Planning Board - Regular Meeting

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. Right. Roll call of members. Michael Croto, chair. Chair Okonnell, vice chair. Russell Blanchett, member. Jesse, no. Alternate. Letha Riley, member.

Okay. And not with us this evening, uh, Travis Tucker is not here. Uh Steve Ganon is not with us this evening and I do not believe Jeremy is with us this evening. Okay. Um we have Okay. Um so everybody uh hopefully has had a chance to take a look. I do realize it is a very lengthy document. So if you have not had time to go through it um obviously that's reasonable. Um I I I did not really intend to go through this section by section. I kind of went through it last time, hit on a few key sections which I was hoping that um you know I was suggesting we could focus on if you don't want to read the whole thing. Um Joan has given me some comments. So I I guess the two things I think that from my perspective be most important are comments, corrections, edits. Um we don't necessarily have to go through all the typos. You could certainly send me those. I'm sure they're there. But are there things that are jumping out that really should be corrected? Things that are missing? Um, you know, are there things that we should be talking about that that we haven't talked about? And then really very importantly, the the recommendations. So, for the most part, the recommendations that are in here um are either uh they're primarily recommendations that came out of the conservation plan that the conservation commission adopted, I think, two years ago. Um, so a lot of those are in here except for ones that obviously needed to be, you know, kind of uh updated or changed in some way. Um, there are a couple that are legacies amazingly from, you know, years past. Um, and again, you know, are there things that we should be I hesitated to put things in there that I just dreamed up. Um, you know, there's some things I think that

are probably pretty obvious. The priorities around in particular preserving farmland, I think that's just been something that's been pretty consistent, pretty high priority. Um, have I accomplished that? It's a different question. And, um, connecting to existing conservation lands, preserving habitat. So, those kinds of things I I think made sense. Um it also struck me that on the whole uh when I did look at the last master plan chapter a number of the recommendations that were made then um have actually been adopted. So uh recommendations around you know increasing setbacks and buffers um we did do that and so that kind of leaves us with you know are there more things that we really want to talk about? Um there was a couple of them are kind of couched um in vague language. Um some of these probably could be put a little bit better. Uh local language controls. There was a prior recommendation on actually creating a tree um protection ordinance. Um, I toned that down because I thought that was probably a little further than we would want to go. Um, and more than the town could regulate. So, that that wasn't a um a prior recommendation. Um, I I do know there are some towns in Mass that actually do that and they'll go out and measure your tree. You need a permit to cut it down. Uh, but that was probably more than we wanted to do. Um, I'm on page 81 now. And so this is kind of this vaguely worded um consider changes to residential actually there shouldn't be a semicolon there. Um density requirements in certain less developed area which should be s of town to enhance protection of agricultural land and preserve the town's rural

character. This is something we've kicked around in the past as to whether or not it made sense. Lichfield is now all residential areas at one acre. Does it make sense? um to look at some areas and reduce that density. So that that was discussed a couple of times really mainly in the context of our open space ordinance um just given the reality that we have a oneacre density requirement you know minimum lot size and you can go down to a half acre in an open space development end of the day just doesn't result in that much open space. So, that's where that came from, but that's just left very vague and kind of considered. It's not a recommendation to do anything. Um, I wasn't sure if we wanted to be stronger on that. Uh, the next one was also consider protection of priority wildlife habitats and corridors as part of the subdivision and site plan review process. And again, that's just consider protection. That doesn't say adopt any kind of a regulation or standard. Um, and again, that's probably as strong as we want to be. Um, but maybe not there. I know one other town that is looking at in their open space ordinance requiring that wildlife designated wildlife habitats as you can see in the map in their end corridors that are priority that are identified as priority need to be shown on the plan and need to be um not necessarily that you have to conserve them but you have to that has to be a consideration in your designing open space. So again, we don't need to be stronger. Um, we could always look at adopting something if we wanted to in the future, but that was kind of the balance is

how specific do you want to be? I leaned towards being less specific, right? The concept is there. It's just not

Yeah. In which instances would a wildlife corridor not be a wetland that would need to be shown on the plan? Because yeah, obviously the developers need to avoid wetlands already and those tend to be um associated with wildlife corridors and protected animals. Very often a a wildlife corridor follows in particular a stream. So that is very very common. uh wildlife habitat uh priority wildlife habitat not necessarily um it's very often open fields uh so agricultural land will very often show up as high priority um because open fields now whether they really are or not but they do show up that way um open fields tend to support a lot of habitat

or or deer yards too deer yards yeah and forests um but for the corridors itself I think It's very often following a stream. But yeah,

um and in those cases, if you have a, you know, sufficient buffer, you've probably protected it unless you put a road through it, right? And speaking of the tree retention, um I've definitely noticed that the halfacre lots and probably also more modern building standards definitely result in just clear the entire area and just because they're so close together that you can't leave trees in between lots without more expense and work. Um so yeah, the latest uh conservation open space requirements have resulted in fewer retained trees in the developed area, more in the open space area hopefully, but definitely less in the developed area.

I think that would be true because you've got the house site, the driveway, and you know, the septic system. So between those Yeah. You're not going to plant a tree. No. Right there. And people also tend to want a clear yard area. Yep. So between all of those I think that's true. Yeah. And in 10 20 years you don't want that thing falling on your house either, right? I mean, yeah, especially if it's pine. Yeah. Okay. So other than that, uh, and of course a lot of these do reference the conservation commission because I think that's to be expected.

Okay. Would it be prudent to have the conservation commission take a look at this? Their meeting is coming up this week. Did you send it to I sent them twice? Yeah. So hopefully I put it on the agenda for Okay. So there'll be an opportunity to review it then at the next that that input I think is obviously really important. There's they're the ones that definitely focus on these types of things the most. Absolutely. Um what type of requirements for um density and and setbacks and stuff regarding um developments would you

would you have considered or would be encouraged maybe

um compared to our current regulations? I think that changing the density requirements in Lichfield at this point would be extremely difficult to do. Um simply because the density requirements that we have have been in place for so long and so much of the town has developed that it would be difficult to to say go to a to find an area of town and go to two acres zone. Um, if you were to, it would probably be the 3A corridor where most of the agricultural land that exists is still there. Um, but I I I don't know if that would I don't want to say reasonable. I I I think at this point would that would that really be viable? I guess I would say and I and I don't I don't have the answer to that. I'm I'm not sure. But that would be the area. If you're looking at, you know, the map, most of the re so much of the rest of the town that is, you know, east of 3A that's developable has been developed. You do have lot parcels here or there, but to change their density given what's abuing them feels, you know, feels as though you wouldn't be zoning consistent with the area. Is it possible? Sure. The only thing I would imagine um the citizens supporting is maybe a larger minimum lot size in a in an open space conservation subdivision along with the larger size used to count the number of lots,

right? Which would result in less open space or the same amount of open space but fewer houses, right? which at that point it's not really a conservation question it's changing density um is that a way of doing it and making it less obvious I guess sure yeah it would definitely make it so that the um character is preserved

yes certainly changing the density just changing the density is one option. Um, it's just it's it's tough as a method to to adopt that at this point as a method of conserving open space. I mean, would it achieve it? Yes, it it could. Just how much would it achieve? What would you accomplish? But you also need to think about what what a developer would see that as which is if you know is it really maximally productive to on a twoacre lot to put a regular size house you're going to have McMansions if you do that which I you know

you have the money and you want something like that you know all the power to you but if you talk about preserving the character I'm not sure that's exactly what you meant. Well, this would I meant along that would be mainly used for calculating number of lots if you done the open space way. Um and we'd still end up with like probably 3/4 acre lots in the open space in the open space development. Yeah. Because we're not getting rid of conservation open space in that in this theoretical idea which is which is mandatory for 10% or more. Yeah. And um yeah, the biggest um difference would probably be