Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It's 7 o'clock. Call to order the town of Winchester planning zoning commission meeting for March 23rd, 2026. We'll start off with a roll call. Scott Eisenlark, Jim Perry, John, Peter Marshan, Willie Plat, Rrista Malanca, Adam, Adam Quager, All right. And then next would be the agenda review. Do we have anything to change on the agenda? Anything? Looks like we're good. Okay, we got public comment. Anybody here wants to talk about anything other than what's on the agenda tonight?

What's on the agenda?

All right. So, then we're going to move on to the public hearing. We're going to move to open public hearing PZ-26-4. Adam Terroscei on behalf of Lake Street Development LLC location 108 East Lake Street zone HLB proposal conversion of former nursing home to multif family dwelling residential building with 30 units. Come on up Lake Street. any questions? Might you give us a quick rundown of what you want to do? Okay. So, you know, it's a little bit of a blighted building. We're looking to um the exterior sheeting all the way to the interior. The interior has already been completely uh uh demolished. It's been completely um emptied out wall to- wall. It's an open space right now. Um, we took off all the exterior sheeting because it was all rotten underneath it and we fixed up all the exterior walls. Um, we cleaned up all the grounds already. Um, it was just white and it's just everything was overgrown. Um, and what we're looking to do is to turn this into a 30 unit apartment building in exactly the same square foot in right now.

Okay. Anybody have any questions they want to go first or maybe I missed it. How so? 30 units but um what's the breakdown for bedrooms? Yeah.

So I think seven or eight studios I think there's 19 one bedrooms and like eight bedrooms a mix. There's also a small little management office in there, you know, laundry. We're going to have a little bit of an entertainment area uh downstairs people want to hang out. It's big basement and a little bit of a gym, a couple pieces of equipment. You have any um community space outside?

So, we're going to have a couple of tables set up just uh but it's not really designed for barbecuing or any of that type of stuff. All right. I I went up and go through the property and look at it. Um I I was impressed that you're putting a the fence all around to block the lights from going in people's yards and in their houses. That was all nice. Uh, the only thing that I came up with is from your parking lot over to your main door seems to be a long stretch without any lights. Now, I'm not one for getting a lot of lights on a property. I like to have as little as possible, but it seems like it's from it's just like a long stretch here with no lights because this is your main entrance where the oval is. So, should there be another light there? What do you What's the opinion?

I don't know if you have a lighting plan there. I don't think there's one yet, but we are going to have some perimeter lighting around the property. It's going to be face down, so it's not going to spread. Um, and underneath the portico, there's going to be lights in that whole area. So, I think it's going to be there could be lights on this edge of the building. to provide lights for the for people walking in at night. Okay. They have these RA lights that are very nice that are that focus down and they don't spread too far but they keep they spread from the right and left but they don't spread outwards. Yeah. I like I like the arborites at the beginning to kind of shelter. Now that old

what we want to do is have a good neighbor. Is that old going to be planted with plants or anything or I think it's going to be more like

Okay. So, it's going to have some sort of plants in it. The only other question that I have is for uh electric charging stations. Now, I think you might have to do something about that. Yeah, there is a statutory requirement that anytime you um have a multi-unit building or a commercial one that at least 10% if you have more than 30 parking spaces, at least 10 have infrastructure for charging. Um and so yeah, so we can work with you on that. And it doesn't necessarily mean you have to buy the physical charger to install them. It's more about putting the conduit in for future uh for future use. Is that for when you're building new parking or would this be in a pre-existing parking lot that since they're not big enough?

My understanding is change of use will trigger it as well. Change of use. That's a lot of power. Right. And again, it's it's just the provisions for future. So, you don't have to put the charging in right now. It's just run the conduit while you're in there doing. We don't have to run the wire, right? the existing lighting in the parking area. Is are you replacing the lighting? Okay. So, you're going to have all down facing lighting with all all the new lighting. I think it's down facing now, but I think it's Yes. Okay. I don't It's been so long since it's been lit, I don't remember. They actually have poles. Okay. But being such a residential area, I just wanted to make sure that they have one towards the back or one towards the front.

So, one of the islands removing Yeah, I saw that on the plan. have to relocate for the dumpster clos to make it safe for the people, right? And uh you've complied with all our regulations on the dumpster, which is good first time through. That's great. Uh it looks like the the We have a lot of help. It looks like the garbage truck is going to enter from Rich Street. Is that the plan? Yeah, I would say so. Pick it up and go out on these later. All right. Anybody got any questions? Any John?

I'm familiar with this spot. My questions were about lighting, too, but those have all been answered. Um, and it looks great. Just everything right now. I'm just really happy to see something happen. Very nice to see that. My mother was there till it closed. So, that's all right to say. SC and I was born in a house that was there before right the place was built real old that was built in 65 that

the only question I have I have a friend that lives on East Lake Street and she's in Florida right now and her and her husband really didn't know anything about what was happening to the building. And I was wondering, I mean, 30 units at the end of that street is going to change like the dynamics of that little neighborhood. You know, when you say everybody has at least one car, that's 30 cars in it now. Um, are you considering talking to the neighborhood at all to see what their thoughts are? That's what this is about.

That means the neighbors were notified. As far as I can see, this was a nursing home that operated in the past. Three shifts, cars coming and going, and really there's only like maybe less than 10 parking spaces that have been created. So, and they were created by code. We had to put them and you had visitors in the daytime coming and going. So, we haven't had any people there for a long time. So, it's basically like not much different than it was when it operated. Scott,

uh, do you have to submit a does he have to submit a lighting plan to the land use office? Are you It depends on what the place is before you ask for one. It it could be if the you know, if the commissioner wants to do a condition of approval, I think a lighting plan makes sense, right? It's on record. That's why. question about the lighting. Well, so what would you say for a lighting plan? I mean, if they they do show the lighting on the plan, are you wanting both photometrics? Is that just he said are you looking for what lights are going to be

right? So detail for the lighting fixtures to make sure they're full cut off not just he may submit may or thinking about submitting a lighting plan. I didn't know if it was coming or not because like you said it's already existing. So if he keeps the same lights and moves a couple around I would be happy. But if you look on the plans, there's some that are existing and some that are proposed. So they show us that I was just talking about the ones that are going to be attached to the building itself. Okay. Because there's some parts in the back of the building have a sidewalk building.

I just wanted yes or no on the lighting plan. And if they said no, I'm good with that. I'm okay with a lighting plan. I just didn't know what you meant by a lighting plan. There's different mentioned I didn't know if he was bringing one in. Just knowing we you really just want to know what they're going to put up for fixtures. Yeah, but most of the lighting plan is the same as it used to be. And then he just mentioned about lighting plan on the buildings and I'm sure they'll follow up with that. I'll be good with that. Adam, how tight are you on parking spaces? You guys wish you had more. It's 56 went back and forth a few times. Yeah,

there's 30 units. We have like five or six visitor I think parking spots um towards in the front and the rest are all and they we actually created some spots on the side as you go down towards the basement area because they felt that people go down there and they wanted some spots there as well. So, we work pretty well with the town to try to create that. Our requirements require 53 and they're giving you 59. So, I was I was looking at the the layout of the parking lot and we had pretty good snow this winter. Um, to come in and plow, you are proposing to make this pavement right up against the fence here. Yes.

To come in and plow, I would think uh you'd have to bleed away from the the cars that are parked here. you you basically end up pushing the snow this way towards the right hand side of the driveway. Um, and then you got nowhere to pile it or push it. So, I was wondering if uh if you could give up a few spaces and make make a dead corner, maybe dead corner here. So, you could actually push the snow up into the spots where you actually have some room to pile. So, basically be losing two spots. Yeah, it looks like one and a half each side. I you got some room over here where you could shift these down to the left. Plus on the right and the left, you know, the upper and the lower parts. Yeah.

So, we can also cars aren't there. Um push them up into that area as well. Yeah. With the proposed fence right there pushing still against the fence, you're going to How careful there's not a lot of room. I'm saying on the top and the bottom of Y Street. And the way to do that is to not put a spot there so no one can park, you know. Um, and then maybe move the white light over just a scoch so you don't pile up against the light and end up with a leaning light pole. Snow's getting pretty heavy. If we get 24 in of snow or 18 in, we're in trouble, but I think everyone's in trouble. I just don't see any any spots to to put it. You know, all these cars are going to be parked here and here. You can't get to the open areas.

Well, across the street there's a lot of open land where I mean push it around. Yeah.

We would not push you off the property. That was a quick So just you might lose one spot here, but you could shift this over and then maybe you got a spot over here. You could shift this over a little bit and you create a dead zone for for piling snow. towards the end. Yeah, that's that's all I saw.

You can ask soon as I make sure everybody's hear stuff. You guys are good. All right. So, now we open it up to you guys. From what you're saying, come forward. Identify yourself, please. My name is Rosemary Nanny and I live directly across from the back of the building on Bridge Street. On Ridge Street.

Okay. And I have a couple of concerns. One is that, you know, at least when the nursing home was there, we had cars coming out in shifts. So, it wasn't a constant, you know, thing. And from what I'm hearing, it sounds like both entrances are going to be used, the East Lake Street as well as the Ridge Street, that those are going to be treated equally where cars are going to be coming in and out.

Is that correct? Okay. Um I just want to make you aware of this. Um, when that place was first built, all the neighbors on Ridge Street signed a petition so that there wouldn't be an entrance on the Ridge Street side and then somehow that got changed. I don't know if it was Mr. Goule who was the original owner of the property. Um, and I have brought this concern up a couple of times and been ignored. They claim now they can't find that petition and it had to occur. It had to have had occurred um in the during the 60s, you know, when that place was first built. So, that's my concern because I know there's going to be traffic coming in and out of there and I'm I'm right there, you know, are there going to be trucks going in, any deliveries or anything like that?

Garbage probably is going to go in that way, right? deliveries. Well,

I mean, it's going to change. It's going to change the neighborhood because even the nursing home wasn't that invasive. This is going to be different because we're gonna have, you know, the residents coming in and out there all the time. I'm going to be looking at a parking lot for my So, I'm not really happy about that. And I just wonder why this wasn't, you know, we weren't consulted before and now all of a sudden it's it's kind of a done deal. So, you know, what what can we do at this point? We're stuck.

Jeremy, can you address the legality of them changing this to from from the nursing home to

Yeah. So there was a a a public act number 24143 that came out from the state legislature was signed by the governor back in 2024 which requires that municipalities allow the conversion of essentially dead nursing or convolescent homes uh from that use to multif family residential. Um so we have to do that we have to allow that conversion. Um, I would say that, you know, here these advocates have been close working with us closely to try to find all sorts of solutions uh to to mitigate any neighborhood concerns. Um, you know, looks like it trip generation counts are lower for a multif family uh housing development. We're talking 30 units here. We're not talking about 100. Um, trip generation appears to be lower. I'm not a traffic engineer, but I'm just doing a little bit of, you know, looking at the IT as we sit here. which is the international traffic engineer consult. Yeah, I mean it's it's sort of it's the go-to standard for all of those counts and it looks to be a little bit lower than um conolescent.

How tall is that fence going to be that's going to go around? I mean, am I going to literally be looking out at cars in a parking lot? You I mean you've had a parking lot there for sounds like 60 years. So I don't think that's changing much. Well, anyway, Mr. Chairman, I mean the comments go through you. So the proposed picket fence is that you know you have a height on that chain length. I think yeah,

the stockade fence you're looking at, but there are trees down. Okay. Yeah, stock

we're not against that's that's what it takes. I just didn't want it to look like a a prison, you know? I don't want it to look like it's completely more in cont. So if the answer is putting in some more or greens or we have no problem you know people are going to go through there because after the nursing home closed that was like a road people were going you know cutting through

so do you have a height for the fence? Um it was a regular four or five foot stock fence. It's only going to be like three or four feet high for stockade fence. basically be. So, but again, if you want to screen, you need to make it high and the white on both sides. I don't know if that kind of

I think the greenery might be a better I think so. So, replace the fence with greenery. No, I think they want I think one, two, three, four, five that are over by the Bridge Street entrance. Uh those headlights will be shining directly out across the street into the houses. We put some shrubbery in there to kind of shield the headlights. Oh, the fence. I didn't see the dot line. Okay. Yeah.

So then if you put strawberry in front of that, that's looks better for the neighbors. again also the sh

I mean in the beginning it's going to be separated by a few because if not it'll just it will take a few years for that get all the leaves they blow from the from the lake you know we got that open neighbors. When we moved in, when we first took over, it was April. April or May. It took us two and a half weeks. Two and a half weeks to clean that out. That was a lot of work. But we got to keep that.

It's great that it's going to be used. Don't misunderstand. But I just living right there. I'm going to get the front of those cars coming in and out, you know. So, that section of the building that's up on hill before you can only go through the through the building, but there is a exit door that is on the bank. the bank on the street.

Yeah, those are he's talking about the you got a um a 2 minutes walk and then it's near your electric transformer. Is that the walk you're talking about? We're up on the hill. Yeah. Yeah. That section. What's where's the access going to be for that? There's only is from inside he's from inside. So basically that would just be an emergency. Yeah, it's something like that. So we have two. One is by the generator from the and another one is from east by the courtyard

courtyard in the back that was part of the outdoor tables there. Will the generator make a lot of noise? So we're not going to have that. Hopefully, we used to.

Anybody else got any questions? All right, come up. Just identify yourself, please.

Bob Brown from 124 Street. My question is, ever since the compos home expanded, we've been an ice. You guys have done a great job cleaning up, but there's that tree line right on the road. Now, I don't know if it belongs to you guys or town. There's deadwood falling concept. Now, there's three dead trees in that area. I like to see that at least get I talked to a tree warden a couple times. I've been more he's been up. He said he doesn't see a problem. Last storm we just had, the street was just littered with all deadwood. There's dead wood hanging in the trees.

Do you know if those are your trees or Yes. But there's still on that side on your side. You're right. When you come down the hill where that entrance is, you come down the hill, all those trees right there. It looks terrible. There's three dead ones. There's a big They're just You have to look at them and see what I'm talking about. So, we we cleaned where we saw that we so we do. All right. Would be nice. Are they on the side of the road where the power lines are or Yeah.

In that case, then they're never source problem. They won't let the property owner take down if they're within so many feet of the power lines. Yeah. Yeah. That's I'm just saying that that that becomes an Eversource problem. Talk to Eversource. They said other Yeah. Well, that that's I mean if they try to take them down then they have to get permission from Eversource. They have one of their guide wires. Yeah. Just wrapped around the tree. Yep. I believe it. And it killed the tree. Yep. So, no. I just wonder that's what I just asked that question because it's a problem on your property. You're not going to understand it, right?

No, we can do everything. So, so but this is this is between the wires then I'm going to take a look if we can reveal. Now, what are you putting the sighting back on the building? Yes. How about the block building? Is that going to have sighting? Just be painted. No. So if they're closer to the road, they're not going to be theirs.

Looks like on side of the power.

Come on up where the microphone can pick you up. Our property borders you guys that whole linear street and we're I was just really concerned that we're going to put that many units on our little quiet road. Ridge Street everybody walks their dogs. Everybody walks because Lake East Lake is so busy. So that's a big concern for me is that many people in that quiet little area and we did the coallescent home of people zooming out that back that back entrance on ridge street and one time I almost got hit by somebody at 7:30 in the morning going way too fast so that's that's a concern too are my my hedges border that whole side and they're about 12 feet high so my question is the fence going to go in front of them or do you have a plan What's that?

You're not showing a fence on the side, are you?

So, Ontario Street is that little tiny, it's the right that little area that's a dirt road and our trees run all the way up that line. Back of our property runs there. And would people be cutting through going to the back of our our property and people behind us property? That's another issue. I know there's a lot of There's a lot of kids in the area. When the convolescent home did close, we did have trouble with people going in into that way. And we the conlescent home wasn't a good neighbor sometimes because they would throw garbage in the back of in the back in the back road. And so that's that's a lot of concern for me is having that many people. Are they going to be good neighbors?

Do you think is everybody going to be good neighbors? I hope so. But you're putting a ton of people little quiet street. Well, you know, I know that you're you're you're saying a ton of people, but I I think this was a 57 bed home uh before and we're going down to 30 units. So, I'm not sure that the total count of people living in the building is going to be drastically different between AIDS and and all the different

I mean, I think there might have been 20 cars in that lot at a time. There was never it was never like a super busy conolescent home. The first part of the conlescent was the rest home side and the people there just needed really a place to go. They just lived there and they had a room. The other part was the rest home. Yes, they but they never had tons tons of people and tons and tons of staff. So it was always kind of a quiet little place.

And we did have we did have issues after they closed. After they closed the building flooded the A water man broke in the building. It flooded onto our property and the people that owned it filed for bankruptcy. So, guess who fixed our garage? Us for thousands of dollars. So, I do have a lot of concerns on that kind of stuff because of what has already happened. But having so many people on that quiet road, what kind of landscaping do you have along your I have a private hedge that's about 12 feet high and about this wide. So, you're pretty well landscaped away from the building. But are they going to put the fence? There's no

There's no fence on fence there. So, you're using my edge as the barrier on that side. We don't want it to touch, you know.

Well, it doesn't because we I had trimmed it years ago, but the winter last year there was a couple things touching. So, you guys trim that back. You ask. Yeah, go ahead. But I do occasionally trim it down to keep it kind of manageable. But I leave I try to leave it high just for privacy because when the cones of the home was there those back windows could have gone to our backyard and it was fine most of the time but every once in a while they might have been I don't think there was I don't remember an issue but that's why they're high like that just for privacy on our part on street is is a a dirt road so that you know nobody goes onto the into our backyard unless they get through the hedge. Well, I just hope everything works out for you and for us.

I mean, we're looking to be a good neighbor. Um, if you have a problem with a tenant or someone's getting in trouble, it's important for us to know. Um, well, the whole street is really really quiet. There is there's really no bad members on the street. So, I don't know about I don't know about East, you know, this is on our end, we're a nice quiet little I can't control the driving habits, but the police department, I mean, there should be there's speed limits and there's, you know, kind of like highend renting.

So, we're looking to do that. It's not the highest end rental area, but we're trying to make it into a

Yeah. No, we're trying to make it into It's going to be a nice building. I think you'll be pretty happy with the look of the building, but it is a big building. So, you know, uh, in my, um, in my experiences, I don't think I think 30 units sounds like a lot, but the actual impact isn't always what you you think it's going to be. But one of the things um that maybe you can do uh that's pretty simple just to remind tenants like put up aside be careful of your neighbors or or just you know no speeding. We we've asked for that in other developments. Um and that I think is just a visual reminder that you're entering your neighborhood just you know beware just a little sign for the neighbors that that might be

to to just address some of the concerns. I will put up a stop sign there and Right. That would be great.

You do have stop bars on either entrance, right? Says proposed stop bar. There's bars and signs. We talked about um is there a curb along Ridge Street? Does that have a curb on it or not? I don't think so. Yeah. Do do you anticipate there's going to be parking along that along that road? Is there no parking along it or you on the street itself. Yeah. Uh I've been up there. I It's narrow. I mean, yep. But I haven't seen any no parking signs posted by the town fair. So with an entrance, you know, towards the uh the west side here. I can imagine people park along the road for convenience. Um they can't get in this way. They can't get in.

This is No, this is an out only for emergency. Out only. Okay. That's just like a walking path that goes up a hill. Okay. It's just an emergency exit. All right. Right. We make sure there's a lot of on the property. People will do what's easiest for them.

I don't have you've got 48. Yeah. I mean, you really realistically you're probably at 45, right? Anybody else got any questions? Anybody good? I I thought that was just that it might be a good idea to parking signs on Bridge Street when you come out the driveway and if you go to the right

right because if you have say garbage truck coming out of there you don't want to have people parked on the side that would come from the police department police are the only ones that can designate that but I've already made a note to talk to police department about I'm sure the possibility on both side both sides of the driveway coming out should be no park someone's parked there there'll be an accident, right? So, I'm sure the parking can be taken care of. No parking signs will be meeting with the police chief and the public works to put them up.

And again, I think that that's because I just want to make sure I'm understanding on the Ridge Street side there's the walkway to the top and then the over by the five parking spaces. Those you said were for exit only, right? Those are side That is exit the the the where it says yard drains. That's exit only, right? I can see that. So yeah, we got our drain is nothing. That's not parking. No, but that's an exit only, right? For what? That's an interior. Oh, you mean the door to the building? But people aren't going to be able to right. There's an entrance here.

That is an entrance into the building. And then the main entrance is here. And that entrance over there, is there going to be like is it just for tenants or is there a visitor entrance or do all visitor? That's the main entrance over there. Right. Right. So that's where all the visitors will come. I'm talking about the one over on Rich Street. No, that's for the just for the people that there are. There are three units in the basement. Four changes every day. There's four units in the basin. So that parking is really for the people that will be in the B. So this way they can walk and they can have their ent. They have like a key card entrance that they're going to give. The whole building will be the whole building will work off. So these people

this this entrances here where it says yard drains. You said there's four apartments in the basement. But it's not they can the quiet areas. But will there be an interior way to get to those apartments or only from the exterior doors? Is there like a stairway that goes down to them? is from inside. We have a step before that lower level from there. Okay. So these basically these doors here are basically for people in that far areas to get out of the building. So the reason I'm asking to just make sure you're understanding

for a visitor to park on Ridge Street, they'd have to walk all the way through the parking lot to get to the main entrance to to come in and weren't going to have visitor parking spots, right? So I don't think that's reasonable that they would do that. I think it's more likely they're going to park in I agree. I don't I don't think you're going to have a parking plan here. You've got 59 spaces and our zoning regulations call for 53. So, we're over parked. And we've got 30 units. Eight or so of them are studios. Only eight or two bedrooms. I think you're going to have 30 to maybe 40 cars most here. I agree. Yeah. So, do you do have you done other developments?

And what is your um unit to parking ratio? not that's required by zoning but that you find that you need. So usually the zoning requirements are a lot more than right. Um

it also depends on the neighborhood. If it's more affluent and they're further out then they need more you know then they have two cars. If it's a husband and wife if it's a if it's not as affluent then they have one car. Some people don't have any you know so it's hard for me to say. Um what we did here is we figured that maybe the two bedrooms might need two cars. Um the one bedrooms a car and a quarter car and a half is the way we figured out. So you know most of them will want one car and then the other few that need a second car we have the funds for it. Yeah. I think it's I think it's a reasonable.

So for all what are we going to do about the fence and or the shrubs along those areas that are marked with the fence to prevent lights from going on to the neighbors? Is that going to be a sixoot fence you were talking about? No. No, I think we talked I made a note that we were going to maybe a condition of approval to have them submit a landscape plan that adds strawberry to the Ridge Street frontage. That's what I wrote down. Landscape plan. Landscape plan for the Ridge Street. Okay. And a lighting plan. Cut sheets. Show us what's going to be on for all exterior lighting. For all exterior lighting. Uh,

so if we're going to do that and he's going to bring your information in at our next meeting, do you want to keep the public hearing open so we can discuss it?

They're really not big items, but on the other hand, we have people here that, you know, are interested in it. So, Jeremy, since we can't have a special permit for this, does this fall into the site plan 60-day approval? It's summary review. Well, no, because 87D we opened a hearing. So, we've got time. So, we're on that timeline even though it's not a special permit. We're on the public hearing time. Public hearing timeline. So, the hearing could stay open for 35 days. Is this on the safe side? I I think Yeah, I'm tending to side with Scott about leaving it open. So we what I think we need to do is at least come up with an idea of how all that uh

let's talk fence is going to be. So you can only my only concern is that we're in March. We don't want to complete the building in October, November, which is the slowest time of the year. You won't because we can't vote tonight because we don't have a U draft motion to vote. So, we're going to have to vote in two weeks anyways. So, so we can continue the public hearing. We can close it and then decide that same evening. We'll close and decide the same evening. Yeah, that's no that's no big deal. We're trying to get this moved along as quick as we can. Uh,

so that'll be April 6th our next meeting, right? Um, I think it's the 13th. Second second Monday. Oh, right there. Second Monday. Yes. 13th. Yeah, we started. Um,

we seem to be talking about the stockade fence. We don't ever seem to come up with a agreement on how high it should be here. If I had to say something about it myself, I think it should be maybe a little higher in the parking area than all the way around because you don't want this thing to look like a prism, you know. Uh maybe once you get over to where the lapiers are, pull on the side where you got the uh arbor vites, maybe that can be a little shorter. Um, that's kind of what my feeling is. I don't know what the rest of the board thinks about that. I agree.

But, uh, definitely something to block the lightning from going across the street into the houses across Ridge Street. And I know over here on the marsh property, there's a that's a long way from None of them. Car cars. Car lights. Car lights. Car headlights. Car headlights. That's it. uh you know along the u the side there where u you're going to take all the shrubbery out to overgrew and everything or you where the marsh property is that's there's just the side of the building there basically

couple of different things but I think what we can do is we I'm I'm making notes what we can do is mark up a plan in the next couple days we'll email it over to you You you might want to think about short shorter fence along Ridge Street, right? Like a 4 foot that's high enough to block headlights

and then along the edge that parking lot side like you said, you don't want it to look like a fenced in prison. So maybe on the side there where you don't have any you've got no room on the south side to add shrubbery. So maybe that's a sixoot fence. Anywhere you can do shrubbery, probably a 4ft fence is good. It'll block the headlights, soften the visibility. You know, you'll see more greenery than you will stockate fence where you don't have room to put in shrubbery higher transformer. I don't know how they did that.

Car drove up. This guy gets out. The car took off. I didn't He was inside. He got inside. All right. If we're talking stories, that's okay.

Well, to that point, I think you're going to have a lot less issues with an occupied building with a property management, sorry, than you are with a vacant building. Yeah. Lot less problems. And I think, you know, the cars are not going to be coming and going at all hours of the night. So, I I I'm I'm curious why why don't we want to approve this tonight? Did I miss something? Landscape plan, the fencing. I know, but that was relatively minor. It's just We don't have a draft motion. We don't have

I mean, we can you can do it without a draft motion if the commission chose to. You could do it without a written draft motion, right? You move to approve based on could probably form the motion for you if you wanted to and then put your and put your conditions on it. So, you can do that. I just know that this commission is used to having the motion prepared for you and that's kind of the way we typically do it. But it's up to you. The only uh only ask I can do is so you do kind of know where we're where we're going. Yeah. And u I kind of would be happy with that with Jeremy handling it. Yeah. Because I think it's relatively minor. I think I mean the the

the defense the fence and the shrubbery to me is minor. Yeah, as long as it prevents lights from hitting the neighbors that are sitting. Correct. That's just like we did with screening. Yes. Yeah. Um I think that is minor can be handled by by staff. Got it. Well, just before we do, I just want to make sure that you can present the staff to the lighting fixture so he can comment on them, make sure they're what we want. ing plan

and then uh you know think about putting fixture somewhere so when they come out of the parking lot to walk to the main entrance there's some sort of building light there could cascade over a little bit or something just think about that um and not lessen the landscape plan that you just brought up by Pierre I think it's good the way it is because it goes down it goes down good

so before we close the public hearing the Three conditions that I've written down was to add shrubbery um let's say along bridge street frontage to screen from headlights detail for lighting fixture make to ensure their full cut off and then a fence details um for height and to ensure screening. I have two others that I jotted down.

Okay. signage at the exits just to remind folks to be respectful of the neighborhood as they drive out. And then I don't know if the commission wanted to go with Adam's suggestion of uh knocking out one space in each corner to allow for snow storage on that souththeast and southwest corner of that uh parking lot. I I'd rather see the parking stay and let the guy plowing fill the spots in. Okay. most of the time except if the spaces are there and they need them to put snow in, they'll put them in. I mean, they do it in other commercial parking lots and stop anywhere. They use up parking spots for for a I'd rather see the parking places there for the rest of But I think that's a good question.

I think that was a really good question because if they are used, we still have enough spaces. So, I have one more question. The existing light fixtures, they may or may not meet current code. Are you going to upgrade them to match your new fixtures or what's going to happen? Which pictures are we? You've got parking lot. In the parking lot, they're not operational. They'll be upgraded. Yeah. Okay. That was my only other question. We will use LEDs. None of the workst ambitious people, huh?

Helps you with your demolitions. Well, we didn't need that help. Well, we did need help. They didn't do, of course. All right. Uh, are we all good with closing the public hearing? I'm good. Let Jeremy do the I'll make a motion to close public hearing PCC 26-24. Second. All in favor?

Okay, now we're on to old business, which is you guys. Stay right there. Yep. You're all business now. Yeah. Why don't you do the draft for us? All right. Since you got the experience. So, we're going to add Jeff. Yep.

So, I'm going to make a motion to approve application PZC 26-4 Adam Sercei on behalf of Lake Street Development LLC at 108 East Lake Street. Site plan conversion of former nursing home to multif family residential build building with 30 units as per the approved plan submitted and the following conditions. That a landscaping plan that adds shrubbery along ridge street frontage to screen from headlights be submitted to the land use office and approved. A detail for all lighting fixtures. That's both um the wall packs and the uh freestanding lights be submitted to ensure that they're full cutoff lighting. A detail regarding the fence height be submitted. Um fence height and details to ensure proper screening and that um signage at the exits be be installed to remind um tenants to be um What's the word I want?

Mindful of neighbors. And you had some Jeremy I think. No, I think you've decided against the snow storage infrastructure for the charging station. Oh, yeah. Right. Um, infrastructure for charging stations. Um, and we'll to the extent required by by state law. Yeah. Where would we put we'll work with you on that? Yeah, I'm wondering we'll pick a few parking spots that make sense to us near the light probably at the five closest to the building where your power comes in. You're going to want it closest to the bu closest to the power source. Cut down the expense.

All right. Now, we're trying in this building, I don't know if you're aware of it, but we're trying to use um efficient equipment and we're using heat pumps here because ever It seems like the state is pushing towards I just takes a lot of power you know these take a lot of power charging station upgrade all these neighborhoods power you won't be able to keep up the charging station we're good because this was a a nursing home before had a lot of power to it so we're good in that regard but

actually the public hearing is closed We should quiet now. Anybody want to second? I'll second it. Okay. All in favor? Good to go. Just check with maybe exchange phone numbers or connect with them. Thank you for coming. Thank you. They have to either be or if they have to put them out. They have to come back.

Hey folks, everybody we do the commission has more business. All right. We the meeting we have more on the agenda. If you guys can take it out of the given park here now, then we'll park here all the time. Thank you. You got your work cut out now.

All right. So, we're on to new business. Um review for 820 8-24 review a sale of municipally owned property at 32 Harbor Street, 8284 Rockwell Street, 17 Birdwell Street, and 132 Florence Avenue. Has anybody looked at those or got any ideas? I've looked at all of them. Okay. Um, there's none in here particular. Um, I wish I had I did take some photos and try to match them up to what I'm looking at here.

Yeah, good luck with that. Some looked like um it would be very difficult and uh it might need variances uh to put buildings on them. So, I mean, is the intention for all of these to be sold as to, you know, as buildable lots, but the town wants to get them back off the off the off the town rolls and on the tax rolls. Get them on the tax roll with buildings on. They could be sold to adjoining property or they could be sold to someone to build on. So, they weren't all necessar that was the only question I had. These weren't all necessarily every one of them. Everyone had a house on them at one time. I mean, they are buildable lots, right? I mean,

previously had structures on them, right? They're they're legal non-conforming, and if somebody wanted to squeeze a house in there, they could. I agree with you, John. I think there's a couple. It would make a lot more sense for the neighbors to buy them. But, I don't got, you know, like they say, Hubard's 32 Hubard Street. Uh, there's obviously drainage ements, multiple storm drains running through it that the town is going to have to deal with what they So, that was my next question. So, are they grandfathered in because they had properties on them before? I'm not sure what the answer was.

Yeah. I mean, if somebody came in and wanted to plunk a structure down if they had a survey and they could, you know, show us exactly where the old structure was, they could put a put a house right back in the exact same spot. But again, they're they're they're pre-existing non-conforming lots. So, we can't we can't say no, you can't build on it. Um, it is a it's a lot of record and if they can meet the regulations, they still want

and I think what's important to note is this isn't like the property owner tore down the house and now is coming back and saying, "Oh, I want something like the these I think are mostly were bladed properties that the town took, tore down the bladed situation and left the lot." So,

but yeah, like you said, there's a couple that would be really nice if the neighbors could pick them up and just send them as property to 82 Harbor Street has been talked about potential Habitat for Humanity project. Uh, I went up and looked at Birdsaw, not Birdsaw, Forest, and there's a big rip draft drain swale up there that occupies probably at least 50% of the frontage. Now, what's going to happen with that? Is the town going to have to put a restriction on that swale to stay, or can a new owner? Uh, all I can say on that is I reached out to Jim RS at DPW uh, specifically about that swale. Uh, and he wrote back with no concerns with that, but brought to my attention the um, pipes on the Hubard property.

Um, this was put in to help with drainage. I believe the town did put it in after the demolition. They did. Yeah, they did because they had a severe ice conditions in the winter time where the water was running over and there used to be a wall there that collapsed into the street. Okay. And they removed that and then sloped it. Mhm. At that time, but uh that's when they did put that soil in there. So, I think the town could put a restriction on it or

Yeah, the town could put a restriction or whoever comes in to build would need to have, you know, their southern ros. You know, when the town does go to advertise these for sale, the public works director, if he has concerns or wants to have drainage easement on the property, that should be part of the sale. And that has to be basically when they list the property, that has to be addressed. Correct. Correct. Somebody develops it, they're going to have to they're going to have to develop it in accordance with today's standards anyway. So, they're going to have to deal with the drainage when it's on site, whether it's keeping it as as or re-engineering and re-engineer it, right,

to pipe it into the the catch bases or something else. The only thing I have to say is, you know, sell them, get them done. But let's make sure they stay on the tax roles as buildable lots because if a neighbor buys them and then absorbs it into his property, then it becomes excess property and the taxes are a fraction of what they would be as a buildable lot. Well, I think you know that's a catch 22, right? I don't think we could put that stipulation on there. I think we can. No, we can't. We can't put it on, but I think we can recommend we can recommend that. But now now they're

eliminating the pre-existing non-conforming struct situation by merging it too, right? Which is part of the bid of getting these back on is to create more housing. We can put that in our letter to the selectman that we would recommend that they try to be sold as buildable lots for housing and kept as buildable lots without uh putting the car. We have a regulation that says if somebody owns two non-conforming lots, they have to be merged. I think we do. We can't force them. Yeah. So that would we just have to be careful of that, right? But they have to be connecting to right and under the exact same ownership.

None of these connect. No, but if we sell it to a neighbor, they would and then they would be automatically merged, right? How do we sell? That's that's Isn't that a battle that gets fought a lot? Town auction. No, the town has a realtor contract in place. Who's the realtor? David Sarder. He's under contract at the moment with the town. I don't know how long, but the process has been I mean, they have to come to us for the 824 referral. It goes back to the selectman. Then they have to have a special town meeting for the town town's people to vote on it to approve it. At that time that was last Thursday for at that time they didn't have they didn't have for Bridge Street,

right? They approved one for Bridge Street for sale. They sold for sale but then at that time it goes to the realtor to put it out to advertise it for sale and I've seen them on realtor.com. Okay. So that's the process I've seen. So, we need to take a vote to do these and can we how do we formulate the suggestions to make sure they stay buildable? Yeah, I mean what what we'll do is if you if there's a consensus around the table that that's a a recommendation to the board of selectman. You tell me that. I'll draft the letter. I'll run it by the recommendation. Send it off.

I'll do a I can do a motion if you want. Uh uh I recommend that we draft a letter to the board of selectmen for 824 review for sale of municipal owned property at 32 Hoverard Street, 8284 Rockwell Street, 17 Birdsell Street, and 132 Florence Street with a recommendation that all properties remain to be used for housing and all properties be uh that needed to have drainage easements attached. That puts it back on selectment of public works. That works.

Good with that. Second. You're seconding. Y. All in favor? Okay. We got it. Now we're on to other business. potential regulation changes related to special session PA2-1, the fun and game. So, I know a number of you tuned in to the Hower and Sage uh TYI, I don't know, party that we had last week, I guess you could call it. Um, and so Zoom party.

Yeah, Zoom party. Um, so you're all educated now in what that bill requires of you before July 1. So that's good. Um, you know, as we've kind of talked before, I think your regulations are in a pretty good spot for the most part. There's really not a whole lot that I'm I think you need to do. There are some tweaks that we need to make in order to comply with the with the legislation. And so I put those into my report to you, just kind of what Jeff and I have been kicking around. um you know but but uh we were in a little bit of a vacuum uh on Thursdays and in the office as we kind of talk these thoughts through and so now we're bringing them to you now you you know you had a chance to kind of listen in understand the legislation a little bit more so I'll just kind of go through them one by one um there's a provision in there uh that you have to allow middle housing and mixeduse development uh in your commercial zones and so you have two commercial zones center town gateway um you already allow multifamily dwellings with a special permit in those two zones. We we said mixed use is a special is a site plan rather in town center but mixed use could be any number of units and so uh middle housing is defined in the statute as two to nine units. So, I think the way to deal with this here is break it out into its own use. Um, we'll we'll create a middle housing definition. We'll put that in the definitions chapter. We create some standards uh for middle housing uh with regard to site design, lighting, parking lots. Again, kind of keeping in mind that this is going to go into your commercial zones uh as opposed to residential areas. Um, and then add it to your uh use table as a as a site plan use in the town center. gateway. Um statute says it's summary review, which

is essentially site plan plus um and so you can you can really have some some design standards there. You heard Mark Brandt kind of talk about that and um and how you can really have a prescriptive regulation that talks about what those standards are on that on those sites. So that's a way to handle middle housing. Um, I'm just going to run through this and then we can talk if that's all right with you. Um, mixed use development. Same idea here. It's defined as 10 plus units. Again, we already allow this as a site plan in the town center zone, so I'm really not worried about it at all. We don't have to do anything there. Um, I think we need to add it in the town gateway zone. Um, we can do exactly the same as we're doing in the town center. If you want to do residential on the first floor, could require a special permit. Otherwise, it's a site plan use. Um, and we'll we'll develop standards for those uses. Site design, lighting, parking lot, you know, all all the same stuff that we're talking about for middle housing. Um, parking, as we discussed, um, if you are fewer than 16 residential units, if you're a development of fewer than 16, we can no longer require a minimum parking count. Um, if you're over 16, we can. The caveat to that is you can't require any more than one space for a studio or a one-bedroom apartment and no more than two spaces for two bedrooms and above. Um, town center, you already don't require parking, so that's easy. We don't have to do anything. Use table out in the residential areas. We just have to kind of fix that town gateway. Of course, if we're if we're talking about residential, we've got to we've got to change the parking standards in the use table. Um you the legislation does allow you to create what's called a

conservation and traffic mitigation district. That's an area where you can require um minimum parking standards. You can have two of those in your town and each one can be no more than 4% of your land area and they can abide. So you can have an area that's essentially two of these things side by side that covers 8% of your uh land area. What Jeff and I have been talking about is perhaps the town center residential makes sense as one of these mitigation and traffic uh traffic mitigation districts that's kind of behind here and on the other side on the other side of Willow. They mostly are made up of narrow streets that really don't facilitate on street parking. the town can continue to enforce its parking requirements. So if a street is signed as no parking, then it's no parking. Um, so somebody that decides to build an apartment building that goes from, you know, property line to property line, their tenants are going to be kind of out of luck. So most likely people are going to want to build parking anyway if they develop in that area. But, you know, I think the TCR makes sense to create one of these mitigation zones. you can you can require parking. It's an area that's kind of high density residential already. Uh streets aren't really great for parking on them. So, I think that makes sense. Um and then you might want to consider some minor adjustments to the town center residential boundary to kind of facilitate that center street. Some of these other areas that are town center zone have been converting from mixed use to residential. We just did one across the street here at 25 center. We I had one come in. I'm all screwed up in which direction I'm facing. That way. Bowen's right. Uh that whatever somewhere over in that general area

outside of Well, Bowen is the post office over there. Yeah, the post office is over there. So, Bowen Insurance is over here, right? So, that that building was was going to come in for conversion. She walked away because of the cost of doing it, but we're already seeing some of those things. So, we might want to think about a zone boundary adjustment there to focus commercial on Main Street and and get it away from sort of what's already residential area. Well, basically you're talking about the town center zone. Yeah, we're talking about town center residential versus town center, but and I can pull in that.

So, so those are kind of our thoughts in terms of how we can make some adjustments with any regulations to comply by July 1. But I wanted to just sort of open I'll be trying to do the all the town center and residential. We've got several different spots around. So, we're just Yeah, you do. I'll throw that.

Oh, we're just going to look at, you know, what's on the north side of Main Street. And I mean, I think you could look at I think you could look at both, honestly, because those streets that are on the other side of the river are pretty darn narrow, too. Um, on this map, the gold color is the Town Center residential, the red is town center, and then the sort of pale yellow. Yeah. So, the like the dark yellow is town center. We didn't put those out yet, did we? We keep changing everything. I know. If the legislature would stop messing around with 8-2. I know.

I like the goal better though. Does look better. I have a couple. Can I jump? So I um the middle housing 2 to9 units town center town gateway I think you're right on up with you know making it safe plan town gateway the one thing that I I think that maybe we should consider different standards for especially in the town center zone is well how do we conversions and how do we what do we put for standards versus a new build?

Yeah. So, we've been having that discussion amongst the TYKI group as well. Um, and we are actually like as of Friday, we sat down as a group, myself and John and Mike and Rob and and we're having that same conversation. And what we're trying to do is put together standards for sort of all of those things, conversions, duplexes, triplexes, quads, multiplexes. Um, that we can sort of one side because we have to do this in so many towns, we're sort of trying to create a model that we can roll out to each of the towns. Um, and so I guess what I would say is we're working on that. But some some items that would what we would try to focus on is taking those that commercial look and making it a little bit softer and a little bit more residential. So if there's front field parking, trying to landscape that a little bit. if there's awnings and that sort of thing on the front of the building, removing those, you know,

would you want to do that or do you want it to stay that commercial feel even if it's residential? And I think that's a town by town decision. Yeah.

So, so I would just say as we look through that, I think we have to look at the town center and the town gateway separately. And specifically in the town center, I think um we want I would just say like a conversion to keep as much of the historic front as as possible to keep that consistent downtown look. Um so looking at what those standards look like, that was my first comment. Um so this is only in our commercial zones. So, um, P and I, you're think you're saying that's industrial and we're kind of leaving that as

the struggle that we're having is that if you when we've had this conversation with Mike Ziska and some of the guys at Howerin's Agent, their feeling is that commercial is everything that isn't residential

and that it would potentially include PNI. Um, my concern with that is I think if we create the standard and someone comes in for an application, we may be forced to approve it, but we'll have a standard to fall back on. My concern, and it's not so much of a concern with this town because you're at 10% affordable and uh we don't really have to worry about E30Gs. I don't know if we've ever had one. My concern in general about that is if we advertise that now we allow housing in our industrial zones that opens it up to 830G applications. That's going to be problematic in other communities. And if the interpretation that Hower and Sage is giving us is incorrect, which I'm not suggesting that it is because those guys are top

top of the line. But if the legislature clarifies that language, which is really what it comes down to is it's not clear. Yeah. If we put it into our industrial zones and then the legislature says, "Oh, no. We mean commercial is commercial. industrial then we're kind of in a funny position. That's something we've been kind of talking about too and what does commercial mean and you know does it so do we have to look at the Highland Lake business district? That was going to be my next Oh, I did forget about HLB. Yes. So all of what I already said about TG and TC has to be put in Highland. Not that there's much. But I but I think I think you know so this is also new, right? And so I'm going to say

I'm going to say what I think, but that doesn't mean I'm right.

I would be willing to document the record that that we're we feel and if maybe we can get a opinion or something that talks about the difference of industrial versus commercial. And I I really I just don't feel that residential is suitable for industrial properties. And I also feel like communities need places for people to work and if we use lose all of our industrial zones, people aren't going to have places to work. So I would be willing to push the envelope a little bit on that from a regulation and if we get an application or an inquiry then maybe kind of look to address it. Um because I think the intent of the legislation was not then if it meant industrial it would just said all properties.

Why did they why did they say commercial? Right. And so I don't know how we feel about testing that limits a little bit. The problem we have here is we have so little in and I agree with you. I think we added in our use table to the business zones the Highland Lake business town center and town gateway. we leave it out of the PNI zone. I agree. And if we get an application, then we cross that bridge in Canada, we'll have the standards set to fall back on. I you know, the likelihood of that probably pretty slim, but you know, I but I agree. I'm willing to kind of push the envelope a little bit. All right.

That's why I didn't even bring it up. I sort of left P and I out of my discussion. I know, but I you know you know has there been any discussion of potential environmental justice concerns about housing in the industrial areas again internally? Yes. Yeah. I mean that seems like a disconnect there. I agree. Okay. Yeah. And for all of those reasons. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense.

It does not make sense. you know, and we we have an opinion from Mike Zisa and his kind of his thought process as to how, you know, the folks in Haler and Sage got to we think commercial means everything that's not residential based on case law and based on other language in the statutes and based on a whole host of reasons. But I just think it's a misstep by the by the legislature. Just like we don't know how to deal with housing developments that have exactly 16 units. We don't know if we should treat them with parking or without parking. I think air on the side of caution and why will maybe so um to flip a coin

don't allow one period. So, so you're going to define middle housing mixeduse development from two to nine units and then are you going to define it for more than 10 to change the parking standards? Is that what we're going to have to do? So, I think our I was looking at our parking standards aren't compliant. We require No, they're not compliant right now. Right. We need to adjust that. Um, middle housing we'll have to define as two to we'll just use the definition that's in statute and then two to nine and 10 plus two large and small. All right.

My impression too from that meeting was this is not all edged in stone and they were waiting for feedback from people like us that that are in the trenches and they said you know things could change based on the feedback that they get if if I was understanding it correctly. that we're a big part of the pushing this in the right direction. So I think stuff like this is exactly what they want to hear.

I think you're right and I think you know I know that uh Connecticut chapter of American Planning Association that you know our organization and our our one of the partners of my firm. John is is the government relations uh chair for for the for the chapter and he'll be up at the legislature as we get into spring session and you know dealing with some of the holes in this bill is one of the key priorities at least for a number of organizations including ours. So we're hoping to kind of fix some of those things and including the Connecticut COGS.

Right. The COGS. Yeah. So my last comment on the conservation and traffic mitigation districts, I in general agree with your idea that the TCR maybe should be looked at that my but I I would like to do it in maybe more of a methodical way and I'd be help happy to help with data. You know, we want housing in the TCR. I think there's a lot of redevelopment and they're going to have a lot of units, right? And a lot of units would already have parking there. But the concern would be that they come from two units to nine units and then that overflow parking in my mind. Yes. parks on the side streets, which is a traffic issue, but it also bleeds over to take up the demand for the parking at the town center. And so what do we and we which we all know is limited town center. Um but we don't want to stop commercial development or anything that would otherwise be allowed because now it's adding parking. So, I don't really know exactly what I'm thinking, but I think we should look at where there is or potential for public parking options like back back here in some places. So, maybe Center Street isn't the right place because there's parking potential, municipal parking potential. Um, but we don't want that parking to overflow into a commercial. So,

I want to do I want to I want to walk around a little bit and look a little bit at these lots and just to see where does that make sense because I agree, but I just want to make sure that we're doing it with some some thought because town center, that's our downtown. that's our like bread and butter and we want housing around it. We want people walking. We want that vibrancy. We don't want to stop businesses from coming in, you know, and and but we also, I think, have to see what's the potential for some of these these big developments and what that impact could be.

So, I see this as an opportunity to pick up something else we've been talking about for a long time with our sidewalk infrastructure. Yeah. uh and really put the two together and you know implement a plan to maybe delete sidewalks on one of the sides for tertiary roads and you know that kind of thing. Um so yeah, I think a walkabout and some documentation is is a good idea. Yeah. What's going to happen over here? Yep. The bar grant. What's you know looking at at that just to make sure we don't inadvertently do something we don't need to. I don't know how easy it is to reverse a conservation.

I suspect it's I mean if we create it, we have to um notify OPM. They don't approve it. They just have to be notified. I think reversing it is just a regulation change. Yeah, I don't think there's much to it. And would it be everything within the bounds or

Yeah, it would be everything within the bounds. If you created one of these districts, you could regulate parking within that district just like you do today, except with the caveat that you can't require any more than one parking space for a studio and one bedroom, and you can't require any more than two parking spaces for a twobedroom and up. Then the other thing is you have to in a conservation and mitigation zone and anywhere else where you can regulate parking for those units, those those developments that are 16 units or 17 and up. Yeah.

Um, if the developer comes in with a uh parking needs assessment that shows that they need less parking than what you are requiring, then you can only require the number of spaces that their needs assessment shows.

So, you know, they still have kind of the upper hand, if you will. Um, most reput reputable builders are going to put the amount of parking in that they need. so that their residents have a place to park because people can't park their cars. They're not going to want to live here. So, the area that I I think would make sense is anything from Center Street back from Chestnut Street over to Elm Street because that's where you've got the most these buildings could that could be changed into something. And if Eversource ever decides to sell that piece of property down here,

I've been asking. Well, you never know. You ask and you ask and ask. Maybe someday they'll say, "You want to buy it? They don't want to clean it up." No, just they don't want the expensive mitigation. But, you know, you have all that section there that could stand to be redeveloped and u with all the u things I've been reading in the paper with all these developers moving from Texas and wherever California to come into Connecticut now that maybe we need to get ahead of this for that area.

Do you guys have a lot of interest demand coming into your office? for multi-unit developments. I'd say it's starting to tick up, but it's it's not we're not being inundated. We're seeing some interest. I mean, you know, 108 East Lake, we've got other conversations that are taking place

and even smaller developers. Uh there's potential for a new residential on Theobalt. Um one of our local landlords recently bought two adjacent properties. Uh and he's been in touch with us a little bit trying to figure out what what are these new rules going to be, you know, so he's already trying to think that through. Uh with him, I was concerned that he might want to maximize his building and not have parking. And I was pleasantly surprised when he shared that he's really interested in trying to buy another lot across the street to address the parking. So I think he's, you know, like Jeremy said, any good developer is going to want to have that available anyhow. Yeah.

So I was I was happy to hear that, but we'll we'll see when we finally get there.

That lot that's for sale by the town, that's what Oak Street, I think it is down near Tedros Pond. Mhm. Has anybody ever come in to ask about what they could do with that Walnut? Yeah. Huh? Walnut. Yeah. Walnut Street. Walnut Street. Uh, no. Uh, a large lot. That's a large lot that's just begging to be developed. Which one is the town? I know where Tetris Pond is. Well, just before you get to Tetris Pond, before you start down the hill on the left where they tore the house down, it's a large large nice flat lot. It's just begging for something. City water, city shore, flat lot, utilities are there.

I know one party who was starting to look at it, but I don't know what happened with that. All right. So, you're going to put together some stuff for us? Yeah. I mean, if if the commission's interested in me putting some stuff together, we'll start to do that. We need to move forward, especially with that parking issue. Okay. So, I have a question. I don't remember what it's called off the top. I was trying to look it up. In the statute, it allows for a priority development area or something along those lines.

It's one of the It's one of the uh transportation oriented development things. Yeah. So, as we're like thinking about Wall and Hill and some of these bigger lots, does something like that make sense? from a funding standpoint, from a procedure standpoint, it might um let me look at that because that might infrastructure dollars. Yeah. And they do. I mean, those right all those little pieces, all those carrots that are in the bill come with more money. Yeah.

Um and that might be something we might want to think about. I've been focused on the sort of the July one deadline on this stuff, but it's a good point. We should certainly look at that. Yep. I figured we would try to identify places that we want infrastructure to get to and sort of back in that we want housing there as well. Wall is going to it's going to work itself out regardless of whether we call, you know, whatever this term is. Um, but it might bring additional funding to help. Oh, sure. Make that project more feasible. Yeah. And make the approval easier if we do the upfront work.

All right. Moving on. Item number eight, approval of minutes. March 9th, 2026. I make a motion that we approve the minutes. Second. And all in favor? Okay, now we're on to number nine. Communications. I've communicated. Maybe. Anything from you, John? Nothing. Okay. Anything with the trailer park? See anything that coming in from there at some point?

Uh, we haven't heard from the owner in a little while. Uh, as you may be aware, he did get the mainway auto signed down, which is something that we requested he do sooner rather than later, uh, just because it's a violation in and of itself. Uh, there is a, uh, property line dispute going on between the neighbors. I won't get into details there, but heard or several issues there. So, that may or may not be slowing down what we hope to get in here because they need to solve those issues. Um, but selfishly it's kind of good because those were some of our issues. Uh, so if he's forced to fix it, then it's less for us. Are helping us. Exactly.

I So the is the mobile home park allowed by our regulations or is that a pre-existing non-conforming? I thought that pre-existing pre-existing grandfather. So how can it expand? Because isn't that two lots? So he has historical proof of was it two or three? Three. three additional uh homes were there. So, he wants to bring in those three to get to his maximum historical count. Uh I don't have the record. I think I think late 50s through the 80s. Are those slabs gone? The slabs are gone, but the electrical stansions were there. Um the sewer connections are there. There's a couple other things that are still remaining.

So, and what has it been used for since the 50s? Did he use it as part of the main way business or No, they're just sort of parking areas for the tenants back there. We can't really say they were abandoned. No, we can't really say that they were abandoned. And I think if I mean, if he follows through with his plans um to bring those couple extra units in there and fence off and do the uh do the uh landscaping he's talking about, um I think everybody will be pretty happy with it.

So, it's only three units. Yeah. And the units themselves are part of his beautifification plan because they will be forward and the first thing you see rather than some of the older units uh that conjunction with planting and fencing and everything else. They'll they'll be behind where the building was that they tore down or is he looking to put them out? No, they'll be be behind there. They'll be behind there, right? They won't be on on the gas station property. No, not not going to be that far forward. Okay. So, and they'll be fencing and planting across there. He's uh talked about a a nice sign. Uh what's the what's the plan for where you guys know Main Way, but it used to be a gas station. What's the plan for that property? The gravel areas. Yeah,

it'll be grass. Yeah, he's talking about arborites across the front there to kind of it'll they'll arise be set back a little bit. Um but yeah, it'll just sort of be a landscaped area. So, when do we make him comply with the regulations on the dumpster? So that's going to be part of that too. We Yes, he's got his application in for the additional units and he knows that he needs a survey first before we can issue that permit and so we're waiting for that survey and that's where the property comes in. So the dumpsters will have a permanent compliant location. Uh the male facilities may get adjusted in that area too because you know he's got some room to work in front his properties

ideally. Yeah. We won't be able to approve it otherwise. Um, we used to get a monthly report on infractions and actions taken by the building enforcement officer. That kind of went away. Is it possible to get that started again? Yes. Uh, in what form? Let let me think about that a little bit. I doubt it'll be in depth as it once was uh just based on workload, but we'll get you something. Okay. Keep in mind too, you can always look at all that stuff online these days. You gota go figure out what what where it was and go look at it. Yeah, I mean you can Does that come with a tutorial?

I I can give you a quick tutorial right now if you want. Um but I mean you can you can just what they're all code, right? It's all code dash. So if you go into open gov and you do a just a search in the search bar of code dash and then the year 26-1, you'll get that one too. And you can you can expand that search out. You could do it by property. You could do it by um number code in. Yeah. Code dash 26 dash and then whatever. Okay. Start with one. That's where we started January 1st. And I don't know what we're up to right now. I haven't got that experienced in there. Yeah.

Yeah. So, it's um it's probably, you know, and then if you if you have specific questions about a specific property, it's probably easier for you to go and just search that property than asking him because he won't remember when we come to a meeting, but the system will have it all in there. Remember some of them. He'll remember most of them, but you know, the the freshest data is going to be in the in the system. Okay. Now, the vape shop with the balloons, we're sending a letter. And

can you hand deliver a letter? I hand delivered a letter today. Uh I expressed my displeasure because it was the third time visiting them and providing providing them with the uh full set of signage regulations. Uh I noticed on my way back in from uh Torington Court this afternoon that some of the issues had already been resolved. The balloons were still there. Uh but I let them know if it was all not taken care of by tomorrow that that notice of violation was going on the land records and we were going to go that way. So, can you issue $150 fines?

We don't have an active citation process, so we do everything through the violations. Um, I'm back and forth on that. I I like the idea of being able to go hit them right there. Um, but we would need to set up the citation hearing board and everything else. So, it's something that we may want to look into in the future, but it's not an overnight switch that I could pull. And I'll need a ticket book because it'll be well used.

No, we we did that. And you might have used that, too, Sky. We did that in Torington. And I had a form letter that had signage that wasn't allowed. I would write the name and the address at the top and write notice of a violation, date compliant. If not compliant, fine to be issued. And it was like the letter was already done. It had pictures. I would just send it out. And people were afraid of that $150 fine. Well, they don't seem to be afraid enough of the $100 fine. But I feel like if I appear in person with a, you know, here's your fine today and I'll be back tomorrow if you don't fix it. It's easier than getting a letter and saying they'll forget. Well, they know that you're not going to do

but in that location, that person's a renter, so it goes on the property owner. Yeah, which that's true too based on his violations in Tom. Yeah, he doesn't care. That's the fire marshal. I know. Okay, but another tool in the tool belt might not hurt. Just just as a Okay, before we adjourn item number 10. Oh, no. After after the adjournment future public hearings. So, we're going to have uh No, just a question. The one in May is at the Angel Town meeting at Gilbert that day where they do the budget hearing.

I don't know. May just want to check between now and our next meeting so we can reschedu that. But do you think that's a conflict with the May 11? Yeah. I'm not sure if the selectman is meeting at Gilbert for the annual budget here hearing that they have to have the town's people. Okay. In the past, our meeting has conflicted with when they had that with that. Yeah. All right. We've tried to cancel our meeting. So, we may want to if we have to uh set another meeting date or or what? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? No. No.

No. other things. I got to check my phone. You could always call

special months and then dies. comes up and dies. We can run over. Yes. You know, it's easy enough to do. Give a give the number. Give the address. How about if you have like a

question? What are they going to do? Well, you all direct I'm 5 minutes past my estimator. Not bad. I said 8:30. Not bad.