TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ July 2, 2025

says default. connected? We're on. I think so. Thanks, George. Thanks, Deon. July 2nd regular meeting of the Durham Planning Board. And the first thing on our agenda is roll call and determination of quorum. We have a quorum. We have three members present uh of five. So next step is pledge of allegiance. Please join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

agenda? I don't have. Seeing none, we'll move on to number four, acceptance of meeting minute minutes. So, this is the June 4th, 2025 uh minutes. Any changes, comments? Seeing none, do I have a motion to accept? So, second been moved and second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, raise a hand if you approve. That is done. Informationational exchange on non-aggenda items. Town officials, that would be you, Mr. Targe. Uh just to u inform the board, you may be aware already that the select board is going to schedule a meeting like we do every year to do like a strategy session and they'll be inviting the leadership of each of the boards and commissions particularly those that are dealing with land use issues like yourselves to come and meet with the select board and they're looking for your input on what priorities should be given limited resources that we have both uh committees and staff to deal with a lot

of issues. So, usually this time of year, the select board gets together, we present kind of the stuff that we've been working on and what we see coming down the pike and then we try to come up with a set of priorities. Can't do everything. Uh so, what should we be working on? Uh obviously our focus is on the next town meeting which this next year happens to be in June rather than April which gives us a few months but uh to prepare uh legislation for the town meeting in terms of ordinance amendments or new ordinances pretty much this is the time we have to get the ground running to get research done over the summer have public participation process in the fall to that get public input on whatever issues are being proposed And then after the first of the year, everything gets into high gear for meeting all of the requirements to have issues on on the town warrant. So that's kind of what that's on July

22nd. I think it's at their second regular monthly meeting. It is it is July 22nd. Yep. So obviously the board members will be welcome to attend. Uh they're looking to have each leader of of the groups kind of speak on behalf of the group. And that's what I'd like to get to in the second the second item on the agenda. Uh George, you give us an update on how we do on the codification stuff, but then is there anything that we want that might not be part of codification or the priorities and stuff. So get that for me to take into the July 22nd meeting either tonight after discussion or you can email email me. We'll let you know. Generally what what we did last year is sat around a table then went by committee um the gist of it is that uh well I think they will listen the select board is really going to decide what gets worked on uh going forward. So but I think if

there's things that are not part of part of the codification process now in terms of articles that we think ought to be changed or things that we need to make are pri prioritized. So we make sure that those in fact become part of the formal codification uh new land orders. So we'll hold that discussion until until we get there. Okay. So George, anything else? Nope. That's it. Uh residents public comment

non-residents since there are none. Okay. Continuing business. We have none. New business. Uh Mr. I'm sorry. Well, Mickey, would you come to the front? Well, I'll read some stuff and then we'll get started. So, new business, a request for conditional use approval for sale of pre-owned vehicles, motorcycles, boats, and spir sports at 184 Brickyard Hill Road, Brickyard, Brickyard Hill Road, Matt 4, lot 153. And public comment will not be taken at this time. So, um,

Mrs. March, would you like to give us a quick Yes, Mr. Chairman, as I indicated in the agenda notes, which have been posted along with the agenda packet, the applicant is here before you tonight to get a conditional use permit for sales. And he indicated it would be uh pre-owned vehicles, motorcycles, boats, and powers sports. U Durham's ordinance,

zoning regulations, basically people typically have home occupations. And in order to qualify as a home occupation without having to come to the ward, you can't have any outside state sales or storage. So the idea is that a home occupation, you wouldn't even know it's there uh because everything is conducted inside. So conditional use, you apply the criteria of the ordinance for drainage and traffic and noise and scale, all those criteria. Um it's not clear exactly from the applicant what the level of on on outside on-site activity would be. Uh you might want to clarify that. But before you even get started, one of the issues that has to be uh clarified is uh

Okay. I was distracting myself. Okay. Um, so one of the critical issues is for anyone to be before you requesting a permit for land use on a property, they have to have what they call right, title or interest. And that means they either the owner of the property or they have an easement. Uh, say somebody has a purchase and sale agreement or they have a a license from the property owner to apply for you. and the application that was submitted did not include any uh indication of right title or interest. So before you can even begin to read the application review it. That's the that's the threshold if he if he does not have right title of interest he can do for you. And then uh you know we I did provide the applicant with the forms and instructions that plan were prepared several years ago and your uh your packet includes his application uh the documents that he submitted uh as part of that and uh and also I prepared

a set of draft findings in case you get to that point. Okay. Thank you. Um and so Mr. Well, I'm sorry. Um, so before I can really get into an in-depth discussion, you have to the concern is you have the right to even be here in terms of uh doing a conditional use on land that you don't own. And I understand you don't own the correct. Yeah. So, we need some kind of written u okay from the owner or one of the things that would like to take a look at. George, can you put it up on the board? No. Uh, in looking at the aerial photos, it looks like the building is on two separate lots. Yeah. And the garage is on the lot. That is No, for a building. Yeah. So, the building split I own or I I take care of the six six by two bath part of the building and the others on a separate lot. Correct. Yeah. Separate law. The garage law. Okay. So there was

an email sent by too we have not seen any documentation. So yeah so well the the issue is uh in my mind is if if you look at there is on the packet that George put together there is a draw a a an exhibit that shows that the split and it's a little to tell what is on

one property not the other. It looks like the m the majority of the house is not. But the point is the h the house is split. My concern when we get into this is we can get if we get in there. We're not going to have too much discussion tonight. Right. But you're going to have to if you're going to go into the second property Yeah. then you have to have an okay for both property owners. Yeah. I would not be even getting close to second. Okay. And I would take a look at the fact I'm not sure. I drove past there very quickly today. Yeah. How do you access your site? Uh my driveway and

that's on your side at that. Okay. Yeah, there's so there's a I mean there's two driveways, right? This this building was one time. So, it was split 10 bedrooms, four bathrooms. I've got six beds, two baths on one side, there's four beds on the other, maybe maybe less than the other. But there is a a quite point of division between I've got I've got a a privacy fence in the back that clears my property from from the neighbor's property as well as

bushes, I guess, surrounds my property. clearation online. Being the owner there to there's nothing. Okay. The the challenge we have this evening is because we don't have anything. And would an email be sufficient to us? Potentially. I mean I we want to make sure it's nice and legal. I mean that's really clear. Yeah. Yeah. Does that lease say anything about this? No. No. And I talked to uh I talked to Eric and he had no issue with this and I thought there was an email. So that's why I wouldn't come down tonight had there not been an email. I guess I would have anyways to see what we were doing. But there should have been an email. Um why didn't you include something in your application? Well, because I thought that um going over and reading it, it wasn't too clear to me and I thought that you know just an email to you from him um with his contact information. whe it's sufficient or not. Well, I think tonight we're not going to

be able to do it. Right. Right. So, what I would ask you to do is to ask uh the landlord, the land owner to George, you know, jump in if I'm wrong. It should be written authorization. Yeah. I think a letter can come from anybody and he can PDF that email the the letter to Mr. Marge. Okay. But it has Yeah, it has to be more than just the email. Yeah. Yeah. And then my concern is that when you're looking at this uh nothing can

nothing can uh slop over to the other side. Yeah. There's no Okay. So, what we're going to look at is if if it's approved, it'll be for uh just the property you're now renting or you have to get another lender say they could use my drive or whatever it may be. Does that make sense? Yeah, of course. Yeah. I don't think there's any way be able to see that knowing where my network is in my Okay. And then as you're since you now have another month to think through this, please look at all the requirements that are there. There's some things that are missing on your application. Okay. Some of them minor like just checking a block whe there's a wet one there or not, but there's some other things that we want to make sure that you know every block is filled out and there's no doubt because you don't want us approve this if we do and then down the road somebody say it was a bogus application which

never been approved. So unfortunately that's where we are this evening and anybody else. So I just want to get a list of things as far as definitely any written consent which can be PDF or email to George and then the next one would be just make sure the application is well I would go through the application of the ordinance. It would probably really not our job unless you guys want to take the time to go through all the stuff or if you have some things that you would like to see included in that. It's all right in the application in the instructions. Okay. So, I'm not trying to blow you off, but No, for sure. Yeah, we're not in a position really to do that. I would say any information you can give uh things like how many cars you expect to be there. You talk about people coming on site rarely, but they do come on site to buy and so on and so forth. So the more do more explanation you can give

okay in writing or be prepared really good um engineering survey with everything laid out on it if you've got such a thing or the land owner has a survey of his property where he can put it on there to somewhat to scale. Yeah, because you will be faced I think with setback George setbacks to apply for the it's a little hard since half the house is already in you know two properties but I'm not sure as long as there's no construction that's going to be taken that's probably not plan to build no okay I guess it's just a foot in some information on filling filling the rest of the side get us all the way done yes I'll leave If you have a blank spot and if you really don't know I'm not I don't mean to insult you what a what one is or where to find it you can check with Mr. Clark say where where do I go to find what it's on the website the GIS system. Okay. So yeah we'll we will see you next month and Mr. Chairman. Yeah. So so this

is a conditional use permit. Yes. Correct. And if it were if it did include new construction, we go into a site plan review. Yes. Right. So, which is a whole different ball game. So, your application states that you will

um have either you check yes on the box where it says there will be either a new structure, an expansion or construction or expansion of the parking areas. So if you're not planning to do any of that, I would check because yes indicates could put you into

just need to explain to us why you show an area where you're going to park for sale vehicles. So that's that is a parking area in my mind. Is it So explain to us that it does or does not exist. If it doesn't exist, you know, the home parking area, then run comment about that you will have to go through the site plan. Changes. Okay. But we're going to want to know where your you showed a very rough sketch. You might want to clean that up a little bit. And how many so we don't find a whole bunch of cars now brought forward. uh you know the whole yard can't be full of cars is what I'm saying or tell us

that's what you want to do and we'll decide if that's a good idea or not. Yeah. I know this was a couple other vehicles at a time that were going to be kind of stored there until they were sold. So like you know couple in couple out once they once they sell from there I guess and the signs George the signs would be handled by the building the codes get it right. So you might want to touch base with him before you put a lot of money in a sign if you get approved. But is he okay? He's our signs approver. Okay, if you will. So, I

guess that's what I say is take a look at it. Try filling in the blanks. Clean up your sketch a little bit. If there's a if that gentleman has a survey that from when he bought it or way back and give you a copy that you can put some stuff to scale or give us a real clean picture of what you want to do there. The cleaner the better. So the more information we have, the easier it will be to make a decision. Okay. This was this was pretty actually this was good insight because this was whether I was going to buy the piece of property and you know shop while I'm doing the plan was or just to stick where I am trying to do conditional use

So this is I've been in office for seven years now. But doing a conditional use at home would be it would more the house and be able to legally structure this instead of just throw vehicles in you know well we don't like illegally structuring. So that's that's a good idea. doing. So, it was more so just kind of fig what the first step was with this album versus

I was kind of Yeah. Well, we I appreciate you considering Durham and we can certainly but just give us as much information we can. Yeah. And that's for your own good, too, so that down the road if somebody starts complaining, you can say, "Hey, look at this is what was approved and I'm living within the approvals." or if not the code guy can say you're not looking

mean, I know the area very well. It's interesting as you continue on from Bricktown Hill, probably another of a mile past this residence is where they actually had a jump at one time. Is that what that fence is? Well, there's there's a uh Just you approach the dirt road where the cell tower is where Mike pop was building a couple of houses there was directly where the the two houses that are built is right on top of the junk that was there. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. which is kind of funny in my eyes and I was I was under the understanding I don't specifically know that the property line was down the middle of the residence

was split down two now yes so is this currently owned by one individual correct yeah so my half is owned by one which is weird right sounds weird not weird for me being You know, we got 3200 yards. I had another 2200 on the other side, but it was it was right down the middle. So, it's almost like a massive duplex if you think about it. Yeah, it looks slightly not quite the middle, but but the intended, but there's two Yeah, there's absolutely two property line, but it's two two different owners as you're looking at the picture. Your landlord owns

one side. And then there's a I think it's a woman's name that also but it's the same landlord. No, no, no. Two separate. Oh, very interesting. Yeah, that's what's that's where we get to it's a fine line. It is very fine line. Yeah. I was supposed to purchase the uh that that whole area and then got into knocking down the half and then building my own shopping house on that property. But then it was how much of a split that up and knock down half without taking down the structure that's attached to it. You know what I mean? So, this is a very it was unique situation. So, whatever you bring back into this show very clearly that you're only on the one side and that is authorized or if you have to go on both sides that you have a letter from both owners each different. Yeah. Okay. Just make it real clear. Yeah. So, um I I can get some other area area and aerial photos, I guess. Um, so that everything's

completely mapped out and shows you guys a very clear picture where entrances are want dimensions to go. Okay. of the buggers. I don't know if that's what is it notification of that send certified letters to all the neighbors or get their signatures or get their signatures on um that's still coming out there's okay we got to get it okay it's got the next meeting you got to have it done yeah this like I said this was okay this is way more than I had a couple of guys that we all they had own dealerships and and dealerships that we all worked with and we all kind of were looking at this oddly because nobody kind of knew. I didn't even know what was going on with the application to be honest with you. A lot of this was very miscon

concern is um and you you will need I think you need to get with the road commissioner uh about line of sight. I have I think it's I don't know what the speed limit is there. I but it's you got to make sure you got the right you know right what I'm referring to. Oh okay that that would already be established based on the driveway being there didn't look like 300 ft is my only concern. I mean it may be my eyes are not that calibrated. Um, but it it looked to me like if there was at one time it would just ask him what it's going to be and then um show us that you have the required a line of sight distance. Okay. I need to point out to you what it is because it's based on the the speed limit there and I know right said right in front of you is pavement. Um but please make sure you've got that and that's the big deal. Uh he'll talk to you about the entrance and probably Even though you're not going to have a lot of

traffic, it's not going to be just a driveway. It's going to be for public use or for commercial use. Right. Okay. Anything else? I think one thing I don't know whether you're going to be doing any mechanical work. No. Okay. The only reason I asked that is because the scar river is right there and if there was any other any leakage of the craze or whatever that

would be would have to have a containment. Yeah, that's the property is going to be used as an annex pretty much your story facility two or three vehicles they're being sold. My home office will be there is not um Once the vehicle sold, it's moved from the property and then

that great detail that would be good for both of us. Right. Okay. So we will, you know, get it all together, whatever the next deadline is for the next meeting and we will see you then. Okay. Fair enough. The meeting after was on the meeting after or the meeting after if you don't have enough. Well, one of the things we'll have to this may not be a one one meeting. I came here to see if this was generally worth what it was. I'd never been to one of these and I'd always been told I get a couple buddies in other towns that were like you go in spend five minutes pretty much. I don't know about that, you know. So that's why they were

they got their licenses with you know so that's why I was pay fee through the application come in at least rough it with you guys and then I got I got 32 years old. So, as far as it goes now, I leave with the information I know I need. So, I guess we'll get to work. Perfect. Good. We'll see. And again, what I started to say was um we need to consider whether we want to have a public hearing on this when it comes back in if they think it's a big enough issue.

neighbors of your intentions, I would hope that any discussion we have with them, they would alert you of any concerns they may have. Yeah. I think that's kind of okay. Well, so make sure that they, you know, your letter or whatever to them if they have any question. It helps it all resolve before it gets here so it doesn't become testy or whatever. So tell them to they're welcome to reach out to Mr. Thunder if there's a particular question or even better if you can answer all their questions. Tell them what you're going to do. Tell them that you're putting it on the application in writing. And in my case, there's only two neighbors that I have to worry about, which would be cross for years. Okay. Small stuff. So

shouldn't be an issue. Okay, good. Anything else? So get us everything. It goes smoother, you know, if we have to ask for more stuff. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. that one. And then uh I the next part of it is the meeting is discussion about George has provided um they've done a bunch of work good work on the what I call the minor we using the term minor article George minor changes the technical changes and then are these the minor changes or these these are minor policy issues some minor policy issues empty Um, so George has taken

about six of them and already kind of written up. If you remember, there were 14 of them. And George, if you just want to give us a quick update on kind of where you are on that before I header off, you can do that. So, uh, for members of the public, um, the town has a contract with general code, which is a

consultant that does digitize land use ordinances and other municipal codes and they've created a template that we can use. Brian, if you want, you're welcome to sit up here. Sure. We're not going to vote on anything. just um so that they've created a digital template which will go on the website and it enables the town to do a lot of things that we can't do with our manual system right now in terms of updates and indexing cross referencing u and just a much more systematized process for keeping your land use ordinance up to date and uh and uh apparent uh accurate. So, um they have provided us after reviewing doing what they call an editorial and legal analysis of the land use ordinance. Uh they've identified 139 different issues that need they need our direction on. Most of them are technical questions and issues like you want to use select men, select board, uh those types of very

relatively minor even technical points. Uh but there are 139 of them. Now there are also some policy issues that are being driven by legal requirements. You may recall LD 2003 the affordable housing legislation that they passed years ago required us to change our density. State similarly has mobile home park rules that the town currently is not in compliance with and you don't have any say over those policies. State has mandated that you cannot require mobile home parks. Durham currently requires one acre for each mobile home in a mobile home park. That's against state law. You cannot do that restriction. So, working with their attorney, the town attorney will be presenting a graph that to them as part of the 139. It basically just takes the state law and puts that into effect because that's what we have to do. So, there's 139. I met with the select board uh last month and actually it was in

May, the end of May and presented the plan for getting this codification work done and the uh select board endorsed our proposal staff proposal to basically let staff which is a team managed by myself involves code officer, town attorney, fire chief and public works director uh to pretty much go through and address those technical issues And what we also did was identify beyond those technical and legal issues, the town can, if it chooses, submit additional policy changes, ordinance changes beyond their technical review. And we've already discussed that and I presented a list of 14 relatively minor policy issues. And the reason that I say that they're minor because they're basically these are the policies that the town has right now. They're already in effect. problem with them is, and I'll give you some examples as we get into the details, is basically the the ordinances are way out of date and very

poorly written and in many cases very confusing. So, it's almost impossible to get consistent enforcement, administration, application of the ordinance. And if you have new color officers come in, u this has happened where the ordinance says one thing and new new code officer comes in and doesn't understand it because it's so confusing and they apply it differently than the prior code officer. So that's kind of stuff we're hoping to uh really fix in this overhaul. And we tried over the last seven years I've been here now. uh first year I was here, we rewrote the comprehensive plan, went through that whole process. Then I did an overhaul of the organs manually basically and cleaned it up as much as I could with the limited resources we had at the time. And since then we've been addressing issues, housing mandate, u battery energy storage systems, solar farms, and that's really all the capacity that we've had to do is deal

with one or two issues of ordinance uh a year. But this is kind of a big push to try to get the almost whole ordinance taken care of. U so many of the 16 things here, particularly the first ones that we're going to talk about tonight, we tried, I think Brian, you were still on the board. We tried to get amendments through on uh back lots, private ways, and roads, and it just got so caught up in the chains of of the town meeting process that it just It failed three times over people taking issue with certain details about it. One of the details was should a private way, which we're going to be talking about tonight. Should it be paved or should it be uh gra allowed to be gravel? Five uh family members are building a you know common road. Uh some people think it thought it should be paved, some people thought it should be gravel and it just it stalemated and torpedoed the whole the whole initiative. Meanwhile, we still

have this confusion where the code officer and the uh public works director approved the plan and the uh planning board approves the maintenance agreement for it. And it's really just very confusing. You know, what is the role of the planning board? what is the role of the um public works director and the code officer and all the parties don't really know what the other ones are doing or what they're supposed to be doing. So this proposal basically splits back lots and private ways which is what every town I work for the way they handle it and we can get into some of the explanation that is but the biggest thing it does is it makes it clear it simplifies it and helps everybody apply the same rules whenever these projects are developed. So that's just one example of a minor policy issue. We're not changing the policy from what it is now in terms of allowing people to do those types of common uh non subdivision

developments with a private common road. So that policy has been in effect since 2005. We're not changing that, but we are changing the way that it's done. It's affect it affects policy. So that's why we're presenting it as a minor policy. That's not just a technical change that that goes into that other bucket. So the ones that I've identified and presented to you that continued work that we tried to do earlier that's why I was able to get it together so quickly. So the um boundary adjustments and I can explain that uh right now the board of appeals interprets zoning district boundaries where there's any question and I've been with them four times doing this and they're very uncomfortable with it. They don't think they should be doing it. It's right in the ordinance, but they don't think it should be done. So, all the towns that I've worked with, it was the planning board that interpreted the

boundaries of the zoning districts, which you established as part of the comprehensive planning process. Um, and I'm proposing that that be uh put under the authority and responsibility of the planning board. I don't think you'll have any trouble dealing with review of technical submissions on wetlands and flood planes topography because that's that's really where it comes in. Um you know a zoning map the line on it is like

at scale the line is 100 ft wide. So in terms of defining on the ground where that boundary is, it requires field verification and data and u you know the town can't survey every property in town that does a zoning map. And so that is a general depiction that says the zoning boundary is wherever the boundary of the of the flood plane is. Wherever the boundary of the wetlands are, wherever the physical boundaries of those that's that's the zoning district boundary. And so they go by the map. If it's if it's, you know, not even close, if they're pushing the boundaries, the code officer will typically require them to get a wetland specialist or an engineer or surveyor to establish that boundary. And if it's substantially different than what shows on the zoning map, then they come to you to say, "Here's the data." And you say, "Yeah, we confirm that." So that's what that one is. Driveways. Right now the ordinance is typically

very confusing. It says that u the access management rules apply to all town roads. town road? It's in town but it's not under the state. It's under the state's jurisdiction. So we've been having a discussion at staff level. Basically it seems that it should and historically the road u commissioner has only applied

uh required people to get uh driveway permits on town maintained roads today. But what about new subdivisions? No driveway permits there. windgate subdivision. There was some real problems because they didn't put in driveway covers where they should have and now the drainage is messed up ponding in the road. So, um my

recommendation has been that it should be all roads except the state roots because the MDOT is issuing driveway permits on those and a driveway is something different, right? A driveway is something different than the access management here. No, access management. Well, it could be a road or a driveway. So, for example, you have a commercial development. Okay. And they have like a Hannifford drive coming in. That's access management. So, it's bigger than a driveway. It is it is technically a driveway, but it's the same size as a road. So, so any any entrance onto the road system

is basically covered by the access access management provisions. And then if you go through those provisions, there's some really crazy standards. Um, typically when you bring a driveway onto a road in a hilly area, and I could show you some some examples. My neighbor, their driveway is so so steep that and on the opposite side of the road has a drop off. So the snow plow operator can't get up enough head of steam to plow up the driveway and she can't have her driveway cleared all winter. It's very interesting that a previous applicant would fit that scenario potentially. Yeah. Um, and so then public safety having to access these properties. And the other issue is when you have a really steep driveway either going up a hill side of the road or down, the people on slippery conditions have to either try to stop and not slide out into the roadway or try to gun up onto the roadway and then they can't stop and

check for oncoming vehicles. So most, excuse me, most ordinances have a requirement that within the road right of way, the grade either going down or going up cannot exceed uh usually about 3%. This ordinance says you can have a 10% rate within the road right away. So you can imagine uh what that creates if somebody actually did that. And I've seen examples in other communities. You don't have a lot of severe topography most of the town, but there are some places where this would be an issue. And so typically what has to happen in a situation like that, people have to snake the driveway up the grade rather than going right straight up the grade, which adds expense, but for safety purposes and access by public safety, you really need to have that standard. So, if you look through the draft amendments on driveways, you'll see a number of those types of uh of proposed modifications. The other issue,

and and this has probably been going on for a long time, is that the standards apply to the entire driveway. The road commissioner only looks within the road right away. He he looks at are they going to screw up the drainage on the town road? That's all he looks at. And then the code officer looks at the house that they're building. He doesn't look at the driveway to see if it uh meets the road base for a driveway base for a fire supporting a firet truck. He doesn't look at it has the side clearances or the vertical clearances for the woods to make sure that the fire truck doesn't hit limbs and cause damage to the fire truck and equipment on it. So right now there's this gap where a road commissioner looks at the culvert on the road. looks at the house and never the two shall meet in terms of what gets between them. And this ordinance lays out very specific standards for the entire construction of the driveway.

Now, if the town is not going to regulate that, it does choose it could choose not to. But if those standards are in the ordinance, someone has to inspect it and enforce it. And historically, that has not happened. So this we're assuming that the town is going to maintain those standards and this just tries starts to clarify uh how that gets done. Okay. So again it's not a major change in policy but it is significant. Which one are you on now? Um I was just generally discussing we can go through the details. So let me jump down to um so backs is this confused mess that I just talked about. What this proposal will do is basically someone the opportunity to create a what is this other towns might call a flag lot. So you just put in a 50-ft access strip. You have to have five acres in the back, but you can put in a a driveway as long as the fire chief okays it under the draft that we've got. You

can just build one house, one driveway, you're good to go. Uh current ordinance requires them to build a 20 foot road, 20 foot wide road to get back to And it's just it's crazy in terms of the costs of providing a driveway for a single house. The concern that led to that was that they do additional lots in the future. Fire chiefs have said we want 22 feet because if they ever 20 ft because if they ever extend it, we need to have passable road. So this separates out the issue of future roads completely and just has a single back law. Anything other than that, you got to get a approved under private under private way standards and then the roads themselves in subdivisions like uh deer crossing down here on all that you approved. Uh basically the road standards right now are still based on the old growth management ordinance which the town adopted back in 2005. So right now the standards are you

either got to build a public road or you got to build a private road. And the town doesn't use that anymore. You don't build, you don't town has really a policy of nonacceptance of new streets for maintenance. So virtually every subdivision that builds a a road,

it's it's a private road and it's it's 22 feet with two foot shoulders. regardless if it has 100 houses on it. Typically, you get, you know, a dozen, but you could have 150 houses on that road is still only going to be 22 ft wide. So, most towns have a classification system based on how many homes are being served. And so, this is going to propose that you have a minor local, which I think is up to nine homes. And that would be I think it's 20 feet with two foot shoulders. And then a local street would be 22 feet

with two foot shoulders, a 4ft shoulders, excuse me. And then a subcolctor which is you've got, you know, subdivision that has spurs off it and you're up to so nine homes would be one cut off and then I think it's 29. We'll get into the details. Anything over that is a sub collector which is 24 ft with 4 foot shoulders. So if you have if you have a subdivision that initially is a lower requirement

but on phase two they go to a larger requirement would you have to upgrade? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Uh so that they're the proposed that I'm going to be running to the current standards by uh hopefully we get approved of the funding of it by the town's engineering consultant to just look at all of the MDOT specs and everything else that's in here which these are probably way outdated. Uh it talks about zinc culvers. Nobody uses zinc colors anymore. Uh so that's we're

working on that as a result of numerous projects that we reviewed and this always comes up as an issue. Uh we have subdivision on a busy state road town road. U Cassello the town's waste hauler won't open up and they line all their carts out on the their containers out on the main road which is I think it might have happened at least once. So, what I've drafted out is a uh an amendment for readiness to serve. So, if you're in the more builtup communities, you have to get a readiness to serve from the utilities, water, sewer, electric. Here, we're going to do a readiness to serve for waste hauling. So, they'll get a letter from Cassella saying, "You build a subdivision, we'll go in there and pick them up at the at the curbside." If they say no for whatever reason, then it's up to the developer to bring you a plan with specifications in the ordinance for where they're going to be storing their

waste containers inside the subdivision. So, has Cassella been approached on this on these amendments? No. Well, Cassella has said that they're willing to do inside a subdivision like they do Hill as long as they turn the truck around, right? So, as long as there's a hammerhead or something at the end of the and that that's fine for them to say that, but we've seen in subdivisions where it hasn't happened. So, this will say yes, they've got to get a letter from Cassella confirming before you approve the subdivision final approval that Cassell is going to service it. If they won't, then they've got to come up with with a plan because I think that's one of the sting parts on one subdivision that come to us and they haven't come to us again and a lot of requirements as a planning board. Well, this will make it automatic. It won't be if you have Right. Exactly. Yep. So, that's solid waste and there

just one more of the big generalizations and that's nonconform expansions. You know, right now there's this absolute absurd system. If you have a home and your home is, you know, it's 150 years old and it's 20 feet from the pro uh 15 feet from the property line instead of 25, you're in non-performing use. And if

you are going to expand that 200 year old home, 150 year old home that's 15 ft from the property line, you have to go either to the planning board as a conditional use and prove that you're not going to cause drainage problems, traffic problems, it's in scale with the neighborhood. All of those things don't make any sense for home addition. And you're going to approve 100% of them because they're not going to cause those problems. Uh and then it's but you're limited to 30% expansion. You might have 20 acres of land. You're limited to 30% expansion. And then if you want to go beyond that, you go to to the board of appeals. And to convince the board of appeals to allow you to go beyond 30% expansion, you have to show that you're not going to pollute the groundwater. Well, well, if they meet this the standards of the main plumbing code, they're not going to pollute again. There's no point in this process. system

and what what happened was the 30% rule was a very specialized thing done by D on lakefronts to preserve the scenic quality environmental quality and they had camps built right on lakes that's where the 30% rule came out has no bearing whatsoever for Durham but whoever cop copied and pasted this together did not understand what this how these things work um and so what I've done is drafted an overhaul that follow standard procedures for dealing with such non-conforming situations. So that that would be the other minor policy piece of this. It's always interesting to have a history lesson. I've been doing this for a long time. I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. It isn't just because

through all the details of those six that I Well, let let's just kind of talk about the future steps, I guess. So, uh George's worked out six of the 14. So, there's eight left. Uh plus the the small homes, tiny homes, you got to work on some changes. That's part of the 139 139. So that's all going to be done. And then um I guess recently the state has made changes to what used to be LD 2003, the affordable housing. They've added some more requirements into that. So that sounds like something we're going to have to do. But again, it's a pure legal requirement. You have no options. Don't agree. But it's got to be I'm gonna put it in with 139. It's already in there. So when I say we, I'm really saying George. But uh which which is the long pole in 10 when we get done. But um so there's eight more NPIs, minor policy,

whatever the I stood for uh issue. Um and then we'll he'll we'll put I'll have all that together by right after Labor Day. Yep. So, probably our first meeting in September, give or take. Um, and then we've got to we have the planning board

has to kind of go through them, get the word out to the public with public information, discuss it amongst ourselves, get the word out to the public, public information meetings, uh, take that input, finalize the 14, 16, 12 minor policy issues, send them to the select board. They will then vote to back to us is we would like you to do a public hearing on these and also the entire codification ordinance. Oh, by the way, so not just the changes. Um, and we'll have public hearings at I would guess after the first of the year with a warrant uh ready um product by I

would assume the end of April because first second week of June is the town meeting. figure a month before that they're going to printer. So late May, early June, we've got to have the public hearings. And again, public hearings can make no changes. It's basically we're just telling people what the select board approved. So there's not a lot that comes out after that. Does that sound like the plan? Yeah. And you know, you could do multiple public hearings. You can take earlier public hearing and input it, but we're doing that not with formal public hearings. We're doing it with information. Public information. Yeah. I think we'd have to do that. I I think that well some to some of some of us they may be minor public things but to others u there's kind of a group that's very interested in private roads and you know that's I was at one town meeting that was quite controversial. So I would suspect they

would want to have some input on a public meeting get you know so getting that word out and I don't think we do all of cotification 139 changes even if a lot if we just say these are all the commas these are all the capital letters these are all the select board there's still going to be some that you know we're going to have to uh talk about a little bit with the town and amongst ourselves and then these 14 and then the last Is is there anything else that we want to present uh to the select board on the end of July? We talked about and I and again we've got a when I say we George has got all the work to do. We talked about uh

contract zoning for more than just uh battery storage. So is that something we feel like we can dump on George and amongst ourselves to get done? Do we wait till this time next year to work on expanding contract zoning or maybe something else? I mean, I just pull contract zoning out is something we've talked about. So, your thoughts on on I guess these this list and questions you got for George and then and anything else we might want to add. So want to just anything that George presented we want to ask questions about and we'll get we get another shot at it after Labor Day. Correct.

we clean up this cultation before we start adding new things. Personally, I'd like to see it clean. Yeah, that uh in agreement or there something we've hired these people. Yeah. Well, we definitely got to end it up. So, yeah, we need them to fulfill their contract, but we're not interested. Are we interested in adding something to it? Um

no, George 14. Yeah. Again, what I' I've tapped into is what you guys have talked about and contract zoning thing. Yeah, I think that's totally discussion to be added just want to add it onto our list now and that's going to require in my opinion other um um boards involvement. Yes, an attorney. And so I think that's that's another although we've broken the ice on it. So but is there any anything I mean I'm fine and I think we should stick with the 14 and with you know what we what George has done so far plus the 14. I think uh I am always as you know the negative one. So I think some of these will take more effort more discussion than that's not true. It's simply it's not true that I'm negative or do you think it's not true is this where I should say sweet?

Is there anything on these six that George has were I I mean I do have a question about I'm trying to straighten out in my mind George the difference between the driveway which serves my house and maybe one more uh basically the way I read this is if it's two or more then you've got to service two or more lots you've got to have that meet the higher standards and I guess so the question is what is the drive what are the driveway standards if I want to throw another house for one of my kids in the back of my property. I don't know if there's a marker over here. I can kind of illustrate it

It's when it's family members. Well, exactly. I mean, I look I mean I'm not planning to No, I'm not I'm not, but I know a lot of the in the past, oh, I want to give this I have a chunk of I want to give to my daughter telling me I got to go through this big expense. Well, that's been the push back on the whole uh private way whatever because we ran into that that project that was starting to go in at Newbrook there where they pulled because we made them at least they told they have to asphalt it that was a killer killer for them

but if we didn't go that way we would be having two different standards. No, I agree. I mean we had but I mean that that was I think it was totally justified. I I had a must been asleep over it, but put in I did feel sorry for it because I got what we were trying to do. I don't mean to be too flippant. He had already put in a bunch of money into engineering. That's for sure. But hey, and do you if just for uh your information, George, I talked a little bit about future while he's writing things down, future projects. It looks like and George correct me if I'm wrong way Ruby whatever it is farm is gonna do one lot on that the remaining land the one that they wanted the four lots on so they're just going to put one at this point they just put one lot on it so interesting yes okay so basically you've got that's

you got driveways private ways and full subs Okay. So, driveways typically serve a single lot, single family or duplex. Basically, that's just a standard driveway, 12 12 ft wide, uh, you know, just driveway, uh, private ways. Okay. So then the two extremes are hollow road de crossing you

know put a road across the stream there's 13 houses in there house lots pave road fire pond full n yards they have to go through environmental permitting they have to go through storm water management they have to go through all of the process for this for subdivision under main law and local ordinance. Okay, if you create

five lots, so this is you could have five lot subdivision where a developer makes five lots, road sells all the lots. If you have if you have 10 acres of land yourself and you do u you give two lots to your to two of your kids, you you uh you build one for yourself and you sell two lots to uh to just anybody in the public to raise money to pay for the house lot for the family lots. You don't have to go to planning a sub. So most towns to cover that gap do what they call private ways and this is everything to do with subdivision is reviewed solid waste containers. Okay.

Typically, the private way, the only thing you look at is the road itself and making sure it's properly designed, properly built, and properly maintained because you don't want five lots in there and they all start squabbling over I shouldn't have to pay because you're on the end and they don't nobody agrees who's going to pay for plowing it and attaining it and the thing ends up like pound, you know, just barely barely possible. This is all over the state. This has been long history. So over the last 40 years that I've been doing this, most towns have what they call private way standard where you have to go to the planning board. You put in a rightaway just like this one. You have a engineer design the road just like this one. And then you have a maintenance required. You don't have to get you know all the state approvals. You don't have to go through all that expense of doing the full sub. And what this does is it

enables people to do limited development on their properties beyond just a single lawn. And it it's kind of an incentive to not put their land into the hands of developers, right? Because if you're going to spend 150,000 200,000 to get this approved for family lots, you can't afford it. And so you sell away. So most towns do this to cover exemption. subs. So driveway now access management that

thing we're talking about with the road commissioner having a permit all three for the road cut for the tie in the road cut into the existing roads all three have to have an access management permit. So for what's the difference between a private way and subdivision mainly uh the number of lots that are and the regulatory process you have to go through. understand but the decision by us and whomever to say that's a private way that's a subdivision do they trigger sub if they trigger subdivision by creating three lots in a single 5year period they're there if they're exempt they're exempt by not having by two lots to your kids you do one lot and you sell one to raise money to pay for the road but two one two can't create three non-exempt lots in single five year. So what what on the right of way say you you subdivided two for your kids. Yeah. Five years has gone by. Yes. And you want to sell on that access

road. Yeah. So that's another part of the agreement, the maintenance agreement that is and the plan itself that you approve says any further loss on this have to come back to the planning board and they have to join the maintenance agreement, right? Because I was thinking about after five years pass and you want to sell another lot, another two, you can you can still do it, but the two people that buy those lots are going to want that road maintained. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Well, go ahead. Unless you have the kids and the original owner says, "I don't care about I don't care if there's in it, but the people that you're selling it to." Some people like the ruts slows them down. It's traffic. Well, when we made fire trucks that cost, you know, several hundred thousand don't like. No. the uh there was a there was a husband and wife came in a couple two years ago maybe u before I was the chair so whatever it

was um and they went through multiple iterations I think they were doing it private way right or they yes they were not doing a subdivision well it was treated as multiple back plots which is this confusion private because they did do a maintenance we we made them do a a maintenance agreement. They didn't and they did they went along and were very nice about it, but that was we made them we be the planning board made them go through that process. Yeah. Because they had some concerns. And again, this is in the ordinance right now. We're not adding something new. It's just what's in the ordinance doesn't work and it doesn't make any sense. How far on the private way do we go? Because one of the killers, the kicker's concerns has always been paid. Yeah. So currently this whatever iteration you have now does not require pavement. This does if it's more than three lots. This does not require paving and we're

not proposing to change that policy. You would not require it does not require what what would happen if on the private way that you okay you had three original lots and two more would that that never never has to be paid. Okay. Just would have a current policy. Okay. Okay. Good. That was one of my concerns. Well that that's been some of the drawback on anybody that wants to do that is because of the expense of it. Okay. That's what killed that Fairy Ridge subdivision on Newport Road. Remember the family wanted to come through it? Yes. And they said they had to get they had to pay the road. That was the end of the project. Why Why didn't we just say that was a private? What did they Why didn't What triggered the subdivision? They asked for a waiver, right? Well, they had Yeah, they because it was an LLC. It wasn't It was a family. It wasn't commercial. It was an LLC. So they couldn't be claimed as

family exemptions. There are some other exemptions, but generally it's named relative. Well, this is one of the things I think that's going to take some selling or educating people on this. You know, that's it's not it's the current policies with just fixing them. I got because they're so confusing and inconsistent. I like it to I was just saying it is going to take some education to to say look at we're not we're not requiring on a private way we're not requiring uh you ask off the whole thing or whatever it may be.

than the private one. I'm not trying to confuse this, but and I'm not planning to do this, but my property I could easily put one more live. One of my kids wanted to move back u to town and my daughter watches it, so I'm not going to say anything like I went by her anyway. But u you want to go off the record? Um she has noticed. You want a motion on that? The uh but going back to what if there was just one lot back there? somebody didn't want their kid. If you have the frontage on the main road, then you don't you could just create the 300 foot frontage if you had excess frontage. Okay, so that's one option. Same driveway. You could have one driveway not paved. I guess what I'm asking. So this is say your lot. How many acres? 20. 20 acres.

Okay. How much road frontage do you got? I don't know, but it's over 300. Let's just say let's 700 ft. Okay. So, you can carve off 300 and 400. So, you could do this. Would you have to have two driveways? One driveway. You could you could do a driveway easement, but generally each one would have their own driveway. Yeah. Okay. Just because Now, if you wanted to have the lot back here or you didn't have enough frontage, you have to have at least 350 ft. Then you could put in private way to create the frontage. If you don't have Yeah, I'm just trying to I think that this is a private web that goes there which has stricter maybe not asphalt, but it has the stone build up and all that. stride away proper base

drainage uh maintenance agreement and any further lots that you had split have to play with play with the game. Yeah, I think that's that may be a concern for a lot of people is that, hey, I I don't want to build because somebody came to me when we were talking about affordable housing and said, I want to put another house on the lot for my kid, but I don't want to build another road. I want to just feed off my existing driveway. One lawn, you can do a flag lot just 16 foot

driveway for that person. So, okay. couldn't use the existing road the existing drive but okay they just fill out the application so so that's you have 700 of frontage and the front's all wet y existing driveway I want to put my lot out in the middle there way so and then the front edge on the new lot is off of the private way You need 300 ft off the primal.

It's not off That's doable now. Didn't somebody come in? It was on there was something. Yes, they wanted to do that. And I was thinking even something more recent than that. They did something else. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they ever did anything, you know. That was long time was before you started working with it regularly. Just started. Yeah. Somebody came in and wanted to they had five acres that came off Brickyard and also came off of Chase Hill something. Yeah. Chase Hill way. Chase Hill. So really what they should have was this, but what they were doing was true.

Yeah. Yeah, because they got hung up on the requirement for 300 300 ft of road formation, right? And that question has come up. So, uh, so this would solve that, but it that only works for I guess private sales or family sales or whatever any exempl

Um, why are you taking out the sidewalks? prepared? Well, the thing is if you start getting that kind of development, you can add standards in there for something you don't you don't have. It's like one of the things we're going to be doing is

Everything is a road, a lane. The ordinance uses the terms interchangeably and it's confusing. So we we would never let anybody approve a street as a name street or well the ordinance has no streets in this town right now. Okay. and and the ordinance talks about streets and roads and this this will what it'll do is it'll adopt the term the term will be road in the ordinance and the definition will say includes street so I I was thinking more of the street sign so somebody wanted to call it a street on the street sign they have to call the addressing officer will probably they could call it a something street but nobody has this is a rural town tablet street road. Okay,

that yes, we do not have the chair of the sanitation of the solid waste with us tonight, but that may be one. and sorry the soil erosion control um you're you're taking that whole section out but it's referencing referencing the soil erosion control section which is the appendix no I think there's actually separate standard what's the reference I'll be right back there's multiple appendix backend

about what is nonconforming or what we do traditionally use, you know, ask one of us or ask George, you know, what how are we doing this? what are we doing and stuff like that be some conceptual understanding these terms

germs land use or anything I understand that's good got we'd like him to consider. So he drafting these up. So he must be working on soil control. He took out law one, two, and three. Yeah. I said is so if you read the from the see what it says he refers you to whatever the ident

right right so so that xx wherever you're still working on u does that reference the appendix it doesn't it just says xx right now Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but but it's nice because get rid of all that verbage that's there and you don't have to, you know, double check. A lot of times it conflicts with the other. Great. Yeah. So that avoids all that. Um

the other comment I had was getting rid of um parking requirements for Yeah, those are not getting rid of them. We're moving that into site plane review. Okay. which is where you usually have that come into play. And it's adding specific standards which the ordinance current doesn't have. Okay. Yep.

to John, what's really important is when we into public participation process. It's really important that you folks understand what this is doing and even the details. Uh you know that's part of that education process. They get this people get the sense that you don't know what's going on that doesn't help the public. But in the past, you folks have really taken on solar and bass and you really understood what the issues were and even what what the language was. You don't have to be a technician, you know, but just being able to explain it from common sense standpoint. It's critically important for the appointed and elected officials. I'm here to help you with technical impresentation, but it's really important that you all understand and feel comfortable with this stuff.

section. Yeah, non-conforming. Um, so I'm looking at this from a as a commercial from a commercial perspective, right? So there's Section C section 16.4 number C. Yep. Expansion of nonconforming um other than residential. So if I'm looking at this from a commercial commercial perspective after I look at C, I wouldn't go any further because I'm just looking at it from a commercial, right? Everything else is residential. But then when you get down to um abandonment

yeah two m F2 talks about nonconforming commercial use and residential use. So would it be better to split that paragraph in two and put the commercial? Do you think different rules would apply for abandonment? And it does actually I mean it does differentiate for the last sentence says for any residential use that is non-conforming the discontinuence period shall be 40 years but it's in the yeah it's in one so yeah I would never look for that.

Yeah if I'm looking at it from a commercial perspective it's buried in the resial. should be in the commercial, too. Yeah. I would split the paragraph and take the commercial section of abandonment and put it in with the It's not considered a commercial. It just says anything but residential,

but it so C would be like C either C6 or something like that. Correct. The first pull it out in there so that all the commercial stuff is non-residential stuff is nonresidential paragraph section. Does that make sense? Good point.

about this town. Because you allow commercial anywhere in town that you allow residential, you really don't have nonconforming commercial uses. Everything as a conditional use. Where you get into that is typically in most towns you have a zoning district for commercial, you have a zoning district for industrial, you have a zoning district for residential. So if you have commercial in the residential district, that's non-conforming. If you have residential in the commercial district, that's non-conforming. That's where these things come into play because if you get an old uh, you know, a welding shop, it's been there since the 1950s and you know, people in and out of there with all kinds of uses. And then if it gets discontinued for a period of what these periods are, zoning's intent is that eventually non-conforming uses go away and somebody tears it down, puts a house on it, you know, in a residential

district. That's how But in Durham, everything is mixed. So, I can't think of any nonconforming uses in this town because everything's allowed by conditional use anywhere unless you had a sideyard or a front yard or Yeah, that's just dimensional. It's not use.

the uh resource protection district either residential or commercial then that might be non-conforming but you will recall we pulled all of the buildings out of the resource protection in the last round to avoid this existing building. So this is just the air in case you but this is not going to be a practical I'd move it anyway if it's okay here just move that. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, I'm just saying this whole section here, what they have there doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Most of this is not really applicable, but it's there if you need it. Soon as you say that, George, next month we're going to have some odd odd. Uh well, your board of appeals means like once a year if they're busy because you don't have number form in your town. F was where I was every month where the deals had three because people have tiny lots and they're trying to build big houses on them. Don't need setbacks. Look at the agendas of some of the other

Brunswick. Well, we should have taken some of their business away with the changes to resource protection, you know, and when we took things out of resource protection and we defined right 100 foot distance and all that other stuff. Hopefully that would uh take away some of that business. They would need to keep going. Keep it simple. Yeah. Anything else? So, what uh do you think you'll have more in August? We just kind of do what we did. Is this helpful to you? Oh, yeah. Well, hoping it brings you up to speed. Fantastic.

next month? the uh four watts Ruby Farm is pretty much backed out of they're applying for building permits for the individual lots there instead of subs? land retained by the owner that they were proposing to split into four lots, right? They've applied for a building permit for that lot, which they can do because it's retained by the owner

subdivision. Correct. Technically, it's not part of the subdivision. He reserved part of that whole big tract that lot basically is and he access they can come in like uh what's the name of the w Truman day you're in there in there Yeah. So off the end there's a large piece of land that someday could be coming from extension on the other side of the Yeah, that's a lot of conversation about

well when the lot prices exceed 200,000 like in cross the book. all because it can pay for them. They're getting there. I mean, I some of the land I've seen for sale has been 70 $80,000 an acre. You know, 160 for two acres. So, it's getting up there. organiz

and to the point of that subdivision with the road classifications that you're putting in place here. If goes to goes to a different classification. Would the existing road need to be expanded? Yes. Okay. potential grandfather how much they put in

ex each side which is the for, you know, it's tied up in the the state's too busy to give all all the paperwork stuff. So they're still waiting to get there all the D stuff they needed. Slow them down. Yeah, that's a good thing we gave a six month extension. Yeah.

Anything else? So, was that entrance appropriate for sightelines? I do not know the answer to that question. I'm pretty sure that we know that NBO issued permit. Yeah, I think they did. According to the planning board record, planning board accepted that that verified that site distances were Yeah, I don't think anybody's come in anybody four years without either or

no I don't think we have so I think they come in don't just go by the do's permit and this ordinance requires verification by the engineer of sight distances well I you know one of our We think of the accident that happened there and if you're going out of a gravel pit with a full load, you're coming out of there extremely slow, right? And one of our concerns when we're talking about the campground was when people hauling in campers in there, are they going to be able to pull out of there quick enough?

And I don't know the solution to that either. You know, it's I guess you just what the book says for safe distances and all that stuff which I think there's quite a line of sight there on that there is and you know the stone gravel pit yeah but if you're doing 55 miles an hour you know 45

well that's the problem it's designed that you're actually going speed with it maybe a little and I'm not saying that anybody doesn't sound like anybody did anything wrong but you know I just get distracted for a That's all it takes there. But for the grace of God.

Okay. Thank you for your time and we will see you on August 6th I think is our next meeting. So good Brian. Hopefully it'll be a motion. Yes. Motion to so move. Second raise your hand if you approve. I assume there was no further discussion.

next week next week and I will send the chair not ask him to make sure it makes the agenda and George will mention it to the town manager and we're happy you're joining us. button.