PRESENT: Vadney, Chairman; Sorell,
Vice-Chairman; Finer; Kahn; Worsman;
Flanders; Touhey, Edgar, Town Planner;
Harvey, Clerk
Sorell moved, Finer seconded, I MOVE WE APPROVE THE MINUTES
OF JULY 25, 2006, AS PRESENTED.
Voted unanimously.
APPLICATION SUBMISSIONS
1.
FRANCINE
S. ORENSTEIN – Proposed minor subdivision of Tax Map U38, Lot 15, into two (2) lots (5.11 ac. and 6.08 ac.), located
at 76 Veasey Shore
Road in the Shoreline District.
Applicant
proposes to subdivide 11.19 acres into two lots. Proposed Lot 1, consisting of just over 6 acres is a non-waterfront
lot and is vacant. Proposed
Lot 2 is 5.11 acres, includes the waterfront
portion of the parcel and is developed.
The 11.19-acre parcel is bisected by Veasey Shore Road. The proposed subdivision is a
resubdivision of a lot that was created in 1990. The application, subdivision plan
and abutters list are on file, filing fees have been paid. I recommend the application be accepted
as complete for purposes of proceeding to public hearing this evening.
Finer moved,
Sorell seconded, THAT WE ACCEPT THE APPLICATION OF FRANCINE S. ORENSTEIN FOR A
PROPOSED MINOR SUBDIVISION OF TAX MAP U38, LOT
15, LOCATED AT 76 VEASEY SHORE ROAD.
Voted unanimously.
PUBLIC HEARINGS
1.
FRANCINE
S. ORENSTEIN: (Rep. David Dolan)
This is a two-lot subdivision of about 11 acres
located on Veasey Shore
Road.
There’s an existing dwelling on the portion of the lot located easterly
of Veasey Shore
Road with about 240 feet of lake frontage. The remaining backland is part of the
lot and there are some wetlands on the site that were delineated by a
Certified Wetland Scientist. These are outlined on this plan in
purple and they are cross-hatched.
The zone boundary actually runs along Veasey Shore Road so this portion of the
lot is in the Residential District
and we’ll amend the plan note to reflect that as well as amend the setbacks that
are shown on the plan. It’s a
two-lot subdivision, again Lot 1 is 6 acres plus and Lot 2 which is the lakefront lot split by Veasey Shore
Road.
There’s an existing driveway access on Lot 1 that is shared by the lot to the east with the Stone
property and as noted on the plan, reference to Note #7 which addresses the
easement for use in common with that driveway. I’m not sure if there’s a permit
on record. That was discussed
with the Town Planner, John Edgar, and we’ll check and see if there is a
driveway permit existing for that and if not follow up and just clean up that
bit of paperwork and getting a permit for that if needed and we’re proposing a
driveway to Lot 2 in this location. I understand Mike Faller has been to the
site to look at that. We have
submitted a driveway permit application to the Town for that cut and we have
submitted to the State for subdivision approval which is required for Lot 2 because it is on the lake and even though it’s over
5 acres, it’s still under the jurisdiction of State subdivision review. We have indicated all the wetland buffer
setbacks and the septic buffers are shown with the red line on this plan, a 4K
area is shown on Lot 1. The existing septic system for the
existing dwelling is located here.
We’ve indicated the construction approval number. There was some concern expressed
regarding the potential building site on Lot 1, if it were built to the rear of
the lot, it’s steep, it’s ledgy so there was a potential issue regarding access
for fire protection and I spoke with Chief Palm and I indicated to him we’d be
putting a note on the plan that would reference that prior to any building
permit being issued, it would be subject to the review of the Fire Chief. Edgar – With respect to the
lot sizing, we have received the calculations that indicate an assumption of
worst case soil types scenario, coupled with existing topography, the analysis
indicates that each lot would meet the soils based lot sizing requirements. As Dave indicated, we need to
adjust some setback lines based upon the zoning and that can be done
administratively, that’s not a matter that would affect the buildability of Lot
1, Lot 2 already being developed.
As Dave indicated, there is an easement of record over Lot 1 that was part of the original subdivision plan when
Mr. Stone’s lot was created and as Dave has indicated, not only is it indicated
in plan view but Note #7 provides the applicable recording information at the
Registry of Deeds. The other
aspects in terms of septic, well and overhead utilities are pretty
straightforward. This portion of
Veasey Shore
Road is a Town maintained road, therefore, a driveway
permit would be required for Lot 1. As Dave has indicated, I have been out
on the site with Mike Faller, he’s reviewed the proposed location and doesn’t
see any permitting issues with that at all. Also, Dave indicated if for whatever
reason there is not a permit on file for the common driveway across the street,
we’d like to get that as a matter of record. There are no issues with respect to that
driveway from a permitting point of view. The only concern about the
driveway, if you look at the front portion of Lot 1 where the proposed driveway comes in, it’s
relatively flat, there’s really no driveway issue. Certainly there’s an area within the
building envelope where a house could be placed and a driveway could very easily
be set up. Once you start going
back up into the back of the property, you can see where the topo lines tighten
up and here again, it’s not a showstopper, you would just probably kind of run
with the slope a little more than right up against it, but there are some
steeper slopes in the back that we at least wanted to flag. That’s really about it, it’s relatively
straightforward. Touhey – I’m
a little bit confused. The
right-hand part of your plan, existing
house and whatnot, it seems to run off the page here
(continuation
down below on plan). Worsman
– Lot 1 is also that triangular lot at the
triangular section at the bottom so the street bisects it? Dolan – Lot 2, right. Lot 2 I think is the lakefront lot and the street bisects
it as it does now. Worsman –
What’s the triangle one at the bottom?
Dolan – That’s part of Lot 2, the
shorefront lot. Worsman – So
it’s going to have property on both sides of the street. Dolan – Yes. Charlie Stone – 90 Veasey Shore
Road, just to the southeast of this property that
you’re talking about. I’m
here tonight because of two reasons, one I have objections to where the leachbed
was put in the beginning for the house that was built on 76 Veasey Shore
Road.
Two, unresolved damages that were done to my property and to Mike
Jenoski’s property which is just to the other side of the property you’re
talking about on the waterfront and he has been out of the country, called me
today and is objecting vehemently to this subdivision. My speech isn’t very long, but it is
that I’m here to object to anything being done until some of these other
unresolved damages that were done during the construction of the buildings to
both our properties and it is our feeling where it appears that they are
breaking it up so if that leachbed did fail, she would be I guess able to put it
across the street. That’s another
reason why I’m here tonight and I presume that would be possible. Flanders – This issue of unresolved damages and stuff that
was done prior to, those are civil issues.
That’s nothing the Town’s going to get involved in. Stone – I understand that. We’re objecting because of these,
but that’s our problem.
Vadney – Dave, could you point out where the leachfield is on that
property? Dolan – It’s right here
next to the road. There’s wetlands
indicated at the shorefront portion of the lot and I think that’s why the septic
system was probably placed where it was, it was the furthest removed from any of
the wetlands on the site. I’m
not sure it could go across the road.
I think a replacement system would most likely be in place, but that’s
really all I have to say about the septic system. Across the road gets kind of ledgy and
steep. The only reason this
portion was made a part of Lot 2 is to meet the
worst case scenario minimum lot size requirements. Vadney – As it is that existing
system, the leachfield is about 400-500 feet from the house? Dolan – Probably, 350-500 feet. Vadney – The existing damages
would be a civil matter for court, we can’t rule on that but we appreciate your
coming in. Stone – Since we
brought up the leachbed, my objection to the Town in the very beginning was that
on the plan, the original leachbed was supposed to be put across the road to
begin with on the original plan that I have here and then when it was put in
there, the reason the driveway was put in where it is, is because we couldn’t go
in there because it was wetlands and all of a sudden, she could then put a
leached in where the driveway couldn’t go because of wetlands and the feeling
was that it would fail eventually with the size of the house and the number of
bedrooms that it has if and when she does sell the property, which it is for
sale. Edgar – Would there be
any harm in reserving a septic easement on Lot 1 in favor of Lot 2 on the other
side of the road some where in the vicinity of the lot line where it flattens
out a little? Dolan – I don’t
see where there would be any harm.
I’m not sure what to do to effect whatever plans there are for the
property or if it was just a blanket easement not really specifying a location
might actually be less of an impact on the lot. You’re right in that the DES I believe
would allow a replacement at the same location if it came down to an outright
leachfield replacement, but it just would be another option. Dolan – I can explore that if you want
it to be a condition of approval.
Vadney – Across the road does look pretty steep there, particularly on
the south side of it. To the
north side it appears to a non-designated wetland buffer so would it be possible
to put one across the street if necessary and how far? This one is already 300-400 feet
away from the house. Edgar – Is
that what you’re suggesting, it may not be practical? Flanders – There’s a state approval number listed here
(inaudible). Vadney – You mean
based on the amount of space you see? Flanders – Right. Vadney – That whole area’s pretty
bony isn’t it? John, do you
think we should make any reservations on that? Edgar – The system is relatively
new and if that were an older system where we had no contemporary design, I
would be a little more cautious about whether it would make sense to replace it
in the old location but it’s a relatively new system. The subdivision plan from 1990
basically has the stipulation that the waterfront piece couldn’t be sold
separately unless it had further subdivision approval to do that, and that’s
what we have tonight.
Flanders – The septic approval number
here, you can tell that this approval was granted in 2004. Worsman – John, can you repeat
what you just said. Edgar –
The 1990 plan, you look at the locus at the top of the page, do you see the
black plot that lot was created in 1990 by subdivision and at the time there was
reliance upon some of the land across the street and so there’s a note that says
the waterfront portion can’t be sold separately because if somebody looked at it
quickly, it would look like two lots.
So the 1990 plan basically said you couldn’t sell the waterfront side
separately except by conditional Planning Board approval. In other words, come back in and
demonstrate that it could legitimately be subdivided. Effectively, that is what this
hearing is tonight to set off the waterfront piece from the back land. Worsman – What was the thinking of
the Planning Board at the time, why would they have made that provision? Edgar – My guess is it probably had more
to do with how much mapping was done.
They probably didn’t map the whole thing. It wasn’t precluded from
re-subdivision, it just flagged the fact that it needed to come back and would
need Planning Board approval if that waterfront was to be sold separate from
this piece. Stone – The
original plan for that lot was that you could either build a house on that lot
with the leachbed across the street or the leachbed on the waterfront lot and
the house across the street. That
was the original plan. This
is the original plan he was talking about and shows where the septic should have
been put. Edgar – In that context,
then it would have made sense that if the waterfront was dependent on the other
side of the street for one reason or another that they go as a package or if
they were to be separated, it would have to come back to you guys for more
detail. Vadney – It does kind
of imply that the whole area was looked at as being a little troublesome and
they were putting some brakes on it.
Edgar – There’s no question, the Eldridge lots and the Andrews lots which
were part of the Eldridge lots, they are all difficult. They have less than optimum soil
conditions and pockets of wetlands, but in this particular case when we look at
the lot sizing, we’re assuming worst-case soils so the analysis that’s been
submitted with the steep slopes netted out of the equation, with the wetlands
netted out of the equation, all of the remaining upland is considered to be
shallow to ledge, that’s our worst-case soil, and they are all above 1. In other words, the number comes
out greater than 1 meaning it can support greater than 1 house in a soils and
slopes type of analysis. It’s 1.78
on the back side and 1.36 on the waterfront so it’s not one of these 1.0001 type
of deals and that’s with all of that other stuff netted out of the
equation. I don’t from a lot-sizing
point of view, knowing that our requirements are very conservative, much more
conservative than the State, there’s really not a groundwater issue associated
with the subdivision. Worsman
– Though we can’t get involved in civil issues, was there something that we
should know about that happened in the building of that house or building on
that lot that might impact our decision tonight. Edgar – Like Chairman Vadney and
Bob had suggested, it is a civil matter and I certainly can ask Bill to get back
to you and share whatever he might
be aware of, but I would just caution the Board to not mix your land use
regulatory authority and civil issues because as a matter of principle, that
opens up cans of worms that you can’t even begin to fathom the
repercussions. We’ve been advised
by attorneys repeatedly that, as unfortunate as it is, you can’t use the
regulatory authority you have as leverage on civil matters, that’s mixing and
matching different types of jurisdictions in different venues so we’ve been
advised just across the Board that when you do come up with a civil dispute
between property owners over whatever it may be if it’s something that’s
specific to the subdivision regulations, that’s one thing. In other words, if someone feels that
there’s a drainage problem or in the case of site plan, the lights are a
nuisance or something like that, there’s an opportunity to deal with some of
those things, but if it’s a function of someone’s approach to how they built the
property and they damaged something else or cut somebody else’s trees down,
we’ve been advised not to use that as a means to using this Board’s authority as
a means to leverage outcome of civil matters. Dolan – Not to go on and on, but
just to point out one thing. We
show the test pits that were dug on this lot. For purposes of subdivision, we
show a 4,000 sq. ft. area around
it, that means that’s a suitable area for a septic system, but it’s not implying
that we’re restricting any potential building to that site, we’re just saying
there’s one suitable area. There
may be others on the site, but you don’t want to go to the most remote location
on the site, try to get a backhoe there to prove that’s the site someone may
build on so it’s really just to find a site that’s suitable for building. There may be others when it comes time
to build and if I recall the 1990 plan, I saw it a while ago and just got a
quick glimpse of it going by. They
showed a 4K in this general location, a 4,000 sq. ft. area which may be suitable
for building, but it’s not
necessarily
where someone is limited to build.
There were no building restrictions that I recall. Edgar – One thing that’s sort of
related to that though, in all likelihood the driveway will be fixed over here
because of all the wetlands and the frontage issues so if you kind of look at
the frontage starting at the top of the page, you have wetland setbacks and then
by Pole 140/97 you have a gap, then you pick up wetlands, buffers, wetlands to
the next lot line and so this has been located to avoid any wetland issues and
it has also been reviewed by Mike and determined to be a very suitable driveway
location so as much as the house site can’t be pre-determined on a 6-acre lot,
the driveway entrance will be.
Vadney – That’s the only logical and feasible place to put the
driveway. Dolan – It’s the
simplest, it’s the best sight distance away from the curves to the southeast and
the slope, the curve coming in from the northwest and it avoids any impacts into
the wetland buffer. Sorell –
Mr. Chairman, David, on your map it says woods road, does that woods road go
right through the wetland?
Dolan – No, through a buffer.
It looks more like an ATV trail.
Edgar – Does the abutter topside, S04 –4, does anybody have rights
through Lot 1 to Veasey Shore Road
that you’re aware of. Dolan – None
that I’m aware of. There’s
actually another woods road that comes in almost parallel off of Veasey Shore Road
and heads off in this direction.
Flanders moved,
Kahn seconded, MR. CHAIRMAN, I MOVE THAT WE APPROVE THE PROPOSED
SUBDIVISION OF FRANCINE S. ORENSTEIN, TAX MAP U38, LOT 15, INTO TWO (2) LOTS
(5.11 AC. AND 6.08 AC.) LOCATED AT 76 VEASEY SHORE ROAD IN THE SHORELINE
DISTRICT, SUBJECT TO THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS:
(1)
FINAL PLANS NEED TO SHOW CORRECTED SETBACK LINES
FOR BOTH PARCELS;
(2)
A DPW DRIVEWAY PERMIT IS REQUIRED AND SHALL BE
REFERENCED ON THE FINAL PLANS;
(3)
FINAL PLANS SHALL BE SIGNED OFF BY THE FIRE CHIEF
WITH REGARD TO THE DRIVEWAY LOCATION; AND
(4)
WRITTEN EVIDENCE THAT THE CORNERS AND ANGLE
POINTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE SUBDIVISION HAVE BEEN SET SHALL BE PROVIDED PRIOR TO
RECORDING OF THE MYLAR.
Voted – 5 – 2 in favor of the
motion.
Vadney – I
realize the ordinance was written to cover this, but do we need to put any
caveats in there about no shoreline access for proposed Lot 1. We
have on some properties specificied specifically in a note that this lot will
have no access to the waterfront.
Edgar – We’ve done it, for example, on the Atteberry project because
there were issues that aren’t necessarily present here. In theory they could grant an easement
to the waterfront, I believe they probably have enough waterfront to do
that. One Hundred Thirty-Nine feet
(139’) is the tie line so the actual measurement’s a little bigger than that so
that would be more restrictive than what’s allowed for in the ordinance so I
guess the question to you would be kind of rhetorically, do you have a reason to
do that? If not, then I would think
it wouldn’t be prudent to do that.
The Atteberry case was quite a bit different for all the reasons you’re
all aware of and so we had worked on restrictions vis-à-vis the subdivision
process that went in excess above and beyond the zoning minimums. Vadney – I was thinking of way
before the Atteberry, I was going back to some of the early Soley Lane
subdivisions about 6-7 years ago.
Worsman – John, woods road that’s not a Class VI road, that’s just
paper? It’s not something that’s
going to come back by us. Edgar –
It’s more than paper, it’s probably an old skidder trail or something like that
perhaps. It’s physically out there,
but it’s not any kind of a public ROW, Class V, VI or otherwise to the best of
my knowledge. Is that your
understanding Dave? Dolan – It
really looks more like an ATV or perhaps a snowmobile trail and there are a
couple faint tire ruts, but it’s not like you would see.. On the adjacent lot, it’s
something that looks like an old roadbed through the woods; it doesn’t even look
like that. Vadney – There’s no
evidence of it ever having been a public road. Dolan – It doesn’t appear to be at all,
it’s a trail and I’ll gladly change that so it says trail. Worsman – I’d like added that it
is a trail and not a road.
Kahn – Does Tax Map S04, Lot 4, have
access to a public road somewhere?
Dolan – Off the top of my head, we’re not changing anything there. Edgar – (Inaudible) Kahn – Whether or not there’s an
easement by prescription, it’s none of our business. Dolan – I haven’t read of any
easement affecting that and don’t believe there is one at least on this
property. Touhey – John, in
this discussion, it appears that there is some historical basis for a Planning
Board situating or proposing that the septic system be situated on the other
side of Veasey Shore
Road and then as Charlie has explained, it was
subsequently built on the shoreline side of Veasey Shore Road. In looking at where it’s situated, it
couldn’t be a longer run from the house which indicates to me that there’s no
other desirable place on that side of the road for the septic system than where
it is. You made a suggestion that
the Board might consider that an easement be given across the road on Lot 1 in the event there is a septic system failure. I think we really should be aware of
that because of the proximity of wetlands.
We have a wetland there that is barely the minimum of 50’ away from that
septic site so I would propose an amendment to the motion. Touhey moved, THAT AN EASEMENT BE
GRANTED BURDENING LOT 1 IN FAVOR OF LOT 2 FOR A SEPTIC SITE SHOULD THAT SYSTEM
CURRENTLY IN USE ON LOT 2 FAIL.
Worsman seconded. Voted 5-2
against. Flanders – I would be opposed to that because I think it’s
totally unnecessary. As I look at
this lot, Lot 2, it’s obvious to me that if that system failed there’s adequate
space for it to be replaced there and it’s already an approved system, it’s a
recently approved system in 2004 which meets all the current standards and it’s
totally unnecessary. Vadney – I
tend to agree with Bob, I can see where 15 years ago when they subdivided that
they said at the time if the only mapping that had been done was yes, here’s an
11-acre lot and there’s plenty of room over here to put a septic system so it’s
an approved lot. That’s good
thinking as long as you keep in mind and don’t think you can do it all on the
east side of the road, that’s what it kind of amounts to and that’s why they put
that caveat in there that you couldn’t sell only the part of the east side of
the road. Later on when it was
determined that a septic could be put on the east side of the road, that
probably had become a moot point.
That’s the way I could reason through the history of that so I think Bob
is probably right. The other thing
is, I don’t know this land, I know it’s pretty bony, but there’s quite a bit of
land, another 500 feet out, they could with some pumping and stuff put a septic
that would be 1,500 feet from their house, but that’s not precluded. I know there are some in Town that
they put up along hills and whatever.
Flanders – From 1990 to 2004, the
technology for leachfields has changed tremendously. A system in 2004 would only have to be
40% of the size of a system in 1990 and actually today, this technology would
require the system to only be 15% of the size of 1990 and do the job. I believe the technology changes
are why the State was able to approve it here and knowing that you could cut
that leachfield in size again with new technology that’s just been approved by
the State leaves me very comfortable with the fact that they can always put a
system on this lot that would work well and meet all the State standards. Vadney – I tend to agree with that. We have an amendment on the floor,
any other discussion on the amendment?
We have a motion here; we need to
vote on the amendment. Motion
failed 5-2. Motion voted 5-2
in favor.
Vadney –
Charlie, what this boils down to is it appears there are no problems with this
land that would prevent that from being two lots and that’s our only job. Stone - Living right next door to this for 15
or 16 years, the concern is not so much the wetlands, but if this leachbed
failed into that wetland which has been entirely covered by water where this
leachbed is from time to time in the past 16 years. The point being that the State did find,
I don’t believe the Town even went over to look at it, but the State did approve
it. The problem is if that should
happen again, if the leachbed should leak a little bit, it would get into that
wetland, the brook that flows right into the Bay is not very far away and that
wetland leaches into that brook which would then pollute the whole bay which
would involve 4 houses. I’m only
entering and you passed it, but I’m objecting to the fact that nobody can see
into the future, but if it should, where it’s not going to just stay in that
area, it’s not going to just fail and stay there and smell, it’s going to run
into the brook that goes down into that Bay and with leaving a provision, I
would be satisfied enough that if that should happen, it could be closed and she
would have a place or whoever owns the house at the time, would have a place to
put that leachbed other than where it is.
I’m getting that into the record and I know you’ve done your job and
you’ve done your work, but that’s my only concern. Vadney – There are 3 other options
that would be there: (1) They could rebuild where they are or
move it slightly and rebuild, (2)
they could put it on their own land another 800 feet across the road and up onto
some of the shallower slopes most likely, I haven’t seen that land so I can’t
say they could or (3) they could buy some land from whoever buys the one across
the street or they can shut down.
Flanders – I’d just like to correct the
record, Charlie said he didn’t think anyone from the Town had been out there to
look at that septic system. For
some 15-18 years now, every plan that has gone to the State of New Hampshire has
required a stamp from the Code Enforcement Officer. Jack Dever did it for quite a few years
and Bill Edney’s doing it now so the Town has been out there. They are required to stake the
location of the tank and the 4 corners of the leachfield and they go out and
review it specifically to see they’ve got appropriate setbacks from wetlands,
seasonal streams and so forth so this definitely was reviewed by the Town before
it went to the State.
PRE-APPLICATION REVIEW
2.
CHRISTOPHER L. JAQUES D/B/A INTERLAKES ANIMAL HOSPITAL:
(Rep. Dave
Dolan) Pre-application Design
Review to expand existing building and related parking, Tax Map S23, Lot 101, located at 182 Daniel Webster Highway in the Central
Business District.
Most everyone
knows where this site is. The
existing building is located at the intersection of Route 3 and Reservoir Road. The existing animal hospital operates
there. It’s about 33,000 sq. ft.
and again this is the existing animal hospital, there’s gravel parking on the
southeast corner of the lot at the intersection of Route 3 and Reservoir Road. There’s also existing gravel parking to
the rear of the building in front of the existing residence that’s located on
the site and I think most everyone also is aware that the State of New Hampshire
is going to begin construction in that area to construct a roundabout slightly
to the south on Route 3. This heavy
line on this plan which I have additional reduced copies that I’ve emphasized
that a little better I could hand out if you’d like. In conjunction with the
construction on Route 3, the State has approached the property owner here and
there will be a taking of a slope easement to reconstruct some of the drainage
on-site. There’s an 18” culvert
coming under Reservoir Road going into a catch basin that then goes under the
existing gravel driveway and then into a brook running westerly off the site and
that’s going to be rebuilt and we’re hoping to coordinate the work on this site
for the expansion of the site which would be to add on to the existing building
on the northerly side of the building, we’ve shown a proposed addition that’s
20’ x 28’ and then to the rear of the building about 20’ x 25’ and then a wing
in this direction. The parking
right now that’s on-site is gravel surfaced and there’s probably 6-8 parking
spaces in this area. Some of the
parking actually occurs outside the property and in the ROW. The sign for Reservoir Road is
right about here and the gravel, there’s just a small grass island around that
right now and then there’s several parking spaces to the rear of the
building. There’s a storage hut in
this location that would be removed and then this parking that’s proposed to be
constructed to the rear of the building, the parking in the front would be
modified and graded, hopefully, to make it easier for vehicles to get out of
there in the winter because they tend to get stuck just because of the slope in
there. These cuts are what the
State has shown as allowing for the property off of Route 3. The original plan we had submitted
didn’t show this cut that was being left by the State and we’re hoping to maybe
maintain it just to allow for temporary parking or deliveries to that end of the
building. I met on-site with Mike
Faller of the DPW to discuss the proposed two locations for the access off
Reservoir
Road and if he had any issues with those locations or
the proximity to each other and he didn’t.
He was fine with them.
The drainage again we’d be tying in with a catch basin in this location
on the front parking tying into what would be a new catch basin and picking up
the drainage from that area and then trying to direct and utilize the existing
catch basins or the ones that are being replaced as part of accommodating the
drainage off of the site. Again,
there’s going to be no increase in the number of veterinarians or employees it’s
my understanding. This is really
being done to enhance the parking.
There’s 3 vets that work at the office, there’s 3 exam rooms I believe is
what the property term is so considering there’s 3 rooms, you would potentially
have 3 people in there, 3 people waiting or in the way in and 3 on the way out,
there would be 9 potential cars possibly 12 and then the employees, I believe
the maximum number is 10. That
would be about 22 parking spaces and then you need two for the residents of the
one-story house which is Mr. Jaques and his family so we’ve shown 23
spaces. There’s possibly going to
be a garage under this addition and would come out to the 24 spaces and I think
that would accommodate the needs for the site. It is serviced by Town sewer. I spoke with Bob Hill and he has no
specific ties for this force main that runs through, all he could tell me was
there’s a force main coming from the Kuzina property through the property also
picking up the septic from these two buildings and being pumped to a main on
Reservoir Road and I drafted those locations based on verbal and we’d have to
confirm them and make sure I understood correctly from Bob Hill where he thought
those lines were just to get a better feeling for that. There is a well on-site. I made calls to try and confirm
whether there’s any specific regulation that would apply to the use of that well
relative to the veterinary hospital and people at the State are on vacation so I
don’t have an answer on that, but it’s something we’ll be looking into and it
was suggested by Mr. Edgar.
It’s Design Review so I’m here to gather input and answer questions. Vadney – You partially answered one of
the questions I had with one of your comments, but this is a lot and the
one-story frame house and the clinic itself are all on one lot and the whole lot
is owned by Mr. Jaques. Dolan –
Correct. So all you are
really doing is realigning to come up with enough parking space and then put a
proposed addition on the back, a proposed addition to the north, to the west and
a ramp on part of it and a loading dock, right? Dolan – Yes, loading and delivery
on this side of the building and just to point out, there is an existing gravel
driveway that comes on this side right now and actually goes down to the rear of
the property. Vadney – As I read
this proposal on modifying the road by the State, it will actually move the
road, it will open up about 10 more feet between his building and the
pavement. Dolan – Exactly, we met
with Linda Smith from DOT at the site on the 2nd of August and that’s
exactly what she told me, 10 feet and when I was originally trying to
incorporate the State information into our drawing based on some of their
control points they had placed in the field and trying to fit them together with
the original ROW layout and into this drawing I was having problems I thought
because I had a 10’ shift through here and when I finally was delivered plans of
the ROW which she brought to that meeting that day, that clarified that and they
are in fact moving the road 10’ further away from the building in that
location. Vadney – Where is
the ROW? Dolan – About 4’ off
the front of the building.
We’re told we can keep, I don’t have it in writing but that’s what we
were told last week that we could keep the walkway and the State would replace
it in kind if it was disturbed during the course of construction and they are
hoping to keep the sign, they were allowing the sign to stay and if it had to be
moved, they would be moving it, but they had no problem at least at this point
with it staying where it is.
The sign I’m talking about is right here. Ed – Dave, there’s a certain area here
that’s crosshatched. Can you
explain why that is? Dolan – That’s
the area subject to an easement to the State of New Hampshire for reconstruction of the
drainage through there. They’ve
going to re-grade from the highway to blend it into Reservoir Road and
they’ll be re-grading the slopes slightly off of Reservoir Road so
part of that easement is to eliminate the slopes and the grading associated with
the construction as well as replacing these drainage structures. Ed – That’s just a temporary easement
during construction? Dolan – I
think part of that is permanent.
Vadney – Is that an old easement?
Dolan – No, this is proposed
because they’ll be maintaining those drainage structures in the
future. Finer – Where is
parking space #7, mine goes from 6
to 8? Dolan – It must have
gotten lost in space so that would leave us with 22 spaces if that happened,
although we would have a space under the garage I’m told. This will be a drive under garage on the
proposed addition. Worsman – In the
drainage areas where you have a significant amount of parking, is the State
going to allow? Dolan – They
have seen this plan and they have stated they would be working with Mr. Jaques
in trying to develop the site as he’s proposing and we’ll have to be
coordinating with them as far as whatever we come up with for drainage for the
site to make sure it works with their changes. Worsman – Potentially, the slope is
fairly large, what contingency is there for other parking spaces? Dolan – As far as additional spaces, I
don’t think we can fit any more in there because of the way the slopes of the
property fall off the existing driveway right now, there will probably be some
retaining wall in here, at least part of this will also probably be a retaining
wall in here between the two parking areas, the upper and the lower parking as
I’ve been referring to them.
Edgar – One thing we don’t have on this plan is grading information so
it’s basically a schematic; it’s the level of review that we’re in, Design
Review. Once we get into the
engineering side of it, it will be more apparent what some of the challenges
are. The property does tail off,
along that line we’ve yet to engineer the project so we haven’t looked at storm
water. We have to be very mindful
of downstream impacts to property owners in terms of retention or detention and
we also have to be very mindful of water quality which eventually gets into
Lake
Waukewan. Here again, it’s a pretty tight site so
it’s not like you can just plop a pond wherever you want or various treatment
techniques so it will be a little bit of a challenge for the engineer to make
all this schematic version work on the ground, but it is a pretty site. I think schematically it’s pretty well
maxed out right now. What’s
your take on this? I’ve met
with these folks once or twice on the number of parking spaces. It was brought to my attention that the
Association of Veterinarians or something like that has parking standards that
they typically recommend for this type of land use and I had suggested to the
applicants that at the end of the day, we have flexibility in our parking but we
don’t waive parking to make the numbers work, we waive it to not overbuild or in
some cases under build parking.
I don’t know what those standards are but that’s the way we left the
discussion on the parking. It
is a sloping property and I think it will be a little bit of a challenge once we
start seeing the grading information.
One thing that is new to me tonight is this loading dock coming in off
Route 3 and unless you have a way to turn around a truck, I would highly
recommend against having truck traffic back out onto Route 3. I think that is fundamentally flawed and
it won’t be an easy task making deliveries on the lower deck. At least it’s not like grocery store
type deliveries, but I think you can probably make it work with a several point
turn on the lower deck, but I would strongly discourage using that driveway cut
on Route 3 as a way for people to deliver something and then effectively have to
back out onto Route 3. I think
that’s a mistake. There are a
series of zoning reliefs that will need to be granted. We are expanding a non-conforming
structure and that will require zoning relief. We’ll be developing within the setback
of a non-designated stream which will require relief. (inaudible). Vadney – John, have you looked at the
lot coverage percentages?
Edgar – I have it on my note as a question, but I’ve not (inaudible) Vadney – Dave, have you? Dolan – Yes. Edgar – (inaudible) The numbers are pretty high in the
commercial district, I believe it’s 65%.
Do you have an idea what it is? Dolan – As it’s shown on the plan,
it’s 48%, 65% is allowed. The total
coverage as shown is 16,500 sq. ft. approximately. The lot’s a little over 33,000 sq. ft.
and there’ll be walkways and obviously there will be modifications to what’s on
the plan. Edgar – Usually I
think in a case like this, it’s not going to be the lot coverage itself as much
as it’s going to be how we manage the storm water on a fairly tight site. If we didn’t have the house and that
whole lower third of the property available, that would be a little bit
different, but that will be up to them to figure out. I’ve tagged it for them in my office, we
flagged it again here at this meeting and I think when they get into the
drainage and storm water pieces, it’s going to be tricky. I would strongly discourage just
collecting the runoff and dumping it into the stream. Vadney – This goes to
Waukewan? Touhey – I would like to
comment regarding the access. Dave,
it appears that you’re going to have some access continuing off of Route 3 and
then access off of Reservoir
Road which is the way it is today? Dolan – This is an improvement on
that. Touhey – I think if
we’re going to increase the volume of traffic here, with our concern over Route
3, this is a wonderful opportunity and good planning to perhaps eliminate that
curb cut on Route 3 and have access be strictly off of Reservoir Road is
something maybe the owner will consider. Edgar – That issue came up in our
staff level meeting, Ed, and maybe Dave can speak to this as well, because I had
raised the same point, and it’s a little hard to appreciate this schematically
but there is a substantial grade differential from spaces 1-6 and the lower deck
of parking and so if you close off access to that upper deck, there’s really no
way to get to those 6 spaces.
Are you talking about only cutting the Route 3 piece or are you talking
about the northerly driveway that we talked about for loading? Touhey – I guess I need
clarification. Are there two
driveway cuts off of Route 3 for this property? Dolan – Currently, there are,
yes. Vadney – Two off of Route 3
and two off of Reservoir
Road.
Dolan – Correct, as it exists now. Touhey – The best scenario
at all I guess would be to eliminate both but in the case of losing those
parking spaces which will probably raise some complications, at least the
northern entry. Finer – How
would you lose those parking spaces?
Flanders – You can get at them from
Reservoir
Road.
Dolan – Not ideally.
You’d be coming around the corner and heading down a slope and then
turning in and then pretty much you’d have to turn back out into the ROW to get
into those spaces. Vadney –
Could you talk about that again, I didn’t follow you. Dolan – They’re suggesting that if
we eliminated both of these cuts, then the entrance to this parking would be
this from Reservoir
Road.
You have to turn down the hill onto the slope and then into the parking
and basically have to turn, it would be pretty tough to use this parking if you
eliminated that cut. You couldn’t
pull into these spaces, you’d have to come in here and make a really sharp turn
to the left which would occur back out in the ROW to get into those spaces so
you’d effectively eliminate parking by eliminating that southerly curb cut on
Route 3. Vadney – I recall
that from where the spaces 1-6 are shown.
When you pull into those as they are currently, you better stop because
it drops off pretty abruptly and I guess you can see you’re probably dropping 12
or 14 feet to the level of that next parking driveway. Dolan – Exactly, and again the idea is
to try and raise this edge of the upper parking a little bit so it’s easy to get
out of those spaces. I guess in the
winter on the gravel surface, you can’t get out of there. Flanders – I just wanted to say, I think that northern
driveway should go. They’d have to
do some work with the turning radius to see if it’s possible to get rid of that
southern one. I suspect it’s
probably not going to work well if they do. Kahn – Bob and I have been playing
with parking spaces 1 and 2 and if those were turned 90 degrees, you could shoot
right in. As a matter of fact, you
might even be able to get a third one there. The only question is whether or not
there’s enough space there to back around.
Dolan – Again, it does get a little tight. You can turn them; I don’t think you’re
going to gain any spaces.
Kahn – You could certainly turn those two to deal with your issue about
whether or not you have to go through he ROW to get into those two spaces and
you might actually be able to pick up a third one. Dolan – We’ll look at it. Flanders – Mr. Chairman, actually
the spaces 3-6 cantered a little bit to the south and you could cant those a
little bit to the north from where they are which would make them easier to get
into coming off of Reservoir Road.
Vadney - It would still be difficult for them to then exit if they didn’t
have the Route 3 access point.
Flanders – Not really because you’ve got
enough aisle width to back out and make the swing. There’s over 24’ there I would say by
looking at it. Vadney – Take
a look at that, maybe by re-angling you could do a little bit. That upper driveway, the northerly
driveway according to my scale here, that’s 20’ wide and if it were just being
used for a couple of automobiles, it wouldn’t be so bad, but if it’s being
proposed as a loading/delivery and usually those amount to at least a 20’ box
truck or something like that which he would have to pull up and back into the
driveway or back out onto the road and it certainly would be a problem, I would
think that’s something the State might give you a little heat on too since the
whole movement up there is to make sure traffic flows smoothly. Dolan – I understand what you’re
saying. Vadney – It may be possible
you could on your own property there make some type of turnaround for at least
some size vehicle and then we’d have restrictions on it, because we’ve all seen
what they do downtown with trailer trucks on Main Street. They effectively close the
street. Worsman – Dave,
coming in off of Reservoir Road, you’ve got two sets of parking spaces coming in
from either side, do you have access from two different points on Reservoir
Road? Dolan – Yes. Worsman – And then there’s some
kind of island that’s the hammerhead thing in the middle? Dolan – Yes, and there actually
will probably be a retaining wall in there because there’s quite an elevation
change from this parking area to that parking area. Worsman – So technically there are 4
access points to this property currently, 2 off Route 3 and 2 off Reservoir Road and
DOT is going to stick with that.
Edgar – There’s two issues with DOT, the first thing is the roadway plan
so when they come in with the highway plan there’s no change of use relative to
the road projects so they are just dealing with all existing conditions. They have some obligation to leave them
alone so what we’re talking about is them trying to incorporate the State’s
drainage plan, but you guys are dealing with an expansion of use so it does
become a little more fair game for you guys to look at access management to see
if, assuming the northerly one has been previously permitted by the State and
the town, we’re expanding the use and under today’s line of thinking whether
it’s reasonable to continue that as an open cut or not so there are two
different issues. The State would
not necessarily come in for road construction purposes and necessarily force
everybody down to one driveway so it’s more of a mindset to try to accommodate
what’s out there, whereas, what you guys would be asked to do is a little bit
different. There’s a fairly
substantial doubling or thereabouts the size of the building, reworking of the
whole site and as far as I’m concerned that opens the door for you to look at
other opportunities to improve safety and the like on the project and if at the
end of the day you have a stall like that and somebody has to back into the
State highway, that’s just fundamentally not a safe situation and even if you
put a little bump turnaround, it may just be attracting the public thinking
that’s the way to get into the parking lot and then you get not even delivery
people, but just the general public a little confused if they were pulling in
that slot so I think we just really need to see whether that’s critical or not
and if not it’s probably best that it go away. Touhey – I’m not really familiar
with animal hospital operations.
What size truck would we have to accommodate, we see loading ramps and
whatnot, what size truck are we talking about? Dolan – UPS and I’m not sure if
anything bigger than that?
Jaques – I was anticipating leaving that there just so they could pull
off on the side there, I would expect them to pull in or back out just so they
would have more room to pull off on the side of the highway and get out of
there, but the only way we can have that on the map for the State is if we draw
some parking lot into our ROW. It
wouldn’t necessarily have to go all the way in there, but we would have to draw
something on my property.
Touhey – If there were an occasional sizeable truck? Jaques – We get UPS. The larger trucks kind of block our
parking and that’s a problem for people coming in and getting out around that
truck so that’s why I proposed leaving that open so they could pull in on the
side of the highway and park out on the highway, not necessarily pulling in but
pulling over off the road or using that amount of space. Touhey –Could they pull off the side of
the road on Reservoir
Road instead of the highway? Jaques – There’s a ditch on the
other side a parking entry on our side.
Touhey – It just seems like it would be a far less trafficked area to be
unloading a truck and whatnot if they were on Reservoir Road rather than on the side of
Route 3. Jaques – There’s a fair
amount of shoulder so they can pull off (inaudible – no mike). Edgar – I think we have to be
really cautious about condoning loading from US Route 3 and this site plan was
originally approved as an office building I believe, it wasn’t anticipating that
kind of loading so I think as you kind of evaluate the access points and things
like that, Dave, is to kind of keep the loading piece in your mind in terms of
how we best might be able to try, at least examine all the options relative to
something on-site if at all possible.
I think if we brought it to the State’s attention, do we have a driveway
Permit, that’s another question. Do
we have State permits on 3 and what are they tied to, what type of land use do
they tie to. I think if they were
sitting here tonight hearing us talk about tractor-trailers pulling over on the
side of Route 3 to make deliveries, they would probably have a little heartburn
with that, would be my guess. I may
be mistaken, you’ve probably talked with the State more than I have on this
project. Dolan – Not about that
specifically, no, and as far as driveway permits, I haven’t gone back that far,
I don’t know what’s out there for driveway permits. Vadney – I notice the topo lines where
the proposed delivery area is…
Dolan – That is a dropoff and that again if that was ever going to happen
would require grading and more retaining walls. Vadney – What I’m wondering, is it
possible to bring trucks in the length of that parking stub, the new proposed
parking stub and back up toward that and come into that from the west instead of
from the east? I realize the lay of
the land is troublesome in there.
Dolan – I’ve got a note about tractor-trailer deliveries and trying to
incorporate them onto the site into some sort of flow there, so we’ll have
to.. Vadney –
Tractor-trailers are going to be a problem no matter where you do it, but I’m
thinking some of the UPS type could drive in there and possibly, I’m thinking by
re-grading for parking spot 19 maybe there would be some way you could go up
through that building setback and back into that proposed loading area instead
of coming off Route 3. I’m just
trying to suggest something that might work. Dolan – We’ll look at all those
options. Flanders – That northern
driveway off of Route 3 should be closed off because in the real world if you
leave that open a tractor-trailer’s going to be headed south, he’s going to pull
past that driveway, back in and in the process he’s going to block at least the
southbound lane of Route 3 while he’s doing it and in the middle of the summer,
that’s going to be hazardous and disruptive to traffic flow. Dolan – I’m hearing what you’re
saying about that. Again, those are
the 4 cuts, the 4 locations, the 4 that the State seemed to be allowing them to
continue so at this point for Design Review, we thought we’d show them all and
see what we got for feedback.
I understand there’s work to be done, but we really want to flush out all
the concerns, as many as we can at this point. I know we’re not going to get them all,
there will be more as things develop I’m sure. Vadney – Would it be possible to pick up
additional parking where you’ve got 21 and 20? Dolan – When you back out of a
parking spot, we’re trying not to go over the property line. Vadney – In summary, I guess I
don’t think anyone’s opposed to the idea, but there are certainly some terrain
problems. Dolan – It always
seems to be me and parking.
Vadney – The parking is one thing, but I don’t know how much parking you
really need up there, but I would be flexible on that. Your customers will kind of determine if
there’s no place to park, they won’t go there to a degree, but the deliveries
are problematic and I think you’ve heard from several members about that
northerly cut and if nothing else, it’s only maybe 60’ between those two
driveways and that’s pretty close to service one place. Edgar – Mr. Chairman, if
I could add one thing, we abut some residential properties, presumably there
could be some night work, the hospital might be open for evening hours, I think
we want to be mindful of lighting and impacts to neighboring properties. I believe Mr. Kuzina’s an abutter to the
north and I think we need to be mindful as we start crowding lot lines with
different things knowing that we need special exceptions and so forth just to be
mindful of how that might affect an abutting property. Dolan – And I understand as we develop
grading some of those areas may have to shrink in order to contain everything
within the site. Kahn – Are there
any kennels on this site?
What I’m concerned about is noise and pet waste and if we’ve got noise
and pet waste, is expanding the site going to exacerbate the problem or simply
increase it because if there are noise or pet waste issues, I think we could
take the opportunity to correct them at this point. Dolan – As far as noise issues, I
haven’t heard any yet. I’m not an
abutter but I don’t know if anyone can speak to that. It’s not a kennel, I’m sure
there’s.. Vadney – No outside dog
runs of any kind are there? The
only animals you keep overnight are post-op kind of things? Jaques - (inaudible-no mike) Vadney - What do you do with animal
waste. Jaques –(inaudible-no
mike) Kahn – Do you have a
particular area where they are walked or do they just walk outside on the grass
and weeds. Jaques –
(inaudible – no mike) Edgar – If
there are any outside elements to walking areas or whatever, they should show on
the plans. Tom Kuzina – I
can’t understand where this building is, there’s a dirt driveway that comes down
and all of a sudden it goes straight down into wetlands so he’s going to be
going into wetlands to bring these other buildings that are going to come
around. That’s a slope that
goes straight down. I have a swamp
in front of my store. Vadney
– You’re talking about the northerly driveway access drives into a swamp. Kuzina – Where his existing
driveway ends, it goes straight down.
That’s a swamp that’s been there that was actually created not from them
but years and years ago, they put a driveway there and created a swamp in my
area. Another thing is the
issue of tractor-trailers, I put my building in there approximately 15 years
ago, I was not allowed to have any deliveries except for UPS at my site. No tractor-trailers were allowed. My main concern actually is what
he’s doing with all these kennels in there. If there’s going to be anything outside,
I can’t see that happening. I’m
sure if you people have been in the Humane Society, they try to keep it clean as
much as they can, but you can’t stop the smell of urine and causes problems with
bugs and I don’t want to see that.
That’s what my main concern is, but I was surprised tonight to see this
building addition and then a loading/delivery area, there’s only a dirt road
there. Where’s he going to
put this, he’s going to go into the swamp. Vadney – That is a concern when we
do these pre-application reviews and we haven’t seen the property and so we’re
just betting on the drawing on the topo’s, if we were to get into this as an
issue, we certainly do a site walk and investigate the land itself so I
appreciate your bringing that to our attention. My greatest concern actually is
about the dog kennels. I have my
floor covering business and I have a salon and I have a rent downstairs and I
don’t want to have dogs smelling because I deal with that in my work too and I
don’t want to have that go onto my property. Like he just said, the dog’s got to go
outside and stuff. That’s
going to affect my property.
I appreciate you bringing those to our attention because the wetland and
the drop-off of that driveway we didn’t know anything about so if this comes
before us officially, we’ll take a look at that and Dave is now on notice as is
Mr. Jaques to study that issue. The
kennel issue is one, I guess kennel may be the wrong word for it but dog walking
area or whatever, that’s when the abutters will come out to object so we can’t
speak to it tonight but it’s something that you should be aware of that you may
hear more from abutters. Flanders – Based on Mr. Kuzina’s comments, if there’s
potential for wetlands there, it’s not unusual in fact it would be incumbent
upon us to require a delineation by a wetland scientist so we know what’s
there. Dolan – I’ll take another
look at it with the wetland scientist.
If they are there, we’ll show them. Vadney – If you come in by parking
spot 3, 4 and 5 that you show here, I know it drops off quickly, isn’t that
almost a drainage ditch that drains to the north almost straight north? Dolan – There’s a catch basin right here
right now because the depression between, this comes down the bank, it drops
down to a low spot and then it rises up a little bit at the driveway and it
doesn’t appear to be going anywhere based on the contours, it appears to be
going in and out of the catch basin and then outletting next to this other
culvert. Kuzina – One other
thing, I just want to let you know that we’re not on Town water, I’m on a
well. I think he is on a well
too so if there’s a problem of animals going on here, we could have a problem
with our wells. Vadney –
That’s it I guess for the pre-application.
We don’t make any decisions, of course, but we’ve given you an idea of
the things we look at and there are several for you to consider.
1. TOWN PLANNER’S
REPORT - There’s nothing new
Mr. Chairman other than to continue our discussion on the zoning. At the last meeting it was the
consensus of the Board that was sitting at the time to look at last year’s
proposal to break it up into components so that it would be more manageable to
jettison the Village Residential element of the proposal and a few other
adjustments to try to make the proposal more palatable picking up on Bob’s issue
that he raised awhile back was to try to get this ball rolling so that we would
have plenty of time prior to the hearing to develop support hopefully and then
hold the hearing early enough in December so that we’d have plenty of time after
the hearings. I sent you a
memo and Bill Finer a memo and haven’t heard from either of you so what’s your
view of where we are. Vadney
– I’m pretty well up to speed. Kahn
– As you can see, John circulated material by e-mail so that excludes Roger, but
what we did was we broke it down into four proposals, one is to create the
Village District which is the Central Business District, revisit it and to
create a Route 3 Commercial District, north and south. It would be comprised of the existing
Route 3 District and portions of the Central Business District that are north
and south of what would be the Village District. There would also be in that
proposal a little map twitching with respect to the west side of Plymouth Street
and with respect to the area of Main Street extending along Main to the Humiston
Building and a little bit up High Street and a little bit along the east side of
Main Street to whatever that fraternal organization was over there. That was one proposal. Another proposal was to redistrict, and
these are all coming right out of last year, but broken up, the north side of
Philbrook
Avenue.
When you look at our Town, our Town is lying northeast to southwest, it’s
hard to say what’s east and west and what’s north and south, but the other side
of Philbrook
Avenue.
Edgar – One side’s residential, one side’s commercial and it doesn’t make
any sense so last year we decided to make it all residential. Kahn – And to rezone Jenness Hill
Road.
There was someone who complained that we were rezoning her as Forestry
and Rural and she didn’t want that so the way we’ve got it is when you go west
of her property, it turns Forestry and Rural and everything west of the old
dump, this is the Sandy and Hayward Price property and in the Route 3 north we
took into account Goerge Makris’ complaint that we were shutting him off from
the possibility of seasonal boat storage so it’s exactly the way it was last
year except that seasonal boat storage north on Route 3 north is permitted. The 3rd proposal
is.. Edgar – What I view as the
main one and Lou viewed as the secondary one, that’s the rewrite, that’s the
updated chart of uses and all the terms that go with it so not that it really
matters, but the reason why I put that as amendment #1 because that’s what really got this whole ball rolling
was the updating aspect of the ordinance.
The ordinance is 30 years old, we have terms that are not defined, we
have terms that are archaic and we have conflicting terms and so through all of
the existing districts, we broke out a proposal that would just address that
issue, not any new districts, it’s just cleanup for the old that focuses not on
density or dimensions, it focuses on the issue of uses and terminology so that’s
the third one and then the 4th one is just pulling out accessory
apartments which we had proposed as part of that package to go from special
exception to permitted. We broke
that out as a 4th proposal. Kahn – The catchall one, sort of
the overall one trying to straighten things out, one change that we made from
last year was we went back to the existing statement of district purpose for
Forestry and Conservation figuring that if we tried to go with a revised
statement, last year it started to set off anxiety and we figured why bother so
all of that is essentially the same as it was last year with the exception of
the district purpose for Forestry and Conservation. In Forestry and Conservation,
there were just a couple of little twitches that we were twitching last year in
terms of recreational camps and things like that. Every district gets hit a little,
Forestry and Conservation the least, but we’ve changed uses around. We’ve tried to rationalize uses in
Business & Industry, we’ve tried to rationalize the Business & Industry
and Route 3 Commercial District as to where people are going to be able to set
up their businesses and what kind of businesses. I should add that with respect to the
Village District which was the first proposal we were talking about, we have
retained the lessening of the density requirements so that it’s easier to build
residential housing in what was the Central Business District and what will now
be the Village District. We’ve cut
it into four things, as I said one of them is the Village District, one of them
is playing around with Philbrook Avenue and Jenness Hill, a third one is
accessory apartments turning into a permitted use instead of a special
exception, but subject to the same requirements and the fourth one which John
has first kind of tries to clean up everything, all the things we tried to clean
up last year. The one thing that we have absolutely
jettisoned is the Village Residential District, it is gone. There is only one residential
district and it has the same rules all over Town. Vadney – I have a couple of
comments on things you haven’t mentioned that I’m glad you haven’t mentioned and
I wanted to make sure everybody is clear on these and this is just from what I
read on the e-mails. We would not
consider anything out on Meredith Neck. Edgar – There are several things,
it’s not necessarily a dead issue, but relative to this cycle that was the
consensus of the Board, not to do anything else. Vadney – I’m just saying in reading that
many page summary, I wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Kahn – We have not made any rezoning
attempt on Meredith Neck. We have
changed the statement of the district purpose and we have changed some of the
uses out there, but no map changes.
Edgar – Ralph had asked to extend the Meredith Neck zoning into
Shoreline. Vadney – I just wanted
to make sure that I understood that right and that’s not going to come up in
some form. Edgar – It may come up
as a petition. Vadney – There
was also a guy that came to that last meeting that wanted to do something for
Wicwas. Kahn – Thorpe. Edgar – Right, and the consensus
of the Board I think was not to here again complicate the old proposal so his
ideas on environmental characteristic zoning and watershed zoning, not at this
time. However, he did raise
questions about docks in prime wetlands and if you go to the Shoreline District,
it’s in bold under special provisions, we threw a sentence in there for
discussion purposes relative to the placement of docks in prime wetlands. We had a provision in there about
parking, we put that in last year…
Kahn – Because we saw that coming as a result of Henmor. Vadney – So you’re saying you are
proposing that for this coming thing.
Edgar – I’m saying it’s for discussion. Vadney – What I want to get clear here
is that some of those little things are what make all these things go bad and we
want to be awfully careful if we hang those things on there. Edgar – There wasn’t a
strong direction from the Board to do that or not, it was one thing that there
was discussion about and so we are flagging it and if there’s a consensus of the
Board to address that fine and if not, that’s fine too. Kahn – For the most part, it’s not a new
restriction, it’s really a reminder that if you’re going to put parking in a
wetland buffer, you may need some relief, but we also put in something that you
can’t put a dock in a prime wetland.
Vadney – I’m just suggesting that if we start putting in some of those
little wouldn’t it be nice to fix this and wouldn’t it be nice to fix that,
you’re going to start losing 10 votes here and 20 votes there. Kahn – Very little fixing has gone on
Herb. You’ve heard basically the
entire description. Edgar –
But if it’s the Board’s desire to pick something like that up when we have a
bigger crack at the whole Wetland Ordinance, you could defer to that. We’re just trying to accommodate a
little bit but understanding your point is valid and that’s consistent with the
other views that the more we drag into this… Vadney – All I’m saying is having
very speedily read that many page thing, I wasn’t sure what the final consensus
was but I’m just saying what my position on it would be. Kahn – With the exception of the few
things that we’ve mentioned tonight, it is identical to last year. Flanders – I agree with both you and Lou that we’ve got to
be careful not to drag too many things into this because that’s what killed us
last year and I have a question.
John, I haven’t had time to read the e-mail, has anything been done in
here in relation to definitions.
Edgar – Yes, last year we had proposed a series of definitions that would
tie to every use that we provided for in the rewritten ordinance and that is
part of this proposal. What we will
need to do to the extent we have a direction from the Board, we need to go into
the ordinance and do the surgical pieces to make it all work, but the idea here
is under one of these 4 proposals that wherever we have uses in a table, there
is a definition that goes with it.
For the first time in the Town’s history, we’ll have that and there are
all those definitions are one of the attachments we sent to you so every use in
the table has a definition and you have both the tables and the definitions and
they are the same as last year.
Kahn – And none of those definitions have changed from last year’s
proposal. Worsman – How much
has changed from the current zoning regulation, what’s our true change? Kahn – A lot because the
definitions in the current zoning law, you have a lot of uses that aren’t
defined, you have uses that are defined differently from district to district
and it’s a mish mosh, it’s a mess.
We had tried last year to have it uniform and make sense. There are a lot of changes I don’t think
that in terms of definitionally, in terms of changing definitions that we made a
lot of huge substantive changes. We
did change uses in particularly the commercial districts, but that was all done
last year. What we did was we put
building trades in Business & Industry. We put equipment sales on Route 3, we
did a lot of things last year in terms of rationalizing uses, but the
definitions is really mostly cleanup because the definition situation that
exists at present is a mess.
Edgar – The other thing that we have that I haven’t edited yet are
comparison tables. This is stuff we
had last year laid out for
everybody to digest, here’s all the uses, here’s your district, here’s the
proposed district and you can look for yourself what the changes were. This is crossed out, this is added and
then anything that is shown in the proposed revised district has a definition so
they are the same tables and the same definitions. We’ll make some edits to that
analysis tool to reflect the fact that we’ve jettisoned one of these other
proposals and that would be part of the packet if you will. Vadney – Another couple comments to
bring me up from last meeting, do we really want to use the terms Village
District which will be acronymed VD.
It’s one of those things that will become a joke, I don’t know what to
use but you don’t usually pick a acronym that people can take in multiple ways
shall we say. Edgar – How about
“V”, “S” for Shoreline, “V” for Village.
Vadney – I’m just suggesting it’s something we take a look at. Edgar – It’s on last year’s map as
“V” for Village. Vadney – Even if
we start talking about it as the Village District all the time, they’ll start
calling it the VD, and it’s just one of those things you don’t want to do
publicly probably. As far as
the order of these things, if we were to stay with these four, the rewrite issue
probably should be either first or last and I would lean toward last and it is
why we started doing it, but I don’t think we want to say here’s the rewrite and
there’s really no changes. The
thing you put first is usually the most important and as they say in reporting
don’t bury the lead and these other things, people are going to key in on
changes in zones and changes in district stuff and we don’t want it to look like
we put the first paragraph out there that says, here’s a rewrite but it doesn’t
really affect you, it’s all little cleanups which is probably true, and they say
fine and then they see the 3rd thing down here is a change on
whatever. I would rather put that
in there as here’s the Route 3 north and south, here’s the Village District,
here’s accessory apartments and here’s an overall cleanup and I think that’s
what Lou was leaning toward.
Kahn – In my mind, it’s easier to understand that way. Vadney – A couple of other minor
points, is it worth bringing up the Philbrook Avenue one, that’s almost a small
detail whether we change that side of the street this year, next year or never
and also Jenness Hill. Last
year there were comments like why are you messing with Jenness Hill, that’s the
dump? I’m just wondering if
that’s the kind of thing that in pure planning you might want to do, but is it
something that will make people wonder why we’re doing it. Edgar – That’s why we’re starting
in July. Vadney – I don’t care what
month it is, why are we doing it?
Edgar – We are not posting this for change, we are trying to start a
public dialogue. Vadney – I
agree, but why do we need to change the other side of Philbrook
Avenue?
Edgar – We have commercial zoning on that part of Philbrook Avenue and
Jenness Hill
Road that runs to the Center Harbor Town line and that hasn’t generated any
commercial development and it’s predominantly residential. If we’re going to make adjustments to
the Central Business District, are you going to have a patch of Central Business
or a patch of the Route 3 corridor going up Jenness Hill Road as a residual piece. Vadney – Is that the kind of thing that
will bring out 6 or 10 voters to vote against you that will queer the whole
deal? That’s what I’m trying
to say. Edgar – I don’t think it
did last year, I think the question that had come up was what was the
appropriate zoning for the Town dump, should it be commercial or
residential? It doesn’t matter, but
I guess people can have their opinions, but I’m not aware of an outcry from the
Jenness Hill
Road or Philbrook Avenue areas relative to last
year’s proposal. Flanders – I think you make a good point, Herb, because
there was some little minor piece in what we proposed last year that inspired
some clown to stand down in front of the polls all day with a sign saying vote
against the zoning ordinance and I don’t even remember what his issue was, but
it was pretty minor. It obviously
did some damage to the overall thing so I think we really need to be careful, we
can throw the baby out with the bath water again this year like we did last year
for naught. Vadney – To me
the Philbrook
Avenue one and the Jenness Hill one are things like
in a perfect world we might want to do that, but if we didn’t would anybody
care. If we do it, is it going to
bring in some negative votes?
Edgar – That one property owner that was protesting, I think may live in
the Route 3 north corridor.
The point being it’s not necessarily a Jenness Hill Road issue, it’s whatever we
had for uses in the 3 corridor.
Kahn – At the top of the hill on Jenness Hill, it’s actually pretty
valuable property, they’ve got some terrific views up there. We’ve also got the potential of the
Lenfest and Corthout development going on up there. I’m not sure what the effect of having
it zoned Central Business is, we are going to rezone it anyway so is it going to
be Central Business, it’s probably going to end up as Route 3 north, but the top
of the hill deserves to be residential.
That was the thought last year and it seems to me still a good one. Vadney – I’m not questioning if it’s a
good thought, I’m just questioning if it’s a good time to make this a public
statement. Kahn – It’s broken out
as a separate proposal so if there are people who oppose it, they can vote that
one down without… Finer -
Finer – They are either going to vote for them all or against them
all. Kahn – The other thing is
you’ve got a Town
Forest that’s partly I
think in the Central Business District on both Philbrook Avenue and
Jenness Hill
Road.
Worsman – If we can go to the summary of proposed zoning changes, on the
4th page where we talk about the Village, some of the complaints I
had heard I’m wondering if the first two paragraphs should be broken out. One is do we want to increase the
concentration of dwelling sizes in the Village District. Secondly, do we want to make the
judgment based on zoning regulations? Kahn – How else would you do
it? Worsman – I don’t know, I
guess my gut is telling me from what I’ve heard and what I’m trying to interpret
is by saying we are now going to go, it is now 10,000 sq. ft. in the Village
District, so we’d be going down to a density of 5,000 sq. ft. technically. Edgar – What had been proposed
last year by the Board is that in the Village District which is currently
Central Business, it’s 10,000 sq. ft. density with town sewer and town
water. Last year’s proposal
basically said in the Village districts and now we are only talking about one
Village district, there would not be a numeric threshold like that and we would
rely on building height, lot coverage, permitting, subdivision, site plan
review, architectural review, wetland setbacks, lot line setbacks, all of those
types of considerations, in other words to see what the yield of a piece of
property would be because we’d be working with all those other parameters and
that was partly in response to the fact that we have had several applications
before the Zoning Board of Adjustment as an indicator where somebody might have
had 13,000 sq. ft. and could put a second unit on their property, but the
ordinance wouldn’t allow it, they would go for variances and then come back in
here for site plan approval and so there was a pattern of that showing up in the
downtown, 3 or 4 applications and also that in looking at the housing issues
that are referenced in the Community Plan that there is clearly a need to create
additional housing that isn’t $400,000 a pop and the only place, as a practical
matter where that’s going to occur and that is where you have higher densities
and this kind of thing so the idea was to try to allow for greater flexibility
in the heart of the Village, not throughout the whole town but from lack of a
better word, but more from a smart growth point of view, you don’t want that
sprawling all over the place. Where
you have the utilities to support it would make sense and then because you have
these public hearings for everything from architectural review to ZBA wetland
review, to Site Plan, Subdivision and a whole plethora of other zoning criteria,
let that carry the day as opposed to a somewhat artificial density
threshold. Kahn – I’d add two
things. First, that we’ve cut it
out, the Village Residential district doesn’t exist so to the extent that was in
the proposal last year, it’s gone.
The other thing is, the only public comment we got on this particular
issue of density in the Village districts last year was from the owner of
Harley-Davidson, who said please give us some work -force housing in the
village. She can’t get her
mechanics to live anywhere within reasonable distance. Worsman – I guess my
thinking is to get “selling” setbacks and soils and slopes and those pieces to
the community. It’s easier for
someone to understand 10,000 sq. ft., 5,000 sq. ft. and get their hands around
it. I don’t know if it matters, I
guess when I read those two, I thought are we wiser to put those as two separate
so that there’s some choice there.
That was my thinking on that.
Going down to the commercial district, in the second paragraph you’ve got
in the north is a portion of Central Business District on Jenness Hill and
Philbrook
Avenue that have been renamed Residential despite the
commercial zoning. Some of this
area also lies within the Lake Waukewan Watershed. If we’ve got residences and we rezone it
commercial, are we going to have a taxation issue where we’ve got a higher and
best use for residential property and then you’ve got residences we’re
saying… Kahn – There is a statute
that says if you rezone from Residential to Commercial it’s like current use or
open space, you can retain taxation as residential even though you’ve been
rezoned as commercial. Vadney
– If you apply for it each
year. Kahn – There is a way
of dealing with it. Bob, you and I
talked about this last year.
There’s some way in which we can work this out so that people don’t have
to say, I forgot to make my application.
We can set it up so the Assessor’s office basically does it
automatically. The statute says
that you have to apply for current use as a residence, but I’m confident that we
can work it out so that we don’t catch people by surprise. They would not willy/nilly be taxed as
commercial property. Worsman
– The current re-evaluation, that is something that is going to come before us
and that clearly came out from every perspective, highest and best use. Edgar – With the reval in the offing
last year, that’s why that question was raised. It was researched and that was the
answer. There’s a statute that for
the most part addresses that concern. Kahn – That’s the case with
Plymouth
Street.
Philbrook and Jenness Hill are being turned around the other way. They are going from commercial to
residential. Sorell – But not
all of Philbrook
Avenue and not all of Jenness Hill. Edgar – Half of Philbrook Avenue is
already residential and we’d be taking the junkyard and it’s just more of a map
cleanup on Philbrook. Sorell
– The same with Jenness Hill. Edgar
– No, Jenness Hill’s a little bit different because you have a lot more land
area and a lot more undeveloped land, but essentially it is residential. It’s a residential pattern. If anybody drives north of the DPW
facility, short of the shop that you guys approved, kind of a quasi-home
occupation, it’s all residential.
It has been that way since that zoning went into effect. Nothing’s changed on the ground. Vadney – How would they tax the salvage
up there. He’s zoned
residential, but he’s using it as a commercial property. (inaudible) Vadney – From a tax standpoint, it’s a
commercial lot. It just seemed to
me that Philbrook and Jenness might be things that in a perfect world we’d like
to do them, but we could do those some other year when there’s nothing else
going on and only 12 people come out to vote anyway. I’m trying to make sure we don’t have
anything in there, a little of this will bring 12 negative votes and a little of
that will bring 9 negative votes and pretty soon you’ve got enough votes to run
you out. Edgar -
(inaudible) Whether we
include that or not Herb, I don’t think it really affects the price of eggs, but
the thinking was that it wasn’t a bad proposal, we hadn’t done an adequate job
of getting the word out, we started late, the public was confused and I’m trying
to provide a much smoother process for folks to become more aware of what we’re
really talking about so given that direction, that’s what Lou and I worked on to
break it up into these four components.
If it’s the wish of the Board to break it up into three or whatever, just
give us that direction and we’ll fine-tune this and do the surgical aspects of
it that I haven’t done yet and get back to you with a packet. If we want to start early, we need
the direction from the full Board as to what you want to go public with. Touhey – Herb, I would just
comment. Maybe it’s just too early
to take something off the table.
We’ve taken a lot off the table already to narrow it down to these four
proposals. A lot of work had gone
into the proposal we made last year, we’ve taken a lot of that off the table
which is probably going to be years before we incrementally get on the table
what we really want on the table.
I don’t really want to move any slower than we really have to. Vadney – All I wanted to do here was
tell you the things that had I been at the last meeting, these are things that I
would have added at that time to bring you up to speed on them. Worsman – Do we have any
businesses that have been zoned out and where exactly do you put a drive-thru
restaurant and a private school?
Everything has zoned out a private school, everything has zoned out
drive-thru restaurants so no more MacDonalds or Burger Kings in Meredith or did
I miss something? Edgar – You
missed something, there’s drive-ins and drive-thrus and what we tried to do I
think in the definition section is to consolidate. If it’s a restaurant, it’s a restaurant
so we’ve eliminated some of the terminology but as a practical matter, we’re not
making distinctions between a drive-in restaurant which I think one of the
concerns is what is a drive-in restaurant.
Kahn – The drive-thru prohibition existed, it wasn’t being applied
uniformly. You had different
definitions and sometimes it was no drive-thrus and sometimes it was.. Edgar – The reference to excluding
drive-thrus, for example, is on the books. The definitional change that was
made or the nomenclature was made as we eliminated the reference to
drive-ins. Some people would view
Flurries as a drive-in. Do we need
to make that distinction? It’s an
eatery, it’s a restaurant and maybe in the 50’s it was called a drive-in and
maybe that terminology is no longer relevant, it’s basically a restaurant so do
we need to have multiple types of restaurants and the sense was that’s an area
where we can clean something up and not need to make that distinction so we
don’t eliminate restaurants, we just have combined in essence whatever a
drive-in is with all the other types of restaurants. Worsman – Correct me please
because I might have missed it somewhere.
I thought there were places where it specifically said, but not including
a drive-thru restaurant, a window restaurant, maybe that’s what it’s
called. Kahn – You’re correct, but
that’s in the existing zoning law.
Worsman – Other than the MacDonald’s we have, we have no place where a
window restaurant would be allowed.
Kahn – Dunkin Donuts.
Worsman – Is there anything else, is there any zone that we would allow
it? I don’t care one way or the
other, but it seems like we’ve zoned that business out totally. Kahn – Well, it creates a real traffic
problem. Worsman – I don’t
disagree. Sorell – We’ve zoned out trailers too, they have to be in a trailer
park. Kahn – Trailers have to
be in a trailer park or in a subdivision, but that was done years ago. That’s not new in this, we didn’t mess
with that. What we did do was
we moved some uses around, but we tried to see to it that there was a place for
everything. You say, did we zone
something out, yeah, we zoned transportation terminals out of the Business &
Industry District because we thought that’s in Waukewan Watershed and why do we
need a truck terminal with all the oil changes and fluid changes, but we have
places for individual operators who are going to run car service. We permitted that, but we did zone out
trucking terminals. Worsman – So in
Meredith, point out to me where I’ve not missed it, I just want to make sure
that we’ve looked at the whole picture and we’ve taken into consideration the
choices of businesses that are out there.
The MacDonald’s, the trucking terminal and the only other thing that it
seemed to zone out were private schools. Kahn – I don’t think we zoned out
private schools. Let’s put it this
way, schools and day care were all over the map in terms of confusion, different
definitions and stuff like that. We
tried to impose some uniformity; I don’t think we were trying to zone out
schools. That’s why you need,
you can’t really tell the players without a scorecard and that’s why we need the
chart of uses. Did John and I
spend weeks last year trying to figure out sort of what belonged where and were
taken off from a committee which Herb was a member that had made recommendations
that Herb disagreed with and may still disagree with, but that’s where we were
picking up from. There was a
committee of the Chairman of the Zoning Board, the Planning Board, the Town
Manager, the Town Planner and the Code Enforcement Officer advised by a paid
consultant. Edgar – Would it
be helpful, Herb, to dig out the comparison tables so that if you were looking
at old Central Business and you wanted to know what the Village District would
include and you could look on one piece of paper and see what the old was and
what the new would be. Would that
be helpful? Worsman – That
would be helpful. I guess I was
looking at it from the whole piece.
I just want to make sure that any legitimate business owner who has a
legitimate business purpose is not going to be totally excluded from every place
in our Town. Vadney – I think under
the proposal of last year, it would basically be impossible for a new
MacDonald’s to come in, is that true? Edgar – The drive-thru as related
to the Village Commercial small part, yes, the car dealerships in small
Commercial part, yes. Vadney
– Could a MacDonald’s go in down on Route 3 by John Hodsdon’s under those
rules. Kahn – Drive-thru’s
were excluded when we started. As I
recall when MacDonalds started up here, there was an enormous human cry. Worsman – I don’t disagree. Kahn – I certainly had the impression
they were not exactly the most welcome business in town. Vadney – And they may not be totally
welcome. Kahn – Well,
somebody wrote the zoning law to exclude drive-thru’s, I didn’t do it. Worsman – So that part wasn’t a
change. Kahn – I don’t have
the charts of uses. Vadney –
Under today’s ordinance, if a guy came in and said I want to put up a new
Kentucky Fried Chicken drive-thru restaurant, is there any place in town that he
could say he wants to do that, that we could or couldn’t say you can’t do it
because this is excluded and that’s what that is. Edgar – Under the current zoning,
Commercial Route 3 South, as a permitted use, it includes eating and drinking
establishments excluding fast food type businesses. That’s one provision. Finer – What would it be if it
were an Applebee’s Restaurant with their new car side to go? That’s where I think Lou’s talking
about kind of putting all the definitions together because that’s as much a
drive-up as MacDonald’s is. If you
pull up, they see you and bring your food out to you. Kahn – Well, yes and no, I would
say. I’m trying to come up with why
that was put in the zoning law in the first place and I think the reason was
people didn’t want a line of cars circling around a restaurant and it may have
also been a way to keep fast-food out, but it’s hard to say OK Flurries is all
right, but some other place isn’t.
I didn’t come up with that idea, but it seems to me that this Applebee’s
thing where you call ahead, it’s kind of like no different from Phu Jee’s where
you can park your car, walk in and pick up your food. It’s not like there’s a line of cars
circling around the building to a window.
Finer – Now they circle Main
Street looking for a parking space to get into Phu
Jee’s. Flanders – I think it would be helpful if we had these
comparison charts that were put together for last year in front of us. We’re wasting a lot of time, if we had
that chart in front of us, we’d be able to tell so I think we ought to schedule
a workshop and I think the breakdown they’ve proposed at least the major context
of it is OK and if we hit the bricks early and do a good job with the PR so
people understand it, if people don’t understand it, they are just automatically
going to vote against it and that’s what happened to us last year. We were way too late out of the
gate. If we had gotten started
earlier and done a better job with PR, we probably would have picked up those 70
votes, but I think we’re just wasting time now. I think we need to have those tables
that show us the difference in front of us when we discuss it. Kahn – One question I have, I think our
next meeting in August is going to be another particularly ugly one and we’ve
got, maybe we could revisit this the first meeting in September. Let’s get the charts out so that
people can spend the rest of the month of August memorizing them and then we’ll
have a pop quiz at the first meeting in September. Building trades we put in the
Business & Industry District.
We also put lumber yards there so Wickes would have a place to go if need
be. There were other things we
did. What we were trying to do was
provide for businesses that wouldn’t generate a lot of potential chemical
pollution and we had issues of seasonal boat storage and stuff like that. Edgar – So I think when you see the
comparison table, you’ll see that it was heavily restrictive and we’ve tried to
loosen up the B & I to be a little more pragmatic, while at the same time
being mindful that it is almost entirely located within the water supply
watershed. Kahn – What we
didn’t allow in Business & Industry, we tried to put into Route 3 so that if
you couldn’t sell equipment in Business & Industry, you could sell it on
Route 3.
We got some yelling about that also; people didn’t
like the trailers up there. If
you’re going to put that part aside, could we look at the definitions tonight,
maybe we could. Vadney – What do
you mean, put what part aside?
Touhey – The discussion of the charts and whatnot and what’s allowed and
what’s allowed by special exception and so forth. If you’re putting that aside tonight
until you have the charts. Edgar –
What I’d suggest, Ed, if the Board has the scheduled definitions, if you have
any particular concerns, fire off an e-mail and we’ll look at it and we’ll have
that in anticipation of the work session. Kahn – I’m not sure what you mean
by look at the definitions. Touhey
– Well, we have the printout that John sent of the definitions. I mean are we set on this, does
everybody agree, does anybody have questions on these, can we just say OK we’re
all set on that piece and put it aside?
Kahn – All I can say is they are identical to last year. If there were questions about them,
whether or not there were questions about them last year, if you have questions
let’s hear them. Touhey – I
guess I need, maybe its just clarification for me. The accessory use definition and
then further on there’s the home occupation. I don’t know which this would come
under, but clarify it for me. Let
us say that someone in a residential neighborhood wanted to have as a home
occupation or an accessory use, a dog kennel and they wanted to board dogs. If accessory uses are going to be
permitted uses in all districts, then wouldn’t that be a permitted accessory use
or home occupation if you would want to call it that and then how big, it has to
be an accessory incidental to, haven’t we in the past worked on something about
no more than 25% of the total square footage could be used for the accessory use
or home occupation, John, there’s something in my mind that triggers that. Edgar – That’s not being changed. Vadney – The only part we’re proposing,
the change is for accessory apartments, right? Edgar – The reason why there’s a blanket
category called accessory uses is because you can’t identify them all so you
categorically define them as being incidental and related to a primary use.
In my opinion, the key phrase is
clearly incidental, not marginally, not maybe, but clearly. In any event, that’s standard zoning
language that you see everywhere.
We have a dog-related business on Parade Road that was approved as a home
occupation. They met the size
parameters, they had to go for a variance because there was an outside element
to it and it went through not as an accessory use to a residential use. In essence, home occupations are
considered accessory uses, but we break them out even further and require
Planning Board approval for anything that is commercial. You can have non-commercial accessory
uses, but in the event it’s a home occupation, we require Planning Board site
plan approval and that’s where the 25% clause and all the other. Vadney – But John, let me just, I
think the point is, I think Ed is confused on accessory uses vs. accessory
apartments. Touhey – I don’t
think so, we’re talking about a kennel. Vadney – But the part that’s being
recommended is the accessory apartments will be permitted everywhere. Kahn- We’re changing the
definition of accessory uses by adding the words and shall include guest
quarters, otherwise, it’s exactly the same as it states as it is now. I just wanted to make clear that guest
quarters, that is an apartment without a kitchen is an accessory use. That’s the only change we’ve
made. Touhey – Herb, you’re right,
I was confusing the two because what we’ve done is opened all of the districts
except Business & Industry to accessory apartments, OK, so I’ll have to look at the charts
and see where accessory use is.
Edgar – Accessory use is going to be everywhere. Vadney – Accessory use is quite
different. An accessory apartment
is an accessory use, but don’t think of it that way. Kahn – Not every accessory use is an
accessory apartment. Touhey –
John, is accessory use permitted everywhere? Edgar – Yes, just about. Touhey – So then I am correct in
saying that someone in a residential area could have as an accessory use a dog
kennel. Edgar – If it’s commercial,
it would have to come before the Board.
Touhey – When does it become commercial? Kahn – If I’ve got two dogs in the
back yard and I’ve got a kennel set up, it’s an accessory use. If I’m charging people to board dogs,
it’s commercial. Edgar – And if
it’s commercial, then it’s subject to home occupation site plan standards and
criteria, public hearing and Planning Board approval. There’s no change to any of
that. Flanders – I’d like to
go back to my last suggestion that we take this up at our first meeting in
September when we have all these charts and have had a chance to look at them
because I think even this question might have been resolved by having that to
look at. Kahn –
Unfortunately, with respect to the definitions, no because we did not mark up
the definitions to show every change that we were making. I think it would be helpful if you
really want to see what’s going on with the definitions to lay the existing
zoning law against the proposed definitions and you’ll see where the changes are
coming in and there are a lot of them, but we’re not trying to rework the zoning
law through the definitions, we’re just trying to get it to be uniform and make
sense. Vadney - Is there any
way we could use a different term than accessory when we’re talking accessory
uses. Many people make that
accessory apartment, accessory use leap.
Edgar – I can’t think of one off the top of my head, but we can look into
it. For which, the apartment or the
blanket? Vadney – I don’t
know, but do whatever makes more sense. Edgar – You could say in-law
apartment. That’s another way that people identify with these little apartments
as in-law apartments. Kahn –
You could call it an incidental use.
Edgar – In light of everybody’s suggestion that we get the tables out,
we’ll do that and we’ll get those out in short order and I would just ask if you
have questions, we get them out in the next couple days and we have a few weeks
to grind through that, don’t wait until the night of the meeting to bring
something to my attention. The
sooner you can share something with your colleagues or with me, the sooner we
can work it. Otherwise, we’ll have
defeated the whole purpose of trying to get jump started if it just
languishes. I’m not trying to say
we should rush it, but we’ve got to work on it.
Meeting
adjourned at 9:23 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Mary
Lee Harvey
Secretary
Planning/Zoning Department
The minutes were reviewed
and approved at a regular meeting of the Planning Board held on
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William Bayard, Secretary