Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

nations under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Right on the button. We'll start with the agenda approval. A motion that we approve the agenda. A second. All in favor? I. Approval of the minutes of February 18th, 25 that we approve the minutes. Second. Favor. I I number four yearly PB- VA training. Mr. Max. So, um we do have a new member that is not in attendance tonight. So, I did want to let you know that he can come into um the town hall uh during business hours and gets sworn in alternately as well. Um so, he may be at the next meeting. Um so, every March we do a planning board of adjustments training. Tonight, I'm going to go very briefly into some training. Um and I'm going to focus mostly on board of adjustments because we do have a board of adjustments case. We have not had a board of adjustments case since 2022. So, I did want to make sure items you wanted to go over. Hard fun. I know it's been a while and that's a good thing, I think. Um, so I just had a few pages. I sent these trainings to you through the email. Um, but I did want to let you know that we have the governing board, which is this town council. We have planning board, which is what we are you're doing tonight. Then the meeting after this meeting concludes, we'll have the board of adjustments, and then you have staff. So, these are all our government roles and functions. And so the planning board hears all the development proposals and board of just hears zoning appeals, variances and things like that. And let me know if you

have any questions about your duties and roles. I'll be happy to help. Or if you want to reach out separately and receive training, always feel free to reach out. Um, but I did want to focus mostly on evidentiary hearings because we are going to have the board of adjustments right after this. Um, so for this hearing, it's specifically for a board of adjustments and it's called a evidentiary hearing or a quasi judicial hearing because it kind of runs like a court case and the applicant is required to provide evidence um and prove their case to be alleviated from a specific code or a building requirement or things like that from the town ordinances. Um, so one thing I did want to, you know, make sure you guys were aware, you can't have any exparte communication. Um, and then so you can't have any relationship or discussion outside of um, the meeting with the applicants. If you do, you would want to recuse yourself from voting. Um, and then they can call on witnesses and everything, but everybody does have to be sworn in like a court case. Um, and I have quite a long rubric to read at the beginning of the board of adjustments meeting after this, so you'll hear it all again. Um, and then we did we did all the noticing requirements. We have to since it's a hearing, we have to do the mail notices. We have to put in the newspaper. Um, and we have to put a sign out front and we put it online as well. Um, the chair presides on the meeting and the board members act as a decision-making power. But since there's four, everybody will vote um tonight. Um I can skip over this. I think you guys know what staff does. We'll present tonight. Um we we are impartial during the board of adjustments meeting. I'm just presenting facts. Um everybody does have to do presentations. Um this is kind of redundant, so I'm going to skip over this and go to page 33.

Um so one thing you do need to know is you can't make any personal opinions. Everything that you make has to be factbased including the applicant and and myself have to say anything fact-based. They can't say I feel I think it has to be a true statement. Um so these are some of things and you know make sure they're we have competent uh if they're sufficiently trustworthy reliable sources. Um they have to provide materials with facts. So they had to submit things in paper which we did or they got an email we printed out and we're going to submit that through evidence. Um, that's pretty much most of the what I wanted to make sure you guys were aware of the differences between planning board and board of adjustments. Um, during the board of adjustments hearing, I have a a whole step-by-step guide that I'm going to read out loud at that at that meeting. Do you guys have any specific questions on the differences at this moment? Because I don't want to go through the whole 58 pages of training. I think you guys are competent enough to uh you've been acting as planning board for a while. So, um, just wanted to know if you have any specific questions. Page 56. I can show you paragraph three. Yeah, probably like a thank you. Oh, yeah. So, this is just an appeal process. So, so specifically, uh, the applicant has 30 days to petition the review of the board of adjustments decision. So, they can, uh, appeal it and, um, they have to go to appeals court. So, they would go through a different body. Um, but I have not had that happen. So, I'd have to do a little bit of research on that process if that was to happen. Okay.

Okay. Yes. So, we're gonna It would be up to the chair. I'll circle back. Okay. So, Okay. So, we're going to swear in our our new member, William Watson. You go by William Glenn actually Glenn. Okay. Okay. So, Glenn. Um and then we um want to kindly uh swear in with Mary, I think. And then you'll go and sit on the podium after swearing. So, Oh, the Oh, yeah. Excuse me. The the Bible's over there. So, it moved all by itself. We moved it out of your way. I William Watson do solemnly swear that I will be there with I will faithfully discharge the duties of my office as a member of Welcome Glenn. Welcome. Yeah, you can go ahead and sit. So once like I wanted to repeat myself. So once March 31st happens, Heather Grims and David Barnes will not they're not renewing their application. So Heather Grooms and David Barnes are going to be off the planning board. Glenn is going to move into a full-time position. He'll get notified of that. Then I'm going to rearrange everybody's seats in April. So just FYI. Um by order of looks. No. Uh by order of um u experience like how long you've been on the board. So the most senior in the center and then it goes out by order of who you support. Some me

down the end. Um, but I did do a brief training of planning board and board of adjustments. Um, board of adjustments, we don't really have any items today other than the training. I did just go over board of adjustments, but I'm going to read almost everything again verbatim during uh, this next meeting. So, please feel free to raise your hand and ask questions during that meeting. But I want you to know that the board of adjustments is an evidentiary hearing. Everything has to be fact-based. You can't say I feel or I think. It has to be based on fact, especially your decision as well. Um, and then Bridge and Katie, our planning texts, they may raise their hand if they hear a statement that is needs to be redacted for that because that board of adjustments is very um strict. We haven't had one since 2022. Um, so bear with us. We're not trying to be rude. It's just technically we cannot have that on the record. Um so um would you like to go to the next item? Vote now, right? No, you you can. Yeah. Um it has to be four fifths majority. So yes, you can vote because we have five members. Okay. Yeah. On the board of adjustment. Yes. Okay. But now I don't Yeah. Yes, you can vote. Oh, okay. Yeah. You're trying to get ahead of it. Okay. Now, did you do number five? I can go over number five. So, I just wanted to remind Heather and David that the applications are are expiring, but they're not here. Um, that's really what it is. Okay. Yeah. For number five, need a motion to adjurnn. Second.