Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. you Amen.

I don't want that.

Oh, wait. No, no. It just turned blue on the top.

Yeah, because it's connected to mine. Oh. It popped up. Do you want to connect? Whoopsie.

So that's the problem. It's not finding a connection, I think.

You're hearing us now?

Hello. Okay. All right.

We're good.

I didn't do anything except turn it off and back on again, which Darren already did.

Fixed it.

That's all you need. It's clinking now. Three times.

Okay. Welcome to the May 20th, 2026 Durham Planning Board meeting regarding the enhancements to the land use ordinance and what will be presented to the TO THE PUBLIC AND TOWN RESIDENTS AT THE JUNE TOWN MEETING. WE'VE HAD THREE PRIOR MEETINGS. OCTOBER 22ND, NOVEMBER 12TH, AND MARCH 18TH. AND OUR STATE MANDATED MEETING TONIGHT. IT WAS TWO WEEKS OR THREE WEEKS BEFORE. I DON'T KNOW HOW FAR OUT WE ARE.

What I understand is no more than 30 days in advance of the town meeting and no less than seven days.

Okay. So this meeting meets those state mandated requirements for public notice. The select board approved the updates or proposed updates and the format for town meeting. on the articles. No changes can be made at this time, so this meeting is really just to let everybody know where we're at and to invite public comment.

So, three parts.

Part one, minor policy changes. Um, part two administrative changes and part three, uh, codification to the land use ordinance. And, um, unless anybody has any objections, uh, just run through each one, each part of each part. Okay. So part one proposed minor policy changes. Number one, backlots and private ways. This streamlines the review process of the code officer approval for single back lots and planning board approval for private ways serving multiple lots. And it reduces single back lot driveway width from 20 feet to 16 feet. Number two, expansion of non-conforming structures. This simplifies the standards for residential expansions and eliminates confusing language, removing planning board reviews of issues typically reviewed by the Board of Appeals. I'm sorry, reserved to the Board of Appeals. Number three, subdivision road buffers. This grants the Planning Board discretion to require vegetative buffers where new subdivision roads abut existing homes. Number four, fire protection water supply. This eliminates water storage cisterns as an option. and allows fire ponds, existing water sources, or residential sprinklers in subdivisions? And this question came up during the select board meeting. We did meet with the fire chief on this one and he was okay with our proposal. Number five, cannabis cultivation facilities. This establishes clear definitions and prohibit aggregated growing operations that are exempt from state permitting requirements. Number six, manufactured housing and accessory apartments brings local standards into compliance with state law on tiny homes and standalone accessory apartments, placement of mobile homes on individual lots and mobile home parks. Number seven, road frontage determination This clarifies how road frontage is measured on lots with curved frontage on corner lots and how frontage is measured on a turnaround. This one came about mostly through subdivisions in coordination with communicating with the CEO on how we determine frontage at the end of a subdivision lot. So that takes care of the proposed minor policy changes. Part two, the proposed administrative changes.

Any, before I move on, any comments on part one?

Great.

Part two, proposed administrative changes.

Number one, subdivision road standards. This updates the design standards to reflect current engineering practices.

Number two,

driveway standards, clarifies the applicability of the standards to various roads in town, updates for safety, and adopts MDOT site distance standards. And similarly, we've worked with the road commissioner on this to make sure that we're all on the same page. Number three, zoning boundary interpretation. This assigns interpretation authority to the planning board in lieu of sending it to the Board of Appeals. Number four, solid waste management. This requires a readiness to serve letter on internal solid waste collection plans for subdivisions. Number five, campground reviews. Reduces the scope of planning board reviews to avoid duplication with state permitting. We've seen this recently with a couple of campgrounds in town, but the state has strict ordinances and rules that supersede what we all have. Planning board general submission requirements adjusts deadlines and reduced printed copies. I think I like this one a lot. It's been a short time period to get things turned around. Gives us another week, I believe, in the process.

And reduces print copies. And two weeks for resubmissions that had no timeline before.

Right.

Number seven.

ordinance correction provision. This delegates the authority to the select board for non-substantive text corrections. We also discussed this with the select board last week. And it's understood that if they find something in the land use ordinance that needs to be changed, some text punctuation, they have the authority to move forward with those changes in coordination with this board as well. Number eight, proof of payment of taxes. This requires proof of tax payment with the planning board applications by the applicant. And even if the applicant is not the current owner of the property, and chime in here, George, I know there's some detail on this one, but we still require proof that the taxes have been paid on the property within the application. Number nine, conditional use submissions. This added detailed submission requirements to the ordinance text. George, can you elaborate a little bit more on that one?

Say that? Which one is it?

Conditional use submissions. Yeah. Added detailed submission requirements to the ordinance text.

Yeah. So what happened was the conditional use criteria didn't really have any submission requirements in the ordinance. And so the planning board put together a fairly detailed list, including a site plan with everything required to be on it to get more accurate information submitted by applicants. And it had... a long set of instructions. And so the board pretty much put that together and adopted it. And we reviewed that with the town attorney in terms of, is that enforceable? And their opinion was that in order for it to be enforceable, you have to have it in the ordinance. You can't just have a planning board vote on a document that's not part of the ordinance if you're going to put put this as a requirement so this just takes what was on the information sheets prepared by the planning board saying telling applicants what you're looking for and it puts in a new ordinance thank you and um lastly number 10 tree clearing and subdivisions this was a late ad since we started the process

It just clarifies that clearing trees for development purposes prior to final subdivision, final approval is a violation. And that ends part two of the administrative changes. Any comments or questions on those?

Just one clarification on the issue of the campground. Unlike the manufactured housing, which is mandated by the state in terms of what the town can and can't do on the campgrounds, the issue there was trying to eliminate the duplication of reviews and deferring to the state on things like licensing and monitoring occupancies and those sorts of things. So basically, the planning board will focus on zoning issues. impacts on neighbors, buffers, those sorts of things, and defer to the state on sanitation and campground management. So it's not that the state is imposing this. It's that the state, we're trying to avoid duplication and have the planning board focus on things that are most important to Dura and let the state deal with the larger issues.

Thank you. Yeah.

Part three, codification of the land use code. So there are over 100 editorial and grammatical changes, cross references that were rectified, changing things from, as an example, the board of selectmen to the select board. And I'm not going to get into more than 100 changes, but we've seen those before. And that pretty much summarizes the three parts of the land use ordinance enhancements.

Any questions or comments on part three?

Not on three specifically. I was going to state that all this information is available online too and at the town office if anyone needs to get a copy of it.

Sure. Thank you.

So three articles will be summarized or they are summarized on the town website. There's nobody here physically for public comment. I heard the door open.

I did, too.

I did. You did.

Hi.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello. You're not having a meeting today?

It's all for you, Carolyn. It's all for you. I've been waiting. Glad to see you.

Well, I'm glad to see all of you.

I did meet with this lady today, and she had some questions about the ordinance, which I hopefully answered for her.

It was well done.

Good.

Yeah. But I don't know if questions ever end.

They never do. Just to bring you up to speed, we just completed the review of the three parts of the land use ordinances that are going to be proposed at the town meeting. And if you have any questions or comments, please state your name, address, and address the board?

Well, I guess my biggest question...

In your name and address, please.

My name is Carolyn Morder, and my questions were just in general on apostle property that has become quite obvious to quite a few people other than just myself. And...

Do you have any questions or comments specifically to the land use ordinance amendments?

I have questions about how many units are going to be and what size the units are going to be in our town.

Units being?

I believe it's what's being discussed as far as one person having engaged in mourning to have 19 units built in a parcel of property that's in Durham. So you're referring to a specific subdivision? Well, I think there's about three of them going on. Yeah. So I have questions about all three of them. I mean, this is a big parcel of property that is next door to a piece that I own.

So this public comment period is not for specific subdivisions that are currently before the board. This meeting is strictly geared toward looking at the land use ordinance amendments that are proposed that will be voted on at town meeting in June.

Okay, and we did go over those, and I understand perfectly what is on that particular agenda. Are we going to, as public, are we going to be given these areas and what is proposed? Is this legible for JQ public? At large.

So I'm not sure exactly which three subdivisions you're referring to, but I have an idea. There are three cluster subdivisions that are in front of the board right now, and they each have a process that needs to be followed. I believe we've held public comment period on two of them. So that ship has sailed. I believe there's one that we have not held public comment on yet, and that would be Christa. I missed the book. No, all three have had a public hearing. Okay. All three. Okay. Again, this is not the time or place to discuss those three, but we have had public comment on those three. Are there any subdivisions where we have not had public comment yet? No. Okay. Okay.

Were you asking, at this point, were you asking about what's going to be on the town meeting? Like what I explained to you today?

Right.

And is that information going to be available?

Yes.

Okay, so I think she was now referring to these amendments and asking for information as to where do you get the information about it and will it be available at the town meeting. Carolyn, how did you spell your last name?

Warden. W-O-E-R-T-E-F. Do we still provide hard copies at the time?

Well, the problem is this is like 300 pages. So everything is on the website. If someone wants a hard copy and is willing to pay the cost of production, the per-page copying fee that is applied to all documents, then that can be made available. This is basically... This is how many pages it is. So certainly we're not going to, like tonight up there, we've got your summary and we'll probably have those available and a couple of copies of this if someone has specific questions. This all has been on the website since January.

We do have the summaries from the last public hearing as well that we had in March that they're detailed, but not overly detailed. So it's good to understand exactly.

So it's still closed.

It's still closed.

People like myself, you know, I don't walk my property like I used to. There's 100 acres of it. I take pride in ownership of it. And I also take pride in knowing how my ownership is being resolved within what we're clustering at this point. And I've missed a lot of it. because of anybody's fault, even my own, because, you know, I don't go out walking it anymore. But it's not that I'm not interested in what happens to it, how it's being handled, and what's going to happen to it. I know that I discussed with you today that I'm not in fear of it because, you know, I also... and wise enough to know the value of it. So I will be keeping a very close eye on it. But the point is that I really want to have my children grow up in the area of Frequent Durham, and I want them to learn how to be obedient to everybody else's feelings as well. They don't learn that unless they're taught. So, I'm being a real bee about it. That's the way it's got to be. But they learn well that way. Because, Grammy, you remember what a girl she was, right? Yeah, and Grammy remembers it too. She learned it from a very wise woman as well. But, I'm not here to discuss that. I just want, you know, I want to be involved in the process and I want to cheerfully be involved in seeing something positive come of it. I've seen an awful lot of land eaten up and spit out and then, why'd we do that? We were head knobs.

But I want

everybody to know before it's finalized and I want to be part of that process so that's where we are that's where we're at noontime hasn't changed but it's you know I think it is a process that deserves every every minute that you folks need to spend on it and I'm sure that We put it in good hands.

Right? Yes.

I want to be positive. I don't want to go into it being, that old witch was out there and boy, I'm telling you, she doesn't know.

We're doing our best.

Well, that's all you can do. Any of us, you know, ownership is a responsibility too. And all you can do is keep yourself involved enough to try to be positive about outcomes. And that's how we're going into it. That's how we want it to stay. So can't ask for more than that, if that's what I'm getting. But, you know, I think we're going to There's a lot of goings on. It looks like a big area on the map, but Durham's a small map in comparison to other things. And crowding is crowding. Why did I buy property in Durham? Because I could. And I bought it because I don't want to see it just there. And, oh, I don't have to worry about my 48 acres, because it's only 48 acres. That's not a whole lot of land in a big picture, but it's for an individual. And I don't want to kill the species. So anyway, that's my spiel for the night. So whenever there's a public meeting, you let me know or make sure I have someone that I can call and bring it up on the web. I'm capable. I've got a really smart 13-year-old computer expert. So, you know, I didn't get there. It's not going to be easy, but she's not easy either. But I can get there. And I just, it's important. So, that's that. That's my introduction to my life. Well, thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Well, thank you for spending this time. And I'm glad I looked around to see that I didn't have many followers tonight. But It's a wonderful way to be uninvited, but I'm going to be you. So that's that. Okay. Nice to have met you indirectly or whatever, but, you know, we'll be seeing one another again soon, I'm sure. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

You're welcome. seeing more public comment i think i can close the public comment portion any other comments questions from the board see you next month since this isn't uh oh me he's just a public being there's no adjournment i don't believe it then we're done all right all right thanks everybody

Hmm.