WASHINGTON PLANNING BOARD

Master Plan Update Subcommittee – Working meeting Minutes

December 2, 2014

Committee members present: Lolly Gilbert, Jean Kluk, Bob Williams, Annie Bissonnette, Jim Crandall and Nan Schwartz.

Visitors: None

1.0 The meeting was called to order by Jean Kluk at 2:30 PM, in the Town Hall.

2.0 Land Use and Zoning - Kluk opened the meeting stating we would start with Land Use and Zoning chapter. We had all reviewed the chapter and were ready for discussion.

Kluk thought that in Current Situation they should add, "LUO, Site plan regulations, Subdivision regulations, amount others. she said their highlighted sections are where they need the Assessors help with updating. She said for example Island Pond has more year round residents since the last update. Williams requested they remove the line about LAE having pressure for the town to take over the roads. This is no longer true. He added that in the Village District section they have elected commissioners. The village district is an added taxation for dam upkeep. Schwartz said that Highland Haven is the same situation. Kluk will delete the line about a current rise in building permits. Williams said you could speak to the current trend of less building permits. Bissonnette asked what we are trying to connect this fact to. Kluk said that this section speaks to the current situation in town. Williams said to lose the line more than double in the section about potential new lots and just use cause an increase. We discussed unnamed ponds and decided not to name them. Kluk said they would update the subdivision table. Williams thought they should mention the "unbuildable" lots in LAE; many were discovered later to be ledge and wetlands and can't be built on. Schwartz said that they should add a few more business types to the Business section; logging, professional services and home-based businesses. In the agriculture section we decided to remove the names of small farms and just call them family farms, also include sugaring operations. We decided to lose the farmer's market section and talk about that in the Economic Development chapter. Kluk and Gilbert had a religious organizations section and they will add the churches in Washington and East Washington to the list including Montfort and SDA churches. Kluk stated the land use table needs updating and pointed out that they attached the "Constraints to Development" map. Kluk spoke about the summary of community input from the survey and asked whether they should use the percentages or just write it out in sentences. Bissonnette thought it read awkwardly. Williams thought the percentage should go first, Kluk disagreed. We decided to go with sentence, and then percentage, Kluk will reword the statements. In the Community Workshop section they left off the strengths but we decided they should be added. Bissonnette asked about the term "junky yards", Schwartz said this is a term that is used by Planning Boards to distinguish between real junk yards (which are regulated by the state) and yards that are just junky. Crandall asked about conservation easements and whether we should mention that here. Williams thought you could just reference the Natural Resources chapter where it is discussed more fully. Schwartz said there is overlap in the chapters and that is fine. Williams thought we should only use the top 11 workshop priorities in the priority section. Under Goals and Recommendations we discussed the goals they had come up with. In Goal A they will add LUO and ordinances. Gilbert wanted to add enforcement of town and state ordinances. In Goal B Williams asked about the enforcement of permits (DES water and shoreland in particular), he wanted to know how they are checked for compliance afterward. Schwartz said they rely on whistle blowers to catch offenders; it is not part of the Selectmen's occupancy permit or other after-construction inspection. Bissonnette asked for a definition of "scattered and premature" and Schwartz explained the term to the group. Goals C, D and E we good as is. Goal F needs a definition of light industry. Kluk said she and Gilbert plan to meet with the Assessors to get more fact and figures, update their document and resend it out to the group.

3.0 Services and Facilities - We moved on to the Services and Facilities chapter. Williams talked about the intro and overview, which everyone liked. Gilbert thought they should move up rehabilitation and lose primary need. Schwartz suggested they capitalize the names of the town boards. On page 7 we discussed the rankings, Williams went with most important because it was a 3 category ranking (other sections had a 5 category ranking so they went with combining the top two on those). The group discussed this and Bissonnette said that we need to be consistent; Crandall suggested we combine most important and important on this question. Bissonnette thought we should keep it as is. We will discuss more at a future date. Crandall suggested on page 2 we should reference the Task Force in the overview and intro paragraph. He thought we should list deficiencies and speak to them in the other paragraphs. Kluk suggested changing “workload” to “case load” in the Police section. Williams said that Terani suggested including the number of call for Fire/Rescue, the number of books in the library, kids in school and number of arrests. We thought that this information is available in the Town Report for each year and it didn't need to be included here. Everyone thought the group had done a good job and should keep filling in the blanks.

4.0 Natural Resources - We didn’t get to review the Natural Resources chapter as we ran short on time. Schwartz and Bullock will keep moving forward on their draft and we plan to start with a review of that chapter at our next meeting.

5.0 Kluk feels we should add a Utilities chapter and include communications, water, sewage and electricity in it, everyone agreed.

6.0 Kluk said proceeding forward we will keep working on the three draft chapters. Bissonnette said she will start work on the Economic Development chapter and thought she would hang out at the General Store to do customer counts and gather local business information. Schwartz complimented Bissonnette's work on the Vision Statement.

7.0 Our next meeting is next Tuesday, January 6th at 2:30 PM at the Town Hall.

Meeting adjourned at 4:45 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Nan Schwartz

Planning Board Secretary