Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

You can put the recording. Okay. Um, calling the meeting to order. Anything for a update agenda and um Joel's not coming tonight. I don't know. Joel, he was out sugaring, so I'm not sure if he's back in or not, so he might just pop on a few minutes late. I'm not sure. All right. Okay. Um, public comment. Bruce, you have anything? Just just here to listen and learn. Okay. Very good. Um, so the town plan for Allison. Yep. You're on.

Okay. So, yes, last meeting I tried to explain this on Zoom and it wasn't going very well. So, um, this is an attempt. Let me see if I put some heavier things in the corner's case there. There we go. So this is an attempt to draw up a future land use map for you. And I started thinking about this is, you know, these were the goals that I was reading in the plan. Here's here's the gr and we were talking about Here we go. There's another Oh, thank you. Um, so, um, and here we go.

So, we're just talking about the land use map that we talked about last time in the Zoom meeting. So, this this is language from your existing plan. You have a goal. It says, "Protect and retain the scenic, recreational, environmental qualities of the area while providing for planned and orderly growth that will improve the town's economic condition without sacrificing those qualities. Then I kind of added the second one because we talked about perhaps achieving tier 1B exemptions, partial exemptions and all of these areas that are pink that are pink. And I know you can't see this, but it surrounds the village center

and then it kind of um radiates out along Cross Street and Railroad Street and a little strip along here. And then there's an adjacent strip here in the neighborhood residential area just to the top norththeast of the lake. and then another um neighborhood residential area to the top west of the lake. So what we wanted to do there was if um accelerate housing development in compact and walkable centers um and this can be achieved through tier 1B exemption for act 250 for projects involving up to 50 units of housing including mixed use on tracks of land involving 10 acres or less. So we're trying to incentivize development here. So, the village, this is the dark pink, and this is pretty much um your your village district. Um it's it's got the it's got your traditional downtown core. It's got your highest densities, your broadest range of residential and non-residential uses. It's, you know, for all intents and purposes, compact and walkable, served by off-site water and sewer, and it's for the most part served by sidewalks. I know that sidewalks and conditions of sidewalks it can vary but it's served by sidewalks.

So the other thing is that your zoning a lot is that's the highest densities there. You know you're looking at I think it's 9,000 square feet but that essentially comes out to just about five units an acre. Um there are some areas that can accommodate some infill development, some gentle gentle infill development. And from that mapping exercise that we did and the walking around um you know there there are some possibilities there. There are also some possibilities for rehab of structures. Then um but the the main thing to remember is that density is always contextsensitive. And so um if you want to be able to achieve density sometimes you might have to do some visual the visualization exercises like maybe with a landscape architect or do some sketches and say you know does this work or does this work? Um the area also has a high concentration of historic buildings. a lot of your historic fabric is there. Um, areas in the village core, there are some areas in the village core that may actually be appropriate for some vertical development over 40 ft. Right now, you have a prohibition of 40 feet everywhere, but there may be some areas in in that in that downtown core that that are appropriate for 40 feet. Probably not right here, right on the lake. Um but again um doing some contextsensitive visualization maybe there are some some streets further away that that could where that could work.

Um so and then again you know that area is you're highly unusual to have a village core right on the on the lake. So that's that is a a very um it you know an important consideration. All of the existing village zoning district is in this land use classification. Um and all of it is eligible for tier 1b exemption with the except you know if you were to adopt subdivision rates

right? Um so you know the considerations there would be um you may want to make an exception to that exemption along the lake. I don't know what you want to do but that is a unique consideration. I'm thinking that vertical development there would not be appropriate. It just feels like too intense. But

um so the neighborhood um this does include for the most part it's your neighborhood residential areas but it also um could include some of these cross-hatched areas that are um at the top end of the lake districts. Um, and that's because those have higher residential densities, they have they're even though they're largely residential, um, they some of them are already built up, some of them have the ability to accommodate additional greater densities. They're served by some off-site infrastructure, maybe not both, but um they also they're areas that would be appropriate for extension of certain infrastructure like sidewalks. Those areas could benefit from sidewalks. So,

is this I'm just Is this Lake? Lake Street. This is Lake Street. This is Lake Street. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. The reason we did a crosshatch here is that these are all your neighborhood residential areas that could be eligible for that tier 1B exemption. I don't know how you feel about providing a tier 1B exemption for these areas around the lake. Yeah, I don't know. I I think is I don't know if there's any room. No, there's no room. But I I I think I think this should stay all lake. Mhm. I I don't like this. I don't Well, we didn't we're not changing this showing you it.

Um because I I think that right here, this whole area here where the dump used to be. Um it's it's all swamp. Yeah. I think we went we walked that. Remember? Yeah. It's all wetlands. Yeah. But where's the This is This is down here along here. It's all wetlands. Up higher is different. Right. Where where's the former town garage site in relation to that? Uh that's over uh what do you on Dale Avenue Wheel Avenue? Pleasant Street. Sorry I'm in your way, Mike. That's okay. I can do it from memory for the most part. Right. Pleasant Street would be down Pleasant Street right here.

This is Pleasant Street. Oh, this is Birch. Where's Birch? Birch is right here. Oh, so this is birch and this is plum. See, I kind of that's the r. I thought I thought we were down here. We were on birch, which would be down here. Okay. This I mean, this this is definitely pleasant, but this is birch on this end on this side, right? The VFW was right in here. Yeah. Right. Right. Right in here. The VFW was on was on on Fitzgerald. Well, Fitzgerald. Yeah. So, what are you saying about these things that you don't want anything else to be built there or what?

No, no, I'm just calling it out to you because um otherwise those areas on our future land use map, we had marked them as neighborhood areas. They're not neighborhood residential districts, but they're lake,

they're part of the lake district, but they allow for a certain density of development and they have access to infrastructure. certain could qualify for like like a village area or or neighborhood designation that could allow for tax credits and allow for partial act 250 exemption. But when you start getting closer to the lake, that's when you know you might have some some concerns well about developing too much around the lake. Well, let le let's say I'm a developer and I'm along the lake here. I'm going to buy three lots

which would give me about an acre by an acre. Mhm. And I and I tear the houses down and now I want to develop that and I want to put in lowcost housing three stories high. Well, they'd still have to comply with your zoning, right? But I thought the state uh road. No, it's not going to see this is the whole thing about the future land use map. It does not overrule your zoning. Okay. What it does is it establishes areas that are eligible for that tier 1B status. Okay?

But it doesn't overrule your zoning. So they couldn't build something that would be 3 ft high because your zoning doesn't allow for that. Moreover, if they were going to take properties on the lake and tear them down, um your um your lake is subject to the new state shoreland rags, right? So, they'd have federal and state.

Well, but the the state shoreland rags would also take precedent over your shoreland overlay. So, you you have a lot of protections in there. It's just how much how much um incentive do you want to direct toward redevelopment or infill development in those areas. So that's why we did the cross-hatching there. But am I right to say this, Mike, that if there's an existing house on the lake and I don't need a permit to add a second story if I'm building on top of what's already that is something that we're talking about. You know, Joel talked about that maybe just requiring for any construction that we we have a zoning permit and getting rid of that.

That's why I'm asking the that's why I'm asking these questions, right? But Joel and I had talked about that that it just seems like it's people use that as a kind of getaround and they then they don't really build back in the same footprint. And that's correct. It's always everybody's guess if it was really in the footprint or not. And so that that is something we talked about just people just have to get a permit no matter what their construction is. Um the other thing there is if somebody is in a flood plane and they are um adding more than 50% to the value of the structure then there's a problem anyway. So there should be like a zoning mechanism that that screens that but we don't I don't believe we have that in that zoning

but but the bottom line here is I know that you you've been talking about amending your zoning and I know that you need to do some things to your zoning but this map does not overrule your zoning. So, in other words, you know, we're denoting areas on this map that can allow for certain higher densities, but it doesn't say, okay, the state says that you have to go to higher density than what you allow. That's not and we're not saying, oh, you know, forget about the 40 foot

height thing. I mean, that's all in place. All we're doing here is trying to make sure that you know this area otherwise could have been considered a pink area eligible for tier one being exemptions and it doesn't sound like it's a good fit for your community. No, I wouldn't want to see a whole lot of development up through here because then you're you're blocking all of you off in here. Well, these these areas are not eligible. It's just these here and I mean I don't see a problem with it because I mean, if somebody wants to put something in here, which I don't know why they would because it's all wetland there anyway. So, I don't think they can anyway, can you?

No, they wouldn't be able to. But like you said, you just put it there in case you know, you never know. So, the the areas where when you said that we're really talking about is this tan area? No. What's that? No, we're doing this. This right here. This is neighborhood. That's neighborhood. And this could be neighborhood, but right now it's lake. That's lake. Yeah. So, but it potentially if somebody came in wanted a permit to I mean it would be something of course the we would have to decide not us but the zoning administrator I guess would Well, no. I mean what what we're deciding here if you want to put it into there

if you wanted to include it into the area that's tier 1B eligible you could. Yeah. Right. Right. But that that's that's all that's why it's denoted with a crosshair. Right. That's what I'm saying. Right. Exactly. And Allison, am I not correct in that? So, as far as our future land use map goes, so it says that things around the lake fall into this category. But if we have zoning for lake district, we could make that lake district zoning address any concerns we have about development. district zoning right now is just just about exclusively residential except for some campgrounds. The only thing that I noticed is that you also don't allow for duplexes and that's technically illegal.

Right. Right. That'll have to come out. Yeah. But um it's exclusively residential and that doesn't change the nature of it. But it does allow for a higher density. So residential. This is this this area here in pink, that's a pretty large area with a lot of acreage. Mhm. So, let's say I buy this whole piece here. Mhm. Which is That's all of Derby Street. Yeah. Okay. So, so let's say I buy that piece. And now I'm going to um build a road up through here off of the 105

that's more than 800 ft long. This new act that the state is pushing Mhm. Act 181. That's really going to screw up this mess because that automatically goes into Act 250. That's the kicker. This 800 foot thing that they're trying to pass, which they're going to have a big big thing. All the farmers and everybody are going to the state house next week. They're going to fight this. I I understand that. Is this what Act 181 is? It's going to hurt what you're trying to do. Um actually, this would be a tier 1B eligible. Correct. No, T doesn't say that. It doesn't say it in act 181. But hold on. The road rule is exempt in tier one areas.

This new road rule that they're trying to pass. Yes, the road rule takes place in tier 2 areas and in tier three areas. So, no, you would not be subject to the road rule. However, it's getting very complicated with all the stuff the state is I understand this, but I've been living and breathing this for the past. I know you have, but I'm getting concerned. I I understand, but this is the reason you would be given this exemption if you were to adopt subdivision rags because your subdivision rags would have standards for new roads that are created,

right? Because the way the way I read act 181, if I have an 800 an 800t driveway now, I mean that's how most of all these roads got built in the first place and how people built their homes is because the farmer put in the road, they improved the road, then the farmer decided to sell 2acre tracks and and people were buying it and building their own drive. So now this act 181 now is putting a squash to this because act 181 says what you got an 800 foot road you can't build a spur off this road and you can't do housing on this road. So one of the reasons that we drew up this land use map was to try to identify as many lands that would qualify for tier one status.

No, I understand. So that's that's the whole but I need somebody to tell me what act 181 is going to do. I I understand that, but I don't participate in the rule making for the road rule and I don't participate in the tier three lands. But it's a concern. Of course, it's a concern. But what we're trying to do here tonight is ident is establish some consensus. If you want act 250 exemption, these are the areas that can get it. Okay. And that's I understand what you're trying to do. But I I I see some roadblocks coming. Well, are any of these tier two? Do we have any tier two?

Yeah. Everything Well, everything else on this map is implied to be tier 2 because we do not designate the tier three lands in the tier three rule making is not complete. So all this anything that's in the pink. Okay. Anything that's in the pink here, here, here, and potentially here. That's right. If we Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, what's the advantage of adopting this? So, it's in the pink.

Um, well, you would still have to have, you know, subdivision rags. Um, the advantage would be if there are any spaces that are developable or redevelopable, um, you might be able to avoid some permits. And I mean I I I really don't see a problem with development if you could even want to develop there. But because it's you first of all there nobody can build anything here. No, there's no land here. All the way down. Well, I shouldn't say that. I don't know how far this goes. This is Birch Street right here. Whatever. You can't build on this side of this.

But but where were we when we were looking at that? Oh, it was Birch Street. Right. Right. Wasn't it right down here? Well, yeah, it was on Birch Street, but I don't know where this is. I thought that's the land that's just land, open land because remember, um, but you just said that this isn't Pleasant Street. This this area here is probably where the cottage, the little white cottage is. And then further down, that's the private road that goes down there. We were north of there when we looked at that spot that had developable land. So, we were up in the cross. We got a street here. We got a street that goes on the top of the hill here. Right. And then it's a dead end. I mean the uh Birch Street is dead end. Yes.

Right. So this is what I'm What is this street? This is This is Pleasant. No, this is Right. Pleasant. This is a When you go down in between Pleasant and Birch is Dale. Correct. That's where the Oldtown Garage is. Is Dumb Dale Avenue. That's right. That's right. That's over here. Okay. Dale Street is over here. Yep. That's right. Because this is Pleasant or whatever. Okay. Yeah. This this road here is where Goulette lives. The end of the road is Mr. Goulette. That's Dale Avenue. Dale Avenue, right? There's a few camps over beyond there. This on Birch. So, is this is this Birch here then? No, that's the road that comes from the visiting center, right?

Comes up the hill and it goes a little bit this way uh in a higher elevation. Uh I think Richard Jervy's house is right around here. So that could be Birch. So this is Birch. That's what I'm saying. Birch. That's a dead end, right? This is Birch, right? What's this street then? That's um That must be um Dale Cottage over here. No. Um that must be Dale. That's part of Dale. I think that's Dale. You're right. Uh yeah. And then there's your your extension. Dale Avenue extension. Yes. Right. And then this is um Pero.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There's a few streets here that are missing, but that's that's No, this is it. This is it. There's no more no more. This is um going to Blueberry right here. Now, how about that road? Street is in here. That's It goes down the cemetery where Bob I don't remember what his last name is. Bob Dexter is on. Um, no, it wasn't Bob Dexter. He passed away over Yes. Down in the water. Down by the water. Uh, Bob Cabin. Yep. Yep. Yep. The guy that just took that killed. No, no, no. He's on uh

he's right by the cemetery, I believe. So, it's between the cemetery and I think where? Huh? St. James Cemetery. No. No. Yeah. St. James. You know where? Um and uh Oh my god. I just love names. Right across from Lilfield lives. Yeah. Some um where I'm like you. I can't remember the name. My god. The they have the log home down below. Um there you go. Everybody think of his name.

Where does he live? Where does he live? He Well, there off Pleasant. Oh, you know where Melissa used to live? Yeah. Okay. You know that the log home that right down behind it on the shore of the pond on the uh if you're looking at it, it's on the right. You're talking about Melissa that my sister, my daughter, right? You Oh, you're okay. So, wait a minute. Is it It's after them, right? Yeah. Right. Why can't that is that Morris McQuain? Were you around when Morris McQueen owned that uh big greenhouse there? Uh well, I used to have a shuffle board in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's That's D. Lorenzo with the shuffle board next to the Clarks. No, but maybe he's got a shuffle board, but that's not who No, it is. There is McQuain McQueen's had a Anyways, that's not okay. Anyways, yeah, it's um Bob something. Yeah. What is his last name? I don't know. Anyways, whatever. So, yeah, his place would be off of Pleasant. Yeah. And then down into the So, I don't know where he is, but he'd have to go down Pleasant and I don't know.

Yeah, it's got to be in here somewhere. Right in somewhere in there. So, I guess I'm hearing first I heard like no, we didn't want to change this, but maybe you're thinking it would be okay. I think it should be put in because if somebody want I mean, I don't see any problem with development over here. But because is there a land available? Well, there isn't. And that's the thing. So, let them leave it the way it is. I don't see a problem with putting it in, right? As long as we keep under just a 40 foot height,

right? So, it's not going to change your underlying zoning. So, what we could call this area that's cross-hatched is something like lake neighborhood. And so, in other words, it's tier 1B eligible, but the underlying zoning is pretty much restricting it to just residential. And it's way more restrictive than what's in the neighborhood residential. So, yeah, that's going to change that. So, okay. Okay. All right. So then, um, so those are all your pink areas. Now we've got your I think we're going out to the mixed areas and the mixed Oh, well then we've got the lake areas and these are just just residential.

Um, that really much just follows your zoning.

Um, we we just wanted to call apart these areas that might get some eligibility. So then we go to the low to medium density areas and for the most part they're road oriented and um some of them are served by off-site water and sewer but um some some not at all. Um they're located too far from pedestrian infrastructure. They're for the most part residential, but you also, if you look at your zoning, you do allow for mixed other, you know, like commercial uses, um things like um like um um some commercial development, um like auto service places, some light industry, those have to be on state highways. That's right. So, um you know, it so the I think they're around here. this it would include like all of these areas around here and this none of it is eligible for tier 1B status but it's you know low to medium density it's got a mix of uses I think the the planning considerations there would be um you know careful sighting of non-residential uses so that they don't conflict with res other you know like neighboring residential uses try to avoid linear development that's just going to clog your roadways. Um, and again, paying attention to some of those more intensive commercial uses that really do need to be on a state highway and not on a town road that could degrade the service of your road. So, and that's pretty much follows what what you have now for like um I think it's called rural residential for the most part. That's rural residential and there's some rural lands in there too.

So then um rural lands are primarily your your intended for forestry and agriculture and your rural lands are going to be all of the colored here. You're seeing more conservation areas that are in your conservation district. One of those reasons is that remember you guys adopted an enhanced energy plan that gave you heightened standing in the section 248 process and that was so that you could have a statement about utility scale wind. Right.

And one of the areas that you prohibit development on are elevations of 2,000 feet or higher. So that's why it it's reflecting some of those key concerns. that's reflecting your concerns about energy sighting on areas that are 2,000 ft or higher. Okay, that's the dark green areas.

Um, also in the dark green areas are your undeveloped flood planes, some of your priority forest blocks. We did notice some conservation properties that were directly conserved. Um, and one of them was actually just in your rural lands map, but it was up here and it was like a 4,000 acre parcel that was owned by I think it was called the conservation fund and it was a place in mass like southern New England and it looks like it might have been a recent conservation effort. Does that sound familiar?

Let me look and see if I can find it. Is that part of the 400 acres that we own there? No, it's owned by an conservation fund. I'm not familiar with that.

Oh, anyhow. So, in some cases, we tried to capture things that were directly conserved to um to reflect that. Um, but it you'll notice on on your zoning map sometimes in your rural lands category, which is not your most restrictive, and it um you'll have some directly conserved lands or some easements that are actually not in the in your conservation zoning, which is fine.

It's owned by somebody out of Arlington, Virginia. That's who the the conservation fund is. 4,090 acres. Yeah. So, it looks like it happened after 2012. I'm looking to see if I can find. Who owned it before? I'm going to bet that was wirehouser land. Oh, yep. Probably. So the thing about it's out near the it's out near the KI area. It's it's going out that way.

Yep. So the thing about the conservation layer, your plan I, you know, talks about a strategy of acquiring or encouraging easements in areas that you'd like to protect. If there were certain areas that you'd like to prioritize, you could mark it on this map. I mean, you don't have to, but it would, you know, might be helpful and provide direction if you want it to go that that route. Just something to think about. We're going to keep this here, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, finally, this lavender land I think I think you can see it.

This is the conservation fund land. I'm not seeing a body of water in it, though. Oh, it's up here. Yeah, it's over here. That one the paper company owned. I think it probably was. Yeah. Off the other one. It's a big track to land. Yeah. Yeah.

It goes almost to the handshaw road. Well, after Boris Barnes it does. Yeah. But below Morris Barnes. Yeah. But I mean, there's one guy that bought 96 acres there. So that kind of that changed that.

So the last cards don't show any sale on that property. Oh, that's weird. Um, did they always own it? I I mean it says it goes back to 11900. So, it's probably something that would have been before we were had computer cards, I'm guessing. Oh, I know the paper companies owned it for years. As long as I can ever remember.

Who is the conservation? There was two paper companies. I don't remember what one of them was. I think Champion was one of them. Champion. Yeah, that's right. Champion. Champion and Warehouser. St. We just going towards North Strafford. It's more Champion that way. Yep.

That person's name was Bob Christie. Hey, there you go. I just d Funny how the bell goes off. That's what old lady does for you. That's doing the opposite for me. They're a nonprofit that's purpose is to protect wildlife habitat lands. Huh. They buy property all over there. They own two million acres across across the United States. That's why there's no housing. Everybody is protected.

We're protected from that housing. So, the last category we didn't really talk about are um um industrial uses. So, we also identified any intensive uses. We also included your um your airport. Yep.

Um which we had included in rural general, but that's fine. It it you know, we can switch that. Um you know, Liam did point out that the airport, even though it's it's stateowned, it still has some resource constraints in it. um it's got some wetlands, it's got some flood plane areas, you know, it's it's not completely constraint free, but you know, we denoted it um for um industrial uses. Um we also did note that um in in your mixed uh in rural and I think also in industrial areas, you also allow for earth extraction. So the planning consideration there would be to look at those standards to make sure that they don't um create impacts to roads, uh dust, noise, that they can be reclaimed. Another consideration um when you update your zoning. So again, this is not your zoning map, but it's just like a guide for how it might direct your zoning and direct incentives. Um, and if you are concerned about the road rule, this is your opportunity to max out on the um tier 1B status.

Yeah. Are there any questions? Do you need them to adopt this tonight or do this something we need to do in the near um if it's good enough for now I can write to it and keep going. Um I'm going to tell Liam to turn this little hatched area into a different district and it's going to be called um neighborhood lake. And again, it's the portion of the Lake District that could be eligible for tier 1B.

So what you're saying is that we have to change our zoning map to match this. No, no, no. No. Okay. So this so that map that's there would stay. That's correct. But you'd have to just giving us an idea of how we could develop that those areas. Correct. Okay. So, but what you would have to do is adopt subdivision rags because then you'd be able to avoid the road rule in the tier 1B areas. Correct. Yeah, that's I I read that in the uh this act. Yeah, whatever it was 181 or what? Yeah. Boy, there's a lot of stuff to read there. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

It's not funny. So, um, so we'll add the, um, uh, I guess we're calling it neighborhood lake. And I will leave this here in the in the office and you all can mark it up. And I'll also leave extra. Oh, shoot. Did I just give away my That's all right. Do you want to copy? Nope. That's That's okay. I'll just leave this. We're adding neighborhood lake. And I'll just mark on this if you want to make one without writing on it. I've got one here.

I'm going to mark on this map, too. I'm going to leave this here. And what I'm going to do, here's mom. fake district

areas eligible for tier 1B provided that you have subdivision ranks. Um so the pinks we'll get you to help us write those. Yeah. Tier 1B. Feeling better results? No. Well, you're up. Yeah, you're sitting. So, that's good. Knees go. So, so Mike, ask you a question. Sure.

So, around the lake right now, our our height restriction is 40 feet, right? Yes. Your height restriction is everywhere. Everywhere. 40 feet. Yep. Okay. But just for reference, you have to look at like my old house up there. Well, Ozone's house. It's taller than 40 feet. Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. It's also in the setbacks. Of course it is. Well, there weren't setbacks when it was built. Yeah. Yeah. They just plpped houses wherever they wanted. That they did. But the way our zoning is written, let's say that burnt down,

it would require variance to rebuild it. Right now, he he Yeah, but what if what if the foundation was still there? If he's going on top of the original foundation, he can build the same thing. Exactly. He could. Yeah. As long as he didn't move the foundation. That's right. Yep. Yep. That's the way our phone It's always been. I mean, it would just take a three-year battle with the insurance company, and they would never give me enough money to rebuild. Well, you probably, first of all, you probably wouldn't want to rebuild that big. Hell yeah, I would. You would. That's why you bought it, right? At least it would give you a chance to build a single story. Pretty good size. Oh, no.

No, you'd have to be the same size. It'd have to be build the back. Yeah. No, you can build hot. All right. Well, we'll worry about that if it happens. But it would have rockwool insulation and glazed windows. Yeah. All right. So, I think I'm done. Yes. Okay. Thank you so much, Alison. I just wanted you to know if you could touch on the air uh the short-term rentals. Did you have anything on that that you um I didn't have anything to add except that, you know, I saw what you had circulated from from the town of Bart.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can I can I go out of the agenda because the short term is on here and I just want to go a little bit discuss it with Allison as well. Um since we talked about it like almost two months ago, I in that term from this meeting I had a conversation with Michael Harris. He's the zoning administrator for the town of Burke. I just wanted to know how he was know how his um you know short term panned out for him. He started in um 2024, so he's only done it for a year. And um so he was able to explain everything because I had the the draft with me as well. And one thing I didn't understand that I had a concern with it before, remember we were talking about how they have to go to the fire marshall and they have to do the DRB and there's all this kind of stuff and who's going to do it? Well, Michael said they do it. They fill out the application. There's all kinds of things that says right here how you fill it out and what you have to do. Every single thing is laid out. And then they give that application to Michael, which is the zoning, and he just records it.

He he he just makes sure that they've gotten all the things that they needed to put on that paper correctly or whatever. And then he then he um files it. So, does he inspect it? No. No.

Nope. they have to take the word for it, you know, for and they've got to put up all their there's no going to it, you know. So, it's just the zoning administrator has that little bit of work of um uh recording it really. And I guess the first year they had about 35. There was 35 to maybe 40, but not, you know, not a lot. And then um but it's just an ordinance. He's got the how it's an ordinance in the how you would even present it in our you know if you even have the ordinance but you know it's something to talk about because I think you know this town is kind of turning into a you know Airbnb VBO Facebook town Facebook

well as I said there's what what can you do about that nothing well that's just it I'm like I I I understand I don't understand why we want to do all of this. I mean, just because we want to know what people are doing with their property, it just doesn't seem I just don't see a point to it. You know, if we're not actually expect anything, we're not enforcing anything, we can't anything.

But there's there's certain things like if say one of the properties is um giving an Airbnb and they're saying it's eight people, they're only supposed to have eight people is the max on any of these rentals anyway. And then you have to go to something else if you want it to be more. But the whole thing about, you know, like if you have big places like that, but people may come into this town and like just party hardy and, you know, disrupting other people or the safety that whatever. I mean, it's it's no I don't think it's a really a big deal to have an ordinance something in our who's going to enforce it. Nobody. Well, it's my point is it's up to the person.

So, I guess the question is so they fill out this piece of paper, they say, "Nope, I won't let more than eight people come in." and they let 16 people come in. What are we going to do about it? There's no there's no law that says they can't. It's it's us wanting to to kind of poke our nose into people's business, which in I think the Airbnb I think that's kind of a if they go through Airbnb, it's kind of to protect the homeowner because say somebody there is 16 and you you you know Yeah. Yeah. And you only didn't want it either. Well, exactly. So now when you're when you list your place on Airbnb, you're you're insured.

So if they do something then and then they're blacklisted. They can't but they go to another Airbnb. They're done. They're done. They're off the list forever. That's right. But what does that's how it works. But that's I'm still getting back to it's those are all great things, but how does us getting another form recorded in town hall change that? It ain't doing it not doing anything as far as I'm concerned. It makes it feel powerful, but it doesn't really there is no point to it.

You just had a town in the state of Vermont that just added a 1% meals and rooms tax. It's called it's a town tax on top of already the state meals and rooms tax. And I'll tell you that's going to hurt him. That's going to hurt that town. It can I tell you it won't. It really won't. It does. That it has very little impact. But what I can tell you, I looked at it for island pond years ago. We were told to look into adding the the local option tax. And when I figured out how much the town was actually going to get out of it, not the it wasn't worth the headache of doing it. That's correct.

You know, it was it was $10,000 a year. Well, you know, yeah, 10,000 is nice, but it's it's not groundbreaking by any means. It's not going to really buy us anything that spectacular, and it just makes everybody angry, right? Makes more work for the poor girls in the office that don't have the time to do all this. They're not doing any of that. And it's the zoning is doing it. The girls aren't doing anything. He's taking care of No, no. We're talking the local tax right now. Yeah. And the local tax, you don't get it all either. The state gets part of it. Oh, that's right. So they do. Yeah. As a handling fee.

It's like a good chunk of it, too. It's like 40%. It's not It's not like it's like 10%. It's like 10,000. So on 10,000 you'd get 6,000. It was not a great It was not a great option for us. We looked into it and I just didn't see that there was ever the appetite for going that route in Island Pond. I mean, I I love the idea of this, but it's one of those I just feel like it's we're adding something that we're just adding something. We're not there's no point to it. It's not like we can do anything about it. We can't enforce anything on it. So, I mean, I No, they know anything that Michael is even going to

Yeah. Well, they they created like a registry. Yeah. And um it was a big political hot potato because there were some people who just wanted to regulate it more heavily because they were worried that um you know people were buying up starter homes and then turning them into dedicated short-term rentals. Um that that was a real concern and it continues to be a concern. There's a significant shortage of housing. It's not the fault of the Airbnbs that we don't have sufficient housing inventory in Burke. In East Burke, it was a unique situation and they have an extraordinary number of dedicated short-term rentals. Um, so

didn't their problem kind of happen because they it overwhelmed their wa their water and sewer system. Am I not correct? Because so many came online so fast. I think they don't really have a sewer system. I mean, they um they have a small opt-in in like the West Burke area that's allocated, but I think the big thing was people complained about the noise. They complained about people who were renting houses near like Kingdom Trails, then they'd have parties. Um and they were they were disruptive. Um but then you know they they also I think they were equally threatened by outof town sometimes outofstate people buying properties and then turning them into dedicated short-term rentals. I mean

as I don't think I I think most people have like some skin in the game when it like locals when it comes to renting their house out for short-term rentals. But it was when people from out of town started coming in too. It just felt kind of threatening. Um, one thing I was going to say is I don't know if you've been to the housing data website. Um, you can get um data on on actual um short-term rental activity and we could just include that in the plan. Um, and it's worthwhile looking at it. You might be able to share it on your you might be able to share it on your screen, Mike. If you go to housingdata.org

plus your survey answered quite a few right but this is this is actually based on actual rentals so it's it's aggregated from from the different short-term rental companies. Okay. Okay. The only thing but a lot of them don't even versus longterm don't even use their because they know the people of time they travel out of pond to buy stuff. Your short-term rentals are the ones that they come up here to enjoy the enjoy it. So, they're not going to want to spend a day traveling Newport. So, they're going to buy from Kingdom Market and things like that. Maybe. Yeah. Oh, definitely.

That's the thing I see about trying to regulate short-term rentals. You're going to kill your businesses. What What do you mean kill them? Why would they be killing them? If you try to regulate short-term rentals? Yeah. Okay, Mike. If you click on community snapshot, I think that's where it is. That mean I always have a hard time navigating around here, but so now you select your town.

Great.

Oh, wait a minute. Can I get rid of When I go on these sites, I always put a high pawn. too. I'm not going to fry old bond. I never picked them. I know. Okay. Yeah. At the last minute closing on the house, I got a call from the bank and they freaked out when you over there. Yeah. Oh, because it said they were like, "But it says, but it says Island Bond." I'm like, "They're the same." Ga, New Hampshire is the same thing. Yeah. Deeper into that as a part of North Thumbland. Yep. The same face the village. Yeah.

Short-term rentals whole unit September. But there should be some historic data too. If what happens if you double click on that? Can you go any deeper on that? So how many are there? 35. 35. 35. What in Burke? Oh, in Brighton that they're saying that there's 35 short-term rentals. How do you know that? It's right here on the screen. I know, but how did they get collect that 35? How do they know where the 30?

It's um it's a service called it's an aggregating service called AirDNA and then it takes from Airbnb and VBO and and it aggregates it. But there's somewhere on that site there's also historic. What does Burke have? I'm curious. Does he is a lot more? Yeah. How much what are they up to now? Because it the first year was kind of slow. He said I don't know. But this wouldn't just be from their registry. This would just be from short-term rental activity. Oh, okay. Right. There we go. Let's see what we get. So, when they get this information from Airbnb or VBO, sometimes they're both Burke has 168.

Wow. Oh, within one year they I mean really that first year he was like 35 maybe 40 a whole year in September 2024. Wow. He didn't tell me that. So that's why they were Yeah. freaking out. Yeah. Well, they have all those ski area condos and everything up there with, you know, so that's a lot of rentals we think, right? Just that. I know. And that thing is a lot of what we have in town is we have people they're not full-time short-term rentals either. I mean, a lot of ours are snowmoilers. They use it during certain months of the year and they don't use it others, so they rent it out during those months. And the same, it's vice versa with the summer people. You know, we kind of have

people with lake homes that come in the summer, but they don't come in the winter. And so, they rent it out in the winter to the snowmoers. So,

I don't think we have a I don't think we have a lot of property where people just buy it as an investment and just do just do Airbnb rentals. I think that's what they were running into in Burke was people who were really this was just an investment. This was people who were never there. Yeah. Um I will try to find that historic data. I I always have a hard time navigating this website, but it's in there somewhere. Well, you know, we had we were part of the um and you guys should have gotten copies of that uh year before last. We did it with um Lynden and um St. John's or Lynen Bur hospitality study.

Yeah. Yeah. And that had all of it in there. I can send that to you guys because I have that. No, they were just aggre they were taking those tables from here. They're somewhere buried in this website. I hope that answered your question kind of a discussion, you know, like not I don't know if they want to do anything or not, but at least we had a discussion. Yeah. I mean, I don't know exactly what they I don't think they know what they're achieving yet, but um I I remember being in some of those discussions with the planning commission and you know, people were really concerned. So, and then what did they do? They charge what? $35.

30 $35 for long term. Long-term and 45 for shortterm. It's um long-term. Why would you Well, there short and long-term rentals. They have I think they have a They have a You have to get a forart rental apartments as well, I think. Oh, good lord. Yeah, that's crazy. St. J has a rental registry and they use some of the funds to give grants to property owners to make improvements to their rental stock. That's for long-term rentals,

which basically is. Yeah. Like 180 days. They're saying there's certain days for Well, all right. We want to talk about anything else on that.

No, just one other thing. Excuse me. We both put that up. Go ahead. Michael Harris actually said that if you want we wanted to hear from him, he would either zoom or come to a meeting. I mean, just to explain how well or bad it is. I mean, if I you know, get we get a little bit more information. And that's, you know, don't you think that would He's a good guy and he's super helpful. Always trying. He was very nice with me. Yeah. Does anybody want to do that? Go forward with any if I can you email Mike a copy of this map. Can you do that? I don't know if Allison sends it to me.

Yeah. Um I think that I'm gonna Yeah. Then he can then he could send it to all of us on the board so that we can look it over even more without having to come here and look at it. This big one I think it'll be a little tricky to look at online. It's um but we can we can do that. It should be in color, right? Yeah. I mean, but you'll have to kind of move it around around on if it's a PDF Alison, I can I can help people get around it. Yeah, you can reduce it so it all fits on just one. Oh, it'll all fit on one. I I I think you're going to lose a lot of definition if you try take it down to report size. That's why we tried to make it a wall size to start with.

Um, for the final, we can we can print in color up to um uh 12 by 18 on the copier behind you. So, I can probably do at least maybe divide map and half or something and and I I would like that. Well, if you want a little more. I could also see if Liam could reduce a report size one, but you don't have to do a lot of extra work for it. It's fine. Yeah, we do our report size on 11 by7. Okay, we can print that. We We have the ability to print that. Okay. Okay. Appreciate it. And we can print. Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Alison. Thank you, Alison.

Thanks, Alison. Um, is my You're at the zoning administrator update. Um, where am I at? Oh, zoning. Okay. So, I don't know where my Okay, so um Nick did tell me that um the the that sign that was on the corner. Mhm. He's answered and he's as soon as the mud and everything he's going to move it to the back of the house and back. I still haven't seen that. I don't I saw it for the first time. You can't It's a trailer. Oh, that tractor trailer. That's what he's got. Yeah.

Where the where the church was. That was the He bought the church house, pastor's house. That's right. And he's got that on his property and it's a kitty corner so you can see it if you're on the road. It's like advertising. What? What is he advertising? Rentals or is it rental? Yeah, motor sport. Motor I can't see if you're not I think he has a snowmobile business in Connecticut, doesn't he? Motorcycle rentals and storage. Motorcycle.

So, you know, Nick said that he did talk to that that person. I had something for Joel to discuss that. U Nick wanted an answer for. So, I maybe I'll Well, I can't really call him because he's probably always out in the park. probably got it parked there for the se snowmobile season keeps the sleds in there. I don't know. But it's Yeah, but I don't think you're supposed to have a sign. It's the sign that we're talking about. Yeah, but it's not really a business sign, is it? Yeah, it was saying snowmobile rentals and storage, but there's no business there. I don't know. He's advertising advertising to the snowmoers. He was advertising to because the trail went right past the house and he was advertising to them.

That's right. It was a way to get around our signed ordinance. And there is and he does that has a sign on the trail. I saw that. Yes. Without paying for the business for sale signs from the snowmobile. I I don't know. It was on I just It was out on that road past him. That's not where they It's down the road a bit though. Must be It's on the trail. You can Oh, the sign that he put I Yeah, it's on the trail. He's moving through. Yeah, I saw it. Snowmobile rentals or something. I don't know. I was really time I drove by. I was looking for it and I couldn't see.

Oh, that Yeah, I I just saw it for the first time because I probably wasn't really looking. But but the sign on the trail you can see. It's huge. But yeah, but can you see that from the road? No. No, it's just on the trail. You got to you got to be on a snowmobile to see it. That's right. Yeah. was four-wheeler. Yeah, she he shouldn't have it there anyway. But yeah, pick our battles. You're right. That's the snowmobile club's problem, not ours. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yep. Um I guess um Nick also said that there's that um new construction over by Sharon Borons, that big building that's there. That's a marijuana place. Yeah. And um so he only didn't have he didn't have one thing on that um that he's asking him to what was the what what was his nature of his business? That was the only thing that he didn't put into the permit. Did you see that, Mike? No, I didn't I didn't say that.

Okay. So, he didn't say any of that and that's what Nick wants him to say before he I don't think he's given him the permit yet, though. I don't know. But it's built. The building's already built. Where is that over? He He must have got it because didn't you say the electrician wouldn't go until he got a permit? I don't Well, he approached me. I know. But you know, but the the electrician wanted a permit. He he does have a state building permit. Okay. And he does have all the state Oh, okay. He did the state stuff for his farm. Yeah. It's an indoor hyponic farm. Yep. It's agriculture. Yes. So that's a whole different ballgame and we don't have any say in it. Yes, it is.

The state excludes weed from agriculture. Well, that then maybe the town doesn't. I don't know. It's not the first one we've had that's got approved. Scott did one years a long time ago. I mean, there's no there's no regulations that he's got all his permits. Yep. What's that? Scott still has his. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The one on Pleasant Street is no more. You know that other one that they built kind of by Robins Dave and the addition to that green house. Oh, no. He got done. He's now done with that. He's all done. Yeah. I didn't realize. I just heard that. I didn't know that. No, it would it would have been too small anyway. Yeah. Yeah. No, he's done. He does mostly construction. So, that's a big building. I was inside it. Big

Which one? Which one? The one over here on Sharon. Yeah. Yeah. It looks huge. Huge building. Yeah. What street is that on? Um 105 like if you go out Lakes Shore, you know, that big building is right after that driveway. Oh, okay. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. But Sharon doesn't own that anymore. No, no, no. She's out. Yeah. Okay. Um so do we want to move on? It's into that discussion for now. Yep. Okay. Sure. Um, so we want to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. I'll approve the minutes of the previous meeting. I wasn't here, so I can't. That's right.

I'll second it. All in favor? Okay. Um, then other business. Did we have anything for other business? No, we're good. I think so. All right. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? Make a motion to adjourn. Second. I favor. All in favor? All right. Thank you.