Planning Board - Regular Meeting

All right, everyone, we will open the meeting. Can we have a motion to add our alternates?

So I'll make a motion that we seat Liz Feria as a voting member this evening.

Second. All in favor? Aye.

And I will further move that we sit Doug Finnan as a voting member this evening.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. First up, we have a public hearing regarding an application to alter a stone wall on a scenic road at 175 South Road, property owner Brian Dennett. If you are here, could you give us, would you be able to just tell us a little bit about what you're?

The mic? Yeah.

Thanks, Donna.

Thank you.

If you could just state your name for the record, please, sir.

Thank you.

Brian Dennett.

Beautiful. Thank you, sir.

Somewhat hearing impaired.

That might be a good thing in this meeting because sometimes people get tired of hearing it.

So you are asking to alter the stone wall boundary between your property and the right-of-way to install a driveway. Yep.

I'm going to make a claim to you folks right now. I built that stone wall all the way from Peggy Allard's property to my driveway along South Road.

And being a neighbor.

I got Tommy Landis to help me a little bit.

Being a neighbor of yours for 53 plus years, I can attest that you did make some improvements.

You can verify that.

ERIC DENNETT I'm a son.

The reason being we want to move the driveway is because the existing driveway is far too close to our building. The corner post, we were unaware of how close the property line was down our driveway And like my father said, we've been taking care of that driveway for 53 years, and it's too close to have people driving up and down there, walking their dogs. I understand that it's a public way for them to do it, but we want the liability. We want to move our property, our house, inside our property line more to give you, you know, what we recommended was to try and get, like, the 35 feet within our property line. And reason being is, if we replace that existing driveway, we don't have enough room to park our vehicles. My dad has a pickup truck, and it would just be enough room for him to park in front of where the garage is now. Now, once we are able to get the approval to move the house in, the existing garage will be torn down. It's merely right now, it's just storing what we could salvage out of the house. Because again, it is within, I believe, 20 feet of the property, the building itself.

And just to clarify, and correct me if I'm wrong, what you call your present driveway is actually a class six town road.

Yes.

Right. It's not even . Correct. And in 1973, when the family moved in, that was a Class 5 road. And subsequent to that, the town voted at a town meeting to declare that a Class 6 road. So the town still owns the property. Anybody has the right to use it, including the Dennetts. But their house is within just feet of that Class 6 road. So they'll have a place to park. They'll have reasonable privacy by moving their driveway out onto South Road. And their address, as far as I can remember, has always been a south road address, even though the access was off from a class, excuse me, class six road.

Was there anybody else from the applicants?

Okay.

Yes, my name is Nancy Ducharme, and I'm their daughter. I also want to add that my parents are living with me right now, and that's totally fine. They can stay with me for the rest of their lives. I love them. But one of the options that was presented to them was through their insurance company. They offered to have a single wide mobile home brought into their property so that they could live there throughout the process of them rebuilding their home. They can't do that because they technically don't have a driveway on the property. And I don't think you guys want any single wide temporary mobile home put on your town property, class six, whatever it is. Okay, so that's why I'm here, so that you all know this. And that's it.

Thank you. And probably everybody's aware, but their home was damaged or really destroyed by fire about a year ago, so they haven't been able to live. That's 14.

Do we have any abutters here who would like to comment?

Do you have a letter from him?

Sorry, if you can...

If you could come to the podium, sir. And just push the red button on it.

Dean Bowman, 174 South Road, right across the street. And I certainly would support the town doing this. It seems more than reasonable to make this modification. And... We might actually be able to see that stone wall again, because it's pretty overgrown at the moment. A big yes for this.

Thank you. Come on up.

My name is Richard Coney. This is my wife, Florence. We live at 173 South Road. Now, when my house was built, it was a gentleman that worked for the post office in Exeter, and he must have got approval to use the road, and my driveway comes off from that road, Hague Road, I guess. Also, the town... Gentleman that took care of the town roads, I believe was Bill Pinkham back in those days Well what they did for me We were building all the sun walls back around the house. And the section where my garage is built, it's lowered my house quite a bit and back into the woods. What they did, the town, they were remodeling the whole South Road. They needed a place to dump the rocks the old gravel, old tar. So my part of the land floods from the pond that the town uses as a fire for their house. But they came to Florence and I. and asked if they could dump where the flood area was from the culvert towards the Hague Road. I said, sure, do what you want. And they filled it all in, gave me a nice, from the town, to build a nice garage set way back. And I and this gentleman and his son helped me build stone walls. Those stone walls weren't there. They were all distributed all over the place. So I support Mr. Dennett and his wife to have that new driveway. Thank you.

Thank you. So these aren't historic stone walls.

Well, I will assert that there was a stone wall visible, but they greatly improved it. They added to it and made it taller. But the stone wall does show on some old tax records. Just the fundamental, the basic.

Well, you have to have a driveway.

Are you restricted with Scenic Road as far as removal of it? Are we able to make this decision?

That's why we're having the hearing.

Yes, absolutely. And there's no opposition with the conservation? No.

There's a letter in your packet.

It's not a letter.

I was just going to say, are there any other public comments?

One of our neighbors, .

We got their letter.

We got it. We have a letter from the Conservation Commission that they voted and didn't have any objections to this application. And we have a letter of support from Jay and Lori Hipke at 180 South Road. And both of them are in your packet.

I'll move approval. Second.

Any other board discussion or questions?

My only question is, how are you accessing the house now?

Right now, we only have our garden, which is between our old house and we're using the new driveway park. the old one. Again, she's 77 years old, she's got diabetes, and I don't want her walking on uneven ground without a guard. Where the driveway is, the new driveway is, I park in there, we unload our water, we have no water It is a little confusing, Paul, because...

Already built?

It's already built. And actually, you signed the permit, or the town engineer signed the permit, and the town building inspector, code enforcement, signed off. But they were just, not that there was any malfeasance, they were just unaware of this law that's been in the books for over a quarter century. It's rarely used. Traditionally, we hear requests come in for utilities cutting trees. But of course, it also applies, the RSA applies to stone walls and trees. So I just thought it would be cleaner if we had this meeting so it wouldn't cloud title down the road. It's very clear if we pass this that they have a right to use the new driveway, which is already in existence. It's kind of cleaning up a little mess.

So it's sort of a retroactive, you know, in order to clear the... We're dotting I's and crossing T's.

Again, you... Thank you.

Any other comments, questions?

We have a motion and we have a second.

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Thank you everybody for coming out tonight.

You can stay for the rest of the show, but thank you.

So this is one step in the process. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

Good job.

Well this is just offensive. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for the blueberry pie.

Don't forget mine.

We'll need to wait till Mark comes back, but you're up next.

I promised you. I promised you.

All right.

Next up, we have Robert Tuttle, our fire inspector, talk about changes to our site plan review regulations. And I will be up front. I have skimmed this, but I haven't had a chance to read it in detail. And I was hoping you could kind of walk us through it a little bit.

Yeah, sorry, it's a little bit of a lot that I guys sent you, but having a discussion with Mark, basically from our last conversation while I was here talking about things, started to go through our actual zoning to see if things matched like we discussed. And there was some things that matched, some things that aren't in there. And so this is more or less trying to clean that up and figure out within your, so I kind of more or less looking for like a work session with you guys, more than like voting anything in tonight. because that's the way mark described it to me is more of like a work session with you guys than the actual like voting in things because i don't understand fully yet how things get voted yeah because we need to have a full public hearing yeah will this end up being a warrant article because no oh no you're adding the most part that changes I think there was one that might have been a Warren article. Yeah, you're correct. There is one. There is one, and I think that was specifically for when I was looking for like NFPAs and building codes. It just basically cites like SAF 600, which is... I mean, if you want to go digging, you can dig, but I think that cleans that section up to be very more specific.

But for most of it, we'll at least have to have noticed public hearing and give people opportunities to comment.

But this was more of like a work through red pen night. And if we don't need to go through it all tonight, I'm okay with that too.

Maybe highlights or things that you think might be a sticking point?

Yeah. Is there another... Yep, right over there.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea, because if we do end up doing a work session later, it might be good to know in advance what some of the, what some of the quote unquote problem areas might be, if there are any.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's just more like revising and cleaning things up, trying to figure out like things that, to make the town a little bit safer for people coming in, because there's a lot of construction coming into this town, a lot of projects coming in, and we don't, Our biggest thing in the firehouse is the water supplying town. We don't have it in this town. We just don't. Like I just found out we had a fire pond that almost no one knew we had in town on 125.

Oh, that's inoperable. No? Well, it's got that little, just a little bathtub, basically.

No, out behind Suburban Propane.

Which one?

Behind Suburban Propane.

Oh, yeah, it's tied into the water system. It's a water system.

There is.

But that's also tied to the Gersey property, which is how this really got exposed. It'll be resolved.

And that's what triggered that. It'll be resolved. I got the site plan for that, and no one really knew that was even back there.

It's the source of the water supply.

It is.

Was that the thing you showed us, Mark, where we went into like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

How that's supposed to operate is the There's supposed to be pressure in those lines all the time. When the pressure drops, that pump is supposed to kick on. So there's some electrical issues there. There should be some inspections being done on it.

Yeah, it's currently being fixed right now.

It will be fixed by the time GERCY comes back to this board.

Before you jump in, I did have one question. I think I saw you had written somewhere that we have a lot of buildings that we don't know exactly when they're approved who the tenants will be. Correct. And I'm wondering if you have any recommendations for the board.

So that actually, there is, I think, a section in here for that specifically. And I probably should have labeled it a little bit better. But there is some of that in here. Early detection.

Shell speculative and multi-tenant buildings.

Yes. Because it is. We're getting those multi-bay buildings. They're building a cookie cutter metal box, and then they're just going to rent it out to whoever.

Yeah, I'm wondering if you would recommend that we limit that somehow? Like we say you can have this type of business, but you can't.

I wouldn't say limit it because it does bring a lot of stuff into this town. But we just need to be able to get in there. So like when these guys come in to site plan for you guys, they're just saying, hey, I want to build this building. But once it's built, there's nothing that says what, you know, for us to go back in or they need, there's nothing in there for them to come back even to you where it says, okay, well, now I want these tenants in there. And certain tenants trigger. There actually is. There is. Is there?

Yeah. I think most of all this is covered by our existing regs, but you won't believe this, but personally I gave you a very hard time last time, but I kind of like the fact that you're, you know, maybe cleaning up and condensing it. You know, we have that note on all plans always upon approval that says that the build-out before building permits issue that, you know, plan is submitted by a licensed fire professional detailing what aspects of the codes are to be addressed. And I think it's great to have it. It's just too much if people haven't had a chance to read these pages. It's too much tonight. Maybe I just would suggest that we maybe not hold a public hearing for a month because I'd love to see FSFC as our PE, our professional engineer fire consultant, review this and maybe make some suggestions as well.

We might have to make sure we have budget for that because our budget is quite tight. And I think we have a small line in there.

We do. Well, again, we don't have to address everything in this packet tonight. Yeah. Just it was given to, you know, talk with Mark and how things work, right? We didn't want to form a quorum or anything like that. So what I did is I forwarded to him so he could forward to you. If we have to come back to another night or look at one or two tonight and come back, I can work with that. I'm looking for nothing in stone tonight. This is more of like a let's work together work session.

I think a lot of these things are going to be addressed through better communication between the planning board and the fire department, getting applicants into their purview, into their review earlier within the process. I think the fire regulations and the amount of gallonage that is required when you don't declare a use. I've heard some comments from some engineers to say that they will never submit another plan unless they can nail down a use. Because you'd be wildly surprised with the gallons per minute required when you don't declare a use and when you do.

But that would come into play, that would be reviewed when the building application is submitted. So when...

It could be in either instance. An applicant can come in very clearly with an idea. It's easier not to.

Right, but in a lot of cases they don't.

But what Mark is pointing out is that it may be easier in the short term not to, but when they find out what their ramifications can be on the other end, they should have talked with someone. Because most of them... have an idea when they have five units, they know of one person that's talked to them. They just don't know who the other four people are going to be. And they should think about that more practically. Yep. It absolutely does. It does.

We have an applicant that came before us, and we approved the plan, and then they found out because they didn't declare use, they were required to put 80,000 gallons?

Which one?

Revolution Real Estate.

I'm trying to think of that. 180,000.

180,000 gallons of water.

And I'll point that out right now actually with the very first page here with regards to the cistern. It's a very short two-page one. Basically it would revise because right now what your zoning board says, it says the minimum usable capacity 30,000 gallons. Now All developers, anywhere I talk to, they're like, oh, well, that's what your thing says. It's 30,000 gallons. Well, no, that's the minimum. And when it comes to NFPA 1, all buildings have a flow requirement when something happens. So any building from 0 square feet to 12,000 square foot building comes out to the 1,500 gallons a minute. for two hours.

I think they're being a little disingenuous in telling you that because every town and city in New Hampshire is governed by these same rules. So they all know it's based on load and other various factors.

But if we, the problem with us in particular as Brentwood, we don't have the water supply. So for me to meet this as an incident commander, right, I've got 30,000 gallons on site minus the 180,000, right, or 180,000 minus the 30. I have to bring in 14, 15, 16 tankers into this town, which this area does not have. We have a staffing issue across the board in New Hampshire. We don't have the water supply for that either. That would be taxing the water tower or any what little ponds we do have in town.

But our existing regs, if you declare that they need X number of gallons based, again, on the use, then they have to comply. I mean, they can't go back and say, well, your ordinance says a minimum of 30,000. But this would make it clear, right?

Clear, yeah. That it's more defensible.

But that's what every developer does.

They may try that.

They may try. They just go, OK, your thing says 30,000 gallons.

Yeah. So this would make it more defensible.

This will make it more precise based on the buildings you have coming in. Or they have other options. Because you do have in your thing that they have other options. You can just sprinkle the building. That changes things completely with the cistern size or the tank size that they need.

Is this like an impediment to development, though? Is that, you know, in terms of, in terms of like the lack of water, you know, and now putting regulation in place that will expand what's necessary, is that gonna be an impediment?

I thought so, Paul, and I don't know if you were here at the meeting when when the chief was here, or he was here last time. But I started right off going after him on that basic issue. The town of Brentwood hires SFC. They are professional engineers, authorized, license to do fire inspections. So the only other thing I really, I don't feel there's going to be any impediment to business because it's just following the law that's already on our books. There really is nothing really new. The idea here is that it would be more clear to applicants, but I mean the basic law hasn't changed.

And something that is worth keeping in mind is that if I'm interpreting the new RSA correctly, which is a big if, I think that we have some flexibility here to evaluate some of these multifamily projects on a case-by-case basis based on our water capacity. Because the new law that was passed that amended House Bill 631 made it even clearer that towns do have some discretion when it comes to town infrastructure like sewer and water.

But that's only for multifamily. That's only for multifamily, but I think... These apply to everything within the parameters of cyclone.

Right, but the reason why I bring it up is that I think to Paul's... I don't know if this is really where you were going with this, but I think that with the increased multifamily developments in potentially on 125, it could become relevant.

Yeah, I mean... I was thinking more expansively, but I understand what you're saying. I mean, it's true. A very good point. I don't think this is in any way going to impede that.

The only thing I'm a little bit uncomfortable with is, what do you guys call it, the agency with jurisdiction?

AHJ.

AHJ.

The authority having jurisdiction.

And certainly, you have independent jurisdiction on your own. I mean, if you see an unsafe situation due to life safety issues impairments, you have the right as a fire chief to address those.

We do. We do. And the biggest thing with this, like the cistern thing, originally came from one of the NFPAs that's not being, we can't enforce it because it's not under 101 or 101. It's under NFPA 1142, which is basically the primary standard for suburban and rural firefighting water supply. So that's where this cistern thing came in. So that NFPA isn't technically enforceable. So we actually can't enforce the cistern size.

Well, that's why I think that engaging SFC to do some review here is important, because that's how we started with SFC. At first, we had the fire department dictating to the planning board or suggesting what the approval would allow in the fire department at the time. Nothing to do with the present crew. But at the time, they were coming up with suggestions and requirements, demands that weren't supported by any fire regulations. So we hired SFC. So just so you understand, the fire department is advisory to this board. I mean, you still have your own independent jurisdiction. But I want to see SFC still involved. So if there's an issue, you know, somebody, an applicant is thinking that they're being unjustifiably demanded to do far more than they think the code is, we'll have SFC.

The last SFC report I got is all suggestions. It's not even the you must. It just says these are things you should do. Well, there's a...

I want to say a couple things real quick. One is I appreciate what you're saying, but this is also the town hires professionals to come up with it.

SFC being one of them.

And the fire department.

Someone has to. But SFC is a credentialed PE professional engineer. Our fire department does not have that accreditation. So when it comes down to brass tacks, if they think that they're being backed. Are you a professional engineer?

I'm not a professional engineer, but I have the credentials. Well, you have some credentials. And also, I've gone through the classes that I need to.

We're not asking them to calculate load bursts. We're asking them to regulate fires and fire suppression. So let me give you a bit of an example. So the last applicant that I just talked about who got the 180,000-gallon cistern and was told to do that was reviewed by SFC. And do you know what SFC said? I concur. But who's going to pay SFC also?

Yeah, I don't want to create a problem that we don't have right now. I think, you know, we have recommendations for changing our site plan review based on, you know, I think what we asked you last time is can you tie it to our ordinances and give us justification? And I think that's what you've done very thoroughly. And there is always a process too if an applicant comes in circumstances, whatever they might be at that site, and they have a justification to try to go to the zoning board.

It wouldn't be the zoning board. We'd want to have a professional, and I mean, I concur with Paul. I'm worried not about this fire department.

I know. I'm saying if... We have rules on the books, and then we get advice during a process, and those two things don't quite line up, and there are other processes is what I'm saying. What we want to do is get the rules...

Yes, we want the rules to be properly stated so they don't infringe on the rights of future applicants.

Well, to Paul's question about would this inhibit development, I think has to be weighed against public safety. And what I'm hearing is that the way things are written currently, you are not comfortable with more development coming in.

It's not that I'm uncomfortable with more development coming in. I think we just need to meet the standards. And unfortunately, there's another development in town too that I'm working with and I had to give approval for because before me, there was a 15,000 gallon cistern on that site, which does not meet your ordinance as written currently. And there was an argument between them about So now he's building and he's putting a 15,000 gallon cistern on site to make a 30,000 gallon cistern on site that has three, four buildings on that one grouping area, all kind of close together.

Not ideal. So I want to set aside the SFC thing for now. Let's look at the budget, see where we are. It's already almost September. So we'll have an idea there might be. We have the engineering line and we might be able to cobble together a little bit.

I just can't believe though we would consider making changes to our ordinance because we didn't have the money to hire our qualified engineer to the town of Brentwood that you signed the contract for to provide the technical assistance to us that you wouldn't want to have them

I'm not saying that we're, first of all, we're not making any decisions for a while. We need to go through a public hearing process. We all need to read this and mark it up and get Glenn's insight about how it meshes with our current ordinances. And if it means we need to wait, or we need to go to the select board and ask for money, we can't spend what we don't have. It's not a matter of, oh, we think this is really important, so we still can't spend what's not in our budget. So we can go to the select board, or we can wait until January, and we can put it in a new budget.

Yeah, I think the select board will find a way to help us finance it. That's fine. But if they don't, I wouldn't. Thank you. make a big deal out of not approving any changes until such time. Maybe we'll put these changes off until after January.

That's fine.

When we have the money.

That's fine. I just think we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. I see a path for that of finding a way to do it.

I'm concerned that we make decisions and enact ordinances and regulations that make sense. Not that it's giving us anything wrong, but the way they're implemented, and there always needs to be a safeguard where

Professional engineer can be consulted if there's a disagreement between parties Yeah, if I could just say it Every now and then it feels like we have discussions here where even though it feels like we all agree at work like talking like we don't agree I feel like we have a path forward here. I mean we're we I think we're in agreement that we want SFC's eyes on it, but we need to just make sure that we're staying within our means. I think that we're largely in agreement here in terms of what the proper path forward is. I don't know if it would be prudent to make a motion to schedule a work session, or if maybe that's still a little bit premature. Maybe we should look at the budget first. But I'm curious what folks, what the temperature of the board. Oh, there's the budget right there.

Although we don't know what it would cost. We don't know. We don't know exactly.

Why don't you make a motion, Doug, to contact SFC to see what a cursory review of these advocated changes would cost. So at least we know what monetary value we're talking about. so we can go to the select board or maybe somebody who donates some money. If I make the motion, will you second it? I'll second it.

Well, I guess what are we asking them, though? Are we asking them to read this and provide comment or attend a work session?

I was just looking for your guys' input to start. I'm not trying to go down the big, huge rabbit hole.

I would much rather we whittle this down. I mean, I can't ask for a quote on something that she's never seen. and how much volume there is will dictate the price and the hours.

Yeah, I mean maybe we read through it and a lot of it's basic and we don't think we need an engineer to.

So let's do this. I can, did you send this to us in a Word doc?

I emailed it over to Mark on a word.

Because one, okay, we have a couple options for the board.

And if not, I can't. It was either PDF or Word, but I'm pretty sure it was Word.

Okay.

Word.

Because I'm just thinking, we've got a couple options. One is everybody has a copy of this in their mail. They can just use the comment function and go through and make comments on it and send them all to Mark. Or I could make more of a spreadsheet and put each section in a column and you guys can write notes and maybe that way we can say we don't need to worry about this. This is, you know, this is consistent with what we're doing.

I think we just make comments on this. It takes a couple hours to really read through it several times. Yeah.

Yeah, again, like I said, I've been working with Mark. It was more of a we can't do a quorum. We didn't want to go down that rabbit hole, right? So... sent it over to him so I could come talk to you guys.

We really want to meet with you guys. We appreciate all the work you've done on this.

We really do, yeah. Sometimes we stumble into rabbit holes without even...

So let's set a deadline for ourselves to comment and then get back together and... do more of a close reading together.

We're not meeting on the first of next month, September, so how about the second meeting of September?

Do we have any?

For the 17th, I believe it is.

We have that one hearing that's continued.

We do, I mean.

We're not meeting on the third?

We are not, that meeting's canceled.

Yeah, we have Gercy. Gercy, yeah. Gercy. They're going before the ZBA to Monday.

Okay. So may I just suggest something? Yes, please.

Absolutely.

I started reading this yesterday. Mm-hmm. And I would really like to send something to the board about it. And I would like to do that earlier than later.

Mm-hmm.

So regardless of when you people decide you're going to have a work session, I would like to commit to finishing looking at it, when I'm here next week, and put together what I think we need to, how we need to address moving forward. I mean, you pay me to do that, and I would like to do that, and I did start doing that yesterday.

We appreciate it.

Sometimes it's just fun to see how we work through things.

Well, and I'm sure everybody wants to.

And everyone should look at this.

So we don't need SFC yet.

I'm just saying, before we vote as a board to adopt it.

And we agree. So I think we can hold off on any motions.

And we need a public hearing, too. So there's lots more to come. Does that work with his schedule? You know his schedule.

I make a schedule, yes.

Will he have enough time?

Yeah, I will have enough time next Wednesday. Okay, so.

Yeah, I've got comments. All you have to do is go through the Gersi comments to make sure they are sufficed. Yeah, and you already got the edits.

And you're gonna make a recommendation to us, Glenn, via email?

Yes, and I'm not saying I'm making recommendations about the content. I will be making recommendations about what our steps forward are and how I think these are meshing in with what we currently require.

Perfect. So board assignment is to spend some time with this, send any comments, questions to Glenn and Mark, and be prepared on the 17th, having read Glenn's comments and this document, and you're available on the 17th, And that'll be the next step. We may have a review step, timing TBD. That's fine. And we'll have a public hearing step.

I like learning how you guys work and working with you guys.

I really think you're on the right track. I just want to make sure. Absolutely, I agree. Thank you so much for your work.

When do you go to Florida?

All right, well, again, thank you for all the work you've done on this. Thank you for coming out again tonight. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, actually, sorry. I had one quick thing for you. So back on this idea about buildings that you're not exactly sure what's going in them. So the town did put together like a business registration process where owners are supposed to notify the town of new tenants. But I don't know how that's been implemented. And one of the big issues we have here, and I see you have approval should not constitute approval of any future tenant, we don't have a lot of enforcement mechanism or making sure tenants have changed.

So that's an area that's- Somebody told me you guys had a registry of businesses, because I want to get out myself to the businesses, because get out and do safety inspections and get back into these businesses.

And we really should know that a business moving in is approved under the site plan, and that- Because I assume if something's changed there, they're not following your rules, right? It could just be the same kind of business. But if it's something different, it may or may not.

I mean, I know you're concerned about this. You should be concerned about it. But I believe you have the right. Maybe it's in conjunction with code enforcement or building inspectorate or New Hampshire RSA. I think you have the right to, on your own. Certainly, the planning board doesn't have any jurisdiction once the approval has been given.

There are some, like if they have like, Permanent assembly or certain things. I have to go in yearly and go check.

Yeah other things permitting the missions of There are yep, we don't we don't have any enforcement power But we're a resource if you need to know what's approved But doesn't the building inspector?

Issue a Occupancy permit? We do.

We've been working together on all new buildings. I give him my life safety inspection report. And that, in conjunction, will give an occupancy. But if it's an occupancy for a square metal building that has nothing in it, that doesn't mean it's literally an occupancy for that shell. But now what's going in there?

It's not like a business license.

They could say, oh, it's A business, but really it's B business, and now it's a high hazard with a lot of chemicals.

So when you have somebody moving in, how do you get more teeth into that by having a new business go in? You start with the shell, then you have a gun factory go in there.

Right. We have nothing. I would only find out if we go and do an inspection right now.

That's why our note is on every plan that says any use of this will conform to all. It doesn't sound that's followed. No, no.

It's like condo docs. Nobody ever reads them.

Five or seven years ago, we put in a requirement that acknowledges by note on the plan that they understand the Brentwood Fire Department has the right to annual inspections. It's in our regulations.

And do you do that on an annual basis?

So the problem with that is, again, funding, budget. I'm only there. So the previous inspector was only there every Friday for eight hours, because that's what the budget allowed. I try to be there Tuesdays and Thursdays. We've gone to 10 hours, because that's what we're figuring out. But I mean, that's two five-hour days. And I do come in a lot and do a lot on my own time as well for this town. just because I really do like Brentwood Firehouse, the department. And now we're your favorite planning board too, right?

Okay, anything else? Thank you again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Board review of the new compliance enforcement form. Thank you, Mark, for making that. We have an electronic version and a version somebody can fill out by hand. So the conversation, Paul, you weren't here last week, but we talked about You know, we all kind of see something once in a while, and we don't, you know, like an individual, anybody personally can send something to the select board. But we talked about, well, if we've all talked about it here, should we as a board report something rather than making an individual do it? So that was the idea behind this. Mark, was there anything you wanted to add?

No, it's pretty self-explanatory. I wanted one that you could fill out at home as you saw something, and you could fill it out. And the other one's really for me to be able to type on it. Or for you, if you want to type it out on your computer and print it. I just didn't want to have to delete all the lines when I wanted to fill it out. Providing them both to you. I did steal the Kingston one and sort of revamped it. I removed a few things that I reworded some things that I felt were... a little clearer. Kingston's brilliant.

What'd you say? I said Kingston's brilliant.

Because he wrote it.

The form was? So did we?

No, I felt there was a few things that could be eliminated, and I did. So I guess it wasn't so brilliant.

Did we vote? Glenn, would you make changes on this?

No. OK. You're insulted by my changes by the one you made in Kingston, I can see.

So which one are we supposed to go by here? Either one? Or the one with the lines?

Yeah, one with the lines.

They say the same thing.

Yes, they do.

Yeah, the one without the lines is just easier to type in on a computer. So did we vote last time on submitting a request for the containers under the power lines, or did we leave that open?

We did talk about that, Paula. In fact, you spoke about a couple meetings ago about going out and viewing that banner here on Sanborn lot number one.

Yeah, did that happen? You said you were going to do it.

Personally? Yes, you did. I'll even rewind.

I'll sit, come over here and watch that tape. No, I said I would report it to the building inspector, which I did.

Okay.

What happened? Don't know. That I can't tell you.

And then I made a recommendation. I think Kristen brought up the idea of checking out the banners, see if that conformed with standards. And then I mentioned the containers, the three containers on the second parcel, which has no site plan approved at all, period. You know, I don't mind being the jerk, but I think Kristen had a good idea. If the planning board were to write this up, I don't mind going around and writing up these. It's a great idea. But just so you won't think we're trying to usurp the power of the Board of Selectmen, if you turn the page. I'm not thinking that at all.

We just notice things, and if it's a site plan that we've worked with, then people know what's off.

Yeah, I think that kind of documentation, you know, with the planning board,

stamp of you know approval is you know that that would help the process so does somebody want to make a motion to have our land use administrator fill out an enforcement request related to the containers i don't have the address under the power lines right we have the i can i i would feel more comfortable creating that document for you and you reading it and voting on it

Because what you're doing, it's too gray. If I put something in there that you don't like, then.

We don't know you don't like it.

I don't know you don't like it.

We've got something going on.

All right, can you draft something?

Okay, for the containers?

Containers under the power line.

Yeah, so I've got to look up on our site plan review regulations and our zoning regulations what that's a violation of.

I'll give you a note in writing early next week.

Okay. They appear abandoned.

Yeah, because you already sent it.

No, I haven't.

We can do it in two minutes.

I want them to be aware that they need to follow this up with the regulations. Let me read the site plan regulations on page 31, Mark. I'm listening. Under Section 10, administration and enforcement, 10.1 is general, and it says these regulations shall be administered by the planning board with the assistance of the building inspector, town engineer, and such other persons as the board shall designate. It shall be the duty of the board of selectmen to enforce the site plan review regulations. The selectmen in enforcing these regulations shall act upon a complaint or information from the planning board, building inspector, town engineer, or otherwise, and shall, whenever practical, take such action as the Planning Board or such other officials request.

I thought you were going to give me what they were in violation of.

I was ready to write it down. The Board of Selectmen have done that seven times in the last two years.

I think the reason I... Suggested that we have a forum like this is because there are meetings where we just kind of talk around circles And we don't actually do anything about that was not that that would ever happen here But this way we get it down on paper.

We all agree we send it to yeah Make a motion you vote on it, and I will I will make sure it could help the building inspector because I know he wants that I

Plus it's like prioritizing. It's not just something you heard, but it's an official request. All right. Our land use commissioner will draft.

He probably asked me to put it in the email.

So you like the form. Awesome. Moving on. My question, we would be voting on this after?

After he drafts it.

After he drafts it.

Okay. I'm uncomfortable without you looking at the verbiage first. Okay.

So the containers but not the signings?

Let's just start with that.

And with that, are you going to put the vote down on paper?

Just an approved signature. The specific action and request by the planning board. It being reflected in the minutes.

That will be reflected in the minutes.

As long as it's reflected in the minutes and you have an approved signature, I think that suffices. Okay.

All right, next item, board discussion regarding driveway permits. So we talked a little bit about this last time. SFC gave us two options. How did we leave this? Do you want to talk about this?

I do. Okay. So looking at the billing that's been coming in, I reached back out to SFC to say, hey, do you have a number that you can come up with that would be one fee that I could pay you per driveway permit and then you would handle it? Or could you bill direct? And her answer is in that email that they are uncomfortable billing direct. And really lays out the two fees that they are comfortable with collecting and the amount of service they would give under those two fees. This is my personal opinion. I think $1,000 is far too much money to ask for a resident for a driveway permit. But you're not going to get the pre-inspection, which I think is important as well.

Our application does know they ask for a picture of the existing conditions. In fact, if you want to pull up that approval for the Dennett lot, you'll see all the pictures that were taken by the applicant.

Right. No, those were taken by the engineer. Okay. During a pre-inspection. Leaving it up to a homeowner or a possible person putting in the driveway to judge that site distance of 400 feet This is why I'm bringing it to the board. This really needs to be a board discussion.

I concur with the thousand bucks is too much. I like the second one. But if you read a little further below that, SFC is offering to help us improve our application process. So they might ask for pictures. If somebody lies about the line of sight, and I agree with you, not many homeowners would even know what a line of sight is. But if they put down information, put in the driveway and then the information that they gave is untrue, they don't get their final sign off.

Well, then it's already constructed and built.

Yeah, that puts everybody in trouble.

And they don't really know how to properly do line of sight either. There's a procedure to that.

I'm sorry.

Please, Mr. Greenwood, go right ahead, thank you.

I understand that you're worried about $400, but the $400 in this instance is whether or not we're going to have an engineer go out before the driveway is put in and show up after the driveway is put in. And I think that because of our history, we should work on that premise for a while.

Yes.

If it seems like it's overkill, we can readjust it. But we have spent two years kicking ourselves for not providing for the ability for our town engineer to show up before anything happens and verify after everything has happened.

And they told us it costs more money.

And it's $400 is the difference between having them on site before and after.

On an $850,000 home.

Why is this an issue?

But this is also a conversation of, right now we're charging three. Your typical driveway, let's just say this one on South Road, That's a one-off. She goes out and does that and then goes back to the office. When she does the one, say, in River Run, it's three at a time or four at a time or five at a time. So the differential there, if we're going to get charged $1,000 for every, or the applicant is going to get charged $1,000 for every one of those and then they go out and do five at a time, That's a profit to them.

Can't we expect a professional organization like SFC to treat that reasonably so if they do go out and they do five inspections, I don't think they're going to charge us for 15 hours at work. I mean, they're talking five hours.

And if they do that, something we should talk to them about.

Absolutely. Well, that's...

But it just seems we have spent an awful lot of time upset that we didn't have the right eyes on the driveways at the right time. And the only way to do that is to have them there before and to have them there after.

And I believe we spent, we had legal fees related to that, which is a town thing. It's just crazy.

If we feel like they're screwing us, I think we talk to them about that. That isn't the relationship they want to have either.

There is an option C, that we pay them the hourly that comes in and we set a fee

I think we could set our fee based on what they said.

When they go out and do five at a time, there's just an hourly fee involved in that. Their hourly fee to do just one driveway in the town of Brentwood, just one on some back road, it adds up to almost $1,000. If one came out to like $900, so that's why they came up with this figure of $1,000. But the five in a row that they did that they charged me hourly, we probably... I mean, I didn't go number by number, but there's only three of them that have been done. that weren't in a development situation.

Well, we just, then Tara talks with us. Sure. And she says, look, I have five applications and I can do them all at one time. So here's.

Can we say like 1,000 per driveway or hourly, whichever is less, whichever is the appropriate method.

Good idea.

But this is a fee that goes on a form.

Yeah.

You pay this up front. Right, because if you don't get the money up front, you may not get the money. So you could, but you could always.

And I defer back to what I originally said. We want them eyes on before and eyes on after.

And if this is what it costs, this is what it costs.

That's what it costs, exactly.

But the fee, can't we just, we take in the fee, they bill us whatever it is, if we have extra left over, we keep it and use it? I feel like that's more record keeping and we're probably not able to manage that. I mean, that could stack up and then we could use it for other engineering needs.

No, that goes into general fund. Like the way you're thinking. It really doesn't. They won't keep it in a pile for us.

All right, so there's one other option I see, which is a fee based on a one-off driveway, a fee based on two or more in one location is $800.

But now you take River Run, for example, They may apply for five, but they may only bill one at a time.

Yeah. I'm not that concerned about it. There aren't going to be, I don't think, any major new projects like that. I'm not that concerned about it. And we want to get it right.

We want to get it right. And if the difference between getting it right and coming up with some convoluted reason to not do it doesn't seem logical to me.

And if something does go wrong, It's very hard to get somebody to fix something. Then it becomes a fight and a zoning issue.

And it becomes way more expensive. And way more expensive. And so if something goes wrong, they got a $600 permit, and then they got a $1,000 repair bill. And they're going to be upset that we didn't just give them a $1,000 permit and save them $600.

You won't believe this one, but my thinking has evolved.

all right so um i would entertain a motion to uh oh sorry is there any public comment yeah yeah sorry about that come to the podium please push the button push your name please thank you thank you robert lambert um been with the d.o.t for 21 years

I do driveway permits on a daily. It's part of my job as foreman for my area. Unfortunately, I'm not a foreman over here in Allenstown. Part of my job is driving around, and if I see someone paving a driveway or putting in a culvert, you know, unless they have their permit in hand at cease and desist, you need to stop. I've seen people that our permits are zero. They can go online and apply for it. It doesn't cost them a thing. And I've still seen contractors come in and not do putting a pipe in or making sure the grade was the right way. I guess my question is, why isn't the road agent handling it?

Basically, I'll be the one willing to say we don't have a qualified engineer on our highway staff.

Period.

I'm not. Full stop. But we've had a lot of problems with this, and it's just time to make the change.

I mean, the state has the money in their budget, apparently, to provide the service. The engineers don't come out and check the driveways, I do. And I'm not.

But you're still a paid state employee.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, we have regulations about exactly how they're supposed to be built, which are a little bit different in this town than, I think, surrounding towns, because we still require... not concrete, concrete.

Reinforced concrete.

And we have had instances where things have been moved, things have been installed that do not match the plan. And one of the problems that we identified is that we didn't have something like this in place that covered the expense of somebody going out ahead of time, making sure it was going to be done correctly, and making sure it was installed correctly. And that created issues for us.

Any other comments? Yeah, I just want to make another comment. SFC's note here would be to assist us with developing the driveway permit requirements. Because of the question I asked Mark today, going back a few years when we had perhaps something different in writing on our application, we said that if you pave a driveway or repave a driveway, you're changing the elevation and the side slopes and all that, you still need to get a building permit. So I think we need to really revamp or at least take a look at our current driveway permit applications to make sure that we address topics.

Can we do that? Can we not do that? I thought we did update our permit application.

Well, that was always the rule, but I don't know if that's enforced anymore. I see driveways paved all the time on my road that there's no permit

Would it be advantageous to have the building inspector come in and talk to him about it?

About the application process and what happens? The application process is the application process, but we need maybe to redefine our application to ask the questions or to state the rules that we want to see enforced. Because people are, again, on my road. I know exactly what you're talking about.

It's another enforcement issue, not having the resources to flag.

You grabbed the bull. I'm just trying to wrangle it.

Okay, so what I would like to do, I would like to ask the planning board to accept $1,000 to go toward a review by SFC of our driveway applications to see if we can do that, and I'll have a check for you Monday.

You have $650 in your budget for engineering.

Maybe that can be used on the fire, because that's my next big battle. But this one, I'll give you the $1,000.

I don't think it's legal for you to give money. Oh, it is, a donation.

I honestly thought we did this. I thought you redid the form.

I can show you exactly what the form looks like.

And I think the problem is that we can do that, have a new driveway permit for a new house, but then, I mean, I've been in my house nine years and still haven't paid my driveway. What, how does that, how do you know if that person knows the process, remembers the process?

Well, first you have to have the process. You can't hold somebody accountable for something that values a plane board member. I don't know exactly what that driveway permit request requires today, but I'm sure SFC will probably come up with some different ideas on what, what rules we would have.

So what you're really talking about, though, is not necessarily a driveway permit. It's a application. Well, but it's when there's already a driveway.

Well, that's just one. I mean, overall, 90% of what I'm worried about is new driveways. But I'm saying there are little incidental sidebars to that, like the repaving issue, that I don't know.

See, I feel like, regardless of what's on this, The reason that SFC would be paid $1,000 is to make sure that the new driveway is installed correctly. So I'm not worried about that. The problem is somebody coming back later and putting in a culvert and paving a driveway that's already there and not coming in and getting a permit set is different.

But my question is, I guess it's so simple. I think we need to know, we need, an engineer needs to tell us what are the different aspects of a proper driveway installation.

Isn't that in our, that's in our, we have that.

We do. About subgrade and all that and the way.

Yes, that was the whole thing. We have that little depiction.

We have that little depiction in our book. Didn't we discuss that a few years ago?

Yes. And they've done driveway permits for us. They haven't said, oh my God, we think you're requiring horrendous construction requirements.

And we do have them, because the whole issue that we had last year or the year before was that we had the requirements, and we looked at what was in the ground, and those things did not match.

And we measured them. We were there measuring. So they do exist.

Most of the struggle is not with developments, but private homeowners. is getting them to submit a proper diagram and elevation scheme for what they want to do. That's where her struggle is. And I've had to refuse a few and hand them back and say this is not a completed application.

You're talking about the new drivers?

Yeah.

I think if... Dennett was one of them.

Because it wasn't complete. It wasn't adequate to show elevations and slopes.

So what did he do?

They redid it. And that's why she has to bill for those hours. She bills for the original review, has to also bill for the second review of coordination between the applicant and herself. And that's where the struggle is. I don't think it's the ordinance itself. It's the actual application these people are filling out and handing in.

So here's what I'd like to do, and you all can disagree, but I'm favoring option one with a conversation with FFC to say if you see any way to improve this process so it doesn't take as long. and you helped the applicant out earlier, and the cost could come down in the future, then we can discuss that.

I'll make that motion.

I wanted to say something.

Yeah, I'm confused. Are we only talking about new driveways, or are we also talking about getting permits if you're repaving your driveway? Or seal coating?

Not repaving, but installing a culvert where there hasn't been one.

Well, Lauren had said if you repave. In other words, you have a driveway that's been there for a long time and it's breaking up or something, you need to repave it.

Yeah.

Sometimes you may be just shimming and repaving, other times you may be grinding it up and starting from scratch.

Yeah, do you need a new driveway permit for that?

That's what it always was.

But not like a .

It's altering.

Occasionally. Alteration. Reconstruction.

Alter. If you are altering a driveway, meaning making it wider, making it, raising it, lowering it, if you're altering the terrain, then you need to apply for a driveway permit. Because part of the driveway permit process And in my opinion, the most important part of the process is creating proper drainage. Proper drainage ruins our roadways. Improper drainage ruins our roadways. It ruins driveways. It ruins culverts. So proper drainage is what this really, the application is part of, a very important part of the application.

I think they should be separated out, though. I don't think we should be talking about them.

Well, I think what he's saying, though, is if it's being altered in a way that would alter the drainage and you're rebuilding that. So it's not like if somebody has their driveway resealed, has cracks repaired, things like that.

It's not that sort of maintenance. Adding dimensional thickness to your driveway, so which alters drainage.

And I've seen examples, too. I know other people have where people are doing that. They're not putting in the right culvert. They're not. following the standards.

I think we're overthinking it. I'd just go with option one.

I think Doug was going to make a motion.

So I made the motion, but there has been a second. I'll second it.

Any other discussion?

For what exactly was the motion, sir? I'm sorry.

$1,000.

For option one.

Option one for $1,000.

There is more discussion.

And there was more to that. There was the... And we will... SFC will work with us if they find ways to make the process less expensive.

Correct. Correct.

Yes.

Who's the second? Mr. Stevens?

I have a question after that. So my question is... Before we vote?

Yes.

Yes.

Process-wise, Glenn... So we voted tonight to item number one, 1,000 bucks. Do we have to have a public hearing on that, or is this vote tonight sufficient to charge somebody tomorrow? I believe it's sufficient to charge somebody. So Mark, take a new application next week.

Because the town can set their fee schedules, but we're not writing subdivision regulations. We're doing a fee schedule.

So we're going from 300 to 1,000.

So should we be clarifying somewhere that this $1,000 is just for construction of new driveways or substantial reconstruction?

I think that's really important to do. In this entire discussion, I only thought about new driveways. I think that's the only legitimate way to ask for $1,000.

We went down a rabbit hole.

We absolutely did. I understand there are reasons, and every driveway is a particular little universe. From my perspective on this discussion, we were talking about new driveways. Because that was our problem. Substantial changes. That was our issue.

Although, there are... So what about existing... An existing gravel driveway that somebody builds up, paves, puts in a culvert... Do you not that, and maybe it shouldn't be $1,000, but do you not want that to go through the engineers?

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. What does our application say now? Does it say that if you repave your driveway, you need to get a permit? Yeah, I don't know.

I believe, I'll check into that, but I believe so. But I think, yes, this review process is just as important in those instances because I've seen where they've just filled in the ditch line. They raise the driveway, filled in the ditch line, and put a driveway in. They never even put a culvert in where they should have.

Maybe we could ask SFC to recommend some language on the permit differentiating. If you're changing line in grade.

When you read that, I think my interpretation of what she said was, if you go with the $600 option, instead of me doing a pre-approval, I will work harder with the applicant's over the phone, on emails, to make sure that they understand and install it correctly.

But it should be in writing so that anybody that goes in and looks at the permit application understands. They have that little schematic, but to most people that little schematic doesn't really mean much. We need to say... These are the requirements.

It lays them out. I mean, it even includes the language of the RSA within the permit process. The problem is, Bruce, is that you're working with laymans, okay? And laymans do not provide very good information or drawings when it comes to these particular applications.

So this $1,000 is going to take care of that?

It will, yes.

But... If somebody alters it, it comes in an old existing driveway, and they're going to put some subgrade in, they're going to get a crown, they're going to pave it. That ought to require, I mean, always did require, at least on paper, required a driveway permit. Yes, I would agree.

You're altering grade. You're altering drainage.

That should require a permit.

Sorry.

Is this like a separate question anyways? No, go down. It all pertains to what the inspector's going to look at. Well, no, it's a separate question from what we're seeking to charge.

Because if the planning board members don't even understand what the applicant needs to show.

That's why I think they should be separate. They should be separate. This is for new driveways, right?

What's the difference?

How about the difference that we were all worried about was in new development? That's the difference. That's not. We're addressing that. If we want to... If we want to spend time over the next eight weeks and make the determination on how this should apply to existing driveways being altered and how we should change our permit, I'm happy to look at that. I'm always happy to look at anything. And I am not shy to say if I think I can give you wording for something. If I think I can, and it has to be an engineer, I'm going to tell you I think it has to be an engineer.

Well, I think an engineer would just understand what he was dealing with on the ground. Or she was.

I understand that. I think that we need to look at, that has never, until tonight, that has never been a part of this discussion.

I've asked that question. I mean, that is also, we have talked about that, because I remember talking about walking around neighborhoods and seeing metal culverts and wondering, how did that happen?

So, yeah.

So I agree that this could be clarified and that we draw a line somewhere between what is substantially, truly a, you know, not a rebuilding of some kind. Bruce, please, you're making me interrupt you. We can, we can make criteria. The criteria could be you're installing a culvert where there never was one. That could be it. you're paving a driveway that currently is gravel and changing the driveway. That's a major change.

Well, I think we've always required that. We just haven't enforced it.

Well, it comes back to what I said earlier. We don't have the resources to be checking.

Well, I'm going to give you the resources to do that.

No, no, no. That's not what I mean. I mean... having people in an existing driveway who call up a guy to come pave their driveway knowing that they're supposed to come and talk to Mark and fill out an application.

Not me. No, no, no. Sorry.

Somebody to fill out an application. That's... Not a rule problem, that's a public education enforcement compliance problem.

You really have an egregious situation down the road and it has to go to court. You know, the judge is going to want to see, what are your criteria?

OK, I think we, I know, yeah, OK. Let's do three things. One, guys, let's just take a pause because this is taking way too long. We've gone down many rabbit holes tonight. i would like to just decide tonight in its current form whatever it is voting for option one and then at a future meeting after Glenn's looked at it, and we've all looked at it, and Mark's looked at it, decide if we want to split out an improvement permit or something. And maybe then we have a discussion about what that costs. And how do you define what that is? I think our improvement is already on the books. I know, but I've heard objections tonight to charging that much. How is that defined? We can look at that closely. before the next meeting. And the third thing is public comment.

Linda Lambert. I just wondered on an additional perspective, why could you not ask the person submitting the permit to already have an engineer's Drawings, opinion, rendering, I don't know the language. But why couldn't you just put the cost directly on the homeowner to have that upfront so that you're not worrying about this cost being reimbursed or overcharged or?

Yeah, so this is a fee that does go to them and they do have the responsibility to submit everything that's needed for that application.

Could it not be part of Maybe I'm not saying it right. They already have to incur the costs on their own completely. They have paid SFC or somebody else. I want a driveway. You come out, do the rendering, figure out the slope, the grade, figure out if I need a culvert, this, that, and the other. And I have to supply that picture. Like you would have to have an architect do drawings before you build your house. And they've already paid somebody to do that before they come.

Yeah. peer review process with a lot of our regulations to ensure that somebody else, other than us volunteers, has looked at that and made sure that it's being done correctly. And then we want somebody physically on the site, because again, we've had some problems with things not being done the way we thought.

And I wasn't sure if somebody came with drawings first that you could say yay or nay to before they're even allowed to move forward. whether then the only fee we would have to incur would be someone going out after.

Our legal advice, though, for the last quarter century, probably 50 years, has been that the town, any fees the town enforces or the town puts into play should be paid, that money should be paid to the town, and then the town pays the vendor. I mean, that was just legal advice. I'm going to throw one more wrench into the thing.

Nope, sorry, I agree. No yeah I was just going to say to you that we we want part of the process to be having somebody go out who's basically there the applicants paying the fee but the engineer works on behalf of the town to ensure that we're protected and that the drainage is right and that our roads are protected and. things are being done correctly. It's really hard, based on experience, to try to do something after it's installed that was installed incorrectly. So we're just trying to It does, I know it's a jump. I don't know when the $300 was set, but.

I was just hoping that if somebody could go to get the engineer ahead of time, they can shop. I'm gonna pay this much or I'm willing to pay that much because I'll go to this engineer.

Yeah, this is a separate peer review process for the town.

I'll give you an example here is one in Edgewater, which the engineer spent a great amount of time creating this plan and charged the applicant money for creation of a plan, but yet I still have to pay an engineer to peer review it for this particular driveway. This is one application from Edgewater. And this is what they provide. So.

All right. My last comment, I'm not gonna ask one for comment tonight, but in two weeks, three weeks when we meet, thinking about authority, the planning board clearly has authority regulate driveways within subdivisions or site plans. Not on state roads, but site plan for commercial business or residential subdivision on a new subdivision. The Planning Board has that right through the subdivision application or site plan review application to pass judgment on the driveways. The Planning Board really has jurisdiction on town roads that are not subject to planning board authority. So it was always the select board who would issue permits for town roads. The planning board would, because they only had jurisdiction on subdivisions of site plan, would have the regulations there. I think there should be one uniform standard. And if the select board's willing to go along with the process the planning board develops, I think that's the best thing in the world. But technically, I don't think we have any authority as the planning board. to enforce in the absence of an application for subdivision set plans. That is correct. We clearly have no authority.

We have no authority. But if we could help the Board of Selectmen. But the town has always held that whatever standard we developed for subdivision as far as construction was suitable for a property separate from subdivision. That's just a nitpicky little thing. That's how it's always been.

Yeah, and we don't want four different, I mean, I'm assuming like this one or two applications that we have.

Not four different applications.

Work for everybody, not four, one, two, for the select board and two for us. Did we?

We had a motion. We had a motion. And I'm about to make a motion to move the question if we're.

I have one more comment. This is just throwing a wrench in it. I would like to see a diction option, which would be four hours. This is three hours of time or five hours of time. What about an $800 option per driveway permit?

That was. I'm. I rarely do this, but I am just ready to move the motion tonight. And if we need to read.

They didn't offer us an $800.

If we need. And it can fail. You all can vote no.

But also part of the motion was to work with them.

I have an answer if you want me to give it.

No.

I don't, I really.

Did we want to amend that with what Stephanie had said about being strictly new construction?

I think for right now, it's whatever that document says, and then we'll all, well, we should all look at it, and Glenn's going to look at it, and see if we need to separate out.

Where do we find that if we're looking for it?

Reconstruction. Reconstruction.

It's on the website.

Where do you find the driveway permit?

Yeah, no, where do you find the, what is the document you're referring to?

No, it's the driveway permit because it's got all the requirements listed. It's on the website?

Yeah, it's on the website.

All right, I'm going to call the vote. All in favor? Aye. Nays?

I'll abstain.

Who was the nays? There were no nays. One abstention. One abstention, thank you.

Did you vote?

Yes.

We're all exhausted.

We should have a thermostat that just keeps going up as the night goes on.

I don't think that's a good idea.

People can't take it anymore and we just adjourn. Okay. Can I answer it? So we have, we get two free books. And we, I do believe, have some money in the budget to purchase more books. But if we don't all need physical books, then we don't need to order all of them. So hands, who wants a physical book? One, two, and Nate wants one.

Is there one in the office? So I could come and see it as opposed to getting a whole one?

We generally both get one. Those are two free copies?

Yes, you get two free copies.

Okay, so we want to order... Three. Nate wanted one, you wanted one, Doug wants one.

Did Brett also say he wanted one?

I think for them the blue book will suffice because all the changes are already in it. It's really the cover that's a different color.

My preference would be the digital version just because that's how I normally use it.

Yeah, I'm going to stick with that. And there will be a physical copy in here.

And if I have the blue one, that's probably okay.