TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ August 13, 2024

for all righty uh just call order here we have a except for Tom it is 632 we'll start America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for agenda hea um under old business could you please put the schedule not have a big discussion about it just um it's in front of us so I just want to go over Qui in front of us please do we need to vote to do that or is no okay all right any other amendments to the agenda okay seeing none public comment is there any public comment yeah can I speak from here sure let's just have and I always say for every public comment just're watching public comment if we get ask questions we don't answer questions we're just here to he information from people the community I give everyone three minutes so if we don't respond we're not being red we are listening thank you the only thing I want name oh sorry my name is Lois kby

ches I live on run around P Ro I just wanted to let you know there are no minutes posted from the select board since May 28th which means both June meetings and both July meetings the second of which I'm sure including tonight work yes we are um but there are no minutes from many of those me posted to the public to be able to

other public business Heather you have schedule um so if you look in front of you we have the fee schedule um I was tasked with going through and um making sure that it aligned with what we had discussed in our meeting there were a few edits that I had made to what the draft was um and I just wanted everyone to put their eyes on it to make sure that it accurately reflects what they believe we did in our meeting and then we don't have to discuss it tonight because I know that we have a very full agenda um but the Eureka um rental the fees for renting

the ureka center I put it in a little table of what I was proposing so um um if people want to look that over if we want to put fee schedule on the next agenda to just put the stamp of approval on this part and then discuss if people want to break down Eureka the way that I have proposed here awesome yeah just so close remember we had set the fee schedule and made some edits to everything and we realized that when we got the final copy that there was just some um grammatical errors and a couple

nominal edits didn't Chang the structure of the fees or anything we just need to clarify so Heather went through and and did all that so um since we do have a full agenda I don't want to go through it right now but probably put it on next week next meeting to just have everyone review it independently confirm that it reflect what we're hoping um at at the next meeting we'll have a vote then to lock it in so um and then we can talk a little bit more about the Cent there very full tonight thank you like format

yeah the format looks [Applause] s all righty that's old business old bus protection update from sard from the town plan so for everyone remember we had passed the town uh the the planning board and the Conservation Commission with looking into providing um some uh

Guidance with some changes that have been done in mapping at the state and so we just having them come and report back on those recommendations today so Mr is here to give us that report actually I'm here because yes yeah for that issue but uh the working group uh bo and the Conservation Commission formed a joint working group consisting ofers of groups and uh they're looking for direction from the select board on one aspect of the project that we've been working on uh as you know we've been looking at the uh latest State data on beginning with habitat uh natural resources that served as the basis for the rezoning that occurred of the zoning map in 2023 so the state has released new data that brings into question some of the data that was included in the comprehensive plan that is no longer accurate so been looking at uh updating the resource Protection District boundaries to reflect the latest State

data so that's moving forward and it's pretty uh straightforward uh the other issue that came up during the public participation process leading up to those zoning up amendments the concern that land owners had of having their buildings existing buildings placed into the resource pension district and we looked at and what was discussed was the potential for them to go to the board of appeals or the planning to do expansions of those structures but uh when we began to look into making that process easier and less expensive uh we discovered that the current regulations that are in effect for dealing with expansions of non-conform uses may not be consistent with state law and may not be workable in terms of that potential problem so that's obviously something we'll be looking out with codification but in the meantime uh those land owners are in a position where it may not even be possible them to expand nonconform uses

and it is difficult so we've been looking at options we last summer we looked at U facilitating the process but that kind of uh fell apart on the basis of the concerns over the current regulations for expanding non-conform uses so we took a different approach to it which was to look at pulling out uh those build existing buildings out of the boundary of the district and then they wouldn't have to go to a board uh as we get into that process last summer I presented a concept for that um

basically pulling any developed area of a lot out of the resource Protection District but then we got bogged down and how do you objectively define is it 20 acres of field is it just you know the area around the house what if the woods come up to the house so uh the bo planning board pretty much said this isn't going to work for this year so I land back to the drawing board and looked into the comprehensive plan and for an objective basis and what I found was in the beginning with habitat data uh that presented a developed area map that's 250 ft from any existing Road or existing building so that provided a an objective basis for determining defining what the developed areas on Lots were and it tied into the comprehensive plan so I presented that to the Joint working group showing what the effects of that would be and I did include in your packet uh a map showing how much of the resource Protection District would be U

affected by that but I also gave them a couple of other options those were to only go 250 ft from the existing buildings which was what precipitated the investigation and then showing another alternative of only 100t from those existing buildings which would give room for uh expansion so the the

working group is pretty much comfortable with continuing to bring uh options two and three the 250 foot development buffer for the 100 foot development buffer around those homes and buildings uh but they felt a little bit uncomfortable with the concept of having a much broader removal of all developed areas on the beginning with habitat maps from the resource protection and they felt that that really went beyond their charge from the select board so they asked me to come and just kind of present that to you and get your direction on whether you feel that the larger uh approach of removing everything that's within a developed area is defined by in Fishers and Wildlife should be presented to the public in the public participation process fall or should it just be limited to the original uh Direction requested by the select board which is to give relief to those affective Property Owners with buildings that are

now nonconforming because of resource protection any have any questions for George I have comments and questions but I can hold to other people go that's totally fine on where state law is not aligning with the expansion of non-conforming uses yeah and you know I went to an MMA conference with some the planning board members have been there as well they do this every year for training and updating uh purposes and in this last round we talked about non-conforming uses and generally from the zoning standpoint whenever something is nonconforming the inent intent is that over time that non-conforming use will no longer it'll phase out uh and so generally main law in terms of uh dealing with nonconform is very strict and allowances that are granted in the ordinance um are are constrained by has

you have to prove undo hardship you have to prove four criteria like uh that the property cannot yield reasonable return unless the variance is granted so Durham has and many other communities have done this tried to uh provide flexibility outside of those parameters but the particular wording of it unfortunately the ordinances as we've discussed in the past we just copied and pasted from other ordinances by people that didn't really understand fully all of the working parts and and the laws behind them so I think the drafting currently is very questionable and and frankly doesn't make much sense because the planning board can allow expansions of up to 30% of the existing structure if it meets these certain criteria for conditional use you can't cause problems traffic problems you know in most cases a single family expansion is not going to do that uh but then it says if you want to go beyond 30% you can go to the

board of appeals and there's no limitation on how you can make it and the only criteria are can't can't cause problems for ground so it just doesn't make sense that the planning board smaller expansion would be more restrictive than the board of appeals larger expansion that doesn't make any sense so there's some fundamental issues within the non-conforming expansions that really need to be looked at and we will be doing that during clarification yeah and from my understanding from this MMA conference they're saying generally you try to avoid creating non-forming uh structures or non-forming things within your ordinance so um we would want since we did do that we' want to address how to move forward in kind of um a more known approach rather than a case necessarily Case by case at the appeals or whatever because what you're saying is the 30% expansion is allowed within state law but then if someone

challenges that and wants to go more the appeals board questionable whether or not your planning board can approve expansion of non-conforming use in that way I think that's questionable so appeals generally are authorized to give variances from the requirements of the this this orance gives the planning board thator so that's what we need to look at with the town attorney and just try to sort through and we will be doing that as part of the codification but this is a simpler approach which just basically takes those buildings stops them from being non-conforming uses gets them out of the resource Protection District and really there's no logical scientific we're talking about basally on the science there's no basis for putting those buildings into resarch protection there's no resource to be protected

identified about 36 buildings since then I've been uh doing additional searching for any buildings in resource protection and I've come up with about 56 or so and of those 18 are in the beginning with habitat 6 Plus those those will automatically come out what we're looking for people uh I had a com

of comments so I don't want to yeah you made me lose my train of thought when you do that okay this is directly related to what you just said so 56 identified 18 are in the 16 plus how it's six plus sorry it's my understanding that um there has been

review I think this is what you just said of individual properties yes and is that being done with the task force are they looking at the individual properties and what an appropriate yes measure would be and how many of those have been completed or reviewed or looked at well I've I've been going through first what we're trying to do is Define what principles are we going to follow uh so I've given them about 24 different different examples and situations and we were exploring how to calibrate this uh and you know like as I said auction one two is 250 ft from the existing build ex auction three is 100 ft what does that look like one of the concerns that the working group had was okay it's one thing if it's flood plane and people want to take the risk you know they'll have to meet the flood plane regulations but does it need to be resource protection um but they saw a difference between that and a scen buffer for ex or

um a waterfall waiting bir habitat so if it they wanted a differentiation between those areas that are environmentally sensitive and those areas like uh forested Wetland or flood plane where people pretty much just just they're going to have to live with the consequences of their decision so so that's the kind of calibration that we've been doing by the time it's all said and done we will look at every single property in detail before okay so my followup to what he just said is that my concern with with talking about a blanket 250 foot or 100 foot is that

there are differences that are specific to each of the properties that have been put into protection and so I know that we'll have this discussion further but I am my concerns are around a blanket in talking about the properties versus making decisions based on the individual properties themselves yeah I would be more inclined with a looking at a blanket if it was a lot more properties but since it sounds like there's 30 that are non-conforming and that they're partway through addressing them already I think it gives the opportunity to take a look I I watched the meeting where they were talking about this a little bit and example that they were using is if you have a structure that's within a wetland complex that is now protected maybe the expansion should be allowed more towards the front of the building because it's further away from the resource as opposed to equal expansion in every direction knowing that you

might get closer to a resource so I think that that adds in some directional um restrictions that make sense to me the other thing I was going to say is I was just um to keep this moving forward sounds like option one is named on the table which I agree with that's well outside of our uh purview to the committee um you know when you look at Option One I bring this up I think it's a point point of for caution here the idea that if something is within an un developed buffer that is developed or that should not receive resource protection is inaccurate um we only have a portion of the legend here on on the undeveloped map block but um that buffer is just within 250 F feet of a developed area so let's take Swamp Road for example there's 250t on either side of Swamp Road at Falls within the developed buffer but the bath and swamp Ro as you're driving along it on either side of you is just complete intact forest

and so when I look at this map here that shows taking all these red areas out because they are within a developed uh buffer that this proposal includes taking out massive amounts of streams that are protected through stream buffering which would not make any sense at all and if you look at the buffer with the um undeveloped habitat area there's also these arrows that are colors that are showing you areas within that undeveloped block and that can be connected because there are intact Forest there so it's not saying that this buffered area means that there's no develop that there's complete development there it's just saying that that's buffered from resource so I don't think that that is a good basis for removing any resource protection and as far outside the scope so I think that it's pertinent to remove that from the plan not something to out of support if it came to us um I personally like the

one by one approach where you're looking at each individual resource because it's giving it a fine tune um if you're coming to us with those recommendations which I think is an option we're going to want to see the work on that as to where that came from not just we decided this person can go east and this person can go west but this person can go south we're going to want to see some of the work on those so I would just encourage that if that's the approach you want to take to bring that to us so Josh I say I think we're getting into the weer I think what George was coming to was asking can we expand our objective to look at these things right not for us to debate them tonight question the question from the group was should option one be put out to the public for discussion presentation which is that large as you just described treatment of everything within what has been defined as a developed area

if we don't include that then we can move forward and the only reason I went into detail there is just to provide some clarity on the intent behind that and so I know that you're going to have to consider ways that you want to evaluate going forward and just take that piece of information mind regarding the buffer that it's just a buffer does not mean that the woods along Swamp Road is developed I think that it's important for us to seek a legal opinion on whether or not this can be done without having to

go to spend the the town resources and taxpayer money to put this before the entire town for 30 individual properties I would like to seek a legal opinion on whether or not um variance being granted property by property can deal with this if the bo if it went before the board of appeals I know that in our ordinance which way back when you had outlined the ways in the ordinance where Property Owners can have relief um one of the ways was to go before the board of appeals and that that is an action that can be initiated by a review correct of the ordinance or an interpretation of the ordinance by the select board so I would like to know if we have the authority or the ability to seek an interpretation if the board of appeals would be able to Grant a variance or like we just did with that at the last meeting for that property that's on Swamp Road we issued a no action letter um based on the data that's specific to

the piece of to the property versus going down this road of putting 30 property owners in front of the entire town to vote on does that make sense to people what you're asking is is that can is there a legal opportunity for the board to just adopt a change to the Zone

around those houses without going to the town for approval I don't think that we have that ability because a zoning change has to go before the town for approval understand but I believe that we can request that the planning Board review the properties and Grant variances but what my I guess what we need to know is do the property owners have to put in an application to the appeals for it to be looked at or can we initiate that process for those Property Owners the to I want to get your input on that George if you if you have inut or if we need to point us to who but one thing I do want to say there is where I see the challenge is that if we were to say here's a blanket no action within this delineated Zone around that house um that just seems

tough to me because that building would still be non-compliant and by giving you no action we're acknowledging you are non-compliant but we're not going to enforce a rule because we want you to have relief that doesn't fix the issue of us having non-compliant so maybe a Varian is a no action is not a great example and a variance is better not apply okay thank you for clarifying what about my I my the VAR so so back to it people were complaining during the process of having the board so because of cost delays and project all those things and uh back in June all

the groups met together and this was the direction given to the to the resource protection working with planning board and Conservation Commission so if you were to change that direction then I think that'd be important to get their input on whether they want to go in that direction so I feel like that was a miscommunication personally and and I might be maybe that was a Mis misunderstand understanding on my part when I think that this board was asking the Conservation Commission and the planning board to address the resource protection updating that needed to happen my understanding was that it was based off the data that had changed from the beginning with habitat map not the to me these are two completely separate situations I don't treating them as two separate yeah I'm I'm I'm confused as to why the option in front of us here is to address those 30 non-com structures I don't remember our board giving that

direction to the Conservation Commission of the planning board I remember us asking for them to specifically address the area around interal occurrence knowing that there was a change in the map so I was I thought that was the only direction we had there and so when this came out here I thought oh maybe that's an initiative being taken or something like that but I didn't see that in our notes or anything on that session

I to as asou going into that it was on the table whe you made a specific decision or not on it that's that's question I don't recall us I I recall it being in the report is something that to consider but I'm with you I recall us only asking them to address around the turtle but we're here and so the t i I don't want to say the turtle the turtle is what we specifically know that the data has ched on that there are other updates and based on my understanding that have changed because of that so I think we should refer to it as the six plus cooccurrence and not specifically the turtle I again I feel like that is what this board's Direction was and I I do wish that we would make that very clear here and so that town staff knows and the task force knows and then separately from that my question still stands is whether or not this board would like to give initiative to seek a legal opinion on how we can remedy the 30 properties

without a zoning change to those 30 properties and I believe a variance is the way that that happens and I'm interested to find out if that's the case I just don't see how we can do that without a town vote because it's editing a zoning map the board of appeals has the authority to Grant a variance correct yes but that's still saying that you're getting a variance because we're acknowledging you're non-compliant right this is why I want to so that's where I'm thinking what you're saying George is that if we go the route of just trying to remove the non-compliance in its entirety we get rid of that and we don't have to go through and your option is can we just ask the board of appeals to examine or us examine all 30 properties and give a variance in one f a variance based on the criteria no you can only give the variance for one individual property you can't rant mass and so and so to your point to Heather's question I think

she's saying can we initiate the appeal on 30 Properties or does it have to come from the I don't think so okay because I understand what you're trying to get to is if we can avoid having to go through make a lot of people with process that's the goal I I don't want to put 30 Property Owners before the town to make this decision that's what I don't want to do well they will always have fall back of applying for VAR

put in the car before the horse I think we have to tell these people yes you can look at this issue and then when they make a decision then we can have this conversation but without a presentation as to what the recommendations are and why and then our discussion about that is seeing all the data I think I think this is a premature conversation so I would go back and again ask that we address the issue of do we want the the working group to look at these different options or not yeah and so in that regard I'm saying option one should be taken off the table and we should say um I'm okay with them exploring this even though it wasn't part of the initial charge and so they want to come back and make a presentation on what they think should be the best path forward for those 30 properties welcome to empowering them to do that I I mean I personally wouldn't take any I agree I don't like option one

but I would leave them all on the table um but I but I would agree with that because I think that's the appropriate time for us to ask for a leg so I guess if we need a motion I don't get that motion that we as the working group that they have our permission to explore

would Li two that's two two and four they've been calling just to keep it simple there's going to be two options and each one of them will be going through a refinement long so I thought option two was 250 option yes they were but within those those areas we will then be doing calibration not going closer to the environmental sensitive resource so that's just a refin separate option so we have a motion to have the task force to continue forward on these 30 property evaluations um exploring options two and three do we have a

just clarify one we've identified to date about 56 properties I'm still looking to see if there are more about 18 of those are coming out within the beginning at that six plus so it would be better not to State a c my motion didn't didn't say it just let you explore the options we'll call them two and three and whatever sub option there is and so in terms of discussion the reason I am encouraging a motion that just limits it to option two and three is because like I stated about the Mis what I consider on the undeveloped habitat block and what that means and that that motion what I'm looking at right here pulls a lot of resource protection out that is protected from other things like stream buffers Wetland complexes and stuff like that so that would be then editing other criteria that already receiv resarch protection I don't think it's appropriate to do in this manner that's where my discussion come to so do have

any other discussion on I think to Jos his point this still gives us the opportunity to after we some recommendations from them to pursue either asking for legal counsel or something like that to say is there a way to do this without going through uh um a change of coordinance if we can do that through a variance and then we can vote on it and so maybe we can get that information next from our lawyer just make sure we know all options are on the table and then once we have their information and have those options we can figure out best way to move forward so do we get the opinion from legal back before any public hearing like that type of stuff happens yeah that I mean that's what I would that's what I'm asking yeah I think it's a good I think it's a good thing but we don't want to tell them wait on doing your work until we hear back from legal no no I'm not saying we're not that's littleit I think we go with them this

here's option A that's being recommended by the working group is this are there any issues with this if there are do these other options address it or how can we address it because otherwise I think if if we come back and they say yeah you can't do this then we have to go back and figure out another one and then maybe ask for more I'd rather ask it all at once and get it done at one that's my what I I just want to I want to make sure we have the answer before we go start holding public hearings on what people feel about these things they're going to present to us and and then we're going to have a discussion and then I mean my assumption is if there's a question about the legality of something that we want to vote on we'll ask for it before we we move forward okay I think that keeps everyone's op on the table while still empowering them to work on get direction have direction to work on on this so George I'm not trying

to split oh we're gonna vote first yeah and then I just want to make sure that I I would just like for George to say what he understands of the outcome of this I'm not trying to be like but I just explore options two and three and then the individual assessment takes place based on the two and got it I'm just making sure I understand what I'm voting on thank you okay all in favor any opposition Perfect all right

option one you do not feel you feel that that's beyond the scope of the original charge and then secondly you want to explore at some point process perhaps before going to the some indication from the VAR option isable underr and then you can make decision whether put that not that's issue U and then the third thing was just to move forward with options two and three with the deta analysis of inder yeah I

once we have that analysis the mechanism of put in front of Voters or put in front of boards can be figured out but we're going to need that information anyway um and then we'll probably just want an update more frequently as the um progress is being made on those so as soon as you get through figuring out the process just so and just so the attempt on all of these different projects with the ordinances what we're planning on doing is by the end of the by Labor day pretty much wrapping up the the work of the groups and then coming back to the slat board uh and presenting that preliminary findings and then get your endorsement and move forward with process on what they are proposing like this one this one came because we need the direction at this point before we and and my only other point there is we're going to want to see the justification to work so beep that I know I know you're all going to have a

process but we'll want to see it as well before we move forward so we understand so any other questions on the resource protection that update was only on the stuff moving forward um we didn't talk about the changes around the six plus cooccurrence were you planning on find update for that today okay

good George PR with g now I know you the differences between them and tell you what my recommendation is okay so go so go is $3,900 year push notifications okay and they will prate the remaining year you start all training okay tax my is 4,000 years so

it's $100 difference if we get going now they won't charge us for the remaining year but um if we sign a contract where these are in okay so the big difference here is go you have to go to the App Store and download the Durham Durham app

okay Tex my do what they do is they go to the Post Office get the cell phone that's that's associated with every address in dur and they will mask text everybody with a cell phone asking them if they want to rece notifications from uh the so they can

either say no or yes okay so some people may not like that um so it's you know is it the company does doesn't have an issue with it my concern is how many people are actually going to go to the App Store and download the app like how many of you got the Cala app on your phone exactly to right so they

they so personally I like the idea that they get they get a choice they're going to get a text message saying do you want to receive uh text messages or notifications from the town of Durham they can opt in or opt out and they opt out they'll never get a text message again so quick question so with the text that means that the push notification text yes where with does that come app notification no it's it's still interf the same way but you got to go get the app turn on the notification I think download the app

is might be L well we had to the app I was saying I would sit at the I volunteered this I would sit at poing station all day help anyone download long day um I think that if we went with text myg that we would need to do some PR out ahead of time because I think when people initially get that first text they're going to think it's spam and they're not going to do it so it'll take about

this already and if you don't know it I would be interested in knowing if we have the abil ility to do a QR code with either one of them so that when people are coming to register at the polls and stuff like that that we have the QR code where we can it I need to know if there's a QR code associated with signing up for both of the services right I know there's a way to sign up if you're not a resent this is what I would have to do I would have to sign up T there's a number you just the

you want yeah to your point I think that the Ben I mean with goov you can just have a QR code to turn you to the App Store into an app so you can do that but that's for opting in this would be to automatically connect with people but is there an option to also sign up let if you if people just delete it because they think it's spam but then they have an opportunity to learn about it later so so I'm going to recomend that t

because I don't think a lot of people going to go get the the app down just L 15 so if you want to reach more people this is the way to go if you want to depend on people to sign up this is the way to go Josh did you want to say something I have I do have a question the tax my go has is limited to the

package that's presented the 50,000 text messages per year yeah that's what you know if half the citizens have it that's 25 C don't get the taex they're just getting the notifications from the town so it be 50,000 tax from the town going so it's not 50,000 recipients

recommending yes because I think more people will accept my sorry you said it and I wasn't writing um text my gov doesn't charges for the rest of the year no they will not charge and then and then we can sign a contract act or we we sign the two-year contract and they just don't charge us for the remaining year and then we're going to be loed in for two years oh wish they would let us have a trial period but yeah I get it okay um

Jerry what does it mean when it says allow citizens to ask questions and get immediate responses well that's tool that's something that we can turn on they do offer the two w text mess but you're in control of that well yes we can turn that on if we go that way I would yes correct so so yeah so with like disengage thing this is someone could have sent a message about the light on the curve on on Newber Road it's a

couple meetings have talked about how we think it's very valuable to um to do this and so I'm I'm supportive I think that a op you're contacted and you are automatically getting opted into it without or you automatically respond is important you know I think we want to find out details like after the first round do we see how many people accepted to opt in and do we follow up 6 months later with another round of

PR that needs to happen on our end to make sure everyone knows that it's not spam it's not us tracking your location it's not anything like that it's more it's simply just a way to information out so a modern version of a town C and both companies help you with that Mar well do we have a motion

discussion just that $100 cost I think is you take 13 years right to get a payb so I $100 cost does differ I think there's some protocol that we should discuss about who's sending the messages yeah we have a similar thing here where I work which is 4,000 people and every message comes from the president even though we know there's some ghost riders behind him but and then you know what actually is being sent over to

J I think it's an excellent point um just if you can find out about the QR back to the communication policy which hopefully is one of those things that we will get to of these days um any other discussion on the motion all in favor any opposition

none okay couple other things I try to keep s uh our financial advisor myself Financial s will had an issue with our server our server is like full and uh we had some computer issues stuff sort of things so our it has come in they actually installed an external hard drive and they're trying to work that they may be coming to us with a proposal to fix this

not broking there just a lot of things get put on that server you know For Better or For Worse really system some issues justware is it time for aring well that's what they're trying to do I I think every time you open a document it saves it to it and I'll get more information they're still trying to work that out and I think one thing to but also as you know to keep in mind is whatever retention

but we can go through duplicates city manes uh conference tomorrow Thursday and Friday soend that and the only other thing that I just want to mention um is we had a Homeland Security uh safy buildings and one thing that they mentioned is that we should put they call Bard or in front of town office um to protect people from so that

that kind of happened this week so the chief was in my office sitting at the window um a j got in his car sport got St on the gas started heading towards the town office at me to get out of the way here he comes and I didn't know what he was talking about well sure enough he Cur and he between the building and the FL C around the Lawn Park so we may want to look putting something there so we got have our parking the way it

at was recomended sure enough and this actually happened in the town of Chelsea saying same thing where that parking was got in their car something happened and they actually went into the building and did a lot of damage happier all right so yeah well thank you I apprciate that so other than that that's pretty much all I have for you tonight

reports um have anything Josh do you have anything Joe is excused do you have anything I have a lot okay I'll be very first um just that I had we're working on the law enforcement fact finding fact paper whatever one call discussion white paper so I sent you all a copy of what I'm thinking about needs to be on there you could just take a look at it and give me some feedback I'm going to meet with Ryan McGee um go over some stuff with him and rewatch video so that's our next meeting we're going to go through it awesome thanks um first I wanted to say thank you Jerry for getting the text turn around back to us really quickly second um some of the things that I was tasked with at our last meeting were to schedule um the school for the law law enforcement public hearing which I have done we said that our meeting our business meeting would start at 5:30 and the law enforcement portion of it would start at 6:00 so we have the

school from 5:00 so that if we need to set up um on and then what I was talking with Jessica about this week was whether or not we were going to do the Facebook invite remember we were trying to figure out and they we can do a Facebook invite from the town page do we want it to read that our start at 5:30 our business meeting will be at 5:30 and then the law enforcement P portion will start at 6 I I feel like if it needs to be detailed out that way so that people know and expect that we're going to be having our business meeting and then either they choose or you know whatever but they just thought if we posted at 6 o'clock and people show up and we're in the middle of stuff anyways I just I didn't want to make that executive decision I think it's a good idea to break that up so people know okay um what's the DAT that [Music]

school and we have the school from 5 o' on okay um in the cafeteria in the cafeteria I contacted Roberta um that was one of the things that I was tasked with yes and I'll um forward you what her response was she sent some information that she gathered from another town and she's more than happy to come in and speak with us whenever we want to put her on the agenda um about

the Aging not Aging in place but essentially the Aging in place the the vulnerable citizens um I had two things that were brought to my attention from residents this week one um is the new website and the fact that there's no search function um and I personally am also finding that challenging when I'm trying to go back and look for information when I'm working on anyways I don't know what the options are around a search function on the website but I do find that hard to navigate um especially given the fact that it's new and we only have those

five tabs I think across the top um I have seen some public comment on they wanted to go online and pay their bill or register their car it was register their car and that lives under Bill Pay It Anyways I just think the search function is essential okay so so the search function is just a Google search so if you search something remember how the land use thing was coming up it it was a it wasn't the recent one you may get that it may not even it's not updated you may not even get the docum that you have but they can't embed a search part into the website it's just Google search wow now they provide any insight on to how to optimize that so you SE dur Main and then what you're looking for sometimes do they haveed on that I can ask ask to

to search it means that the way it's structured is an intuitive you know in all cases what people are finding maybe we could put it frequently ask questions link you know how do I pay my bill or whatever that's good idea guide some people there because it is a little bit frustrating if you yeah I guess yes I agree with that I agree I just I found myself this week having to ask Town staff for information that I would have normally been able to locate through a search function on the old website and I'm not advocating to change I I do like the new website I just am really struggling without the search function and feedback is good that's constru yeah the other thing I was going to say is I wonder now that we have more access and we can look at more of the if we can examine or have the host examine what our most commonly used functions are so if a registration of a vehicle is something that's getting used

two or three times more than something else maybe that warrants its own tab or own button on the H page you know we paying tax bill or something just something to think about but we're still growing this website still it's there's a lot of opportunity I think there's a lot of improvements with this website versus our old one but I was looking the search the other day too so just figuring it out you know I mean if you really want they'll do it but just realize it's a Google search yeah I don't know if we have it now but maybe in one of the Town newsletters that come out the weekly Town Blass could just say how's the new website working for you I provide comment here and take some comments so we just have a process check in and look at what people are experiencing we want to work so that might be that might be something the other the last thing that I wanted to bring up was um the blinking

light is being brought up again at Dead Man's Curve um as not functioning and so I know I had brought this up a really long time ago about actually putting power to that versus having it rely on solar um and I would just like for that to get on a future agenda for us to discuss again because I do keep seeing that just the one across the one you see coming up road is is flashing it's

last time I think the outcome of the conversation was that we were responsible for that now that after they finished we accepted respons let's just put it on yeah I can look into an update did you reach out to Solid Waste yeah I reach out to Solid Waste committee uh chair and have not heard that so next process on that no no there okay that's it that's all I

reports to my M for that yeah we need to get moving on that because people are stting to ask about get I will Jerry and I talked about thatly earlier today about figuring out support thanks we're going to turn on here all right any nothing else so just

Ave to approve the agenda we have our meeting second are planning board meeting September 4th 2024 select board meeting August 27th 2024 and then um fire station and just noting for people that's at 6:30 but the September 10th meeting is going to like hea said be at the durh community school and starts at 5:30 um all right so we're going to move into our workshop on the uh ordinance so I

think we should no we shouldn't the meeting just move into the workshop portion correct yeah cool so um just a layup our R is here is we're going to take a look we have received the copies already but we're going to um take a look at the uh historic preservation Sor get

right someone help me with the historic district commission historic district commission we're going to look at the historic district Commission recommendations around uh article 12 and Article 15 we have Article 15 right here in front of us and my

color sorry there's what it is 514 and yeah my 12 and so my goal tonight is to hear I so from the histor district Commission on their proposed changes on this and um get some feedback it gives us an opportunity to ask them questions on what they have proposed before we take a look at what we think the next step should be and so tonight the goal is just hear from them and then after we end the question and answer period we're going to go into a discussion on what we think our next steps should be I just want to focus on this at hand um not necessarily how we get to where we are or what's happened in the past just looking now moving forward so that being said Lois did you want to um we can move it we can move the table closer so you can chat but we don't want to

[Music] and I'm chair of the Durham historic district you wanted tonight I have nothing prepared to say I gave you article 12 I gave you article 5.14 I have no idea what you want from me we were never given any direction

last question is there any any are there any changes or anything different from what you recommended in these two documents that you want to bring up tonight in the two documents the changes that we had made from The Originals which are what the town pass the changes are in red the add excuse me the additions are in red the deletions are in glue and a couple of places that are

but nothing nothing different than what's in these documents I just want to confirm that these are your all proposed changes correct I the commission voted the majority always needs us this is commission voted so this is an opportunity for board members and if you have questions to raise your hand to ask uh Lois some any clarifying questions you have on the red or blue or sometimes purple changes we have here the the the things that they want removed have a line drawn through them the things that they want added have a line underneath them and so I want to make sure that we get a chance to ask you you know any clarifying questions we have on these changes so anyone want start we can start with um AR 12 here so we just go down so from the front here it seems like the major changes are just happy we've been doing this with ours as well removing the term Selectmen or Board of Select to go with select

board um and then there's some removals in here as well anyone have questions for what they're seeing here advising the town about the Union Church when we've transferred that so that's one I noticed we to do that now right correct I mean we still oversee it because it's in the district right but we wouldn't advise us it's not the town right so that would all be stricken I think that um I I assume I'm I agree that it goes without saying I'm just that would be

section 12.2 and you said it was number e then sure shore land zoning and and those types of things that information was sent to the State and reviewed for compliance we're in the process of codification and I'm curious if changes that we proposing to the

ordinance for the next town meeting will be reviewed by those cross referencing type resources yeah so the state I was just using that as an example in that example that was the state level regulation and so we were out of compliance with the state requirement so that's why the state there my understanding would that this is our our ordinance here and so we're talk we would be functioning be developing this to serve for hour now and then we would obviously I think moving forward we're engaging legal council to figure out if whereever proposing ordinances that are not legal for some other Reon state level um regulation or something like that so is that what you're asking that you would still have this looked at by legal before any either legal or or the I don't know if there's anywhere in State Statute that addresses historic ordinances but if there were I would just want to make sure that that cross referencing is

happening before we're putting changes out before the town to vote on them there's an organization in austa called the main historic preservation helpful but my experience in a question about ordinances like if you just sent them a package of ordinances they're going to say it's the town's responsibility remember do you agree thank you perfect um any other questions here about uh article 12 is anything you want to tell us about your proposed changes that you want to highlight specifically I know we have the edits in here some of these being um catic edits but more or less what is there anything in here that's a market policy change that you want to share so I don't I don't know a tactful way to ask this question so don't be TCT just ask it so one of the concerns I had or that has been expressed to me um and then when I think thought it it's like yeah that's a valid question and and what Drew my mind to it is is were you

changed in 12.3 approprate this to approval what and and so let me start in 12.1 A2 it says appointment shall be made on the basis of demonstrated interest I think if you're applying you demonstrated that interest and I apolog you for that and then ability experience and desire to promote historic preservation what of those

qualified yeah how you like I'm thinking to myself if you came to ask me about Paving and I was on a board and I had to decide make decision about Paving this stuff I have no clue um and so so my question I guess is is what makes you qualified or competent or whatever you want to phrase to do that that that's a

answer and that is we heard that several times from the town planner i' I'd like to not focus on the P not have questioned that before the question is can you please tell us they answer just to Josh's question now indicative of the involvement of the community in various committees in town

we know that there are lots of committees in towns that in town that go unfilled for periods of time you have people who are very interested in preserving the buildings that have historic value you have someone who's a preservationist Emily you have someone who has worked in preservation in another city

day do I have qualifications to take care of this community and its historic value Sandra I am going to include you in are we qualified we're interested I think that's a huge piece of it we will it up right right and we're both three of us and two other members one of whom I will just point out is not here because she's exposed to I appreciate the fact that she's not here um we also are involved in a historical society pretty pretty involved all of us are

leaders in one way or another another of the society so we have a background in durs history yes and I'm not offended things maybe not in historic buildings the fact that I've been forced to learn it personally for the West Methodist Church I've learned a lot from and wa from day from our

question so we're asking questions get directed towards the board and if you're going to ask question we just need you to identify yourself just for anyone who listening my question is Workshop format like what are the rules of Workshop I am going to want to interact with this yeah so the way we're going to do it is I'm going to share it like we are and then if folks have questions uh from the board I'll direct the person from the board to ask the appropriate question to Lois who's representing your organization and she can't answer it needs to get some input from the member we would just ask that member come up and on on behalf answer and just give us their name and so so people watching at home never we know is here we just want to make sure that people can be identified like so are you going to allow the people in the audience to ask through the chair no I'm saying if you if you don't have if we have an we can't

you can't answer you need to ref someone from your board we can address that person to answer that specific question we're not we're not having a public feedback so that's yeah yeah that's like that's not Workshop Workshop is we're working together our group with your gr yeah this is how we're running it tonight yeah so we're asking questions of the of the board to just give provid us some answers and so we're going to have to move on from there as to how we want to to move forward we just have to gather this information so you had a question I had just a process question to follow up to his question is Lois allowed to ask us questions right now I'm just going through and asking questions about the presentation so we just want to get the answers on their changes like we do with other boards and commission we they have a proposed ordinance change we ask them for questions they didn't ask us

question like earlier tonight no one from the Conservation Commission or the planning work asked ask questions so it's more just gathering information right Joe I'm going have to go I'm sorry I was here I thought this was a workshop and I rearranged my whole business to be here tonight to be supportive and I trust Lois fully she's extremely well informed yeah but I'll be honest I'm a little disappointed I thought it was a workshop I was directed to give I didn't think it was just a report we did that last time was exactly like that either right well but I was here last time if you need to leave bus so you're

I questions and St we the tonight I'm not going to arue with you why we're here to just gather information on this I had no clue what this was going to look like okay I'm sorry that you didn't know that was not so the question anyone else have questions on section 12 here

a form somewhere in some paperwork that a person would fill out and come to your group so yes if would be a form that needed to be filled out now the certificate of appropriateness which it is now when I went in May to the National

affiliate meeting for um historic of the appropriateness word and put in approval so I came back to the committee in June and asked them for approval to change the word to approval and they agreed to that change the national affiliate group feels that appropriateness is not

a good word to be used they also said that excuse me they also said that by using the word approval at the beginning someone fills out a form it gets approved when it's done when whatever the change to the home is let's say let's say Union Church wants to put shutters on their new shutters on their um Union Church on the historical society's Church they would they would fill out the form they would bring it it would get looked at by codes it would get looked at by our commission it would get approved let's assume it would get reviewed at the end and then the

owner gets an approve gets a certificate of approval saying yes you met the criteria so National Affiliates thought that was the process to go is it too much I can't say and so something that changed to approval is just to be in line with what is done a more National Standard or what the advis is from a National Organization yes an appropriate is arbitrary word and so what's appropriate to Heather might not be appropriate to me if it's approved we both approved it yeah yeah um and so when when issuing

certificates sorry I'm just still under so when when issuing certificates of approval is there a uh written set of um standards that an applicant knows that they need to meet in order to receive letter approval and so the reason I ask is in a lot of conversation we're having is we want everything to be fair and equable and we want the applicant to know these are standards that I need to meet so they become prepared to meet that so in that example are there are there a written set of approval criteria no okay someone would say

district I want to put on cornes new cornes and they would describe what they want and they would maybe have a photo or some sort of document that shows a visual it would come to codes it would come to the commission codes would approve it commission would approve it and then we move on it's because as you were saying earlier every building every property is a little bit different

and so it's not you must have you must have I don't know 9 over six PS of window it's not that specific so it's at the discretion of you of of your organization to say we don't want to approve the color purple but we would be okay with with black because we don't approve color but if they're like so if they're saying we want to replace our shutters but they're showing you that this is the color of the shutter is going to be you would then only be saying we're approving not approving based off of the the shape and look of the shutter uh without the color of it being considered correct so like if someone just wanted to paint the Union Church blind green you couldn't say no to that in theory

trying to understand if someone owns one of these buildings or wants to operate around one of those and they go I want to do this but I don't know what standards I have to whereas other things we have like this is the standard you have to set back or whatever so I'm just trying to make sure I understand but you question are you speak when you're saying you don't approve color but material or something like that I think those are the types of St and I understand that they vary right from property to property or project to project you're speaking of that from a place of knowing that that's not documented that's not written anywhere I think without referencing the past we have not made decisions about color what what I'm trying to understand is like when when we're trying to give approval for something usually you um um

know what standard you need to be so like I know that I'm speeding because there's a sign that says you can't go over 35 I don't get just pulled over and someone says we think this is too fast for and that's where I'm trying to understand so it's like if I want to replace a shutter but I'm using aluminum right and so that's what I'm asking I'm just trying to figure that out right I'm asking where the knowledge or if it's in fact documented somewhere that this is this

like for the for subdivisions it will say buffer maybe it's more specific now I'm using this as an example if it says buffer and the buffer is has to be evergreen trees whatever whatever right buffer is an in general term I think the standards you're looking for are the secondary interior standard for rehabilitation is that they're guidelines they don't have to be F they're gu they're recomend

picture the doi's standards Department of the Interior standards are recommended guidelines what we have in hours is if you go to not number um if you go to 12 4 uh 12.4 standards of evaluation you can see that all this Mo step is all crossed out then you'll get to New D which used to be F and it says any structure site in the historic district should not be altered blah blah blah it goes on from there those are those are the only guidelines there are it has to do with um

alterations but alterations can be made to the rear of Church the Historic Society wanted to put a glass panel Edition on the back of the Union Church that would be fine because it's not visually impactful because you don't see the back of the church unless you can see it from the road right yes but in the it's assumed that the back of the building is yeah yes but if it's wider than the Union Church you see it was wider yes so there are some Li yes there [Music] are but now you're in the SE that I had my question yes so then there's um new

buildings there's height there's relationship of width and height and elevation there's roof style there's um width of the windows to the height of the building there are some restrictions because when you're when when you're talking about buildings before 1900 there are certain architectural

expectations other towns include everything since in in Durham the district is made up of the building in the district and we have all of them covered some of which are perhaps double I'm not sure that's the appropriate word for it but some of them are um preab buildings some of them are

churches some of them are Antiquities considered de had a question but I want to make sure did you need to jump in before Josh continues these properties which I have a question on what just I'm just district right now question but um so if

I want to make a change to one of the places on the on the list can I go to this document and read it and understand what I had to put in approval form I believe the list that you're looking at believe the list you're looking at are the no these are the buildings in

town that with two that are not anym on the historic district U sorry that National historic sites 1355 and 1394 will we didn't find out about so only talking about things within so those are not in dist there are three buildings there that are in the district only those three are overseen I see okay by the commission okay I I misunderstood all okay it's hard to see but it's this swb District overlay only goes over so four n and 10 have four four n and 10 are the only ones that are subject to article 12 because that's the

historic district and every other building in the district yeah with within that District yeah so every building in the district has been identified as needing to be overseen by the commission I go ahead go ahead I'm talking too much go ahead F so that includes like the get and go no doesn't go that far down I thought it was a half a mile I

that so that 1500 so this is Josh this is where it gets really messed up so the 1500 ft part which is what I think you're thinking of yeah is around the buildings that are on the national register Okay so okay but there are homes in there that have been built in the year 2000 I might be exaggerating but yes there are homes in the district that were built in just a quick point of clarification so we we're all on the same page right now article 12 is only talking above the historic district um so on that map it's only the area that's got that purple hatching it's just hard to see because the red stars are uh superimposed on it so this is only applying to the buildings within the historic district and happens to be building four 10 and N which are listed as historic buildings but we're saying that the standards apply everything within that District yeah I'm just clarifying where where we're at so everyone knows so and and

annually or more than we let the people know in the district that they are impacted by commission Expectations by this ordinance we send them a letter we actually we've sent them to since I think since October so that they understand that they're impacted because what we don't want anything what we don't want to happen is we don't want it to be a surprise that someone decides that they're going to put new shuts on their house and they're halfway through doing it and surprise surprise you didn't

follow the rules we are trying to make sure that that doesn't happen so Josh before you go ahead there Josh you were working on just a line of questioning around one section I want to make sure we get that question out and then I want to make sure you get the chance to speak to yourself I I guess my question this is something I should probably know but since I don't I'm just going to ask

why does this why does the commission have oversight over the neighboring properties if they're not historic I'm not supposed to talk about someone decided that all of the buildings in the district would be considered as

happened during the establishment of the district which was when do we 1994 but I'm not wait so prior to 2006 the historic district as it exists now did not exist well before the ordinance was adoped it was aded was and then it was adopted during the comp plan review during a comprehensive planning process and then we've had two more or several more since then and it's still been in there I have more questions about this article let so I have some questions as well but I want to make about this um section

12.4 are we still on is that what your questions pertain to M's more of a general question okay sure mine a question all right sure we we'll with the general question I guess my question would be not the work of the commission

but why is this District necessary it sounds like the work could be causing in my eyes I I I don't have an explanation as to why the neighboring buildings are included so isn't there a way we could get rid of article 12 and then we can talk about the changes should really be made in 5.14 my question is a follow to that I mean without getting rid of the commission which I think that would do as I'm as I'm talking maybe but other than that issue because I don't want to do that and that so take that out of the equation but other than that shouldn't the commission really be looking at what's in 5.14 whatever that turns out to be as it is with your changes with our with different

commission I'm not going to give you my personal opinion on that answer for that answer because I'm representing a group and we haven't talked about that so I don't have an answer that the group has come up with what I can what I could but I'm not going to do is give you my personal opinion but I because because I'm representing a town group I'm not going to do that let me rephrase it R okay and I don't want to get ahead of ourselves and have a discussion in what's in 5.14 but aren't aren't these in 12.4 that we've been discussing

better that's all covered in the historic resources in 5.14 right and that lays out essentially the same thing that you know it talks about demolition removal of buildings it's the first one looked at and so isn't these changes we're having it in two different places is that so are you asking me if it's repetitive that's probably a more Artful way of asking yes is it or duplicative some of it is because we actually remember we move what's red so we added

in without talking about 5.14 yeah what's in red on 1. 5.14 is what we have newly put in that's all mov we moved it from 12 to 5.1 so trust is your question is essentially why have 12 if if everything's going to be moved to 5.14 I mean I I mean from my review everything except for the creation of the commission is already in 5.14 I'm looking like 12.4 was it D1

through four or one through five e one through five I I think are the same as in 5.14 so um you know I don't want to to me to me doesn't it it makes sense to have the commission the creation of the commission and I guess this is probably better for later but so you have a preview of my thoughts in case you have any comments on it I want to say it now aside from the creation of the historic district commission or I hope you come up with a better name uh like you talked about uh it's all contained in 5.14 so why why is it needed in 12 in article 12 sorry I'm going to give you my

employees of the district I'm sorry sorry employees of the town and one of the answers that I've gotten repeatedly is I don't have time I'm too busy I can't take that I'm not going to do that I'm we're trying to address here in this setting so that's why we're that's why I'm addressing it Y and if there's no time in an employees day

so we're I don't want to get into discussing Town employees we're we're here today to work on this solution I answer the question that that's what I'm just saying I don't want to bring Personnel in or references to person I apologize for putting you in that position that's just for tonight that's what I'm trying to make sure we're keeping I understand I think I understand I can't answer the question understood thank you Mr chairman I just wanted to point out I did check the record on when the ordinance was first enacted and it was april4

conversation not article the information regarding the commission right did you have a conversation around whether or not this article is necessary what my concerns are I believe are what Josh's concerns are and that's the fact that every property in the district is subject to the

criteria laid out here regardless of whether or not it's I'm trying to figure out how the contributing resource was assessed so let me answer to that first if I might we have had that discussion at nauseum okay commission believes that every one of the buildings in the district is a contributing building that perhaps we should be more um choosing about which buildings

we consider contributing and which we consider non-contributing because if indeed there's a um modular home in the district or a recently built as you said 2000 building year year 2000 building is that a contributing resource we talked about it and talked about it we took a vote the vote is that all the

buildings in the district are okay I didn't want to interrupt to I think this goes back to having standards that Define why something would be considered a contributing resource and without those standards to Define what makes it a contributing resource that's the part of this that I'm struggling with and you as you asked another piece and I forgot that I think I had asked about whether or not you had discussed the oh if the article needed to of course so yes we did because at

a at some time there was at some time there was a recommendation from someone who has a stake in this that article 12 be removed and we did discuss it a lot this was three years ago article 12 was still important enough for us to keep it in the ordinances so my my issue with 12 is that when people have to get a permit for something or have to get approval I think that the only way to make that process Equitable is so that people know what standards they're being judged against and have an I so because then if there's a challenge to a disapproval you can say I feel I met the standards that were here and in an effort to try to make sure that everyone can at any given time find what standards are and find how to follow them and make sure that they're putting their best effort forward I want to see standards like that laid out and so that's where I have a little bit of a hard time here because someone should be

able to know I've met all the requirements for this shutter without having to say I hope this works and I hope the people who are reviewing it agree and so that's where I'm that's more of a phrase than a question I'm just trying to kind of wrap my wrap my head around that um because I'm just trying to think of this Equity component I'm making sure that everyone is on an equal playing field for evaluation so do you have a comment to mik question comment yes perfect I agree with what you're saying and also what I just said about the contributing resource I I don't want to see the historic district um eliminated because I think we do have a a very I have the book

written by um sack like the the history of DM yes thank you and there are maps in there and it shows that this specific area has a lot of historic um Integrity to to Duron and so I not I'm not in favor of the district going away but I do have an issue with

the fact that what there's no definition of a contributing resource and that there are properties within that District that are being held to a standard of a of historic preservation that in my opinion should not be and so

I think that what we're trying to do is get direction from us the policy makers right the way that we were just directing yes prior and so I think it's important for our board to establish whether or not we as a board feel that contributing resource needs to be clearly defined and if so that becomes part of this language and if it does that that um I don't know what the word is that I want to say not alleviates but perhaps gives relief to the homes that are in the district that don't mean the criteria of a contributing resource so a

a piece of context here too and hearing what you're saying there is the comprehensive plan and so the comp plan which we know that our ordinances have to align to to that that is the design of it says you know under historic and archaeological policies number four to update the town's ordinance to protect significant historical and archaeological resources in the community with recognition of the need for reasonable and flexible treatment of property owners I think that's something that we're both talking about the flexible treatment uh and reasonable for property owners and then 4.1 says to amend the historic district ordinance to make it a historic protection ordinance that applies to all listed structures and durm both to the inside and outside of those current historic preservation districts so that's tying saying that the recommendation from the comprehensive plan is to tie standards

to listed buildings both inside and outside of the current District as opposed to all of the buildings within the district I think that's kind of what you're pointing at is that trying to evaluate protecting the important buildings but not necessarily saying the people who have buildings you don't feel like meet the standards are having those restrictions so that's kind of the context of this that we need to keep in mind as we're working on development I we need to also keep in mind is that we keep talking about buildings and structures but there are there there's historic Integrity to Properties or to location or to things

that are not buildings and structures and so so that's a challenge I find with 12 to is because does that mean if I live within that district and I want to put up a swimming pool that does not meet the design of what would be used for swimming pools during the early 1900s and I want to buy inflatable swi going put on the front Laine does that need approval because it's affecting the look of the district well apparently not because someone put a swimming pool in but the fence around but the fence around it was a debate so and that's where I don't know does a chaming fence not meet the standards does it have to be a wooden picket fence that meets a certain like and those standards not being present makes it very hard for me certainly being sympathetic to the buildings but very hard for me when we know that there's a lot of those kind of questions out there and that's where I'm trying to get some understanding can I

ask a couple of questions myself why are we only seeing one page of the comprehensive I just wanted this section that talks about the um this historic and archaeological policies the plan itself is like a couple hundred Pages no no this archaeological the the historical and archaeological part starts with number one we're starting here with number four yeah this is just the one that I wanted to to make sure we're keeping in frame reference this okay because it's not the whole I just want everyone to realize this is this is not all the direction that's given to the commission there's two more pages yeah I understand but this is talking about the goals for the town's ordinance okay and that's why I and we're talking tonight about the town ordinance and so that's why I wanted to make sure that we just have this fresh in our mind as to what the the comprehensive kind suggestion okay and then my other

question is because I think the question of important I think that's important enough to hear other people on the commission so if you don't mind I would like to ask the two Commissioners who are still here if they want to chime in rather than be silent for going on to three hours if you want to be tell us you know our goal is to understand why the commission made these changes in article 12 and what their so if you want to chime in to that effect you told your name where you

live [Music] my um article 12 is important because it establishes that there is a district um I think some of your questions uh can't actually be answered by us because it was established in 1994 and we weren't around for um so I do think like some of your questions are valid and we have also gone through them ourselves so I think that um it's important that these things are protected and not to put blame but sometimes

things fall through the cracks and it's good to have a commission that has an eye on this and thinks and feels very passionate about these things awesome give chance so to to kind of J this point why is this important like you had expected to it establish the commission it establishes the district and that's

figure neighboring property it's a question I for a while uh um and specific set of had one of your members reach out to me and ask which the buildings in the district were built before 1900 which I think is a valid question which I didn't bring the answer to but I did provide that member with the answer and there are I think it was 11

of the buildings in the district that were built before 1900 the other ones were built I don't know I didn't have building dates because I used the survey that was begun done several years ago with pictures and dates of all the buildings in town that were built before 1900 which

the town planner has the copies the original copies of talked about why are the buildings that were built in 1995 talking about moving ahead but it's just there uh he talks about in F any structure site of the National Historic National register of historic places were determined by the main historic preservation commission to be eligible for listing as indicated in the buing map isn't that a better description of the buildings that the commission should be passed with reviewing or I don't gu you know oversight over than just this every building in this one district and I know these are probably not things you might have discussed and so I might be asking you to step a little outside but as chair I'm going to make I'm going to ask it anyway it's in red we think that that's important we yes that takes it outside the district to the National no registry and so that's where if we we can let's show

into section 5.14 not no we're going 12 into 5.14 now I just want to we can come back to it but I want to D get our toes wet in 5.14 real quick here because that's where I see F in 5.14 which Josh just read addressing this 4.1 in the comp plan amending the district to make historic protection ordinance that applies to all listed structures and THM inside and outside the district right now we have a great map here it looks like 10 eight eight I see 10 numbers take out 15 take out 1544 Royals Boro and

1532 maybe Royals Boro is it 1335 that's it hey trust me numbers seven and eight take those out because they were removed by someone all right are removed and so what we're getting at here is I think that 5.14 better addresses both the comp plan and looks at all the historic buildings because right now the way I see it 12 addresses of district and every building in it and we have three buildings listed but 12 does not address the buildings outside of the district

5.14 yeah as currently interpreted MH has has nothing to do with the commission it's only the codes officer so I agree and and and so I I'm going to tell you my feeling from looking at things and our discuss tonight and do give me your

initial feedback okay to me I would repeal so much as article 12 that establishes the district and then the review and possibly the creation of the commission and move that to 5.14 and use this language outside the district I am still not convinced that this language should include neighboring or AB budding or Lots across the street uh uh I think is is what it said um I'm not convinced this one sorry in 5.14 the last section of what 5.14 NG NG

it has that language yes right and so I'm not sure I like that language uh you know I think I think the focus should be on the the historic buildings and not the the other buildings um but doesn't that make more sense than having a district and then having separate oversight

so that if someone has a question they know where to go and then don't have to look at two places compare two different ordinances may I ask you a question absolutely if by moving things around as you're suggesting right now does it all go into the codes officers um workload uh mean I hadn't given it much thought but I will tell you if you're putting me on the spot which I'm going to let you do is that

the qualifications um but I look at my line of work and if that were qualifications for a judge I'd be scared to death um and then the other thing I heard I'm not going to lie tonight is uh essentially um you know we all I'm trying to I can't remember what how it was said so but but so do I think it comes out of you entirely no do I think do I think that do I think that maybe a um advisory role like some other

commissions I might get behind that I don't know I I guess I hadn't gone that far but my concern is is that right now there's there's five members of the commission six six uh but there's two members that arguably have the experience to make those decisions right um and so to me I liken it to

having a brand new lawyer become a judge and and deciding cases and that that's that's how I'm looking at right now um and you can convince me otherwise probably using a judge right now is not the best for me but that's that's sort of where my that's where my head is at to give you a perfectly honest answer but I also don't think taking review out of the commission's hands is appropriate either so I'm does that make sense uh perhaps

process what that role looks like would it be different I don't know so I think I get what you're said if you give me an opportunity to try to surise it tell jump in at any point and tell me if I'm wrong but it sounds like what you're saying is that a rule that might work better is a model like what we have with like the Conservation Commission where they can help advise and give feedback and give um uh uh information and provide some answers to whatever Authority has to rule on this code enforcement officer or whatever there's the expectation that they can go through an organization like the Duram historical district commission which name we still are talking about rather than having it be a quasi

judicial um role and because I have the same concerns when we start talking about judicial just a lack of set criteria that the applicant knows seems very difficult to me because you don't know what you're being judged against and there's no way for you to work in advance to make sure you're meeting those standards but I still think that there's a lot of value in getting people who are passionate and volunteering have experience input all somewhere in the process that's where I is that kind of what I guess I switch from I thought you were saying what I thought I thought I was saying did I capture and I mean that's that's sort of where my head is but I'm not you know not married to that idea but that summarizes and then the next thing and I'll grab you real quick after and then the next thing is expanding the discussion around where that board or commission comments to be more than just what's within this

historic district overlay right here our historic district but to all buildings that we know are listed and so the role might change it would include all of the buildings that we know are listed by the state historic preservation commission as opposed to just buildings within this um District it's kind of where I'm seeing as a as a as as a PA not the

um my concerns around the role as an advisory is that we have seen boards or engaged in a capacity where perhaps they sh and for whatever reason so I have concerns around that I also have concerns around while I hope our CEO if

that's where the permitting process happens through is here and we have a long time here and everything is great we have been in a situation multiple multiple multile times where we don't have a CEO and another town staff member

that's not um that's not their role F filling in in that role and so I have concerns around that type of setup so go ahead sorry the other thing about I I my opinion regarding 12 really strongly relies with defining standards around what contributing resource because ask how many homes District that

were 1900 and this this particular area has a lot of history outside of just the are listed and so I don't know what the right answer is to me it's feeling like a marriage of these two articles um but I I I think that we should not be holding the properties that that

are not in my opinion contributing resource and and the fact there's no definitions around what aing resource is um not hostage but holding them to this this but um eliminating the District of completely eliminating the district

yeah so I think but I definitely don't like the way that this is set up so I think that there's opportunity to address the first concern you had there about like in wi or commissions or whatever the name ends up being right now being the general historic district commission when they get engaged and I think that we can build into um future

iterations a requirement of you know if one of these eight buildings are being worked on it is required to get advisement from this organization that requirement falling on either uh whatever entity has to approve that so they have to as part of the application process of approving it reach out to said or border commission and ask for their input but that doesn't give that border commission qua judicial Authority but does give a written policy of them needing to be engaged whereas right now like with other boards and commissions they're there to be engaged if the chair of a different board chooses to right this would I think that there's a way to have our cake and eat it to there and say there is a requirement to engage with us I think that is that is an option the again the just the challenge I I get

back to is like okay so you said how many buildings in the district are over 11 and so but like then then my question is and I do not want this to sound C but are all old buildings historic are all in the sense that they require preservation is uh as a it's a 105y old

tool shed that's been kind of new asphal Ro three times a historic building I don't I don't know and I'm not asking that to diminish any of the old buildings but that's where so what I'm Hing at there is why are those old buildings not listed by the state historic preservation commission as important property there's got to be some criteria for that to be listed there and so if if they're not listing them then the question is do we as a local municipality want to create ores that list them and for me it's just really hard to swallow an ordinance that doesn't have a fair and Equitable process for people to see the criteria because how can you have an ordinance when if we think about it in any other facet if I'm saying you have to apply for a perit but I you're not allowed to see what my criteria are and I will just tell you whether I think you meet the criteria that the five of us think are

important and if you don't like it I can say it doesn't matter you can't appeal it because you're not appealing any set criteria we that would be very hard P to swall on anything else and so I'm just thinking in terms of that Equity component how do we address that you know I would be very frustrated if there was no speed limits ins in town but a police officer could tell me at any given time depending on what that officer thought or that iteration thought we think you were going too fast here we're writing you a ticket I didn't know how fast I was supposed to go well that's up for us to decide that's a really hard pill for me as Tom even though I generally do want to see the resources protected especially when we start having that question around buildings that aren't historic and buildings that are new buildings next to this schs as well so that's you haven't said much I just want to make sure you have the opportunity to

speak so no one get spoken over you're between the two talkative ones so it's a um what how do the how do these get named and why aren't these others on the list Heather you and I are on the same page on this likely because the owner at the time wanted it on there so I can speak to the West Stern Methodist Church not because I was on the board for the nonprofit at the time but because now I am and it was put on

there as a a gold star it met the criteria for National Registry the paperwork was all filled out by someone I think Margaret it was submitted and it got the gold several the owners have the option of moving forward with that the stateus the state the main historic preservation commission at the state level has said they qualify but the owners I know one owner in the district who lives in a home that qualifies it doesn't want National Registry because it puts additional restrictions on property on the

are perhaps 200 buildings that might actually qualify because they built before things I think Josh was asking is the 1500 foot piece which is J in in 5.14 were saying Josh and I'm not sure that that's what you were saying or not but I think I understood you to say that why are buildings within 1500 ft of a particular registry building limited to what they can do which by the way hasn't been followed but that's beside the

point when a the equivalent house outside 1500 ft has no restrictions on it do you see what I'm saying so I'll use myself as an example because I live next to the Wester Methodist Church so there are certain things that I'm not supposed to do because I live within 1500 ft of the Wester Methodist Church which is on the

follow anything and I didn't at the time know the rules so I just just got my permits did what I wanted to but now that we know them someone in that District would have to go through some Hooves in theory to do the same thing I did it's within the district there is

there is at least one house that has historical value in the district that's built before 1900 that's done significant Chang es to the property that had they gone through the proper channels would not have been other and so so I have two questions when you said that there are some buildings that are eligible but the land owner is choosing not to trigger that how did that

building become eligible did the land owner apply and then after they told yep you're a building they said never mind don't put it on me so my understanding is no my understanding is that the state looked at some buildings but not every building in 10 because there are plenty of buildings in town qualify but do you have a a report that states we looked at the buildings and we said these and we didn't look at these cuz it just feels like again it just doesn't feel like a very Equitable process and also feels like there's an opportunity here for I don't have my house is Young by standard 1965 that's not an old historic building let's say would be in some let's say it was 1865 and all of a sudden my neighbor Heather is about to build something that I really don't want her to build over there because I think it's going to be an ice she's going to build a huge Eiffel Tower or something I say I'm

going to apply to have my house as a historic building and now that I have got that approval ah now Heather can't build that uh glass Mansion or whatever because I have that and that's just where it's like that feels not Equitable to me and that's the the thing I'm really getting at with this is that it just seems like in its current iteration the inclusion criteria aren't known the the standards that you have to meet aren't known and then whether you know whether or not you're living someplace where your neighbor might be able to put those uh buffers on you is unknown as well it just feels something doesn't feel right here for me so we could go back to the standard which were in it that are currently in it which are in blue and crossed out in article 12 we could go back to all that but honestly

town would bypass it anyway so how do we get there's going to be standards somewhere because this I I might be wrong but I can't imagine the state I can't imagine the state historic preservation commission says we determine what buildings qualify to be listed based off of can I answer that because I just Googled it because I because I had that question and I just Googled it and they do archaeological and Architectural service to determine if a building is eligible yeah but just because it's 100 years old is it Mak an eligible pres they do the surveys and if it meets the criteria I didn't what the criteria work but that's the they won't R eligible until they get one of these surveys and George has the survey that we started several years ago where we where before I was on

it the commission went building to building on every Road in town and identified buildings before 1800 did they miss some de probably but there are are pictures and there are dates and there are previous owners although I don't think everything's up to date anymore because it was that long ago George has those correct yeah I think I can clarify how the ones that are eligible determin to be eligible okay so Lois accurately indicated that there are uh five that are listed o house

the West Methodist Church the union church and Sh temple in each of those cases the property owners applied for L and they have to go through the main historic preservation commission which is the screening entity within the state of Maine that reports to the Interior Department that they have reviewed it with a architectural archaological surve done by qualified professionals um so then the Interior Department determines whether or not the structure the history the architecture what has happened to the original structure over the decades because many times they're altered to the point where they forfeit their historical status someone puts a porch on it's totally out of keeping those sorts of modifications can make it disqualify according to the Interior Department standards okay so the five listed ones went through that process and they were approved now whether or not the property owner wants to get tax

credits or not this ordinance says you have to meet those standards if you're going to make any changes whatsoever it were we thought five others that were eligible for listing and the way that those came to be eligible for listing is that the main Department of Transportation which under Federal funding uh requirements Jer and not completely accurate basically when they redo an intersection like R and uh they have to know that none of those buildings are eligible for listing because if they are then they can't they're restricted in what they can do with their road project so do if you go on the do website you'll see all of the buildings in Durham they reviewed along the road uh State Road sorry well actually some are not just state roads typically any road that they would be involved in they are required to do that service so they hired uh architectural uh or historic preservation Specialists to do surveys

of all those buildings and they if you go on to their website you can see each property that that they show where they are and they have a determination eligible or not eligible okay and part of that and and so the two that got pulled off originally I was contacting

the minaur preservation commission staff and they said they did a survey and indicated it could be eligible but they didn't have enough documentation like for example they haven't gone into the interior of the build so so their report it's on their website says not eligible needs for the

research so at one point had determined that they were eligible but then we drew that official classification because they needed more documentation when we did the 10 that are on that map they indicated you should consider the eligible subsequently to that couple years ago I contacted MMA legal staff to say can we treat them as that and MMA legal staff said no you canot they are not officially listed or officially determined by main historic preservation Commission eligible for listing we can not subject them to section

do eligibility is not the same as reservation eligibility let me cl the do goes by the maintenance preservation commission they are required by federal law to respect it's like the same way has to review a d about environmental yes so these two were taken off because there wasn't enough information about them but you're saying that there are

were taken off are within 1500 ft of the wind gate um develop I think when you talked about how do this we're going to we're going to and so I don't want to let Lois go from the hot seat but I think if we're going to move on I think we should let her go and then because I if we're going to start directing questions for George I have that's what I want to do here so if we have any other questions about the changes that are proposed by

the durm historic district Commission in section 12 or section 5.14 the changes they not the merits of the change or or whatever literally changes this is the time to ask for us addition question this we doing the same that we did the task force make sure they had clear direction of what we want I don't think we but I'm trying to understand what the outome of this what the expectation is so that we that expect before I'll share what my intent was we know that the

Durham historic district commission undertook this task regardless of why they undertook the test or whatever we are now here but what they have is their proposed changes to our organs so they're a little bit ahead in my mind of like what the Conservation Commission in passports is because they're coming and saying we're heading down the path to make some proposed changes but we don't know which way to go they're pass that we now have the proposed changes so my intent is for us to ask questions about these proposed changes and get the clarification questions out of the way and then then we go into a policy discussion as to what we think should be the proposed changes based off of feedback from them based off of feedback of discussion so I think we're doing that tonight my plan was to start that discussion um but we're again this is just a process of taking these valued input from the commission and bringing

it to the board to say we're we're hearing that you want to see some changes we're taking those uh very seriously and trying to I have one okay so I'm reading in this like right now 54 e no churches or school buildings year old and I see the 100y old reference multiple times through these things and so my question

is 100 years old versus prior to 1900 can you explain why you want to keep the 100 year old designation versus setting a date we didn't discuss it that's that's a very good point when you put that in there what did you discuss that caus you to come to 1900 no there is in 5.14 section H demolition removal says in order to establish the building built pror to 1900 so there must have been a discussion as that's the number we should put in this coordinates and I'm just curious as to why it's that versus El says 100 years of age because 1900 is what had been been used for the survey in the

2024 and soon 2025 that's not 1900 anymore is it so I should that should have been Chang put in 20 were these edits started 25 years ago no okay that's I'm just trying to make sure I understand so the language that was in there because it's in Black it's the current language and it should have been pointed out and it was not you to align to align with I can't make that decision either you can make that decision or the commission can make that decision but I'm an individual represent in terms of process my intent was I was under the impression that these are the recommendations to change from the commission and now we are considering those recommendations as the policy makers we have to decide what goes forward to a public he and so where taking into these their recommendations into consideration and working on bringing that policy to a public hearing and so that's a perfect example for her

question because I have some comments on that but now that I understand where the number came from those my comments are more of a policy discussion and not a question discussion in terms of clarification so may I ask a question

you may may not align with the changes that the town planner and the planning board would like to make did the planning board have I don't know whether the plan Bo examining the documents that you gave us okay but this is not something I gave so no that's the comprehensive right it says Town plan of recommendations yeah this is this is we're not we will when we make a decision on how we move forward with a policy we're taking recommend from legal recommendations from in public recommendations from you all and so we're here to find out what your recommendations are and that's what this is correct and that's what we're asking all the questions so so when it comes to a public hearing will the public see these two documents wherever they are or will the or will the public see a

document that you you have rebuilt from the town planner me not me the commission legal will you rebuild the commit the ordinance with your own language and if you do we is it possible to have a competing ordinance so our goal is to take Rec we are the policy makers we got to set the policy and bring it forth to town that's

that's our and Jerry if I'm saying describing this look for wrong at any point feel free to hop in and so our goal is to get the feedback from folks like you who work in this venue work in this Avenue to make sure we understand your policy and understand the direction you would like it to take and we know that in the past you wanted to make sure this K proc Will C forward and so we're elevating it right up to to us and then we need to then from your recommendations and the totality of other things we hear come up with a direction to to present to get voted on like we do with everything else so in planning board or cement commission anyone can bring us what they think is a recommendation and we can choose to adopt that or change something to create different warrant language based off of our feedback so we're in that feedback gather I think right now and then we will come forward with what

we think is a good recommendation for consideration for the for PL for for a town hearing to get additional public feedback and then come forward with that that war that's my understand the policy and is there an Avenue for an alternative ordinance to be considered by the town how would a group get something on the warrant I believe that's not accurate I think I'm asking a rhetorical question okay well if you don't want to answer it then it's not necessarily valuable question I think it is a valuable question because I I what I just heard her say is that's not correct I believe what I'm asking is

if I don't know if the commission if Heather and I if somebody wants to build their own ordinance for consideration how does it get on the warrant so my understanding please jump in in terms of building warrant language that's the perview of the board that's what we're elected to do if there's a PA process for someone to have a citizen's initiative and submit something that is the Avenue does not like an orance that the town has or doesn't have would have to call and where would I find that I would imagine it's in

sorry just to clarify speaking Alan PL code enfor officer and I do know that Alan that's right I you as soon as you said 10% that reminded me yeah it's a citizen petition and there are rules regarding that and the 10% of the last voting pH I believe that that's where that would live but in terms of this warrant language we're just going to work through your feedback and other people's feedback and try to find something something that we can discuss so do you have another question about their edits or is this more about our policy and our further discussion I just it's about so I guess do you have a question for Lo

yes because this help answer some of my questions I wish you had given me your personal opinions I don't I I commend you for I um dream we'll done uh but but no I really want to say thank you because you've helped I I feel like you've almost given me more questions and thoughts than I a good teacher always gets the person to think more so I so I I appreciate it I wanted to say that you also we have four minutes before we have to extend our meeting so we should do that yeah soon um do we have any more questions

build down to continue to be maintain for another 100 years so we went through this with the Parker school on Methodist Church it really is unless there's a safety issue so unfortunately the Parker school has been let go for so long it had deteriorated to the point that it really couldn't be safe in the opinion of some people including me but I'm not a specialist on it someone else would have said they could have been sa in fact a number of people in town said sure been

be um can I look over at all in a minute what's the word out dangerous building yeah but what's it called condemned condemned or there's no condem there's no condemn okay dangerous building okay and then it can move forward with a demolution so will Shiloh ever get there I hope not

but nothing lasts clarification question anyone so may I put into the record one thing I would like to thank the Commissioners who came because I had no idea that this was the format I know you said you were going to chair it when I offered to keep the speaking order

a workshop is is that it's a committee of the whole and people get to speak and you have a speaking order these people came including Dave thinking that they were going to have input thinking that it was a workshop model which means you're at the table Alan's at the table Mr Tal's at the table everybody gets to be here and we Face Off against each other and we talk unfortunately these people gave up

2 and a half hours of their time and I'm feeling like they didn't get to say and I appreciate the fact that you both came and the Dave came for as long as he could because he does run a business and I know he was frustrated well I'm sorry if there was a miscommunication as that wasn't the the int um I do want to say thank you very much for coming and thank you for all this stuff I'm sure when we're talking about time and commitment that this is L some words oner reflects

dozens if not hundreds of hours of so in order for us to continue we do have to have a motion to extend the Mee so I make a motion to extend the meeting by 30 minutes have a second any we're in the extended time frame just want to thank you again Lois for coming like I said there's a ton of work that goes into this I'm sure this refle hundreds and hundreds of hours of your time and your volunteers time the rest of your commission so we have a lot of questions because we value your here really apprciate thank I sure so I just this is

actually for the Commissioners here and I'm not speaking onf of the board I'm speaking on of myself [Music] um at every time that we brought an before the town to vote it always whether it's a budget or an ordinance it always goes better when all the the stakeholders and the contributors are on the same page and can all attest to um

the fact that it it was a comprehensive effort of all of the people involved and for myself personally I'm interested in bringing an ordinance that all parties involved that are working on are um feel good about wning the fla

town and so I hope that we get there all steps process discussion here on George on the yeah if we have questions ask those of the properties in the in the in the historic district subject to thator devel planning City actually

County of wion CLK which contains hel over 60 listed properties and three historic districts uh I was involved in very controversial projects to review the demolition of the fire to from 1868 whatever it was been modified so I've dealt with this stuff uh not and I do not consider myself to be anyone here qualified to make decisions on whether something meets the Interior Department guidelines or is a contributing structor you really need uh just like subdivision review of an engineering plan you need to have some of this qualified plans one of the concerns and and Ed them to Theiss I was asked by Cy F the prior uh

chair of the commission to assist them in imp menting recommendations to the comprehensive plan so I spent two years revie the ordinance getting input from preservation commission uh from checking with MMA legal services and I basically prepare a report that you all have copies of I presented that to the district Commission in August of 2022 so

um that report contain recommendations for my professional analysis of the of the structure that you have I think your questions and concerns about them being a quasi judicial body under main law and I did check with the uh new attorney

they are judicial Bo I'm sorry I check with MMA attorneys after so they are required by main law to provide new process to every applican uh and neighbors two uh projects that have being proposed within the district the jurisdiction starts at the district um

and so uh I just have seen from day one that you have these three overlapping jurisdictions because we talked about the commission we talked about the Cod officer planning also had jurisdiction but any project that comes in you saw with wind day Farm they were involved in the process and the multiple Provisions within the ordinance you had Article Five which has 5.14 you have 12 which creates districts through a specific process where Property Owners at least 50% of anyone in the district has to vote in favor of creation of the district they're going to be subject to uh 5.14 applies to the listed are eligible and every property within 1500 ft one of the things that we we are in agreement on is the need to scale that down um and

so there's some discussion whether it should just be the property that are listed are eligible or should it be the abing properties the on across the street the town attorney has reservations about that because you're basically creating de facto districts without going through the process call for in article 12 so there are many competing and conflicting Provisions within 5.14 and article 12 so I think

you've either got to go one way or the other and you know whether you want to stick with historic districts uh and go through the process of creating them and have a proper quasa judicial review of projects within that with qualified uh Personnel uh either Consultants or staff members uh or if you can find a nonprofit like main preservation or the main historic preservation commission has already said they will not do regulatory reviews for you they will do advisory reviews but that's just as a cacy it's not anything official um so this whole system system really is designed for places like Helen Montana or tops of Maine or castin where you have historic dist neighborhoods where the character of each of those buildings and there are so many of them they're creating the appearance of historic district so if you think about downtown Yarmouth go into some of those neighborhoods where virtually everything

is eligible for listing if someone comes in and does something completely out of character even if a building is not official listed or even eligible for listing it St may still be a contributing structure uh that's somewhat of a thank you that's helpful yeah so quick question about this George so in those instances are those historic districts ones that have been established by 50% plus of people who live in that and so in that instance that's how you get that it's kind of like a homeowners association so that's what I'm trying to understand like so we're not going to allow body in this subdivision to do something that's going to block everybody so what what they're saying there is regardless of what my house is I'm voting to be part of this district and agreeing to standards and whether it's contributing at that point is that how our historic district was made well do we know no we don't know we don't know

the process we're assuming because they actually Drew specific boundaries we're assuming that they went through the process I think we could just accept that they did but as to whether or not people understood the implications of it at the time and certainly current property owners is as Lois has indicated trying to educate people of the requirements but because if someone moves out of a historic district that's been voted in and someone else moves in they can't say well I wouldn't have voted for this District no you are getting okay has to be approved at so

functionally even if the 50% thing happens it has to be still has to tell me that's correct so 50% of people within a community say we want to call this a historic district and agree to set standards you 50% plus within that

within that District So within that District say we want this to District commission makes recommendations and then they propose that as a Zone and then you have to be prove at the town meeting to have that zone add and then it goes on the down okay and so regardless of whether we know how our historic district commission came out came to came to Historic District came to be we have one on the map correct and so that's where we start getting this question you may have five other pseudo districts districts okay I'm just trying to understand the process Josh you had a question I'm M but I'll start with this

in in in your prior employment who made up the historic district commissioner well there were and it's it's encouraging to me that they have added a few people with some expertise on these issues U when I did my report they had nobody of that of that in indication of

qualifications um but in like hel Montana they had a lawyer who who had training in architectural Pres restor preservation so she provided advisory input uh to the Helena historic district Commission in the same way that I provide uh input to the to the local planning board because that's had qualification and train to do that so sorry quick question yeah that lawyer did they work for the town of Helena they worked joint the employee of the they were employee of the county but they also by the city but they weren't a member or volunteer of the were paid

town is going to do this it's absolutely critical given the qu judicial uh nature of it that you have qualified people either on the committee or providing professional input to the committee for making decisions on a very complicated issue and so real quick before if you don't mind have to draw a parallel so I'm trying to understand this with the planning board we have members who are Quasi judicial and make a determination but when they're making those determinations it's being present their their applicants are presenting using engineering and they're paying into a fund so we can get third party engineering correct um and then in terms of policy we have a lawyer and in terms of planning we have a fulltime a part you as a planner so that's kind of the framework so if you had a district historic district Commission in the Helena scenario they have that third party consultant as the lawyer and I'm

assuming if someone was trying to do something they brought in their Architects the Planning Commission could then bring in additional Architects to review the work and so that's what you're saying with it being quasi judicial you need to have a framework like that to make sure that there is due process um for applicants and for the review correct sorry no it's fine I I was in that same line of thinking think yeah um

actually right from the Geto when I was reading through all of this stuff there's there two things that come to mind all the time when we're talking about planning in the town and aligning with the comp plan and all of the things and I beat the drum over and over about buffering and so part of what I see as a pathway to um the a butter and the 1500 foot all of

those things all comes back to BU rank for me but the other thing is is the third party review by um a consultant or somebody who does that in the same way that we have the subdivisions go through third party review and you're saying that main preservation I don't have the right words but they do reviews what you they a private organization and I believe Jerry you contacted them about providing advisory opinions to the historic district commission okay is that an interim step as an interim step but is there something that exists the way that we can bring on third party reviews for subdivisions for historic what you would have to do well if it's before the planning board which I only happens if there's a subdivision application or a commercial site plan application the planning board the applicants are required to provide a a peer review escrow fund right to cover the town costs of hiring those Consultants so

unless you put something like that in place for projects within the historic district uh then either the town would have to fund that or some private organization so that's part of the problem is where are the resources going to be coming to do this to do this properly and that's you know if you want to propose a budget for the town meeting for historic preservation I think that's what you need to do okay I can answer your element of that question so like in terms of third party review when I worked in Consulting our firm had archaeologist our firm had uh historical building evaluators because when we were you know Soup To Nuts on these projects you know we could do everything and so that that exists there's there's archaeologists who could be hired here to do a third party gr there's historic building uh Architects that work and that is it does exist and and I'm and that feels uh burdensome

to the taxpayer to put that in the budget for the taxpayers to assume the cost of that but that also feels burdensome to the homeowner um especially if they haven't been I don't really know how I feel about all this I'm sorry I'm just processing out loud I think they draw a parallel to what you're saying is that burden in a current example if somebody is going to put in a subdivision or something that requires them to get a permit that burden falls on the applicant and so if we are saying that we're trying to model the review for this quasi judicial organization the same way we model it for the planning board you would have the same process the applicant comes forward and wants to do something within the district or within the area that is zoned and the staff have to check the

standards to make sure they meet the standards and then if they need third party review but the challenge there is we don't have written standards right and so that thing I was going to say is the that when like I was on the appeals board before I was on this board and I certainly have attended my fair share of planning boards and gone through the planning board process myself multiple times finding a fact is part of that process and so is it required since they're qua judicial that they are finding fact and if they are how does that happen when we don't have standards for them to find fact

of well that's a legal question I think you need to explore but based on what I've learned um I think you they should be reping fact for their decisions because if they don't how does someone appeal a decision right that was what I was getting at earlier and I think Josh you were alluding to that too like if you were trying a case and there's not a set of standards and there's not an appeal process and whatever it just doesn't feel like it's Equitable but it sounds like based off what we're hearing from legal councel it might also not be legal because if you have a quasi judicial board that needs to be finding a fact but they're not providing those standards and they're not providing that appeal process that that can be legal exposure for us does that sound yeah and I think what it all boiled down to and just think about this the city of Borton right now is embroiled in one of these big disputes of the Children's Museum

and that shows you how complicated this is because initially the historic district admission there determined that that building was not historic and it could be torn down by the museum and Nows being appealed to the court so if you have a building that iconic that significant and they don't agree on whether it's historic or not this is this is the type of thing that you're dealing with and also the stakes that you're dealing with is challenge so this is just let's follow with that example real quick if that's here and someone

wants to tear that biling down and in that in the historic district commission rules yay or nay what's the person's appeal process of appeals but then what standards is the board of appeals judging you by they would go by since you don't do the noo reviews they basically review the process and determine whether the process follow the ordinance and whether the historic district commission appli the provisions of the ordinance and then they would either uphold it or they would uh remand it back to the board for development of fin fact uh which they did in the case of uh plan since I've been here so what happens and then then or they could they could uh uphold the decision of the commission what what happens if I own this building and I I don't make that very clear just use this for example and I have a great lawyer who's experien and I bring in an architect and I say all of these folks agree that this does not

meet the standards it's not it's not meets the standards of the state doesn't meet the standards here this is just an old building that I'm allowed to pull down and I'm getting told no how does the town defend that well what would happen is they would go to the board of appeals and then the board of appeals would make a decision either to uh uphold the decision of the commission to remand it back to them or to overturn the decision of the commission but the board of appeals doesn't currently have a mechanism to bring in their own architect no they would base it on the record for that commission so then if someone were not accepting the bad decision then they would appeal to court yeah this just feels messy feels like a burden [Music]

so sorry I'll let you go ahead there um do you think I mean and we don't know right it was 1994 do you think the intent of the historic district was to try to AEP because there are 12 homes that were built before 1900 in that particular area it was like the hot spot of town way back when do you think that what they were trying to do was establish the area to be like you were talking about in Yarmouth and that and that we just didn't have the appropriate mechanism to be able to maintain that I was followed by a m of the commission and and it rings true in my experience that zoning usually is

reactionary and so they were concerned aboutuse into that don't know whether the people who live there not had vote the 50% of the people within that we don't have a paper trail of how that came matter right so the other thing that I that I just have a comment on is the buffer the 1500 foot buffer and and that type of stuff I a very old planning board chair and I had a conversation wow what is that there's a a car had a deer on stack oh so be careful on your way home

that the conversation was do you want a gas station to go in directly across from your house because at the time the the mechanism that we have in our ordinance and quite frankly we're still in that type of situation could pretty much go anywhere in town if they can check the boxes and so this was a way to try to protect these historic buildings from Irving going in right next to it or right across the street dollar I dollar I guess it doesn't really matter how it came about right now we have a historic district and now our

question is how we move through it I think this is really good information on how the process if we were to do it today is supposed to go and I think that's important context but I think now our next question is Where Do We Go From Here in light of the comprehensive plan in light of the lawyers feedback in light of our great uh historic district commission's input and feedback here in light of all the questions we've asked and learned tonight so that's our next step I think does anyone have any other questions about the details for George do you have a question for George it's it's a question for George and for and maybe a comment for the commission or both for both um this is a very

different board than when this process started um and I think all of us have alluded to the fact that we don't love the way that this is um and I and nobody needs you don't need to answer this now but I wonder if if there's knowing how this board is is digesting this information some sort of revision to 12 and five is it five I don't know why I keep say 15 I what you're getting at I think that we need to make our proposed changes amongst us as a board and if we feel from that process we want to go back to is that right though because I thought that what happened is that they come to us with recommendations and we say yes or no so I'm not trying to split hairs I'm just making sure that we're right think about this way it's our job to develop warrant language right and to bring something to the town meeting and we asked or we have recommendations from the entity in town that deals with this

daily just like we got those same recommendations from the um just like previous boards get the same recommendation from the Conservation Commission from the planning board we're at the point where we have their recommendations and so ultimately the board has to decide what's going on the warrant taking into consideration all those things and then eventually public comment at a public hearing because we have to have a public hearing if anything's going up so I feel like we are at the point where we need to now start digesting their recommendations and like you said it's important that we try to find where we are aligned we also need to find out where we are compared to what we have front of us right here cuz I'm not aligned with everything here um but I'm not dis aligned that's not a word with everything here either so I think we are in that part of the process from here I think that the best thing we

can do is talk about what changes we are comfortable with because I don't believe it's the job of the board to just say we take whatever changes are recommended to us and whether the board believes in them or not that's the warrant language on the next no no no I what we did is they make their recommendations and we say yes move forward or no don't I didn't think that we made changes to recommendations we either accept them or we don't accept them that's what I thought so but we can not accept these recomend elements of this recommendation okay and so that's where we're in the process of determining do we accept this or do we not accept this and this it's trying to save the time of if this is a hard no we're not bringing it to the warrant language we need to have a conversation now rather than making everyone go through all of that stuff to show up the week before we write warrant language and say we we are not

comfortable with any of this at all we have this legal question we have this legal question this is a major concern no no I understand that a board can bring an illegal recommendation to us and say please put this on there and if we say no this isn't legal we're now in a situation where you put in all this work this year this isn't legal come back next year there's not enough time for us to figure that out and that's why I want to take this up early so we can figure out how to get to the point where we're not using everyone's time and then come February when we have all our hearings we say whoa hard no for us and it's too late to address it right I don't want to get to that cuz that can be really frustrating for all parties invol yeah I I don't want to get there I don't want that to be there either I guess what I'm trying to figure out is what comes next yeah that's what we're okay what we're talking about here so I

think what we need to do is we need to discuss with all the answers we get tonight and all the um information we have here and all the recommendations we have here where we are as a board and then if we feel the need if this is a hard yes no questions cool we're good to go and we just figure out when it's going to be discussed at a town uh hearing if this is a no for us we have to figure out where we're at no and then we can decide as a board now do we go we we want to bring it back to the the appropriate body to give us additional feedback and workshop it there okay we have to keep done it's 9 I know but does that process work for everybody we're definitely not getting to the in the next one minute in 10 seconds a discussion on what we like here or not but I feel like this is a really good fact finding mission for us does everyone agree with that process which means we got to put in on a meeting y to

discuss so Jerry and I will work on the schedule today um where's our um do we need an executive session all right I'm not seeing any do I have a motion to [Music] adjourn and second second uh any discussion all in favor no opposition thank you unanimous consent on that one yeah thank you sorry that was long we KN you know only one

extension we knew it was going to be long