind of bring the the end of the road in a little bit on that corner so that it works for the setbacks to the house that having said that that requires us to come back before you as the board for an amendment to the initial plan and somebody pointed out the original plan was also Road was called Arnold Arnold's way so as part of this we will be changing the name on the plan to cons coincide with the current road name of June crw drive as far as I can tell with by doing this we are still in compliance with all of the standards for the ordinance for the turnaround and everything else that's out there are already constructed so we feel like we're looking good for a pretty simple amendment to fix the construction problem okay uh all set all set uh mrar

your yes I think uh Mr wood uh summarized what they're here for um I've reviewed it and explained in the agenda notes the process for making an amendment it's a one-step process uh you don't need to do preliminary you can do this just as the final uh plan review so pretty much it's a pretty straightforward issue uh a couple of things that have come up in terms of uh John you had sent me an email asking about the maintenance uh agreement for the for the uh Arnold Way

June Cruz drives and I did check the deeds and I have copies of them uh and in there it does address and apparently Mr Libby and and Mr Bailey are half owners of the actual fee interest in the road and uh as you can see that little drawing I did up there that's going to take a tri triangle of that out of the road right away and add it to Mr Bailey's lot which would theoretically require Mr uh liby to give a quick claim de for that area which I'm not sure if you guys have discussed that yes say expected John to show up yeah you're supposed to be here okay uh any questions and from the board

on the the newest plot that's here and in our packet it still says Arnold way so that hasn't been amended on that trying on the one I have tonight yes okay okay but it does otherwise say correct that it's and the only other change the other change that the other change that I've made to the plan you have is the note number 12 I've added that it changes the road name as well so it's not just adjusting the turnaround but it's also the road name to change as well just for the purposes Clarity uh y okay y sounds to me

we we discussed that it is uh a June Cruz driveway um which I get that it's a note but my thought is that it it is confusing that the Arnold Way is still there so that needs to that needs to be changed to June Cruz uh driver or whatever it is um

a very minor point is that somewhere on there uh it says inside the the drive not it says private driveway or something like that which is just kind of a minor you know white it out or whatever so those are those are my concerns George answered and then I think the other one is that we do need some something formal that says Mr Libby

coming tonight and saying I'm okay with it is one thing so we need something formal and I'm happy to to wa before we move forward um saying he's okay with it but I think we will need a quick claim to saying he gives up that little triangle sure you just okay yeah so we

can pause for a second I mean for the purposes of what you're you're talking about If he if he says verbally here that he's authorizing that then we will generate proper legal documents to go I got you plan that I brought with you tonight has Jew cruise on it way just this an

older one well my thought would be that um to keep this moving what list liby says that if the board so chooses to uh to re to approve that we have conditions of approval that say the final before when it comes in for Signature that the June crw Drive be on there and that we have the uh Quick Claim Deed U and they show it to the planner before we we sign it does that make sense so who on to the road it's a split between the gentleman who just walked in the door and Mr Bailey they each own half of the road they each half owners of the road there's a

why parcel and I SP up a him with not an easement yeah correct so that's why I'm here just to make sure that you know that between the two of us the ones have the right title interest to make the association correct correct it just private it's private okay got it and taking that

slice off the Hammerhead doesn't change any compliance with changes it doesn't affect any anything in terms of comp okay so any other questions or comments none from me okay so I would like to make a motion if there's no objections and that is uh recommend that we approve this uh this plat with two conditions one is that the final version that we sign has June Cruz Drive the other is that there be a quick claim deed transferring ownership of the triangle that that George Drew up there out of the road ownership and into Mr Bailey's property yeah I agree that and I excellent and I think that covers uh my concerns a second okay any additional

need to make it hard than need speak okay so motion second any further discussion who seconded uh Ty seconded uh all those in favor please raise a hand it is unanimous thank you now what that means is we're not going to sign it until we see those two things the road changed name changed on that and also the quick claim Beed so the speed with which you can move forward is the speed which those two things can be accomplished now i' got the cre name on there want me just leave you a couple copies no we're going to need the full size for recording when they sign I got you get them I got them right you only you will have to is hold on until yeah we see the quick claan deed I think is what I said you leave it we'll sign it

thank you your house looks nice by the way my I was a little sh yeah okay moving on uh we have to get home in time to see if I've won the $1.2 billion is that're up to so uh five new business continued 5B subdivision amendment to combine Lots at Bo Hill subdivision map 10 Lots 1 and two and three and 11 and 12 public comment will not be taken um so we'll do the same thing Mr Burnham if you will give us a quick description quick description of what it is you want to do and we shall begin yes there was a request from a buyer that one of the Lots be made bigger and then in the process kind of aesthetically they the current owner BN looso decided it' be pertinent to combine another two and kind of rework one two and three just to make it um yeah the lock a little more buildable so we're actually instead of being a 13 Lot C division we're back we're down to 11 um the lot line between 11 and 12 was

just erased the lot line between one and two was erased and the lot the back corner of lot three was just kind of scooted it was more it set more at a perpendicular angle to the back property line to distribute some of that extra area from lot two into lot three so took three lots made two bigger Lots took two lots made one bigger lot got that that first sh is the original Y and then I highlighted in red the lines that are no longer there [Music] yep give them just second to look at the bigger thing that's more legible and so really the only thing that goes along with this is adding one extra property pin in the back corner where we move that lot line between the what's now lot one two and lot three we'll leave all the other pins but we'll put one more back there well they're still perusing that there's no change in open space the perimeter is St to St shim

with the prior appli uh to make any change to a recorded subdivision plan requires an amended plan again since this is not creating any new Lots you can go directly to the final plan application stage the applicant has submitted the proper application form pay the fee and uh that's pretty much up to the board to determine that this doesn't really change anything in terms of the prior findings and conclusions okay thank you any comments questions from the board I think just probably having the uh official copy with a note saying that's an amended change on the other one I think that has is that what I record like the bubbles on it I'm sorry do I record this plan with the red bubbles on it well ideally I don't think you should because I don't I don't know that the the registry you should have a note on there either in the notes or in the amendments to say what changes okay

this is helpful for for explaining it but I don't think that's a recording okay then I'll do that and I gotta stamp it John's got my stamp which is a great thing so I will uh give you a copy with a real hard stamp on it or a fresh stamp and then I'll move those two notes into the

ordinance you I don't remember what the rules are but you have to note the original page and section is in and then the changes y you're good y okay do I have a motion with those two accept this change um uh assuming that we will not sign the plan until there's been a note added to General notes that makes mention of this change to the lot lines and mentions the original if it's not I don't have PL and the original plat book number recorded plat book number and all that stuff so those two contingencies that's the motion that's the motion second second any additional

comments discussion seeing none all in favor with those two uh comments raise please raise a hand thank you same thing the speed is dependent upon how fast you get it to us yeah thank you guys thank you it really happened

draft land use ordinance amendments I guess all of them public comment will be will not be taken excuse me so um Mr thear I think he would like to lead the discussion sure I'll just quickly frame it in terms of the agenda notes that I sent to all and uh explaining that the current policy for density in Durham has been for at least 20 years that on any two acre lot you can have a single family home with an accessory unit with no special approval required that accessory uh dwelling unit can only be 50% half the size of the main unit if you go you're also allowed to do a duplex with two fulls siize highing units but that requires another half acre so that's been the policy of two up to two units per lot probably at least 20 years probably in further back than that just one very quick comment sure but with the stipulation in our current ordinance that they're attached to an existing building well no

actually with accessory Apartments you can have a detested one like go a garage or something oh okay okay but attached to an existing duplex by definition is it attached by definition it's actually it's called here the two family um so uh

April of 2022 the state of Maine passed a new law that requires every town to add allow two additional housing units wherever there is an existing housing unit so that has has required Durham and every other town in the state to try to figure out how to respond to this new state mandate as I said Durham was already mostly there is just that third unit that has has um got to be dealt with the town updated the comprehensive plan in 2018 as part of that process it adopted recommendations to consider allowing three and four family units throughout Town subject to design controls to make sure that they fit into the neighborhood Fabric and the rural territory of the town again that's just a comprehensive plan recommendation doesn't mean the town has to do it but that's what the long range plan adopted by a town meeting recommends uh we had a public input process last year to to look at this and

you may recall and I actually included the survey results in your packet that the board heard two concerns concerns from people who were U concerned about the Avail lack of availability of housing would would seem to support some of these changes but equally there was just as strong maybe a little bit stronger uh input on concerns for the impacts of that new housing on the town in terms of taxes and effects on Rural character so the planning board uh has pretty much looked at all that information looked at all the permutations of the legislature and came out early this year with a decision to go forward with a proposal that would do two things first it would follow the comprehensive plan recommendation which would allow an additional accessory dwelling unit uh on every two acre lot subject to the design controls that are currently in the ordinance the second part of it would be to say look the

state has said you have to allow these fulls size homes to be built on these lots and but it does allow you to increase the lot size so this proposal that we landed on would actually also allow that third housing unit but if they do that for fullsize home they would have to do two acres per each full size Lo so that's proposal um I've

checked with both main Municipal Association and the Department of Economic and Community Development ran this model by them and they both agreed that it would most likely comply with the provisions of the law subject to they check with your own attorney um the uh during our discussions over the last few months uh there have been questions raised about is this the right approach to growth Management in Durham it has been five years since the town did its comprehensive Plan update conditions have definitely changed in terms of this new state mandate uh and so it may or may not be in your minds uh important to asks a

few larger questions in this upcoming public participation in terms of the larger broken the picture and I did include the questions in your packet from the 2018 uh review and I think those are still pertinent in terms of what is the general direction of what this town wants to do in terms of grow management do you want to continue with what I think am would agree is uh is low density sprawl uh two acres zoning across your whole town is not compact growth and large lot rural zoning so you could include some uh questions in this process to to see whether the town's people still have that goal of keeping the town rural but at the same time keeping the lot size no bigger than it has been in the past um and the three big themes of that comprehens of plan were agriculture uh and the second one was rural character and the third big theme goal was uh was protecting the environment and that's has been

obviously some action on that front so uh the question now uh we do need to get rolling on a public participation process and I charted out kind of a rough time frame of doing a public informational meeting uh in early November and then starting the citizen survey which could incorp some aspects of what you take in at a public informational meeting that might generate some additional questions uh and then do a survey during the month of December uh review the results of both of those things as the planning board uh in at your jary meeting and then decide whether to go forward with a recommendation for amendments to the select board in late January and then you have to start the process of getting the warrant articles in the town report

do the official legal public hearing uh 30 days before the town meeting or no no less than seven days so we're right now at that point that we really need to launch the public participation to get this and discussion um so we have in our minds what we

think the how we'd Implement ld2 2006 in our ordinance and we're saying we want to draft some new questions just to make sure that things haven't changed since comprehensive plan and since our survey last year that is George's proposal do we want it do we need to go over what the you know they covered it in here to Happ me to if George doesn't want taking a few minutes just kind of say here's what what we would be looking at I I I think it's burned into my brain but okay maybe

specific language that's been drafted sure I mean because I think that leaving here at some point in time we're going to want to something's got to get out there and so I'd like to you know get to the point of finalizing sooner rather than later what I realize it's not the final article but at least this is what you know what we're proposing out there um so we'll start M toosa so in the

packet you want to go to the dress yet unless there's a better place to start NOP if I'm jumping ahead nope George can you explain to me why we added a definition of housing unit it seems to overlap entirely with the existing definition of dwelling unit okay so just everybody's on the same page this is in the packet the Amendments start on page 30 of the packet and so an is asking about on page 34 uh I've proposed adding a definition of housing unit and the reason for that is that if you go back to page

different than uh the fulls size housing units or dwelling units so part of the problem is we have the state definitions uh and then we have Durham's definitions and what we want to do is we want to make a distinction between uh accessory Apartments accessory dwelling units not requiring additional lot size and dwelling units

full size requiring acres per unit so what I've tried to do uh is to establish the definition of housing unit which is a room or group of should be or group of rooms designated and equipped exclusively for use as permanent living quarters for one family this is obviously and I think you're pointing out very similar to the others but think it overlaps entirely with the definition of dwelling unit and I'm not sure why it's NE well why I think it's necessary is that it it specifically says including accessory Apartments single family dwelling and two family dwelling so then you have those other uh definitions which will be

incorporated into this and so what we then are able to do is have a maximum number of housing units in on uh on page 30 subsection a and that differentiates that's the maximum number of housing units but under seven if you

go if those are full-size dwelling units they have to have 990,000 square fet per dwelling that's the intent so by saying maximum number of housing units per lot three yeah you're saying we can have a duplex and two single family homes what I'm saying is that you if you go back to um see where is it so you've defined hous the only difference between the definition for dwelling unit and housing unit is the inclusion of a two family dwelling as a single housing unit under dwelling unit a two family dwelling would be two dwelling units so carrying that back through to your um maximum number of

housing units you could have hell you could have three duplexes on a property no yes that's how you've written it okay maximum number of housing units per lot and you've Define housing units to include a two family gring I don't think that was the intent no it was not the intent I think you need to get rid of that definition of housing unit and just use the existing defition of dwelling unit to start with so how do we make sure that we don't require the larger lot size for somebody

doing the second accessory apartment do you think that that's an issue so I think you can Define it specifically don't like the inverted from so I think um I think there are a couple ways to do this better one in one situation you have minimum lot size for a single family or two family and then further down you define it as minimum lot area like you should pick one one or the other it's either lot size or lot area and just do minimum lot area for

example for single family two family dwellings minimum lot area for anything other than single family or two families which will be your 990,000 corre square feet per dwelling unit and then I think you can just have a note that says accessory units shall not be considered a separate dwelling unit solely for purposes of minimum lot size calculating minimum lot size or minimum lot area however you decide to use it

in one and then I think you can say maximum number of dwelling units per multiplex larger than three not with this it was in the comprehensive plan I think goow more than three if I remember right it three or four you talk three and four units

apartment building not at this point they used to be allowed in the growth District I think it allowed up to four but we pulled that out when we got rid of the growth district and the comprehensive plan recommends it to be considered but this is simply at this point being precipitated by the new state law and the new state law says you have to have three and I think it would be really throwing chaos into confusion if we expanded it to now start talking about four so our our definition of multif family dwelling is three to six and maybe it just is that we'll never get Beyond but we won't now get Beyond three but that definition at least is in there

family to be four to six no I mean we're only allowing a three family so honestly you could just call it a fre family if you wanted and eliminate six can you eliminate the multi well would you though because I think this is part of where all the convolutions of the state thinking went okay so theoretically under this somebody is going to be able to you get a six acre lot with this revised wording I think I agree that we need to fix that but you could do duplex and a standalone single family home on the same LW so that would not be a three family a multi family is defined as a single structure right so see that's two different structures that's why yeah yeah can you eliminate multif family at this point I think you'd have to say free family that's all that's allowed you have to at least have a category for it cuz we're saying that it's a low right you can build a free family or you can't build a three

family how many units can you have in a single structure not including accessory you can't do a three family anywhere so this multi family yeah this multif family was in there before we didn't take it out okay then we don't you're right we don't need that definition at

on it so it's it's squiggled not erasable we didn't I didn't take it out back when we were doing the because the comprehensive plan recommended consideration so before that get resolved I'd love the know but we can take it out now because this is going in a somewhat scale down

as a draft for comment sure okay I'll do that and let me take a stab at trying to get those area lot definitions yeah thank you for that input other [Music] comments Tyler you were making some before you may have been brutally interrupted no you were this is much better this is real things mine was mostly just getting clarification um I I mean I would like to I always think getting public comment is good I feel like we have had mediocre success in the past but I don't know I just does

anyone have any feelings about what questions would be useful to ask at this point besides like I would love to send out a draft and be like what do you think but this is a a lot of reading for someone to want to do and then share an opinion on who hasn't been following it for I I do but I'll let others speak

first I think we've done great Outreach in the past and you get the folks and some aren't but you make the effort to put it out there and just to frame what I was sharing earlier I think the two approaches you could take is either to limit it to the scope of what's actually being proposed and remembering you're also going to have solar and um what was the other one solar Andals heels changing the way allowing people to expand their non-conforming structures a little bit easier and then potentially the select board has to do doing something on historic so do you limit the scope of any surveys

to those specific issues that are coming before the voters or do you include a larger discussion and and soliciting public input on what about the overall growth management direction do we still feel that what we're doing is the right direction I think at this point I would rather questions directed almost in the like if this proposal came before you would it you be would you vote Yes um so

we get an idea of how scary it sounds from like I guess would be a a draft of what the language and the actual warrant looks like the warrant question looks like and I think especially because it's following a law that we have to follow and I think we should revisit questions for the comprehensive plan but I think that should wait would be my opinion

my thought well Brian is thinking there um is I agree with you and I that I think that this is probably step one just like George was talking about with the U we do with there solar where solar is going to be limited to what I call the technical infrastructure questions we can get into the discussion about what lands should or should not be solar down the road I guess maybe I'm a small bites kind of guy but if we open it up to uh a lot of question we have to do something because of the state law so what we're trying to do is make it the best solution that we can a Durham solution if you will to this but if you open it up to all kinds of growth stuff um it I mind that kind of takes you off the main track which is what's the best way to implement the state laws what we're trying to get to having said that if we follow the the process we did this year and we go with a we could take that grow growth issue on as a bigger an

issue for next year that if we want to then start a discussion about um everything from from Z you know should we have different zoning areas uh should you know what should we look at for growth management that's more than probably a thre Monon discussion uh and I think we can do something else April 6th or 7th the day after the thing and start that process I'm not saying we shouldn't do it but I really like to keep our eyes on the ball of the state getting through the state law uh getting through solar you know somebody comes in with a solar issue these are our rules follow them kind of deal thoughts that's so and the process under main law for comprehensive planning is that we got a letter of consistency uh in 2018 and that is good as far as is meeting the state requirements through 2028 so uh that will be required to do

an update a full update most towns do a fiveyear check-in just to see where where things have come in the five years of implementation of that comprehensive playment so you could do a review of the recommendations the policy changes that have been done and then kind of make a decision should we do that quicker than the 10 year cycle yeah a wellness check at five years or halfway through but I would just suggest that is something we take on next year versus in the next three months so but I'm H to discussion on

both would rather limit the amount of information or questions that we put out right now yeah yeah enough to get us just the answer question about you know kind yeah yeah yes I agree okay I think we drafted this in the face of the state law to be as close to maintaining a status quo as we can to buy ourselves time and I think we need to not confuse the bigger issues by talking about them now in conjunction with this I see this as a placeholder in theory this is as close as we can get to what we had with the new state law and then let's hit that pause button as best we can and then let's start talking about what we want to look like moving forward taking the time to do some actual input and planning and yeah we're trying to meet a state mandate and trying to comply with what we have in place right now based on the comp plan that everybody's approved we add the more in-depth look for you know as a list of things to take a look

at at next year so that make sense we s risk making this seem scarier than it is by starting to talk about the bigger issues and the potential for other things totally guess now we're talking we're at the point we really need to talk about timing of some of this stuff so given that we have to uh in fact can work

backwards we have we as a planning board could do public true public hearings so they had to be done from basically the first week of March to the last week of March 30 days before seven days after so we'd have to have a public hearing on this we and then before we did that

uh last year when we were going through this before we had a public information meeting over at the fire department where we put it out there and got comments on on probably the rough rough draft pretty close to what George has now so we do a similar meeting uh with

for public information we would then tweak the you know the very rough draft becomes a draft um at some point in time we do the survey in there um and then in Jan early January at some point time we have to send our recommended comments to

uh the select board where they drafted into the article and what we do the public hearing on is they're their article their draft article so we may want to do depending upon what we get feedback from on the December to see how interest we know whether how close we are on the rough draft we may want to have another public information meeting which is different than the public hearing and maybe early January one last here's here's the what we heard you say last time these are the changes we made or didn't and this is you know what we plan to send to the select board your comments and we go on from there that's that was what we did last year uh I think on both of the articles that that ended this and resource protection does that sound like a good plan so the first public information session and comment on a draft would be January no

November I'm thinking no yeah November yeah I agree with that yeah no the the final the second public information hearing if we felt we needed it would be in January and then to the select board come back to us with an article and then as you recall the uh and reminding myself but that public hearing is this is the article and so maybe we used an an instead of an A but we really can't make major changes it's either it is I don't think we even vote I think we just say here's here it is give I'll get out your comments you're going to vote on this the first Saturday in April does that make sense as the timeline makes sense to me so I'd like to see it written out what's say I'd like to see the timeline kind of out and I take I could take a shot at that too I'm hearing is November a draft to the public so would we see as a board see a draft before so the first Wednesday of November would we see a

draft and then sometime between then and the end of November it goes out to the public well you've already have the draft right in your packet tonight and I didn't to make the changes that and correct okay that that'll be ready for sure but but do we do we want to see those before it close out we can put it on the agenda for November 1 which is a regularly scheduled meeting and then we need to pick a date for the public information meeting yeah I would like to start putting dates on to to your point is let's start take because remember this is one uh solar is two uh board of appeals

is three and then a minor one is um fees fees are going to be rolled into the solar solar because we have to get fees in there anyway so it's just a comment that the selectman have the authority to set fees so do we have a draft of solar

or will we have draft of solar I'm working on it right now that's running yes so the Conservation Commission is is the lead on that one so George has been working on with them on it the they would you part of the discussion we'll have next week with their leadership is you gotta in O end of October you gotta give us look at this give us what you want to present to the public they actually if you remember they did the the presentation of the public they held the the public information meeting if you will and I think early December if I remember right um and they took the lead we we were just members of the audience and so late November early December there they would then have their public information meeting if they wanted to have a second in January uh and then I guess we need to take a look at it maybe we would do the second meeting in January and send it to the select board I guess I'm a little

concerned that they're going to be doing public information because ultimately land use changes have to go through us right we've sort of delegated to the Conservation Commission but ultimately they need to come from the planning board and I'm a little concerned that they'll be doing public information sessions on something that we don't even know whether we as a board agree with I mean I don't foresee it being insanely controversial but I'm a little I'm comfortable completely delegating our Authority I'm not sure we can to the Conservation Commission because we're going to have to public sure the public hearing and so taking what you said then um as I'm looking that is in my mind they would give us if if they held their public their

public could we see anything from them on the first meeting of November yeah I can start sending you guys everything I'm giving to them and then at the first then whatever that is the 1 of November one George has been working on it and I I don't having watched some of these meetings I don't think there's going to be anything really controversial because the cont not to say that we don't need to pay attention to it but I know if it's controversial but the hard what I consider the hard stuff which is these are the lands you can put it on these are the lands you can't put on that's though to me that's the controversial piece they've agreed or you know kind of following our lead and saying we're not going that way we're going to go talk about the height of the panels we're going to talk about buffers we're going to talk about setbacks we're going to talk about you know how do you take them out in 20 years that what I call the

technical infrastructural uh stuff not you can't put it on Bowie Farm you know that's not going to be but that's what George said is they want to take a look at that next year and then there Buzz were this year's lands of great agricultural value or something I don't it's it's you know it's our past habitat plus six but we have next year to sort through that with so I agree with you that we're that it's not a case of that they send it to and I think the select word expects us to to weed it out so they could do the first the December public meeting we would do a January information meeting which I think we did we we ran it uh they presented it and then um we made I think

we actually voted on that one to send that forward to the to the select board so if they came in and there was something in there that we as a board didn't agree with we don't necessarily have to to for it on the select board is that kind of in line with what you're thinking yeah I think that works okay so we need to get make sure they'll be ready for you know a November presentation something like that so do I understand you correctly that that we're going to be looking at more like performance standards for solar FS rather than where they cor correct okay correct yeah so we're not going to get into lands of great I you've already resource protection is already you can't be done in there so you've already taken a lot of land out of it um and so um thata

that the whole impact fee how much the impact can we have impact fees which is a whole another study and all that other kind of stuff those kinds of questions can be followed up going down the and we're talking about large scale not res iial it'll be broken into residential let me give you just aell J what I've done so far so Conservation Commission basically took Toon's ordinance which they thought was very Progressive and kind of really responded to some of the information that I distributed earlier in the summer from Main udon and Main Farmland trust protecting farmlands from these things and integrating them with agriculture they had a lot of very Progressive stuff uh what I did was took the A and it included a lot of the specifics of as John mentioned you know fencing buffering U visual impacts um the safety the you know there's some real safety issues here Public Safety access those were all

typical standards uh John mentioned the decommissioning so what I've done is I've looked at a dozen ordinances both locally and regionally and one out of state that looked really really so what I've done is taken out of those sources uh basically it's got three parts first part is applicability and conceptually what I'm looking at TOS them like many other communities like Scarboro they're very very Hut to trot on solar and so they're making it you know and those are bigger communities with industrial areas and everything so my sense is and maybe you could give me your sense is that uram with industrial scale is going to be real real difficult in terms of how do we make that work so what I did and and there were a range of communities in Maine that have different scales for these different things there basically three different levels individual home or business um and then you've got the what they call the

community scale which would be like a subdivision uh which is larger and then you have utility scales which are the mega ones so the way different towns in Maine have kind of parsed those differently and used different numbers uh where I came out just after reviewing all those and thinking about how dur looks at things is that uh only up to so anything

roof mounted or a ground mounted up to what they call the air space which I'm assuming is the panel itself how much area it occupies uh 2,000 sareet would be the Li residential or commercial that doesn't require any Board review just a code officer anything over 2,000 square fet up to half an acre would only require site plan review where it would go to the planning board we got buffering safety all of those issues it just so happens if they're putting one in you want to see how big that is uh in Cumberland on the stretch of Route One from Cumberland down putting it up right right now and that looks like almost exactly a half acre so it give a good sense of you know what and that's right next to the road I don't think they're going to have any effective buffering on it so that'll be that'll be something we can look at as a you know here's what we're trying to do how to deal with so up to 20,000 square feet some

communities use kilowatts either megawatts or kilowatts um you know how much energy comes out of these things changes probably every year they get more efficient so I don't think you who cares what the megawatts are it's the it's the size of the of the farm that's going to be the most important thing so anything over

20,000 would not only have to go to site plan review it would also have to be a conditional use review so you'd get to look at okay what is around here is this in keeping with the scale is it not so you get to look at those larger policy issues before you go to the detail an of

that so that's the way it's set up right now and it would include three parts first the applicability which I just explained second part would be the submission requirements and you know things like uh a specific decommissioning plan with who's going to do it how much is it going to cost and how are we going to make sure that it actually gets decommissioned 20 years from now 25 years from now so uh Allan

plumber the code officer came from Mechanic Falls uh and they had some pretty robust getting to your issue of uh accountability of developers uh pretty pretty good stuff to to look at so we can use that um and so again it's got the applicability the um uh submissions and then the actual performance standards so I've done the applicability I've done the performance standards at first draft um and then the next parts are the fees which are going to go into the article 18 on Administration uh and we're going to fix that other fee stuff and then the final part is definitions so what is a medium scale uh those what is a invert you got

to they're going to have to have a 400 foot buffer sound buffer noise buffer because in these things the inverters and I can't remember what the other term is they can generate noise and so the Stafford Virginia system I had them put on the plan a perimeter of a radius of 400 ft to the closest house from based on sound studies sort of things so that's where it is I'd be happy to start sending you all that

to work with the Conservation Commission on their timing but and I think we've said that enough that they know the mar Mar deadline the January deadline to get it done and and have the information meeting and I think it worked okay last year when we did resource protection as I recall they had their first information meeting early December we met again in January I think that was the one we ran as a planning board and then we had a public that was about the only thing left I think uh that what was the other thing we did uh we dropped Dro dro housing and then the other one was public roads acceptance by the Town Council so kind of a simple one so this time at this point we're looking at potentially four issues first one noce is the housing density second one is the U solar standards the third one is the board of appeals treatment of expansion of non-conformity and then the potential fourth one is historic uh great

preservation regulations which may or may not go forward but so having public information meeting uh you know each one of those uh a couple could take at least a couple hours just for discussion on that so I think you're looking at at least two meetings and my thought was to split those up have two and two so have perhaps the housing and the uh uh

expansion of housing on one one public information meeting uh and then having the solar and the historic uh preservation in the second public information meeting and pretty much get the in and I think it's important to emphasize that I we don't know what what's going to happen with the story I mean that's balls in the in the selectman's court they just asked George and I to show up on Tuesday so it may it may not be anything um where is the appeals board they're working on the expansion well I'm glad you asked we sent I sent them drafts that would would basically do two things uh first it would transfer the zoning boundary determinations which is a very technical issue to the planning board which most towns that I'm familiar with they have the planning board do that not the board of appeals uh and secondly currently to make an expansion of and we had this discussion in your context uh it would

basically give the code officer the authority to do a up to a 30% expion of existing floor area we need to look at you know how do we Define that um and anything beyond that we go to the planning board for conditional use review not to the board of appeals because they basically are not needing uh and so that's that's a concern and the standards that they have the only the only standards that they have to review these things of over 30% is ground water that's the only thing we look at under under the criteria of the so what was planning board up to 30% becomes codes what was planning board excuse me board of appeals we would take over and then the the appeals board would not be involved in thatment saying that correctly I'm not convinced you can have the planning board expand a non-conforming use beyond what is explicitly stated in an ordinance so you might want to ask that question because

that you're essentially into variance at that point and you can't delegate that to a planning board that can only be done by board of appeals and they're very strict standards on it so we could check that I can because we were doing it up to 30 well and if it's in the ordinance up to 30 x y like X Y and Z there's not a lot of discretion but a blanket a blanket up to is different yeah you're okay and it also kind of defeats the purpose of the zoning or right I mean you can just if you have a non-conforming use and you can just expand it unlimited that a little bit defeats the purpose of so if you put the ordance you could do it up to 50% or 60% yeah I don't know it's not something i' I've looked at or thought about at this point

but I'm I'm pretty sure our power to do that will be limited that's worth it and the intent was to we we overlaid resource protection over several existing Farms whatever and so now it is very unclear and if I own a farm that is now wasn't yesterday wasn't on 30 March but is now in resource protection what can I do if I want to expand my house or whatever it may be so we're try to provide some some relief to to that so I it's a it's good cause we probably just need to look into yeah and I do think we need to clar like the nonperforming use versus non-performing structures and all of that is a mess in our ordinance so it's super unclear what you can do like again so going back to my property residential is a non-conforming use now on my lot which is fine but if I want to build an accessory apartment that takes up zero footprint is that an expansion to be used if I want to build a tiny home that does take

up a footprint I do think needs to be clarified I just don't think you can go beyond just kind of a blanket approval yeah that's right like you don't want to let me put a subdivision on my property with all residential uses right like that's it's inside resource prote reason right um but if I want to build a shed or an accessory apartment sun sun room right yeah a sun room back

porch you know what whatever so I think that's the idea always been the idea behind the 30% and 30% is really I think it actually originates from Shoreland yes so 30% is pretty typical in ordinances I'm a little worried planning boards everywhere delegated that responsibility insurance so to your question of what we're going to do right now would not had a Buy in by

Board of by sorry wrong term the the appeals board so this may be one that we are the the full owners of going forward and so with their I mean we've we've been working with uh their chair and some other stuff but they haven't stepped at the plate said we'll run the information meeting we'll we'll write it up I think it needs obviously needs to be tweaked a little bit or may need to be tweaked but I think we're pretty close to having it drafted with some tweaks the appeals board and so you know I think we if if we solve the question that that you raised we'd be on sort of the same timeline again I don't know if that's you know if it's controver if it's not controversial you're done in 30 minutes of public information if it's if it's housing which may or may not be controversial it may be two hours just housing or last year was two hours of resource protection as an example nothing is as controversial as resource

protection was last year uh that is always my hope um but so would be so the point being is we had and then there may may not be a fourth one um and so that's you know three potential public information meetings probably two for sure two January meetings um and then uh two formal

public hearings which again I I you know depends on how many people U you know want to come and talk we got all the way to the formal public hearing and people coming and said I've never heard of this uh we got into the town meeting and people said I've never heard of this so you know to your point earlier those who are paying attent those of you are paying attention there this is coming down the road so I think it's going to be a little harder too because on resource protection people got notices and that started the conversation nobody's going to get a notice on this one because no specific properties are infected yeah and I guess what we what we have started doing if you noticed uh the town Facebook page now has uh our meeting notices and some other stuff um last year I spent the day election day at the at the election with a little table talking about stuff we can do something similar

although I doubt a vast majority of the town of Durham will show up to vote on the state FL um I may be wrong but so we're not going to get that same same effort but I think the best we can do is is just get it out there we've got Facebook and we got all that Social Media stuff and all things Durham and town newsletter Town's now got a quarterly newsletter and a newsletter and um yeah last year getting go was

nice enough to let me and rep Anova let me put flyers in the window so you know we could do that but but you're right it it was an advantage we have or had so can you take a look at calendars to pick a date for the November uh so the 7th is election day your meeting is Monday the 1st the election day is the 7th uh potentially the eth um the Thanksgiving is the 23rd so

you're either looking at the second or third week of November you do have election day on the right yes select board 15th 15th is the T second two U third Wednesday third Wednesday for do we public information meeting do we need two of them though well my thinking is that focus on getting one set first and having be the housing and the board of appeals U and then are we sure we're going to have the board of appeals I think we're going to we're going to try writing up something I mean borrowing them at least want to put it out to the public for consideration if that makes I'm worried that we've never seen it and they apparently haven't seen it because they don't care they have seen it they just haven't I can get it to you next week for a second okay yeah I actually I've got on my notes so on the housing we've talked about this F five meetings I'm a little worried and I know the Conservation Commission has

been dedicating an equal amount of energy to solar so that makes me feel better about seeing something that's already been discussed a lot in an open Forum I'm very concerned about the appeals one which has not been discussed or considered at nauseum and we're going to get it on the first and that's the first time any board is going to substantially discuss it I don't love that that feels rush and that feels like how we make mistakes on something that's really technical I mean we're still getting feedback on the language of this because when you have one person drafting they have one perspective when you have many eyes looking at it you're much more likely to catch issues and that hasn't happened with that and that's a really technical like honestly that's more technical than what we've been looking at with the expansion and thinking through the impacts so I don't love that we're going to see it for the

first time in the first we're going to talk about it for the first time in the first and two weeks later we're like hey public here it is that's a good point absolutely we don't want that makes me very anxious we don't want to have a g what kind of product we're going to have this is a big deal for folks and it should be um I agree I mean to me it sounds like the committee is going to be dissolved Ju Just the the appeals fact that they yeah well I think they what I hear is they just don't meet well so what they don't meet they have to meet if there's a if there's a variance that needs to come before them I don't want to take that on as this board that's that's their job you would you wouldn't take VAR so I can get that information to you Monday if that's not soon enough I can do it tonight no I think that's fine but honestly this is an important process too not just each of us read yeah no I agree because you brought it

well here's my thought is uh taking a look at it and I I hear what you say yeah we don't have to do it we can just say we're not going to do anything what we're trying to do is provid and it may maybe nothing this year or it may be the system's good enough or maybe hey you know it's got to be appeals board you all have to do this

uh they haven't they have not said we're not going to do it we're not going to meet to look at a particular case I think they're they haven't said no to even doing this there just hasn't been a lot of um hey yes here's our comments yes will attend your phone call and I'm not I'm not picking on anybody it's not my ATT here uh we may have somebody join us on the GE George and I and and conservation on the 11th for the phone call to see where they are uh with this

and then but if the other thing is we don't have to the world doesn't end if we do this we don't do it in November so can we do it I lost my calendar here but can we do it and I realize it just crunches a little bit but our meeting is 6 December could we do it the week of which would give us chance to look at it in November chance to look at it again in December as a planning board and then

there's not much time after that it's the only problem it I guess if we meet and talk about it on the in no November would we be ready to have a public input meeting late November where we if we use the 6th of November to go through uh the appeals board stuff the 1 of November well first yeah whatever our November meeting is so 1 of November we see solar and appeals for an

expansion of non performing uses for the first time right and then then what and then whatever other subdivision is on the agenda yeah if there is one oh that's yeah it's clear right now right the decks are clear right now okay you don't foresee any coming in I don't know where Bo Hill is oh oh we do have that Amendment to the um what it rovy Lane yeah that's yeah this uh the one we did a site visit on last week um Oh I thought that couldn't come until December well they can actually go as long as you don't give them the final approval yeah the the the regul or law regulation says December they can't split until five years or up when they split or whatever the the new thing is when you know they record it so they could actually start we could start reviewing it um well what are your thoughts so my thought would be the first you you will have it in advance we will have it in advance um the first we would discuss

that and it there may be something it's a little hard to tell what these were relatively easy tonight I mean we're done in 25 minutes I think but it could be 100 you know 100 subdivision kind of thing I don't know you know I don't have that expectation um so what if we plan on the

first we plan on a because I think the housing should be ready to go we've done a lot of work on that there's some clean up one more set of eyes we should be ready to go on that so what if we plan a public information session for the 15th definitely with housing

density probably with solar and possibly with non-conforming uses because honestly I don't I'm not even going to be able to say yeah sure right we'll be ready to go we won't be ready to go I think it depends on what the proposal looks like for solar no for I have more confidence in solar because it's been being discussed by a board this I find this process is important for bouncing ideas off getting a variety of viewpoints the solar has gone through that process or will out yeah so unless

the Conservation Commission is out in left field which I don't think they will be I don't think we're going to have major issues with so it's been thought through it's been talked through and it's a fairly limited scope exactly they're performance standards they're not affecting proper stuff we do all the time buffers Landscaping but the other one hasn't even been looked at by a board bouncing ideas around and thinking about okay well here's this example how will it apply here's that example and thinking that through so unless we're lifting it frankly from another community that we feel really good about I doubt we're going to be ready to have a hearing on that two weeks later I could be wrong it could be great it could be easy we could talk it through and it it hits all the the points but that's a really important and hard like

Community is ever the most sophisticated Community struggle with non-conforming uses and non-conforming structures and non-conforming lots like the three of those are a dis like Leon pick maybe I won't say forland um you know but pick any of them and non-conformity is really hard like really really hard and I we're not going to fix it in one draft I don't think maybe I'm and just let me say the scope of this is not because you're right that this article is is a mess it's Absolut confusing confusing mess it's not consistent it you know takes from the D Shoreland zoning and it's just it's just a mess uh and the intent here is simply to respond to the multiple citizens who dealt with the resource protection and were complaining that in order to do a now in order to do a modest expansion of their home they have to go to the boards and that's ridiculous and it costs money and so this was just simply an attempt to

respond to that public input which was not just one person it was multiple people uh to try to provide simpler process to be able to do what they're already allowed to do in the ordinance but just not have to go through a board to say yes because you're no almost never going to say no unless there's some really really but if the great concern it sounds like it's a legitimate concern is the anything above 30 so is a potential solution and maybe an easy solution is okay Cod you do

everything up to 30 if we think that's legit but the be the board of appeals stays and anything above that if we're concerned that that is a a variance and the wacky the wacky thing right now is it's easier to do a larger than 50% expansion than it is to do a less than 50% because you got the conditional use criteria that apply to the up to 30 and then you've got just groundwater for the board of appeals to look at over that I'll be I don't think I think it's a VAR if it's over

but do you think it would be okay if it was because what we are trying to do is it sounds to and I'm in support of this is with within guidance if it's just 30% so a third of your house you're going to add you know a th000 a sun room where you're going to do some is that something we feel comfortable with the the codes person doing so it doesn't go to a board somebody works four days a week or is it still something that should come to the planning board I think it would be great basically leave it what happens if we just leave it as is I think it would be great to get mma's guidance on what the boundaries are what we can do because I'll be honest I'm not sure like I can't tell you off the top it's something I need to research which I'm not going to do because you're not pay me to do that but but MMA should be able to tell you the boundaries of these issues right 30% code above 30% planning board you know

is it a variant standard as the board of appeals they should at least be able to tell you the boundaries of what we can do and I would feel more comfortable with that and then maybe we do literally just change who it goes to for now that's an easy fix if we can do it I'd rather not make an illegal ordinance more illegal and I'm not saying it is I don't know yeah but expansions of non-conforming uses are giantess what your thoughts well yeah I I'm just having a vision of what I'm going to write I'm going to write to MMA explaining all this and then they're going to write back and say your ordinance is a mess probably you know but even and maybe they won't answer it in the abstract but I think literally the question could be we are looking at our non-conforming uses lots and structures what are the boundaries of expansion of those can certain things be delegated to code officers is there a limit on percentage taking out shorel

Shor land's easy and maybe they'll be able to just give you some principles right yeah so what I would do is actually just say here's what the town is doing right now and is this within the capacities of the board of appeals and limits of their Authority and the planning board and here's what we're thinking about delegating can the planning board do that as a conditional use less than 30% over 30% yeah I think we can get their feedback on that well wor because at the town meeting and other we we insinuated said hey we're going to try to make it as easy as possible to you think we should as long as but if everything's protected the way should be and if if we can't sort that out out the world doesn't necessarily end if we punted a year you know I mean we just we just say sorry this is a legal goat screw and we got to sort through this and you know I I cleaned it up but uh and not do it I mean that's

always an option is not not do anything I mean the other piece is I know we're focused on the recent changes to Resource protection but this impacts other things like a non-conforming gravel pit that's right next for residential use right so that's a huge

impact on that residential use next door or a non-conforming you know take your pick commercial or industrially used all of those I think are conditional use though maybe depends on how far back you go right you could have a grow pit that never went through conditional use because of whatever yeah but I think they're they're all covered the ordance yeah yeah I think if there's a way again I'm back to the small bites is is it can we limit it to

Resource protection you know I hear what you're saying about other things but is there a way to write this it's very specifically if you're resource prot you want to expand your structure whatever it may be well it's already limited to residential so okay okay that's already that's right in there that probably answers my question not so I the latest land you like an

affected my property as well and no pun intended but the appeal that was mentioned during the public hearing was that there's a process that you can follow to if if you have an issue with this to go to the board of appeals and I think that was that resounded with a lot of folks and okay hey if I have an issue with this I there's a place that I can go to to try to resolve it and and I think that's you all you know I applaud our effort to make it easier that if we do nothing that process is still there right because I don't think the board if I've said otherwise what make it clear the board of appeals is hasn't said they're not going to if if I file or you file uh an application don't hear your application that's not the intent of it so if we just if we don't get a resolution or we're concerned that we don't have the right answer before the town meeting we can say look at there is this is the

process and if you know if we make it less than 30% you can go to the Cod guy and that's easier because he works four days a week and he's around all the time maybe it's all fine but four or five different people with different perspectives asking these questions and answering them is really like the law of unintended consequence is a bad thing we tried to get that over the summer from the board of appeals yeah yeah and that's right that's fine they they've struggled a lot with membership and attendance and all of it for years I get it the select boy did appoint a new member so that's is an alternate yeah um so I guess where we

are then is one nov remember George if you can get us um the board of appeals you know the answer from MMA and he tweak with what they said get to the draft out quicker yep and then uh just there their blessing that it is okay or no it's not okay you have to make changes and that one November we look at it for the first time December 6th we look at it I think that's the first Wednesday the second time and then we just we will have to I think schedule a a public information meetings real fast thereafter because then we're to Christmas I think we can schedule it on the 15th right of December November the board of yeah yeah we're doing right now we're doing housing and so on November yeah did you wanted no never mind you lost me I'm back sorry good and

then look at doing something on uh board of appeals Andor historic in December early December yeah there may be two because certainly I don't think we if we have to add the fourth one which I'm not sure that's what's going to I have no idea but uh um that decision has to be made quickly obviously we're going to try to get it done for the next town meeting okay so one November we'll look at solar uh for the first time uh and D George Will sent out what they they'd come up with but we'll kind of talk it through on the 1st of November the 15th will'll do the public information on both of them and then both those two and then 6 December on appeals and then what's 13 December I

mean once you get much past that there's get to Christmas so by 13 is what the second Wednesday is that work for throwing out there that's one week after we've had a chance to look at it for maybe the second time on the sixth for whatever reason that's usually when my work schedule goes completely insane even though I'm not tied to Christmas I do but I'm hoping it won't be this year yeah I just don't know how to do it you know it's not it's not a great time because I mean there's Christmas concerts and there's you know Christmas parties and and uh travel travel and all

those other kind things um so let's see what we find out on the first but let's just kind of pencil those those dates in there for now and uh we'll get those dates out to Juliet and U and Allan and so we have about a half hour anything else I'm sorry um oh you added a couple of items yeah I was G to say we use the last half hour to talk about

pogs can't remember the name of it yeah GC Vision plan or you just wanted an update on that and then repercussions for developers that don't follow rules that was that part of GP cogs no no two separate issues right okay okay as far as GP Cog U I think I explained this earlier that the town has received a grant through the town manager initiative to do a study of the campus here which includes the town hall the ball field which they're now expanding the r Center and fire station because it's just over the several years the town's been spinning its wheels on a number of issues in terms of the use of this building the lack of meeting space the lack of Internet over at the r same for the fire station and the town has all these resources here you know the lighting just that's the r is scarier than this is in terms of you come out there as pitch black so a lot of those issues what the town manager would like

to do is uh is get kind of a vision process going for looking at these strategic important properties and just look at creating a long range plan that'll kind of stop the town from spinning and come up with uh you know what are the goals what do people want to see here in terms of these the use of these facilities not just keep putting out fires uh of problems um so he's uh

we've been working with GP Cog they've been very slow to they had a timeline they got pushed back hasn't even started yet it was supposed to start in July hasn't even started yet so okay that was my bigger question was when you gave us this package it had a schedule in there and I'm haven't seen anything happen that's GP C's schedule and they just haven't done it so and you know they're they're trying to do so much I mean they do a lot for the city of Portland they're in transportation housing they're in a lot of big stuff and they're I think they're trying In fairness to to give the smaller communities some service and so um they've also agreed to help us with the public Outreach so last year when we did the survey we have to use Microsoft Office to do a survey which does have no controls doesn't do really any analysis uh to speak of uh so they have Survey Monkey a commercial license so at least

we can get them to do that as part of are they going to do it though I'm sure we can get them in a timely manner well yes we'll have to push him on that because I think I think we need to be prepared to go I mean I didn't think the results were that bad that you know there was good not imperfect but there was good information there last year yeah but it's just you don't have any control somebody could do 100 responses

respons don't think you're restrict by IP or make sure people don't not certain that let V the allar but I you know I don't think we had we didn't have like 10,000 uh inputs last year so I don't I guess my point is they haven't been timely on no other stuff so we don't want to we got to pull the trigger yeah at some point in time and say well worse comes the worse we'll do it the same as we last time yeah that survey wasn't that bad last year but yeah we have to so does that answer that thank you okay uh so what is your question on uh what is it repercussions for developers that don't follow the rules or don't follow through with what they said they were going to do yeah um so one recent um subdivision application or an expansion of a subdivision just came up was Ruby Lane and um you brought up the fact that um they or actually

maybe you have followed up on this um their um performance bond or their roadway Bond I'm not sure what the right term is might have expired and they fulfill their obligations of completing the road after four houses were complete I could be wrong you might know I don't remember the numbers but yeah something like that yeah they were supposed to have the road paved after the fourth house right and so that never happened correct so what happens what what what what's the repercussion okay so one repercussion could be that when they come in for their expansion you take the opportunity to say okay before we give you any further approvals what you've already been approved and if not completed has to be brought up to complete Cod requirements in terms of construction in terms of bonding in terms of every requirement that you didn't meet that you were supposed to meet and In fairness the planning board

in the past um has not necessarily held developers to a very hard line in terms of giving approvals without bonding uh based on C personal recognizance of the of the developers uh the Barry Baldwin had no performance guar whatsoever and that obviously went s in a hurry when he died so I've always taken the approach unfair to everybody but don't recognize anybody because they can't guarantee just because you've been here doing it successfully for 40 years doesn't mean you're going to be here for four more uh so we have to look at every project as if this is a developer from New York or somewhere else as well as locally everybody has to play by the same rules so since I've been here and since I've been assigned to help the planning board as you can see we've really taken strides to get everything on the proper course for reviews for uh

we currently have now uh on this latest subdivision uh is it $112,000 to hire the engineer the go and do inspections and they down weekly uh looking at right now they're doing the stream Crossing uh and still it's a challenge to get the developers they go out and inspected if I'm missing silt fencing or not put in and we have to go through trying to get them to do it but we're we've got the tools now and part of it is getting uh staff to be a little bit more follow up on this stuff because Cod officer doesn't think that's his area necessarily primary Road commissioner says I got roads to about those are all private roads so there's the town manager is trying to work with the staff to get everybody on the same page and I'm trying to give them the information to do it effectively so it's way ahead of where it was not where it needs to be completely but we are making great progress now ultimately things like the

town has taken developers to court in recent years Dean Smith situation um and others some of the Landscaping businesses that haven't been following getting and so the town select board over the last five years has really said look we're going to start enforcing the ordinances uh and so that's that's

another rout repercussions the town has taken developers to court for compliance or non-compliance with ordinances but clearly if a developer is coming in for an expansion of a subdivision that has not been completed according to the earlier requirement you can say we're not giving any more approvals until this one is brought up to where it needs to be yeah I guess I I think like I don't even think that expansion in that particular sub um subdivision should have even been been brought before us because of the fact that well a little time okay just understand I'm just a town planner I have no authority to tell someone you can't come to the planning board they apply I process it I advise you I cannot tell them you can't go to the board that would be denying their rights of due process so is there a process where we can be informed as to whether or not like I don't drive around town go to Every sub division to see if

the road has been paved or I don't check in with the town clerk to find out if that performance guarantee has been paid is there a process where we're notified or do I have to do the digging myself okay let me clarify a couple of other points okay number one uh is that the planning board has no enforcement Authority all your Authority ends at your signature on the plan U so this board has no code enforcemen has responsibility for enforcing ordinances and even playing board approvals so that's one issue in terms of public you know review and discussion like we're having tonight that's absolutely fine to understand what's going on but so whose responsibility is that it's ultimately the code officer and the town manager and the select and the select board okay the code officer beening certificates has he been withholding them yes he's been getting a lot of push back but he's he's really starting to

push stff and and if I could and just one last point in in terms of as I said In fairness in the past the town didn't really enforce stuff and there's there's like a a culture of we don't have to do that now that culture is changing it's been changing over the last five years on a lot of different fronts so part of this is like that Ruby Lane subdivision and others were saying look the town let them do things in the past we're not letting them do things so we're going to work with people to transition to the point where any time you come in now you're coming in now just understand we're going to hold you to the rules just philosophically and I think yeah I mean I the code guy probably not in the perfect world but can withhold you know if you're supposed to have to pay after the fourth house and I think my discussions are they're they're now enforcing or not ever you're not going to get your vote a fifth

permit you know you didn't pay this or you don't have a valid um well we have to be careful there too because you may not have the authority to withhold a building permit because of that unless there's something in the conditions of approval of the ordinance that says you can well if the ordinance says you can you have to have it paved after four why is that enough I mean we're we're Co and the homeowner who bought a lot in that subdivision is not the developer and they have a right potentially to get they apply for a building permit under the building permit rules the developer not being in compliance with his subdivision approval doesn't necessarily nullify their rights to get a building permit unless it's tied like some of our approvals and some of the ordinance say the the code officer shall not issue a building permit in in this case of the of that subdivision that mayor may not have been the case I mean I'm not sure

I'm just saying we have to look at all of the different we do but I mean that's that's the code in town manager's job to say you know hey look at it it's you're at four and we're I'm not going to issue it to you or if we he needs to come to us and say put that as a condition of approval that they I mean I'm not a big fan of conditions of approval that are already written in an ordinance if the ordinance says you can't get one then he needs to get with his developer and uh sort that out is I guess my feeling so but what we're doing going forward is we're not giving those types of convoluted approvals at least I'm not recommending that you do where you oh you have to pave the road after the fourth house but you don't have to put a a forance guarantee up had a performance guarantee right may expir they had right they had a they had a bond for the paving but not for the road constru so all they had to put up a bond for was

the paving and they had to do that after the fourth house so the bond was $60,000 for a road that costs so we didn't require alerg of bond No that's right should be based on an engine estimate well what we've been approving though is is you can you can do the construction yes and then but you can't sell we can come in at what point can you come in to get the first permit okay so the last what we've been saying is the same time that we're starting to hold them hold them to the line we're also making it more flexible so that they can now do what is called a conditional approval where they have a restriction against selling any Lots or getting any building permits for any of the Lots in the subdivision until all of the infrastructure is done or and you have to put up a performance guarantee for site stabilization erosion control at the beginning but at any point during the construction they can come in like

say they've done all the road base the utilities are in all that's left is the paving and the final you know fire Pond and that kind of stuff they can now come in instead of having a $660,000 irrevocable letter of credit letter of credit that cost them however many thousand dollars a month they can now come in for 200 100,000 for a letter of credit and then

they can start selling lots and getting bu permits and we've got that performance guarantee so we're trying to work with developers to make it workable and reasonable but at the same time making sure everybody follows what we're supposed to do and that's what we did we approved a waiver Deer Creek if I remember wasn't a waiver it was a conditional conditional okay sorry yeah and that's right on the plan that goes into the registry says you can't get sell any Lots or get any in building permits so it's fully

but you know what I can't remember which one wasn't doing erosion control correctly so the code guy gave him a warning and he does he can stop work if you know if they're not doing something like a particularly roic control so um and I would say we have a similar problem in that um for lack of a better

term we've got some kind of crappy submissions you know and and not that we just just maybe need to stop accepting some of those or you're or not approving them because I should start charging I think we should chargeing for additional meeting what half of them do is they use us to tell them what's next yeah it's not appropriate use of our time I agree

I I will say it's gotten better than it used to be but that's not saying that well no I and I'm 100% with you I think that's because once a guy's got a fork over 300 or you know 500 bucks uh each additional meeting each additional meeting you know beyond a certain amount right I mean it's going to take well we do two at least two probably that our time on a on a subdivision takes at least two prelim to and really I mean it's going to take more than that no matter how good their stuff is with feedback and all that it's going to take more which is fine but the continuous extensions and not being on top of things and not getting the changes and making us tell them what's next yeah I'm not I'm not I agree with we should not be their proof readers and their yeah you know it hasn't been Arnold way for a while now um and I get it some things happen but you know it's uh so but yes I think but I I would say

that I think in the couple of years I've been around I think the town has in in maybe I don't if they we've had to put new standards in but probably done a better job of enforcing standards you know I mean I would commend the George what George has done for planning what codes has done you know Calvin over at Public Works the fire chief you know we're getting good input from all those guys not that didn't before but it seems like we have a very good working repul and has expanded on it so U that is all good so but certainly need to kind of

keep enforcing those standards and if we if we just get a really crappy submission then we I think we have the right to say we're not going to hear it because you didn't provide half the sheets you had to provide you know we're supposed to have big copies you give us completen this review is for yeah and we just need to I'm just too nice a guy and I'll be honest like even that they're probably should not be more than one review maybe right we get a fre checklist which we've got you haven't checked half of things on that checklist you prob not last problem I that's exactly what I think I was trying to say you know it's it's on the you if you got a the other thing is we have a staff guy now who you know here's your checklist if you have a question they have options to to go rather than wasting our time what does this mean what do you want for this or I didn't you know if if one more person says I never used to have to do this

it's it's probably going to drive me bat crap crazy uh Pati patience you should have been here 10 years ago well Town's changed I mean I you I can't I can't all for the good I you know we are a different town shut off yeah I probably say back you know back crap crazy instead yes I think we're done oh we need a motion second second all in favor raise your hand great you may shut it off we are officially complete thank you for entertaining my additional agenda items oh that's a good question no that's that's the kind of discussion which when you've got when you're not sitting there going through a compliance checklist for the third time we have time we have time to do that stuff well and I think in part relevant to us is what are