Plan & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

like to call this meeting to order. Town Planning and Zoning Commission regular meeting Thursday, January 22nd at approximately 7 4 2 p.m. First item on the agenda is a roll call. Byron Lester here. Renee James here. Dwight Bolton here. Leon Peters here. Steven Mallette here. Jennifer Marshall Neely here. Kevin Goff

here. Ola Aa absent. Roger O'Brien here. Ununice Medwinter absent. You have quorum. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is the approval of the meetings for November 20th, 2025. Is there a motion to approve? I'm I move to approve those meet those minutes. Second. Been moved and second. Any corrections, further discussions? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. I.

Oppose. Abstension. Chair votes sign. Next item on the agenda is a public hearing. And I guess I want to apologize on behalf of the commission. Uh we've had some technical difficulties with our YouTube feed, but our actual Zoom link is available. So if there's people that's registered online and wanted to participate in the meeting via the Zoom link, that is available. Um, we are going to start the public hearings, but what we will do is we will not close the public hearings. We'll continue them until next week, January 29th. With that said, I'm going to ask the secretary if she'll read the legal notice for the first public hearing. Legal notice. Town of Bloomfield Town Plan and Zoning Commission. Notice is hereby given that the town plan and zoning commission will hold a regular on regular meeting on Thursday, January 22nd, 2026 at 7 p.m. hybrid meeting in person at 800 Boomfield Avenue, council chamber council chambers rooms and virtually via Zoom to consider the following 12 Philly Street zone map change application per section here to allow a zone map change from an R30 single family residential district to a PLR plan luxury residential district with related master plan for proposed residential development of up to three duplexes and 20 total parking spaces, 10 indoor garage, 10 outdoor driveway applicant Dowos and Stern property owners Brian Chambers.

Okay, with that said, I would like to go over the procedures on how we conduct our public hearings before we proceed. We first will have a presentation by the applicant. We'll then have comments from our director. We'll then take questions from the audience. We'll take questions from the commission. We'll have comments from the audience. We'll take comments from the commission and then the applicant will have one last opportunity to make any closing remarks before we close the public hearing. Mr. Chair,

just as a qu clarifying question, since we're not going to close the public hearing and continue it, are we going to go through that entire system or we just taking Okay. Yep. So, with that said, who's here to represent the applicant for 12 Philly Street? Uh, come to the podium. State your name and address, please.

Good evening everyone. Um, my name is Baba and I'm with Dallas and Stern. LC. You said your name is Baba. Yes. Okay. We need your full real name. All right. So, that's my real name actually. Yeah. Baba Aurro. First and last name.

Yeah. Baba Uguro is my full name. And Yes. And um Yes. And uh I'd like to say thank you to the commissioner. It's always a pleasure to be here no matter how daunting it feels. And I also want to say good evening to everyone in the room this evening. Um, very quickly I'm going to just explain what's going on here at 12 Philly and I will then turn it over to uh Mark Reynolds who is the engineer uh on record to proceed with the presentation and take us through the schematics of the uh project. So 12 Philly is a 1.18 acre prop piece of property um just off East Winton Berry. Um the idea the goal is to develop six units in there of three town home apartment town home buildings. So, we have we're proposing three buildings, three town homes with six different units in those town homes. Um, it's going to have so two of the units, two of the buildings are going to have twocar garages and the building in the middle is going to have a onecar garage for each.

Okay. Excuse me. Before you go any further, I just want to make sure that we understand that this is not a site plan hearing. Yes. This is strictly a land use zone change hearing. Whereas we need you to explain to us why that land is appropriate for PLR zoning. Okay. We're not going to discuss whatever your plans are after. That would be a site plan. So we're only going to focus on the zone change.

On the zone change. Okay. Great. All right. That makes it easier. All right. So right now um it's on the on town record it's it's zoned a PLR but we realized that that was done in error and it's a it's an R30 zone and we are working we want to work with the town to change that to a PLR zone and be able so that we can be able to develop what we have in mind. Um and we know what the PLR zone entails. It's, you know, it allows for as much as um 4 to one, four units per per acre and we can go as high as six units. So our goal here is to change the current zone, you know, to to basically qualify the zone and correct it to the exact zone that we will be a be able to achieve our purpose which is from R30 to uh a PLR zone right now. Uh it's it's the the the situation of the the property is off. It's like a back it's like a back lot to to to 10 and b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b based on how it's located, based on how it is structured, we will be able to we believe that going forward if we're able to achieve, you know, if we're able to move ahead with those units, then we can proceed, you know, we can proceed with uh for because they're going to be for sale products. They're going to be for sale products. We're planning on putting for sale products there. They're not going to be rentals and they're also not the goal is not to uh overdevelop or disrupt what is there right now. Um and improve basically improve you know through thoughtfully designed housing that we have which Mark Reynolds is

going to show in a bit to improve what's going on on that street on Field Street. We also recognize that you know it may be there may be a concern about the change within the neighborhood but the project is go is designed to flow with what we have what is what what is persistent right now on Philly on Philly street. Um, also we went ahead and spoke with we did some due diligence and we also spoke with the MDC about the project to see if we have availability and capacity there and we got you know we got a go ahead from them that there's definitely availability and there's capacity for those six homes if we you know once we're able to move ahead with the project. It was also explained to us from the MDC that um right now there's some illegal connections and you know by having us go ahead with the project we we're committed to paying you know to paying the MDC to make those corrections right and they committed us they committed us to that and it's also in the availability and capacity uh uh letter that we And it's going to cost about 22,000, you know, a minimum of 22,000 to correct what we have right now in the sewer, which represents illegal illegal connections to the waterershed. So, at the end of the day, we will only be able to achieve what we want to do if we're able to change the zone from the R30 to the PLR right now, which will allow for, you know, the multiple the multiple uh units that the multiple uh town homes that we plan on, you know, on

on for the project uh going forward. Um, a little bit about us. We've we've this is not our first for in Bloom in Bloomfield. Our foreign bloom started in about 2021, you know, when Jose Gara was still here and we started with, you know, the 20 units um at duplexes over at Mirabel Court, which is of Blue Hills and then we also developed the we're also developing the 29 units on on Abby, you know, which is also Blue Hills and most recently, you know, myself and some of my partners also for it into Eid Lane. So we understand the dynamics of of uh of Bloomfield and you know the last times the last two times we came here I've I've had you know town st town commission members say we need more of you know we need more of workforce housing we need more of uh uh accommodation for residences who you know we we we're not just looking for uh affordable in so to speak you know we're looking for work for housing and stuff that can actually add some value. And we believe that this, you know, is going to add value because these are number one, they're not rentals. They're not just the your affordable um projects. These are, you know, workforce housing for, you know, entry people who are trying to enter into the home ownership market. people who you know who you know nurses you know uh town staff uh workforce housing and you know firemen and all that. So the purpose of this development is, you know, to to lighten the burden of of of people of individuals who love Bloomfield because I happen to be one of them and who is

looking for something, you know, to call their own in Bloomfield and is not just uh is is built to taste if if I may speak and still at the same price point that is, you know, that can accommodate uh you know, the medium income range. Um we're not looking for uh you know the the funds we we're not looking for Bloomfield funds for this. So this strictly a private you know uh incentive. This is privately this is going to be privately owned and it's going to be sold at the end of the project. The exit the ex exit strategy is definitely for sale at you know at workforce housing uh price point. All right.

So, I will Yeah. So, I will then turn it on to M Reynolds to come up and show us what it's going to look like. And um I think he has something to Uh my name is Mark Reynolds. I'm a professional engineer. My office is um on 61 Main Street in Hebrin. Um we I put together a uh some comments and some slides to support um our application for master plan approval, which is really what we're here for tonight. Um as Mr. Gunrew um alluded to the the parcel is mapped currently in the PLR district which seems to be an error and lacking master plan approval. It would be meaningless anyway. Um so we're looking for master plan approval to support a zone change to PLR. Um we've submitted all of the uh required application material. Um a conceptual plan for the site. Um, all of the information that you're going to see on the slides is part of the the package. Um, if you could just jump ahead a slide just to make sure everybody's oriented to where we are. Um, this is a wide view of Bloomfield and this is the location of the site. You can skip to the next one. Um, this is an aerial view of the of the area. The the parcel that we're talking about, 12 Philly, is the is outlined in red here. Um you can see it has access from uh Philly Street is that little um little bit that goes out to the on the on the high side of the par parcel and it abots the um the development to the rear that is on Oliver I guess Oliver Roadway.

Oliver Way, my bad. Um so yep, this is this is excerpt from the zoning map that I was just referring to. You can see my um outline of the property that I've superimposed and and in the way it's mapped, it appears to be in the PLR zone. Um but we don't need to belabor that anymore. We understand that it's not. Um so yeah, you can flip down one more. This is our conceptual Yeah, back up one, please. Yeah, this is our conceptual plan for the site. Um we're providing this information to to give you a couple of things. um one a way the site will look but also to establish some of the dimensional requirements that would are included in our master plan. Um and those are all listed out on the plan. I've got them a little bit larger there. Uh all of the land use um percentages are also laid out on the plan. Um as well as uh you can see from this demonstrates all the parking areas. So, we have parking inside the garages and parking in front of the garages. The access driveway can meet all the town's minimum standards for that as well. Could you slip down a little more? This is um a rendering of the townhouse. Uh this is a two- bay garage style with uh the C. So you have two units here, both with two bay garages. Yeah, I brought this um slide in. Um this is a excerpt from your plan of conservation and development. Um this demonstrates current multif family land use and and other land uses in town. And I put this up here to show that, you know, this proposed multif family use is immediately adjacent to the existing

multif family. That's um that's just to the east of the site. Our um our site is right down there in that little notch uh just above the W in Wintonberry. Could you go? Yeah. And this um is an excerpt from the POCD which um speaks to future land use. And as you can see here um it's in a what's prescribed as a high density residential area. So in this way we we feel like our um proposal is consistent with the PCD in this way as well. And could you just Yeah, I um this slide you reading this slide is not that important. I just put it up there um so that you understand that we've looked at the POC and specifically the housing section of the plan of conservation and um and the goals that are outlined in there and we believe that our proposal is consistent with the plan of conservation and and at least three of the four um stated goals. First being that it offers uh diversity of housing opportunities. Um the second being that um it's proposed in an area that is away from the town center and it's also in an area that's planned for high density um residential as we saw on the previous slide and that it's also immediately adjacent to a PLR. So it's consistent with the area and that it's immediately adjacent to it. Um the site is presently served by um public water and sewer which is another uh goal of the housing um section and um we have entered our letter from MDC for available capacity into the record. So that should be in all of your packets. Um currently the property is vacant. We're our proposal is for six units. And um the last thing I want to do here is one second.

And I guess I would like to just um say that we're happy to have hear questions from the commission and also from the public and answer questions um as the commission sees fit and hope and um and also request a rebutt at the end of the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Jonathan or Linda.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um as uh as has been indicated, I know there is some confusion as to what the real zone real zoning for this property is. um because the U town's GIS map and the property card indicated as being PLR. That in fact is not the case. Um if you go back to when the commission approved Oliver's Way, which is when the PLR to the east was was in was put in place. Uh this property was specifically not included. So the commission so it has never been reszoned uh to PLR and that's why they're requesting it now. staff. Um quite frank, you know, we support the noble cause that they want to do, but we have we um we have concerns about um about the density that they're proposing particularly um the PLR basically has a four units per acre. uh it's ab budding an R30 zone which um is basically two units per acre and Oliver way while a uh technically multif family is at 1.2 units per acre. So the density in fact in this area is is low notwithstanding what the what the existing uh POCD says. Um and I would suspect there's a difference in the proposed PC which you have not adopted as yet. Um, so the the staff um for those reasons, but particularly for density um and for um and for what surrounds this property in terms of the

density at Oliver Way and the rest of uh other than the school, it's it's surrounded by single family homes. uh the staff um would definitely not support um six units um and we think four units um could also be a stretch in terms of uh of the density for this property. So we um we would not at this point support uh the recom the uh request to reszone the property. I don't know if Linda wants to add anything. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Linda Lauriano, assistant director of building and land use. Um the staff report comments um that I had submitted uh indicate um that you know the PLR is a special zoning district which requires the submission approval of a master plan um as part of the zone map amendment process um outlined in in the regulations. While the conceptual plan um has been provided, we do find that the submission does not satisfy the master plan content um in the sense that the PLR base density is four dwelling units per acre equating to approximately four units on a 1.8 acre parcel. The applicant is proposing six units per acre. Uh while the maximum density is four, the commission may allow up to six only when the parcel qualifies for six units. And those qualifications

are if the parcel abuts an open space that is equal to a larger two than the current lot. there are no open spaces that surrounds this property. So one that disqualifies for six units per that the second is that the site uh characteristics supports a finding that the development um would not be read readily apparent from the adjacent residents of public roads. Actually, it would be um the qualification is that it kind of be uh uh not visible and clearly six units on one acre in the area where they're proposing without sufficient buffers will make it visible. Therefore, um they don't fall under that criteria either. So there are those are the two criterias. And so when looking at this conceptual plan, I just want you to keep in mind um that four is the maximum. The commission may allow six when they meet two criterias. However, this parcel does not. So, should the commission find that this proposal later on after um uh further testimonies and further review of uh the submission, I would just recommend that you keep that in mind and that um the maximum density not be more than four.

Thank you. Thank you. At this time, we'll take questions from the audience.

I did have a question. They're both Yeah, have to state your state your name and address. Hi, my name's Mike Greenberg. My address 115 Wintonberry Avenue. I just had a process question. I believe at some point later there will be a chance to have comments, right? So it's questions now and then comments later. Yes, because I I do have something I prepared. So I'll hold that for the comments. Thank you. Any other questions from the audience? Is there anyone online?

No. Okay. At this time we'll take you have a question or comment. Okay. State your name and address please. Yes. Robert Dickinson 400 Cbury Drive. I guess a question is I assume that that there is going to be uh if if this was built the way it uh has been um envisioned that there would likely be children in this in this development and uh I don't see any provisions for uh children waiting on uh on the on the road otherwise it probably would there should be at least some short sections of sidewalk adjacent to the uh drive into this into this development. And uh anyway, is this being considered? Thank you. Did excuse me. Uh but did you want to address that? Oh, okay. Um, any other questions from the audience? Okay, we'll start with the commission. Uh, we'll start. Mr. Peters, you have any questions? Oh, I'm sorry, Steve, I didn't see you there. Um, Commissioner Mlette, any questions?

Um, on on the map submitted, which I guess is the master plan. Um it in the zoning table it says the the acreage is 1.094 acres and then the application is saying 1.18. Can you explain the variance please? Yeah.

Yeah. Mark Reynolds um the the difference between the two is the that one is exclusive of the access strip. So the 1.1 acres is the total acreage of the parcel and the 1.09 or whatever, I don't have it in front of me, is the is less the little strip that goes to the back. Okay. There are sections of the regulations that speak to the area exclusive of the access strip. So you see it presented that Yeah, I found I saw another table that had that um split out and yeah, the building coverage, the driveway coverage, and then it has the total. Okay.

Yeah, the the coverage calculations would be based on the gross area of the parcel, the 1.1 acres. Okay. So, that's the the driveway coverage, right? Um that was the one question. The other question was on uh the submission um on one of the I find uh the proposed map change in in the application. It shows the property dimensions and it shows an existing building encroaching on number 14. So can you explain the

Yes, sir. So that's a that's an old barn that came with the property and that will be taken down. Um so is that um I'm trying to just understand why it's it's going across two lots. Yeah. So right now the two lots 14 and 14 and um the one next to it 12 and 14 are owned by the same person. Okay. Yeah. They're owned by the same person. So it's just encroaching on the same person's land. So, um, but of course we have a we have an agreement in principle that that's going down. Okay, I think that explains that. Thank you. That's all the questions I had right now.

Okay, thank you. Uh, Commissioner Peters. Okay. Um, so I have one question. Um why is six the magic number for this especially after um staff has reported that you guys for several reasons you don't really justify the reason exceeding four. Is there is there some kind of logic behind the six the six unit?

No. No. So um the the the so we've had several meetings with the town really and we never really drill down to that magic number whether six or four and based off of what Linda just explained. We just went for the maximum you know that was possible. So it wasn't like we're stuck to to a magic number of six and and we didn't really we haven't really perused the um the town comments that were that were delivered today. Okay. Um I think that that's my question for right now. Thank you. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Uh Commissioner O'Brien.

Uh yes. I I wanted to um talk about the map, the map you gave us. Um basically it says it's a compilation map or a class D map and that nobody actually went out and field checked any of these dimensions. So as part of the review of establishing the district, there are requirements such as the access way has to be 20 ft. So it shows 20 ft, but according to the note on your map, somebody might go out there and measure it and it might be 17 ft or it might be 25 ft. So how does the commission have any assurance that any of the numbers that you represent and the other would be for example it requires a 25- ft buffer. you show exactly a 25- ft buffer, but when you go out there and do an A2 survey, it might be a 19 ft buffer. So, that's one of my concerns is that the map you gave us provides us no assurance that any of the numbers are accurate.

Um, yeah, I can explain. Um, the the map is uh labeled as a compilation map because the survey was not performed by myself. Um there was a full A2 survey of the property conducted um previously and the description of the property is based on that A2 survey that was performed by Alfred Associates and so all of the dimensions in the calculations that you have in front of you were based on that survey but it was not performed by myself so I can't see. Normally that would be shown over in the left hand corner and you would you would reference that there there is a reference to that map on on the compilation map. Is there a map reference in the

bottom left corner? So you're saying there is an A2 survey? Yes, there is an A2 survey. The current description of the property is based on that. All right. Um, and it was uh performed for the purpose of the subdivision of of the property, which it involves this parcel, the one immediately to the left of it, and the one immediately to the right of it. We're all once pieces. Okay, that that gives me comfort. The um the drive in in one place on your application, you you reference the access way as a driveway. Another place on your application, you ask you reference it as a private road. M. So, is it a private road or is it a driveway?

Well, it would be a private access and in as much as it would serve multiple units, it's a road, but it's a drive. It's essentially built to the driveway standard. So, I I would I would as an engineer as an engineer, I would consider it a driveway. That would best characterize a common driveway. Who's plowing the driveway? this this this property as it's developed would become uh condominium. So the would it be shared responsibility of the owners? All right. So the access way is not being built to the standard of a road.

No, it would be a driveway but a common driveway because it's a little wider be 20 ft. But would it have drainage and so forth? Um the site plan uh for this property would have a great many things that are not on that plan uh including drainage considerations for drainage. We haven't outlined exactly where the utilities would go. Um a lot of it would we understand that the site plan would have to fully comply with all the zoning requirements and town ordinances and whatnot.

Yeah. in in accordance with my fellow commissioner who or no it was a member of the public who asked about the school children. So would they be walking down the driveway and then where would they be standing on the road on Philly Street for waiting like queuing for waiting for the bus? Waiting for the bus. Yeah. They'd be waiting at the end of the driveway. At the end of the driveway. Yeah. The 20 ft with nothing. It's 20 ft wide. 20 feet with nothing on either side. Right. Okay. That's correct. Those are all my questions at the moment. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner J. Commissioner James.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, what's the proposed height? Wait, I mean, can I get to that? What would Well, I guess I asked because um this might be a question for staff then. Um, you know, a map meant has the vegetation buffer. So, what would make it obvious that a neighbor could see if it's like set back from the road? Yeah, let her talk.

Hi, Linda Loriano. for the record. Um the preliminary concept does if you look at the proposed um parking area or access to the um into the units um from that paved area to the front of the property. You can you can see that it doesn't allow for screening. Um, and so as you're driving without the trees, um, it will be visible. Um if if I I would recommend or suggest if the commission wanted to just kind of drive by that area and kind of take a look um and picture all those trees being removed and then um three buildings behind 10 uh Philly Street, you'll be able to kind of uh get more of a visual. Um, and in addition, uh, if you're coming from, I want to say what, uh, orientation here, uh, from the north, um, you would be able to also see the development. So, you have 14 Philly Street. Um, the there's not many trees on on that one, but you'll be able to see it from that. So it would be visible from the ride of way and uh additionally the vacant land at 14 is not an is not considered open space.

Okay, that was my next question is the the zoning the way I'm hearing you say it is like the way the zoning is written it has to meet both of those standards but there is an or in there. So is it that they have correct or they one or the other? Okay. No, they have to meet those those criterias. Yes. So, like the regulations say the commission may increase the permitted residential densities up to six dwelling units per acre if any of the following circumstances exist. So, you Okay. Any of the two. Okay. So, just one of the two. It doesn't have to be right. But they don't meet any of the two. So, I just wanted to make it a point. Okay. like

well staff believes they don't meet any of the two com you know with with their proposal with their proposal but not saying that they could at any point adjust the proposal so that it's less visible. Absolutely. Okay. Um those are all my questions. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Goff. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um I guess I have I I have an initial question for staff. Um, and I couldn't answer this and we have not

uh I went back and read the subdivision regulations. We haven't done a subdivision since I've been on the TPZ and I'm not sure that the I'm not sure how long it's been since the commission did one. Um, this property is zoned R30 and um, you know, 30 30,000 square feet is 3/4 of an acre essentially, a little less. Um, if someone I mean we're talking a little bit about density. So I guess my my question to staff initially is would this be possible to take this R30? What would what would be the appetite or the reaction if we wanted to take an R30 piece of property and subdivide it into I guess three R10s so that we could build three essentially three houses on it. Is would that even be would that even fly?

That would be challenging. Okay. Very challenging.

Yeah. because I was I was finding hard in the subdivision regulations to read exactly how it would determine whether it could be subdivided that way. Um so I guess that's my that that's my fundamental question I guess to the applicant and you've you've indicated that it may not be six units, it may be four. Um but it also appears that on R30 it would be difficult to break this down into three houses. So you know what what is your fundamental feeling as to why putting a group of duplexes along a street that is all single family houses and does have a PLR but it also those are single family houses interestingly. How does this fit? How does this not seem to just be something that shouldn't be there?

Okay. I just want to speak to your first part of your question. Um what you've suggested the R30 R10 would represent a zone change. So our similar process that we're talking about right now is and I think that the PLR is more well suited to address this type of development because I don't think the I don't think you could divide even if you converted the zone of this parcel to R10. I think it would be difficult to demonstrate three bu three three conforming building lots within the R10 criteria because there's a limited frontage. So that's the reason why we wouldn't look in that direction for development purposes. Okay. And then um in terms of you know why are we looking towards this uh town home style development on this parcel? It's because the POCD speaks to this as being a planned high density residential area and it's this is consistent with the PLR um vision. I think the way the the zoning regulation is written for a PLR, so it seems to be a good fit for the parcel. Um it's adjacent to um other multifamily um properties as is shown on your POCD map that I had up earlier. So that also seems consistent.

Actually, let me just clarify that because you did show that. Yeah, it's it's adjacent and let me make sure I am understanding this. It's adjacent to a area that is owned PLR the Oliver's way development which was something garden or right some it had a different name when it was but that but but just hold on I don't believe that's a multif family development. No, but I mean it just happens to be zone PLR. And in fact, you can argue that why was a non multifamily why were non- multifamily units put up in a PLR when the point of PLR is multif family. Well, I guess unfortunately, Commissioner, that's kind of

Well, that's old, but I mean, but but but the point can't do anything about No, no, I know we can't, but I just want to clarify. Currently, this is not adjacent to any other area of multifamily homes. Is that correct? Um, could you bring up my presentation slide again so I can look at that map uh with everybody?

While he's doing that, I'd just like to point out that our view looking at the POCD is that this is a medium density, not a high density on the future land use map of the existing POCD. Um, back up a couple so we can see the the POC excerpt. Um I guess it's back up a little bit right there down one. So um you know in looking for guidance when we're putting proposals like this together we look to the P we look to your PC. Um this is a clip out of the current POCD. Uh and if it's an error then we would apologize. But you can see how the area immediately adjacent to this parcel is characterized as multifamily residents um here. And then if you skip down to the next slide um

I just do we agree and I guess this is a question for staff the part the part that is labeled multifamily residence on that is the PLR zone but it is the Oliver way PLR zone which is a single family residence. Yeah. Is that correct?

You know, I wasn't here when it was approved, but uh although I may have been. Um it is it is it's a it was you know, the decision was made to make it a PLR, but in essence, it's they're single family homes. I just want to make that clear. It's not

right. I you asked me where we were coming from. So, where we're coming from is by uh looking to the POC for guidance because that's your guiding document and that's what uh if you look at your master plan guidance, it says to look to the PC. So, I'm I'm showing you a part a portion of it there and that's what it says. Um, in this map is another portion of the POCD which describes future land use and it describes the area that the parcel is in as high density residential. There's no lack of clarity in the POC. Um, now I might I I can appreciate if the staff and the commission are moving in a different direction with a with a with a with an X POCD, but we don't have access to that. So this is this is our guidance when we're looking at our our putting the master plan together.

Yes. Yes. And not to flog the issue about the other development even on the town record it doesn't show it as single family homes. It shows it as one group of one lot because I remember that even when we were trying to to send out the abs list. I wasn't allowed to send a list to I was supposed to send to only six homes. But the town said no, I can't send to just six homes. I have to send to all the homes because it's considered one piece of property as a multif family.

Yeah. Could you could you slide down to the aerial photo? I also wanted to you asked about our guidance. So when we're looking at the development there um what I've shown here is our proposal in purple and to me it seems like the size and the shape and the spacing of the buildings is very similar to what you see immediately adjacent to it and throughout the Oliver way area. And so we were looking to things images like this for ideas about how how we could lay out buildings on the property. You know, I understand that when taken in its entirety, Oliver Way might be 1.2 units per acre or what was said by staff, but I think if you drew a circle around that, right, that area that three or four acres right there, you'd have to agree that the density is very similar to what we're proposing. They're certainly clustered, but I think that speaks to that speaks to uh uh Assistant Director Lauraniano's point about higher density if there's lots of additional space around it.

Yes, but I I I just bring the point up that it again is not multi that is not a multif family development. And I'm glad you brought that up because I um you know with respect to the criteria for the density

I I um I fully agree with the interpretation we started to hear that that this is um we need to the the regulation asks us to look to meeting either or of those two um recommendations and and we have um shown on our master planed buffers which would facilate ate. I mean, I think you can see a good portion of 14 is got trees on it right there and which wouldn't be developed as part of this parcel. If you go to our master plan sheet, you can see the planted buffers that we're proposing um all meet the minimum requirements that are suggested in the master plan document and they go all the way around except for the access to um the driveway and the parcel that has like a triangular point on it there to the immediate to left is is all wooded. So I I feel like we've done I don't know what how it could be less visible. Yeah. On the street.

I I I have one final question and that that is about number 14. Same owner. So do you own that? Are you going to own that? Are you going to include that in this this plan? I mean you know that that's another parcel and even though it's the same owner and that's why it's not an encroachment because the barn goes across both parcels. Um what's what's the situation with that parcel? Well, it is not included in this master plan request. Okay. Thank you. Questions for the next question. Is there are there more questions or

I was nobody answer. Okay. You want to come back and get an answer for that? You sure? Because it's all right.

Okay. Uh, Commissioner Marshall Neely, thank you so much. I uh some of the questions that I was going to ask has been asked and answered. Uh, one of my concerns is well my question um is when you said shared responsibility for the driveway if you know snow or whatever removal made me think about an HOA. Is this going to be an HOA um situation or um how how does that work with

Moran? Yes, it's going to be um there's going to be an ordinance for this for this homestead on that HOA. Yes. Okay. And and um I on your plan, do you anticipate uh families with children and is there any kind of uh consideration for some area for children to uh you know get together or play or whatever in this? Did you is was that a consideration or No,

not exactly. But there's going to be uh I mean if you're looking for a play area kind of thing like a swing and all that. No. No. But there's going to be enough, you know, in the neighbor in the development, you know, for them to to play around as well as behind um which we're going to have, you know, some patios behind right there. Mark mentioned something about um you know the survey was not done by him. Are you planning to redo the survey? Yeah. If we if we proceed to a site plan um application then we have to come here.

Yeah. We would if we pro proceed to a site plan application we would provide an A2 survey um in a T2 topography as required by your regulations and it it would look the boundary would look identical. uh we we we have no reason to think that the survey was inaccurate in any way. It was done to an A2 standard as well, but we would check it. Okay. And um what about consideration to um reduce it to four as opposed to six? Would you consider that?

Yes. Yes. I mean, if if the commission says that, yeah, we will definitely consider that. I mean, I think if the cons if the commission didn't consider our planting plan that we that I showed on the previous slide to be um enough to meet the standard of being less visible from the street, then we would consider that. But I think that the planting plan um uh that's shown on there uh is consistent with the regulations and will provide screening.

Okay. And and my thank you for that. My my last question may or may not be pertinent, but u you talked about the u sale of the the buildings. Are would the owner own the building and the land or just the building? So that's a great question. Um they will own I don't I'm not sure how you know condorization works. Yeah. Typically in this type of situation the condo would be building

and the all of the outside areas would be in um common for the purposes of shared maintenance, shared maintenance costs and shared use. So it the typically the actual ownership would be within or along the edge of the building of the building. Okay, that those are all my questions for now. Thank you.

Hey, thank you, Commissioner Bolton. Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. As always, being the last commissioner to ask questions. I have no questions because all the smart questions have already been asked. Reserve my time for comments. Thank you, sir. Okay, M. Uh, Commissioner James has a followup. Yes, Mr. Chair. I have one more smart question. Uh, I do want to follow up on the height. Um, I do want to know how high are you proposing these duplex structures?

Yes. Um, uh, consistent with your PLR guidance, um, we would maintain the 35 foot height. And so I'm there's a note on here that the vegetated buffer height is six feet at the plant at the time of planting. How high could that go? Could Yeah, that um that again is language borrowed from the master plan um guidelines

um directly from there. So we have flexibility with the with that plan, but that's you know we're trying to be consistent with the regulations at this point. But I think the important thing is the width of the buffer. But it's it would be uncommon to have planting plan that involved um trees higher than that. But there's also opportunity to reserve trees that are already there. The trees are it's wooded sight. I mean selectively you'd have to pick and choose of course and we would do that at site plan level. We would identify specific trees and a landscaping plan would be detailed. Thank you. Y Mr. Chairman.

Yes. I just want to clarify one thing with the applicant. You you referenced that the uh that the regulations referred to visible from the street. The regulation is talks about visible for the street, but it also says to existing or potential single family development in the neighborhood. So you got the single family house right in front of you. If you cut six foot trees and you're 35 ft high, that's going to be a long time before that's not visible.

Yeah. Yeah. As I was as I was suggesting, a site development plan would would include a full landscape plan and that would include the preservation of trees on the site that are already there. There are full there's a full growth of trees on the site that we could see on the aerial photo. So what I'm saying within that buffer strip, the plan would not be to cut all the trees down and then plant sixoot trees. The plan would be to preserve all of the trees that that were um that made sense within the 25 ft buffer and then to augment that with 6t minimum height trees. Okay. But on the adjoining property which you said is in the same ownership.

Yes. You you said in response to a question that you would maintain the trees on that property. No, but what assurance would there be that those trees would be maintained? You said it's all forest. Yeah. No, that's not that was not my intent. We we are maintaining a buffer to that property which is But the buffer would have to be on this property. It is. It is. If you can Can we go back to this my slide? that for some reason that one's confusing because I was up there today and I thought that barn was was part of this development and tonight I'm hearing that that barn is on that other property. It's kind of splits actually splits down the middle that property line. The barn is like more or less it's three corners into the current into

Yeah. So I thought that that was part of your development. So now I guess the other question if the chairman will allow me is sure what what is the plan on that other property and if it's jointly owned why isn't that piece of property included in this development? Yeah, there is no that piece of property is not included in this master plan request. It's not at all. So yeah, but I'm saying what is the plan for that if it's the same owner? Um there's no current plan for that parcel. I would suggest so would that be a single family house which then will be looking right at that development as well?

Well, it it has its choices. If if a single family home was developed on this parcel, presumably more or less in line with this parcel, then they could maintain all of the woods in the back if they didn't want to have visibility. But except the buffer, the buffer on your site plan is a is parking spaces and asphalt. Well, aside from the driveway, uh, that's necessary to access the site. There's no buffer there. I'm saying there's no 25 foot buffer. Are you talking about like in here? Mhm. Yeah. There's no You don't show a 25 foot buffer. This is a 25 foot buffer, right? But if the house is there where you would locate it.

Yeah. We We have to leave a space for a driveway. So the intent of the plan was So what I'm saying is you in in my opinion you wouldn't meet either one of these requirements because there's a driveway

because you you you you're not you're you're you're not uh you you're you're not eliminating the readily apparent to an existing or potential single family development. since that's not included in this proposal, just like what he's saying, you're you're considering that it's independent single family home. So that portion of the buffer is not meeting the requirement that should wrap to that corner cuz when whenever that house is in created that portion, you're you're asking the who the potential new owner to create a buffer to um abate that the buffer in that other lot, which you're not doing right now. We would be happy to amend our plan to include buffer all the way down as close as we could be maintained all right to the driveway.

It could, but there has to be a space for a driveway to get through it. There has to be some area. We're happy to amend that.

We're happy to amend that to have trees all line up this way to this point. It's not Yeah, it and like I said in a site plan period, you'd have it a detailed landscaping plan, but a 25 ft buffer can be provided aside from the entry point of the driveway. Obviously, we have to have a 20 foot to 25 ft strip for a driveway to go into the property. And plus, I just want to make sure that we keep the meeting to whether or not the land use itself is appropriate for PLR and not necessarily

but more but more or less land use. Is it appropriate for PLR? So for a point of clarification there, Mr. chairman cuz the agenda says that that the public hearing is for zone change and also for a approval of a master plan. So if we want to amend the agenda and take this off no then we shouldn't talk about it. But if we want to leave it on there then I think we need to talk about it. Okay commissioner we are talking about it. I just didn't want to get too far into a site plan discussion, but we are talking about it and we'll continue.

Okay. At this time, we'll take Mr. Chairman, could I just Sorry. Yes. Couple of things. One, we would note that this property is on a hill, so it's raised to begin with,

which which makes um the property more visible. Um secondly, um you will know everything about the trees because of the new tree ordinance requires that they provide us an indication of any trees that they're going to cut that are either specimen trees or over a certain caliber. So we will know about the trees. And thirdly, and I know you don't want to get much more bey, but there are no amenities indicated on this master plan and PLR requires amenities. And looking at the master plan, um I'm hardressed to see where they could locate amen amenities. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Yes,

I did question and this may be for staff and I don't know if you would know this off hand, but what is the smallest PLR already? Uh this is 1.2 at best rounding for acres. I cannot answer that question at the moment. We we certainly can look it up, but I suspect that most PLRs that I'm familiar with are 10 acres or more. Thank you. Actually, Mr. Chair.

Yes. Yeah. Just to continue that line of thought and thank you, Commissioner Mallette, for reminding me because that was one of the first things when I saw this application. and I looked at the PLR and I was surprised that our PLR regulations don't even give an acreage. So I I guess my my question further to uh staff was if they had any idea why when that was created and I know that was a long time ago why that was not a consideration. I don't my I would suspect that there was a particular development in mind that was um you know that the regulations may have been um arranged to if you will. Um but I do not know we can we can search back to see if if there was a change made. uh but I think I would rather you know look forward to making changes that uh make sense in this modern day.

Thank you. Okay. Uh oh yes. Oh, did you have a question? Okay. The followon question relates to the question about lot. Excuse me. Name and address, please.

Sorry. Mike Greenberg, 115 Wittenberry Avenue. The follow-on question relates to there there was a question asked about lot 14, which is not owned. It's currently owned by the same owner, but won't be in the future. But there is a note, I believe, on one of the drawings about the water drainage from 12 to 14, which kind of then makes me think that somehow those two things are linked. So, I don't know how to I don't know how that's reconciled. And I also question the planting plan with the patios and that the the area for children behind the building because I don't know if those two can exist at the same time. So, that those are my two questions.

Okay. Would you guys want to address that or his his concerns, his questions?

Um, I'm I'm not honestly sure what note he's referring to. Um, but if uh if there are any there's, like I said before, 14 is not included in this semester plan application whatsoever. Um, any rights or easements or anything like that. I'm not aware of any, but any that existed, this won't change that. So, I I I don't know. I don't I don't think that there's any there's no undeclared connection between these properties. They're they they're two pieces of property owned by the same person. One of them is in front of you for a master plan.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. And I don't have any questions at this time. So, we're going to go to to comments and we'll start in the audience. Any comments? Take your name, address.

Yes, Robert Dickinson, 400 Cabbury Drive in Bloomfield. If this development is built, I believe there should be short sections of sidewalk from the driveway to the adjacent property lines. And also, there's going to be several cars coming in and out of this what we're going going to call a driveway. And I really believe there should be a walkway for for children to come come out from their houses out to the out to the road where they'll be waiting for buses. Uh it's just that there just doesn't seem to be any any provisions for people walking and and you do you will have a number of cars coming in and out of here. Thank you. Hello, I am Michael Cayman 49 hours away. It's a blessed property that we are talking about. Uh so I passed out this package which lists our reasons for opposing the uh application. I'm also learning some things here that uh we were not aware of or knew of when I made when we made up this package. Um the resident uh that also that this Linda Jacob is here and she we put this together. She um lives at 45.

So we're the two of the three that immediately abut the property. So basically our questions are are in in this package. so I can go through the package with you um quick explanations of what we thought was the case. So we started out on in the very beginning just saying protecting our community opposing the zone change at 12 Philly Street. Next page says u our voice as they say Linda and and I are the abutters to that property. So we're the ones that are speaking out against it. Um we're talking about a 20 year plus uh stable community Glenwood Green. And as I say, we're here to oppose the application for this zone change because it's a direct threat really to our homes and safety and quality of life. Um, which I go into a little bit which we go into a little bit in the next few pages that um it's in compatible with our neighborhood. current reality is that um it's 12 Philly Street zoned for R30 single family residential and it's adjacent to as I said earlier the uh condominium association uh Glenwood Green would change the the sort of proposal would change a highdensity duplex construction to allow it um significant increase in

population density and again it directly backs onto our individual properties. So we have a loss of privacy, noise pollution overlooking into the yards. Now find out that where it's 35 ft high and they're looking down into into our properties, especially if they're on the top the 35 foot. It's also, as we point out, a recipe for danger school zone traffic. Uh it is across the street from a Laurel Elementary School and currently it's a there is a congestion problem in the morning and nights as parents drop off kids at school cars back up to getting into that school driveway and it causes um backups on Philly itself. So it would only worsen uh that that situation. It also um potentially can impede emergency vehicles. U Philly Street is one of the streets that the ambulance crew is constantly coming down as they try to get into uh other sections of of Bloomfield. So, um, it would hit potential has the potential for for that. And on the next page, it's destroying the last buffer zone. There are u wild there are animals in that barn that live in the barn uh and around the barn. Um, we know that there are coyotes and bears, but even bobcats around that total property.

Um, so if you remove the barn, there's snakes and all kinds of things in there. I don't want to go in the barn. Um but um if you if you tear down the barn and and develop the property around it, you're just forcing these animals into uh greater contact with with the surrounding homes um and on to and up and down the street. There is uh there was there is land in Glenwood Green. it was left for the natural animals to to stay in um to live in, but they've also lived there, too. And um so you're moving them out. Um and they're not going to be happy about that. And certainly it increases the potential for dangerous encounters with pets and children. and it worsens the e ecological and safety problem. We had some questions um from the document that were submitted for 12 Billy Street even uh as we look at it the ownership clarity um couldn't tell if it was the applicant or versus the owner of record. Who are we who are we dealing with here? Um there were incomplete sections. architects and consultants are left blank answered um non not applicable and even some illeible uh entries handwritten note uh portions are difficult to read

and we think and I'm hearing tonight um that there is some question on your part that there's no traffic impact analysis there was no wildlife or habitat assessment no drainage or storm water plan, no school safety impact study. So, um I can't I don't think, you know, obviously I'm confused by the terminology here. Um Okay. Excuse me. Um, we normally we normally have three minutes for comments. So, I'm gonna ask you if you can kind of

I can I have just basically one more page to go. Okay. So we urge the commission to deny the site plan special permit continue to uphold the existing R30 zoning which would prioritize the safety of children stability of the established neighborhood and we would look for more information if that were necessary. So, we do ask for you to um deny a request for the zone change. Okay.

And on that page is Linda Jacab and my name and and email address for the two of us if you need to reach to us. Okay. Thank you very much. Uh any further comments from anyone from the audience? Please come to the podium. State your name and address. Uh, you have three minutes.

Michael Greenberg, 115 Wittenberry Avenue. I've spent my entire life in Connecticut and almost 40 years living in Bloomfield. My mother used to drive us to Peterson's and McDonald's as kids from Graanby. I am against the proposed zoning change to PLR as I don't see any value in adding three duplexes, six units to a community that's primarily single families, especially in a higher density scenario. The engineer in me sees a number of challenges with the plan, especially we're talking about that buffer, the trees, where's the snow going to go, the drainage. I thought that was listed, but I'm told it wasn't. and one of the properties adjacent to it already floods without any additional water. I I would be really surprised if there is truly a 25- foot wide privacy hedge. And if there is, I hope it doesn't look like the one at Mirabel Court. What concerns me more is the potential precedence for a cascade effect on the street, the neighborhood, the area. There's a number of properties with extra spots. My wife and I counted about 13. Why doesn't everybody want this PLR? And I'm worried about that. I have contacted people that live near me on this matter, and in my interviews, two things have become apparent. Most don't even remember the first letter on this matter, which appeared to be junk mail. And if it wasn't for accidental curiosity, my wife wouldn't have even opened it. The overwhelming conclusion from my data from over 15 interviews is that once people understand what's being proposed, there's been a 94% disapproval rate on the duplexes. And if this sets a future precedence for PLR further down the street, it's 100%

disapproval. Additionally, I don't understand how this and the current project fits into the bigger vision for Bloomfield. I see multiple peacemeal projects along Blue Hills Avenue, which makes me sad. The projects start with cutting everything down and putting up rentals or condos. Is this really what Bloomfield wants? I know we're counting on development and growth to generate tax revenue to improve the town's financial position, but can't we do better? I don't want Philly Street to go this well. Bloomfield has done so well in the past, such as the golf course housing, even Lowe's, Home Depot, and even McDonald's back in the day. Have 30 seconds.

Yep. And I see this as a step backwards. I disapprove the request to change the zoning at 12 Philly Street for both myself and on behalf of my many neighbors which may or may not have already sent any emails. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Uh any other comments? Yes. State your name and address, please.

Good evening. I'm Linda J. Cab and I live at 45 Oliver Way. So, I'm a direct abutter and I would suggest to you, I would support the information given to you by staff. There is no way that that development would not be visible to those of us directly behind the proposed development. It's impossible. So therefore, I agree with staff that said they don't meet either criteria and therefore the application should be denied. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Yes. Uh name and address, please. The suggested density of the the trees for the buffer zone, I think may be a tad exaggerated

cuz I look out at that landscape, you know, my living room, that's my my view. It's not as densely forested as they would suggest to you. Rachel Barrett um 117 at Wintonberry a um I'm listening to everything and I must say I love Bloomfield first and foremost. Second of all, um I'm wondering if it becomes um like a condo, a condo, like a paid condo HOA thing, are the owners required to live in the property or will they be able to live for a certain amount of time and then rent it to anybody who coming in or you know how would that go? Because I know most time you have these kind of property kind of development and after a while owners go and you get all these different people coming in different attitude then you have a lot of cars. Traffic Winonber is bad as it is. Philly is bad as it is. Traffic and you know going in and out is it's just bad. You just got to get up at 6:00 and leave. And to be honest with you I really I'm against it. I think Bloomfield, Philly, and Winonberry right there is good enough the way it is. Maybe we need to plant more, but that's about it. I don't think we need this development there, and I'm against it. Thank you.

Hey, thank you. Any other comments? Okay, anyone online? All right, seeing none, uh, Commissioner Bolton, we'll start with you. Any comments?

I'm always excited when I'm first to go here. So, thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be brief. Um, I am always for development um sustained organic growth and development. I'm I'm having before I say that, thank you uh to the applicant for considering Bloomfield for your development projects. Um it it is appreciated. uh the town welcomes this type of development and just development in general. Having said that, I'm I'm just struggling to see how this fits into that R30 zone. Um we still, I think, have an obligation uh and as a homeowner in the town of Bloomfield to preserve our communities while encouraging, you know, sustainable development. And I I just for this particular application, it would be a real challenge uh for me to support it. So um whether it be the density um the overall lack of um barrier and and and and apparent visibility um it's just a lot of challenges um for this development um for me to be able to support it. But I I also want to say thank you for for putting something together and coming before this town. So that's all I had. Thank you very much.

Okay. And and just keep in mind that this application is only to determine whether or not the land is appropriate for PLR, not necessarily this exact master plan, but is it appropriate for PLR zoning? Okay, Commissioner Marshall Neely,

thank you for that and for reiterating the um the guidelines. I just I need to say thank you also to the applicant for uh providing us with all of this information more than uh more than I I thought I was going to have when I first read this at home. Um I am not going to say whether I agree or disagree at this point. I don't think we we're going to be doing that today. I could be wrong. No, you're correct.

Okay. I I just uh I love coming here to these meetings and seeing what's going on in our beautiful town of Bloomfield. So, uh my in closing, my comment is thank you so much for your presentation, for coming and uh for for um considering Bloomfield. I have bears, coyotes, I have I have all kinds of wildlife in my backyard. So I I do understand. Thank you so much.

Hey, thank you uh Commissioner Goff. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um first of all, I I also echo my colleagues in thanking the developers and I will, you know, for for proposing things for Bloomfield and in fact for doing things in Bloomfield because we know they have created um uh the projects they mentioned and are working on Edith Lane now, which is a project this commission did approve. Um, so as always, we we are happy with people wanting to be active in our town and uh wanting to help Bloomfield move forward. Um, that said, I I will echo I will echo a couple of comments. Um, the comment of Commissioner Balden. Uh, I just don't see I don't see I don't see making any kind of change to the underlying structure of Philly Street. Uh, I want you have things at the end, but um, we do have a PLR in the what? Glennwood Green, I guess, was the original name of it. I just think of it the Oliver's Way area. Um, but that's it's a PLR, but it really is not what I would consider a PLR. Um, I think we need to leave this as single family homes. I don't see I I don't see this peacemeal type of development where we take a little piece here and a little piece there. U personally I think this is too small for a PLR. Um, we can't I we as was pointed out we have in our regulations that there is no acreage requirement but I think that's something this commission has talked about numerous times is that the PLR zone we first of all don't want the name of it. It should be a multifamily zone and we need to make some changes to it. So with the uh upcoming you know this year's um meetings specifically

oriented toward planning uh I'm hoping we can make some changes to these kinds of things. Uh but at this point a zone change from the R30 which is what the neighborhood you know what which what fits into the neighborhood to a PLR just makes no sense to me. Thank you. Okay. Thank you uh Commissioner James.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Um, I'm going to give a special thank you to the developer because I know you heard me when I asked for more uh diverse housing options um and more affordable workforce housing options. Um, so thank you for, you know, being mindful of what we Bloomfield has said in our POC in our affordable housing plan, what we want in our town. Um, so I also say I want you to work with I hope you will work with us and hear our comments and maybe make some revisions to the master plan so that we can find a happy medium um in this plan. And I think a general overall comment for the commission for our planning department is why do we have zones why do we have the zoning regulations and we don't allow them? This isn't the first application where we've it's allowed to have a certain density if you meet a certain criteria. Granted, you know, we can talk about how they meet the criteria, but we say out of one side of our neck that, you know, we want more housing variety, we want to have multif family, we want to have two family triplexes, and then when it comes up, we say no, it's too dense. when it the zoning allows for it. It's like when we have our sidewalk regulation and people say there's no sidewalks in the neighborhood. Well, we have to start somewhere. If we just always went along with it's only single family, it'll only ever be single family. And why do we think that a neighborhood is only single family? It's because of exclusionary zoning practices. Zoning laws that say we only want single family homes in a certain neighborhood. that multif family housings don't belong. People who live in multif family housing don't belong in this neighborhood, which I don't agree with. I just don't like that idea. I think that a two family is not that big

of a difference from a single family home and this type of exclusionary zoning type is created hostility towards multif family homes. And I don't think that's fair. I think we can try to find something that can work in our neighborhood. And even if the master plan as it exists right now is not perfect, can we find something that can work? Do we have to say an outright no? I I I don't I wouldn't agree with that. So that's my thought.

Okay. Thank you. Uh Commissioner O'Brien. Um the PLR is adjacent to it. Um this um probably could be a PLR, although I'm mindful of of um John Coleman's comment that there's no amenities there. So I'm not sure how it fits the regulations with respect to that because it's very small. Um the If I was voting, I I could support the PLR on the site. I can't support this master plan. And so I think really there are I would recommend when the commission takes this up that they split the vote. One one vote can be to um to approve a PLR if that's the desire. And the second vote is on the master plan. I don't I and I agree with with Linda Lariano that the the uh the master plan application is deficient and it doesn't meet the regulations as it presently sits. Um so I would vote yes on the PLR and no on the master plan.

Okay. Thank you. Uh Commissioner Peters.

Thank you. Um, chairman. So, I've been thinking about this and I'm actually It's funny because I I wanted to say I'm not really I wasn't really good about the question portion because I I wanted to get to the comments. I'm very familiar with Philly Street. I drive by there often when I go to work and um a lot of things that came up in my mind and I'm glad that Commissioner O'Brien also mentioned that we can't think about the change in the zoning without also recognizing the related master plan. That's we we just have to consider both. That's what how it's written. And when I think about that location and think about my drive to work, that intersection at Laurel is a disaster. And our light or stop light is a police officer that stays there in the morning and then is also there after when people get off of work to manage that traffic. And I can't imagine adding 20 more cars immediately in that vicinity coming in and out of that location. Um, so when I asked the question, are you guys married to this sixth number? Um, it just seems like we're trying to um get to the the maximum density before we even get to the medium transitional density. And I I do agree with Commissioner James where she said um we need to start somewhere. I don't think this is where we need to start. Um, and I also wrote a note about um the applicant mentioning we we referenced um your the plan of conservation and and the master plan guidance says to look to the PCD and I wanted to say that that's a plan for the future. We're not there yet. So there needs to be a buffer and you guys are starting that buffer to get to that maximum density. So I don't think you guys should overshoot it to go

from single family houses to full-on development. that just seems like a a um a hard pill to swallow for that area. And the biggest concern outside of that with traffic that I I started to um digest and really take in was the drainage issue. Um, I had extreme concerns when you guys kept um referring to that shared lot as a as a driveway because it definitely lowers the requirements of what you guys need to um accommodate water flow that's coming off and on the site. Oil that's coming from these cars and that impacts the land. Another applicant talks about that's a higher point and of um that site that will drain into the adjacent lot that impacts the surrounding area. So that lot that driveway literally impacts the neighbors. So that water use and that that sort that sewage and waste management is something that should be strongly considered and I don't think the fact that it just a shared driveway is is meeting my my comfortability with accepting what the future proposal with six units are going to impact that site. And all of these are snowballing into a lot of concerns. Once again, it it's a six six uh unit shared driveway which potentially will have children. And then we talked about you guys said, okay, they could just go to the end of the driveway. The you the user's understanding is their end of their driveway is at the end of their their perspective lot. Your understanding is the end of the their driveway is at the street. And that's another concern to me because now there are five other units that are coming in and out of that space while a kid is at the front of that street. So there's a lot of things that

are spiraling in my mind that have not been considered aside from what has already been written down by the um by the staff. So, I I respect uh diverse housing and I respect development in Bloomfield, but I don't think this meets that mark in that location because there's just there's just a lot of things that have not been considered that should be considered when you're trying to integrate within a community that has so much history and so much um a very distinct language and how it is facilitated and it I we've already just identified and why we keep articulating it. They still has they still have problems with traffic there. So it doesn't help to add more. Um so that's that's why I I have some pretty, you know, striking concerns looking at this proposal as is. Um I don't have a I don't necessarily disagree with the PLR. I just disagree like Commissioner O'Brien with the current master plan. Okay, thank you. Uh, Commissioner Mallette.

Um, just looking at this piece of land and considering, you know, should it be established as a PLR? Um, the regs don't give us a minimum for lot size, but there's to to do a lot of what a PLR would generally do. And if you look at the existing PLRs in town, um I think it'd be very difficult to establish the you know having the the densities pushed back away from uh the the other developments around it which is typically what you see. In fact, when I think we had a last PLR, we kind of gave this in front of us that had gave the same feedback where that that was going to be difficult to establish. Um, we do consider if we are considering establishing a PLR, we do at that time consider the density as well. U I think six would be very difficult to accommodate on this. Um, so the four if anything, but it it I see this lot as as a a real lot in an R30 um for a comment for potential, you know, as we do our planning and and we're talking about the PLR in general and we've brought that up several times um or or other things. I I think it's I don't know if it's R15 or R20 where where like duplexes are allowed by right. I've seen that. Um I think this is R30. So I don't know if that's the case but that those are things we could think about but in general I think it's this would be very difficult to establish a PLR as we have established them in the rest of town.

Okay. Thank you. Um, I guess I'll go back to the focus of it, whether or not the land use is appropriate for PLR. Some of the current town records already have this land use as PLR. So, somewhere along the line, someone felt as though it was. I'm going to reserve my comments and do a little bit more factf finding before I make a a full decision and that would be at our next meeting. But from a land use perspective and by this piece of property being surrounded by PLR from the south and also from the east um and also showing previously in town records as PLR. I may not be opposed to the actual zone change. Uh I do have problems with the density. I believe that would definitely be an issue. Um, but in terms of the actual usage of PLR, I I've I've seen in other parts of town, and I'm not even sure um if that was, and this is something for staff, is at the corner of Brown and oh, Maple and Mountain Avenue. Um there was um two duplexes that was put up in a residential zone

and I guess my question would be to staff was that reszone to PLR. I do not believe so but we will we will confirm that.

Okay. All right. So that's my feelings. I I need to do a little bit more factf finding before I come to any any hard decision, but I'm going to I'm going to keep my options open on this and uh and do a little bit more research. So, with that said, we're not going to close this public hearing. We're going to continue it. So, we're not you don't have to worry about any final uh comments at this time. We are going to ask the commission for a motion to continue this public hearing until January 29th. So moved. All moved.

Second. It's been moved and second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. I.

Oppose. Abstension. Chair votes I. We'll continue this public hearing till January 29th. Okay. Um, this will be considered a special meeting, but it will be held here in chambers. Thank you. Yeah, actually I can't open the whole thing. No,

I know why. I'm going to ask him. He saw me. He was coming out with

I don't mean it or something. I'm like, you know, today we were talking about everybody honestly. Honestly, here. So, are you

Okay, if if you guys can kind of clear the room, we still have a few more hearings. You want to start this off? Okay. Excellent. We're We're gonna Yeah, I just got I take your time for the water. We're Yeah, we're going to go into number two. And uh Renee, you can just get it started. All right. So, we will be moving into our second public hearing of the evening. Uh I will start by reading uh the legal notice. Uh legal notice. Town of Bloomfield Town Planning and Zoning Commission. Notice is hereby given that the town planning and zoning commission will hold a regular meeting on Thursday, January 22nd, 2026 at 7 PM hybrid meeting in person at 800 Bloomfield Avenue council chambers room and virtually via Zoom to consider the following 22 Toby Road special permit in revised site plan application per sections 6.2.hi. E and 6.4.g.2 to allow soil disturbance of more than 10,000 square ft and a reduction of 18.6% 6% of the required parking spaces for a 10,000 square ft building addition and parking lot expansion on property in the I1 district. Applicant, excuse me, Borgessie building and engineering co. Inc. Property owner Toby Road Associates LLC. So, we'll start with a presentation by the applicant.

There we go. Uh, good evening, uh, Mr. Chairman, who's absent at the moment, and, uh, commissioners. Um, Rich Hall, Borghazi, Building and Engineering. I'm a project development engineer. Um, I'm here tonight on behalf of, uh, I'm sorry, address 2155 East Main Street, Torington. here tonight on behalf of uh 22 Toby Road LLC, specifically uh Pur Bertram. Uh it's manufacturing company over there at 22 Toby Road. I got a picture up just uh to for those of you who may or may not be familiar with it so that we can um uh uh get you familiar with it. Let me just try and move this out of my way. So that's the front of the building. A couple of views of the front of the building. I also have a um a uh uh Google Earth of Toby Road. This is the building right here. It consists of two buildings right now. It's uh historically I believe this was one building. This was another one. It's been added on to a couple of times and I believe most recently connected by this connector. But this this property, as you see me hovering over, it is the the the pro property in question here under uh consideration for the project. Um and uh I'm going to move right into some site plans. Uh let me back up just a little bit. We're what what's what's our purpose here tonight? Um let me go here. So we're here tonight to uh uh seek approval for a special permit. uh uh 422 Toby Road for the addition of 20 10,000 square foot addition to the building and the addition of 21 parking spaces on the property. Um I'm going to go right to the zoning table for just a second here uh with you. So it's an I1 industrial district. Um currently existing building

is 29,201 ft. That includes a um a canopy that's uh behind the building which will be removed as part of this project. and we're proposing to add an additional 10,000 square feet for a combined square footage of 38,661. The reason we're here for a special permit application is that we're disturbing more than 10,000 square ft of uh of surface on the on the site. So, um uh I have an NA here in the minimum lot area. I apologize for that if there is a minimum lot area requirement, but uh I was not provided one with one. Um the uh uh we're providing 2.5 acres minimum lot width. Uh uh again we got a zero there. It's 265 foot of frontage on this thing. We're meeting all of the setbacks. Front yard set back 40 ft. We have 41 existing. Sideyard set back uh 20 ft. There's a 10-ft setback existing. You'll see this as we examine the site plan. uh and and the addition is shifted over to accommodate the 20 foot set back uh behind the existing building where we're adding on. Rear yard set back 50 feet. We will be maintaining 52 ft. Max height, we're well beneath that. Uh max height is 60 ft and uh we're planning to go to 22 ft. Total lot coverage 50% allowed, 60% commission approval. Right. So with commission approval, the regulations say that we can have up to 60% impervious surface on this lot. Um so we're actually proposing 59.5%. Um we are trying to maximize the amount of imperous surface area so that uh Pur Bertram can maximize the amount of manufacturing space and thus facilitate growth for their company. Um the uh the parking similar situation right uh the parking situation in my opinion is not good out there right now. They only have 37 spaces and occasionally I will see uh cars parked in the street. There is a off there is an on street parking area

across from the property which quite honestly I think creates a a uh an unsafe situation. You know, it adds to traffic hazard, mobility hazards, right? Because people are getting out of their car walking across a street to go to work. We're going to be adding 21 spaces. There's going to be 53 spaces, three handicap spaces. We're going to restore one of the existing handicap spaces. It should have two on the lot. Right now, it only has one. So, we're going to restore the second one that should be there and add a third one as part of the addition. So, we will have a total of 56 spaces, 56 of 70. Um, uh, we're we we're looking for a 20% reduction of the required spaces, which also is approvable by, you know, by by the commission as per the regulation. So, I'm going to I'm going to zoom out here just a little bit. I got all kinds of stuff on my screen here. I apologize. And we're going to take a look. This is our A1 site plan or I'm sorry, SP1 site plan. And and it's a bit uh difficult to see. We're going to move on to something that's a little higher magnification. I just wanted you to see the whole the whole site plan. Um, I just want to point out, I know it's a little difficult. This thing's a pretty busy site plan. This I'm going to I'm going to hover over the existing building, right? So, this is one of the existing buildings here. It's connected by the connector here. This is an existing building here. It's kind of an L-shaped building. Okay. This is a parking area in between the two buildings. There's parking down the left hand side of the existing building. And everything that's in the darker lines is what we're proposing. This is the 10,000 ft² space that we would would like to add to the back of the building. These are additional parking spaces here. Um, and we'll get into it a bit more as we go through the site plan. This is a fire

apparatus access road. It's a gravel drive um to keep the impervious down. Um and this is our uh detention/infiltration basin um that we've designed to um uh not limit but um to to to not have any additional discharge off the lot. Right? So it's been designed such that we won't have any additional dis discharge of storm water during normal storm events. So that's um any questions so far? I'm going to move pretty quick here because I'm trying to be conscious of your conscious of your time and the time of night here. So, this is um SP2. This is where we get into a little bit more detail um and and uh get a little closer look. Uh one of the things and and I'll just note that uh this is our third revision of the site plan. We we we tend to want to get out in front of these things. So, I have visited with Rob Troier. I've uh visited with Jim Simone. Um and I haven't visited in person with Peter. Uh help me with Peter's last name, Castaldi. Um, that being said, I have received uh uh letters from all of them now saying, "Great job. Uh, you've met all of our requirements. You've answered all of our comments and we're recommending approval." We um uh Tuesday night had the um inland wetlands meeting and they voted to approve our request for uh jurisdictional ruling stating that we don't require uh a wetlands permit. We're nowhere near the wetlands. are not in any upland review areas. And Peter actually, he was the one who said and and Linda as well, uh they would like to see a tree preservation plan. So, you're going to see a tree preservation plan um on here. And I probably won't touch on every single question that these guys ask me. I did a count the other day. I've responded to 65 comments plus and requests for information in the three revisions. So, I think we're in pretty good shape here, but if you guys have any questions, please uh let me know

what they are. So, I'll I'll go back to the site plan here for a minute. So, the trees there, you see a bunch of axis here, and we we'll see this in a little more detail when we look at our landscaping plan, but the the the there's quite a quite a number of trees. I believe there's 18 that have to come down. We've delineated a clearing uh limit line uh clearly so that you can see it. Um this SP2 is just a 20 scale version of the 30 scale that you saw earlier or 40 scale, whatever it was. um where you can see more clearly um the parking spaces. Uh you know, we have the appropriate handicap space in in the area of construction. So, this is basically just our area of contract. It's not showing the rest of the building, but these are the the the uh parking spaces that we'll be putting in. One of the things that was asked for was was curb stops where the um pavement goes uh transitions to the gravel uh access road for fire apparatus. Um, so we went ahead and and and we show those on the plan. Uh, you know, we have a dumpster location. We're showing our our retention basin. Um, we have uh downspouts and a drain leader system that's going to discharge the storm water into the detention/ retention basin, an outlet outflow structure here that will then discharge the storm water down to the existing catch basin uh about midway down the property. Um, I'll just bounce back here quick to the SP1 and you can see that a little bit better. You see our storm water discharge goes to an existing catch basin which discharges to the uh city storm water system. Any questions so far? No. Okay. Um the uh we've we've designated uh planting areas here. Um and let me hold off on that. We're going to talk about that when we get into the the landscaping plan. So, I'm going to move on here to the landscaping plan, and we're going to blow it up a little bit and hover around

on it. So, you heard me mention uh a tree preservation plan. We'll talk about that first. First, I'll just point out a couple things on this plan. We have um a lighting legend, exterior lighting. There's a couple of wall packs on this building. There's a couple of um uh uh light pole basles that will go in on light pole bases. Uh we are aware of the height requirement um and we are uh um uh respecting it and and complying with it. Um we've got uh a planting legend for the trees that we're going to be putting in. Right now we're proposing 10 Armstrong red maple. That's what's on the plan. I had the conversation with the wetlands commission the other night. We are more than happy to and and will in fact we just put those on as a placeholder. Peter said, "Hey, I'd like to have deciduous trees because that's what you're taking out." So that's a deciduous tree. So, that's what we specified, but we're likely to put, you know, red maple, maybe pin oak, green maple, uh, you know, species that are are um indigenous to the area and and perhaps even replant some of the species that we're we're taking out. So, we intend to vary the species. Um, they'll all be 4-in caliper trees. So, on the tree plan, we're taking out 18 trees. We're replacing it with 10 trees and an appro, you know, an appropriate buffer line around the back of the building and the back of the pond area. Um, what else? The uh uh these will be the seated areas. Uh the the areas that will be mowed on a weekly basis, the area immediately behind the um uh fire access road. Um and I'll just I know I'm bouncing around a lot. I'm trying to move quick here relative to the drainage. Let's go back to the drainage for just a second. So, what what what have we done here with the drainage? We've, you know, we're we do a lot of these drainage plans and we always try and employ uh to the best of our ability best practice. So, you don't see any um catch basins for instance in this new parking lot area because if you look at the grades here, the way that we've got

the contours set up on this piece of property, we're going to sheet flow the the water back across the gravel drive and through a 4ft wide filter strip across the lawn. This gives the the surface water plenty of opportunity for um filtration and infiltration prior to even getting to the pond. The pond itself will be seated with a uh a wetland mix which um is specified over here on our landscaping plan. We don't know exactly what that wetland seed mix will be. It's kind of seasonal. I I hate that word kind of. It is seasonal and and you basically you use what's available at the time. Um uh so we've designated the areas to be mowed on a weekly basis. There's not a lot of um uh mowing required on this property. We will we will not be seating behind this remain natural woods and and again we'll be replacing uh 10 trees uh after having removed 18. And I would comment if anybody drives by this property, the trees that are coming out, you know, although they're larger caliber trees, some of them are pretty good. They're pretty big. There's a 24 in here. There's 14 in. The quality of the trees out here, they're pretty beat up. Um uh our intention is to um is to enhance the look of the neighborhood a bit and it's going to be some really nice trees going in out there. So, um what else? Phototric plan. Uh not that anybody really wants to read it. I'll just I'll just point out you see a bunch of zeros around the perimeter of the property. What does that mean? It means that we're complying with all of the full cut off um you know light pollution elimination stuff. So so uh so the the all of our cut all of our fixtures will be full full cut off um so that we don't uh we're not we're not putting light on other people's property. That being

said, I'd also just things that I'm thinking about as I'm presenting here. This is an industrial neighborhood, right? There is it's bordered on all three sides by industry. Um uh actually uh friends of ours uh on to the right of this it's it's Hooker Brewery. Um and then down the street a bit is the the animal shelter. And I don't know the name of the the business to the left, but it's a manufacturing industrial type business. So it's it's it's perfectly appropriate for the neighborhood. And usually um I apologize. I start I begin with the end in mind and I show people what the building is going to look like. So, I'm going to touch on that just a little bit right now. Um, if I can find my elevation drawing here. Give me one second. Wait, there we go. I apologize. Give me be patient with me for just one sec.

There we go. So, um, the archite architectural character of the building, not that it's that exciting, um, right, but it is consistent with the surrounding buildings, right? So, um, what you're looking at, it's basically it's a a 100 by 100, uh, uh, uh, building with a 20 20t 4 in eve height at the high eve with, um, siding that's very similar to the siding that's out there right now. It looks very much like, you know, uh, uh, so you got a lot of masonry on this building. You've got go back a bit here. This is the canopy at the back of the building that I said was going to come down. There's for instance a picture. Is that going to come in clear for me? Yeah, this is a picture of the back of the building. vertical fluted siding, you know. So, this it's it's it's an industrial building, right? It's a butler style building, and that's what we're adding on to it is as a butler style building. So, consistent architecturally with the surrounding area. So, um any questions about what what we're doing there? Um any any uh questions I can answer about the site, about the building.

We we'll get to that. Okay. One uh actually give me one second.

So I'm not going to suffer you through uh I believe the commission probably has received uh uh the narrative. Has everybody received the narrative on Pur Bertram? There was a narrative provided. Uh talks a little bit about the history of the company. Um I I'm not I I won't suffer you through it due to the time reading the whole thing, but just real quick, Pur Bertram. Um they've been in your town for 80 plus years, family-owned business, started 1929 down in Jersey. Um they are a contract manufacturer. They're employing, you know, 30 to 50 people at, you know, they they'll they'll have additional employment opportunities for folks as a result of doing this. I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. We don't want to see Donald Trump, do we? There we go. Sorry. Um, there'll be additional employment opportunities um as as a result of uh the the expansion. In fact, John has opportunities. John Pur, the owner, um that are time-sensitive that he really needs to get this addition up to take advantage of. Um and and again, it's going to bring more opportunity to the to the neighborhood. Um like I say, I won't suffer you through the whole thing. I'd like to just read uh a little bit from the last of it. Perm is a responsible corporate citizen that maintains full environmental regulatory compliance. The site does not have any scenic or historical features requiring preservation. It will be landscaped and enhanced to enhance the character and environment of the site. adequate provision for sustained maintenance of the proposed renovation and improvements will be provided through the ongoing operations of the business, right? So, last thing you want in Bloomfield is empty buildings, right? So, we keep them healthy and and grow them and and they'll get taken care of. Um, we we believe that the proposed renovations and improvements support the current plan of conservation and development. We will be improving mobility by improving traffic safety with additional off- streetet parking and the installation of sidewalks. Um uh we will also be helping to grow the community with through sustaining and improving employment opportunities. Pur Bertram's clear and strong preference is to remain in Bloomfield and expand its existing facility rather than have to relocate operations to another town or state. The company views Bloomfield not only as its headquarters, but as long-term partner in its success. An expansion would allow Pers Bertram to continue investing locally, retain and grow the workforce, strengthen the town's advanced manufacturing base, and ensure that Bloomfield remains home to a thriving multigenerational business. Approval of the requested expansion is therefore essential to Pur at this moment, not only to support the company's immediate operational needs, but to secure long-term economic benefits for the community. At this point, action is necessary to allow Perspectrum streamline contract manufacturing to

continue growing responsibly, creating jobs, and contributing to Bloomfield's industrial and economic vitality for decades to come. So, hey, that concludes my uh presentation for you. Um uh Mr. Chairman. All right. Thank you very much. At this time, we'll hear comments from the director.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, as a as a initial comment, it is um it is really enjoyable to um have some of these applicants come in and we we discover unless we have been really poking around town. Uh some of these really unique um specialized um highly technical manufacturing operations that we have in town. and we have a lot of them that are some of the best kept secrets and they may want to stay that way, but it's it's um it's a it's a it was a real delight. Um as um the applicant indicated um staff um and when I say staff it's um it's not just the land use staff and also included uh the town engineer, the fire marshall um have worked um extensively and I think we've been through three iterations with this property. Um, and the owner has obviously demonstrated in our opinion that they are a very responsible owner that wants to both grow their business but also be a be a good neighbor and a uh and a good representative of the neighborhood. And I would note that um this neighborhood, the Graanby Toby neighborhood is is a um an area that the economic development commission is focusing on uh to revitalize. uh and this certainly uh project would help would assist that. Um overall we uh clearly the staff supports this. We've worked with the with with the applicant to um to get it so that it could could comply uh with the zoning regulations and we we believe that it does comply with the zoning regulations. And they have also um um

um agreed to um a lot of the suggestions that had to be made by the town engineer in terms of drainage and whatnot. Fire marshall is satisfied that there is sufficient fire access with the gravel path we made. That was an initial challenge to get fire access to this rear sided building. Um we are comfortable with the uh 59% coverage uh in this neighbor in this neighborhood. We don't think it's uh going to have a detrimental effect on the particular property or on the neighborhood in general. We're also comfortable with the um reduction in parking per se because in essence um they are doing a lot to assist the parking as was indicated. a number of their employees now park along Toby Road uh which is not the best of situations. Uh this will allow those those employees and additional employees to uh to park on site. Uh they are providing a sidewalk. Uh and so in general we think that they've satisfied the special permit requirements. they um will become an even more positive addition to the neighborhood and they um are assisting in implementing um you know the revitalization uh of this particular area of town. So we would um we would recommend approval and we the staff report uh has that uh those conditions set forth in Ren. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. At this time, we'll take questions from the audience. Anyone online? Okay, we'll start with Commissioner Mallette. Any questions? I don't have any questions. Thank you, Commissioner Peters.

I just have uh one question. Um for the tree removal um there's obviously a significant number amount of trees that you're removing. Um is there is there a possibility to reduce that? I I see specifically around the um the well the perimeter of of the site the the rear there's a lot of trees that I believe are are removed but I I it looks like the only ones that kind of have to be removed in the back area would be the around the detention basin area like is there is there a particular reason why all the other trees are being removed?

So let's just take a peek. It's a great question and one which we struggled with because honestly we like trees um and and we'd rather not take them down. Yeah. Um so what we can do just and I only for actually for everybody's benefit is just take a look at the trees that we are removing right. Mhm. So in the building in the building on the building sense 5t off the building you know 6 feet off the building in the pond in the pond in the pond in the pond all these areas are areas which need to be excavated in order to achieve this plan. Yeah.

The only one that um as I look at this plan that that may, you know, we and and we will make every effort when we're out there. If we don't need to take the tree down, we won't. Um this may be able to be saved. um you you you know there's and and I I say that the issue is you have to change topography in order to achieve the drainage

um and and get the proper sheet flow across the surface of the earth and establish the burm. So um if you're working under the canopy of a tree, you're probably going to kill it anyway. Um and it's going to become a problem. So, uh, we honestly we'd rather, uh, plant more new trees, um, than take a chance on on on having a tree be damaged and die and become a hazard to be honest with you. So, so, uh, everything that we did here and, and like I say, if you look at all the X's where they're located, they're all either in close proximity to the building, in the building, in the pond, in the fire access road. Um, and and, uh, we tried, honestly, we, our original, one of the earlier iterations was that we had the pond pulled right up. There was no 26t dry. We had the pond pulled right up to the back of the the the the parking area. Um, and rightfully so, we we we established that that drive. Um, Jim Simone was not comfortable with the turning radius trying to get into this. And I agree with him. Um, quite honestly, uh, it's it's a tight it's a tight radius to try and get a fire truck apparatus in there. So, you know, for the the the fire uh access cost us one, two, three, four, five, half dozen trees, right? So, honestly, I think it's the right thing to do. I mean, obviously you guys have have your opinion. Um, and uh and we don't want to overpop populate the back area with trees and and have them, you know, choking each other out, but there may be an opportunity for a couple more here. You know, if if we can get a couple more trees in there, we will.

Yeah. I was I was just curious because I I count about four possible trees that could possibly not be uh destroyed or removed. um two on the left and then one on the north clo pretty close to the detention basin and then the one on the far right. Would you be looking at these two on the left? Yeah, those two. This one and this one. Yeah, this one is is um uh I mean we I don't honestly one of my biggest challenges was finding a place for a dumpster pad for this. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, dumpster pad. I didn't realize

you got to have access to it. So that's what this is. This is the dumpster pad. So, we have to excavate and and and you know, prepare for a 8 in thick pad for dumpster. Um, like I say, this maybe maybe we can save this one. Um, and this is the other one that I I look at and I say, h maybe we can maybe we can save it. I don't know. But if you look at the grading plan in order to achieve what we need to see, we we're we're changing contour all the way back to the under the canopy, you know, 3 ft off the trunk of that tree. Yeah. Just something to consider. It's going to be kind of tough. Yeah, that's all. That's

But we would definitely, as I say, we're we're conscious about that stuff. I'm I'm in particular I like doing interesting architectural things and nicel looking properties and whatnot. And if we can save them, we will and and we'll be more than happy to take input in terms of what species you guys want to see in there and uh and make it nice. Yeah. Thank you. Hey, thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. Any questions?

Yeah. Um, in looking at your at your um, and by the way, what we have in front of us is seven uh, pages. Uh, six of whom are dated November the 17th, one is dated 10:24 and one is dated 18. Is that what we have before us? So, let me just do this quick. Okay, I'm I'm using the unsigned original PDFs because they're easier to view on screen, but I do have here exactly what we sent you. Um, and I'll pull it up cuz I'm trying to get to what are the seven pieces of paper that we're approving and the resolution to list them because

All right. So, this is our revised site plan, the PDF version, uh, scanned in with signature on it coming up right now. This is what you have in front of you. So you have SP1 and and you're going to see the latest revision date. Uh you'll see a revision date of 115. If you look in the revision block, they they will have different drawing dates, but the revision dates is what you need to look at. So you'll have SP1, SP2, SP 3, SP 4 which are all site plans one two are you know 40 and so are they all revised 115

they are yeah th those which required revision as as part of no the the final drawing says revise January 8th okay so that would be uh which what's your what's your it's SPD2 SPD2 because the revisions that we did on on the subsequent iterations, right? So, we submitted then we did a first revision um after visiting with Linda and and Jim Simone and then I visited with Rob Troier, we did a second revision. Yeah, I'm just I'm just look and and the question I have and and this map here is what the commission got. And I do appreciate getting ahead of time because I could go down and look,

but you can't read the bottom half of this map. Yeah. And so I went down there and I see two buildings, beautiful buildings. Yeah. I compliment you. It's probably the nicest looking complex on that street. Yeah. And uh so I'm I'm thrilled that you have 100,000 square foot edition, but I was dealing with a map that I couldn't read the bottom half of. Yeah. My my sincere apologies for that. We we I There's another map submitted tonight. And so then that puts us in a tough No, no, no. There's no map submitted tonight. Well, that's what I was told by staff. No, there's no no additional submission tonight.

I inquired where was the bottom half? cuz I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm seeing two buildings and and all I'm seeing on this is an addition. So I'm looking and then I go I drove around the building and then I said, "Well, this addition must be going in the woods." Mhm. But So my question is, you've got a lot line going down here and you show one building on the other lot. So no, let me let me just get I'll take you to that drawing.

22. And so if I'm looking at the buildings on the street, I'm saying those two buildings are attached. They look like they have a canopy that's attached. So I don't know. I'm confused. Is are we looking at just 22 or are we looking at 24? No. SP1. I'm on SP1. Okay. So where where are you seeing where are you seeing the lot line dividing it? line coming down through it where

and then you got the building one of the two buildings is like this building one and building two is on that is on that other lot or or I'd like to be corrected. Hang on one sec. For one whatever reason I've closed SP1 You can't really see that. And then this is building one or two that's over here. That's not even part of this. This is the building's right. This is building.

All right. I have SP1 up on the screen now. So why are we seeing I guess I'm confused as why are we still seeing 24 on the map. S1. Why are you pointing this out here? Why is that on there? Just Just because it's there. That's the neighbor's building. The property line is here. That's the neighbor's building. But that but it's not what's before us, right? We're just Yeah, but this is Here's the property line right here. So, building one and two old exist on the other part. That's correct. On 22.

Okay. So, it would help if we had a cover page when you submitted a list of drawings that said there's seven seven drawings and here's the revision date because when this commission approves something and then how do you know what do we put in the minutes? We approved these drawings and then you submit revisions and reision and revisions and revisions and then we get the situation we had tonight which was that lot actually part of the Joan change or wasn't it? So that's what I would just suggest is that we have a cover page that actually lists the drawings and the latest revision dates when we approve something and that's more a comment.

Yeah. if if you would like. I mean, I know uh because of our technical issue here tonight, you're not going to be voting on things, but um if if you like, I can uh have a cover page put together for next week. Yeah. I mean, it's a wonderful project. I love it. Thank you for bringing it in. I'm just having a technical problem with the map. Yeah. We'll uh and do you would you rather I we don't show that building next door the commission wants to do if in the final thing before the commission approved it signed it and the thing where it says assigned that would be fine. I just think there should be a cover page on all approvals that list what the drawings are.

We we can certainly do a cover cover page and submit it before Thank you so much meeting. Yeah. Okay. Commissioner J. James. No questions, sir. Commissioner Gov. Yes. Uh I just have one real quick question. This may be more for your knowledge of u the um uh what Pierce Bertram. Pierce Bertram. Yep.

Yeah. Um it was alluded to by the director that u you know there's a lot of work going on now in terms of enhancing the Toby Road Graanby Street area and this is a great project for that. Do you know if the owners have been in touch with people in the economic development commission and the other people? Do do you just know if they're they're plugged in? I guess yeah so uh John Pur is definitely plugged in. He attended the first meeting uh actually he attended a meeting with you, Linda, I believe, before I got involved and then John was in again when we had our our first meeting with Linda and Jim. Um yeah, he's he's certainly plugged in and John's a committed corporate citizen in Bloomfield,

but knows what's knows the other property owners out there. Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. There's sort of a, you know, this is a um uh tiff zone and there's just lots of activity trying to um trying to make that a unique area and this this is part of that. Uh yeah, I I I I got to say I'm a little plug for John. I I you guys see the outside of the building. I've been on the inside of the building. The place is immaculate. He he keeps a very nice place. Uh he you know he he repainted the exterior. Finishes are nice. The interior of that building is very clean and uh does a great job. Great. Thank you. Yep.

Commissioner, I also think I'm sorry to interject, but uh that Mr. Burcham has um had conversations with the chair of the Economic Development Commission. Commissioner Marshall Neely. Uh thank you. I don't have any questions at this time. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Bolton. Uh no questions at this time. Thank you. Um, and we will go to comments from the audience questions online. Maybe I'll give it one second. Okay. Um, we'll start with comments down Commissioner Bolton when I get to start.

I guess I'm told this is a the best kept secret and so love to see that we have, you know, manufacturing that's doing well in the town of Bloomfield. So, thank you and thank you for the application and uh congratulations on the continued success in the town. Thank you, Commissioner Marshall Neely. I don't mind coming in second. Uh Mr. Berser, thank you so much for the presentation. I ride down Toby Road um just for the heck of it. Yeah.

See what's going on in in our wonderful town. So, I'm really pleased that you're doing what you're doing. I can't wait to see, you know, what's happening when it starts to happen. So, thank you so much. You're welcome. I was thinking I, you know, of course, I've driven down Toby Road a lot now lately, and I I see the uh the masonry building out towards Graanby Street there. Maybe we can get our eyes on that thing and do something with it. You know, that'd be great to see somebody in there. Thank you, Commissioner Goff.

Yeah, I will echo my uh two fellow commissioners. Um it it is good to see positive activity out there and we're seeing more of that and uh you know I think this is an excellent proposal and I think you guys have dotted the eyes and crossed the tees and thank you for being in Bloomfield. Thank you. All right. Um and my comments, yes, thank you to the company. Um I hear it's it I read that it's continuing its growth which is very exciting for the company and for Bloomfield and I just wish the company best of luck. So, thank you for a very thorough presentation. Thanks, Commissioner O'Brien.

O'Brien. Commissioner O'Brien. Oh, no comments. All right. Commissioner Peters.

Okay. Um I I just want to say that I greatly appreciated the presentation. I'm also familiar with Toby Road, especially going from um the Home Depot driving over. And this might sound funny, but I'm so glad to not see that you guys have a plan to get the cars off the street and into a parking lot is that is the biggest eyesore whenever I drive by that. I'm like, you definitely know this is an industrial area. But I'm glad to see um when um people are coming in or um um companies are coming in to improve the quality of the aesthetic in Bloomfield and get it get us to where we want to be. And um it's just refreshing to see that uh obviously the aesthetic of the building is it's wellmaintained and then you guys are obviously putting forth the effort in upholding that standard and I'm I'm glad to see that. So thank you.

Thank you Commissioner Mlette. Uh not much to add. Just thank you for the presentation. Um glad to see things moving forward. um appreciate you working so much with the the staff ahead of time. It made my easier and also the wetlands as well. So, good to see you in person.

Thank you. Um, yeah. My only comment is I appreciate staff uh bringing out the fact that there's so many hidden gems in town that we're not aware of, but um I'm fully supportive of your expansion and you know, wish you the best of luck going forward. Thank you, sir. With that said, um, is there any closing remarks you'd like to make before we close this public hearing?

Well, I'd just like to thank everybody for your time and support. Uh, we look forward to doing something great in Bloomfield. So, uh, Mr. Chairman, commissioners, thank you very much. Um, I just, actually, it may not be the appropriate time, but a question. So, what are we, um, am I to return next week? Is that the idea or do we know? You need you need to you got to continue the public hearing to next week. So you you can re you can either come in person or virtually. Okay.

Um you've offered to provide another sheet that uh commissioners asked for but you know it's none you know you're coming from Torington. So um but I think you know there needs to be a presence. Yeah. I'll uh I'll I'll be here when Bill's on you know hopefully it um it won't be as time consuming and we won't have the technical issues. Oh, I understand. It happens. Okay. With that said, chair entertain a motion to continue this public hearing. So moved. January 29th. So moved.

It's been moved and second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Extension. Chair votes I.

Okay. Next item on the agenda. I'll ask the secretary if she'll read the legal notice. All right. Can I for one second? I thank Mr. Chairman and commissioners. I do want that. Want to thank staff. Staff was very very helpful.

Okay. We're we're done with yours. All right. Legal notice. Town of Bloomfield Town Plan and Zoning Commission. That notice notice is hereby given that the town plan and zoning commission will hold a regular meeting on Thursday, January 22nd, 2026 at 7 p.m. hybrid meeting in person at 800 Bloomfield Avenue Council Chambers room and virtually via Zoom to consider the following 31 Toby Road Unit 2 special permit use application per section 43.C.4.D to allow a used car dealer and repair establishment in the I1 district. Applicant Brian D. Davis, property owner, 31 Toby Road, LTD.

Okay. Good night. State your name and address, please.

Ryan Davis, 36 Anderson Street, Stanford, Connecticut. Um, my I'm here for a special permit. I'm here seeking to open um opening a used car dealer/repair shop. I'm going to be the owner operator small scale. Um I'm my inventory is going to be three to five cars. I'm seeking I'm als um my operation hours will be from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Um sorry. Um so I read through your staff reports. Um I noticed that And this in the business plan I didn't touch on what would happen with the batteries or oil waste. So I with the battery situation now we'll have a storage where used battery go on and then the the parts store will come and take the batteries back for as a core the oil and waste drainage. We we will have a license hauler that will come and take take the waste oil, the oil filters and the waste antifreeze also. Sorry. Upon um I will be performing um operations as from wholesale auctions, getting cars from wholesale auctions, repairing, inspecting,

um selling and repairing outside um customers vehicles too.

What else? I also included a floor plan stating where everything will be, all the measurements, office space, car lifts, where the waste, oil, and coolant will be. If you guys have that Um, our business will be in compliance with with OSHA and the zoning and the DMV standards. Um, any I don't know if you guys have any other questions for me or anything.

Uh, yes, we'll get to that. Okay. Are are you done with your presentation? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Uh I assume there's no questions from the audience and probably none online. So we'll start with the commission and we'll start with Commissioner Bolton. Uh do you have any questions? Um did you did you want to get staff comments first? Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Sorry. Thank you. Uh Jonathan, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um thank you.

Quite frankly, this has been a bit of a challenge for staff. Um the use card, what what they're requesting is not a listed principal use in the I1 district. However, under section 43C4D, which which has been used frequently, any n any non-residential use not otherwise prohibited which takes place within the confines of an enclosed building where no goods or equipment or material stored outside, the commission may consider this proposed use. So, that's how this application um is um allowed to be placed in our concerns. I mean, we um the challenge is to is to try and balance um the rehabilitation of this neighborhood and this property in particular, the desire of an entrepreneur to move forward uh in a way um that can achieve both. And we think that um that that that's a challenge in this particular case that you know are we reaching a tipping point. Nine of the 15 units or about 60% uh with direct outdoor access in the building are already autorelated. Um and because the site is a multi-tenant building with a high concentration of autorelated uses um we found it necessary to evaluate the application not only in isolation but as uh you know the cumulative operational impacts and we're concerned whether or not we are reaching the uh the tipping point and it becomes really an autocentric um commercial use as as opposed to a mixeduse

um um development. Um while the um applicant has um focused on oil waste disposal, we think it does need some further addressing of the other general waste items such as tire, motor, antifreeze, oil filters, and all the things that are associated with those marvelous cars we drive. Um so in in considering this um we think that the the commission needs to look at the cumulative impact of additional auto related um potential for increased fire load with flammable materials and fire lane obstruction. We've had continuing parking and internal circulation issues there. um environmental safeguards, fire safety, etc., etc. Um obviously the commission has to make a finding of it's a suitable location for the use appropriate improvements uh and and so forth. Um so the the staff um is is on the if you know can't give you a strong recommendation either way because we um we want to encourage entrepreneurial development. We think one of the one of the challenges is that um the property owner obviously wants to lease the space. This is this is a request to lease it. Uh but there seems to be a leaning towards certain types of uses um that are autorelated and we've given you a um we have included in the staff report a um a um motion uh that would be positive uh but it has a laundry list of conditions which I won't spend going through. Um a lot of them

you'll you'll recognize but um I think we we would we would insist that uh all activities including uh storage of vehicles as well as actually work on and selling of vehicles would have to be done inside uh that there would not be any outside storage of any goods, equipment, materials or vehicles. That would be a main point of make and so I will I will leave it at that. I recognize that that's not a um a um positive um recommendation one way the other, but I think that's where the staff is with this particular property and this particular application uh sort of generated um that uh staff conversation and um uh and view of uh what we need to take a good hard look at this property. Thank you.

Okay. Uh thank you. So at this time we'll take questions from the commission and we'll start with Commissioner Baldton. Uh thank you uh Mr. Chair. Um this this use is going to be for car repairs, but it also says used car dealer. Are you going to be selling vehicles? Yes, selling.

Where where are those vehicles going to be stored? Um outside there's a parking space for that section four four parking spaces. Um it should be on the there should be a picture a map with the broader with the whole property that should have a uh quick question for staff. Is he allowed and this is not a principal use. Would he be allowed to have vehicles outside of this space

under set said section um where he's applying through um which would be the only section that would qualify for such use. No. Um he is allowed to do car repairs and sell vehicle but the only if it's within the confines of a building. So no outdoor storage of any kind would be permitted. Okay. Okay. While you're there, um I I did see in your staff comments that the fire marshall and maybe some of the building officials have not submitted their comments.

That's correct. I'm not sure if the fire marshall is in. I know I was not um I was not able to get a hold of him, but I did send him an email. Two emails I have not heard back. Um if we do keep this open, I'm hoping that within that week um we get a report from the fire marshall. I know that tires and other materials are highly flammable. Um with the highly concentration of the use, um it is a concern. Um, so I I did ask uh the fire marshall for for their input with um with vehicles being driven into and I see there's one garage door and then there's a window and the car lift is um it's all the way at the other end

where the window is. Yeah. Yeah. Alarming. Um will will there be a requirement for um a more strenuous um exhaust system or just ventilation to as I think there's a dance I'm sure as they were testing motors and stuff ventilation would become part of the um it's that's part of the building permit approval. So when they apply for a change of use because there was this was not an autocentric use prior um that ventilation plan and exhaust and everything would be part of the building permit application that would have to be submitted. Okay. Y All right. Thank you.

Thank you. So question for you. So, you have are are you going to be um like switching the locations of where the window and the garage door is since your car lift is on the opposite side of where your garage door is? Aren't you Shouldn't you Shouldn't the garage door be where the window is? Well, the garage door the the garage door can repeat that question. I'm sorry. So, yeah, your car lifts over here. There's a window here. Yes, the garage door is here. I'm just saying, shouldn't you don't you want the garage door or the car lift where the garage door is right here? So, get

that window doesn't it opens.

Thank you. Thank you, Alinda. Mr. Chair, I'm all set. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Marshall Neely.

Thank you. Just just for for umformational purposes only for the staff, I had an issue with my wheel and it needed to be welded. Top alloy wheel repair. I went there uh last year and was instructed or was told they closed over a year ago. So that business who's unit 9, they're not there. Just just an FYI. I was disappointed. Um, also when you to the staff when we're looking at unit 10 and 11 or 6 and 7, um, it's one company but two units. Does that make any kind of uh difference as to the number of um, establishments here? Because they have two two bays or whatever, you know. Sorry about that. Um, these uh units were combined to become one.

Okay, thank you. Would you happen to uh have a plan to dispose of tires?

Yes. Um, so where I'm going to store the tires is going to be inside. They're gonna have a tire rack, but I will have a a tire guy come take all this the waste tires that we're not using and they'll dispose of it. So, everything will be paid for um like a paid service basically for the the tires. the well the battery has to go back to the parts and um like the waste oil that will be like a licensed hauler that'll come and take all the waste oil, the coolant and the oil filters where they'll be stored properly in that one section on the map where it says I don't know if you guys have it but it'll say use like used oil tank but and this is where the oil filter will be and the cooling drum is here. So there'll be spill trays too as a security so there's no spillage or anything and we'll have spill kits on site in that area too.

So will this be removed on a weekly basis bi-weekly basis? Do you know how frequently it will um so I have a really big tank? So once it gets to like let's say 3/4 full that's when I call the I'll call the hauler and he'll come pick it up. But I'm not running a big scale um business. So, it's going to take a while for the oil to like even reach that level. So, probably I'm expecting to drain probably what once every quarter of the year cuz it's not a big business. I'm bringing a lot of cars in and out. It's just three three to five cars and yeah, once one sells, then I'll get another one or whatever.

Okay. Um, you seem to be very fluid with what you're doing. So, yeah, I've been doing it for a while. Must have been doing it for a long time. Yeah, that's that's all the questions I have right now. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, uh, Commissioner Goff. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I I want to just sort of continue and and that's good. You have a lot of experience with this. Where are you operating at now? Um, currently I have a Well, I'm not I'm currently working, but I'm looking to open a business. Okay. Up here. Wait. I mean, it just sounded like you're talking about you have you you said you had a drum. You're going to have a drum. Yes. And you're talking about how often it was emptied and so forth.

Yeah. That Well, that's cuz I'm going off of the experience. You're you're working somewhere for the experience of doing it. Yes. Basically what with the with the oil. So like the I have I I leased the facility already. So I'm going to get the drum there and that's that's how I'm planning to do everything. Um what else? Um yeah. Okay. So So right now right now you're living in Stanford. Yes, I live in Stanford and work and working somewhere. I work in New York but I come up here. I'm getting the facility ready. Okay. basically. And then you're going to commute from Stanford.

Well, no, I'm going to move up here eventually. Yes. Yeah. No, I'm not going to I'm going to move. Just trying to trying to understand that. Um, yeah. I think the the the How How did you find this site? Um, I know people that that's up here, so you know, other people in town. Yeah. Word of mouth. And I drove by, I seen it. Okay. And Yeah. Okay. And then and you think this would be a good site? Yeah, it's a good site. Everything when I when I did once I went to do the look around, it was a perfect spot for me for something small scale until you know expansion.

And so the so the the side the the the four the four car prohibition and all of that is you know that that works for you and the size of scale of business. Yes. Cuz it's going to be me by myself and now until I can hire employees. Okay. and the staff, you know, and then at that point you might need to expand to something later. Okay. Um, last question. Um, you I I assume you have seen the staff report with the list of conditions. Yes, I and all those are all all right with Yeah, I don't expect to do any outside work. I want to do everything inside, right? But there's a long list. Yes, I I'm okay with that. Okay. Thank you,

Commissioner James. Um, I just want to just I don't know if I wasn't clear on Commissioner Bolton's the answer given to Commissioner Bolton's question about the um sale and um you mentioned that there's the four spots in front of the unit, but one of the conditions is that um there's no outdoor sale or staging or long-term parking. So you there so I'm sorry I didn't understand that part. Now, you said there would be no storage for cars at all or

one of the conditions that is in the staff report. Condition five is no outdoor display, storage, staging, or long-term parking of inventory vehicles, parts, vehicles, inoperable vehicles, or customer vehicles awaiting repair shall be permitted any anywhere on the property. Well, that that'll probably have an issue because I need to, you know, be able to show the cars and Okay. Um, yeah. I mean, I guess it's my question is if that was kind of clear, but

that that part I'll probably have an issue with because I have to be able to show the customers a car and have a space. I can't fit, you know, all the cars inside at the time without trying to do general appearance or anything. And uh, sorry, I have one other question is how many cars can fit inside? I can say a total of three. Three. Yeah. Doing a little bit of a jenga to get to that car lift. Yeah. Okay, that's it. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. I I don't have any questions for the applicant. I have some questions for staff.

Okay. um the pictures that you that you look online that we're just looking online here from 2022 that site doesn't look anything like that today in three years. And so my question is are you familiar in the last 3 years did the town of Bloomfield approve a junkyard because there's a junkyard on the site. It's all the big fence around it with green green green blocking so you can't see it. It has about 50 cards in there.

I don't believe a recyclers. No, that would be um uh they would require through the state of Connecticut some sort of recyclers. Um so the thing is many communities don't approve applications on a site where there are zoning current zoning violations unless they're Yes. Unless the second thing is have we ever approved a toll lot on the site? A toll lot. Yes, there is. That is a toll lot. There is a toll lot on that site cuz I uh I don't know what it includes, but looking at the site plan that I was given. Yep.

And the one that you show that shows parking for the building, the manufacturing building, but I lost count after I got up to 50 unregistered cars parked in those spaces. and and and and that is and a lot of them have tags on them where they were towed off the street.

Correct. And that is the part of the reason for the conditions of approval. Um and also um and one of the issues with um auto repair and used car dealer is that um a lot of vehicles are are bought um and and stored for an you know a long long term on on site. Um, and there is no cap on the number of vehicles that could be outdoors. Um, it just becomes it it's a very hard use to enforce unless all of the conditions are strictly put on the use. Um, in this case, it's just the accumulation of all of the repairs that goes on on the property. And that's why it was mentioned in the report that this um proposal should be looked you know cumulative cumulatively sorry instead of just isolated um

but it also looks to me like illegal dumping has taken place on the street. You you there could be there could very well be I mean the site is in my humble opinion totally out of control. It it has improved and it's right across the street from the gentleman who was right here before who's building a 100,000 square foot a lovely building and putting significant investment in there and across the street from it we're allowing a junkyard. Um I don't want it to be thought that the staff is not aware. We've been working

as long as I've been here over the last and that's the last three years. uh a combined staff task force involving the police, the health department, fire department, the building department, land use folks um have been working with the property owner to clean this site up. If you were out there a year and a half ago, you would have seen a very different, even much more uh crowded um um place with vehicles all over the place, no parking and whatnot. It has been a um a challenge to get to get even to where we are now. Um we and the economic development commission are working with the property owner to see if if um we can get a use mix in there that is much more you know appropriate to the area. Um that toll lot has been there forever. Um and I'm not so I can't give you the history on the approval of it but I know it's been there for many many many years. Um, and so we are more than fully aware of the situation on that property and actively continually working to um to bring it up fully to standard.

With that, if we can add additional conditions that a site management site control management plan shall be submitted. Um, it is something that I have asked the owner to provide us in order to manage all of the waste. Um when on any given day you uh if you go visit the site there are empty containers sitting outside with oil waste or with or or sometimes even car parts. Um and um

in front of the unit that this gentleman wants to release today, there were car parts and there were also um like car repair tools, correct? And hydraulic lifts and things in front of that unit and the spaces across from him where he would want to put the cars had tow lot cars sitting there. We will go out again. Um, but we will definitely address those issues with the property owner. Um, I really do believe that a site control management plan shall be should be submitted. Um, and um, and we'll follow through with it.

And I guess I would just say that site control plan should apply to everyone there. Correct. The overall site. Yeah. a site control management plan for the overall site. Right. Okay. Y All right. Uh far as questions, we got to

Commissioner Peters. Um I actually don't really know where to start. I have more comments than questions because every time I see 31 Toby, it is quite frustrating. Um, and I don't how do we assist the applicant because a lot of a lot of the issues fall on the owner and we've you're not the first person who's been you're not even the second person who's who's been here and then all these all these questions fall on the owner. So, how do we assist the applicant to get them where they need to? This is actually for I don't and I I know the staff is frustrated because we've been at this for over a year at this point. I I I believe that you know uh the indoor if if all he can fit is two vehicles in there um then that is the maximum he can have. Um the only way of of having this controlled and and site and manage the site. If this commission feels that um a use car dealer and repair shop at the site is appropriate giving uh given the uh the zoning regulation section and existing condition and um and all the other uses on there. Um I I that would be my recommendation and that is why it was part of the condition. Unfortunately, I know that the uh you know the applicant would would love more vehicles, but perhaps this is not the appropriate site for that amount of vehicles that he wants. I I think also in response to that question comment that um because the commission does have discretion on on under that clause of of um you know not otherwise prohibited and I you know and again I want to be sensitive to

this particular applicant uh but at some point uh the commission can send a message uh by indicating that it's not going to be uh supporting any additional u uses of this type or autocentric uses. Um you do have that discretion going forward. That's put you in a bind with the applicant as because staff agrees that the uh real issue is not with the applicants. They're not most of them are are entrepreneurs trying to do startups and run their own businesses. Um and they're not responsible for the entire property. they're only responsible for the space they rent. Um so, um I would put that thought out.

I I do want to add that the property currently is governed by an approved revised site plan from 2005. Um the site was blighted and it was part of it received a special permit and revised site plan for the redevelopment of this site. Um, and you know, at the time, uh, the property owner, Mr. Kaplan, did a great job on, um, uh, redeveloping it. Um, at the I I don't believe that he had specific uses, uh, that went with it, but it was redeveloped. Um, and it it looked amazing. Um, currently, the existing conditions do not appear to reflect that plan any longer. They don't

there are um you know uh some landscaping that were supposed to uh be in the rear end that uh doesn't exist. Um we have accumulation of firewood um uh storage containers uh cars being parked on that side. So it it's you know it just doesn't reflect the the approved plan which is the plan that should is in effect. Okay, that was my comment. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Peters, did you have any any other questions? Commissioner Mallette. Um, yeah, I think my the questions on the parking have have been answered. So, that was my biggest concern. Yeah. And I don't have any questions either. We'll go directly to comments. Uh, I know there's no one in the audience. We'll Oh, there is. Oh. Oh, okay. All right. Uh, tell them that we're on questions. Do they have any questions? drawing questions or comments. Questions. Can you hear me?

Okay. Well, we finished the questions, but now we're going to go to comments. So, if you want to be the first one to comment or if you want to wait until we comment, then you can comment at the end after you hear what everyone else has to say. The commissioners. Sure. I I'll wait. Okay. Um, well, actually, may I uh perhaps I might go first if you don't mind. Is that all right? Sure. Well, f first I'd just like to say about Brian here. You know, I uh my my Excuse me. Before you get started, can you just state your name and address, please?

Sir. Actually, this is Andrew Kaplan, 31 Toby Road. So, I'm Steven's son. Um, and I have been working with him for the last year uh at the property. And you know in this year in this past year I I would say I we've gone through many applicants and and people looking for space and most of them come word of mouth and and they do they do there's a lot of interest in automotive uh businesses because there are other automotive businesses there and that's who comes by and sees the space. Uh and it's a great it's actually created a quite a quite a community of automotive enthusiasts there. uh which I think is actually you know cars in repair don't look great but it it's kind of a special community that I think just because of the appearance of of the used cars maybe doesn't get appreciated uh the you know it's not like the artists in Soho in the 80s right but it's kind of the same idea people didn't like them there then but now pay $5 million for their paintings that's not where I'm going with this I I wanted to say about Brian is that he of the people that I've had come through in the last year. He is incredibly prepared. Um he knows what he wants to do. He's extremely well set up to be a successful business person in Bloomfield and I think he's the kind of person we want in the town. Um we're really excited to have him in the building. He he knows he knows his business. He knows what he wants to do. He's got a really great business plan prepared. And I don't see that from from most people. And I you know I think to to evaluate you know his application becau you know in a certain way because uh you know there are other automotive vehicle or automotive uh uses you know is is not doing right by him right because he's prepared for success and

and certainly there are other tenants maybe not as well prepared and uh you know and and that I believe will take care of itself in the end. But I think he's set up for success. He's the kind of business we want you I believe is wanted in this town who's he's going to be a successful person. And um so I really I'm very impressed by him, I will say. Um, we talk, you know, we talk a lot about the the state of the property and we've been making I I think a very strong effort to improve the property over time and I'm happy to, you know, I don't live, you know, in Bloomfield, but I come up once a month and I'm happy to go around the property with with any or all all of you and show you what we've been doing. uh pro you know parking the parking lot was a a huge issue a year ago. We've put in um you know we've been towing we put in a system of of stickers to keep track of who own you know which cars belong to which people based on which uh spouts they're allowed to. We've designated spots and and and that also goes to, you know, Brian's requesting four spots that are right outside his unit to be reserved for him for his use for overnight storage. That's something that there's precedence for in this property. Unit 16 has spots available to it. Uh I believe was granted five spots. Unit 22 is also granted five spots for overnight storage of and showing a vehicle. unit six, I believe, and unit 10, I mean, or seven there. You know, the the the toward, unit 8 is a towing uh facility. And, you know, we talked to staff many times. We've been in touch all year about, you know, the way the property looks. And we've made all these efforts to clear up

clear up uh cars that are are immobile. Those are not on the property anymore. Cars that are there overnight are now being towed. We're towing vigilantly. um the towyard that's unit 8. You know, he's allowed to have that towyard. He's been permitted that towyard. And we actually had him put up that green screen so it would hide the vehicles. That that was an attempt, you know, it was an attempt to hide, you know, the it was just a a chainlink fence before where the vehicles were inside and didn't look great. So, we tried to conceal. We tried to match the green to the surrounding greenery. I mean it doesn't it's not you know it's not a beautiful perhaps but it we are making efforts and uh you know I I hope that some of that's recognized you know I I've attended every EDC meeting for the past year and I'm in frequent communication with staff I think and and the EDC staff and trying to bring a better a better appearance to the neighborhood. Uh we talk about this every month and and sometimes more frequently. Um we want the neighborhood to succeed. We want great stuff. We're happy that the the our neighbor across the street is going to be getting those cars off the street. You know, they're right on our property, right? So, you know, we we love that they're expanding and and we want to expand, too. We want to make it great. And I and and you know, people like Brian are part of who are going to make that happen for the neighborhood. Um, and I it, you know, it it's Andrew,

I'm going to ask you if in a minute if you can wrap up your comments so we can get with the commission.

Absolutely. I'm sorry. I It pains me. I hear I hear and sometimes I feel like our property gets misrepresented. Uh, you know, we're not a junker. We We are There are businesses working with cars that are in states of repair. Absolutely. I I would encourage you to drive through at night because our towing policy is overnight, right? During the day, cars are being worked on. People are dropping off cars. It's a business, right? They're running businesses. The parking lot is for parking. But it if those cars are left overnight, they get a sticker. And if they're not and if they're still there the next night, they get towed. So, I think if you drove by at night, you might see a significantly different uh amount of cars in the parking lot. it would it's a very different experience during the day when it's that thriving businesses there like the businesses are doing very well you know and they have a lot of cars I I want to say you know the the firewood was mentioned we've gotten rid of all the firewood it's all off the property you know and then there are just it hurts me

you have 20 seconds right you know there are misrepresentations the top alley wheel has been gone for a long time they're not there you know auto some are not auto repair but they're audio installation. We have a we have a nice mix of uh people and you know it was said at one point that we had one bathroom for 40,000 people. We have like probably almost 30 bathrooms. So Oh, okay. Andrew, we get misrepresented here and I and I appreciate it. Andrew, we have to continue with staff. Yes. I mean with the commission. I appreciate your time. Thank you for your comments. Thank you.

Okay. Um, we're gonna start with comments from uh, Commissioner Mallette. Oh, yes. Yep. Stephen, you have three minutes. I can you I'm hope you can hear me. Yes, we can.

Okay, great. Actually, Andrew did a good um um um description of how we're trying to work uh with the town and we are paying and I was very disappointed to just hear now from Linda that for instance that we have not attempted to provide an amended site plan because she knows that we're coming in there with a larger plan and have discussed with me uh and Andrew and that we will come in there with an amended site plan and it was appropriate to do so when we come in with greater plans that we intend to have for the building. It was agreed upon that we were going to hold off on an amended site plan and presented at the time when it was going to be um combined with a more masterful plan for the for the property. Um so I'm disappointed to hear that that um she may have um inadvertently forgotten that conversation. Also, the tags that uh one of the commissioners mentioned were our tags. They're not tags from being towed off the street. There are tags for giving people 24-hour notice to either take care of their their vehicle or it's going to be towed. Uh we don't have a junkyard on the property. We do have an authorized toward on the property. Maybe he was referring to that. and they tow for the town of Bloomfield because they need a site in Bloomfield to be part of the Bloomfield registry for towing companies. I feel as Andrew does um maybe um that we should have a meeting before the next meeting of your commission because there's so much misinformation that we are not able to um convey to you and by the time it gets to you through staff or whatever it's just wrong. It's just wrong and you making decisions on wrong information. One of the one of the commissioners was kind enough to point

out one of those tenants hasn't been there for a year. Um she pointed out some other things that are untrue in the staff's report. And by the way, um the applicant got the staff report at 5:00. I got the staff report at 5:00. We can't address those issues. He did not realize I I guess as I did that you were prohibiting outside storage of vehicles for a used car lot. That's ridiculous. Every car lot has outside storage. You have 30 seconds, Stephen.

Well, I would like to arrange a meeting with the EDC, Jonathan, Linda, and the chairman and anyone else on your commission before next Thursday's meeting. I'm willing to come up there. I prefer to do it in Zoom because Andrew is only available on Zoom. But there there's no police problems. They represented there were police problems last time and that was a wrong impression that there were problems with the fire department. That was the wrong impression. There's no firewood. We need a meeting with your people with your commission before the next meeting because this applicant is going to be unfairly. Um uh uh Stephen, we have

Okay, I finished you. I would like to have that meeting, sir. Thank you very much. Okay, you can uh definitely set that up with staff outside of here. Okay, Commission, we're going to start with comments. Commissioner Mlette, uh I'm I'm going to hold off on comments for now.

Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. Um, yeah, my comment. Um, I do appreciate the owners, um, commenting and being here. I, in my personal opinion, I I would have appreciated them to be a part of your presentation so we wouldn't have to get to this point in the discussion because this is all too like I I'm not going to back down from that. This is all too familiar. And I do agree with their frustrations about we're holding you up based upon things that they have not or they are working towards um fixing and everything what they say sounds good and great but they should be proactive versus um reactive and what I'm hearing is reactive and that's not fair to you and it has not been fair to the other applicants that have been going through this lot and everything that they're saying. I I just I there's just like so much to it that I don't um feel like I need to go point by point, but there are certain regulations that are written down. That's not new information about storage outside of the facility based upon your intended use. That's a discussion that you and that the owner should have had and they have a general understanding what that should be. So they could give you the information on that if you were not knowledgeable about that. That's that's primarily what want to say. I don't I don't appreciate the reactive responses. It should have been more proactive and the fact that this discussion has been going on for years. And I do think from what I'm hearing there has been m like movement or momentum to improve the quality of the site. It's not happening fast enough. In my opinion, it's not. So, I understand their frustration, but my my um response does not um offer sympathy to the owner.

It offers sympathy and empathy to the applicant. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien.

Um I'd just like to say that, you know, we're all volunteers. We all show up. We do our best job. We go out and we look at the sites. We report what we see. I reported what I saw. I saw a lot a lot of cars that were unregistered taking up parking spaces on an approved site plan that were there for manufacturing uses. If they're now going to be used for something else, then it's high time a revised site plan came in here. And if we want to create a glorified toll lot or, you know, the gentleman takes exception to the word junkyard, all I want to say is if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, somebody is reasonably can determine that it's a junkyard. Now, we can argue over whether it's a junkyard or it's not a junkyard. It certainly looks like a junkyard to these eyes. And many communities uh refuse to approve a new use on a site that's not in zoning compliance. And you know, as I don't know what this site management plan is, but it seems to me that if somebody's out of compliance on a site plan, then they should receive zoning violation notice from the zoning enforcement officer and come into compliance. And if coming into compliance means they got to get a revised site plan in, then they better well do that. and I'm sorry, but you know, I don't need to be lectured at for doing a volunteer job.

Okay. Thank you, Commissioner James.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, there was a report recently um that highlighted Connecticut as one of the hardest states to open a business in. And there's a multitude of reasons why, but this is a perfect example of why it is so hard. And I definitely commend you for taking the steps that are required to legitimately open a business and to do the hard work and to stay the long meetings that um you know take up all your evening. And I wish you really the best of luck. I thank you for choosing Bloomfield. Um and I apologize that I mean it's not my fault. It's not your fault but that you're caught up in this because it's it's not your fault. I think I don't know what has to happen within our planning, our commission where we have to say we're not going to entertain any special permit applications until this property is bought up to a certain code or a certain standard because it isn't fair for applicants to come to this point and then we're having conversations that have nothing to do with what the applicant is is presenting to us because the condition of the property is what it is. And I would agree with our prior commissioners that, you know, we see with our own eyes the condition of that property and I could think that it's improved for sure. There was a huge bus that used to sit on that and I saw it being towed away and it was stuck on Graanby Street and then I think they got it out and you know I think the fact that they have done a lot of work but it still looks the way it is is because of the condition that it was got it had gotten to and it is just a very bad position overall and that's no fault to the applicant um who comes up to us and as mentioned we've had this conversation before and we've had the conversation with the property owner and it's a bit disappointing that we aren't able to take a different tone because I think if the property was in a great condition, we'd be glad to approve your application because me, I want to see business in Bloomfield. I want to see small business. I want to see black men

succeed and I want to see young people be able to do hard things like create a business in a very hard state to do that. So, I really wish you the best of luck. I'm sorry that you get caught up in the mix of this and I hope that the owner and I agree with I think that the owner I think we would agree that I want to see businesses succeed in that area and that there really needs to be significant progress from this property for us to be able to move forward because I want to be able to enthusiastically get behind projects at 31 Toby Road but we can't do it right now. I don't mind. That's it.

Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Goff. Um thank you, Mr. Chair. Um yeah, I want to echo several of these things, but maybe with a little different take um or just some other some other points. Um first of all, I I do appreciate um I think someone I think maybe it was Mr. Cap Andrew Kaplan who did make the comment that um this whole thing about used cars outside. I think what we have allowed in the past is you can use your parking spaces, but that's all. Um, we have to be consistent on this and we need to look back at at at at that because again I I I feel the same thing that my fellow commissioners do. We get an applicant in here. I'm interested in your business. I'm interested in, you know, you being successful in Bloomfield and we get involved with all this other stuff that really is not a pro, you know, not your fault. Um I I I do know that the um the Kaplins have been working, you know, has have been going to ETC meetings and I I I think they do want to do something with the property, but I'm extremely frustrated that again, we get to this point. We have an applicant, we have a business, but you know, does this even fit? Does is is the property up to that? And I do You know, I I think exactly as Commissioner James said, we need to do something. We need to quit taking applications for this property until it's in the condition that, you know, we can look at an application and not be caught up in all these other problems. So, um, we're continuing this to next time. Um, you know, I I I really I really don't like being put in this position because this is not the position that the TPZ should be, you

know, dealing with. This should been dealt with long before it came here. So, u, you know, again, thank you for your presentation. Um, we, you know, I think you've thought long and hard about this and I think you're trying to, you're trying to move up in the world and that's, you know, that's great. Um, but, you know, this property has some issues. Um, and I would also note to the commission, um, that two of the things, the dance studio, which is something we were extremely, uh, excited about, is still pinning a CO and the axe throwing, which maybe we weren't too too excit we thought was a little weird, uh, but it certainly, you know, worked into the entertainment different kind of business in there. um they got approved about a year ago and still aren't doing anything. So, I don't know where that's going. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, uh, Commissioner Marshall Neely.

Thank you, Brian. I applaud you. I am so supportive of you and the revenue that the town would receive. you. I don't know you personally, but you to me uh appear to be someone who has their head on straight, got the business thing going, and I I think I heard you say that you were going to move here. I that's additional revenue coming into the town of Bloomfield. I ask myself uh whether not being able to park the car, you said three cars, park park a car outside that you're selling would really can something be done like maybe all of the cars would be parked inside during the day. This is just me talking you guys. during the day and then a a big um tent sign would be out there with a a picture of the car and you can say for sale come take a look or whatever. I mean maybe there's some other way you can do that to get your business up and running in Bloomfield. And and then um the the other thing uh you did answer the question about the tires and how the tires would be removed and I don't think that the tires would be a problem because you don't have a lot of cars that you're going to be working on and so I think the other things would probably be doable. you know, you work around it, find out how you can work with the staff and and figure out alternatives so that you really can get

your business going in Bloomfield. I would love to see you have your business in Bloomfield. And I agree with my my fellow commissioners, the the situation, the condition of the location is not your fault. And I hope this doesn't burst your bubble. I hope it doesn't drain you where you go back and say, "Heck, I'm not going to try to do any business in Bloomfield because of this, that, or the other." Because that's not the case. I believe that if if things were different, um, all doors would open for you. I do believe that, and I'd like to see you be successful. So, don't give up on Bloomfield. I I say that to you. Don't give up on Bloomfield. see what else you can do to have your business in Bloomfield because I really would like to see you succeed. And that's it for me.

Uh, thank you, Commissioner Balden. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, Mr. Davis, are you driving back to Stanford tonight? Yeah,

I do apologize for that. Yeah, that I do apologize for. Wow. Um, I've been in business 20 years now this year. It's a it's a privilege and it's an honor to be able to do what you want to do for yourself. So, I commend you on that. I think you picked a great town um to open up your business. It is unfortunate that you are here presenting um before us, an application that doesn't really even meet our our regs at this particular point in time. in terms of what will most likely be a profitable portion of your venture is to is to sell fix these vehicles up and then sell them. And um as it reads now, you wouldn't be able to do that. Um based on what I'm hearing about the property, what I know about the property um unless we step up our zoning enforcement um duties, you you might be able to get away with it, you know, regardless. But I I I wouldn't take that approach. I I I think you are um steadfast in in trying to embark on on a on an entrepreneurship v uh you know venture and I I think this is um your talent and uh I I don't think you should just jump into any particular space um lightly without making sure it's going to be the best space uh for you. So I I do agree with uh Commissioner Ney here that uh uh don't give up on Bloomfield. I think it'd be a great place for you both for your business and for you to live and uh um just continue to pursue your uh venue uh here uh or in Harford County if if need be, but uh make sure the space works for you and to be able to execute your business plan. All right.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay. Um thank you, Commissioner Balden. And and I'll just quickly add um I just want to say thank you for coming to Bloomfield. Thank you for considering Bloomfield. And I think it's um I think it's very unfortunate that you're a victim of a piece of property that's been neglected for years. And it seems as though that there's a consensus among the commissioners that we would love to have your business and we respect everything that you're trying to do, but it seems like they're ready they're ready to draw a line here to say that we we basically can't have any more neglect on that property at this time. And that's unfortunate because you probably would be a great tenant. The Kaplan spoke very highly of you. But unfortunately, you have a piece of property. We had a commissioner went out there today and I mean the the response they came back was you know kind of like unbelievable. So it seems as though that the line is going to be drawn that uh auto auto sales repairs will probably no longer be accepted there until there's significant improvement on that property. So I just want to say thank you. We we will be continuing this further next uh next next week, but it seems like there's a consensus on that that uh you happen to be a victim. Sure. There are two comments that I received via Zoom um from Andrew Kaplan and he said, "We are trying to turn the property around and tenants like Brian are the kind of tenants we need to make it happen." Additionally, he said, "This is like turning the Titanic here. It is

not a fast process. We wish it was. We are doing our best." Okay. Thank you. Okay. At this time, the chair will entertain a motion to continue this p this public hearing until January 29th. I just ask a procedural question. Um, this gentleman, why would we continue it if there's a consensus? Why wouldn't you just have a motion to deny or close the public hearing? Well, he doesn't have to be he can do it virtually. But I'm saying what why does it need to be continued? Because we all granted everybody else the same opportunity. Exactly. Right. Okay. Thank you.

Wait. Did you have another comment? Oh, be moved. Okay. It's been moved and second. Any further discussion on continuing this public hearing till January 29th. Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Oppose. Abstension. Chair votes I. Okay. I'm going to ask the commission in the essence of time. We're already after 11. If there if we can have a motion to continue the further items under new business to our January 29th meeting. Mr. Chair, I see our zoning enforcement offer sir has stuck around for the long haul. If he could maybe give five minutes or so, just considering he's he stuck around the entire time. Okay. Um

All right. Um under new business, we'll go to item C and we'll take item C and you have now about 5 to 10 minutes to give a presentation. Yeah. You have the old agenda. They they sent out a revised. Yes. No, we continued. We continued it.

Well, thank you for everyone in TPZ for having me. It's great to see you. It's been a while, so it's nice I got to see you for uh some time. Uh it's my understanding you're looking for an enforcement summary. Yes. I don't know whether you were given the materials um that I had submitted. Uh I can just read it verbatim. Uh if that's a benefit to the commission. Yeah,

I see this more of a conversation. Okay. Um, so is there an interest in me just reading what was submitted verbatim or do you guys just want to have an open discussion? I think tonight's meeting was really interesting in terms of basically seeing the 10,000 square or 10,000 foot overview of kind of what a multivariate problem zoning is. Um, you know, especially on the enforcement end. Uh, I have no interest in commenting on any public hearings that have been closed, but in terms of general policies and, you know, what what the town's experiencing, I think there's an interesting conversation to be had about administrative burdens, uh, density of commercial, industrial, and residential simultaneously. uh and just approaching things in a way that's sustainable for for basically every site and how much time can be allocated to to each site individually with with the existing volume of sites in various levels of compliance. So that being said, um has everyone read the materials? Um you know, a high volume of my day.

I don't think I have any materials. I haven't seen it.

Was this a five o'clock today?

Okay. Well, I apologize for that. This this may have been submitted some time ago, but in the interest of, you know, just getting everyone up to speed, I'll just read it verbatim right now. Uh, so this is my uh enforcement activity report for 2025. In 2025, 124 new zoning uh code enforcement complaints were opened, 110 were closed. 74 administrative zoning review requests were received, including 48 administrative zoning permits and 26 zoning compliance reviews. There are six variance applications and five were granted. Four accessory dwelling unit applications received of which one CO certificate of occupancy uh was granted. Uh it's worth noting a significant percentage of the ADU projects were just not pursued to completion. Um, as of today, it is worth noting that almost every permit that goes through the building and land use department is screened for zoning uh concerns or compliance of the proposed work, including approximately 826 building permits, 241 solar permits, and all the associated mechanical, plumbing, and electrical permits. Uh the CEO, myself, uh is here to help the public navigate the local zoning regulations. Whether they have a quick question about general policy, need specific details about a property or trying to start a new project, I'm here to help. I'm always happy to chat about how our department works with either yourself or the public. So feel free to call or email me at any time.

Mr. Chairman, if I could add where you do

um since Alex has been a phenomenal addition to the staff. First, secondly, he is doing um you know, he's really stepped up um the um inspection and enforcement side of of zoning. But I think most important um are two things. one, he has really integrated himself with the rest of the staff, the building inspectors, the building official, the wetlands agent, and and the new environmental planner. And they they um continually work and discuss u projects and items and enforcement uh collectively and often go on site inspections as a team. Uh, so I and in addition, he's probably one of the best persons I've ever seen at the counter and he's very willing to be at that counter, which is can be an interesting place to be on a on an ongoing basis. But he um he um responds to um and seems to actually enjoy helping folks both developers who are uh who are more knowledgeable and have specifics to the homeowner who's trying to navigate uh the zoning regulations for the first time. So, I I um we are just delighted to have him on staff and uh I wanted this commission to know um how valuable an asset he is to BL and you uh but also to the uh entire team Bloomfield.

Thank you for that, John. We appreciate it. Sure, Commissioner J.

Um thank you for presenting. Just for future activity reports, can you give us a bit more detail on the com like the complaints like what happens with you open them and then only some of them a large portion of them are closed but you know what what are what are the outcomes maybe some topline you don't have to tell me right now I mean I guess if you have it but just for future just give us a little bit of detail of what's going on. Yeah. No, absolutely. Um that should be probably an open discussion over time. You know, I have a little bit of time before the next annual report. Um and or whatever reporting style you guys are looking for. So, you know, the the more information I have, the more that I'd love to throw in there. Um I'm big on digital records, so um it's pretty easy for me to call up, you know, whatever information you're looking for.

Hey, thank you. Any other? So, do do you have I if a commissioner wants to look up and find out a particular issue that has been reported to you and no progress has been seen, is there someplace we could like look online and see what you're doing?

Yeah. So, this is where it gets a bit philosophical for me. I I feel like zoning should be treated like pretty much any other permit. So, in the exact same um permanent portal, uh I I basically treat the zoning complaints um the same. They have an individual identifier. It's tagged to the property in the exact same system as the building permit. That being said, I'm not currently involved in every single zoning issue. Um so, I can only speak to my own work. Uh that being said, anything with a C dash year number dash you know, unique identifier. I would assume it's sequential. You know, is that case? And

I just want to say that one of the reasons why it's great you're here and we can have a conversation is I had a conversation with you in April and I reported a situation which you told me you'd look into and this is now January and nothing has happened. So, so you know, like I don't want to bring it up tonight, but I would like to be able to look up and see, well, what's going on with it?

Yeah, absolutely. Um, to that I do really need to reinforce uh my first point. Uh, you know, I do want to treat these permits just like any other or these basically work orders like any other permit. So, there there essentially is there's intake paperwork that comes in. Um, I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear during our conversation. I believe I was just there dropping things off. It might have been the first time we spoke. Um, but you know, we're all here. This is the whole point of why we're meeting there. There is a form, you know, there is a form that gets filled out that triggers the administrative process to open the complaint and it it basically just runs through the exact same system. It's also convenient organizational system for me. I can have an inbox and an outbox instead of just, hey, I was driving and someone talked to me for a little bit. That can get a bit arduous in terms of keeping track of, you know, the number of permits I'm talking about, the number of complaints I'm talking about. Um, you know, this is as a townwide level, it's a pretty big scope of work. Um, you know, there's some rather large, um, rather old zoning violations. Um so you know it from an organizational and procedural standpoint um you know the paperwork for me is the best best intake system also allows for scalability and delegation.

Yeah I just want to follow off of this this portal. Yeah. Do we have access to it? I would hope so. It's open gov. It's where all the building permits are. So, so we should be able So, to to I think Commissioner O'Brien's initial point, if you know the number of the what you put in, he can go and see the current status, what's been

fed. Yeah. And also, we go out and you know, like today, I drove around Bloomfield for 3 hours. I mean, and there were things I saw in April that I see now. And like I'm not saying it's you're not doing anything, but if I could go look up and say, "Oh, this street. Yeah, that place where they're repairing cars, right on the front lawn on a main street. Nothing's being done." You know, it would help me to say, "Oh, they got a citation and something's happening." Yeah. Absolutely. I don't know. And I drove by a situation like that today. And Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So, like it would if we all had the ability to go online from our home while we're watching the ball game and look up and see what's going on, that would help us enormously. And also, you've got nine eyes and ears right here out there on the street helping you.

So, the the the system you're describing is in place. Um, you know, I don't know the level of awareness. Um I also don't know the level of participation in terms of you know I I do have a strict intake procedure. It's just the only way this is manageable um with with the volume of of work and just a lotable manh hours. Um if you or anyone in the town reports an issue, fills out the form, it's in. I mean that's it's that simple. It's exactly in the same place as the building permits. Um, that being said, you know, you're you're also addressing the the macro level issue as a whole. You know, I I could drive around for uh days, weeks, and months just writing down every single zoning violation that I see. So, for me, there needs to be a structured approach to addressing public interest, to addressing, you know, basically I I treat them like petitions. So, if a complaint comes in, someone has petitioned me to address one of potentially quite a few zoning violations in town. Um, so yeah, I there's there's a form and I think that procedurally is the best way to approach a large problem. You know, it's the same thing as the expression how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And then for me to add on that, you know, how do you organize those bites? Neighborhood interest via complaints. It is relatively is a relatively common procedure in other municipalities.

May I? Sure. Marshia just I'm Jennifer Marsha. Alex, what is your last name? Uh, Simlot.

Okay. Similot. I'll remember that. When you receive the report, when someone submits the report, the application, what kind of timeline based on how your your load is? And I know you have a lot, what kind of timeline do do you look at in order to address whatever is submitted? So for example um there was something that was submitted uh today right something submitted today

you receive that form and that goes into whatever you have going on and we should think well you know two months from now we should see something or you know what are your steps what are your steps is what I'm actually asking.

Yeah. So, I think probably the biggest initiative that I've had in town is setting up standard operating procedures. Um, you know, the the first step is to have rails to go on this. There there are some differences and I'm trying to close those differences between kind of departmental approaches to things. Um, you know, if I was to not necessarily speak on the building division, but in terms of just the way that I've seen it structured, they have, well, for starters, a significantly larger staff that's that's kind of neither here nor there um, for this aspect of this discussion, but they have a system in place for that delegation, for that scalability, for those rails. what you're getting at is what I am trying to set up in the meantime around you know basically the the work that was performed outlined in this activity report. Um when I first started I think my overall duties were primarily enforcement and those rails. So I was able to implement you know a I would say a faster response time. You know, I think one of the most important things with any position is being able to reflect on, you know, where where are things that improved, where are things that didn't improve. You know, the from a standpoint of when I first started, when the tickets came in, and when first action, I think that that was that was handled differently due to the difference of workload. And that that's what this is going to boil down to is it's a matter of prioritization. You know, I I was in a training for I don't know 5 hours today. So that's that's one day. Um you know, I'm at the counter for x amount of hours as well.

You know, hoping to minimize some of the issues that were described as a whole. um you know not speaking to any particular application but you know having an eye on applications as they progress um getting ahead of some of the issues outlined here. Uh that being said as of right now it's just whatever is possible. There's there's some reality to having a oneperson department essentially you know that is changing and it's changing for the better. Um but it is currently the system that I'm in. um you know to some extent there are going to be more eyes on things and that is going to help tremendously. Uh but you know I think realistically speaking it it really just depends on what's going on. You know if we take 31 Toby for example how long do you think that inspection would take to to go around and log every single violation that may or may not be going on there? You know I'm not speaking on their application. And I'm speaking to the enforcement issues that have been brought up as a whole, you know, on a macro level over a long period of time. Just that one inspection might eat up x amount of time. You know, it's there's some algebra to to what's humanly feasible with the amount of boots on the ground that we have. So, you know, just just my training today and just that inspection, you know, what percentage of a day is that? um you know multiply that by you know closing over a hundred cases in a year with over a thousand building permits. You know what what's what's physically possible is is the question that I'm trying to answer you know every day

want to say I'm not trying to keep anyone

Hi I'm not trying to keep anyone here longer. Um we do have several court cases as well. These zoning violations don't we we just can't resolve it overnight. Some of them take years. For instance, 56 Tungstus Avenue. We've been in court for 3 years with this property. It's not that the town isn't moving. It's just that the process is very could be very long. Um and uh we're we're doing the best we can as he mentioned with the staff that we have. So hopefully, you know, with the budget coming around, that's a consideration. Thank you.

So essentially, you're saying you need a clone. Yeah. There's Yeah. The the same scalability and proportion to the existing development as any other municipality and and same targets basically. So can you can you just tell us where to find this portal? Uh it's called open gov. So if you were to that's in the finance area. No, no. So that is Well, to be fair, I and to be clear for the record, I don't know that aspect of it. I know that it's used for building permits.

Okay. I'm sorry. Let me just ask you directly. If I go to the town's website, where do I go to find this at? What I look under?

The easiest place is the building permits bubble. So when you go on the town website, there's, you know, those those icons. They're they're round. One of them says building permits. And essentially you if you were interested in building a deck, fill in the blank, you would use that portal to do that permit. So that that portal and whatever records are accessible to the public in the same way that you could look up a building permit, pull a file, you know, it's the exact same thing for zoning. It just starts with a Z if it's a zoning administrative review permit, fill in the blank, and it starts with a C if it's a complaint. So it's just C instead of Z and you do it by address.

Yeah. So if you don't, you know, you don't need to know the unique identifier, you can just know the address and basically pull all the the requests or fill in the blank action. Okay. And I'm sorry, this is where I was. And if I go to planning and zoning, I don't know that it's on there. So where is building division? Yeah. So it's in the building permits. Okay. Okay. So, I'm trying to use the existing cloud infrastructure. Yeah. Can you just send an email? Yeah. Yeah, it it is. It would be great. That would be great. Thank you. Yeah. Can you in the very all open zone violation? They're going to put it in the email. No, what I'm saying

we can email like you're saying we can look up an indivual address but we want to know what is the universe of violations that you're dealing with and then prioritize them. I don't think uh council commissioner that that um you can manipulate that um that file like that at this point but we can find out. I'm not sure it's an Excel. Okay. Do anyone else have any more questions for Alex?

I just want to say thank you so much for showing up and showing out and telling us what you do. Yeah, of course. No, thank you. I I love planning meetings. At the last town that I worked at, I was I was very involved. Um, so, uh, not that I I'm a morning person, so this this was rough. Um, but yeah, it's something that I'm familiar with. So, you know, whatever the commission's looking for, you know, I just need just need an outline and I'll do my best to produce. All right. Well, well, thank you for being here and maybe we will have you maybe quarterly or semianual annually versus just once a year.

Yeah. But but thank you for your report and if you can send out an email with some instructions on how to navigate through there that would be appreciative. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. At this time, the chair will entertain a motion. So moved to continue. You got to continue the meeting until continue the meeting January 29th until January 29th. It's it's 7 pm sir here in the council chambers. Yes. So moved. Second. Second. Been moved and second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Opposed. Abstension. Chair will entertain a motion to adjourn. Adam feel