Planning Board - Regular Meeting

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All right. All right. Um, welcome to the April 18th public uh meeting to review the proposed enhancements to the land use ordinance. Um uh these planning board approved recommendations are the result of uh many months of review and deliberation. Uh they've also been um reviewed by the select board and uh we've also had two previous public information hearings on these uh proposed ordinances. Um, in the handouts that are available tonight, uh, there's a summary, um, in of three categories that eventually will be on the, uh, town warrant during the June, uh, town meeting. Um the categories are um one um minor policy updates, two administrative updates and both of those have been developed to eliminate uh confusion, improve efficiency and address many issues that the planning board has experienced during the um project review process. Uh the third is the codification process of the land use ordinance which was um an editorial and legal analysis. Um identifying typographical and grammatical um errors as well as correcting outdated sections that were not in compliance with state law. Um in a moment I'll turn it over to our town planner, Mr. George Stardes, to give you a presentation on each of these. Um, but just to go over uh uh kind of the the process tonight. Um, I'll open public comment during each uh presentation. Um, then I'll close public comment. Um, after closing the public comments, the um planning board will

discuss um what we've heard. Um and then after all three of those are complete um the public hearing will end. Um our goal is to uh give a final present a final recommendation to the select board on April 1st in two weeks. Uh the select board will make a uh hopefully an approval of the final draft and warrant articles. Um that's scheduled for April 14th. Um and then um we the last public hearing to explain the proposed amendments will be on May 20th or proposed to be from May 20th. And at that point, no changes will be made. It's just to let the public know um what to expect during the um pound town meeting. Um and then lastly, the town meeting votes on the warrants one, two, and three. Uh uh some other ground rules. Um I just ask that if you stand up to provide any comments or questions, uh please state your name and your address. Um just raise your voice, speak clearly, and uh don't interrupt others. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Thbars to uh take us through these.

Okay, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, and members of the public, I'm going to walk you through a summary of all of the proposed changes in the three different categories that Brian uh just outlined. And just to recap what he has mentioned, the town does have a professional uh digital code specialist working on uh converting the current paper version, PDF version into a digitized version that will make it more accessible to the public and make it easier to keep track of all changes that are made over time. It'll be crossindexed. It'll be cross-referenced and it'll be much more uh effective as a as a document for the town to use. The consultant did go through a complete analysis and uh you know this original ordinance goes back to the 1970s probably and over time it's been updated and updated and there just a lot of typographical and grammatical errors. We we actually narrowed the list down to 100 changes. So certainly we're not going to go over all of those dramatical changes tonight, but we just wanted to let you know that that is part of this process. And as Brian said, the the planning board is looking at this as an opportunity not just to get a better ordinance, but also to try to address some of those issues that have come up in the administration of the of the ordinance over over time in project reviews. Um, and just to clarify, there are no minor policy or administrative changes that are being discussed in that codification piece. The board intentionally pulled out anything and you can see the type of policies that we're going to be discussing here tonight. So, those are being done as separate warrant articles and the codification is just to fix the new ordinance. Uh and then as Brian said, the uh board held two public information

meetings last fall. Uh changes have been made since then. Subsequently, the board has looked at this multiple times. And so it's been through a very long thorough process and obviously um the the goal is to have something that works for the town and the people that are going to be affected by it. So as Brian said, we're having this public hearing tonight where changes can be made. Uh after this it goes to the select board. At that point they start printing the warrants and everything else. So at that point uh it's locked in and you cannot make changes at the town meeting on any of this language. So to take you through the first of the seven minor policy issues. Uh most towns have provisions for creating a single backlot. In uh the current framework the code officer as in most towns can approve those. you have to have a 5 acre uh back lot as well as a 20 foot road currently. So uh the other problem with the current ordinance is it mixes what in most towns are known as private ways serving multiple back lots. It treats those under the same regulations and it really causes confusion. So this separates it puts a clear separation between single back lots and private roads that serve multiple lots like a subdivision. Um it would um so in the process of reviewing those multiple back lot access roads currently the authority and responsibility is divided between the code officer who approves the lots from a zoning standpoint the road commissioner who approves the road and then the uh planning board under the ordinance has to approve the maintenance agreement. So for anyone trying to do one of these, there's like three hoops I got to go through and it's confusing for

applicants as well as board and staff as to whose responsibility is what. And so what this proposes to do is take those private ways, the way most towns handle them is the planning board approves all parts of it with input from the other staff, but there's one decision-making group that approves the private way. Pretty much the standards will stay all the same. So this is really just uh modifying the process by which these things that are currently in the ordinance are handled. So that's the first minor policy issue and and assume that you want to take public comment on that if there is any at this point.

Yep. I'll open public comment now. My name is Jon Perry from IW. I'm new to this whole thing and I got a lot catching up to do. Um is there any documentation online currently for this or are we waiting for the whole thing? Everything is online right now. Is it online on the town website? Correct. With the summaries and the actual text that helps.

I'm Tammy Thatcher. Now from Harmony Acres, I see that you um are proposing reducing the single vat lock access from 20 ft to 16 ft. I'm here to request the board consider reducing what I'm going to call family property from 20 ft to 18 ft. Several years ago, several of us residences after doing a lot of research and consulting several professionals, we created a family back lot that went to town meeting and was approved. Unfortunately, that was taken away without my knowledge. I did not stay on top of things. Um, some concerns are being able to pass two cars in a driveway, fire department being able to access. I can tell you that we can um, two cars can pass very easily. We've had a fire truck up there a minimum of six times. I can tell you that's not a problem. Other than that, I don't know what other concerns there could be and why a driveway like ours would need to be 20 ft wide, which is like a subdivision road. We are not a subdivision. We are not developers. We're a family just trying to utilize our property. And unfortunately, with those standards in place, um I have a couple siblings who have not built out there yet. My parents bought the land in the early 70s with the intent of us being able to build out there. Two of them will not be able to because the amount of money it will cost to bring that road up to town standards

or subdivision standards is just financially impossible for them. So I'd like to throw that out there and ask you to please consider that for us. Can I ask a clarifying question on the comment? Um, you're asking for it to be decreased from 20 to 18 and are you talking about the uh single backlot access or single which

would be I guess what you guys are calling a multiple back lot now. We used it you there was a family back lot that was created that was gotten rid of. So, I think that they put it all under one, but we don't meet any of those standards right there to be lumped in with a subdivision at all. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other public comment? Okay. All right, the next minor policy issue is nonconforming structure expansions. And this typically deals with a situation where a house is built very close to the line. And currently, uh, most towns have a a more straightforward way of dealing with that. Basically, if you're not increasing the nonconformity by building closer to the line, then you're allowed to expand meeting the setbacks. Uh under this ordinance there is this process where the planning board has to review it and they're limited to 30% and it's treated as a conditional use like a business where the planning board goes through a series of determinations to make sure it's not going to cause traffic problems, drainage problems, public health problems, all things that really don't apply to a single family residential expansion. And so um and then they can go over that with a board of appeals approval. So this system that was put in place many years ago. It's very confusing. It it really doesn't it's not designed for a rural town like Durham. Maybe in Freeport, those very dense neighborhoods, something like this might make sense and it was copied and pasted from some community like that. So the proposal here is to remove that confuse those confusing provisions and simply have the expansion of residential structures that don't meet setbacks to uh be allowed without a planning board approval of the foundation location which is another uh antiquated uh un unreli unrelated um from Shirland zone it comes from actually. So, this would allow the code

officer to approve an expansion of a single family home that has that's currently three feet too close to the line as long as it's not going to encroach any further on that. The other provision in here, the planning board is also involved in giving extensions of time for determination when a non-conforming use ceases. somebody goes out of business, they vacate the property. Um, under the current ordinance, a year that grandfathered right expires and to do anything further, they'd have to come to the planning board for a conditional use. Under the current ordinance, the planning board can re can give an extension, but that was an a matter that's typically reserved to boards of appeals. Planning boards typically don't deal with non-conforming uses. boards of appeal bill. So the only other change there is to reassign the responsibility for giving extensions of a grandfathered status to the planning board instead of the board of appeals. Those are the changes proposed. Any public comment on that? Okay, let's move on. Uh minor policy issue number three, excuse me. Uh subdivision road buffer. Currently, uh as you see in the graphic on the lower left, if a developer puts in a subdivision along one of the town's roads, they have to install preserve or install a 50-ft buffer between the development and the public road. Uh but if a developer builds the road right next to a subdivision or an individual homeowner, there's no buffering requirement in the ordinance. So what

this proposal is, it gives the planning board the discretionary authority to require a buffer. If the road is coming very close to the line and there's not much screening between an existing house or a neighborhood, they can require the developer to install a buffer along that joint property line just like they have to do on the public road. So that's an issue that we talked about has come up on at least a couple of subdivisions. And so the proposal now is to give the planning board not automatic requirement but a if it's all woods then there's no need for a screening but if there's open views of a house then the planning board can require that portion to be buffered.

I'm sorry clarification question. Who makes that determination about whether that vegetation is required?

The planning board. Okay. Anybody else? All right, George. The next policy issue is fire protection water supply. So currently in the ordinance if a subdivision comes in they are required to provide some form of fire protection water supply that can either be a water system basically an underground tank um and it can be a uh using an existing fire pond or some can put uh hydrants on streams if they can get through the environmental permitting. And then also a third option is to put in residential sprinkler systems. And under the current ordinance, they are required to do either water systems or fire ponds. They can reduce the volume required in those water supplies if they put in residential sprinklers. Um the fire chief has indicated that the fire department wants nothing to do with water systems for a few reasons. Uh they're unreliable. It's a a massive amount of water that the fire department uses and then has to refill. And how do they refill it? So the fire chief has asked that that be taken away from the process. But at the same time, he's argued that if they could get residential sprinklers,

in some ways that would be preferable to having a fire pond. So depending on the project, depending on the input of the fire chief, the planning board worked with the fire chief and the fire department and came out with a proposal that a developer will be able to use any of the three options which include digging a fire pond that meets all the spec specifications, using an existing water source that meets all the specifications, or going with residential sprinklers in all of the homes. So that is the proposal that came out of this discussion and is what's being presented.

I see no comments. We can move on.

Okay. The next one is uh marijuana growing facilities, also known as cannabis. And the town attorney who has worked with multiple other towns on this issue, some of which do the full program of of the opt-in, but Durham has not. Uh and the intent here is not to start regulating uh cannabis facilities. Um so what the town attorney has pointed out is that there is apparently a loophole in the state law that if you you have individual growers which can either be individual users or care providers uh they are allowed they are exempt and allowed under state law to have their own personal business use or personal recreational use. Um the problem becomes if someone rents a facility or has a facility and they start renting out individual spaces to those exempt numbers, then practically it could be uh a fairly substantial operation. And there's nothing in our ordinance right now that speaks to this. And the town attorney based on working with other communities uh has recommended that the town put in place either a program to regulate those. She provided a fairly complicated and thorough licensing inspections the whole nine yards. DUR just doesn't have the capacity to do that kind of administration or the intent to do it. So the purpose here is just simply to clearly define those what are known as aggregated growing facilities, put that definition into the ordinance and then just clearly uh indicate that those are prohibited as a use in all uh districts in Durham. So that is the proposal. The intent is not to limit individual users in any way,

shape, or form. If they're allowed under the state law, that will continue in putting this together. We just wanted to try to make that clear and I understand we've gotten some public input and feedback that it's not clear and may not be completely accurate. The only part of this that needs to be accurate legally is that definition and the prohibition in the different districts. So personal care is not what the town is is getting involved in in any way, shape or form.

Make some comments. Uh yeah. So, my name is David Stevenson. I'm a caregiver um and have been since 2011. Uh my wife and I um our caregiver team. Um and I've been in touch with you, George Mason. Yes. So, I appreciate you getting right back to me and uh being willing to cooperate with a local business that's been operating here for a long time. Um, I would just ask and I think in your final email you came up with some language that just said it kind of would have the town reflect whatever the state

um, you know, is going for because there is, I think I mentioned LD1 1897, which is more specifically for sungrown um, cultivators and would allow up to a,000 square ft of mature canopy. um but they're just unable to grow from like December to March. um the idea that you know the growing season's shorter and but anyway what I'm getting at is as long as the language you know I think reflects that of the state um you know understand you don't want a bunch of grows huge operations or illegal activity but I think just uh you know honoring what the state has come up with and there's there are a number of carriers in the town that, you know, this is this is what we do for a living. So, you know, definitely affects local businesses. So, yeah, that's all I would ask. And I appreciate again your willingness to talk about it and and it doesn't seem like you guys want to help people that are local businesses that pay taxes and are abiding by the rules. So, um, yeah, I just think that if you it goes by the state law and you're you're not having multiple caregivers backing up, like I think a wife or people that live on the property Yeah. could all share a space, which I think could the law allows and um, yeah, anyways, that's that's my public. Also happy to answer any questions if there any clarification needed to be known about the laws or any other comments on issue number five.

All right, George, take it away.

Okay. Uh, six, there's two more. uh manufactured housing and accessory apartments. Initially, we were thinking that the uh digitizing the codification consultant was just going to incorporate whatever the changes required by the state law. As you know, affordable housing has been a big issue. The state has adopted restrictions on the ability of local communities to limit uh mobile homes, tiny homes, and um accessory apartments in many communities. Durham has been quite flexible on those topics in the past um and has tried to accommodate them with local controls. The state has pushed even harder on removing any limitations on these types of affordable housing. So um everything that's in this proposed draft is required by state law and the town has no flexibility. However, the planning board felt that this is really a policy issue even though the the town has no uh policy authority to do anything different and so this was pulled out of the codification as and is being presented as a minor policy issue just so that people will understand that this is being changed. Some of it uh as I said already the town allows accessory apartments. Durham says it has to be like either part of the house or in an out building like a garage or barn inside that or part of it. U this the state law has said you have to allow them as standalone units. So someone could have a a separate garage and make that completely into a dwelling unit, accessory dwelling unit. That has to be allowed now. So based on input from the town attorney uh as well as the codification consultants uh those two

changes allowing tiny homes as a standalone accessory unit as well as accessory apartments uh other than tiny homes can be standalone and mobile home parks. Durham pretty much has had an ordinance in effect for decades that doesn't meet the current state law. Durham requires a 1acre lot for every mobile home in a home mobile home park. Um, it requires a uh subdivision road, 50 foot right ofway with the same road width. Uh, and you have to have at least 20 acres. All of that is not allowed by state law. So, this will simply take what is in the state law and put it into the land use ordinance, which the code officer has to go by that. Um, and so that's pretty much again clearer allowances on tiny homes, accessory apartments, minor change, and then major change in the way the town regulates mobile home parks. And to date, I think there's been one in its history. Uh there's one mobile home park. Whether the town could see more with the current housing situation, it's unclear, but the town has to go by what the state mandates on this issue. It's public comment. All right. Seeing none, number seven.

Okay. Last of the minor policy issues is um this came up toward the end of the process where the code enforcement officer and the road commissioner who does is now doing the town's code enforcement um kept running into this all the time confusion over how do you determine that a lot has three the required 300 ft of road frontage. And so you see the two diagrams on the right that deal with one of the issues that's being addressed. And one of the frustrations for many people is if you have a back lot, you have to extend it not just to the lot, you have to then go 300 ft into the lot. And uh they call it proverbly the road to nowhere. Now it part of the reason the towns have done this is to say eventually it'll be extended. Uh, but that's not really the intent of the back block provision in in Durham. So, the right diagram shows how you could cut that length of road in half and meet the required frontage by counting all of the uh property lines around that turnaround. So, that's one issue. Also, curved roads, you currently have to draw a straight line, which requires you to have more road frontage on the lot. So this will allow the arc of the of the curve to be included. Uh there are lots that have uh if it's 300 ft, you could have 295 ft on one road and 150 ft on the road beside it and that does not meet the 300 ft of road frontage. So this will allow counting the frontage around on a corner lot. However, if you have a a small piece small pieces 50 ft scattered around, but you only have 50 ft here in one spot, you can't use non-ontiguous. So, as long as it's contiguous, it will count whether it's a straight line or not, which will give

more flexibility and make it a little bit easier. Oh, hey. Hi. My question actually is not just in reference to this slide. It's in reference to all the slides. And I guess can you please state your Bill St. Michelle 37 Davis Road.

Thank you. That um it says it's bringing it into compliance with current state law. And I I guess I'm curious is I know the legislature because of the housing shortage keeps bringing forward additional requirements, additional LDS impacting requirements. And I'm just curious where at what point in time is that current with like 24 25 the last legislative session did 1829 and they're currently doing a correction to it which is 2173. So I'm just curious where you're back on. You're on number six. You're back on number six. Main. Well, actually the whole at the start it even says that it's bringing it into compliance with

Well, that was referring to this. So I was really just looking at to see when the review took place to kind of get a feel for whether additional changes would be required on a continual basis. So on the manufactured housing part, this reflects what is currently required. the there are some new laws that go into effect for Durham in 2027. Yeah. And after this codification process, we'll be looking at that for the 2027 town meeting. Thank you. That's

any other public comments.

All right, I'm going to close public comments on this first section. Um and and discuss what we've heard uh as the board. Um going to go to the uh policy issue number five, marijuana growing facilities. Um as we heard um there are a few comments um from the public. Um a couple came in via email um that George has addressed. Um, and you know, again, we're not trying to hinder their business and make sure that they're just complying with state law. Um, and I think the adjustments that George has made, um, and and we'll see those in the final version. Um, uh, won't hinder what's happening. I didn't hear any opposition to that tonight. Any other comments there?

Sounds like they just want to make sure that we're not trying to regulate beyond state law. So, Exactly. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Um and then the other comment was um sorry I do have one comment on the cannabis one. Um that just something I noticed that the spelling of the word aggregated is wrong. So just like a easy fix there. Thank you. Yeah. Put that through the cotification. See AI AI isn't all it's No, it's not. Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. All set on that one.

Yeah. Um the other comment we heard was about um reducing the batlock access road from 20 to 18. Um we we've just struggled with this for so long. Um we've we've been back and forth and back and forth and had plenty of discussion with the um fire chief about this. Um uh I think there are other avenues that um development can take if they want to make a case for reducing the the the the width of the driveway. But I think we need to stick with what we have here today. Um, again, we've had a lot of input from um um developers, public, fire chief, and the road commissioner um to to uh to not make the change from 20 to 18. I think yeah, one of the items that we have talked about on that is even though it's family maybe building multiple homes on that back lot, unfortunately it doesn't always stay family and then you have an issue with you have new owners in there. We've seen it happen

in the town and then it becomes a struggle with everybody abiding by the same rule. When it isn't family, it can get pretty contentious.

Thank you, Alan.

All right. Uh so let's move on to section two. So section two are the administrative changes. Again these are not policy changes in our consideration. They're simply uh addressing issues that have come up just practical things as opposed to policy things. We'll give you some examples. Um, so the road standards, uh, this has been an issue discussed ever since the, uh, town meeting, the first town meeting I went to in the in the community back in, I think 2019, and the town repealed the old growth management ordinance that said the town will only accept roads for public maintenance within the Southwest Ven growth district which is basically from here down to the river um and that area down there uh and up to here. Um so roads had to be built to public standard if they were built within this area and they were built to a private standard if they were outside and that was the basis on which the road standards were adopted. um and the town repealed the road the growth management ordinance but it didn't change the standards which still are tied to that. So what we've done is put together with input from the road commissioner and the town engineer and my experience and working with other communities over four decades. Basically the typically roads are designed based upon their classification and their classification is based on how much traffic it serves, how many homes

or businesses. So this retools from public private to road classification based on use and it proposes adding a third class. Right now you have the 20ft road for smaller developments, a 22 ft road for larger ones, and you could have a situation in in Durham where a very large subdivision comes in, or the interconnection of m multiple smaller subdivisions. and going with a 60-oot right ofway and a 24 foot uh gives you opportunity to put put in bike lanes and uh pedestrian connections as well. So, uh the likelihood of you seeing a subcollector is pretty uh still pretty limited, but right now uh you can you're having subdivisions that are connecting that cumulatively make up a lot more uh traffic need. And so this kind of plans for the future by making that provision available. But most of the roads will still be if it's a minor local I think that's serving up to 12 homes it can be the 20 ft and if it goes beyond that it has to be uh 22 feet and then once you get up to 100 homes or so you have to put in the subcluster. Again that won't be happening anytime soon but the town needs to have that available in case something does come in. Uh the town engineer right now 4 foot uh shoulders for public roads. Again, the town doesn't do public roads and so he recommended just going consistently with two feet two foot shoulders. Currently, in order for you to get a building permit in a new subdivision under the ordinance, the entire road has to be built and completed except for the paving.

Uh a lot of times people putting in foundations during the development. Uh this says to get a building permit, the road at least has to be completed except for paving up to the loft that you're going to be building on. And then um currently if you're doing only three lots in a subdivision, you can do a gravel road. And then what happens if the if that gets extended? It it came up a couple of times. it doesn't make any sense to have the first 300 feet gravel and then put a paved road on the end of it. So, this says if you do uh if you trigger a paved road, it gets paved all the way. Um and then uh the town uh road commissioner has said that the current mix of 6 in of aggregate base and 12 in of aggregate subbase doesn't make sense based on M DOT standards. and he uh proposed that the town just say simply three inches of surface gravel and 15 inches same same thickness but the gravel they use this is how uh developers actually do it now and then finally some of another outdated provision is zinc coated metal pipes they don't do that anymore u and so this upgrades that so the again the town road commissioner and the town peerreview engineer Gorl Palmer went down through all of the standards and we incorporated many of their recommendations and so these will be updated again not a policy issue but just a performance issue.

All right, I'll open public comment to uh this second section of administrative changes. Any comments on number one? All right.

Okay. Uh, number two, uh, oh, I'm sorry. There was a I keep doing this. There was a continuation. Three other things is parking standards are currently in the, uh, road appendix that'll be moved over to site plan review where it's mostly applicable and the uh, people putting in driveways at the end of a road on a turnaround can create problems for plowing and drainage. Any driveways there will have to be approved by the road commissioner. And then finally, uh, putting consistent sight distances, uh, safe sight distance of road entrance. It's following the DOT standards. Um, and for driveways, currently the ordinance says you need a driveway permit for town roads. So, the question is, is a town road a road in the town?

Is it a road that the town maintains? Uh, what does that mean? So, it's been confusing for the road commissioner and has not consistently applied uh driveway permits across the board. So, what this does, it says that any road maintained by the town cleared, that was the intent, but also roads approved by the planning board where the planning board reviews subdivisions and makes sure that road drainage is going to work. If nobody inspects the driveway installations and the culverts that they put in mess it up, then that's a subdivision issue. So any road either maintained by the town or approved by the planning board. They'll have to get a driveway permit. The town does not want to issue driveway permits on state roads. MDOT does that. So they are going to do that. You have no jurisdiction there. And so having a duplicative uh permitting process makes no sense. Uh again, just adopting the MDOT standards for safe sight distances. Uh currently you can have a 10% grade on your driveway right down to the road pavement. And if you've ever seen a steep driveway like that, not only is snow plowing a nightmare, but uh skiing downhill in your car onto the roadway is also so uh most towns have uh 3% within the road right of way, which gives you a landing zone to come down or to get up onto before you enter the roadway. Uh and so that is an upgrade. uh the angle of the intersection, which is an issue of when you're coming out, you don't shoot out onto the road without looking. Uh currently the ordinance says uh if uh less than 75°

angle, 90° is perpendicular. Uh you can go up to 75° or down to 75°, but anything more than that, it's going to be dangerous and the road commissioner shouldn't be approving that. So, this says 75 is the minimum. Uh, the road commissioner said, uh, it doesn't make sense to pave the apron of the driveway if you got a gravel driveway and a gravel road, and it doesn't make sense to allow a gravel apron where it connects with the road, a paved road, because it just erodess off the edge of it. So his proposal was to say if the road is paved, you have to pave the entrance of the driveway within the rightway. If it's gravel, you don't. That's the proposal the consultant pointed out. You got erosion control standards and the driveway standards and you got them elsewhere in the ordinance. This just references the other um other uh reference to erosion controls. And I'm pretty sure this one does not have a second page. So

confirmed.

Okay. Can't see any comments. Let's move on. All right. Change four is zoning district boundaries. So the town has a zone now and it's pretty simple one. You're either in rural residential agricultural which is just what it just sounds like. Uh there are no commercial districts or industrial districts, other things that other communities have. Um but it does have a lot of resource protection district

and you know they're usually established by say the flood plane that's all resource protection. The question is uh the flood plane is the 100redyear flood plane elevation. That's the edge of it where the water comes up in those big floods. uh where that exactly is on the ground is hard to show on a map that's done at 30,000 ft. So when it becomes a question if someone's going to be building very close to that line or they need the land area within it to make up their minimum lot size there's often a question of where precisely is that boundary. Currently if there's any question goes to the board of appeals. Board of Appeals meets once a year normally, twice at most. They have no expertise on this issue. Planning board that meets every month and has the technical support of myself and peer reviewers if necessary. Uh the planning board's just in a much better position to make that determination which other towns do. So the proposal is to shift the authority and responsibility over to the planning board for this one function of the zoning.

Any public comment on number four? All right. Number five is solid waste containers. I know that's a hot button issue and I don't want to get people riled up tonight. Um, but uh the planning board has had a concern with a subdivision going in and it's not clear what Cassella's policy is on picking up the trash and so some subdivisions on very busy roads have had people putting their containers out on the state highway. uh 50 mph speed limit and that's obviously a safety hazard for the people putting them out and for people driving and having those things fall into the roadway. So the the board, we reviewed the issue, researched it, and came out with, if you think about it, if you're in South Portland or someplace like that, and you you have to get your water connected, you get what they call a readiness to serve where you go to the water district, they look at your what you're doing, make sure they can serve you, and then they give you an official letter saying, "Yes, if this is issued, we will let them connect." So the idea is to say to a developer, you need to go to Cassella, make sure they can serve your subdivision with your design and get a letter from them saying that if you build it, we will serve it. So that's called a readiness to serve, which we're going to put into the ordinance. Now, if they say no, we can't issue it for whatever reason, then the developer will have to come up with a plan. Right now, there's no requirement for a plan. They can put the containers anywhere. So, at that point, you'd either hire a private hauler to go in and do it, or they could create a u a dumpster bin with, say, for the whole subdivision with two two or three dumpsters enclosed and contract with a

commercial hauler to come once a week and take it. So, whatever they're going to do, they just have to have a plan because the planning board has said, "We've got to stop putting containers out on these busy roads. So, I'm not a developer, nor do I ever plan to be. Sorry. Could you I'm sorry. Could you please Harmony Acres? Thank you. However, for those that are and paying town taxes, it seems unfair that you would have to pay the taxes and also pay for those other things. Like I said, I'm not a developer, but being a devil's advocate,

any other public comment. Thank you. Number six, George.

All right. Number six is the scope of campground reviews. The board went through a review of the leisure campground over the last couple of years and it was confusing in terms of the fact that they had to go to the state to have all of their engineering and uh environmental permitting and the planning board had to review it under the same standards as a commercial parking lot. Um, and so the proposal is to say the planning board will continue to grant conditional use approvals for new campgrounds or for expansions of existing ones, but it will focus on the zoning issues of noise impacts, traffic drainage, and visual quality and leave the environmental stuff up to the state that has more expertise as well as campground management. They have people that are that's what they do. They review uh campground management. The town has no capacity to do that. U and so those parts of the ordinance that deal with reviewing the log of campers, that's being taken out of the ordinance. And so the same state review will occur, but the planning board will limit its review to the conditional use aspects under the proposal. L Gordon 364 Cedar Park. So under site plan review, it says uh campground management monitoring is now exempt from the site plan review. Who does that function?

The state of Maine campground inspectors. Okay. Thank you. seven.

All right. Uh deadlines for planning board applications currently is 14 days before the meeting and within that 14 days we have to review the application, prepare planning board packets, notify neighbors. Um, and it's just not workable. Um, most towns it's it's 21 to 30 days in advance of the application. So, we're proposing to go to 3 weeks instead of two weeks. I work part-time and that gives me more time to properly process the applications and and advise the planning board on the content and prepare prepare it for action at the meeting. Uh, so that is the purpose of that. the I do have some plans for you planning board members, hard copies for the next meeting. Uh we require 10 printed copies. Some of these are hundreds of pages. The board as you can see all has their computers and a lot of this goes into the recycling. Again, not to touch that hot button again. Um but the purpose is to reduce the printed copies. We would still have hard copies for public review to give to department heads for review. So, we're just going to try to cut down on the wasted paper.

Yay. Any public comment on that? All right. Number eight. Uh, okay. So, ordinance corrections. Right now, if you look in your online and you look at you open the uh land use ordinance digital form and you go to the definitions, you will find that there are two number 75s because the numbering got messed up.

And under the current ordinance that requires a town meeting vote to correct that. So the intent of this is to give the select board opportunity to correct clear errors in the text as opposed to have to wait for the town meeting uh cross references those sorts of things. So the intent is not to allow them to make any substantive changes. uh and the town that'll be screened by the planning board as a safeguard as well as the town attorney to make sure that these are simple corrections and are not substantively changing policies adopted at town meeting.

I see no public comment coming. Let's move on to number nine.

Uh proof of payment of taxes. We've had developers come in who haven't paid their taxes on a subdivision lot for two years. They're waiting to complete the subdivision and then have the lot purchasers pay the back taxes. Uh that doesn't really work well for a number of reasons obviously. So most towns have uh one of their submission requirements a proof that all taxes are current. And part of this is one of the criteria both for conditional use reviews as well as for subdivision reviews is that the developer has to demonstrate that they have financial capacity to build it according to the requirements and if they can't afford to pay their taxes that raises a question whether they have the financial capacity. So just from pure common sense as well as accountability, this will require them to prove that they've paid their taxes before they can get their permits. Um, I'd like to make just a quick comment. Not a big deal at all, but I think um, our proposed changes, the ordinance changes are correct and the numbering that we have online are correct. I think in here

we added, remember that one that flipped over to the next page? I think we added that as an extra number. So, the numbering's off, but what's online is correct. Yeah, thank you. Just wanted to note that. Thank you, Juliet. Yep.

So, going with what was distributed tonight and the hard copies, let's move on to number 10.

Conditional use submission requirements. The This is someone who comes in for a business use of property. It can be uh just somebody operating a garage out of their garage or it can be a major expansion of an existing daycare. Uh and depending on what the application is, it may or may not raise issues about the property. And so the planning board had in for many my first few rounds expressed frustration with developers applicants for conditional use coming in and really just not having any information on which the board to base its decision. So the board prepared a lengthy application with all kinds of detail requirement for submissions instructions like 10 pages to make sure that the information that was needed was provided by the applicants. Uh unfortunately the town attorney has said if it's not in the ordinance it's not enforceable. So, um, this puts this the requirements that the planning board wants to see, uh, into the ordinance. And again, it's just bring a plan showing what the property is, where the buildings are, where the parking is going to be, a detailed plan that, uh, not only can the planning board understand what is being proposed. Once it's approved, there's a clear record of what they did approve. So it won't be a question. If the neighbors start complaining, the code officer goes out there, there's really no plan. It's hard for him to say, "Yes, you're following the planning board approval. You're not." So that documentation is very important, not just for the town, but also for whoever's doing business to protect their interests. So, uh, the other confusing part now is who determines that they have that information complete. Right now it's

somewhere it says the code officer makes that determination. Other places it's the planning board. Sometimes it says they both do. So this clearly under law indicates that the planning board makes that call, not a staff person on the official determination that it's a complete application and that the board has all the information that it needs to make a decision on the application. Any challenges to that process? Cool. All right. The last one.

Thank you. All right. This also came up recently. Uh the planning board's reviewing a subdivision and the developer in consultation with the board talked about it one it would be better to cut all the trees in the development where they're going to be building before while the ground is frozen and also before long ear bat breeding season if you can imagine. um because DP and federal review process continue

uh has developers avoid certain seasons uh for wildlife purposes, breeding purposes and uh so the the board didn't think that it had authority to say you cannot do that. Uh we have no authority to stop you. The town attorney has indicated you probably do probably. So, what this does is it you cannot a developer cannot start construction of the subdivision until they get all their permits. Um, you can cut trees on your property, a developer can as well, but if they're in the process of applying for a subdivision, this clarifies they cannot clear the trees for the roadway, for the house sites until they get their final approval because it changes the whole review. Um, and so this puts into the ordinance a clear prohibition where the town attorney thinks you do have authority to say you can't do that.

I'll just clarify that the northern just passed up. So the northern long-eared bat is state and federally endangered. So the state recommendation is to clear trees during the winter. Um so November through the end of March is the time that um they recommend developers clear. So I just wanted to add that clarification. Thank you.

Any other public comment on this administrative change? All right, I'll close the public hearing and open it up to the board for any comments here.

I have a comment um for this um the last one we just talked about uh tree clearing. I I'm thinking that um looking at the proposed language, George, that we have in here, um development includes grading or construction of roads, grading of land or lots, the new this is the new language, clearing of trees for the purpose of developing roads or home sites or construction of buildings, blah blah. Um, I recommend that instead of the clearing of trees, yada yada, we just say clearing of trees, comma, so that that way it's any any for any reason, right? It's for it can be for roads, it can be for utilities, can be for house lots. There's nothing they can clear a tree for, right?

Well, yes or maybe no. Because one issue is like if they have to get a backhoe into do the test pits, they may need to cut some vegetation to get the backhoe to the sites where they're doing it. So I think a blanket prohibition on any uh tree cutting I think would be perhaps more than is necessary to prevent what we're seeing where they're clearing the entire roadway. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So if the clearing is occurring for development purposes. Okay. If they're clearing it to get a backhold to do the test pit, okay, that's a different issue. So, okay, I hear that. Yeah.

Um Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. I wasn't thinking of that. Yeah. Thank you. So, you're in planning board discussion now? Yes, we are. Okay. So, just um ran this by the town attorney for the question of is that a violation or not? She thinks you could cite it as a violation. I think it's unclear. You mean the current what's going on currently?

Yeah. And I I explained the thought process that it does make sense as just Costa indicated to allow the clearing to be done during the winter for both the ground frozen. So, uh, I pointed out that the board has waiver authority and you could have a case-bycase review of that to determine when is the plan construction season. And if you are granting a prelim preliminary approval, you could include a waiver with specific limitations, but you'd have to at least get to the point of a preliminary approval. and you wouldn't have to give that waiver. Um, but you could at least have the flexibility if it made sense.

I would recommend that we talk about this next meeting just because I I've got some thoughts as well. I do too. But I'd rather just Yeah, if that's okay. Sure. But thank you for for running that by the lawyer. Yep. Do you all agree? I do. I do. I think it's getting Thank you.

Yeah. Um, any other comments on from what we've heard. All right, I'm going to open the public hearing for the third part, uh, the codification process. This one has a grand total of one slide. Just one.

Well, the pedal slide. So um we've already discussed it and uh this slide just indicates why it's being done again for accuracy consistency and again to reiterate that all of the minor policies have been pulled out and are being treated under the separate warrant article part one as well as the administrative changes that we've gone over tonight. So the codification itself has a hundred corrections that will uh correct typographical errors, grammatical issues uh and also updated in terms of state citations. So for junkyard license, it the statutes have changed three times since it was cited. U so it does all that kind of stuff. So that is really the and the town spent I think around $11,000 to get this thing cottified. So when the planning ward started this process, we wanted to make sure that we didn't raise any controversial issues that would jeopardize that investment of the town in that digitizing process. And if anybody has looked at the town website and looked at the property maps that are on there now, uh that's the kind of modernization that is long overdue for Durham.

Um and so this is just part of that process. Any public comment? All right, I'll close the public comment and I'll close the public hearing on these. Any comments from the board on this third? I think one of the things that this how this enhances things, it's makes it much more easily searchable. Yeah.

And believe me, if that wasn't there, it's it's hunt and peck and you're going through the whole thing. It it it has been challenging. You know, it certainly has made all of my reviews much more easier to search through.

I was just going to look and see if that one spelling change I or error I found was in here. Not a big deal at all. I'll look and let you know. for the rest of us. Yeah, I mean, so the aggregated is aggravating. But how do you spell it? That's aggravating. Yes. We good? We are. I am. All right. So, I think we can uh move forward with uh issuing this to the select board. uh April 1st.

Yeah. Well, actually um I think we're going to put this on for discussion on April 1st, which is your meeting at the end and have a discussion of that one issue. Okay. Uh and then if you decide to make changes and also get official uh board decision on that added statement on the cannabis aggregated facilities. Uh but other than that and then we can pass it on with those two recommendations. Okay. And they'll consider it uh for the April 14th meeting. Okay. Okay.

Um just to be clear regarding the tree clearing, I had no concern and maybe you all did with the language proposed except for what I mentioned, but now I understand it. I have no issue with that. I thought like, you know, what we're going to talk about has to do with that specific project. Um, but I I don't think there's anything to add, but I see what you're saying that maybe we do want to add possibly something. So, it's worth talking more about. Yeah. And again, this this has not been discussed at your prior meetings, so good to have you fed it and decide that, yeah, that's what you want to go with to the board.

I think it's a great addition to the to the um um I guess it's a violation clause, right? It technically could be a violation, but I don't think the ordinance is clear, but it is. And and that's part of the problem. If the developer doesn't know that it is, and they're going by what they think the state law says. And when we looked at it, we thought there's nothing in the ordinance that says you can't, right? But she's saying if you took the position, you she would support it, then it is a violation. Okay? Because I mean, clearly the purpose of it is development, right? Yeah. I don't want to get into specific Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um applicants, but I think the added language is

really good. I agree. Again, a lot of this is based on what we've seen in the past and trying to correct and um issues that come up frequently, right? And and yeah. Yeah. Avoid complications and misinterpretations. Yep. Um, all right. I think Did you want to have a quick discussion about agendas? Long agendas. We could. Do we need to for the next one? Yeah. Um, all right. What's up? Uh, okay.

Yeah. Know George and I meet a day before each meeting just to just make sure we're on the same page. And um yeah, we're talking about the April 1st meeting and the agenda. Um previously the the prior um chair kind of was cutting things off at a certain time. Y

and so I was thinking that that was something that we all had agreed to. I'm not opposed to late meetings at all, but the April 1st agenda is looking pretty heavy. Um, and um, I don't know where you wanted to go with this, whether if you look at the agendas of like South Portland and Falmouth where I worked for many years, um, you know, it's not unusual to have 10 10 agenda items

and there's no way you could get through. uh when I was the planner for Falmouth they their meeting started at 7 and they had a cut off time of 10:30 but I was there one morning till 2:00 in the morning so you can't function at that bas on that basis and reviewing development applications so what they eventually did was they adopted a 10:30 rule and what the rule was they put the first come first serve on the agenda which we're doing

yeah Uh, and then at 10:00 they look at where they are on the agenda and they decide at that point whether to take up any new items after 10:30, which is almost always no. However, if there's a maintenance agreement that you can get done in 10 minutes, we'll do that one. Yeah. And that way they say that during the meeting if you're an applicant and you can see you're not going to get hurt tonight. Yeah.

Go to the staff, tell them you're leaving, you will be first on the agenda for the next meeting or again first come first serve. So, uh it gives some predictability the process because a lot of times they're bringing in their development team at $600 an hour for that team to sit there all night and then not get heard. Y so that that was the process. So you may want to things are really starting to get busy. Yeah, you've got big applications and lots of them coming. Okay. Uh so the idea would be to have a predictable more predictable process.

So what you could do is pretty much we could draft that as a process like we did for the uh inclement weather and really make it make it known to applicants if we see a real big agenda. Uh, and then what you could do is have a protocol for how you handle it. Like I just described, you could say meeting 6 6:30 and at 8:30. At 8:00, the board will look at the where it is on the agenda and make a determination whether to take up any new items and the chairman can announce this at the beginning of the meeting. Again, this is so that if you have a lengthy agenda, you know, you're not going to get through.

You have a effective way to deal with that. it's fair to applicants as well as yourselves. Uh and then again, you could to say, "Okay, we're only going to take up this item after 8:30 and we're not going to go past 9, right?" Something along those lines. Um and then we could make that known to applicants when they say, you know, we're seven on this agenda. What are we going to get heard? I could explain to them here's the process. And then at that point you can either just let it they automatically go to the following month's agenda or you could decide at that meeting whether to hold continue the meeting the following week. So those would be the following week.

Yeah. We could just continue you can continue the meeting as long as you announce it at the meeting. So you could say we will continue this meeting. Yeah. For these applicants next Wednesday. No new applications will be considered at that meeting. Yep. Yep. So, but if if it looks like, you know, just one gets carried over, you don't need to necessarily schedule another meeting. Yeah. But you you can make that decision as you go.

I like that a lot. Um we can work out the details, but um it also bodess well for applicants coming in that are prepared, right, and that have a full application. If they don't have a full application, they're not heard, right? Um, and you know, we can get not better at saying you're not you're not complete, but like I think the process will get better. I would think that I would think prior to the meeting, they would know whether they're not complete or not, and they should not be on the agenda. Well, we in working with you, George.

Well, yes and no, because as we discussed earlier, the board makes the final determination of complet I know. I understand that, but they're reviewing a lot of that with you prior to Yeah. And I provide you and them with a Yes, you do. Right. So, but you have to make the call. Yeah. Okay. Right.

And I I hadn't considered the applicants engineering team, if you will, and the fees that they have to pay for them being here. Um I was being more trying to be more considerate to our time. And yeah, I I I'll stay as late as we need to get everybody through, you know. I mean, if they if they've pro provided a complete application, then yeah, we should see it for sure. Um otherwise, it just gets pushed and pushed and pushed and the agenda continues to stay anyway. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Our prior review should identify each one of us should be able to ident identify things that are not complete and I would think that at the meeting we would bring that up first. and basically say this is incomplete. You're going to have to go to the next meeting and state what is incomplete. Yep. And that would expedite that meeting anyway. So should we ask George to draft something that we could look at to

Well, I he's he's already doing that. He's already providing some shortcomings of the applicant, but it's up to us to say this is incomplete and because it is and it has been identified to us, we think we've identified it to the applicant and we're going to have to move you out for another month. Mhm. I thought you were talking about the process. Yeah. Yeah. The process like um the weather announcement meeting continuation parade. Yeah, I got you. Okay. But yeah, I think George already provides us loud and clear. That's that's Yeah, that's exactly how

I mean, if we know something's in incomplete, let's not discuss all the things that are complete cuz we're just that's just slowing us down, right? So, I will draft a continuation policy for you, meaning continuation policy for you to consider. Great. Thank you. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Um, we don't have that policy now, but April 1st's going to be pretty heavy. Okay, April Fool's Day. Just kidding. Short agenda. It is April Fool's Day. Oh, just kidding. Um, does anybody have anything else that you want to discuss tonight?

I don't. Thank you all for your work. Yeah. Thank you for coming. Thanks. We need a motion. Uh, no, we're fine. You want to turn the mic off, right? Yeah. There's a power button on the side. There you go. There should be a power button right there.