TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ February 1, 2023

foreign thank you so uh welcome to the February 1st meeting of the Durham planning board um and this evening uh our first step would be a roll call Andy termination of a quorum we do not have a quorum this evening uh Miss Caplinger and myself uh John Talbot are here so we will not be able to do any official business or take any uh votes so our agenda will be limited today to uh reviewing future meetings for uh the

review and and hear media hearings on the land use ordinances that will be voted on the first of April at the town hall meeting so with that I will we will skip over to the amendments to the agenda we cannot do the acceptance of the minutes from the last meeting we can do I think informational exchange Mr uh the March

so George do you have any information yeah uh one uh update is that as you know the town has been doing a process to digitize the tax maps uh up until last year the town had been getting paper copies uh manually drawn of all tax changes of properties addition of new subdivisions to the tax base and O'Donnell Associates the company that had done that for years and years and years uh notified Durham as well as several other towns in Southern Maine that are still using paper maps for the drafting process that indicating that they would no longer be doing it and no other company does does it manually anymore everybody's on computers so we ended up using some arpa funds to get the digitized tax maps spatial Alternatives in Yarmouth was able to take all of the paper maps digitize them and create a GIS base for the tax parcels and that information is going to be tied to the assessing database and will be posted on the town's website

under other services or excuse me online services so that anyone can check the property records tax assessment for their property over the internet and that's really important because real estate professionals that are working with property owners and potential purchasers they really have to come to town hall to get in get that information and so it'll be a big time saver for the public as well as the staff of town hall once that information is made available online so uh it's all been set up it's been tested and I just asked the consultant to send the links to set it up on the town website to the IT staff and so hopefully within the next few days that'll be up and and running in live so that was my update then you have a question for you on that if there is an error like when I do the beta testing right there was narrow in my mind what you and anyone else should do is let us know if there's a an error and we will

work with the Consultants to to address any errors that come up so email the Tom planner yep super okay I'll get you one um but it was an excellent for the public it's an excellent thing and there's great information on there and there's probably maybe a mug or two so just get a hold of town planner and he'll if you have a bug in your yours please uh please get a hold of them um and then anything else nope the only other thing I have is that um the budget process is going forward we will the budget committee will meet on Thursday to review the planning budget for next year uh I think it'll be very similar to what we've had this year uh and so hopefully there's there's plenty to uh to keep us busy and the money will be there to do it do that did you have any of General comments no then continue on

Pat there are no presidents or non-residents so continuing on continuing business is was supposed to have been a completeness review of the Deer Creek subdivision and since we do not have a quorum we cannot do that this evening and so that will uh move back to our our Marsh meeting they are also still just assembling some of the information to complete their packet and with that I think we are now on talking about the schedule for future meetings on land use ordinances and we've been asked by uh the chairman of the select board to um add an additional hearing meeting on the land use ordinances so that the citizens in public can comment on the draft articles that will be voted on at the town hall meeting on the first of April those articles are posted on the town website so for everyone to to look at before the the next meeting that we have in comment and you're always welcome to send to the

town plan or your comments if you can't make the meeting or in advance of that and at the other point I would make in in our town planner has done a lot of hard work on um answering questions about specific Parcels so if there's anybody out there that wants to know the impact on their of their parcel again contact the town planner and he will let you know what impact if any is on that so um we have a draft schedule of events and as I said when asked to add an additional public here hearing meeting to go over the draft articles and so uh the timeline we are

at we work against the end date of the town hall on the first of April and so we've got to get the final article ready for that the vote on that day and so the dates that we're going to discuss this evening are really uh I wouldn't say they're drop dead but they're important dates to uh there's not a lot of legal room to move change them so I will start out with uh Mr

DeBarge you want to cover your the email you received from the state on affordable housing yeah we have really two timelines to discuss the general timeline that you explain John would be relating to the sequence of getting the official public hearing for any land use ordinance or other amendments that are going to be considered at the town meeting and that public hearing must be held no less than seven days before the town meeting and no more than 30 days before the town meeting so that puts it sometime within the month of March so we had discussed doing it or in earlier March the eighth was the target date do we have selected but as you indicated the select board has asked the planning board to consider doing two public hearings the first one being an opportunity Unity to put comment into the drafts and then the planning board can consider changes uh and if any make them that'll give us

time to make them so the two dates that you pose John uh were and Kevin uh NATO were the 15th of uh February for the first public hearing and then the 15th of March for the second public hearing uh we've had some discussion to just before the meeting about a potential conflict with a Conservation Commission meeting on the 15th so we're now going to be discussing the possibility of holding the uh the public here the second public hearing on March 16th instead of the 15th which will still be within that 30 30 to 7 day window uh so that's one timeline the second timeline is that one part of the draft amendments dealing with the new affordable housing law which has been was designated as uh Public Law 2003 uh

which was passed last April which we've been preparing to respond to it goes into effect on July 1st of 2023 and the Department of Economic and Community Development has been charged by the legislature to develop rules for interpretation application and enforcement of that new law and I have been in contact with Hillary Gove of the Department of Economic and Community Development decd and uh she gave me a

specific timeline for their process of rulemaking and uh that is they are going to publish the rules the draft rule rules for LD 2003 on February 8th which I believe is next Wednesday and then they are going to hold a public hearing on the Draft rules on March 1st

and then they're going to hold open a public comment period on the Draft rules for implementation of the affordable housing law uh until March 13th and then they expect to complete the rule making process by mid to late April which will be after the town meeting of Durham and many other I'm not sure if any other towns are doing there some have it in March even uh so there will be a problem in terms of the final official rules but there will be a draft and there will be uh the input of the public hearing on those Draft rules at Augusta that will give us a pretty good indication of how the draft amendments that we've come up with which were an attempt first to implement the recommendations of Durham's comprehensive plan which had those recommendations before that law ever went into effect which are very much in line with what the new law is proposing um so that rule-making process uh will

give the process that's that's been completed by them to this point that's going to be published next week will give us a pretty good indication of how that draft that we came up with aligns with the new law uh implementation rules so we have that timeline to work with as well so by the time there is the first public hearing on the land use ordinance amendments that we're proposing we'll have time to do an analysis of the new rules Draft rules against what we what we've come up with so far Focus recap you said February 8th is the first February 8th is the publication publication of their of their Draft rules okay and then we're planning [Music] and although I'd like to propose maybe the 16th is that okay that's what we discussed yeah oh that was no March but I just looked at my calendar I'm not able to make I actually I could probably make the 15th the 16th would be much better that's a Thursday

oh there's nothing on the Durham you've already looked at Durham yeah there's nothing on 15 selectman meeting on the 14th Wednesday nights are aside from this night is tricky um well I can't answer yeah I don't know uh so I'm good one more day doesn't it will be whether other planning board members can make those oh because you sent the thing out I did but I think we didn't get any responses besides mine no other than yours so I think what the result of when we're all said and done on this I think what I would say is I'll set it out and say look it two changes to what I sent you before if we agree February 16th for the uh additional hearing the next hearing and then March 16th for the final public

hearing on the final articles so I'm I'm good I don't having gotten one suggestion would be to send out an email to the to the full planning board indicating the dates that have been discussed are February 15th and March 15th however there are conflicts on the 16th and one planning board member uh let's I'm sorry let's let's not I don't want to confuse it let's leave February 15th does that work fine okay I can make it work because I I would have done a slightly different than what George is recommended I'm just going to say yes saying which of these days can you make I think we just pick a date and I'm February 15th is fine I can make that work and move the 16th because of the Conservation Commission meeting okay okay so uh so then I guess go ahead

that is a point there are three land use articles that are uh being considered one is the affordable housing and one is the um I'm just going public yeah what affordable housing one is resource protection and the third one is uh changing uh the ordinance on uh streets private roads a minor tweak of that ordinance so yeah so I would say six if if just because we've got of I don't know how many people are going to come but that would give us we'll be sending out for the official public hearing 480 plus or minus uh individual landowner notices so as we saw in the fall when we send out postcards this time we will have a full letter as requ as indicated in the statutes uh as well as a map so that should generate some additional for this for the February 15th no for the for the official publication so we'll just talk about it on our social media about pepper

can get the Eureka we have checked uh Jessica yeah the town clerk has actually already reserved the Eureka Center for both February 15th and March 15th but I will need to check with her on the availability on March 16th yep and we have time to tweak the March meeting you know that we do that at the February 15th meeting so there's time on that so because the 15th is the big one because that's two weeks do you want to kind of pencil in March 16th I think we do that yeah I mean I if for some reason the world ends and we can't I mean we use the firehouse that worked well yep you know it's not a heck of a lot smaller than the other one so I think there's there are opportunities out there to to if we can't get the Eureka Center we can get the the other one okay and see same specs where Eureka we're going to try for and starting at six on March 16th does that I know that causes problems for some of our members because

it's early we could either for discussion we can start at six and or we start at 6 30 but just plan to go maybe to nine I mean to me you know we would just add that half hour instead and then if we can finish by 8 30 we're good uh if not we can go tonight we do have to pretty much do all three I mean roads I would hope is not going to generate a lot of discussion and people have had an opportunity to to discuss the other two and multiple times so so as we're looking at this on the

8th of February George you'll get the draft State comments we'll do a quick review and I and Julius welcome to others join in and say hey that looks close to what we've got we'll be prepared to announce you know say we're doing that process so 2 15 at 6 30 at

the Eureka Center and will be the the next first public hearing and then not to be official but then George we have to come out of that meeting and tweak whatever if there are any changes because on the 22nd of February George will send out uh the town we'll send out a mailing to all the landowners who were impacted by resource protection changes uh so that gives the town staff some time to to printed stuff it mail it so that's that will be that on the February 28th the

next date that's out there for us is a selectman will approve the final articles and so the email that came from uh chairman of the selectman said they will just either vote him a vote to approve to put them on the uh Town Hall agenda or or not in which if they vote not that it won't be on the agenda and the process for that article uh would stop so 228 there's plenty of time to prep for that and then after that when the final articles are approved uh the George and the town staff will get them on the web as soon as possible and uh we're looking at March 16th and I think the same timeline 6 30 to you know we'll just kind of announce nine I mean two and a half hours should be enough time to particularly the second one that horse will have been pretty well beaten and meat taken off of it so so that's our our schedule coming up 2 15 6 30 Eureka 363 March 16th 6 30. uh Eureka would be

the final one and after that there's really no room to make chain you know correct typos and spelling but other than that there's no chance to to Really tweak them so that is truly the the final one can we go through the schedule again really quick so I'm looking at the email Kevin sent out so um we're gonna have February 15th a hearing public comment right if there's any changes that we want to make based on that yeah those yes um like within a a week we have a week and so we will vote on and correct me if I'm wrong but at the end of the public hearing we'll vote on how we want to move forward on I thought we were voting the next hearing like well I think what John is alluding to is and part of the purpose of having the two public hearings is so that you can make changes and so I think what John is pointing to let's just say you have input at the February 15th public hearing that indicates the plan

and you will have we'll have had time to review the and that's the other thing I wanted to mention I will put on the agenda for the March 1st planning board meeting uh the review of the decd rule uh draft rule we can have a discussion of that so let's just say that rule says well look that really isn't going to work uh what we've drafted or you need to consider this part of it then we could propose some changes as a result of the DCd rules and or input from the February 15th public hearing draft some changes and have those ready for the public hearing on March 15th yeah it but and I that's what I was thinking but we were based on Kevin's proposal is that he wants to vote on the

February 28th yes I I think that backing up I think we need to on the 8th you'll get we'll get and everybody who wants to can review that but we need to take a quick look and say yes yes I was thinking on on the 15th at the end of that meeting okay you would take the public comment February yes have had the review of the of the decd rules on the affordable housing part of it and then at the conclusion of the public hearing on the 15th you would propose whether you want to make any changes or not okay so then if you do what we can do is have a bulleted list uh and have you approved that list of changes and then I can do the drafting for it this is February 15th they're going to be meeting and approving the final language of the final warrant article language on the 28th and so we would need to have whatever draft we're going to redo if any are ready to get to

the select board before the before the 28th meeting sorry I think we're we're saying it's a tight it's a tight okay but no I uh getting the public like if that meeting is going to be kind of you know we're listening and then potentially I mean I think we'll close the public hearing have a discussion amongst the board members and then vote to say um I I don't I don't want to if I come up with something somebody in the audience will say oh they're they're gonna change this so uh but yes we will combine the state input on the eighth the public input on the 15th and before we leave here on the 15 come up with a so just yeah and just give the historical example last year we were considering uh

a proposal to change the uh policy for the adoption of Public Road approval of private roads uh as private ways and and at the public hearing there was discussion and debate over whether such roads at outside of subdivisions needed to be paved or could be gravel and so the input from that meeting led the select board to consider making a change to pretty much allow the gravel or or setting a policy uh it was actually the the current policy but there have been discussion of changing it to Paving and then they finally concluded let's just leave it as gravel and that went into town meeting and and everybody was arguing about the process and I think that's what chairman Neto is trying to avoid is we get to the town meeting and have people argue about the process uh this gives an opportunity to make changes before the select board makes their decision on the Warren articles and then it goes to the town meeting

with hopefully everybody satisfied with at least there's a huge difference this year in that last year was a one meeting Affair yes that's why we're going to the two meetings I got you but but it was a one meeting total there was those came out of yes but but the point is is that this would be an example of where a change could be made that one change was made and that change could be made as a result of the February 15th public hearing and then put the final language which didn't go back out to another public hearing for the March 15th and then say this is it yeah yeah at that point by March 15. so yeah so yeah I think does that sound like a plan yeah and again just to clarify my sense of the so

the first public hearing is to give opportunity to say look this is the final draft if if we're going to make changes you get they've got to be considered now the second public hearing will occur after the select board has approved them and the purpose of that meeting will be to give an opportunity for everyone to see it hear it understand it before the town meeting vote so that you don't go to the town meeting and say I don't understand this please explain it to me there will still be some of that but at least there will have been the opportunity for everybody to hear the full presentation be a few weeks before it goes to the town meeting so I I like that the one thing I'm

thinking of is if we if anything does come up that's substantial on February 15th and only you and I are there I don't think we can be I mean I think at that point you need a corner we've got to get people okay and then also I'm wondering about select board I know Kevin had some good comments the last one we had which is why we're here actually at the last meeting we had the public meeting we had like I wonder well if item yeah and like you know I don't know if that's allowed oh yeah no like well the select Ward have been attending yeah and if they have comfortable members have been attending these meetings so just that's their time to express I agree it's because coming out of the 15th what they see on the 28th from their the way he has said in his emails we're it's not our role to tweak it or to to uh change it our role is either accept what you've provided us or rejected and not put it before that so I think

they've had they've seen the draft ones uh in the past so I don't think this will be called if I'm selectman when we did it back in October we had um we had two at least two Selectmen when we started affordable housing at the Conservation Commission I know there was at least one Kevin I can't remember if there were more at that one or not so yes they as they have that opportunity to to weigh in and they've had that and John presented the final draft your final draft uh on January 12th so they've had it for a few weeks now yeah yeah yeah yeah and I hear that loud and clear that you know Kevin um uh so that you know it's in his view it's not appropriate for the slide forward to directly amend language decision will be based on whether we think the ordinance is ready to be voted on or not yeah and they will they'll be invited and I will go back to this selectman um next week well the 28th is our final

vote but they also I will go back okay what is this second Tuesday so the 14th I'll go to their meeting and say look it we get we're gonna I'll lay off this timeline Forum that's what I'm saying oh yeah and I will also George probably at that point say we received the state comments and we think we're in line or or we're not and we're on affordable housing that has no impact on resources or private roads well on that so yeah we'll have an idea from the draft if by any chance which

meeting the April 1st meeting what's our plan there like will we have any sort of like caveat like you know what if we're not in if we're talking it's crazy what if we're not in alignment well I think that's that's a good question I think at that point well I think it's important to remember the law is the law right I I know they can't they can't change the law all they can do is give greater Clarity on how towns

must Implement those requirements they can't change those requirements and those requirements say any individual law that has an existing single-family home or duplex which Durham allows must allow up to three units of housing on that property any vacant land every main

municipality must allow at least two dwelling units on that vacant piece of property if you allow a single family home on that property that can't change without an act of the legislature what the decd can do is to say the this is

how it must be applied by the towns so we've had discussions and the current proposal is to say if you have a single family home you'll be allowed to have two accessory units rather than one ex just one that you can have now and if you have a duplex currently Durham does not allow you to have an accessory apartment with the two with the two full-size units this amendment would allow an accessory apartment with a duplex for a total of three in either case so what we'll be able to tell I mean that meets the technical General requirement of the law but they may look at can you restrict the size of these units and provide provide some rules consistent based on the Attorney General's input who's been reviewing this to give parameters on that decision making and ultimately I'm sure what they will focus on is is they want to make sure that the rules that the towns adopt don't undermine the intent of the law and so they're going

to try to put parameters on it to make sure that the legislation is complied with but give more specificity because there's so many questions well what does that mean how do you do it but I think if they've if I understand your question so what you're asking is if Tana proves it on April 1st it becomes the ordinance and they just come out I'm pulling stuff out of my hair but they say you must allow 10 yeah 10 units but again they can't change the law no but but the law they could [Music] something that would make what we voted on just not well I think here's an example they say this means you can put a Triplex three attached units we say you can only have duplex and an accessory apartment you can't build the three equal units that would be an example of where I don't think that's going to come out of it but it could and then we'd have to say well wait a minute and the bottom line is the town attorney has told the

code officer that you have to follow the state law that's what I was going to say is it so if they if they adopt those rules whether it's in our ordinance or not he still has to do we'll just have to revise it later on yeah we have to revise it on the second of July somebody comes in and says yeah I want to call on or I want a Triplex the code officer would have assuming they've done that would have to allow that and then next year we just have to go back okay well it's not that big of a deal it's not I mean it's not like like you said it's it's not going to be apples and bananas it'll be exactly it'll be Macintosh to cortlands yeah

know I mean if there's some bizarre interpretation where they come back and say you have to lock on the 8th of February we'll we'll know better next Wednesday so I think that and then we'll have a discussion of it on March 1st no but we'll also talk about it on the 15th yeah we have to have the discussion on the 15th yes if there's anything like if anything changes with what we are proposing yeah well I think we need to be able to my thought would be and this is a perfect world because we get it on the eighth we all we all look at it say I don't see any changes here we can tell the public to look at we've compared this to the draft State rules and we're very much in sync with them or if you know I don't know but we I think we I don't know that a discussion on the first serves as much so I think I was mixing up the meetings so we get the decd rules on February excuse me yeah February 8th we have the public

hearing on February 15th at that point we still have the March first meeting to this to take the public input talk about the voting no because Selectmen are voting on the phone on the 28th so we don't have we don't know at first we have to come out of the 15th with with the final draft yeah okay so but I'm sorry you were going DC or what DDC uh CD yes they come out on the eight and what's what's the next date after that for them well for them it's uh March 1st they have a public hearing which would be the date that we're talking about doing the regular planning board meeting but then so yeah you you really have to make the decision on any changes on the 15th so two weeks a week yep so that we can get it to the select board by the twenties and I will follow up with another email so what we'll do you decide if you want to make changes tell me what they are I will draft it circulate it to the planning

board you can email back comments uh and then we'll just send it on with that recommendation for these changes because they've already got the drafts so really it's just send them a copy of the changes that come out of the public hearing possible changes as opposed to rewrite the whole thing it'll be make this change to this part this part and this part yeah then you do that on the yeah and then we then we re you know then I repackage the whole thing for posting for the public for the official public hearing on the 16th oh wow you're

gonna work that fast have you ever heard of word processing problem is deleting this stuff so I so I think to kind of recap what we're looking at is the 15th of February is our first public hearing and that is a true public hearing and then we have to have a quorum and all that other kind of stuff so we I'll work hard to get as many of our members as hopefully they're watching on YouTube a member of our the board to be there uh George you'll

uh uh put together and if there's any we talked about affordable housing whether there's any changes that come out on resource protection uh on the 15th and that's got an even faster turn around because you got to get it in the mail on the 22nd um and then the 28th and all that has to go

in a final draft form to the Selectmen on the before the 28th whatever Jerry needs that and then they vote on it on the 28th and then on the 16th of March we will hold excuse me a public the final public hearing which is for lack of a better term there could be very there will be no changes other than right again that is just to let people understand what's going to be voted on on the death of town meeting and just something to clarify excuse me [Music] the 15th of February we're going to meet with the public and vote if there's any changes or vote on what we propose if no changes right yeah and then George is going to work super fast to get any revisions back to the Celeste board yeah right they're going to vote on the 28th we're not going to publish anything final until after they vote on the 28th right we're not we're not publishing again because we already have yes the draft right those are already

posted well what we can do is we can publish the changes that are being recommended okay we can publish the changes that are being proposed by the planning board to the select board for their for their 20s I was looking at Kevin's thing and that's what he said yeah so I think any any changes that come out on the 15th we've you know again that is fairly easy to do if you just say make these changes and we just say these are the changes that are recommended that's pretty quick to do okay so we do do that and that's just a matter of doing the preparing the official documents and getting them on posted on the website and then so that people with those changes Incorporated and then so that people know what the Selectmen are going to vote on 28th good point and then

um if whatever they approve to go on the on the agenda at the Town Hall is gets posted and then we go over it on the 16th and people do have the opportunity after the 15th to reach out to their elected officials and say I don't like that or yeah more more room for comment right yeah so the selectman now the selectment won't make changes but the selectman would say you know I don't people really don't like changes to the private road and I don't

want to move forward on that so you know I'm sure they will listen to the to the public comments or whatever it may be they'll take our our recommendations so the big thing is on the 15th the eighth George will get us so hopefully they'll show up on the 8th that the affordable housing comments to review from the state the 15th we'll meet at 6 30 at Eureka and if you you know I mean if you know one of these guys please reach out to them our planning board guys help us get them here I'll reach out to I think I have hands I called Anne and I should have done that at the CD but I'll call Ann I've got her number but I'll start emailing Ron and and others yeah who aren't here just to make 15 I need at least we need at least one more of you to and the more the better because I mean they we need they give good input yeah I don't think Alan will be back so you know we'll we'll miss his input but we can ask him to email he can email us

comments uh so the so the 22nd George you're sending the mailing to if landowners are impacted by resource protection 28 the selectman will approve or not the final articles and then we'll meet again on the 16th of March for the final public hearing and that'll be an informational meeting in March 1st will be the review of the Deer Creek hopefully um and we all did I did include in the packet the draft letter is going to go out to the landowners affected by resource and protection and basically what I did I had done an original draft that had gone out the first proposal the Conservation Commission edited the letter for the second one and the only changes I made were explaining the process that happened since the Conservation Commission draft came so they'll all of the substantive is just more of the process is being proposed that I added in that letter and attached and attached the final versions of the

maps which includes the map showing land to be added land to be taken out two separate maps and if you would reach out to your uh contacts and conservation be there hey by the way we've got one too [Music] glad to be busy so I think I think we're good are there any other um questions or or a business other than this I guess we can't do too much business although no you can't yeah

um oh uh the select bar are they voting on all all of the ordinance changes are all warrant articles on the 20th yeah yeah here and there no they'll vote on uh because the budget articles we have the budget committee has first meeting and voted on some yesterday the second meeting is on Thursday and so decide if we get through be through all that they'll have it did you know there's anyway yes they're going to vote and I don't know that there's any other ordance changes you know like yeah speeding or anything else that are up before the them so it'll be my budget and uh land use and then all those other you know vote to do this that the other thing yeah yeah all that boilerplate stuff that they have to do

March first will be a regular meeting and that will be uh maybe we could do uh uh land use ordinances but at that point in time quite truthfully it's really going to be more about here's what the selectment approved I think because we're kind of past which kind of beating a dead horse at that point yeah we might have Deer Creek we might have hoped you know but hopefully it will be ready to go uh for a decision and uh you haven't gotten any buzz on anybody else that must come in and build a 20-story complex or open a grocery store nope all right with that Devin you may turn off the machines

and thank you thank both of you for coming