Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Winchester Plan and Zoning Commission meeting to order on October 27th, 2025. We'll start with the roll call on the left. Scott Eisenler, John Coney, Peter Marshan, Plat Chairman, Adami, Charlene Lavoy, Jan Perry. Okay. And now under agenda review, I'd [clears throat] like to move item 7A up above new business. I'll make that a motion. Second, Adam. All in favor?

And I'm going to sit Scott tonight and Vista. Okay. So, uh, any public comment? Anybody here for public comment other than [clears throat]

something [clears throat] Candace Bard representing friends of Main Street, 398 Main Street. Um, prior to 2019, many towns across the state of Connecticut had ordinance for the uses of their sidewalks. We don't really have any sidewalks, so obviously there's no need for that. But if we ever do redesign them, um, there is a place that I would like to call attention to now, which is in front of the old IG, which is about 75 ft long by 20 wide. Um, I thought it might be a good place to have a farmers market in the summer that maybe Friends of Main Street sponsored. You know, we used to have the the group that would um be on North Main Street selling fresh produce all summer long. The success of that that it was seven days a week. Um, I don't know that one day a week would be successful, but it might be worth trying and also draw more residents to the center of Winstead since uh we don't have any signage to where downtown is. But who's [clears throat] running the farmers market at the green?

Don't know. There is hasn't been one for years, Peter. I mean, um, this is before CO, right? More than that. Oh geez. Yeah, I think it was before co I remember. Well, yeah, that's what I know. Before how much? Oh dear. That time is getting getting away from me here.

You know my predecessor worked at Friends of Main Street used to organize that thing. We're not a farming community, but we have farms now. So, it is a way to support small cottage. Uh there's Steve what my intent is to approach Steve Farm which is on uh has been a resident of Winstead for since 1991 actually lives in Bark Hamstead. Now he's he is a protein farm let's call it that. Then we have the Winchester uh I mean the Northwest Corner Farm uh that just you know purchased their property. They're [clears throat] in their second year of operation. They weren't they they're only doing um um you know those where you reserve it. Um and they just recently put up the the solar but they might be able to sell

Steve Grant Hill. And then there's Indian Farm Market, Indian Farm up on um um Indian Meadow Farm up there. They sell flowers. Why not on Main Street? We also have another farm that just opened up on touring called uh Boy

Bakery and Farm. So these people were invited to the fall foliage festival and I was going to try and get them up there as a an example of what it could look like. So I envision it, you know, being local farmers selling what they produce, not um now the steed farm, what he would do, he would go to Park Hamstead and do it in their um public parking lot there and then he would buy from another farm in New Hartford. I'd like to have people who are actually growing selling their own produce. Um and it would be obviously up to them if they're interested in participating or not. I really don't know. I haven't reached out to any of them. [clears throat] I mean, also we invited brothers and something else. They do maple syrup, you know, maybe there's other people that are growing honey that might want to step up and sell. So, not have something massive like, you know, have all these huge groups at the park. Just have them in one area and there's no residential above it. So, there is potential of parking go and leave. you know, just a thought and it would be nice to have something there. Even if something does go in that spot there, doesn't mean why can't we use it? You know, friends of Main Street, the only the only part of like an ordinance like this would be not to conflict with existing uh events like uh we pop a tent up for, you know, the the Earth Day cleanup. Um we pop a tent up for um Wednesday Christmas. will have horse carriage rides around that or um you know the fall foliage festival. But I thought, you know, geez, it's a it's a it's a dead area. It's been dead for so long. Why not bring some life? And I don't know if I can get them to do more than just one day a week, you know, but it's worth a shot to survey them and say, are you interested in doing this? And what day and frequency would you agree to? And it would be sponsored by Friends of Main Street. And so

[clears throat] we would try and, you know, make sure that they clean up after themselves and all that. They would bring their own tents. We wouldn't buy tents or anything like that. Really just a a way to, you know, have a little market out there. It doesn't conflict. I don't think it conflicts too much with rooted market because it is freshly grown produce or or meats um and um you know, Papa's Market. Those are all bought even though you know some may be locally sourced. So [clears throat] just something to think about. And I don't know where to go from here, but it, you know, might be in the future if we do have sidewalks that are that wide [laughter] developed at some point [clears throat] where you regulate, you know, people actually, you know, um, you know, everyone now is able to put up, you know, like a little table and chairs and that's wonderful, but it would be really nice to utilize um a larger space for for other businesses to pop up sort of things. That's it.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else public comment? No. Okay. So, moving on. We don't have any public hearings. We don't have any old business. So, we'll now go to 7A. Discussion with Dr. Julie Lovey, Superintendent of Schools, Winchester Public Schools. [clears throat] Hello. Hi. A couple of board members here. Sandra and Kurt, I don't know if you want them to join us. If you want them up here, hit me with your questions. What can I do for you?

One of the things we we've been wondering about is is what's the actual capacity of the school system right now? Is it at capacity? Does it have room to grow? You know, not just room sizes, you know, fire capacity, but actual with teachers and all that. So we are a very um [clears throat] flexible organization. We eb and flow with the number of students that come into the school. So um in the bigger picture, whatever number of kids show up, we'll figure it out. Um right now we are we have we don't have a lot of empty classrooms. So, at Hinsdale, there's one or two rooms that could be purposed back into classrooms by doing a little work to take maybe um like one classroom and create several smaller spaces and then we could take some of the smaller programs out of full-size rooms. So, we could probably have about two rooms at Hinsdale at Pearson. Again, by sort of pulling people out of places that they are and cramming them into closets and things, we could probably have about three or four classrooms. Um, we currently have a couple of preschool classes that are not uh Winchester public school programs. They're Winchester Kids, but they're run by Ed Advance, a Head Start classroom and a um school readiness program in Pearson. One of my thoughts is if we're um taking good advantage of all of the um financial incentives at the state level. Right now, we're eligible for 100% reimbursement. If we want to do any um construction, for example, like a preschool edition at Hinsdale, we would literally get 100% reimbursement. We're eligible as a town for 70% uh just based on our wealth level. And then there's two 15% bonuses because the preschool is a special education program and it's an

elementary program that meets another grant set. So one of my thoughts would be as we're looking to a be able to do better with the kids we have and also be prepared for the possibility of more students if we were to take advantage of that that would free up some room at Pearson because we'd bring over those preschool programs. So, that's one possibility that would mean that there was more room at Pearson um than there is currently. We have um typically four classes at a at every grade level. Um the lower grades have um tighter class size restrictions in the teachers contract and it goes up as the kids get older. Um the classrooms themselves in Pearson, the teachers contract allows up to 24 students in a class. the rooms just barely. Some of them are large, but many of them are tiny. At 24 kids, you're you're shoulder-to-shoulder. You know, you're pretty tight. So, you can't really get much past that anyway. So, when you think about development, you know, you never know what kind of kids are going to show up. And we've got room for, you know, a few at every grade easily. Um, if 15 kids in one grade level showed up, we'd have to open a classroom. And if we had to open one classroom, we can figure that out. If we had to open one classroom in each building, we can figure that out. Um, and if we want to be planful going forward, I would say looking at how to take advantage of the 100% reimbursement and doing some kind of expansion to make a spot for everyone to have for school would be pretty awesome. But I don't know if that's what you're listening for. You said you had about seven or eight classrooms available.

Uh, one or two at Hinsdale and three or four at Pearson. So maybe six at most. So 24 kids per classroom. We got about 150 available slots. Um, some of those at 24, some of them at 20, and some at 18. The prek [clears throat] and kindergarten can't go above 18. The first and second can't go above 20. the third through six can go up to 24. But so yes, based on that math, if you were to say if we eaked out six rooms, call it 120 spots if the kids happen to arrive in a nice even distribution,

which you know, you can't predict, but we are pretty scrappy and resourceful. So, you know, we're enthusiastic about whatever growth the town looks to do. Any plans for that pre preschool loan for 100% or going after that?

Well, I would love to. We're we've done the research to ensure that I'm not crazy and we really are eligible for 100% because that's one of those things you hear it and you say [clears throat] that's got to be too good to be true, but I've met with um the state grants people and the state uh preschool people. Um my board is very intrigued. They also know that after next week, six out of nine board members are um up. So, our board is turning. So, the thought was get the new board in place next week and then see if the board has an appetite to pursue that. If my board has an appetite, which I think they do, then bring it to the board of selectmen. You know, the town would have to go to referendum for the cost of the project and then it gets reimbursed. The only thing that is not reimburseable is the interest on any money you borrow. But other than that, all the construction costs, the architecture, the furnishings, everything else is reimburseable at that 100% rate, which is crazy. And my thought is that we make it large enough that we have a spot for every four-year-olds in town to just have a regular full get, you know, instead of starting school at kindergarten, you just start at four and then maybe have half day slots for the three-year-olds. Um, so that's sort of a thing we're kicking around, but that would

And you think you have room at Hinsdale [clears throat] on the property for what you're you're imagining would be. So I'm not the most spatial, but I had reason to speak with the architect. We were trying to figure out the culvert and

how to So while I had him on the phone, I said, "So while we're talking, Dean, what do you think?" And he said, "Well, I'd have to come back out and look at it to be sure." He said, "You probably can go out. you definitely can go up. Um we wouldn't put preschoolers up, but you could always move second grade up and you know do a little shuffle shuffle. Um so he felt confident as the guy that had done the building before that certainly there was room to add a half dozen classrooms if that's what we wanted to do which was an exciting concept at 100% reimbursement. Yeah, it's a good deal. You know, it's an amazing thing to do for the town. What's that? [clears throat] Right. in addition to the classrooms. So the reason we have to for the

reason we don't have a gym at Hinsdale now is because the state limits your eligibility for reimbursement based on the size of the uh student body. So if we add students right now we have a cafeterium gymnasium I don't remember the funny name we've made up to it's all things um with more students we'd probably be eligible at that 100% rate. you'd probably add like um a gym, the four to six classrooms and you know like a hallway with bathrooms and you know they've put on all that at 100%. Which you know there's a piece of me that says you know

I know you you still look surprised. Well, you know, it goes in the category of like, wow, that's a lot to take on. And then [clears throat] I find myself saying, "What kind of superintendent would I be if I didn't say that out loud?" Like, that doesn't come along often. 100% reimbursement. But I keep asking and they I have it in writing from the state like, "Yes, you're right. It's 70%, 1515, all stackable. You can't go beyond 100%, but you can get to 100." Which if we did that would pull the two preschool classes out of Pearson, thereby making Pearson a little less tight. so that if we need to add some sections there, if the community grows and more kids come, that gets easier and it makes more room at Hinsdale to be able to spread out as well. So

was there like a recent demographic study to understand how the town is trending in terms of age and if we're getting younger kids in that are gonna so trend towards [clears throat]

some school districts there's a PRAA I think is the guy's name Prada does like uh demographic studies and predicts enrollment we typically have been doing our own uh just as a cost savings measure but we are pretty reliably about 80 kids enrolled in the schools per grade level. Sometimes it's 90, sometimes it's 75, but we have that four classes per grade level and they are almost exclusively right around that 80 number. We haven't seen any drop off of that. There's one grade level a little bit bigger, but the one above it is smaller. It's the COVID crew. People help their kids out. [clears throat] Um, so we have no indication that that number is going down or up. We you do it a little bit based on the number of live births. So unscientifically we do it. Um and if we were wanting to know as a community there's like a firm that does that and they take into account all your housing starts. So if we're looking at you know taking a property and how many houses would go in is it 55 and over? Is it family housing? And they take all those things into account

and that could be paid for as well. Yeah. Um, [clears throat] so that's I don't know if the proudest study would be considered part of the construction project. It might I don't think it's a fortune either. I mean, that's something a lot of districts do every year. That's probably a relatively affordable study to do. So, if a group was interested, we could find out more about that. And I guess is there impending design standards for schools uh to understand like 10 years from now, is our current school going to be out of or insufficient based on education standards? I know uh over the years there's uh [clears throat] more square area per student, right? Per pu per pupil. Is that going to continue trending that way? Um

the only place where you really see like per pupil square footage is in a science lab um and in a preschool classroom.

Other than that, um you know, your fire marshall may set capacity on a room, but there isn't like from the state department of education a square foot rule. Um, and we don't have, you know, like high school style science labs. We only go to sixth grade, so we avoid that. Um, so the state department hasn't put too many restrictions around that. I mean, like the, for example, indoor air quality standards change and so now you have to get um a certain number of years you have to do studies and then based on those studies do the work. Like they'll make changes like that. Um, most things unless you go to do a renovation, you don't get kicked into being just like if you were doing an addition on your home. Like once you do a renovation now, you have to bring everything up to the newest standards. But usually they would wait until you did that. The good news with Hinsdale, if we did do any kind of anything is it's non-rolled building. So it there shouldn't be a whole lot of surprises of oh well if you do this now you have to add handicap ramps or like we did all that.

[clears throat] So here anything? Nothing really. I mean other than the reason we wanted you here and looking for this information. We've looking at a lot of development possible in town. We've already approved 40 units at the old hospital. We've got 35 to 38 approved at old bachelor school. And if the town develops or has someone committed to develop the Wallen Street property, who knows what we'll have. And as a planning agency, we're concerned with with that. You know, what happens in five years or 10 years with the school system, with the school, you know, that's where we're concerned.

Questions. I would say they're good problems to have. Yes. I think, you know, a thriving community serves all of us. And my budget gets easier to pass if there's more people paying tax. We've been asking for this information for a couple of years. And you know, we've got figures based on the square footage of the classrooms, which are outrageous, but that is because you can't get 850 kids in those buildings. Um, Gilbert's got excess capacity right now about 250 students. They additional they can hold. I mean, of course, you're talking more staffing, things like that, but right based on that. So we have information from them, but we're just looking for this information so that when we do have projects come before us, we can make a a good judgment call, honest decision. So

I guess my takeaway point would be go for it. We'll figure it out. Let's hope so. [laughter] You know, where there's a will, there's a way. Um so so let's say if we did a capacity analysis and it showed that we're going to be have an issue five years from now. So invest now. Um, what would we do? Provide a recommendation to the board of select men to then I mean basically there's not an awful lot we can do. We can just make people aware of it like the board of education, the superintendent, people like that that you know here's projects we're approving. We've got more projects going to be coming to us u at some point. Here's what's going to happen. So prepare.

That's all I can say is plan ahead. If we're very aware of what's coming, then it can help us. Like I'm thinking about the preschool regardless of growth in the town necessarily, just because that would be great for the community to have preschool available for people. But for example, the one at the hospital, I think, is veterans housing. Well, they say veterans, but there's still some two-bedroom apartments, and I don't I'll be surprised if it's all bedrooms. The Bachelor and almost half of those are two-bedroom apartments.

So, that's what you got. We've got the old nursing home that at some point will be coming in as a development. How many apartments or condominiums or what going to be there? We don't know yet. We haven't seen any plans. So, there's a lot of activity coming down this year or the next year. As those things become more certain, I would say would be a great time for us to invest in the Yeah, that's why we're reaching out now and trying to get this line of communication going. And so yeah, the um proudest study knows just from doing them for years and years and years like what you know with the house not going to happen immediately but it's they know when it's going to hit and know based on this number of units and this number of bedrooms you're likely to have this many kiddos. They're very good at that.

So that would be something we could definitely do to be proactive and keep us sort of being planful about what we need to do to be ready. Whatever it is, we'll do it. But thank you. You got anything? I'm just glad you're here. Thank you for the invite. Would that would that be to that point? Would that be our recommendation? It's for [clears throat] board of education to go performance capacity analysis. It's paid for and at least I mean until we till we start approving projects or more projects. Uh you know, it it's it's something for the board of ed to be looking at with a new board coming in especially. So, and I'm and it sounds to me like she's going to be sure they hear it. So, well,

yep. It seems like they have capacity for what's planned right now approved. So, yeah, that's good. Thank you. Good. Thank you. Thank you for coming in. Was informative. Okay. So, now we're back to item six, new business. PZC [clears throat] 25-16. Applicant Elizabeth Durham. Location 93 Wetmore Avenue, Town Single Family. Proposal special permit application for a home occup occupation section 415-45.

And Hi. Unfortunately, we're basically just accepting these applications tonight. You're not going to have a public hearing tonight or anything. No, we don't care. [laughter] I mean the business it's a little late in the season anyway, you know. So yeah. Um I think we just need to schedule the public hearing and what's the date for the public hearing? Uh we're recommending November 24th because of notification timeline. November 24th. Y

I'll make a motion that we accept application PZP 2516. Um for Elizabeth Durham, 93 Wetmore Avenue for a special permit for home occupation and schedule public hearing at 7 p.m. November 24th. I will second. Yes. At this location. All in favor? See you.

Okay. Okay. So, the next one now is item BZ25-17. Applicant Paul Mitchell [laughter] 161 Meadow Street Zone Town Gateways proposal special permanent application for vehicle sales and service personal auto detailing. Same thing. [laughter] Same thing. Yeah. Uh you figured that we're just accepting them. Uh we're going to schedule a public hearing for you and you get to come back and tell us your story then. Okay. Fair. Same. Fair enough.

I'll make a motion to accept PZC application 25-17 Paul Mitchell 161 Metal Street special permit vehicle sales and service personal. Um and a public hearing date to be November 24th at 7 p.m. at town hall. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Doing a nice job there. Looking good. All All in favor? I doing a nice job there. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So, now we're on to other business. 7B, discussion of meeting schedule and regulation updates.

Yes. So, one of the things we're doing in the office is that as we head into winter, we somewhat anticipate a little bit lighter of a application mode for you all. And as you know, you just scheduled two hearings for November 24th, which mean which means you have no business as of right now for the 10th. Um, but we thought maybe that was an opportunity to kind of sit at the table and do some planning work and talk about regulation updates and, you know, things of that nature that we might want to work on. And so, we're just trying to feel you out as to whether or not you want to meet on the 10th, if you don't want to meet on the 10th. And on these months, these dark cold winter months, if we don't have application business, do you want to continue scheduling meetings for those dates so that we can do some behind thescenes regulatory work? Or do you want the time off? I think we're okay either way. But we wanted to address it with you.

I think it's good at those slow months to work on this stuff so we don't have to deal with it when we have a lot of business. We need some time to work on it because [clears throat] the spring and summer months we don't we have too many things going on usually and it I mean we worked on They only get worse. The driveway regulations took forever. Took a year. So I think it's a good thing to do that. I mean you know as Candace brought up about sidewalks things like that. I mean, if it's an ordinance that needs to be changed, then that's something that's going to have to be gone go through the selectman, we we can't change that. But if it's something we can do within our sidewalk regulations that we presently have, it's something that we could revise between now and spring. Um, plus Jeremy's list and Jeff have listed some ideas on Yes. And of things we should be, right,

thinking about, slight suggestions. We have a running we have a running list. We've had a few discussions in the past added to that. Yeah. Well, it's a good idea to talk about them while we're not doing other things. Definitely. To to that point though, we've had some discussions on some of these topics, but um they haven't gained traction. Do we should we be reaching out to any other groups to help us with these or do we feel we're complicated?

So, one thing I one thing I'll talk about briefly before we um we get into it a little bit, but the the sort of the middle two there, the update of the LI regulation section and the storm water management section, there is a there's been a lot of conversation staff and Willy's been involved in some of this and Peter's been involved with this as well. Um, but then also HLWA and the Wetlands Commission and kind of a whole host of people behind the scenes of talking about what we should be thinking about in terms of our regulations to better protect water quality across across town, right? It sort of started with Highland Lake because that's sort of the crown jewel, if you will, but we have lots of ponds and lakes across this across the community and they all need the same level of protection to, you know, guard against blue green algae blooms and, you know, increasing water quality and all the rest of it. So what I would say is we're in the process of that and we have a meeting scheduled kind of a preliminary meeting schedule a whole bunch of people staff and um sort of commission leadership I'll say for December 11.

Correct. Yeah. So, I I think what we'll probably do is come to you in January with with a beginning of a discussion of kind of where that group thinks it wants to guide those regulations and then we'll come back to you with those in with some bullet pointed some version of how we think that might want to look. Um, but the other stuff, you know, flood plane regulations, that's something that I think the town is just way behind on. Um, Now, your flood plane regs are dealt with in an ordinance that I think probably hasn't been updated since far too long. Too long,

probably 25 years at least. Um, and I think it's probably a good move to move those into the zoning regulations and adopt the state model reg. Oh, yeah. We should definitely be going with the state. Gives us a little bit more control. It gives Jeff the flood plane management. I am and recently asked for a copy of our flood plane regulations and that's how we got to this point. So, oh my god. So that's something that's that's relatively straightforward. [clears throat] State model res. We'll adjust a few things, get the community name in there.

Uh the other exercise that goes along with that is mapping it as best we can. It's a little challenging up here because the state hasn't done flood study in a long time, but I know that they're working on one for this area. So once that's done, once we have that digitized layer, then we can add that to your zoning map. So when somebody's looking at the map, they can say, "Oh, you know, I'm in town single family, but I'm also under the flood plane uh overlay zone." so that they can reference both of those zones. So, I think we should probably work on that. Um, and then smoke shops just came up the other day and I'll let Jeff speak to that a little bit. And that's sort of us spitballing in the office and coming to you wonder, [laughter] uh, [clears throat] I think we've had some inquiries and

yeah, a couple different smoke shop discussions. Uh, one someone came to the office and they were asking about opening it at uh, Kappies, which is for sale right now. And unfortunately the regulations would allow it. Uh but then he started saying and I might want to have some chips and some drinks. I said nope. Now you're in convenience store. So we need to find out where that line is for the slippery slope. But I think really the discussion here is where do we want these things? Maybe town gateway is appropriate and town center is not. Uh so that's a discussion for you guys. We can carve it out of the, you know, the big box and make its own box and put some special rules on that. So that's a good tough topic for November 10th. Yeah, start that one.

That should be relatively easy. And the way you said that, Jeff, are other communities doing that? Carving that out like that, Jeremy. Yeah, a lot of communities are looking into that now. Can you you know look at Yeah. Yeah, of course. Why not? Yeah. Okay. We've started to compile that. Great. There's there's a number in the state that has started to do that. And it's really it's a change in the definition. It's adopting a definition so that it come it comes out of Mhm. What is it? Retail, small scale retailer, whatever the catch is right now. Does the e-code system make that easier for you? Yeah. When you say smoke shop, we're talking about [clears throat] vapes or THC.

We're talking vapes and cigarettes and cigars. THC is a whole another thing. Although some of these smoke shops like to sell that, too. So that that's part of the problem with those operations, you know, and it's if you've driven through other communities that have them, it's it's not always a favorable look on your main street, right? You get these all the flashing lights and everything else and, you know, the big arm flailing waving inflatable tube men and everything, you know, we got rid of those. They're not show all the time. So we have Jeff to get rid of those. Yeah. Right. They're allowed just so long he just puts the kibash on them. [laughter]

Okay. So, we'll add those two things. Is there anything else that the commission wants to So, the flood planes now, does the state have an updated flood plane map or that we would be working with? So, they come from FEMA and FEMA is currently doing a flood study. Uh, I think all of Lichfield County is finally getting updated, right? Yeah, I believe they they just finished um announced one where you can put in your address and you can see the book on their property. [clears throat] Uh they did just finish some section of town but very small section and they need to move on to the rest. So right now we don't have a lot of homeowners are getting nailed with that

especially around the lake. They're getting have to buy flood insurance unless they can prove they're outside the flood zone. Yeah. and and right and then you've got to you've got to hire an engineer and determine the elevation and do amendment. Yeah. Surveyor can do it too. So you got to know the elevation, right? Right. And that's usually tied to the dam.

You know, again, having worked community all too familiar with that process. But yeah, most of the state has updated flood study from 10 years ago or so. Lichfield County and most of Windham County was left out of that. So I think they're finally getting around to doing that. So, we don't have digitized layers at the moment. We have these old flood maps from the 70s, but we're getting around to getting around to those.

Have you have you looked at the subdivision regulations or anything at all? That's something that we [clears throat] haven't touched since I've been at the board. And I mean, not that we've had any come before us, but at some time we've got several large tracks of property for sale around town, you know, and you know, at some point we're going to see a subdivision come in. You know, one of the big things I've talked about to couple of planners is with the subdivision regulations requiring some type of systems for fire protection outside of the city limits. So, And if you guys think of any other topics, not just right now, but you know, before the meeting, just email them and we'll get them on.

Yeah, it's just something that you [clears throat] get a chance you two guys take a look at them and yeah, we'll do a review because they I couldn't tell you when they were last updated. It's been a long time. I read through them once, but it was a while back. Yeah, they're long and boring and Yes. and everything. I've read through them, too. But yeah, think farm stands came up a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And you know, we could just roll right into that with uh Candace's comments tonight. Um shipping containers came up. What? Shipping containers always come up. Yeah. Tiny homes, accessory dwellings. [clears throat]

Yep. Uh tiny homes, I'm not sure if we need to do anything there. The the building regulations do allow for smaller homes to be built with certain standards. Uh if we wanted to have even more regulations, we could, but that's [clears throat] sort of working itself out on the building side of things. But alternative lodging, I think, is definitely a good topic. Alternative lodging. Yeah. Not not just a regular hotel, but boutique hotels. Uh you know, you might want

tents. [laughter] We can talk tents if we like. Yeah. Yurts, all all the like. but just uh additional lodging uh capability in town for you know attracting visitors. So we should definitely look at those as well. Is the legislature or do I anybody might know are they working on any blanket regulations for that? Because Massachusetts just put through by right uh ADUs and tiny houses by right you can't restrict them you can't make it hard to put them on that you can do it. So, is Connecticut working on anything? Not Not that I'm aware of.

Not that I'm aware of. In terms of tiny homes, 502, I think, included a pro. I think it was 50002. And Scott, you might have a memory of this. And I kind of wish she was here because she might remember, too. But I think 502 had a provision in there where the um opt out of the ADU regulations that came in as part of 3129 three four four years ago. I think that sunset within 50002 which of course got vetoed by the governor but I just saw a thing the other day that they're working in the background and and I think there's a um a special session coming up and it looks like 5002 is going to be back on the table. What's in it I couldn't tell you. I don't know if that provision is still in there, but

but right I mean right we op you know we created the legislature created a regulation or [clears throat] a statute to require ADUs across the board but then provided an opt out. So it's kind of like well why go through the effort of that if you're just going to let towns opt out of it anyway. But uh well we know why. I mean that's the politics of the issue. So

so we'll see where that goes. But, you know, one thing that you might want to think about with ADUs, and I know Charlene, you've brought this up a couple of times, but you know, sort of tiny home communities, right? Our zoning regulations, you cannot legally put a minimum size on a dwelling unit. The building code does in terms of bedrooms and some other things, but we cannot have minimum sizes. There's case law on that. Um, but what you might want to think about is tiny home communities where you allow more than one on a lot. Town single family, I think, is a single home on a single lot. Um, that probably it might be the appropriate location. It's something we could talk through, but you might want to think about, you know, larger lots. Maybe you can put 10 or 15 of these things in there and age restricted or, you know,

I'm spitballing here, but but something to think about in terms of tiny homes because, right, they're they're usually single occupancy or double. You might have one or two people, but they're not [clears throat] going to attract kids. They're too small. And so you end up with folks that are looking for smaller housing, you know, singles, couples, older couples, younger couples, downsizers, downsizers. So on the other side of that, I know up in Berkshire County, there's a bunch of people have been running around looking at the larger parcels of land to build family compounds with multiple houses on that. So is that something you think we should be looking at? large parcels.

I don't know got [clears throat] any demand for it, but you know, we could we can certainly talk about it. If you've got an example that you're aware of up there in one of their towns, we can look at it. My friend in Sanders still, they have 1500 acres. They have a horse farm and they have a house for the grandparents. They have a house for But they kept buying lots. You bought a camp. You bought a camp on a lake. They have an antique house. Another antique house. Another house, a house, a barn. So, they're technically separate lots, but they're But they're all They're all in separate lots. Yeah. But they're contiguous. Yeah. All own by different

And they're all contiguous. They're all next to each other. Yeah. But there is people that have been looking at, you know, two 300 acre lots to put family compounds on. I don't know if it's come through in front of you or not, but No, I haven't heard that one yet, but we certainly have the space to allow for that sort of development. [clears throat] So, maybe we put some rags in and see if we can attract people. Well, you got a we got a list. We got a list. You asked for it. [laughter] I did. But, you know, I think it's a good opportunity through the through the of course the cold dark months here.

Yeah. when you're searching for the the smoke shops per se, like are there any other um types of businesses that we might want to regulate as well or limit? I know smoke shops came up because you were asked, right? Are there any others? I would probably look to you. [clears throat] Yeah, nothing's coming to mind, but I would assume so. Uh so if you have other examples, we've definitely discuss them. There might be other that you might want to consider allowing too that are not currently allowed. And I'm I'm not I don't have anything in mind, but there might be. Right. We want Main Street filled. Yeah. We want it filled.

We want it filled. We don't want them filled with smoke shops, but we want appropriately appropriate appropriately, you know, kind of calm on the neon lights and all that stuff. My view is that's cart before the horse. You have to have good residential [clears throat] and attractive and solid residential and then Main Street will come. Yeah. It's not the other way around. It's not. You're right. I mean, you have to have residential around Main Street. You have to have good residential around Main Street, but you also have a little bit of a regional downtown here, too. You're sort of surrounded by a few communities that really don't have much of anything. And so, if you have

And yet, they still don't use downtown. Well, but they might if you you know Highland Lake doesn't even use downtown problem I suppose. But true they go to Mario. Yeah. And then uh economic development commission. Do they have any like uh industrial analysis of of our town? What provides for the market where people are going elsewhere outside of town? Is there anything that's underserved in our town or not available that we need to put in manufacturing space? the grocery, you know, more grocery options, you know, markets. That's a tough one. Yes, that's a tough one because the margins are so thin on grocery and you have a stock. It's going to be really hard to attract anybody else,

you know, and unfortunately they're off on the edge. They're not walkable. That's groceries. Grocery is always something that I hear every town I've ever worked in, everybody wants more grocery and then can't support it because the margins are just so so thin.

It's allowed nice if you could if you could encourage outlets stores to have small outlets in Main Street. That would be nice if you could encourage them. But even like a what is that big sporting goods store, you know, where everyone gets their guns and their their gear and everything. But, you know, they had that sort of brand name in town where it would be a convenience to get certain things there, but then we have supplies. Well, we've got a few things that we can focus on. We'll bring you some things to consider next time we see you.

That's great, gentlemen. Everybody okay? Okay. So, we're on to item eight, approval minutes. So, I move that we approve the September 22nd, 2025 regular meeting minutes. Second. All in favor? I Okay. Any communications that we need to know about? No. Okay, next one is I make a motion to adjurnn. I'll second it. All in favor? Look at that. Bar of eight. Good job. Good job. Seconded that. I didn't. But what about the continuing continue the meeting numbers? Where do we follow up on that?

Okay. Uh so I know some of you have gone to classes