TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ June 7, 2023

Elizabeth begin thank you everybody for welcome to the Durham flying board regular meeting for June 7th in the year 2023 we have a quorum we actually have six members this evening so we have four are there any amendments to the agenda

three acceptance of the minutes from the May 3rd 2023 you move to accept the minutes oh second it moved in second any discussion not if you approve raise a hand [Music] and I think that's probably the only thing we're going to be voting on this evening by the way uh informational exchange on non-agenda items the only Town official we have is this little bar uh two updates uh on the resource Protection District regulations under main law whenever you change zoning ordinances or zoning maps that affect Shoreland zoning you have to take the Amendments and submit them to the dep staff to review and then they send it to the commissioner and the commissioner has like I think it's 45 days to make a decision on it and we did get a written response from dep that it has been approved so basically what happened it affected shoreland's owning was you see that map is red used to be the all the resource

protection was green and there were two shades of green that didn't really correspond with anything and so this clarifies that what's in red is subject to mandatory Shoreland zoning everything in green is just is your research protection so that clarified that and they did approve that is the ordinance not official until they approve it the the map is uh I can't remember what the language is or something to the effect of any applications that come in during the 45 days if it gets approved there so there is language in there that just affects if something comes in within that time period but I can't remember the exact wording but it's ineffective at this point secondly uh the project to get

that map and the ordinance amendments was submitted for an award with the Maine Association for planners and it was picked as the program project of the year what really yeah and there were four factors I think that led to that decision of that committee the first is the uh the ability to do that level of

research and quality of a product with a town like Durham with very limited resources impressed them secondly uh the use of the new beginning with habitat data in a in an Innovative way to define what is the resource Protection District the third was the factor that led to the award was the extensive public participation process and then finally and perhaps most importantly the the committee recognized that the collaboration and cooperation of the boards and committees uh was critical to the success so they're looking at this as a model for other rural towns small towns with limited resources to to follow so well Houston uh it was a collaboration with Joe Roy myself and John we we discussed it again

oh yeah bringing it all together writing the Performing the award and all that so he is to be commended efforts of Joe Roy got a letter from uh in the Fishers and Wildlife uh basically saying this is the first time that the co-occurrence model has been used in the state of Maine so it's awesome that should be publicized this they're working on it okay good that's great and what was the award again it's the main Association of planners program or project of the year for 2023. well did you get like a little I think it's complicated email that I sent out too [Music]

the non-residents and George I believe that Deer Creek is our only continuing business and they have asked to be tabled one more time the news that they might get there expect to get their Quarters here feedback at the end of the month permit or whatever but it is by the middle of June correct does that sound right so I need a motion to table the Deer Creek subdivision substantive review until the July meeting can I ask a question really quickly before we do that the comments that were included in the um agenda packet those are the same that we saw last month right nothing changed other than the date of being taped

else [Music] it's been a long time we've done this one so a couple of things is I think I'm not sure you were here it was the three of us and Ron said he would try to get back from that meetings we have four people I would voted on original if Tyler studies up or what I mean is that it is there is a video I think it's the March meeting so employing 10 is before we actually get back to it you know back over the video and what we've done that got us to this point I have watched the videos with the intent of last time when we thought it was going to move forward but watch them again anyway but I should be up to date yeah I've watched it twice probably still watch it one more time so did we actually vote if I forgotten yes

have a date and deadline from the Corps of Engineers to get things an email I saw from from Dorsey was they expect to get the report the chorus told them to expect it in the middle of June okay okay so their expectation is

by the middle of this month available for next month Devin just asked everyone to speak directly into the mic because it's not the greatest sound so thank you Devin thanks Devin um is the engineer still on that project he's still with the uh the their engineer yeah well I can't remember his name Charlie Charlie I haven't heard anything he wasn't copied on any of the emails that's why I asked uh I had contacted him to find out what their intents were and he didn't respond so then I contacted the developer okay and he responded I I guess that doesn't really change anything but it does we should think about that if there's another engineer yeah bring foreign

number 6A board discussion of draft land use ordinance amendments and George has done much since the last time we met meeting with all the other committees well I'm assuming you want to talk about uh the discussion of the land use ordinance amendments uh with affordable housing first or do you want to cover the summit next week let's do land use first it's in the agenda first I think either way is fine yeah so I have been continuing research on this and back in April you had kind of set priorities for what projects to work on for the next town meeting recognizing that next week there is going to be a summit of the various boards and committees commissions that are involved in land use policy issues the historic district commission the board of appeals the planning board and the Conservation Commission so tonight what I'd like to do is give you an update on the research that I've been doing as well as continue the discussion

that we started last time about we had looked at the different models and hybrids and at an earlier meeting had raised the issue of the possibility of looking again at the growth area as it as a means of dealing with this issue so I did look at what I thought would be a good model for understanding what that would look like if Durham were to do it the comprehensive plan went away from that back 2018 but North Yarmouth is

actually an example where they have been doing that very thing they have a growth area they're all of their land use policies are directed toward that and so I actually got some excerpts from their master plan for the Yarmouth if I get that over there excuse me in a second

their Village which they the former Southwest Bend growth area would have been if it had been properly prepared and implemented would have looked something like this so let me put this up and they've got people to buy into developers and others yeah and that was one of the reasons why the state rejected the the earlier comprehensive plan because it really didn't have what it what you need to do to do that type of concentrated growth within the community and then keep the rest of the community rural well it wasn't a lot of that because of the the water and so lack of water and sewer is critical out there critical aspect of this yeah so uh this is from their master plan and so this is kind of like the description of the Villa existing Village and what they're trying to accomplish uh and so this is their master plan for the village if you're familiar with uh North Yarmouth uh I think this is 115 and uh

this is nine that splits off toward us and so you see they have a kind of a master plan for this holy area some of this is already existing I think the black buildings are existing or under construction this subdivision and if you've been out through there you see I mean it's pretty high density how's that and so then they have zoomed in areas to show what the details of that would be I think this is uh the store on the corner uh there's uh this unit these here I

can't remember if that's a bank or gas station what that is so those black buildings all exist and so they have a you know typical artist rendering of what that would look like when it's fully developed the idea is to create a place where you can live you can work you can shop and you can gather and then providing the public facilities to support including sidewalks pedestrian bicycle Provisions as well do they have sewer and yeah so then so then what you'd have that core and then from that around it they have so they have a village core and then they have Village Residential around it which again is high density and some excuse me uh so concepts of what that would look like so you'd have a mixture of single family uh two family and multi-family on top of stores this

is very very uh Urban what do they call it uh it's the urban new urbanism and so it's it's something but in a scale of a North Yarmouth or Durham uh and and so then they have their zoning which include so everything in green is intended they have like a camera with the minimum lot size is but they only allowed five building permits per year outside of the growth area unlimited building permits within the growth area and then within the so this is the village core and then the Village Residential all of that area is served by the Yarmouth water district they do not have public sewer and one of the parts of this plan is to require the use of what they call pre-treatment on all septic systems to allow them to have the density that they're accomplishing there and then the other component of this is the red is a TIF district so whatever taxes are generated from that development will be used through a

tax increment financing District to pay for all of the infrastructure improvements which include and they have they have a master plan for that with short-term and long so they have bicycle Lanes they have intersection improvements traffic calming you may have seen they've done some of that you might put in pedestrian Lighting on the on all the crosswalks Falmouth has been doing that with Tiff funds so this is what the growth plan Urban growth plan under the under the main growth management act this is what the the now the Department

of Agriculture and conservation dacf used to be State planning office for them to certify your comprehensive plan they want to see a plan that does this Durham said we're going to reduce lot sizes from two acres to one acre and we're going to accept streets in that that that's not a growth area it's it's uh that's why they did not approve it key to this uh is okay so there's that's

actual housing that's been built um and that that showed this is one since that original plan has been added but the key is they have public water and without that public water you have a 100 foot weld separation for just a standard well to a septic system and a 300 foot for a shared well common well so

so it really unless the town is gonna you know move in that direction and then so it's almost like this there's three strikes against it and then the fourth strike as far as LD 2003 is concerned this doesn't eliminate the need to comply with LD 2003 so you would do this and then you would still get an allowance for two or three housing units on every line in that high density area everywhere so LD is LD 2003 says

wherever you allow single-family homes you have to allow any in these areas you'd have to allow four units on each lot or three units for three or four units depending on so so I just want to give you an understanding of what that that would look like and and the current comprehensive plan says that in the event that either the number of building permits per year which is uh the old cap was 45 if this town issues 45 building permits in a given year or the planning board approves a hundred Lots that triggers a review by the select board to determine whether or not to have a moratorium and develop put before the voters having a plane like this so that's an addendum to the adopted comprehensive plan so it hasn't been abandoned completely if it just says that if conditions change like for example let's just say the old Brunswick Naval Air Station you know there's been a lot of stuff happening

there some big Aerospace going to create a thousand jobs came in and all of a sudden Durham is like you know seeing all kinds of development applications then you could take a look and have have a public process and decide what how does the town want to respond to it so but there's a different way to accomplish greater density in different parts of the town right we could just do without doing a growth District at all you could do half acre lots here which is the minimum actually a little bit bigger than the minimum to have subsurface Wastewater and well and then either increase

lot size outside of town or outside of whatever you decide um you don't have to worry about public water you don't have to worry about approval um all of those things and to to keep the minimum lot side outside of town you could make it a minimum lot size per dwelling unit so if you're putting three dwelling units on a lot you have six acres instead of two without going through the growth District so you're accomplishing something similar you're not having apartment buildings I mean you could in town I guess you couldn't put that on septic you wouldn't have enough room on a septic on happening um so you could do it that way as well yeah yeah so we are suggesting is not having a designated growth area but just simply adopting a zoning map that would have higher density areas minimum lot size of 20 000 square feet which is the state plumbing code minimum lot size law so like so what was the growth Southwest

Bend growth District you could just put half acre lot zoning in there and then go to five acres 10 acres and other parts in that is what you're saying that you could basically direct the growth without doing uh without doing a wealth District but by reducing lot size you're encouraging growth within that area yeah now we did present in 2018 uh at the

through the process of the comprehensive plan something along those lines but the voters were not and the participants were not keen on that also proposed and I think how it split out was it was like you had 20 percent go in that direction 20 go we we offered what was the just go reduce everything to the state minimum environmental standards which will be the 20 every everywhere in town and again a margin of the of the participants favored that extreme but everybody else came in keep two acre lots and basically keep the status quo but ramp up for agriculture for our natural resource provisions and that's pretty much what went forward and was adopted unanimously at that town meeting

threshold that we are we are in need a growth District okay so when we did that plan in 2018 town was averaging about 15 new housing starts per year it's doubled it's up around 30 now at least last year was something like 32 but it's still quite a bit below the threshold of 45. so and with the in and since then interest rates have shot up dramatically so that has put even in more of a damper on it so although we've seen more subdivisions in the last three years than I think we've seen since I've been on playing board and bigger with anticipated phase Jews with a lot more public engagement I think than I've ever seen on the planning board so I think things have changed a lot since 2018 include I mean building permits have doubled right that's not nothing even if we're not at 45 they've doubled they've more than doubled for one year yeah I mean prior to last year it was you know 2021 to 18 for several years or not so

last year was the outlier or if that's you know where we are I mean last year was a huge growth in housing across the country so it'd be interesting to see this year what kind of passovered interest rates have gone up let's see where we are where we're going to be so it's probably not going to go down right like we've still got Deer Creek in front of us do we have any idea how many have been pulled for this year yet I also don't know I assume now is when most of them start to get pulled and I don't really know what it looks like over there it was not two months ago when I talked to Alan it was not very much I don't want to give you a number but because I'll get it wrong I did anecdotally I caught him in the parking lot today and he said it has picked up something but not to you know to put a number to that it would be nice to actually go on record with saying this is because what I've been asking for if

we could get a monthly quarterly report housing permits that would be Allen provides that report through the town manager to the select board every month yeah you can certainly if you would ask him I'll ask him again um is that's a state thing no that was the cap that the town now if you are going to adopt a gross cap of a certain number of permits there's a process you have to use to do that and there's a formula that you use which is basically I think based on the average of the last 10 years is typically at least that used to be what the formula was whether it's still that or not but now I don't know so you can't just say we're going to drop it from here way down to here it has to be based on the last 10-year average a couple of questions so if you adopt the Frozen District who's responsible to bring the public award to the district so the state law doesn't mandate what

has to happen or who does what what it does say and this is another difficulty that you have with that is that it says that the town has to adopt as part of its comprehensive plan directing 75 of all Capital Improvements

in the community to the growth District now what that covers you know Capital typically covers uh Public Safety Public Works equipment but you know whether or not the road budget would have to go 75 there but it's it that is so again it doesn't make it a legal requirement that you do that but you have to put it into your comprehensive plan and pursue policies propose policies to pursue that but they're certainly tied together you can't have them without you yeah so typically where this works out and then in a case like North Yarmouth where they're getting you know it's a major housing projects they would park do public private Partnerships with the town like the Tiff District where they would say look we want to build 100 units of housing here it's going to cost us this much money to extend the Yarmouth water district Maine to here so if you will use the Tiff funding for that the tax revenues

generated by our project for the next 20 years among along with any other development that happens we'll pay the bonds for that water extension so it's a win-win so they get the better water service within the community developer gets a tax break many people interpret that as a tax break but the taxes are still being paid they're just going to pay for this week lose the difference if it's agricultural ity residential and the tax increases this much all of that tax increase goes

to the 10th District utilities the schools everything else doesn't get anything of that that tax increase and that has been a point of contention because Freeport tipped a whole bunch of their their land in their area and none of that money is going to RSU fire as a person who used tips in the past is a good deal for developers sure it all depends on what your community goals and your Community Financial situations jobs and it brings people I mean there are other other things it does do but there is a bad side to the test as well um but we'd have to start from scratch we it's not a matter of extending water it's it's creating a private watching private water companies utility in

had started a discussion of options and Andrew brought that one up now I understand better what she's thinking about and so as she's saying there there is a third option which is to pursue hired you know smaller Lots in a part of town and increasing laws not just increasing the number a lot if you add units but you could increase lots for every any units well and maybe you do it incrementally right so rather than saying we're going to increase lot size to five or ten acres outside of town which also isn't necessarily effective in preventing sprawl leave it two acres everywhere shrink it to half an acre here but increase the minimum lot size per dwelling unit right outside of here to combat

to exempt us from it I didn't even follow that we actually haven't update on that tonight but um and at least that maintains the status quo until frankly we probably need to revisit the comp plan when you use the term in town in here wouldn't that mean creating a Zone yes but it doesn't have to be a growth District right right yeah yeah but you still have to create that yeah and everything right yeah right yeah understood I just want to get back to the building permit thing and the rate of growth coordinates and I think they're tied together as well the affordable housing law is exempt from rate of growth accessory dwelling units only okay yeah okay yeah so you could have you could include the rest of the housing that you're required to add into the same rate of growth if you have a certified comprehensive plan which is a requirement for rate of growth ordinance okay in a certified comprehensive plan

requires you to have a growth area and rural area what we just talked about the legislation and that is that the as you know the whole plethora of bills was submitted to try to change this in because it's just been such a stirrer and it boiled down to about maybe three or four different bills targeted toward the issue of the timing and who had to do this and it came up went to the Joint select committee on housing and they within the last month have uh have come out with a proposed Omnibus Bill that would take all of those different ideas and arguments on delays and put it into one

committee recommendation and that committee has proposed an emergency bill that's supported by eight members of the committee and opposed by two that would basically say for those communities that have a Town Council form of government that can act quicker they would have until January 1st of 2024 to

um to implement this and for those with town meeting it would be Kickback a year to July 1st of 2024. now there are a couple of other and this was an amendment to what's known as ld1706 that made some also some changes and clarifications of what's on the books now as opposed to a massive change to address some of the issues and confusion that has come up um so there are two Alternatives an MMA I think John forwarded to you all of you a message from me voted on it either today or tomorrow

that email saying please and as a place to click here to get to deleted so there's three different proposals on the timing of how how much time you get the most extreme one of MMA is favoring two years delay the most favored no MMA is proposing uh

they are urging everybody to try to support uh withstanding it for two years two years yeah so we should note I guess the answer was if they actually do vote either today or tomorrow which should have an answer to whether it's going to be extended or not and the bill that I think Exempted which was like 214 that the last I saw was just sitting and hanging out there

you're interested and one of the versions of the Amendments I think this is the one that is the committee recommendation so it is a message from Eli Rubin who's the legislative policy uh representative that has had Communications with the committee so if you want to take one yeah

whether it's July 1st this year or July 1st of next year we need to continue or the year after yeah we need to continue preparing so uh we've talked about at least three different options now and so what I thought would be a helpful starting place for the real legwork of this is first start out as you know the the final rule of interpretation has been issued by the Department of Economic Community Development and the Attorney General's office where they've said okay we've here is what this

language in LD 2003 means and so we've looked at that it's finalized now they're still doing some typo corrections but basically it's finalized what the rules are so what I thought is maybe a starting point is to just do now that we know what the rule is do a base level analysis of what changes in Durham because we've talked about doing some various different things but what is the bottom line of what LD 2003 is going to do so I prepared some analysis in a in a slide presentation that hopefully gets us that first question uh let's see if I need this okay so

with and let me go with the first okay so this is the Baseline impacts of the legislation on Durham what will change from what we have now so parts of this we've looked at before but I just kind of cleaned it up and updated it to say now that we know exactly what the law says here's what is required okay so currently Durham has a requirement for a single family dwelling that you have to have a minimum lot size of it's actually 2.04

Acres 90 000 square feet which is basically a 300 by 300 foot lot and on there you can put one single family dwelling and you can have one accessory apartment by right uh can be no more than 50 percent of the size of the main dwelling unit if you exceed that you can go to the planning board as a conditional use so these are the basically those requirements uh the setbacks the road Frontage all of that is there okay the other option and provision currently uh

is that if you're going to do a two-family dwelling then you have to have another half acre of land which basically extends at 300 foot depth to 367 feet and whether it's a single family or a duplex to family you can only put one of each on any on any lot and with a duplex unlike a single family you cannot add under our current zoning and accessory apartment so you either do a single family with an accessory apartment on a hat on a two acre lot or you can do a duplex with two full-size units on a two and a half acre long just not two separate single family homes correct currently that currently okay so if when LD goes into a LD 2003

goes into effect as as currently drafted there are some still amendments in the works as part of this as well as the extension that may or may not affect some of this but I'm going to continue to try to explore that but just where we were with the final rule nld 2003 uh as

previously adopted by the legislature okay so what would change so the new law addresses two different situations the first is if you have a vacant lot So currently Durham uh only allows a two family which both units have to be attached for two on the same lot and under LD 2003 you can see the language here it says that if the law does not contain an existing dwelling unit and does not meet one or two above which deals with those growth area situations designated growth areas or if you have a public water and sewer then then you require to allow more housing but if it's not in those areas then you must allow up to two dwelling units uh located in in wherever you allow a single family and you meet the minimum lot size law which is that that title uh statute reference there and it does say specifically the two dwelling units maybe one within one structure or two separate structures so that says you

could put two Standalone single-family homes on this on the on the same lot under LD 2003 so that's a vacant lot so using the minimum lot size which is two acres not the two minute yeah so now they would allow you to increase the lot sizes so

we currently require two and a half acres for a duplex so theoretically but as as if you take what's in the ordinance now and I'll go back to that prior slide for two family dwelling and a two-family dwelling is defined in our current ordinance as one structure yeah

[Music] you know what I mean so the point is though this would not meet the definition of a duplex two separate no no that would not be that would not meet the definition of a two family therefore they could have theoretically two two Standalone houses on two acres and would not be required to have the extra half acre so the definition

we don't Define duplex the definition and the ordinance and the use listed in the ordinance is two family and that says two dwelling units within the same structure which is a duplex law right now you can only put one single family home on it if when that law goes into effect if somebody comes in for a permit for a second house on that same lot uh excuse me if they have a vacant lot this is just vacant Lots uh if they want to put two single-family homes on it they can do that it would not be with an existing lot with one house correct so then we go on to a

developed lot so if a developed lot which could either have a currently a duplex to family or a single family then if there is current are currently two units of housing on that under LD 2003 no new dwelling units are required so if somebody has a duplex which we don't have [Music] I'm not sure how many but yeah um so that the law does not require you to add any more units on that law okay so that doesn't change if there is a single family on it then they could add two units of housing and under the law it says and the rule this is actually from the rule I think if law contains one existing dwelling Unit A municipality must allow the addition of up to two additional dwelling units and again the state does not recognize that an accessory unit accessory dwelling unit is a dwelling unit there are two separate parts of the law that deal with accessory dwelling units and dwelling units so this is dealing

you'd have to add two dwelling units and those could either be one Within or attached to the the single family home or one in a separate structure or one of each so this says that they could add an addition on to the existing house with a full-size unit and a second home on that same law now if this were a full-size unit then they'd have to add that 67 feet have the 67 feet on the back of the lot for two and a half acres because this would meet Durham's definition of a two family which kicks it to the hundred and ten thousand square feet lot requirement 2.2.5 degrees existing right right no if they were to take the okay the graphic that I showed you before I had this house which just stopped right here with it where the red line is okay okay so if that existed they could add If This Were an accessory apartment by Durham's definition less than 50 percent of the uh is my

cursor shown up there when I do it on here okay yeah so if this area here of the separate dwelling unit is only half the size of this unit then it meets Durham's definition of an accessory apartment and it does not require the additional land if it's full size then it meets the definition of a two family and it does require that extra half acre not 2003 you're talking Durham durhams yeah yeah so if if 2003 requires you to do allow

this if they do two full three full-size units then they have to have two and a half acres under the current ordinance homes where there is an existing single family on it if there's a duplex on it or two units they don't you have to do anything if there's uh if it's vacant they can only do two units if if there is a single family and an accessory unit for now yep was State the LD well actually that's right because they don't consider accessory units to be uh dwelling units

so you'd have to add a third unit allow them to add a third unit so if they don't they don't okay so if single family home an accessory yeah then they could do under the law either another accessory unit except they had a house an apartment above the second floor of the house and they could do an accessory unit on the garage or they could do a single fans the Standalone single family well under LD 2003 towns are only required to allow them to have one accessory unit you are required to allow them to have up to three dwelling units and it's up to the town to decide and this is where it just gets so complicated it's up to the town to decide what is an accessory dwelling unit and what is a is a full or a dwelling unit so part of our mission would be to Define yes yes and and after this I've got a short presentation on definitions do we have dwelling what do we have in our ordinance just hold off on that for just

a second and I'll get to that because I'm going to show you here's the definitions in LD 2003 here's the definitions in the land use ordinance so let me just finish this which I've only got like five slides okay so again what changes so this is the main thing that changes you can do two Standalone on a vacant lot and you can do three on a lot with a single family dwelling could you do you have a single family could you do three more two more single families since you have a total assume you're all of them fits but if you had a single family no no you can't because and that's that's where we finally acquired we finally got because it says you can have one within the existing or attached to one detached or one of each so you couldn't do three Standalone okay or not required

yeah and that was one of the things that I wasn't really sure of until they finalized the rule okay but you could if you had four acres not an issue how many it's just or how much land you got it's an issue what you can do per law okay okay yeah

current ordinance doesn't allow it and and again this is part of what is is the blessing and the curse for Durham you already allow a lot of this of what they're requiring uh but now they're requiring you they're pushing you even further and that's where it gets crazy because you get these variations and what you're already doing that's mostly meeting the requirements of the law all right so put more questions on these models so again what I thought was critically important just let's just start out with what does LD 2003 actually require to be changed and then you can decide what you want to change and how you want to change it one more hypothetical not to be pedantic um so if you have a single family house and pull a permit under ld2003 to say

add an attached dwelling unit yep and then a few years later you want to add a detached dwelling unit but it looks back at this and says oh you already have two dwelling units so you can't do that no I think you'd go by the effective date of the new legislation so as of July whatever's on the ground in July 1st of 2003 or 2004 whenever it

goes into effect for Durham that's now the the time so if one is there now then they could do this in sequence they wouldn't have to do it both units at the same time in order to qualify know talk to two different lawyers you might get two different no I'm sorry you might get two different opinions Okay so a critical part of this obviously it's already come up is definitions and so I did prepare a comparison

to look at it again but I did a comparison of okay Edge over there is get this on my screen as well that's right I'll leave it up here for now okay so I'm going to switch this to full screen views show it the best and I'm going to zoom in okay so as Ian knows and some of you others might the purpose of definitions is to clarify terms that can have multiple meanings so when you when you draft an ordinance you know what do you mean by dwelling what do you mean by family what do you mean and so what it does is it tries to clarify that for land use regulation purposes this is what this term means secondly what it does is it either

expands the scope of Regulation or restricts the scope of Regulation so for example structure you know a structure can be anything from a barn to a mailbox to a fence to a house you know all kinds of structures combination materials sitting on or above the of land or in the land so depending on what you want to have to meet setbacks for example most ordinances exempt mailboxes fences uh

some exempt Garden sheds you know so definitions is how you get at does this have to meet a setback or not so that's one of the purposes of definitions and one of the really important rules for my experience in ladies Planning and Zoning uh ordinance Drafting and amendment is you always want to keep standards out of your definitions and so for example we're going to see with the new State uh rule they have a definition of accessory dwelling unit means a self-contained dwelling unit located within attached to or detached from a single-family dwelling unit located on the same parcel land an accessory dwelling unit must be a minimum of 190 square feet and municipalities May impose a maximum size so the state in its definition has put a standard and the problem with that is if you put it in the definition and then you have a section on standards the average person that's using the ordinance isn't going to go to the

definitions to find a standard they're going to think this is the standard now in this rule they have it in two places so it's okay but generally you want to keep performance standards out of your definitions okay so you see in Durham's

definition uh a separate secondary dwelling unit located on the same property with a single Family Dollar so uh is and I actually have copies of this I should have passed those out just so you can see so maybe we can when we look at this we can compare both I mean for this yeah right Us and Them

accessories so what I've got on the screen I've got it and what I've what I've done is I've taken what are the relevant definitions in both LD 2003 and the rule and in uh Durham's land use ordinance that apply to what we're talking about yeah

yeah so see if you got a couple let's flip over there so Ian you've got that one ring did you get did we get enough we need two more but that's all right I'll just look over Ellen's shoulder here okay so uh basically what I did was I pulled out all of the relevant definitions because they had stuff on affordable housing which is not around so I took what are the relevant ones and actually let me give this to you Brian

so basically um and then I sorry what are the relevant definitions or applicable ones to what we're talking about in each of these two different legislations and then the second two pages are comparison of the ones that are the same in both in terms of the topic so you see on Part B definitions comparison you see comparable definitions of accessory dwelling unit accessory Department dimensional requirements is in both dwelling unit is in both lot is in both multi-family dwelling is in both principal structure setback and then single family and structure so one of the things we will have to do as we go forward is deal with the definitions in order to get at issues like okay we're going to call it a duplex or we're going to call it two family are we going to call an accessory dwelling unit or we're going to call it accessory apartment and then reconcile the definitions for both to make sure that

it complies with LD 2003 so that's part of this process but so the starting Baseline for our research over the summer is to first nail down exactly what ld2003 requires and doesn't require and then clarify what the definitions are to make sure we're comparing Apples to Apples

the relevant definitions from both in alphabetical order and then Part B is saying okay so uh the ones that are this in both are accessory dwelling unit dimensional requirement dwelling unit lot multi-family dwelling principle structure setbacks single family dwelling unit and structure took them out and put them back in here yeah and here are the ones that aren't the same uh attached the state has the definition of the test Durham doesn't density requirements State yes Durham no existing dwelling unit that gets to this issue of as of July 1st 20 2000 2023 existing dwelling

unit what do they mean we need to think about you know we had this discussion about the width of the driveway if this goes into effect now they can put three back there to whatever uh building they don't have a definition of building uh floor area that's important to us because we're limiting the size of an accessory dwelling unit they say you if you want to put a maximum on it you can it's going to be at least 190 square feet as far as they're concerned non-conforming law part of the LD 1706 amendments is to say that

you cannot deny or think the wording was just because a lot is non-conforming you still have to allow it because that was a big discussion during all the public testimony what about these non-conforming lawns in towns that have have small lot sizes and the amendment being reviewed by the committee says that just because it's non-conforming unless it increases the non-conformity that's the language that's going to be added potentially if that bill passes the amendment [Music] uh and then non-conforming structure same thing we have it they don't

is this analysis to create the Baseline and then starting to try to reconcile these definitions and get a better handle on it one of these don't need to be reconciled correct right some of like some of the definitions in the state law did not need to be incorporated into ours correct okay yep but that'll be part of the process as we look at that

implementation we'll be working on it over the summer but I just wanted to give you an update on my research and if we have no more discussion on that we could go on to talk about next week's Summit with the other groups well actually I'd like to what what's our plan what's our plane with this like so we're trying we're shooting for next year right taking this a town meeting Dave will tell me great so how are we going to get there okay so it breaks into three phases first phase is the research phase which we're in right now which is the kind of work that I'm doing uh the second phase is the uh once at the end of the summer after Labor Day see what the research has produced it'll probably try to flesh out some of those other options um in like we did last time to get something to take out to a public participation process phase two is the public participation process which generally runs from Labor Day through uh

mid-December and then phase three is starting January 1st getting ready for the town meeting with the official public care so that's it's through those three phases okay so the game plan to get there is get something to put together this summer decide what you're going to go forward with you know after this land Summit you may say well you know we got to keep it simple we're only going to go with the Baseline uh for for Amendment or you could go say oh we're going to do like all three Alternatives including to change the zoning option we want to take all of that through a public participation process and then do the public participation process and then see where it leads by January 1st take the first couple of weeks of January to say okay here's what we want to present to the select board and then start that last leg okay and just as a reminder land Summit

yeah so the idea and as I said you know part of what got the awards well before we get there that's the next time is that the next topic yeah yeah sorry about that okay thank you thank you so so what this is getting to the Baseline of one of the big decisions or whatever we need to make before we get into public is what do we want to how do we want to do this like uh do we want to throwing things out of it what try to remember the options we had the confidence option there's a comp plan and I'm not a big fan of three or four again but do we just say this is

we had a unit for example for every unit we add we add an acre we add two acres so if right now we allow a house on two acres if we're going to have two dwelling units accessory dual units it'll be four acres or three acres that's one of the big decisions I think that we have to get to before we go public correct I mean exactly well two things do you want to take that multi-option through the public participation process

see what the reactions are and then narrow it down to one or more to go to the select board for actual consideration I think that's something we need to like discuss here yeah yes right so that's what I was thinking the land from it is that something no somebody is something different that's that's working with the appeals board and the Conservation Commission over all of the items on other issues yeah yeah exactly so so are we having a

workshop you well I think we were a job or do we do it at one of our or and we need to have a meeting to go through that yes I think that's you part of your plans your question is you're what you just start to say in my mind was I'll do all this research and Baseline then we'll put together multiple options like we did last year and we go back to the public my initial comment has been there done that but if that's if that's the way we want to go but so the timing is when do we want to kind of get to that point of how big the the acreage fee I think that's probably the biggest one I think you're on the right track of you've got to make a decision on how far do you want to go with this do you want to keep all the options open or do we want or do you want to just limit to a couple say look these are the realistic where this is going to go let's not waste time on something that just doesn't have a

chance and so that decision you need to make fairly quickly because it's going to drive my research and then you were what well I think there's only two options on that two acres and you can do any of these or it's two acres per dwelling unit not including adus but heard volume units you can't say you know and I think our current two family dwelling provision would be not permitted under this so it would have to be either to a like if you had three dwelling units it's either three dwelling units one two acres or three to one units on six you couldn't say it's three dwelling units on five or four or do it incrementally so there's only two options for size because of our current ordinance no because of the way the state law is written you can increase lot size per unit but it has to be per year right so it's got to be even right so it's two or six yeah yeah three could it be well it could be could be three it could be four

could be five actually it doesn't have to be so you could you could say uh you two you two acres is your basic and then for each unit did you add I can change it too yeah I think I'm not sure I mean because it says the law says that you can increase the lot size for added units you just can increase it more than the base so like our two and a half acre would be compliant so you add a half an acre to add a second unit you could add any number of increases up to this this equal amount my initial thought would be without putting enough time into it is right now we allow the house and then accessory on two acres correct that seems to be working yeah I mean I don't I've not heard people say that's not working we allow a duplex on two and a half acres which seems to be working um so then could we say if you take that

single family and an accessory unit and you want to add another single family to that so one one of you stay with what you got but if you want to have a third unit you have to go my thought would be three acres but it could be four acres but we would just stay with the initial it's working it yeah the way it works now for a single family and the way it works for duplex so the question is how big do we want to make the additional unit plan so can I say something really quickly so I am absolutely about whether I want to or not the comp plan just because we've had the public input on this already we've had good success same thing you know they're especially if we're not going to bring the public before we figure out our plan and I think I know you say you're not a fan of the comp plans thing I think what you're saying is the comp plan's idea was to allow growth but to allow it everywhere and to allow

it on larger bottoms like like not keep the size two and let three actually the comp plan recommends reducing the size for a duplex to two acres from Two and a half acres management scenarios where we reach out to the public and we ask them would they rather Focus growth on smaller Lots in a central location allow growth across town on larger Lots or rollback regs and make development easier people voted double to allow growth across town on larger Lots well when we say on larger lots that means the two acres not five acres or bigger so you have to go to the implementation that was the public participation process just saying here's the ideas if you go to the implementation table it says consider allowing three or four unit throughout Town subject to design controls to protect the rural character and that was the idea of what we've been talking about which is to allow two accessory units with a single family or

at an accessory unit with a duplex but that same provision says reduce the required size for duplex down to two acres from Two and a Half Acres because what does the extra 67 feet on the back of the law to come spoke then I was just looking at this public question that we had and the way this is reading to me is

basically and I'm not that's that's what that's complex or two I'm not saying it shouldn't be bigger I mean I I think what I'm saying is that the the rules we have now for a single family with the test and the rules we have for duplex seem to be working and so if somebody just wanted just said I got a duplex on two and a half acres and he came in and said well I want to add an accessory unit to that you better have more in my mind that I have more than two and a half acres whatever it is I think there's a difference between adding an Adu an accessory Dome yet or a

dwelling unit under the state law there is definitely the definition but I guess it might if you call it if you had it attached in a single family somebody wanted to come in and put a single family did we ought to have we should establish a is that three acres is that four now four acres right does that make sense so the question becomes do you do you want to require increasing the lot size for anything that changes from this Baseline Durham so in other words like you it was the track that I was following you John was that was that I say okay if you're doing a single family and accessory whatever you can do Under the current zoning we keep the same lot size that we've always had but if you go with additional density because of LD 2003 you're going to have to have a larger lot size yeah right

discussion wouldn't be increasing the lot sizes for the current allowances it would only be you'd only be requiring increased lot sizes with and that that is consistent with the current ordinance because you do require a half an acre more for duplex so it's not entirely inconsistent do you think we could I'm just thinking out

dwelling unit which would be a duplex in a different lot size for a detached dwelling unit okay I don't know the answer to that but that would be the most you could that's kind of my thought too or yeah only require the increased lot sizes for anything that's required by LD 2003 whether it's two Standalone or whether it's a third unit that's kind of yes that's kind of like I'm not recommending with cram third unit into

Paul political process that I think is the most has most chance of Passage because you're saying look the state is requiring us to do this here's what we're doing to offset it otherwise everything stays the same and I think that's in line with my understanding that it would you know we're not I guess one of our options last time was we just keep the two acres and put a third unit on it and I I think I heard pretty clearly that no there were very few beautiful towns well it was all geared toward accessory units yeah I guess only accessory units keep block sizes as they are now but only allow accessory units either two with a single family or one with a duplex yeah those are just my thoughts I mean because the others are smarter people in the room I thought you would like to attack that I think that makes lessons I would also like to just for the sake of clarity and less confusion not have two and a half for duplex I

think Georgia said a number of times that it seems very arbitrary I agree with that just to make it consistent which kind of goes in line with the like if it's attached it can still be two acres but if you're detached you need to maker lot per

with maybe more what do we think about it in July we then sit down and say throw all four ID you know Brian's ideas uh Julius or whatever because I'm not saying my ideas the best so here's a thought what I could do and did you want to say something you're getting that section and the rags about increasing lot area per dwelling units as long as the additional dwelling units required I think that's plot area for each additional dwelling unit is proportional to the lawyer not a first unit I actually don't really know what that means what it means that if you go back to the diagrams that you're looking at you can't have the lot size for the additional units to be more than [Music] means something different

seven well and I guess what my question is I'm not too sure that allows you to have a different lot size for an attached additional rolling in versus a detached because it's not by dwelling it anymore it's funny how that doing it exists well I'm struggling with you know accessory and dwelling unit and you know I mean I started to get it but I'm going to need to get some additional curve clarification from the Department of Economic and Community Development so if you've got specific questions I can run by them that would be helpful that's okay if we want to make if we want to say it's two acres for an attached like a duplex which would be an attached additional dwelling unit but it's four acres for a detached additional dwelling unit which is like two single family homes I don't know whether that allows us to do it or not I don't know what proportional means in that context and I also don't know if we

could do you know for example two acres three acres four acres or where there has to be two four six yeah um because I'm not sure under that new language more acre per single family is it two more acres for a single family yeah well and the right the closest to status quo is two more acres per single family detached single family

July meeting what I would do is take the comprehensive plan recommendation that we were working with before which is to say two acre minimum lot size for single family with two accessory units or duplex with one accessory unit that's option A based on the comprehensive plan option based on the requirements of LD 2003 would keep single family with a one

accessory unit on two acres duplex on two and a half acres any units added beyond that that are not accessory would have to add the minimum lot size to that two acres that will be option b let me just if that is is I don't mind do you have it in my mind having multiple options this early but just to start with those two basic options one is go with the comprehensive plan the second one is to go with what LD 2020 keep the status quo except for what ldt 2003 requires with the Proviso of increasing the lot size for the extra units that are required then we can think of more variations after that including the lot sizes but that would be a good starting place that's basically the option we've already laid out to some degree anyway right but has a lot more definition

had like three single families yeah and we had the option of doing LD 2003 without increasing law sizes General grains maybe we'll have to take a look at July I am sorry I also want to look at that if we can maybe the comp plan you know I can take a look at bring some money here I think we get closer to that other one state plan with the comp plan sure like I don't think it's that different possibly okay maybe I'm reading it wrong so we get to go let's go

we do have deer you know I would assume we might have Deer Creek to take maybe an hour or so by the time we rethink stuff if you have to go through the full review it's going to take the whole evening I would like to avoid that if possible if everybody can watch the video uh but just to go through the required decision making of that and their Network I think you're looking at least a couple hours okay so that would probably decide on that first meeting whether we want to meet again and later in July I think we should probably plan on them being here right and maybe just make right now schedule something just because July is going nuts I assume we won't have time okay so if you tentatively schedule a workshop meeting and for some reason they get delayed again you can just do it that night and cancel the workshop maybe okay second separate we'll hold that to the discussion about this yep Julia what it wants me to follow the

agenda so we'll hold there president or vice chair or whatever are we good on that one we'll move on to the summit [Music] and George as I started to say early George has met with two or three of the other piece of it yeah so just start out with one of the goals of this Gathering so as we discussed with the award for the uh resource protection what really made the whole difference in that process was having the select board the planning board and the Conservation Commission all working together and in sync going into the town meeting made all the difference in what I've experienced since I've been working with the town for about five years now is that when you go into the town meeting and everybody's on a different page just forget it it's not going to work so that's kind of the goal here as well as to recognize that you know we do have limited resources here I'm working part-time if you don't have I don't have

any other staff and so the capacity to deal with a lot of these very complicated issues you can only handle two or three to go to a town meeting unless some of them are real simple and don't involve a lot of time so the purpose of next week's meeting with the other groups would be to First Look at what are the needs from a land use policy standpoint secondly what are the options for dealing with those challenges the town is facing either from Antiquated ordinances or new challenges like solar what are the options what are the priorities if you've got a pick out of five we're going to go to town meeting with three which ones are you going to pick and then finally or next is to assign responsibility so we talked about last year you'd asked the Conservation Commission to deal with resource protection this year you might think about the Conservation Commission as The Logical group to do the solar because it

lines with climate and everything and then to begin to get that cooperation going early in the process so that everybody knows what we're doing and when we get to the end of the summer everybody says yeah we're ready to roll as opposed to having to bring somebody up to speed so those are kind of the goals so obviously this is new for everybody so over the last month I've been in John actually participated in one of the outreaches to the groups and we both met with the Conservation Commission on May 17th and talked about this issue of solar they seem to be very receptive to taking it on oh yeah

um and so I shared what some of the common goals from some of the research I've done already about it aren't so most communities that deal with this issue the reasons they do and the goal number one to promote Alternative Energy if you don't have rules and don't have good rules and it comes in and it's a fight then that's not good for getting Alternative Energy Systems so having clear rules officially adopted policy helps that secondly to promote safety

because this is a electrical generation plan basically so you want to make sure safety is a priority operation and maintenance you know that's a key consideration make sure that it's properly operated and maintained decommissioning is a big thing these things have what's the expected life 20 30. if it's good 30 30. yeah realistically probably 40. and who knows you could just turn maintain it

so what happens at the end of 30 years you want to make sure that all that stuff is removed so most communities have a very clear decommissioning plan with a performance guarantee yeah so if the project prior to of it yeah and then the last two goals that virtually every ordinance I looked at is protecting natural resources which includes visual resources Scenic views AG land Enviro sensitive environmental areas habitats and also protecting neighbors and the issues that can affect neighbors are noise glare and Signal interference I

can still remember when we were doing the cell towers in the 1980s and people were complaining about their garage door openers keep going enough for the cell tower but apparently there is and you'd be amazed the some of the places I've been looking at in other parts of the country they have to have a noise study show what the ambient noise level is in the undeveloped State and then what you know based on other solar facilities what is the noise generation from this so those are kind of the goals that most and you can either be very base level we're only going to worry about safety we're only going to worry about decommissioning we're not going to get into landscape one that I looked at in Stafford County Virginia they require a 50-foot buffer in front of the fence if you go up to Augusta or Pittsfield and see these massive 20 40 acre solar

Fields right beside the road in a 50-foot setback is pretty standard mostly ordinances here remain that are looked at but 50 feet is nothing when you've got 20 acres of solar panels and in a in a view John you pointed to the one in Auburn well the one in Auburn is way back away from the road with Woods in between it so you get a glimpse of it be interesting to see if they require that or if it just happened no I think that's just where they located it yeah I think the woods were along the road so I've seen Landscape Architects cross sections showing property line 50 foot buffer fence solar field and and they actually require them the entire perimeter to plant within 50 feet all kinds of vegetation that will grow up and create a visual screen from that solar field so how far does Durham want to go in this regard do you want to again just say all we care about is safety decommissioning and not affecting

habitat or do you want to say we want to make sure this is going to fit in this area in this community in this location for the next 30 Years and Beyond of the summit uh yeah from my viewpoint is the chairs of all of these committees uh we'll we will meet next week and then

um you know there's four or five articles that that they would like to everybody would throw in there we've got uh obviously affordable housing with solar and then if example so there's we have affordable housing there's solar there are cell towers there's historical commission yeah there's something two other meetings that I've had just to give you the updated

there's seven things that you want to accomplish we don't have a broad the sequence and the there's a chair I get to side with those three or five are so we'll see how well that goes over for the plan wait you do the plan no I mean that's great that's I mean yeah so yeah so we we get to

which ones yes great and then we wouldn't ask as we did with resource protection conservation will take the with with George on the solar thing so okay so say we do get a go on solar and Collins comments said yeah we'll take it great yep so but like you just said how far do we want to go is it the cons come who's going to kind of run they would take that lead yep okay both during the research process I'd ask that question from them but do we provide any input or

work on it over summer and come back at Labor Day okay come back to the summit yeah have each group say here's what we came up with over the summer presented to the leadership of the leadership of the planning board planning board can reconvene and say look here's what came from the Conservation Commission from the historic district commission from the board of appeals what do we think but we will have if there's too much we will have we need to shut it down now not have George working you know having that working on cell towers I'm just and say there's no sense working on that all summer if that's not if we don't have the the broader man to work on it but you're going to figure that out on the 14th sort of thing yeah exactly and then yeah

Conservation Commission the town manager myself and the code officer met with the chair of the historic district Commission and we had a discussion about what are the issues and uh she Lois Kilby Chesley uh basically sent a memo to the select board outlining what the results of that meeting were if I was not attached no but it's available okay to give it to you so basically their their position and have been working with them for two years now and I think with the point of agreement is simplification of the system which is hyper complex Way Beyond what Durham can actually accomplish as far as this very technical very difficult subjective issue of historic preservation so and agree on the need to get more expertise in available to the groups that have to deal with this but on how to get there there's not agreement between the town planner of function and town manager and code officer with the historic district

Commission so proposed just a basic but the agreement to go forward and try to work together so I had floated and Lois said that she was going to take it to the historic district commission uh an initial step of doing two things number one there are 10 official listed on the

national register of historic places or eligible for listing which are covered under our ordinance they're 10 in town under the ordinance there's supposed to be on record where all the public has the opportunity to know whether they are or not somewhere available at Town Hall there's no official list that's ever been adopted by anybody other than I did research and said here it is but that what we could do is add those locations to the zoning map so that they're official for the code officer for anybody getting a building permit for the individual property owners and then the second thing actually I've got the map that shows you this uh let's see where is it sir

a different rules about what neighbor adjacent properties can do yeah and this is this is why because yeah it is actually let me show you why um okay let me go to what those rules don't apply right now right well here's where they apply okay so there are 10 official properties these are the ten they're in the list anything within 1500 feet of those 10 properties subject to section 5.14 of the zoning ordinance and it says the here's the actual rule anything within 1500 feet the code officer who's responsible for 5.14 has to make a determination that the proposed development is compatible with the national Department of interior guidelines this is way overkill for what

most communities of Maine do even places like Thompson and you know casting they don't do this so the code officer has a responsibility to do a review for any project within 1500 feet so the concept of a proposal that would

hopefully be accepted by the historic district commission and everybody else would be to say look get those officials on the map and scale down from 1500 feet to either those properties or those properties and the abutting properties to them not everything within a quarter of a mile that makes no sense I don't know where that came from

okay there were two subdivisions that came into right there seven conflict eight and seven eight in particular the planning board required a 25-foot buffer along the entrance road to the Wingate to the Wingate subdivision yeah yeah yeah yeah that's so so it was reviewed it was under the historic yeah guidelines and then the other one on Bowie Hill Blue Hill we had the schoolhouse yes so another provision upstairs you can't tear down a school building 100 years old or more you have to restore it even if it's it just says it ha except to restore it even the national Department of the Interior guidelines don't require that well you don't have to restore it you just can't touch it because that's what happened with Parker well you either don't touch it and let it rot into the ground or you completely restore it there's no alternative under this ordinance but that is not what's being proposed right now for a

starting place just simply getting those official properties on the zoning map so everybody knows that they're under that they require regulation and re-regulations have to be met and scale down 1500 feet to either the properties on the butters or just the properties themselves that that's what what makes them official because they're not all on the on the part of the national historians okay so the language the language says uh right here it says uh

to be maintained town office see this right here um subsections A and B will be on file at the town office for review if the average property owner comes in or anybody comes in and talks to anybody out there I don't know I don't know where that list is so if you don't have that readily available with everybody in the public that's affected by it can can see it and then it's questionable whether it's enforceable okay so the idea for the Historical Society

overhaul that I've discussed with them in the past but at the very least this would be a step that could be done fairly quickly and we're going to see what they formally present next week week and see what they're up to yeah that's the point is I'll come in yeah say we don't want to do anything or we want to do this they may say yeah they may say don't want to do anything they may say we want to go Way Beyond this and we've got ideas on what we want to see happen

did the console have any other ideas they didn't announce them to us they were offered they may come to the meeting with more and there was one more meeting and that was with uh the board of appeals I met with Barbara Schneider and discussed with her the board of appeals currently is delegated the responsibility and Authority for making zoning District boundary line determinations and they've done that on two occasions first one was with the Wildflower Equestrian Center where half of their property was designated as resource protection with absolutely no scientific basis for it they made the determination the boundary was not very showed on the zoning map but at the line of the Hundred Year floodplain they struggled with whether they had the authority to make that decision or not I think under law to do and not only the authority The Authority but the responsibility to do it the celebration Tree Farm same issue and

they said we're not going to do it because it's up for town meeting vote and we wanted a short circuit to tell meeting process so this is something that most towns that I've worked with it is not delegated to the board of appeals is delegated to the planning board and I bounced that idea off Barbara and she said that she thinks the board of appeals would support that because you're looking at subdivisions you're looking at site plans where these issues come up and and you're used to dealing with surveyors engineers design issues technical issues

um and so that's an option for what could be done to give Clarity to the ordinances that we've just upgraded the second one is all through the public participation process people were saying you're going to put my home into resource a resource Protection District I won't be able to do anything with my house currently the ordinance and what we told them was the ordinance allows number one if there's a question of where that boundary is you can go to the board of appeals to get a boundary determination to settle it secondly you can do up to a 30 expansion

going to the planning board for a conditional use permit you can go beyond that going to the board of appeals lots of public criticism of that you shouldn't have to go to a board to do just a simple addition on your house so another concept floated with Barbara was she thought the board would be amenable to is to allow up to a 30 expansion of

an existing single-family residential property in the resource Protection District without going to a board subject to some criteria maybe the same criteria that are in the ordinance now if you went beyond 30 then you'd go to the planning board for conditional use just like you do for a accessory apartment that exceeds the limit or anything else so that's a starting place for discussion with the board of appeals there may be other issues that they see need to be clarified but that would help improve the regulatory tools to continue to get public support for the regulatory program if somebody's if if there's this community sense that all they do is make me go through jump through hoops and spend money to no purpose that undermines the effectiveness of your growth Management program so just a couple comments on that we talked about this last time I I'm definitely all about supporting the public with these big changes

um they anyone can go out and have their property delineated and find out where your wetlands are and then I would recommend yes come to us not the board of appeals because like you said they what are they going to you know they don't work with Engineers they don't understand they don't work with Wetland Specialists right and so we have an idea

refer to somebody or or do it in tandem with their subdivision application or site planner sure whatever yeah but the second part of just don't know I'm on the fence about that just uh you know we started talking last time about 30 of what because it talks about 30 of the use yeah I think you wanted to find that exactly so the Gravel Pit right you know it's only it's only residential okay or only residential okay so is it 30 right so I use my property as an example I'm in resource protection right now as it's written I could add a tiny home uh that's 30 the square footage of my house do we want to allow that maybe that's more impactful than a 30 expansion by building an in-law apartment over the existing garage which is within the same footprint

uh should be defined as 30 expansion of the existing structure as opposed to the residential use which could include oh the existing structure the entire developed portion of the residential property that could be so it could be you know doubling the size of their of their field and yard yeah so she thought it should be limited to structures not uses so and one of the questions from we did discuss with the historic folks but more appeal are they they want to make changes are they willing to take on the effort uh the way the Conservation Commission yes either do they want to do the public outrage they want to work with George to write out the changes well congratulations they did with resource protection they took the lead in making the changes with George writing up the the article they took the lead and public outrage a question that I've got for the meeting next week historical and appeals are you

going to do the same thing are you going to work with George we're starting yeah that plus in the fall are you prepared to hold some meetings and put out four four solar and four well solar I think Conservation Commission is pretty much said they're going to do the question is historical and the board of appeals are they going to take the lead with doing the work with George are they going to take a lead with public input yes and based on my working with the historic district commission over the last two years I think they're going to be more than willing and and insist on their taking the lead on the public participation process for their issue and I don't know that the appeals board yeah I'm not sure they're having a difficult time they typically only meet when there's an application so I'm not sure how much their engagement they're going to be and it may well be for the issues that we're talking about you

don't need as much of a public participation attended sexy the second Point again this 30 thing is a little went in and they got a violation order because they were too close to that Wetland yes right so something like that could happen right and and the resident can point to this and say hey if we did what this thing said there's a little bit of a difference there and that those were mapped wetlands and they were violating the Wetland delineation as opposed to violating the zoning right they still wouldn't be able to do something like that like you can't do a 30 expansion that

violates other loss laws yeah the wet was a flood plain yeah yeah right but what if that Wetland is the resource protection line if they violated it Senate but again if you're limited to the structure as opposed to the use theoretically like you're saying you could expand the the grading from the foundation the septic system could push into the resource protection but if you're limited the 36 expansion to the building so what you're saying 30 we have a building like up well like the existing no it could be yeah no it could be 30 expansion basically that 30 comes from the dep Shoreline zoning rules uh that's what they came up with for properties that are sitting right on a lake or water body they came up with this 30 rule for expansion towards the link not towards Shoreland has some limitations on what you can do with your 30 percent okay so if you're uh it's

like you can't make it more non-conforming that doesn't make a ton of sense in this instance but like if you were on the river you could you have to draft your 30 so that you can't go closer to the river okay or further into the wild right you could go up or you could go the other ways on it yeah and I don't think the board of appeals is the right group to do that okay I'm I'm good with that with what we just explained I thought you were saying anywhere within uh you have to Define

point board of appeals is enough right group to do that and obviously you want to get their feed on that their take on that I also have just a few reservations about the Conservation Commission taking the lead on solar because it interacts so heavily with site plan and conditional use which are things that we deal with all the time don't get around I love delegation it's my favorite thing but I think without them being really conscious of how those processes act in reality that's a challenge and maybe what it is is like we have specific performance standards for like gravel pits and things like that that we overlay on top of conditional use Insight plan and maybe that's the scope of what they're doing but all three have to play together and I don't know that there is intimately familiar with those processes right a solar a solar project is going to go through the same review well maybe as a

lot of these projects we see some of them are as arduous as a subdivision yeah engineering Wetland delineations visual impacts noise an option is that is there not I mean I have the same thoughts because much of the when you look at the existing there it has less to do with reason not that it's not important but less to do with resource protection than it has with buffering the heights yeah the Deacon is a lot of technical stuff you know the distance between neighbor site view which is more our purview so the question is do we want want to hand it off to them is it a joint they can support I think some people on that committee have worked on solar projects you know um so they have experience and we could use their help but I think I think is right and I was thinking the same thing but I didn't say it I

is really cut and paste I mean I really think there's really good ordinances I mean in New York you know they've got a draft ordinance that the towns just you know yeah there is a model so far and I so I don't think they're starting from anybody's doing it yeah you know there's towns cities that have it here so is it is it just that we'd rather do

that or they do it and we sit in you know well whatever whatever the individual groups over the summer come up with is going to come back to the planning award and I'll be doing the legwork and the research and I'm obviously familiar with all those technical conditional use site plan my fear there is that they might miss something or and then they'll pick it up and then but then we could pick it up [Music] well try it we could try I mean then there's also the ability for you know for us to review if we have that concern I mean certainly they we can go to their meetings we can certainly sit in on their discussion George will see the drafts George will put together their draft uh thing and so I I just see that as really a relatively simple in terms of writing it out and Technical now selling it to people should we have sold public involvement is going to be really important on that one and they may be

the right folks to lead on that because it is going to eat up a lot of farmland and it's um and they're also as you know there but we'd like to hear from Farmers do they want it well Farmers want that probably a lot of a lot of money giving exactly Okay so so that's kind of what we're going to do at the summit they have realized that I've no longer a Caesar and I can't you know so I will be back and it probably is yeah before because it could be that particularly if they start everybody comes in with other ideas Conservation Commission or something like that the goal of this is to prioritize the uh the efforts um and George you have on there which I am not supportive of is the selecting in fees because if you know the one the record is saying this there has been plenty of guidance given to the selectman you know the town meeting a year ago gave them the authority to set fees the attorney said they can legally

set fees I'm not sure why we need to that after you and I talked I've changed my mind I'm not sure why well I think your your solution was a good one so the issue is that currently if you look through the land use ordinance you will find certain things where permits are required it specifies you have to pay a fee other things like addressing driveway permit there's no fee mentioned so as we what happened at 2020 meeting

was pulled all of those individual permit fees out and said they get adopted as a fee schedule by the select board on the annual basis so when the select board went to do that and the code officer said here's all the fees other towns collect they said well wait a minute it doesn't say anywhere in here that we collect a fee for that so they were struggling with it do we have Authority or don't we have authority went to the town attorney Town attorney said yes you do so then the question becomes is it good or bad policy to not say that in the ordinance where it says yes some and doesn't say anything about others so two solutions you came up with the second one I was drawing that the first solution was to go through wherever we say you got to get a permit and mention the fee schedule in there in like it does everywhere else so for addressing the fee set by the select board and the fee schedule add that simple language to

the ordinance John came up with the idea even though he is against it yeah uh of saying look rather than do why rather than putting it in everywhere take it out everywhere and just in the article on Administration that talks about the fee schedule put it in there what's

feeling was just cleaning up the ordinance and you don't think it is and it made me crazy too supporting the town meeting wouldn't accept that oh yeah what an except roads even though that's state law right right but but if that's the consensus here but

if it's a sip by idea that I will put back on the tables as George said is it somewhere just says the selective board has the authority to set fees yeah so like we did with the peels where it was in every section take it out everywhere and just put it in one site but we'll remind them again so that was the only one that involved the select board and they said they don't want to be involved [Music] I think it's good to say things like that in the ordinance though just for the sake of life

with other towns and stuff usually there's just that insert with all of the permits fees and if you just go down it's the one that you want you know so that's probably one that we'll take on and I thought would be George tells us where we went through we write a sentence and just have the Auntie on this discussion many towns charge tens of thousands of dollars in permit fees for solar Farms

the town or the School Board gets the the taxes kind of like a tip but it's for a solar project and so it's like a legal document either between the county the the town or the school board um Maine I was interested I don't really work in Maine but I don't know if they have anything like that where so that's your expertise useful there because we do want to I still think even though the town has raised all their fees and I you know I got to find out before I finish this is a demolition

like 50 bucks anyway no but the fees for solar yeah yeah we need to make sure that we're collecting all the right people um the CEO reviewed all that right and provided that yeah yeah but our solar fee is I should think no right now all you got is a conditional use fee 50. well it went up it went up from 50 to I think 225 is a conditional use permit now and so that's to me is still not a lot of money and I'm not picking on solar or commercial I I think overall our fees are the new ones are still probably on the low end well and just to put some of this in perspective we can't just base our fees off of what other municipalities charge it has to be related to our costs yes of administering the program and we've got one quote officer and one planner and a planning board those are our costs right we don't have 15 plan reviewers and

here next number of hours and it usually does not cover the cost of my time or the code officer that's but to me that's what it is released it should do yeah you completely agree with that but also if you think it doesn't take more hours to go through Portland tomorrow

what we're going to do is there anything else so I will take our our affordable housing thing solar do we want to do I'm starting to believe we're going to be have too much to do do we want to punt sell old towers for another year is it something that can be done simply can I can I like what so we already have site plan and we already have conditional use I think the exercise right we have the section of our ordinance that has specific standards for certain types of uses and they're not big right it's gravel pits it's you know other types of extractive Industries things like that I think it's just the additional standards for each right right because conditional use and site plan both address impacts they both address buffering uh you know visual impacts things like that noise

think they should be simple yeah well cell towers are a very complicated just like solar farms and the issue is number one the Telecommunications Act really really limits What towns can do and unless you specify certain things like a visual impact analysis you've done it but you don't really have a good leg to stand on in terms of this is what the ordinance requires you to do and here's how you have to do it so they could do what they call a visual impact analysis and the question would be if you denied it based on we just don't buy that that's what the impact is going to be there you might have a hard time defending it well now without specific standards but when I say it's simple I just really think

conditional use this is already pain in the ass or anything the problem with site plan review is it's geared toward a commercial project of parking lots buildings it's not at all designed for reviewing a cell tower do very little in the site plan reviews yeah maybe I'm lost I we have a site and all we're doing is adding standards you know we've got a separate page or a separate chapter but it's just separate standards that talk about where's your bond you know what what's the what's the or what do you call it decommissioning decommissioning you know what's your plan to do on that how are you gonna what's you know Max height all those where we would set standards on those kinds of things if we would use that as part of our existing yeah because really there's very little in article eight is that what you're saying very little an articulate that he replies to a cell tower project maybe a little bit more specific than

maybe you're more Humanity but to me as a checklist we have is this this is what we actually require you to have and sorry the first first cell towers at least if it's still the same as it was so they have to go through like other reviews

with with cell towers um historical things yeah we would just that we're just like making sure did you do this yeah I mean it's kind of like the Deer Creek agricor of engineer part do you have your idea of condition possibility yeah do you have all your federal owned students but it you approved I think there were three in town now I guess cell towers you've approved two in the last like 10 years or less and um one came in but I don't know there's one in the Leisure Campground

life on the law turn one so you've had a few put in you don't get that many solar is a whole different ball game that's common we want to be prepared at least so we take a look at cell but we'll see I think Seoul is a higher priority so the last thing I've got is and we may need to do nothing our next meeting is July 5th which is obviously the day after July 4th uh is that going to conflict with vacate well can we get a quorum particularly of the people who voted for deer Creeks I can be here okay I can and so do we stick with the fifth does that work okay for everybody I can be here but if it's Deer Creek it doesn't matter no yeah but yeah if it's Deer Creek I'm not going to be here come on in so we just keep postponing you'll never come back

um what about an additional meeting because because for a workshop um second Wednesday that's not the end of the world I cannot do that not that that matters but it does guys this is a big this is a big Workshop I can do we need and we need John there I'm gonna do the 12. um how about another day of the week Thursday and Thursday are bad that week

it doesn't matter Tuesday the 11th Monday here I'm getting on the calendar July no 10th Monday the 10th it's clear on the calendar yeah up you'll just laughs um six six thirty 30 . yeah Jessica yep oh yes the other thing that we didn't talk about uh under 5.24 on the signage

shall be located off the site is something that should be addressed restrictive to identify and point way to public relations if you've got a religious science sign intersection of Davis Road uh he's added interest as part of this ordinance discussion

case talking about free speech and Science and that's why the state amended it's now we're gonna be real careful or get implemental attorney yeah like are we in violation of the state [Music] state's under right First Amendment State statue left temporary signs in the public right-of-way right there's some public right away necessarily private property and so if you can stick a political sign there for six months you can stick a commercial sign there for some well that's worth looking at because that's yeah

our ordinance could be in violation we could say no permanent well something that I think a the way that is written it probably allows temporary signs already as long as they comply with the state statute because that statutory citation does not only refer to the state signposts it includes signs in the state right away and on private property and allows temporary science subject to certain prescription so I think it can be left as long as it meets those standards I think any sign in town the roofers the whatever as long as it meets that state statute I think it can be left something like three months

officer is interpreting our ordinance contrary to that we should allow these directionals because that's the size of off-premises subject to whatever size restrictions permission of the landowner I mean you probably don't want them in the public right-of-way but if you get pregnant in the corner unless they're official business directional size which do right which are privacy right those are maintain medicine where do we go to we have a discussion before we started that like you know the blue kind of standard throughout the same blue signs says you know Hotel it's eggs one quarter mile this way those are permanent signs who pays for them

sign well and I think it probably has to be that in the right way but do we care if they're friends with the people on the corner there was an ordinance that says it can do that that and they've got but it was big it was a big thing for using our long teams

foreign because it's a it's an unrealistic yeah Standard Process yeah so just for the future on that note I've been culling through the records of the town if anybody's ever been to a scavenger hunt yes it's just absolutely amazing how bad the records are here

um got legal opinion that any conditional use goes with the land so this board and your predecessors have have approved dozens if not scores of home-based businesses over the past 40 years and those are all legal today if someone were to start up again well but there's isn't there a provision in our ordinance about it there's no if you just continue it for a certain amount of time so ask the MMA uh

[Music] if if it's not specified in the ordinance either abandonment or transfer of ownership it goes with the land someone can sell their business from whatever another business well stonex is already asked about selling the gravel pit that you approved that's what triggered Myers yep they have to meet the same conditions but part of the problem is because the record keeping here has been so bad it's very unclear what was approved and how what the conditions are so it's like you could have approved some business 30 years ago with Justice and one that's going to be coming up is the Leisure Campground I've looked at the records of trying to figure out what was actually approved for that it's your guesses as good as good we did we saw it years ago you added campsites Yep they're still looking at that

authority to do right now so a couple of points for future references consider adding something in the ordinance to say either abandonment after a year or could require to transfer ownership has to come back to the planning board that's a potential there were there's some different things you could do but right now it's not a good situation

sale do we want to know who's coming in and like look at the same stuff that we looked at and make sure they understand what the requirement is just I would say they shouldn't have to come to us yeah I mean I think we just say hey you know make sure that stone X make sure you transfer this information and then the code enforcement guide but he may not even know

financial and Technical capability right right I don't think you look at the whole condition I'll use maybe you just that's what you would have a transfer of ownership review for yeah only on those two pieces Financial integrity and I think the code enforcement guy can handle that so it's something to address at some point in the future

but again if there's no permit requirement and no requirement in the ordinance he has no way of knowing but they're not expanding they're not if they expand it they're going to come back for a position yep lots of fun stuff to deal with it's all grown and painful yeah that's right I want to adjourn so

S I did well I need official sex okay that I don't have [Laughter] what's the joy of being the chair if I can't just oh what the heck man um is there value in US attending the 14th are you taking public comment or is it like the chairs