Planning Board - Regular Meeting

[Music] I'm very embarrassed that I don't remember their names, but one of them his daughter won the scholar. Yes. The one on the select board. I know who you're talking about. No, it was he was on planning, wasn't he? No, he was he was select and I I really respect I know who you're talking about. Yeah, I know who but there were there's a guy who works at Quality Insulation because they put in my insulation. Oh, he was that was um Yeah, he was Wes. Wes.

Yes, that's he had young kids and I don't know that they've grown up a lot since in the last four years or so. But I think we're there and unless anybody anybody do a sound check for what? To see or not. I have left my the only what I'm glad George mentions that so you can listen to me talk but there are obviously no microphones working so we have to speak louder and enunciate but it the camera will pick it up but I did watch the slide meaning they had the same issue and they came the audio came through

excellent so you just a little bit louder and and annunciate and we'll be good to go checking George or I start off my phone in the car. I'm sorry. I don't have it. Speak. Hello. Hello. Hello. Test. [Music] Sorry.

Okay. Well, we shall begin uh roll call and determination of quorum. We have five new members and I welcome our newest member, Brian Stiffany. Um and so Brian, welcome aboard. Thank you. Good to be here.

Look forward to working for you for some undetermined time period. Um let's do the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all amendments to the agenda. Any seeing none, we'll move on to acceptance of meeting minutes July 2, 2025. I'll move that we accept them as presented.

Second. Moved and second. Any further discussion? I'm abstaining. I wasn't here with one. Okay. So, all in favor vote with your hand raised. It's three zero or four zero. I'm sorry that one extension. And just for the record, today is the August 6th regular planning board meeting for the town of Durham. And I've gone through the minutesformational exchange on known agenda items. Mr. Uh George,

um just for uh everyone's if you didn't attend this July 22nd uh select board meeting on watch uh there's the annual check-in with all the leadership of the various boards and commissions and committees that are involved in land use policy. And each year after the town meeting typically uh these groups get together and discuss what should be the priorities for preparation for the next town meeting because you get one shot a year to change policies particularly with respect to ordinances. So uh that happened again this year and the various groups presented their ideas of what is important priorities projects to the select board. select board uh weighed in and processed that and uh came out with a pretty ambitious but doable uh program and I put that on tonight's agenda just to give you an update of that. Uh since that meeting, the greater Portland Council of Governments has helped the town apply for a grant for $20,000 to start looking at the energy aspect of this program. And just Monday they alerted us to another grant opportunity uh under the same program community resilience that the conservation commission is doing the open space plan. Uh this one would look at one of the some of the eligible projects include uh developing economic development districts for energy uh and natural resourcebased industries. So uh forward that to town manager. he's going to, excuse me, put it before the select board as a as a request for authorization to apply for that as well. So, at least on one of these initiatives, there are some real opportunities here. So, um that other than what's on your agenda tonight for the codification and for the update on

those uh policy direction endorsements, that's what I've got. Mr. All right, George. Um, one of the short-term goals of the comp plan was to create a economic development committee. Is any discussion on that? Any movement on that?

I'm not sure that that's accurate. it was the formation of an agriculture and forestry committee but I don't remember that it included because and two reasons for that is number one uh the primary uh the 201819 plan focuses in two areas on economic development. One is continuation of homebased businesses and the second one was agriculture. And so it it pretty much identified agriculture as a form of potential form of economic development. And so it did uh promote formation recommend formation of an agriculture and forestry committee which would be leaning toward that economic development aspect of agriculture. So and that group has been formed and matter of fact we might be meeting tonight across the street. So that is sort of an economic development committee. And one of the issues with all of these committees is the bandwidth of the town staff to support it. And so I've talked to the town manager and the idea of forming another citizen committee that would have to be served by staff in order to be effective as you've seen. U so at this point there's no sense of forming an economic development committee at this point. in some communities and depending where this goes, some communities and you may or may not be faced with forming an economic development commission, especially if you do a special district. Uh so that may be back on in the future as a and and the other part of it as we'll get to it is that kind of leads into the comprehensive plan and the comprehensive plan could move in that direction but currently I don't think the current comprehensive plan has that as a specific recommendation.

Actually I would like to say it actually does um under which part? page 2.15 um economy policies um under econom economy strategies um it's the first one under their 1.1 form an economic development committee to work with local businesses and provide input on town policies needed to pro promote desired economic development activity responsible partner or party is board of selectman um short term I mean corrected

and this is to support the type of economic development activity the community desires reflecting the community's role in the region. It's one of uh multiples, one of like six at least uh strategies. Thank you, Julian. I appreciate that. I think that's really important at this point in time. I know this is not the right forum for it, but I'm pushing for it. I'm going to approach the select board and the town manager to um pursue that further. That's my personal

and I think it's a good idea. I think it's worth worth doing and then it's just up to the town select board and manager decide you know which of the committees are you know most valuable to the town or how to do it and uh and prepared to offer budget proposals for that purpose. Yeah. Because we cannot do it within the current staff capacity. understood, but it was a short-term goal and I think we've we've done other things that exceeded that and that should have been a priority.

What is interesting is that that's the top strategy, right, to form an economic development committee, but then there's others underneath it. And the responsible party of those other strategies is the economic development committee. And this one to to create the economic development committee was short-term as you said. Some of the others are long-term in which the economic development committee is responsible. So it's a really good catch or bring up. Thank you. Yeah. And whether it happens in the next year or so, it's not going to happen unless there's somebody something who's, you know, like the agricultural committee is meeting and they're pushing agriculture. Um,

and they have the support of the main farmland trust is right. That's how that started. That's really how they got off the ground. That's right. That was not really a a top priority. bottom line is forming a committee without any staff support or budget is it's just a total non-start because it doesn't do anything.

But I think it's been a no for lack of any thought into it. I mean, nobody's really talked about and I'm not saying it'll ever happen, but nobody's ever really talked about this economic development committee at the select board level or anywhere else. So, at least we ought to initiate the discussion because that does lead into the comp plan. Uh, George, do you want to cover or are you planning to cover the two-year plan for that? You want to do it now or at the end? At the end with the with the larger picture. Okay. So, we'll get we will get to that.

Also, digress. I thought it was it's been overlooked, I feel, and as we all know that the community is growing. Um we've seen a lot of subdivisions come through and um eventually we're going to get hit I think with somebody coming to look to support all of the growth and I think uh forming this committee is important.

Yep. I I agree. Anything anything else? And I agree that we that Tom has to figure out how it's going to happen, you know, who's going to be on the committee and more importantly who's going to support the committee. So, uh, okay. Anything else on that? George, do you have anything else at Hilltown official? Um, the only thing I would add to the select board meeting was, uh, they agreed that we should focus on applications and codification. And at that point, um, I said we would probably, we would like to just postpone, delay the work on LD1829, which is the state's rewrite of affordable housing. Uh, one for the bandwidth to be able to get it done. And also, from my perspective, we got ahead of ourselves. Not a criticism, but we got ahead of the power curve. The first time we had to stop, rewrite it and now less than two years later the state has changed the law. So I guess what I would like to see us do is is let the dust settle on this new law and then take it on as a 2026 because uh issue in the next uh next ring because I think we can live with what we've got. If and if somebody comes in and says you're you're not allowing enough houses, this is what the state rule says. will follow the state rule just like we have for tiny homes and and uh something else I guess trailer park. So that made that recommendation. So we could talk about that as you know as we're talking about these other things but I think to take that's fairly complicated fairly controversial. So but if we want to take it on we we certainly can talk about that. So I don't see any residents unless someone would like to speak as a resident. Um non-residents I don't other than George I don't see any want to

speak as a non-resident. George I already spoke you um continuing business there's none that I know of. New business none other business planning more discussion of codification. So, uh, George, I'll let you take the lead and George put together a good package of, um, the seven, I think it is minor, um, issues. Eight, I guess. Uh, seven. And then, um, there's eight.

There's eight. Okay. Need new glasses. So, eight, uh, new issues. And I understand I think that George's recommendation we start with the hard ones that are probably going to require more discussion, work through those. uh and then get there. The goal is to provide George uh and the staff direction on how we want to go with how we would like it to go with campgrounds and and landscape and all the buffers and all that other kind of stuff. So, not necessarily to get into the details like how big a buffer should be, but should there be a buffer between development, you know, alongside a new road or whatever it may be and let the staff then um come up with that. So, George, I think you've got staff note. You want to lead us off? And

I've actually got a question if you I apologize. I wasn't at the last meeting. The first six that's in our agenda, were those discussed and kind of moved forward? No, no reason to discuss those anymore. As I pointed out last time and in the beginning of my remarks for this meeting, pretty much those six issues that we went over last time were all issues that had been discussed previously by the planning board at length.

And so I went forward and actually drafted some amendments to to codify what we had what you were deciding and discussed in the past. And at the last meeting, the board did make some minor modifications to it. Okay. And again, this isn't the final analysis. This is just what we're going to start with, okay,

in the fall when we begin the process. So, uh, and that's kind of the intent here tonight. The difference between this group and the last group is the board really hasn't discussed any of these issues in in depth in the past. So rather than drafting amendments for your review based on those prior inputs, I thought maybe the starting place for this one would be just to give you some basic background research on each of these issues and get some confirmation andor direction uh on how to proceed with drafting some policy changes in these areas. So um this is all part of the big codification project which is uh on june July 25th we were required to get the 139 responses on technical and legal which I did and again even that is not to say okay that's what's going to be voted on now it's just to say that's what they're going to prepare for a draft for review in common as opposed to you know we're going labor through all 139 of those issues, which the select board agreed that's not a good use of everybody's time. So, this is what's board, I think, is looking for is for you folks to dig deep into these issues and give me needed direction for drafting something for the them and the public to really follow. So, that's kind of the overview of what this is involved tonight. any decisions that you we try to make before the have to be in by the end of the year in order to be presented to the codifier to prepare that final draft that's going to start the public review process at the beginning of the year and we have those extra months this year. Normally our cycle would have been had to have everything wrapped up by the end of the year period not to have a draft for the beginning of the public process. So, and as you've done in the

past, you've typically tried to take public input on these draft ideas. And depending on how much how far we are along, it could just be presenting the issue as opposed to presenting the specific direction for response. And I'm happy to walk you down through each of these individuals, but I thought I'd start with just giving you the overview. Thank you. Sounds

good. And I think that George's comment is key, which is there they've been working on everything up to these eight and then uh putting that together and we need either this month or in September talk about a a timing on how to present all this stuff to the public. So, and because I think I am concerned that there's a a lot of stuff. They're getting a whole new format. um they're getting like 139 which are not all commas or select board versus select select men or whatever it may be. There are some that are policy changes the if you will and yes the lot everything we've done up this point has been pretty much mandated by the state but we still need to just get it out there that in fact we have to have this on tiny homes. this matches what the state law is. And so we're going to we're going to put it in a thin cotification so that people don't panic late in the game and say, "Oh my god, I don't want tiny homes in Durham or whatever it may be." At least get that word out. So probably come September, we can sit down and talk about where we should have gotten back. Uh no, we won't have gotten anything back from the codification people. But how do we want to start presenting these? is I don't think we want to present the whole codification package, new policies and everything else, but we ought to break out what I would call minor policy issues over there, but the bigger things, the bigger minor issues like tiny homes, like cannabis and and explain that and and get it out there because I would hope they don't care about maybe the town cares about whether we call a select board, select member, whatever it may be. So, make sense.

Yep. I agree. Tiny homes though, um that's not in here. It's it's part of the legal review that was part of the 139 is that the state basically considers a tiny home as an accessory dwelling unit and is permissible even before it okay provisions. So, and you certainly can put one of those up on your property if that's all you put out.

Okay. So, it's just some tweaking of of the of the stuff we did before, but as far as 139 questions and issues, uh, you know, they're going to prepare a draft 350 page draft ordinance in which that's all going to be embedded. So I think for the public process starting after Labor Day and we can we can present that part of it without you know here's 350 pages with all the detail. Oh yeah you're talking about present.

Yeah. Here's what's here's what's in the legal and technical. We have to change the ordinance. The town cannot require 1acre lots in a mobile home park. We can present that and say the state has dictated if you will, you know, you you have to allow mobile home parks and you cannot require them to have large lodge, you cannot require them to have underground utilities. So, we can lay out what the substantive issues are. Again, we don't have to get into well, do you want it to be select board, select persons, you know, that doesn't need to go. We can say those are all in there. We don't have to go through and explain every one of those. Just

I agree. get hit the key thing. The things that we no one has a choice over is is clear, right? But it's that you don't have a choice. There are some things that we do have a choice over. That's where we're going to want the town the input. That's where we're going to need to spend more time with. We agree. But I think it's just a case of one of the things that helped sell affordable housing was well you can sit here and and ring your hands but the fact of the matter is we got to do something. Uh with tiny house is probably we got to do something and this is what the to state told us we have to do.

Uh and so if we get that out there it won't be a June 2026 issue with people. We can say look we've been talking about this since September. We told you this is the way it's got to be. and then really draw out their comments on the aid that are here tonight cuz I think those are are new things, new topics or changes to uh old old ordinances or old articles. Make sense? Yeah.

So, that's kind of something we probably need to plan to do uh here starting this fall. But in a little bit of time, we may I'm just throwing this out there. We may have a uh application um that we're going to say, man, that's going to take us 2 hours. And so we may just throw out some, you know, some easy ones to handle or we may want to just say, we're going to have a second meeting at the end of September. We're going to cover these eight topics and we're going to have another one in October to cover these four topics or whatever they want to be. So, um, and I don't know, giving up trying to guess how the town is going to react and things that I think are going to be hard and painful, there's almost no interest in so there may not be a lot of push back on any of these cannabis landscaping buffers or any of the other stuff. So, with that, George, I will let you unless somebody's got another question, comment, I'll let you begin.

Just another So, are there more after this? And we had a few last month and this month. These are the 14. This is it. Okay, cool. Yeah. And these are all issues that have come up either through prior planning board discussions or administrative stuff that comes up on a regular basis like we did last month. We did the uh garbage the waste containers. That's come up on multiple subdivisions. So every one of these is something that has come up and we're trying to say look we need to clarify that policy.

Thank you. Just getting back to time frame and how we organize it and what we can handle. I just want to know if there was more. No, this is this is the complete list. Okay. So the first of these is campgrounds and you may recall the leisure campground came in and proposed a major expansion. they were going to go add like sometime 200 sites

and uh they ended up scaling it back to to just about doubling the size of the current campground as you will recall but alter that process. If you look at the camp the Durham campground regulations which are in your packet I mean these are drafted back in the 1970s and campgrounds have changed dramatically since that time frame. Uh, and so one of the additional big changes is is the move toward RV parks. And we saw on the leisure campground that they were talking about year round occupancy for some of those units. And they were basically putting in a public sewer system, semi-public, semi-public water system to serve this development, which essentially is, you know, similar to the impacts if not more so than than in the subdivision review. So, and there were like I mean there's eight sections of it, less than a page need to regulate something that the subdivision regulations have like 30 pages of regulations. Um, and part of the argument at the time of the of the applicant was that look, I didn't get state licensing, so you're just reduplicating that.

So, you know, those are some of the issues that have come up. And so as I looked into it and did a little bit of research which is included in your packet really if you look at Durham's regulations compared to the state which I did include the state rules for licensing of campgrounds um their emphasis is primarily on health and uh sanitation uh with a little bit of environmental and also some site plan considerations for layouts and those sorts of things. Durham's is heavy on zoning. So you have large setbacks. Uh you have limitations on hours and those sorts of things. So Durham's emphasis is on zoning matters. States is on health and sanitation. So the question becomes a couple of policy questions on this are should the town be regulating things that the state go has a very extensive process on like campground licensing and there are arguments for and against that. One of the arguments for it is local control. Because if you rely upon the state to do something like that and they have two or three people that are covering the entire state and all the campgrounds in this state, you can just about be assured that there aren't indeed many very many if any inspections done uh because they just don't have the resources to do that unless there's a complaint or some issue that comes up. and they'll be doing obviously they rely upon the c the campground owners and other public water systems to provide them with the testing results but it's you know very limited on boots on the ground uh supervision of these types of activities. So that's one issue. Um, and if you are going to do that, right now your

ordinance really does not have effective site plan review standards to apply to a campground unlike a commercial building uh development. So, one option would be to merge the zoning parts of the local regulations, the big setbacks and buffers and those sorts of things with the state site plan review standards. So basically do a composite that gets all the information and makes that available for review by planning board and that's what I call option one which is merge the two and put it into the Durham land use ordinance. Uh second option is to is to say no the the town planning wood doesn't need to review a campground in the same way you review a subdivision the state especially if the state's going to be doing the thorough review of engineering and everything with or without on the ground inspections. U so you could take that pull back. We don't have the resources to do this. let the state do it and we don't want to put people through double review processes for whatever reasons. So you could take that position and just put in the the basic zoning parameters of setbacks minimum u parcel size of 20 acres setbacks of 100 ft uh everything within that is regulated by the what happens within that h is regulated by the state under the campground regulations. So that's kind of the the second option approach to this. So first thing is policy direction. Do you want to have the the whole shoot match with the zoning parameters, the site plan review and the health stuff or do you just want to have the zoning stuff that is most important to Durham and let the state deal uh and even the site plan review parts of it?

Actually just take a step back further. Do we even need to do anything? Is this a like something that was flagged as we aren't in compliance? Well, no. No, not at all. Okay. Not at all. This came up as a result of all of us when we went through the leisure saying, you know, and the applicants saying, "Why are you doing this?" You know, the state does this. And we were saying, "Well, these cycling review standards don't really apply to campgrounds." So that's that's kind of why it's before you tonight and we'll be potentially and you could say, "Hey, leave it alone. Don't even go there. We got enough other issues to deal with." I do wonder how many year round campgrounds are in Maine. I don't I don't know if

like an RV like you have in Arizona. I know the state will do it, but like reality is I don't know if there are many cuz I want a bigger room around. No. No. the co a lot of them are are spring to fall button the housing crisis and you know I mean so that's the thing too like if that's what we're trying to solve for the housing crisis

I mean here's another trip for this tripping action there are people asking to register their cars giving their campground address so there are some actually year round they brought in some of those what they call u know they're the uh horses the model something. Well, we allowed some year round. I was grandfathered from before. I I am model. Let's see. Looks like it looks like a log cabin. It's it's all but it's it's a what they call park model and they brought in half a dozen of those.

Yeah. And I'm very much geared for year round. Yeah. I'm very much against year round and here's why. thinking is uh it does in fact become a place where people live who are not paying taxes. Well, they wouldn't be paying taxes through the campground.

Well, through the campground, but the campgrounds I would bet money that if you the campground's not paying 10 houses worth of taxes and it would be good to know and that may but it would seem to me that pe that Americans in general want housing is short and I understand that. Um but people are living in it including families. So, we're we're putting an additional potentially additional burden on the school. And I'll bet money we're not getting nearly the taxes that they would get if that same house was on a lot or in a sub. And I'm not talking about a million dollar house, but that that bothers me a little. And it's not about the types of people because I think they're all most of them are all probably pretty good people. It's not an issue of more policing or more whatever. It's just an issue of they've now creating a subdivision in effect

and they could be school employees that you need. It could be George. I don't argue that, but it could not be. You know, I mean, that's that's the problem is you don't have any guarantee of who's going to to live in there and how how much they're paying for taxes. We talk about maintaining the royal carry. we talk about 40 more living units in a campground potentially. And so I just throw that out there. That's where I stand on on year round. So why why wouldn't we adopt the state requirements of health and safety and put in additional requirements that would talked about like this one you talked about?

Yeah. No, that's that would be the way I'd like to go. I mean, you know, their recommendation is that we don't need to inspect their u water system or their engineering plant cuz that's all done by somebody. But I just kind of drew a line on your chart here, George. It said

basically everything below enforcement authority uh is the state. Uh and I'll take that back. Then also temporary campgrounds we may change. But the sanitary facilities, the perimeter sites, the water, uh you know, how many toilets they have or other stuff that would be my opinion. We stick with it. We just tell them you must follow state law, LD, whatever it may be, regulation or whatever. So you're saying put in the DHS or don't put in? No, just refer to it. Okay. I mean I I don't like put in my mind we don't want to put in the state requirements because every time the state requirement changes we have to change. If we just say you know you

No, you wouldn't have to because the state licensing is just a set of regulations. It's not a statute. So just because the state changes any of these details, you don't have to change it unless it's mandated by the state. This is not mandated on local municipalities. But I would still my preference would still be you have to follow the state regulations for water, sewer, whatever it may be. But on things like how many the occupancy limits, minimum lot size, those kinds of things there should just that's just my thought.

I agree. I agree cuz when I was looking at the setback and what the state allows and what we do, I definitely would want to put in what we have been recommending for setbacks versus the state seems to be very lenient. Uh no. Okay. Two things. Two things. One is um George on this list it's um your thoughts on the proposed ordinance, right? This is what we're talking about here. Right here. This is the potential proposed. No, that's just the compare. All I haven't made any recommendations on this. Okay. All I'm doing this is just the comparison with the existing. So this is existing. It's not proposed. It's existing.

Okay. So it's existing. And then my second one is can you remember recall why or how so Durham Leisure is allowed X number of year round. Okay. Now here's the thing. Yeah. At the time when they came in Y we were saying this doesn't fit the or fit the ordinance and he came in as a condition of use because he was talking about R year round RVs. Yep. That's not in the ordinance. And so he applied under that catch all other commercial uses not specified. Okay. So you gave a conditional use approval for year round for a limited number. That's correct.

So just be aware that under conditional use criteria and state law if you have this the conditional use criteria none of those mention and I don't think you're allowed to mention if they're putting kids in schools you can't do it. So you you you have to show it's either causing a traffic hazard, you know, drainage problem, it doesn't meet health health and safety under the seven criteria. If you're going to do it as a conditional use, but we don't have to do it. If we have an ordinance that defines it, we don't have to do conditional use. It's either going to be a permitted use or conditional.

But I guess I'm saying it's a permitted use. But if it's a prevented use, you're not going to limit the the number of potential number of kids. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. We're still talking year round, right? Yeah, we're talking. But I'm But no, no. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not saying unless you change that catch all they can come back in and propose more year round units under the conditional use criteria and you have to show why it doesn't meet the conditional use criteria to deny. So what he's saying is is put campground as a use, right? So wouldn't it be currently a conditional use?

Well, so site plan review we just have to change that. That's would be part of the change here is to eliminate is to change whatever rules we need to change to say um no yearround uh can't put a time limit on it April to October or whatever we want to do and take it out of the conditional use deal. It would be a permitted use, not and they couldn't come in with a conduct. So then the campgrounds won't come to you at all if you make it a permitted use. Well, they have to because we're going to make them do all these other things. They can't just go to the state.

No, no, no. Okay. So, in table 3.1, it lists all of the conditional uses. Yes. Um so you know dayc carees everything else everything comes through non-residential is a conditional use. Okay everything is non-residential basically a conditional use. So campground comes in as a conditional use.

Then there's a there's a provision because like with that example where they're going to do RVs yearround RVs which is not in the campground definition. they they came in as a conditional use under other commercial uses not listed. So I don't think John you can narrow it down to say we're going to prohibit the year round if you're going to allow campgrounds as a conditional use and you're going to continue to say um anything that's not doesn't fit we're going to consider as a conditional use. I got a question. Solar like we drafted solar uh standards, correct?

They are a conditional use. So like that make that fit with campgrounds. Standards for campgrounds still a conditional use, right? Yeah. I I believe there's some way to eliminate full time. Do you know what I'm saying though? Like a standard Yes. It's still a conditional use, but there's standards for it. See, let's see. John, the problem with it is is that the way this ordinance is drafted for every use, it's either permitted use or it's a conditional use or there's a catchall that says if it's not a listed permitted use or a specified conditional use, you can apply for it as a conditional use.

I got you. But somehow you can write it as a permitted use, but and you don't have to call it a campground. you would just call it whatever makes sense and say I think I think the one mechanism that isn't there as of the last town meeting is to say to do that you have to have a contract zone approval cuz that's what we've done with the large solar farms and best projects I think that's the only mechanism you can do that

well I'd like to explore if it is in fact you know with ask the attorney is there a way to change the title of campgrounds or change enough parts of the and that's just me I mean it may be every somebody else disagrees with me, but I just really struggle with um allowing f if it was all just travel nurses or whatever it may be. But those are folks who are using all of the town um facilities, whatever it may be, and not paying an equivalent amount of tax. You have to be very You're being very prejuditial there when you only said it's okay if it's for nursing. You can't you shouldn't be saying that.

I'm fine with I agree with you. I'm fine with just say you can't have a year round there are fair housing federal law. Yeah, I'm fine with that. I mean I'm fine with with you know get if it's the you or the attorney or somebody just say we don't want year round housing. We're not discriminating against anybody, but it's it's unfair because we talk about the rural character and then we're going to cram 40. We potentially could cram 40 living units or want 20 acres or there seasonally versus year round. That's the same impact, isn't it? Yeah. Well, as far as rural character

maybe, but it's to me it's, you know, it's not people living there all year. I just am having a problem with that. And maybe it is not doable because and I get there's an issue with housing and and we want to try to help, but I don't know that that's the way to do. I I I I would I am um campsites are great. We have uh great resources in this area. I think we should promote that, but we shouldn't be using recreation as a way to solve for the housing problem at all.

Two separate things, right? We don't want to like exploit recreation, right? Like there's a reason people come here for recreation. Let's keep it that way. We should solve for housing a different way. That's much more. Well, it's um you know, and I know year round not it's it's tricky tricky. So I like the spring to fall. What we have is May to October, right? So why why can't we get back I stated earlier by accepting the health and safety from the state and putting the additional title requirements that we've already spoken about. Yes, I think we're fine as as long as we can use the uh occupancy limits.

Yeah, that doesn't address the issue of limiting. Maybe we need to go through each one of these and just say we're good with existing or or change it each one of these on second page. What do you think? Does that make sense real quick? Like want me to start? Sure. First one, uh, your page two, the chart categories. Yeah. Page nine of the packet.

And then multiple different PDFs. Yeah. So, occupancy. Yeah. Go ahead. But before you do that, why don't we go to page uh what is it 10 of the packet and just look at what the current dural regulations are right now to clearly go down through and okay. So it must be at least 20 acres and 100t set back 400 ft from any property line. This is 5.8A. Does everybody see that? John, this is on page 20. No, I got you. They're already listed somewhere else, but okay.

Yep. And then campsites and sites where tents, recreational vehicles are placed shall be laid out and screened in such a manner that you can't see them for public road. That rule and then talks about the type of screening. No overnight sleeping in vehicles. I think that's in the state as well. Tent sites uh laid out density one 11 campsites per acre. I think that's also consistent potentially with the state. uh not more than 20% of the total area can be identified. Each each of them have to have at least they have to be 250 ft back from a water body. Uh and then for our recreational vehicle tent shelter, it talks about the resource protection zone, you can't locate your campsites in the resource protection zone, but you can use resource protections for recreation areas. Uh and then water systems according to the state, we talked about that. uh water and sewer lean and state plumbing code and then it talks about the minimum sanitary and then the last thing is the time limits. So that's what's in the regulations right now.

And really you could just H sorry H and I are duplicates. H and I are duplicates. Okay. And J does not um align with the um chart, right? It's October 15. October instead of 15. What do we Is that Are we Is it supposed to be October? I don't know which one's right. We have September is should be October. October is although in the ordinance it's September is something what is it typically in Maine like October I think. Yeah. I thought it was October too cuz it's through Labor Day and like allow them to do leaf maybe. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe that's something we want to highlight if if we stick with this is that we do push it to October 15th.

Yeah. [Music] Give me one second. George is looking something here. Um, now what if we use those standards? Why would we need as as a planning board to review this? Well, you could just say, look, just get rid of age and change uh the September to to October and don't worry about the rest of it. Let the state do their thing and we'll do our thing. But if that happens, then I think last time you guys did like a thorough review of all parts of it. Mhm.

And if you want to do a thorough review parts of all parts of it, then you should have some standards in here like the state has. I don't think if the state's going to give them a permit for water and sewer and state things and all the roads and everything, I don't think we need to do that. Uh, my question. No, I was just going to say I I'd like to just go through this and just make sure but sorry. What were you going to say? So you can see at least what we've got on there now. What you've got now. Go ahead.

Conflict. Page uh page 20 7B. The um 20 of what? Page 20 on the PDF. This is an old page 20. Yep. In the packet. Correct. that I printed don't have any page numbers so I'm not okay this is out of the state regulations

all right so the 100 foot from normal high watermark conflicts with the just trying to go page by page here but I found the conflict in page we just went through it here oh so that would be back on the chart nope on page I see F. It's F. Yes. F. Yeah. Um, page 10. Yeah. F says 250. What does the other one say?

R is state, right? The 100 is okay. The 100 is state 250. Okay. Got it. All right. So, you're more restricted. Okay. Just wanted to clarify that. Yeah. And that's an example of where the state the town zoning is concerned more so than with the state. Okay. All right. Let's let's go through this real quick. All right. Well, starting with occupancy limits. Currently, it's 12 weeks. Um proposing You're back on the table.

Yeah, I'm back on the table. Um I would uh let's try or propose May 15 to October 15 instead of September 15. Um that's ours the state is no time limit. I recommend that that stays no change. We do say four weeks otherwise right? What does that mean? That means like during the winter if they want to do some winter camping they can have a limit of four weeks. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that consecutive weeks or four total? I think it's consecutive. So you came four weeks, look for a day, come back four weeks. I have to look at this.

No, that's a good point. Yeah, I think the idea there is no more than four. Yeah. You can come in whenever outside of the main whatever the internal consecutive weeks, whatever it may be. So you want everybody wants to Does everyone agree with that against year round? Yep. Yep. Okay. Yes. Okay. So, on that issue, you want me to look into is it possible to prohibit it that you cannot grant a conditional use? How do we Yes. How do we That's what that's that's my opinion is everybody agrees is how do we prevent year round camping? Well, you just say no during the conditional use review. What's that? You say no during the How do we say no to conditional use?

Just don't give it. They ask for it. Can you just say no? I guess I'd like it to be clear that don't don't bother, you know, here's why we put in our orders. Maybe let people know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I wonder why we can't like why what we could do to make that clear if everyone wants that to be clear. Well, one thing you may want to do or at least consider and then think about the ripple effects is basically take out those those provisions that anything not specifically used can be approved or applied for as a conditional use. That would cover a lot of stuff.

Yeah, I mean that would there would probably things like you said the whatever it just seems to be there should be a way to make camping with RVs a use, you know, however it may be campgrounds and RV. I will I will look into can you make it pro prohibited year round? Okay. Next is minimum lot size. We have 20 acres for a campground. Um state has no minimum acreage. I don't see any reason why we would change that. What we have I agree. Okay. Setbacks 100 ft from property line 400t from residences. State is much less than that. Again no reason to change that.

I agree with that. Same thing with screening. We require screening from campground public roads, residences, subdivisions. State uh doesn't have any. Um I would definitely recommend staying. I would and I would like to maybe put a little definition. We got to talk about buffers later. Yeah, I think but but kind of talk about what is the and maybe that's in here George seems to be kind of remembered but anyway that you know for subdivision that's 50 ft or something off the road but something something defined 50 ft 100 ft or whatever interesting yeah it might be different for other uses is that what you're saying

yeah I mean we should I think we should define it whatever is George brings something back to says, "Do you want 100 ft?" Um, okay. And we have 100 ft for property lines. And so maybe that 100 ft has to be screened or or is there some 50ft buffer that we want screen? I see. Um, I think this is a summary and I think there was some screening seemed to be I thought there was any information evergreen planting landscape if you don't maintain the forest that's there. Okay. Yeah. Um, all right. So, are we good with that one?

Yes. Okay. Next one is, uh, resource protection. Currently, we do not allow campsites on resource protection, but like you said, George, passive recreation is permitted. Um, the state has no specific restrictions there. I just would not challenge what we have. I agree. uh enforcement authority, local code enforcement officer for the state, it's DHS inspectors. I I don't know if we have our own if we can rely on DHS, right? Well, I think we want to for the zoning things, the things we just discussed, that's us and the local codes guy,

right? And then DHS would be the stuff. But the DHHS guys, the local plumbing inspector still has to uh review the for the state. For the state they do. I I think the state would basically review the plans and approve them, but the code officer would do the inspections for the water and sewer because they'll have to get local pumps as well. Okay. Okay. So, let's leave it, right? Let's leave that. Um or should we talk about the other stuff first? Let's talk about the other stuff. Um sanitary facilities. So we have details on um that to me is that we drop that and leave that to the

state has detailed fixture ratios by sight count and they have a similar standards. Yeah, they have a table for all that stuff. So we going to drop that from current. I would drop that from Durham's part of the uh ordinance. Does everyone agree with that? Just go by the state code. Okay. Yeah. And then the same with primitive sites. Same same requirement. What does that mean for state? Same. Oh, we have the same below that temporary. Yeah. But I would just take it out of our ordinance both and primitive and refer to the state. And refer to the state.

Temporary campgrounds. We have maths 12 days a year. must meet full standards if exceeded. Same rule applies. Is that like if we had Durhamfest and a bunch of hippies want to camp the state temporary? It's actually agricultural affairs. Oh, okay. That's what a temporary campground is. Camel and fair. They have people camp during the fair. That's what that's about. It's not Woodstock 27. I don't want to. Okay. So, do we want to refer to the state on that one too? It's the same state. Same state. Just leave it up to the state. So what happens if we leave these things up to the state? The state just like drops all these restrictions wide open now. We'll have to revisit.

I would leave I would not drop it from our temporary campgrounds. I would leave it in there in in the Durham thing if it's just you know 12 days per year and it may be part of the paragraph for the occupancy limits. I don't think that we have any. So that was what you were proposing I guess temporary camp. Uhhuh. I don't see it in there and I can go either way as Yeah. You just This is AI. I did this. Oh, you compared it. I had it.

References.

So, do we want it in ours or if it's in the state, we're okay with the state rules? Well, uh, I mean, I'd rather have it in ours. Yeah. Actually, we don't have this because the state has the temporary and AI. That's what it is for the state. Really, that's the that's the state keeping. I would be okay with adding that if we I I could go either way. What if what other people want? Do we want to add the language in there as is

as is written or defer to the state? Then we have to add a definite because I think the state uses fair grounds or something. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm looking. I see that they had a category for fairgrounds. Yeah, we don't have fair grounds. So, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, what do we all think? Do you want to add the language in there that says max 12 days a year must meet full standards of exceeded or just defer to the state that has that same language? What could be changed? I'd add it. Did you say leave it in our or put it in ours or

Yeah, it was kind of a different. How about you, Brian? Yeah, it's not on the definitions agricultural fair campground. Okay. The last one is plan review. Right now, it's submitted to planning board. State is close to the state. Keep that in. Yeah, I would say for those things that are in ours, we do those things that are we're referring to the state regulation, then they submit. They don't need to submit water. Maybe water they do, but they

Okay. So, if we're going to do that, which I think is a good idea, uh we're going to have to change article 8 because this is where leisure got roped in. Article 8 when it defines what is subject to site plan review. Uh so creation or expansion of parking the construction or expansion of non-residential parking areas and access drive and access drives involving an area of more than 2500 square ft. So when leisure was going to build the camp roads that triggered site plan review. So, we have an exemption in here for agriculture other than agricultural buildings. If you don't want to have to do the site plan review of a campground, leave that up to the state. We probably used to say uh other than agricultural and campground uses

other than the items that we just talked about in the table. What else is in site plan review that wouldn't be covered? Well, that was part of the problem is that this site plan review doesn't work this for camps. Yeah, it's not designed for camps. Well, I think there should be the things that we've talked about here plus roads are not listed, whatever. And I think we should have a say in rows because we should make sure the fire chief, the fire department is okay with the roads. I don't know if the state has standards for roads or that, you know, they care about them. So you know the circulation

well if you do a conditional use review you can address that issue because that is C safety circulation that that comes under that but you don't have to have specific design standards under site plan review. So the conditional use review would cover the public safety fire department issues and I'm fine with conditional use review as long as they cannot do permanent if we can figure out how to prevent that. Okay. So is everyone okay with that? So pretty much what it is is campgrounds would not be reviewed under site plan. Yeah, that's what we're saying here.

So you either got to have standards to review it by or don't review it. And that's what happened with leisure. We had to do the review, but we don't have any standards to go by. So we made it up as we went. It's just not a good way to do this. Good. Okay. And you know, things like where the road cut is on a on a highway and fire truck width and turnarounds and all that stuff that should stay with the town and buffering. Yeah, that's one of the things though already for a campground, right? The spring. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So, where we are right now, what I've gotten from direction, which is very, very much appreciated, is um we're going to look for a mechanism to limit year round occupancy. Uh we're going to focus keep Durham's zoning parameters and pretty much leave the health, sanitation, and site claim review to the state. Okay, everybody wants that? And then uh we're going to add the state regulations for temporary campgrounds to your regulations. Oh yeah. That max 12 days per year, whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. that

basically it said if you you can do this do the temporary like say they wanted to do some camping down at the RANOVA farm fairs is that that continues to develop and they want to be able some of the vendors want to just stay overnight and have a camp you know uh they meet the state regulations for port bodies and they can do that if it's more than 12 days then they're than their campground it's got to be reviewed by conditional use okay I agree We're good on campgrounds. I think so.

Good. Next one is the buffers on page 26 of your packet. And I did prevail those graphics where I which I just was able to modify from the solar farm buffering stuff we did. So, as I indicated, right now in the subdivision ordinance, if you put in a subdivision along any of Durham's roads, you got to maintain a 50-ft buffer between the subdivision and the road. uh the subdivision as a whole, but as came up on uh Deer Creek Crossing down here and came up on Dave Road is the developer can put the road right beside an existing residence with no buffering in the ordinance required. And so the question becomes, should the budding property owners be given a buffer between them and a subdivision? Uh and you know in the past the plane board has kind of negotiated that but there's really no force of ordinance if you were to try to enforce that or deny a subdivision because you didn't keep a 50ft buffer especially when the ordinance says 50ft buffer from the road. It's hard to argue that oh we have authority to do that when it's not in the ordinance. So if you think they should have the buffer then but what that does potentially is is it the ripple effects of it are a developer now can't take an existing 50 rightway and turn that into a subdivision for the back land. And also basically that adds another 50 ft that's taken away from a

300 ft frontage lot that then makes it at least 100 ft from the property line cutting down on the frontage of the existing lot. So those are kind of the ramifications of that. Can you explain that? Yeah. Well, it's like with the back lots. In order to do a back lot, you have to have at least 350 ft of frontage because you cannot reduce the frontage on the front lot. So, with a subdivision, however, you could put that pretty much anywhere and you can create the 300 ft of frontage on the new road that goes in like they did on the crossing. So, what are you saying? What's

So what I'm saying is is if you push that road away from a side property line, it takes up more land in the development. Yeah, basically. And that again may say, hey, cost of doing business. So let's let's think about what the goal is for buffering. The goal is to um preserve rural character, right? But also to support adjacent land owners, right? Typically

or or I would this is what I think. So I would say we need a buffer between main roads, right, to preserve rural character, but also to protect adjacent land owners for submissions. And so if that means 50 ft, then that's means 50 ft. So if that if you have a 50ft rideway, you're saying that should be expanded because you're including a model. I I think so. I don't know what your 50ft rightway you mean. Well, if they're using the access to the subdivision, the 50 foot rightway, the road is going to go up through that rightway.

But yet, we're talking Do we still want a buffer? I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. I 50 ft being the roadway and but then you're going you want buffer. So, you got to have more than 50 ft. Well, we're not saying we haven't determined a width yet. We're setting a buffer, right? Correct. What's the width of what's the width you need for a drive point? No, if you put a road, the 50 ft is really necessary to do the road, the ditches, the full you need. That's why it's 50 ft. You need that road.

So, I think what you're seeing, sorry, I'm very visual here. So, this is the subdivision. Okay. These are the houses. 50 ft. Is this right? This is 50. Yeah. What you're saying is if we put the road in here, Alan, right? If you put usually George has done a good picture, too. Yeah. Like if you're saying that, then we lose the 50. Right. Like, so then do we push this out further to make that 50? Right. Right. Okay. So obviously you got the 50ft buffer along the main road and the subdivision is going to be here. Yeah.

Okay. So typically what happens is a developer is going to want to put that right down the property line and then the subdivision with all the lots. So if you put in requ 50T buffer requirement then that has to push that over here. Correct. And so now instead of 50 ft, they need 100 ft give or take because the road because the road needs the full 50 ft between the, you know, 20 20 foot 22t of width, you know, you got your ditches at the time to get that road in with utilities and ditches and everything. You need the full 50 ft. So the edge of the road is 50 ft from a house, right? That's the buffer. Property line. Property line, not not the house, but

yeah, property line. Yeah. I mean, if you want a buffer, you got to add 50 ft. Yep. So, basically, we turn the 50 ft into. Now, the other issue is if this is just wooded land versus it's open land with a house sitting right here. You need that to buffer it from wooded. What do we say for other buffers in the ordinance? The side lot is 20 ft. I think I wrote that. So that's a setback. Usually what you do for a commercial is you say if there is an adjacent development you buffer it. You don't buffer it for vacant land typically cuz the idea is

what are we what are we saying for solar? For solar they have to create a long road or or adjacent development. Right. So let's why why should this be different? Well, we know it could be. I don't think it should be different. So what you would do is not automatically say you need this. You would say if there is adjacent developed land then they put it and then what are we going to say it is developed land meaning if I've cleared my lot to the property line pretty much yeah and there's a and there's a house there so so you don't need to necessarily buffer a farm field but if I haven't cleared that land to the property line yep that's undeveloped

correct and if I had cleared it to the property line is developed So then what if I decide in the future I want to clear the land to the property? That's my issue. I that's what I'm at least in that case you can you can retain the 50ft buffer if you want. That makes sense. If you want if I don't want to see it. Yeah. Of course. Just keep the 50 ft buffering along your property line. But I think the idea of this is if there's an existing residence there that does not have any buffering, if you're going to put this road in right beside the property line, the planning board can put into you can put into the ordinance a requirement that that has to have a particular buffer if there is exist.

Well, let's stop using 50 and see if there's not enough some number may not be 50. It's restrictive either way. Yeah. Yes, it is. So I I just want to look and make sure that we're treating everything the same here because sorry I just want to real quick said plan review landscaping.

I think you really talk about what a buffer is going to be because if you're going to want to make that so it's creating privacy you know right away has to be more than 50 ft wide. And a lot of these rightways at least 50 ft. So if we're increasing that because we want to buffer, it's going to limit the development of bath lots.

Right. Exactly. So you have to come up with some consolation with the developer. Right. I mean, I'm not sure Deer Creek was buildable if it had it has a now has a 50 and I say this is right, but they probably have a 50ft easement right away. I would think so. And I'm not sure they have much more than that because I think the the property to to the right as you're driving in is a private lot or a single lot and then it's up against he changed his driveway cuz his original driveway is where the access is to that development. Then he comes in off of the house to be the owner of the development. Yeah.

So that's my concern is so 50 seems to be un unnecessary. I think it's too much. We're to if we do that, you're totally restricting. Yes. So, one thing I do want to mention is that for other development, we are saying it's a 50ft buffer required from adjacent properties or if there's already something existing, that's fine. So do we consider subdivisions like development like why would it be like solar solar is a good example and I think looking at solar current yes current yeah

current for solar for solar yeah I'm just I I needed something to look at I think solar is a whole different so we consider subdivisions more it's housing is not housing traffic and people and solar you've got so the you. So, so then the question is, do we feel like people should not see the subdivision? Well, it's not so much the subdivision. It is the road. The road is the issue cuz no, you don't screen houses from houses. Okay. So, it's the road access road in

it's the wide access of cars driving in to the abuing. So, currently you have buffering for the travel people traveling on the road. you don't have to see the subdivision. So now the question becomes, should the people living in the house not have to see the new road, right? And all the cars. A good a good I think one of the better examples is Ruby Lane. If you look at that one, you got the house right on the left when you drive in. Yeah. But as you go down the access road, you have a house that's set back, but they have a fence all the way along that that's giving them that. I think that was probably put up there for that buffer. Mhm. And I think that's what we really need to look at. What is an acceptable buffer?

Yeah. And from the road. From the road. Correct. Correct. Okay. So now my my brain's with y'all. We can't be I honestly don't believe we can be so restrictive that people cannot especially if you get into families wanting to develop a backlog. get so restrictive that they can't do it. What if we say like a 25 ft buffer from the road to property line? Is that too restrictive?

What could be? I mean, again, I think Deer Creek be interesting. I don't know the dimensions anymore, but I would think, and I'm not trying to say Deer Creek, they're already approved a building, but that something similar is I'm not sure they could do it is my would be my issue. Right. But I think if road could could end up doing that. Yeah. Or you're you're negotiating with the guy next door. But I think to Allen's point, it kind of a buffer could be an 8ft uh

shadow box fence or something like that, 6T, whatever it is. That way the people who are, you know, if you look at George's good picture, you know, the people who are living there, if that's all open, they can't see the road because there's a a fence there and they don't need 25 ft. it's in the easement, the HOA can take care of as they see fit. And I think, you know, I think buffer definitely is the key here cuz if we're talking buffer of pine trees doesn't work, pine trees die out at the bottom. We need to define a buffer. Yeah. So, can you tell me explain this? What's the Well, this is by Is it a sound buffer? Is it a Yeah. Well, so this was the existing subdivision. Okay,

somebody wanted to build a new one and they wanted to just come in with a road and 50 ft wide. This one there's probably they would have had room to shift depending upon lot sizes,

you know, to get your 1acre or 2acre lot, whatever you needed. Um but if this if you are using deer deer creek or is which is one that I can think of it comes in and this property these two houses uh this this property up to here this road curves the other way but this property up to here is a different land owner so I don't know that there was more than 50 ft how that's probably somebody probably wisely said I'm only going to give 50 ft the houses are way back here and they say wisely is you know he's trying to figure out what to do and keep as much as he So that's what this is. So this is current. So historicist historically this has not been in the ordinance and people have left 50 ft access.

Right. Exactly. And that's all there is 50 ft. Yep. I know. So there's probably lots of from the edge of the property 50 ft. There's a 50 foot right away. That's where that is going to put. So the better. Are you okay? Are we okay with that? Are folks okay with that? If I look at it as okay, you got a 50 foot right away. You get a neighbor on this side and a neighbor on this side. You talk about my buffer. You're not going to put a box fence on both sides. People going to be driving down a tunnel to get back. So, we got to we really have to you have to have and the reality is people can put a fence on their property.

They can they can exist. But what about houses that are like they are right on the line like there's nothing they're in a field there's nothing but we have to I could do a fence they could do a fence but the rep the in the case of a subdivision the buffer is as I'm concerned it's a responsibility of the developer I agree it's not the responsibility of the neighbor I agree with but they have that option

the question is do we is this a pro really a problem because I mean I know the timber ridge folks when we were doing approving of Deer Creek came in and they somehow resolved that with the developer but um I you know but they those are big lots and there's lots of wood I mean if if it's corn or hayfield next to hayfield that might be slightly different u and again I brought this up because it's count yeah no I mean it's worth talking about

now you could put in provision for where a road on the subdivision buts a property line they either must put in a 50-ft buff vegetative buffer or fencing if you want to put that bird around the developer would it have to be on both sides that 50 foot right away? No, just if it see if it abundance a developed piece of property and that then begs a question of a piece of property and what's developed uh you know if somebody's got a house adjacent property yeah well if somebody I mean developed or not developed

keep keep going back to Deer Creek and there's nothing wrong with what they did. You had Timber Bend I think it was Timber. You had a uh narrow strip and then you had a house. And so we're going to require a buffer against the house. Then you run into to Allen's tunnel, but you've got Yeah. fencing on both sides. It doesn't recommend that. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm not sure that we have to buffer single houses, but I mean I I'm not sure we need the buffer, but

I think it adds too much restriction on the developer and I there's there's always the public comment period. Um, if this is they feel it's too tight, you could impose or ask for the developer to add a buffer of something. Just be aware you can only ask. They don't have to do it. Could you could you say unless it's in the ordinance, could you say buffer to be determined by the planning board if necessary? Could you put it that way? So if the planning board That's what I was suggesting. You can't put language in here to give you authority to look at it and require and require

of the buffet to be required by the abuing neighbor. Isn't that the neighbor is the one that's going to be affected? No, you can't put that in your Right. Right. Right. But why not? I would that unlawful delegation of uh planning work. You cannot do that.

Yeah. I mean I but if enough people came in and and said this is really going to suck because these lights are all going to be in my house. We as a planning work can say yeah you're right Mr. Developer you need to figure that out. But we I think we have to be really careful because there are probably more than just Deer Creek that are sitting out there and there are they're going to be where the parents just left them 50 feet because that's what's required in the ordinance. So when you go to build, you know, Junior goes to build his house, he's got 50 ft to deal with. And if we mandated, we'd say, "Sorry, Junior, you know, tell your parents to give you more land." But we can't make an exception because it's his parents.

Well, I mean, Brian's good. they develop and then cherry blossom might lose some hematite attack but cherry blossom when you initially turn in there there are hard pines as you're turning in that road the hard pines are all here so those pines block all the light going to the neighbor yeah so there is a there was already a buffer there when that was approved so what do you what do you re what do you re

so here's what I just wrote What I'm going to do is I'm going to take a look at site plan review where you can on a commercial project look at and even on solar you could say should there be a buffer here or not. I think solar is mandated. Yes. No, but it it for only for where the board where the board determines that a buffer is needed based on a visual impact analysis. And that's what I'm thinking for for yeah subdivision. So, I'll look at the language in site plan review to see to give the planning board discretion to either require buffering or fencing on that access road at least as the next step in the process. Wait, can you say that last part again? I'm sorry.

Uh, what I'll do is I'll look for under site plan review the buffering authority that you have for commercial projects. And again, we just talked about the road. I'll look and see if some of that language might work to give you the authority to look at that issue. you don't have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that. That's Does that work? But again, let me take a look at that language and move in that direction to see if I can come up with something for me.

Now, on the last on the buffer issue, this came up in the historic. So the the current or previous historic uh standards for individual properties required a 25 ft buffer around the property for any development on a budding property and when it came up in the public review just the whole shoot match. This issue was debated by the select board. There's parts that the select board thought and he used the example of that place in Auburn, I guess it was. Uh should the should any development that occurs on an adjacent property to historic property have to put a buffer between the new development and the historic property? Some select board members thought no, some thought yes, but it was pretty pretty seriously discussed. So I thought we should at least take a look at that.

And this is for designated historic only the designated which there are eight. There's eight of them. You got the the in got the Ozgood property down in Freeport. You've got the on the corner Methodist church. Is that uh Yes. Wester Methodist Church, the Shiloh Temple, Friends uh meeting house, and then the house next to the band stand gazebo across on ferry and then uh the house next to the um subdivision, right? The red one or the Union church. Is it the Union Church? The the uh Well, Union Church is one. Yes.

Yeah. The Union Church on Broad. Yes. Yes. and the house next to it that's also like listed as so those eight properties if you were going to do any development next to it you may or may not you may have to put in a buffer right now can we say the same language I mean I can't the arguments at the select were look somebody just wants to build a house next to that house they shouldn't have a buffer uh if they're going to put in a a softening shop yes but that would that would come under site plan view anyway. So, you'd have the opportunity to put the buffer in. But should historic properties get special buffer consideration beyond what what does the state say? State doesn't say anything about it,

which is why we're here, right? Why we're discussing this? Um I would say for for individual houses, no. But for um subdivisions, although I can't imagine where we're going to put in a subdivision. Oh, commercial use. Well, commercial use. Absolutely. That's a you automatically have the opportunity to acquire it there. Oh, so we're talking about single houses. Yeah, we're talking about like a new house goes in next year

because subdivision we would do the same thing. Say we're going to look if you're putting it in and there's 40 ft of established growth. We wouldn't necessarily require somebody put a fence or build a BM or put it more whatever. But this would say if somebody puts in a residential subdivision, whether they put the road along the property line or whether they put houses next to the property line, it's going to be buffer of historic properties benefit. Do you go that far?

Again, I'm just thinking that you know what what's already there, what's going to be there. you know, I mean, if there's already wooded and somebody bought a subdivision has a bunch of wooded lots, uh, Bowie Hill, Boow Hill, you know, they've done a very good job of saving the the trees. I don't see why we would want to require them to put a buffer against Parker Cemetery. I mean, which is a historic, you know, it's not registered, but if if it were, why would we want to put a buffer there? They've already got plenty of space yard and they got plenty of of trees and other things there.

Maybe we just add it to the list of we review and provide I'm just thinking like the one actually no we don't want some start we don't want to do this because we don't want to review houses. We're not reviewing houses. No. Right. I keep getting subdivisions confused here. So if it's a commercial issue auto I can go either way. I can go either way. I mean, it is, I think, an important resource in our town, right? We only have eight of them. Um, you know, I think visual impacts is a is a thing, but if the board doesn't agree, then I I won't take that.

I I just think it would be depends on what's next to it already. I'm trying to picture all these sites. I don't you know unless like one of the select board members said u but what if they want to put get too across from that's commercial

so I don't know if we want to use the same rule about uh if we think it's necessary if the planning board thinks a buffer is necessary for a subdivision u then we say plan review we would require I don't see the reason to put it on three sides if there's they back up against wood. I don't know why we'd want to put a buffer against woods. So, we're just talking about single houses, right? Yeah. No.

And the other thing is is maybe the code officer is issuing the house for the just you don't even see it. So, should the code officer require a 25 ft buffer or a 50ft buffer between the new house that's being built and the historic building property as a condition for getting a building permit for a single family? Can he do that? Does he have that kind of power? No. Yeah. So, we've got to say, but that was what was being talked about. Yeah. any development occurring whether it's single family, residential or commercial, there should be a buffer required to that historic property.

What do what do folks think? Go around the room. What do you think, Alan? Yay to buffer for everything around historic property or not or either way on the fence. To historic property. Yeah. listed historic or eligible for and then we don't have to do this is sort of sorry I was just yeah I was just trying to get people's thoughts here sorry yeah I don't want to put you on the spot well I certainly want to preserve the historical setting as much as possible that requires buffering so be it okay what do you think Brian

well that's that's the question that can be kind that can be subjective but we want to we want to restore it so preserve it I think I agree with that one. It would require us to review it, right? It's important or I don't care. I know you don't, right? Not for single family houses. Yeah. I think it requires dialogue for each individual around a historic property. I ask how do we write it? Well, we don't want to be reviewing single family homes, do we? No. But there there needs to be guidance for the code enforcement. Yeah,

I would agree with Alan in this Brian that I think um helping to preserve historic and listed potentially to be listed um resources above it would be be a good way to do that. If my challenge is number one for single family homes, but two, if there's already a lot around it, what what are you going to do? Okay. Clear 25 ft plant height 500. You could retain existing. Okay. So you can call existing as things are grandfathered in, right? But that's my feeling. But we can certainly try writing it up. I mean, we're going to put this up for public opinion. Okay.

So it's not whatever we go today is just guidance for George to prep it. Okay. Add some consideration for buffing around 25 ft whatever 50 ft 2,000 ft. I don't know. You got to take That's right. You got to move because there you know this was going to be easy, didn't we? But did it be resolved? We did both. The landscaping buffer for subdivisions. We're putting it to our discretion. Yeah. Going to give you authority to look at that. And we're also going to add buffers around the store for all development.

All development. Yeah. Not just commercial and whether or not it needs to be three-sided. I mean, there's already house there. Yeah. But again, the same issue of look, if it needs to be there, if it doesn't do anything, then no. Yeah. We don't require it. All righty. Moving on. Let me just not to beat this maybe to death, but the historic if we ever have a historic whatever it is committee again, you know, would they look at um is there a requirement for them? There's they are supposed to be advisory. Correct.

If somebody came in and wanted to build next to a historic structure, would they just the house? Would they look at that or is it the impact just on the house? because that could be the you know their advice. It would only come into play under site plan review or subdivision. Okay. Thank you. On the noise. This is the last of the real issues. No, actually there's two more. This is not one.

Yeah. U so noise standards. Um there are two issues here. One is the forcibility of your current regulations which I think is suspect. Uh and the second issue is the noise levels in here could impede economic development big time because basically it's a residential this is a quiet residential neighborhood standard 55 day and 45 at night you know so I mean any commercial business site is probably going to exceed that at some point depending on what's being done there other than a doctor's office. Uh so just be aware. Two issues are I don't think that the regulations as they're drafted right now are fully enforceable and there's not enough guidance there as the AI analysis pointed out to a code officer for example. It should specify how you determine whether it does or does not meet the ordinance. Uh and then as we heard with the battery energy storage systems, you know, you got gravel pitch, you got agricultural operations in this town, you've got, you know, if you do get into bass, they're all going to have problems with trying limiting it to 55 daytime. So those are the two issues, forcibility and should it be quiet neighborhood for every use.

Yeah, I've got two things. one is I mean have we had issue I know we've talked about noise in every application but there's nothing as far as I remember nothing has been denied because of noise they might might have had to add in a burn or add was this was were these standards fully applied oh I think I remember saying more than once oh by the way you know noise standards meet them yeah we saw mill for the sawmill they did have to do an analysis and they had a generator bigger than was like 75, but it's at the property line. It's meaning at the property line.

And then my second thing is um can't remember. I'm sorry, but I I was just thinking like is it really a problem as it is right now? Do we just need to clean it up a bit? Two issues are enforcability because there's not enough specificity. Okay. And then the other issue is if you want to see economic development in the town Oh, that was it. This is going to be contract zoning. We have that, right? Or we're on for certain things for larger development like the sawmill

adding a generator or I forget what else. Um well, my my thoughts are yes, we want to try to whatever you and the lawyer say make this enforceable or somebody who's got one that is enforce enforceable, let's do that. you know, clean it up, make it more uh whatever. And I'm fine with with changing residential agricultural industrial um having three different standards if we think that 55, 60, and 65 are legitimate uh uses. And then what is impulsive? Is impulsive blasting? What what would it be?

Well, interesting. One of the issues with the windmills, which you wouldn't think that those are, but there's this Oh, the windmill sis like a continuous the windmills would I don't think could meet any of these standards to be honest with you. Right. Much of them for sure. Yeah. They sound like they're screaming loud. It's just that there's this in intermittent pulsing. Yeah. I would suggest if you're driving down I65 between Lafayette and Chicago, roll your window down because and so it is. Not that we're going to have that, but I just curious also. Yeah.

So then what you're looking at right now, the current regulation summary, is this proposed or is this current? Well, this did an analysis. Okay. So on page 38 of the package what you've got and as I said that there probably is not enough to be enforceable. Okay.

And the other problem with it is the levels that are across the board. So the then I did an AI analysis and so if you get over to page uh so recommended improvements on page 40 update the measurement standards differentiate by zoning or use uh add impulsive slash intermittent and there are there are standards for that in the industry and then deinforcement and very and the other stuff there you have that other places in the ordinance. This is like a standalone noise ordinance they were looking at.

So, I like how we're splitting it out like you said, John, like residential egg and then maybe other we don't have an industrial zone. No, we have gravel pits, but that's not a zone. Go ahead. And I would sorry I would argue that a gravel pit new one in a residential area I still think they should you know they should need to comply with resial. I don't think that they necessarily can. Right. So maybe they shouldn't put it in a res. So but everything is resial. That's right. So I guess then how would we how would we

we'd have to pick is that 65. Well it is industrial gravel beds. uh is is to how this would even even if they put a put one I don't know right next to the school or next to my house up here it would still be 65 now that's at the property line so you know they would have to they could put up fences or they could put up perms or they could do whatever is necessary and it is a conditional use criterion so you could look at that in depth during the conditional use review and look at what is next door. And in here they talk about you know sensitive areas like nursing homes and schools.

Um getting back to your this number two differentiate by zoning use. I think we're we're missing a few uses that I think maybe it should be more of an umbrella um commercial development and yeah it doesn't cover everybody. No, these are these are waste in the ordinance. Could you put just I mean industrial gravel pits, would you make that commercial? Could you instead of just saying industrial I mean is what is it 65? Well, gravel pits and agricultural operations are generally recognized as being noise generators.

Yeah. And they're so gravel are specific. Industrial is not so specific. Yep. So maybe it should be industrial commercial. ground pits probably fall under commercial development is my guess. I'm not sure but um but we don't it needs to be something that encompasses every use because we yeah I mean what's missing is commercial I think the others the other we want to give greater allowance for generate I don't know so we don't have zones we don't have an industrial zone correct we have houses everywhere well not everywhere but but you're not going to say you don't want industrial remember when the gravel pit we approved that gravel pit over on road nine

we put Yeah, that's a BM. Now it's owned by Stone X. Yes, there's a BM plus trees on top of the B. They had to do that because of this. Yeah, because we fuel it. We didn't make an except the Doesn't the BM run parallel or access? It was to protect the residents next to it. I think they as I recall they did look at I don't know how if you could call the study but we kind of said you can't you know there was a neighbor who came in who was concerned and we said it can't go over 55. I don't know if we've ever looked. I don't know that the neighbors ever complained. I couldn't tell you any of that stuff. I do know that people like St.

Nothing against them but there is a gravel pit across the road too. So like that they blast. I mean and everybody's happy with it. Dugus guy cuz he does he follows the state rules. He notifies people. He does all those kinds of things. He's a good neighbor. So kind to me. I had we looked at buying a very nice house in Indiana. So I looked out the front door and I said, "What's that?" He said, "That's a gravel. That's a stone." So we did buy that one. Um I don't know. I This is my thought is that we don't touch this. we leave it the way it is until or if we ever get an industrial zone then maybe we can well we've talked about things like bests again that's contract zoning

but why wouldn't we want to have a standard that when they come in we could say right now if a best comes in we say you got to hit 55 they've already said screw you we can't hit that well I thought I thought it was contract zoning and therefore contract zoning you could adjust it we could adjust it but my thought is why not set a standard. Now, if we think industrial is is good, yes, industrial and commercial are good at 65. I'm worried I'm worried that we don't have an industrial zone. So, if a gravel pit goes into residential area right next to the school or whatever, then they're still only at 65, but there's houses everywhere.

Yeah. But I mean, right now they can go in at 55, right? It's 55 lower. Yeah. So I guess the my feeling is we should just have a standard for you know that says industrial commercial and gravel bits and all which have to go through us. All which has to go through and we have the authority conditionally used to say you can't go in next to the school. Yeah. Because it's not you can use add that in. Right. Didn't you say, George, that there's something in here about schools or something? But you could add specific. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be a consideration conditional use.

I I don't know. I'm just But other towns do recommended 75. So that's more noise, right? Yes. And that's because it's based on what she's done at other times. Yeah. And and again, see, here's the issue is that, you know, you want to have an ordinance where you go into a court and you have clear this is a compelling thing. If you come in and they're like, you know, wait a minute, 55 dB for a gravel pit that, you know, the court's going to look at that and say, "What were you thinking?" Yeah. Our farmers are going to be unhappy that it's 55 farmer. They're doing whatever they're doing. Their farmership.

I like the idea of defining that. Why don't you know if 65 is the right number or not? I don't know. But I mean, I think we want to we don't want to turn people off, you know, and say the sawmill, you know, you can't have a because there's nobody around him. I mean, there's there's a power line. There's I think Ducas has another pit. There's And that was part of the conditional use discussion. Yes. Look at the the scale and intensity of use compared to the surrounding uses. So you have that and if it going in next to the school or Shiloh church or or wherever

you cannot go you do not have authority to bury from the 5545 that's right that's an ordinance standard well we have we don't have the authority have contract zoning we don't have the author yeah we don't want to do I've heard talk about the main custom woods wanting to put in a solid do we want them to go through contract zoning no I mean for for a, you know, a saw, you know, and a sawmill will be in just a saw next to their building, not a not even a machinos or a having lumber up in Drew County kind of deal. So, I I don't like the idea of a small project like that going through contracts. Nobody's talking about that. No, but

Sorry, what did you say, George? You said that we can't stray from the 55. Yeah, 5545 is in the zone. You do not you do not have authority. Oh, I thought that's what we were talking about this whole time. Well, we are, but we're saying with conditional use, um, you can you can determine that they are it's not appropriate because of the surrounding uses to go higher. So, right, but even if if you did determine it's okay for them to go higher, you can't 55, you're locked in. They can't you can't go higher unless you go through. So we have to get rid of the existing noise limits.

Well, what you would do is provide the flexibility in there for the use types of commercial uses that are either happening in town or you want to happen in town. So I I'm good with the three category and add commercial to number three. and then and they will still have to go through a conditional use and you could say in this instance we're going to set a limit lower than what is is provided in here. You could do that. Where do we have the ability to ask for an analysis by an acoustical engineer?

That would be under site plan review or subdivision review. Yeah, you can hire peer reviews and we and that's what they're advocating putting that into here and I think everybody's good with putting in the enforcement making it more enforceable. Yeah. And that would be included in there the acoustical studies. So they would have to do that when they came in for initial approval. Yeah. And if the town were to enforce it, it would have to follow that too because I agree with Brian. There should be in some of this, you know, there are standards. You know, if you want a sawmill of this type, this is what you're going to hear.

Okay. So, let me let me take a crack at that. What I will do is is address the enforcability and for at least the purpose of discussion put in those classes of of higher for industrial, commercial, and agricultural. Yeah. I just want to say I don't I don't fully agree, but that's okay. You'll get another shot at it. Okay. as will the town and it'll probably it'll probably be 6555 versus 5545 for residential just for the starting place for the public discussion for residential what did you say it was going to be well right now really the 5545 is a residential standard okay

in 655 attorney said 75 but 655 we're not we're not even going to if it's residential there's Nothing that's going to be residential anymore that has noise. It's going to be industrial. That's what that's what is required in a residential neighborhood. That's we're all residential a neighborhood. Not everything is a neighborhood in terms of residential. So if you put in a gravel pit next to or industrial use a best generator, what standard would they have to in next to? So the the gravel pit will be 6555 unless unless they go through conditional use review.

Okay. And you said given the proximity of that house, we're going to hold you down lower than that. So when you're talking you to put in sound attenuation. So when you're talking about residential as a one of your topics here, whatever number you come up with, the noise that a residential use can make maxes out at as it is now 55. The sound level that's allowed in a residential setting is 55, 45 night, but the gravel pit next door or the tax 55 within their property. Yep.

I mean, I think we've got to unfortunately we're all residential and we've got but we have to do something to say, okay, there are uses that are going to be noisier. you know would would they'll all go through conditional use it best will go through contract zoning contract zoning and so on and so forth so this has to do with noise correct and George on page 43 is that where you where it starts where you're proposing what the new this was the re this was the I did had AI do the analysis

and it did the recommendation And that's what this is. Yeah. To make it to make it more enforcable. So that if you take somebody to court for noise violation, you're not going to get laughed out of court because you're saying, "Wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. They couldn't do that if they try. Your your regulation is unreasonable." Yeah. So we need to make an enforceable one. But but we're also talking about changing Yep. changing the the levels. Well, and I think I guess the question I think Brian asked it left Brian uh whatever D's doing.

Yeah, whatever. Uh but have we will we look or have we looked at the and Kristen the attorney has obviously written noise standards before. So what is Pon doing? What is New Glouester doing? Uh you know well see a lot of the other towns have zoning districts for commercial so it's different. Okay, there it doesn't. Okay. Yeah. So, we have higher limits in the commercial zone. So, we are we are unique in that regard. Okay. Okay. Work on that.

Y won't be like to at least explore that. Okay. Last of the policy issues really is is uh cannabis. As you know, uh a couple years ago, the town opted out of marijuana. So you cannot legally put in a marijuana shop. You can't do a marijuana growing facility and uh there's like a third category uh medical facilities. Uh however, there are exemptions within the state law that do apply to Durham. So individual home personal use for medical pro and for medical providers they are allowed to have a limited number of plans. Um and so the issue has become in other towns and this was a recommendation from the town attorney to close the loophole. If someone has a greenhouse like Renova and this is nothing to do with them. It's just

other there is another spot in town where they do have multiple green houses and we believe that they're growing marijuana in those green houses and there's no town permit. You don't it can't be a state license cuz you're opted out. So most likely what is happening is they are renting out their greenhouse space for individual plant use

either private individuals or more likely than medical providers. And the state has a prohibition against co-ops. So the question is does that meet the legal definition of a co-op? And is it is it a commercial use that's being done under the radar of irrigation use review? So the town attorney has recommended establishing a limited number of plants on any property and if it's in a facility limiting the number of plants and if it is above that threshold has to get a conditional use for you. My thought is I like it. I think there's a couple of different numbers here. Lack of numbers. I think at some point you say three mature, 12 immature and unlimited unlimited number of seedlings which seems to flow with the state thing but it seems to be fairly simple which says that you can grow three if you're a medical caregiver or patient

you can grow you can have three full mature plants. Yep. Can have 12 immature plants and you can have unlimited seedlings, whatever those are. You know, whatever they and whatever, you know, what the town decides are they're going to be, but it has to be your property. Can we just write it that way and kind of avoid some of the other stuff so that if I want to work with a bad example, but I want to work with somebody else's greenhouse. Mhm. I can't go over because it's not my property. I can't go over. She's saying you need to write something in the organization. We need to have that specific and I'm good with that. But it seems to be a little bit more to what's here than just that.

Yeah. This is a very thorough analysis that this is just the analysis. Yeah. Yeah. It's just to lay out here are the issues. I would just like to see and understand how they they can be doing that when the state law you walked it out. Gotcha. And the reason is because there is this movement. Just define it. Do we want to get in then to this is a question for everybody. Do we want to get into uh what was it? Waste management, lighting, water and waste water, fire safety, no retail. If we're talking about one person with three plants, 12 plant immature and

not talking about that. You're talking about if someone has a greenhouse and they start renting it out for multiple people doing that. No, what I'm saying is you can't do that. Is that allowed? Is that legal? Right now, she's saying it's undetermined. Okay. So, it is legal. Okay. But I would say if you just say look at we may have a,000 10,000 square foot uh greenhouse, but you get three mature, 12 immature and the seedlings. That's it. And then that's what we need to fix. Yes. And and then do we need all the waste management and fire safety and all that other stuff for that?

Yeah, I would agree if we can limit it to that. But what you would do is you say this is the limit. If you exceed this, you need a conditional use approval cuz you're a commercial operation. I mean, if the town has said I mean I I wasn't here for the vote, but my understanding was the vote was fairly strong. No, I understand that. But what under main law, what the town attorney is saying, you cannot say they can't do that. You can regulate it if it exceeds a certain square footage in a certain number of plants, but you cannot stop. Those are all individual people with the right to grow marijuana and you on their property.

No, that's not what the state law says. State law says each person can have that on their we saying the way to say that is to put in these requirements. I see. Okay. whatever it takes to be legally enforcable cuz it seems to me not having been here but having heard the stories the town was pretty adamant that they did not want correct any kind of commercial Yep marijuana. Yeah. So in any case Paul from Paul this is a policy issue and I'm just giving you a briefing before I draft anything. Okay. And the direction is going to be to follow the town attorney's guidance for closing that loophole. Yes. The big bucks form.

Yeah. Um if I can anything else on that one. Okay, back to noise. I did just look real quick. So New Gluster has um zoning. Pal does not have zoning and they require what we require 55 and 45 which may have enforcement. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't look that deep but yeah. Okay. for the last draft include reinfor um enforcement as well. Well, I'm sorry. Back on noise. We're back on cannabis. We're back on cannabis. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'll make sure that whatever Okay.

She signs off on what we're going to do. I'll say she's the one that brought it up. I'll say, "Look, this is what we came up with. Did a bit of research. What do you think?" Yep. Works. Uh what's next? Should we save the rest or there's just a real quick ones? I don't even have anything to probably do in five minutes.

Yep. And that is the uh deadlines right now. I've got two weeks to prepare the packet. Uh and that's not enough if you want findings of fact and everything I've been doing and I'm part-time and without really any staff assistance. So I would propose to change that which most towns require at least 3 weeks before the meeting to get your and then also we are throwing away a lot of paper and everybody's pretty much going digital. Uh we would reduce from 10 to five the number of printed copies after reduce it.

Uh well the good thing about that is that then we have copies available for the public to review. Uh I like yeah for like plan sites. Yeah. Yeah. So five, but you can go from five, 10 each. Okay. And we can share, right? We can look at them and then give them back to you for the public. Well, if you wanted, I would not be better to just copies. Okay. As you said, you need some for the public. This post at least one copy has to be available to the public. They just come look at it. Okay.

Yep. Uh and then the uh board of appeals if you compare what they have to do for notifications for what you have to do is night and day. They get notified everybody under the sun and it just there's no basis for that. So all I would do is make it consistent with the planning board notification procedure meets all the legal requirements. Have you commented on that? No. Is is that common? Well, I've tried to reach out in the past what we've been doing and they just don't respond. So, we will definitely let them know we're proposing that. Um, is that common for public appeal, sorry, the appeal boards to have that strict? Well, it came from somewhere.

Yeah, I feel like it because it's different. It's a little different, right? Appeals is like someone's fighting something, you know, they're letting people know versus like an application that might just impact. I don't know. I can see the difference there. And but part of the problem is again this town has very limited staff resources and to put that burden on a code officer who's already overstretched. Yeah. No, I hear you. It's just the decisions, right? We're talking about now. Yeah. They have to do certified mail to all those different parties. So they know the decision because they we're hopefully they should be getting required to notify the applicant. And and so we'll just you throw it in the mail and during gets there. No, you have to just certify me.

No, we're going to change. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Okay. Uh and then the ordinance correction just give this go ahead Juliet and go back to the this is a um qualification thing on the um uh final plan submissions. We even asked for a myar. Yeah, that's going to change. Yeah. because they don't accept those anymore. That's on my list. Yeah, that's old school. Old school.

Yeah. Um ordinance correction, you know, if there's a typo, town meeting currently is the only way to change that. U so this would give the select more limited authority and you can read through how limited that would be to to make corrections that have no substantive effect on the ordinance. Yep. And would that be in coordination with this group or would they just be able to do it on their own? The select board to correct something in the ordinance. This proposes the select board have the authority to do that. Okay. Without coordination with the planning board.

Well, the any good question process that they would have authority planning board would not have authority. That's the difference. But it'd be nice to know what they're considering. Well, part of the changes to the to the ordinance. Again, all it is is just correcting an error like you point out all the time. They have the authority to do that. And I appreciate it helps. Yeah. I mean, I guess we would go through I mean, if it's you fairly well defined it here, A through D.

Yeah. um and they go rogue and decide they're going to eliminate noise awareness. No, they cannot. I understand that they could not. So, I think these minor I would almost call scriptors there, you know, for any without town meeting. The only concern I mean add to a sentence and totally change the meaning of it. I really want to stay on the planning board because you have more authority pres. No, I want I want to be able to approve schooter changes. I want to approve comment changes. So the whole reason I saw this before I decided to run for the next meeting. Read through those proposed restrictions and just see if you're comfortable with it. I I'm not.

You're not. Okay. I just think this should be in coordination with the planning. just a nice heads up. We can write that into it. Just write that in then because we know our intent. That's all. But defin heads up. I mean, we're not going to review it. I mean, is it just notification to the to the planning board of the corrections that they submitted with cooperation, consultation, and approval from the planning board. Yeah. All the way for the town meeting. Sure. Take a shot, George. Yeah. Okay, that's easy. Is that all of them? It is.

There's another one. No. No. Taxes. So, we've had noers come in. They haven't paid their taxes on subdivisions. They had approved them first and they're back for a second phase. Yep. Down with that. Uh, not to be picky, but could we not do that if they're coming in to an appeals board andor drawing permits?

And I'm not talking about drug registration, but I'm talking about there is a difference there. There is a difference. If someone is in this is saying, look, if you don't have the capacity to pay your taxes, financial capacity is a standard for conditional use and for subdivision. But if someone's having a hard time paying their taxes and trying to get a building permit, that's a whole different ballgame. Like car registration. I'm not Yeah, I'm not I'm not talking about But I'm really talking about building permits and or going to the the appeals board. Should they not have paid their taxes at least? Have people deny the right to appeal because they haven't paid their taxes. They they have a right to appeal. Okay. Then building permits.

Again, I I'm not sure that is a is a maybe. I mean, I just think In any case, the the land use ordinance, this is not a building permit ordinance. This is a land use ordinance for subdivision site plane review. Already financial criteria are in there. So, it's not really changing. Pass that. I will go with uh Brian one when u he talks about his thing and I'll go and say you really should prove to you they pay their taxes. Yeah. It's not it's a different issue, but it could be you could pursue it. It is. Yeah.

Okay. I'm sorry. I think we're so we're going to let them get dog registration without paying their taxes to the town where they pay their taxes in Durban. They go taxes and other towns. We can't pay tax. All right. What else? You got Julia another 10 seconds. We're done. Oh. Oh, the uh the strategic planning. Oh, dang. So, no. I just Yes. Yeah. So, um I put this chart in there just to let you know what the plan is. This is what the board has accepted and endorsed. So, this is the practical we're heading on.

So, now Brian, one of these things is this is not envisioned for an economic development committee. Well, that's a shame. Yeah. Yes. So, just so you know, it's coming. Just so you know, they've asked me to pursue it with GP crop to do an economic development district. Yeah. Economic development a one economic development district. All right. Then the last thing is George is put together a plan. Be very quick as you're packing up to get some money in 2026 to begin comp plan.

Yeah. So this list will feed into the next comprehensive plan. So virtually everything that comes out of these projects, those will be the big issues for the next comprehensive plan update. And what is produced in these projects is really going to be the foundation for the next comprehensive plan. And if funded, roughly half of that comp plan cost be 2026 budget. the other half be 2027 budget and putting it together in 2028. So I just wanted to adoption in 2029. That's the limit of the current that's out there.

So take a look through this. If you have questions, let me know. There's a description on each of these on the back of the Okay. And do I have a motion? Depending on whether we what we have on No, depending on I will not be at the September meeting. What day is that? Let's see. Uh doctor's appointment 64 experience. [Music] Okay. Okay. So, if the others would look at your calendar so we can I'm good. We may actually have an application or two then. So, having said that, do I have a motion to adjourn? So, move. Second. I'll second.

Move to second. Any further discussion? If not, please raise your hand. And thank you all very much. Thank you for who the first and second are in German. Was that first? I'm sorry. He he originally I think called it back before we started talking about. So we're good. Thank you all very much. I will be here on Saturday.

Okay. Super. So good. I'm going to miss a cruise. You going to miss December? Going on a cruise. You're going to Yellowstone next month. George Juliet, I will not be here for the I'll be here for September meeting, not for the prep. So, if you have any questions about stuff, would you just ask the vice chair? You're not going to be here for I will be here for September, but I won't be here the week before. Okay. Oh, yeah. I see. Yep. George needs my help.

All right. Thanks, everybody.

Yeah. W9 sign free of those keep I think I think I leave on the 14th and come home on the 28th actually about 2:00 in the morning this month. around. It is right around the corner and hopefully my wife hasn't crued to London for 4 days and then a river cruise to the world.