TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ April 5, 2023

5th regular meeting of the Durham planning board uh our first item this evening is roll call and determination of the Quorum uh we have a quorum we have Mr Tyler Hutchinson Miss Julia camiger Caplinger uh Mr Alan Puritan and myself John Talbot um and so we do have the Quorum of do we have any amendments to the agenda [Music] see none we'll move on to item number three acceptance of the minutes of Prior meetings uh this one being March 1st and just as a note we do not have a quorum in the for the February meeting and so there were no minutes from that meeting so March uh March 1st minutes George provided him anyone have any uh

comments on the minutes if not I'll be happy to accept uh emotion I'll move to accept the March First Command sales representative no second it has been moved and seconded any further discussion seeing Nana raise a hand if you're in favor uh it passes 4-0

exchange on non-agenda items starting with Town officials so Mr the barge uh just an update that uh as you all know the town meeting approved amendments to the land use ordinance and to the zoning map I have finished updating the land use ordinance and the zoning map and sent it to Kimberly to be posted on the website if you would like hard copies of those uh documents you'd please let me know and we can provide them to you but they should be posted on the website tomorrow or Friday so just want to give you that update are they expandable will they be expandable on the website expandable in what way larger version of the map yeah will you like any document on the website you can zoom in sure sure I was actually going to ask if I could get a whole new set of the ordinance just because I think mine is actually outdated compared to some others and then with the additions uh basically I would provide the current

zoning ordinance to any member uh who wants it yeah it will be available on the website you can download it onto computer and I can also give you a hard copy I think that's what you like you'd like 100 copy anybody else I would I guess I've never okay and also the it's a good point about the map so I know we can zoom in um I'm sure you'll get a printed one like this yes right now I've all I can produce is an 11 by 17 that you have to go to a special printer to get in something like that but we'll have that in here and um yeah if I could get 11 by 17 with a hard copy of the ordinance I'd appreciate that yep sure and don't give me a hard copy George I'm good okay fine thank you um anything else that's it and then nope as an alternate mask question oh you may you may participate fully and I did not recognize either you or Miss torgosa who just as alternate members but you can do anything but vote are

there any applications that are for the board that are affected by this change I do not believe so the only application that's before the board is the uh is the Deer Creek Crossing subdivision and I don't think any any changes were affected there so moving forward this is the map that we'll use to review a new applications that's right and plus I would also point out that um the application of Deer Creek would be vested and therefore you could not apply the new zoning to that even if it did affect because they had applied and you had done substantive review before it went into effect good question yeah that's a good question okay uh George anything else nope I think the next one is any residents who are here for public comments

non-residents and I would I would say that I'd like to thank George the Conservation Commission and actually a lot of people in in the town of Durham who participated on the two land use ornaments ornaments or ordinances that we voted on uh and passed on Saturday so thank you to everybody for that that effort and so we are now the next thing is continuing business Deer Creek

and please introduce yourselves and an address your home address engineering from New Gloucester yeah and uh from Freeport okay thank you so I understand that you are here to request to be tabled is that I think that's pretty much the extension of it we're still waiting on the Army Corps permit I don't think it's intelligent to print off a whole nother set of plans until I hear back from them because if something changes on that then it's a whole nother set so I just figure let's just hold off any prognosis from okay we've had I've had one conversation with her she's yet to get back so we've had I think it's like email wait three weeks email wait three weeks so okay um so we did as the board we need to do two things tonight one is a vote to approve or disapprove their requested table then the other one is to give a deadline to have uh to get to to finish this and

um so I guess the vote would first vote would be on their request to table it any comments if not a emotion I've moved to accept their request to table a second I have I guess the only as you had mentioned you talked about a deadline for that should that be included within that motion yeah we probably can we can do both kill two birds with one still and I'm okay with that what are the repercussions for the deadline like in our ordinance and all of that so as I pointed out in the agenda notes once you make a determination that the application is complete a clock starts and that gives you 60 days to make a decision on the application this was determined complete in uh wasn't that the February meeting must have been at the January March March March yeah I watched that on television yeah so there were six it was 60 days from that point that you would have to make a decision so uh if you're going to

go beyond that then you need to get the applicant to agree upon a different time limit for decision in my thought would be that we make it a sufficient time that we don't have to keep doing this every two months correct because they can always wrap it up and come in and get a decision right if we give them six months they come in next month if they have everything they need to get a decision so would you like to amend your motion please I would like to include within that motion that uh I'm trying to think we're ready it would be to establish a new deadline of six months from the date of completion determination and completion how's it say from today but it's six and one half there's another problem in October so so seven months will be our October meeting again I think the wording should be to the to extend from the determination of complete application six months instead of 60 days

tabling and just make sure that the applicant agrees to that so they're shaking their heads yes I'll second that okay so we have a motion and a second any further discussion if not please raise your hand if you approve [Music] and if not if you do not approve raise your hand it looks like it passes 4-0 thank you and hopefully we see you long before yeah I think I think from the sound that the last conversations is the peer reviewers signed off on all of our changes except the detail I got a tweak um yes survey subdivisions done fire chief signed off so I think this is pretty much the last okay box to check we can do this all at once hopefully you can get that we can make a decision right thanks guys I appreciate you guys Happy Easter to you yeah okay so then the next thing is uh

other business so we did um congratulations to everyone we did get the resource protection approved and the verbiage on who approves uh private Rose becoming public so uh I guess I asked George you know thoughts about what types of ordinance changes we would like to take on in the coming year and um so interested in your ideas and what you think are important that we need to do recognizing there's as we learned this past year there's a limited resource available time and otherwise and then we had been talking and I guess I'd let George uh talk about some of that you've met with the town manager and resource guy to talk about ordinance's changes yesterday in general or anything specific uh what might be helpful is just to start with a quick recap of where how we got where we are today which is the adoption of the 2018 comprehensive plan back in April of

2019. and so the neck the first step of implementation of that uh new comprehensive plan was to do an overhaul of the land use ordinance some of you board members were around from the 2016 version which was just almost indecipherable in was just totally disconnected internally the just had been put together by people that didn't put a lot of time and effort and money into it and that's the product that you get so it was outdated still 1970s very vintage subdivision regulations and so I

think it was in The Next Step was to do an overhaul to consolidate and the other problem was that you had certain ordinances that were just like out there nobody even knew they existed like a mobile home park ordinance code officer didn't even know that that was there so we pulled in the Gravel Pit ordinance the historic preservation ordinance and the mobile home ordinance and the addressing ordinance into the land use ordinance so that all of the ordinances that you need to know about in terms of land use issues are all in one place so that was accomplished in the ordinance and the other thing we did was to update the subdivision and site plan review regulations to be what most of the towns in Southern Maine use to review subdivisions and you've seen some of the changes that's made in terms of the recent review of this subdivision so that has all been accomplished and when we were doing that we made a conscious

decision not to bring up any of the difficult land use issues because just getting that fixing the broken framework for reviews of projects was really important and that that was overwhelming to do the whole ordinance at one time so we put off dealing with home-based businesses we put off dealing with roads some of these very difficult and contentious issues we you consciously made a decision to hold off on that then you undertook to go and address some of these issues so you've been looking at updating the road standards you looked at home-based businesses uh we tackle the resource protection recommendation of the of the comprehensive plan so but frankly what happened was I think because a lot of factors like the pandemic uh things just got really really dis connected in terms of the uh

the policy development framework of the town so over the last year I think you've seen the difference where the Conservation Commission the planning board and the select board have all been working together on these difficult land use issues and I think the last town the last Town meaning a year ago as a result of when you don't have that and this town meeting was an example of what how it works when you do have that kind of coordination and communication so so what I'm wondering is that and I think really the last few years that it's just been very difficult to get anything through town meeting um and so there are a number of issues that are still out there including the ones that I just mentioned the comprehensive plan has recommendations in a number of different policy areas like housing this this issue with the state's affordable housing law still being in a state of flux that's obviously an

important issue to address um but just from my perspective of having done this for 40 years and seen what towns go through I was in Falmouth when the first cell tower started coming in uh and this town still has no regulations dealing with cell towers and under the federal Telecommunications Act and I'm not sure fan if you're familiar with some of those requirements but basically uh my concern is if you give a cell tower application I do understand you've had one here in the last five years or so but if they come in and they're contested without any ordinance regulations you're basically giving them a they get their approval because under the federal Telecommunications Act you could not deny a cell phone tower on the grounds of it's not in the scale of the community so I'm really concerned that you have some exposure on that and then the other one that's come up even more recently that is really coming is the issue of

the solar farms and those are proliferating all across the state and they typically go in Wide Open Fields where they have maximum exposure and we have had one project that's being explored in Durham not in an open field but again you have no standards the only thing you would be able to apply would be the conditional use criteria so those are a couple of important issues and then the other thing to look at is how much capacity do you have in terms of researching these issues putting them through a public process getting them through a town meeting where you have 50 other warrant articles it's a very very difficult Prospect to try to do this type of work in a town meeting format but that's what you have and that's what we'll have to work with so it's just a kind of a framework of understanding of what some of the Dynamics of the process are and some of the issues yeah 200 words a minute

other thoughts on ordinance changes that we might consider so if I understood George directly you seem to be leading to our solar panels cell phone towers affordable housing is out there you know we didn't come to a resolution on that and you know there's a lot of changes afoot on that so it may impact how quickly we need to move um and then a potential one that I have is although I don't think it should be an issue we've talked a lot for two years in the town about changing our fees for uh filing for uh zoning changes or plans

and also building permits and other other things so um just the fees that were and there was a fee proposal from the code enforcement guy and we'll talk about a detail later any other uh changes you'd like to see to the land use ordinance and then we can beat on these four or five or six or whatever we come up with well some some place because I've been looking at the fee schedule too and I know that Alan Plummer a CEO went before the board and he was expressing concerns about cell towers and solar arrays but there's nothing specifically in our ordinances about that but as I was reviewing I didn't see anything specific in the ordinance about where bees would be and the only place that I could find it was based on information that the CEO had actually published saying when permits were required and those not required it was not in the ordinance any place unless I'm totally missing it so what kind of phase are you talking

about any fee electrical fees Plumbing fees any fees that were customary fees okay because there are fees as you remember throughout the land use ordinance for various things like a conditional use permit but the electrical permits the plumbing permits are handled by the state plumbing code building permits and electrical permits are done through separate ordinances so those are in

ordinances the fee schedule is still set by the select board right and if an individual like I was okay where is a fee schedule located I don't know where it would be located whether it would be under the CEOs identification somewhere I know it's not an ordinance because we pulled it out last year right as to being specific

but there was a lot of hesitancy by the board of Select board on [Music] addressing some of the concerns that Allen had and I don't know whether that's because it wasn't backed up by a specific ordinance that may have been their rationale what are the issues with the fees in general in general the reason it was taken out of the ordinance because

up to date they want even they weren't consistent with other towns When Alan did a thorough investigation of it we weren't even coming close to minimum of one of the towns were okay so that's a pretty big issue right one of the requests actually from the budget committee was that these fees should be covering his salary

think he actually went through and did an analysis of different towns and where do we stand Associated against those other towns so I believe that he he was going to present something to the select man he actually did they wanted to come back and they only wanted him to present to them the customary fees out there and not addressing cell phone cell towers or solar arrays because we didn't have an audience to back it up that's my interpretation of why they didn't want to address those and I again have nothing else to do this afternoon if I watched it on TV and I think that's exactly they were they were fine with changing uh the if you will The Gnome fee so electrical permits building permit whatever it may be this code enforcement proposed an address fee so you know if

you build a new house you get a new address [Music] um and that's the way explain it is much more complicated is a couple hours worth of work because it involves going to the site managing distance between houses um and there were some others that I came to the cell phone right now if there's a cell phone tower all we charge is 75 dollars well aren't all of those under like a conditional use or whatever type of permit they're going for or is it specific to the use this is well for the fee there is no fee for cell phone towers right now yes but that was a bad example like for any type of these projects some division is different but any type of conditional use it's one flat feet right it's like the same regarding the use yeah one of one of Ellen's one of the things that he had gone into was if he was going in to do an electrical inspection he would show up to the site and these are supposed to be licensed

electricians at a performing the work and he would actually go and and if you looked at a in a bathroom or a kitchen that you should all be ground fault and he would actually go there and they weren't ground fault so he would have to basically not approve it and eventually he would come back and so I think he was looking at should he be charging for that extra time I don't know and I think our mission would be first off I I think the authority exists that they don't we don't need to make an ordinance change and towards the end of the discussion on YouTube uh uh the town manager was tasked to get with you and and code enforcement get with a town attorney and take a look at the change in 2022 when we um an artist passed about fees to take a look at that and see what powers Authority that gave the selectment to designate fees uh is it is a verbiage General enough that a new fee like addressing

or could be applied and developed or does it require a change to an ordinance somewhere that says the selectman have the ability to establish new fees so I think there are three different levels of analysis for that question so the first is clearly the fees that used to be specified in the land use ordinance so for example the ordinance used to say the application fee for a conditional use permit is fifty dollars and that goes to the planning Board review I used to talk about subdivision applications so the amendment in April of 2022 said

the the fees will be established in a fee schedule adopted by the select board on an annual basis based on a comparison with what other towns are charging and the actual cost to the town of providing the service so last June the select board actually remember at an

April meeting the that a change to the land of ordinance is adopted in June the select board adopted all the current fees that were in the ordinance just to make clear that yeah you can collect them now you have to pay them and then I provided the report that you're referring to to the select board and interim Town manager last August and with all of the rollover of town manager and everything else it kind of got lost in the shuffle and so that was

a comparison with with six other towns that are comparable and uh Durham's was mid to low the lowest uh some of the other towns were charging double for building permits and the main Revenue source is not subdivisions as you have one out one subdivision application in the last year it's mainly building permits and uh so some towns are charging like two thousand dollars for a building permit derms around eight hundred dollars so and as John pointed out our Allen did many I mean there's at least four inspections going out there and depending on how much he has to keep going back it's uh it's a lot of time and money and a lot of a lot of risk in terms of liability issues so uh the town

manager yesterday you brought that up to his attention that you you interpreted what the select board had directed was that the town staff was to get an illegal opinion so again back to my original opening which was there are three different classes clearly what was in the ordinance and is now in the uh fee schedule is changeable by the select board the question becomes if there there are like addressing is in the ordinance but it a fee was never charged for it so that would be the second one can you now establish a fee for that it's not referenced in the ordinance unlike the others and then there's a third Group which is the town doesn't even have any regulations for cell phone towers so can you adopt a fee in some towns like eight thousand dollars to review one of these without an ordinance to prove it without any ordinance Provisions for it so this three classes one that was in here clearly they would

say yes you can change the fee adopt the fee whatever you want uh if if it's not specified a fee in here that's a questionable one uh can you now to apply a fee where you've never specified it in the ordinance and then clearly where you don't even have any standards for it that would be even more questionable about whether the select board has authority to now establish a fee of eight thousand dollars to review the solar farm so he has asked me to contact name Municipal Association legal staff to get get an opinion and I'm going to copy to them all the provisions the ordinance and the fee schedule and ask for their Direction so it sounds like we're working towards this so yeah and the goal would be the hope maybe hope not being a method is that they would come back and say that the 2022 ordinance allows you to set fees it doesn't say yeah they already had to be in there or whatever if not then it's some those and

you're right we need to get going because for instance we are raised if we raise our fees a thousand dollars which I think is a recommendation by the code enforcement guy we would still be lower than anybody else and for the town of Durham last year that was a thirty thousand dollar plus-up because we had 30 permits and so at a thousand dollars a house more that's a big chunk of the Code Enforcement Officers salary and costs and we would not necessarily get into we think you should charge more from an electrical permit or whatever it may be it would be just changes the ordinance that are necessary to to implement this yeah I don't think it would be much work for us

suppose we'd have to have the public hearing and it goes back to the issue how many Warren articles for land use can you put on one town meeting agenda yeah why is it a land use Warren article yeah it's just select one I don't think that it's just the fees we're talking about radio tower ordinance or solar ordinance we're talking just the fees right that wouldn't be that we we could be doing nothing I mean right right the time the selectment would have to that's what I'm picking up just like that there's really I'm okay with that hopefully there's nothing we'll need to see what MMA says if it requires ordinance language Amendment then that's a whole one other area that with adoption of the change on the resource protection with bringing people out and those bringing other people in New landowners now in resource protection the only option it appeared to me the only option they have to challenge that

is going to the appeals board and going to the appeals board there's a seventy dollar fee I'm questioning whether that fee should be applied if a landowner goes out and odds are they're going to have the property surveyed and if they're expended five or six thousand dollars to have their property surveyed now you're gonna say well you've proven your case and now but to prove that and to get it changed you have to go to the appeals board and there's a fee I don't think we're in the business to like say certain uses you don't need to pay certain uses you do yeah I don't you know although in a survey you like most of the comments I heard were people who had existing houses existing property within this um designated area so you would think that they've already had a survey done on their property you would hope so I hope so right so why would they spend another five grand on I think the issue is we've added

the resource protection act creates new areas on home or a land that was not in resource protection before so that to me is something considered about a waiver whatever for those folks so is that yeah that's what you're saying right we added this new it's the ones that have been added and those those people are the ones that are more concerned now I mean I'm limited I'm basically I'm the resident coming in and saying I'm challenging this I don't trust because the map is not as detailed as I know my own land is my survey tells me this but is it a boundary survey or an engineer is it it's more of a um

less uh Geographic and I don't know what the differences are between us it could be like a surveyor or a plane survey like right yeah height above floodplain it could be delineating the boundaries of the waterfowl habitatic ability boundaries of wetland I don't think it's a boundary survey yeah no no no no no I agree I don't know I just that seems like it would open up a lot if we did that I think the appeals board already has the ability to wave tees doesn't it for hardship time we have hardship waivers I don't think so but I'm not sure yeah I was also going to point out that as I stated at the town meeting and in other venues uh the ordinance gives the board of appeals Authority and responsibility to review the zoning map when boundaries are in question of districts so they have the authority and the responsibility and it says in there that the board of appeals review can be required appealed by an by a landowner

applicant but it could also be requested by the select board the planning board or the code officer so I think in some cases maybe those are the ones that you're thinking about where this new map puts a whole area and the beginning with habitat particularly the six plus it was

what they call a rasterized layer of the gis which is these squares and I through the gis basically smoothed that boundary but the actual boundary of that is somewhat indeterminate in terms of you know if you go out on someone's land so that might be an example of where if the code officer works with the landowner they bring someone from inland fisheries and wildlife down to do a review of this

situation and say look where on this property does that beginning with habitat 6 Plus begin and end and I do know and one of the property owners who was affected by that the one of the maps has been updated the undeveloped habitat blocks if you look at the undeveloped habitat blocks map in the Fishers Wildlife beginning with habitat have carved out around the existing homes the cleared area in their analysis of how many acres and I did talk to Joe Roy after the town meeting about the concept of going through looking at the detailed map on individual properties and for the resource protection carving out the existing home sites from that so that people who currently are were in before and the ones that have been put in wouldn't have to go to the board of appeals to apply for the 30 expansion or the 50 percent or more expansions and you could what do you say to that Joe thought it was a viable idea to look

at because again in the uh in Fisher's Wildlife beginning with habitat do that with their undevelopment so what you're saying is using more data but more more specific yeah right yeah like like taking this because right now if you're in the resource protection for any reason you cannot expand you cannot do any expansion of your buildings without going to the board of appeals or the planning board and what I'm concerned about is what you're going to see happening when people do that is you're going to go through the conditional use criteria these are drainage it's not going to cause drainage problems it's not going to cause traffic problems it's in scale and and it's going to be like an automatic approval that you're going to meet the criteria for a simple residential expansion doubling the size of a home uh and so what is the purpose of going through that whole process for the board for the staff and for the

property owner well why don't we just make it code officer review for the building permit that's what a lot of towns do that's an option what do you mean 30 expansion so I am now in resource protection if I wanted to add an in-law apartment over my garage I can only expand 30 of the square footage of my home um so it's like say it's 2 000 square feet you know I can expand 30 of that to build the in-law apartment okay what George is saying is I would need to come here and say please can I build an in-law apartment over my existing garage you're gonna tell me yes automatically most places most I mean the bigger municipalities that I've worked with you get the 30 automatically just through your building permit instead of having to go to the planning board it's an option uh yeah so what's the difference with the resource protection though like well if you're not in resource protection you can EX you can double the size of your

house right oh you're saying it's 30 if you're an RP yes what you're saying yes that's an existing limitation got it or allowance however I'm not at it so that would require an ordinance change so I guess the question is do you want to have this be an issue to research over the next year and propose something for the next town meeting I mean I I'm okay like honestly like I was all about this whole change because it's really looking at the data right we're really like making it more accurate so if we can help people by looking at data at their specific lot I would be all about that and I I might speak for the cons com but I think they would be okay with helping that too you know like without having to go to the appeals board perhaps

Wetlands well but so we might not be a big help but I think the cons com could be um and maybe George with some GIS support I'm I'm all about that but in the case that Ann had mentioned that it should be a simple process for the codes enforcement in that particular case and he I feel that he should have that authority to approve that without having to go through multiple boards I would agree because he's just got an existing building so if you have exactly he's going to add 600 square feet to Europe is there any other use besides that that would would come up would we want the CEO to kind of go through and be like okay it would be in-law apartment it would be well if it was adding a brand new building not a existing building or attached to an existing building right I mean I think we're talking about so I don't somebody wants to put up a sunroof totally changing the footprint yeah I mean if you again if we could

consider whether or not somebody wants to build a tool shout out uh and I've got one they're welcome to use uh where they just want to go out and build something out in the middle of nowhere brand new that's different than adding a sun room adding right I just thinking we might need parameters around what we're seeing here so here's a concept building on what Ian has just uh offered So currently in the ordinance if you are in a resource Protection District and you are a residential existing non-conforming residential use you can apply to the planning board for conditional use permit to expand by up to 30 percent you can apply to the board of as a conditional use you can apply to the board of appeals for expansions over 30 percent and that is has a separate set of criteria mostly it seem to be almost like in line with the aquifer protection or something so Anne's concept would say allow the 30

expansion without by writing right without a vote officer not have to go to the planning board for conditional use anything over that go to the board of appeals right but again we're just focused on in-law apartments that's the only use you're talking about no no no no no no any expansion I mean if I wanted to add on to my garage another Bay on my garage or existing footprint like well I guess that was my question how is a 30 expansion defined well that's a that's an interesting question because here's the language expansion of it's not clear see this is Again part of the problem of the ordinance is there's just so many areas we never dug into a lot of these issues so the specific language is

language number one non-conforming non-residential use like some of these home-based businesses cannot be expanded period so whenever a new you know that's a different part expansions residential expansions the residential non-conforming use and this is under non-conforming uses may be expanded by up to 30 percent of the area which had occupied at the time it became non-conforming upon issuance of a commercial a conditional use permit the board of appeals May approve an expansion of a non-conforming use of more than 30 percent area of the area which had occupied at the time it became non-conforming so it's not clear whether that's and they have another section for structures so the question is but it says a residential non-conforming use which a residential use in the resource Protection District that doesn't allow them would be a non-conforming residential use so I think under that language like using my example I think I

could build a detached 600 square foot ADM completely separate different location and so I think the question is do you want to allow that 30 expansion with just quote officer approval or do you want it to only be like on an expansion if it exist because this is an expansion of a use you can instead put it in expansion of a structure if you wanted but also like expansion of a residential use maybe a shed right right yeah um or a swimming pool that's a residential use that's an expansion of residential use same thing do we care I don't know since I mean I guess what you were trying to protect probably doesn't exist anyway if you're putting into swimming pool next to a house right the planting Turtle Pro you know unless he's swimming in there you know he's probably down the road somewhere where it's quieter or your Wetland has already probably been destroyed building the building or whatever it may long ago so if we make

it easier for folks I'm all for that so again is this an issue that you want to spend time looking at I mean when was the last time we had a request I don't think we've ever had it we've got plenty of Residential Properties in resource protection I don't think I've ever seen a 30 percent I don't think I've ever seen a 30 expansion conditional use come to us since I've been on the board right so what you're seeing is it's not really important like it's not I don't know yeah yeah the list of problems to solve um I'm just wondering what's going to be presented to the CEO or what's going to be in front of the appeals board too right I've heard this change I liked where you were going there I don't know if I think you might be right like is it going to be that or is it going to be what are we going to see well I think I would qualify to say that part of code enforcement's discussion with the selectman the other day was

he's now making people get permits as he's driving down the road he sees people doing additions to their homes that there's no permit ever been filed and so these are additions to the home so it may be a whole lot of people were just cheating you know not to say that we're going to suddenly have 50 people but perhaps we have a code enforcement guy who's yeah we may well be the people have said this I'm not going to the board it's not worth it oh yeah that's right

hang tight on this and see see what shakes out they have a path to doing it I do agree that eventually we should make it simpler if we can I don't think this would be my number one priority advice yeah because I don't think we're gonna see a lot yeah if we do start to see a lot you know then definitely Alan will bring it to our attention okay so the bigger picture answered to your question I think you need to prioritize what we really want to take I agree 100. several things on the table for sure are there any others of we still have on the table the affordable housing uh thing perhaps solar farm cell

tower new constructions not in a resource protection area are there any other areas that we think are a major problem may I have um a month's worth of time to look at the comp plan no no no no now you're you're you've got to hear from you now

our notes from when we were talking about all these different ideas um I do think going back to the comp plan and um looking how they align with our current ordinances specifically regarding because we there's a lot in there right we can't handle everything but specifically regarding subdivisions and residential growth the growth impacts which aligns with what we were just trying to get past but we didn't put in front of the town which is now kicked to 25 right 2025. the the yeah I mean

there's bills there's there's bills potentially potentially to be kicked to 25. I think that we need to handle that even if it is kick to 25 start now and be ready so in that we can kind of marry that with a comp plan like what did we say in the comp plan like we were talking about before and then we tabled it so that I think is one and then the subdivision I'm sorry that's a higher priority um does anybody know whether or not this is actually going to be pushed to 2025 so there are two bills

them these are the ones that are most impactful one is just simply to push the deadline from July 1st 2023 to July 1st 2025. that's all it does the second one pushes the deadline to October 1st of 2023 and says exempt any Town under

population 10 000. and so that would so yeah so with the first one on the floor the 25 the both uh it doesn't matter like because if it gets pushed 25 then will that one go for a vote too do you know what I'm trying to say yeah we we don't know what I saw on this legislative website was that uh I didn't see 214 because it didn't say anything about affordable housing so it's it's just I say change restrictions so we'll know more next meeting I I yeah yeah I think to maybe answer the question about whether you have more time to uh to review um it kind of depends on when we want to get a town vote on it so there's obviously April whatever second third next year for the town meeting uh which may be what we're talking about with cell towers if we go that way or whatever other things we're going to go the affordable housing that's that may or may not take effect in the first of July so the elections in the

next year are town meeting April of 2024 there is a um election in November for uh uh what do you call them not warrants but uh people who referendums referendums thank you ma'am um so there's that's an election that would be a balloted election there's a possibility of a town election separate from those because there were two uh budget items from 2022 that ran over and they were removed withdrawn from town consideration last week because we're still not 100 sure how much the actual overrun was so at some point in time they have to have an election to approve spending the additional funds so whether that be a separate identity a town meeting well I shouldn't say that I don't know what it'd be you need to be a town meeting or it'd be a ballot vote and then there is the school budget meeting in June but the deadline is I understand it to get articles in is April is this month and so I think would be very

stretched to make a June election with any of this stuff so depending on what they say tomorrow if it's pushed we have some time tomorrow oh oh they have until the end of June I think the legislature is in until the end of June oh okay so one other one to increase to exempt um smaller towns I think just got pushed to the next session so special session or something or a special session summer oh okay but if these don't pass then when is the deadline July 1st of this year yeah okay so which I don't think we can make I mean realistically I mean I I don't see what we didn't vote on it in the town meeting you know the first of July is if it's still a firm deadline it comes and goes for some period of time we live with them right I think we need to do a good job at this and and develop a good plan that people are going to vote for and just take as little time as we need but also don't rush it right

that's what I'm thinking I mean public input we're going to need that you know it's pretty extensive we may not have to do a survey this time but we do have to have public info I would think my recommendation is a public information meeting yeah and then George needs time to you know we have a discussion George does like he did last time writes up the verbage helps put that together for us another informational meeting since what we'd like to do and then um you know a public hearing a formal public hearing sometime in advance of whatever November April whatever vote we go for but I think this is that's we should that's one of our priorities so I'm sorry the last public hearing it was kind of punted and it sounded to me as if if we didn't make any decision or or adopt a policy that was tone accepted we would accept the state's requirements um so let's just say that plays out do we still have the opportunity to um

change the state's adopted minimum housing ordinance I'm sorry affordable housing audience okay so I'll give you I'll give you a real scenario I'll give you a scenario there is someone who has applied for permits to tear down a single-family existing single family dwelling with a garage they have converted the garage into an apartment my neighbors and they are applying for

approval of construction of a duplex and they have asserted that under the law they have the right to do this now and they are going to appeal the court officer's decision not to issue the building permit for the duplex because of the pending nature of this legislation and they're going to appeal that decision verbally they've stated they're going to appeal it to the board of appeals and there's another situation and that's similar to that where someone wants to move forward with building multi-family within the framework of this new the new law so as of July 1st the code officer has been advised by the town attorney that if the current zoning ordinance is in contradiction of a specific state law he must follow the state law and not the local ordinance as of July 1st as of July 1st so what would happen is that he would do that until such time as the town meeting adopts a provision

that is number one adopted at town meeting and number two town meeting vote they vote but it could be the November election the town vote would be it would just be yeah uh and be determined by some legal entity either MMA or the town attorney to be consistent with the state law so you could do some changes and not just accept their Bare Bones language which allows a lot to happen you might not want to have happen uh but you could do some refinement but whatever you do has to work within this specific parameters set by the state for what you can do and can do sorry can I reword I think the question I have now is if they do get it past July 1st we have nothing on the books it's already passed it just goes into effect you know at first yes yep yes and if it does go into effect July first can we go through this whole process figure out a great plan for the town and change it or what you're saying is as long as it's we can

change our ordinance but whatever changes you make will have to meet the parameter of the states already and there is some flexibility so for example in the law they allow you to apply a per dwelling unit area that cannot exceed with the area that you require for a single family dwelling so in this case Durham requires two acres for a single family dwelling you could require two acres for each of the three units that you're required to allow uh but currently in your ordinance you don't so the code officer can't say oh yes you need six acres for this three units all he can require is two and if you were to now adopt an ordinance after going through a public participation process doing public notice as required by law have a vote at town meeting uh then you could apply two acres per dwelling unit but you won't be able to without a town meeting vote so I say we wait we kind of you know maybe vote that this is a priority but

wait until July 1 and see what happens or before that and then go forward with the plan July 1 we'll know what the parameters are if it goes into effect or we'll have a somewhat a blank sleep and at least wait until this legislative session ends right these delay bills may or may not go into effect great yeah I think there's something at this point whether we like it or not we're stuck with a vulnerability so after one July I had to use that term but we are vulnerable to to you know whatever the two options that you Pro you know are two possibilities you proposed out there there's if there's honest they meet the state law you know we would be stuck with it if you will um I don't know how many of those there will be but there will be the opportunity to do that and then we we create our own ordinance that meets all the requirements of the state legislation that passes and then we come back and say out here is here's the

rules you know here's the here's the Durham version of that um and so there's a window of vulnerability or opportunity if you're a builder to come in and and uh so in addition to that do you want to look at cell tower regulations and solar Farms because I Anna wanted to ask what she thought on the housing thing I think it's an even setting aside the state law I think it's really important to learn I think our ordinances are too restrictive anyway I would love to see us bring back the high Development Area in the downtown and decrease minimum lot size or minimum lot size per dwelling unit um because I think it's the right thing to do and I think housing is really important and even further out do I care

if you build a duplex versus a single family home I don't and I think the comp plan supports that so I think we need to start our conversation with housing anyway and I think we can start talking about options if this applies if this doesn't apply but either way I think we need to talk about housing because I look at that zoning map and we are losing all of our Farmland all of our forest land all of our open spaces and we're carving it up into two into two acre chunks and that's not serving housing efficiently it's not preserving the role character Durham it's not doing anything ideally I would love to do real zoning but that won't go over but even if we can create a downtown district where we can shrink that I think that's a great start that minimum lot size so I think I think housing needs to be our first conversation priority okay and then my thoughts on the others so cell towers I actually used to do a lot

of cell towers I haven't seen I don't know are they still are we still are they still doing those we saw them in pink and Brooke we reviewed one yeah yeah a while ago but I mean are they like I'm not well I think part of it's going to depend on this broad all of these Broadband initiatives because you know you're not going to be running cable I don't think all over this town so and a lot of it is going with uh the new technology so will that will that need the cell towers the new well that's an issue you know but my concern is again under the Telecommunications Act you you they submit a permit you have like 90 days to make a decision yeah and if you don't meet the if you don't have standards you basically so George why do you think the conditional use criteria is not sufficient to address cell Powers well my concern is is that if you apply those conditional use criteria and we're going to think about celebration tree

farm and we said you you said the the scale of this is too big for this setting I don't think that's what we said that's not even a criteria is it it's yeah the scale intensity of use is is an issue so a 200 foot tall tower next to a single family home there's going to be some issues there of finding that it's quote the the scale and intensity of use is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood so it could go either way on how you decide that but I'm just concerned that if that's the only standard you're going to apply um if you did that I think you probably wouldn't hold up against the fellow Telecommunications Act but it may yeah but I I feel like we've only seen one in like five years or so whatever I feel like solar if we want to think about projects that are coming yes the demand is going to be there much easier and the potential for you know people to like visual effects and all of that things that we can

control or support I think solar Towers have big visual impacts so yes that's one of the issues that they look at but I'm thinking we're going to get a lot more solar than we are so good dollars let me ask the impact on us with either one of those because I truly don't believe in Reinventing the wheel so somewhere in the state of Maine or somewhere there's ordinances there are ordinances that are Poland panel you know Orono somewhere there are Ordnance that are working we're working semi-well would it be possible to just take those good ordinances and say tweak this a little bit for Durham not reinvent the wheel but there are model ordinances for both of these issues so that we're not with the affordable housing housing in general we're just starting from from scratch we get this nebulous state law that we're working with but could we shorten the effort using model ordinances or panels ordinance or I don't know if they have

one but somebody's ordinance out there yeah that would reduce the workload and we could perhaps do both of them if we're concerned about cell towers as well as solar they're both required um town meeting approvals yep to adopt standards for anything you'd have to have a town meeting vote and to go back to your point when you were talking about housing you weren't it sounded like you weren't limiting it to the LD 2003 you were just talking about we should focus on housing in general yeah yeah absolutely yeah I agree like that's a part of it now right I think too but yeah absolutely there are you know towns that have already adopted um affordable housing importances in preparation for the July 1 deadline it's not sure how many of those that you know it'd be interesting to know if there's anybody that has done that I mean it seems like a lot of people

others are doing there are some communities Cumberland has adopted some affordable housing projects okay but that's different than adopting new laws to address on a town-wide basis affordable housing or other issues most towns have been waiting to see where the decd came out just came out they still aren't out they have they're not going to release anything until the end of April or early May in terms of heroic rules towns have to follow so I'm not aware of anybody that's gone ahead and done it without those guidelines being finalized so my vote is to Yes uh housing is number one and but I think we we might have room to look at solar and possibly cell towers if we do look at other ordinances and if George agrees to leave that charge and we review maybe and see yeah and then you can decide whether you want to move forward or not I can't think of anything else um that I would put on anybody want to take

on roads roads I said that chokingly um how about home-based businesses that was fun I knew we talked it's a good one it needs to be done but whatever that was such I'm not interested in not either we talked a lot about subdivision issues too before so I will be honest the other thing that I think we need to look at with housing is subdivision because I think if you're building like a duplex at an Adu you have to go through subdivision right because it's three dwelling units on the same lot yeah and the new law specifically mentions that this does not eliminate the need to address the subdivision review issues so and so I think so when we talk housing we're talking subdivisions I think we need you know a while ago we had talked about a minor subdivision versus a major subdivision I would like to see us have that conversation as well because I I do think it's Overkill to have to go through all of the Hoops

for three lots or three three dwelling units forget our one lot three dwelling units [Music] um our review is a lot for that you know and the road the road standards I've never just pulling your chain well but it all feeds in your specific job oh Fighter versus major so it does I think I think it's a little bit of a domino effect well and it is something well that's true of affordable housing because we got into the whole you know all of a sudden you're three units on it you have to pave the road what do you have there's more I mean that that's a pretty yeah is it a condo is it you know all those questions that came up that we kind of you know went uh okay it's we're putting this whole thing uh that we need to have part of that discussion are they rentals only can it be only can we limit it to rentals only and so and I think that housing in general is a one thing we need to consider is is a good issue to take on

but it's a big issue and so if we decide that we want to increase the density of this area um and then not so much out in the in the other area was that's a more emotional issue perhaps than just following the state oh yeah not to say we shouldn't do it but that may push the whole affordable housing housing issue off till April and May preclude us from not saying we should maybe it's better to wait till April and come up with a a good house a housing solution uh versus try to rush something for a November election I mean the way I see it if you want to keep things the way they are you put a minimum lot size for dwelling unit of two acres which is ridiculous in the downtown downtown right you know and that's fair and Equitable for everyone it keeps the status quo as close as we can get it but it's not the right thing to do and then the challenge you got in the downtown that I call this the down is

that when people come visit me as we go past schedule well you're not passing through downtown I know right uh uh but a big chunk of downtown is historic district and so whatever we do you know the historic Edition District rules have an impact on what you know yeah which is another issue that we haven't discussed yet but I've been working with the historic district commission for the past few years in the current regulations that the town have or has are not anywhere near uh

appropriate for the towns situation in terms of historic structures as well as well as the town's capacity to do historic preservation reviews so are you say we're two lacks or two okay so the basic picture that you have is you have the historic district there's basically the Southwest men historic district that has an ordinance and a process that's the same as downtown Portland Castine Thomaston communities where you have entire neighborhoods Yarmouth of of very

historic structures uh so that ordinance was just copied and pasted from some of those communities and it sets up a historic district commission and any changes within that District have to go through a process for determination of consistency or appropriateness with the national register guidelines for historic preservation in a lot of those issues you know and people get really really upset with you can't get a clear answer it's like you know does it can you replace this window on this building or not and it says well if it's deteriorated to the point where it's unreasonable to do it then but and I attended a conference because I was working with them of the Nash of Maine's like 50 of the people that are experts in this people that are on commissions Architects that deal with that and they had a case study from some place down in Georgia I think it was and they had all these experts reviewing an

application to put a parapet wall on top of a structure that they were renovating and they talked about you know this was built in the 1920s and at that time this was a motif that they allowed and they found some of the pieces under the deck and so they wanted to put it back but they they didn't couldn't find any evidence that that building ever had it and so at the end of it at the end of the case study they said okay now everybody you're on the commission you vote out of those experts it was a 50 50 split on whether it met the guidelines or not in the the ordinance itself calls for on the historic district commission people with specialized expertise in architecture engineering uh historic preservation urban planning and there's never been anybody on that historic district commission with any qualifications not even close and so you have people lay people that don't really understand completely I don't even understand it as

long as I've been doing this in terms of what what can you do and what can't you do so that's an issue the town does not have the resources to do that and do it right secondly there are 10 buildings in this community that have been determined by the main historic preservation commission is either being listed those are the Bagley house the Osgood house the West Durham Methodist Union Church and Shiloh Temple are listed the friends house is eligible for listing the house next to you Union Church is eligible for listing the house on the corner across from the Gazebo is eligible for listing and there are two homes one of which is right next to the subdivision that was approved and the one across the street those are eligible for listing according to image preservation commission so you have 10 scattered individual sites you don't really have a district there are only three in that District Seven outside of

it and code officer and the planning board are supposed to review any project within 1500 feet a quarter mile of any of those 10 any properties like any like a building determine whether or not what they're doing is consistent with the Interior Department guidelines for historic preservation that's never been done I don't know how you do it so where is the store preservation group on changing it are they in favor of changing so I worked with them for a year and a half in trying to address these issues these structural issues and organizational issues it came to the point of making some recommendations and a report that I provided to them and that recommendation was to eliminate the Southwest Bend historic district and instead focus on the 10 individual sites scale down the scope of review from a quarter mile to the abutting properties and those properties themselves have the code officer which he currently has to

administer it do reviews of those and get an advisory opinion from the historic district committee not a commission and get an advisory opinion from the main historic preservation Trust on whether aboard is being proposed meets or does not meet the guidelines and in May of last year March of last year the commission voted to go forward with that two meetings later they basically did on 180 and said no we don't want to we don't want to eliminate the commission but and they want to expand their their jurisdiction to all ten so it's kind of at an impasse right now and the question is where do we go from here so what about um asking them to lead the report they they are intent on moving forward with some level the question will be you know we've got the Conservation Commission been working on resource protection you folks it's very important that these things be coordinated and that all the groups that go into the town meeting are

on the same page as happened with resource protection if not it's just going to be a colossal waste of time and effort I I'm all in favor like historic resources are important important resource for sure I'm all in favor with having them lead where they think we should go with you supporting you know like you did with the cons com and then coming to us and or whoever it's left for it and presenting like a draft so one of the ideas one of the ideas that's been floated which I think I've mentioned to some if not everybody here is a what the the select board and town manager have talked about forming an ordinance committee and the purpose of that committee would be to look at all of these issues and competing issues and read limited resources and try to prioritize what should the town be doing uh in terms of addressing these issues so that committee would consist of the leadership of the land use oriented

committees the planning board board of appeals Conservation Commission uh select board and historic district commission did I mention that's like five come together after town meeting and review what happened at town meeting review like your list of issues historic district commission Conservation Commission board of appeals what are what are the issues that we need to address at next year's town meeting prioritize as as you know you're going to be competing for my time with historic district commission with Conservation Commission with select board and and prioritize what are the issues that need to be addressed and then over the summer identify which entity within the town government structure committees volunteers should be delegated with over the summer looking at this issue in depth and come back after Labor Day with a proposal for moving in a certain direction to present a town meeting and

then have that ordinance Review Committee say yes let's let's move on this one let's not move on that one forget all of the groups in the government structure to agree on that rather than the planning boards going in One Direction historic district commission and another select boards in third we've seen how that works so how would that look so you all all the heads get together and you talk about the issues and then you decide on the issues to go forward with right then who works on those issues so for example you asked the Conservation Commission to deal with the resource protection realignment housing is an issue what group is best suited maybe it's not just the plan who picks that though who who's picking all these things I'm suggesting the ordinance Review Committee and select the Lord would agree let's delegate housing to the planning board but let's get okay see if there's some other

interests in the community that could work with them on the summer over it but your thought is that the groups have the summer to work on it and they come back Labor Day with a with a white paper proposal for here's what the town we should look at doing [Music] I I will having attended in no offense with the historical Commission has and I don't mean this in a mean way has an agenda and I think they're going to be very hard very not open to change so I think if they want to take on changes then they can take the lead at

the direction of the selectman I think that's one of those that our role certainly we can attend those who want to can attend their meetings but I think we would sit back and we are the only ones who can run a public hearing we would then run the public hearing very similar what we did with the Conservation Commission but even less of a lead so Mike I just want to let you know that's in the Horizon possibly but I'm just saying that I think if that one is going to be a a long strenuous project correct me if

I'm wrong the historic commission was voted to Exist by the town at some point so we I'm not saying we you know eliminate them that's not my point my point is I think it would be a lot of effort uh and I think they if they want to expand their District if they want to do those things they're the ones who should take the lead and sell it to to the residents we would be the impartial [Music] public hearing that's that's my opinion

they haven't and they should bring that up through the selectment to see if their support or an ordinance committee if such a committee is formed so I mean it's already April are they thinking of getting on this ordinance committee soon like you know meeting on Saturdays right right okay so I mean I think that idea Town manager has I've provided him an outline that pretty much along the lines of what I just described so he's going to be discussing that with the select board whether to do that or not okay and that would be John participating ordinance committee right I think yeah yeah and then so you would just present if it was say before our next meeting the things we just talked about I mean I think at the point we're at right now if the meeting was tomorrow I would say the planning board is going to take on uh housing uh solar and sell I mean if that's kind of the consensus I heard those are the issues that you've

identified that need to be addressed in the short term we didn't hear from Tyler we um I was just gonna say that housing there's been like I'm gonna say at least a dozen different topics that were brought up today about housing so it might before we just say housing maybe we say What specifically we'd like to look at I'm good with that because I think I agree with Ann that we need to do some things but there's we have this window of vulnerability starting at the first of July so how do we fill that and

then but at the same time and whether we're ready for next April or April 2025 we talk about because I think the anything that's done in downtown Durham is going to run in the face of the historical district and the other limitation is the lack of public utilities to do a growth District you don't have public water you don't have public sewers so doing higher density housing that's one of the reasons it was broken up right we can't do an official growth District well it's just a very hard challenge to do it with the with the limitations we don't have infrastructure well you could do under main law you could do uh basically you've got you're sitting on top of an aquifer here well I know you could do public water systems that would allow you to do some higher density housing yes but we can't even with a half acre lot you have enough room for a septic right if you went from two acres down to

half an acre yeah you're probably looking at needing to do public Wells if you're going to go with that because you have to have separations between septic systems and Wells trying to fit a well on a septic system on a half acre lot at higher density is a real challenge yeah so I mean to Tyler's point I think it's like his point what are we what do we want to focus on housing first or yeah it doesn't have to you don't have to crack the whole coconut in one meeting right right we don't have to talk yeah we don't have to conference a plan right now put sets a pretty clear direction for the town which is the status quo as you described good good bad or indifferent yeah like look at the comp plan and to do a growth District you're probably looking at having to updating your comprehensive plan right right because we pulled it out right we pulled it out so like focus on what the comp plan says yeah or look at that and

then but also yeah so look at the comp plan and then also know that this affordable housing thing is out there yeah like but I think it's worth looking at do you want to have a higher density area whatever title you put to like growth District or whatever and if you do if a half acre is not enough is an acre or Mr developer if you want to do a subdivision you know on the backyard of the Town Hall um here's what you know you're gonna have to provide water you figure out how to do it and the cost of doing it I think it's totally worth exploring for sure yeah

000 square feet per dwelling unit outside of what is not the growth District and then just keep it two acres and you can have three dwelling units you're not even reducing it to a half acre that meets the standards for the state law I mean I don't think it's very thoughtful but that's like a blunt object to get it some of it and comply with state law nobody said that the state law was a uh a well-written document uh state law was designed for Falmouth okay I resemble that remark yeah um so I think maybe again if those are the things that I would think that we've brought up I don't know that you know we need to bring in a lot of people to help us with solar or other issues we would certainly get plenty we got input last time George and I am as I said a huge believer in not Reinventing the wheel and as is George I'm sure to keep it as simple as possible to give us that planning is one of the professions where plagiarism is a

virtue all right well in that case I think I need a formal motion to get out of here so oh can we just sorry I'll second that I'll second the motion actually you're right so next talk about workshops another meeting because I don't even make one meeting but should we talk about doing this in workshops instead of the regular meetings yeah definitely at least to focus on housing right like to um narrow that down for the ordinance committee discussion right maybe yeah um yeah how do we schedule them without you know like the Deer Creek thing it'll how do we we can't just blow them off I mean so if they're not ready they're ready next month we get a decision we're done we move on we have no other applications at this point for June let's say that so here's a suggestion we had done this before is that um basically if you have an application focus on that at the regular meeting and the second Wednesday of the month

instead of the first week later have a workshop but if there are no pending applications do it at the regular meeting if there are then have a workshop and you want to do that on a monthly basis for the time being the only thing that I would say is can everybody make if we do have applications we now have to make two meetings a month yeah well someone might make the regular meeting but not the workshop and what you're saying is if Deer Creek doesn't come back on next normal meeting we talk then and we don't or if they get you get through them the next meeting and then you don't have any other applications just use your regular meeting we don't need a second meeting that month right right yeah and I think we can just talk about it that during our next meeting yeah um I just yeah you know it's a caution is we need to get ready everybody needs to get you know we're now ask going from one to two and that was a challenge I

appreciate everybody doing that December January February March we had lots of meetings so those of you who weren't in Florida I don't like Florida all right I like the plan we can uh we can talk about that next time so I think I have a motion on the floor but I'd like a second oh we have a second raise your hand s

the work getting to those or