Zoning Board of Adjustment - Regular Meeting

I'd like to start by seeing if we have a motion to designate Terres as a full member. I'll make a motion, Mr. Chairman, to designate Teresa for a full member. We have a second. Second. All in favor? I I All right. We've seen this full member today. We for one moment at least have a full board. Yes. Uh Mark, do you have something down at the end or well to this particular applicant? I recuse myself. All right. So, this is a motion to reconsider on the application of one old Amesburg Road. And Mark, you are recusing yourself and you're going to take CP. Thank you.

Because All right. We are here today for a motion to re for re-haring on the denied variance for one old Amesbury Road. Uh we I'm opening the public meeting. However, we will not hear public comment unless the board feels strongly otherwise. But typically on the administrative leader and you do not hear public comment. I will note that the applicant is here today. So thank you for that. Uh unless somebody else wants to start out, I can give a spiel on us. That's fine.

All right. So, after speaking with town counsel, well, after seeing town council's review and also looking at the handbooks, the law the handbook provides, it seems there's about three broadly speaking reasons to rehear. The first is in the statute itself. That's if our decision was unlawful or unreasonable. The second, this comes from a case, is if the interests of justice require us to rehear this. And the third is if we need to correct mistakes within our decision. Um, this is a fairly fluid decision. If we think there's any problems with it, the procedure is we grant motion to rehear it starts a whole new hearing. all the same evidence and any new evidence comes comes to us through the applicant through whomever else uh in the public and then we make branding decision. Now we have from the applicant a very wellthoughtout uh appeal and also a revised I'll say or updated on which uh fact sheet with additional justifications and such 3.5 criteria. I'll say my personal opinion, that's all it says is I think on the facts that we had that were presented to us at the hearing and the way in which they're presented, I think our decision was correct personally and I don't see an error. I don't think there's a reasonable unlawful etc. That said, there's no way around the fact that this uh new fact sheet has a number of new either new facts or uh new interpretations or new applications of those new facts to the criteria. And although I think those probably should have been presented to us at the prior hearing, we can't expect all of

our neighborhoods to be lawyers. Uh nor would I ever want them to be. Mhm.

And in my personal view, given that we did not consider some of these to be facts, and we'll go over those very quickly in a moment, some of the ones I find more important. Personally, I think since we didn't consider these, notwithstanding that they could have been raised before, I personally believe it's in the interest of justice to rehear this application with more effort. So very quickly uh some of the things that I think I would have liked to have known at the first hearing that there are four uh abutters that don't meet the 200 ft frontage right next door. Uh there's a number of others in close proximity that also don't meet the 200 foot frontage. So this all has to do with uh the type of residential area of the and such. It seems that there are at least so says this. There may be a number of others that don't meet this requirement in the area. I found it interesting that the two new proposed lots will be larger than most lots in town, so said the applicant. Uh larger than 84% they give. And they also gave some information on uh appraisals and such. And I did there's a number of things here that we didn't hear at the first hearing I'd like to have heard and if we read here we can hear. One thing I'll note is that uh there are density numbers I ran a little bit of math and it does say that as revised these three lots would still be less dense than our town average, which is to say they site 175 people per square mile. And if there are three lots here, it comes out to 83 people per square mile. If there's two, it's 55. So either way, this is a more rural lot than the rest of Canada. Then finally, uh although it might have been able to be deduced from some of the maps, we didn't really hear much about the fact that the special conditions here are how large it is, which we did hear a little bit, the shape of the T. And to me, one of the more important things, the

paragraph easement would run straight through this and makes this a difficult lot. So that is all to say, as I see it, there are new things I'd like to hear at the hearing. And I'll also say there was a lot of irrelevant comment at the first hearing. We did not the board did not underline that comment in its findings uh as they're listed and in its decisions. But I wouldn't mind the chance to uh have a reh with a cleaner record, a clearer record for the applicant and uh more concise discussion with the public and also a chance to be able to use a new form kind of more direct form that our town council has provided us for issuing decision kind of guidance more clearly. So that's my first spiel. That's my opinion. if I may.

I agree with you and I don't uh I feel that the board did not make a mistake. Um, I have concerns with um requests for re readering in that the applicant shouldn't have what I would call two bites of the apple that um he had an opportunity to present information. Um but given on the advisement council that were this to go to court, our council is advising us that we should probably have a reh hearing. And so based on the advice of town council, I would support a rehearing

and you beat me to the punch because my settlers exactly um and I would really like to understand the other information of our attorney sentence. Okay. that we should now review before the next hearing to make sure that we understand what those differences are if anything which would play into our decision or not. Um I do have a little challenge where it wasn't our job to figure out that there was a button at something less than 200 ft. That's not the only that's actually the responsibility I would say of the applicant to bring me. So I think there's quite a few things here in consideration and what Jones said and myself as a chairman as well as county council I recommend that we probably should

and I I will say at least on my view of town council's advice um I think it's clarified with uh comments that as I interpreted, town council has not taken the position that we need to rehear because we were wrong or that the decision was wrong. Uh the advice we've been given, it's essentially that it would be good for us to have a more wholesome uh record and a more directed form for our statement of facts uh which we now have. And I think that is a very good reason as said if we read here then we can take that form and people can be more directed uh right either way.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. If there's no more discussion then I will entertain a motion to rehear the application for uh zoning variance for one Ames variant. I make a motion to reear I need to give an address for one oldberry road. Uh we hear the request for a variance from the town's frontage requirement. I'll second Mr. Chairman. We have a motion and a second. All in favor?

I I All right. So, we will be rehearing this. Uh, just so you know, there will be new notices that go out to all. There'll be a new hearing date set for I assume next month. Uh, when you come to that new hearing, it's going to be the same thing as the CR one. Make sure you give everything that you have for backlines, whatever information you can give us, want to get it back. Excellent. All right. Do we have anything meetings to get anything or is that scheduled? Um, we'll just send meeting minutes and then we'll verify that that has been approved.

All right. With that, I will close consideration of the zoning or the rehearing motion to rehear one regard. This is Yes. Assuming that we can meet all the no deal on November 7.

Is it here first? Yeah, that's election day. question is no that's definitely um what do we normally do? Do we normally push it a week or do we normally give it to the next month? Anyone have lunch?

I have a conservation meeting on the second Tuesday. the summer. I mean the summer. Are we sure that that's Are we sure that that's voting day? Because typically voting has occurred when we have a conservation meeting. That's what it says on the calendar here. So it's it definitely I got an election day on my calendar. Okay. Missed the Google name.

All right. Well, now it's it's a United States election day. It might not be the town election day. Well, we'll let's not try to let's not try to work this right now because also I'm not sure if the fines if any are on how soon must be heard, right? And being notified has to be heard within six days. All right. So it's whatever we normally do when this happens and this must happen. It's happening, right? Yeah. Whatever we normally do that's notes everyone can notice and we're Oh yeah, right. That's all we do. All right.

Yeah. Let's make sure we let's make sure we we got oursel a little off in this within 60 days, right? I'm pretty sure. Yeah. So we don't want to push it to the 58 day. Let's No. Just in case something happens a weekend. You know, we got to that's right on the December date, which would be December 2nd. Yes. Perfect. Do you want me to check what these?

Yeah, check all that. We can do that after after we're going to have set to everyone anyways. So there's no need to doubt through all that now. Um double check that figure out what the date is and then things will go out and we'll be set. So all right hearing is done for um one game. Yeah. All right. Uh with that hearing close, I'm going to invite Mark back if you'd like to join us.

He's back. back now. All right, we're back with a sent you dead. Is that clear? Uh we're back with full board. I believe we have one quick update. Well, let me skip over the update quickly. Let me say uh Peter's checking something for the August 14th meeting minutes. The September 2nd ones I have not looked at. So, I'm going to table those if that's okay with that. Okay. Both of them. Yeah. Okay. And Peter, did you end up with the board, I believe?

Yes. I gave everyone a pack um some slides and summary sheet on top and I was at the comments over the weekend with the all the planning people around the state and doing their way through um changes to the planning zoning and building codes in New Hampshire 25 and 26. Um there were 20 House and Senate bills presented. Um we got through maybe half of them. Um all the questions prevented from moving on. There are some that are very simple straight to the point and then um there are some that are questionable some of the times but uh there weren't many. A lot of these fall on the building code and um but there are some issues with our building or that may have to be tweaked a little bit. Um nothing nothing crazy but between what's popping up um I also got the other day something um um state is coming out with some new guidance on it's not on tiny homes but it's something similar to tiny homes where that should be allowed in certain areas

I see that's a good question of fake Yeah. Like a big push. Yeah. These pre-manufactured drop in houses that are 950 ft. They just And there's one area where they have this group that's trying to have towns take property and turn it over to FastTrack lots. Yep.

So they can uh put in condensed housing in there. And it's um you first have to get the property from the towns, but you know they're um trying to work through the conservation and else first before they put out times to all the towns. Um that is when the conference ended and you know they never really got to study on that uh very much but um the other ones they didn't get. Let me stay on that for a second. I was talking to somebody who was involved in this from London the town in New Hampshire and you know some of these towns I don't think they're thinking correctly but you know they have large sums of land that a man you know 150 200 acres and uh somebody approaches common gym and says hey buy your lot you know based on this and then they try to get approval you know to put for 200 homes in there and they figured that's a way of generating income. They can't they can't increase the tax rates where they are. So they're like between a rock and a hot place. I mean it's not the right solution to me but anyway there's a lot of that going around. So Peter, would you it presumably wherever this requires uh revisions to ordinances that'll go in planning and of course as you mentioned we want to get input. So when you have this digested and planning board knows what coordinates to fix whatever else uh I think you'll probably come back to this board at one of our meetings after that and say hey here are the things we'd like you to weigh in on. Yes, I think uh my plan of attack was I would take the audience and start um argument with some suggested

issues and then maybe not so much the language but so much the issue of what is being needs to be looked at to be adjusted if anything and then give that to the zoning board to see if that door process correct and then at the same time have the planning coming down the road and you know this is what the only board is going to decide on celebration planning board has to coordinate with that so they know um you know something as simple as uh issuing building permits along private roads you know we don't have an opinion on ordinance around this and there's some other facts in there about it So, it's going to impact the building inspector. It's going to impact everything we do. Um, a lot of this is going to be just a little bit tweak, like I said, tweaks to all we're doing. And if we don't mention it, the state code is going to take over. So, that's what I'm most interested. If we don't if we're not if we're not stating something in our levels to protect the town then we need to consider you know is that what we want to have you know do um if it's something like on the AU um we put out that are now increasing to 950 but that's only for towns that do not have an an ordinance in place and our ordinance says 900 square ft is the max. So we can hold people to that. So we don't have to go to 950. We can but we don't have to.

Um they don't talk about minimum where we talk about minimum 650. They talk that it can be no less than a certain amount. Maximum can be no less than a certain. So, uh, it's just little tweaks that we have to make to our new audience. We can't get rid of it like everyone told. We're going to get rid of it. Um, we have some dynamics in there that we have to adjust, but parking spaces and things like that. So, we'll stay tuned. Yeah. This

Yeah, just it's a heads up toward the ending, but it's coming. And um the ones that I did not really do much of a summary on uh were most suspended bills that um weren't discussed, but um I think the these are at the back end of this, but they deal mostly with what's authority. um uh changes to building and fire codes, you know, things that aren't going to really impact us that much on the board, but um they're going to be out there. So, if they come in front of the board, we need to know that it's there so that um if someone does put that in their application, you just need to be aware that it's something new.

Yeah. you know, so it was a lot of change and some of these have taken effect and some are not planned until um this time in 2026. So not all of them are are in place at this point. All right. Okay. If we don't have any more question on that other quick note all right so as you guys saw uh town council suggested a somewhat more I don't know if robust yeah robust and also more structured uh form for basically for the filings of facts so this is not just for the application resolve going forward so we've done today is kind of listed filing facts And then at the end there are findings of fact that below for example do not uh serve substantial justice or whatever. This kind of takes that same thing breaks down to instead of let's say 10 bullets of facts breaks it out into facts related to a factoring B fact. So, it's going to be a little bit more work for Peter, but for us, I think where this is going to be coming in is I will revise the form, you know, what we're voting on form that you guys are used to seeing. I'll revise that to take into account some of this these items so that we can make sure we focus a little more. For example, uh we we always talk about public interest. Well, public interest brings into the in the concepts of the essential character of the neighborhood management weather, threaten health, safety, and welfare. We always end up talking about that anyways, but this, you know, based on the fact that we're going to be using this form, I'll probably work those definitions into the form that you just

Yeah. All right. Great. Well, with that, unless everyone has anything else, I will entertain a motion to close. Question. So, it's not certain when the hearing is going to be. Uh I will check on them November what date to see if there's going to be any conflict. Yeah. And if that is not if there is a conflict uh we'll go to the next month which would be December second. Second. Okay.

We had a motion. Do we have a second for uh journal? I'll second that. A second. All in favor? Hi Eric from the middle of you know honoring to enjoy.