Planning Board - Regular Meeting

feedback, you mute the the YouTube or you can close the YouTube one out after, right? I don't think that works. I think it actually stops process the YouTube. There we go. Stop that. How are you doing this, Robin? Now you're back from all your festivities. Those pictures are great. Yeah, it was that was great. Was this your daughter?

Yes. Yeah. Lovely weather didn't quite break but they stopped raining in tones. They say good luck to uh rain on your weight loss. I think they feel good. Yeah, it's on her. Well, it's on Jesse's. I didn't post them, but it's on her. She's both of these. Mine pictures are the only one. You only need one.

I'll take the uh Okay, Robin, I guesscept for you. All right. We're going by Joe. Okay, I don't care what you

think. We are set. If you're ready, I'm going to call the meeting. We're a little behind schedule. We'll call the meeting at 611. And we'll start by going over October 16th uh planning board minutes. All right. I will make a motion to pass the meeting minutes of October 16th.

Wait, wait, can I ask one question? Do we want to update the date on when the site visit and public hearing? Um, it'll be updated today's meeting minutes. Okay. Because that was that was what was I debated the same thing because I didn't do them until this afternoon. Okay. I was like, "Yeah, that's what we actually voted at that particular meeting." Perfect. Thank you. Did we have a second? Yeah. Second. All those in favor? All right.

On to today's agenda. Um, I'm going to start with we received a building permit. I was actually in the process of looking up the map for Joey Stout on 45 Main Street and it looks like it's to do a an addition to an existing garage structure. The only thing is it the house is already has a variance because it sits close to the property line.

Mhm. This structure doesn't go beyond the house, but it puts it two feet within the property line of the adjacent um the adjacent property. I just want to pull up map so we can take a look at it. say 45 Main Street.

So is that why it came to us rather than just being approved by the enforcement officer because we don't typically approve building and permits. It looks like it came to us because there may need to be a variance.

That's what we already said. And that building permit application has our required signature on it. Okay. And the code enforcement officer So, where's his diagram that he submits with his that So, we're are we uh 20 We're 30 ft setbacks, right? Typically

20 ft property line, 30 ft from roads and make sure this is the right house. So, there's a 36x 24 garage. It's already there. And he's adding another 14 ft to that. Yeah, this is here. Um, go back to a top down view. It's How far is he from the road? He's It's behind the It's behind the the house.

Yeah. Teach people how to spell, right? So, I can't zoom in anymore, but this is this is the house. There's the driveway. This is the garage. And looking at it, he wants to do an extension like this way. Mhm. Which still is not beyond the house. The house is very close to the property line already, but the distance from the property line to the edge is going to be 18 feet as opposed to 20. But the house is closer to that property line than this is existing.

Well, when the hedge family asked for something very similar to this, they had to go to the appeals board, right? parents, but that the the one that the Hatch family did, it was coming close to the road. This isn't the guy's backyard. So, I don't know. I mean, they're they were building a garage that didn't go past their current house, right? The drive into the road though, towards the road, wasn't it? No, their current house corner was here. Okay. And they originally they were like three inches past the house, right? After discussion, they talked to their builder, they could build it back, so it never came past the current house to the road,

right? But but the garage wasn't extending any further into the road than the current house. So like this is saying, hey, we're not going to extend past the current house, which is already out of. So there the the addition they're proposing as existing house does it it does not do we know whose property this is and are they okay with that getting Thank you. I was going to ask that question. Thank you. If the neighbors don't have a problem with it then

well the Hatches neighbors all signed a thing that said they didn't care and the appeals board would not give them the variance. That's true. It's a road though, right? Um not a road road but a driveway. Well, it was I guess but um it go past the existing house and it's not an owning property. That's the problem, right? But they they lost humans and then didn't realize they need the permit. That's big. They denied them. So they resack all that stuff. They lost 304 was a huge It felt like a not good decision. 4.

That's not um you can look it up. That's not the auto people. H trying to find the math lot to Yeah. But if I went by the street, it's 45. It's under Joseph Barboni. Barbone. Barb. Yeah. Not Stout. Stout. Is he actually the property owner?

Well, that's a good question. I don't know. Determine if he's a property or not. Now, it doesn't say sometimes the builder will file the permit application on behalf of the property owner, but you still have to have the property owner's information here.

He signed as both property owner and applicant. If we if this is trying to go that's based off of this. That looks like if unless I'm on the wrong property that's 45 Main Street and he wants to extend that way towards Oh, I see. Okay. So, it'll make the garage wider and that's a whole another bay, right? 14 ft should be another bay. Yeah. and 36 feet deep. That's a one sign. That's where the is that place right there, I believe. So 51

is Mr. Stout the guy that they do Mr. Stout the guy that they do remodeling. Yeah, this and that builders. Yeah, they've got I think this and that builders is their sign up front. 51 Main Street. Wendy Murphy. Yeah. Oh, I know. I would certainly get a letter from her that would say she either is or isn't okay with that. An existing house is probably grandfathered because at the time the lots were a lot smaller, right? I say there's already variance for the house. The variance was already grant for the house. So the house or the graph?

I mean the house is already done. The house is already right. that we could grandfathered before whatever they so that's not really a variance in the old house. Yeah. That's not really a variance they were given. They were just it was there like our king. That's right. That's where those arguments that it's always been that way. Caris. So we're going to Who was that neighbor? Wendy Wolfy and ask I don't know who she is.

I do too. Just send a letter that this is okay. Those lots even don't even follow our housing and minimum lots. No, because they're so old. Yeah, that's a halfacre.

Let me test the language. see what you have to do.

But the property owner's name should also be on here somewhere, right? Well, he's saying it's both. He signed it. It's property owner and developer. So, he's saying he owns the according to the map lot. That's not right. Yeah, it shows that it's Joseph. It's his stepdad. owner since 2021. Oh, it is. Yeah. And I only know that because they did my bathroom. Okay. So, we think this is fine then.

I think we need to get clarification on who owns the property. That's right. And because it didn't sound like it was a Joey Stout when you said before who was it's Joseph Bario. Maybe the next door neighbor knows who actually owns the property. Oh, the tax records. Yeah, that's what I were looking at is the tax records. Oh, so it it's strange that it would should be Joseph Carbone on here and then the applicant is Joey Stra, I think. Sounds a little. So we should ask

He's got a twoacre lot. It's too bad he couldn't put it on the other side of the garage, but he'd have to bring in a bunch of fill a big hill. The big hill. Yeah. How far back does that lock go? Could we put it straight to the back? The addition. It goes to the back of the garage, right? No. Could the addition be behind the back of this? I don't know. All right. So, I say we we need to get You said you know his the neighbor. I just texted her.

Okay. See what she says. All right. And then um we just got to figure out who owns the property and if that's the person who own the person who owns the property is the one that needs to be listed on this. Actually,

um, when you're asking someone for a letter like this, is email good enough or do they physically need to um, if it's email, I print them out and attach them to the meeting minutes. So, they're a matter of public record. Correct.

Okay. Um, one other thing I want to add to today's agenda and let me find it here. I have not had a chance to do it, but I got an email from Kathy from Boon Burgess talking about, is that the right name? Yes. Okay. Talking about the solar project that may be going in in Jay that they're encroaching onto the town line. Okay. I didn't call him. No, he is out to lunch.

The CEO who has talked to the head or owner of the I still say the IP mill, the paper mill. Okay. And NL got has approached solar companies about putting it in up there, but only on the Jay property because he knows Canton has an ordinance and we have a moratorum that he's not he's told don't touch Canton but because Jay has no ordinance, right? But he hasn't had any takers at all yet. Okay. They were Okay. So why did Brian say at the last meeting that definitely they were on Canton property? Because there are they honest through select have gone and looked at it

not altogether. It definitely it looks like they are guardrail posts but they're yay high off the ground. They're kind of every which way of willy wagon and my personal opinion someone's going to put hunt. It's very postage stamp cleared around for it. Well, yeah. I think I still had a I mean from what we've seen when they did behind the villa all the land clear anywhere around this is not happening all of him

he's just okay he's just being like what's that picture well he put it Oh, here it is.

Okay. Can you send that to me? Yeah. I mean, they're like this tall and as we've seen, we'll be sending it. We'll just attach it to the meeting minutes. That'd be great. Send it out. Send that over. I also saw the JCEO at a meeting yesterday because I she's the one I talked to a few weeks ago about this and she said as far as she knew nothing was happening, but they don't have an ordinance, so they're not required to notify her. But she said as far as she still knows, nothing is happening.

And that's what the J Mill guy said. He has no companies lined up, nothing. set up. Okay. All right. Oh, I know. I didn't Oh, I have Dan in there. Hey,

I'm just going to put in the minutes again. This solar review and site visit was moved to uh November 20th. I think today's the 6th, 13th, 20th. Yeah. Uh to allow for uh 15 days notice. I think he thought originally it was 10 days and he went and put everything in the mail and go, "Oh, if it have to be 15 days, I'm going to be like one day short because I was like just made it. I just sent it to everybody and it just says Alden Hill." So, text or email. Huh? Text or email? Email. Okay. Hey, there it is.

Well, that way it's more at this rate. In two weeks, you might have to bring your boots because it might be snowing. Did you not see it flurry today? Yes. The first grade is a recess. They can't just

Yeah. I wonder if someone is doing like a hunting shack. Yeah. An elevated hunting shack. Some Napoleon Hill property owners do not know about, but you look at them and there's four each side and they're just right to Yeah. They're not even straight. Like that's not janky. Yeah. They're just somebody dug a hole and set them in. Yeah. Quite a plan there. In the trees. In the in the trees. Yeah, he does. So, but he's made a lot of public noise that there's a solar plant going in a canon property and that's caused a brha. Yeah.

And the thing was the way he talked it was like it was so visible from the road. We drove by it twice. Okay. So then I had to get on Facebook and see the directions to So Mr. Barrett from the Tanella Solar Project reached out to ask two questions this week. One was um who assigned um an actual address to that property because right now it's just a lot number and I that's the road commissioner. Yeah,

we'll let uh Andy know when he's done with family business. Not urgent. Um the other question I sent to Aaron, I didn't get an answer from him yet. Um I don't believe they need a separate building permit once they're fully permitted. They don't need a separate billing permit for that because I don't think they did that with the other one because once they're set to go, they're set to go. Yeah. But I just asked him for confirmation. I did not hear back. But yeah, they they shouldn't leave anything. Okay.

Cool. So, if we go back through the uh old business for two seconds, um just to let u Daniel and Robin stuff know, we delivered the sew ordinance at the select board. It's on hold at the select board level. We delivered the cemetery ordinance. that's unfold at the select level. Um Robin, the other Robin said she had um some information that might be useful to add into the cemetery ordinance. So we will hopefully we get that in the next week or so. Grab an M to that. So as soon as we get that, we'll add that.

Um I sent the updated solar ordinance last week, but I realized it didn't go. It was in I was on a hotel Wi-Fi system and I had a whole bunch of work emails that my computer says sent. They are not sent. So sweet. When I discovered that, I went back and looked. I'm like, "Oh, solar ordinance was one of those." So, I will find it and resend it. So, that will come out this week.

Um, we made a lot of changes last week to the last last meeting to the cluster housing ordinance. I do have that typed up. We can put that on the screen if we want to go through that. Um, but it was one of the things we said was let's put all of the application processes that we have in our sub living ordinance into the cluster housing ordinance. That added like three pages to it because there's a lot of process questions in there. Um, I can send that out separately if you guys want to read read it over in the next two weeks and we can talk about it at the next meeting. Yes, please.

Okay, cool. um because it was now you know it changed all the numbering and changed all the formatting changed everything to add that big of a section in there but it's now PDF don't forget I mean I can look at Word but you you don't have Word right I I have access to it but yeah I can look at it either way well we I know we took some of the old ordinances that only existed in PDF and when we converted them they just come out gibberish and some of them Right. So, um, if you can look at I can send everything. If you can look at it in Word, then I can.

Dando, can you see stuff in Word or do you prefer it in PDF? Probably PDF. Okay. All right. Little weird conversion things in there. Yeah. All right. So we send solar and uh send cluster housing and then do you prefer PDF? Yes, you can open those. Okay.

All right. There you go. Um the planning board ordinance is what we're going to talk about today because that had we don't have anything in there about having this backup a reserve person. So, we want to make sure that we had the right um language in there and how best to engage with that person. Um if we want to open it up, I can put it on the screen if we want to look at it all together. It was the last updated in 2020 thing.

This morning I had had my computer off the dock station yesterday and I could not figure out why I could not get it to project on the big screen. I'm like I'm rebooting. I'm doing all this stuff. I'm like, "Oh, it's not plugged in. All right. Where's the white? There's something on the Oh, that's it. That's the That's the You can turn the heat up if you'd like. I won't complain on that.

I thought the door was so spent all day in my room. So, this is good. Oh, you're good, man. There's white caps on the leaf today. It was Yes, it's pretty cool. My room at school has been on a week now. Is it coming? I think it's warming up. It's warming up. The words are getting there. Um, you guys might want to just move to the side of the table if it's a little bit easier for you to see. I'll make this a little bigger. Beautiful. That's right. Those cathode ray tubes got to warm up then. I remember those days. I wish dimming half the lights. We can do that. Oh, you can't.

No, sit in the dark. We don't care. Yeah, sit in the dark. grass coming in hot.

They're making they're making weird expressions. You should see what we're doing. I see everything.

All right. So this one perhaps um we may want to reorder some of this but uh maybe not. So this has repeals and establishment that's all under the statute basically. Um the earlier version was 2017. This is a 2021 was when it was updated last. So just FYI. So they have officially I mean our language in our ordinance is not consistent at all. But this basically says, "Hey, we are amending an ordinance adopted in 2017 at the town meeting in 2021." What our lawyer said to us last time was just you can take out that section and just at the bottom of here, you can say uh revisions, right? Yeah. Like this revision was 621.

I like that. Yeah. And you can put a previous one that said, you know, can you can we also put what was revised like section 8 or sometimes we used to put full document revision if there were lots of changes, right? If there were little changes then we would put a date and this okay I'll put that as a question mark until we see what we're doing. Is there is it state statute that that has to be in order? can just be a policy. Um I will find out but because planning board, appeals board and select board are the only three that are mandated by state.

Right. So I that's what I was saying. I don't know whether it has to be an ordinance or whether you can do it because it would be is there is there ordinance?

Not that I'm aware of. But that does not mean I'm correct. It'd be a lot easier functionwise if it was a policy. Then it would have to wait till the town meeting. Hold on. have to track changes first because then it'll track all those. All right. So, we're taking that piece out. All right. Uh so we so elections elected by vote of the people as terms expired not to exceed five members shall be sworn in by the moderator open town meeting and by the clerk other person authorized to administer oaths shall consist of five members. So here do we want to say and one what what are we calling you a reserve

alternate alternate spare an arrow spare I'm glad you right now so I six o' you never told what's going to come out of my mouth either so I think we also originally had a different term so we when we changed it four years ago So we changed it to a three-year term because nobody wanted to commit to more than three years on the board. I think it had five year term or

so that was the change the last time three years. Um so if there is not enough people don't reup on the voting process then the select board um municipal officer is still appointed person the unexpired position. Uh, a vacancy shall occur upon resignation of the or death of a member when a member ceases to be a registered voter of Canton or or can resident or when a member fails to attend any four consecutive regular meetings. Don't skip out on us. Not good. Uh, fail to attend a minimum 75% of all meetings regular special emergency within a period of 12 months exception of planned absences with pre-approval. So, this gives you a lot of leeway. you know, you have a family crisis out of state, you're going to be gone for three meetings. That's fine. You're pre-approved. No big deal. If we get a vacancy, we go to the municipal officers, let them know so they can start thinking about appoint pointing people. Um, do we want to say, well, so organization of rules? Wait, can you scroll back up? No person or Okay, thank you. Yeah, that was another thing that got changed the last time because first and originally they had you couldn't have like spouses couldn't be on both boards and we're like we're a small town why not you know why couldn't you but you can't do both even though Robin's on every committee in town she just cannot be on both the planning board and the cannot be on the school board and so once we have a full corn which we should reelect chair, vice chair and secretary.

You can change those at any time. Who's vice chair? Uh Don. Okay. Currently quorum should be three members. Um I'm not going to read these all out loud to you. You can read them yourself. What's that going to read? Any changes that you want to do here?

No question. If one of the plane board people, you know, decide that they want to leave, why can't the ultimate step up? You can. That's exactly what we're talking about. Okay. So, I just these are just getting people haven't seen this. They're just getting familiar with what the current rules are and then we're going to figure out how we want to change them to include the alternate. Uh, so hold on. So, is it still that if you have a spouse on the board, you cannot be on the planning board? No, that is not the rules anymore. Go ahead. I don't remember. No, that's exactly what we took out. I can't be on the plane anymore. Right.

Right. But I mean it had been a spouse. You couldn't have a husband and wife on planning and select like but that's what got taken out four years ago. Yeah. That got removed. Uh so let's do you want back in this top section. A vacancy shall occur. Um maybe we want to put something in here.

Yeah. Um maybe at the next available meeting the next available select board and I'm looking up some of the planning board ordinances online and a lot of them do has an alternate.

Mhm. That doesn't mean they're full, but they have that's a wish list. You've already been sworn in. Have you already been sworn in as an alternate? Okay. You can see maybe that that extends the use of alternates. that.

Okay, you just give me a second. I know. Give me a minute. I hate group writing with a passion. I know single. I facilitate meetings all the time and they say, "Oh, we're going to facilitate group writing." I'm like, "Help me out." Yeah, I would slip my throat first. uh planning board isn't going to be altered. I mean, as long as there's some point, perfect. Yeah, that's so I Googled and a spouse of a select person in Maine may serve on the planning board provided there's no conflict of interest on whatever planning board's working on. Right. Cannot be on the board of appeals.

That's why we changed it four years ago. Yeah. Okay. So, if we fill that spot with the alternate, we then we'll try to find a new alternate. Yeah. I feel like you should have a scarlet a

So, if we don't have a forum for a meeting, can she be called in? Yes. Okay. So, well, that's what I was going to ask, but this is just addressing the vacancy section, right? Well, so let's talk about that. So, let's say D is going to be out for a while because of her surgery. Yeah. Should be and she should be setting and voting. I agree. And but that doesn't go under the vacancy section. No, under organization. That's probably under the organization section or something. So, is it if you're if you're going to be out for more than one meeting, for any meeting, how do we want to do that first meeting?

What's my two cents? It would make more sense if you had five up there if you had to vote because you're with four people, you're running a tendency to split vote up. I mean, but Don knew she could probably was not going to be here tonight because of her surgery. Then to me, automatically when should be when I was in Illinois. Yeah. Yes. Not a lot.

Yeah. Last week out in the woods, you know. So how come the the one like board meetings you guys have five members? Yeah, you need alternates but you need alternates because half I mean we've been to several meetings where there no forum no for quum no forum we can't conduct we need an alternate but there were four people there but they couldn't vote on some participation on a quorum. Uh probably because there was no the one time I'm thinking of wasn't that. No, you weren't there and uh Sean was because what came up to be discussed was a um a uh

adjustment thing on taxes on it was for Mac Ray's property. So Christine had refused herself. That's why. Yeah. If it had been your problem, we could have done it. Okay. All right. Get it. I don't know if it belongs at the top there, but I like it. I wasn't answer enough.

The um causes for disqualification are there. people uh recuse themselves if there's a conflict of interest. What else do we want to put that up there? Do we have Did you say we have that in there? Yeah, it's in there. So item was now item C. If you have if you have a conflict of interest sufficient to disqualify a member from voting shall be decided by a majority of the members present. If any question of whether there's a conflict of interest, the board votes and decides you can't sit on you know whatever which is the same as Sean does not speak on water district or anything.

I was going to say like when you were working on your right but all this is saying is if you don't voluntarily recuse yourself which we both did. Yeah. Uh the board can choose to tell you you can't bid on this because you have a conflict of interest. That was in that trailer. We have to have one regular meeting of the planning during the calendar month.

Can we move that new section that we added? A. Can we put it under F there? It makes more sense that you're not going to have a quarter unless you have three members. Absolutely. We have to watch how this go. Yeah. It's actually one of our shorter words. Make that a capital. This is basically what we do,

right? We update and all of these ordinances are considered land use ordinances. And we've looked at some towns have one giant land use ordinance. It's like 80 pages long. It's got chapter for shoreline zoning, a chapter for this, a chapter for that, but it's all one mega thing. Are there checklists already for all of the ordinances that we need to permit?

Um, there is. Um, I'm find it. Bri um Brad Sika, who was on the board before, went through and said, "Here's for each of our ordinances. Here's the ones that need applications. Here's the ones that need like permits." Um, you can find that checklist. I don't know the town office has that, but we can make sure that it's gets out there. We might need to look at title 30 M F M F M F M F M F M F M F M F M F M FRSA section 2055 that I believe has been repealed. We don't have that in here at all. Yeah, it was scroll.

Yeah, at the very end there. Stop. There you go. Number nine, we can take all it out for purposes immediately upon adoption at the annual town meeting first occurring following its adoption. Okay. Okay. Hey, I I'll get the actual 2014 date. Um because I know we want to keep track of earlier revisions. I don't think this is a full document revision.

No, it's revision to add um alternate. A lot of ours we have the old date and then the revised date under it. Right. Right. All right. Is there is it alternate? Is there anything else that you want to be said about your participation?

Yes. Okay. Just checking. All right. being informed about meetings and stuff in case you can see the zoom. Yeah, I think that's call random blind. Yeah. Yeah, she should be in front of James. Yeah,

it does have to be an order. All right. Arabic. You can certainly say the alternate form will be including those correspondence. Okay. Oh, I know. When I was sending out the other meeting minutes, I was like, "Where is her address?" So, now that we got you, you're good to go. All right. Um, so we already said I'm going to send out cluster housing so you can take a look at it, but let me just take two seconds and run it through that really quickly with you and just and I've got to go back and make the um Uh, it's a monster house.

I'm just going back to the meeting. What were what was happening with the cemetery ordinance again? We took it to the plan. We took it to the select board. They put it on hold. Okay. Robin could add some things, right? Yeah. Because I went to a conference and looked at all kinds of new cemetery stuff. So, cluster housing. Um, I will send you one that is the markedup copy and one that is the clean copy for reading. Okay.

So, this now has um a lot more sections and I have a quick question on this because we took the language from the subdivision ordinance on the application process. My notes last week said, "Hey, move all that over into this ordinance that says you have to submit a preliminary plan. your um a pre pre-notification that basically tells us, hey, somebody's going to put in a cluster housing development uh and has a general outline of what they're trying to do and a very loose plan. Just it's a notice that it's coming kind of thing. And then um they have to submit a preliminary application. The preliminary application lays out pretty much everything like here's here's the roads, here's the site plan, here's what this is going to look like, blah blah blah. Um and then we review the preliminary plan and say hey you're missing this we have we're questioning this setback on this road over here whatever we so we give a feedback to a developer and then they come to us with a final plan and then the final plan has to have you know so many copies big sizes blah blah blah blah and then we go through that one more time and if we approve it then it moves on to the next steps of whatever it's doing. Um the cluster housing ordinance, the way it was originally written basically said, "Hey, we we're giving people notice that this is a new and interesting kind of development." Uh it didn't have all those application processes in there. I think it might have just said uh C subdivision plan. And so I didn't know if we wanted to do that again. It would just keep it simple or if we want to put all of those requirements in this ordinance so everything's in one place. is for example um uh this whole these whole sections were not in the original plan and let's take a two second look at what they are and I still and we might want to change the words here from subdivision to development I don't know

it may or may not be a subdivision you might not be subdividing lots I'm assuming you would but I don't know this is why we have these discussions. So for the cluster housing, there wasn't anything about road development originally. Um there was a couple sentences on roads, but not basically it was talked about how many roads you could have out into a main road. Yeah. But nothing about road standards, nothing about sewer standards, nothing about all other stuff. I think you were assuming that it was because you're putting all these houses in close density, you're putting them on municipal water and sewer. Um

uh and so our subdivision ordinance still has the minimum lot size of 40,000 square feet. This this ordinance is designed specifically to allow for closer density of houses. Yeah. In exchange for the open space and in exchange for being more efficient use of roads and municipal water takes care of like plowing. Is it part of like it's the community but is it right now it says the the cluster housing the development or the or the housing development authority will take care of maintenance within that development.

So we have the definitions up front. These are some of these are new definitions. Um, right. So, the overall density of cluster housing is twice what is in the housing and minimum lot size ordinance with the remaining land to be open space. Right. Um, adopted by home rule blah blah blah. Uh, no person can construct a cluster housing development without first obtaining a permit from the planning board. Uh so this is uh this this didn't change right. You may allow subdivision development on reduced lot sizes in return for open space or the board determines that benefit either loss of natural features um etc. So you have to submit a written application to the board for cluster development with these two sketch plans. One and this is a a question whether we want to do this. This is kind of burdensome right? Two sketch plans will be submitted. One layout is a standard subdivision. The second is a cluster development identifying the natural features. I want I only want to question that because the cost to do that. You're having a surveyor or plan design person have to prepare two plans for you.

Why would you want to have a subdivision plan if you're planning on doing a cluster housing? Well, because you're subdividing land. I mean, if you're putting new lots in, you're subdividing. I understand that. But but it's for Well, I think Yeah. So that's why I think you don't need both of these, right? That's what I'm saying. I think this was intended originally because cluster housing was new when this ordinance first went in and people didn't understand it. So they said, "Show us what a traditional development looks like. Show us what a cluster housing so we can see the difference. I don't know that that that was a long time ago. I don't know that we need that anymore." I agree. I was going to say that makes sense to me. Oh, can one person own the entire thing? you have people living there.

Um, you could you could have a I hate to say a cunning. You could a developer could choose to own everything and manage the whole thing and never well and not have different owners on everything. Um, that's a good question. That's a I think a different would that be similar to Whitney Burkside because it's owned by Well, they're renting, right? They're not They're renting. Yes. But they That's what I'm saying. One outfit owns the whole complex, right? And individuals rent their unit.

Well, most times developers don't want to manage a long-term project necessarily, unless you're local, right? But um the I think the design here is that people will buy individual lots and own individual lots and then in the deed what you're when you get buy your house or your lot your whatever you're buying you would get um in the deed restrictions that you're part of this basically homeowners association and you're responsible for the maintenance of the open space like that's going to be written right into your deed and it whether it's the developer that continues to maintain that and manage that or whether the homeowners association doesn't manage Whichever whichever way the developer decides to go with that organization, that will be in the deeds. Yeah.

Because the town doesn't want to do it.

Um Oops. Uh each lot in the cluster subdivision meets the minimum lot size lot with required of this ordinance. Um, and this is a question and if not serviced by public sewer, an area is suitable for subservice wastewater disposal according to the current main plumbing code. So, it doesn't specify in this paragraph how big you've got to have for sewer or if you if you have a septic system on each of these little tiny lots, how big does it have to be? That doesn't say that here. Just says it has to be compliant with the plumbing codes. But I think the intent was if somebody did put in something like this, you'd want it on municipal water and sewer because you want more users on those services. U so this was this was the question, right? This was in here before. Cluster development shall meet all requirements for subdivision and the street ordinance and all other applicable town ordinances except in lot size which is defined in this ordinance.

So you don't have to put all those requirements back in here again or or we could. That's a question mark because it added a lot to it. But um and it put everything in one place. So if you're a developer, you don't have to go get this ordinance, the subdivision ordinance, the street ordinance, and look them all up separately. But we could. It sounds like by that every single block would have to have its own septic system.

Oh, you could. It is saying potentially if you could meet the septic requirements, uh you could do that. um that the intent when you go back to the intent the very first paragraph is to condense houses so that you can be more efficient on the use of water and it's weird to make a backtrack and say it has to meet the subdivision because all subdivisions have their own septic well they they don't they don't in the subdivision ordinance you can have it you could be on municipal water sewer or you could be independent doesn't either way this isn't putting that it's a requirement to be on municipal sewer. Is it? No. But they say the intent is to right

try to do that. But if someone wants to build this where the sewer doesn't go, then what? Then you then you have to meet current state municipal plumbing codes for sub subservice wastewater. So whatever that lot size is, I think it's like a thousand square feet or something for a septic system. It doesn't have to be that big. But maybe it's bigger than that. Half of your lot which is now 20,000 square feet lot is got to be set aside for subject, right?

Yeah. We don't want that. We don't have to. Um so this whole next piece has that how do you calculate net residential acreage? And that's a a a formula that a developer would know how to use, but it's all about

if we have I'm just going to say 10 acres because it's a round number, right? So much of that is set aside for roads, so much of that is set aside for other things. It tells you how much of that you can use for your housing and how much has to be open space. And they have to show um the calculations in the application. Um certainly if you have areas of the lot that are unsuitable for development, they don't count in that calculation and they define what those are. And that tells you how much how many lots you can put on a on a specific chunk of land based on this net land calculation. So this is the big difference, right? The 20,000 square feet because our current housing and minimum lot size ordinance is 40,000 square feet and an acre is like 44,000. So you're just about an acre. Um, same setbacks, 25 ft. Um, if you're putting in the special development, they don't want more than four driveways coming out into a major road. A little less is better. Uh, we have to worry about shore frontage perhaps in Ken, but you might if it absuts a body of water. Blah blah blah blah. uh shoreline zoning requirements have their own setbacks that are allowed. So if you have this is the whole thing right water adequate for domestic purposes. So you have to show wells you can share wells if you need to you can share septic systems if you need to if water and sewer are not available. Um,

so if you actually have to put in your own, uh, septic tank system, uh, you've got to set that up so that it's restricted, so you can't build over top of it. Just

you'd like to think it's common sense, but you never know. You never know. Um, utilities go undergrounds, blah blah. So, this is that whole dedication and maintenance of the open space that we talked about last time. This really didn't change. And they'll show how much what that dedication of the open space is. Easements for public utilities can be permitted. For every 20,000 foot lot, you've got a corresponding 20,000 square foot minimum open space. The developer can choose to establish one of three approaches to maintaining that. They either maintain control over time, document the uses and responsible for maintenance. They deed the open space and open management to a land trust with intended uses. Or you incorporate a neighborhood development association, specify the membership, create all the papers and covenants for that organization and they agree to take on the responsibility for maintaining that. um developer can maintain control of that open space until 75% of the membership is involved in the neighborhood development association before you hand it over to the exit. Um if uh the owners of the residential units in the development are hold common title to that open space and are responsible jointly for maintaining it. um that declaration describing that area to be held uh under the chapter 10 unit ownership has to be filed prior to the approval of the final plan. So you have to know how that's going to work.

If someone wanted to move into a place like this but not be part of that, I'm pretty sure you can. Yeah, it's in the covenant of your So if you're going to buy in, you got to be in that covenant. Now you can choose not to participate. I mean, you can choose to don't show up for meetings, don't vote, don't don't actually have an active say, but you still got to pay your whatever your the fee is HOA fee or whatever it is. That's right.

And then I mean depends on how you design this development. If it's going to be transient, people are coming and going, the developer may just maintain control of it, manage it all, and then not pass it off. We'll see. I don't know. Uh, for some reason they don't want you to have swimming pools, tennis courts in this um common open space. I think they don't want it to be paved and like dug up, right? They want it to be as natural as possible. Could be a playground. I've seen playgrounds. I've seen pavilions, you know, with like picnic tables and grills and stuff there. Um, so this is the application and procedure permitting, right? So this is the whole uh piece that we brought over from the

this is what you brought in 9 9 through13 right? Yeah. Yeah. So, when we're doing a subdivision, you have to do a pre-application, you have to do a preliminary plan, and then you have to do a final plan.

Stupid questions. But when you go back to the swimming pool, tennis court, etc., and you said they don't want you doing it, you guys are the ones writing it. So if you wanted to do it as an old instant, it could be allowed, correct? Yeah, we could take out that whole section if we wanted to. I mean, I'm just saying that well, I think the intent of cluster housing originally was to not necessarily turn into a a a heavily developed piece of land. It was open space meant not a lot of pavement, not digging up pools. It was meant to be open. I mean, open space. Um,

so just camp around live, right? Right. We can make that a question mark. We can come back and talk about this. That's about Yeah, that's about right. Well, I think the ones that the examples we looked at when we first looked at this were towns that had wetlands, um, certain marshes, they had like certain species of birds that you couldn't disturb, right? So, they wanted to keep that space preserved for the natural stuff. And by if you put a pool in there, you're disturbing it, right? So that is kind of the whole plan, whole idea behind the tennis ball. Otherwise, just do a normal subject.

It doesn't say you can't have it. It just says it won't be considered open space, right? All right. Right. It doesn't matter. Anywhere else in the development you could put, but if and when you're doing that calculation of this net space and blah blah blah that open space and that that's listed in that to be subtracted off in that net calc up above as well, right? So if we took it out here, we wouldn't need to take it out from above as well. Is that you know there's a higher up in the or yeah where it's saying subtract this subtract this subtract this right.

Yep.

Right there. Yeah. So when you're calculating your percent of like available space you can use for development you you can already subtract super sloped areas or get wetlands poorly drained soils blah blah blah if it's in a resource protection district if it's used for storm water management that does not have to count into your your net density. And there are it says there are the soil survey maps just to let you know I uh went to a um EFCOG planning day meeting all day yesterday and EPCOG is Androskagen Valley Council of Governments just it's a regional planning group and they're there to kind of help the towns they're help they have a lot of resources for helping individuals within our towns as Kbec Valley has their own cog. I don't there's several cogs around the state. Uh but I went to for ours and there are some resources that we're going to talk about when we get to the comp plan, but um they have great they have updated soil maps and stuff like that that we can use too. So I have ordered us a set of updated um beginning with habitat maps which we have a set over here but they're like six or seven years old and they said, "Oh, we have new ones and they're free and we'll give them to your town."

Right.

Right. send us a set. So, this is the new piece, right? The pre-application, the preliminary application. This is a direct cut and paste from the subdivision ordinance. Um, I don't know that any cluster housing development would not also be a subdivision because you're the whole idea of putting cluster houses, you're subdividing something. Um, and to the point if it could say development, um, if you're going to hold on to all of them and just rent them, right? If they're not going to if you're not going to actually deed that lot over to somebody, um, and you're just going to hold on to it, then it could just say cluster housing development without calling it a subdivision.

That perhaps um, find your place. I'm sorry. Find your place. Yeah. camera, it

almost took sh. Maybe we don't say that out loud. We go camping to buy a campsite.

Okay, so preliminary plan tells you how long we have to review it. What we have to do to submit it, uh what information needs to come in that preliminary plan, blah blah blah. This is all identical to the um subdivision ordinance. Um so then you get the so the preliminary plan um we give all that that all shows up to the town. We have a certain amount of time to review it. So preliminary plan submissions containing all the information required. Right? So we first review it for completeness. We determine if any information is missing. Um, we give it back to them. They have so much time to fill out fill in the gaps and they give it back to us. Let me I have to double check this because I didn't check that piece. That might those section numbers are probably changed. They were from the other ordinance. Um, you could add the planning board could ask the subdivider to take on any studies that we think are necessary like hey you need to check the storm water runoff or you need to do something else. We can decide that once the pre preliminary application is so we examine it we shall consider we vote to approve modify or disprove the preliminary map and preliminary information. Right? So then we send something back in writing to them saying hey we want you to change this this and this or we we this piece of information is missing. they can then return the revised preliminary board to the planning board whenever whenever they make all those adjustments. So once we determine that a preliminary plan is complete uh the preliminary plan does not constitute approval of the final plan. It serves as the approval of the general design submitted in the preliminary plan

as a guide to the final plan. So it may not have all the details. It may not have road names on it yet. It may not have other stuff that has to be in the final plan. Um, but it's basically saying your design overall looks good, meets our requirements. Now go to the next level of final plan. So the final plan is the kind of drawings that would be submitted to the uh state office for um the uh Oxford County register of deeds and stuff like that. Once you have a plan, a subdivision plan that's final and approved by the town that you have a year to file your your plan with the Oxford County register of deeds. This now has to have final streets, uh, ways, public or common areas. Um, per any monuments like which are the corner markers, all that kind of stuff. All this has to get done. And the planning board, the CEO and the select board all sign off on that final subdivision plan. Um, so if you have sewer going in, uh, all that's got to be approved by the, if you're not using municipal water and sewer, then the plumbing inspector has to sign off on your plan as well. Um, subdivision fees shall be set annually by the select board, shall be paid with the submission of the final plan. So, we don't have any fees details in here. The subdivider has to know what the building codes are, the plumbing codes, D, all those kinds of things. It's not up to us to necessarily tell them what they have to what those standards are, but they have to say and provide proof that their plan complies with all these codes.

So, this was another question. I know there was performance bonds in the subdivision plan right now that is here. Um, and so this is the performance bond basically says, "Hey, we're uh the developer has to submit a certain amount of money to the town just in case." Let's say you start moving dirt around, you start building a road um and halfway through your project tanks for some reason and you don't complete it and you've left this partially developed plot of land that looks a mess, right? So, the bond um could either you can complete the roads or um it's really designed to say you can't leave a partially finished roadway like a big mud pit or something like that. So, the bond there says the town could go in and finish pay to finish that roadway off if you started something you don't complete it.

Those sign references right to James

probably. I'm sure it's not. We'll fix those. Uh these are still well yeah these are still good. We just did this sub last. So basically uh once the project is moved to a certain state um they petition to get their bond back. the select board, the planning board chairman. Um, I think the probably the code enforcement officer says, "We're all good. Get your bum back." Uh, that's something new. That wasn't on the last time you talked about it, was it?

Uh, this is the section we brought over from the subdivision ordinance. There was a bond at the end of that other one, but this has got a little bit more detail on what that bond is for. send us back and let the town should be a bond. No, that the town just holds on to the check. They're not the bonding company. A separate bonding company does that. Town benefits by having the it's basically having the money escrow in case something happens at the end. If nothing does happen, everything gets developed, then where does that money go? Goes back to the back to the

They can petition for release of the bond at any time. um streets in the proof subdivision plan. You get to decide the names. There's a whole thing here on uh uh streets. Well, you can't name it. If we already have a mill street, they don't want another Mill Avenue and Mill Road or something, which I think is kind of fun. I think you get to plan good stuff. Uh, so these are all these are all the subdivision ordinances subdivision standards. Get all these fonts the same. These are not the same fonts. No, maybe they are. Okay, they don't look like the same fonts. Um, this was for the regular subdivision. You could only cut 30% of trees over 12 in at rest for interior road construction. They want to keep, you know, if you're building a subdivision, you want to keep it wooded if as much as possible. Um so these are all elements of the subdivision plan. Case of subdivisions intended primarily for industrial commercial or retail use. You have to have safe access parking, adequate parking, etc., etc.

I have a question about number seven then. Yeah. So if you're if you're were doing this and designating open spaces, Yep. And now you've clearcuted half of every open you. So yeah, that's a good question. So you can't do anything for 10 years, right? You can cut it all down and then you can't do anything. Then 10 years we'll be growing better. Yeah. Well, with a bunch of scrub with a bunch of scrub trees, right? And I mean clearcut is pretty definitive. That's like the stubs, right? But because it says clear cut, it's the fix that's the problem. If a lot has been clearcut, I'm assuming

unless a reforestation plan is approved, right? So you could say, hey, we've cleared this out. We're putting all these roads and buildings and here's where we're going to put trees back in. But it's already said on the bottom that you can't go, you can only do 37 trees forward 12 in. So you can't clear anyways according to number six. That's uh for interior road construction and on lots.

Yeah. No. So, do we want to leave those things in or take those out? Would I press something in? It makes more sense to leave six and take out seven. Cuz if you're going to clear cut it to develop, then you just tied your hands for 10 years. If cluster housing is supposed to be to preserve natural stuff, you're not going to clear cut it anyways, right? if need be.

So if you're putting in Well, that's why that we're talking about doing either. Yeah, you've always got two separate ones going on there. Well, this this came out of the subdivision. So, what if you had a um portion is cluster housing. Another portion is like commercial where the first floor is retail upstairs are apartments. Well, we're not supposed to have two floors in our cluster housing developmental. You can have two floors in your cluster housing. I thought it wasn't supposed to be more than so many feet high.

I think it was two stories. I didn't want it to go three. I think three was the one story in the basement. But so I'll put this as a question mark. I thought that too.

I guess what? And I got water. What's in that? Jelly share.

Yeah, I was running late. I left mine sitting at home. I have coffee in it. Um, let me just look for a second. Height. Height. I think we took out the height restriction last week. That's the only word height that's in there. Look at floors. Uh nope. So we I think in the last version we took out the uh said it couldn't be more than I think so it was two stories but I think there the thing was like you couldn't have a third story and we're like what if you're building on a hill and you have your garage in the bottom and then your first floor and your second floor. So

your your basement, your your living room in the area and then your bedroom. Well, I think that it was designed originally if you're going to put houses close together, you don't want to you don't want them be blocking all the views and the sun, you know, daylight for somebody else. Somebody's telling somebody that my very first, well, not my first apartment, but one of my first apartments was a condo, right? And you could hear people on either side of the wall opening and closing their old doors. I was like, that's my college. um looking.

Yeah, this was a subdivision specific. This doesn't really apply to this where a subdivision plan covers only a part of attractive land in a single ownership where we're married. That was a planning that's a subdivision thing. Yeah, heard a little bit too. Yeah.

All right. So, we could still have arterial neighborhood collector neighborhood minor streets. Uh I think we were keeping the same setback requirements, but I'll double check. Keep thinking it was 20. This is 30 feet from the road, 20 feet from any law line. This is I think I think those are all consistent. This did have this detail. This is came out from the subdivision. The detail on the roads and the side slopes blah blah blah blah. That was not in here originally. Just said basically meet all the subdivision requirements. Uh so I think these were the same. This is where it stopped. So section 15 basically says same thing as it always said. No section of this can be invalid based on any other ordinance. If there's a conflict uh the more restrictive shall apply.

I have a question. Can you go up for a second? Roadways a little more. Uh stop. Roads shall be 26 feet wide with six foot shoulders. That's a That's huge. It is. It's like a grave. Well, actually actually this um we we changed this last many years ago in the um

and it wasn't was it in this development? It might have been in here. Yeah. So, this this is the one that came over from the subdivision ordinance. Um, yeah. I went years ago I went and measured all of our roads and roads in adjacent towns because this is like a boulevard. This is like Yeah. 108. Yeah. You don't need uh it said roadways and I think we changed it another ordinance to say roadways shall be adequate for fire and safety and school buses and any like large industrial trucks.

Like that's it. And then you can decide whatever your whatever is appropriate for that. And I mean the fire department has to sign off on road widths, all that kind of stuff. Anyway, do we want to change that?

I don't think it needs to be that wide. I'll figure out the right wording there from another ordinance. Yeah, I was like, why did we have the road? They kept saying we have to have it. All of our town roads are that wide. And so I went out and actually physically measured them all and gave them a data table that showed how wide they actually were. I may change it in others.

I don't know. I haven't that big of a shoulder on st. Yeah. Oh, sure you do. Is that before or after you go in the ditch? Is that before or after the proposed ATV? Does all the screens are housing units? That right away is huge, too. Yeah, it is. Maybe we just say road shall meet prevailing standards and leave it open. Our attorneys won't mind. I'm done. Take it one way.

No stop signs. Only round and rounds allowed. I think most of the roads would be like driveways, not necessarily road. Well, if it's a road, it has to be it has to meet road standards. Right. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, even if it's if it is one way and you have to go through the development all in a big circle, whatever. Um, you have to allow for people to park on the side of the road safely. You know, this whatever. Well, you already said you can't have more than four driveways. Now, those are four roads from the main development onto a onto a main road.

Yeah, they just have to merge into one driveway. Right. Right. All right. So, let me just re We'll just double check these. How's that? It's confusing putting stuff from the subdivision into browsing. They're not all going to match. Mhm. That's right. Well, that's a job to get a healthy face. It's better than a blank piece of paper. As long as you're diligent and working through all of it. Well, because it doesn't Well, whatever we put in here, you know, sometime in the next five years, it'll come back to bite you, right? So,

it's good. It's valuable to have the discussions. I think it's super valuable. Number 18 doesn't happen on any of the roads in Canon. Now 18 month no living obstacles such as trees or shrub should be within 60. If I drive down fair and I'm on the shoulder the top of the truck is hitting the trees. Yep. Yep. They're trying. We need to do something about ditching over there on road. That was just ditch. Yeah, they ditch it and then it's like the bottom is fully but they need to figure out a way to ditch um the driving off the road the left side of the road.

Mhm. Because there there's and and put some sort of cer or something in route down the side and wash that. It washes it out. Yeah. So let's go top. So basically enforcement it says the code enforcement officer can prevent you from occupying a building if it doesn't meet the standards, right? Which we are you already have to get occupancy permits if you're moving into a new structure anyway. No, we don't. No, we don't. No, you don't. We don't. Oh, you're supposed to. I think that's in No, you don't. No. Okay. Well,

unless we exceed 2,000 4,000. You said I I got confused because it was 2,000. I've seen two different numbers. 2,000 and 4,000, but we don't exceed either. So, okay. What? Your palace is not 2,000 square feet. That palace. Oh. Oh, that is bigger than that. It looks like it.

Yeah. Um, this was in the subdivision ordinance or even in the cluster housing. I can't remember where this I think these came from. this particular ordinance. Where the planning board finds that extraordinary unnecessary hardships may result from the strict compliance with these standards or whether there are special circumstances of a particular plan, it can vary the standard so that substantial justice may be done in the public interest secure provided that such variations will not have the effect of nullifying the intent and purpose of the official map, the comp plan or the zoning ordinance where such exist. So basically this is giving the um planning board the opportunity to grant variances. You can vary standard. Um if somebody objects to that they can file an appeal.

16 part of the occupancy. um saying the code enforcement officer can stop anyone from occupying or making use of any structure that is established in a manner contrary to the provisions of the ordinance to giving the code enforcement officer permission to stop somebody from occupying a a building. What types of things would a person have to do or to stop that?

You'd have to not meet the requirements that we just listed on the previous 16 pages. Okay, the time off. I'm sorry. Because as it stands now, a building permit is issued. He goes on site, he, she, wherever it happens to be at the time, goes on site, does all the measuring, make sure everything is in compliance, and then they're done. They don't go back and check throughout the process to make sure that do we want them to be able to do that or do we just take it out? Going to have to come up with a whole lot more money to pay him. I think if you want them to do all of the stuff.

Well, this this is just for cluster housing though and that might be a good idea. You got six houses together and somebody doesn't comply with stuff, it he might have that hour say, "Hey, this part's not right. Fix that." Well, one developer would be in charge of the whole thing supposedly, unless one person owned all the land. That'd be up to the landlord. question. I just think for a part-time CEO for 6,000 a year that's good.

But to your point, this is for every Yeah. Right. No, I understand that. Yeah. Right. Okay. Sleep on it. Things sleep on it.

Uh blah blah blah. So you can amend it by a normal vote at town meeting. That's standard language. All right. Well, we are uh making headway. There has to be a permit application checklist for this, too. Hey, we'll put the uh revisions. Take a look at the early ones. All right. Cool. Progress. Uh, what else is on our agenda for today? There's something else. Oh. Oh, let me just introduce you because you guys are brand new to the comprehensive fund. This is your little color chart. To see this is So, are we in the orange box?

No, we're further than that. Which which color are we at? We're up to the pink. Those two pink things in the bottoms. So, here here's I want to show. So, this is a basic process. Yep. Anybody who's done business planning Yeah. Right. gets that.

So, I'm just going to go through things underneath. So, we uh we have a comp plan from 2004, which I will get you a copy of. That's the existing plan under which we're currently operating. Uh what we determined means updating, right? Because you're supposed to do them every 10 years. It's now been 21 years, so it's time to update it. And there was a lot of comments that it needed to be more actionable and more visionary, right? Because it was very data heavydriven. And it was like, yeah, we the actions were like plan this, come up with a strategy for this, right? And very big and broad. And so nothing ever happened. So what's happened so far is um original committee was formed before COVID and it was not the planning board. It was a subcommittee of the planning board that was called the comp plan committee. Um and they went through the old plan line by line and all the actions and strategies that were in the old plan and said here's did this actually happen? Did we partially complete this thing or did we not even touch it? So I can find I'll find that assessment and give you that assessment of what happened in the past. We also went through and identified chapters that you want included in the plan. Uh, and I'll in a list here. I'll give you the old ones. The brush. So, you get to Here's the thick one. That's the cop. That's what it is. Um, this is the existing one. You can take a look at that. And there is a printed document that went through and looked at every element of that as an assess. Did we do anything against it or not? So, I'll get you guys a copy of that.

Water. What? What? I said make sure they have water. It's dry.

It is dry. Um, we also looked at example plans from other committees, other communities, and said, "Hey, we want ours to be more like these, right? We want them to be a little more visionary, a little more engaging, and have action plans that actually had some meaning. So, we started collecting data, maps, and tools. So, that's why that pink thing at the bottom of that number two has is halfway done. It's actually a little more than halfway, but that's where we started. We also had community input. We had public meetings with some visioning, and we had a really interesting group of people that showed up at those meetings. We had a couple kids. We had people who don't normally show up at public things. So, a good diverse input on what they wanted the town to be like in the future. Um, so that visioning is done and I can give you a kind of a summarize summary of that as well.

Yeah. There's a lot of numbers in here. There's a lot of just data, right? Right. Yes. I'm looking for like a mission statement. Yeah. It's not in there. Smart numbers. It's in it's in the new one. Yeah. Okay. Um so we started collecting all that data to update some of that. Right. And what one of the things that the team that was working on it, the committee said was instead of having all that data just by itself, let's put some bullet points at the top of each of those chapters that says basically key takeaways. Right? Here's four or five bullet points because if you're not going to read the whole thing, you'll read the bullet points.

Yes. Um, so those are partially done. Um, but it's been done, some of them were done four years ago and need to be updated again. The good news is that the U APCOG planning day yesterday, I connected to the people from the um, beginning with habitats, the um, ABCOG person who supports comp planning and somebody else. I've got her card that does comp planning and they said they can actually help write some of those chapters for us and update all those data. Oh, nice. Nice.

Um because we started with census data and then you had to go learn how to manage the census information and then the census information didn't match the state's information even though they're supposed to be coming from the same source and all that kind of stuff. Is there a charge to have them do that? No, we're members. Yeah, we're members. Okay. Yeah. And even the beginning with habitat people, they not only will update all your maps, but they will give you starting strategies, recommended strategies for your community based on what your wildlife patterns are and what your stuff is. I'm like, that's nice. I want that letter. So he said, I will start on your letter tomorrow. Like great, cool.

Um, so what I'll have at the next meeting is a list of all those resources and how we're engaging them and getting stuff started. So we have to finish the red thing under number two. So data maps and tools. And then we have to get a solid draft of the plan. Um at the next meeting I can provide an example of some of the other towns and what we saw from there that we liked. Um, and then we I know we need more community input. Like I think the draft needs to go to a broader community meeting and say, yeah, not just these individual chapters, but some of the strategies that we're suggesting as a big

big picture out on um we could do a survey. I have to think about what do we want to survey? Um, but certainly if we have a date, if we have a draft, it may take us till the end of the year to get a draft that we think is re, you know, usable with the public. Um, and where do we want that input? Okay.

U, and then once it gets to a final version, then it has to get reviewed, have to have a public hearing, has to be reviewed, has to go to a town meeting for acceptance. Um, and then of course there's then the next piece is implementation and funding. And it was interesting to talk to a lot of people who have actually taken actions based off their comprehensive plan which we've done some things but not a lot the things that were in that plan. Um, and I think some some of it we talked a lot. There's a new office in the state called Mocha. Um, I didn't bring my notes. Um, office of community engagement. And I forget what the M stands for, but um because people could go to AFCOG, they could go to um individual agencies, they could go to uh community development block grant people, the department of economic community development, the ECD, they could go to state planning office, they go to main housing, and people were like getting floundering in all these different places to go. So they formed this mocha group that is about community um wasn't engagement. I forgot what the O stand a stands for, but it was really a one-stop shop. You can come to them and they will help get you to the right people, which seemed like a good idea, but they are just getting off the ground. Um, but we do have a contact there now, so that's helpful. But AFCOGS felt like they had a ton of useful resources on all the stuff that we need to do. And oh, I met with the farming state farming person because we want to put a chapter on agriculture into here and we've had mixed information on what we want to put in there. Um, they have great plans already drafted for that kind of stuff. Uh, plus they have all the data on what's going on with the farmland. So, they also seemed like a good resource.

Sounds like a productive meeting. It was a It was worth my $35, Tom, that I asked you if I could spend it and get reimbured and never heard back from you. You can't. Um, it was very, very much worth it. I didn't I didn't respond back to that. I didn't see it, but I could be. And I the last three weeks I've been getting so much spam. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Uh, and I my personal bank account got hacked two weeks ago. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. to close every account, open new accounts, change everything that it's been. I'm not all the way I'm almost done, but not all the way done yet. Yeah, my credit card was getting hacked about every 3 months last year.

Well, it was my debit card and they and I made anybody my debit card. It was Yes. And now I've got RFID sleeves for all my cards. So like I was at a bank I do too. I was just at a big trade show and I I don't know where they got it over the summer but they did because they and then I got it was horrible because they called me from such and such a bank perky girl nextdoor person on the phone. Um and we think we've detected fraud in your account. Can you check for us? I'm like open up my account like yes I did not buy GrubHub in Texas. I did not buy sushi in Atlanta, Georgia. These were not my charges.

Um so we identified all these and they said all the right stuff. you know, we're going to uh uh contest these charges. It be two, three days, they'll show back up in your account as credits, blah blah blah blah blah. And then there was a question about a password, and I made the mistake because they sent me the onetime password and she hadn't asked me to enter it anywhere. She's I forget what anyway, but I forget what I did with the onetime password, but I somehow gave it to them. That was a mistake. Yeah.

And uh I was in the middle of the day. I'm doing six other things. Paying attention. We sounded very friendly. So, uh, I also changed my password on that account and about an hour later I went in to do something and I couldn't get in. So, I called the bank and they're like, "We're blocking all your accounts because that was not us who called you." And I'm like, "They are so good." Yeah, they are. Yeah, I know. Because I'm the one who always tells a good idea because I think I was getting hacked like a week after I went for doctor's appointments in Boston. And we had to go every six months and like a week later I'd come back and I'd get a call from my bank. Yeah. We see suspicious activity on your credit card. Yeah. MX calls it all the time. Yeah.

And now that I put it in an RFID and I don't use it while I'm in Boston. Yeah. I haven't had any problems. So, I don't know. Anecdotal, right? But I'm keeping those RFID things. That's right. Why ask the bank? I asked the bank for extras of those and they did. good, but it's just been a pain in the ass. Oh, I'm so sorry about that. That's awesome. Um, so I feel like we're we're probably 75% of the way there with the data that we've got so far. Even though it might need updating, I think some of that can be updated pretty quickly and we've already got um key takeaways on most of the chapters. So, it feels like we're getting there. It's just not as fast as other people.

And this will end up enabling us to go after grants and funding for things that we want to do. Correct. Correct. I think it also is a chance to help the town think about where you want to be.

Well, and it's not just where you want to be, but what are some of the outside forces influencing the future of the town, right? like we still got even though our particular population has grown, we we're back to pre-B buyout levels of population. Um we've got um more kids than we've had for a long time. Uh but overall, our population is still aging, right? So, as a town, we've still got mostly senior citizens and you got people on fixed income and we keep making tax increases. you know, that's that's how do we create a different economic model for our town that's more viable for the future, right? And that's thinking about that big picture. And I don't think that we necessarily do that on a regular basis because we we can't we're so busy dealing with all the other stuff,

right? It's no, it's not a fault. It's just the reality of everyday life. So, this is a chance to put in some of that innovation and think about towns that have changed themselves to be more fiscally viable over time. How have they done it? and what have they done there and how can we learn from what other people who are doing and making it work so that we're not stuck always playing catch-up and always being reactive and we proactively manage the town for the future. Yeah, it's this is a chance to do that. So, oh, anything else on the agenda? I don't think so. Okay. So did you what did you say about the buildingation variance?

Yes. No. Maybe we're waiting to hear from um Oh, you better let Aaron know that in the morning. But Yep. Okay. Cuz if you miss me, do I leave that on the table then? Um yes. Let me stick a note on before you leave with you talking about the grass and the fist. Yeah, we had two things as the butter if it's okay and that clarification on the own side to make sure that's correct. Yeah, it's because we looked up the

we looked up the lot. It doesn't state the owner. The guy who signed it did not appear the owner. So, and Wendy said she would look in the morning when it's daylight and get back to us right away right

motion to adjurnn. Second. Okay. All those in favor? Yeah. No. So Jack's next next meeting is really an open meeting. He's about the solar. So I think he said he would come at 4 if it's still daylight potentially even though 30 today was pretty 4:20. It was pretty dark.

But he will meet us at the at the spot for a site tour at 4. The public hearing flashlight. Yeah. public hearing hope opens at uh 6. So we have that before we have a regular meeting. So good meetings have five and