TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ May 3, 2023

you guys want a bunch of old tools like all the cross cut saws and all that kind of stuff probably not but it depends we have a lot of old plans and Crosscut saws and hatchets and you're on okay all right well welcome to the uh May 3rd regular meeting of the Durham planning board first step is roll call determination of agenda we do have a quorum uh Mr Tyler Hutchinson was Juliette Caplinger Mr Alan Puritan and myself John Talbot along with the town planner Mr George DeBarge step number two is do I have a motion to accept the minutes from April 5th I want

to make a motion to accept the minutes from April 5th I have a motion a second then a second any discussion seeing none all in favor please raise your hand 4-0 moving on to informational exchange on non-agenda items Town officials Mr DeBarge if you would like to talk to us you and I discussed before the meeting John we did meet with the select board about a couple weeks ago to discuss the concept of an ordinance committee and the possibility of getting a group of representatives from each of the groups in town the planning board board of appeals Conservation Commission and historic district commission they're involved with the land use ordinances in various capacities and and aspects of it so um they were and John I'll summarize it and you can give me your give them your perspective as well but boy I think where we came out of it was they had concerns about the formation of a committee primarily from the standpoint

of the select board involvement and so we had met with the town manager earlier in the day before the meeting and John and I and Jerry kind of threw around some ideas and where we came out of it was a modified concept of having a

summit of land use policy Summit of those groups rather than forming a regular committee or even an ad hoc committee so just once or twice annually get those groups together to discuss the ordinance issues you know what are they looking at what are the comprehensive plan recommendations and then hopefully get a consensus of the of the policy groups of a direction to head for The Limited number of amendments you can deal with over a year and uh the select board made pretty clear that they want the planning board not themselves but the planning board to take the lead in the process in terms of deciding what to put before them for consideration on town meeting warrants

very clear um that that we the planning board would set the agenda for that stuff so the summit it's a fancy name for it but the summit would be just um what conservation and historical and board of appeals what parts of the land use ordinance do you see it you know so there's there's a section there about historical there's a section about uh the resource protection was a great idea there's a section in there about the board of appeals uh are there things in there that you see need to be changed or is there just something else and then the planning board would kind of say okay um conservation wants to talk about prairie grasses and cemeteries but we don't I'm not picking on them but just something like that or whatever it may be but we don't want to do that I will take our ideas so the things we kind of come up with this evening that are priorities for us um and then uh in the great well

hopefully this will help with is there's only the resource and probably the long poll on the 10 is George and George's time and so you know it'd be nice to take on really lots of stuff but the reality is some some things are I thought Rhodes was harder than it had to be but Rose was relatively yeah easy this year and not a lot of time involved but if you get into Big Ticket items like affordable housing and if we try to do affordable housing and resource protection and back Lots or you know some other big thing so we just set the priority uh on what we want want to do in the coming year and then that would also be an opportunity to say a conservation committee are you would you be willing to take on resource protection I remember last year we did it where let's ask the the conservation they stepped on the plate and did it this is an opportunity for them to say now we don't think that solar is the biggest issue this we'd

rather see you work see us work on some other topic that I can't think of off the top of my head but uh so that's kind of the goal of that meeting simple meeting and then we'd come back and then George would do kind of what he did last year which is start putting ideas firming those up that would then go into the same process we had last year where we get we get something put together that we discuss as a planning board or if it was resource protection uh the conservation folks would get something drafted up they would take it to the public information meeting bring it to us we'd review it as a at the public hearing so I think probably the same plan we did uh last year in affordable housing that's probably more of just the planning board uh that not that we just do the same process George would write something up that we'd all look at work on throw him some ideas to write it up and then uh

get together in the fall have that first public information meeting get the word out there like we did last year if we wanted to do a survey or whatever whatever else we want to do with the goal of having the public hearing official public hearing after the first of the year before the time meeting the challenge is is that I'm open for the discussion when we get to that point is on the timing uh that can yeah I think two of the four uh select people were very interested in moving quickly and and getting affordable housing done and approved as soon as possible I'll throw out my opinion now we can discuss about it I don't think we we should Harden subjects or or challenging subjects I really think need to go to a town meeting I think a lot was gained at the you know the lead up to it with information public hearings and then there are good things that come out on the town floor even if even if you don't

get an agreement at least people have had their public opportunity to to speak so we can kind of talk about that schedule so that's what I gathered uh from that meeting and so I guess I would be the Pres the chair would be the president the chair of conservation the chair of planning board record appeals historic district from the town Manager Management side of the discussion I think part of what Jerry is looking at is efficiency of time you use and so you know I can my

primary responsibility is to provide technical assistance to the planning board however I can provide technical assistance and have done so for the Conservation Commission and the historic district Commission in the past and my ability to do that is is really directly related to how the efficient of the process is so what I don't have time for good evening with my Limited hours time is to waste time on a process or a

product that's not going anywhere and so the more in sync the groups are like we saw in this past year the more I can do but if we're if somebody if we're spinning our wheels and you do a lot of work on one issue or historic district commission or Conservation Commission board of appeals and then you come in after three four months of my research time in working with a group you come in and it all falls apart that's what we're trying to avoid so the idea is to get discussion with the groups up early and get a direction that everybody at least understands the direction may not all be completely in agreement on what it's going to come out as but at least in terms of these are the issues we're going to work on and this is uh who's going to be doing it and then and have as clear guidance as you can so yeah and so I need to Selectmen were clear they didn't I think they would see their role as similar to what it was

this past year where they came to our October affordable housing they came and they spoke their voices as either a Selectmen or private citizens so that we don't get off on a track that they're not supportive of but again we would keep them informed of the processes we're going forward um as soon as I say that you know we don't have other than Deer Creek we don't have a busy agenda ahead of us in terms of we just did it as soon as you said don't ever listening right but anyway uh uh and I we don't have a lot of projects coming up now they probably will be three of them in the file tomorrow but uh so that's kind of what this is all about and we can go ahead and finish input from others uh and they get into uh Deer Creek and then the the other stuff uh sorry John can I yeah I think I got a little confused with all the suggested meetings sort of summarize it's saying that planning board takes the lead and

we hold a meeting with the heads and maybe one other member of all the groups that come together and just say this is what we want to think about for the ordinance for the coming year we generate a plan between say the top three ideas which we've decided as a larger committee yep than in six months or whatever we all come back together again and say this is what we've got what do you think we would probably be if it was affordable housing we would be the planning board yeah kind of like we started last year with affordable housing um conservation um the way they did resource protection they did that of course George was was active in assisting them with that and and we had input but they do the informational meetings and it it doesn't really come back to uh that's a possible it doesn't come back to us uh until the the board of appeals they want to do the same thing they want to rewrite their

their rules and I don't know enough about them to say what they rewrite but if if they said hey you know we can't do this or we we're supposed to do this but it's really not our business that's really planning boards business or selectman's business anyway so we need to change the land use ordinance can we in going with making it most

efficient can we the initial comment keep it to like our governmental emails back and forth so people know what's going to come up going in rather than because I just worry that if everyone comes into a lot of different groups coming into a nebulous meeting then we talk about one thing accidentally for two hours and nothing happens yeah I guess I would control the flow on that and it's a one-time meeting I mean maybe I'm misunderstanding but that Summit would be just four of us you

know four committees plus George plus I'd like Jerry to be at the first one to to say this is this is being this is a town idea not a planning board idea in the select board perspective yeah and he would also and he would bring that as well but then we would just

let's just say we chose the three that we want to do which we've talked about them which is affordable housing solar and cell so we the planning board would take on affordable housing we may ask the Conservation Commission to take on um solar uh and then we would we would take on the cell tower as an example and so um we would not be overly involved in theirs weekly but we would George would start writing stuff up and I think he said it's possible uh to have something drafted rough draft and that for our June meeting and so we it would be would not be a lot of extra meetings until we get to like the informational meeting we had last October and then the public meetings and my goal would be to not have what do we have three or four public I would hopefully less than word is let's get this thing to the point where we have one public hearing for oh

it'd be nice it was all three or maybe it's just two um but we had one public hearing we got that out of the way we handed it off to the Selectmen and say I guess they have to write the article first so we do the informational meeting we say this is what we think the article should be they would say yes we're okay with that article then it comes back for a public hearing correct yeah and just in in terms of your questions specifically about setting an agenda for the summit or whatever we're going to call it just before Juliet you wanted to say something I'm sure but in terms of uh having a clear path as opposed to it's all over the place I think what might be helpful is for the planning board to create a list of issues as you understand it and then present that to them and say what do you think as opposed to coming in here's what we've decided you want to give them the opportunity so for example here here are

some of the issues and a lot of it's and part of my concept for it was you know you go through a town meeting and you come out some things pass some things fail and so the question is where do we go from here like we did with the resource protection so for example in the vote on the resource protection some issues came up those issues were particularly what about uh the the requirement that you have to go to the board of appeals or the planning board to do an expansion of an existing residential property and we kept saying to the to the public if there is a question of where the boundary is the board of appeals will make that call now the board of appeals in the past has expressed concerns with being put in that position so we could clarify with them and if there needs to be clarification in the ordinance and so one of the ideas that you folks discussed at your last meeting for giving relief to people that are now put

into the resource protection is to change that rule that says you have to go to the planning board for conditional use to add a 30 percent to your house go to the board of appeals for 50 and bounce that off the board of appeals because it's in their part of the ordinance and say you know what do you think about that if they're in agreement then you folks are in agreement with them I have clear direction for drafting something and can work with them over the summer to get the final version that's kind of the concept I think and a good point if that became the priority changing the board that rule within the board of appeals section we may drop cell towers as an example or it may well be that you can still do the cell towers because they are taking the lead I don't think we should very well do that but it again I don't know well I don't want to have a whole bunch of extra meetings I think the long Palm tent is your time

yes yes but again if everybody's on the same page and if we do it efficiently that gives me more productivity so a couple clarifications or confirmations one is um Jerry would be representing the select board or at least be able to he will be able to give feedback in terms of what he has been told or is hearing from the select board the one thing that we don't want and I think we heard this last time is us going forward on something and then it getting to the select board and then being like what is this yes you know we don't that's why we wanted them involved so if he can yeah and as John indicated earlier in the discussion is that you know it's it's important for the groups to keep Communications with the select board going during the process so how do we do that though if they're not two tracks okay okay so John goes to the planning of the select board meetings and does kind of a monthly report I

provide the town manager with weekly reports telling him everything I'm working on right and he reports that to the select board okay and so we I think it's important I forgot about it we could do that well I think that didn't I wouldn't say it didn't work well last year but I was doing that George was doing that but I think there was still

down to what I thought was the two Lake Point and I said that at the select me because I would if if we're in a direction that the select board does not support Speak now or you know speak now like in October November December before we hand you something that you're oh even before that right like yeah so so if we do if we do The Summit in early June we would get consensus of the groups this is the direction this is what the plan board is going to be working on historic districts going to be working on board of appeals is going to be working on conservation commissions going to be working on report that I can draft up a quick report to the select board then provide that to them okay so this we're running on the budget year yes post the meeting post the uh town meeting it's not January January it's yeah and that's there's been some discussion about that on the budget but it does make sense to do it

for now right yeah I think it's good to come out of the town meeting with a we came out of last year's top meeting with resource protection as having failed got blown out of the water um and so it was something we took on and uh brought to a conclusion or maybe there's still some tweaking that needs to be done but yes and then you know I you have to pick up it's a selectment if we say okay we've elected to do affordable housing um solar and cell towers and they saw you know we don't we don't think cell towers is important we could then get back and say you know we're not going to be you know they don't that part of the input is such that they don't want to take that along because I think they have a lot of it's a term I want to use they a lot of influence on what you know what they need is they're the elected We're Not Elected nobody on any of these committees is elected so they're the elected officials of the people leading

up into the the town I mean I think they were receptive to providing feedback a couple of couple other thoughts is that okay so you could start out with eight issues and then go into the summit and it gets whittled down to five and then you go and then you go through the process and at the end of the summer going into the fall when you're going to start your process you may say okay look these ones if we're going to go in this direction this is going to be big so let's put the those two of those three on hold do the three carry the two over

to the next year and again start the summit right after the town meetings okay we carry these cell towers over is that still the priority are we going to do that this year so it's kind of a moving process okay okay and and so with the planning board leading this process it is going to be you know more of your time but also more of your time as well um we'll be planning somewhat the summit and the the the topics before to go into it but also the meetings the public hearings and so I kind of we're in charge of all of that is that what they yep okay the the actual public here we're the only ones who hold the public hearing right so um and then I think this is

topics last time are we thinking of you know doing a summit next month yes or anything else that comes up that right if we decide tonight that cell towers isn't important let's talk about the 50 30 is our recommendation or we

can have those three plus that um because the planning board or the excuse me the appeals board may just say we're not touching right you know we like it the way it is we don't want to do that historic probably has their ideas conservation may say yeah there's solar panels isn't our thing but some you know I don't know not picking on them but frog Crossings is so

kind of as our not model well I think it's the policy palette for the whole town and the whole all the issues I had heard my mom is I know where she I didn't mean somewhere but um she said she's been hearing a lot about like the states coming down on towns that aren't following their comp plan that she's hearing Rumblings about that I don't know if you've heard anything like that we are I mean why not we're not one of those towns right but I would just like just the importance well the state can't really come down on towns about Congress or maybe it wasn't maybe it was more like towns that don't even have one like they're supposed to have them and no the base

ordinances enforceable and certain ordinances like Shoreland zoning subdivision they stand in the law on comprehensive planning specifically says you do Shoreland zoning whether you have a comprehensive plan or not if you want to do certain type if you want to do zoning you want to do a rate of growth ordinance you want to do impact fees you have to have a certified comprehensive plan or you can't do it so that's how it works and the state has been pretty clear about I think what what that feedback is probably about this affordable housing law yeah as opposed to comprehensive right it's all related and so yeah everyone has their eyes on it okay cool and then affordable housing are we talking about that later yes that's on the agenda okay uh you're welcome so that is Town officials anything else yep that's it um I don't see any residents in non-residents and I'll see any of those so continuing business uh Deer Creek has

asked for a to be tabled uh they're still waiting for the Corps of Engineers permanent no details what where it is or why not or when it's coming so I think tonight we have to vote to table um to approve their cabling it until next month so uh I will gladly take a motion to table [Music] it has been moved in a second any discussion if not please raise a hand if you're in favor of tabling 4-0 uh we move on and you'll let those folks know if they're not watching us on TV um so other business this is where do that to your point we talk about um what do we do we still the three that we've talked about kind of maybe where we are on affordable affordable housing I think we've we obviously spent a lot of time last year uh on that and since then uh we we postponed it until we got State guidance uh which we have in fact gotten um quick and dirty I've been kind of trying to figure out if any of these

delays or you know there's a couple of votes out there one is delayed for two years one is delay I think until October and exempt towns the size of Durham 665 which is a two-year delay uh supposedly had a workshop or a committee meeting Friday I don't know what the results are but I think at the end of the day they've got maybe six weeks to do something or not I mean it's if they want to impact the July first start so we probably need to grind start working on it a little bit um and then see if we have two years or two weeks so is that the the decision the either October October or two years or is it July or well if six is the law Bill 665 postpones it to July 1 of 2025. okay

okay that's all it does is gives two more years to do it 214 says okay we'll postpone it I think till October and we're going to exempt Durham's size tiles okay ten thousand or less okay but neither of those could pass neither one could pass yeah correct and then but if one of those passes and so we have no idea who knows I I don't know you know where you know I read some of the testimony on one of them and they were power players who were in favor of delay there were power players who don't want to delay you know let's drive on with what we've got the affordable housing in general is too important to delay others are saying you know you didn't do this well State you didn't put out your guidance until recently and so we need more time to implement so it could be changed to a year it could be I I don't know I mean I don't have a feel for

well what should we do here I know again how I look at it you got a one-year shot at doing this one one time a year typically I mean you can't do outside of that but basically I've said this again many many times is that my my clock is town meeting uh summer spring the rest of the spring and summer is time for research for policy from Labor Day to Thanksgiving to early December is the public participation process and then from New Year's to town meeting is the final final leg of it so you in my view you can't wait through the end of June until the session starts ends and then it can't change it to start working on this because I can't lose that time in terms of the first part of the research so and regardless of how it comes out the town's going to have to deal with that at some point and so and I look at you know you could think well you know we wasted last year because at the far you know it got

pulled off the town meeting but we've made a lot of progress on this yeah since we started and and during John heard during the uh one of the public inputs for decd there was a gentleman from Durham that was complaining about you know the idea that it's going to be delayed because they're ready to build and they've got real needs and you know he was harping on the state not getting their act together in a timely fashion and then when it came to criticizing towns he defended Durham as an example of a town that has really worked on this diligently but the state has undermined our efforts so that's why I'm saying both from the standpoint of being responsive to the needs of this community as well as recognizing how long these things take I I advocate pushing forward and then if it pauses then you can deal with that what about regardless if or if it gets take what if you know you know regardless of that like it's in

our like we were talking about it's in our comp plan yeah not exactly what the law is right now the draft law is but like pretty close yeah drafting something to fit the law right drafting something that I don't it harsh isn't the right you know what I mean like something that was or compliment or not plan to meet the needs of the state requirements well something that we would just eat so if we're omitted if our Town's omitted we could still keep going yeah right right so that's the goal that says you're not required by law to do it but you can do it yeah

now I think one thing that would be useful is if it either way if it if it is obviously if it's July 1 2023 effective we as I say we assume some risk vulnerability whatever that until we pass our own town ordinance we live with the state law which that may be the final solution anyway but that's so I don't see that as a huge risk in terms of 50 people coming in or I mean I would be surprised if it was more than 10 but I've been wrong lots of time so we we exit we accept that risk because I I but I think starting it and we get George draft something up and then we'll know very quick hopefully know very quickly in September October we have an information meeting and the pitchforks come out and say no we absolutely don't want to make it easier to build here and that is the clearance census of the town we stop if it's 50 50 we keep going and

see how it comes out on the the town floor as we tweak it and all those other things so if that's to me is kind of what you know what is the consensus here about going forward what is the consensus as we get into the fall and say you know we don't want to do we don't have to do anything because we're under 10 000 we're exempt don't do it uh

if that's the talent consensus we drive on with that but I would hope we'd hear we'd ask that question very early is we're going to do this it's no longer required we're going to do this and that's I would assume or hope the selectment would weigh in and the your average that other citizens would would weigh in but I think starting George Lewis to start and kind of tweak well I guess that's what we wanted to ask is what how do we what do we want if we're going for let's just assume we have to do something what do we want to do what kind of guidance should we give George the inter we had three options last time

some stuff he's already worked on and his ideas are getting it started but is there any more about the general plan nope that sounds good I think Ann um uh we scheduled some workshops right I think having and part of this well we we have it and I guess or so what we talked was if we got an open agenda for the regular meeting do it at the regular meeting oh right if you feel like Deer Creek is ready next month then we do a workshop correct and I think one of the things we have to watch as a member of the budget committee is that long poem attempt is George's South but I do think that like when we go to the summit next month this is crit right critical like for one of these right like [Music] well it's what you're going to work on so right what they're going to work on if anything is up to them yeah but I think that's one that we don't I don't we as a group we we push and I

think the Selectmen I don't think anybody's going to come in and say uh expanding whatever is more important than affordable housing it's one of those at this point we have no choice it's almost given us the catalyst to go forward

she's got some ideas and we have what we did last year and if we're gonna talk about that tonight well I think what we'd like what we should do give a brief response to it I did in the agenda notes a little bit okay but yeah I mean I think maybe some of what Ann was talking about that meeting we had a couple of months ago George is considered I mean we still have three options which are pretty pretty broad I mean they call it probably cover all of the options all the possibilities and we can hybrid something I mean if we like one but we we want to add this requirement to it so if you don't mind let's get George you can start cranking on the thoughts he's already kind of put into it and then we'll we can discuss what after he's done and say man we just don't want to do that whatever it may be that doesn't make sense and give him that giving impact guys to get started not as important so uh what I'm going to

cover is I thought it would be helpful to just look at where we were last year and where we ended up and then now the state what they've said and then so how now that they've finalized their Rule and I did print out for you tonight in the past packet is the final Rule and this one that I printed out for you tonight is highlighted because they didn't in the final rule show what changes they have made they provided a list of the changes so what I did was I went through and actually looked compared to the new the language from the uh earlier the draft version to the final version and I put in here's what changed so I can either let you go through that or I can go through it and explain it uh and so let's just make that a possible discussion point tonight I just want to let you know that that's what that is uh I also printed out a communication from Ben Averill of the decd and I've been in discussions with

him about the concept of the high birth that I discussed with you last month where you would go with the comprehensive plan recommendations and limit it to accessory apartments [Music] and you apply an area of speakers per law per house unit if they go with full-size units and this email says he thinks that concept would satisfy the law did you hand that out yeah it's one of the should be writing

that on the side for right now and I'll walk you through a more General View and then we can come back and look at that in detail if you'd like to okay so uh what you see before you is the comprehensive plan recommendations for housing and the general policy recommendation uh and again the comprehensive plan has recommendations for natural resources for transportation for economics all the different areas so housing as Juliet said jump to the front because of the the new law and it's very consistent with what the comprehensive plan had recommended which is to uh since the growth District was the only place you could do multi-units uh with the elimination of the Southwest Bend growth District the comprehensive plan recommendation was to consider allowing three or four unit development under strict circumstances and uh all it also recognized the growing industry of tiny homes and the state has passed a law similar to this

one telling you must allow these in your community wherever you allow a single family home that's already on the books uh and then the third area was to recognize that there's a really arbitrary distinction between a duplex and a single family and that you add another half an acre it's like with the resource protection I would have a hard time explaining to someone why they need an extra half acre for a duplex two two

and a half acres so the comprehensive plan recommended to to reduce that unless there's a reason such as aquifer protection so those are kind of the pertinent recommendations that affect what we're doing before we go off of that George yeah right now we're just for tiny homes the only thing we're doing is we defer to the state law correct is that should we have something in our ordinance that provides any additional information are we okay at this point with just this the state I think we should add add whatever's appropriate to the two just clarifies it for people yeah so that's a possibility of something else that we want to be this year or next year okay is there anything that comes on the definition for tiny home yes state has a definition of it but we don't have it now we don't have it in our audience that's the kind of stuff yes absolutely step back just a second are we is this going to be

affordable what is this going to be what are we called in this thing okay so the state has called the overarching umbrella of affordable housing yeah uh because they're looking at the housing crisis yes and uh and so they but within that they have two different tracks of it actually three first track is Affordable official affordable housing projects in many many towns have have adopted affordable housing policies affordable housing ordinances where they give Developers 25 30 percent more housing in a project if they make that affordable so there are pretty much guidelines for doing that what is Affordable how long does it have to be affordable it's pretty there's quite a long track record of Regulation and process on that so this kind of retooled some of that the language about affordable housing projects Durham isn't involved in that so that's why I Whited out anything to do with that like with that you know

yeah so the second part of this they don't call it affordable housing in the same way but they call it density requirements with the same goal uh which makes more yeah yeah but we've been calling it affordable because the overarching LD 2003 is affordable housing and if we call it whatever as long as it as long as it um well pick your poison you're either going to call it uh affordable housing or increasing density well or no no just like the not increase not like a verb like that like just density

in the comp plan okay I like that causing diversity I guess where I'm going is um the tiny homes um it says in here as an accessory dwelling unit so add it right increase the density and or a starter home which I don't know what that what that really means in there but but that would be part of this perhaps

this thing that we're working on it'd be a separate section of the ordinance but it's all in the language all in whatever we're talking about here yeah right yeah okay it started almost probably not the right term because somebody may want to downsize start at home yes your first home yeah

so I don't think we have to use exactly and again that's not important in this language it's just Concepts yeah so this is an umbrella yes we're not focusing really we don't have to focus on just what the state has put in front of us correct it's kind of that's the bottom line you have to do what the state has said yeah okay so move on from the company slide yeah

okay so here is LD 2003 chapter 672 in graphic form uh this was part of their guidance document the ecd produced like last uh April no it wasn't like around June or something and so basically that law says that if you have an empty lot which is the top okay so right here um okay I'm keeping it on it's actually clear so I'll just explain it okay okay so you can see the graphics so if you get a vacant lot if it's not in a growth area which Durham has no growth areas then you can either build one house uh one house single house unit house on it and or two it's up to you now Durham already allows duplexes the state says everybody has to allow duplexes on a vacant lot and if it's in a growth area then you have to allow three units or four units depending on whether it's in a designated growth area of a comprehensive plan community or if it's not if it's within an area served by public water and sewer you

have to allow three or four units on every law but that doesn't pertain to us since we don't know yep yep and then if there is one at least one existing residential unit on it on a lot down below then you have to allow uh and

one additional unit within that's what this represents within the existing structure or attached to it or stand-alone uh accessory structure so you can either add one or you can add two and again you can have uh one attached one detached or you can have uh

one within it and one detached or any combination this blue house assumes you already have one correct inside the house second floor how the blue is one unit and then you're adding two and so this is a total of three so you get one two three one two three okay

let's do the two that's what that's represents okay so that's LD 2003 and and what I provided to you tonight is based on the input that the decd took on this concept uh and this language from the law they received 185 public comments on it

during their multiple meetings uh from about 35 or 40 different entities planning board chairs Town planners Code Enforcement Officers select board members they took in all this comment and they and plus discussed it with the Attorney General's office and made the changes that are that are in this document that I mentioned earlier so that is the law it goes into effect July 1st unless there's a legislative DeLay So going back to where we left off before the town meeting we had discussed over the last year before you leave one of the things that we might want to discuss is the top thing where you know you gotta empty land that says You must require two two units

we may want to say if if this is the direction you want to go we can allow three units that say that on empty land you could put if that's the way we want to go but those are the kinds of things that we get into the nitty-gritty on this we should be prepared to give George guidance on and include or not in the interchanges okay any other questions on this one okay so current zoning as I've explained and this illustrates the two acre lot we have a single family and you can do one accessory apartment for a total of two units uh on it on a two and a half acre lot you can do a duplex two full-size units the accessory apartment uh on has to be no bigger than 50 percent of the floor area of the main unit and that can either be inside the unit just like the state model attached to or in in a

standalone accessory building so this concept here shows a single-family home with a group to attached garage and then a second garage or barn with an apartment over it that's so that's what the current zoning allows that's what ourseling is that's what this is what our current zoning is okay so on a two acre lot on a two acre lot or two and a half or two and a half for duplex right okay so uh minimum compliance with the new state law this is what we looked at last summer uh I prepared these graphics and obviously there's been some minor tweaking of it but it's substantially the same and so on a developed lot you must allow uh three units which can be

uh two single families and an accessory or any of those combinations uh but you have to on a developed lot you have you have to allow two more units in some configuration on a vacant lot you have to allow two units and there's some confusion still which I need to clarify with the state of whether those have to be attached there's some information from them that says they have to be attached but then the language of the of the rules seemed to indicate it could be Standalone as well so I've got to clarify that but that's basically minimum compliance with the new law

did a citizen survey on which will go over the results again and that's the way we were generally heading when we got when we stopped was yeah the option one right so just to review that again the idea of option one is to give more

diverse housing but try to keep it within the character of the community the rural character which is a comprehensive plan goal as well as to fit within the neighborhoods and so by limiting it to accessory Apartments many of which fit within the existing structures either either the stand the single family or an accessory building and then simply allowing an accessory apartment to be added to a duplex which you don't is going to be more conducive to fitting in with the character of the neighborhood than allowing three stand-alone houses on the same lot so that's the comprehensive plan option in concept then option two is to just go with what the state says you have to do and don't try to control the design someone wants to put two Standalone single families on the same lock right beside each other that's their prerogative similarly if they want to put another single-family home on the same lot with the barn in

the accessory apartment they should be able to do that so that's the that's the state law says if it fits you can put three single family correct on that two acres right I mean if it fits well you'd already have one you that's the way I read it a single family plus single family yeah so it could be three yeah you could add two more theoretically two more single family homes and I think it's important since people at home are maybe listening that's if they fit I mean you still have to meet all the setbacks and you have the septic rules and water and all those things go back to the first one real quick the the one right before this sorry um so another thing we're changing here is yes all you have it on here but just my brain is drop it to two acres exactly duplexes okay

option two which is the minimum compliance with the new law and then option three the law the new law does allow you to increase the lot size when you add these units so you and the only stipulation on it is you can't require more for the second or third units than you require for the first unit so if you do two acres your first one you could require them to have an extra half acre like Durham has done for duplexes you could require them to have an extra acre acre and a half or two you can't require them to have three acres for the extra units so one of the concepts that we tested with the public uh in our survey and in our public process was to say the state says you can do this this would require a lot more land for every all of these extra units and theoretically limit the numbers that people could do so that was what we call maximum restriction with the new law and this configuration isn't necessarily the

maximum and we need to look at that in terms of this shows adding uh two acres for the requirement for the scenario of a single family with the accessory apartments or stand alone and then four acres so this is based on requiring two acres per unit but you can't put that limitation on Accessory Apartments so the the one on the this one here that has one single family at two acres second single family at two acres but the state law prohibits requiring two acres for the accessory Department just for the accessory apartment but they had three yeah

acres for the house and then one if one acre and one acre or yep you have the authority and flexibility to do it just couldn't be two acres acres under the option three or no are you just showing see up there yeah yeah per per single family per single family we're just saying okay that's right and it's not necessarily I see two plus two yeah okay so then uh the survey right so we tested this with the public first we asked what are your concerns and the concerns were we tried to give free uh equal uh input on

two different tracks of concern the first were people concerned about diversity of Housing and children might not be able to afford to live in Durham anymore when they graduate when they go off and start their own families people are concerned about that as well as aging parents being able to move back and have the support of their children and so there was a strong concern or

leaning toward concern uh in terms of those two issues and then on the flip side of it many people we've heard it a lot lots of occasions are concerned that whenever you add houses you increase my taxes and so we wanted to give Fair consideration of that concern as well as rural character and so you can see a little bit stronger response on those issues than the diversity of housing issues but all were there and then in terms of the options the uh almost an even split between people that wanted to see the town be less restrictive or neutral at

the very least and then people who wanted the town to be more restricted yeah so options for moving forward okay options for moving forward uh so first would be to Simply draft the land use ordinance uh amendments to track the chapter 672 requirements as finalized in

the rule and goes into effect July 1st so go back and go with option two basically that's the simplest then you don't have to try to decide should it be one acre one and a half acres two acres all of that confusion potential you could just say look we're just going to keep it simple and we're just going to go with what the state says no more no less second would be to develop a hybrid response to address the comprehensive plan goals and the consistent citizen concerns that you've heard in these so you want to go with increasing diversity but you also want to try to dampen the

net impact on the community so what you would do in that process of trying to develop a hybrid would be to flush out the details of all three models uh to test those details and options with the community like we did last so it'd be even more detailed than it was in the last iteration uh and then decide on a set you want to present at town meeting and then draft the ordinance amendments that would do that so the real question for tonight is do you want to go forward with trying to develop hybrid a hybrids response and all of its

concomitant complexities uh or do you want to keep it as simple as possible and just run with what the state has to told you to have to do get that codified in our ordinance so there's no confusion about which do you follow and just call it a day well I would think the hyper response we're addressing the concerns that the people voiced when they they responded to the survey [Music]

you if you put out a survey and you're listening to the people I would think that you would want to go in that direction most is if we try and go down the more complicated route and in the end we can't pass it then we still have some we just have nothing in our ordinance that addresses the law which means it's still up to interpretation of Alan Plummer Whoever has to enforce it is square one again right so like maybe it makes sense to even do it two-pronged but just do the simple one and say hey this is basically the law we want something in and then change it later but that is in the end still more work than you won't be we won't get to push back does that need to be voted on the state like so say they passed this thing do they include a vote on that or where under it goes into effect so regardless regardless code officer has to fall it's in there and and then we would just have to revise our ordinances to hit that

well it would be good to do that well so that everyone but your audience is going to say you can't do it and then which is a formula for chaos it's kind of like the tiny homes now they tie this way I think they're issuing tiny home permits because the state says you have to and so we want to want to clean it up what if we just yeah do both do do the bare minimum that's option one we have to do it if they pass it at least and then also do the hybrid and then people vote on that right well I at least going into the to the next stage of the Fall Summit I think that would be advisable and then as you did the town did last year when it had two options for uh resource protection the final analysis and decision was to drop one of them and you could do that here too you could come in and have this this is the bare minimum put that on like we actually that's what we were going to do right uh and then uh

and then the select board would make the final call on do we put two on or just one yeah I like the I like gay hybrid that was um so right now we believe that we we allow a single family in an apartment and I guess we believe or that we haven't seen significant problems with that on two acres the law the law of Durham says you can do yeah

problems with that could we then say okay if you want to go to a third unit you would you would have to go so you could keep the the single family and well if you wanted to add a a second unit other than an accessory unit because the accessory units in that is in a footprint that exists garage or attached to it or attached to it so yeah then say okay if you do an accessory unit in a single family house it can stay at two units if you wanted two acres two acres I'm sorry two acres but if you want to do a single family home in a single family home in a single family home pick a number that that makes sense not necessarily six but three or four so you would say for each additional unit you add a single family you had an acre to the requirement we could do that if I understood this right so I say okay you've got a single family house and you wanna I wanna take my house as an example maybe I want a second floor make

that into an apartment and so I could live within that was two acres uh we could live with that if it was another apartment above my garage which is already working on two acres I guess I'd like to see it stay not that I'm not planning to do this with my house folks but uh you could say okay that's still two acres because it's an accessory unit to the building but if I want to take my house and then a single family house and I'd have to have four acres one acre for each additional single family Standalone is that legit that's that's option three right now essentially from what we were saying yeah it's the hybrid yeah and the state has said you can do that yeah so that that's kind of what I and I think that maybe that resolves I think the difference though is we would not under my idea we have not necessarily increase it for an apartment okay we can't increase it for impairment s correct we could not so if we so

basically it's only the only way you're gonna correct that's right it was so we'd end up with potentially four four acres needed if you wanted to do is already had a single family and you wanted to add to single family houses you would need one acre for each single family house yeah up to two acres per single family house correct yes but I don't know if we'd want to get to 68. on that on that note how would that be

we've got you can put one house and accessory on a two acre lot yes right so if you if we wanted to add another house we'd have to add an acre one eight or two others or two or two but I mean my my hybrid version is one but that's that's how it is now

could not on the same lot yeah you have to create a separate laws probably 20 acres I couldn't do that I could only do an apartment and that's why our backlots come in even if you have 20 acres yeah that's where back Lots come in because people have to create Road Frontage for the for the second lot you have to create a completely separate lot and that has to meet the minimum lot size of two acres and it has to have 300 feet of Road Frontage to put it on you can't put in two houses on the same lot you can make a new lot yes but yeah if you've got all the road Frontage and all the other I see what I see sorry yeah yes okay gotcha sorry so it is changing it quite a bit okay so that's kind of my thought is is my hybrid would be if you have somebody who already maybe a good example somebody already has that and they want to add because it's a tiny home or a single family home they'd have to add and they'd have to have a one

additional acre they'd have to have at least three acres for that additional and maybe four if they wanted to do three single family homes and or some combination thereof I mean that's my thought process and I don't and I think also if they're going to just add another apartment I'm not sure that maybe they couldn't live what two acres and but that this is all over for discussion says although you couldn't yeah if they if you add another apartment two accessory Apartments you can't I can't and this is where the part of the confusion is which is again if you go anything beyond the state law then you've got to start Matt mixing and matching what Durham allows with the state allows what this part of the state allows and it just it's more complicated but you got to work through those issues but I think back to what you were saying from the beginning like if this doesn't whatever we come up with a hybrid if

that doesn't pass where are we so that's where like if we just develop a base ordinance for if this doesn't pass just in case oh and option b and when it comes down to the decision of the slight board let's say you come up with two different options two different proposals one is to do the hybrid the other is to just go with the state law so just to avoid confusion like with the resource protection you may come out and say look let's just put the hybrid on this ballot if it fails the state law is in effect and and we already have the thing to draft and next year we will just we will just re put that on the ballot to say look this is the state law and we're just making it clear by putting an importance actually then if you're saying if this fails then next year put it on then we don't have to draft it this year again it's already drafted or we can what I'm saying is if you know we can focus just on this for

waiting a whole another year we can draft it in that year yeah like we don't have to focus on that really if that's what the other good thing about that is and that compares look here's what we're talking about when you go into the fall public participation yeah and so two options like yeah is this what you're going on here but this is yeah so have one Complete because because I think where the the or what I came up with the color but I think what a lot of people you know you had option one option two and then option three which was 51 or 52 whatever it was percent of the vote um they just wanted bigger Lots yeah I mean that so my one extra acre may not satisfy the the bloodlust out there for bigger loss because I think a lot of them would say okay let's get rid of two acres per watt let's go to you have to have at least four acres to do that so that's where it may fail my idea of a hybrid may feel is that there's not

enough the additional lots are not big enough yeah in some people's mind when it comes down to it like it's like we do one acre or two acre or whatever um and if we don't vote this in for the people that have the bloodlust for larger Lots you say this is what's going to happen so if you want to push to bigger as a town official or planner or Prof you know professional employer can we change the terminology okay

think that's one thing we could flush out early possibly is that issue there yeah then I think again if we the public information thing would be if we in October whenever we're ready to present it the people come out and say no we don't want one additional liquor we want six additional Acres or what a Max that we could have is what two additionally because whatever it would be we want to go as big as we can and I've thrown that and I may be wrong I mean I think there's a lot of people who want to do recognizers a housing shortage and want to do something I just think they the fear was three houses on two acres was not three units whatever you want to call it and I think that concept of a hybrid that we've talked about so far would address all the concerns in the uh survey so people that want more housing diversity it allows the accessory Apartments to meet that need and for people that are concerned with the

impact on the town increasing the lot sizes for full-size units dampens that because it's going to drive people in the other direction of the accessory Apartments if they have to add two acres for every one of those Standalone units which you're going to have much more impact on the visual character of the community so I think the hybrid can address both sets of public concerns and there are there were a couple of people who approached me during the process last fall and the one guy in particular I remember from the election said this is great option three is great because I have don't quote me on the number 20 acres up front 80 acres in the back and I can't build a house for my son because I can't do it on the and I didn't have to I guess he didn't have enough Frontage or whatever the issue was so he'd have to spend 100 000 bucks to get back to that 80 acres back there and one of these is you know what he was

saying is I'd like to do this and when I said well it can only be 50 maybe what if it's only 50 fine I'll move there and my son can take the big house so I think there is a interest need in a stand-alone uh you know there's lots of folks out there who want a smaller house from Mom and Dad or a house for the kids whatever we want to call it so you know it's it's not just a matter of I think there's a lot of injury if you sold it that way and I'm not saying that I'm not trying to Prejudice the decision here well no we need to make it we need to make this pass like we need to make it so that the public wants this we don't know we need to get the direction to George on this that's what I'm asking yeah well no I saw him thinking out loud what if we are one of those Townsend you know this we have three things we could go by the state we could do this or there might not be anything at all but we want we're trying to get this

thing passed for this right so we need to make sure that we do hear everybody yeah and I think the option my guess is not been here the reason it's in the comp plan to expand it is there was a outcry in 2018 for more additional units and it's even worse now yes 23. and I had a couple older people even older than me come up and say there's no place for me to live in Durham there's no place for me to downsize to in Durham well this may give you an option to take your property build something and and so you know do whatever so with all that being said I think our direction to George is let's go forward with number two hybrid I would agree I agree yeah okay I'm I'm good because we have the option to fall back on the state that doesn't get that doesn't pass yes um but at the same time it's meeting the goals that those that uh responded to the survey granted it was a small percentage but still yeah yeah I mean we heard that

modern clear the thing at the open house that we had the public hearing um so I would so what's the next step here so the next step is for me to start flushing out the details of all three models into one so is that what no no so what I do is okay we've got comprehensive plan recommendation is presented we've got the minimum state requirements slide that slide for option two and then we've got increased lot sizes and so what I would do is look at more detail of uh the option for comprehensive plan with accessory apartments under the new law stipulations make sure it meets that and then secondly for uh minimum state law clarifying some things so for example when I held this off

graphics and I will zoom in on this one because now we're going to be talking about the language as opposed to the concepts so this is something that I need to clarify with decd because uh can you see that yeah okay so their graphic that they prepared last year and they're updating this this um booklet the guidance document said on land with zero existing units outside a growth area which is all of Durham up to two dwelling units if attached but there's language in here that says they can either be Standalone or attached so that's contradicting it's contradictory so I need to clarify that where in this language do you get that and then similarly on land with with two

existing units no new structures may be built unless allowed under local ordinance so if you have a duplex lot anywhere in Durham this their interpretation of the state law says they don't get any more units unless the town decides to give up to them not even accessory drawing yeah so I need to clarify that and then apply it into the three different models and again we even if that's what they intend we could just say we would like if there's nothing on there we'd like to have three we'd like to allow three drawings yes but not it you know it says you it must allow at least two we could we want it to say three so what I need to do is I need to put all of these models through the sieve of this new Final Rule and see what you know make sure that what we're doing meets this and I've already conceptually run that through the decd and they said yes conceptually it was workable which is that email that I

copied for you tonight but now you know we're going to get into the details and when they see the details they may say well wait a minute this part of it doesn't work so that's what I call fleshing out well and there's two questions I would have is what other things do we want to give George guidance on um that as he's drafting this off that and I didn't know the top of my head do we need to talk about backlots into I mean if it's a Backlot they're allowed to put whatever we decide you know that they could do on the back lot as well as they could uh yeah so we'll have to change that language in the back lot yes oh then the other question George that you brought up yesterday was the three there's three units kick in

the subdivision ordinance okay I go to the next slide subdivision okay which is additional considerations so I'd mentioned following up with the DCd on clarifications and consider subdivision law requirements so the issue is the new law does not exempt people from subdivision and if you create three units whether it's three lots or three housing units within a single three-year period by law both state and local you have to get a subdivision approval of that which is basically throwing at someone all of the same standards that Deer Creek Crossing had to meet in all the submissions unless you grant waivers so so two different ways that'll come down is that if somebody's looking to add two more units to their single family then we're going to tell them you might have to wait five years for the next one unless you want to go through this process and there is another option uh it's a little bit less onerous not

completely but the law says you have to put them through subdivision review process unless the town has a site plan review ordinance and process that's equally covers the same issues of drainage traffic and all those things so site plan review which we have in our ordinance uh is a little bit it covers all of the same basic areas but it limits the scope of it uh to you know

the construction of the of the units as opposed to all the other things and so that would be a possibility we did that already for accessory apartments right well you right now you can't hit three with this because you know you can only add one accessory Department but now if you're going to add two accessory Apartments so let's say you had you let's say you moved to Durham and in Oregon because this happens all the time uh in order to be able to afford to live in Durham you say when I buy that single family I want to create two accessory apartments for income I've got to renovate the building anyway so I'll add an accessory apartment it's a fairly big house I'll put an accessory apartment in the daylight basement and I'll put an accessory apartment over the garage and then I'll be able to afford to live here well that's three unless you've lived there five years if you're just buying it that's creating three

units in a in a five-year period you could go to the play anymore right now when someone comes in for an accessory apartment do do we go through do they just go see the CEO correct okay and does he run through all of those conditions not conditions no he doesn't have to all he has to look at it does a septic system big enough well okay so here's how that works as long as the unit is no greater than 50 percent the size of the existing or the remaining primary dwelling unit the code officer can approve it if it exceeds that you have to go to the planning boards of conditional use that's the ones that you used to review okay attached or unattached okay

um well there can be no unattached unless there's a garage or something so let's say for example and I I personally experienced this in Falmouth okay I bought a split level and wanted to create the lower level as a separate apartment and it was both unit the the 1200 square feet per floor and the maximum in Falmouth was 800 feet so

I've got 1200 feet how do I cut off 400 square feet from the lower level but they had just changed the zoning to allow the two full units yeah so in the case if that was in Durham the the code office would say you can't have it any more than 800 square feet based on the percentages but you can go to the planning board for conditional use review they have the authority to allow the full size what if separate Lots what if can we say that like the subdivision separate Lots right it's also separate units right but when someone just adds in um an accessory apartment that's not a separate law it's a separate unit and they don't have to come unless under the new law either forced on you or you decide to do it for the comprehensive plan if they create the third unit that could be triggering subdivision but that's oh so subdivision says unit or lot is that right exactly okay okay well and the question I guess I would

have is should we ask George is he's drafting this up to to say that if it's a basement apartment and then above the garage so it's two accessory units can we go with just subdivision excuse me sketch plan site planner site plan review and not go through for them or

another you know in some of us these people that are going to be doing this that doesn't doesn't mandate them go through subdivision yeah I'm I'm with you something whatever we have to do yeah I mean I like if we have to do a site plan review or you know something I would personally want that but I also I feel like if another if it's still to like we want to have the ability to have growth but not go crazy then maybe one way to restrict that is sort of burden of paperwork by saying if you do suddenly go to three you will trigger oh and that would sort of and then they

can wait five years to build the third unit but it would also be a way to stymie growth in a over a long period or or Pace the growth yeah I mean if that's one of your goals yeah I mean that could also be a question to the public right yes I mean my my thought would be we would if we could if it's if it's in the or closed if it's an attached unit or it's in the basement or it's above a garage what do we gain I guess what do we gain by doing a full-blown you know so you got a basement and you got it above a garage what have you gained other than in my opinion harassing the guy and saying we're gonna you want to do that we're gonna make it a lot more expensive and I'm not I personally not in favor of that but if it's a a more comfortable with an apartment doing two apartments or two whatever doing uh just site plan review because it is a pretty thorough thing and I still gotta come up with a plan a plan

and you know but otherwise we're going to ask for well let's just see your drainage plan let's see you know and things that I don't know that are necessary for an additional well here's the here's a just just so other towns have dealt with this and and this the issue of site plan review and just so you understand why the state does that is because think about a 200 unit apartment complex which is one lot that the impact of that compared to a 13 lot single-family subdivision on a community on all the issues so the state law was revised to say whether by say it Lot Sale lease or otherwise if you create more than three units you have to get a subdivision approval and so then in response to that town said well wait a minute we're going to put this project through two complete separate reviews so they said they got an amendment to the law that said look if your site plan review of that com apartment complex goes checks all the

same boxes you only have to have one process and that would be the site plan review process that's how it all came into there but dealing with it on a second accessory apartment doesn't make any sense yeah and I think that's what's that's what's behind the law right like making it easier um so back to where I was going with that some communities when they are doing the issues of site plan review they delegate to a staff review committee minor projects so theoretically you could put it into the ordinance a expedited process for review

of accessory apartments or residential units and Define what the parameters of that and so the code officer planner fire chief could basically do the delegation of that to and then the person wouldn't have to go through the whole planning process I mean cycling review I think great well I mean if you go it what I'm not off the top of my head but what are we asking them to provide at site we're looking at septic we're looking at roads which is the driveways side plan lighting plan so somebody's paying an engineer to do that I mean we're not going to just accept the hand if a hand-drawn sketch so you do there is some additional surveying the survey there's a whole bunch we need to do that for accessory no not for the one right and that's I guess what I'm saying is if we're gonna if it's just an apartment why go through that in my opinion not wrong uh Standalone house there's some different issues with in my opinion with that and

in terms of site location I would be probably fine with just doing so here's here's just a thought you know looking at wow this is mushrooming but what you could do is just not address that this round go through you know if people over the next year want to go forward with their third unit all at once uh they're going to have to go through the subdivision review and you wave whatever you think is appropriate or not and then for the next round maybe put it put this expedited site plan review because many people will have a hard time with that wait a minute I don't get notice of that it doesn't go to the planning board that's a good point there's going to be some issues that come out of this yeah right and so we're gonna have some stuff to do was the question was or did you have the question you're not sure what this law is regarding subdivision or are we certain that it's certain there's certain points

I think we're speaking uh both sides of our mouth because we said we want to increase housing opportunities but we want to make it harder to do that that's why I was thinking throw it to the public right that does kind of follow along the larger acreage I think my my thought would be write it up for consideration not pun it to the next round because there are people going to come in and want to do I don't know how many are going to want to do three um but if we're if we as a group say we really we want to make it maybe not easy we want to make sure we've got something good so my idea would be if it's three apartments in the same footprint as what exists today um do you really need to go through site planner you do have septic checks and all that other kind of stuff if it's a standalone house way over here or whatever then go through just site plan review and here's what we've got to do or what you have to do to that that's

would be my recommendation of what we what George writes up so you're advocating addressing it in this room the only issue with that I see is that we're going to have to get into the nitty-gritty and be like okay if your house is if your Standalone house is larger than this then you do have to go to the subdivision or whatever it's less than this you know we'll have to figure out my thought is if it's a standalone house it just goes to subdivision uh site plan review and if it's what about detached well I just detached apartment or detached if it's in there and I don't know how easy this is to write up but at least to consider if if I wanted to do it at my house so I make my second floor and apartment I make the shed for the barn an apartment that's all the existing Footprints so as long as so I don't know why we wanted somebody to to go through a real and complicated you know six month process assuming they hit their

garbage all those other kinds of things that we're going to ask for that becomes a six or eight month and we haven't made increasing housing opportunities easier we've made them harder I mean that's my my thought is we'd ask George to write something up to try and address my thought and before we even get to the public you guys may say that's the dumbest idea we've ever heard we want that third unit to be harder to get my concern is if like say someone's really on board with the hybrid model that George and we come up with and then they see the complicated language and like well if it's this and this you don't need a site review but if it's this and this you need a second review and if you do this it's a subdivision review and they disagree with that then the whole thing so then as a town yeah I kind of like the idea of of maybe you know when the question comes up because it will during the review that we are

going to take these on a case-by-case basis and and you know you know maybe some we can just punt to this like play review and some we we can punt to this well I mean you could administratively come up with like you have the authority to Grant the waivers on virtually everything what you could do is we could come up with an administrative guideline for you to review and approve to say look if this condition comes in here's what we require for these subdivision reviews of of accessory Apartments or Standalone single family and so we want to see this this goes right through the list in your subdivision ordinance of submission requirements and then basically you you just check off all the boxes when you do your standard subdivision review process so you would be talking about only the third unit the second accessory third unit triggers it I mean I just don't see what if they're doing a true accessory unit what on the site has

changed from what exists today but I think in that in the model suggested here if it came to us we say oh okay nothing's really changed like great like don't do a waiver and it moves on so even though we eventually submitted an application so they've got to rely upon the planning board with that you could say this is what we want you to what we want to be submitted for these applications and have a revised checklist

they're going to apply to these units and therefore you need to go to the planning board to get technically to get the subdivision approval for the third unit uh but this is all you need to submit and that's I would say just as a stop Gap so we don't bite off more than we can chew to getting the hybrid model actually that could cover something else roads so driveways which could be an issue if you have three houses on one parcel and you've got who knows how many driveways coming out of there so like the site access and all of that stuff that could be an issue that we could cover in that you know what I mean yeah yeah who requires them to have a combined possibly you know so you have to have a combined driveway right or so or yep yeah I mean I think that could be in my my mind is we're dealing with private rules now is that is the you know administrative the fire chief and the road commissioner believe that your

drive can handle the fire truck I mean I don't know that the road commissioner cares about your driveway well yeah I don't know if we want three driveways coming out of one lot you know one parcel I don't know I don't know well they'd have to they if they did that the state's not gonna allow you to do it on the highways and Carl Calvin's probably not going to allow you to do it on uh the non-highways because you got to have ex distance sight distance the next distance between them but we could yeah those are the kinds of things I think that we as we're going through the summer we need to think of yeah and lay out because the the other issue that the bigger issue with me is rentals for sale

can we limit it to rentals because and I don't you know because sales you know the whole or do we want to go the condominium route what do we want to do for I mean like selling one house on one lot yeah if you had a standalone or a standalone house do you somehow you can't parcel at loose but you could create a I think calcium a condominium or you just limited to rent to rentals both on the lot but they own their individual units separately house minions so they've got the crowd the ground is the original guy and so that do we just want to say we don't want to go down that road let's just go with rentals I mean that's again we don't need to say again I don't know that you can dictate that that you can tell them you can't do that right now does it say we can't when I say it's a good idea but I didn't really think it said well they may have a legal right to do it they may have to get a subdivision

approval or not to do it I mean if you start talking about sell and breaking off lots and I'm a whole lot really we need some input from legal counsel yeah I mean I guess that's something I'd like us to consider we don't need to decide it tonight but that's the other big question I've got uh is and that has come up with a couple of the councilmen you know there's going to be sales or or leases because I think they had a concern about the same former select board member yeah but I mean but he's still a citizen and so I think he brought that up but if it comes up during the public process then yeah oh I'm bringing it up now I mean I'd like to have that going in to the decision in October if we can't limit it then we can't be prepared at least to respond to it yeah I mean I I think we should I think that would save a lot of issues down the road another question I had too about some is um they aren't we

private covenants that that is from this okay and is there any way that we could like they have to consider this whatever we come up with you know three oh so yeah so I think one issue will be when subdivisions come in under the new law you will need to get clarification from the developer are you going to put a restriction on your individual laws to prohibit this multiple units because if you're not then we need to anticipate and you need to address traffic issues and other issues for multiple units now realistically septic system limitations and well limitations are going to be probably precluded and the Market's probably going to preclude it because people in these lots that are buying into a single family subdivision are going to want a private restriction to say you can't put three locks that's what I was saying is could we give them an or you know say You must do this you can address it during the subdivision I mean

the the cluster subdivisions they couldn't do it if they wanted to because if they're going down to one acre yeah so I mean it just are we require at least two but if somebody came in with a Four Acre minimum lot want to I mean if it's four acres and somebody wants to rent um the second store because what does it matter if they just three acres three acres three acres or you know going back in here is is three acres you see what I'm saying is you want it doesn't matter if the guy says okay I can't do it in a subdivision but I got I'll do it along the road or I'll just keep building houses because my experience back in the cornfields was you want me to you're going to make it hard for me to have a subdivision five acres five acres so what you got then there's a row of houses and I think we'd like to avoid that you know so what other any other guidance and I think we've had multiple opportunities

going forward to say oh by the way I didn't think of you know as George is is Flushing this out over the summer we're flushing you know summer I think we do have to think about like acts like access driveways roads things like that um which we talked about this before if there's three houses on one parcel what are we going to require for that driveway what are we going to require for all of that but if we can cover it in the review then I think that that we won't have to think of you know we were trying to think of what to put in we might not have to do that that makes sense like we would review that you may not get to review it because if they already if somebody's doing this on a house you know house that they've lived in for five years and they have two more units it doesn't go need a subdivision review right if they add two units after they've already learned if they've lived there at least five years

or if it's for a relative that's point so I don't know if you guys if we think that I I just can foresee some issues with washing out the details yeah yeah and so this is something to add again I guess I would like to to we started this with talking about increasing housing opportunities and maybe we started getting off to how do we want to slow down housing opportunities what what is the the basic what is the basics yeah and I didn't do that I guess I'm just thinking about issues I was looking to I was looking over the map no like like issues as to why we do want to review these things but we do want to encourage both for sure I mean no I think also the issue of the law of unintended consequences so I think you do need to parse some of these issues because when you get to the public process people bring in oh yeah you know one that I've already anticipated it'll say well wait a minute you're increasing the lot sizes

to do this and you're allowing the units to do this what if they do both somebody says sure I'll do six acres and I'm going to put three units on it so that you may somebody could say well wait a minute but the state law actually one of the clarifications is you can't do double dipping you can't do three units plus an

accessory apartment under this part of the law so both ways it says if you get this bonus you don't get the other bonus then we can get into that explanation later but yeah I mean one we won't smart people out there want to make money will figure out a way you can't anticipate all those but I think if we take the goal that we want to improve housing opportunities and at the same time protect some of the other safety issues Road issues and all those other we just need to take a look at that yeah so um so if this passes for two acres you're gonna have three units are you saying if you have four acres you can't have six

like as far as the double dipping like you can't yeah you couldn't do if you couldn't do three full-size units and then say all the law says you have to allow me to do an accessory apartment too right well the law specifically says if you take advantage of the three units you don't also get your accessories yeah and vice versa and vice versa yeah

yeah um so do you have enough guidances or anything else you want to get I do and you know you brought up and I know Ian brought it up last time the issue of revisit the growth area that's the third on this list here of additional considerations and I would propose holding that off till the next meeting yeah like 20 2085 meaning you mean April I mean June June either at the regular meeting or the workshop depending on what you do yeah and just for tonight's purposes you know I'm I'm my parking meter is going over well yeah

I agree yeah I'm not jumping on that one but I've got a presentation on that make sure that all of hers were yep for her prepared to do that she's always welcome to come to the meetings yeah so we should and whether she does or not I can still address her issues I can remember what I think a lot of her it was more ad at Acres right well instead instead of allowing this everywhere in town have one area of town where you allow it I think that was her concert you know I think if she's watching she can correct me but I think she kind of realized that was a bridge too far not necessarily so I think she is is and the other issue that keeps coming up is rate of growth limit the number of permits per year and I've got a the same ish the same address growth areas and rate of growth are there connected

of permits per year and what do you have to do in order to do that and I think we've got good guidance in the comp plan uh but if so pushing that off until next week the other thing since it I've made me with a super Summit or whatever it is um but we still we still want to take on solar and sell uh assuming the bandwidth is there nobody you know but is that something we want to recommend as the planning board and uh is it something we want to take we want to do it all or if the com the Conservation Commission is interested in the Solar you know they might be interested in the Solar aspect well I think we definitely want to do the solo because the CEO has brought that up as a concern yeah I agree it sees it coming so if you want to like for June plan on

trying to schedule that for the second Wednesday of June and invite these other groups to come yeah maybe another planning board meeting no no I don't I the so the super Summit is is just the chair correct no I think we're going to be there oh oh I see what John is saying yeah I mean that's not the intent of this for the Super Summer yeah yeah I think John's correct the idea is to delegate so tell me what we want to talk about oh yeah yeah yeah so you've already you've already identified the issues you haven't decided to do all three but these are the ones you if you do any these are the ones you're going to do yeah and if this if the Conservation Commission or excuse me yeah Conservation Commission decides to take on solar then you may say okay then we're going to add to our plate the cell towers if they don't then you may say well we we need to draw solar so we're going to drop cell towers

for this year and just do solar well and it also depends on what else is a priority because they might come up with something yeah there may be something that that conservation or historical or board of appeals wants I mean I don't think we get agree we seem to be getting a lot of interest in solar yeah but I don't think we've I haven't heard that there's cell tower guys beating down the door at this point to add one more cell tower main issue there is there are people that come in monthly to put up new equipment on the existing Towers and who do they go through the CEO officer yeah and he really has very little if any guidance on how we're supposed to be doing that supposed to go through we just don't got it put up a new tower you got to do conditioning but adding it there's a name for co-location yeah um yeah that that's okay for the CEO to do like he's not it's not clear it's not clear in New York I mean I think I would

support co-location because co-location he's just he's just giving him permits right now and that may or may not be consistent with the ordinance in terms of the conditional use you know but you don't have any details to to say yes it is it isn't consistent I mean I haven't heard that this is a big problem no you know so the great my concern is you did a con conditional use review of a tower a couple years ago and you had very little you had no standards and that's not a good place to be well if nobody else wants to present something we could certainly take a look at cell towers I guess my point would be it's not the same priority as maybe board of appeals has something or whatever solar solar is much higher oh yeah because of the potential for them I also think for cells so there's plenty of other towns that it seems like something that could be pretty boilerplate that we wouldn't really well

same with solver I mean I would Farmington has the biggest solar farm in New England uh but within that there's a question of you know I've done cell tower regulation for 40 years now and you know these issues of visual impact analysis it's very complicated and how far do you want to go with that some require stealth you know some limit go

within the federal limits it's pretty complicated yeah next to me in Indiana required it to look like a tree yeah and you require them to do the coverage you have to require them to do a coverage analysis it's it's you know I just don't think it's the same priority as maybe some of the other stuff that we may want to

Samantha still the uh Jesse Jess Costa she's on there but no I think she's chair now that's what Joe told me [Music] Samantha sorry Sam you're right yeah I don't know okay well just as great yeah kind of encouraged I think they they work on I mean I'll I will send it to Samantha and she can say send it to Jess or I'll info yeah I mean when you talk to her well I've got to talk to him about coming my goal is just for everybody is to set a meeting sooner rather than later say these are as an example these are the three topics we've talked about is the planning board you know what what kinds of things that I think it is important to let them think about what they need but one of them if I talked to I think Clark Schneider is the chair of the planning the field for us say Barb you know this is something you may want to think about you know let's talk about that but uh and like I said there no offense in Jess with Samantha but

toad Crossings maybe their number one priority it's actually a it's actually a real thing yeah actually they're underground there could be an amphibian Wildlife Crossings yeah I think one of our cultures is going to be part of the food crossover behind the deer lady thank you all uh I need a motion I'll make it

favor raise your hand 4-0 thank you all very much and I will keep you George you're gonna shut off the video until after George tells us thank you have you not heard Donna the dear lady no it's this um she must have just been having a bad day but called into a radio so they were like call into jealous you're