Plan & Zoning - Regular Meeting

You're all set. All right. Thank you, Chris. Okay. Uh, good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the April 7, 2026 meeting of the Orangetown Plan and Zoning Commission. I am Commissioner Razie Parent and with us this evening, good morning town attorney Owen Weaver, Paul Kaplan, Kevin Cornell, for Jane McGuire, Jack Merren, zoning administrator.

All right, we have uh four out of five commissioners tonight. Tom has a had a something come up at at the end of the day that he couldn't get out of. So, uh, it'll be just the four of us and, uh, coaching by, uh, Owen. All right. So, first item on our agenda is a, uh, review of the minutes of the March 17, 2026 meeting. Um, on page two, Jenny, it's uh it starts Commissioner Cornell inquired.

Yes. Do you know what you were trying to say or what I was trying to say? I I really don't remember. I don't either. Commissioner Cornell inquired about the low income breakdown and the topography of the building site. Those seem relatively disconnected. Um well, you you had a lot of questions. Okay. You did. So instead of having individual questions, we just all mudged them together and just them all in one sentence. Kind of what I did. I'm I'm just kidding. I'm sorry. No worries. Um,

would you like me to just take that out or because I couldn't include every question? No, I I get you. So, let us see what would be because someone can always get a transcript. I was thinking, could we is itrop is it appropriate for us to look at the, you know, the recording for the last meeting and then go back and fix it. Well, listen, it wasn't there wasn't not monumental. I get it. But

you're right. So I think the things I was inquiring about I think I believe that attorney Sharp was talking about the breakdown between market rents and the affordable rents. And then that might be what we were talking about. Okay. So, market

andor because I had uh inquired of Jack um what the affordable housing units were renting for in uh Old Smith Farms and what the market was. But uh you know what? We're probably best about seems like you could just change those. Commissioner Cornell inquired about the lowinccome breakdown. Uh and attorney Sharp reviewed the breakdown. Period. Those go together. That

right. And then the Yeah. Then say uh Mr. Mr. Santos presented a rendering. Take the word of out. or or no, leave the word of in, take the word to on the next line out. A re a rendering of the topography and elevation. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Split up the market split up the income breakdown and the topography question into two different sentences. No, I did. All right. I think we can figure I think we can figure that out. You got the concept, right? Yeah, I think so.

All right. I had uh just that that um second full paragraph on page uh page two paragraph begins with attorney Sharp continued. If you go down to the fourth line, here's what I think that's a little confusing that she it says next comma. She discussed the special act 25-1 housing bill and I would take out towns and the potential requirement and then I would add that the town require take out provide that the town

requires require more than 10% of housing units be affordable. take out an orange because it it talks about a potential requirement. I'm not

housing. So it would say next she discussed the special act 25-1 housing bill uh and the potential requirement that the town require more than 10% of housing units and multifamily projects be affordable. I think that's what she said. Uh top of page three,

Sarah McIll of 278 uh Mal Drive. uh after length of building and number of units uh the potential impact from the de demolition process I believe was that she was concerned about the potent well but might as well say demolition because maybe they rip it and they don't blast but still there could be but I believe she was concerned about the impact on the septic systems and uh and drinking water wells. Septic systems and wells. It says wells. No. Uh, no. We'll add wells. Yeah,

what you're saying. Okay, that's my recollection. I think that's right as well. All right. Anything further? All right, then. Is someone prepared to move that we accept these minutes? So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. Motion to approve the minutes from the as amended. As amended from the March 17, 2026 meeting. It we have a motion to approve. It's been seconded. All those in favor? I.

I. Okay. Next item on our agenda is old business. Anybody? Okay, we'll skip to new business then under item three. Is there um is there a um with regard to the continuation of the middle lane? I was talking to a UI representative. Is this going to be an issue with signs? Huge issue.

Yeah. the town attorney and I this I think was shortly before Christmas if I'm remembering right sat down with representative from UI their engineer and I think the general contractor who would be performing the work all sat right here the next stage of the widening of the post road from which is from toward Milford right Lambert all the way to Milford Mhm.

Signage and parking spaces are going to be lost at probably 10 or more properties based on very, you know, preliminary mapping and and looks that we were doing. We have no idea what the process is going to be for these property owners to get new signage approved. They're all going to need variances for everything. you know, they're not going to have enough parking at this rate and parking on the B because they at the time of their approval, wasn't our parking requirements higher than they are now? It could be, but I, you know, speculating that, you know, I'm going to use the Andini lot as an example.

Um, their front parking spaces are very close to Route One and if you look at online mapping, it it shows that most of the parking spaces are in the right ofway for the state. So if they come in and they remove, you know, 15 20 parking spaces from that property, they're probably going to end up deficient if they are not already. Where do they go for a variance or, you know, as far as signage goes? A lot of the area that they're taking is the only area that they have dedicated for signage. So they wouldn't be able to meet any of our sign regulations based on what they have left.

A lot of the stansions, you mean the uh the the larger signs are right on in the right of way? they not only in the right of way but you have uh UI overhead wires coming in they have their own setback distances that signs have to be from the wires. So that is you know I I can't say I know a ton about it but the UI representative was saying the you know the really tall ones need at least you know 50 feet and then the kind of halfway up ones Kevin probably knows better than me um needs I think 25 feet. So even if the the current signs are not where they're going to pave, they're not going to meet the separating distances for those wires. So it's going to be a massive undertaking. And who

when is that when is this starting? They said they're hoping to kind of kick off permitting this summer. I don't really believe it. It, you know, I think it's going to be closer to maybe another year or two. Okay. But they're going to need another solution. I not a not a variance, but I I don't know. I mean, the state is going to take what they want from from these properties for they're going to have to figure it out. They're going to have to figure out. But a lot of these properties have nowhere else to create parking areas or have a sign that, you know, they're going to have the sign basically next to or behind their building at this rate. You know, like we I think we were specifically looking at IHOP. The IHOP sign with the amount of property that they're taking is going to be

they're they're in the parking lot at that point, right? So, where do they put their new sign if they have to do it? And is that sign going to meet any of our location regulations for for signs? Yeah, it's gonna it's going to take even more parking away from them. Who's responsible for getting this property owner a variance? Is the state, you know, just going to tell us you have to, you know, let them put this somewhere else. I have no idea what the the process is going to look like. Science science is just one piece of it. What about the setback requirements, lot density requirements? Well, that will all be, you know, pre-existing. You know, they Yeah. No, I know that. But I mean, it's going to be

But in the future, yeah, if if somebody was, you know, if I'm the property owner and I was saving this area of land for some future expansion and then suddenly, you know, my property line is 20 feet, you know, closer, the the edge of the road is 20t closer, might nullify that whole area. Well, then you better have an attorney when you, you know, put a price on the table. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know what the recourse would would be. Yeah. I went to dinner with a uh person UI who's filling my ear with all this and making my head spin. Yeah, it's uh Okay. Should be interesting. That's going to be bad. Yeah. All right. Anything else under uh new business?

Okay, Jack, do you have anything to report to us? I do. Um I think I mentioned uh at the last meeting um at our next meeting um in two weeks, we are going to have another text amendment in front of us. Uh this is for the LI zone signage. Um specifically 88 Marshill um is going to be looking to amend our regulations for signage to meet their design specs for the sign that they have in mind and you know a lot of signs nowadays kind of fall under what they want to do. So it may just be a sort of an update to the code but you know we'll have to look at that. Um which building is 88? 88 is the one that's being built right now. It's the community travel center and the EV showroom property. Yeah. Okay.

That like I said, they they haven't come in. I haven't spoken with them since the last time we met, but they may be looking to delete the EV showroom. Yeah. This is the one that Kevin approved. Yeah. And in talking with uh with Owen, I had a conflict on that. So, I didn't It wasn't I'm just kidding. In talking with Owen, it sounds like, you know, those special permits are approved. you know, there there's not much latitude that we have to, you know, go back and revisit that.

Um, we also have two site plan applications that were recently submitted that, um, I'm most likely going to be, you know, looking at administratively. They're fairly minor. Uh, 507 Boston Post Road is was Metro Mattress. Um they are looking to repave and they have some minor striping parking lot design um changes mostly to come up to code with the fire marshal for maneuverability for his vehicles. Um so we just got that and again something I'll most likely be doing administratively. It's only you know the the striping changes. No additions building it's going to stay the same. Uh, and then Great River um, uh, golf course, they have a gazebo, a small decorative gazebo they're looking to remove and do, um, like a pavilion more for outdoor weddings and things. So, it's really the pavilion and then underground, you know, drainage just because they're catching a lot more water now. Um, I was going to mention it to the board. It's not something that I would really put to you guys. I think it's administrative, but if the board wants a chance to look at it, I you know, of course, I leave it up to you guys.

Is that all in orange or is that somewhat? So, the Great River is split between Orange and Milford. The only improvements that they're doing in Orange is the removal of the gazebo and this canopy, right? Sim similar to kind of what's over at High Plains. Not nearly as big, but you know, a similar style. And then they're adding 11 parking spaces in orange. They do have stuff going on in the Milford side of things obviously that we don't have perview of, but most of the more involved improvements are on that side of the line. Okay.

So, that is coming down the line, but like I said, not nothing too too major there. Um, as far as that goes, I mean, it's spring enforcement always, you know, I get a lot of calls this time of year to go look at stuff, so that definitely um, you know, heated up this week. Um, but other than that, moving along.

All right. Any questions for Jack? Okay, then. Uh, next item on our agenda is a bond release request submitted by Robert Cochiaro. This is for 926-936 Derby Milford Road. What can you tell us about that? Sure. This was I think a project from 2007. Um it was the for the replacement of 2007. Yeah. Um when they called me for this bond, I had no idea what they were talking about.

Um there was a plan for the replacement of a culvert that goes over to Mile Brook. This is for the um the cemetery that it has an address in Derby. It's right off of 34. You pull in there and uh it extends into Orange along Derby Milford Road and the uh the railway that's that's there. Um the work you're driving from Derby to Orange. It's on the right side.

Correct. Yes. Uh it kind of looks like open space right now. It's for future expansion for the cemetery. Um but I went there and I met with um was his name with Robert. Everything looked like it had been done for many years now. I think they just never requested the bond back. So, he was going through some old files, realized this was never closed out, missing out $166,000. Yeah. Right. So, I'm I'm not sure how this, you know, went under the radar for so long. There's also a $5,000 cash bond included. I made sure to check with our finance department. We no longer have the cash portion. So, if that was returned at some point in the past and this just fell to the wayside, I no evidence about the 5,000.

There's no evidence of a cash bond still being held by the town. I I made sure to go ask the word I'm caught on is still. Did we get we give it back there? We must have uh I mean Paul has a copy of the check that was given to us right here. So we got it. I'm still When it was returned or what? We do not have any record of still having Okay. Where would it where would these would these be segregated into a separate account? These are separate accounts for each bond. Okay. So whenever we are receiving a bond, I go get a separate account number from the finance department, right? And then that's where it goes. So there there to your best of your knowledge, there's no $5,000 cash. No, there is not. I did all the investigation I could do. They're not asking for it.

They're not requesting it back. I like they weren't even aware that there was a $5,000 bond. So I think they already got it back. Yeah, that's that's the bottom line here. And if they didn't, then they didn't ask for it either. So um but all work seems to have been done with the approval. Um, it was done for quite a while. So, uh, obviously I wasn't here for when this came through, but everything looked to be in order to to me. All right. I mean, is the applicant going to tell us anything you have? Uh, they said they were not available tonight, so this desperate for the I'm I'm Yeah, I'm I'm the best you got. Um, it's been 20 years. So, yeah. Safe code would have let it lapse. Really? Yeah. If you don't if you don't pay the premium on a bond, right? Yeah.

What happens? Yeah. Oh, so why don't we just That was my thought as well, but why don't we why don't we say we're fine, not overthink something that happened 20 years ago. All right. So, uh, someone prepare to move that we release the bond. Uh, like to, uh, move that we release the bond to for the project name TwoMile Brook Culver Replacement. Uh request made by Robert Cacherio Catholic Cemeteries Association of the Arch Dascese of Hartford. Second.

All right. Motion to release the bond has been made. It's been seconded. All those in favor?

We have two public hearings tonight. Um the first is a continuation of the uh public public hearing held on March 17th uh 2026. This is the petition to amend the orange zoning regulations submitted by Strawberry Hill Realy LLC uh to amend the article tw to to amend article 12 of the zoning regulations regarding uh PRD development plan residential development. The applicant is here.

Yes. Good evening. Sarah Sharp 42 Cherry Street here on behalf of the applicant Strawberry Hill Realy. Thank you all for your time this evening and over the two public hearings prior to this. Um, one of the items that came up from the neighbors at the last meeting was the current state of the property and um, there are broken windows and open roof on the structures. Those had been given over to the fire department to perform some training and they we have pending demolition permits for those structures. Um the training was recently completed, so we're waiting for the demo permits to clear. There's no other trash on the property. We did find some broken glass on the property. You know, we had a lot of snow. It melted and uh my client did get out there and clean up the broken glass. So, it's really just the structures that need to be demoed and that's in the process. Um, we did make some revisions based on our discussion at the last meeting and you should have that update uh sort of colorcoded. What's in uh the black bold underline? Those were the very original amendments. Uh in red were those from 316 that we discussed at the last meeting. The um language in green was incorporating the recommendations from your town attorney. Those are the changes to conform to the 2025 housing bill. And then the revisions in blue are the changes um that we made to address some of the concerns from the last meeting. And I'll just go over those quickly. Uh there was a concern about density with our request to increase the allowable units up to 75 one-bedroom units that you could potentially have that size project on a smaller parcel like a 2acre parcel. So, we added a restriction um into the previously proposed text. This is 383-100D

that limits the overall density to not exceed 16 units per acre. Um to ensure that you couldn't have 75 units on a 2 acre parcel. Our property is 4.8 acres. We're about 15.6 units per acre with the 75 units. the um height. We talked about the fact that we had asked to remove that threetory limitation and retain only the 40 foot limitation. Um and why that made sense particularly on the facade facing the commercial zone. Uh there was a question about how we might uh provide greater protection for the facade facing the residential property. And so we added back in the limitation to three stories for any individual building facade within 65 ft of a reg residential property. And that's the blue language under 383-101 A1 lowercase A. Um and so that that sort of accounts for our condition here where you have 40 the 40 foot limitation applies no matter what. Um and on a facade that's immediately adjacent to a residential property you have the further protection of three stories. And the final change is 383-102 subp part A and then renumbering those subp parts. This is um to address a a you know something we discussed a few times which is that the current statute does not allow the minimum floor area requirements that were in that section and Commissioner Cornell had raised that and we addressed it to be consistent with the current statutes. Um that is all I have for changes and we're happy to answer any questions or discuss anything further.

I had just a couple comments, you know, uh some changes. See if you agree with on 383 100 subsection C. Uh the changes are fine. Um the change is fine. It's one of the original changes. uh after the word there's ref the language that's deleted uh references uh separation distance correct and then in the in the next sentence it says this separation distance which has been crossed out uh is in addition to all other buffer so I think that should be fixed

yeah that doesn't relate to anything anymore right yeah um so you maybe you could say Uh continue the strike out. Yeah, continue the strike out.

Yeah. So yes, I think if you just take out this separation distance, those words and uh and the word is it'll just say a maximum of five acres on any one parcel in any district may be utilized for housing units under this article. uh in addition to all other buffer landscaping eard requirements.

I'm not sure I I don't know if the entire sentence makes sense anymore. So I think that that the entirety of that second sentence could we could strike it because it's it's referring to a separation distance that no longer exists. The buffer and landscaping requirements stand on their own in separate um sections. Fine. Then I just had a a typo on page five. Uh 383103A on the right side of that box. The lesser of lesser L s.

Uh We can make that change. All right. Do do we have any further questions of of the applicant? Yeah. I don't I don't know if I never know if um my comments are in the right time frame, whether it's a question or a statement or a concern. So, we seem to be kind of interacting back and forth. Um, so

well, I just you're thinking in terms of closing the public hearing and then not being able to deal with the applicant anymore. Well, the if the applicant the applicant will probably want to respond to suggestions I have to make. So, I don't think that's particularly fair.

So, let's Yeah, let's do it. So for the for the benefit of you know the any neighbors who are in the audience or on the air when I'm trying to evaluate a text change in round one my concern is what is the concern or or what is in the best interest of the town of Orange. Okay. Then once I get past that level, then I look at what are the reasonable expectations of the affected people as well as the applicant. Okay. So, uh, in moving on from what's in the best interest of Orange, which I think is clearly that, you know, given, you know, the push for affordable housing and obligations we're going to have to provide it and that this has been around for over 20 years. Um it's it's in the interest of the town as a whole to encourage some sort of multi-family development here.

It's in a POC, right,

as well. And but what's also important is that this regulation always recognized that as development spreads out from a commercial district that there's an interest in buffering the impacts as that that intrudes into the uh into the residential component of the town. All right. So in terms of the reasonable expectations of the people who would join this parcel, uh whether they knew it or not, you know, their expectation shouldn't be that more could be done here than could have been done when they bought it. unless there's some overriding interest in the town. Um, and so

Kevin, say that again. I Okay, so they they should have when when people when when people buy a property next to a commercial district or, you know, a flood plane for that matter, you know, you're supposed to be sort of aware of the circumstances in which you're going to live next to. Now they've lived in a nice idyllic very woodsy area that could have always changed 100% at any point in time. They didn't own all that land, right? They didn't own all that land. That land was somebody else's,

right? And but the people who want to develop it have an have a also have an expectation that well maybe we you know have a reasonable expectation of doing something up to the densities that are in the original document. Well plus the regulations require that right but we're thinking about changing the regulations. Yeah. I I I know, but I mean in terms of expectations, I mean the the the regulations are what they are.

Yes. So now that we're looking to change those, it comes down to uh I think the ask. So we're being asked to ch revise the um Florida area uh ratio from 30% to 40%. which is effectively saying that on five acres, you know, you can do an additional uh uh let's see, so if you got an F of 30% on five acres, that's 200,000 square feet. That's u 30% gets you a 60,000 foot building plus or minus. and they would like 40% which would be 80,000 square feet. So now I uh would say to the board that that 30% was put in here originally as opposed to a 50% F if it was a commercial property because when this was originally written people understood that there needed to be some sort of transition you know from commercial to residential and that if it was already in a residential district, we had to be even more uh leerary of bigger and more dense projects. So, I'm not currently convinced that we should increase the F uh in balancing those two expectations.

Um so that's one large area. What does that do to the uh end unit to the number of units?

Well, what would happen is that depending on how big the units are, you know, it may impact the overall number of units you can get in the building depending on how it's laid out. But the on the other hand, even though that you know a graphic of a building that could be built under this regulation is articulated, it's still a long structure along that axis facing a couple of the properties. So to give them you know a bonus you know is increasing it the giving that F increase is sort of at the you know detriment of the expectations of the adjoining property owners

meaning that the the building will be shorter. Is is the issue you raised, Kevin, mitigated by other bulk requirements? Well, I think that's up to each individual member to decide for themselves. You know, I I'm bringing it up as an issue for each of us to consider. Were the were the people who complained were they complaining about the size, the length of the structure? Some did. I thought it was more the height which was mitigated because of the the

well understand that the people who are coming here aren't used to having to articulate exactly what's going to bother them based on you know words well they're pretty clear about the the traffic I mean a couple of them have some real issues with their driveways they I don't remember her name but well no I and I drove in that property and her existing driveway is quite a quite a challenge, right? It's it's a rocky hump. You mean access? Yeah, that's what you Yeah. I mean, I believe not just the not just the the volume, which you know, that's different animal, but

u a couple of them had real issues in terms of getting in and out. We brought that up a couple of times, but that's an issue they'll deal with. Their access is going to get a lot better. I I mean just from a objective third party meaning that on the repaving and everything else you know accessing through the driveway they're proposing is better than where it is right now would be so much easier even with the increased volume I think yeah I mean it's not going to be like trying to go to Trader Joe's right can't

and it's at the expense of a building that is larger than they could have ever expected by the current regul relations.

Well, you know, you know, again, um I think giving the FA upping the F is at the expense of the neighbors for not much net gain to the town. Okay. And and the that's one of the problems with trying to do this ad hoc without professional input. Not that not that you're not a professional or your engineers who prepared this, but uh you know a third party professional. Um so I'm a little uncomfortable with that particular upgrade personally.

Um but I think other people could come to a different you know uh thing. The other issue and we can continue that but I might as well just get them all on the table is

that I I with respect to the number the percentage of affordable units in the regulation we know from history that requiring 30% doesn't work economically. Um, but I'm concerned that 10% I'm personally concerned that 10% isn't going to help us with the way things are going now and into the future. Well, it's it's going to help us. It may not be helpless as much as

well I I think that you knowif personally and again we can all like 15% might be more appropriate because over 75 units that might only be one or two more but it's you know that's all going to be on a tally sheet for the town of Orange at some point in the future. Where do we stand with I know we're not um above our need, right? We're we're

we are uh we're currently in a moratorum that expires in September of 2028. Um I'm going to use round numbers because I haven't memorized them, but Jack, maybe you know this. We we had a we when we submitted the application we had call like 220 H points and we only needed like 197 or something like that. So we have extra points. Uh we do not have enough points to obtain a second moratorum. Um so to the extent that there's any project that includes affordable housing that that would go towards a second moratorum. So that's one level. You know, the ultimate goal of the state is to get every municipality at 10% housing stock. Whether that's realistic or not, I don't know.

And what is our number right now? Uh we were like 2 something less less than 3%. But we had but we had accumulated enough hue points which is a h housing equivalent equivalent points uh to obtain the moratorum. So if I remember right, we were 19 points short of re-qualifying for a second moratorium. Yeah, it's it's in and around 20. I'm almost positive I I have it all on my desk upstairs, but uh and then obviously depending on the number of bedrooms and the type of unit it is determines how many points you get per unit. So, we were about 20 points short. So, it's it's two equations. It's it's a hue point consideration, which is again, as Jack said, depending on the unit,

and then the ultimate like 10% threshold, you know, you got you got to factor in your like denominator. So, Orange has uh over 4,000 dwelling units, I believe. Yeah. Whatever. 10. The ultimate goal, the state's ultimate goal is for everybody to have 10%. You know, today. Yeah. Yesterday. So, yesterday, we don't know how tomorrow. No.

Right. So, anyway, hopefully that answers your question. Uh and then, uh this is really a point that wouldn't come in. attorney Sharp until a uh a site plan review. But just you might want to put a pin in it is that since a project of this nature is going to be bringing in water and sewer connections to that property, you might want to explore uh how much opposition gets tamped down if you took a lateral uh for those two services to to the property lines of the two affected structures. Um because then concerns about things that might happen during

demo or blasting could go away. Go away. That's not my business. That's a good good point. Um but anyway, well do you want to respond on some of those? Um yeah, just

sounds like two issues to me. Yeah. Um, well, I think they do kind of they have some relationship to each other because I think part of the reason that this regulation has not been used is because of all of the limitations, not just, you know, the 30% housing, but also the F um, and the 50 unit maximum. So, we know that all of those things have led to no affordable units being built under this regulation. We're proposing changes that would result in units being built um which will help you towards your you know hue points accumulating or your 10% moratorum. The denominator in both instances is the most recent census. So in 2028 when your moratorium expires you'll still be looking at the 2020 census um for your denominator. So any affordable units that you're adding those will be counted and you're not you'll still have the 2020 denominator. So the additional market rate units from this won't be counted towards you um at least during that time period until we have the 2030 census. Um the the the F I I can talk with um our architects about where we're at between the 30 and 40. I know that it was necessary. We we didn't request anything that was you know excessive. I think with the commercial um already being an F of 50 and we're still stepping down um to 40% as a transition between the residential, it didn't seem unreasonable, but um happy to discuss that. I we haven't talked about this because this is the first time I'm hearing it. Um on the affordable housing, again, that's that's something we can talk about um internally. It's just we're trying to do a nice project and you guys know it's just it's a math

calculation at the end of the day to get something built and what's feasible on a property like this. So, um I don't know if I if you want me to take a minute to talk with our Sure.

Okay. The difference in number of units would be from 86,000 square feet,000. the actual the actual square footage,

right? So, it's small. Well, the idea would be if you were averaging a thousand square foot unit.

Oh, Kevin, if you could turn on your mic, please. He's waiting to us in We're in a timeout. Why don't we wait until we actually have Yeah, why don't we take a break? Yeah.

You could you could put them on a You're okay. You could put them on a table for a sec to discuss. You could do the other public hearing that stay on just give them a moment. Got Thanks, Chris. or you know they

okay so with the F um our one-bedroom units 850 square ft we could still have 75 units um even with the 30% F what is putting us over the edge is the facade articulation and the architecture of the building um we are we think it's a really attractive building could we do it at 30% F, but it would be, you know, a flat, you know, a building that is not necessarily what I think that the town would prefer. It wouldn't be the exact same building that we have here. Um I we for the affordable, we can agree to go to 15%. But we do need that um F if it's possible. um but we could go to 15% um given everyone's comments and the strong interest and I think that that goes above and beyond to ensure that you're not going to go behind the curve in terms of you know future calculations for your um you know your hue points and your moratorum and that's just you know trying to work with you guys and make sure that we're good partners for the town and what you need to accomplish.

So I just want to make sure I understand most of that. The 40 to 30 would require you to change the development of the building in terms of the facade to a less attractive present presentation, right? It wouldn't change the number of units we could accomplish. So you you're saying go to 15% on on affordable units, right? Yes.

With no change to the uh F I I I'm I'm happy to hear more from from the commission and how they feel about it. I mean, we feel that we'll have a better product with the greater F, but and we do still feel it's reasonable with the transition between the 50% that you can have in a commercial and and the residential zone. Um but ultimately, you know, it's up to everyone here. Okay. All right. Are there other questions for the applicant?

The I I just want to be clear on the um and we could talk about this in open forum too. There's at least one owner and Kevin was talking about before where the access to her property is not going to be prevented by this uh by this development. She's going to have access to the to the parking lot and and eventually to the street. Correct. Yes. We're remain we're maintaining um their access to their properties and um we're not concerned about any title restrictions or anything like that. Even though it's not a zoning concern, I know you guys wanted to know about that.

Anything else? So, so the 350 ft you're saying that now the aesthetics of it will change because you won't have it articulated anymore. It will articulate, just not the extent that um we've currently designed it. Um, we could still accomplish some level of articulation, but I think that, you know, you you can probably see some commercial properties that might have a little bit of articulation in the facade, a few inches or something that's just there on the elevation, but what we have done is a lot more meaningful, dramatic for the architecture. So, um, I don't I'm not an architect, so I I don't know exactly where it falls in between those. I'm not either. Yeah.

So I I I looked at the 350 ft and and I tried to understand why was it ever 160 and I tried to picture the two buildings. I went out into a field and I'm like, "Okay, there's 300, there's 160." And then I did some some studying on it and it's more about airflow than it is the aesthetics. So, the articulation may not even help the fact that you're building a 350 foot wall that's three stories high, at least three stories high.

Starting from the ground, it could be four stories, right? Well, that's what we're we're looking at here. So, I think um I think the 350 ft is is is a is a concern for me. Not necessarily aesthetically. Like I know you could make it look nice, but I think there are issues for those people who have had open air flow, albeit coming from the parking lot over there, but they have that flow of air and now it's going to be a huge wall that's just going to consume the area.

That was my concern with that change. Um, yeah, I I guess I understand that. I guess the way that I'd always read this regulation was just about um the building massing. And that's why when we originally propo proposed the facade articulation, it was to make it make sure it didn't look like some sort of penitentiary, like some big block building. Um and and I know that um Ed really wants to preserve the New England style of what we've proposed and you know there are some there are things in the design that are for aesthetics that you know if we just stripped it down we can still comply with these minimal requirements. Um I guess the open airflow with the backing up to the the Raymore and Flanigan that huge building there. I'm not. It's like we're immediately adjacent to that. So, it doesn't seem like um Yeah. I I

It's hard, right? Yeah. I understand. You're basically putting up a 40 foot high wall. Mhm. With 350 ft long, right? And that would be where I live that would be almost a whole block, right? That there's now a wall, right? That if there was any buildings, they ain't coming anymore. not at my elevation. I flags might be all right to throw up on tall poles, but I think that's when I was reading about like why 160 feet in residential areas, it was that and it even carries into some cities, I guess, too where there's like

Well, you're not saying that could there'd be you wouldn't be able to do any of the articulation, right? Well, just the the constraints of this building of this property. Um, we we can't I guess the 160 foot building and we can only have this one building area. It's not like we have multiple buildings on the property. I guess if you were limited, you could have multiple structures. Um, I mean, I guess the other thing to consider is, you know, if this property, if it wasn't under a moratorum and someone were to come in with an 830G, they wouldn't have to follow any of these things. And and I think that I do see this as a real opportunity to add to your affordable housing stock with a a a product that is so much nicer than what you would see from those other types of developments. Um, and you know, if I don't think that the 350 ft is something that we can compromise on because I just don't think our design and the parcel itself allows for it. But I appreciate the the comment. I appreciate hearing from you. Thank you.

And if there was a 5ft break between the buildings, what difference would it make? Yeah. 10. I don't know if it was next door to your house. You might be concerned though. Well, I mean, if you know, I was worried about similar things with Fire Light and then it's up now and I'm kind of like it's not that bad, you know, and it's sort of a similar scale. Yeah. No, no. I I I understand and that's why I'm trying to balance. No. So am I. like and and then the idea of well if you don't accept this something worse can come. Well that's that's we own the property.

We don't we don't have to worry about that. I mean we generally don't worry about that. Just trying to get a good project for the town, right? Uh that everybody can be happy with, you know. Uh yeah, I just want to let you know. No, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. I I I mean I if there was something we could do to change it, I I would. I think that we've we've changed everything that we possibly can um in these discussions. They've been really helpful. The thing is it's very hard for very hard for us to uh understand the economics of it all.

Really not really part of our equation, right? and and uh you know you don't want to force the applicant into a into a bad project. You know they they won't do it anyway. I mean it just won't get done if it's not economically viable. And we've had numerous parcels where that that exact thing prevented reasonable projects from proceeding for 20 30 years. Yeah. And

I mean like on on the uh on the uh percentage of uh affordable I mean you know was 10% they want 30% um you know is it if the project can't be done uh with 30% affordable can't be econ it's not economically feasible then uh you know we we've lost the opportunity for 15%. You know what I mean? And so how long will we wait for the next one?

Yeah, I think we have to deal with what's in front of us right now. Try to create the best project and let's see if we can I mean I think that's actually good movement on on the part of the applicant to offer 15. I also think that it's important, you know, I know this is a text amendment and we do keep talking about a particular property, but it's relevant here because this is a property that has been designated for so long as appropriate for this type of development and recognizing at the state and the town recognizes that you need affordable housing and this is a property that has been designated for it. Although it does have some challenges. I mean, it has the topography, it has a strange lot size and configuration,

right? And so, you know, this is what we've what we've done to try to bring you guys a project um for that property that I think can be really nice. So, all right. I'm going to ask for uh at this point any further comment from the public and then I s I'll give you chance to Thank you.

Why don't you come to the podium please? Hi, I'm uh Nancy Zulinski and um I'm a 249 Peklane rear. I'm probably the biggest adjoining neighbor. It's a 271. So, I'm I'm looking at a map. I was hoping they were going to have the maps up again, but I'm not sure. This is the proposed site plan. It talks about the utility easement there. Yeah,

right there. But that's only the utility easement to Jana's house. My utilities come in from there, too. My electricity comes through a right ofway that ends up on the corner of my property that's probably diagonally to about there, but I I don't see any utility easement provided for me. Well, it it it wouldn't be provided provided at this phase. I mean, what we're talking about now is the regulations and possibly amending the regulations as their as their first step toward actually bringing in a site plan with it. You know, it specifically defines a project. That is a possibility. Okay.

It's it's not what they're offering, not what what would be, you know, uh binding on them in any way. uh and it would it'd still be whatever they submit would still be subject to uh you know a very uh indepth review by the commission. Okay.

To be sure that you know all the requirements of the regulations in the in that district are are complied with. So, um, you know, one that's, you know, Paul Kaplan just brought up before. I mean, access, if if they can't demonstrate that they've given access to to neighbors, then we're not going to be in a position to approve the project. So, I can't give you an answer to the question right now.

Okay? But you could be sure that if we approve this amendment to the regulation and they decide to go forward with a project, they're going to be knocking on your door to talk to you about an easement. The easement, I believe, already exists. It's owned by SNET, which whatever. I'm not familiar with the the title, but whatever whatever is required. You you need to be able to get from your house to Peek Lane. That's not my problem. My problem is my electricity comes in from a total opposite point from where I drive in and out of my house.

So, my electricity has an easement that comes directly across 271 and not where they have the utility easement written in to go to Jana's house. Okay. There's actually other poles there that probably would be somewhere in the middle of the parking lot. Maybe they're accounted for. I I don't know. Same thing though. They That's an issue they need to resolve. Okay. At the site plan stage. Yeah. not they're not going to resolve that now. Okay. But it's going to be a stumbling block to their to them getting a project approved if they can't work it out in some fashion.

Okay. So, if there's actually like an easement there, I would assume it would be a certain amount of feet they have to account for that or do they go to the owners of that easement and then try and buy them out? I don't know what the title shows, you know, uh but again, I mean, they have to solve that problem in some fashion. Okay. Assuming it's a problem. I mean, again, I don't, you know, I don't know. I just mention it because, you know, I see utility easement written in to go to the house. That's the island, but I don't see it continued on to my house until 245 peek. actually our utilities both come in from that side. But okay,

just wanted to mention that because I did see it for one house but not the others. And I also wanted to say whoever said um for them to connect a water line laterally to my house. Yes, thank you. I would really like that to be done. Um that's it. Just wanted to talk about the utilities. All right. Thank you.

Is anybody else? Uh yes. Thank you so much uh Ahmed Ibrahim I am representing the Strawberry Hill Realy. I just want to take a moment at the end here just to say thank you for your time and the consideration and kind of confirm that some of the few points that mentioned and I will conclude with one more point that's for me the most important I heard during the three meetings we have so far. Number one, if we agree that the town and the community and we feel like we are part of this community, we own Spruce Manor already for what like three four years now and we feel like we are part of this community already. So if the community feel like we need some multif family that is with affordable component, I think many people will agree that that particular lot is an ideal location for it. It's kind of a good transition, ideal transition between the commercial and the residential. It's kind of hidden behind Raymore. So, we hope it's an ideal location for such development. And as I said from the beginning, we are here to work with the town as usual. We respond to all concerns either from the commission, from the town and or from the neighbors. for example, for the affordable component who are open to more uh affordable units and we respond to the the neighbors. More important before we come here, I think I mentioned this before. Before we come here, we reached out personally to our neighbor at 269 and our neighbor at 265. Pickle 269 has official on paper right of way and we confirm it to her and we confirm here again. We're going to respect that and it was mentioned today that that access would be even better to be

landscaped and buffered and when we last time we reached to them and we talked to them they mentioned something like as commissioner Kevin mentioned today that access is really difficult now and you can easily break your car using that access. We confirm it to them that will make it much better. They actually asked it can you work with us even before any construction started make this access a little bit better. We said yes. They asked it can you make a little buffer for us some land landscaping or ever greens uh our our architect Newman already started to include this in our plans to create this buffer for us. So we work with the neighbor we continue to work with the neighbors. Uh for example 265 265 is if you are familiar with the location they have access from Bicklane they already have access from Bicklan it's supposed to have like a front yard on big lane and for their their own personal reasons they are not using that and are using our property to access their house from the back without any official right of use on paper that's 265 we we the first time we talked to them. We told them we're going to respect that even if it's not official on paper. We will continue to respect that would make it better landscaped and and with any necessary buffer again. So we we'll continue to do that for all the points as it was said here all the technical point that were mentioned like the water rain the landscaping the buffer it goes without saying I'm sure you know it goes without saying all this will be considered in the final plans when we reach uh the side plan so I just want to confirm this point but I will conclude with that and this is kind of

personal to me it moved me a little bit less meeting. Someone stood here, and I'm very serious when I say that. Someone stood here and said, "We don't want this development because we don't want quote unquote lowincome people coming to our community." That was said last meeting. That moved me a little bit because we know this is a code reverence to something and I will I will hope that we as a community in this state, even this country, especially now kind of refrain from that. I hope we all agree that quote unquote lowincome people are also people. They have the same hopes, aspirations. They want to have a roof over their head that's affordable. They can afford. They want to live in a safe community. They want to send their kids to good schools. So, I hope it's not that's not the approach we use in in any development, including this development. Again, thank you so much.

You're welcome. Thank you. Is there anyone else who'd like to uh speak on the application? Okay.

Hi, Sarah Sharp. Again, I will keep this very quick, but I didn't want to leave our neighbor thinking that she might possibly lose access to her electricity. So, um, we believe that that electrical easement is not on the survey because it it no longer exists. It expired. But regardless, if you know, you're not going to lose electricity. So, we will, you know, work with you if that is indeed how you're getting your electricity. You will not lose electricity from this project. So, I don't want you to leave here tonight wondering about that. So, thank you. Nancy Zalinski, I wasn't aware that an easement like that could even expire. Is that true? How do easements like that even expire? Ma'am, I have telephone polls going through it, attorney Sharp, is it? How do easements like that even expire? I mean, it's been there for 30 years thus far and long before that before I even moved bought the property.

So, I'll just speak into the microphone for the record. Sure. Um, so as part of your a closing on a property, you get a title search. There was no evidence on the land records of any continued utility easement. There are no utility polls on the property. Um, I've been told. So, well, you've been told incorrectly that there are Okay. So, like I said, regardless of any of that, if that is how you're getting electricity and there's no other way for you to get electricity, we will work with you. You're not going to lose electricity because of this project. So, that was my only point in saying that. I don't want to go down the history of the land records because I haven't looked at it myself. But

I have. Thank you. Okay. Well, I just like it known that I don't want to lose my electricity there. And I think that the fact that there's an easement that's been there for as long as I've owned the house and longer because the telephone pole that's actually on my property entirely on my property is number 118. The next telephone pole over is in the thousands. So that's how long the phone poll on my property where my electricity is coming in has been all right. I mean your your concern is dy noted. I mean it's it's not something we're going to resolve tonight. I get it but it wasn't on the proposed site plan. So cause concerns. Well, again, that wasn't a proposed site plan. It's just a conceptual design so we have something to look at.

You know what they you know what they need to bring before us is the the site plan and you know we'll have plenty of time to review it and ask questions about it including these questions. Okay. Thank you. I mean, you know, at the last meeting, there were several issues raised. You know, I mean, traffic, uh, I just noted them. Traffic, uh, storm water management, site drainage, wetlands impact, uh, there's a possibility that they need a permit from inland wetlands. There could be, it depends on what the soils say.

Demolition, construction issues. There was concern about the potential if if they had to blast, there would be. So I mean and safety some someone talked about uh you know uh speeding on that on that road and a bus stop was there and all that. So you know those are all site plan issues good issues

and they're all going to be addressed on a site plan. I was you know no and the the uh these regulations for uh planned residential development they the applicant has to provide an initial residential plan. So it and then and then a followup to that. So I mean it's it's a seems like a more extensive review than we otherwise usually have and it's special permit too. It's it's a special permit application.

All right. So anything else? Because we're going to close the public hearing and then we can't hear from the applicant again. So, I mean, no, I I think uh attorney Sharp has articulated, you know, uh well for her, you know, client and now we have to decide what's good for our client, the the town of Orange. Okay. So then, uh does anybody think that we need anything from outside the commission in order to decide the application? No. Okay. Then is someone prepared to move that we close the public hearing?

Move that we close the public hearing. Second. All right. It's been moved that the public hearing on this matter be closed. It's been seconded. All those in favor? I I Okay. But you want to start us off or Well, I would start from page one and go to the end. So, if someone's got a better way, I'm

Well, I mean, I to me there's I didn't, you know, I I didn't focus on the the floor area percentage, nor did I focus on on the issue you raised tonight. Um, talking about the mean the um percentage of uh affordable housing. No, no, the building mass. I got it. Yep.

So, um to me I when I looked at this again today u you know the I I saw really two substantive issues. um you know, one being the uh the 10% versus 30% on the uh affordable housing and the other being the um you know the the permission to do 75 units. If if they're all uh um onebedroom all units are efficiency andor onebedroom units

and they're I think 800 square feet or something like that. Yeah. But that that's probably the the unit size. So then there's going to be some uh common area losses for hallways, elevator, stairways, common room, stuff like that. So the regulation as it stands, you could do up to 50 units. With the proposed amendment, you can do 75 units if they're all efficiency or onebedroom units. And then we added a you know as further protection you know on the density question we added the u 16 units per acre

overall density cannot exceed 16 units per per acre. So I saw those as a you know the affordable component and the uh the uh lot density component as being the substantive issues. The rest of it I I sort of felt like it was taken care of. I mean, Owen proposed reg uh changes to what was uh to the application. Yeah. To cover the parking. So, I'm not really concerned about that.

So, you using Kevin's framework, which I think was pretty uh pretty spot-on. The first question of do we need this kind of project? Um is this good for the town? conceptually forgetting about the the the actual uh you know not minutia but the the important issues that arise from the building. You're you're on board with the the concept that we need affordable housing. We need housing for for single people. You know this kind of setup. Yeah. I because I am too.

Yeah. No, I feel that way. I mean it's in our it's it's clearly in our plan of conservation and development. you know, the applica the applicant's application points that out. I don't know if you have that with you, but in in in the last paragraph of the uh text amendment narrative makes references to the plan of conservation and development uh that are applicable. I think I mean we have we have the opportunity to provide additional affordable housing. Uh but it you know the the she she suggests the PR PRD amendments will also support support the PC recommendation quote to promote opportunities for affordable housing. Uh and the other thing support this you know this amendment uh would support a diverse housing stock

that's critical facil by facilitating a modest multif family development with affordable housing units. So you know I think it's consistent with our plan of conservation development. I think if we, you know, were were uh hesitant, I'm not hesitant is the wrong word. If we were unwilling to uh really give this good consideration, we'd be running a foul of what we've committed to in the plan of conservation and development.

Right. And I and I guess the you know the the uh the um 75 units doesn't bother me given you know their analysis on that. Um they say another important component of this proposal is the request to allow up to 75 units in the PRD development but only if the project consists of entirely studio and one-bedroom units. Uh the current PRD provision allows a maximum of 50 units in a in a single development without regard to the number of bedrooms provided within those units. In other words, a PRD project of 100 bedrooms or more, that is 52-bedroom units is currently allowed.

Um the proposed amendment ensures that the allowance for 75 units will not result in any greater density. than what would be allowed under the current text. Not sure that's exactly right. You know, I mean, it's, you know, traditionally we we talk about density as being units per acre. That's really talking about people per acre, isn't it? Again, I don't see it as a big deal. Um, you know, I think I think 75 uh, you know, one-bedroom units. Um,

efficiency. Yeah. Efficiency. efficiency of a onebedroom unit 75. I I mean I don't I don't see that as much different than 50 units which we allow. So we have basically very few of these kinds of units in town right now. Right. Right. I don't know how many in fire light or one bedrooms. There are a few but not many. Um they're mainly one and two bedrooms. There's even a few three bedrooms in there as well if I remember right. So maybe there are 15 or 20. Right. Could be. I guess the market for that type of of dwelling would be what maybe kids right out of college starting their careers. Sure. Yeah. Uh you know um someone who's lived in Orange all his or her life

wants to downsize

wants to downsize stay in town. So I can see where it it does uh lend to diversifying you know our uh our stockpile of residential housing opportunity. Um so and and then the rest of it I you know I I I see your point on the you know the floor area. I'm I'm thinking that there's probably enough other uh requirements built in that um you know won't make the project you know other requirements bulk requirements that will operate such that uh you know it it won't um project won't appear to be overly overly developed. Well, if you you know again you know the the uh applicants uh contention that uh adding architectural interests decreases the efficiency of the floor plans is is valid. Meaning you do have to, you know, a a a square box is going to be more efficient than something that's more interesting, right? But uh so if you wanted to say you know in the regulation that you know give yourself some wiggle room

that your baseline is a maximum you know F of 30% unless you know in the commission's discretion you know more is warranted to you know achieve some other, you know, architectural, you know, give I'm sure we could come up with some way to give ourselves some wiggle room to reward them for not building a a box. Um, and that's but that's what was intimated that um in the event that we dropped it to 30%. Well, to get to 30% they would have to they the result would be they would have to get

r the building architecture would have to get ruthlessly efficient. They could still I that is not as attractive. That would be the net result and they could accomplish the same number of units at 30%. You know, but we might not like what it looks like. So, and what would be the sense to that? Well, they they're still going to rent it. Oh, what would be the what would be our benefit? What would we be accomplishing? Well, reduce the size of the building by a little bit.

Not not necessarily on five acres. You're talking about the difference between say 65,000 and 85,000 square feet. So, you know, uh, you know, that's to put it in, you know, if a three-story building's,

you know, you know, stacked, that would be, you know, 7,000 ft a floor. That's not a small number. But again, if if the F is not bothering, you know, other people, you know, I I want it just explored out, you know, to me. I think that the adjoining people uh you know but again without there being you know uh you know this being done as part of a much larger you know look at you know we're doing it uh you know ad hoc on the fly

it's not like we have a legislative history or something right I mean how how did they arrive why is 30 a good number other than it's been a good number for 25 years in terms of but it never didn't get they never got this property developed. This is a special permit we're doing. Correct. PRD is a special use. I like your idea about the 30% and we have discretion something like that. Yeah. I don't know how you word things like that. I don't know how you do it. That's that's a that's an Owen problem. That's an Owen problem I think. So, I mean, I'm not adverse to rewarding people for making something nicer

nicer. I I'm on board. Yeah.

Uh I just don't want to and I understand that, you know, uh in in the town of Orange to create a single family housing, the land cost is over $150,000 per dwelling unit. All right. So to work on something that can drop the land cost to a developer to the, you know, $15,000 or unit cost for the land or, you know, 10 makes things happen, you know, to create products that we don't have in this town, but not so many of them that it changes the character of the town. So, but if there was a, you know, if if everyone else says 40%'s okay, you know, that's

Well, I feel like it's it's okay with with me, but you're right. I don't fully understand, I have to admit, why it was 30. I think it was just an un some some sort of recognition that the commercial land is is one thing and we want it to be intensely developed, but then these small these few small residential parcels in the residential zone that were also carved out were something different that needed to transition to the residential differently than in the commercial,

but was that not enough? You know, going back to your your initial comment, what what's the reasonable expectation of the people that live in that neighborhood? I mean, um is it, you know, what's what's the difference from their perspective between 30 and 40. Well, personally, I would rather look at 40,000 feet of something that was worth looking at than 30,000 ft of of a cracker box per me personally. And that's I think that's a legitimate position, you know.

Yeah. I heard the neighbors who I'm I I think we're all listening to intently because they're the ones who were directly affected. Um not that the rest of the town isn't affected, but I I don't remember them I don't remember them complaining about the the length. They they they there were complaints about the size which were you know it is what it is and it certainly u emilarated a little bit by the the topography of the land um uh to make this make sense. I think that's critical to keep that kind of a size on the top. But I I'm the 40% doesn't rock my world one way or the other.

All right. because it's going to be rocking it elsewhere in the zone. Well, understood. And that's why I was saying that your your first point um with a special permit where we have a little bit of wiggle room is probably not a bad idea. And let's see what they come up with. Well, you know, I mean, he's sitting right there. You can ask him if if he's seen something that is that something that you can do? No. We close the public hearing. No, no, I meant Owen. Oh, Owen can't talk to us. Oh, he

I mean I I'd have to I'd have to think about that. That phrase doesn't come off the top of my head. I mean, this commission can approve or deny this application if you're looking for tweaks. Um, you know, you could authorize me to negotiate with them after if you choose to deny it and let them come back. You know, for example, wave the fees to come back or something like that. But, you know, at this point, you you've closed the public hearing, so they wouldn't be able to comment on any, right, uh, suggested edits that I could make from the table right now. So, well, but they're not going to comment on I mean, it's our legislation at this point. Mhm.

Okay. So, right. No, you're absolutely acting in a legislative capacity. So, so if we change text to something we want to adopt, that's what we're doing right now. Right. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Seems like a uh not a very useful exercise if you know they're not going to do a project because of the changes we made. Right. There's a practical. Yeah.

But I mean, the the applicant indicated that they would what? Go to 15% on the affordable housing. Yes. If we and and and leave the F as is. They recommended leaving the F as is because it would result in a more aesthetically pleasing

uh project, but that a talented architect could still probably get 75 units out of the 30%. So, I mean, we we could we could, if we're so inclined, uh approve the application with the understanding that uh it'd be 15 15% affordable.

Well, there's other stuff. There's other language to clean up in here, too. I mean there was some language we're looking at here for the first time that says uh you know the building height being 40 feet or any building facade. Uh their suggested language goes and any individual building facade within 65 ft of a residential property shall not exceed three stories. And we had originally proposed, you know, that if the facade is adjoining a residential property, it won't, you know, what's the 65 ft about? Mhm. Well, I thought the

And unfortunately, I didn't notice that until just now. Y I thought that what we had said was the height could be no more than 40 feet. Yes. But three stories of residential, you know, the the average building height measured around the entire perimeter of the building and it's and on the side that faces Raymore and Flanigan, it's much more than it's more than 40 ft, but it's an average height around the building. It is. It is. That's why there's four stories on the Raymore Flanigan side.

Yeah. But but they added the lang the further requirement that any individual building facade within 65 ft of a residential prop shall not exceed three stories. Right. And when I brought it up at the last meeting, I was I understood that they wanted to take advantage of topography, right? I think they thought that they were giving us what we were looking for on that. I unfortunately did not focus on this until here. We had I was thinking that and 65 ft may work but you know there were a couple 65 isn't isn't height. No that's a distance.

That's a distance. You know no building can ex the way we measure it. I understand what you're saying might be average. No building shall exceed a height of 40 feet and and any individual building facade within 65 ft of a residential property shall not exceed three stories. Right. That was to keep the people. So on the east side is that the Rayar and Flanigan side? No, that's the west side. They, you know, the the neighbors are basically on the, you know, the east side of the property looking at a threetory elevation. All right.

But for some reason, there's a 65 ft in here as I thought I thought that answered the question, but you It might I mean, I'm not, you know, overly stressed. All right. Well, let's let's come back to the substantive issues. Yes. If you want to run through the rest of these, what other questions do you have? All right. Uh, so page one just is fine with 10% going to 15%. So page two, you can live with you can live with the 15%. Or I I would suggest that. Yes.

Okay. Because I I I feel comfortable with Yeah. 383100B. Um, I don't know why I just strike out that paragraph. I might as well clean it up now. 383100B. As long as we're cleaning stuff up. I don't know what that has. Yeah, it doesn't seem to have any applicability. Okay. All right. So, we clean that up. Uh we've talked about uh 383100 C. Yeah, they're just going to make a revision.

Sorry, they're going to just fix that. Uh yeah, right. What do we say? We're deleting the last striking it. Yes. So C will end that article under this article. Period. Yes, correct. Yeah. Who's going to be preparing the uh We'll get to that. All right. And then um I'm fine with the uh what'll now become paragraph C. No more than 50 units. May you know that paragraph seems like fine with me.

I agree. Uh on page 3 383101 uh you have to decide I mean we can go with this language or change within 65 ft of a residential property to adjoining and then see what happens on their site plan. you know either way because it's going to be a special permit the first time we look at this

and if if 65 ft is funny business to cause a problem for a particular adjoining person we won't allow it to happen so if you want to leave the language I'd be I don't know. To me, it it's it's more restrictive, you know. It's so I mean it Yeah. It's it's You mean rather than joining 65 ft encompasses potentially more?

It's more restrictive on the applicant. Yeah. So uh you know we could always or we could conceivably uh relent to some extent you know when we get the site special um but we have the benefit of this if we don't if we don't want to I think I I I think leave it I think I would leave it for that reason you know just because I think it's more restrictive against the applicant. It's the applicant's language. Yeah. Uh so does so so can I ask you a question on that one? Right. So so the 40 ft is an average over the average of the the land. Right. We all know that. Right.

Right. And the three stories is to protect what? So the three stories is that if you had an extreme piece of land, you could have a sixstory. You mean building that's maybe it's 80 feet high on that side but on the other side it's only you know what I mean you could you could extreme. So there's it's the mixture of those two things that protects I I think that the 40 the the way you measure height is relatively consistent in all the zoning codes I've had to deal with. So

So that's just you have to deal with it. What's that? and in all our zoning districts and they all have they all have the the stories in it as well. Right. So I think what we're trying to do with the street three stories facing residences is that if you have a monster house it's like two and a half, you know. So if you have something that's commercial and it's three, it's not really out of scale. But if somebody wanted to jam a fourstory into 40 feet. All right. And instead of having, you know, a nice, you know, uh, roof, it was a big flat, you know, looked like a public building.

Yeah. Uh, you could jam in four stories in 40t, you know, if But that language prevents you from building more than three stories, right? This one, right? Correct. What we have now. Yeah. And the story is what? But not with being not with the chain. What's being proposed, right? Yeah. What's being proposed? What's would stop you from building a four-story building? Yeah. No. Nope. Could be four stories as long as it's not facing a residential problem. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, it's still a four-story building, right? Well, it's just not facing your house,

right? If it's completely surrounded by commercial property, you could have an eight-story office building. Why would you care if you had a fourstory building? Yeah, but it's not. I mean, the commercial building, that's not how the zoning is set up. Well, wait. The the section we're talking about is is for uh for the residential when when you a PRD in a residential district. In a commercial district, the requirements are a little different, but it's it's still 40t or 30 and it's still 40 feet and three stories. Right. Right.

So, all I'm suggesting is that this added phrase imposes another restriction on the applicant. It imposes a restriction that meets their plan. That's up to them. I mean, you know, well, the four stories they need on one side, right, to make the numbers, but that's not the side that's facing the residents. Well, fourtory building still falls. That wasn't allowed before. Uh, so I I I'm into the situation where I I think that thing looked great, right?

But I'm not I'm not of the mind to say we change our regulations to fit one building that's an exception, right? because it looks so great, right? I think the regulations were thought out with I I think there's thought behind them. And that's what I'm trying to understand is okay, why why the three? And it's to so that you don't end up with fourstory buildings, right? That's why it's in the regulation. There's no other reason. Why would you say three stories unless all you want in orange is threetory buildings? And we're starting to say, "Well, four story wouldn't be bad as long as I don't have to look at it and it's facing some other building." That's what we're saying in this statement right here.

It could only be four stories if it's not more than 40 ft. Yeah, but it's still four stories. How how big is a story? And the 40T is misleading, too, right? will only be yeah the 40 ft is misleading because that facade could be higher than 40 ft if the average of the terrain brings it down to that. Okay. Paul to answer your question story is the portion of a building between the surface of any floor and the surface of the floor ceiling or roof next above. So it depends on the the structure the design. Okay. So, that was that's my and like I said, I don't have any problem and I think it's great that they would add the affordable housing. I think that's fantastic.

But I think changing it, there's still two other properties that now have the same situation, right? And I I think it was said, "Oh, it doesn't affect those, but what if there's more properties later?" You know, as long as they're not but they're not going to be affecting, at least for the immediate 65 ft, it's not going to affect those properties, right? because it's going to be it can't exceed 40 ft. So then what's the reality of 65 ft, right? Does it really matter if it's 70 ft, 80 ft? I'm looking at a four-story building that Well, no, you're looking at a a building that can't exceed 40T. That's a four That could be four stories.

Well, not not if you look at that building on a hill, right? It's 40t from the middle of the hill. So the side that you're looking at could be much taller to look at. So no no I thought average of so it from an average but just from a practical standpoint since each floor is at the same level right?

Okay. So if on one level I'm looking at three stories, then through the width of a building, how much more could it drop down? And where does that type of topography exist in orange on this lot? Because they're going to be just on that lot. I mean, just I don't know that. Well, I think about the whole commercial district. It's relatively flat except where it backs up on the north side. you know, if they could build into a hill there, you know, you could run into a similar situation. But that's a commercial district. And if you go down to the next paragraph that covers the commercial ones, because this only affects the residential ones,

like which is like three parcels south of like a um a one-story ranch house with a garage underneath. Yeah. You know, you see that configuration all the time, right? But then one neighbor sees two stories and it's taller than a one-story building. He's seen a two-story building. Whereas the other guy sees a one-story building. So somebody in this instance, if my property ends up being 70t away, I'm going to look at a four. The issue is with how height is defined. No, because it says or three stories. No, it doesn't say ore anymore. That's

the orus scratched out says and any individual building facade within 65 ft. So the four stories goes away. Right. Right. But only if it's within 65 ft of another residential property. So if I'm 70t away, I'm now four stories again. Well, the building didn't grow. No. So when you're looking at it, whether you're 70 feet or 65 ft, unless the topography for them went even further down, they're going to be looking at the same height of that of that building, right?

I I I think to to get past uh your concern if instead of having a defined number, it said adjoining residential property, it goes away. Does it? I don't Well, why? But yes, because if if I'm a residential property adjoining this this or any other project, my expectation is I will see whether I'm 65 ft away from it. As long as I'm of the adjoining property, I'm going to see a threestory building. Correct. No more.

Right. If I'm Rayar and Flanigan, I in this particular instance, I may look at four stories. I don't care about the rear end of Rayar and Flanigan. But if this is another parcel and I'm the adjoining property, but I happen to be 70t away. All right. But I'm adjoining. So you thought it was more restrictive. They're posing the issue that it may be allowing a parcel. not that we don't know about, right? Whereas a joining is is more comprehensive. It is what it is. You're sharing a common boundary line, right?

Yeah, I'm all right with that. If you take away I mean, I'm not How many other properties are there in the Aren't there three? Um, no. I think the only one they identified was Foyer Farm. Yeah, I think it was just this one and the foyer farm property that currently there was one are eligible are eligible. Yeah, there was one more. I don't think so to say joining or no less than 765. Listen, I think adjoining takes care of it. It it takes care of Jay's problem. I don't see the the big uh um the issue of being monumental.

No, I don't think it messes their plan up either. If you just say that. I don't know why it says 65. You okay with that?

What do you want to say? Put the joining instead of 65 ft.

Yeah. Any individual building facade adjoining a residential property shall not exceed three stories. All right, let's do that for now. Anyway, we'll Yeah, we'll talk about that further if we need to. All right, let's proceed. Well, so then it's deciding 30 or 40%.

Right. So, show of hands for 40%. Well, what is the FB? Sorry. Yeah. No, no, I I know. So, I thought you you you continuing your review aging through it. Oh,

I am. We went from 383101A to 30 383 101 C. I lost you, Kevin. I'm sorry. No problem. Page three. Page three, section 383-101, subsection C, the maximum building floor area ratio.

Oh. Oh, all right. I'm sorry. Geez, that's okay. Uh yeah, we want to say uh I guess I if if we're going to change the affordable units that that percentage then I guess I was inclined to leave that okay the way it is now at 40. That's me. That's two. Where are you boss? I'm all right. I'm all right. Okay. It's 40%. How many How many does that affect? How many lots does that affect?

Again, in the current configuration of parcels south of the post road, I think the only other qualifying parcel is Foyer Farm, which I'm sure Yeah, I'm okay with that. On the horizon of of being developed, right? Okay. That isn't to say something could get you could buy five parcels and put them together. Understood. Um, okay. Uh, I just wanted since Owen was here, if we could go to page four, 383102. Uh, Owen, the getting rid of that minimum floor is okay.

Everything else looks like it may be still legal. I mean, the the housing bill uh prohibits municipalities from having zoning regulations that impose a minimum uh floor area that is um um different than the state building code. So, this this was a provision that was going to have to get amended. I mean, it can be stricken now and if we need to put in a provision that says the the floor area is going to be consistent with the state building code, we can revisit it. But, but this is fine. Okay, then the next uh take care of that typo.

Page five, right? That was mine. I plead guilty to that. And uh within uh your uh rented uh tabulated uh tabulation here, uh these are consistent with the new law, the parking requirements. Right. Right. Um I mean the the restricted age um 62 or older units and the um assisted elderly units. I think that will have to be revisited but I had not commented on it because it didn't pertain to the to the application. So I would leave that now. What is elderly? I'm afraid to ask this question. You

what is Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. Is that different than the restricted age of 62? Yeah, it's like the um um what's the line off of Fieldstone? No. No, that's I'm sorry. Uh Smith Farms, no Disney World charter. No, not across from where Big Y is coming. Uh what's this? Where is Oh, no. It used to be the Veraro. It's the memory assisted, you know, the memory care charter living. Charter living used to be Pharaoh. When when they came in for us, it was the Pharaoh.

The restricted units could be, you know, like uh Field View Farms versus the the assisted living would have some sort of other care component. But um anyway, I I don't know that those two provisions comply with the housing act, but again, I didn't suggest any changes because I didn't want to over complicate the record on what the applicant was proposing. So, okay. Uh and then uh on page 15 383 115 A2 that would also go to 15%.

15. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Make that Yes. You want to go back? Sorry. The 350 ft. What? I'm sorry. What number was that? Uh 115 A2 A2. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Make it consistent.

Yeah. Page five. H the 350 ft versus 160 ft. You're all okay with that? Page five. Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, I kind of am. You are based on what I saw. Yeah. with the configuration of of this lot. Yeah, that's interest. Yeah, with the configuration of the lot, it is very tough for anybody to utilize any area other than, you know, the main body here along this property line with uh Raymore and Flanigan. All this other area, you're basically dwindled down to nothing because of setbacks. So

yeah, that's the idea behind one larger long building as opposed to a smaller, you know, smaller buildings sort of sporadically put out there. Do you change the regulation or change or do it with a variance? There's no hardship because you talk about the foyer one if it did get developed, right? That's going to be a 350 foot long building that you're going to see. Well, again, it's still by special permit. So, you could still say no to whatever long building you want and and say no. You know, you have a lot of latitude with the special permits. We But we have doesn't this language I mean, we can live with this language, right?

I think Jay is saying he's uncomfortable with the 350 ft doubles the size or more than doubles. So, show of hands. I'm I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it as well. Yeah. With the with with the change. Yeah. I'm not. So,

all right. So, now we just have to find something for Paul and unhappy about because you and I are unhappy about one thing. I I'm trying to think of ways to get me around that. Yeah. I mean, uh,

you make a good point that, you know, any, uh, any application where this comes into play, I mean, it's going to come into play probably. Um the uh it's a special permit application. So we have a lot of discretion. So if if you know if it's if it's 350 ft long and you know that's what's proposed. Uh you know what type of architectural well

changes could we request? So you could look at it the way we look at um uh outuildings, garages, right? Where you say the the regulation says it it can be 160 ft long unless you know the the but the commission has the discretion discretion to extend it to 350 ft. No, here's the opposite. Here's what I was going to say. Oh, sorry. Yeah. building walls that exceed 160 feet in length. You're adverse to the 350 or or

Yeah. And I think it's more than just aesthetics. I think we're ignoring some other stuff, too. Like what? Light, wind, all kinds of stuff that gets blocked by a threetory, 350 foot building. Well, what I was going to suggest,

it's next to a residential area. I understand when you're saying it's in a commercial zone, all that other stuff. You got it. But these people bought land that they did not expect a threetory 50 foot building be built next to. It's And if they went to the regulations, they'd say, "Okay, 160 ft. That's a big that's the length of my property is 350 ft. That's that's lot." Although someone could come in with a residential house like that guy on Ridge with the, you know, with thing and they attached it to the house and then you just have to meet the bulk area requirements,

right? You know, so you could wind up with I know you mentioned light and what else? Air flow or and the aesthetics of it, but it's just a big Well, we're also talking five acres, right? Four acres. What? What is this? Uh yeah, four and change. Almost five.

Almost five. Yeah. Supposing we said something like building walls that exceed 160 ft in length shall include facade articulation features and such other uh architectural and functionality features that the commission. How that that eliminates a a cap on the feet though the way you've articulated

I just didn't Yeah. I'm not writing it down. I'm just But yes, no phrase so that that uh 60 ft stays in. So what about charge? Sorry to sorry to circle back but the way we deal with roughly 200 garages is they can be x square feet and less you know and then there's some language and we've approved some very sightsp specific larger longer you know buildings

there. That's the exact opposite of what we're doing here though. Oh, you're saying that if we if we kept it at 160 and still had the discretion to go past that because it's special permit. Yeah, I it could be a matter of, you know, resolution. See, I'd be all right with that because what I I don't want to change the regulation for one person, right? one. So you keep the baseline of 160, but give yourself discretion and sight specific. If somebody else if the if the public or the zoning says, "Yeah, hey, that looks great." No, but you can do it, but they're not going to come in with an application.

No, this I don't I don't think they would go through the whole process. Well, they would feel they would go to my friend Jack here and say, "What do you think if we came in with a 350 rather than a whatever it is?" Only. So, there's only so much I could tell an applicant before. Can your issue be resolved by uh landscaping? No, I don't think so. Put a 350 foot bush up. No, I mean, you know, a line of of uh of trees or bushes or whatever that makes that is this this building is pretty much subsumed on the back on the other side by uh Raymore and Flanigan. Correct. Yeah.

And and it's three stories on one side and four on the other, right? Well, a portion that's visible is what is the not the whole elevation. Correct. the room thing sort of dishes down. I think I think when you have a a building with a with a side that long, your issue is mostly with the architecture, isn't it? I mean, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, but Jay's objection is to the changing of the regulation. He's not saying that this one isn't I'm not saying it's not aesthetically pleasing. Yeah,

I thought it looked great. But I think there's more to it than that. 320 is a big threetory building.

350 350 is a bigger threetory, right? 30, right? Think so. That's my issue. Uh, Jack, can you could you just for for my edification, could you pull up the the that special permit thing on structures of how we give ourselves the ability to put in these monstrous outbuildings? We're going to make some more. Um, oh, like for our residential zone? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, sure. All right. All right. So, buildings and structures for uses accessory to a dwelling or other permitted use but having no common wall width or otherwise detached from the dwelling shall not exceed a height of 15 feet nor an aggregate ground coverage of 300 square feet. Provided, however, that a larger ground coverage in height in excess of 15 ft is permitted subject to the approval of a special use in accordance with the special use provisions.

And the ground cover the ground coverage limitation, right, goes up for garages. Okay. So, if it said that the if the standard state building wall the longest side of a building shall not exceed 160 ft. Mhm. Unless provided however that provided however that. Yeah. No, I'm I'm fine with that. You know, uh that if you know the commission feels that it meets the special permit criteria, it can be increased to 350 ft and we'll kick this can right down the road until they come up with a site plan. Right. I I just I think that works, but I think that has a chilling effect.

Chilling effect. And how many people with garages have felt how chilling effect? How about but we but we've done what we can do to buffer it. And I I understand. So, we're going to do what if we did what if we did what if we said here 350 is okay and say unless for good cause the uh you know the commission

I there there I think substantively we'll get to the same place but I think it'll be the way if we keep the standard and then allow us to have the discretion is going to be a a different fight than if we had the bigger number and tried to reduce it. I'm I'm not exactly sure why, but that's I think human nature that if we put a a number out there, that's going to be the standard. And why 350? You know, why not 400? Well, because this one is sight specific. This applicant is thinking about this. Yeah, but we're going then why do you change a regulation for a sight specific need though? Because of the shape of the land.

Yeah, for a lot of reasons. But but There's some interest in our part in having the project built in orange.

Justice either. You know, I think we said what? Nobody had utilized the PRD rags in 26 years. Yeah. Yeah. There's probably probably a reason for that.

Probably, you know, I'm good either way. I mean, I don't know. I'm trying to trying to solve the problem here, but I I I think the language that was added uh protects protects us on the the the issue. We're worried about the you know the 350 foot long

the aesthetics of it. And if three out of pe four people think that, which is what it is, then that's the way it is. Well, I mean, theoretically, he could vote against the application if he's not happy, you know. Yeah, he could. And then it'd be three to four. All right. Three to one. I All right. We can't chat about it all night. Let me I'm okay with with all all due respect, I'm okay with with it as written. Okay. Yeah, I'm fine, too. All right. What other What else do we have?

I think we've gone page by page, right? So again, uh on the substantive issues, the most substantive issues, we're going to go to 15% on affordable. Mhm. the F. We're going to leave it at 30. Uh, no, keep 40. 40. Keep it at the proposed. Leave it 40. At 40, right? Um, and we're okay with the 75 units as long as they're all efficiency or one bedroom. But we also wanted the the joining rather than the specific 65. Yep. I have that note as well. The what?

Uh, change on page three. Yeah. Change within 65 ft to adjoining within 65 ft. mean adjoining? I mean, I'm I'm fine with the adjoining word. I don't want to go and kick the kick the horse again, but if it's within 65 ft, it's Is there just Not necessarily. So, yeah. Really? And we're all we're all comfortable that what we're doing tonight is uh consistent with the plan of conservation and development. I don't think that's that's not a question for me. I think that's clear from the application. It's in the site that has been um uh really is the expectation of the town was to get something like this in here

and there's no question that we need it in my mind. I mean if you read 383-97 which gives the is a statement of the purpose of a PRD zone. I think you know it makes perfect sense what we're doing. Okay. Then in that case, uh, just out of curiosity, does it make sense to have all of this compiled on a clean sheet of paper and vote on that at the next thing? And also, I'm just asking I I'm asking the chair.

My preference would be to vote now. Okay. and then uh and then um have uh you know when it's when it's been revised you could circulate it amongst the commissioners but you know give it to Owen. Yeah, I think Owen and I can and I don't I don't know about the applicant. Obviously Owen and I can make the changes. We'll maybe send it to you, Azie, to confirm that what you guys approved is what's in here. Then once we have the, you know, okayed copy, we can send it to the applicant, file it with the town clerk, and go from there. I mean, you there's no, you don't see any problem with us approving it

tonight. I mean, it's the last draft plus what we changed. Mhm. No, again, you you're acting in a legislative capacity. You can you can adopt it tonight. You know,

just for sake of thoroughess, I think we should just go through the changes again or let let me go through the changes that I noted. So, it's on page one 10 to 15 for the minimum housing dwellings that have to be deed restricted. On page two, we are deleting paragraph B to section 383-100. On page three to section 383-101, sorry, I think was on C of 100. We're getting Oh, yes. Sorry. Yes, striking. Thank you. We're going to re number. Okay. Uh yes, we'll have to re number 383 100,

right? and we'll strike the um second or the last sentence to see right

for 383 101 A1 A we're going to get rid of within 65 ft of and replace that with a joining we will correct my typo to 383-103A the lesser of I think it was just one more change at the end.

Right. 383-15 A uh 2 10% to 15%. Right. All right. Yes. And by the way, you did a you and attorney Sharp did a great job on these uh red lines. Very easy to understand what we call it. It was all her office. I can't take credit for that. As long as you're not calling, right?

All right. So, let's vote. Who's prep? I I am. Okay, I'm going to uh move that we approve the petition to amend the orange zoning regulations submitted by Strawberry Hill Realy LLC to amend article 12 of the Orange zoning regulations regarding the plan uh residential development um as set forth in the uh submission that we received tonight subject to the changes that our Owen just articulated. Um that's it with an effective date of April 14th. Yes, I'll include that in my motion. All right. So, we have a motion to approve the application. Do we have a second?

Second. Okay. We have a second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Okay. Um, well, good luck with the next phase. The the 65 wasn't a trick. It was just I struggled with the joining as the specificity. So, I'm still struggling. Yeah. Yeah. I I Your preference is fine. No, nothing in your presentation made me believe you were it was any subtrifuge, but you're not the next applicant. All right. Very good. Uh

the final uh item on our agenda. Is the applicant here on this? Uh yes, right here. Yeah. Okay. All right. You know what? Do you guys want to take I'm just going to go upstairs for Yeah. Let's take a five minute break. Five minute recess. Sorry. Sorry to keep you any longer version. Yeah.

All right, thank you. All right, we're back. Um, final item on our agenda is an application for temporary special use earth materials removal and filling submitted by uh Adlas Zusi and this is for property known as 52 Sky View Road. Let's start Kevin by reading the uh notice please. Notice is hereby given that on Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 at 7 p.m. at the Orange Town Hall, 617 Orange Center Road. The Orange Town Plan and Zoning Commission will conduct a public hearing on the following application for temporary special use, earth materials removal and filling submitted by Aldis Zuzi for a property known as 52 Sky View Road to bring in 70 750 cubic yards material. All earthwork is conjunction with the proposed construction of a single family home. Copy of this notice have been filed by the Orangetown Clerk. Additional information is on file in the Orange zoning department dated Orange, Connecticut this 23rd day of March, 2026.

All right. Very good. Thank you. Uh is the applicant present? Would you please come to the podium and introduce yourself? Hi guys, I'm Mad Zusi and I'm hoping to add another 350 cubic yards on the property in order 7 750 extra 350, right? Oh, on top of on top of the 400. Okay,

sorry. uh has about 20 trucks or so commercial trucks and the issue is the water right the drainage so it's still going to be on my property and you know I'm hoping for an approval yours I mean sounds a lot easier than the last application so 54. It's 52. This was 52. When I vote the lot, it was listed at 54.

We actually split it I think in 2022 fairly recently. They were in front of the board. So, this is 52 Sky View. Correct. Okay. So the f if if the first piece we're looking at is the uh the site plan sir. Um you are the owner not the engineer. Correct sir? I am the owner. Yes.

Okay. Uh so first on this plan it says proposed four bedroomedroom plus what bedroom multif family? Uh that was the original idea behind it but then we were talking with Jack and he said anything after 2008 it cannot be applied with an inlow apartment. So I withdrew that application. So it's you know it's just going to be a single five bedroomedroom unit.

Okay. So your testimony is that the uh the site plan in this application uh incorrectly shows this it as a multif family dwelling that it should be corrected to say proposed four bedroomedroom five bedroom fivebedroom home. Yes single family home

single family will this plan won't will be revised. Uh it it will be um we'll make that revision. There's one other uh item, you know, that I'm sure we'll get to. Um but yes, that that was the original plan was for an in-law. Uh our elderly conversion rags say you have to be on the assessor's map as of 2008. This lot was just created in 2022, so would not qualify. Okay. But that that's what our rag currently says. Correct. Why is that? Are says what? Ag says that for an elderly conversion,

your lot has to have been on the assessor's map as of October 1st, 2008. I see you weren't eligible for the program, right? This lot didn't exist until 2022. And you have to predate 2008. Why? Your guess that might be something we need to address. So, in other words, you can't do a new house with an in-law. Correct. I was confused when I learned that myself through this application. Yes. That doesn't make that doesn't make sense.

It was even before the the previous date was October 1st, 1997 and then it was amended in 2009. It looks like to be 2008, but it says no single family dwelling shall qualify under these regulations unless it is located on a lot having a minimum area of 30,000 square feet and unless such unit shall have been on the assessor's list as of October 1, 2008. Why we have that limitation? Couldn't tell you because it seems to me if somebody wanted to build a four bedroomedroom house with a in-law apartment, they should be able

afford but no for but for not an not a accessory dwelling unit one for the age of one that met the rest of the criteria in Right. I I agree with you. I don't know why we have that qualification. When he came in initi when uh what's your first name? Adlas. Adlas. When Atlas came in initially, was that what was intended? Oh, it was there. Yeah. And then I'm reviewing the applications and we went down to get the assessor to sign and certify why we can't do that. Yeah. What? But I'm asking the and all other not all other but the and the aspects of the age related he was is that what it was for? Um

yeah the only thing bas again we once he didn't meet this qualification you know it was kind of null and void right but you know without doing a deep review I don't see any other provisions that he would not have complied with he just was not on the assessor's map as of October 1 2008. Uh so just as a not that anyone did anything wrong type of thing, but if you've run into a situation where there's an inongruity like that, uh you know, and someone's willing to wait, maybe bring it to our attention.

I agree. I mean, I run into things all the time that I think are sort of, you know, ridiculous rules, but why not bring it up under new business? I do have some, you know, that I've written down, but yeah, but he's ready to to apply. You know, it would be several months for him to wait in the future. Yeah. No, in the future, I think that's something we we should definitely What was the per if I if I can, what was the purpose of the um the in-law? What was uh my mom and dad, you know, are over 65 hoping? Yeah. Trying to keep Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. I don't um Okay. Yeah, you know, Jack, you know, obviously this is not, you know, a uh

no, I I totally understand a negative comment, but the the you will sometimes be aware of things before us and most times because Yeah. Like every time. Yeah. I thought maybe I was missing something like maybe I didn't understand why this rule I may have been on the board. I don't I don't remember anything like that at all. Yeah. Because I think that's something we encourage. I 100% and and we've continued to show that when we have those it's a special permit application for Yeah, that's what I'm trying to think of. How I think we're all totally on the same page. So, how do we handle this kind of a thing? I think well he doesn't he's not he doesn't want Yeah, right now he's just building a fivebedroom house.

So, the only difference between his current application and if he came in with an elderly apartment is an oven cuz another kitchen. He's he's allowed to have the extra bedroom. He can even have a sink, a microwave, an extra fridge, but you can't have the second cooking facility. So, if we decide we want to change this regulation, he can come right back and all he would have to do to his house is install an oven. So, if that's the way we want to move, 100%. Let's let's let's bring that up. We should maybe look at that. Yeah. I mean, it's a it's uh it's uh a regulation that we've been called on to look at numerous times.

Yeah. And it's something that we encourage. Yeah. Mhm. Sorry. Let's go back to what we give us old people someplace to go. But but we definitely should get that notation fixed. Yeah. On the final. So, if I if I'm reading this if I'm reading the plan correctly, and I know you're not the engineer, sir, but you have much more firsthand knowledge than I. So, what what it looks like is you're on the side of a hill. Mhm.

And it goes down into a swale before it goes out of that field and into the adjoining properties. And there's a catch basin. It looks like everything uphill from you on Sky View flows down along that old stone wall and field and then collects in a uh detention basin near 34. Yes. At the bottom of the hill. Mhm.

So that's what keeps all of your the water from you from running into your neighbor, you know, across the stone wall. And did do you know does anybody maintain or Jack do you know does anyone maintain that uh it's the responsibility of the property owner. So whoever you know owned the property before him it's their responsibility to maintain

this structure and that everything's functioning the way it should. So there's a there's a there's a it it's kind of important for your neighbors and I don't know why it's your problem, but that you know that that area that all the water's going to flow out actually gets to that big catch basin.

Correct. Um because when I was looking at your plan, I was like, you know, the engineers spending all of this time designing a a to catch the storm water from your roof drains. Like, and I know that's the law, but who the heck cares about that? But you've got this driveway that's like a, you know, going to be like the Splash Mountain down at Disney World coming down the side at a very steep grade just flowing down your hill there. Mhm. With no nothing, no curbs, but it hits the swailes,

right? But if that's not maintained by, you know, just mowing or back, it's uh is there a maintenance plan that's part of the uh application? Well, uh you know, for actually for wetlands, there is uh our standard conditions for detent ponds. I have a little, you know, informationational sheet that I give to all property owners that I know have one of these on their property. just gives them an idea of what it takes to, you know, maintain that kind of structure. And, you know, if it's on your property, it's your responsibility, even if it collects it for the whole neighborhood. And and it does because all of Sky View drives drainage, everything goes down there, goes down into that uh detention basin.

So, it's obviously in the best interest of, you know, the property owner to keep it functioning the way it should because their their property is going to be the one that pays the price, right? Well, or uh 613 derby. you know, whoever's downhill from that, right? Uh, sorry, you're not the engineer. I So, there's no nothing really to ask you, but it's it's just that you the engineer is going through all of this effort to take care of stuff that doesn't matter and everything else is just flowing off the site into the storm. The storm the storm water management has already been approved, right? Storm water management. Well, that's that's part of the town engineer

reviews the the runoff calculations. Correct. So he you know the D10 pond is rated to handle you know this volume and he's the one who confirms that the pre preconstruction runoff from the site versus the post construction runoff is net zero. both him him and I would probably, you know, work run those calculations because he runs the I mean, I'm the one, you know, I'd be going there inspecting, making sure I don't see any runoff clearly, you know, channeling onto another property. Um, you know, or depositing material on another property because water isn't getting to where it needs to go. Um, but final design, you know, should match this where everything gets

where it needs to. I never quite understood what what we're eval we're being asked to evaluate here is is the control plan. The control the plan for control of accelerated erosion and sedimentation. Right. What we're what we're technically approving is the import of 750 yards total of fill. Otherwise, we wouldn't see this at all because it meets the bulk area requirements. And the and the thing is it it doesn't even come to us for that reason unless it's more than 600 yards. Right. 400 cubic feet. Anything exceeding 400's got to come in front of us. Either coming into the site or going out,

cut or fill. Correct. Right. And they would have had to go to wetlands anyway because they're in the upland review area. Yeah. And and I did review this administratively, you know, there was nothing. within the boundary to prevent me from doing that. So all we look at really is do they have uh adequate silt fences and right and all part of that was the you know the wetland submitt as well and you know that's in their conditions of approval for all wetlands you know that's like the number one is you got to call me

um before in or after installation I come make sure everything is operating properly um and then obviously I do regular you know inspections to make sure that everything is maintained and functioning the way it should. Okay. Well, where are the silk fences? I'm sorry, sir. You're we will probably have some questions for you, but because you're not the engineer, we're kind of I'll try my best. No, no, but we're So, and and you know, and it's much better to deal with when it's a piece of paper than people out in the field. So, uh this the silk fence is kind of shown in here in a bit of a hodgepodge,

right? you know, because all of the area up to his lot line uh at the adjoining property toward the bottom of the page is going to be disturbed and flowing silt. So really that fence should wrap further down page. Do you know what I'm trying to If you look here, it's coming along here. That's fine. Yep. you know, uh, you know, it should be closer to the toe of the disturbance because you want you want you want to prevent the

you want the BM to continue acting properly, but it's got to come this way or it's going to bypass the silk fence and mess up this catch basin. Is there a separate plan showing the uh All it does is it shows a detail for the silk fence, but it's the squares and the line. Yeah, I see that. Yeah, but but what he should be doing is separate plan. No, but what he should be doing is, you know, see if they have to stake some hay bales on this catch basin, too.

I have Yeah, I have a lot of latitude like with with the SNE controls. I I have no problem telling him to move it if that's where the burm makes sense and protect the catch basin. Yeah, absolutely. When you see him bringing in Phil, you're going to see stuff washing over here into this corner. And you got to protect this catch basin because if he's got to maintain this once it gets into that piping, we'll have him put its expensive. Yeah. So add add salt sack. Yeah. And that that those hay bells. Mhm. It'll it'll keep you from doing something expensive later.

Sounds good. Um, absolutely. Sorry. Uh, and the, uh, the sanitarian went over the reserve and the other thing.

That's correct. And um o over time, sir, you want to make sure that you're careful about what you I mean, that's kind of going to be your front yard, but you're going to want to be careful what you plant over by all of that uh in that area. Uh you might want to leave it as grass, but that's not our job. This is the the uh town engineer has signed off on this.

He will. Yeah. And and you know this is for he has not done the zoning application yet for the actual building of the house itself. So the town engineer is going to have to review and sign off on that application as well. Okay. But he has absolutely seen these plans. He did for for wetlands too. All right.

Now I did want to bring up one thing. I know we spoke about it before um but there is a provision in our standards and conditions for this application where if a property is at lower elevation than an abuing property and is proposing cut or fill within 50 ft of that line, they do need written approval from the adjoining owner. So that is not something that we have currently right now that the applicant is going to have to reach out to the owner and do that. Mhm.

Um, and this is a situation where grading does get a little tricky. So, I want to be sure that, you know, the commission is not held, you know, if something goes wrong, obviously. So, we we do want to make sure that that we see that who's the um the Lucarelli is the last name. Yeah. Jennifer Lucarelli. And if I'm correct, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but the driveway runs pretty much right along or is proposed to run right along that property line. So if this cut this bill is going to be going and as the application says where the driveway is that's definitely within 50 ft of that line. Y so we don't you know

we want to make sure that we we cross our tees and dot our eyes here. Understand you're going to have to get Oh yeah. Where is her house located? The house where is it located? It's close to that property. Is that close to the driveway? It's close to the driveway. It's I'm going to give you a really really rough estimate here from the closest point. Mhm. It's about 35 ft. So that would be her sideyard setback. Correct.

So she meets obviously her 25 foot sideyard setback, but she is higher in elevation than our applicant's property here today. So this provision kind of kicks in there because his filling is within 50 ft of that line. That's another puzzler. His filling for the driveway. Correct. Yeah. I know he in the application it says, you know, the filling is for for the septic system grading around the back of the new dwelling, but mainly the driveway. So any any idea why as long as you're not undercutting the neighbors land that this exact

to be honest I don't think I've done many of these since you know we don't look at these every day. So I was familiarizing myself with this, you know, obviously found that and wanted to make sure that we don't get while you're talking to the town engineer, ask him if there's a engineering reason for that because I can't think of Yeah, we know we'll do.

So this is the second documents provision that has been discussed about what's the purpose. Yeah. So, it's slightly off topic, but I I would encourage this commission to think about whether they want to engage a town planner as we as we get into the uh extensive amendments that the housing bill requires. So, yeah. Yeah, we we've talked about it. Yeah. So, um, what do we got? We can't really give an approval.

Yeah, that my suggestion would be to keep this public hearing open. Um, let the give the applicant an opportunity to reach out to the neighbor. Um, see if he can get written approval or I mean, she may want to engage somebody to look at it on her behalf. We could could be run into some time. Yeah. Um if obviously if we need an extension, I would request that of the applicant. Um if the neighbor says, you know, no, absolutely not. I I don't consent to this. You know, then this provision would not be met and I don't

What does the provision say? Provision says no excavation, filling, grading or removal which is below the elevation of any abuing street or property line shall occur within 50 ft of such line except that excavation, filling, grading or removal uh of next to the abuing property line may be permitted if written approval from the adjoining owner is received by the commission. What section is that? Sounds like it's contingent. That is 383-197E.

So Jack, while the chair looks up the provision, why don't you explain to the applicant about requesting an extension of time? Sure. Um, so if uh the board decides uh you know, we're butdding up against our 35day time frame, we request that you grant us an extension of 30 60 days in order for us to come to a decision. If you don't grant the extension, then the board is forced to take action with what is in front of them now. Okay. So, it may result in a denial because we do not have the time to adequately, you know, find this information. All right. So, we got to keep it open. Right. Right. Right. Now, we don't need that if if we were to meet if she if if she says sure and no problem with that.

Right. The the problem would be if you know if the neighbor says no, our applicant's engineer has to go back to the drawing board and figure out a way that he can make this work and is not within 50 ft of this property line to bring her opinion into consideration. Right. So, this should go on our agenda for next time. Correct. And if in case we need a an extension Yeah. And if the applicant is unable to get a hold of her or get an answer um from the property owner, I would have to request an extension if I was not granted an extension. We would have to come here with the information we have and make a decision. So if we approved it tonight Mhm.

the landowner would have no recourse. She would have no ability to say no at that point. Well, if we if we approved it tonight, we would approve it subject to that. We can't. But I don't want to do that. approve it if we know that it's a contingent matter. It is right now it is not meeting clearly not meeting one of our standards for the approval of this special permit. Right. So I wouldn't undertake to approve it. No, I mean conditionally. No, I don't even do that. No, because she might look at it and say I I'm not doing that without getting an engineer involved or lawyer. I don't know. Yeah, I'd be interested. See as the wife town

would be interesting town engineer to opine as to why this exists from a practical standpoint. Why that section exists? Yeah. I mean, if you were excavating and undercutting somebody, okay, I could get that, you know, but if you're lower than them and you're filling, right, or contouring, why is it anybody's business?

Why? Because you're not going to you're not you're not able to affect her sight drainage. I think the idea is if you are going to make your property suddenly higher than hers and now all the water that was on your lower property is now being pushed off onto onto hers that though but the engineers got to certify that that doesn't occur. Right. Right. Agree. So that's not spitballing here. Yeah. No one's buying enough dirt to be that much of a problem. Right. But, you know, again, I I I I just this is probably not a problem for her is what you're saying. It shouldn't be. I mean,

yeah. I mean, the water runs down is going to be running down to, you know, 52 anyways here. What are we looking for out adless adless to do? Just get a consent. He's got to get some sort of Yeah. Uh permitted if written approval from the adjoining owner is received by the commission. All right. I'm not bringing this up because I think it's a problem. I just don't want to leave the board open to anything if she decides it is an issue. I'm asking what Al just has to get to us. Yeah. Which I I think it's just a piece of paper that says I have no objection. It could be an email. So you can shoot me an email and say, you know, hey, for 52 Sky View, I have no objection to uh the proposal. All right. So you'll need their email, his email. Yeah. And you'll help him talking to her if Oh, absolutely. If she has any questions,

you may mention that section specifically. Yeah. Uh yeah. Uh I may, you know, it's a it's a modern house next door. Like it wasn't built that long ago. We probably have this woman's number or property owner's number uh on our records. So, you know, if the applicant wanted to, I'd be more than happy to obviously call her, educate her on the situation at hand. Maybe I can get it directly. I don't know if she would want to talk. If you want help like that, it's up to you. I mean, I'd be happy. I mean, if you know her yourself, you know, that's I don't know her. I never met her. So, yeah. Um, maybe coming from you guys would be for No, I'd be more than happy to to do something like that. Obviously, if she, you know, wants to say I'm gonna point her in your direction, you know, if she push there's only so much I I can do to convince her, but

Well, you can't really Well, yeah. I'm also not trying to con I'm trying to educate her about I'm not trying to sell anybody on anything. Right. Right. Sounds familiar. Okay. So, what else is is required on this? Anything? Not if we're going to keep it open. Okay. Let's do that. Good. That concludes our agenda. Move to join. Is it? Yeah. Why don't you just explain to the applicant where we're Yeah. Let me do See you in two weeks. All right. Hope so. Yeah. We're going to, you know, we're going to put this matter on the agenda for our next meeting, which is the first Tuesday in uh No, it's going to be the second Tuesday of this month. Second Tuesday of April.

April 21st. Two weeks from tonight. And so if you have this letter we're talking about from the adjoining owner, perfect. Then by then, then then we can act on the application. But if you don't, then it'll go over to the next meeting. And at some point, you know, we the law requires that we give you a a determination by within a certain number of days. And if we get close to that certain number of days and and we you know don't have that letter from her and there's no hope of getting that letter from her then we what we have to do is deny this application and go back to the you have to go back to the drawing board.

Right. If you're if you're working with her on a resolution at that time, then you can give us an extension so that we have more time to decide the application and then you know we can keep it alive and and uh hopefully you'll get what at some point in the future get what you need from her so that we can you know deal with the application. Sounds good. All right. So we'll hold this hearing open. We'll hold this open to make you sit through all that too. All right. All right. Learning experience. That concludes our agenda. Do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? It's been. Do we have a second?

Second. Second. All those in favor? I. Okay. Very good. Thank you.