Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Yes. Not that one. Okay. I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm Denise Savage. I'm the vice chair of the zoning commission. Um, and to my left is Mike Poglaniano. Um, also a member of the zoning commission. And we also have Mary Joe Nosel on uh via Zoom. Um, in terms of our regular members, I want to say congratulations for the appointments of our new alternate members, uh, Michael Barnes and, uh, Mary Gardner. They're coming back, um, as alternate members. And the newest member is Jim Quattro. Jim, would you like to just quickly introduce yourself?

Uh, my name is Jim McCordo. I live here. I've lived here for nine years and I'm excited to contribute.

Thank you. and we're going to seat um for this meeting because we have some abs. We'll site seat Michael Barnes and Mary Gartner. So um our agenda starts with public comment period and I just wanted to um start off with making sure people understand what the public comment period is versus the public hearings. Um, public comment is if you wanted to com comment on something about the agenda or something to the zoning commission, but understand that if you have something to say about one of the items in the public hearing, you should do that during the public hearing process so that you will then be on the record as part of the public hearing. If you comment during the public comment period, yes, we've got your comments, but it's won't be part of the official public hearing record that we can consider. We just want to make that clear that the the comment period is kind of like if somebody has something they just need to address with the um uh commission. I also just wanted to make sure that people understood um that we are uh have a public hearing. Um, one of our agenda items is the phase one um, changes to our zoning regulations. We are going to be getting into phase two, which is really looking at the substantial part of our our our and and looking at potential changes to the zoning rigs. Phase one was kind of to clean it up, um, reorder some of the things, make it more technically sound so there wasn't changes to substantially to the zoning rigs. We will be starting that phase two process and we'll be inviting all the commissions as well as having public input sessions from the public. Um, and we'll be starting that this spring. So, I just wanted to make sure people understood that so that when they come up during the public hearing on the phase one rags, we will keep the,

you know, comments to what's in the, you know, any changes to the phase one rags. We're not going to be taking comment about like, oh, I'd love to see this change. that will be for later on um in what the commission's working on. So with that said, I'm going to ask if there's anybody here who wants to comment in the public comments se section. Yes. And if you could state your name and address.

Sally Whiteitz and it's 310 Swan Avenue Extension. Okay. Um, I was reading through the rewrite and I just need some clarification on Airbnb or short-term rentals because it's a C10 zone and it looks like that's prohibited and not sure if I'm correct on that. No, we don't regulate Airbnb at all. It's just not part of the regulations. Well, it says tourist home.

Okay. tourist home is a very specific category and that's just designed for the SVC SVD district and that's because historically that's been the town's location for um essentially uh use seasonal use for that sort of thing because the town has a history of being a seasonal rental community. Um we do not regulate we do not attempt to regulate Airbnb. It just we don't have the staff to do it and traditionally the com um the zoning regulations have not been able to address that. So it may be something we take up in phase two. At the moment it is not discussed in phase one.

Okay. So a yearround home can be just like a hotel nightly rentals. We don't regulate it regulated at all. We do not touch that. Okay. How would that be? like when would that be done like in a rewrite or in phase two we can take it up as something that the commission can look at at that time but it is not addressed presently. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else have comments just generally for the commission or questions?

Okay. Um here seeing no further comments we'll go into the public hearing and we're going to start the public hearing. It's actually a continuation of the hearing on our phase one regulations, case 25-11. Um, we already read the information into the record. We probably don't need to do that again since this is a continuation of the public hearing. Um, and wonder and I guess I'll Is there anything else we need to do on that, Eric? No, I'm looking over the submitts and at this point I don't think there are any new submittals since your last meeting here. Um did planning ever do same thing or

Okay, planning came back with a favorable report on this. Um so they they are are saying that this meets the uh requirements of the town plan of conservation and development. Um I thought there would be something in here from them. I don't see that but I can report back since I was at that meeting that they did make a positive referral for you. Um I do have from February 3rd the um review from the historic district commission. Um it just basically says uh urges the zoning commission to emphasize the importance of protecting historic structures. And again this is largely phase two comments. They're talking about um recognition of HTC authority illumination. All of these are things that you're going to take up essentially at your next phase, but they they've submitted to them now, so they're in the record here. Um, I do have a January 28th uh letter from Suzanne Thompson from the uh Gateway Commission indicating say that the CRGC reviewed the application at its January 22nd meeting. The proposed zoning regulations uh changes do not amend gateway standards. The amendment is not adverse to the protection development of the gateway conservation zone or to the standard set forth in CGS section 25-102D CRGC does not oppose the proposed changes and this letter can be taken as the approval of phase 1 zoning regulation changes if adopted as presented by the zoning commission. So, I think those are the only new additions I've got since the last meeting.

I have some old um business on that one. So, back around Thanksgiving, there was an email exchange where you had solicited comments for the the version at that time that resulted in the what I believe is the the December 3rd Rev that was Yeah.

that was uh referred out and that's been the basis for our discussion since then. So, back then, uh, if I recall correctly, Jane had submitted some proposed changes. I definitely did and and the email mentions that Denise was planning to or might be sending some in. So now speaking from what I know to be true, I had sent in proposed revisions to the professional office and business services establishment definitions as an attempt to more cleanly separate public-f facing retail business offices from more businessto business and map those into the commercial and light industrial zones. So, and I put that forward as a as a draft proposal, but it was never discussed with the whole commission. And I I think we need to

Yeah. Before we accept that, we we need to work that through and and accept it. I Well, that's what we're here at the public hearing to do. So, if you'd like to sort of raise that and discuss that tonight, that would be this would be the appropriate time to do that. Consider it raised then. And and if and I never saw so at that point you were going to collate whatever came in and and then send it back out when when we met as a commission. And I didn't see anything that Jane had suggested during that cycle.

I don't know that I have, you know, Jane's comments, I guess, were largely directed at some of the definition stuff and I think that that I think got addressed. I think Jane's comments had already previously been addressed. I don't know that I have new comments from Jane's post that email. Um, I think she was going to save the rest of her thoughts for phase two. So, I don't know that there's new language from Jane that we need to incorporate. And obviously, Jane isn't here and says she's going to leave the hearing open. So, we can certainly ask Jane next time if there's anything additional she'd like added. And I think the same thing with with myself. I don't think I ended up submitting something I was going to, but it got resolved, so I don't think I needed to do that.

Okay. If that's the case, if if we're going to leave it open, we might want to leave the discussion of those two other definitions open until Jane is here too because I to your point um there is some I guess I want to clarify what you were trying to clarify on the regulation on the definition specifically because there is office buildings in the um industrial zone presently. Yeah. And basically what I was looking at was trying to as cleanly as possible separate the public facing businesses from the either back office or businessto business type so that we wouldn't have say a pediatrician's office in light industrial and the way I read that but there might already be.

Oh yes that even if there is already y they become pre-existing non-conforming. I understand that they we won't prohibit anyone from being there now. Um, I know for a fact that we have someone offering tutoring in the light industrial zone. Yeah.

Um, and I know he's not supposed to be there. And I've told him because he came in looking for a certificate of zoning compliance saying it was okay for him to be there. And I said, "Look, I'm not going to chase you out because you signed a lease and, you know, I understand you you did it on, you know, good faith, but if you're looking for me to say you're supposed to be there, I really can't give you a letter that says that either." So there's going to be situations where someone may be someplace that they're potentially not supposed to be, but we need to clarify our regs, but we want going forward new uses of that sort in that zone. That's really the idea there, particularly in light of what we've seen with your um self storage rags and your gas station where we we have advice from the attorney that look, special permits are not being sort of respected by the courts at this point in time. So if you don't want a use in a zone, you need to just blow it out entirely so that you're not going to even face the possibility that you're going to have a special permit that you deny that the coord's going to then overturn.

So just for clarity, um the changes that Michael was talking about are in the draft right so everyone has had opportunity to read them. It was just one of the things that Michael wanted to make sure that the commission recognized that they were we had done a whole lot of work, but that those were last minute comments that got put in and we wanted to make sure everybody was aware of that. That said, the what went out to the public was it's out there they're in there. It's out there. Y as it was as it was proposed, I considered it a draft at the time and it went out. Well, it could still be that because it could still make changes. That's Yeah. Okay. So, um,

and one other minor thing while I while I'm in my notes, uh, we still have the T- room out there as a hanging chad as a defined but prohibited use in I think that's probably going to be a phase two at this point because you you guys agreed you didn't want to change uses or change death things but in phase one. So, I understand that it's a kind of a silly thing that you probably are going to include in phase two. It was undefined. That's what that's what we talked about. It was undefined. Do we define it or or I think we decided Yeah. Well, I think we decided that we'll just leave it and deal with it in

honestly, I've had several conversations with um Francisco Gomes where he's asked, you know, you really want to do this? And I'm like, it's there. He's like, I haven't found a good definition for it. So, he's looked, he's like, I don't know what to tell you. It's a t- room. Um, but no, I mean, he's basically like, if you're going to leave it in, just leave it in and we'll deal with it later. But I'm not going to come up with a definition for it because there's no real there's no standard understood definition for T-room at this point in time. So, okay. Guess there should must have at some point have been some notion what is if it was prohibited. Yeah. Even Jane though didn't I mean even Jane

Well, she she goes back what 35 years on this stuff. So 32 years. So, you know, if if even Jane can't tell you why it's prohibited, then the likelihood you're going to find some rationale behind it is is is fairly low. So, anything else, Michael? No. Anyone else have anything? Not right. Now, yeah. So, we are going to leave the public said we want to ask Oh, wait. Mary Joe, no. I want to thank Michael.

Yeah. I just wanted to second Michael's comments um because I had those notes as sort of hanging tags as he's described it and uh I appreciate the discussion and it should it should be easily fixed in phase two. Thanks Mary Joe. I'll have to remember you're up there. Make sure that I make sure I include you. Um that's so um I'm gonna turn I'm gonna turn it over now to see if there's any comments from the public on the phase one uh changes to the brakes.

I'm Russ Todd 105 Lime Street Historic District Commission. Just wanted to note that we applaud and thank you for the the work and we now understand that this is the phase one process. So our memo was more general. So phase one, phase two. There may be a few points in there that are more definition that might be appropriate for your phase one consideration. And then we look forward to uh to discussing with you on the the phase two some of the other u larger points. But again, just wanted to say thank you and and uh that we've submitted and and uh Eric noted what we submitted. So, okay. And we'll make sure that get into our phase two folders. Exactly. Great. Thank you so much.

All right. Thank you. Any other comments on the phase one?

Okay. Hearing none. Um, I guess we do we want a motion at this point to uh continue the public hearing or should I just or do I just continue it? I would take a motion at this point just to motion to continue a second. Okay. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

Any opposed? Any extensions? Abstensions? No extensions. All right. Thanks. So, we'll continue the public hearing on those. Our next public hearing is on a case 25-10. That's the um coastal site plan application for 80-1 Line Street. My understanding is that they have agreed to uh move this to our March 9th agenda.

So, we will do that. That said, if there's someone from the public who understood this was on our uh agenda and wants to speak to it, you can speak to it because this is part of the public hearing, but we will continue that public hearing to March 9th if you want to be here and also hear what the applicant is going to propose to us. Anyone for the 80-1 Lion Street application? Okay, hear one. Not I'll take do um do we need a motion to do that as well?

Yes. And just in case I will be getting a written consent from them because they would be beyond their 35 days that the period that they're allowed to have the public hearing open for. But yes, I would get a motion just to table that to the next meeting. Okay. So I'll take a motion to table that till the next meeting. Thanks Mary Joe. Second. I lost it. Second either way. Yeah. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Okay. Any naysay? Any abstensions? Passes.

Okay. So, our next public hearing is case 26-1 on 29 Mythnick Road. Special permit application. on this one because it is a new uh public hearing. I do need to read the legal notice. I'm going to read the legal notice for both public hearings at this time. So, we won't read need to read it again later. And then I will go through the exhibits that we have. Um legal notice for a public hearing. Zoning Commission, Town of Old Lime. Zoning Commission of the Town of Old Lime will hold a public hearing at its regular meeting on Monday, February 9th, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. at Memorial Town Hall in the Meeting Hall, 52 Lime Street, Old Line, Connecticut to consider and hear comments on the following. Case 26-1 special permit application 29 Smith Neck Road application to add 425 square feet addition to existing caretaker dwelling RU40 zone and within the gateway conservation zone John Kenny applicant case 26-2 special permit application in coastal site plan 100mile creek road application to construct a new single family dwelling with a total floor area of 6,100 uh try This again at 6,113 square ft within the gateway conservation zone RU40 zone Allen Todd applicant at this hearing members of the public shall have the opportunity to appear and be heard regarding the proposed adoption the revised okay regulations and the addition other applications copies of the full text of the proposed regulations are bill inspection and uh and uh of the applications as well um during the town clerk's office during regular business hours and on the town's official website um dated at J uh Oldline Connecticut January 25th 2026 Jane R Marsh secretary we have the following exhibits um exhibit A is the application B 100A

exhibit B is uh deep request for national natural diversity data exhibit C is the site plan exhibit D are drawings exhibit E is a certificate of mailing and exhibit F is the gateway way response which uh in short indicates that the gateway has no objection to this application. Um it says here again CRGC reviewed the application at its January 22nd 2026 meeting. The Gateway Commission determined it is not opposed to the proposed construction of the 425 square ft addition. The addition will not significantly increase the visual bulk of the structure as seen from the Connecticut River and does not violate any of the standards for construction of a structure over 4,000 square ft in size. I think at that point we're through with the paperwork I need to read.

Okay, great. So, we'll start with 26-1 29 Smith Road Smith Neck Road.

Um, good evening. I'm uh Bob Don, a professional engineer and licensed lander. I'm here on behalf of Mr. Kenny. Um regarding his um property at 29 Smith Neck Road. Um we have uh surveyed the property and the house. Uh we've done soil testing with um Ledge Light. Um and we've designed a uh code compliance system. Um the existing systems, two systems, uh two houses um two wells are existing on the property. We're expanding um one house by 425 square ft. um the coverages um increase in not even ten of a uh percentage if you will on our 5.5 acre um parcel. Um we as we went through the process um after we did the soil tests and and our design we had Ledge Light Health review our B100A application um it was approved. Um so that was uh forwarded on to um n excuse me natural diversity database um because there is an NDB um um designation for this property. We received a response that um our project will have no adverse effect on the um items. I think uh a lot of them were fish and eels etc. And our um addition is on the um land side of a house that

that is 346 ft from the coastal uh jurisdiction lot and the um addition is on the um far side. I guess I'm going to call it the uh landwood side. um can't be seen from the water and it fits into the uh existing house. Um the existing house has an angled um section on the uh northernmost corner and we're essentially squaring up the the house and and improving the interior. It's a singlestory structure and uh this will be a singlestory edition. Um and I didn't keep up with all six um exhibits that you said, but uh I think that uh the exhibits A through F um we have um complete the application and I think everything has been addressed that uh and um satisfies the requirements of your section 4.10.2 to um regarding a house that's over 4,000 square ft. And I'm happy to answer any other questions. The um in your statement of use, one of the items that you request is um will the use change? Uh we're not adding any bedrooms. Um we're not intensifying the occupancy. The occupancy will stay the same as well as well as the use. So that's

is it used as a single home or is it used as two separate homes? Two separate homes. There's a caretaker that lives in in the house that we're expanding. Is the caretaker going to continue to live in that house or is that he's been there? 30 years. 30 years. Yeah. And that 30 years somebody for 15. Yeah. That 30 years just came from Nick Sapia who's the uh uh cont uh going to be the contractor and Nick Sapia provided the architecturals that are part of the um application package.

Thank you. Any other questions from the commission? Mary Joe, do you have any questions? No, thank you very much. Um thank you attorney Don. It was a good presentation. Thank you. Attorney lucky boy. I don't know if that's a compliment or not. Sorry. It's such an insult. I know I'm crushed. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Joe. Appreciate it. Well, I can't see you, so I can hear you. And it was a good presentation. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions from the commission? application. So, um, at this time, I take comments from the public. Does anybody from the public have comments on 49 Smith's Neck Road? No comments from the public. Guess we're done until we get to our decision making. Should we close the public hearing here or do we do it in deliberations? Well, you can close it here and you can either wait on deliberations until you get to the next phase or you can deliberate now depending on on your pleasure. But yes, you need to close the public hearing now. Personally, I would say let's close it and just vote on get it out of the way. Yeah. So, do you want to make a motion? Yeah, I'll make a motion to close the public hearing.

Second. Second. Thank you, Mary Joe. Um, all in favor say I. I. Opposed? I And any abstensions? Okay, so we're closing the public hearing and I agree with Michael. We could probably just deliberate since we didn't hear. Is there any further deliberation or any concerns anyone has? I do not. Nope. Seems straightforward. So, we'll make a motion that we approve. Okay. I have a motion to approve the application as presented. Second.

Second by Mary Joe. Any further comments? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. I. Everybody said I. So I guess we don't need to do the Congratulations. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thanks for being here tonight.

Okay. On to our next um application. 26-2 special permit application of coastal site plan 100 mile roof road application to construct a new single family dwelling that floor area of 6,13 and the gateway conservation again u I've already read the public legal notice rather let me go through the exhibits briefly um exhibit A is the application exhibit B is the coastal site plan review exhibit C is the schematic drawings revised ized. Exhibit D is the coastal site plan revised. Exhibit E is the statement of use. Exhibit F is the gateway response. Exhibit G is the certificates of mailing. Um and again the gateway response on this is positive. Um does not oppose the application. Uh the proposed development does not violate any gateway standards and is not at first protection and development of the gateway conservation zone. Uh CRGC commends the colors of the structure to blend in with the natural environment that muted colors uh to be used for the roof and that the exterior lighting will be downward facing full cut off dark sky compliant and limited to that needed for the safety and security.

Thank you. Welcome. Good evening. Uh for the record, my name is Joe Ren, professional engineer of Indigo in Old Sabbrook. With me is David Noi uh 360 uh of 360 design plus also in Altamera. Uh if you recall we were we were here last month. Uh we kind of went briefly through the application. Um but since some of you probably were not here uh and it's been a month. I'll just go through it quickly. I said this is the public hearing so we need everything on the record you want to say.

Correct. Yeah. I think a very valid point. Thank you. Um so to start from scratch uh where we started on this project it's um nearly four acres three plus acres um with frontage on Blackall River and some title marshes here in Title Creek. This at the bottom of the page is Smile Creek Road. Uh there presently is um a nearly 80 90 year old structure here. It's a very small house. Uh we did go to zoning board of appeals early on so that we can keep this house and propose to construct a main house on the property. So this would become an accessory dwelling uh permitted with that. It's partially in the front yard setback. Um but we needed a variance to do that because we would not be able to propose another dwelling on the property if that wasn't accepted as an accessory dwelling. um previously there is a condition in that ZBA approval that this house get uh built within 18 months I believe the number was of that uh ZBA approval after the appeal period expired. So we're in front of this commission now uh very similar to the last application. Two houses on the same property. This one's already permitted. It's been there forever. This is the new proposed house. All the development is more than 100 ft away from the coastal resource which is the tidal marsh. So tidal marsh in green, 50 foot setback in yellow and 100 foot setback in pink. So uh you can see that transition and we kept everything even the grading the septic system uh outside of that 100 ft. Um because of all those features uh in combination with the house being over 4,000 square ft. It's not that it's an overly large house, it's actually a one-story house uh with a walkout basement in the back with the grading. So, based on your

regulations, uh computing gross floor area, all of those spaces, the garage, the basement, all that counts towards floor area. Um, and for the gateway thing, we also have to take into account any other structures on the property. So, the cumulative GFA on the property is over 4,000 square feet. uh as presented. So because of that requires a special permit um trips to gateway regulations. We did go to gateway uh as Eric had mentioned we did receive a favorable uh review from them mainly because everything was kept outside of 100 ft. Um the other critical things are nonreflective glass to save the birds on the back side of the house. Um the lighting will be minimal for safety and security. Uh all will be dark sky compliant, shining downward, not up and out. Um and the materials chosen, David can go through this when he goes through the house quickly. Uh but natural um I don't want to say dull, but kind of blending uh colors and materials so that it uh blends into the landscape rather than sticks out uh starkly on the landscape. Um so briefly just to kind of present the overall site plan to you. Uh there is a current driveway uh that comes in for this house here. Uh that driveway would just be extended back to the new garage on the right side of the house. Um these lines represent the the grading. So we have the the higher flat area in the front and then it slopes down to the walkout basement uh lower level in the back. Uh there is a deck back there and what was added since we provided revised plans as Eric had also mentioned is there is a screen porch uh in this location also again everything consistent with the set system that's already designed uh and approved and everything's outside of the 100 ft. So

we meet all of the zoning regulations uh with flying colors because the lot's so large. Um, so we don't need any other uh variances to the zoning regulations other than the one that we already got just to keep the small house on the property uh which was unanimously approved last uh last fall. Um last time before I turn it over to Dave to just walk through the house quickly for you. Um, last time there was some discussion of a 15oot rightway uh that extends from Mile Creek Road along the edge of the property to uh town-owned property uh on the east side there that was formerly a town dump. So, there are several interesting varied things on that property is my understanding. Um, there some of the board members had some questions about that right away last time. Um, I did speak to the the property owner about that. He is with us tonight. Mr. Alan Todd is here in the audience. Um so if you have any additional questions uh related to that um the rightway will remain. Um it was all covered in thicket and brush and thorns and briars. He cleared that so it is passable. He did plant some trees that were brought up last time. But with those trees in a 15 foot wide pathway, that's probably from the end of the table to Eric, I would say. It's plenty wide enough for uh a person to navigate through the rightway and get back to it. He has no plans of cutting that off. It's a deed access uh and it will be kept um passable, correct? Kept passable to the public uh as seen that there's not many folks that know about it. um not many people that use it, but it is there and it's much more passible now than it ever it has been in several years. Uh so with that, I'll have David the architect go through the building plans with you for any questions.

I think clarifications.

Joe got most of it, but quickly run you guys through. This is the foundation plan, but we'll jump to the uh lower level. So essentially, as Joe said, this is a one-story house um with a lower level that walks out. Um on that lower level, we have a workshop for the owner. Um two bedrooms down here with a full bath. Uh and that's essentially that's the lower level. Uh looking out towards the water. This here is the garage above on the first floor. When we get up to the the first floor here on this level, we have an entry from the home at grade. At this level, we have a twocar garage. To the right, um the standard standard program of living room, dining room, kitchen, um half bath sort of in the main box of the house. Uh, and then the master bedroom off towards the left with a full bath, closet, and then a study. This is the newly proposed screen porch that Joe was talking about. Um, this kind of came in at the end realizing how many bugs there are.

So, that was, you know, a request of the owner. Um, yeah. So, this this is essentially the main level at grade. And then that that pro that floor we showed you before was down below all this walking out. So there's no living space above that level. Yeah. So this would be built with roof truss up above.

Um so this is that upper upper level essentially looks more like a ranch. So we're trying to keep the scale down a little bit. Um and then on the back where we where we look out to the water, that's where we have the twotory home. Um, you know, we'll be covering the concrete um with stone to to make it look, you know, like it blends with the landscape and then working with the grades coming down around the corners of the home and just dropping that grade around to kind of nestle the house in a little bit. Um, the roof line too, Dave. Yeah. So, we like the roof lines.

We worked really hard with this roof line to keep that 35 foot from grade. Uh, we're just at that now. Yeah, like 30 foot 11 or I'm sorry, 34 foot 11. Um, so yeah, we this and that's at the highest point to the low measure to the lowest point of the ground. Yeah. Yeah, that's all the way back here up here in the front. It's much lower. And the other thing to point out too with that 3411, that's only for this small section of the roof. This steps down, that ridge steps down, and then the ends also step down because they're just one story on those ends. So it's just that small portion of the house that's up to the Yeah. Measuring from the finished grade

lowest point, existing grade, lowest point gateway or conservation zone. So existing grade, lowest point to highest ridge above.

Yeah. So we have a small step. We're at um lowest existing grade was 10 slabs at 11 11 foot two. So have to take quite a bit of finessing off. So again, you know, these are the side elevations. You can see how we brought the grades around. So you start up higher and then drop down as you move around the house towards the back. Kind of trying to maintain that, you know, coastal aesthetic with the uh with the shapes. And again, those would those will be muted colors um to not stick out. No pink siding or anything like that. Um, this is getting more into our our construction drawings as we've been moving forward, but I'll be

But here you could also see the like Dave mentioned before the what could be perceived as attic space above the first floor living is all trusses. So there's no potential for any habitable space in the attic. I think that's what these are more sectional stuff and all our technical stuff that we've been working on. Do you have an existing topo versus the proposed topo?

The site plan has both existing and proposed. So all the all the lighter dash contours that are numbered. That's all the existing grade. And then the solid as it shows in the legend. All the solid lines with the numbers. It's a one foot contour. So it looks like there's those are existing. What I'm trying to look at is the rest. So the the light dashed ones are existing and the dark solid ones. You sure if you just brought the big thing over for you? No, no, I this is fine. I can see it here. Um I just needed that explanation. Now I understand it here a little bit better.

So currently this the lot slopes down kind of at a a consistent gradual slope, but obviously to bring the front yard up to make the flat front yard and make the driveway match the garage. This is filled in in here. It's sloping like that. And then we're adding the fill to make it level so that we can access the garage and the front door. And then as a result of that, uh, we have chasing the grade around the sides of the house since we have that walk out conditioner. Gotcha. Um, I don't want to interrupt your presentation, so if you I'll have questions after you prefer to. I'm al I'm also

Yeah, I think I think we're all we have the ENS controls. Uh just really quickly since we have tidal wetlands within close proximity again everything is kept outside the 100 foot uh even the the um the footing drain area is kept outside the 100 foot. The septic area is outside the 100 foot. We do have silt fence uh surrounding all the proposed disturbance uh that will be maintained through construction. Uh there is a temporary stockpile area here that wetlands likes us to show. Uh we do have utilities. There's a a well here for this house that will be shared to the main house. Um the utility the electric utility is on the other side of the road. So there will be a new pole added on Mr. Todd's side uh to go over the roadway and then it would drop down to underground to the new house uh in that location. Um uh oh this also we didn't uh talk much about it uh yet tonight but coastal area management applications uh now apply to this and we also submitted a uh CAM application for this uh review um did we have DP say yes you didn't get comments back got comments

no comments um and sometimes so as of October 1st last year DP anything in the coastal zone DP now requires a cam review. Um, several we've seen so far like this where there's no activity within 100 ft of coastal resource and we just don't get a letter by by the date of the meeting because there's really not much that they're concerned about, right? Because we're more than the recommended 100 feet away. Uh, other ones that are closer to 100 feet, you know, there are some comments or if they're in a flood zone, that's the other thing we haven't really talked too much about uh tonight. The flood zone is in here where the marsh is. So, we're well above or several feet above the flood zone um with the main floor of the house and the basement floor of the house is also above flood. Um the flood the FEMA flood plus the one for the town flood ordinance. Uh so we're all above that. So we meet FEMA, we exceed FEMA, we meet CAM um

and tried to keep it consistent with the regulations as much as possible. The only thing exceeded was the 4,000 square feet and that's why we're here. Did you just rock us? You talked a little bit about the ocean sediment control. Um, so got the silk fence stock pile area. Can you just give us a little on the storm water management? Anything you need to to make sure you're compliant with that?

Yep. Very very valid point. Again, since it's uh coastal area management is required, we have to retain the first now 1.3 in of runoff on site. 30% increase from what we're used to the first inch. Um so on this one, uh Mr. Todd elected to go with no gutters. So we're not collecting the water and point discharging it somewhere. Um uh off the the drip edges of the roof, mainly the long sides and then some short rakes on the ends. Uh there's a three- foot wide rounded stone bed to the surface all the way around. And that bed with its depth and its dimensions holds more retains more than the 1.3 in of runoff. That information uh is down here. Um and

and you have a design for that or that's that's that's right here. I was just looking close more closely. Yeah, that's the calculations. But do you have a a design on how you want that to look? Uh, I don't know if we included a detail or not. I'll I'll look on the detail, but I know that we did provide the dimensions of that. Um, let me see if we provided a detail. I don't It's been a while that we're at Crushstone Drive as well. So, that we get permeability and infiltration there. We don't have a detail, but it's very simple. Um, it's 3 feet wide. I believe it's 18 in deep. 3 ft wide. 18 inch deep.

Yeah. I think you should make sure we get specs on what you want for materials in there so that you know you don't have someone doing that doing stuff around the house and putting clay in because you you kind of want that to drain away from your house. Yeah, the soil the soils on the site are are really really good. We have the soil information from here as well. Um and it's all sand. Um the whole site is sand. It's very well drained. Um So, um, oh, we have it right here. Proposed three foot wide rounded stone perimeter apron. See computations on the sheet which

I think you Let's get a little bit more detail on that so we can make sure engineer takes a look at that. Uh, which yeah, our our town engineers, our consulting engineers, we want to have a take a look at that and make sure. Okay. Is that standard? I'm not used to if they're asking for word it's standard. I mean um maybe as a condition if it if it gets to that point. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully that wouldn't hold up a decision just because it's there. We're not adding it. It's there. No. And it's just, you know, three feet wide. I don't know. We could show a detail. It's just going to be a rectangle with a stone hatch that shows three feet wide.

It's, you know, it's not. This is Mary Joe. I would also agree with um Commissioner Savage's recommendation that we have uh formal design plans on that. It's in a very sensitive environmental area. Um it it it on the last application Smith road I didn't hear the same requirement. So I was just curious why on this application, not the last. Just curious. It's a large it's a larger house but still we're required to do 1.3 inches right whether it's small or big. So

so we want to make sure so we want to make sure the calculations are right and that the that's why we would send it to our engineer and then also that that the design is saying so we appreciate that your soils are good but we also I also know what happens with soils when we drive equipment over it and whatever and compact the soils or do something. So, we want to make sure that that drainages and I'm hoping hopefully protecting the not, you know, not only us from storm water runoff because that's what we're looking at and it's about the quality of storm water, but also making sure that you're not creating problems, you know, from from a basement perspective for the homeowner. So, I want to just make sure we've got that so that it drains appropriately and does what it needs to do.

Yeah, we have we have footing drains. We have perimeter footing drains. Um, you know, again, the only thing the detail is going to show is a rectangle like this that says 3 ft wide that we already called out in the plan. I don't I'm not sure what else we could really propose. It could go to the engineer hopefully as a condition that doesn't hold this up because this is our second month now with this plan. And again, it's very similar to the last application. So, I'm not, you know, I'm still a little confused why the same requirement wasn't on the last application. um just for consistency. Um so if it could be a conditional approval, I'm fine. I mean I can I can actually draw the detail right now and hand it to you if you want.

I don't want to do that now. We want an engineer to do it. Okay. So then so as an engineer, you're telling me why you wouldn't want to spec because you're not going to be out in the field. You're going to be handing these plans to somebody, a construction person. These are very detailed plans. They usually don't get

I want the engineering detail around this. And when you're talking about something like when people say it's a simple solution that we're just not going to we're just going to draw a box and this rain is going to go in it. I just want to make sure that it works. Um, and I don't want other people coming back at us and saying like, "Why did you approve something that resulted in a wet basement for us as well as any other implications for it?" Here we go. 18 in deep, 3 ft wide, 2 to 3 in rounded stone. What do you need for soils under that to make sure it drains?

And how do you make sure sandy soil? Where's the clay going to come from? I am asking you to make sure that is that if you were designing a rain garden or something like that, you need to tell me what is the requirement for the soils under there. So, don't be flipped, please. No, I'm I'm not I'm I'm still a little curious why this wasn't a requirement for the last application and it's a requirement for this one that I'm still confused on. Um, this is really good sandy soil. Smithac Road. We have ledge. This is this is several feet. We have the soil test depends on what you presented but

we have the soil testing right here. Okay. So let's go through that because this is a very uh obviously important detail. So two test holes were done. This one went down to 112 in. The description is coarse sand and gravel few cobbles. No modeling which is evidence of high groundwater. No ground water and no ledge. 112 in. Okay. It's uh over 9 ft. 9 ft 4 in. All right. Test pit number two went down to 107 in. And that was medium to fine sand and gravel. No modeling. Groundwater was at believe that says 99 in. So over 8 feet deep. No lead. Those test holes were here and here at on a lower contour. So we're down 8 n feet to groundwater or no groundwater. down here. We're up on the contour here and we have similar soil.

Okay. The two birth tests. I'm not done. I'm not done yet. You're Could you Could I ask you stop for one second? You You're giving me existing ground conditions. Are the Are the soil conditions going to be exactly the same once you build the house and do all the contouring?

So, Mr. Todd is familiar with construction. He already has a builder uh that he has a history with and his general contractor will be overseeing the construction. This contractor is not going to backfill with large boulders and clay. They're going to backfill the foundation with an appropriate material. The building official that's separate permit from this uh in order to get a building permit and his inspections. He's not going to allow the back the the basement to be backfilled with an unsuitable material. It's going to be a drain a a well drained material. It has to be by code. The the foundation walls going to be waterproof. They're going to be perimeter footing drains all around the edge. We show and we include and we show an outlet for the footing drain there. So everything is here. These are more detailed plans than you usually see. Um, we deal with a lot of contractors. Uh, there are some in this room and you could easily follow this plan and and build this. It's I'm I'm just baffled by the snake last time and now it's a big deal. Um, so anyways, good material on site down 8 feet on lower contour. The perk rates I was just getting into the perk rates are very very fast. So very well draining soil on the site. Um,

can we not stipulate that the condition of approval just lists that native soil needs to be used in that specific location? Again, I'm asking him if he could put the stuff on and that we'd send it to our engineer and he's giving me a hard time. Well, I I I would somewhat agree with Mr. Ren. He's a professional engineer. I don't think we need to send it out to our town engineer when we have a qualified engineer right here in front of us. Um I I think that's an unnecessary expense on an applicant that is not being applied unilaterally. So yeah, is that custom? I'm just that's a question on new. Is it customary? No, has not been. Yeah, I think most importantly I think Joe's asking that this doesn't hold up a decision um to move forward

because you know as you stated we can't by code we can't backfill that with on orders or Yeah. Yeah, it has to be perfect. Only the soil you're taking out for the foundation could be the material you just listed off here is suitable backfill material if I'm not mistaken off the foundation. Included well drained native soil underneath. And by the way, this is designed to hold 1.3 in of water even if it didn't leak into the ground. So, even if this was not well draining soil, which it has to be because it's up against going to hold the soil, how is it going to hold the ring

in the pores of the the stone, 2 to 3 in of stone? That's there's a 40% void ratio in the stone. And that's all calculated into here. and it's more than 1.3 inches. Um where the storage provided is almost 2900 gallons and storage the minimum storage that required is 27.87. So we're more than what's required for the 1.3 in of runoff. So within the you put two to three inch stone in a trench and it's not all it's not concrete. So they're approximately 40% of the area is voids that can be taken up by water. Um so that's that's how those are computed. It's a standard thing in coastal environment. We do it very commonly. It's typically not questioned.

And how does it how does it how is it maintained so that it doesn't get sediments in it from either the roof runoff or uh plant materials starting to grow in there? If you get some sediments in here, it's two to three inch rounded stone. It's still going to drain. I mean, you would have to pour slurry in that for that not to drain. And it's going to have the sandy soil below it. Don't the these are very commonly used in Fenwick and coastal areas. We never had a problem. We even did it on a dental practice and five years ago and it works beautifully still to this day. I mean ultimately you can put in screens inside the gutters to stop any diver if you're having a direct point discharge to that.

Well there no gutters that's so there there you go there's your your sedimentation is going to be collected through the ground. Um yeah I mean the only thing you're going to get off the roof is the Yeah, but not really because it's not like it's sitting here with like uh road debris coming down the road. It's it's it's it's rain water falling off the roof onto the ground. Um, I understand your concern, but I think he just articulated how I understand what he's saying. It's like it's like usually you put the design standard on and you don't make the assumption that it's like, okay, everything's just fine because he knows it's fine because then when it gets to a contractor, that doesn't always

But even then, it could still be off, right? What's to say the contractor is going to do the work the way they're supposed to, right? So, you have to you have to have some faith in the process. If if you if you put make it as part of the design, then there's no question. This is what they have to do. If you just make the assumption, okay, it's on here. I'll leave this as an exhibit for you to keep in. So, he just he just gave us the design. Built the fabric around the three sides where it touched the soil, two to three inches around the stone, 18 inches deep, 3 ft wide. Actually, very simple, though. I didn't say it wasn't simple, but you were. Why? Why were you making it hard because it wasn't required for the last applicant and

the the last 200 of these I've done, it's never been questioned and they work fine. They get built fine. So that's why I was I'm gonna pivot if that's contractor otherwise contractors come back to fix.

This is Mary Joe and I just like to focus on this application if possible. I I understand uh the presenter's comments fine, but um Commissioner Savage is an expert in this and I support her questions. I also support your um adding the additions additional information because like her like uh Commissioner Savo, I I think it's better to have it on the plan. Um, we've had a lot of instances where things have happened uh years after and it's it's it's for our our supporting evidence and future zoning commissions to have that on here. It's about as simple as I can make my reasons for asking you to kindly do that and I appreciate that very much. Now the other question I have um as the town of old lime is a a butter of sorts on this. Has our engineer looked at this?

No, this was not sent to the engineer. This was a a standard single family house. Um there was it is sufficiently interior to the proposal. It's not near the setbacks. Our engineer did not does not standardly review single family house applications of this sort. Um, I can send it out to the engineer for particular reasons, but I I did not send this application out. Yeah, that's my question in particular. Thank you, Eric, is because we are an abuter to this property. Would there have been normally um would that have been a case that you might have if we um saying tantam issue? That's where I'm coming from.

Well, but okay. There is the right of way. the right of way is not affected by this application. If there had been a concern about the right of way being affected by this application, I would have said it probably to our lawyer more than to our engineer because the right of way is a legal issue. Um, you've heard testimony this evening that the right of way is not going to be altered by this application. Um, regarding the testimony that it's now clear than it has been, I can't independently verify this. I haven't met out there, but you have no contravening testimony at this point in time. Per the legal requirements of the right of way, it needs to be kept clear. Um, but again, the right of way is sort of a a property rights issue unrelated to this permitting issue. So, I think we need to try and keep them separate for the purpose of this application.

Mary Joe, um, I I Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm gonna bring up some comments about the right away um because that's what I was waiting for. Yeah, that's a um so um the town is and I understand it's not part of this application but right now we have an existing topography there that is going to change on what those um uh topo lines there right so I'm looking at our existing topo versus the proposed topo what it basically if the town flatter it's it's going to be flatter now than it

proposed yeah if you look Uh, so right here is the same, right? There's really no proposed grading on this section. I'm specifically looking where it corner. So if you look at that, it goes off on an angle like this, right? So you can see that 19 contour. Yep. The 19 contour for almost the entire length of that follows it. So since it's running parallel, it's dead flat. It's all 19. Yeah. Until you get to that spruce tree. Okay.

Okay. And then after that spruce tree, you could see it kind of generally matches the existing grade there for the steepness and then it touches the the town line. So there's a little bit of grade that's existing and then there's a swale that goes back up because we didn't want the fill that's needed here for the garage. We didn't want to drain onto whether this is a town property or anybody else's property. We didn't want to drain that onto their property. So we created a swale in here right there. So you just have to go. So I guess through Joe, my concern is is that right now there's an a grant application for this town property that well they'll need to access this with a vehicle.

So my concern is is whatever you guys do there, it has to be in such a way that we can put a road through it and get a vehicles out there. Um that's a real situation that's going to happen. So like the trees for instance up in the front, they're going to have to be relocated along that property line because it's they're presently on there. I'm sure Mr. Todd would have no problem with moving them. So I I talked to Mr. Todd about that and again that's when he told me that he cleared all the brush and I know I know we used to be there. It's really thick.

Um so it's it's more passable now. But he also and correct me if I'm wrong, but he also did say that he's not opposed to the town using his driveway right to get to that property. Well, that's so that that was my next discussion because if if that's the case, that might need to be a condition of the approval, right? Is and I don't I'm not kind of overstepping into the land uh rights issue here, but Mr. Todd, it might be I'm speaking directly to you now. You're going to have all this money and improvements on your new road coming in. Is there a way to maybe where the rightaway gets moved so it's enhanced by your by your um driveway improvements or do we move it more to the right so that way it's not interfering with your improvements. There needs to be access to that town property regardless. It's 15 foot wide. It has to be accessible through vehicle. So what I don't want to do is have you do all your building, get all these beautiful fancy grades and your lawn and then they come through and put a road through the middle of it and it wrecks whatever you just built. So, I just want to make sure that there's dialogue there um on how to accomplish that goal. And then there's a letter I have to submit into the record. I don't know if it made it get here, but it was from one of the selectmen. It says, "I'm writing with regard to 100 Mile Creek application currently being considered. The town of Old Lime owns 102 Mile Creek Road, which abuts the property. The only access to the town is via rightaway in favor of the town through 100 Mile Creek. The rightway has been recently obscured, obstructed with plantings. The town of Old Lime is currently developing a plan to perform an environmental assessment of 102 which has evidently been used as a dump at some point. If hazardous material is found, the town will be looking at remediation strategies. The assessment process will require heavy machinery such as backos and dump trucks to access access the site via the rightway. As such, it appears that this would be a good time for the zoning commission to work with the property owner to address accessibility issues to make the town's efforts to improve environmental conditions along the Blackhaul River. Um, this was from Jim Lampo selectman. So, I'm just reading. He sent it in via

email, but he sent it to me to read just in case. Um, so do you have any So, my thought is that you can just give your name for the record, sir. Allan Todd. This is my property. Correct. Get oriented here. So, coming in right away right there. So, the road that we're going to improve back to this corner,

I'm assuming that the town any any vehicles that want to go to the town property will use that rather than right up against the 15 ft right against that that boundary. At this point, it's a clear shot. Yeah, it it's just that when you might you might be okay with it, but some other owner might not, right? So, because the rightway runs with the land, I'm just trying to make sure that whatever agreement we have to make, it's okay and it can run with the land as well. It's just I don't want you to put all this money in a on a road and then someone else comes in and puts another road right next to your road that you already established because technically they can. And that's that's my concern is I don't want to

One question that I have is do you know if it's a rightaway? It's only 15 feet wide. Do you know if it's passable by foot, by pedestrian or vehicles or both? It's just an easement, right? We're called a rightaway. I I have no idea because Michael's talking about if they have to remediate that coming over your property with back hoves and triacles and they might not be okay with that. You know, that's a little different. But does the rightway, you know, are you going to take this turn and stay in 15t with a triac? I mean, any vehicle would have to stay within a 15. That's that's what I'm getting at. So, in in theory, you're definitely going to be able to fit a vehicle in 15 ft of width. That's why it's probably 15s access.

Guys, I I think we're really getting off the subject of this application. What do you No, not really because because there are topography lines and everything goes within it. So, we have to discuss it. I understand. But the we can't Okay. If you believe that this application shouldn't be granted because of the location of the right of way, I understand. Not saying that, but short of that, we are not in a position to negotiate property rights as a zoning commission. I understand that.

So, if there are amendments that need to be made to this application to address its proximity to the right of way, that's where you need to be. it you can't be talking about what rights are or are not in that right of way because that right of way is a is a a fixed thing property right and it can only be adjusted by town meeting

um which is outside of our scope. So I understand your concerns about it but I guess what I I think you need to focus on is the right of way is what it is. If you need to adjust the application, adjust the application. But trying we we can't adjust the right of way or even discuss the possibility of adjusting the right of way as part of this application. So everything has to be on the side of what do you want the property owner to do with this application in knowing that the right of way is there.

That's kind of why I'm articulating this conversation. That's why I'm having it because the only way we can discuss it is by discussing it. So I appreciate Mr. Todd coming up to discuss it, but only because there's now changing topography lines in the rightway. We have to discuss it. So, Mr. Did I understand to to that point, did I understand that the proposed rating changes you're going to make are actually going to flatten the access and and improve the not based on what I'm seeing. So, I went went through this in like thirds, right? So, this first portion here, there's no great changes. It's all the same. Once we get up into here, this is this next third is much more flat than it is now. It's not it's not steep now by any stretch of the imagination, but it's going like this to like this.

And how about the uh the last So then the last the last bit of it here to get the swale in. So the the topo doesn't come to the property line and shed water onto this property. There's a swale in there, but from this point to this point is only a three-foot change in grade. And then it just matches the existing grade there. So, it's what's the side slope? Because the way I'm looking at the topography lines there, it looks like it's there's going to be a side slope, right? But are we required to build the road for you? No, not at all. But you also don't want do you want to do you want them to have someone come through and ruin his grading if they're making it flatter from a slope? It's arguably not.

I don't know. That's what I That's what I'm trying to discuss to you, Joe, is if if someone if the town was to come in and improve their rightway to put a road across that, how will that affect his topography? I just want to make sure we're not screwing it right now. And I appreciate that. Right now, we don't have the ability to grade onto this property. Understood. So, we have to slope down. Correct. Because we have to respect the property. Yep. When the town comes in and they own that property, they can grade more onto that property and drag the grading out to make it flatter, but they can't adjust the grading on your land. They they could go within the 15 foot. Okay. I'm just having the conversation because I hate to see Mr. Todd spent all this money in engineering and then the town comes through and puts this road through and it totally messes up his whole deal.

Comment that said the town owns that. I don't think No, you own it. You own it. Yep. You own it. They have the right over it to go access. Correct. Have a right of correct. So that's what I'm getting at. I just don't want to see the right of access for the town mess up your beautiful new site plan once you build it. I think the idea too is like once you're going to stabilize this so that you're going to so you're gonna regrade the whole area stabilize it and whatever but we you know just so if you're going to spend a lot on landscaping for example in that area but understanding that it's a right of way and I think that's Michael's that's yeah I don't want to see you spend all this money and then someone come in and rip it all out

and I was looking at you know the way the rightway is um where the where the driveway cut is onto the property and I do appreciate that Mr. Todd's like, "Hey, they could go up my driveway and then go on to the right of way." Great. I appreciate that. But um I would recommend that if you have to get you know and I don't know if you need a road cut here for Mile Creek Road you know it you know what they what what's required on that particular road to make sure you you get a driveway cut but having a driveway cut that where someone may not want to share with the with the rightway like with the town's road at some point um you may want to make sure that you can do a road cut for the driveway That's not where the right of way is.

So road cuts are already there. The driveway is already there for the existing house. So we just existing matching. This is all existing. So we're just matching. I understand. I'm just showing you that's the perspective. Yeah. Um up to this spruce tree right here. It's it's very flat from the road right to that point. The last 60 feet or so goes down our slope because we can't grade onto your property.

Understood? So the last 60 ft just has to grade off at the time when the town's ready to do this when funds are appropriated and years go by and this is all approved through referendum prior to that. You know the town could come in and make some agreement to relocate move that right away. Just like Eric said just not not doing it right now. I understand that guys but he's open to it if if it allows vehicular access through there because 15 ft's pretty narrow for vehicular access. is plenty wide for pedestrians. I mean, it's a driveway. That's a driveway width. Yeah. 12 feet is a normal driveway width, but when you get a track, so making turns, it's not like a 90 degree turn here. It's like very shallow.

Yeah, it's not I don't know what happened. Accomplished what Sleman Lampos wanted, which was to bring it up to Sorry, that's fine. I'm already moved from it. I just You're aware the town is in this going through this process as well. And if there's anything you wanted to raise in at this time, this was a good time to do it. It's just to open discussion, not to I'm not trying to redesign your property, Mr. Todd. I just don't want to see you spend all the money and then be really pissed off when someone comes through with this 15 foot rightway to get try. Another way to say it is to be surprised when the town Can I ask a question? Would there be a reason why these wouldn't be congruent? Like why wouldn't the driveway run with the rightway?

I mean, it could if he was to choose that. Well, right now this has been the driveway forever. And when whenever they did the rightway, they just made it 15 feet off of that property line. And that's what gets overgrown in there. It's the first 15t. So again, what I envisioned seeing happen was just come through because one of the very first things Mr. Todd told me about when we start working on this property was this right away. Yeah. He knows about it. He knew about it forever. Um and you know, we had to kind of work with that. So he is, it sounds like from listening to him, sounds like he's more than willing to work with the town at the time. He probably doesn't prefer to run all the way up to his garage before it goes out there. Absolutely. There's probably a better solution to break off like at this point. Definitely

where it's very very flat all the way to the property line and then enter that way because if you get these trucks up on this, I'm not sure why this was designed like this originally anyways, but on that sharp angle, if they're going straight in, fine. But if they have to turn back and come this way, it's very impossible. So, you know, a better solution is to come through here and that would help him too. So, as you get to this 90° angle, it branches off. Go to the right, go to the town property, stay straight, go to his garage. I'm fine with that. But I think we're set because Select Man Lampos's statement has been read and is in the record. So, it's part of the application. So I I would my my suggestion or my my request would be to move the plantings in the first 15 ft.

Move what? Like the trees where you just planted them. No, let them that's I don't I think that's what Eric's saying. We don't we're not that's not in our suggestion, but I don't I don't know that you want to make it a condition of approval. Okay. You you've expressed your concerns about his his proposal. He can take those for what they're worth. I don't know that it reaches the level. I mean, honestly, the only reason you're looking at this I know because it's over the 4,000. There we go. So, it's a it's a gateway proposal. So, you should be looking at this for whether it meets the gateway standards. And I think we sort of wandered a little bit away from the gateway stand. I'm ready to move on. But it's also a CAM approval.

It is a CAM approval as well. So, how So, just quickly on that, in terms of the driveway, um you're not planning any um renovation to the driveway at this point at the at the entrance. I'm not sure. At the entrance, we're showing we're matching in right here. You can see the proposed lines. We're matching in right there with the new driveway. Whether they redress the existing one or something from construction traffic, that's up to them. Uh, but right now it's gravel and the driveway all the way up to the garage is gravel. So that's

I guess one of the things I would be in is just making sure that you know some people put gates in, they do this. This is going to be because the driveway and the right ofway are intertwined at that point. I would just say that like we need to make sure that there's no um, you know, no restriction put in there. And I don't know and I don't see anything proposed but not knowing if you're gonna you know we always again uh have to think about you know the next owner and so and especially you know and if not knowing where where people are going to be or why they were improving the property

legally it's a deeded right away. So it has to remain open to whether they say vehicles and by foot or just one or the other whatever legally legal it's legally bound that he has to has that on his property has to have it open. So if there's a gate or an obstruction then you could enforce them to move it. I would I would point out that before I cleared all the jungle of what was there Yeah. You couldn't get through there right now anyway. Uh, what I put in place of it was some screening. Correct. That's a lot That's a lot less than what was there. I know it was. I know. So, I'm not saying it's not a good improvement. Okay. I think we're good.

I'm not Hold on. I'm just having a discussion there. I think you have a general understanding that Mr. Todd will work with you. That's fine. Yeah. To adjust a concern for him. We don't have to move trees. We could just move the rightway and have it on the existing. Sounds good to me. I I just didn't want to see him. What the trees are nice upet. We like trees. Gateway likes. Everybody likes trees. Well, that's where the town could negotiate that at some other point. But sorry to get everybody off topic. I just didn't want to see him spend the money and then be disappointed. Fine. There's a letter from the selectman. So, we wanted to address it and talk about it. But, you know, it's not like you have a property owner here who's saying no help. No, I know. I'm not arguing my property. You know, he's

I'm sorry if I'm coming off that way. That is not my intention. If I'm being interpreted that way, that was I apologize. I think we're good. We have a really nice site, really good plan. I mean, on four acres, I mean, he realistically could It's a great spot. He can get two blocks in his and he's not asking for that. Do we have any other commissioners who have any questions right now about any of the the work? Should we just Good. This is Mary Joe. We just do a quick check in on how much fill is going to be brought in because that's in the it's in the rags.

It's not a m gravel mining operation. It's it's the fill is only what's necessary for the construction of the single family house and septic system. But you're bringing in fill. You're not just redistributing. So you're going to have to bring in fill uh there. I'm not sure what the exact amount is, but yeah, to level this off. And then there's some excavation around here. Yeah, that's an excavation for the basement as well.

Yeah, it's in uh 410 addition and connection with landscape and grading land for purpose for building permit such removal to exceed 300 cubic material per year. Those regulations are usually when you're doing something not involving a construction project like this. Um when you're just filling a property or when you're just excavating a property um for obvious reasons because you need an application to be able to review that and make sure it's done properly. This excavation and filling and excavating is all done within the confines of the permit and ENS controls for a single family house. Does that sound consistent, Terry?

Again, the commission's obligation here is to make sure that it's meeting against gateway standards. And if they needed more information about how much fill you're bringing in, that's up to them whether they have enough information to make a decision. So, I'm not going to make that call for them. They've asked about Phil. You said some will need to be brought in, but you don't know how much. Whether they need more information or not, I'm going to leave the commission to decide. I think we need more information.

Me personally, I'm okay with what you presented.

I'm just we've done hundreds and hundreds of these and we never had to provide a fill calculation for a single family house. It's just it's standard. There's nothing unusual about them. I just part of this is a result of providing the owner with the singlestory house that we're looking to achieve and that's best that's to bring this front up and you can see here we we immediately drop as soon as possible and then as soon as we get around the garage we drop. So essentially the fill we're bringing in is what's needed specifically right to to create this singlestory house. Makes sense. the minimum the minimum amount necessary.

Joe, you've said you've done this a million times. Basically, what typically have you had to bring in then?

It all um it all depends on the site. Um it really all depends on the site and it really depends on how much they get out of this foundation. The foundation is fairly large here. It is a walk out on one side, but there's a lot of excavation on the uphill size. Um, so you know, you could easily get a few hundred yards of material out of just excavating for footings and foundation for this house. If you need another 300 yards, another 20 triacles or so, that would have to come, you know, be imported to the site. But every site is different. I'm just saying that we've done this a lot, including in this town successfully. We never had to come up with a fill-up calculation for a single family house. So, I'm just I know the regulations haven't changed because you're working on the new ones. Um,

when you're saying you do it multiple times, that was specific to saying that you don't bring fill calculations, right? We've done it a lot of times and we don't Yeah, it's the minimum amount necessary to facilitate the construction based on

I had a project that was just a Colbert crossing and there was no house associated with it. So, in order to have an avenue for zoning to review that, it hit the the amount of fill requirement they could bring in on a piece of property without a primary building being done. Um, so that was required there and we had to go through special exception, but never for a single family house. So, I'm not that's why I was just looking for clarification on that. It's not excessive. It's not like it drops off a cliff like this and we're bringing a million yards in to level it off. It's a fairly gentle graded piece of property and we just have to have enough to bring it up to grade. Um the car has to the driveway grade has to meet the garage in order to get in and then you know prevent excessive steps on the outside. Um,

so we if you'd like that number, we can estimate that number for you. I can't do it right here. Uh, unfortunately, you know, as a condition of a decision, we can get you that fill number. I don't know if it makes any Yeah, I don't really see the relevance. Is there any specific reason you're concerned about it, Mike? Only that that is specified in under 410 in the gateway rigs, what is that regulation read if you don't mind?

Deposition of soil and earth materials will be prohibited except for val one valid non-conforming uses in existing in existence as of May 14th, 1974. two, foundation trench and related site excavation performed after the issuance of a building permit and in conformance with all plans submitted in support thereof. So that's that's more for a gravel operation because it says prior to 1974 and that says a after a so that it says after a site plan or after approve. So it's yeah so so that's indicating after if it's within the site plan. So then if it's part of the site plan, it's not it's a non-issue. Of course,

and where there's a where there's a hard limit is under uh addition and connection with landscaping and grading of land for a purpose for which a building permit is not required. Okay. So there's the catch right there. So I think you're that falls under Yep. correct under number two. And just checking because we have to that's especially since it falls under gateway. It's totally applicable here. That just my education. I just wanted an up should we be doing that more often? There's actually a list of findings we have to make in order to approve it. Yeah, of course. I appreciate that. That's good. Thank you. Diligence on your part. There any other comments, mission members? No.

Okay. Why don't we um open it up for the public? If any if anybody from the public has comments on um 100 mile freak, now would be the time to come up and give us your comment. See anybody from the public here? Any further questions from the commission? Why don't we um close the public hearing? I'll make that motion to close the public hearing. I'll second it. Come on. You got to get a second in there. It's your chance. Good. Thank you. All in favor of uh closing the public hearing say I. I.

I. Any abstensions? Oops. I guess since you want to vote on it now, um Jason, just like we did the last one. Um let's see what else do we have? I think that's the end of the public hearing and we just need to accept. So we should probably go into deliberate because I think that's the next thing on on it anyway is deliberation. Yes. Y so we'll go right into that.

Um this is Mary Joe. Can we make it or does it make sense to the commission that um we indicate that um the condition of approval uh is dependent on whether there are any requirements if they get a a CAM letter returned to us? I'm sorry. Can you say that one? A what letter? Coach area manager. Whatever conditions deep wants would be incorporated. She's asking as a conditional approval. I mean, my personal opinion, Mary Joe, is they they had the opportunity to comment, and if it was pressing, they probably would have submitted a comment. At least my experience with them. I'm not speaking for them.

Well, I don't know what the time requirements are for them to respond either. So, does Eric, do you know? It's 35 days. We're beyond the 35 days. And they're getting a lot of these. They don't respond to all of them. Again, all I can tell you is if we get something, I will pass it on to the applicant. I don't expect in this case there would to be any issues because of the distance from the river and from the actual um you know the fact that this is not they're not really affecting any of the sensitive coastline materials at this point in time. So I I would not expect to get anything back from deep on this on this application. Definitely.

Okay. I I want I just think that's good for the minutes that is beyond the 35day. So, thank you. Okay. I am taking the the updated site plan. And I'm working as an exhibit so that we'll have it for the record.

Thank you Jim. Thank you guys. Thank you. Okay. So that'll be part of the file. you can presumably make this a conditional approval that he tracks the improvements that are noted on this if that were something you'd be interested in doing in addition to any other conditions you might have. And again, you're free to approve or deny. You're the commission. So, um, in the, uh, gateway commission, we want to, do we want to, we know that they're saying they're going to have the correct, uh, windows and yeah, Gateway was happy with what they were proposing. So, we can, so, but should we but do we need to put those in as conditions to make sure? I mean, is it on here?

Those are recommendations. No, I mean, it's all Gateway said that they were already in the plans. However, if you want to make a condition of approval that they incorporate all the request the um suggestions made by gateway, I think that's appropriate as well. I think I think I'd like to make sure that those are in Yeah, that'll all be shown in the the window schedules. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure we have that yet, right? Uh not. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So, let's make sure they're they're agreeable to it, but I want to make sure that it's

Yeah. Again, you can say, and I'll give you the date of their letter here, that all um conditions mentioned in the gateway letter of January 28th be incorporated into the influence. So that includes for those who haven't looked at it's the no no new or expanded permanent structures within the 50 foot riparian buffer or the 100 foot structural setback preserving trees and replacing trees that are removed or dead. using non-reflective glass and windows and doors, minimizing imperous surface, and planting and encouraging the growth of native riparian vegetation along the waterway to improve the ecological health of the Connecticut River. So that's the what they're looking at. But um I also want to make sure then we talk about because I don't I'm looking Oh, I guess it's up to you. So it says that the Okay, so the things they put in here muted colors. That's what I was looking for. Colors of the structure will be the muted colors used for the roof. Exterior lighting would be downward facing, dark sky compliant, and limited to the need for safety and security. So those are what we're we're looking at in terms of the making sure that that's in the conditions. Um, were we all also going to ask a condition of approval to be the estimate of field to be brought in? I

think we got by that. I think we got past that because it's part of a building permit. So, that's only applies for if you don't have a building permit. Uh, Michael's concerns were addressed. I don't know if you have any further uh concerns. Um, Mary Joe, I'm not I wasn't sure I heard that. Michael, is that how you understood that? That is how I understood it. Mary Joe, he's kind of far. So, could you hear him? Should it? Yes, Mary Joe. That's how I understood it. I I could hear him. Thank you. Okay, good.

All right. Eric, just Eric, can I just ask that you put that as sort of a um discussion point for the condition for phase two? Okay. What what kind of discussion point would you like to have that? It sounds from I don't I'm It sounds like there's some discrepancy or maybe some clarity that's needed in that regulation. So, I'd like to This is a gateway rig. Yeah. I mean, this is pretty much given to us verbatim by gateway and we've adopted it. So, if we were to change it, we would probably have to go back to gateway and have gateway change their rig and then you do it that way. I'm not sure we want to make unilateral changes to a gateway regulation. U Mary Joe, I think it was just

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Michael, please. Eric, I I I just like to address what you just said. I'm not trying to make a unilateral decision. I'm asking it to be kind of ballpark for us to discuss because if it's unclear to us, maybe it's unclear to them. So maybe we could put that in a discussion point with Gateway because we're going to be meeting um to discuss with these commissions how we moves move forward in phase two and you know it caused some consternation between the developer and us here and so I think it's worthy of a discussion. Okay. I I have marked down as a phase two issue. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. It's in my notes right here. Thank you sir.

Not a problem. It's you can't see it. you're not here, but I've written it right down here on my my pad here. What things what page do? Okay. I Yep. Thank you. Did we do we have our letter from Ledge Light yet? Um, do you have your ledge approval? It's in there. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't see it in here, but maybe it's

Let me pull it out and see what we got. Um, not seeing it in my exhibits. Yeah, I didn't see it in the exhibits that I was looking, but it might not have just gotten batched.

They can't proceed without gateway approval in any of that. But let me see get leg approval in any of that. Let me see what I can track down on. I just wanted to know if there was any conditions we might want to put on or something. Again, I am not from a zoning standpoint. I don't see where it's feasible. If you want to make a conditional approval, any further comments made by Gateway, we certainly include that.

Legislate. I keep getting I'm getting I'm tired tonight. Leglight approval. Um, you can certainly include that as a condition of approval that any conditions required by ledge be incorporated into their plans.

S. No, I didn't see it. I Well, yeah, I think I just think without us seeing that that's But they can't build without it anyway. They can't build without it, but it also you just want to make sure how it works in with the storm water and the other stuff. So, I thought I was just looking at it. We're looking for it, but I didn't see it. Well, I think we have to make that a condition. Thank you, Denise.

Any further discussion? And we need to then have a motion. I'll make a motion to approve with the conditions of the reflective glass as you noted. Uh I think you wrote them down so I'll let you articulate your conditions. Yeah. Or do you just want to reference the letter of January 28th from That's the easiest way. Yeah. Reference. So I'll I'll make that motion to approve

with the conditions based on the letter from Gateway Commission from date The date on that is January 28th 2026. And you also Mary Joe wanted to include any conditions required by Ledge Light Health District. Yep. That one as well. That's it for me. And I think um that we're it's um the plans as amended by correct. Yeah, you're referencing again the the site plan uh as amended by exhibit one submitted this evening by Jill Rat.

Do I have a second? Mary Joe. Any further discussion?

All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you.

Congratulations, Mr. Todd. Thank you for our feedback. I'm sorry. Okay, let's see what's next on our agenda.

I think next two items should probably be handled together as uh 264 2565 or by the same applicant and largely involve the same property though again the regulation change would apply to the entire district. Okay. So that's Bloom Behavior Consulting Services. Does someone hear from them or do I mean tonight you're just receiving it and setting up a public hearing. So if you just want to get a brief introduction, we'll set up a public hearing presumably for next month. Yeah.

DCS. Um so we were proposing to uh add additional verbage to some of the voting code to allow us to occupy space on Short Road. um for both our private school as well as our outpatient clinic for children with autism related disabilities. So we also submitted the special permit application as well to go hand in hand with that should that verbiage be approved. Thank you. Great. All right. Anybody have any questions? Question on this one. I mean the public hearing is not till next month but if you want to just raise something as a preliminary matter so she's on notice for next month to come back with with sort of answers that would be

as I'm just reading through the u the application and the and the suggested verbiage. The question is do you take your your students your clients directly from families or by referral from school districts or both? Right. Both. So families seen on the outpatient side are funded through insurance or private pay. And so they're in an order that they called on our waiting list. That's how they're served. Um clients on the school side are seen as districts refer them and then we observe them. They come see us to see if it's a good fit. Very good. Thank you.

Okay. So the public hearing presuming you want to have it next month would be March 9th at 6:30. Do we are we good? We've got a lot on March 9th. So well that that's up to you. You have the continued regulations public hearing. Um you have the 77-1772 Line Street application. Um I guess everything else we took care of. everything else you took care of. And again, I haven't heard a lot from the audience at least either to time on the on the phase one regulation revision. So, I'm not sure that's going to take a lot of time next month.

Um, and again, I haven't heard a lot coming in on the Lime Street ones either. So, that's up to you how you want to handle that. But again, and 16 road is also going to be on March 9th. Is that for that area? That's a CAM application and we haven't heard back of you. We just got it in. So, yes, that is also going to be for next month, but that came in after I should say I shouldn't I I said the wrong thing. I didn't mean the the Mccertie. I meant the um 77-1 and 77-2 Lime Street.

Yes, that you previously scheduled that for next month. Um the Mccertie is a site plan application. Theoretically, it could be acted on tonight, but again, because it just came in and it's not we we just sent it out to Deep, we have not heard back on it. Um, I expect that there will be some public interest since we had that big issue regarding the people on Library Lane. So, you may want to just hold off on that one as well. Okay. So, let's see. We've got So, we've got the rags, which we could probably go quick, right? Should go quick. And then we've got the the ledger departments. Yeah. Then the apartments and then the which we already approved. No, no, that was in wetland. Okay. You have two different things. You have wet line academy. There it could be four.

There's Lime Academy and then there's Lime Street department. So correct. Yes. I'm confusing it with when they had the uh inland wetlands application. Yes. Okay. One because you're you're under some sort of timeline with the lease, right? I remember that was an issue. Yeah. We need to be out of our current state by May and students need to be able to come in by July. Do do we why don't I'm just throwing a suggestion out. Would you guys consider that we put it on the agenda and then if we got to push it late that day or I mean we used to go till 10 o'clock but I know

yeah we can put that I was looking at because I we also have to schedule mccertie right so but mccertie we can push out well again mccertie um it's a site plan approval so you you have 65 days to act on it or it's automatically approved it's a site plan um so yes at this point you should be able to deal with mccertie next month. I don't know what kind of crowd reaction you're going to get on that. If we don't do it, can we go to April on the Yeah, because it's 65 days. You It started today. Started today. Okay. So, you have 65 days to deal with it. That would take you through April. Okay. So, here's two. So, if we So, if we could have to we could go out, but let's see

because I'm looking that we've gonna we're going to have five things. Well, should we put the school at the top? talking the uh the zoning rag phase one out to a what would hopefully be a relatively short special meeting and then we could also talk about the transition to phase two and sort of set a course for that. The only challenge of course is the two people you would want to have available for that special meeting are not here to give dates that they would be available at and we would need to announce at this meeting when you would be holding the special meeting at which makes it hard. Can we do one more continuation or on that

because it's the town application extension as as a commission sponsored application the usual time limits under the statute do not apply makes sense this apply you can have it continued for months for months and months it doesn't matter I'm not not going to recommend that but there's no reason the more push it out the just thinking holistically the more we push it out the more we kind of stall well that's what I about to say I don't think we do because there's nothing that keeps us

so if we got a few odds and ends to clean up with phase one before we just say okay go to press with it it's done there's nothing that stops us from talking about what's going to happen in phase two acknowledging that phase one is at 99% and we just have some some cleaning up to do so that's why I was saying that if we have a special meeting and and even if we need to stretch the timeline slightly and I'm not suggesting go again my only challenge with a special meeting Michael is it you can't set it. We can't set it tonight because the people you would need available to be there are not here to tell you what dates they would be available. So I think you need to move it to your next meeting.

But it last and we can continue whatever. I mean we'll see if we have the audience. We haven't had always change that too. You you could always change that. Um I mean right now we we continued it to the next meeting. So that's already done. That's already done. Yes. So, it's a matter of if we wanted to change that. Yeah. Even at the next meeting, you could open it and still continue it. I understand what you're saying. You don't want to keep pushing the can down the road, which is going to push out phase two. I wasn't suggesting. No, I it was which all brings us back to this special that these two applications are you thinking now you want to schedule them for your March meeting and we'll sort of arrange a schedule accordingly here to make sure that it happens? Yes. Yeah. I would suggest that we put% this place on the agenda for next month.

Okay. You allowed to take comments from the public. I don't see why not. Right. This is not a public No, I understand this gentleman has a comment here. I'm here for the cemetery association and um did I do I understand that you're putting it off until March? We we just got the application in the last few days. Um we don't have a regular commission member here and it has to theoretically be commented on by deep. So, we're not going to be acting on it this evening at this point at all. That said, because if just like we heard from Yeah.

Courtney, just like we heard from Courtney, if you would like to address I didn't think there was anybody. I'm sorry. It's like that's my fault. I didn't think there was anybody here from Mccertie. So, um, we set a public hearing for Bloom for Well, um, let's make a motion to set that. Make that motion. Second. A second. Second. Okay. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Okay. So, the followup hearing is set for

and then let's hear McCertie in terms of just give us a quick overview what you want to say and um but we're we are not going to take action on it tonight. Um I think the uh the application speaks for itself. We we need to replace the bridge over um the Duck River. It's close to 100 years old and we don't know what the load carrying capacity of it is. Um so we undertook it as our our project and uh we are looking forward to a successful completion.

Can I just get your name for the record? Just Ed Penn. I'm the president of cemetery association 254 Whipperville. Okay. So, we are at this point um since we just got the application and it's it's on our agenda. So, we can set a public hearing for Oh, we don't even have No, no public safely approved. No, no public hearing required.

We don't have to have a public hearing. So, uh but we do usually wait to hear from D on this. Um and so we will keep that open. Do you have a time frame when you're what you're looking for when you want to try to get this moved along? Well, our um our construction plan is not to begin until the uh the summer of 27.

Okay. and DEP has given us uh restrictions on time we can work in the water because of fishing or other considerations. So um we have the window of June, July, July, August and September of 27. Okay. To get it done. All right. This is just another item on a list to check off.

Yeah. So, in terms of us just acting on the application, we'd like to wait until we hear from D, and I think we really haven't totally reviewed it. I think it's going to be fairly simple and straightforward. I think it would be good for us to hear from from DEP on this. Have Have you reached out for that to them? It's already been sent out. They have 35 days respond in light of the fact that you're telling us they've already given you restrictions on when you can construct. It's likely that those restrictions are going to be reflected in the in the comments to give back to the commission so they can be incorporated into the site plan approval. Oh, our engineer has all that correspondence. Well, I I will make sure we get it from him. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, that would be great to have that. So then um so we're looking so the the decision the discussion we were having is we have now handful of things on our agenda for for March 9th and could we wait to make that decision till April? It doesn't sound like that would hold you up. That said, we don't know what else is coming in. So, we could tentatively put it to March. Well, it's not a public hearing, so it doesn't matter which what what agenda it's in. No, I would let it hang on the agenda. If you get to it next month, you get to it next month. If not, you let it hang to the following.

What we'll do is we'll put it, you know, we'll put it on the agenda. That said, I don't want to have somebody have to come and sit for the whole time and then say, "Oh, we're not going to hear it till April." So, um, Mr. Pen, is there anything that is like pressing that you need to have it approved in the next month? I have to say no. Um, other than, you know, we want to check things off. Okay. It's understandable. We We don't want to get down to the wire. Yeah. Yeah. But you got Okay. Gotcha. I'm thinking why don't we to make it easy for everybody? Why don't we put this on April? Then we'll make sure we have we hear from date

because they get they have 35 days and February is a short month. So does it matter? I won't be able to be here. Huh? No. Doesn't matter. I won't be able to be in April. Correct. Oh, so then Well, then let's try we'll we'll try to do it in March then. I mean, like I said, it's we don't have to vote on this particular item. Okay. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being

so unless I missed something, we're at approval of minutes. I'll take a motion to approve the minutes as presented. Any Do I have a second? I'll second. Thanks. Are there any changes or additions or amendments to the minutes? Does anybody have any comments on the minutes? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. All opposed. I'm standing because I wasn't out of the meeting and want extension. You were missed.

It really Anything else for the order? Yes. This is Mary Joe. I'd like to discuss unless you discussed it before I was added in, in which case maybe fill me in. Um, there was a virtual forum that was arranged and some of us didn't know anything about this till we got this email and then apparently uh it was cancelled. I would like to know what the heck happened with this, how it was decided. I I really am confused by this and I really think it hurts in our effort to be more transparent going forward.

I would agree

when when this sort of thing happens. So I I I really want to hear from Eric. I know Paul isn't here. Eric, please can you detail what the heck happened with this and can we please have a discussion in the future uh with any um regulation rewrite that the commission is on board either in a at a regular meeting or a special meeting on the process. Okay, I will sort of go back to the beginning. This as part of the original contract with FHI, they had indicated that they would be willing to put together a public forum with essentially the author of the regulations to address questions from the public. Um, we reached that point in the process. Mr. ago was on a phone call with me and Paul said we would be happy to do this if you're interested. Um we didn't obviously understand the level of sort of uh aggravation this was going to cause by by saying go ahead and do this. Um had we understood that we would never have allowed it to go forward. Um the the challenge was this. Um, I couldn't have it as part of a public hearing um because we had previously set the public hearing. Um, Mr. Gomes indicated that this was just going to be an opportunity for him to just take whatever questions the public had, but I couldn't then have you sit in on it outside of the public hearing because that would have exarty communications coming in. So, in light of the fact that this was something that was causing a lot of the commission members to be very upset about the process and was introducing another way for people to

share information that the commission was not going to be necessarily privy to, we decided that it was illconsidered and we canled it. Who's who's we? Well, Paul heard from a lot of you that this was something that was your you were unhappy about. I received a phone call last Saturday, not this past one, but the previous one from Paul saying this is not going to work. And then last Monday morning when I got in at 8:00, I immediately called Francisco Gomes and said do not go forward with this um with this process.

So I I just you know I thank you for taking the time to to explain all that. I think um it's being portrayed in a little unfair characterization. I think uh the concerns that and I didn't express this to anybody but I have these concerns that um it was we've had very open ongoing dialogue for almost a year now about um this entire process and the commission has decided every like website update and communications and special meetings and and everything and so I think for for For me, some of the concern was that there was a lack of communication that this was even in discussion. And you're right. I do remember reading in the contract that there were going to be these listening sessions, but when we talked about those very specific listening sessions previously, it was with the understanding that it would be a kind of public openhouse event, you know, and so the fact that it was one organized without prior discussion but then also like cryptically being told that commission members can't participate which would also seem to um go against defy the purpose of having a listening session so that the very people working on the rewrite can hear what people has to say about it. And so I I respect that it could have been handled better. I think um that's you know Mary Joe's right. Listen, there are transparency issues that we have got to be incredibly sensitive to. So, the fact that it was brought down, that's fine. You know, that it happened that way. I think what concerned me was that that was also followed up with and will not

be rescheduled. Correct.

So, now the message going out to the public is all the public knows, they don't know all this back and forth. All the public knows is we're going to have a listening session. The commission wasn't going to be at it. and then no actually we're not having a listening session and it's not going to be rescheduled. I mean that's a lot of confusing messaging to be putting out around this already politically charged issue. So I would like to propose that what you know at a special meeting when we're able to get it scheduled when Paul and um Jane are available to present their um dates to everybody whenever that is. as soon as that meeting is set that we have some kind of public message that accompanies it that is just you know saying this is happening. There was I think we just have to own it and get out in front of there was some miscommunication about the previous one. The intention is still to have public discussions about it and we at this special meeting will be discussing what our plan is going forward.

Okay. I think we have sort of two different issues. Okay. I I totally accept and agree that the way that this the meeting was scheduled was bad and it set a poor precedent for the transparency we're trying to show. I own that. That's on me. Okay. Yeah. I think though that what Gomes was trying to do was explain phase one. Yeah.

If we want to have a session where we expound on what we think phase two is going to be, I think that's a worthwhile goal. But I I don't think given where we are in the phase one process that trying to go back and explain phase one is that's why I said let's move on like but we there has to be some kind of explanation for for what happened and I don't know maybe Gomes gives a end of phase one summary of you know report or something I mean instead of since we we've missed the opportunity to have a public discussion about it

and again we have his summary which you sort of incorporated in this file what what the what he phase did we already have that memo um that from him that we can it's on the web page we can more widely make available to people correct um so that I I'm not sure we can do much more on the explanation side than he's already done there okay

um again we can try and make that more widely available um it was my hope um though again schedules are being you know adjusted because we're leaving the public hearing open. It was my hope that in March we would try and schedule a shred a gathering or whatever you want to call it with the other commissions in town to try and sort of start the process of phase two and sort of getting their input. I was thinking it was going to be on like a Saturday or something. We would have coffee and donuts here. We would have everybody in and we would spend a couple hours just sort of bringing the other commissions in town into the process then. Um that's just that was the idea in my head. I'm expressing it here in the open to you folks. If that is something you still think is worth doing.

I think that's worth Yeah. I mean I think that's something that's worth discussing. I mean, I think that just having one morning with coffee and donuts for all the commissions is is going to be insufficient based on what we're already receiving from some and based on work we know that's happening in some of the other

absolutely. So the hope is that again this was just sort of a kickoff in March. Yeah. It's going to continue in in my mind and again this is all sort of my estimation of timelines based on what we already have on the website that we're going to have a series of events going forward essentially all through the summer so that we can continue to sort of gather in information in I I think that's a great idea. My my point is let's pre-plan them all. Let's identify all of them. The technical term for you describing is a is a communication plan. Exactly. identify your stakeholders, your messages, your medium and and who's going to be on what day and

at least a relative calendar. I agree with all of that. So to to bring it back, I think that um we need to wrap up phase one and whether we do it on March 9th or we set a special date. But if we set set a special date to do that, I wouldn't want to have it as a kickoff, but I think it could be a work session for us to do the working session. Exactly. To do the calendar. So we could at that time say like, okay, we're going to vote on phase one, finish off phase one and get the working calendar that then and the communication plan that we can that we can put out because I do think we need to be very

confident about this. And I do want to say just in terms of process that I think once we are ready for the next phase to go out to public hearing once once we have taken everybody's input and there's going to be you know this is going to be a year and a half or so getting everybody's input doing everything changing the regs once we have a draft that's going out we have a public information session that kicks that off.

Yeah. the much like when I go to a hearing for DEP or other state agency they don't just come in and say like oh did you read them online which everybody comes prepared because we have read them but they do a kickoff and they start the meeting with a halfhour presentation of these are this is what's out this this is what we did

and that's what I and I think we missed that and so I appreciate that you were trying to put that in but I think you know um all of a sudden doing that in the middle of when we had a public hearing process already open. We could have just said, you know what, we'll do a presentation at this meeting. Yeah, we could have we could have still done it as part of the public hearing. And I think that that was the what we need to do. So, okay.

I So, you know, I'm happy to, you know, touch base with Paul about this and say like, okay, this is what we need to do. there's the potential we could still, you know, depending on people's schedules are um it might be that we still do phase one on March 9th. I'm just saying schedulewise. That said, I still think it would be good for us to have a working meeting to set down the schedule

so that we all know what the schedule is. There's no miscommunications and we can have it so that when we're having the kickoff meetings, we can actually we've got this great letter. Thank you very much, Mary, for doing all this hard work. That explains this, but nobody had it. And I will tell you that the people who had come to me and said they were going to attend on Saturday were coming for phase two, not to hear an explanation of phase one.

So what so that was communicated to me including from folks like at the gateway commission. So it's one of those things where there was a real miscommunication about what that meeting was going to do. And just like the gentleman from the historic district commission was here tonight, it wasn't clear to them. So I think that, you know, I know the memo went out. What I'm concerned about at this point is that it probably went to chairman and that didn't necessarily maybe go out to everybody.

So I think we need to make sure that we're getting out to, you know, really ask them to share with everybody. We'll see if there's a list that maybe Katie or somebody has in the first selectman's office that we have all the commissioners emails and can send it out. Everybody gets it. U but also the public as well so that everybody has this because that's what this is so good and I don't think anybody had that otherwise people wouldn't have thought that that was going to be phase two. Just out of curiosity. So the and I I like what you said because I thought when I saw it online like okay wow they're this is gonna be great

cancelled not going to be rescheduled like man that looks bad. Yeah it looks very bad the optics on that personally. Right. So I guess what I'm just trying to clarify is how did that come to be canceled? You said the commission members. Was it just Paul or is it is there other people I'm not aware of? Well, I'll tell you, I was one of the folks that reached out to Paul and and did as well. Okay. And my concern was that we had an open public hearing. Yeah. For phase one. Okay. Gotcha. Yes. Okay. Then we're going to have an information session where people are going to be offing offering information protect possibly correct what they think would be testimony for

but I didn't even take that into consideration and I appreciate you bringing that up. That was my concern is that we had a public hearing, but people would think it was. And the second thing was that and if it was about phase two, then we should be listening. Yes. In order to pull that off, it was a tight rope. Commissioners had to be uninvited from it so that we didn't run the risk of actually forming understood now. Okay. Public meeting. I I when I read it online to begin with, why they can't I appreciate you bringing that insight. It was it was well-intentioned, but I think it was ill advised to try and pull it off while there was an open public hearing. Yeah. Because it actually ran counter. Thank you for making me understand that the reference of the the whole process, not just the the communication.

Thank you. Yeah. Let's Mary Joe,

I think you I think Michael explained exactly my concerns that I emailed Eric is like, you know, h how are we supposed to address comments from the public at a meeting? we can't attend that, you know. So, I think Eric owned it. Thank you, Eric. I think that what we've learned from this process is that the whole communication process has to include the whole entire commission and it has to be a public uh uh in public meeting or in uh some kind of public document that the committee voted on this and and or responded to this or is in agreement with this. And I suggest we bring your contract to this planning meeting so that if there are meetings that Francisco Gomes has agreed to do that we put that into our timelines because I personally believe uh Mr. Gomes is excellent. Although he's only met with us in public once, I think he is very well suited to a public meeting and I think the public will feel that he's competent. He's an expert and he has been guiding us um really well and I think that that is an opportunity we lost with phase one but we definitely can put that into phase two but we have to plan it and maybe we need I think Mary Gardner said this maybe we need more than one meeting because it is quite

quite a big chunk of change we're dealing with but bring the contract to that meeting so we we make sure we fulfill all the obligations please. Okay, two two very brief things. One of which is by contract Gomes is scheduled to participate at two public sessions, twoformational sessions in phase two. So we have that out there to include somewhere along here at whatever point we need him to do that we can work with him on when that when those times are. So that's that's one.

Okay. Two, right? because he wanted to start get it rolling on phase two. He has already started reddrafting our flood zone re regulations because they are out of date with the deep proposed model regulations on that. Um I have received them in since we're still in phase one. I haven't kicked them over to you folks yet. I have given them to Jeff Jacobson our account engineer who is sharing them with Denise if at the state level. Um, again, not to sort of get too far ahead into phase two, but it just seemed like something we could start getting him working on that was fairly discreet because there is a model D rag on this and he is trying to make our rag look like that. It is something we can incorporate into phase 2 whenever the appropriate time to do that is, but he had some spare time. He asked if he could work on this. I thought that was an appropriate thing for him to start working on. Is he working with the flood and erosion board because they have been putting a lot of time and effort into coming up

different than the flood race. I understand. No, it's not. They have been putting together a lot of time into coming up with recommendations for the zoning rewrite specific and again I have been in touch with David regarding this and I have offered to share with him these draft model rates. Okay, that's all. I just want to make sure that you were like these are these I just want to make sure we're not having all these silos of

No, I I I have been literally today trading emails with Damon on this very subject. Okay. So, yes, I I I am aware that flood control is working on this um and they now are aware that we have this model that we're working from and I have offered to share it with them so that they can work on it as well. That said, there's a whole lot of different planning documents and things going on in town. Um, there's a resiliency plan that's being worked on. So, there's a whole lot of people we need to So, I want to yeah,

I want to stop the conversation now because we have some important people who aren't here from our commission. Um, and but that said, let's have a workshop and bring all of these to them. So, that document there, is that something that this is online? Okay. Is that something that maybe our partners and the news organizations like Limeline could post on their website because that's a good vessel for information distri distribution. They should have it but if they haven't been gotten a copy of it that would be should we should get that out. We we will make sure that they have further access to I mean when you have a when we get a question on the process this should be the number one document that you give to people.

Yes. And I know that for example there's like a nice graphic on the town website about the process but it says phase one. It never says where phase it never uses the term phase two starts. Okay. So we need to we can certainly play with the graphic. Yeah. So look at the graphic and just make sure because I think people you know so because we have this nice thing but then the graphic kind of didn't follow this completely. Yeah. I mean the challenge for Craig in putting together the graphic is we have very limited graphical skills that we can upload onto our web page there. I understand I know exactly which tool he used to create that. Okay. Um so yeah,

but we just need to make sure that we're really looking at you know like I said we we took a lot of time on this. I know I absolutely agree. Mary in particular spent a lot of time on it and I and I'm very sensitive to the issue of So let's So the March 9th agenda needs to include setting a workshop date. Is that No, we're going to try to set that ahead of time. We don't can we? Okay. You can't have the public hearing any earlier than March 9th because you announced it tonight. Correct. Correct. If you want to set a special meeting for a workshop, that can be done in advance of March 9th.

Okay. So, we can set a calendar. So, what's the best way to get that? Okay. Because it is simply a matter of scheduling a meeting. Yes. Special meeting. I can do that through email through each of you without issue triggering foyer issues. All right. Okay. Let me see because again Jane is sort of in communicado totally. She's in China, right? Um Paul I can talk to I talked to him this morning even though he's not in the state.

Um once I can reach Jane and we have some dates from Jane, I will try and reach out to the rest of you and figure out what the dates are. I may do this by doodle poll or something else just to say yeah what dates work and then get you know once we have a date for this we will try and schedule that meeting. Okay. I think that's a great idea. The other thing I don't just kind of throwing this out there. I know that on February 25th there's like a welcome, you know, orientation for all boards and that's being put on by the first select

by the first selectment. And so I don't know if that's an opportunity to just, you know, because there'll be all the members, not just chairs or as many as possible. if that would be worth asking the first select woman to you know mention in her remarks or something the fact that this is going on and there this is going to be a big responsibility over of theirs in the next year years and distribute the memo and distribute the memo that's you know so and then we know where but if that could be part of her okay if if you guys agree I don't know I think it's a perfect opportunity yeah I think it's a great idea

okay Okay. I I will talk to Martha about it when I have the opportunity to do so. I will um I'm not going to be here tomorrow, but I will make sure that we we raise it this week with Come on, Eric. You should be coming in tomorrow to do that for us. No, tomorrow is I have other things going on. Sure you did. Um so, yes. So, and that's why I want to just wrap this up. So, we'll, you know, look at what we need to do and how to set that agenda. I think the most important thing is to have the bigger discussion on what we need to do from a uh you know a real calendar perspective so that people just like this is what we need to do. This is phase two. Yep.

And again I'm just thinking out loud if if we have the public hearing set for March 9th on phase one and having a workshop while there's an open public hearing. We just have to think through though what that means. Oh yeah. Well, I'm thinking at this point it's going to be after it's gonna have to be after that. Yeah. Well, I don't I mean, let's just the practicality of I don't think Jane comes back the end of February. So, just in case there was any notion that we could slip one in before, I don't think we should. Okay. While there's an open public hearing, we have a process for this. Let's let's stay in our lane.

Yeah. I mean, because because Eric, you're saying we can't change that date. We've we've set it here. So, you're saying we can't change the date. If you announced at this meeting that the next this is continued until March 9th, you can't then change that to a shorter date because you announced in public session. It will be that date. So you you could create procedural issues if you then alter what you and publicly announced at the at the public hearing. It's a short month. Is there a reason we aren't using the call in yet? So it has not been the policy of the commission to do that. will become townwide policy in a few months and we will be doing the call in.

People were asking me tonight like they can't make it but they wanted to audio in and listen and and we we are not doing that yet but it will be something that we will be doing probably by May because it will become the town policy that all commission meetings will be tell available for call in by that date. Okay. Oh, good. That's exciting. So you mean not just zoom in call in or zoom in? Well, I mean you'll be able to call in through here like like Mary Jane is Mary Joe is doing tonight rather that you call in to his participation. So, um that that is coming as a town policy within the next few months. Okay, that's great. You got a CEO report.

Is there anything else for the good of the order? Take a motion to adjourn. No. Do you did you have anything to say? I I have nothing further to add at this point in time. Trying to get him. He He needs to get home. That's fine. I understand. Thank you for all your work, Eric. Motion. Motion made to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? Thank you, guys. Appreciate all your diligence. Thank you, Denise, for chairing tonight. You did a great job. Good tonight.