Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. I'm going to call to order the July 8th, 2026 Planning Board meeting. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic

All right.

Before we get into it, I'm sure everybody notices a new face off to my right. Welcome, sir. Thank you for volunteering all the time that you probably didn't even realize it was going to take to the planning board.

Thank you. Where's two Wednesday nights of the month going to be?

It's a little crazy. I like the concept. I hate the delivery.

Are we launching the Moodle into us that day?

It's a little crazy. All right We've got a few meeting minutes here that I want to start with mr. Rugg. Are you comfortable with? Both sets of minutes. I've got the third and the tenth I get the I got three sets.

Oh fantastic. We've not approved the minutes of May 13th 2026 but Tony is absent. So you can appoint a One of our alternates to vote for Tony. Mr. Knight. Oh

Welcome back to the big leagues. It's good to be here. All right. Mr. Rugg, do you want to start with some motions on these meeting minutes?

Okay. I'll make a motion that we adopt the minutes of the meeting of May 13th, 2026. I have a motion from Mr. Rugg.

Do I have a second? Second. I have a second from Mr. Penta. All in favor, starting with Ann, please.

Ann Champa, aye.

And Brent, I'll have you abstain because you weren't here for any of them. Mr. Rugg.

Arthur Rugg, aye. Jeff Penta, abstain. Jason Knights, abstain, I think.

Is this for the last meeting? Did you say the 13th, Mr. Rugg? May 13th. Second meeting in May. I was not here, so I will abstain.

Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. Those meeting minutes have been approved. Mr. Rug, do you have another set, please?

Mr. Chair, I will make a motion that we adopt the minutes of June 3rd, 2026 as presented.

I have a motion for Mr. Rug. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second for Mr. Penta. All in favor, starting with Ann, please.

Ann Champa, aye.

Arthur Rugg, aye. Jeff Penta, aye. Jason Knights, abstain.

John Farrell, aye. Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. All right, Mr. Rugg, last set of minutes, please.

Last set. Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion that we adopt the minutes of June 10, 2026, as presented.

I have a motion from Mr. Rugg. Do I have a second? Second. Second from Mr. Penta. All in favor, starting with Ann, please.

Ann Champa, aye.

Arthur Rugg, aye. Jeff Penta, aye. Jason Natsubstein. John Farrell, aye. Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. All right, regional impact determinations, do we have any?

I wouldn't think so.

I do see a handful of extension requests here. Do you want to go through them real quick?

Yes. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, there are four requests for extensions. First one is for 6 Dickey Street. It was conditionally approved back on April 1st, 2026. That was for a change in use of the site. Again, they're showing proposed use of the site. They are requesting a one-month extension. So this will be their conditional approval will be expiring at the end of this month. So, again, they're asking for a one-month extension. So bring it to the end of August. Can I do, we'll do August 31st? Works for me.

All right. I'm looking for a motion to grant an extension to 6 Dickey Street to August 31st, 2026. So moved. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second. All in favor, starting with Ann, please.

Ann Champa, aye.

Rugg?

Arthur Rugg, aye.

Jeff Penta, aye.

Jason Knights, aye. John Farrell, aye. Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. The 6 Dickey Street site plan has been granted an extension request to August 31st, 2026. Mr. Trottier, next one, please.

Second extension request is for 5 Ricker Ave. It was a site plan to construct a four-unit commercial building. It would be associated with an existing 4,800-square-foot commercial building. THIS WAS CONDITIONALLY APPROVED BACK ON OCTOBER 1ST OF 2025. THEY REQUESTED A NUMBER OF EXTENSIONS SINCE THEN. THE LATEST EXTENSION REQUEST WILL EXPIRE AGAIN AT THE END OF JULY AND THERE IS NO DATE SPECIFIC OR EXTENSION SPECIFIC BUT I WOULD RECOMMEND THAT THE BOARD EXTEND IT FOR ANOTHER 30 DAYS SIMILAR TO THE PREVIOUS REQUEST.

So I am going to, I'm looking for a motion to grant the extension of the fiber grab site plan to August 31st, 2026. So moved, Mr.

Chair.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor starting with Ann, please.

Ann Champa, aye. Arthur Rugg, aye.

Jeff Penta, aye. Jason Knights, aye. John Farrell, aye. Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. This has been granted to August 31st, 2026. Mr. Trottier, next.

Next extension request is for 162 Litchfield Road. This was the site of the Resource Recovery Center. The the 36,000 square foot the packaging building in the 14,000 foot square foot process building this was conditionally approved back on March 11th 2026 requesting a 3 month extension for this particular project so would bring him to the August September, October, the end of October.

all right so i am looking to grant an extension request for the 162 litchfield road uh site plan to october 31st 2026. so moved i have a motion do i have a second second i have a second all in favor starting with and please and champa i

The real guy Jeff and I Jason nights.

I don't like John Faber and the chair votes in the affirmative the one 62 Litchfield Road extension request has been granted to over 31st 2000 and 26. All right last but not least Sir.

Yeah, for 3 page road as well as to 95 Rockingham Rd. These were. Conditionally approved back on April 1st, 2026. They're requesting a six month extension to 2295 Rockingham Rd consists of it's a 12 unit. Two bedroom. Townhouse style. Development and then the three page Rd was again 12 unit. two-bedroom, again, townhouse style in two buildings. So, again, if you want to take those separately, I would suggest doing it separately. Sure.

All right. I am looking for a motion to grant the three-page road site plan a six-month extension to December 31, 2026. So moved. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, starting with Ann, please.

Ann Champa, aye.

Arthur Rugg, aye. Jeff Penta, aye. Jason Knights, aye. Sean Farrell, aye. Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. The three-page road extension has been granted to the last day of the year. I'm looking for a motion to grant a six-month extension to 295 Rockingham Road to the same date of December 31, 2026. So moved. I have a motion. Do I have a second?

Second.

I have a second. All in favor starting with Ann, please.

Ann Champa, aye.

Arthur Rugg, aye. Jeff Penta, aye. Jason Knights, aye. John Farrell, aye. Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. This has also been granted to the end of the year. All right.

Mr. Chair, I have two more items to discuss with the board, please. Yes, sir. One of them being for some direction. Absolutely. Village on Technology Hill, if you recall, the on-point and the manufacturing buildings, those were approved on April 10, 2024. So there's just two of the buildings within the development itself. The applicant has updated the layout of the 60,000 square foot manufacturing building to address expectations of future users of the parcel. So basically what they're doing is they're shifting the building. They're twisting it 90 degrees, basically. The footprint stays the same. The use stays the same, as well as the aesthetics of the building. Like I said, they're twisting it about 90 degrees. Based on the on the revised building layout parking has been redistributed around the building There's a minor increase in the parking from 204 spaces to 227 spaces utility entries will differ again just because of the configuration of the building the dumpster pad has been replaced with a trash compactor and stormwater management areas have been converted from filtration basins to subsurface storm tech units the proposed changes they do meet the minor site plan requirement criteria and staff does agree with that and uh and we're looking for the the board to agree with that as well so again i could go through the the the process or what dick what governs whether or not it's a minor site plan process so i think the WE'RE IN AGREEMENT WITH THE The determination, again, we've made that determination, and the applicant is asking that the board also concur with that. The next step, though, is, again, that the time of the hearing, it's staff's recommendation, again, before Kelly had left, she and I had talked about it, this, again, where this is such a big development. Again, a typical minor site plan review committee consists of the planning department, public works, and the building department. That hearing is typically held at like 9 o'clock on a Wednesday morning upstairs. We're suggesting that it just come back to the board so that the board can act on it and it can be in a more convenient time if the public has concerns over it.

So you have, just to recap here, we have an approved site plan, Village on Technology Hill. Correct. We have a building. The size of the building is not changing. Correct. The orientation of the building is changing. Correct. Everything that you see still meets or exceeds what our expectation is as a board. Correct. Correct. Yeah, I mean, what's the board's thought on it? I have a question. Yeah.

John, do you have any concerns? Again, mainly, again, John, it's one of those where, you know, it's such a great development.

Is your only concern public visibility?

Exactly. So that's your only concern? That's our only concern.

I have a question also. Is that the largest of the buildings?

No, it is not.

Is it the one below it on Upper Grenier Field?

No. Yes.

Down the hill?

Yeah.

Okay. Thanks. Which is this one or which one?

So there's no buildings on Granier Field, though?

I know, but up in the hill.

Yeah, all of this? Heading that way, yeah.

This is the one that they were building with the idea that someone was going to be in there, right? It's not the dog one or the...

Yeah, so if you were to go to the end in Kitty Hawk Landing, go through the cul-de-sac, it's going to be the first one on your right. Correct. That's where it is. Okay.

I just, I don't have any concerns, but since the Merrill Farm is right next door on that side, I think they should be probably noticed if that's possible.

So, again, they would be noticed if we were to have it upstairs still.

Yeah, it's still the same process. It's still a public hearing. It's just in the minor site plan form as opposed to the planning board here. I mean, personally, I don't see a need for it to come to the board if the board feels otherwise. No. It's already approved. The building size isn't changing. I mean, yeah, we're changing some orientations around here, but it's not. You know, if they were looking to add another floor to the building or another 20,000 feet and drastically change some drainage and stuff like that, I'd say, yeah, we should probably have it come back here.

This is one of those where you trust staff. Yeah.

I mean, we already approved it, you know.

I think it meets the, as John said, it's a minor site plan. I think staff has handled these quite ably before. It is a public meeting and the butters are notified. Correct. It's handled by staff.

It's mainly the venue that we have the public hearing.

It only deals with the changes. It doesn't reinvent the plan or open it up or anything.

Correct. They do need to expand the drainage a bit, but it'll be looked at. Trust me.

I know you'll be looking at drainage. I don't have any problem. Do you need just a consensus or a vote? I think just a consensus. Just a consensus? Are we good leaving it at staff level?

Yes.

Fantastic.

we could just get a notice when you're going to have the hearing i'd appreciate it yeah we'll do and then you said you had a second one sir one last one just just for awareness uh if you mostly recall that the allen's car wash had had a fire the staff has been working with the architect and the owner regarding that 3a hampton drive site itself What we've come to a conclusion is that they're going to be rebuilding the site. It's going to be a rebuild in lieu of new construction out there. They'll be utilizing the existing foundation, existing dimensions, similar finishes and appearances to make, again, just to make it pretty cut and dry and get to the point. So again, like I say, it's mainly just for you to have some awareness on what's happening out there.

Is it still going to be a car wash?

Yes, it will be. Okay, good. So, again, we've looked at the stacking, the parking, and all that, and it's still able to meet the criteria. It'll all stay the same. Correct. Yeah.

Fantastic. Board have any issues? Nope. Thank you, Mr. Trottier. All right. Any other discussions with staff? Mr. Chair? Yes, sir.

Last month, the Office of Planning and Development had a nice presentation on impact fees. And it was a very good presentation. They went into detail. Three things that I got out of it is, one, impact fees are not a money tree. Two is... You need a direct connection from the fees being charged to the direct capital improvement. And then the third thing is to keep good records, do the math, and create a schedule.

Yeah, it'll keep you out of trouble. I also viewed the follow-up in the slides associated with that particular training, and I found it incredibly interesting. useful as well as consistent to my understanding of impact fees. So I would encourage others to do so as well.

Wonderful. THE OFFICE OF PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT HAS A WEEKLY WEBINAR, I MEAN, NOT WEEKLY, BUT MONTHLY WEBINARS ON THE THIRD THURSDAY AT NOONTIME. AND SOME OF THEM ARE VERY INFORMATIVE. THEY DO A GOOD PRESENTATION. THERE'S A QUESTION AND ANSWER AFTERWARDS SO YOU CAN GO INTO, YOU KNOW, DETAILS OTHER THAN IF YOU GET INTO DETAILS WITH YOUR COMMUNITY, THEY SUGGEST YOU TALK TO YOUR TOWN ATTORNEY ABOUT THAT. I sent it out to everyone a couple of times, I think, before. Yes, you did. And it's all my team's.

Fantastic. Anything else, folks? All right, we have no new plans. We have no old business, but we have plenty of other business. I'm going to start with Mr. Spalding, who's our Cyber Services Director, on a SharePoint discussion. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Have a great night.

THE FLOOR IS YOURS, SIR. THE FLOOR IS YOURS, SIR.

THE FLOOR IS YOURS, SIR.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. FIRST OFF, THE MEETING FIRST OFF, THE MEETING FIRST OFF, THE MEETING MATERIALS FOR TONIGHT WERE MATERIALS FOR TONIGHT WERE MATERIALS FOR TONIGHT WERE SENT TO YOU VIA SHAREPOINT. SENT TO YOU VIA SHAREPOINT. SENT TO YOU VIA SHAREPOINT.

JUST BECAUSE WE'RE LIVE, YOU JUST BECAUSE WE'RE LIVE, YOU JUST BECAUSE WE'RE LIVE, YOU DO NEED TO BE MICED UP. DO NEED TO BE MICED UP. DO NEED TO BE MICED UP. SORRY ABOUT THAT. SORRY ABOUT THAT.

We have a hand, Mike, like we used to? No, I'll just sit here and talk.

I've got to ask. You put this thing in? We were talking about it a little bit.

I did put that thing in. That was a spare piece of equipment that we had from the fire department, and it was an attempt to aid in going paperless.

I love the concept, but if there's anything we can do to work with this old desk that we have here to bring it a bit out of the public's view, I would greatly appreciate it. We brought it down as low as we could without breaking out the saws. Get the saw.

We'll continue that conversation.

Plus, Jake doesn't share his mouse, so... Yeah, we need to know what's going on.

Terribly sorry.

Now that I've derailed you, sir, thank you for coming tonight.

Talk to us all things SharePoint.

Back to what I was saying. The meeting materials for tonight were sent to you via SharePoint as opposed to via email or paper as you're accustomed to. My purpose here tonight is to answer any questions you might have as to how to use SharePoint if you've never used it before and more specifically how to use the specific SharePoint site that has been built for this planning board team. The Microsoft licensing that is normally distributed to Town of Londonderry board members does not include SharePoint or Teams licensing. We have upgraded the licensing for you as a trial to see how well SharePoint will serve as a paperless environment for you to help you reduce the load of paper. be a little more eco-friendly, and have your documents a little more digitally aligned. The site link that you were sent should have been to londonairnh1.sharepoint.com, sites, tolboards-planning. You'll only be able to get there if you have a license and have been invited, which, of course, all of you have. That site will be dynamic. The meeting materials in that site will be relevant to the next meeting that you will be holding. And the old meeting materials will be in another place, another link within that site.

So we'll still have access to past documentation through SharePoint? Correct. Of past meetings, any, you know, we can pull up, oh, I want to see what they presented six months ago. Yeah. Okay.

But the question is, is the public still going to have access on the website?

So any documents that go on the website will be on the website, separate from SharePoint, which are for the board members to use for this meeting. The preparation materials you need for this meeting are not usually public to the website until after, right?

Usually everything we look at from the agenda is also on the website under the agenda page. All of the attachments are there as well? In the past, they have been. I mean, it's a public document. I would assume that the public is still going to look for access. They don't have access to SharePoint.

That is correct. The SharePoint site is an internal document. The documentation we've been putting in SharePoint oftentimes has personally identifiable information, and the documents that are put on the Internet site are redacted. So the documents in the SharePoint will be the internal access documents. The same document is then redacted and put on the website.

I use SharePoint all the time. I mean, so I understand redaction and not redaction. These are public documents. If the public needs to be able to see the same thing we're seeing, we're a public board, right? Right. So anything that's presented to the planning board that's on SharePoint that's a public document, the public needs to be able to have access to, correct? That will also be loaded on the website. Correct.

That's all I wanted to know. Thank you. Anything that should be on the website will be put there. Thank you. Anything that should not be public because it has personally identifiable information will be in SharePoint. Thank you. For your convenience, anything needed for this meeting will be in both locations or as appropriate to their location.

And I think some of that, John, to your point, When we look at this inside of the network, the planning board folder for tonight, there could be presentations or things like that that an applicant has given to the town for the board to view. I don't think those traditionally get on an agenda, but they are all here. I could be wrong.

Well, if they do a presentation, they're going to come here and they're going to show it in public anyway. It may not get on the agenda. But if I'm an engineer and I'm working with the town of Londonderry, I don't have access to SharePoint, and I want to see what you're going to be looking at for the meeting so that I can prepare properly, that seems reasonable.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, whatever's private, I get it.

This is not intended to take away from the website. So whatever's on the website would still continue to be put on the website.

Just making sure that the people who come here to present have the opportunity to be properly prepared to come in and be ready for the planning. That's all. Thank you.

All right. Is the SharePoint site read-only?

For the board members, it is read-write. So you have the ability to look at the data and modify your...

I don't necessarily think that we need the right, definitely the read-only, but from a write security perspective,

I DON'T HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHANGE THAT.

THAT'S WHAT I WAS ASKING. WE CAN MAKE SURE THAT'S APPROPRIATE.

THERE ARE PARTS OF THE, THERE IS A SECOND SHAREPOINT SITE WHERE WE CONTAIN ALL OF THE DIGITAL DATA FOR THE TOWN PRINTS AND DISCUSSION MEETING MINUTES AND THINGS LIKE THAT THAT YOU WILL BE GIVEN ACCESS TO THAT WILL DEFINITELY BE READ ONLY. THE PLANNING BOARD WILL MAKE SURE IT'S READ ONLY FOR THE BOARD MEMBERS. Yeah, just read, I just, yeah. And there are version histories on it, so that if it was modified by somebody who has read write access, the original data is still there as well.

Yeah, definitely make that read only.

All right. Is everybody familiar with SharePoint? Do I need to get with anybody to teach them how to use SharePoint in its entirety from the ground? If you want to reach out to me, jspalding at the town email, and I will be happy to work with you individually. But if you are happy with that, then the SharePoint is there. It's designed to help eliminate paper and be a little bit more efficient.

I may need to talk to you because I've got authenticator and everything through my work. Yeah, they start getting... Yeah, it gets real squirrely when you try to do another...

You should be able to stack up a bunch of different accounts onto one authenticator. I think I have 30 or 40 on my authenticator.

Oh, okay. I hope I don't have 30 or 40 of anything that has to do with a computer ever in my life.

Trust me. I have to scroll a little bit to find the right one.

I'll talk to you about it because I'm having some authenticator issues. By all means. I hate Microsoft, so that could be part of it, too.

I can understand the pain.

Maybe it hears me yelling at it and just decides not to.

That is definitely a... documented scientific case study. The more you yell at your computer, the less it works with you.

Anything else on SharePoint? I do have one other question for you, but anything else on SharePoint?

I've gotten into it and found everything. It hasn't kicked me out, so if I do have a problem, I know where to go.

All right. A little bit of a separate question, but I'm hoping you can answer it as the Cyber Services Director. The town emails. Yes. There's duplicate emails for all of us, and it's absolutely infuriating. Between when, I don't know, it was before Mr. Mulholland's time, we switched from londonderry.gov to tolboards.org. but all the Londonarea.gov emails are still on there. So like, Sean's got two emails, John's got two emails, Jason's got two emails, I've got two emails, that still come up when you go to, you know, if I go type Jake Butler in the thing, two emails come up, and then it turns into the, oh, which one did I click, because one of them doesn't work.

So, Jake, I'm a separate instance because town councilor, so I have the .gov. Mine never changed. Yours didn't. Yeah, so I'm just me.

I just don't want my... Is there a way to just make the moot ones go away?

That may be an artifact of your Outlook account. Because as you use email addresses, Outlook remembers and adds it to your personal address. When you have multiples up there, you can click on one, and usually there's an X over to the side. You can delete it.

Okay.

It will take you some time to go through and weed through and clear all of those out. Okay. THERE ARE SOME ACCOUNTS WHERE PEOPLE HAVE PREVIOUSLY BEEN WITH THE TOWN, HAVE LEFT, WE'VE CONVERTED THEIR ADDRESS TO CONTACT OR SHARED MAILBOX. TOL BOARDS AS A TENANT SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO SEE THE londonderry.gov so what you have is probably outlook artifacts okay um again if you'd like i can work with you i was gonna say i'll if you can just you have my email shoot me an email and we can we can touch base afterwards it's just it would be it would be nice to not have to uh consciously pick every time you wanted to email somebody exactly i totally understand

Send it to the Londonderry Orange email address.

Yeah, exactly.

Those come through still, too. Jeff, you said you had something?

Yeah, no, I was just kind of, yeah, to follow up on Jake's point, and if those addresses are outside of the address book, it's probably, well, no, it's still not at any point, but I don't think they were ever set up correctly to forward to the TOL boards.

That is correct. When somebody exits a role their account their mailbox Gets converted to a shared mailbox and then assigned to whoever their supervisor was in terms of the town council they just kind of sit there with nobody having access for a certain amount of time, okay, and then Eventually they will get deleted When that person is changing a role between... Effectively, the tolboards.org is a different company than the... LondonAreaNH.gov, which is a different company than LondonAreaNHFire.gov, and same with the PD. This is so that if we are ever attacked in cyber breach, none of the different entities would be able to affect the others. It's a firewalling system to limit exposure. No, I get that. So when somebody moves roles, it's just as if they were moving companies. And so their old email address is kept for backup and posterity sake for a certain amount of time. There may be some artifacts causing challenges because you're still able to email that box, but it doesn't really receive anything.

Okay, cool. Anything else? we're good all right thank you sir i appreciate it nice to meet you likewise all right other business b land use amendments and proposed new ordinance discussion with the southern new hampshire planning commission hello sir

Good to see you again. James Vail from Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission. Last time I was here was May 6. I gave a presentation to the planning board about some concepts for new housing typologies. We talked about some of the RSAs that were passed in 2025. And at the request of the board, I was sent home with some homework to develop some draft amendments TO REFLECT SOME OF THE HOUSING CONCEPTS THAT WERE DISCUSSED IN THE PRESENTATION AND TO ADDRESS THE CHANGES TO STATE REGULATIONS OR RSA RELATIVE TO HOUSING. AND SO I WAS OUT OF TOWN FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE BUT BEFORE I LEFT I MANAGED TO GET KELLY A SET OF DRAFT AMENDMENTS FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION. HOPEFULLY THE BOARD HAS HAD A CHANCE TO LOOK OVER THOSE AND contemplate them and critique them. And so I'm here today to answer any questions you have about this. We can do an overview of the amendments that were provided to you. We can discuss them and talk about edits or revisions or any questions you might have about how these initially are drafted.

Before we get too crazy on them, some of these amendments need to be made in order to just keep up with the state, correct?

YEAH, THAT'S A GOOD POINT. SO THE AMENDMENT LABELED MIXED USE RESIDENTIAL, ACCESSORY DWELLINGS, VESTING OF APPROVALS, PARKING MINIMUMS AND ROAD CLASSIFICATION ARE ALL TIED TO REGULATIONS THAT WERE PASSED AND TURNED INTO RSA UNDER SECTION 674. THE STATES.

SO THIS IS ESSENTIALLY US COMPLYING WITH THE STATE ON THOSE, WHAT DID YOU SAY, FIVE OF THEM? ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE?

YES. BUT FOR ONE OF THESE, THE MIXED USE RESIDENTIAL, WE REALLY WENT ABOVE AND BEYOND. to try to define a mixed use condition for commercial districts. So it's not just complying with the law, it's adding architectural standards and building form to the regulation as drafted.

So the mixed use residential, which is a new section, not an amendment like the other four through the state, is that the only one that is not I guess verbatim, if you will, to the state?

It follows the state's requirements. And what the state basically says is you have to allow residential development and commercial districts by right if the applicant can demonstrate evidence that they meet safety, water, sewer, and traffic conditions, necessities for the site. And so all that's baked into the language. On top of that is a lot of language about ensuring that the front of the building that's facing Main Road, Route 102, Route 28, looks like a storefront on the ground floor.

So when you say on top of that, that is above and beyond the state's requirement?

Yeah, so the way the state's language is designed, it gives the towns and the municipalities the flexibility to allow residential in a lot of different forms in commercial districts. And what we've done here is in this amendment is said we're only going to allow residential above commercial, like no residential units on the ground floor. They can only be above a commercial space.

That's what Southern New Hampshire planning is recommending, not what the state is requiring.

Yeah, that's right. It gives the towns the flexibility to make that choice.

Yeah.

I based on what I saw previous meetings in the master planning process. This was my best guess at what you would be looking for.

I think the flexibility is good. That's what we do need.

Yeah, I think. If this makes sense, if it doesn't make sense, tell me it doesn't make sense. I think what I want is something delineating. What's the requirement and what is? What Southern New Hampshire is looking to add to it, I think, is very important for all of these. Any of them that, like I said, we're keeping up with the state here, this one in particular, residential and commercial districts, really getting a side-by-side of this is what the state says we have to do. This is what we're also doing. I think it's important to have a side by side and see the difference between the two so the board has a better understanding of what exactly is coming from the state and what is coming from southern New Hampshire, if that makes sense.

For this particular one, that's pretty easy because the way it's broken into sections, how the zoning, how the amendment language is structured, whole chunks of it deal with the state requirements and whole chunks of it deals with the building form and the limitation of residential.

Okay. Where do I got to go again? The draft amendments, accessory dwellings, parking minimums, road classifications, vesting approvals. Again, these are ones keeping up with the state. We were just talking about the mixed-use residential. Is there anything inside of these four that is above and beyond what the state is requiring, or is there anything in these that are recommendations from

Yeah, for the accessory dwelling, there's some clarification there. Probably the most significant is the definition that the town of Londonderry has for an ADU. doesn't quite align with what the state says. And it's ambiguous enough that you could probably keep your own definition. But I think for clarity and for ease of enforcement by code enforcement, it makes sense to match the definition with the state's definition, which also matches the building code's definition for dwelling unit. So it just makes everything a little more streamlined in terms of enforcement. OK.

But it restricts the flexibility they have now with the current one, right? I'm sorry, I didn't get... The current regulation we have on the books gives the building department more flexibility, correct?

I don't think that... You guys already had a very liberal accessory dwelling unit regulation, and so there's not a lot of change to the effective way that it's set up.

There wasn't a lot of change. Yeah. I'm just saying the way that it's written today gives the building inspector more range of flexibility when working with somebody.

Yeah. I don't know. The amendment doesn't make any effective changes to how the building inspector would work with the homeowner during the ADU construction process. It doesn't really speak to that. But I will say one thing in there that is clarified, and I think it's an alignment issue. is the current language says that you can only pull a permit if you occupy one of the existing units, either the ADU or the home. And so in some very small circumstances, you might have somebody that was building new construction, and they don't occupy either. And technically, they're not allowed to pull a permit for an ADU, but That makes sense. But if you look at the way the state laws, this language says that essentially if you want to build an ADU during new construction, you should be allowed to do that.

Right, which is what they did in Hudson when they built the ones over there.

Okay, thank you.

Anything else from the board?

Are there... From a procedural standpoint, do we want to kind of tackle the low-hanging fruit ones first? I mean, this is going to probably require multiple workshops with us before it goes anywhere.

No, I think it will definitely have – I think it will definitely require multiple workshops. I'm looking for – like I said, in all these, I'm looking for what is the state requiring and then – What is, is there any extra that we're adding in there? I want to have a clear definition of what those are. And if there's nothing, then there's nothing. But you know, outside of verbatim to the state, I want to know what it is, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, and some of those is not like we changed this language to match the state. It's more in the framework of the state has said you must allow this, and so the language is being modified to make sure that it meets the letter of the state's RSA. And so those are easy things for me to point out, and frankly, it'll be a little redundant, but it's an easy edit for me to do and share with you guys.

Yes, I think that's step one. and then going through these again I do think we haven't talked about the we've talked about one new section but I think the other two new sections are gonna require probably a few workshops and I'll be honest with you it's really nothing against the southern New Hampshire Planning Commission but I don't myself do not feel entirely comfortable adding new sections to our regulations without a town planner. That's a little backwards in my opinion. Like I said, it's nothing against Southern New Hampshire. It's just we don't have a town planner. Why am I adding things? You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's totally understandable. This is all at the discretion of the planning board.

Yeah, absolutely.

You guys can sit on this for the new sections. You could sit on this for the amendments, just know that the state rules have already taken effect on all of these RSA ones.

Yeah, and ultimately that's correct. Ultimately, that's what I'm getting at is the ones that are the amendments that involve the state, I think those are fair to keep moving along. um put together what i had requested but the the new sections um i think are uh probably put those on ice for a little bit

Yeah, that's fine.

I think the board needs to give more thought to those, because one of our worst fears is the law of unintended consequences. We want to make sure, because two of them, I can't see all the way what will happen. It's very nebulous. So it's better to sit and study something before taking the move, because usually when you take that move, you've done the wrong thing five years later. I like to avoid things like that because we've made significant mistakes, too, so it does happen. But in the mixed use, I know GB actually stands for Gateway Business, and that is the property by the airport, Pettengill Road. So if there's any commercial there, we prefer, because Londonderry has went out of its way to keep residential growth away from all the airport noise, so...

Yeah, so one of the things that says here under the third. z03 section b applicability says this section applies uh to the applications in the c1 c2 c3 and c4 districts and then explicitly calls out the general business and industrial districts as not being applicable okay and that that stands for gateway business it says right there are

Oh, it does?

Yeah, if you look at the second page in the first paragraph, it says this section does not apply to the general business.

Yeah, I'm saying the name of it because it's not general business.

You're referring to the overlay district?

No, it's the zoning down there is gateway business.

Okay. YOU KNOW, AND THAT'S EXACTLY THE KIND OF THING WE CAN HASH OUT IN THE WORKSHOP.

YEAH, SO GENERAL BUSINESS IS THE WRONG NAME FOR GB.

THAT'S FAIR. RIGHT. THANK YOU.

IT'S GATEWAY BUSINESS. THAT'S WHAT WE UNDERSTAND. THAT'S IN OUR ZONING. OH, OKAY. IT'S ONLY THE GB DEFINITION.

Mr. Chair, I have a question too. Yes, sir. I have a question about the accessory dwellings on 5.18. Maybe I'm just not reading the language correctly, but on part A, it says accessory dwellings shall be permitted only on properties containing and where you crossed out an owner-occupied single-family dwelling. So you're eliminating an owner-occupied aspect of that bullet point, but yet on D, you have the owner of a property containing an accessory dwelling shall reside in either the principal or the accessory dwelling unit. Yes. But in A, it's stating that it doesn't have to be owner-occupied.

Yeah, it just gets more specific as it goes down, but...

So does the owner have to be living on the property?

Yes.

In A, you crossed out owner occupied.

Yep, and moved it down to, where was it, D?

Yeah. It was just confusing because it's almost like it seemed to me that, like, you're saying you're eliminating that the owner has to be even on the property, but yet in D you're stating that, wait, no, he has to be in either one of the, on the property. So... I was just looking for clarification.

I think he's on a just. Really focusing on that it can that it contains a single family dwelling.

OK, yeah, maybe that's you know a little too on the nose.

And then later on you start if you had a I I think I see where you see what I'm trying to say. If you had a duplex, it would not qualify to allow an accessory dwelling because.

It's not the right housing type.

Correct. It's not a single family, so therefore it wouldn't fit, even if that duplex was owner-occupied. Yeah. It still doesn't qualify. I know what you're saying of...

we're removing in a couple areas but we're keeping it it seems to me that we're just making it so it's only set in one spot instead of the kind of over and over again is that what I'm getting at yeah I think it would flow better and answer yours if instead of and it will be instead of a strikethrough it just isn't there correct and then you're not reading it again I think it's the fact that we can read it kind of makes it a bit confusing yeah

It is an important distinction because the state law does allow ADUs in multiple residential formats. So you just want to be clear that single family is the only one you want to allow, unless you guys want to allow more.

No.

Figured as much.

All right. Anybody have any other comments? I would. Yes.

So mr. Chair, I just want to point out two thoughts one on the mixed-use residential and commercial districts I think it'd be really important for the board to provide input to James on the concept of does the board do they want to see a commercial on that first floor or do they care about commercial on the floor because that is a state allowance for this requirement of residential and commercial districts it just so it's important for james and some of this wording to know because a lot of it has to do with what is on this first floor whether or not the board wants it to be commercial or can it be all residential?

So the commercial addition is a

It's an allowance.

It's not required by the state.

No, but it's an allowance by the state that the local government can say it can stay as commercial.

Sorry to interrupt you, Sylvia. It's a little flipped around there. in that the RSA says that the towns have the right to determine what percentage, if any, could be 0% of residential units are on the ground floor. And so in this amendment, it's designed so that there are 0% of residential units are on the ground floor. You guys could allow the entire ground floor of a building in a commercial district to be residential if you want to. My assumption is that you guys want to be more conservative than liberal on this. But I may be mistaken. And so so the underlying comment about, you know, critique and feedback on the language really would be helpful, because I'm to a great extent. I'm kind of guessing based on my experience with you guys and in the master planning exercise. I'm guessing what you want.

We may want to consider giving ourselves some flexibility depending on the need that arises naturally. Like when you go over to Hampton, you'll notice that some of the condo buildings have residences on the bottom floor. Many of them have commercial on the bottom floor. We may run into a particular circumstance in which sometime in the future, maybe not this board, maybe not in my lifetime, but you know,

there may be a need or it may arise that for whatever reason storefronts are not as popular as they once were or it's profitable I would say let's start for the time being I'd say let's let's start with the the draft amendments let's get through the draft amendments first and then we'll come back to This new section once once we've got a couple things off our plate here. So we'll start with the draft amendments. Let's get through those. Then we'll revisit this as a board. Give you some recommendations when we do revisit it. Come with come with what the. You know with what the state statute is, come with what's required by the state and a better understanding of what's required and what we're trying to just add to this. But let's start with the draft amendments first.

Yeah, that's easy enough to do. Just a reminder that in about, well, at the end of, well, about a month and a half from now, I think the contract will end. Now, I haven't checked recently to see if the HOP grant's still going. There's always the potential to do a phase three. So if you guys are really engaged in this.

You say the contract. Talk to me. The contract with the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission?

Well, both. So the town of Londonderry was awarded a grant from New Hampshire Housing.

The HOP grant.

The HOP grant. Yep. And Londonderry then hired Southern New Hampshire Planning as a consultant to implement elements of that HOP grant.

Mm-hmm.

And that timeline is coming to an end. And the budget, frankly, is coming to a close. We still have a third of the budget left, which is a lot. But I assume about a month and a half now and we have to close out the grant. You know, you'll have options on your plate, whether to sit on it, whether maybe there's another opportunity to apply for a hop in the future, try to get certain things across the board by a certain deadline. It's really at your discretion. We're not here to, I'm not going to tell you that it's important that you need to do any of these things because I don't think it's the end of the world if you do none of them. But like I said, I'm just here as a resource. So as you wish and at the pace you want and We'll close it out at the end with a report and you will hand that into New Hampshire housing. I will need a little time to write the report and provide it to you guys to give to New Hampshire housing, so. Probably about a month. Sure.

Mr. Chair also I'm wondering if it would make sense for James to meet with John and so engineering and fire department just to get their input on these as well because there's some things that came up when I was reviewing all this that I thought We want John Trotter's input on this, and we'd like Brian's input from FIRE on this. I think that would be one thing that would also help.

Add value. I think that's fair.

Yeah, I think that would be helpful for us.

All right. Anything else?

Would you also like anything that James has put forward to relate to the master plan recommendations?

I would absolutely like to see that being traced back to the master plan.

Sure.

And I can help you with that as well or consult with you in a very public way.

Anything else? Alright. What's next? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks James. Alright, strategic plan discussion of proposed edits and revisions to the town's strategic plan. where are you mr. Mulholland is that something you're kind of starting with is it just coming to us or you want to provide a little introduction for the board so on and so forth Before we get to kind of...

I guess I don't have too much to add to it other than the fact that Council Combs asked for a number of changes, and we sent it out to all boards and committees and staff to provide feedback. It is scheduled for an agenda item on the 20th of July, the council meeting. It's not scheduled for a public hearing, but it is for the council to discuss whatever changes they choose to make on that and if they choose to approve it. I don't anticipate it will be approved that night, but that's where we're at with it.

I did so I did last night send around and I believe it was added to our SharePoint site this morning just a memo to the board about some of the inclusions I would like for counselor comes and the council to to consider as they're deliberating on the strategic plan it's I VERY MUCH ASSOCIATED WITH OUR RECENTLY ADOPTED MASTER PLAN. I DO, MY UNDERSTANDING, I THINK COUNCILOR COMBS SAID THIS PUBLICLY THAT HE HAD CONCERNS WITH STAFFING AND SUCH. I DO SHARE THOSE CONCERNS AS WELL. DATES CAN BE EXTENDED OR CHANGED. BUT I DO THINK THAT IT'S CRITICALLY IMPORTANT TO HAVE THE ITEMS THAT WERE ASSOCIATED WITH THE MASTER PLAN BACK INTO THE STRATEGIC PLAN SO WE ARE ABLE TO SEE PROGRESS. YOU MAY RECALL THE MASTER PLAN BASIS, THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THAT ACTUALLY CALLS FOR notion that it will be carefully aligned with the town strategic planning initiative so that the longer-term priorities identified in the master plan can can springboard seamlessly from a shorter term from the short-term strategic plan item so we on the committee and this board adopted that plan with that statement in there and i just you know for your consideration kind of if you support me and and the steering committee's work and including those items back into the original The original strategic plan again the end of the day final analysis. This is definitely the town councils, you know kind of plan and you know, I respect that I respect their decisions, but I do want to really really you know kind of hone in on and reiterate the importance of it of of us, you know showing some you know, you know leadership and kind of direction

including re and adding all of these elements back to the plan I guess the good news about a strategic plan is that it's a live document so once they adopt one regardless of whatever it is they adopt falling back on what Jake said about having a planner I would you know say great get those things in but have the planner drive them for the board reintroduce them to whatever, if they adopt them the way it is, fine. If they don't adopt them the way it is, whatever decision they make, have the planner come back through the request of the planning board to drive that initiative and amend the strategic plan so that either way we get what you're asking for. That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, so I would push back respectfully on that in saying that they could just say pending the hiring of a planner to drive this initiative. So then take all the dates out and say pending that? Pending that. I'm not married to the date. I'm married to the action item in the KPIs that are associated with that. If you actually kind of, as I'm sure we've all read, changes to this strategic plan you'll see that some of councillor combs recommendations cut out kpis but kept action items or kept kpis and cut out the action items so there was some inconsistency there i don't think that was his intent um but i do want to kind of you know when i'm reading this and you know a kpi has to be tied to an action item um and if you know if that is not you know present then it's it's incredibly it it really opens up vagueness so my intent is definitely just kind of keeping it there the dates again i agree you know i agree until we have a full-time planner um and you know full-time director of planning and economic development if we still go down that road um THAT I WOULD WANT TO SEE ACTION HERE, BUT I ALSO DON'T WANT US TO LOSE SIGHT OF THAT WORK, ESPECIALLY, YOU KNOW, MY CAUTION, TOO, IS THIS IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE FIRST TIMES THAT A STRATEGIC PLAN WE'VE HAD IN THIS TOWN, SO I'M A LITTLE NERVOUS ABOUT IT FALLING OFF OF THE PLATE And not getting back on. So if I'm.

Let me repeat back so that I understand. Okay. So what you're saying is, is that leave these things in as TBD. Yep. So that they stay in the plan. My thing was is win, win, you know, get it either way. All right. I understand what you're saying. Yeah.

All right. So. guess part of my hesitation on on this whole thing is and and i may have missed it but you know we we have a presentation from town staff here that shows what was removed by counselor combs or that he wanted to get rid of change, what have you. You know, Jeff just mentioned there's KPIs that are removed but action items that are still there and action items that are still there but KPIs that are removed. And ultimately, I guess this comes to the council, but I kind of want to have Ted come in and talk to us. Say, Ted, help us work through your changes. Help us better understand them. See, get Ted's point of view on these things, because maybe they're different than what's up on the screen, but I think it's a very fair request of the planning board, especially given that these are all very much tied to us, to have Ted come in and talk to us. I don't know, you know, Mr. Mulholland, I don't know if that's a request you can make. I don't know. I mean, ultimately they have a meeting on the 20th, so it's going to be up to the council anyway.

That would be a request that if you would like a councillor to speak to you, that would have to come from your body to do that. And I can certainly relay that, but you'd have to do that.

Would everybody be all right with that? Is there any? Yeah, I think that's fair.

I think the more info we have so we know kind of what's going on, THE BETTER, SO WE'RE OPERATING FROM A POSITION OF HAVING SUFFICIENT INFORMATION. I JUST FIND IT A BIT CONFUSING RIGHT NOW.

AND LIKE I SAID, I MEAN, ULTIMATELY, THE COUNCIL MAY VERY WELL APPROVE THIS. AS WITH THESE EDITS OR NOT, ON THE 20TH, THAT'S UP TO THE COUNCIL. I would hope that maybe the council will give us a chance to talk to Mr. Combs. So that would be our request to Mr. Mulholland or Sean if we could get Ted to come talk to us. Yeah, I'll throw that out there. Ask him to come and just walk us through these. Anything else?

Just for the planning board stuff. We don't really care.

I don't care about it. Just respectfully, just the planning board stuff. Yeah, I want to talk about the stuff that's related to us, you know, because obviously it has an impact on our master plan. It has an impact on what we do. So not that I don't care about the rest of it. I just want to hear from Ted what Ted's – Opinion here and why the reason he wants to get rid of what he wants to get rid of so Could do that.

That'd be fantastic Anybody have anything just to be clear so obviously It's in your best interest for the council not to act on the 20th because he won't have time to come and meet with you Yeah, I mean I like I said they the council's well within their right to do act as however, whatever they'd like to do two Mondays from now, but

You know, ideally, I would ask that before they make a decision, they allow Councillor Combs to come see us.

You're asking for that courtesy to be allowed to occur.

And if they don't, so be it. But I think it's a reasonable ask.

Yeah. And if they do act, it doesn't mean we can't go ask for an amendment.

Yeah. No, I know. Totally agree with you. To be clear, we can. Totally agree. We can actually. Theoretically go the next day and say, hey, we want to.

Right. Go. You can request time and we can ask for an amendment.

Yeah.

Yeah, because it's basically what's reasonable and what's going to work for us.

Correct.

So that we can execute it.

All right. Anything else? Motion to adjourn.

Second.

I have a motion. I have a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Have a good night, folks.