Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Which one wins the thing? Next week.

Let me see if I have any...

But for them not to report the deed of not being free out of the gate. You know what I mean? We'll see. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Good evening, everybody.

BUT WE'RE NOT DOING THAT. AND SO I'VE HAD TO REEL THEM IN A LITTLE BIT. OH, MY GOD, YEAH.

AND I'VE BEEN REELING THEM IN A LITTLE BIT. HOW CAN YOU MAKE A PLAN IF YOU HAVEN'T EVEN TALKED TO THE PROGRAMMERS YET? BECAUSE TODAY, THIS IS NOT WHAT WE WANTED.

SO I WOULD LIKE JUST THAT, LIKE, A REALITY CHECK.

And I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet. I was out Thursday, Friday.

I came back this morning.

Yeah.

All right. Yeah. Well, let's try to. If he can't make it. Three of us can get together on like a team. Yeah.

If he can't make that Tuesday time, schedule another time where there's open sessions for him to talk about.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it was nothing in that. Oh, it's like the day I was left on Thursday. Everything blew up. It needed to happen eventually.

Right.

Yeah, I mean that's not his problem.

Yeah, that's the planning side of things.

I mean, do we have to sign up? No. I reserve it. You think there should be more sign-ups?

Which one's Thursday?

Oh, this Thursday's a Zoom thing. This Thursday's a Zoom thing. That should be interesting. What's the other Thursday? Next Thursday is the wrap-up of our meeting. I saw all this flurry of activity start up on whatever, like Thursday. I ran into him.

I was in Lowe's on Wednesday.

I ran into him. I interviewed him.

Good evening. It's 7 o'clock. We're going to call to order the Town of Winchester Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for July 27th. First thing is the microphone. First thing is a call to order. We did that, roll calls next. And I think John's coming, good. Let's start with you, on the left. Scott, now he's on the left. John Cooney. Peter Marston. Willie Platt. Charlene Lavoie. Krista Milankov. All right, so Adam is absent tonight and excused. And in his place, I think we'll see Scott. OK, great. Now, agenda review. Anybody have anything for the agenda review? You do.

Yeah, we could speak more in depth later, but I just wanted to bring up the bar grant. We're looking for a couple planning zoning participants to help out on Monday night, 8, 3, at 6 p.m. across the hall. We're starting to gather all the information and put it together. I'd recommend two to three members, perhaps. I think Rissa is going to be involved anyway, so she doesn't count.

Three in addition to Rissa?

Yeah.

I was playing my band there. Okay. I just got another commitment that night. Okay.

Monday. I can do that.

Sounds like Charlene's in. Cool. All right. It looks like we covered it now. So thank you.

All right. So in a public comment for anything that's not related to agenda items, anybody have any questions? Any comments other than what's related to business before us?

Yes.

Anything else? Not related to agenda items.

You couldn't make comments yet.

You know, I got hearing aids. I'm sorry.

I forgot mine. Oh, we're doing good.

OK. Ladies and gentlemen, hello. And my comments are regarding short-term rentals and the idea of regulation, which we've been talking about a little bit. I have a short-term rental. I've rented now. Well, when I first bought the property 55 years ago, we rented. I took a mortgage. I renovated the cottage specifically to rent it. We rent it in the season. We use it in the off season. I would be very negatively impacted if somehow that were no longer possible, because it pays a portion of my mortgage undoubtedly. As far as duration of time, what's the minimum time to rent? In my case, it's three days minimum. I rent Saturday to Saturday weeks during the summer. That's what the market wants. It doesn't want a month. It wants one week Saturday to Saturday Rentals and you know families come they vacation It's been pretty terrific. Really. I don't have any problems negatives. People are very appreciative to be here and It's worked out very well Minimum time is off season. I rent three to three days minimum and the mathematics of that is what drives it you have Let's say you have three days, and I rent for $2.25 a day. So that's $6.75. Airbnb has announced they want 15%. The state of Connecticut wants 15%. That knocks off one of the three days' income. Then you have to have the cleaning folks come, take care of the place, and somebody walk around and make sure the leaves are picked up. That's about $2.60, so that gets rid of the second day. So you have one day in the middle that you have some unaccounted income for, and with that you're going to try and make a contribution toward your property taxes, your mortgage, your heat, your water, your Airbnb, the extra bill tax for now, the enhanced insurance, and the upkeep and everything else that runs the property. So for me to do less than three days, there's zero in it. Okay, so that's my minimum. And that's only on the off-season, just to inform you of that. About eight years ago or so, this issue came up before of what to do with Airbnbs. We had somebody who complained. At the time, it was studied pretty well. A committee was formed. I was on that committee. We looked at other towns, you know, other towns with what they were doing, and one of the big differences between a town like Farmington, who never had these rentals until Airbnb came along, is we've had them for maybe 100 years. Highland Lake has been a short-term rental community and a residential community, and that's been the use. So it's been a live and let live dynamic, but the renters have brought a lot to the lake. Some of them buy properties. Some of them come every year. A lot of them are former. I have some former owners of the lake who come to visit with me. Also, Winstead residents, they're coming from out of town. So it's been a very good thing. I wanted to point out, too, that there are some conversations about renters having parties and renters parking and renters, what was the other thing? But some of this, oh, the noise. I think there needs to be a certain equality. If there's noise, an ordinance that's needed, it's got to apply for owners, renters the same. If there's a fine for getting your trash cans knocked over and not picking it up, well, I have picked up the garbage on both sides of me. My neighbors don't rent, but they can be out of town sometimes. So I have picked up garbage on both sides. So owners need to be accountable for it. Tenants need to be accountable for it. It's got to be equal. And so true with parking. A lot of what we talk about parties, if we're not to have parties, then it needs to apply to tenants too. We had a couple of big parties at my property. My sister had a birthday a few years ago. We put tents on the lawn. Tenants don't do that. We showed a movie on my property last year. Tenants don't do it. Generally, owners are free to do what they want. They have a lot of parties. Tenants are pretty restricted. I don't really allow crazy parties. I'm not going to rent to 24-year-olds who want to party anyway because I don't want damage. I can't afford it. So some of this is self-regulating. There was talk last time. I mean, talk about aren't we worried that corporations will come in, they will buy these properties, and there won't be any housing left for people to live in Winstead, right? This was a concern. I mean, the reality of this is, You don't buy a property and do Airbnb and short-term rentals because you expect a profitably running business. It's about supplemental income into you. Maybe, I don't know, if it's 1 in 100 or 1 in 500 rentals that people buy that actually make money, they might be in Maui or San Francisco where it's got, you know, they don't have a three-month season. We have a three-month season. It's just not profitable. A very rare situation for corporations to come in and rent short-term. It doesn't work, and that's what precludes it, really. But this was an issue last time. But last time, we looked at it pretty carefully. I remember the head of zoning was on the committee. A committee was formed. I remember the head of zoning was running the meetings. We listened to public outcry. And there was public outcry. Part and parcel of what you own when you buy a property there is the ability to rent it. And everybody who's ever owned a property there, ever bought a property, bought it with the understanding that that was possible. And even if they don't rent, they may be a renter sometime. And when they go to sell their property, they want to be able to tell the next buyer, hey, you know, if you need to rent it, if you want to rent it, that's your latitude. That's part of what you buy there. So we've been a community of renters. We've been a community of owners. It's been pretty live and live. I would ask that anything that's done, if there is to be regulation, and the decision last time was that regulation might do more harm than good, they didn't step back from it because they just forgot about it. They stepped back from it because there was outcry. People didn't want their property rights, and to some degree, market value diminished. So I must be at three minutes by now.

Yeah, you are. So some of us were on that commission you were talking about. So for the record, give your name and address.

I'm Jack Herman. I'm at 800 East Wakefield. I'm a realtor. That's what I do. And that's about it.

Can I ask a question? Where is this cut? Is this an issue?

This is coming up before the board is selected. Oh. with a lot of people that are complaining about the short-term rentals. And there are LLCs that are buying them up. And I don't know, how much farther should I go with this?

That's all I needed to know.

I think the important part is he said it's with the board of the slide.

That's all I needed to know.

The LLCs are not corporations. They're individuals, cottage owners, who buy them under LLC. But they're not businesses. Wouldn't that be true?

Not necessarily.

We should look at it.

We're not going to really discuss it. It hasn't come before us yet. It's before the board of selection right now. Will it? Will it come before us? if they're looking they were talking about it they were talking they may send it to us they're talking in ordinance is what they were talking about as opposed to the regulation yeah yeah so right well they can do that without us we may we may weigh in on it but it hasn't come before us gotcha fair enough well you know i'll talk to them too yeah great thank you all right thanks a lot thank you is that your pen okay thank you very much okay All right, now we're going to have public hearing PZC-26-12 applicant Peter Alcantara.

Yes.

Okay, step forward. 191 Spencer Hill Road, Zone RR, proposal home occupation, landscaping administrative office. Sit down. Identify yourself for the record.

Yes.

Give me your name.

My name is Peter Alcantara.

Okay, so tell us what you want to do.

I was doing most of the talking. My name is Allison Alcantara, so good evening, members of the commission. I'm here with my husband. We are here for the application that you mentioned. We are just doing administrative things at our home. We're just doing paperwork, scheduling. No machinery, no clients will be coming over It's just us, we live there with our kids, so it's just my husband and I that are gonna be doing all this stuff on the computer, and that's about it.

Okay, so I read what your request for a waiver for map plan is. Has everybody seen that? Yes. All right. Anybody have any questions?

Where do you do this work now? We've been doing it in our living room, so it's something that we've been doing for quite some time, Since we finally launched the business, we were like, okay, we need to ask, have permits and everything.

How much equipment do you have? Trucks?

We don't use equipment. We sell the jobs out, so it's just us.

We are GCs. I would call you saying I want my

roof re-roofed and then you would go to your property and inspect and we would do all our pictures there and then we take everything back to our home we do our our jobs on the computer and then we send it over to you okay so where's your equipment stash now oh we don't use equipment oh you don't have any equipment oh so okay you're a gc that sub out subs out the work yes that's what we do all right

Mr. Any questions? No questions. Okay. The only thing I have to say is what you wrote down here for your request, that's the conditions of your permit. So, you know, when you say no parking of vehicles or all that, that's what you agreed to do. I don't have anything more. I'll make a motion. Ask the public. Oh, public, yes. Anybody out there have anything to say?

No? Okay. I'll make a motion that's closed.

He's actually here in case you guys needed any comments from him or references. Okay. He's here. He's sitting.

Okay, if there's no other public comments, I make a motion to close public hearing, PZC 26-12.

All in favor?

John.

John. All right, so you can go back in the audience. We'll go down in a little while. We have some other business, so don't run away.

Thank you.

Okay, now we'll go off to number five. Public hearing is continued. PZC-26-14, applicant Sandra Urshom. Ersoni.

Ersoni.

Ersoni. 208 Perch Rock Trail Road. Perch Rock Road? Perch Rock Trail. Home zone HL. Proposed a special permit for fence. So... Explain to us what you want to do.

So my name is Dom Ersoni. This is my mother, Sandra Ersoni. We're at 208 Pertrock Trail, and we're looking to put in a four-foot fence between our property and the D'Angelo's who have joined us this evening.

What boundary are you going to be?

We'll be within four inches. Four inches, okay. Three to four inches, over three.

So this map here, are we going to have two gates, I guess, from what you said?

Two gates, one walking in and then one down at the bottom to give access between our properties.

Okay, so that gate's going to cut across? Correct. And that big shrub you have there?

It'll be removed by hand.

You're going to remove that? Yeah. Okay. Anybody else have any questions?

What type of fence is it? Put a picture in your path.

Or something similar. Oh, okay.

The footings are going to be concrete? Yes. Anybody else want to take it?

Yeah, I have pictures up here.

I didn't get it either.

All right, anybody else got any questions? Scott? No, I'm all set.

I have none.

All right, so in our planned zoning regulations, item G under the offenses, To allow access for maintenance, fences and walls shall be located at least two feet from all property lines or with mutual written consent of the adjoining orders which shall be notarized may be located on the lot line. So the paper that you gave us is not notarized.

I didn't know it had to be. Yeah.

Right, but it's not motorized.

Are the neighbors here?

Yeah. So, I guess... I'm a little leery of letting it go without a notarization, saying that you guys are in agreement that way. It's written down. It's there. It says you're in agreement. It's a minor thing to do, and you write it up yourselves and come see the town clerk and get it notarized.

Well, can we do it right now? Lauren's a notary. She's going to get her seal so we can get it notarized.

WELL, I WOULDN'T LET THAT HOLD UP THE...

I THINK WE COULD JUST DO IT AS A CONDITIONAL CONTINUITY AFTER THE PUBLIC HEARING RIGHT NOW. I THINK THAT CAN BE DONE. BEFORE THEY GET THEIR PERMIT.

BEFORE THEY GET THEIR PERMIT TO DO IT, YOU'LL HAVE TO PROVIDE THAT PAPER. OKAY? OTHER THAN THAT, I HAVE NO ISSUES. LET'S SEE IF THE PUBLIC DOES. Come forth, identify yourself. The microphone's over here.

I just want to know, will the gates have latches or locks? They'll be secured.

You're going to be there. I asked that question. One will have a post in the ground, the other will have a latch, and the one that's between us will just be knocked down.

And then are you going to put up another fence on your other side?

Only a gate. We do the shed next year. Otherwise, no. Okay. All right.

All right.

If there's no more questions, I make a motion to close public hearing PZ-26-14. I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Now you might as well just sit there because you're next. So under old business, PZC-26-14 applicant, Sandrew Yersoni, location 208 Perch Rock Road, it's really Perch Rock Trail, Highland Lake Zone, proposal special permit for a fence. So I think one of the conditions is that they provide the notarized... Do you have a...

I don't think I have a draft for this, but I'm going to put one together real quick right now.

If you just add the condition that the neighboring property owner notarize their statement before permits are issued.

Can I ask why they're on here twice? Why are they listed on the agenda twice? More importantly, did they pay twice? Yes.

Public hearing. Public hearing. Public hearing. Because the public hearing started last week. Thank you for cluing me in.

I can feel the pressure right now. Oh, I sure am.

I can feel it. I can feel the pressure.

Don't go. How do you make the big bucks?

Make sure the soundtrack works today.

Let Microsoft Word do that for me. All right. That's white. I don't know if it makes any difference.

My name is Sandow. There's no R in my name. So if that were to check back on property records, it wouldn't be much.

I have that wrong everywhere. I apologize. I've got you on Pertrock Road instead of trail.

My own computer wants to put an R in it.

That's probably where that happened.

Thank you for fixing that. Thank you.

Good thing you're here to check this. Yes.

How's that? Perfect. Okay. Good? Yep.

We're going to approve application 26-14 special permit, owner Sandra Rossoni, address 208 Pertrock Trail, zone Highland Lake Business District. proposal special permit for feds three feet from neighboring property boundary and within 23 inches three inches excuse me from property boundary and within the 20 feet of highland lake and evaluating this application of planning and zoning commission is relied upon information provided by the applicant and such information subsequently Proves to be false, deceptive, incomplete, and are inaccurate. This permit shall be modified, suspended, or revoked. Two, this application is consistent with the town's plan of conservation development. Three, this application meets the criteria and standards of section 415-24D, special permits slash special exceptions. Four, an authorized statement from neighbor approving of location shall be submitted to town staff prior to the

Now under Old Business B, PCC-26-12, applicant Peter Alcantara. Location, 191 Spencer Hill Road, Zone RR, proposal home occupation, landscape and administrative office. Do we have one?

Yeah. Is it open for you? Nope.

Scott, you want to try it?

Sure. Planning and Zoning Commission draft motion from the Planning and Zoning Commission, dated July 27, 2026, to approve application number 26-12, special permit, owner Allison... Katara?

Alcantara.

Alcantara. Thank you. Addresses 191 Spencer Hill Road, Zone RR, Proposal Special Permit for Home Occupation Landscape Administrative Office. Condition number one in evaluating this application, the Planning Zone Commission has relied upon information provided by the applicant, and if such information subsequently proves to be false, deceptive, incomplete, and or inaccurate, the permit shall be modified, suspended, or revoked. Number two, the application is consistent with the Town Plan of Conservation and Development. Condition number three, the applicant meets the criteria and standards of section 415-24.D, special permit, special exception.

I'll second. So the question comes up now. Maybe you'll have to change it. There was a request for waiver of plan, waiver of map plan architectural requirements. Should that be in there?

I don't think it needs to be. It was part of the application. Part of the application. Yeah, it was submitted as part of the application, so that'll, it gets encompassed in the motion.

As conditions of approval, should we add all the conditions that they listed on the second page of their application? We can do that. Okay, just so it's included in that motion. Okay, I'll just include that yeah everything on their second page that was included in application. I'll second that Okay, okay, that's fine all favor Thank you John did you say that one? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome.

No worries. Take care.

Okay, number seven, new business. other business but I'd like to say something here before we just start the discussion of arena related regulations I drove by 144 Raleigh Street over the weekend on Sunday and there was a van parked in the drive in the parking lot now I don't know if he was in there working or not I didn't knock on any door but when that property was approved for use there was no it was stated that there was uh No outside vehicle or material storage allowed on site. So if he's going to be leaving his van there, that doesn't meet the current use of that property. Who is he?

Whoever left the van. Cleve owns the property. Whoever left the van there. There's no name on it.

There's no name on it, but it was that 144 is where Hitchcock Chair moved into. Eric Svensson? Eric Svensson?

Yeah, we don't know whose van it is.

We don't know whose van it was. Gotcha. But it was parked down on the far end. In front of his space. So if it's his van, he needs to be, this is that property, or no overnight storage, no storage. So he needs to be aware of that. It's not like he has to get anything else just to make him aware that he can't leave the van there. Gotcha. I was there Sunday night, Sunday late evening.

Late, yeah.

It wasn't dark yet. It was still white.

Like yellow and white, wasn't it? It was yellowish and white or something?

Yeah.

I think I saw it on Saturday, too.

Yeah.

Jeff, 174 Maine. late afternoon or early this evening, I sent you a photo. Okay. Apparently they're not using a dumpster. They've got garbage cans and recycling bins in the designated parking areas where it's lined up. All right. You sent me an email?

I sent you an email.

Okay. There's a photo. All right, good. So the garbage cans are overflowing and recycling bins, but they've got them right in the parking spot on the Walling Street side. All right. So...

That's it for me. Now we can go on to Maria.

All right, so last couple of meetings we've talked about you trying to use some of our existing uses rather than come up with some new language, totally new language. We sort of talked about this last two weeks ago a little bit. Parking is a primary use in the Highland Lake business zone, but maybe we need some special language related to parking as a primary use in that zone. We know that the marina has a need to store boats. trailers when the boats are in the water. Um, you know, and we certainly know that the area is surrounded by residential. So I, and again, I just sort of spit balling, trying to find a middle ground as to where I think the commission might get comfortable. Um, this would be some language that I just threw together to get your feedback on, uh, add it to the parking area, parking section of your regulations. So just specific uses, you know, you've got a bunch of criteria that goes along with parking anyway. And so this would just specifically be for the HLP zone. You don't have this, I just threw this together just to get it in front of you tonight. So parking has primary use in the HLP zone where parking is proposed as a primary use on a lot within the HLP zone, the following requirements shall be met. Parking areas should be adequately screened from abutting residential uses to the commission's satisfaction. Such screening may include solid fencing of at least six feet in height where the view of Highland Lake is not impeded or a planted buffer of sufficient height and width. Storage of watercraft trailers and watercrafts may be allowed within an approved parking area when such areas, this should be an R, are designated. Now such areas designated for storage are shown on a site plan and additional buffering is provided to ensure the stored watercraft are not visible to any residential properties. Any watercraft storage location shall be approved by the fire marshal. Thoughts, reactions to that piece of it?

So when it says it may be allowed, what do they have to do to get that?

Well, it would be a special permit use. Because right now, as you remember, parking as a primary use is not allowed in HLB. So we would need to add that as a special use permit in that zone.

So I have, I don't know, I guess I'm thinking about we just made these people come in for a special exception because their fence is over four feet tall and part of living at the lake is the view of the lake and you're gonna see boats i think it's a marina right and so if i'm thinking about the properties those are kind of downhill from the lake so do we may i get wanting to screen like the commercial part of it but does that take away the lake view or the, you know, lake feel of the residents that are up there? I don't know. I'm just asking because I don't want to.

Well, we're talking about that. The old Union Pit. Union Pit.

So there's no residences right there. No, and I think he's probably got some. storage in the winter out behind the shop that he's got now, and he owns a number of those residential properties, but then there are some abutting properties, I don't know, to the east, I guess?

Yeah, he's got a fence on the backside. Does he have a fence? I can't picture. There's a fence. Yeah, okay. Between the marina building and the end. Where the demolition happened, yeah. Between the marina and the end, there's a fence that goes down through. That's a tall one, too. By Sterling Technologies. Okay. There's a fence there. Solid.

Yeah, man, if we don't need the screening stuff written in there.

So I've been driving up there and thinking about what it would look like. And a six foot tall fence where the boats are, where the trailers are, I think it's pretty, it's too much. it's gonna be a freaking wall that tall, you know? I think maybe a four-foot fence that allows you to look over it and see, because the trailers aren't gonna be above four feet. They're actually not gonna be much over three feet.

Maybe two. All winter they'll have boats parked there.

But where the boats are, you've been putting the boats up further, and...

The whole thing will be full of boats.

Well, it could be. That's no different than across the...

And it's a lake, and I think you would expect to some extent to see boats.

So the area where we've been parking the trailers now, this is assuming this is how it works, is really a rough area. I don't know how he's going to put a fence in there because Eversource put poles almost on the sidewalk. Yeah, five or six.

Yeah, they've got a lot of poles.

So the rest of the parking area, if it was... say, buffered with some landscaping.

Lower landscaping.

Lower landscaping. Yes. That I agree. So when you look up, you can see it's defined parking. You know, he's got his entrance, he's got his exit, and the rest of it's got little shrubbery or something, you know, small stuff going up. Yeah, it's already there.

Yeah, and there's plenty of landscaping regulations already in the parking section, so...

That's fine. And when you get up closer to the lake, he's down below the dam height almost. So he's sitting lower there. So most of those boats aren't visible from anywhere on the lake because they're sitting down below.

Then the other side, you have to cross the water course and the wooded area to even get to the other residents.

Right. What would happen if some more of that property was developed? at some point, Union Pin.

If it was what, developed?

Developed, yeah. Who owns it now?

You mean on the other side of the stream?

Well, isn't he right on the corner of it?

Yeah, and it heads all the way down Lake Street. It comes down almost to the corner.

Oh, okay. Almost to Rockwell Street.

Oh, okay. So then, the title of Lake Business Zone actually continues all the way down to Boyd Street on where the Waring used to be. So that's what kind of brought some of this up in my thinking.

I was thinking about it. The Woodland Street side was developed somehow.

Oh, no. That's a different owner, Maxim Property, I want to say. Maxim Group. Yeah, they own two pieces, but no plans that I'm aware of.

And actually, he owns the bottom piece of it.

wake street side yeah the kids all the way down right now that goes down straight down the board street right they're all wearing property jeremy do you have the regulations pulled up or is this just yeah they're there the existing parking i can just go up a little bit so there is quite a there's quite a bit of there are a number of requirements for landscaping around parking areas within the existing regs

And we did a minor and a major, right? One was site plan and one, is that how we did it?

Yeah, well, you have a minor site plan and a major site plan anyway. This is all current language. Everything in black is currently in the reg.

And that applies everywhere.

Yeah.

Correct. Well, it wouldn't apply to where the original title was. It would not. Because that's all predates us.

Yeah, but I think what I might... be in favor of is just keeping the current regulations and just changing the use table to allow the, because I forget the number of units, but the minor and the major like we have by site plan or by special exception, but in the handle like business zone. I think that gives us quite a bit of discretion of what we might want to see there. Because we spent a lot of time on this regulation, you know, thinking about Yeah, we spent a lot of time. Yeah, but we were thinking about it in our town center.

There was something there about maximum acreage of one acre.

Yeah, and there's something about the number of spaces, too.

And that could be an issue with that piece of property because you've got more than an acre total.

I think it's where you've got more than an acre of parking lot. I'm trying to find it. I know it's in here someplace. Yeah, it was above. Is it up further?

Yeah, pretty near the top.

That's for mixed uses. I saw it before you scrolled it down. Contiguous single parking area shall not exceed one acre. Larger than an acre shall be divided into smaller parking areas with planted buffers of a minimum depth of 15 feet between them to minimize perceived...

I think this is just a regular parking lot, not parking as a principal use.

More than one acre, you'd have to divide it with a landscape buffer between sections off those lots.

And I don't know. You're saying that doesn't apply to the side of the lake? Right now it doesn't. Well, they have an acre. More than an acre. So does that apply to it or not, Jeremy?

Well, I'm trying to figure out whether or not that parking area is more than an acre. I think it's like right on that. I mean, he's got that stream. It's not really a stream, but that drainage ditch that runs through sort of cuts it in half. I think parking is a principal use. I gotta find that language too. I don't know. I didn't write that, so it's not in here.

No, that's something that's been in there for a long time.

Parking is a principal use? We just adopted that. I thought you did write that.

No, it was just before I got here. But I think the question is whether or not that applies to parking as a principal use, and I don't know. Well, that's why I brought it up.

In case that needs to be modified or something changes.

And I think he could probably comply with that 15-foot strip because he's got that drainage ditch that runs through there. So if he landscapes either side of it, he's got that 15-foot separation. And that would be good for his... Be good for...

Yeah, and landscaping's not that expensive. Right. So when he wants to do his building, if he ever wants to do a building there, he's not like he's, you know, doing a lot of ripping stuff out that's expensive. Right.

That's the only reason I brought it up.

I made a point of going up by Sunday, and his parking area, where he had the boat stored last year, and where the new pieces, where he put the millings out, that was full. He was full. Yeah, that was full Sunday afternoon. So it was busy. And it actually is a lot better than having them all over the road. Previously, they'd been all over the side of the road.

It used to be up and down Highland, Lake Street, all over the place.

No, I think it's...

Okay, so maybe we don't need additional screening then for these uses. We just have to write something in that allows him, I mean, unless we do it as a special permit use and he says, geez, I want to store the boats and the trailers there too, as long as the commission's okay with that.

If he screened in the trailers, it's also security for him because nobody's going to back up to a trailer and haul it away. Because Chris across the street had lost...

trailers and jet skis yeah wow so parking as a principal use we divided it into a minor parking lot and a major parking lot number of spots and the minor parking lot needed like a minor site plan just to come in a major parking lot needed a special exception okay So there was some different requirements. And I think I'm probably comfortable with that applying up there. And like I said, my rationale is when we were thinking about it in the town center, that's pretty sensitive too with the aesthetic look and all of that. So we were pretty careful with making sure that it was not just a big paved area, you know, but you know, also met the needs of our downtown. And I think the same rationale applies to up there. So it might just be as simple as changing the table of uses. Okay.

That's fine.

I mean, if the commission's comfortable with that, then he's got the, it's like you said, he's got the outflow for the gates that cut through the property. So that's a natural barrier for him. Right.

So I think you just need the statement for, you know, anything with both storage has to be approved by the fire marshal. Right. So that's in there.

So we'll leave, we'll put, we'll put some of that language. If we had to say a small fence, a four foot high fence there.

No, I'm just saying the plans for F has to be approved. Oh, okay. By the fire marshal.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we can even, you know, storage of watercraft trailers and watercrafts may be allowed within an approved parking area. We can get rid of, you know, shown on a site plan, okay, but we can get rid of this additional buffering.

Yeah.

The only other thing is about this storage of the boats. Do they, the plan for that have to be approved by the fire marshal?

It does. It has to be approved by state traffic. It does anyway. But I think if we put it in here, then when he comes in to get his site plan approval or special permit, depending on the size of the lot, it's probably going to be a special permit since it's pretty large. He can put it on record that, you know, in the off season we're going to store boats in these areas and in the on season we're going to store trailers in the, you know, and then that way it's codified through you. They've got distances they have to be in how they're stored. Right.

So now we've been talking about the Union Penn side. Now we go back on the other side of Lake Street that we turned into a high-link business zone, he also stores boats there. So a little, I would go with a vegetated buffer there. So it kind of blocks, it's not gonna block all the boats because you put some big, tall boats over there, which I don't know why, but he does. But that's up on a little hill, so.

But I think that's in the regulation already.

Yeah, there is some buffer requirements. Yeah, pretty sparse. It's pretty far apart.

So the other thing we talked about was, other than the parking, marina uses, like minor marina uses and some bigger marina uses. And I think we came up with a pretty good definition of those, so maybe that's something we should just put in the table of uses too, if we're gonna add that.

Yeah, right. This is kind of what we had come up with. We don't currently have a good definition of marina, so we could fold all that in.

See, we initially started out with marina and then services major, services minor, and then we had language to go along with those services. I don't know. It wasn't the last meeting. I think it was about a month ago. The comment was made, well, maybe we don't need to write all these. Maybe we don't need to adopt all this language. We already allow parking.

So, yeah, I think that's right for the parking. I think with the minor services, you know, it's... Because what we were trying to get at is these are accessory uses to a marina, but, you know, they're on a different lot, so they can't really be accessory, but we want to allow them. So we defined them as separate... So that they could do the things that marinas do.

Just define them. Put them in the definitions, and then they're there as accessories.

And minor is maybe even a zoning permit.

Yeah.

And then major is whether we want to do site plan or special exception. And then the parking is its own separate thing.

Okay. So still add it to the use table, you think?

I think so.

Define it, add it to the use table.

Okay. I would take the parking pieces out of this.

Sure. Yep. Okay.

SO THREE SEPARATE USES THEN IN THE TABLE? HE WOULD NEED A PERMIT FOR EACH ONE BECAUSE HE DOES ALL OF IT?

I MEAN, HE COULD GET THE SAME PART. HE COULD GET IT ALL APPROVED AT THE SAME TIME.

I'M WONDERING IF MARINA SERVICES MAJOR IS JUST PART OF A MARINA PERMIT. THAT'S WHAT I WAS GOING TO. AND MINOR COULD BE A ZONING PERMIT. WE'VE GOT ALL THOSE SEPARATE

But we don't have a marina.

We have one marina across the road. No, I think it doesn't have to be a separate use. You're right. We discussed that last time.

That's the issue.

Keep these clear.

Yeah, and if he has to come in for a special exception, he can get both uses approved at the same permit.

Right.

you know they'll come do three separate applications but the services minor i think is a zoning permit because that would typically be an accessory use that would be already you know allowed through zoning it's those ones that are a little bit more intense on a separate lot maybe because we took away the distance stuff so i think we just would wanna and maybe it is just a plan i don't know but and parking is

then parking is covered on its own right if we had that as a principal use in the zone that takes care of that for across the street and then on the other side the east side you can get a special permit for all those other uses right so instead of saying an arena can we use another word like watercraft

call it whatever you want, really. Yeah, I mean, that's what I, I'd like to see that division between the actual marina and what's over here. So, watercraft services, major and minor? Well, I keep thinking sometime in five years from now, somebody's going to sit here and say, what does that all mean?

Yeah, I mean, they are accessory uses, that's the thing.

And maybe we put that in the definition.

Marina accessory uses.

marina services typically accessory uses typically accessory to a marina yeah but being allowed to held on its own separate lot type of language then that clarifies what we're trying to do okay do we think keeping it as simple as possible me too i agree

So then we would ask across the street to get a marina services major permit?

Yeah, I guess. I don't really know what you do with it does over there.

Storage service. Right. Yeah.

What do you do with Bruce Boda?

Personal sales and service pleasure.

Right, so there's that. But that's... He's dealing with folks.

Yeah, which is covered under the pleasure one.

Which makes sense in the zones where it's allowed. Yeah. So if he's already got that. I don't think there's anything over there. Okay.

But I think this is different, right?

I agree because this is accessory to an existing marina. Across the street might be sales or service or boats. That fits under the sales and service pleasure, I think makes sense. Up the hill where that's not an allowed use, I don't think. I'd have to check the use table. I don't think it is. It's accessory to the marina. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. That's why this has taken us so long to get this so clear. It's so complicated. We want to make sure we get it right. Have to get it right. Yeah.

I mean, we want to get it as right as possible. If we find that we're having negative consequences, we can always change it. But I think this is a good approach to be able to permit the things we want to see.

So, okay, so if we're all in agreement, we'll add these three definitions. I've got to tweak the language. We'll add those three things to the use table. We'll add the language in the parking about. Well, send it to us so we can.

Yeah, yeah, I'll get it out to you.

But before I put pen to paper, I just want to make sure we're sort of all in agreement on the approach. Okay.

All right. Okay. So the only other thing that I saw we brought up last time about pop-up stuff.

Yeah.

Is that going to be addressed in there or are we just going to leave it?

So I have that on the marina services minor right now. You've got six temporary vendor fairs in the calendar year where at least 60% of the items offered for sailor associated with boating or other marine recreation.

That's too many because you're talking a three-month period in the summer. Tell me. That's every other weekend it could be.

The only thing that he's done there is he had the wake boat people in. And they did a display out in the parking lot. And he's got a couple displays now and again for docs. But that's probably all part of what's grandfathered him with towels.

Yeah, I would say so.

What was the count they mentioned? I thought they said four.

Did they say four?

Yeah, I could be wrong.

Yeah, they sort of brought up these vendor fares to us, and who knows if it'll even come to fruition.

I mean, if you reduce that from six to four, because you're looking roughly at a three-month period this summer, four months at the most.

Every other month, every other week.

It's only like two and a half more months and they all got to come out. Exactly. Maybe limit that to four.

That's my comment is four. That could be adjusted at a later date if it becomes a problem.

to make it as least restrictive as possible. I don't really see that, if you allow more of them, they'll probably be smaller. But I don't really see it, I mean, I'm not gonna argue either way.

Oh, we could start with four. I mean, that's what I say.

If they want, they need to talk. It can be adjusted. But I mean, with a present owner, it may be fine, but what if it's sold? Right. You've got to think five years down the road.

Yeah, you've got to think 10 years down the road. What's going to happen in the future? Well, and that's why we're kind of going through this, right? Right. We're taking our time with it because we look at it. Making it simple is less confusion. Yeah. We've already got the regulations in, and we're just rolling them back. Yeah. for that, putting them there. I think vegetative landscaping, a small fence where the boat trailers are, I think is good for shielding.

A four-foot high fence, like you say, with boat trailers.

And if he's got to put something in to cut the lats into smaller pieces, then along his flooshway there for the outflow from the bottom of the dam.

Could do a vegetative buffer there.

Safety-wise, he should have something there.

Yeah, it definitely would be good. Especially with people walking through the parking lot or anything.

Any other thoughts? I think that's... We see it all in writing. I think it's better than it was.

Yeah, I think this is a good conversation.

I think I know what direction

Anybody else got anything to say about that? Okay, no other business in the line here? I've got nothing. Okay, so now we're gonna go on item nine, approval of minutes, July 13th.

Make a motion to approve minutes of our July 13th meeting.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Okay, no communications? Nothing. Nothing. Motion to adjourn. John wants to get out of here. Wow, one hour.

Yep. Under an hour. Good job. That's our dorm, right? That wasn't too bad. I know.

That was close. I kicked Willie that flight.

The condition for the notarized document, we're all set. We got it. Whatever. Whatever it happens. I just figured it gives them plenty of time before they...