Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It's 7 o'clock. We're going to call to order the town of Winchester playing opening commission meeting, March 9th, 2029. We'll do roll call first. Uh starting on the left, Scott Eisenberg, Peter Bartan. Adam Quagler

and Rrista and Jan and Charlene are all absolutely excused. Okay, I think I got everybody got that one. All right. Uh, gender. Do anybody have anything? You're going to Anybody seat anybody for? Oh, yeah. We're going to seat Scott tonight in Vista's place. Gender review. No. Okay. So, we're going to have public comment if anybody has anything they want to say. It's not related to anything on the agenda. No. Okay. So, we're going to go on to the public hearings. PZC 26-1. Applicant Ashley Home. Location 309 Cobbrook Roads. Proposal special permit for home occupation cottage food operations zone RR. Are you here? Are these are these working?

Should be. They're for the They're for the broadcast though, not for anybody. Turn on her mic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Get that one. Get the where it says microphone. Just any of those red buttons. Little microphone figure there. There you go. That's great. All right. Explain to us what you want to do.

Yeah. So, um I want to open a cottage foods operation out of my home. Um, and learning all about that process has been an endeavor. Um, but one of the major things that the state requires is that we get a permission from our zoning commission, make sure that we're properly permitted or whatever we need. Um, so I learned that I needed to apply for the special permit because that's the home occupation. So essentially a cottage operation pretty basic on my end. Um, in Connecticut we're not allowed to have any like farm stands. We have to do persontoperson sales. So, the only sales that I would do would be uh handing off those baked goods, mostly cupcakes and cookies, um to people who purchase them from me, either via like online sales or calling me to purchase. Um I don't plan to do much selling from my home. Um if you've been to my house, you know my driveway is a beast. Uh and I don't want anybody on my driveway. Way too much liability [clears throat] for me. Um, so most of it would be done at either farmers markets or delivering food to people's homes. Um, so really not a lot of impact to my neighbors in any way. Uh, but it' just be baking out of my own home kitchen, which is what's required under the cottage food laws in Connecticut.

All right. Does anybody on the board have any questions? I have no I don't have any either since you're not going to sell from home and you're not allowed to sell from home. So, uh, seeing no questions. Scott, John, good. Everybody's good. Signage. No signage. No signage. No, nothing. All right. So, we're going to close public hearing PZ 26-1. Um, propose we Okay, I'll vote to vote later. Yeah. Thank you. As we get to the whole business,

is there a vote proposing it? Uh, everybody in favor calls it a public hearing. You made the motion, Peter. You second. I second. Okay. Yes. [cough and clears throat] Now proposed to open TZC 26-2 applicant Paul Sino uh on behalf of Bachelor Apartments location 179 Street proposed modification to existing permit for affordable housing zone TCF. Oh yeah. Hi this is Paul Salode. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you very much for allowing me to do this today. I uh know we've had a couple of cancellations due to storms and now I happen to be away. Um could I share my screen? Yes, you can.

Okay, I can see that. So you can as well. Um, thank you very much. Paul Sarah, architect with Salar Associates. And we were here before and we had a special permit for the Bachelor School. What I'm showing you here on this rendering is the revised entrance location. [clears throat] Um, it was up in this location right now. We've simply moved it down here. So the the changes that I'd like to discuss tonight are uh relatively minor and they do not impact any impervious areas. Uh so originally we had uh 35 units of housing uh 53 bedrooms. What we are proposing is 37 units of housing and 56 bedrooms. Umially permitted we had 53 um bedrooms uh required of 40 parking spaces and we were providing 63. So now we have 56 bedrooms 42 spaces and we're providing 62. You can see from this calculation that we are still over the minimum part of the requirement and only reduces. And in this particular diagram, you can see up here in the upper left that originally we had an exterior vessel and a covered entryway and there was parking right along this side of of the building. What we've done and this is related to the interior changes is that we've relocated and removed where we removed that vestibule. We've relocated the covered down close to where at where the

existing entrance side entrance to the building was at one point and we have a couple empty place and then relocated some of these parking spaces. So from the site originally on the left you can see that right at this location was our original vestibule and we had cars parked along this area and then down into here. And then what we did is we relocated the entrance right down into this area and relocated these parking spaces up into this zone where we had the original. So you can see this was all impervious area previously and it's all impervious area now. So we're not uh increasing any we have a what amounted to a small parking space right here little tricky area for parking. So we have to remove that zone parking. So that's where we have the one parking space we got. So this is the exterior elevation that you can see. Originally this was our entrance vestibial projection and now we just have that canopy as it projects through the face of the building. [clears throat] So if we can get into the interior a little bit, I can show you part of what has also been revised. So here was that vestibule that we've been talking about and that's been relocated. Now originally we had a very large open very last internal space that [clears throat] had a great deal of common area. What we've done is to reduce some of that common area. We still have the

multi-purpose space that was uh important to to our client. We have a larger area for maintenance. We [clears throat] have still have the um fitness area, but we reduced it down from you know seven to eight pieces of equipment down to three. The the laundry area did not decrease in size and is actually uh you know in and still in a very good central location. um the tennis storage that was over in in in the original location, we actually took [snorts] that those individual storage areas and actually incorporated them into the apartments. So, we no longer need a separate storage volume uh because we're providing storage inside the apartments. So, as you can see by the renovations, we kept the apartment open to here. Change that those two studios into a twobedroom where we add common area. We added two more apartments into here and studios one studio here. Here's a common entrance that's coming through. the offices for staff are still located and you hear the still the common fitness and laundry that we were speaking about. So this is one of the primary changes that brought about the increased unit size. The other one happened up in the other area portion of the building where we previously had a studio and a bedroom over here. This was a very tough studio which is why we relocated that. And we've actually have a storage area that we're creating along this portion of the building uh to allow um an

entrance from the exterior directly into the building. This will make servicing equipment through a lot easier. As we come in through here, the elevator is right in this area. So that makes that uh significantly easier. So again, these were the, you know, minor changes that we're doing here in the building that um, you know, increase our unit and count. And since we were here for a special [clears throat] previously, um, we're here again tonight to show these revisions to that special. So, I'd be more than glad to answer any questions. All right. Uh, anybody want to start? All right. I know in the uh report that we got our town planner, you have spots for electric charging vehicles. Yes, we do.

And where where are those located? Right here. Oh, okay. All right. I found it. I found it now. So, [clears throat] yeah. None of those will be located near the BU building, correct? Yes. Yeah. There's the note right in through here. So, they're all right along through here. Like I said, none of them will be located next to the building, right? Not directly. No, no, no. They're not in the area. [clears throat] I mean, they're adjacent in the parking lot, but they're not on not directly near the building. Okay. No, I'm just looking for that. So, are those are those electric charging stations counted in your parking areas?

Your your total parking. Um, yes, they are. Yep. They're part of the the total. So, the other question that I have is your uh garbage truck's going to come in and then make a big swing and pull into the dumpsters, but your plotted uh [clears throat] plan here,

it looks like it's going to run into your overhang because I see where the anchors are for your overhang. And if you look at your picture, your overhang actually comes out a lot farther than where the legs are. So, is it going to hit your overhang or are you going to miss that?

No, it it'll actually the overhang. You can see it. It doesn't extend past the sidewalk area. It does go past these diagonals, but it does not overhang into the dry zone in here. So, it does stop probably in around about a foot or so back from this area. So it will not interfere um you know with with that. So this is this this radius was the original radius that we had presented before on how the detractors would come in and it does in fact miss this everything that you know the parking spaces and also that uh that truck

and that garbage truck is going to go all the way up around and back to the school to turn around.

Yeah. Unfortunately, you know, that's the site. I mean, you know, we're up on the hill. We've got to have people any anyone that comes in with a large vehicle is going to have to turn around and come all the way out the backside and then turn around in the turnaround area that we have. I can show you that that they're going to have to drive because they can't back up. There's no way to turn around in this zone here because of uh grade and slope. So, they're going to have to turn around, come back in here, turn around and and drive up. So that'll that'll hold true for any vehicle um that was coming to the site previously and and also now this was the way that we had originally peritted. So no change to that.

Scott, well I'm just thinking if they go up and around the building I used to plow it. The roof sticks out like three or four feet. Mhm. So when you go up there, you're going to have to stay way out around the building, go all the way along the back and then turn around someplace and then come all the way back again. Yeah. The overhang does not go over the roadway. So, and there are patios back there and there's a fence screen fence that does come out, but the roadway does not go underneath that that uh that rear overhang. [clears throat]

Yeah. Unfortunately, that you know, that's the way the site Um, I lost my share, but that's I think it's back. Um, yeah, that's unfortunately the way that the site has been in operation and um, you know, still do exist today. There simply is no other location for trash. The trash is pretty much in that spot. How do you make that better? Vehicles are just going to have to turn around as we presented last time.

So, this issue came up last time about a vehicle having to turn around and before we were talking about like a landscape trailer and uh basically said I recall that we weren't going to expand the turnaround area up top and I'm looking at it and yes, we did not expand it. But if I'm looking at the radius turn that that garbage truck has taken to get to the the [clears throat] uh refuge and if I just visually apply that to the upper portion, there's no way they're making that turn and turn around up there. In my opinion, I didn't overlay it directly. But I if I use the same radius that you're providing to get to the um dumpster and I apply it up top, I don't see them turning around up there.

And there's also All right. Well, I mean, we do have We do have ample space back there to increase that and and we'll definitely plot that and uh submit that you know to the to the planner to ensure that that that is met. You know we are well under the impervious area. Uh so as as we are reducing a significant amount so increasing that slightly to do that certainly be an impact or a detriment for the project. But I have no problems with putting that same radius back there and expanding it that way.

Okay. And 10 of your extra parking spots you've been talking about are up in the top there, right? Where where this garbage trucks are turn around.

There are some parking in here that that has always been there. Yeah. But they come back in here. They back up and then turn out. So they would rad back this way. It would need to pull in, back out, and go up. So, I can change this radius, extend this, so it'll be right in this curve to allow someone to to get that. We can we can show how that vehicle can turn and then come up. [clears throat]

I don't ever recall the garbage trucks going out back and turning around. I think they had enough room where they were to back up to the dumpsters then come back out the same way. That's where they used to be. Yes.

And will that road going around the school be paved? Yeah, it is. It is paved now and it will remain paved. Yeah. We parking back through here and it is part of the path. I think fire department would also be fully paid and may take. So, do you have an alternative now that we're talking about it? [clears throat] any any

uh the only alternative that I can see here because of the grades on this site is to extend and revise this radius back in the back portion of the building for that truck to come down in here back up and exit around the building again. We explored a lot of other locations. We even explored putting the dumpster in the back of the building. That means the vehicles would have to drive all the way around to pick up the trash and then leave the same way. We felt that this location would be more convenient, particularly because this is where the majority of the parking would be. So the residents can use this trash location and allow the truck to pick it up and still go around the back. So the only other location for the dumpster other than this spot would be in this rear area.

Well, it seems and see it seems pertinent to leave the dumpster where it is because it's most convenient to the residents and you got a better chance of the garbage ending up in the dumpster. So I don't think that's an issue. I think what we're looking at is trying to get that uh garbage truck turned around at the top. I think that's where

I said I can change that radius that I'm right right in the cursor is. I can apply to that radius and extend this and I'll map that out and submit that, you know, to the planner to make sure that we actually have that uh taken care of. What's that crosshatch area that's right there? I I can't see I can't see it labeled where the four park.

So that crosshatch area was in fact [clears throat] existing pavement that we're actually removing as part of the impervious area that we're now making just you know lawn area and and and areas. So as I said we are reducing it significantly. So increasing a little bit more pavement in there uh certainly would not change our uh coverage to a great extent and we still be significantly under what the current drainage situation is on the property.

I think we're talking about two different things here. I think Scott's talking about where the parking 10 parking spots are. All of us Yeah, but this is where the 10 parking spots are. We're not removing that, right? I'm just trying to find a way to prevent the truck from going around the building. Cuz when you go around the building, um I didn't know it was paid. I haven't been there in a while. And I know the roof overhang hangs way out. And I know there's a drainage ditch that comes that's between the building and the slope at the slope of the hill. Yeah, there's a drainage ditch there. There's a swale. [clears throat]

Yeah. But the we're not you know the drain the roadway is is as I said is still beyond that overhang which does come out um and there is a drainage swale that we are not changing. We're not increasing the width of the road. Um, I do wish there was a different way to to turn the truck around as opposed to just simply backing up the way they came in, which I don't think would be a safe way to to have anyone exit. Um,

now I see something getting run into trying to back out of there. you know, trying to locate it. You know, the one way one place to do it is is the one place that I certainly would not want to propose and that would be in the front of the property right over here. Okay. That that that is that is not a good location usually for a dumpster. No. where the truck would come in, pick it up, back up slightly, and turn around and stay in this zone. But this is not this would be putting a dumpster in the front yard.

Mhm. And and that certainly is not, in my opinion, an ideal location from a you know, from a planning standpoint or or quite frankly may not be allowed for your zoning. So this is why we've kept it, you know, back here. It's kind of where it is right now. So, Mr. Chairman, I I think because of the length of that road and the access into that building in the back, they need to have turnaround back there for firet truck access anyway. So, so that turnaround has to be there.

It's not ideal for the residents that the dumpster, you know, the garbage truck is going to run back there once a week or how however often the pickup is. I assume it's probably once a week. It's not ideal for the residents, but you know, this the site doesn't lend itself well to to any other configuration. So, Right. And that's what I think we're all Yeah. thinking about here is not enough room to turn the garbage truck around. So, I think, you know, you could do one of two things. You could either ask that a turning radius plan be submitted for your next meeting and review it in in a couple of weeks. or you can make that a condition of approval where a turning radius plan for the back be submitted to staff and we'll review it and make sure that the you know we'll take a look at it and make sure that the turnaround works.

So he just said he wasn't going to change the ditch meaning it's tight if you're not changing anything very tight unless you put a pipe in. I don't want to add to the cost.

It is very tight. I I could also review this with staff. I could provide a complete section which I don't have here to show you where that where that stops where I could add some protection around the corner the balls to force people to drive around instead of coming you know closer to the roof. I don't think they would hit it because but I can certainly do that and I could redo this radius back here with staff and make sure that we have um a safe eress. I mean, you know, to the point, fire trucks have to do the exact same thing. Um, so the turning rad

I didn't get any comments from the turning radius from the fire department. So, I I I thought we were okay, but I have [clears throat] no issue with with making it longer and and making sure that that staff is is perfectly satisfied with that. So, the turning [clears throat] radius would be for the garbage trucks and the fire department, right? And is this something you can have our public works engineer look at? Well, they'll they'll we'll get the specs on the vehicles that we have and and the the the garbage truck specs are pretty standard. Looks like he's already used those. So, we can take a look at it from that standpoint and we'll we'll send it to John. He'll certainly have experience with that. 48 truck. So,

Right. Right. So, we'll get the specs. We'll get those over to Paul, have him do a turning radius plan up there. We'll have John review it. Chief Chief Field take a look at it and we'll go from there. Are we good with that? I just don't like the idea of him going around the back. I But I haven't been around the back in 20 years, [laughter] but I know it was tight. And that was with a small truck. Oh, one ton. One ton. Paul, you you've got the plans in front of you. How wide is that road that goes around back of the school?

Before he answers, it can't be too wide because if he's not changing the ditch, we're going to go around a corner to drain your ditch. Yeah. I just want to know what the width is. And when you're going around a corner, you usually stick close to the building. So my trucks would be under the roof. It's just not I think it sticks out three or four feet. It sticks out the roof sticks out quite a bit. Yeah, that roof three to four. Yeah, at least a long overhang. You found a different location. Double check and get back to I don't see the I don't see dimension on there. We didn't dimension. I can scale it. Yeah, I I don't I don't seem to have that. I don't have the entire set with me. I'm sorry. As I am completely remote,

it's not perfect. The radius, you know, as I said, comes up into here. The building stops farther back. The overhang is in through here. So there is clearly space. It's tight, but this space Yeah, it's about 20 ft wide. That's That's about right. Yeah, it's about 20 22 ft in some areas. Yeah, that's about right. I didn't want to guess, but since you could scale it, that's about right. Stop here. that way. [clears throat]

Paul, down at the uh by the old barn there, you've got snow stacking areas on adjoining property that's owned by the town. Do you have an agreement with them to put snow there? You know, I don't see us putting anything there. There's three snow stacking areas listed here on our print. and it's on adjoining property. Okay. I'm just wondering if there's any agreement with the property owner to put snow there.

You know, I know that the town has been working with the owner on on the actual final agreements. Um I don't know if that is in fact listed in there yet, but I can make sure that that is the case. Anybody else got any questions?

Well, we talked about this again, the the point of potential, the tight turns. Um, I have been up there recently and um, this being two-way traffic, I know the trash truck's only going to be going out there, I guess, once or once a week, but there's no uh stopping somebody else coming up the other way when that trash truck's leaving. Um, and there's two corners on here where that's going to be a problem. Not just because the corner of the building sticking out, but if you go west down that way and take that tight turn down at the end where you say you're going to be stacking the snow, um if it's any you ever have a winter like this winter, you're not going to see anything coming up into that turn to even see a trash truck coming down that straightaway here to that corner. You know where I'm talking about there on the west side under area two where you have the snow stacking area there by the corner of the building.

You talking is this here? Are you talking about here? Yeah. Right in there. Yeah. I think that's another that's going to be another bad spot too. Not just that corner where the building sticks out, but there too. Because I have driven up. We have other areas where trash. Probably trash where snow can be can be stacked. Yeah, I think if that were Yeah. snow stacking area. I think that would be a visibility problem. Just just know what

I mean. We have we have other areas that we can certainly use. We certainly have a front area that we can put it in. We have a lot of back area that we can push things in or move it to if [clears throat] things get um you know out of hand like they have this winter. Agreed. Um, so I think there is certainly a lot of locations on the site where it could be placed. Um, if if you deem that those areas right now were not conducive. We certainly have other side.

Well, I'm trying to think what else would be going back there besides a trash truck. Um, but I've driven a large pickup up through there. And um if I encountered I never encountered anybody coming the other way, but I can imagine if I did, even if there was no snow, it would be a difficult maneuver for two people to somebody's going to have to wait or kind of pull over or something like that. I think

in this case, um honestly, I don't see any other way around it. Um and this must have been a problem because if you go up there, I think even to today, if you go up there, there's a oneway street sign up there right at the end of that entrance which is strange because no way out. There's no way out if it's a oneway street, right?

Yeah. I [clears throat] mean that I didn't have just been there because it was a school. I mean I think the road's wide enough to let it happen both directions. I mean I granted it is tight. Um but I suspect the signage up there was more related to the fact that it was a school. um not so much for the the the the width of road. Um so yeah, I mean maintenance is going to be important. You can look at other areas where you know unusual situations like what we're in. We have to be different.

Yeah. Keep keep in mind everybody too that that piece of it was all approved already, right? So, we're here to talk about the changes. I do want to make sure that we get the turnaround radius right since we have, you know, an opportunity to work with them and make sure that that that radius fits the trucks that it needs to fit, but you know, the rest of that whole thing was already approved. So, we really can't kind of go back in time. We're looking at the we're looking at the the adjustments here. The only thing it did alter was the the entrance of the area. So, when we originally approved it, I saw the truck swinging closer to the building where the new entrance is now um and then being able to back out and do a K turn to get out. Now, I suspect I don't think you could do a K turn in that area. Additional

provided I think you have here a full size refuge truck, possibly a single axle or dual axle would uh would have a tighter turning radius and be, you know, get in there easier. [clears throat] I don't know. I just don't recall the ever turning around. I've always seen him come up there, pull ahead, grab the garbage, and drive back out. Probably what will happen anyways. It's possible when the driver I'm not going up there.

I'm sure the driver will find that they make a different way to do it. But I know I do know that the garbage trucks that come up on that street now are usually single accident. Nothing big with like tandem access. I just don't like the idea of him going around. If you can just make it work the way it is. I don't want them have to spend the money on the turning radiuses as long as the fire department will be fine with it. Okay. Even if we created a parking spot, an extra one, and put the dumpsters there just so he can back up to him and come back out again.

I don't think he realizes the damage that some cowboy will be in a garbage truck shooting around the building because he's in a hurry. Just trying to keep a simple anything else, Adam? The only thing else I have is uh so we increase the number of of rooms or occupancy. How how does that affect the parking? Do we need to add more parking? I saw we only have 30 spaces, right? Plenty of parking. We're over parked by 10 up in here.

One and a half times. So 750. Yep. requirements. Yeah, we have. Anybody else have anything? I just want to ask real quick. What does the elevator do? There's an elevator. Yeah. To go to the second story. I didn't realize. This is building. Oh, I got you. So, the behind building is up level. I got you. Right. Yeah. structure because we need that elevator.

So if everybody is is good with staff reviewing the history public hearing, you got any public comment?

Oh, we forgot the public comment. Anybody got anything they want to say? voice and as chair of the board of Winchester housing partners I just want to bachelor was my grammar school I was the first class and we're very Happy.

Anybody else? Okay. I make a motion public. One more thing. If staff reviews it with the with the applicant and they want to put an extra parking spot in, are you sort of okay with that? I'm trying to I'm trying to find alternatives for them to discuss. Oh, for for to for to to deal with the dumpster? Yes. Yeah. Okay, there's there's 10 extra spots. Actually, a lot more. 20. Actually, [clears throat] we have actually we have 20. Okay. I'll make a motion we close PCC 26-2 public hearing.

I'll second it. All in favor? Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks again for letting move things. Yeah. Move things around. I think that makes sense. Yeah. I'll make a motion to do an agenda review to move item C PCC 25-20 um after the old business into after we conduct old business A and B. Second.

All in favor? Okay. All right. So, now we're on to [clears throat] old business. PZC-26-1 Ashley Home 309 Cobber Road. Dress permit for home occupation cottage food operation um zone RR. I motion that we entertain that. Approve. Second. Second. Yep. Okay. And uh anybody got any discussion? Nobody. Okay. Good. All in favor? You're good. You're all set.

A long time coming. Motion for him. We need that. You got the uh I have it. You were faster than I could pull it up, but I've got the I've got the draft motion for you. So, it's you're all set. You know, I I know. I'm I'm working on getting the next one up for you. [laughter] So, do we have to read? No, you don't have to read it. Okay. This is This is uh this is the one we've got for Bachelor. I figure this is more important because you'll have I'll make a motion to approve application 26-2 special permit owner Winchester. I'll read it from this Winchester Housing Partners LLC.

Hinging Partners LLC at 179 FRA Street. proposal modification to the existing special permit for affordable housing zone town single family. Uh I like got two conditions to it. One, a written agreement with the town of Winchester for snow stacking areas. And two, an updated plan with all radiuses shown for garbage truck and all town fire apparatus to be approved by the planning staff and the Winston fire [clears throat] chief John Field. I can give you that writing. So, okay, that's great. All right, I'll suck it up.

Wait for you to get it all in. Oh, that's all right. I've got it in writing. All right. I'll catch up to you later. If you can read it. I can read it. You're fine. All in favor? Better than mine. Yeah.

Okay. You're good. [clears throat] Got a little bit of public about

I think I know who we'll figure that out later. All right. So, now we'll go back to public hearings. Item C, applicant town of Winchester proposal update zoning regulations section 415-26 415 8415-415-9 415-21 415-55 and appendix A use table second I'll second Adam all in favor okay

okay so you know the last time we met I think we were all pretty well content with where we were on the changes to the regs and the use table uh but I wanted a chance to go through and clean up any any last little typos or confusing points or whatever. In the office, we were talking about the use table and the use table had ZP for zoning permit, P for site plan and SP for for special permits. And there was at least one or two conversations that we had with members of the public recently where they thought P stood for permitted, meaning they didn't need a permit. So, we decided that it might make sense to clean up the use table and just standardize our abbreviations. So, what you'll see here is a whole bunch of purple, which indicates the new uh abbreviations. So, what we're looking at is A, which is allowed, and you're only going to find one of those in the use table, and that has to do with our homesteading cart that we've been talking about. ZP which is zoning permits, SP which is site plan approval and SUP which is special use permit. So we went through and and added made those changes just to kind of clarify things. Um and so you'll see that you'll see that suggested change. If you don't like it, we don't have to keep it. That's fine by us, but that's just, you know, we started to have these conversations over the last couple of weeks. Let's try to make this thing a little bit more standardized. This is how you'll find it in a lot of communities. Um, and that way hopefully we can avoid the question of, "Oh, it's P. I mean, it's permitted. I can just do it without it, you know." So,

go back up to the topic. Yeah. So, have to have P in there for allowed, right? A is allowed, no permit required, and all the rest is zoning permit, site plan, special permit, not permitted. Not blank. Okay. I think Vic explains it very well. If it stops confusion, I'm for it. Okay. That's what we're trying to do.

So, uh I I don't think there's any other changes in here. We had already talked about some of the stuff that we need to do for uh public act special session public act 2125. So, I think we made a couple of minor adjustments over the last couple of months, but for the most part, everything here is is as it has been. We changed a few uses from special permits over to site plan, namely uh mixeduse buildings here on Main Street. Uh we uh changed a couple of things from site plan over to zoning permit just to make the process a little bit more expedited. Um but but I don't we haven't we have not suggested any other changes since the last time we met a couple of weeks ago. So what's what's there is what you've seen.

Just a question on this with with the updated housing bills like that. Should we hold on approving these until we get a better understanding or we could um do you see for change? I I I I foresee the potential for a few minor tweaks to some sections that we did not include in the legal notice for these batch of changes. So, I think it's okay to go ahead and and move forward on this stuff. Um I know a few of you have registered for the session that we're holding on Wednesday night with regard to that legislation. Um and then I think we can really dive into them at a later date.

Yeah. Because I, you know, with that may come some mapping changes with regard to the uh allowance for parking mitigation zones. We may want to talk about that in a few areas. We've been kicking around some ideas. So once we get through Wednesday night and you guys have sort of a better better understanding of that legislation, I think we'll come back to you with some of our thoughts that we've been kicking around for the last couple of months. And and like I said, that's going to impact areas of the regulation that are not under the the special or the um legal notice that we've put together anyway. So, we'd have to we'd have to go back to it. They'll we can put an effective date that they're approved by. And yeah, then someday we'll actually see a printed copy. Someday you'll see a printed copy. I mean, it is March. They're online. It [laughter] is March. It is March. What was your What was your

I was told February maybe I'd see. Yeah. But then we got into this. Yeah. So, you know, so we don't make any more changes. You're right. And I will I will I will I will I will take it on the chin. We said February because we thought we were going to approve back in January and then we had a snowstorm and we had a this and we had the battery's not gone yet. I know. I know. [laughter] Okay. Uh and and then the the text of the language itself hasn't changed at all. I I I may have caught a couple extra typos here or there, but uh nothing has changed since two weeks ago. Changed it great. Really, it's a lot of a lot of updating that needed to be done. Yeah. Okay.

I think last time we ran through this it was pretty much up to date. I think the one meeting can't been so long now I don't remember. January we did it. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think the biggest thing from the last meeting which right was a month ago because we we missed the the meeting two weeks ago uh was I had asked for extra time just to go through one more time and make sure that the language was clean. Oh, that's appreciated very much. It cleaned them up a lot. Good work. Good work to all of you. Did we take out um for retail smoke shop? We took out andor contains the areas for consumption of smokable products. I know that was We discussed that.

Let's take a look. Talk about taking it up. I think I made that change during the meeting, but let's double check

after combination above. Yep, it's removed. Yeah, it's Y. So, do we want to close the public hearing and act on this tonight or we want to hold off a little longer? I if the commission's comfortable moving forward, I'm comfortable moving. I don't think get it done and then and then we can start fresh in a couple of weeks or a month on the new legislation. Start all over again. I'm good. You're good. No, I feel good about it. Okay. So, I move to close public hearing. 2520 25-2520

second John all in favor okay so then we can move on to old business PZ-25-20 applicant town of Winchester proposal update zoning regulations sections 415-26 415-38 415-40 415-19 415-21 415-55 a use. So, make a motion to approve these. Second, Scott, go ahead. I'm good. You're good. I was rushing a vote. I'm sorry. Uh, you second it. I did.

Okay. All in favor? All right. We're good. Now, we move on to new business. PC-26-3. The applicant Roxan O'Neal, location 15 Ay Road, proposal special permit from home occupation, cottage food industry, zone R. So, we need to submit a public hearing. Yeah, this is we need a public hearing for this one. So, yep. Hi. Hi. Um, so I'm just going to be baking. Are you good? Actually, we're just accepting tonight.

So, I'm good. You're not good. We're we're going to set a public hearing and we're just accepting it and then application accepting application. Okay. And from the first one earlier one, you know questions we're going to we're going to ask you to say something, but tonight we're not doing any business on except tonight. I'll make a motion to accept uh schedule public hearing for PCC 26-3 on our March 23rd meeting at 7 p.m. Second.

I'm going to hold you off on that for just one second because I think the 23rd is less than 15 days and we've got to do public meet notices and she's got to get a sign up and all that stuff. So, yeah. So, April Yeah. April 13th is your first meeting in April. April. I change amend that motion to public hearing. It will be April 13th at 7 p.m. I change my second. Oh, you second it, John? Yes. Okay. All in favor? Okay. April 13th. We'll see you on the 13th. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night.

Okay. Now we're on to other business. Other business. Other business. So go ahead. I was just going to ask about the class on Wednesday, but

yeah. So that's uh so I've mentioned this the last couple of meetings. I think um we've sent out the flyer. We've sent out the registration that is uh Tiki has hired Hower and Sage to uh run this meeting. We'll do some bits and pieces of it. Some of our staff will do bits and pieces of it, but it'll mostly be Mark Brance and uh Ken Slater. It's free for you all. It's for our client towns. It's fully online. It's at 7 o'clock. We ask that you register because that's the only way you're going to get the link to uh go to the meeting. It's two hours and it's worth commissioner [clears throat] training credit. So, we will give you those two hours if you attend. Um and because it's the housing legislation, it you get that one hour of affordable housing commissioner training.

I got so many one hour. Okay. Well, you know, that's okay. Stack them up. You're okay. information from my last hour. [laughter] So, uh, you know, we we've got the registration so we know who in our towns has registered. And if you, you know, if you watch it, we'll know that you watched it. Um, and we'll [clears throat] give you that credit. We're not going to send you a certificate. It's too much work for me. But, uh, but we'll know that you're there and we'll get the notific we'll get the link tomorrow. Yeah. You should have already gotten Oh, yeah. You'll get the link to get into the meeting. Yes. If it hasn't, if it hasn't hit your email yet, you should you'll get it tomorrow. That's Thursday night. It's Wednesday. It's Wednesday at 7 o'clock. So, we look at the email you sent out.

Yeah. And I included if you got if you got a PDF version of my report that went out la last week for this meeting, there's a link in there to it as well. So, we can send the link again if you don't have it, but uh I just I'll have Yeah, it's a Zoom it's a Zoom meeting. Um and like I said, it's free and it's it's two hours to do it from home and uh it's going to cover that legislation from top to bottom. What is the hours requirement? Four hours of training. Four hours every every four years after your first year in in your uh in your post.

So we encourage you all to go all the towns [clears throat] I work for encouraging everybody to go just it'll give you a good baseline. You know we we had something similar for staff. Jeff and I went to a thing in Cromwell [clears throat] a month ago. Yeah. That was led by the Cogs. I think this will be a little bit more in-depth and this will be a little bit more of the legal ease because and that's why we brought Hower and Sage on. They are, you know, they're they're keyed into everything that's going on in Hartford and they are the heavy hitters in land use law for the state. So, we figured let's get the the best and brightest to get the best interpretation of this thing. [clears throat] So, if you can attend, great. I think I already signed up. I think you did. I do. I got the link, too.

That's all I've got. All right. So, we have a public hearing scheduled for March 23rd for PZC-26-4. So, you have said previously that we do not have to accept them, that they can be done another way.

Yeah, it it's it's essentially automatically accepted once it walks in the office. It [clears throat] is automatically accepted at the either 35 days after it walks in the office or at your next regular meeting um per statute whether you take action to accept it or not. It is accepted at your next regularly scheduled meeting. So, we've talked about this in in office to try to [clears throat] expedite things a little bit.

If you would prefer, if the commission would prefer rather than bringing it here, doing the acceptance and scheduling, if the timing works out, because we because we have a month in between for for legal notices and signage and all that sort of stuff. If an application walks in, we can look at the calendar date and tell them the next meeting that they can hit uh from a from a standpoint of legal notices when we can open the hearing, which could save a couple applications complete. So, we got to Okay. Yes. And [clears throat] it gives us time to do all of that because, you know, it's not like they're going to walk in on a Thursday and open a hearing on Tuesday. It's going to be at least,

you know, not even the following. somebody walked in tomorrow for with an application, then instead of waiting two weeks, right, the date could start tomorrow, right, for their 15 days, right? It could we could get them if if it walked in tomorrow, we could get them on the April 13th agenda for a public hearing as opposed to coming here March 23rd and then getting pushed to April 27th. So, it say two weeks. Yeah. Would these some of these people that have got these little businesses they want to start, it would move them along quicker so they know they've got an answer and they can do their thing. Yeah. So, we would eliminate people like her coming in

to say just to come here and say I I get it. It's just like if we can expedite it, I'm I'm good with that. Especially for the smaller things like that. Any larger ones, we should see it beforehand. Yep. any larger ones, I think we would bring it to you to to give ourselves the added time that we need for any expert reviews or, you know, other departments to review or whatever additional research. Right. Right. But there's plenty other towns that do it this way. When I worked in Southernington, nobody came in for an acceptance. It was just automatic. I'm all for that. these smaller applications through, let these people know instead of waiting weeks depends on when they first came in, then that they know they can do what they want to do. So, I'm all for that. It

says have an appearance, so they only come once instead of twice. You got anything to say about it? These are all special permits, right? Yeah. The only thing I'd say is uh the general site plan or special per the general public does have two chances to see on an agenda of an item, right? when when it goes in for acceptance of a public hearing and then that's the other thing I was so they don't get the notice if we're going to accept these ones in they should show up on our agenda that they've been accepted somehow so people do have that second time I think date accepted by the planning office

or we can even put a note at the bottom scheduled here public hearing scheduled you know after the adjournment we could put a note at the bottom of that and and list your upcoming your upcoming other business you can put the applicant and say, "Listen, it's coming. We're having a public hearing on 4:13 for this person." And Yep. Y have that other time there for the public to see, you know, see it instead of just when the public hearing's happening. Sure. They can see what's happening. Okay. What's going to happen on this date? Plus, there's two legal notices before,

right? Two legal notices, mailers to the abutters, a sign [clears throat] goes up on the There's plenty of notifications. I bet you most people that find out about public hearings do not find out about it because of the agenda. They're finding out about it because they got something in the mail. They saw the sign. I don't I think a lot of people do look at the agenda. You think so? Yeah. You'd be right. It doesn't hurt to have it on. Oh, no. It doesn't hurt at all. I'm not arguing against it. I've had people question me on things they see on the agenda. They'll Yeah, we'll put it on the agenda. That's easy. We can certainly do that. I think it's only right. Yep. Okay. Yeah, we're good. Do we need to anything other than the conversation on that or we conversation's good? No motion needed. No, no, no, no motion. [clears throat]

Let me just agree with you right here. It's a good idea. Okay. [clears throat] Um, approval of minutes under other business. Um, I talked to you just some are we ever going to see a site plan for the Union pin property? Yeah. Uh we met with Eric two, three weeks ago. Uh he's made a lot of progress on that. Well, you made a lot of changes and he has made a lot of I will say we've been on site multiple times. Uh we talked to him anytime he wants to do something.

Um I know you notified me that he started the demolition. Um he may have told someone else in the office, but in any event, uh we've been working with him and we expect to see it sometime soon. I don't know what soon is exactly, but is that Eric Roads? What's that? What? That's Eric Road. Richard at the marina. At the Oh, okay. Oh, for Union Pen. Okay. Got across the building though. Yeah. Tiffany picking. Oh, god. No, we haven't started down that road yet. Don't even don't even go down. We have we have seen the plan. An [clears throat] engineering firm has been hired to develop the rest of the plan for

for the union pin site up there. Yeah. Yeah. So it it does exist and it is forthcoming. Like Jeff said, we're not totally sure what the timeline on that will be, but there actually is a plan designed by an engineering firm. Essentially, it's going to be parking and [clears throat] boat storage, but the plan will show the maintenance facility building that he would like to have. He doesn't know when he can actually put it up to put up in the future. Yeah. Future. Yeah. We've suggested that he show that building on the plan and you know, it's a fiveyear approval. He can get five more years extension on it and hopefully No, because

I've had people asking me and I says, "We have no clue." So, why aren't you in planning agency and filming and Yeah. But um Yield Industries, Kenny Picasso property. Yeah. I reached out to the owner there and let him know that uh even though he's working on his end goal of what he's going to be doing that the commission would like to see an intermediary permit there just for transfer yard situation as he's using it now. Uh and he indicated that he would get on top of that. But yeah, because the original approval before that was sold, it gave them a few years to to clean that up. And I mean, we're right almost a couple years down the road from Yeah.

And and you know, there's definitely been more material coming in and and going back out. Uh when it was still under Picasso, they were trying to work the piles down and be done. That obviously has changed. Uh I do occasionally take a ride through there to make sure everything is tidy, especially with the uh the wetland situation that he had there. So I I don't have any concerns. Wetlands, I'm sorry. Is everything removed from the wetlands? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's been clean and stable for a long time. It's got a burm right along there. So nothing can get into everything's good there. It does pretty good, I think. But it would be nice to have a permanent place. Well, just some updated information on right

where it stands. I mean, it may be two more years to complete what was originally planned by or sold to us and approved by us. Okay, it's good. Anybody have any other other business they want to bring up? Good. All right. So, let's do the approval of the February 9th, 2026 regular meeting minutes. I move to approve them. I'll second it. Motion. Willy motion. Willie. Willie. Yeah. I second. Got it. Okay. All in favor? Scott wasn't here. I'm still approved. One abstension.

One [laughter] approval. Okay. So, now we're to number nine, communications. We have anything from staff for communications. I've communicated [snorts] enough. I think you've communicated. At some point, we should be seeing something for 508 Main Street. 50? Yes. Uh, we should. Yes. The, as I know, the closing finally happened. So, that's good. Uh the the chief person in that group comes into the office occasionally. He's been, you know, communicating with staff about questions and and that kind of thing, but we haven't gotten official plans yet. What's 508? What's that? What's 508 Main Street?

The town building where they tore the one down up by Kent Pizza. Cat Pizza Town just sold that. that there's two parcels there and then the one behind it which they list as High Street. Okay. Where they tore the house down several years ago. All three pieces were sold last week. I think it was close. Yeah. Basically the plan is for uh [snorts] 14 uh condo units. That numbers going up and down depending on you know little revisions. Ground floor commercial uh parking and rear access for the tenants above and commercial down below. Yeah. Be nice. Yeah.

Yeah. So, would that be something that we would uh accept? Staff would accept it or we going to have you do that in a regular meeting to give you time to review it? That'll be a site plan according to the new regulations that you just adopted. So, a public hearing is not required. Public hearing is not required, right? Because it's a mixeduse building on Main Street. What if they're tearing it down? Well, the the new building Yeah. The tear down would be done administratively and then the new building the new building would be a site plan. So there's no approvals on a mixeduse building being created, just a site plan from you. Basically replacing a mixeduse building now,

right? And I mean, you know, as we talked about three, four months ago, mixed use is what you want to see on Main Street. So we want to make that process as easy as we can. So um this is proposed at this time, it's proposed to be a mixeduse building. So they'd come in here, you'd see the site plan, the parking, review all those things, make sure it's uh compliant with your regulations, and and away they go. Yeah. You're not changing the use of the high street property or is this demoed and so that's something that you could do this what we talked about where you could accept it. Yeah. We wouldn't even need to because we wouldn't have a public hearing for Yeah. So that could come in and potentially could be approved in one night. Uh and to answer your question on the high street side

the high street is traditionally been parking back there anyway. Right now it's chained off because it's town owned and the easement's a bit of a situation back there. All right. Any other discussion? Okay. Motion to adjurnn. I moved. All in favor? Everybody in favor? Nobody. This unanimously made, seconded, everybody did. Peter, John, Scott, everybody.

Unless you want to stay. Okay. It's a musical group for 15 days after