Plan & Zoning - Regular Meeting

Okay, good, thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the July 7, 2026 meeting of the Orange Town Planning and Zoning Commission. I am Commissioner Razi Parenti, and with us this evening... Tom Tarenti.

Paul Kaplan.

Jenny Bowser, Recording Secretary.

Jay McGuire.

Steve Hotchkiss, Zoning Administrator. All right, we're almost all here tonight. Kevin's going to miss them. He's a little under the weather today, so he's going to miss the meeting tonight. So let's get right to our agenda. First item, review of the minutes of the June 16, 2026 meeting.

I don't have anything.

Nothing? I had a couple of things. Jenny, in that last paragraph.

Okay. On which page?

One, page one. The second line is 220 Indian River Road. Should that be 200 Indian or two?

What was the... Yeah.

Yes, it should be 200. I think I did say 220 in the meeting, but yes, it is for 200. All right.

Got it. Sorry.

Then on... It's just a word thing. I just think it's a little clearer. In the middle of the page on 2, page 2, it begins, Commissioner Kaplan made a positive referral to accept. I would say Commissioner Kaplan made a motion... in support of a positive referral.

Okie doke. So a motion in support of a positive referral. Yeah. You got it.

Actually, I have one very minor one, Jenny.

Is it an I? Nope. Okay.

First line of page three. Okay. Second to last word. I think should be war.

I'm sorry, where was that? Page 3.

First line of page 3.

Second to last word. Okay, and there were not. Okay. Got it. Thank you.

Sorry, I couldn't help it.

No worries. Thank you.

That's all I had. Anybody else? Paul? Jay? Nope. All right, then. Is someone prepared to move that we accept these minutes?

So moved.

We have a motion. We have a second.

Second. Second.

Seconded by Commissioner Tarenti. All those in favor?

Aye.

Okay. All right. Items two and three are old business and new business. Does anyone have anything that they'd like to bring up under those topics? No. I couldn't think of anything either. All right. Then let's move on to...

I was going to say I didn't have anything under old business. I was going to move on to you.

I'm turning my mic on to say that. Your report of the zoning enforcement officers next.

I don't have much to report this meeting. There's a couple of things that have been trickling in in the past few days and late last week. So as far as... I think we'll have a couple of possibly special permit applications, but it's a little too early to say it out. So I've been working through some zoning violation issues, but they're all residential in nature at this point. We're going to talk about signs one of these days soon. Yes, yes. I remember we discussed that a while ago, and... Now that I'm more or less caught up from the backlog, it's time to take on a project like that. Right. Okay.

Anything else? All right. Fifth item on the agenda, St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church. This is their annual request to hold their festival on September 4th through September 7th. Is anyone from the church here? Yes. You want to come to the podium and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about the event?

Not that we don't already know.

My name is Pete Magnatis, and I've been an Orange resident for over 20 years now.

Can I just have you spell your last name, please?

Yeah, M-A-N-I-A. T-I-S. Thank you. Yeah, just like it sounds. It's all Greek to me, right? And we're having our annual Greek Orthodox Festival, Odyssey Festival, this coming Labor Day weekend, which is going to be... From the dates of September 4th, which is a Friday, through Monday, September 7th. And we're going to have all the usual food, music, dance. We'll have parking on site and at Holy Infant like usual.

Nothing out of the ordinary? Nothing new this year?

I don't think anything. No shuttles this year. We've done away with the shuttles because we've figured out enough parking on site now. So, yeah. So, the usual stuff. Good Greek food and...

Music and fun. And you have, you know, take care of your insurance certificate. Yep. Yep. Follow up on that. Yes. And the police? Everything's all set with them.

Everything's all set with them.

Okay.

The usual. Yeah. The usual stuff.

Usually Bob takes care of everything, but he can't be here tonight. All right. All right. That sounds good. Any questions for the applicant? No. Can't give away a secret recipe, so don't ask. All right. Looking for a motion on this?

A move that we approve the request for the church to hold the St. Barbara's Greek Orthodox Church requesting for its annual Odyssey Festival on September 4th through September 7th. And the format and time is the same in previous years. The parking will be on site. and has been notified, and the insurance certificate will be on file with Steve, the town planning and zoning officer.

Very good. Do we have a second? Second. The motion's been seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. All right. Good luck this year. Thank you. Thank you.

All right.

Always one of my favorite events. All right, then we can move right on to our public hearings. We have two of them tonight.

You want me to read?

Yes, would you, Kevin? I remember how to do it. All right.

To appear one time on Thursday, June 25, 2026, and one time on Thursday, July 2, 2026, Orange TPZC Notice of Public Hearing. Notice is hereby given that on Tuesday, July 7, 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 a special... Oh, boy, you killed that. Special exception, permit or use submitted by Big Y Foods, Inc., for property known as 200 Indian River Road to convert the existing approximately 67,400 square feet of retail space into a full-service grocery store with outdoor display, services, and storage. Also, a petition to amend the Orange Zoning Regulations initiated by the Orange Planning and Zoning Commission to amend Articles, let's see, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 14, and 17. That I do. Wow. All right. And 25. Oh, and 25. And 25. Orange Zoning Regulations to comply with Public Act 25-1. Copy of this notice has been filed with the Orange Town Clerk. Additional information is on file with the Orange Zoning Department. dated Orange, Connecticut, this 25th day of June, 2026, by Kevin Cornell, his secretary, and his assistant.

All right, very good. Thank you, Paul. All right, the public hearings are now open. First item, then, is the submission by Big Y for a special exception permit or use. Is the applicant here?

For the record, my name is Guy Hesketh. I'm a licensed professional engineer with F.A. Hesketh & Associates. Our corporate office is located in East Granby, Connecticut, and our office prepared the plans and studies that you have as part of the application materials. Also with me this evening, Chris Elliott with Big Y in the blue shirt, and Scott Hesketh, who's our traffic engineer with F.A. Hesketh & Associates, to make a short presentation and answer any questions you might have. And quickly, I apologize for not having an electronic presentation for you, but I did bring the old school back up here, and I'd like to go through these plans with you quickly. This is part of the plan set that you received as part of the application materials. And essentially what Big Y is doing is they're doing some conversion of existing retail establishment In the plaza, the old Christmas tree plaza. This is the plaza itself. Indian River Road is located in this direction. South Lambert Road is located here. And then South Lambert Road also has some connection up in this area. And the former Christmas tree space is located here. I know the application indicated 67,000 square feet or so. That's the size of the entire area. which used to include Julius Bakery, the Fashion, the Yankee Camel, Cape Cod Crafters. There's some different tenants in there now. So this whole portion is around that 67,000 square feet.

Is that going to be for the entire... Big Y is going to occupy all this?

No, they're not going to. They're actually going to only occupy the space that was part of the Christmas tree. So just for clarification, it's about 53,100 or so square feet that we're locating in here. The rest of this will remain... the tenant spaces that are there, and then, of course, different tenants move in. But big Y is really only looking at the former Christmas tree space. And your regulations require a special use permit for the use itself, which is retail goods and services are allowed by special permit. And you have certain size restrictions. We fall underneath that threshold. So we're not adding too much additional square footage here. It's about 435 or so square feet. Also, your regulations do require that any outdoor storage or displays requires a special permit. And due to the nature of the grocery operation that they have, we are proposing some outdoor storage. And I'll get into that in a little more detail. So in a nutshell, those are really the two things we're looking for as part of the special permit. So on this plan here, I'm showing the existing facility. And you'll see we are proposing some work. in back with some reconstruction and then some work in the front here in the front parking areas reconstruction. And those are really related to operational concerns. We're going to put a new facade on the building. And because entrance locations change, we're going to reconfigure the sidewalk a little bit to allow for the operation and the egress and ingress that we're proposing. And then we're going to do a little bit of cleanup in the front. We're going to reshape the sidewalk slightly. And then some of the islands that are in front will have some modifications to those, and I'll explain those in a little bit more detail. So a little bit of work that we're doing there. The parking count, we have zoning compliance analysis table on there. What we've referred to as being over-parked here. Minimum requirements are greatly exceeded. And a portion of this parking area here, there's about 78 spaces on the original site plan, or at least the colony hardware, which has an operation here. So discounting those parking spaces and all the parking spaces here, we meet your minimum parking requirements. In fact, we're a little bit over a park. Discounting the extra? Discounting, yes. Okay. So we have plenty of parking spaces that are associated. We're going to do a little bit of reconfiguring. I'll explain that. So on the master plan, we do a zoning compliance analysis, our loading space analysis, and our parking analysis. Total required parking spaces for the total square footage for the uses on the site, including the restaurant and stuff, we need a total of 548 spaces. We're proposing 658, even with a net reduction in the spaces. That includes some cart corral, cart corrals that we're putting in the parking lot there that customers can... put their carts near their cars at the end of their operations, they'll be moved in. I'll show you an area where those are stored in front. So we do, we do lose some parking spaces, but the car corrals reconfiguring some of the accessible parking space here, we lose a couple. There's some green space that we're going to lose in front of the store now. Um, and a little bit in the back and I'll show you that we propose to compensate for those with the green additional green space area located here. So we're going to lose some parking there and compensate for the loss of green space so that we have net green space slightly greater than what's there today. And I'll get into that. But the master plan kind of shows where that is. We're only looking at this area here, a little bit of reconfiguration in behind, and then in the front here, and then this green space compensation area that we're proposing here.

I've forgotten your first name. I'm sorry. Guy? Guy, yes. I'm trying to remember. I've been to a few of the big Ys, including Derby and Brantford. Do they have any kind of balusters or protections in the front? Yes. Because people are going to point those out because I didn't see them.

Yeah, I'll show you those on the more detailed plan. The master plan just kind of shows you overall look on that. So that's the master plan, and then I've got a layout plan, which is a little bit more detailed. It shows specifically what we're proposing to change. And what I've focused on here is Indian River Road on the front page. And the areas that you see shaded in both the front and the back are areas that we propose to... Make changes. Do some changes to, essentially. We're going to saw cut that and mill out some of the pavement there. We're going to regrade those areas. And that includes a new facade that we're showing on here. So I've got... We're going to maintain the same 24-foot aisle. Currently, there's a 6-foot-wide... fire lane delineated on the edge of the sidewalk. We went with the fire marshal and he said, can we do three on one side and three on the other? Because we had problems with people parking on both sides. He said, certainly we can do that. So we ended up with a total 30 foot wide drive, three foot on either side. It would be delineated as a fire lane that does meet your fire standard under your ordinance. And then we're going to have some redelineation of some accessible parking. Currently there's some parking spaces that are down here. which are on about a 5% slope. ADA requirements a maximum of 2%. So we propose to not use these anymore. There's plenty of handicap parking, accessible parking on this lower portion for these tenant spaces and these other tenants here. We're going to move a couple of them over here where it's flat. And we think that's a safer condition and it does meet the modern ADA guidelines. We propose to delete crosswalks. and access to the accessible parking areas, safe access behind those areas with the crosswalks. Some new signage with state law pedestrian crossing signage. You'll see sign D over on the side. The handicap parking signs will be upgraded to the latest state standard. It's got the racing wheelchair on there, $250 fine, so we'll put all new parking signs for ADA spaces. The new racing logo... forward-leaning logo on there. That's a new state requirement. And we worked with the fire marshal to have a plan for setting new no-parking fire lane signs. We show those locations on the front. He'd like to see them posted on both sides.

Jamie saw this after Jamie already passed on this?

Yeah, so we've looked at that with him and worked with him on coming up with this configuration for those signs. So in the front, that's what we're looking at. Read... establishing these islands slight modifications we can save trees and the two locations here and then we get there's actually no trees here now we're not proposing to replace those but we're going to keep the rocks and the other thing that's there we do have a tree we're losing over in this area here we're going to replace it with another tree we're proposing a couple of trees in the new landscaped island that we've got in the back so the other trees will remain that are there in the back The reconfigured area, we have an issue with the existing retaining wall. We're going to maintain the same loading dock location. There's a retaining wall that's deteriorated, so we're going to reconstruct that. In doing so, we're going to reconfigure a little bit of concrete island here. If you drive back there, you'll see a really steep slope in the back. It's not really a safe condition. We're going to correct that with a little curved island and a new retaining wall. And then we've got a... We'll keep the same no-parking fire lane delineations in this area. We are proposing a concrete pad for a dumpster and then also a rendering container as part of the outside store. The rendering container is a container that they use for recycling frilator oil, drippings from the rotisserie chicken, that kind of thing. And that gets picked up routinely by a mass... a rendering company up in Southwick, and they recycle that material. There's a couple little changes. Originally, we were looking at putting a ramp in here. I think the latest plan shows just an egress location with an area of refuge. We have to now meet ADA requirements for the egress, so we'll be making slight changes to the exit doors that are in this location here for ADA compliance. And then the other issue that Big Y does on their stores is backup power. So on this store, it's interesting, the power that runs the entire building now comes into the corner of this building over here, including all the tenant spaces. So Big Y is going to maintain that existing electric setup for the tenant spaces, which runs from here and then overhead and feeds these tenant spaces. But they want to put in a new transformer and a new electric room just for the big Y. The power needs here are a little slightly larger than it was for the standard retail because of the refrigeration equipment stuff. So we're looking at a new transformer located here. And then they want provisions for in case there's a power outage to have an emergency generator. So the way they do that is they have a small emergency generator so if the power goes out, instantaneously they can keep life safety operations going, emergency lighting, things of that nature, cash registers.

That'll just service Big Y.

Only Big Y, yeah. And they can get the customers out of the store. And then what they do is they mobilize a trailer generator, and they have a docking station that's in the back here, and they can hook up a generator that's capable of powering all of the refrigeration equipment the freezers you know obviously if there's a power outage for several days you don't want to lose you know all the meats and the vegetables and you know the frozen foods and stuff like that so you know they it gives them a buffer of 24 hours or so to get a trailer down here they have several of them that they have and they mobilize around the state it's very rare that the entire state goes down so many of their stores are set up so that they have this provision they can mobilize very quickly the trailer, and I've got specifications of that in your plan set. So the equipment that we'd be looking at here would be a small generator, a permanent generator for life safety, some switch gear that allows transition between the generator and the transformer, and then a docking station, a portable generator connection box. To do that, we do also need to eliminate some spaces. There's a few spaces delineated back here. We would eliminate those, crosshatch this as no parking. We have to shave a little bit of that island off so a trailer can back up and put that in. Again, so we have a little green space lost here. There's a little green space in the front. There's a couple of like gardens and shrubs in them. Those would be coming out. So we're going to compensate for that by putting in additional landscaping over in this part, all the runoff goes to the same place. So we maintain the green space balance. And then the other thing we want to do back here is, um, there's an old, uh, I think it's a foundation for refrigeration equipment that used to be part of the bakery that was back there. That's probably 18 inches off the ground. There's a fire department connection located in this area here, and we've talked to the fire marshal. We're going to remove that and have a small platform that allows access to some electric panels that are part of the solar system on the roof, and that will allow 20-foot clearance so that the fire truck can have access to that fire department connection. Again, we've worked out the details of the fire marshal on that. And another thing that we're looking at, doing here there's some spaces that are back here delineated that we're going to eradicate those there's two types of deliveries that the grocery store has the full-size tractor trailers that come in either from big wise headquarters in springfield and these are the ones that have the canned goods in it frozen foods things of that nature that are from big wise distribution center and then there's some direct deliveries sometimes they'll have vendors that only have certain types of canned goods or vegetable produce that comes in from markets out west. And they go to each one of the stores. So we have provisions for two tractor trailer trucks and an existing loading dock that's located here. And the other interesting thing about the way grocery stores operate, they have a lot of direct service deliveries. And those are the guys like the Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Lay's Potato Chips, Wonder Bread. I don't know if there's some of Wonder Bread, Chris? Some, you know, the bread guys, you know, Antonman's. They're direct service deliveries and they have smaller trucks. What they do is they come in and they actually We have a provision for a little path here. Now, there is a man door located here. This loading dock is four foot below grade, but the man door is that grade. We're going to reconstruct that, so we'll allow the direct service delivery guys to come in. This is a one-way drive, by the way, so the trucks come in back up and go out this way, and the direct service guys can come in and park here with their hand dollies and stuff and carts they can come in and service.

Sorry, just take me through where the truck's coming in.

They come in, um, from Indian river road. This is the entrance. And then when they leave, they go out the back of the Plaza. I'm not sure which direction they go, but this is a one way road. It's posted on one way direction on here. So the direct service delivery guys can come in, they can park here and still allow emergency access and access to the larger trucks, deliver their products and then get out of there. So they're safely off the travel path. That's what we're trying to do with those. So this area will be reconstructed. The condition of the pavement back there is not very good. It's really alligator cracked and stuff. So while we're doing repairs on the wall and stuff like that, we're just going to mill this area and reconstruct that. And we've got some trenching going on through here for the electric provision. So we're going to just saw cut, mill that area, and repave that, and then repave this area here that you see that's shaded. And the other thing we're doing is the way Big Y operates their grocery stores is they have a flush sidewalk in the front. to protect, you know, carriages going over so someone doesn't trip. There's a portion that's flush now over here, but this whole area will be flush between this location here and the location that's back here. And the whole front section in here is covered with those protected bollards. I can show you that on the detail plate. I think someone's asking about bollard protection. I think I've got a close-up of that on this plant. Let me show you. This is A11. That's the floor plan. There's a... It probably may show up better on your rendering. The bollards are located up along the entrance areas here and along here to protect the pedestrian access in and out of the site, a series of those. A close-up of the stuff we're looking at for outside storage and display. We do show on this plan I did have electronic blow-up in this area, but I can't access it unless I brought a laptop. I apologize for that. But I do show those on sheet LA-1.

Yeah, I could help you out with that.

I have LA-1 here if you want.

I've got this. Would that project on that screen there? Is it pull-down or is it electronic?

Yeah, he's coming.

We need help. I don't want to break it. So while he's prepping, you can probably take a look at your plans. But we show the stuff along here, like areas of floral displays, seasonal produce displays. Sorry to interrupt. How do you want me to go about this for you? There should be a file that's called plan set, and there's another one that says LA blow-up, maybe? LA-1, LA zoomed in. Yeah, I think there's only three files on that.

I got it here.

Yeah, that's the one. Okay. Yeah, there we go. That's much better.

So here's a blowup of...

Yeah, I think this is a little bit better. So this is the area that we're looking at reconstructing. You can see the lighter shaded is the existing fire lane marking and the darker lines are the proposed. And you can see the existing sidewalk comes down along here. We're proposing to bow it out in this direction here. The bollard locations are right up here in the front entrance. That's a reverse truncated dome strip, ADA strip. We have another strip down here in this location with bollards in front of that. and what we have is the main entrance of the store is located here and these doors are used year round or just standard glass doors when you come up they open up with sliding back and forth and they have two other doors that are air curtains that are located here and these are seasonally used if the weather's decent they have They're actually open, and there's an air curtain that blows down, and it keeps the hot air out. And it's obvious if it's too cold or too hot, they close them. And it provides kind of an open environment, the location of these areas. I think the produce is located typically in front of these areas here, so you come in, you see fresh produce. So outdoor displays, they look at putting against just out from the wall, but plenty of room for people to pass here, what we call the floral display. And those can be, depending on the season, they can be Easter time, you might have lilies and stuff out there like that. Christmas, you may have wreaths, small Christmas trees, things that you could buy, depending on the time of year. When they open up the air curtains, they usually put displays on either side of that that are kind of halfway in, halfway out, that could have things like whatever's local fresh produce, could be corn on the cob. pumpkins, squashes, like around Halloween, Thanksgiving, and you'll see apples and stuff in the fall when the produce is fresh. And those typically are highlighted, I believe, Chris, by contracts you have with local farmers and stuff like that, where they have local produce growers in New England showcase their products there. Kind of give you the old feel like you're going into an old market, like you'd see... on the street or something in New York. But again, so displays here, displays here. They also have the cart corrals that are located here next to each other. There's another exit here that comes out of the store. And that's a corral, basically, with stainless steel railings, I believe. And the capacity of all the carts that are in the store, they don't store them inside the store. They store them outside. So if you come into one of these entrances, you can grab a cart. There's two types of carts. There's the smaller baskets that are sitting up a little higher, and then there's a larger basket. They store those here for the customers to come in. And then, again, the cart corrals that are located in the parking lot, they empty those probably every hour or two, I guess, Chris, whenever they fill up. They take care of it. At the end of the night, they bring all the carts in, and they have them stacked against here. So we don't want the carts to be on the sidewalk to cause any congestion or anything of that nature. And then the other thing that we're proposing for outside storage is in this area here, you've probably seen the propane cylinder Things you can buy for your barbecue grill, like a Blue Rhino. There's other vendors. I'm not sure which one Bigline's currently using. Propane cylinder cage here. So if somebody comes in with a propane cylinder, their signs don't bring it in the store, but they can do a propane cylinder exchange, and they'll have a clear complement with that. There are the machines for the bottle and can return that they have outside, and those are emptied. brought inside and stored in the back room when they get full. These machines crush the materials and have it in there. And then there's also, I believe that's for the larger water bottles. Chris, you can buy the five gallon containers of water and they have a place to have those stored out here. So the sidewalk does extend down and there's a landscaped area here between them. with access from a ramp that provides access to this parking area here. And then the sidewalk is contiguous all the way along the front of the store, ties into the other sidewalk that's located there. So that's what we will be proposing for the outside storage, outside display. Again, the area up here on the side of the air curtains for floral type display, and then fresh produce would be located around the air curtain. And then again, the amenities that I pointed out in this area over here. Um, and then this has a closeup of the, again, the back area, you can see the trinus warmer that we'd be putting here, um, transfer switch generator connector, and then the permanent generator, and those would be protected by bollards. Um, you know, the steel bollards all around there for protection for that and still allow a path for access for the fire as needed, um, around those amenities. Can you go to the grading plan on the main plan set? Yeah, there's the grading plan. Resolution looks a little choppy. Yeah, there we go. So on this, what I'm demonstrating, showing on this plan is what the grading is. I've got spot grades all on the front that show that this Elevation is flush with the walk. If you come out of the doors, it's a 2% grade on the sidewalk. And then that grade drops off to about 4% in the worst case scenario. And then reconstruction of... the island here. This was the handicap parking or accessible parking that we're going to remove because of the grade. If you look at the grade here, you've got an elevation 60, elevation 59, elevation 58. It's about 5% across there, which is a potential slip hazard. So we've reduced all of these by reconfiguring the accessible parking here and on this side. And we've kept everything under the 2% ADA maximum slope. And then we're providing crosswalks for the customers to come in here through this location and through this location. And we are providing, for example, an accessible park. If you're in a wheelchair here, you can come in and stay out of the traffic aisle and come along this area here. And this one here, you're just on the edge of it, which is what the existing parking does. We're going to keep the stop signs that are there. We'll re-delineate those, put new stop signs up. Stop bars are re-delineated. The electric line that I was showing before is the existing transformer here. We would take that transformer and run another primary conduit through this area here and tie into our new transformer here. We still have to work out the details of the UI on that, but we started the dialogue. And then we've got some other utility amenities over here, and I'll explain what those are. We are going to put some underground structures in this area here, and that's to handle sanitary sewers. So the plaza is served by water. Water service comes in from this area here. There's adequate capacity for both fire protection and for the domestic use of water for big Y use, as well as the other tenant uses. So the only changes for the water will be internal to the store. But the sanitary sewage currently now is connected here to a manhole. And you have a sanitary sewer pump station that the town maintains right here along. going Indian River Road, that receives sewage flow from the former Christmas tree shops. And these other tenant spaces actually discharge out to a sanitary sewer, which goes to another pump station that serves both the tenant spaces on the north side of this building and the other buildings that are located here. And then it pumps it through a force main. You can sort of see a line coming through here. There's a force main that comes up and dumps to a gravity sanitary manhole here. And basically what that is, it's under pressure, so I think it's a two-inch line. A pump actually receives the sewage into a pit, pumps it up, and then it discharges it to a gravity sewer, which comes down here to another manhole, to another manhole, and then flows into the town pump station. Then the town pump station pumps it, puts it into another force main, down the Indian River to where the gravity discharge is somewhere down there. The big why, unlike the Christmas tree shops, which had just one sanitary sewer that came out of there, which was general purpose, it served the toilets and the hand washing sinks, basically, black water waste is what we refer to.

They have three waste streams, sanitary sewer waste streams in their store.

One of them is black water waste, which is the bathrooms, hand sinks that are used for washing, And then because they prepare foods and things like that, some of their waste has the potential for fat oils and greases, if you heard the term fog, F-O-G. We separate that from the black water waste because the fat oil and grease bearing waste we collected, and we have to discharge it into a grease interceptor or a grease trap, so to speak. It's an external grease trap. It's 2,500 gallons. has baffles in it, the water comes in, any of the grease components float to the surface, the solids settle, and the wastewater flows through the waste. And that keeps the fat, oil, and grease out of the town pump chamber and the system. It's mandated by the Connecticut Department of Energy Environmental Protection, as well as the Health Department, so we meet all those requirements for that. And then the third type of waste line is an indirect waste. We label it IW. And if you go into a grocery store, you'll see refrigeration cases, freezer cases. And because of differences in humidity, they generate condensate, like your air conditioner would at your home where you see the water dripping out. So we take that condensate waste, and we collect it in a separate waste line, and we discharge it to what we call an indirect waste receptor. There's a detail on your plan. It's just a manhole with a baffle in it. Because of the grade difference on this site here, that's the deepest line, our indirect waste line. We can't gravity feed that into this manhole. We have to put a little pump station in it. And all that is is a separate manhole that's got a pump system in there, some float switches. When that water reaches a certain level, the pump turns on and pushes the water out, and then it's got some ability to recover until the next pump cycle.

Okay. You ran this by the town sanitarium?

Yeah. The, uh, the town center chairman, I believe has looked at this at the meeting that we had and he's aware of that.

Good.

So this is an industry standard. Um, some, not all grocery stores do that. Some of them will discharge the indirect waste with the grease waste. Big white decides they don't want to do that because it's, um, it's a better design. You can keep them separated and you end up with just the condensate water. So you don't get the buildup there in the summertime, obviously. you get more generation of condensate than you do in the wintertime. But there's always that potential for that. So you don't generate a whole lot of runoff from that. The grease trap's 2,500 gallons, 2,500 gallons, and they generate about 2,300 gallons of fat oil and grease waste a day on average. About 3,500 gallons total for store use. It's sort of the store line average that we anticipate will be in this facility. So these are underground. You won't see them. Manhole covers will be here. There'll be a little hatch on this, a little aluminum hatch, and then another manhole cover. So driving down the street, you won't see any of that. It's all a hologram. But those are the improvements. And then we do have our blackwater waste line, which we can meet the existing elevation that's there. We do have one yard drain that we're putting in here. There's one located here. You don't really see it when you drive by, but Indian River Road is at a slightly higher elevation. the store itself so you end up a little bit of grade difference you can see elevation 63 64 or 65 64. that water is going to come down here and get into the yard drain and we're going to put another yard drain in here so we can have a situation where the runoff can come down and not go on our sidewalk essentially keep the keep the grade of the sidewalk down So one yard drain there and our roof leaders. Roof leaders will all be connected through a header tied into existing catch basin structure that's here. Looks like we've got the raised, the details that will follow when they complete the architectural designs, which they're working on now. So we'll take the roof runoff from just these canopies that are located in the front and I'll share in a minute. And then the existing roof that discharges now is tied into a catch basin, which is located here. We're gonna replace that with a manhole and put a proper trench drain as we rebuild the loading dock. Right now there's just one catch basin in the middle and the water sort of catches through there so the trucks come in and they're a little crooked and we're gonna straighten all that out and clean it up. But that's really it. A little bit of repaving in the backs and utility work. Can you go to the architectural plans? There's a separate file for those and I've got the most recent color down there that looks a lot nicer than the one in the plan set. Yeah. So the floor plan, again, this is the electrical area. This is just, I won't get into too much detail on this, but can you zoom out just a little bit on that? So the meat department, you see the meat cooler over here, seafood prep. So the operations all take place along the back wall, the side wall. They've got the bakery located here. So you come in the main entrance. left, full service bakery over here, prepared foods and deli. You can get the pizzas and things like that that they make in the prepared food section. The delis, they make the sandwiches or you just buy the fully made sandwiches or the meats that you want by themselves. Meat areas located here, produce, dairy, frozen foods, stock rooms in the back. They feed all that internally so they can load the cases from behind.

Guy, where is the small 400-something footage?

That is right in this area here where the cafe is. The existing building facade is here, and we've got this little bump out in this area. So that's where the entrance is. There's an exit vestibule, we call it, on the register. We want most people to come in this door, go to the registers, and then come out here.

But you could go in and out of either door, but most of the traffic comes in here.

There's a little cafe.

That's the only place where the footprint of the building is changing. Yes. That's it.

I think there might be a little bit of changes in the front here whenever you do it, but it's very nominal. But essentially the entire facade is going to be maintained, and I'll show you that picture. So yeah, you're taking a little bit of an addition here. The rest of the footprint stays the same. Loading area and receiving is all the same. Everything is the same. One thing I didn't show on my plan I think the existing exit door, there's one over here now, but because of alignment, we're going to have an exit door located between these cases here. And that's an ADA or emergency egress position that we need to do. So we're going to move that a little bit from what's there now. Can you go to the elevation views? It should be on, no, that's on the same drawing. On the separate drawing, the ones that, yeah, there you go. Yep, here it is. So the tenant space is located here. So there's going to be a new facade on here. There used to be sort of a gable roof on there now, and then they got removed, and there's a flat surface there now. You can kind of see evidence of the old gable roof. This is what the new facade will look like. It will have this over-the-entrance feature. This is the main entrance, and these are the air curtain doors that I talked about. So seasonally, these can be opened up to provide that. direct communication with the produce department. Exit doors here. This is the cafe. You'll have glass located here. So where do you see the glass here? Where it's shown in white.

What kind of facade? What's on the facade?

What material? Metal roof, aluminum flashing. What do you call this stuff here, Chris?

We use a long board, it's called. It simulates wood, wood grain, that sort of thing. Almost like a hardy board, but it's a... Yeah, we used to use a heavier material, lychee-hot panels, but we've moved away from that. It's a lighter. You don't need as much support on the building, so less steel, less material.

Yeah, if you see it from a distance, it looks like wood grain-type material. And then the canopies, you see, located here. You can see the flat rooftop here. And some roof flashing and edging. A little bit of cornice work up here. Kind of give it some three dimensions. And then you've got the canopies located here, which are, kind of see them on the profile. Very modest on this facade. Some of the newer stores they're building, if they're new, they're a little bit larger. But this, we don't have a lot of room to work with. So the facade of the front, you'll see a total reconstruction, including the canopy all the way down through here. Again, these are the silhouettes of the equipment I was talking about in that area there. The carriage location is up in here, the car corral. So pretty much you'll see them there, but they're sort of out of sight. The back and the side. are just basically just going to be cleaned up and repainted. Some of the CMU walls that you see there now. This would be the side that you would see from Indian River Road. That door location used to be here. It's going to move over slightly. There is one other thing we're doing to provide access to the tenant mechanical or tenant electric room, and that's a... a ladder type of assembly to get up there to a door. That's just maintenance access for the electricians and stuff, obviously not the general public. Again, we have some issues with the transformer being located there, and we can't do a ground level thing. We've got to make minimum clearances with the existing equipment that's there. This is what it would look like from the other tenant space. This is the wall that you see if you're standing above the store. And this is what the existing loading area looks like for the big Y. So it's not gonna really change from what's there. It'll be cleaned up and repainted.

And I think this is the same type of color scheme you're looking at, Chris, right?

That earth tone material in the darker. And we do recognize that signage permit will have to be applied for it. We're not including that as part of this application.

There's not a separate architectural plan, but the signage is a separate application.

Yes, so that's not part of this. We'll do that as we go through the process. And lighting? Yeah, the lighting would be just canopy lighting. The site lighting will stay the same, and then there'll be a replication of the wall packs and the lighting over the doors that are on the side and rear of the building, minimum for safety. And then the canopy lighting here, we'll have to review that with staff to make sure that it would all be dark sky compliant type of lighting. But the lighting scheme itself, we're not proposing anything different in the parking areas around the facade of the building. It will just be whatever the canopy lightings are. So we can work with staff on that if that were something that you would propose as a condition of a pool. Scott is here. I don't know if you want him to touch on traffic at all. We did submit a comprehensive traffic report, but if you want to have him... We didn't get much of a chance to review it.

We just got a look at the executive summary.

Yeah, we are going before your traffic commission next week, I think it is. July 13th. And because, and I'll let Scott explain, because of this closet is a major traffic generator, we are required to make an administrative request from OSTA, and Scott will explain that. Can I get back, just while you're here? Sure.

Can I get back to the outdoor storage?

Yes. Your application includes not only the application for special permanent use, but also... It has to demonstrate compliance with a specific, very specific set of guidelines on the outdoor storage. Did you have a chance to look at that? I mean, it seemed from what I could tell.

I did. I went through item by item, and you guys checked all the boxes. You did a really thorough job with that portion. The only thing I noted that we didn't have was a total calculation on the amount of outdoor storage or display in a square footage. But from what I kind of see from the plan, it just looks like you'd be pretty far under that 200 square foot allowance.

So it would be a maximum of the 200? Correct. Okay. If that were a condition of approval, then that would be the condition.

Yeah, I think we are below that one. That's a regulation, I think. Yeah, it is.

Okay. Anything else, Mr. Chairman? Any questions? Okay, yeah, sure.

All right, thank you. I'll let Scott give a quick presentation, and we can answer any other questions you might have. Thank you. Thank you, Greg.

Good evening for the record associates, East Granby, Connecticut. I'm the author of the report dated April 29th, 2026, which has been submitted in support of the application. I'll give you the executive summary, and then if you have any specific questions or want any more detail, you can let me know. Basically what we're doing here, as you just heard Guy explain to you in a very thorough fashion, we've got an existing retail building, which we're replacing with a different kind of retail. So we're going from general retail to supermarket. Now, what that means for us is that based on the ITE trip generation reports, there's going to be a little additional traffic because of the supermarket use as opposed to the general retail use. And if you use the ITE trip generation rates, it indicates we're going to have an additional 218 trips during the afternoon peak hour and approximately 160 additional trips during the Saturday peak hour. So that's the basic change in terms of traffic related to this development. Now, what we did is we went out and we got the traffic volumes from the state of Connecticut on the local roadways. The DOT had counts on Route 1, on Racebook Road, which is... Indian River Road, or just the other side of it, and on South Lambert Road. They had traffic volume counts from October of 2024. In addition, we arranged for the conduct of manual turning movement counts at the intersection of Route 1 and South Lambert Road, Route 1 and Racebook Road, Old Tavern Road, at the intersection of South Lambert Road and Indian River Road, and at the four existing site driveways to this development. There are two driveways to Indian River Road, one to South Lambert Road, and there's a driveway which goes out to Route 1 as well. So we conducted manual turning movement counts at all of those locations during February of 2026. Because the plaza was not fully occupied at the time of our counts, we used the ITE trip generation numbers to project what the existing plaza would generate. And we added the difference between what we observed and that number so that we filled the existing plaza up with traffic to represent 100% occupancy. And then we generated the new traffic for the supermarket use. Again, an increase of 218 trips during the afternoon and 160 new trips during the Saturday peak hour. And we added that traffic to the roadway network as well. Based on the counts at the existing plaza, we projected a distribution of 30% of the site generator traffic to and from the east. on Route 1, 30% to and from the west along Route 1. About 20% of the site traffic was to and from the south on Lambert Road or Marsh Hill Road, since that road changes names as well. We have a lot of that around here. And 20% of the traffic was to and from the north on the north side of Route 1, and that's based on the distribution percentages we saw in our traffic volume counts. So we distributed that site-generated traffic, added it to the observed traffic volumes, And we had both background and combined traffic volumes. We ran capacity analyses on the background and combined traffic volume conditions using the standard engineering tools, basically the synchro capacity analysis. And the results of those analyses are presented in Table 5. The analysis indicates that the increase in the traffic volumes would represent about a one-second increase of average delay at the intersection of Route 1 and South Lambert Road, approximately four seconds increase at Route 1 and Old Tavern Road, and at the intersection of South Lambert Road and Indian River Road would represent about a one-second increase in that location as well.

So no change in the level of service is what you're saying?

No change in the level of service at any of those locations during the peak hours, just slight increases in delay based on the additional traffic. The existing site driveways operate well. We do have a little capacity issues at the main site driveway to Indian River Road. That indicates that under the background conditions that operates at level service F, will continue to operate at level service F. The computer's telling us we've got long delays. I don't think we're gonna see that kind of delays based on our observations of what's operating out there. And it's an existing site driveway, an existing location. We're gonna maintain that driveway. and we're going to continue to operate there. If there's any capacity constraints in the future, Big Y is going to be the first one to say that we want to do something about it, so they'd be back here talking to you saying that we either want to widen the driveway or we need a traffic signal at some point in time, but I don't see that being an issue.

Where would you see that as being most likely?

I don't think it's going to happen. I think the calculations are extremely conservative for the unsignalized intersection. At that location, we've got exclusive left turn lanes on Indian River Road in both directions. So left turns are sheltered from the through movements. It allows people to enter both the shopping plaza and the... senior living center across the street. So the left turns on the main line are sheltered and out of the way through traffic. It's difficult to make a left-hand turn in the calculations out of that driveway because you're crossing the three lanes of traffic. Now, I don't think that's going to be a significant issue.

On Indian River.

Coming out of the plaza itself, making a left-hand turn onto Indian River Road would be the movement which would be difficult. Now, People making that movement have the option of utilizing the driveway on Route 1 and making a right-hand turn.

They can go out the exit on South Lambert.

They could also go out to South Lambert, make a right and a right at the signal, or come around the block. So I don't see it being a huge issue.

One of this is changing, though, from what it currently is.

It's retail and it's retail.

No, no, but the traffic patterns. Right. Are the curb cuts and everything else, the driveways? Nothing's changing. Nothing's changing, right? No, the Christmas tree shop was at one point a very, very busy. So, I mean, it is what it is.

I think the calculations are extremely conservative. I think it's going to operate just fine. And if there are issues, Big Y is going to be the first one knocking on the door to make improvements. So I wouldn't worry about it all that much from the town's perspective. And as Guy indicated, because this plaza currently operates under an Office of the State Traffic Administration certificate, They consider this a change of use from retail to supermarket, and therefore we have to go back to them for an administrative decision. We have made that application to them. They are currently reviewing it, and we anticipate that if this commission grants this site plan approval, that within a matter of a month or so we'll have an approval from them to address them. Otherwise...

No, I think that's all for, I mean, that's all I have. Anybody else? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Just started looking at these, your analysis. Sounds good. Okay, thank you.

Thank you much. Is there anything else you wanted to say, Guy? Okay, I guess we're just going to, if you have any questions related to anything, we'll be happy to take it up. Thank you. All right.

That's it.

This is all very good information, but I think this would be much more appropriate for a site plan application.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not sure I, what do you mean?

A lot of what we're hearing would ordinarily be addressed during a site plan application. So we're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we?

Well, I think it's a lot more information than we need for a special permit, is what you're saying.

Right.

A special permit where we just are passing on the use.

Right.

Which is, I think, that's what we're doing.

That's the request, right? That's before us? Special permit?

Special permits for the outdoor displays and storage.

That's 383-121. And that's what I asked Stephen about. you know, had he reviewed that regulation as against the plan.

Well, that part was...

I mean, Steve made it pretty clear that it meets and it's underneath what we, you know, mandate. Right.

Well, it's subject to one change, I think, right? Wasn't there one issue you had? some notation they had to make on the plan.

Oh, it was just an overall calculation on the amount of square footage. But we saw a guy make a note to that, and I anticipate they'll get that back to us. But just visually, it's well under the allowance, 200-square-foot allowance. Mm-hmm.

Well, are you saying, Tom, that if we granted the special use permit, they'd have to come back with site plan approval?

That's exactly what I'm saying. For the intended... Well, for the overall site plan.

Because don't we, in a special use permit application, we're regularly, routinely asked to waive the site plan requirements. So there are site plan requirements, I think, associated with special use permit application, depending on what the changes are. Usually, there are no changes to the footprint of the building.

And here, basically, there are no changes to the footprint of the building. It's on the outside where they're, you know, changing things around.

Yeah. But when else would... I mean, you think under the regs, they'd have to come back in with the site plan? If we, if we, I mean, I don't think so.

I was under the impression that the site plan portion review was, was a part of the special permit here.

My understanding was they would go to the traffic commission and then come in with the site plan application.

Well, okay. I mean, but the... Maybe I'm mistaken, but... Well, again, I think the special permit contemplates that a site plan would accompany it if there are changes to the building that are being proposed. I don't know that it's a separate... Because, you know, sometimes we would... I don't think we necessarily... We necessarily review a site plan. That can be handled administratively. It can. Unlike a special use permit. Right. So you're saying you think that we need to decide on whether or not this is... We're going to allow this use as a special use in this zoning district.

Right.

And then the applicant has to get... We know they need traffic commission approval. So how do we... They would be presenting the same thing they just presented. Yeah.

I'm at a loss. Usually with a site plan, with a special permit, does the site plan come in at the same time?

Look at Article 14 in your... Article 14, 383.131. And this article applies to all special uses in any zoning district in the town. And it says the application under 383.133 Application for special use shall be submitted in writing to the zoning enforcement officer, shall be accompanied by an application for certificate of zoning compliance, and shall also be accompanied by the following. A statement of the use is A. B, a site plan. Architectural plans under Section C. Soil and erosion sediment control plan under D. and then there's a catch-all under E for whatever else we think might be necessary. So do we have a soil erosion and sediment control plan as part of what was submitted?

So being a developed site, and I see Guy getting up. He'll probably get to it further. The grading plan is what I refer to for that. There's not much...

If I may, Mr. Chairman? Please, help us out. Yeah, so typically a special permit application can be one that shows site amenities and operations of the site, or it could be specifically, and then we've included in our master plan compliance showing that we do meet your bulk requirements or your zoning regulations, which is typically required of any site plan. And these regulations that you have for the special use permit for the actual use of that retail use requires that we demonstrate on a site plan that we don't exceed your maximum allowable, depending on how many square feet per acre. So we show that on our master plan, you have a maximum threshold depending on what the total acres we demonstrate that we're below that. So in order for you to actually approve the special permit has to be accompanied in this case by a site plan, which is what's included here. We do include on our grading plan sedimentation erosion controls in the form of the silt sac or inlet protection that we're providing on all the catch basins here. That's on sheet GR-1. Because we're doing so little site work out here, that's really the only appropriate measure that we could actually implement here. So we are including that because the milling and stuff that will take place in the parking areas will end up resulting in just a process aggregate material, which by itself has a certain level of perviousness in it. So that is the appropriate measure. We do show inlet protection on the grading plan, which covers the state requirement and your regulation requirements for it. I don't know if you could show that, Steve. There's some notes on it. Yeah, here we go. Install inlet protection and catch basin. We have that in all the locations of catch basins. Another one down here in this location. We have filter fabric installed over the yard drain that's located further up. So any place in downgrading of our... Here's another one installing the protection on catch basin. And those are typical for doing a reconstruction in a parking area where you're doing a little bit of regrading and a little modest reclamation and repaving. sediments that are actually carried towards that downgrading area, those inlet protection silt sacks will provide protection for that. So we do include that. So the site plan itself really is the package that you're looking at. It's a master plan that shows compliance. It's a layout plan. It's a grading plan. And the architectural components that are required for your site plan, we've included the floor plan and the architectural elevations for that. And that's typically from a site plan review level, you have not complete architectural details, just enough to understand what the floor plan is and the intent of the architecture. When the building permit's issued, they're gonna submit detailed cross-sections, structural components, a lot of information. But the information that we included On the architectural plan, it shows you what the floor plan layout is, where the entrances are located, what the different departments are. And then on the elevation views, we show the components architecturally, what's being used as far as the façade, the glass, all that location, the colors and the intent of that. So in my opinion, we do meet your site plan requirements in that as far as...

The requirements. that are attached to a special use permit application.

Yeah. In this case, you really have to act on both because you need to understand the site and the proposal.

Theoretically, I mean, we're going under Section 90, special uses, right? And A is in this district, the Light Industrial 3 district. stores, special use would be, A, stores and other buildings where goods are sold or services provided, primarily at retail provided, and then it goes into lot size, building square footage, minimum, and so on. But I guess, theoretically, there could be a retail use there that would be so intensive that it would require augmentation of the site drainage

If it were something... I mean, something... Change, yeah. In this case, the drainage characteristics aren't changed because the drainage area is maintained.

I'm not saying drainage may be a bad... I'm just thinking, you know, the use requested, the use applied for, is something that would require a change in what's on the site. And you have to obviously show that change.

Yeah, in this case, your regulations for specific retail use, grocery stores fall under that retail use. So it's really not a change, but the category falls under what's allowed by your regulations regarding the total number of square foot per acre. And we've demonstrated that we're underneath that. Where the change from the traffic generation is slightly different than... Because traffic generation numbers are slightly different, but your regulations for your zoning regulations don't specifically specify the difference between a grocery store and a general retail. Your regulations are general retail.

But if this were a special use, you know, still a retail use... Which it is. ...but generated twice as much traffic...

Right.

as, you know, the current use, I think we would be within our rights to... But that's not the situation. But that's not the situation, you know. I mean, with, like, the UNH application that we just did.

Yeah.

There was no separate site plan because, basically, there was nothing changing at all. Yeah, there's some stuff changing. Well, it was the interior. Right.

Nothing here.

Nothing on...

I was trying to think of a project. Yeah. Didn't we get a site plan when Best Buy went out and Ocean State job lot came in? I mean, that was pretty similar to this application. And I thought we got a site plan, but we have one, right? I mean, yeah.

Yeah, the application special permit includes a site plan review.

Okay. No, I'm just not sure.

I stand corrected, I guess.

No, no, no, no.

You thought it was two separate... No, two separate things that needed to be noticed on our... Well, no.

I don't think this site plan would need to be noticed. Maybe it would.

For example, if I can go back to... Can you go back to the master plan? And this is a... The original master plan, which I doctored up, so I don't exactly have that. With the original, when this was originally approved, it included a special permit and a site plan application, because in order for you to evaluate if this complied with your zoning regulations, the site plan was part of the approval. And then your special permit was for the specific use in the retail activities that were taking place. And I don't know if they did outside storage on the original, I don't believe it was. But you would have approved the original plan back in 1990 something wherever it was that would have been a site plan slash special permit because they would not be allowed to construct this without a special permit approval demonstrating through a site plan that the total square footage was below the threshold per acre so then your original approval included site plan approval and a special permit to allow that construction so what we're asking for here is basically the same thing a special permit we're showing you the changes to the site that would include a site plan review and approval based on the information that was submitted. And the original would have included this, plus it had a grading plan and a utility plan and erosion control plan, similar to what we have, but because ours is such a small area, we sort of combined erosion control and the utilities on our grading plan. And then the layout itself has a separate plan to show the details, including those outdoor storage and display areas.

Yeah, I mean, if you look at the application itself, in this form. So it's entitled Application for Special Exception Permit or Use, right? Public hearing required. Part of what needs to be submitted by the applicant in support of the application is a site plan prepared by a professional engineer or architect. Correct. Site plan contains all information required under Article 12. It's signed off on by the necessary department heads.

All right, so now I'm confused. Steve, the application seems to be for a special exception. Special. Special permit.

Special, yeah.

Do we have to tap two separate findings?

I wasn't under that impression. I was under the idea that this site plan was a part of the special permit. Part of the application. Yeah, the review was a part of it tonight.

All right. And then the next question I have is do we have, is it something we have to wait for for the Traffic Commission before we undertake to make a decision for your going before the Traffic Commission on some point soon?

Yes, next week.

That's why I'm confused. How do we act on this without action from the traffic commission? We may not act on it.

That's what I'm asking. I'm sorry, Guy, we cut you off.

I'm sorry, no. My understanding is that the traffic commission is to fulfill the requirement of the ordinance of one of your town ordinance. For example, your town ordinance requires compliance with the fire marshal we have to have marks fire markings and fire signs that meet your fire ordinance so so we incorporate that into the site plan but there could be other approvals from other commissions that are part of your ordinance that are related to but separate from the purview of this commission and that's my understanding as far as the traffic.

I'm not sure I understood what you said. I'm trying. Yeah. So you don't think we need the Traffic Commission approval to make a decision for the special permit?

That's my understanding, and, again, I don't want to go out on a limb with that.

Has the chief signed off on the application?

No, they didn't sign off due to... You're talking traffic commission, right? No, the police department.

LTA.

So they're not one of the required department heads. It's traffic commission. And that hasn't signed off yet? They have not. But my understanding would be that the commission can vote tonight or wait till after the traffic commission meeting, but... Within our discretion. I'm sorry? It's within our discretion to do so. Correct. And you'd be taking into account the presentation tonight and the traffic report.

And you have all the other municipal department heads sign up. Yes, that are relevant for this. It's town sanitarian, town engineer. Correct. Fire. Yeah. Fire, yes. And so what about the police?

That's not one of the departments listed here. It's only the Traffic Commission.

Well, part of what needs to be submitted with the special permit application are copies of a site plan prepared by a professional engineer architect and embossed with seal. Site plan containing all information required under Article 12 of the zoning regulations and signed off by all necessary department heads. It also says eight copies of architectural plans submitted in accordance with 383.117. So I don't know if we need a separate architectural plan.

That would... Guy presented that already with the facade and the floor plan.

Yeah, I'm persuaded by what you said with regard to the traffic department. Steve seemed to suggest that it was one of the items that we need to get approved by. Listen, I don't think it's a... Substantively, I don't think that there's going to be an issue with traffic, okay? I'm persuaded by the testimony that was given. Plus, I know the site.

Yeah, I would have guessed it was a toss-up as to whether this would create more traffic or less traffic.

My guess is it'll be a little bit more. Right, but that being said, if the Traffic Commission hasn't ruled upon, hasn't, you know, discussed this yet... I guess the question is, even if they said no, are we bound by that? No, but I think it's one of the things that we need to think about.

Yeah, and we usually do, I think, even as a courtesy. Yeah. Make sure we get all the input we can from the municipal department heads and other commissions. All right. Anything else? No. All right. Is there no other people in the audience beside the applicant? But I'll ask anyway, is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak on this application? That looks like they're not going to object. Somebody flies in the door now. All right. Is there anything the applicant wants to add?

What I would suggest, if you do make a decision to wait until action from the Traffic Commission, that you would hold the public hearing open until that decision is made.

That's exactly what I would suggest, is that we keep the public hearing open. I think we statutorily can do that for 35 days. Yes. We only have one. We don't have a second meeting in July, so it would have to be our first meeting in August is what, August 7th? August 4th. August 4th.

So that's within the 35 days.

Right. So we can... We could ask for an extension. We could ask for an extension then.

Yeah, but Kevin will be back.

You think we should ask for it now?

I... I really don't see a need for it. I mean, I think, you know, based on the testimony and the traffic report, I think that, you know, I don't want to put words in their mouth, but I think it's sufficient. And, you know, as far as an existing site, similar use, yeah, I think we're being a little cautious.

Yeah. No, I think it's essentially the same use. and a good use for that site. So I can't anticipate that Traffic Commission is going to come up with something that changed my mind on that, but we'll see. So why don't we do that? Why don't we hold the public hearing open until the next meeting, and then we'll have input by the Traffic Commission. I don't think there's anything else we need from the applicant on the interim, right? Anything we discussed that we want more information on?

No. Just to be clear, I think this is very straightforward. Yeah. But, for example, the A401 in our packet has no text delineating what the building materials are.

Yeah. I thought about that, I mean. Well, we could ask for that. I mean... That's a good point. Here he comes. Let's be clear on what we're looking for.

Yeah, if I could respectfully ask if there's some outstanding items that you'd like to see, we could certainly clarify those and provide more detail. If you're looking at any of those things, we'd be certainly glad to do that so we can be prepared for the next meeting.

You've given us some guidance with regard to the front relative to the building materials.

I'm just a little confused, Guy, because on A401 in our packet, there's no text delineating what the materials are.

Yeah, I understand that. Yeah, that... Let me...

I mean, that alone... That goes to Paul's question. I mean, he asked, you know, what...

It should go on the plan. Yeah, let me amend that, and I will submit this current architectural plan here. This is in a little more detail that was developed subsequent to that package being submitted. Yeah, we certainly can do that. Are you looking for anything with more detail in this or specific brand names or anything? No, no.

No, that looks fine.

Okay. Yeah, we certainly can do that.

I mean, from a zoning standpoint, you know, in terms of, you know, setback requirements and lot density and all that, I mean, not only is it not a problem, but we already approved it. Yeah, 20 years ago. Yeah, whenever we... Right, a long time ago. So, I mean, I don't think those regulations have changed it at all, but... But we have what we need, or the applicant provided what we need to demonstrate compliance with the zoning regulations, I think. Can you think of anything else that we need more detail on?

No, the presentation was very detailed with the exception of that.

It was a great, excellent presentation. All right, so with that information and some further clarity on that,

So if we were to submit officially this plan here that has some more detail on there for the record and then wait for the outcome of the Traffic Commission and if they give a positive referral at the next meeting, would there be any need for attendance from Big Wire or either of us for you to make a decision? I don't think so. I don't think so. And if we did... You could make questions through staff. Yeah, we could communicate that through Stephen, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, we could certainly address everything in writing in time for you to have enough information to adequately make a decision.

Yeah, I mean, listen, I don't want to unnecessarily drag this out, but I think it is important that we get the architectural plan.

Yeah, we respect the decision of this commission. We want to make sure you're comfortable with moving forward with this application. All right. So it sounds like the site plan information is here. We just need to put more detail that you see on these drawings that we have for the more detailed architectural and then wait on a determination from the Traffic Commission.

Let me ask you this while I'm thinking about it. So we have 35 days within which to close the public hearing. We're within that timeframe if we have a meeting, if our meeting goes forward on August 4th, but people have vacations at that time. So would you, your client, be willing to extend that time period for 30 days?

If necessary.

If necessary. If necessary. Well, not if necessary. Would you be willing to extend it? It's fully our intent to have this on the agenda on August 4th. I can't help it if only two commissioners are going to be here that night. We don't have a quorum. What's that?

You could close the hearing and not vote. You don't need us to extend it if you just want to close the hearing.

I don't want to close the hearing, though, because we may need more information from the outside. And once I close the public hearing, we can't have that. We can't take any more testimony, any more information.

You can cross that bridge when we get there out of that.

What's that? Yeah, like, for example, if you didn't have a quorum on the 4th, we could certainly submit a letter stating that we grant an extension. Yeah, I just thought maybe we'd settle it right now.

But that's up to you.

No objection, right, Chris?

Yeah. Okay. That's what I thought. Let's do that. That'll be in our minutes. Oh, and we don't usually get anything else on that, do we?

Sorry? We don't get anything else, anything more formal than... No, if they're consenting on the record, it's fine now. Otherwise, yeah, you would have had to get a letter, so this is the preferred path.

But again, we intend to take this up at our August 4th meeting. Understood. When, if we have what we need, we'll close the public hearing and vote on the application. You'll have to introduce yourself.

Hello, Chris Elliott, Director of Design and Construction for Big White Foods. Just a question on the extension. So if I'm understanding it correct, if there's not enough attendance in August 4th, then it would extend to when?

The next meeting would be the beginning of September, 1st of September.

We would have a second meeting in August.

I think that would be the 18th. Okay. So if for some reason we couldn't have a meeting on August 4th, we'd have it on August...

18th, and this item would be on the agenda. Okay. The only reason I question that is we had a target date to start. I think it was August 17th, mobilizing in sight. I know. And so that's the only, I mean, if we can't, we can't. I understand. But that was our target.

I have no reason to believe we won't all be here on August 4th. Like I said, we'll take the matter up, and it should take all of five minutes to do what we have to do. All right, so I asked Owen to be here tonight just because we're going to finish up with our proposed amendments to the regulations. This is the last item on the agenda.

Do you have this on your indicator? I do. Yeah, do you want to just pull it up and put it that way?

All right, nice seeing everybody. And, you know, we're taking up the amendments to the... the entire text, I guess, to comply with the Housing Bill Public Act 25-1 from the special session. Just for the benefit of the commission and the public who may be watching, I'll briefly summarize what those changes were. Between the last meeting and now, I only made technical grammatical changes and one other thing that we'll get to in terms of the Traffic Mitigation District. very high level concise summary we made changes to the section 383-13 which concerns non-conformities we narrowed the discontinuance abandonment language by adding requirements for property owner intent and voluntary discontinuance and just anything i'm talking about is required under the uh the act that i referenced 25-1 we added a demolition and and or deconstruction alone is not evidence of intent to reestablish a nonconforming use or not to reestablish a nonconforming use building or structure. And we deleted some prior language with respect to when a nonconformity is deemed to have come into existence. We also added various definitions to Section 383-14, including cottage food operation, family child care home, group care home, group childcare homes, excuse me, mixed-use development, and transit community middle housing development, and provided statutory cross-references for some of those terms. We amended Section 383-26, which is the resident's district, by adding family care homes, group childcare homes, and cottage food operations as permitted uses, which are required under the legislation. We also revised the minimal floor area standards for certain dwelling conversions to refer to the state building code rather than a fixed square footage requirement that the regulations currently have in place. We amended our commercial and business districts to add uses subject to summary review approval and The specific uses that are subject to a summary review approval or transit community, middle housing developments and mixed use developments. And in some of the districts we had to update the prohibited use provisions to clarify that certain dwellings are prohibited, except for those that are being added. And again, those are the mixed use developments. and the transit community, middle housing developments. Those are two types of developments that the act requires be permitted on any lot that's zoned to commercial, uh, in town. We had to amend section three 83 dash one 40, which is, uh, special uses elderly housing to reflect the change in the, uh, floor area requirements to, to track the state housing code, as opposed to a fixed square footage. We had to make changes to the parking requirements, 383-174 to 383-181. We replaced old residential parking ratios with the new ratios, and again, under the act, residential developments with 16 or fewer units. There's no minimum parking requirements that can be imposed. residential developments of more than 16. It's a lesser of a bedroom-based parking standard or a parking needs assessment recommendation by the developer's parking or traffic engineer. And we added a section allowing for a conservation and traffic mitigation district, which is up on the screen. We'll get to it in a minute. And proposing that the town adopt such a district along the Boston Post Road. Again, I'll explain that momentarily. And finally, we had to amend 83-227, Assisted Housing District, to reflect the minimum or the fixed floor area to track with the state housing code. So that's the high-level category of changes that we proposed.

Can we just go back to the section on delineation of boundaries? You don't have the markup.

The traffic district? Yeah. Yeah. So you want me to talk about that, Mr. Chairman?

Yeah, but one thing, it says there are hereby established two CTMDs, control... traffic mitigation districts in the town. The first CTMD shall be composed of all parcels of property located on the westbound side of the Post Road. Yeah, I think you're reading from the prior draft.

I changed it. All right, we did that. I changed it to one district to include all of the commercial lots along the Boston Post Road. No, all I was going to say was...

When you're talking about the post road, it's either the northbound side or the westbound or the southbound side, right?

Yeah. There is no westbound. Let me get, let me, give me one second.

Let me get the language up. I was just trying to think of where that is located, but.

One second.

Yeah.

All right. So subsection C of the new proposed 383-181 I wrote it delineation of boundaries. There is hereby established one CTMD in the town. The CTMD shall be composed of all parcels of property located on the westbound and eastbound sides of the Boston post road and located in either the commercial C1 district commercial C dash two district or local shopping center at LSC district as specified. in Section 383-15 and as shown on the zoning map. So you want to change that to south and north side? Well, yeah, because there is no westbound side. I think I was referring to, like, the traffic going east to westbound, but we can change it to the north side and the south side, however you want to describe it. So, I mean, visually, it's up to you.

Now that we only have one, it's... think now could you say uh shall be composed of all parcels of property located along the boston post road okay that's fine you don't have to give a direction okay because you're i'm okay with that yeah because there is you you took out the the last sentence the sentence second ctmd yes You're taking that all out, so you'll take out that reference to the eastbound site, and we'll go with it.

It's going to be 383-181?

Yeah. Yes.

Right. And just visually, it's up on the screen for you. In the outline, black includes all the parcels that about the Boston Post Road or close to it that are zoned commercial or the LSC. I have reached out to OPM. because ultimately one of these districts have to get OPM approval before they can become effective. There's no current published Guidance on on how to get that approval though. I was told we can submit it or you know We can submit an application on our own forms. We have to provide a narrative describing what we've done provide the proofs of when The plan was considered by this commission the public notices the meaning zoning is and the rationale for you know why we why we picked this along with the calculation for the uh the area because one of these zones cannot be more than four percent of the total land area uh in town and just let me i have that for you based on the property record cards from the assessor's office Got too much stuff. Yeah. You guys keep me too busy.

Mm-hmm.

Do you want to take a short break? No, I got it right here. I'm going to give you the numbers, but these come in at almost 4%, so we're fine. It's roughly... Where is it? Yeah, there it is. Sorry.

Right.

Right. The total land area of Orange based on the last POCD is 11,190 acres, and these parcels are 420 plus or minus. So we're just below the 4%, so these are fine. And if there was any issue, you're allowed two of them, so we could chop it up into two as previously done, and we'd be fine. But you are limited to two districts of no each cannot be more than four percent so okay hey that's I'm happy to ask or answer any questions that anybody may have the next step in terms of going forward if you know if the Commission approves it is you know we'd have to you'd have to pick an effective date you'd have to publish and record it with the town clerk and then I'll work with staff Steve here to get an application up to OPM for the the traffic district all right

All right, first thing we need to do is to... I don't think we need any more discussion on this. I mean, we've been through this plenty. And these last couple changes are minor. You'll address them.

The most substantive one was what we just went over.

Right. And so let me ask, there's nobody in the audience at all now. So that, you know, seems kind of ridiculous, but... Does anybody in the public wish to speak to the application? Hearing none, I'll take a motion to close the public hearing.

So moved.

We have a second? Second. All right. We have a motion to close the public hearing. It's been seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. I don't think we need any further discussion at this point. We just need a motion to approve the petition. with an effective date.

Yep. Right?

What is the effective date supposed to be?

You guys can pick it. The regulations can't become effective until they're published and filed with the clerk. So, Jenny, how much time do you think you'd need to get it published with the newspaper? And then I would pick a date after that as the effective date for caution.

Okay.

A week is safe. OK. Yeah. We could talk to the paper pretty soon.

It's for me, but ultimately... All right, listen, I'll move to approve the petition to amend the Orange Zoning Regulations, which is initiated by the Orange Planning and Zoning Commission, to amend Articles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 14, 17, and 25 of the Orange Zoning Regulations to comply with Public Act 25-1 with an effective date of 7-14-26.

All right. We have a motion to approve the petition. Do we have a second? Second. It's been seconded. Any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Owen, thank you for all your help on that. You're welcome. Very good, Owen. Tough job.

You did it well. If I knew Big Y was going to be so long, I would have showed up even later. Yeah, well...

All right, so that concludes our agenda.

Move to adjourn.

We have a motion to adjourn. Second. It's been seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, thank you all very much. Enjoy the rest of your summer. We'll meet next on August 4th.