Planning Board - Regular Meeting

evening everyone welcome to the september 17th 2026 meeting of the planning board i call the meeting to order and i'm going to ask frank perrier and logan roy to sit we have some members who may be late this is our first regular meeting starting six o'clock i think some couple members may have forgotten the memo so we're good to get started first item on our agenda is approval of minutes from the august 20th 2026 meeting

I didn't hear. Was that a motion? So moved. I'll make a motion that we approve the million minutes.

And two motions. We have one second.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? With determination and completeness, with the request of LEA LLC as owner for property at 238 Austin Street, requesting preliminary and final subdivision approval to subdivide one lot into two lots and demolition of the existing structures to construct a single family dwelling on each lot. This is determination completeness only, which we can do now. We can wait, whatever the board's pleasure.

Motion to determine that item A is complete according to the subdivision ordinance contingent on granting any required waivers under section three of the agenda and to accept the application for consideration. Second. Discussion?

All those in favor? Aye.

Any opposed?

We have a series of public hearings and for the members of the public and anybody who happens to be watching at home, we do have rules on our public hearings. There's a procedure we have to follow. First is a presentation by the proponent. to be questions by the planning board members and then public comment we have up to three rounds of comments the comments are to be you give your name and address if you want to give a comment you speak to for against the application only it's not open mic night there are a lot of interesting things going on in the city in the world but those are different issues than for a planning board meeting Direct your comments to me, if you will, and then the first round, which is oral comment only, is up to three minutes. We have a timer up here, and you'll see three lights on the podium. It's green when you can speak without soon-arrival interruption. It goes yellow when you've got about a minute left, then it goes red, and then there's a buzzer when your time is up. Please adhere to the time frames. second round is up to five minutes and that can include a presentation if you brought a presentation and the third round if necessary is another five minutes you cannot speak in the second and third rounds unless you speak in the preceding rounds so please bear that in mind if you wish to speak especially if you wish to speak in the later rounds after that the public hearing is closed and the board deliberates the first public hearing tonight is a request of public service company new hampshire dba eversource energy is owner for property at 400 gosling road schiller substation e194 for utility rights of way requesting wetland conditional use permits from section 10 10 17 60 for the replacement of 12 wooden structures with new steel structures these include 45 531 square feet of temporary wetland buffer impacts 37 390 square feet of temporary wetland impacts This property is on assessor's maps. These properties are on assessor's maps 239 lot 16, 18, map 238 lot 20, map 237 lot 56, map 236 lot 34, map 240 lot 2-1, map 240 lot 2-2001 and 3, and lies within the Gateway Neighborhood Corridor District, the Office Research District, the Municipal District, the General Business District, the General Business Districts. Who's here to present this application?

i am i'm trent delahanty i'm a wetland scientist and environmental scientist who works with works for vhb and i'm presenting on behalf of eversource okay you may proceed okay as you have briefly stated this project is intending to replace 12 wooden structures with with weathered steel, which is current with the industry standards. To facilitate the replacement of these structures, we're proposing to use timber matting within the wetland buffers and within the wetlands. We have gotten a statutory permit by notification through the Wetlands Bureau for the wetlands impacts themselves. As you can see on the plans here, we have wetland impacts proposed to facilitate to get to structure 16. And then structures 22 and 23. And structures 38 and 40. All the we had meetings with the conservation commission on both july 8th and august 12th after the first july 8th conservation commission meeting we decided to implement the temporary timber matting within all the buffer buffer areas to further reduce impacts

Do you have other things or was that pretty much it?

This is pretty much a pretty broad overview of the project. Like I said, I was the wetland scientist who delineated the wetlands into the function value assessments. So if there's any technical questions, I'm happy to answer them tonight.

Okay. Questions to the applicant?

I just have one question. There's a mention in the application about discussing further installing wetland boundary markers. There's, I think, a mention of a temporary flagging that was going to be put up, and it said something here about discussing further with the CONCOM as to whether or not permanent wetland boundary markers would be installed. Has there been a decision on that? I specifically ask because I know, I think, previously there were some issues with pole replacement or pole work and where wetlands were, so it seems like it would be a good idea to have them.

yeah we uh we did not discuss that with the conservation commission um prior to construction crews coming out we do use the vinyl ribbing so the um those will be the delineation was done in 2025 this work's going to be proposed to be in uh later in this year so we'll likely go out and refresh those flags to make sure they're all visible the big thing that we were wondering or wanting to discuss with the permanent boundaries is that these utility rights-of-ways are easements and they don't technically own the grounds underneath so it was kind of that great period of putting the MARKERS ON PROPERTY THAT'S KIND OF EASEMENTED USE BUT IT'S NOT TECHNICALLY OWNED BY THE APPLICANT.

THAT ANSWERS MY QUESTION. THANKS.

The mats that you're using, are there any invasive species on the property where you're setting those down?

Yes, there are invasive species noted within here. So I have, you know, purple loosestrife, glossy buckthorn, multiflora rose. Oriental bittersweet or just some of the species as I'm kind of briefly looking back through along the wetlands and the wetland buffers themselves so I mean when we we have photos and then I have the inventory with the I Have the species and estimated percentages currently within the buffer from my wetland delineation and as construction progresses well with the timber matting on there the clean timber mats we put in place there's no no real invasive species or you know i guess we don't believe that that's going to cause an additional invasive species as we're not bringing different fill or different um Potential contaminated soils to the parcel to do any of this work it all just be on construction timber timber mats Those will be placed and the vehicles drive over that so there's no actual earth disturbance when we use the timber matting so there are existing invasive species underlying in these areas but this project it's not anticipated that this project is going to cause them to expand greater or bring new species in with the use of timber man the reason i ask is not spreading them on site but when you take them up and take them off site are you going to how are you going to clean them to prevent the migration of those things off-site

It's come up before with.

Hi, good evening. Ashley Nicoletti with ever source. The timber mats are swept on site before they're removed from the site and moved to another location. is that in your application i didn't see it it's a standard best management practice it's also within the des best management practices manual um so i believe if it's not stated explicitly in the application it's stated that we follow the best management practice manual that the des has thank you

I'm going to finish this application, then I'll update the membership of the board, because we've had some members join us. But any other questions of the applicant?

Yes, Bill.

No change in capacity?

No.

Can't boost it just a little bit?

Nope. We're just replacing the wood structures with steel structures.

No other questions? Thank you. I'm going to open the public hearing. Anybody here on zoom was just to speak to, for, against this application. If you're on zoom and wish to speak to this application, raise your hand virtually. If not last call for anybody here on zoom, I'm going to close the public hearing for deliberation.

Make a motion. Move that we vote to find the conditional use permit application meets the requirements set forth in section 10.1017.50 of the ordinance and adopt the findings and facts as presented. Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Abstaining.

You're not seated yet, but you're gonna be in it. You're gonna be in a couple of minutes Move we vote to grant the conditional use permit as presented second discussion All those in favor aye any opposed motion carries Thank you, thank you very much now Logan, I'm going to ask you to step down. We now have members Shikori and Councillor Moreau present, so you'll stay seated, Frank, for Tony, who's not present and will not be present. He's traveling. Next public hearings request of Elia LLC is owner for property 238 Austin Street requesting preliminary and final subdivision approval to subdivide one lot into two lots and Demolition of the existing structures to construct a single-family dwelling on each lot This property is located in Assessors map 135 lot 61 and lies within the general residence C district who was here to present this application

thank you Alex Ross I'm a surveyor and engineer who prepared the plans I'm here with Matt Boyer and Monica Kaiser so this is a simple subdivision Currently this parcel has frontage on Austin and coffins and the geometry is such that in between those streets the land necks down. And actually back in 1986 there was a dividing line there and then at that point in time they removed that line to connect these two parcels. So we're basically just bringing that back. So on this first sheet, the existing conditions plan, You can see along Austin Street there is a house, there's a shed, and then again that land, the parcel narrows as you go back to Coffins Court. On the Coffins Court side, there's a large abandoned barn. the structures are such that they take up a lot of lot coverage and they do not meet the property line setbacks peter if you go to the next sheet so this is our subdivision plan and Our dividing line is here in that narrow portion. So the result would be two separate lots, one on Austin, one on Coffins Court. On this plan, you can see the proposal is to remove the existing structures and to put in new smaller structures that are much more conforming as far as lot coverage, building setbacks. Peter, if you could flip to the next sheet. So in this plan package on both parcels, we've kind of zoomed in so you can get a good feel of what happens on the site, all the setbacks, the utilities, the coverages, the driveways. So that's what you're seeing here. And also on the next sheet is a stormwater management plan. Now, for both of these parcels, there's a significant decrease in impervious coverage, and as part of our application, we did submit a waiver for a full drainage study just because of the decrease, which is the best way to control stormwater management. and then if you could go to the next sheet so this is along coffins court so that that large abandoned barn that was there that was very close to the rear lot line and the left side line there's a new small house that conforms to those setbacks and has a big reduction in impervious coverage And then again, stormwater management plan. As part of the permitting process, we have been through three TAC meetings, so it was good to get all their recommendations. There was some abutter concern, and we feel like we've addressed all those issues with conditions from TAC as far as CMMP plan vibration monitoring so extra conditions in place to ensure no disturbance in the neighborhood also as part of the permitting process we did go to the ZBA and obtain the necessary variances for this project So overall, it's pretty simple. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Questions of the applicant.

Yes, Andrew. On page or drawing number three, it's labeled technical illustrations. Yes. The right-hand side, there's an image that depicts a car in the garage and a car in the driveway. And it says pervious driveway, but there's seemingly a line down the middle of it. And I'm just curious what that line down the middle of the driveway is. Sure. Is that pervious versus impervious?

Peter, can you flip to that?

Yeah, I'm trying to find it.

Oh, it's not in there?

That's all right. This one? No. Drawing number three, it's page 17 of the application. That one right there. The right hand side image, the car that is not in the driveway has a line going down the middle of it.

Looks like the old driveway ghosted in underneath the plan.

I think our designer had an overlay of the Existing conditions, so that's what that line should be the old driveway Because you can see further down the driveway he's showing the existing shed So I think he was just trying to do an overlay that same graphic goes out to the street if you follow it down to the bottom

Any other questions to the applicant?

I said one more.

Notably, there's various soil types, rock types, bedrock types over there. In the event that you need to dig and attempt to dig but run into too much pushback from the bedrock or what have you, is there an alternative plan for the basement of the structure?

So that that was brought up a little bit at TAC and While we we know what we can see out there You know as we dig we don't know what we'll run into And I think that's why they wanted to add in vibration monitoring So If ledge is encountered at certain elevations, it can be removed as long as the construction procedure is proper.

And would the intent to be remove it, or would you potentially shallow the basement?

Yeah, so it depends. It's kind of a case-by-case while you're out there. If the ledge is easily removed, it'd most likely be removed. Sometimes there's a surface layer of rotten ledge and then it really gets hard. And in that case, some areas may change. Sure.

Yes, Joe.

Can you speak a bit more to the condition of the barn? the structure of the barn, its foundation and so forth.

Sure. So when we first started this project, we did inspect the house and the barn. And years and years ago, this was a plumbing warehouse and it hasn't been used for decades and decades. So it's not in great condition. Originally we were thinking, would it make sense to try to save this? Could we save it? And after reviewing the foundation, the beams, the lack of code conformity, and because it hasn't been maintained for so long it's in pretty poor condition and it just didn't make sense to work with it And the small house as well on Austin the structural condition of that and the idea of

of removing that?

Yeah so that house I think was recently lived in and by the time we got there someone had done extensive work inside so they had removed interior framing they cut up a lot of the old hand hewn beams and their temporary supports, so there really wasn't much worth saving. I believe a previous owner had plans and was in the middle of demo.

Yes, Bill? Would you talk a little more about the technology of understanding the rock substructure? I'm concerned about how much is known and how much is unknown and what happens if the unknown is not what you hope it to be.

sure so you know it at any of these sites underneath the existing structure and to what depth where the ledge is you're not going to really know until you remove that structure and then start your excavation so you know depending on how hard the ledge is, what elevation the ledge is, we'll then, you know, we'll be able to make a determination. Do we want to go full depth? Do we just want to remove a little? But all that work, of course, is restricted as TAC put a condition on it that the work has to be sensitive in nature and has to be properly monitored with vibration meters. Is there a check-in point? Check-in point.

Once you start, you go and you make your judgment. Are the parameters around the judgment that you're going to reach? I'm just concerned about understanding from the neighbor point of view and with patients that are 100 years old what the implication is of intense drilling activity.

Sure. No, that's a good question. I'm sure, and Matt can probably answer this question because he's talked to a lot of contractors and the vibration monitoring testing company. But I'm sure there's a tipping point. Nobody wants to be out there for a week chipping bedrock away. So I don't know what that exact amount or elevation would be.

Specifically, what do you intend to do? Do you intend to blast it? Do you intend to hammer drill it? What do you intend to do? How do you intend to get the basement excavated?

Typically on a small site like this, it would be a ram hole machine would be, and you'd chip it out.

Right. And depending on the nature of the ledge, that could be lots of holes or few?

Depending on what's out there. I do know on the Austin Street structure there is a full basement but you know how the ledge undulates as you go back to Coffins I do know in Coffins Court in the actual roadway the DPW has encountered ledge when they're repairing sewer water lines so ledge exists

Have you done any digging on the site?

No.

So what's on your construction management plan? Have you thought about whether the activity will be all from Austin or from both streets or you know how that might be phased?

yeah that's a good question so that was brought up a lot at TAC meetings and they would prefer it to be anything that can be done from Austin so Matt and his team that that is the plan but of course you know on the CMMP all those details will be hashed out sent to the city to DPW to make sure that everyone reviews and approves that

Well, it's also, you know, it's a public hearing tonight, so I think it's important for the public to understand what the plan is and if it has to change due to a technical reason later. That's perhaps understandable, but it's also good for folks to understand what's going on here. Is there a, have you established a threshold? I know you don't want to constrain yourself, but back to the ledge topic, that's so variable in the state. We just don't know until you get to encounter it. If it looks like a big job, will it not be pursued? Or, I mean, you said a week, I mean, there have been projects. I live next to one that went on for months. So, um, is there a limit to how much you would anticipate? And before you just say, no, that's enough, we don't want to go any deeper.

um i again matt can probably speak to that but i i would not anticipate um you know ledge removal would be a month out there and that i don't want to none it's just stated being one i'm sorry it's kind of backed away from the mic I was just saying I think Matt can answer that question better but it's my understanding you know from the scope and size of this project ledge removal would not be you know for the duration of a month So less than a month and would this be the process where you ask neighbors for inspections beforehand for looking for damage and that sort of thing So I believe on the TAC conditions and as part of the staff review, one of the conditions is there has to be vibration monitoring testing for the demo and the foundation work. and I believe that includes foundation survey so you know a team would would walk around to nearby houses and inspect those take take photos and have a report okay I had one question on the barn before bill how old is it just curious if you know I don't know if there's an exact date for this barn, but if I recall from reading the deeds, I think it's 1880-ish or somewhere in that neighborhood.

I think Bill, then Andrew, and then Bill. Is there bonding involved here in the event things go south and the neighbors are damaged more than anticipated?

You know, I know on a commercial site there is so Peter I don't be a subdivision bond for the utility work the work in the right-of-way, but not necessarily for You know if there's damage to foundations we wouldn't bond that but I Would think they would be liable

They'd be liable but not bonded if there were damage to adjacent foundations We typically just bond the work that's in the right-of-way If damage were anticipated that could be a condition I Mean it's a very constrained site But that would not be, it's unique, the site's somewhat unique. So I think Andrew had his hand up next.

I haven't forgotten. Yeah, my question might be kind of a softball. When looking at the property, your garage is on the right hand side and then you have your driveway and you have marginally more room on that right hand side. But what you don't have is a home right on that lot line. Did you explore offsetting a whole structure to the right and putting your garage on the left hand side of the home? Just to not have competing and really close setbacks between front door and front door.

sure uh... so peter if you could flip to the site

so you're talking about the the driveway on the right yeah that photo is fine so the driveway the garage but on the left hand side the bottom of that photo is another home and that home on the street view and as i walked down there the other day is very close and it will remain very close so a thought that i had and hopefully you have an answer is could you have flipped and so that the garage is on the left hand side and you no longer have those competing uses so close to one another sure um and i guess also peter if you could if you could flip to the existing conditions plan

And I don't know if you can zoom in there, but the existing barn is really close to that left sideline. So we have moved further to the right. But one thing we're looking at on Coffins Court, there's a bit of an elevation change as you're going down the road. So in other words, the driveway and the garage is best suited on the right side. Otherwise you're competing with that steep grade.

I see Can you talk a little bit about Speaking of the barn and the foundation brick foundation of that barn being very close to the other house in the picture It clearly the brick foundation abuts right up to a walkway Can you talk about how you can secure that walkway while you're removing all of this? I?

sure oh peter can you go back to that existing conditions um so you're correct you know there's a cobblestone walkway um that actually goes over the property line um but we want to stay far away from that area and and then peter if you go to the site plan of the one on coffins know we're a good distance away but um you know just the way that uh stairway the cobblestones are built i'm sure there's going to be some shoring up going on there because it's kind of like the the existing barn and its foundation is holding the grade that's right there so that was my concern is it looks like it's holding it so how do you take that down and not let it all collapse I think there's going to be some temporary shoring there and maybe some of those existing stones will be left in place. But the plan is to leave, you know, that left side along that property line. So, you know, that cobblestone walkway, the stairs, even if they encroach a little bit, the owner's intent is to leave that the way it is.

Could you be more clear, Alex, is the intention to maintain that walkway even though it crosses the property line so that it will not collapse?

It is.

Yeah. It is. So that's a representation you're making then, okay.

Yeah, the owners just confirmed that. Okay.

Any other questions of the applicant? Thank you. I'm going to open the public hearing. Anybody here or on zoom, which is to speak to four against this application. This is the first round. As I mentioned earlier, you have, if you wish to speak up to three minutes.

Is it okay if I go?

You can go. Thank you. Name and address, please.

Thank you. My name is John Mayer. My wife Deborah and I live at 68 Cabot Street. We've occupied our house since 1998. Our house was built in 1813. It's 213 years old. It's unreinforced masonry construction, like many brick buildings in Portsmouth. So the question about monitoring is of high concern to me. I would say that when you talk about surveying a foundation, virtually our whole house is a foundation. It starts at five widths thick and goes up to three, down to three. So that's a serious concern and I am nervous, not experienced at speaking to boards like this. I submitted a letter and along with my letter was a supporting document from our attorney which is in part emphasizing our concern for monitoring and construction management. So I'm going to jump to a couple things that I think are really notable that I believe the planning board should speak to. And the first is safety. Coffins Court is 12 feet wide at best. There are some places where it's more narrow than that. So in terms of access by fire department emergency equipment, my research, and I'm not an expert, says that there is a fire code that requires a 20 foot wide width for access by emergency equipment, 26 feet for aerial apparatus. So my question is, will the applicant be getting a variance to allow construction when conditions are such that it isn't safe and reasonable for emergency equipment to come down the street. And I will share an anecdote, and this is heartbreaking in a way. One of our neighbors was seriously ill and called an ambulance. So the Portsmouth Fire Department responded. The ambulance didn't come down the street. They stopped at the end of Coffins Court, and the EMT walked to the house that's on the other side of the barn to see what was needed. And in fact, they needed a gurney. gurney was wheeled down the street and pam was carried back to the ambulance and taken to the hospital she apologized for the interruption the ambulance made the decision not to go down the street and it would say if this street is safe for emergency equipment it would seem to me that they would have driven down the street picked up pam and gone on to the hospital glad to hear people have walked the site i think it's incredibly important for you to see how constrained this site is it is one of the features of our neighborhood and it makes it am i done the first round is only three minutes you are welcome to speak in the second round if you like thank you any other first round speakers

my name is keith smith they live at 30 coffins court obviously i abut the 238 property uh question is any work supposed to be done to this property before you give the okay i'm just going to let everybody know this is not a question and answer session it's for us to hear from you thank you so um Yeah, I have serious concerns about digging, blasting 15 feet from my house. Don't think it's a good idea. That's it.

Thank you. Any other first round speakers?

Hi, my name is Matt Boyer. I'm part of the development team for 238 Austin Street. So I just wanted to cover a couple of items that were left open that Ross Engineering had spoken to. So as far as the ledge is concerned, yes, if there's a significant amount of ledge there, we would abandon a full basement and we would do something like a crawl space. i would also like to point out that the barn already has about a five foot deep crawl space already so more than likely there isn't going to have to be a lot of excavation to get a full basement there and there's already a full basement at austin street so they're more than likely we're not going to have a lot of issues and if we do we've got the vibration monitoring that we're going to do and that is and i spoke to some professionals about this and they typically adjust that for what type of homes are close by so if you have older homes that are more sensitive with plaster walls etc they set a much lower level to what is allowable vibration and uh so it's that you're sensitive and uh as far as the pre-construction survey they'll be taking pictures of all the adjacent homes what the condition of their foundations are and taking a record of it so that we'll know before and after if there's been any change so thank you thank you you know the first round speakers

Good evening. My name is John Raganese. I live at 74 Cabot Street in Portsmouth. The barn sits right behind my house. I'm going to start, because I know I'm going to take more than three minutes, but I'm going to start to just address a couple of comments that were made. There was a statement made by the surveyor, Alex, that implied that there used to be a lot line between these two lots that are the subject property. Where he's correct, there was a lot line, but it wasn't a separate lot. It was a component of the property that I own. So this was, in 1986, this was a lot line adjustment because the property was actually owned by the same family. Both the little house and my house owned the barn. And so it was a lot line adjustment. It wasn't a separate lot. So you would be creating a new lot in this congested area as a result of this, not reestablishing a lot. The other comment I would make is that he actually referred correctly to the back line as the rear lot line, whereas under the zoning board of adjustment hearings, they kept continually emphasizing that that back line was not technically the rear line, and therefore we can put our new house 10 feet from it. whereas 20 feet is required and they did that because there's a narrow strip that goes to the other lot that is very narrow but they used that distance to adequately provide the variance of 18 feet rather than 20. and then lastly i would say that there is a as Alex referred to, there is a drop going down to the left side as board member Andrew was referring to, but you don't really see it on any of the drawings because the drawings just all sort of show that the property is being flat or the house foundation is being flat. What that results in on Coffins Court is a building that is five feet from the edge of Coffins Court and five feet in grade higher. That's a one-to-one grade. That's 100% slope. Speaking about securing and stabilizing a bank, I would worry more about stabilizing city infrastructure. And there's no plan. There's nothing. There's not even a reference to how they're going to stabilize that slope. And then lastly, before I get into any of the comments, whereas there is a crawl space underneath that barn, that crawl space does not extend entirely under that barn, and I think that's because there's ledge. It only extends on this lower section that's five feet lower in grade from the upper end, which makes me suspicious of the grade. I don't know where I'm in the yellow now, so I may not. I have a long history, 46 years of doing regulatory permitting at the state and federal level. I would make a recommendation that you postpone the final subdivision hearing on this matter because you are referring to this as lot six on assessor map 135 in the general residence. Sorry, can I finish that comment or no?

You can finish up in the second round. Thank you. You're the first round speakers.

Hi, my name is Laura Stewart. My husband Evan and I live at 20 Coffins Court, which is directly across the street, probably about 10 feet. Our concerns are about the vibration and any damage that could happen to our house during any part of the building and excavation and how we could be reimbursed financially to fix the home that would be damaged. So that's when you were speaking of bonds or other payments like that's our biggest concern. and i don't know what the next step would be to make that part of the deal so i just wanted to throw that out there thank you any other first round speakers

My name is Cindy Smith. I live at 30 Coffins Court, which is directly across the street from the barn. I, too, am concerned about any vibrations damaging our home. They're talking about... Videos of the outside of our homes, I would definitely ask that videos be taking on the inside as well. We do have plaster walls. We have old foundations. Our house was built in 1845. So it's not. a new house that is more structurally sound than anything that's built in the last 50 to 100 years i also ask that you consider not subdividing this property i do think that both of those buildings could be built in accordance with what fits on the lot and it could be condominium style two buildings on one lot and they be accessed from Austin Street, which is what they are now. And finally, I ask that in the CMMP that they make sure the road is tarred from one curb to the next, though we don't have curbing because the street is so small. Our road was tarred less than two years ago. It took 40 years for us to get that road tarred. having it patchwork together is just gonna be so sad for all of us who have to live there. Thank you.

Thank you. You know, the first round speakers, you're on Zoom.

Good evening, Monica Kaiser from hopeful Phoenix Gormley and Roberts on behalf of the owner and the applicant here tonight. I just wanted to take an opportunity to give you a little bit of the history with respect to the zoning. We've heard a lot of concerns tonight more specific to the construction activity that's going to occur, but some of the other written submissions have talked about the configuration, the density. and other types of issues that were raised and considered by the zoning board when the zoning board ultimately decided to grant us the relief to create this lot configuration that's before you today. The other things that were discussed at that time were what can we do with the barn? Does anybody want the barn? Can we save the barn? and those were issues that had been explored by the prior owner and i think even the one before we were willing to sort of give the barn away somebody could take it they could reassemble it somewhere else any of those things and that that didn't get off the ground so we do have concerns about the structural integrity we presented the zoning board with information about that other folks had a different opinion but it was the opinion of our structural engineer that it couldn't be repurposed successfully. I agree that it is somewhat historic. If somebody would take it, that would be fine. But that has not sort of been borne out. And the prior owner, I think, also sort of found herself in a maybe having the best intentions with respect to that lot and that barn and really finding herself in over her head, which resulted in her selling it again in a fairly short time. so those are are the issues that i wanted to present to you with respect to the construction activities i understand why you're concerned about it but i i do want to encourage you to keep to the subdivision rules the construction activities are going to be regulated by the building department but i've conferred with the owners And certainly, I think the information that you've been presented about the baseline for vibration testing being dependent on the condition and the age of the surrounding homes is helpful, certainly. the contractors who will be working and doing that ledge work and excavation will have the appropriate liability insurance. And if it's not already required by the building department to submit that type of documentation, we'd be happy to do that as a condition of any approval that you consider. Are there any other sort of legally questions that I might be able to answer? Let me know.

Question and answers with the first part that you didn't speak during understood.

I wanted to give the others an opportunity to speak.

Thank you. And you're the first round speakers.

Hello, Evan Baker, 20 Coffins Court. My wife and I live across the street from the barn. We are against the subdivision. We feel like the ZBA kind of took the easy way out. I feel like the ZBA kind of took the easy way out, kind of kicked this can down the road to you guys to make the difficult decision to not make this split happen for us. we're hoping that you'll reconsider i do appreciate that a lot of you did walk the site hopefully the rest of you do you'll understand the complications associated with the construction part of it but i think you'll also see that that lot does not need to be split thank you thank you any other first round speakers if you're on zoom and wish to speak raise your hand

Well, the first round speakers, you can't speak in the second round unless you speak in the first round. Just to remind everybody. Okay. Now it's the second round. Go ahead. Five minutes. Thank you.

It's interesting to hear that we're talking about the ZBA meeting because I didn't think that was appropriate or allowed. I will say at that meeting we had a report written by Drew Bedard who is a restoration mechanic who does a lot of work throughout the state of New Hampshire restoring barns. He came at the invitation of people from the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance And if you're interested, you can find that report in the ZBA file. I think the meeting was in March, on March 28th. But Mr. Bernard's finding was that, indeed, the barn could be rehabilitated and reused. And actually, that was one of the points that I think is important to make, that with some creative effort and thoughtful design, I agree that the applicant could achieve their goals on the site without removing the barn and saving the house. It can be done. So their decision not to do that creates a lot of these issues. I wanted to continue with a couple things about the site. I was at the TAC meeting and heard a lot of the conversation about how this project actually will be managed. And in the action sheet from the TAC meeting of August 4th, they said the construction mitigation and management plan and a plan for monitoring was going to be required. I would ask the Planning Board to make that conditional of your approval. It's all well and good to hear that there will be monitoring and so on, but unless the standards are set, how will we know that they're actually going to conduct the work to a high level? Again, our house is a very sensitive 213-year-old house. I think monitoring has to run throughout the period, and I think it needs to be defined. The point that I think some of my neighbors have made about the excavation with blasting or rock drilling, this 12-foot road puts their houses that much closer to this project area. So literally, I mean, there'll be work going on 15 feet from a property line where their house is. I am not an experienced construction person, but it is totally hard for me to understand how there can be blasting and excavation in such a tight area. I would ask at what point is a project too close for something like that to happen? It just seems really unreasonable. And then the last thing I wanted to ask about, and I guess I'm not going to ask, I'll make a point. I understand the planning board is guided by the city's master plan. I think throughout the master plan, the current and the one that is being drafted, there are many statements by people in the community about their concerns about how dramatically our community is changing. So I would think that because the planning board is guided by that master plan, you would be looking at that to see if there's some support for a decision, which would be, let's not subdivide this property. Let's find an alternative to this project that's presented to you so that the developer can do their work, but the neighbors who live in the neighborhood can continue to enjoy the qualities that we've come to appreciate about this neighborhood. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Any other second round speakers?

my name again yes please john raganese 74 cabot street in portsmouth um as i was mentioning um the uh notice for today's meeting referred to this lot 61 on assessor map 135 whereas the february 25th zoning board of adjustment decision cites the subject property as lot 28 on assessor map 113 in the general residence a this constitutes a factual error in a written decision I've been there before, but under RSA 673, colon 3, a written decision must reflect the actual application heard. And the February 25th written decision does not do that. I have not been aware of any errata decisions being issued. We didn't get any notices of that. So my suggestion is that you pause any final decision until you actually have a correct decision from your zoning board of adjustment. I would also argue that hardship has not been met in this subdivision. As I said, there wasn't two lots before. There was always been just the abutting lot and the house. We're creating a new lot, and I'm not sure what constitutes the hardship for allowing that to happen in a zone which has... already almost double the density of dwellings per unit that the general residents see allows it's a 15 it's a target I imagine I don't think it's a restriction per se but it's a 15 dwelling unit per acre you are seeing 27 dwelling units per acre when you consider the block that this parcel sits on and the properties that sit on the opposite side of Coffins Court. In 2022, you denied an application on 688 Middle Street, 668 Middle Street, which were proposed a subdivision of a very similar, only larger lot, and you denied it. you require that the property maintain its wholeness as a single property and that any development on it consider either an ADU or a condominium style use or development of the property. My suggestion is here that this is another case for not forwarding a subdivision because it only introduces more issues down the road when people want to do something else with a separate lot and they're going to come before you and ask for more and more. I would ask that you do refer to the residential density. There is information that was brought forth in the CBA zoning. I don't believe they considered it, even though the attorney for the applicant suggest they might have. I don't believe they considered it at all. However, I do think it's in your purview as a planning department to be adhering somewhat to either master plan or what the goals of residential zones require They didn't ask for a variance from that criteria, but the criteria is 15 dwelling units, and there are almost double that currently without adding another structure such as you're looking at here. The last minimal perhaps to some, but at one of the TAC meetings, they required a a landscape plan be developed, which the applicant did, and I appreciate that, but I'm not really sure what that means. Who governs or, you know, deals with compliance to a landscape plan? I've spent my entire year, my entire career dealing with permitting and compliance, and so I'm asking or having, suggesting that there be a little more teeth to what is recommended or what conditions might be applied to this. Right now there's a tree that can grow up to 25 feet in diameter, and it's put right on the property line. Basically, I have a tree now on my lot that I never saw. I would like to see that moved. I'd like to have an opportunity to be able to have input into what that landscape plan is. Similarly, there was a reference that there's less drainage or there's more opportunity for the ground to absorb, so we don't need a drainage system. I would suggest you need a storage a snow storage plan be required because we're now occupying a piece of land that had no need for clearing or our removal of snow on a 12-foot wide road there is no place to move that snow unless it is maintained on that property and i would make that a requirement don't want to see that on this road the poor city guys that come through with a with basically a backhoe to clean that road thank you i'll continue thank you i'm going to leave these with you these are the notes okay any other second round speakers no other second round speakers

briefly monica kaiser again hopeful phoenix squirming roberts as i'm sure you know hardship isn't a part of your analysis for the subdivision you might consider certain factors in determining whether or not to grant the waiver but the hardship was demonstrated and found by the zba to permit the creation of these two lots and the configuration that are before you and with the structures that you see on this on these plans number one number two there may have been a earlier notice of decision with a typo but i'm looking at the correct notice of decision from the zda i don't think there's any issue as i'm sure you agree with the notice of decision that issue the question is did all the people who needed to get noticed get noticed I can tell you they did because they were all there just like they're here tonight. So there's certainly no issue with the form of the notice of decision that was issued. All of the conditions imposed by TAC are conditions. I don't think you need to refer to them again as conditions. I think they already are, but if you want to, you can. It's certainly our intention to comply with all of those requirements. The reality is that there are two structures on this property that are now. There are two structures that could be removed and rebuilt on a lot as it exists now as it's been suggested. Wouldn't it be better if we just had an ADU, and a regular house. Those things would still require two axes, one from Austin, one from Crawfence Court. Any type of construction on those lots, even if it exists the way it is today, would encompass all of the same issues that are being discussed here when we talk about the construction management. I think that those are really sort of beyond the scope of what you have to consider, which is, does the subdivision, um, as approved by the ZBA, um, meet all of the requirements in your subdivision ordinance, I would suggest to you that it does. And I urge you to approve it with any conditions you see fit.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other second round speakers? If not, I'm going to close the second round. Any third round speakers? Three minutes.

Thank you very much. It's John Mayer again. I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself for the second round. I do appreciate you all as volunteers. I understand the challenge of this work. So I am giving you my gratitude for what you're going through. One thing I want to just make completely clear, conditions have no meaning without any definition. So it's all well and good to say there will be monitoring, but what kind of monitoring will they do? It's all well and good to say there will be a construction mitigation and management plan, but what is the scope of that plan that is going to be required? Because I'm putting that out there because I think I'm turning to the planning board to protect the neighborhood, all of us who live there, and our interest in continuing to enjoy the house that we live in. There's been a lot of conversation about whether there's ledge or no ledge. Our house, which is at 68 Cabot Street, the grade from the level of the barn to our neighbor who's on the immediate I guess it's the southern side, there's about a 20 or 25 foot drop in elevation. And I think historically there was a stream that fed a reservoir that was on Union Street going back in the early 1800s. I am confident there is ledge there. There can be nothing but ledge and it presents a challenge for this project. The narrowness of the roadway makes the execution of the project a challenge, and I would just call on some alternative that might achieve everyone's objectives, seeing the neighborhood maintained and finding a use for the barn and the house or some other structure. I know it can be done, but this plan that we're seeing is not an example of that. So thank you very much for your volunteer work. Thank you.

three minutes three minutes yes john raganese 74 cabot street in portsmouth um the only thing i would like to add is that the barn in the house on austin street have had a long history of occupancy by numerous animals including raccoons squirrels possums cats and rats additionally it housed horses for many years to reduce the potential for mobilizing potentially harmful airborne particulates dust and scatter rodents to seek refuge in the neighboring properties which i know has occurred as other houses have been demolished particularly the rats the owner should be responsible for eliminating all of the animals and rodents prior to demolition prior to demolition of the barn a demolition hazard assessment management and mitigation plan should be drafted and required by the city. and reviewed by the building inspection department, the city health department, and the owners and properties that abut the parcel and are on Coffin's Court. We would like to be part of those reviews and provide input before they are finalized. That holds for the construction management and mitigation plan as well. We would like to see what is becoming a final requirement that's going to be enforced by the city. They may not reflect what we want, but we want to be able to have some input into that final. The demolition of the barn must be conducted from Austin Street, not Coffins Court. The restriction was discussed at the TAC meeting, as was mentioned. There was some support, I know, at the TAC meeting for having that happen, but I see nothing in the TAC recommendations that require that. I urge you to add that. The CMP should be distributed to abutting owners and to the subject property and those that abut on Coffman's Court and give us a reasonable time to review it, provide some input. And finally, both the demolition hazard assessment and mitigation and the construction management and mitigation should include requirements for the owners or all contractors to notify the owners of properties on Coffman's Court of planned road closures with a minimum notice of at least one or two days. We already had one closure as a result of the applicant deciding to put a new pole in next to the barn by Eversource. The road was closed all day only to find out that the natural gas had not been identified under Dick Safe and basically everybody left and they'll be back again. We would like some notice so that we don't have to have somebody knocking on our door at 8 o'clock in the morning to get everybody's cars out of our narrow driveways, out of our narrow street to accommodate this development. Thank you.

Thank you. Any of the third round speakers? If not, I'm going to close the public hearing.

Public hearing is closed.

Board discussion. Yes, Paul.

It seems the first threshold we need to cross is the requested waiver.

Would that be a place to start? It would be a good place to start.

I just want to talk about some of my concerns about this, if that's all right. You okay with that?

By all means.

I have concerns. So this is an extremely narrow street. I mean, I really call it more of a pathway than a street. It is difficult in listening to the stories about getting ambulances down there and fire apparatus. So my concern is now we're creating another access point on this narrow street with at least two more cars coming and going. I don't know if anybody else has this concern, but it's a concern of mine that we are going to make this narrow street even more congested by putting a house facing the street and accessing it from the street. So that's my biggest concern about this.

It's my understanding it's a city street. If it was not a city street, I'd have a serious problem with it. So everybody understands and was sort of explained with what the Board of Adjustment has given us. And I'm not criticizing the Board of Adjustment. They do their thing. What they presented this board with is two lots that can now conform to the zoning ordinance as modified. So this board doesn't have the discretion to look at hardship, that's a Board of Adjustment issue, that sort of a thing. We can consider that with the waiver that will be discussed in a minute for the drainage issue. This Board also has no authority today over demolition. Coincidentally, that's a topic that's part of the master plan update that's ongoing. It's actually been written recently in the last 2 weeks. There's been a number of discussions about that and the city attorney is working with the planning board about ways to. Have the planning board under state law It's actually the only board that can have that authority outside the historic district. We don't have that authority today That's something that might change depending on how the council feels about it and how the public feels about it But so, you know tonight we have no authority about that I just want to make that clear and I agree with you, Beth. The fire chief has told us this street is more narrow than he would approve for a new road. It's not a new road. It's a city street. So I think that's what we've been dealt with. I don't know of a way to address that. And I've been doing this a long time.

Well, one of our objectives of our subdivision regulations is to, you know, avoid congestion of vehicular traffic, and I feel like by creating this frontage on this lot that we are very well doing that. That's my biggest concern about this, where there would be the possibility of it actually having access off Austin Street if we didn't subdivide it.

We could require an analysis, a third-party analysis of that topic and get further input.

That is something that this board could do if the board so chose.

Yes, Joe, did you want to weigh in?

Yeah. Very difficult decision. Trying very hard to stay within our legal lane and what it is that we are allowed to comment on and form opinions on. I might go outside this lane with a statement, but... I'll let you know if you do. Well, I'm asking for a license to at least make a statement. I know it's not a decision, but the loss of the barn is heartbreaking to me. Believe it or not, there's a lot of charm in that barn and the little house that's on Austin Street. I recognize that. The loss of it is very difficult, and I'm sorry, but what's replacing the two structures is not very exciting at all, in my opinion. However, that's not what... That's not why we're here. That's not what I'm here to make a decision for. So I am just as heartbroken as a resident of Coffins Court of the loss of this barn. The barn can be saved. It's nonsense for anyone to say the barn cannot be saved. It's done all the time. But they don't have to do that, unfortunately. They do not have to save that barn. But it can be saved. Of course it can. It's done all over the country and the state. It's just called simple preservation, finding the right people that know how to do it. I do think within our rules and what our purview does allow us to do is I think it's a very valid and real request to monitor vibration in cracking. I think that a baseline needs to be established for what acceptable levels of vibration are. A simple Google search speaks to multiple methods for construction within historic settings. um there are devices that are mounted on existing cracks on buildings to see if they further move and there was a request by a resident that said they wanted the inside of their home surveyed as well that's very reasonable and standard in a situation like this but it's more it is more than just taking photographs it's it's it's mounting devices and i say devices like it's a you know a lot of technical sometimes it's just a sticky it's a sheet that you stick to the house and crinkles if the house is moved it's really that non-technical And then there are some very technical methods, kind of real-time cellular systems that when a vibration level is exceeded, the team is immediately emailed or texted and notified that the vibration levels are being exceeded and they can address them immediately. But I don't know. And then the rodent control measures is a very real thing that we should have in place for the neighborhood. I bet there's a lot of critters living in there underneath it. Absolutely there is. But where would all that take place? Is it in fact a construction mitigation and management plan? And has that ship sailed because site plan review may not be required here because it's not commercial? There's no additional more than five parking spaces, right? No, it could be a condition of the subdivision approval.

It can be.

Okay.

Okay. Would you repeat that, please? That's core to my question. We cannot...

The concern about specificity in the construction management plan about critters, for example, just to use a broad term, broad non-technical term.

Well, just the entire construction mitigation management plan. That could be a condition of the approval. And I think the applicant actually agreed to that. And typically that's The neighborhood is invited to a meeting that the building inspector holds in the neighborhood.

After the CMMP is finalized, part of it is notifying abutters and having an on-site meeting.

After it's finalized.

After it's reviewed by city departments. Okay.

Because I did hear a very clear request from residents. They wanted some input to it, but I don't know if that's typical or not.

Usually it's just presented to them once it's finalized at a meeting on site.

Yes, Bill. Who finalizes it? How specific is it? Who reviews it?

It's usually public works, planning, inspections, fire, police, and legal are all involved in reviewing the draft and providing comments to the applicant to make changes.

then they have a meet so it's it's finalized by city and approved by the city each department approves it the planning board could have input in that if if there were a condition we wanted to add it to that andrew did you have your hand up yeah um i think all of it is super valid including counselor moreau's point about traffic and congestion being contrary to the subdivision however i think and i'm definitely gonna get some hate mail for this but i think if the issue lies with the zba ruling and the variances that created a smaller single family lot on coppins court then that issue should be taken up with zba and i know that we're here to rule on a subdivision so it's somewhat correlated but in none of the public comment did i necessarily hear that people did not want a residence here uh there's a structure here there's pre-development here it is already disrupted and nobody kind of outwardly said don't build anything here now the scale or the positioning or the depth of the foundation is obviously up for debate but I guess as it relates to actually putting a home here, I personally look at the post development conditions. Is this going to be complimentary? Is this going to be another housing unit enforcement? All of those are yes, and. By the drawings of the architectural drawing submitted, it does seem to align with the characteristics of the neighborhood. So again. Nothing that is. offensive in my opinion granted i don't live across the street but you know cobbins court has always been 12 feet wide and these folks have always sort of accommodated that and so while i have empathy for more construction or disruption of that i didn't necessarily hear don't put anything there so my hope is that the city the applicant and both legal teams have the provisions in place that protect the abutters to the nth degree so that everyone can sleep easy at night knowing that either there are protections there or if something does go awry and needs to be corrected that it is an easy path to trace back to how to correct it and um and i feel pretty strongly about that because you know otherwise this is a continually dilapidating structure that also possesses presents its own risks and concerns and infinite issues that could come up so um we can talk about the the bedrock and the ledge and all that sure i definitely want to acknowledge those with any approvals but that's how i feel about just an overall house here and adding a structure here it seems to

it seems to be intuitive to some extent yes paul with respect to congestion i'm looking at a little grass gravel driveway at the barn that could easily accommodate two vehicles, if not more, leading to a barn door, which I don't know how much space is inside the barn, but I think there'll probably be a reduction in the potential congestion by what's being proposed to be built there. For all I know, I can get six cars inside that thing. I don't really like this project, but that doesn't matter. I don't like the fact that construction is so close to existing homes and that there is potential for an impact. There's no bond or anything for that. That's for you to litigate if that ends up being the case. it's surprising to me and i probably wouldn't know that this was one lot if it weren't for this application tonight i would think this is two separate lots two separate homes on two separate streets um if it if it were you know we'd have we wouldn't have a subdivision request we would have potentially two separate property owners just looking to redevelop their parcel. I'm kind of, you know, I'm not sharing the concerns that the councilor has with congestion. I don't like the potential impacts from construction. the displaced critters and things like that, that's all gonna have to be managed. If that is something we can condition, then by all means we should do that.

We can do that. Any other comments?

Yes. I have more of a question as far as the inspection goes. Is it standard practice for the inside of the house to also be inspected, or is it just kind of a variable case-by-case basis with this kind of thing? Does anybody know?

In my experience it's a request they can't they obviously can't gain entry to your house if you don't want them right, but Terms of like standard practice. I mean I live next to the Treadwell mansion that was recently turned into a hotel in property that involved extensive hammer drilling and They they had the on-site meetings with the abutters And by the way, I didn't sit on that application obviously because I'm gonna butter but they also went to all the neighboring properties and took photos inside after they got permission to do that. So that's standard procedure for this sort of thing. If you don't allow them in, then you've got a real issue if you claim damage afterwards. But that's normal how it works. So we, I've heard issues about, uh, concerns about the blasting concerns about the phasing of construction. We could require that the, uh, make a request of the construction management plan that construction be from Austin street. And that, that way it could be phased from that direction. Uh, we could make a requirement that the construction management plan address rodents and other animals in the barn during, and the house as they're removed. We could ask for outside review of traffic. I think that's pushing it on a city street. But we have that authority. Here's my concern from an engineering perspective. We're talking about a single family residence that is going to generate probably 10 car trips a day, typically. Now on that little street, That's not insignificant, but it's not huge. It's not dramatic. So it's something to think about. And I may be missing something.

That's why sometimes you have a third party review. Go ahead. I just want to speak a little bit to the idea that I've heard a few times about all of the activity coming from Austin Street. I understand that's well-intentioned, but it could also create, it could really intensify the impact to your butters on austin street and the homes that are against that narrow piece if you imagine taking that entire barn structure out that little narrow chute piece of land that barn's probably coming out in pieces say that again i think that barn's coming out in pieces yeah but it's um it's just some pretty intense activity to bring that full distance all the way out to Austin Street. I don't know if it would, I understand the idea of it would be to lessen the impact. It might actually make it worse.

It might make it take longer. It might. It could be a request too. It wouldn't have to be a condition. It could be a request and let it get worked out by city staff. Yes, Beth.

I don't know if we're allowed to do this or not, but can we say that they're not allowed to use blasting to remove ledge based off of the sensitive area that it's in? I don't know if we can make that a condition.

Either one of you know, I think I would like to request to counsel. From our deputy city attorney, if he would be willing to. Opine.

Sorry.

While he's approaching, could I make a comment? The applicant themselves said they were using Ho Ram that they were not blasting, but can that be that might change if they get too much lunch?

thank you mr chair members of the of the planning board um council moreau i had to answer your question um you would have to you do have some powers in there to protect uh to protect your butters um i would question um what factual record you have to support such a condition um it would be extraordinary i'm i'm I'm convinced that the planning board would have that level of authority, only because the field of blasting permits is something that is pretty, pretty heavily regulated, both by the state and here locally. I'm sorry, I can't really give you a definitive answer just off the top of my head, but that would be my, I would caution you against such an extreme measure. There are other conditions you could certainly put in place that would go above and beyond what is required in an ordinary blasting permit to control things that a blasting permit wouldn't necessarily control, like dust and noise and things of that nature, additional surveying requirements in an appropriate circumstance. Those would all be well within the heart of your regulatory power here. thank you so absent and i'm just exploring here absent like a third party review of a blasting expert and providing evidence in that regard we shouldn't go there yeah i i you'd have to have some pretty strong evidence to be able to go there i wouldn't i wouldn't say never um you know perhaps there's a circumstance where as you say some third party comes back and says well if any blasting occurs on this site you know the the harm to abutting properties is going to be irreversible or irreparable you could conceive of something like that i don't think that exists here on this record today thank you thank you sorry to put you on the spot could i try to streamline this certainly by suggesting um can we simply

Could our recommendation be, if a motion is made for approval of the application, a condition that a construction mitigation management plan be developed that addresses road and control and vibration monitoring, pre and post construction monitoring, vibration damage monitoring. And the details of that don't come from us, they come from individuals we just talked about who put the CMMP together. can we add to that it would be pre demolition yeah because for us to get into the fine details of what of the language and the methods within the cmmp it's it you know that's not for us to do but the recommendation for there to be a one for one to exist as well within our

think what you're saying is we need to if if if we get to the stage of a condition sounds like we're getting there that it be that the construction management plan recognize the context of the neighborhood and the sensitivity in the neighborhood and that reflect measures to protect the adjacent properties and leave it to the experts to figure that out there's typically a CMMP does include all of those things that we just said it does it well i think if we actually say it because they're there the reason we have public hearings is to look at unique circumstances and one of the unique circumstances here is that there's a barn that has a foundation and a cellar of some sort under it already which might affect paul being able to park vehicles in it but that would mitigate the blasting needs perhaps or the hammer drilling needs perhaps so

Andrew on that point uh it was mentioned by the applicant twice that they would be agreeable to a crawl space of some function and if this building has a foundation or a basement or whatever you want to call it currently is it potentially acceptable to say that the new structure will not be deeper and by nature not require additional blasting

well i think it's it's a permitted use so i think we're getting interior there you know it's this is why a cmmp would would say there's a there's a baseline vibration level you can't exceed so if their plans get to a point where they have to exceed it in order to go lower than they have right

And ledge varies a great deal. There's ledge that you can literally remove with a backhoe only. And there's ledge that you bounce hammers off of it. It's so hard. And we don't know what's there yet. So blue ledge.

That is not a solution.

I think we can raise the concern and make sure it's discussed during the CMMP discussion, but I don't think we have enough information to say that as a condition. That's fair. That's my concern. Okay. And I'm only one person, so I don't want you guys... But we have to be careful. We don't have a lot of authority, again, as I said earlier, with... the zoning criteria that we have been given these are two conforming lots and in this zone each of those lots can have a house on it so i think we either need to move along and get a motion to do something here or we need to take a break and i think we need to have a motion i'd rather have a motion to get something to move along here that brings us back to the

The first threshold we need to cross, which is a requested waiver. And I'm not seeing a hardship. I don't see that it rises to the level of hardship. So moving on to, you know, will this subdivision carry out the spirit and intent of regulations? How do I get there?

Well, I mean, the way you get there is you don't grant the waiver.

Well, that's where I'm at is I'm looking at my options and I'm having a hard time. I'm having a hard time.

The rationale, which is explained briefly, the impervious coverage is being reduced. So that's the rationale. There is complete logic in that rationale. But I understand. If there's an existing problem that needs to be addressed, it's not being addressed because it's not being studied. So that's what's missing with the study isn't done.

The reduction in impervious requires a waiver?

No, the rationale is if you're developing a site, let's say it's got X amount of, it's got 100 square feet of coverage that's generating runoff and now you're proposing 50, you're reducing the runoff. So the logic, I think this is the applicant's logic, is whatever runoff is happening there today is going to be reduced.

That is true.

What isn't addressed without a study is, is there an existing problem? I didn't hear an existing problem from any of the neighbors, but that would presumably be identified if a study were done. Now, by the fact that we had a licensed engineer and surveyor representing this application, if he felt there was a problem, I assume he would have addressed it, but that's not, I don't know if that to be true or not. I don't know if that helped.

Where does this leave the application if they were not to be granted the waiver?

Have to do a study.

They'd have to go back and do a study before we could approve it, I think. Correct?

Yep.

Okay. Before we leave that subject, I'm sorry, I know you had your hand up. Typically, it's not required because this is only a subdivision into two lots, not three, and it's not commercial, right?

No, I mean, it's in the subdivision ordinance.

Which is why the waiver's being asked.

Right. OK, sorry.

The standards for subdivision waiver again, Peter, could you refresh my recollection?

You know, the basis for granting one?

Yeah.

So it has to be a vote of six members of the planning board and they have to find that either strict conformity would pose an unnecessary hardship to the applicant and the waiver would not be contrary to the spirit intent of the regulations or find that specific circumstances relative to the subdivision or conditions of the land in such subdivision indicate that the waiver will properly carry out the spirit and intent of the regulations. So you have to find...

a or b and it has to be an affirmative vote of six members folks understand that i feel i understand that enough to know that it doesn't rise to the level of a hardship so i've moved on to the subdivision carries out the spirit and intent

of the regulations by reducing a reduction in impervious that's the rationale andrew i think i agree with that rationale however it's stated in the inverse uh because of the shape of this lot it's effectively two separate parcels when all said and done and you're replacing one structure for one structure and reducing the impervious lot coverage so therefore that equals a pretty logical yes now not in that statement is a hardship but it's just more logic so i think i agree with the logic but mine is supporting that waiver rather than speaking against it you're supporting the waiver that is my thought okay i'm But again, the literal interpretation would not be that. So that's challenging. again my point is if there were an existing problem usually it would not be addressed but i think we would have heard that that's the purpose of above historically speaking we have heard that from the butters very vehemently and we have addressed that with the study and we could name examples but most typically that has come back with good data and there's been some solution involved this is going to be new construction on one lot, one structure with a like-to-like use. So that's where I feel supportive of it rather than trying to prove it hardship.

So we're going to make a motion on the waiver.

Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion to grant the requested waiver from Section 4, 6.6 drainage improvements of the subdivision ordinance citing section B specific circumstances relative to the subdivision or conditions of the land in such subdivision indicate the waiver would properly carry out the spirit and intent of the regulations. I second that.

Further discussion?

Very quickly, I'll support the motion because in addition to the impervious discussion, we also, the buildings are more conforming in other ways as well, more than they are now. So that supports that statement as well.

Bill? Is there some amendment that deals with the amount of the monitoring plan that's necessary during that?

That's not relevant to the drainage.

We'll get to that after we get past it. This is just on the requirement for drainage study under the subject. This is just about that only. Any other discussion?

All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed?

So I think that was unanimous.

You get your six votes. Do we have any findings on this one? Yes.

Yes. That's the next one.

Findings of fact.

i'll make a motion to vote to find the subdivision application meets the requirements set forth in subdivision rules and regulations and adopt the findings of the fact as presented as amended sorry about that With the following conditions, 2.1 through 2.7.

That's the second motion. Are we amending findings of fact?

The findings of fact as amended? What was amended? Oh, it's the second motion.

I think you are presented.

As presented. Thank you.

And I second that. Sorry. All right.

Discussion on that? No. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Findings adopted.

This one I'm less confident about.

About making it?

Where the language needs to happen.

We'll help you.

So there are a series of recommendations in the staff memo about conditions. Do we want to add anything about animal control?

and our concerns about that the nature access access sequencing the preferences be sequencing to austin put it that way that make as a preference as a preference that that way if there's an activity that makes it easier faster on coffin then they're allowed to do that right and it could you know benefit the neighbors to get this over with faster But the preference is the bulk of the activity occur.

I think that makes sense because there could be days when you just have one pickup truck load you have to take out the other way or something.

Can we also introduce post-instruction survey monitoring? Pre and post, right? Pre and post.

And with that, because this depth of foundation and blasting or hammering is important, so critical to building a house let's say for example it is discovered that they cannot go any deeper and by nature of that do not want to build this house it what happens after that

to build a house without a foundation, a full basement rather, I'm sorry.

Okay, so they can adjust their plans without amending these plans. They can adjust their plans without amending these plans. Build the same house with a crawl space instead of a full basement. Just want to make sure that it's addressed in the management plan that they can proceed with an adjusted depth of the foundation, if any foundation at all.

Good point, good point, because it is a change, right? Yeah, that's a good point.

And the applicant did explain that, so...

Yeah.

Correct. There was some concern about notice for closing the road. Do we have the power to condition that or anything along those lines?

We can certainly make a recommendation.

That could also be incorporated in the CMMP.

Right. I was going to say, the preference for Austin Street as primary access and minimum one-day notice for closure of the street. Are we out of time? He's writing things down. Okay.

So what I have so far is that 2.6 will be amended to say pre and post construction survey for the vibration monitoring. I had created a 2.8 that says preference for demolition and construction for all structures will be through Austin Street. Is that acceptable? Yep. And then we could add to 2.5. that the construction, the CMMP will require, will add a minimum of one day notice for any street closures. And did you want to add something about, will address rodent control prior to demolition?

You can add that to 2.7.

2.7, okay.

Fire must be removed prior to recording the subdivision and remove any rodents prior to demolition.

So when I was speaking earlier about us listing topics we wanted to be considered on the mitigation plan, there's a whole bunch of other things that are also – I want to make sure that whoever is putting – the team of people who are putting the CMMP together – we're just advising them on some items that we want special attention to be paid to but there's there's dust there's noise there's there's all the other all the other things that come with the plan i want to make sure that our language isn't suggesting that those things aren't pertinent but we're just not getting into is there a standard checklist there's a whole cmmp application right and permit through right yeah so what you're saying is those are all in the standard cmmp process yeah Well, we're asking for a special attention to the additional items.

They're of special concern to the... Well, special things like the Austin Street preference. Right. Now is the time to voice those. But dust, noise, vibration we've addressed. Dust and noise, I assume, must be in there. Rodents. Rodents we've addressed. I think Beth has that. Mm-hmm.

it addresses waste you know all the above managing the construction waste can we add to that like notice of changes like you do the cmp but what if something changes that wasn't noticed to neighbors can there be a way to notify them of any updates along during the construction demolition

things like that the cmp actually defines communication with the team in the neighborhood as well it does it's very thorough yeah i think that's yeah we have regular meetings in the one near may was that was that like monthly is that a requirement normally or that it can be i mean it can be included monthly updates to your butters does that make sense

Well the CMP include maximum allowance on vibrations such yes You say monthly meetings I said monthly does that make sense the updates to the butters I

we already know they're going to actually be able to go in if they let them into their homes to video inside and out right because that's already naturally part of it so we've made a list of things normally and we just did that to expedite this process so if somebody wants to make a motion

Did we add any conditions, or is it still 2.7?

I have 2.8, and I've just added to 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7. And I can review them if you want.

Why don't you read through the new list of conditions for us?

So 2.5 will be amended to say, and that condition reads construction management and mitigation plan is required. The CMMP will add a minimum one day notice for any street closures and will provide monthly updates to all abutters. 2.6 will say pre and post construction survey. for vibration monitoring. 2.7 will add to the existing language, barn must be removed prior to recordation and removal of all rodents prior to demolition. So barn must be removed and rodents, and remove rodents prior to demolition, prior to recordation of the subdivision. 2.8 will be preference for demolition and construction for all structures will be through Austin Street That's all I have for 2.8 Cover it

i know it's impossible to hit everything we want to hit but i think that gets most of it i'll make a motion to vote to grant preliminary and final subdivision approval with the following conditions as amended conditions 2.1 through 2.8 second any further discussion uh it's an extremely challenging site i get that a lot of the public comment is very valid being the concerns of personal property being the concerns of adding a structure, but we have a dilapidating and potentially risky barn that, with a healthy gust of wind, is just as scary as blasting. So I have a lot of empathy for folks in Coffins Court. I can't fathom living on a 12-foot-wide street. And because of that, I know that this applicant will pay special attention to managing construction there. and so we can avoid any issues nobody likes litigation i would love for this project to go seamlessly will there be their challenges and headaches certainly but you know i uh i know that this will be done properly and with good care as it relates to some of the public comment about zba not having proper notice and what have you if that's still a concern or an issue on on their front then i would recommend they speak with the zoning department or the city's legal department because we can't so much do anything about that now that's all settled and done we have to rule on what's in front of us so um i just i would love to see this done properly and and with the highest pedigree of construction um i agree with everything that you said and i

you know unfortunately our hands are tied because it's subdivision regulations and we only have so much to be able to put behind that and we've asked for a lot of additional conditions which I hope will meet you know and mediate and hopefully keep from because it's not fun to live through construction I think we've all lived through construction near our homes and i think there was hammering going on just outside my house at 8 7 38 o'clock this morning so um it is kind of what we all put up with in the city and hopefully we have mitigated the i don't want to see anyone's you know old houses with plaster get cracks or have issues that aren't then taken care of so hopefully our additions to this will help mitigate that to someone any other discussion

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. You're approved.

Thank you very much.

Next item on the agenda. We're good to keep going folks.

Yes. Okay.

Next time. P W E D two LLC is owner for property located at nine 21 is Lincoln street requesting a conditional use permit from section 10.0440 use number 1950 for an accessory outdoor dining and drinking area. This property is located on assessors map one 72 lot 10 and lies within the character district for w who's here to present this application.

thank you mr chairman members of the planning board john shagan from haley ward representing ew ed 2 llc and you may recall we were here about a year ago for a site plan approval and conditional use outdoor dining the project has been moving along and they've been looking at final designs and the proposed restaurant operator wanted to make some changes to the location of the outdoor patio that's what you have before you since the conditional use permit does not have administrative approval or other extendable requirements. We're here again to ask for your approval of the amendment, so to speak. I can go through the conformance of the ordinance section 10.243 criteria, but it's in your package and you've been at it for a while, so... i will refrain from a long discussion i think it's pretty clear that moving the patio towards the east side of the building away from the abutting commercial use is a net benefit and having some seating along the front will also be attractive to the streetscape which we are improving by making extending the sidewalk and putting in some trees along Islington Street so I'm here to answer any questions and we ask that you approve the additional use permit outdoor dining before you as a minute Thank You John any questions of the applicant

Yes. One quick one. It was on the left hand side before, right? Is that what I remember? Okay.

Yes, it was.

I was like trying to remember where it was before to how big of a shift it is.

Yes. And, and I didn't mention it, but the, um, addition was on the right side. So that's got moved over the back of house addition. So it used to be the back of house addition was here and the patio was, was over there.

Okay. Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is that a table right there, John?

That looks like it is, yes. It's a little close to the drive aisle, so I think we'll tell the architect to pull that one back, yes.

Yeah. I wouldn't want to sit there. That doesn't look good. Nobody wants to sit there.

Kind of in the wrong spot. Good point, good point, good eye, yes.

Any other questions?

Is this a hearing? Yeah. Sorry, this seems awfully simple.

Thank you very much. I'm going to public hearing on this. Anybody here on zoom? We'll just speak to four against this application. Seeing nobody, I'm going to close the public hearing.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion. Move that we vote to find the conditional use permit application meets the criteria set forth in section 10.2, 4, 3.2, 0, and to adopt the findings of fact as presented. Second. Any discussion?

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

I'd like to make another motion that we vote to approve the conditional use permit as presented second discussion All those in favor aye any opposed motion carries Thank you very much.

Thank you request of the city of portsmouth is owner for property located on beverly hill road for the side path city right-of-way project requesting wetland conditional use permit from section 10 10 17 50 for the reconstruction of approximately one mile section of beverly road between west road and middle road new hampshire 33. first of this project is to enhance the safety for all modes of travel vehicles but bicyclists and pedestrians in conformance with the city of portsmouth's complete street policy adopted in 2013. Project includes 970 square feet of permanent wetlands impacts, 2,488 square feet of temporary wetlands impact, 21,419 square feet of permanent wetland buffer impacts, and 7,294 square feet of temporary wetland buffer impacts on private property. Work in the city right away is exempt. This property is located on Assessor's Map, a whole bunch of properties, 243 lots 52, 53, map 242 lots 3 and 4. map 244 lots 10 a and 10 b map 253 lot 7 and map 255 lot 2. it's in the single residence a district single residence b district national resource and protection and Gateway neighborhood mixed use G2 district and municipal M districts who is here to present this application

Hi, I'm Mr chairman, Dave, the public works construction operations manager for the city. Just to give you a brief and I will keep this brief. I understand the agenda is long. Just as a general rundown, this project started some more than a decade ago, probably closer to 14 years ago. when the city applied for a grant to put a sidewalk down beverly hill road and after a couple of years of waiting we were granted our first permission from the state to start public process to put a sidewalk on beverly hill road through the public process the sidewalk ended up turning into creation of a multi-use trail and a sidewalk and a buffer between the sidewalk and the road and a buffer between the multi-use trail and the road so the net result is we're actually narrowing pebbly hill road but we're appendaging to the sides of pebbly hill road both the multi-use path and a sidewalk um so i have here tonight with me uh brian coberg from um farland johnson and eric eby our traffic engineer in the city is managing the project uh attorney records here too if we have questions legal questions but um what started out as a 300 something thousand dollar sidewalk project is turned into a 7.2 million dollar roadway project which includes the complete reconstruction of pebbly hill road including new water mains and closed drainage systems so we don't have any closed drainage systems on pebbly hill road at all at this point except for the intersection of morona road other than that the entire road just kind of drains off so we're creating curb lines on both sides of the street to do that we have multiple drainage outfalls going in and the uh the intent here is to create uh stormwater cleansing uh just about everywhere and uh in the best possible ways that we can uh in the best possible spots that we can so the city has acquired drainage easements from multiple properties and we've been working with the Y in Master Park from Parks Taekwondo to put in a fairly large gravel wetland behind Parks Taekwondo via access through the Y as well which will drain about half the road we'll be going there There's another settlement basin that goes on the side of Moffett Street, and there's another outfall that's going to go on the other side of Marona Road, between Marona Road and the Y driveway. And then eventually, when the project reaches the DPW, there'll be stormwater infiltration that actually goes underneath the parking lot. of the DPW so this project is quite large and as stated in the record the right-of-way is exempt but you're here because we need a conditional use permit for all the additional private parcels that we're acquiring easements for so that we can build a project so the development the engineer team is here and if you have questions they can address them if you have questions for us we will be here too thank you Thank you.

Questions of the team?

When is it going to start? You know that's what everyone's going to ask me.

i've never been asked that question about this project before we are very close to finishing the right-of-way phase of the state the way the state regulates the project we also have all our environmental permits in we are entirely hoping that we can bid this this winter to start construction in the spring if we hit setbacks that might get pushed back again but um we are we are very much looking forward to bidding this project this winter so we can start in the spring hopefully that happens how long do you think it'll take Dave once you get started this is a two construction season project okay thanks any other questions seeing none I'm going to open the public hearing

anybody here we should speak to for against this application good evening i'm jay krupp of 375 green leaf avenue i oppose wetland conditional use permit lu 26 104. the board can approve this permit only if every criterion of the zoning ordinance is satisfied this application does not satisfy the majority of them Criterion 1 is unmet because the applicant has not established that this land is legally suited for the use under the recorded conservation easement which prohibits municipal activity and improvements. Criterion 2 offers no property specific analysis for 375 Greenleaf Avenue. criteria two relies on constraints involving easements and private property owners that make my property history directly relevant after the october 14 2021 public necessity hearing the city council found permanent drainage rights over my property necessary the city manager was authorized to obtain an appraisal negotiate in good faith and pursue condemnation no offer proposed no offer proposed easement or agreement was ever presented to me yet on page four of mcfarland johnson's june 29th 2026 application it states quote the city could not reach an agreement with the property owner i'm that property owner That statement portrays a failed negotiation. There was no negotiation. I rejected nothing because nothing was offered. You cannot mark meets when there are incorrect statements in the application. I have questions for the city manager to answer tonight. Why was the council authorized process never carried out? Who decided to abandon the authorized process and not resolve property rights issues the council found necessary before devising a workaround to relocate the stormwater facility? McFarland Johnson should answer, who supplied that incorrect account? Show me the agreement you say could not be reached. Both are here tonight. The board should require them to answer these questions before votes. Continuing with criteria. Criteria five provides no comparison, proving this is the least adverse design. The relocated facility sits immediately adjacent to my boundary and direct stormwater discharge onto my property salt marsh. The NHDS filing references the original design, not the redesign. Criteria six admits the application does that delineate entire vegetated buffer and the direct impacts are difficult to interpret. I'll continue during my next section.

Thank you. Any other first round speakers? I can include anybody. But not you until the second round.

Is there anybody on Zoom? No, no one's raised their hand.

No other first round speakers. You can't speak in the second round unless you speak in the first round. I'm going to close the first round. Second round speakers.

Thank you for the continuation. Again, my name is Jay Krupp and I'm at 375 Greenleaf Avenue. As I was saying before, Criteria 6 admits that the application does not delineate the entire vegetative buffer and the direct impacts are difficult to interpret. You cannot pass something that is difficult to interpret. The reason for this application is to have a secret workaround approved to do indirectly what they failed to do directly and correctly. The record does not support criteria 1, 2, 3, 5, or 6. Therefore, I respectfully ask you to deny this permit. I've provided ahead of time a letter as well as reference to documents. I'm going to keep my comments to the application on why it does not meet the six criteria of which all of them have to meet. I would like to point at the minutes from the council meeting where acting deputy city manager woodland stated the issue of the gravel wetland which was originally proposed on my land had been a tough decision from the beginning and that she'd previously asked if it could be located elsewhere for many reasons mr colburn who's here tonight explained that the low point of peverly hill road is at green leaf avenue so this needed to be located in a lower area due to gravity and this is why they looked at green leaf avenue for parcels without buildings criteria 5 specifically looks to see if this is the best suited location for this i don't think gravity changed since 2021. additional points that i would like to make with regards to criteria to uh... has to do with the location of this it's important that you understand what is happening here The initial gravel wetland that was proposed on my land was going to be draining, capturing water basically from the Baptist Church to, there's a little bit of a crest before you get to the YMCA. It was going to be bringing that into a gravel wetland and putting it directly into sagamore creek which would flow it away in the banks of the the creek the new design is capturing water all the way from the intersection of banfield road and all the way to the baptist church past the children's garden past green leaf past hets farm all of this is being contained in piped across the taekwondo into one retention area that is set up exactly on the property line with all of the drainage pointing right out at the marsh this is in a conservation easement this is the land that you know that is protected from from this type of activity They are honestly, think of all of this water coming down Beverly Hill Road. All of it is being focused into one spot and it's pushing it out onto my land. I have nothing protecting me or my land from this. They move secretly the whole gravel wetland to a location that, you know, I'm taking all of the brunt with none of the protection. There's no protections for me. I only got this, and I showed up here tonight, because I was an abutter. They don't even see me as party to this. It was the focal point of where they were putting the water before that was the best location. That's what they said. Even Peter Rice, in his application for the environmental, his exact words were, there's no practical alternative that would be less adverse impact to the wetlands this is all about the wetlands and it's protecting these things i have to i can't emphasize enough that this conditional use permit for the it has to be denied like all of these criteria that i have gone through it has to be denied thank you And I have handouts of my remarks that I'd like to give to you.

Thank you. That's the end of the second round speakers. Any third round speakers? I'm going to close public hearing. So we need to act on the application as submitted and as information that was relevant was received. How do folks feel about the conditions? Is it appropriate? We need findings of fact first.

We vote to find the conditional use permit application meets the requirements set forth in section 10 point 10 17 point 50 of the ordinance and adopt the findings of facts as presented Second discussion All those in favor aye any opposed findings of factor adopted

Is it appropriate to ask the city attorney for any clarification?

I don't think we need it. You can ask if you want. This is about this application. Prior history, this project has a long history, and that's not what's in front of us. Whatever happened some years ago is not relevant tonight, in my opinion.

We vote to grant the conditional use permit with the following conditions as outlined in the memo.

I Need a second and Discussion yes bill so is the essence that this is the best Layout of the drainage system as of here today and

I don't know that it has to be the best, but it has to be practical, and it has to be engineered, and it's both of those things.

And there's not another practical option?

It's an engineering matter, so there's always going to be another way to do it. But this has been, I mean, it's been through a lot, is my understanding, and you've got professionals who've done this work and understand the permits are in place. It's been reviewed by the state as well.

I'm uncomfortable about the engagement with the impacted parties. Is there any more to be said about that?

I heard conflicting things. Some of it didn't make a full sense to me. especially given the fact that the plans as designed the my understanding is everything every landowners are being addressed have been addressed you can't just you can't disperse excess water beyond what's currently being coming off a piece of property onto another piece of property pre and post construction without an easement and that they're not asking for one so if they need one and didn't ask for it then that's that's a problem but given the

Horsepower behind this I doubt that's the case So the impact on a property of a property owner in the city of a project like this Discussion with that property owner Is there a financial component to that or is that a

If you're impacting a piece of property, you need to have an agreement to impact a piece of property. If a neighbor is doing something next to you that's not impacting you other than doing a change, it's a courtesy to let you know, but there's no requirement to seek your approval. So if you're doing something on an adjacent piece of property and you're containing its impacts on that property and other properties where you have easements, it's And that's one of the reasons we have a hearing tonight, to let people know. But you don't have to ask for permission, because it's not needed. Any other questions or discussion?

Is it a matter of compensation?

We have to balance public and private rights and applicant versus the voters' rights, whether the applicant's a city or a private landowner. There's no compensation component unless you're taking something away from somebody. So if you're not taking somebody away from somebody, I mean, you can give me money right now if you'd like, but if there's no reason to, you may not want to do that.

There's no... comment about damages here. It's a process.

Right. If somebody feels they've been damaged by an application, there are remedies they can seek through the courts, but they have to prove it. Any other discussion? We have a motion to second. All those in favor? Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you.

We have another one. A request of Tidewatch condominium associations owner for property at 579 Sagamore Avenue requesting an after the fact wetland conditional use permit for the removal of mature beach tree within the vegetated no cut wetland buffer. The applicant is proposing the plant within three locations in the 25 foot buffer to stabilize the area. This property is located on Assessor's Map 223, lot 30, and lies in the single residence SRA district. Who is here to present this application?

Hi, my name's Kim Rogers. I'm a resident at 579 Sagamore Avenue in Portsmouth, and I'm representing the Tidewatch Condominium Association here. appreciate your time and consideration of this and apologize for being up here as for post facto it was inadvertent that we cut a tree that was in the 25-foot buffer we've been in front of the Conservation Commission as you know and you know stipulate to their terms of approval which was installing one or two wetland boundary markers installing three trees with a two inch caliper with the understanding that this has got to be carried in by hand uh so we'll we'll do our best to to meet that two inch goal uh watering it's a you know it's uh it's a low area so it doesn't get very dry uh throughout the summer but we'll monitor it and uh and then We'll report back periodically as required. And if the three trees and eight shrubs that we're proposing to plant fall below 80% health, then we will replant as needed.

Thank you. Questions?

Yes. Does this disease like live in the soil? So these new trees could get this disease or was it once you remove those trees, the potential of new trees getting the diseases on? Yeah, I don't know about tree diseases.

Yeah, it's I've learned a lot. These were beach trees that we removed and they had a leaf disease that. Several are arborists determined were probably due to a nematode. something like that nematide i can't remember and uh and they and the trees were failing they were losing their leaves the trunks were splitting and they were big beach trees they were 200 feet tall and they were representing sort of a safety issue we were not recommending to replant beach because they would still be subject to invasion and there's other beaches that are smaller in the area that are also fighting for their lives. But in this case, we'll probably come back and plant three maples. Or as an alternative, yellow birches. It depends on availability. This time of year, we'd like to get them planted quickly. And so we're relatively sure we can get maples. Yellow birches might be difficult.

So by switching tree species, hopefully these trees can...

Yeah, hopefully they will establish and do well. There are other red maples in the area that have done quite well and are not diseased. The nematode likes beech trees.

It doesn't like maple trees. Any other questions?

have you considered four inch caliper trees no i it not without getting heavy equipment to bring everything in and then we're dealing with uh the problem of causing maybe more damage than we're fixing so yeah there's a bit you know there is the logic that a smaller tree grows faster so i i get that but two inches is pretty meager yeah they should do pretty well though i mean it's things in this area grow pretty well outside of the beach trees getting diseased there's many successful birches maples oaks um and so and with these big trees out one of which was in the in the setback um but there were several others going towards the street there's a lot of sunlight coming in now and so there's already a lot of natural vegetation taking over but it's all low-lying stuff and so you know even a two-inch caliper tree is going to get a lot of sun and it should do great and we'll monitor it if they don't then we'll have to reassess okay any other questions

all right thank you i'm going to open the public hearing anybody here on zoom wishes to speak too far against this application and last call close public hearing

a motion we vote to find the conditional use permit application meets the requirements set forth in section 10.10 17.50 of the ordinance and adopt the findings of facts as presented second any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed vote to grant the conditional use permit application with the following conditions as outlined in the staff memo any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed

Thank you very much. The request of Resmaa Shrestha and Mark Esposito as owners for property 224 Kate Street, requesting a wetland conditional use permit from section 10101750 for landscape work, which includes regrading, stormwater control, soil aeration, tree removal, and new plantings. The applicant is proposing to regrade approximately 250 square feet of the wetland buffer. remove dead ash and maple trees and replant with a mix of native trees and shrubs this property is located on sisters map 173 lot 3 and is in the general residence a district i apologize for my pronunciation and who is here to present this application uh mark the easier pronunciation one um thank you mr chairman

So this property was formerly up here under the previous landowner for after the fact wetland conditional use I saw you guys on YouTube so familiar with you guys We're just essentially trying to fix a lot of damage that homeowner done when he tried to develop the property The main reason for the regrading is when they brought in heavy equipment They pushed up this large berm that is now draining straight into the foundation So we're gonna grade that back down to what I'm assuming was the original 18 inches below grade so that we can deal with that and then there will be a swale that goes along that northern side of the property and then sort of drains down into what is currently the standard swale after the regrading the other thing is that we're really just going to beef up a lot of the planting so if you look at the subsequent slides in there we're planning on putting a putting in a couple of orchards there will be a new living fence line that replaces the current invasive norway maples with cedar species and then we'll be putting in more natives we've already put in quite a few blueberries and pears and then we'll be putting in other things like filberts and a few more native species essentially gives a couple different layers to the the landscaping there rather than what was a very rocky metal strewn hastily seeded um yard as it currently exists that the landowner did so it should be a nice little green Haven after we do the work and it shouldn't impact anybody else uh the regrading is done at about 80 feet off of the current wetlands so it's it's pretty far removed and we've already installed a silt barrier just in case there's a heavy rain to make sure there's no erosion in super thank you

Questions to the applicant. Another question, just kudos. I remember the previous owner coming in right after the fact. This is wonderful.

This shouldn't take long. Great stewardship. Yes.

Thank you.

Any good questions? Yes, Bill. There's quite a pile of wood chips on the side yard.

Oh, yeah, we collected that in our planning.

Are those yours or are those the prior owner's?

Oh, we we got that from the chip drop, so we had somebody drop that off. Where we're using that and sort of we're trying to do all organic planting that helps minimize watering needs.

Any other questions? Thank you very much. I'm gonna open the public hearing. Anybody here on zoom wishes to speak to for against this application? Now, that can include you, but you don't have to remain at the podium. Thank you. Is there anybody else who wishes to speak to for against this application?

Nobody on Zoom, right?

We have one person, but they have not raised their hand.

Unless you raise your hand on Zoom right now, I'm going to close the public hearing. The hearing is closed.

I make a motion we vote to find the conditional use permit application meets the requirements set forth in section 10.1017.15 of the ordinance and adopt the findings of act as presented.

Second. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

I also make a motion that we vote to grant the conditional use permit with the following condition in the staff memo 2.1.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much and congratulations on a great plan.

Okay to take a five-minute break I request for a five-minute break Oh

yeah they're all unique we are once again back calling the meeting to order next item in the agenda was postponed to october a request of 124 group inc as owner for property 124 harrods avenue now the notice was that it was postponed don't we need to actually postpone it vote to postpone yeah there was a noticing error so because they're also seeking a wetland conditioning permit that was not noticed so

Oh, so we have to postpone to our October.

Should we have a motion to postpone until October? Yes.

Any discussion?

No. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Mr. Chairman, are we allowed to pull an item out of order at this point? I would propose moving 4A up. Can we do that?

So we have people here to talk about that? Yes. We also have somebody to talk about the other one.

Oh, apologies. H&I?

Yeah, he said it was... I have a court request to take 4A out of order. Is that a motion?

That would be a motion. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Any opposed? 4A, 0 Elm Street. This is a request for the planning board to review under 674.41, the issuance of a building permit as explained in the application. There's that explanation, including an explanation and discussion about this topic from this deputy city attorney. Did you want to make a presentation on this, Colby? Go ahead. Just don't make it long.

Brevity.

Mr chair members of the board Colby Gamester here this evening on zero Elm Street and my client, the option holder on the purchase and sale agreement is with me as well. Stephanie. And, uh, really, it's as laid out in the letter that we had originally sent to the city council. and we've also had a chance to review attorney mccourt's memo to the planning board and basically we've got zero elm street which is on the corner of forest and elm street both paper streets neither have been built out in any form or fashion in a public manner but they were originally dedicated in 1902 and then rededicated in 1919 with a new subdivision plan that was recorded in the registry When you come off of cuts there is a house on the corner of forests that does use a portion of forest as their driveway This was we believe done by them or their predecessors and interest Previous plans later in date than 1919 that are recorded and part of the packet Show it as a gravel drive. It has since been paved miss Grepo has spoken to the corner lot owner and they are aware and generally in favor of the fact that she is seeking to build a house at zero Elm Street what we've got here is perhaps a little bit out of order attorney McCourt and I did speak about this so there are several things that this lot is going to require before a building permit is issued and one of them is zba relief for i believe at least two maybe three variances as well as planning board relief we will be back in front of you hopefully one day for the highway highway overlay noise district and but before that we wanted to present to the city council and hopefully receive the recommendation from the planning board that you recommend to the city council that the city council be able to authorize the city to issue a building permit on a private road which is this which is what this will essentially be we will improve from cuts through the current driveway all the way to the corner a width of pavement that satisfies both the dpw and the fire department namely We did take the time during the summer and before filing anything to speak with several departments and we kind of we called it kind of an informal tax session. We wanted to receive comment and make sure there was no initial heartburn or pause. We have generally received positive feedback. Those those departments, namely planning fire and. uh we'll have a chance to obviously look at more detailed plans so as i requested in the letter uh obviously we're not asking for the ability for the building inspector to issue a building permit in any uh any near future because we still have to get that zoning relief and come back for the conditional use permit in front of you however we are trying to essentially get what we can approved at an earlier stage before my client has to undergo the full field survey work and the engineering and all and things of that nature so you know attorney mccord had listed the two possible options given the way the statute reads we obviously hope that the board this evening votes with the second option which is recommending to the city council that it give the city the ability to authorize the permit with the stipulations and conditions contained in the statute. Okay.

This is not a... It's an unusual situation under the statute, but that's why I asked Attorney Gamester to make a presentation, just because... Give a little more information for the board. Bill, you had a question?

So if this were an HOA and not on a city street, The HOA would be responsible for the construction, maintenance of the street, snow plowing. They'd be responsible for electrical, any street lights. They'd be responsible for fire hydrants.

uh and so is that is this the same circuit it's the end of that statement is very similar uh with an hoa it could have been uh you know the road is approved as part of the subdivision plan or site plan that the declarant would be seeking at that time and probably you know earlier on in discussions they would determine you know with city if they would recommend potentially accepting it at a later date or whether or not the city would not want their hands on a public road and therefore the hoa would continue on it's built into the statute in this instance where essentially The city would be authorizing the issuance of a building permit, but not accepting any responsibility for the paved portion, or frankly, even the utilities. So, what would be proposed here utilities wise would be like a private pump system that that my client would have to get its way all the way up to cuts. as with any paper street regardless of utilities or pavement we are always subject to or limited by and conditioned to the fact that it is a perpetual easement and right for every lot owner beyond zero elm street so we couldn't do anything to frustrate the purpose of people including the city who owns a lot right next door to get to their lot so everything would be private from snow plowing to utilities up until they reach the appropriate utility on cuts which is the accepted public way that's been built out have all the butters been noticed or at least spoken to about all of the about i know that uh miss crapo has spoken to three three of the abutters one of them does own quite a bit of land around the uh the lot in question uh and the corner lot and the next door lot we have received no opposition at this time uh can feelings change potentially but there's no heartburn that we've had in any conversation since June with anyone that's good Andrew uh I'll direct this question both ways to the city as well as the applicant but should this

take shape and proceed towards a formal application what is the likelihood or ability for the rest of forest street and elm to be developed on some of those other lots highly likely got it so would um you can decline the answers would the applicant be required to create a road with the specs of a public road or a driveway.

that's part of why this statute exists in my understanding and i've had occasion to sit in the expert witness stand on this particular issue so in many circumstances especially in north country on lakefront properties and other places there are physical roads that exist that provide access to lots that sort of wind their way through the woods and One of the reasons for this is to assure that emergency personnel can provide access to properties. I don't, you know, one of the questions that is raised in Attorney McCourt's note is the ownership is probably with the adjacent landowners, so you'd have to get approval from those folks, and it sounds like you started work on that. One thing that struck me in the discussion, and unfortunately I was unable to get out there already, is the grade. Apparently there's a grade change. I thought it might make sense to actually see this before we made a decision, but that's my personal opinion, if nobody else feels that way.

I have been out here before, about two years ago. I walked these lots, and there is a grade change, and it's certainly noticeable. It's pretty thickly, densely vegetated in the rear portion. Maybe not specifically on this lot, but in the remaining triangle of parcels over there. I explored a very similar process with this.

there is a great change i don't think it's insurmountable we do have uh although we haven't gone and done the actual field survey work we have uh and we do have as part of our team eric weinrev from altus who has gone out to walk the site to see from his engineering standpoint what are the big red flags for him and there were no you know red flags that were certainly insurmountable by any stretch of the imagination um Obviously the road is going to have to work well for Ms. Crapo, so she's not going to propose something that she's footing the bill for that's going to ultimately not work well or fail to some extent. So there is a grade, but it hasn't been a red flag as part of our conversations internally or with any department on an informal basis. uh mr simones to your point earlier yes it's always possible that any one of these lots most likely not owned by the city could be seeking something like we're doing right now we have done a little bit of research along with attorney mccourt as to whether we think any part of elm or forest Has been used in a manner, which would open it up to the public way. We don't believe at this time, although I'm sure there's more research to be done that this section of forestry from cuts. All the way down to at least 0 Elm street has not been publicly accepted indirectly or. Or directly and expressly. so if if someone else ever wanted to build multiple Lots down this I would imagine you'd start to be you know getting to a a resub division of the land a site plan petition to layout purpose potentially if they wanted to have the city later accept it but for now to the uh to the response I provided earlier it would just be a private drive satisfying necessary width for both DPW and fire department and the construction and maintenance thereof and thereafter would be on this Crapo

I don't like the idea of establishing precedence, but if the city approved a building permit pursuant to the statute for your client's property and you build a road to it, that road would front at least three or four other lots, right?

technically they would be able to use that private road we can't even though we construct it and whatnot we can't limit access to the same comments i made earlier that there's inherent easement rights in these paper streets for the surrounding and essentially further beyond farther beyond this lot but I mean this has happened before I can't remember how recently but at least in 2017 there was a request like this that came before the City Council and moved forward instead of you know seeking you know the city releasing any potential rights that it may have and clarifying title so it's not it's uncommon but it's certainly not unprecedented and the portion that ms crapo would be paving although we technically haven't chosen where the front of the house would be which would also factor into zoning regulations for which is the primary front and secondary front yard and assessing and whatnot uh it's in my personal view it's unlikely that a lot of the surrounding lots would ever be thought of to be built out but that's just my personal view i don't want to put any words potentially intentionally or unintentionally in anyone's mouth or our surrounding owners have you considered actually trying to formalize it into a city street through a betterment assessment or other layout through the council uh we haven't that would become quite expensive for one uh one house lot uh because well betterment assessment you could receive reimbursement through the other landowners yeah we're also dealing with time considerations here not you know not pressing but we're trying to keep the ball moving and this was not only thought of to be an appropriate path but also a time efficient path okay just a question yeah so who who owns the street if we if you press the gun to our head uh this evening i believe and i don't want to put words in his mouth but he is here this evening i believe that you know zero four um all four street uh the abutting lot owners would all own to the center line uh elm street i don't believe we did or had much discussion and there was question whether there was some city plans later on regarding elm street but 95 Cuts this whole neighborhood, which is difficult to follow which part of album and which part of forest. So to answer your question, it looks like all signs point to people on 4 or lots on forest owning to the center line of the road. Because the city has never established expressly or indirectly their rights in the public way. and then of course like i said earlier we uh even if miss crapo puts a plan in front of one of the boards that shows ownership to the center line it doesn't mean you can build all the way out to center line because you always have to keep those easement rights open for the surrounding and farther beyond lots Did I take a long time to answer what you thought might be a simple question?

Yeah, it should be a simple question.

The budding lot's probably on to the center of the street. That's the general rule. Yeah. That's the simple answer.

Yeah.

It's the Board's pleasure. What would you like to do? Attorney McCord is here if we want to hear from him. But he has provided his written opinion.

In its simplest form, I'm picturing this behaving like a long driveway. If there's further development that might occur out there organically, there will be an opportunity in the future to address that if roads need to be widened, if they need to be made more. But I'm

um in its simplest form to me we are and i understand it isn't this simple but this is going to act like a long driveway but yeah in that instance as alluded to should future development take place it would always remain a private street is that correct well

With your proposal, you would exercise. Agreements with the city to be no responsibility for maintenance or responsive utilities, no responsibility for emergency access all the above, right?

Is that I don't know about responsibility for emergency access. I think one of the things inherent in this statute and what we're putting forth is that you know, by virtue of seeking the fire department's comment and whatnot, emergency access should be given even to the extent that they might look for. how are they turning around uh do they provide a hammerhead driveway or the length of driveway or or the area of driveway um so just i just wanted to accept comment from that i guess that's the now i have a little question the limits of municipal responsibility if this was done uh trevor would you help after you check

I mean it I see no services, but what am I missing?

Well the the no services and That falls under the Class 6 highway section. Yep. You go down to D, that's the private road section, which I would assume is what I would assume this would be, as opposed to a Class 6 city road.

Yeah, but then under that, it's no responsibility for maintenance or livening damages.

Yep. It doesn't yeah, it doesn't really say it doesn't say the server it doesn't have the services under that section So just so everybody because not everybody can see it what the statute says is Under section D it's a private road provided that the local governing body after review and comment by the planning board um authorizes the issuance of the building permit and the municipality neither assumes responsibility for maintenance of said private roads nor liability for any damages from the use thereof And then prior to the issuance of a building permit, the applicant shall produce evidence that notice of the limits of municipal responsibility and liability have been recorded in the registry of deeds in the appropriate county. So I think that is a, I mean, it looks to me there that that would be some sort of an agreement that would have to be executed, negotiated and executed between the city and the private property owner. so a but it does not provide guidance on so it's not said it could be as Colby says or could be otherwise depending on the agreement yeah but what one of the one of the points that I didn't put in my memo that I that I regret is if the board is to recommend in the affirmative with conditions with exception and perhaps perhaps some conditions that perhaps this board could recommend some conditions to the City Council for their considerations such as obtaining appropriate variances for example or what this agreement may look like if it's executed um you know I will also say the reason why why I don't recommend uh just just granting a flat yes is that this this statute contemplates as the the chair indicated uh a property a parcel that's located somewhere on an actual road like that you could actually get there today And I know that member Simonis has been has been out there I can't imagine a lot of the board has if you go out there now and you can see from the satellite You cannot actually access This property by any by any vehicular means certainly So which is why I would certainly not recommend you say yes to this outright perhaps under the exception can the exception provisions and that's what I was referring to in terms of conditions and

So there's a whole set of what are the city's liabilities today and there's a set of questions about if it's if that area develops further in the future how does this is this a cork in the bottle or is there a way or is an agreement understanding as to how further development can take place whether this owner wants to or not?

Sure. So I've done an extensive amount of research about this subdivision and Forest Street. So just to start with, Forest Street is not a city street. There's no evidence that I can find anywhere that Forest Street was ever accepted by the city. So that's the starting point. Elm Street is a different matter, a different kind of discussion. The highway going through there complicates that analysis, frankly. And Yes, in terms of right now the city has no responsibilities whatsoever for that paper street known as Forest Street. And if some sort of an arrangement were to be arrived at under this statute or even just through negotiation by the parties, certainly there would have to be some kind of an agreement here about what the nature of this driveway or private road would be. you know, how large it would be, what engineering would have to go into constructing said road, et cetera, in order to service this private lot. And when I spoke with the fire department and with Public Works, um you know they did public works raised the grade as as an issue certainly but neither one of them could give me any kind of real uh opinion or feedback on on the development of a potential road here because you know there's nothing before them you know they didn't have any kind of design or application and i think that's that's what attorney gamester was was kind of alluding to in the same in the same vein does that answer your question

Well, so an agreement would have to include the potential future developments. It's not just the moment here today.

Sure. So, yeah, so to that question, you know, there is – that's hard because you do have to contemplate that there are other parcels back there that could be developed on – I mean, they'd have to acquire their own relief, right? They'd have to acquire their own relief from the Zoning Board of Adjustment. This property hasn't provided any – hasn't obtained any relief from the Zoning Board of Adjustment. Okay. It's even if this property receives some relief under this statute, it's not a sure thing that it could be developed certainly. It would need, as Attorney Gamster said, variances. But there is equal protection to think about. There are accrued rights that Attorney Gamster was alluding to that other parcels would have. So I would certainly keep in mind that what you do today here with this property will have an impact on the potential future development of those other parcels, for sure.

So it shouldn't be unique that a private road might foresee extension in the future.

Yeah, and I think that's part of what the statute is asking. Part of the reason why this is coming to the Planning Board under the statute is you can see all these properties back here, and the City Council should ask the Planning Board, what's the plan for this neighborhood under our master plan?

Right. And why not? I mean, that's a legitimate nice area.

Right, and these are findings that I'm not pushing you in. I'm certainly not pushing you in any kind of direction. These are findings that you have to make, and they want your opinion on mine.

Speaking for myself, I'd like to see it, but we have one member who's seen it. Oh, see it in person? I'd like to just actually do a site walk.

Yeah.

let's do it not tonight no not the dark but timing wise mr chair if we schedule a side visit between this meeting and the october planning yeah i'm not talking a huge delay here i want to get it done because i understand there's some time constraints here could i ask what seeing it how that would affect anyone's decision well

Because when you're there, you're not seeing the most important aspects of it, which are the paper streets, the actual lot sizes. You're seeing, and grades can be dealt with. I mean, there's hilly streets everywhere. What is the purpose of seeing it in person? I don't know what I would get from it.

Well, you're not an engineer in land severe and I am, but that's what I'm thinking. And then what I was going to add to that was, uh, not necessarily that we have to have the full board there all at once. Just that we make arrangements to see it between now and the October meeting. And if you don't make it, you lose your chance. That was what I was, what I had in my mind.

So not an organized, not a formal, not a formal, I'm thinking I'm not going to walk that journey.

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna object here say that's a wrong decision but getting that board you know do what you want to do the attorney McCord has given a couple of options those are entirely possible he gave us sort of a shaded third option you could do that tonight I

And to the extent, Mr. Chair, that conditions are discussed and recommended to the City Council, barring something, and I'll use the word incredibly ridiculous, I don't believe Ms. Crapo would certainly object to anything, because ultimately, just looking at how the statute's written out and how you and I were talking before Attorney McCourt came up, is that as long as we can, you know, show that there is access which there is we can build it out that the extent of the limits and responsibilities which i would argue end at the intersection that cuts have through the person's existing driveway and all the way to however far ms crapo has to make that hammerhead or t into her own driveway and into the responsibility question i don't know i don't know if it was how it was asked or how it was answered most likely how it was answered but i don't think the idea that uh wanting input from the fire department and dpw and whatnot for everything from width to turn around and access and safety doesn't create a responsibility or liability thereafter we want you know to whatever we construct we want it to be harmonious with everything from the neighborhood to also the departments and certainly an ambulance and a fire truck But we don't believe that that would create any onus on any department in the city regarding that, other than the owner who would want the fire truck and the ambulance to make it down there. Understood.

I view it as something that I'd like to see. It's a really technical issue for sure. But if the board wants to do something now, you can. But I think we need to move on. So let's do something. My suggestion is I'll look at it. And whoever else can look at it before October, we do it. And we move on in October. Or we can do it tonight.

Do you need a motion on that?

We need a motion of some sort.

A motion to postpone the pending site visit?

For site visit. Or we need a motion to do something tonight.

Motion to postpone pending site visit.

To the next meeting, October.

To the October meeting. The visit or the application?

The application.

But those who would want to visit it would visit on their own before October?

That was a second.

Second from Ryan.

Any discussion on that? Joe wants to go with me, I know, so. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We'll see you next month. Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, can we take 4B out of order?

We're going to go 4B out of order as well. We have a...

I'm going to recuse some of this as I head for the whole project. Okay.

this one doesn't require hearing so request a three sixty one hand over street for uh... landscape full license over city property

this is a request from the applicant to grant a landscape license for parcel that surrounds their project their property as well as a poll license to locate a transformer on city property so just to be clear all of the everything shown requested here tonight is on city property all the landscaping all that blue is city property all that blue and i can i'll pull up the landscape plan in a minute um this plan shows the transformer pad and location um can you see that my cursor yeah yeah and then the landscaping plan that they've provided This is, again, the transformer pad on the bottom left there, the white pad. And then landscaping with a list of plantings. And then this is the area of the property that abuts the wall. That's a long foundry place.

Who's going to maintain that landscaping?

The applicant.

So we had a site walk on this property that the full board didn't attend. But, uh, one of the issues in that back area was that retaining wall that's, um, holding up the city property. And there's a whole bunch of utilities under this landscape areas I recall. And I know the public works department, it wasn't interested in rebuilding that wall if they didn't have to. So is there any talk about redoing that wall?

Not in the letter from the attorney.

Would this landscape area have public access on the city property or would this be private?

They don't state in the letter. Well, it couldn't be. I think the intent was it to not be private.

You couldn't prohibit the public from going on city property.

I think that's something that you could, and if you recommend something, you could recommend that the public have access if you wanted a positive recommendation.

All right. I seem to recall that wall kind of leaning. We have somebody who wants to talk about it. Mr. Chagnon, would you like to weigh in on this?

I would. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, so there's sort of two parts to the onion here. One is if you go back, Peter, to the plan with the blue, there's the part of the property here. which is adjacent to Rock Street that is not restricted at all and would be open to the public. And then the part here that's on the upside of the wall is that there's no way to get there without crossing private property. in other words foundry place is down here and this property is up here adjacent to the building so i think the intent is as i said it's just an area that the developer wants to beautify and but it's difficult to have public access on that part but there's certainly all the part along rock street that's open that would be open that's about the wall um i guess the the request here doesn't include the wall maintenance or rebuilding or anything but that's something could be discussed down the road it was discussed but i think the dpw would would be the right body to express their desires to

They attended the site walk and they would prefer not to maintain it. That's what they said that day.

Yes.

Whether that's changed, I don't know.

Right. So that could be a part of the discussion at the council level, I think. I understand you might want to pass it along with that as a question that needs to be answered for sure.

so so the piece of property in the back that is elevated which is difficult or prohibitive to get up to it i mean isn't that enough to just leave it at that i mean but to say that the public is not allowed on that land is probably something how could we accept that i mean it's fine if it's difficult and nearly impossible to get to it i can't imagine someone would want to get to it if it was a chore unless you were mischievous kid or something, they're going to go up there anyway. But to say that it's off limits to, it seems strange to me.

I thought there was a way to, I'm trying to think, coming around sort of the right angle turn, I remember a discussion about that becoming some sort of access. But that was, I know developers talking about different things back during the site walk. So it might have been different grades.

I don't know what you mean by the right angle turn.

Well, coming down Rock Street and then making the turn sort of on Hanover.

Yeah. Up here. Yep. and then so through there right here is a is another retaining wall that separates the the parking that was constructed and this is elevated right next to the building it's an elevated area right next to the building so that um there's also a gate over there so i can just treat i can just treat you pedestrians can move through there's a traffic gate did you guys resolve the right-of-way issue on the east side there was some abuttered comments about the yeah there's the wall you know I think

Wall that you can see here wasn't as bad as the one that's off to the left right adjacent to Hanover Street So without scaling that block wall, yeah, that's the beast right there that one The city owns up to

the building the city owns the blue because it was historically the rock street garage there was a structure there and and and then even after the structure i think that part of that wall was the back side of the structure there was the barn going back a long time they kept the horses there and the carts and stuff and it was a public works storage facility and then the Heinemann people got an agreement with the city to park there so for a long time it was not public it was leased as parking to the Heinemann go back in time that's what was there

something the public art be done on that wall it could be good i think the issue was a structural concern i mean i i'm not a structural engineer but it it's leaning and what peter rice said is he thought it needed to be rebuilt which leaning retaining walls don't strike me as a good thing but well that could be a party recommendation to the council So we can make a recommendation to council that they accept this with a responsibility for reconstruction of the retaining wall. That would be one option.

The city reconstructs the retaining wall or the developers?

The developers do have the responsibility for that.

For the maintenance of the wall.

uh well we can say maintenance or reconstruction and maintenance well at the city's direction if it can there's a difference between can you maintain it or does it have to be reconstructed but if you say it has to be maintained at the city's direction good point because in its current condition i mean you might have 20 years left on that wall you might not but it depends i don't have to be reconstructed immediately the concern is the maintenance when it does have to happen right

i'm just thinking back to the conversation i had with peter rice and he was concerned that it had to happen like i think the the line was drawn on the face of the wall so the wall is included in the area that's going to be the subject of the landscape and maintenance agreement so if they have to maintain that entire area that includes the wall

if not done during the original development these are going to be owned as condo units and so this current applicant may not be involved in the future and i'm wondering if that has any implication on how we arrive at that conclusion because condo owners may not be suited to review and determine when it is that needs to be replaced

Well, you know that could be part of an agreement could cover that but my thinking is if Now is the time to address it if it needs to be addressed and I guess that's a question John doesn't think it needs to be addressed. My impression was it needed to be addressed so We could ask for recommendation from Public Works

That seems like the best case scenario, and that way it's no longer a planning board matter on an engineering consideration.

So we could recommend a council accept it with a stipulation for ongoing maintenance of the wall and possible reconstruction depending on input of the public works department. Does that make sense? Yeah. Something like that.

The other topic is the transformer that's being placed on city property.

There's a lot of traffic from the neighborhood about the transformers and they if you go back to the picture they're talking about the other transformers right there yeah those were constructed as a part of the foundry place garage you know and so we're just trying to provide for infrastructure and the infrastructure that a transformer takes up could be on a pole i think it's more elegant on the ground so it's not like you never have public infrastructure in the public right-of-way

I thought you were also proposing a transformer to be placed on the grassy area. Yes. Yes. Right. Would that transformer serve, does it benefit the whole neighborhood? In other words, could it be tied into for future power for the neighborhood or is it benefiting the project only?

It's part of the public infrastructure.

I'm not sure.

Eversource has done the design you know there's some looping to the other transformers um so i can't answer the question 100 one way or the other but it's what eversource has indicated is the the way to service this property okay for the sake of discussion what is the alternative here

Say no. And then they don't landscape it, they don't maintain it, and then the city is then still on the hook to maintain the wall. Yep. That doesn't really solve anything either, I guess.

So for the sake of moving this discussion along, does it make sense to get DPW to report back on both items? Throw his form on the wall?

It did mention the transformer in the letter from the attorney.

The DPW has approved the utility plan. I don't know what that matters as far as the transformer goes. I don't know what else you'd be looking from them.

the transformer well I agree with city manager we need to move this along so I think my issues the wall and I think it's it's a it's a big-ticket item potentially as John well knows so if DPW thinks just need to be replaced I think if the developer wants to do this it should be his responsibility to rebuild it and it certainly should be a responsibility to maintain it but the question is whether it needs to rebuild it and I I'm willing to rely on DPW to tell us

Mr. Chair, if you're looking for a motion, can we move to postpone this item pending receipt of a DPW report on the wall? We could do that.

That's the motion. Second. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Opposed?

Okay. You didn't think you were going to represent this one tonight, right?

Not what I'm here for, but I'm glad I was. Thank you. Mr.

Chair, can I move another item, Item 5A, Other Business 1-15, Congress Street Co-Living Conditional Use Permit Extension Request? Certainly. Motion to move that forward. Second. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Aye. So it's a request to extend the conditional use for the co-living. I'm losing my voice.

Right. It expires tomorrow. Or in a couple hours.

A couple hours.

Thankfully, we started at 6.

Right.

Any reasons not to extend it? Any reasons not to extend it? A lot of work went into that.

I'd like to talk about the housing plan. We need to move on this item first.

Is this the first extension? This is the first extension. Go ahead, one, for now.

I'd make a motion to grant the extension. Second.

Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Thank you. Thank you. Go back to H, I think, right?

Site plan review regulations. And this is a public hearing, I believe.

So this has been an ongoing process for a long time. The planning board's been talking about it. housing committee made a recommendation that council to remove the parking from the zoning ordinance and put in the site plan regulations and staff has been working on a draft most of this year the planning board reviewed it in july or in june and then wanted to kind of simplify it and streamline it and that was brought back to the council last month and i think

Well, the only thing that was brought to the council was the removal.

I mean, sorry, the board, the board. Yeah. The zoning amendments were brought to council on Monday for first reading, and they've scheduled a second reading in October.

That was September 28, wasn't it?

I think it's October. I'll go look. But that's a separate topic. What's before you tonight are amendments to the site plan regulations. And key changes are the uses have been consolidated into a broader parking table instead of the expansive use table that's in the zoning ordinance. We've eliminated shared parking and guest parking. Parking reductions, shared parking, off-site parking, and reserved parking have been consolidated into a new section under parking flexibility. and then loading area requirements have been simplified so we have this parking modification section the current regulations have a shared parking occupancy matrix percentage tables conditional use permit requirement for certain modifications the new section will allow parking reductions shared parking off-site parking reserve parking all through modifications before the planning board. There's also a new administrative review process because we had to deal with what happens when there's a change of use that doesn't require site plan review. And the planning director could approve a change of use that doesn't require site plan up to four spaces. So the trigger for site plan review is the requirement of five or more spaces. This would allow the planning director to have that discretion when it's fewer than five. And then otherwise it would go to the planning board for a modification. And the factors that would be considered for review are the existing parking supply, parking demand, perhaps a parking demand analysis, the site conditions, and then any other parking studies that may be provided. what is not changing and what is just ported over from the zoning would be we still have the minimum parking requirements for uses the downtown overlay parking provisions bicycle parking accessible parking requirements and then really a lot of the dimensional requirements for parking lots and circulation I sent out today an email that included Section that I changed from the July meeting, but it didn't get included in the packet and I printed them and put them at your places for sections So We discussed clarifying that the planning director can approve a reduction of up to four parking spaces from the minimum requirement established by this article. Parking modifications resulting in a reduction of five or more shall require planning board approval. And also add a number five that would say the planning and sustainability director may refer any application to the planning board where. In the director's judgment, the nature scale or anticipated parking impacts of the proposed use would warrant warrant planning board review. So I would add that you would, if you make a positive recommendation tonight, that you would amend to add these two sections to section 4.31 of the site plan regulations, the draft regulations.

Questions of Peter?

public hearing and i know we have one person who wants to speak on this because he's found some stuff he wants to bring to our attention so i'm going to open the public hearing uh thank you mr chairman john chagnon from 200 griffin road um so there's two things i want to talk about i guess i'll jump to the parking part first there's a um the table that has been moved into the site plan regulations which is all supported great ideas it has really shrunken down the categories of assignments of parking per use And that's good. It's followed by the 423 unlisted uses section. It's 33 of the proposed document. I have no idea what page it is in your packet. But it says uses not specifically listed shall be assigned to the most similar parking category by the planning and sustainability director. based on the nature of the use and I was just curious whether there would be some sort of a language about providing for other authoritative sources like the institute of traffic engineers source data being appropriate because it does make sense to have fewer categories but in reality there's a lot of uses that don't fit into these boxes neatly so just maybe consider adding in a definitive source that would be a backup for the people for the items

and the uses that don't fit the table you could just say other authoritative source you could put the i t if we wanted to but another authoritative source that's a good suggestion and other authoritative sources it's a good suggestion it's institute of transportation engineers by the way they changed it from traffic back in the 50s did i say traffic engineers you did oh i'm sorry

But the more pressing problem or thing I saw when I read this was the change in 2.54 on page 10, site plan specifications and required exhibits and data that says that full site plans shall not be larger than 11 by 17. And I'm just curious why what changed what that's pretty it's. I don't understand why that needs to be changed. smaller paper right because we have them i think because we're going to more electronic but but if this says full-size plans so i can't do the plan on a big size and then you can look at it in a small size you just told me i can't make a 24 22 by 34 plan so what i think you might want to say is that you will accept reductions but we're still going to do the plans at a bigger scale

Yeah, the registry might want something bigger. Right, that's a good point.

Yeah, you can fit a lot more, four times the data on that size.

So the plan submitted to the staff will be not bigger than 11 by 17, but then the full size plan that gets recorded and whatever else will be 22 by 34.

Are you going to maybe just, I don't think I'm saying that I'm saying we, we, if we have to submit everything on 11 by 17, I think if you got 10 sheets, now you got 40 sheets. or it's really small. Or you get scale reductions. Because if you then say the scale could be not less than one inch equals 60 feet, the biggest scale I can use would be one inch that was full size would be 30 scale because it's going to be 60 now.

We're definitely suggesting scale reduction, right? Because we have the electronic file.

Do we need paper?

Isn't that a state law? the registry wants mylar well rockingham wants mylar other registries don't require mylar for the record some do also just point of clarification are you referencing the amount of data that goes into the electronic file in some of your cad comments i'm telling you if you say i can't make a full-size plan that's bigger than 11 by 17

yeah it's going to be i can't put a lot of data on each plan it's probably best to just not make this change just take that change out yeah take the change out make sure you get this you already accept the smaller ones do we have to pay you for this consultation It's been a worthy wait, thank you very much I appreciate that and I do appreciate Section D that I'm sure that the chairman had a hand in in putting in there about Lancer Bayer, so I appreciate that I'll never tell All right.

Thank you. Good. Thank you. Good catch good input. That's my public comment. Thank you. I Anybody else have any comment? Seeing none, I'm going to close the public here.

I think somebody else wants to make a comment. Our lawyer.

Well, he can always make a comment.

just a suggestion on the uh... on the plans uh... because the and sorry i could have provided this to peter but uh... the the uh... records retention law requires that we keep uh... copies of approved site plans and subdivisions permanently as a permanent record uh... which uh... it means either you have to keep it in paper format or in uh... pdfa format And the long-standing recommendation from the legal department is that you keep it in paper because PDFA can be, I mean, it is reliable, but the technologies change and everything else. So I would recommend that you at least get the final plans in paper to be kept permanently.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. There's always a reason to have an attorney present. so with those changes that peter has all figured out right well i'm just saying that on this unlisted uses where to put in that language where to put that ite and other based upon authoritative sources including the institute of transportation engineers and the nature of

based on based upon authoritative yeah i have just one question section 4.2.6 number three a change of use that does not increase the minimum parking requirement shall not require additional parking section 4.3 parking flexibility the purpose of this section is to provide flexibility in the application of the parking requirements of this article whereas particular compliance is not necessary to accommodate anticipated parking demand In the event that the previous use had received a variance for their parking calculations and then that Existing uses changed. How would that parking flexibility be applied or not applied? Well, it would be a new use a new plan new approval but not a new

there okay yeah different you might you might need a new variance you might need yeah if you change the use it does it there's a case on that actually I think it's a portion of the case I think that was me just rereading it too many times are we ready for a motion yes please

make a motion we vote to adopt the proposed site plan review regulation amendments as amended both by Peter by email and by our talking this evening with an effective date concurrent with the effective date of the corresponding parking related zoning amendments currently before City Council discussion all those in favor aye any opposed

subdivision that's pretty easy is it just the butter it's just the definition of a butter it's about the simplest change we could possibly make I have a public hearing on the proposed amendments and sufficient regulations which is just making our submission regulations conform with the statutory definition of a butter There can be no objection to that. What are you doing?

Well, just that the packet doesn't have that. It has the wetlands ordinance change, but that's not before you. Just making sure. right this is in the staff memo it's just okay so there wasn't a separate document for it but but on the website it has it if you click on it subdivision uh oh it brings you to the wetland yeah yeah but you're just talking about the butter thing wetlands amendment is going to take place not tonight thank you

Any board have any questions on this before opening public hearing?

Just to confirm changing it to a person or entity meeting the definition of a butter contained just in our statute Right or the state statute?

Okay, just double-checking I'm gonna open public hearing Anybody have any comments?

I'm gonna close the public hearing I make a motion we vote to amend the subdivision ordinance as presented second second

Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Any opposed? We are.

And given the hour, I'm looking to really close this out by 10 at the latest tonight, heads up. Housing Action Plan.

So I didn't hear from anyone on any additions or changes to the matrix of the housing action plan, but if anyone has any to discuss.

The council's looking for us to recommend that they adopt it, is that correct? Yes.

We have two public hearings coming up before we adopt it, though. So we're getting more input.

one next wednesday at the library and the following one will be at the council meeting on the 28th so the 23rd at the library and the 28th in council chambers so is it fair to say that this i mean the housing committee's put a lot of work on this and um and so is staff and staff of course it will result in sort of a prodding of this board and the council to proceed to

act on the housing action plan correct and if you look in the table there's a lot of you know key implementation steps and who the leader is in the planning boards named in several of those so if people have some feedback for andrew and i we'd appreciate it as members of the housing committee

Thank you, both of you, for the work that you did on this. Yes.

Bill, I'd like to make substantive comments in a couple areas. It's a very important document. I take it very seriously, and I know others do. The first area is things that are missing. And there's a set of things that really get at low-cost housing that I would put under the general category of rental, of which there's no mention in the Housing Action Plan. And there would be a subset of that which is co-living. There's a subset of that which would be rooming houses. There's a subset of that, which would be single-room rental. For example, there's an organization called Nestle, which is a national organization, which is like an Airbnb for seniors who have a room to rent to younger people. So the rental category is something that, is low cost, easy, no impact on architecture, no impact on cost to the city, but would allow housing for a subset of the population. The second one in that general thought of low cost is manufactured housing that we have some zoning in the city that allows this, there's some opportunity to increase manufactured housing, and there's no component of manufactured housing in the housing action plan. So I would ask that those items at least be considered for addition. A second kind of line of thought, RSA 79E is a relatively new thought or an expanded use thought that shows up in the first item of priority as something that should be done citywide. And I would caution that this is a powerful tool. and that it ought to be done selectively in places, and that one, it needs to track the master plan, and two, there needs to be a process, a very thoughtful process as to how decisions are made.

On your first points, it's additions to the housing action plan, correct? Yes. So this could be a first step and those would be additional work to be done, right? Is that fair?

Well, I would think if the city is going to adopt a housing master plan or action plan that would include rental as well as building.

so a recommendation could be that the council adopted with the suggestions that committee continue to work on those additional topics yes that makes sense at least some advocates agree with me I'm not familiar with 79E. I don't know if you've dug into it yet.

We did. We had a work session on economic revitalization zones. And I know the housing committee is working on a draft.

We have a draft ordinance before the housing committee. And it's not citywide. It's more targeted at specific zoning districts because we didn't think it was going to be appropriate to be citywide. So they're working on a draft ordinance. Right now.

Yeah, I'm just responding to the key implementation stuff City Council adoption of housing opportunities on citywide, right?

That was the housing Right. That was the housing committee's initial recommendation. But since working on the draft ordinance they've stepped back And I think you're gonna just look at specific zoning districts where it would apply so maybe Yes

in your first comment about rentals you included co-living but we already have co-living so exactly we're looking for actions the city can take to continue to improve affordable housing and below monthly rate housing right so i'm trying to figure out if you're talking about expanding it or changing it in some way we don't even have our first one yet so

guess i'm trying to get more information on where that why that was included in that list well the council has adopted an ordinance uh allowing co-living and this uh board has addressed uh two co-living proposals and we've endorsed both of them yeah one's been changed since then so yeah uh but but it's a live concept that the city council has responded favorably to and this board has responded favorably to uh so it It's a concept that the broader concept is rental and that rooming houses would be that as well. How we can.

Well, we have rooming houses and we have co-living. So I'm trying to figure out how we can make an action to improve those. I'm trying to figure out how you're trying to include those in this plan and how to look forward. So we're trying to be, you know, make changes and you're talking about things we already have. So how do we change those things to improve the rentals? That's what I'm trying to get at. I just don't understand, for the record.

Did you mean co-living or co-housing, Bill? Co-living is the term that we've used. Well, that's what we've done. We haven't done co-housing. Did you guys think about co-housing?

We did not. Explain to me. I have not heard that term.

Sort of. We touched upon it in respect to reducing... As it relates to converting single family to multiple units without changing exterior structures or within a single family zone. Where this is most typically found is Islington Street or Miller Ave is a great example. Rockland Street is a great example. we talked about exactly kind of what you're approaching um we didn't go as far to say you know we want to regulate or control or or dig into renting individual rooms because most generally you're allowed to do that on your own discretion um i understand the notion of how it kind of unlocks bedrooms but we were thinking more big picture about single-family zoning uh reducing minimum lot size or addressing the conversion of those structures without exterior changes

I've got no quarrel with what is there. I just think there's an opportunity for some hundreds of people to find homes in the city by renting rooms. Maybe it's just, like, increase awareness of the opportunity to... Well, I mean, there could be, there are program questions. Just as a thought, the Portsmouth Housing Authority does a very good job of managing rentals within their properties that they manage. They could have a role in being a, I'll call it, quasi-broker. for people that are looking for rooms to rent from landlords. And they could work with a thing like Nestle and be a sponsor of that to match people who want rooms with people who have rooms.

yeah just as a thought of something we're not doing but if i may um we we tried to focus on levers that the city would have control over and what you're describing although valid would require a lot of private home owner or private landowner Participation with the assumption that the city would then play a role in that. Facilitation, which we didn't want to do so much, you know, obviously, like, when we changed the policies. We were expecting private owners to see that as a proactive start to their process. so we wanted to focus more on the big picture so that the city had control over it city could enact something or a policy and then we could disseminate that out to private property owners given the fact that people can rent rooms in their house already and that it's maybe just under their own volition that was not a huge focus because it doesn't directly correlate to more units or more um individual housing stock if you will and so again i get what you're saying it's a valid concept but we don't have any control over that necessarily you know it's it's free for somebody to do but we don't want to be involved in that process

my point in rephrasing what you said was this isn't an endpoint this is this is a represents a a lot of work on the way to getting even more work done there's work to do i'm not going to get into a huge explanation of co-housing it's a different thing it's kind of cool it might work really well in the outlying areas it's basically like a cottage court where there's certain shared facilities like a shared kitchen but you have separate buildings instead of living in a like an apartment building we do talk about cottage we do have cottage housing in here we have that in the gateway now yeah it's it's similar it's pretty common out west for some reason i don't know why but um anyway and they've been very successful where they've been done it's not for everybody but for those who want it it's what we're trying to do to provide options you know some people really find it a nice way to go and they fit into single family resident single family neighborhoods pretty well so It's like a collection of almost like microhouses.

It's basically what they did up in Dover.

Similar, similar. I think, somebody want to make a recommendation?

um mr chairman i believe this housing action plan provides a clear road map with actions responsible parties and time frames and i make a recommendation that we uh we recommend that council approve it as presented i'll second it and i can provide discussion if you don't have anything else that was my motion great um

once we recommended this plan the housing action committee still continues to work on these big picture concepts and then kind of tackles them one by one or concept by concept and so uh these are by no means set in stone and a lot of the expansion that you are referencing can still be incorporated it's not like we are set to only this chart and we cannot deviate or cannot add to it. There are a lot of umbrella topics here very intentionally so that we can go back and wrap our arms around more and more as we go through it. And so that was the intent. That's how it was discussed. And when we started, we had so many concepts that we actually ended up collecting them and putting them into these buckets very individually, or very intentionally rather. i have your email that you had sent me and it's valid and all of these comments are valid it's it's just a function of like getting it to the approval stage and then really attacking it and getting into deeper details to make sure that a we're compliant we're legal and they actually have efficacy and then bringing them to the forefront as maybe a policy or a draft policy or a recommendation to someone that needs to see it