Washington Planning Board

Meeting Minutes - Draft

May 14, 2019

0.0       Assembly:  6:30PM, Town Hall

0.1       Members present: Hatch, Dulac, Crandall, Revane and Schwartz

            0.2       Alternates present: Kluk, Terani and Chidester

0.3       Members and Alternates Absent: Erik Shifflett

0.4       Visitors: None

Hatch opened the meeting at 6:30 PM

1.0       Minutes: April 2nd meeting – Hatch asked if there were any comments on the minutes. Dulac asked for a change in 2.1 and Hatch had a typo in 3.8, Schwartz will make the changes. Dulac made a motion to approve as amended, Crandall seconded the motion and all voted in favor.

2.0       New Business:

2.1 Planning Books – Hatch gave books to those that needed them.

2.2       LUO list priorities – Hatch spoke about the list that Kluk provided and he wants to be methodical in figuring out what we decide to work on. Kluk said we could add things to the list, as this list was made 2 years ago and we may have issues that have been dealt with and other issues have come up. Hatch said when issues arise it helps because we can see what is not working. He thinks that reading through the LUO it is harder to pinpoint the problem areas. Hatch asked for any burning issues. Kluk mentioned Septic, she feels that DES has become a rubber stamp and there is not much enforcement at the local level. She has seen that in other towns they have the Health Officer witness the perc test and soil sampling and check over the permit application. Revane said that DES requires an application for a septic system but when do they send the construction approval. Schwartz said that they send a yellow “Permit for Construction” before it can be built. Kluk said we need local oversight. Hatch asked if BoS has notification before or after the design is done. Schwartz said that permits have to be obtained before the Building permit is applied for. Crandall commented that sometimes a renovation becomes a teardown and rebuild. Dulac asked if anything had changed in the last 10 years to bring this up. Hatch said that Kluk said that DES isn’t doing what they used to do for oversight. Kluk said that in the last 8 years there have been shrinking budgets and staff at DES. Hatch said we should look at this holistically and address the issues that affect our town. He thinks the role of the Health Officer could be used to improve oversight and the town should be looking at what has been built compared to what was permitted originally.

Hatch read through the list to help prioritize the issues to work on and issues that are policy inconsistencies or need further research. Kluk spoke about form based code and how we could use it in different parts of town to achieve consistency in an area. Hatch asked how it is different from zoning areas. Kluk said you could have overlay areas with different setbacks. Chidester asked about existing small lots and their setbacks. Schwartz said all setbacks are the same and they have to go to the ZBA for a variance.

            We decided that a few issues are related and we will tackle them together. We decided that junky yards could still be focused on. Revane said that the BoS is working on this issue as they have some deeded properties with junk on them. They are sending courtesy letters to others trying to get people to clean up their yards. Hatch said that some people are well aware of their rights and are not willing to be pushed to clean up. Kluk said that we need to define “unsightly” and Hatch said we need to give the BoS the teeth to go after these things. Schwartz said she and Kluk will look at numbers 1 and 2 on the list. Hatch said we should all look at LUO’s Article 1 for the next meeting. He wants to dedicate less than an hour of our meeting to work on the list. Crandall suggested we each prioritize items and come up with a list.

3.0       Old Business:

3.1       Business Permit – Chidester provided us the new paperwork for his application for Crestwood Landscaping LLC. He gave us a business application and a site plan application. Hatch suggested we schedule a site visit and go over the applications during that visit. Schwartz will notice for the site visit, which we scheduled for Saturday, June 8^th at 10AM.

Shifflett also provided a business permit application for his farm business. We will go over it at our next meeting.

3.2       Town Center Vision Committee – Hatch said we had a good meeting with the representatives but the DOT person didn’t make it to the meeting. He feels we still need to meet with him. He asked about the last meeting because he couldn’t attend. Schwartz said that we only had 4 people attend but we decided to split into subcommittees to tackle specific items. Crandall said that Gilbert has agreed to chair the committee without him. Kluk said she has decided to step down from the committee to focus on Planning Board issues. She feels we need more town center residents/businesses involved to get everyone on board to drive the project forward. She thinks we need more community outreach and involvement. She said that to get anything done, the entire community needs to be on the same page. Hatch said it is a big undertaking and what has been done so far, including the report is not wasted effort, and he hopes it doesn’t fizzle. Schwartz said that we anticipated that it would be a several year project. Hatch wants to meet with DOT to know what is possible. He thinks we need to come up with a brand and use it for signage. Schwartz thinks that a sign for the northern approach to town might help slow traffic.

3.3 25^th Annual Spring Planning and Zoning Conference – Hatch said that he signed up for the conference and a few days later it was full. He asked if anyone else signed up. No one had, he offered his spot to anyone who might really want to go. No one took him up on he offer so he will reach out to ZBA members. Hatch said he has handouts from the previous conference and he will share them with Chidester.

3.4       Municipal Buildings project update – Kluk said that the upstairs is clean thanks to a small crew of volunteers and the elevator is inspected and working. She said the open house for the public is next Saturday. Chidester asked if the bell is working? Crandall said it is. Chidester said he read about automated bell ringers and thought that if the bell rang daily at a certain time it would add to the center of town.

Revane said they met with the SH building lifter and excavator company and got quote from them. They need the water and electricity moved out of the annex, the water for all three buildings comes from the SH and goes to the other two. They are looking for someone to demo the annex and are putting out an RFP. Crandall asked about fill from the excavation and whether there is a plan for it. Revane said they are working with Ed on fill removal. Terani asked about the generator. Schwartz said the SH has its own generator and it will be removed and rehooked up after the work is done. Chidester asked about the annex and why it is being removed. Revane said that it was never really attached to the building properly and is under constructed so it needs to be removed. The new annex will be slightly larger and will house an ADA bathroom and code compliant stairs to all stories. The handicap ramp will be in the rear. Chidester asked about the heat in the building and Revane said it is forced hot air. Chidester said if you put in a boiler you could put radiant in the ramp and it wouldn’t need to be cleared in the winter. Revane said the schedule is do the demolition in June, lift the building in July, August the foundation work will be done and will be capped for winter. They will have a plan for the second phase in place for Town Meeting.

3.5       Master Plan – This is a placeholder.

3.6       ZBA report – Hatch said he didn’t attend the last meeting but they have a possible new member, Bruce Carpenter is the new chair and they had one denial and 2 approvals with one appeal coming back. He feels that their new system is working well and it really helps to have a conversation before the application is accepted. Revane said that the BoS had an application for a building permit that they were going to have to deny and by having a conversation with the applicant they got them to change things a little and avoided the need for a variance. Schwartz commented that if you can do that it works best for everyone. Revane thinks that cleaning up the building permit application will help, so people aren’t confused.

3.7       UVLSRPC – Dulac said he attended the meeting is on April 10^th. They welcomed him to the commission and were glad to have a representative from our town again. He said there are about 30 people on the board and the meeting was interesting. They voted for the primary job that DOT will be doing this year, which turned out to be a rotary project in Lebanon. He said in order to get a DOT project done you need all your ducks in a row and support from the town or they won’t do it. He said they had a director from a southern RPC speak about what they are working on and how they are getting all age groups involved in working on projects together. He said the next meeting is a dinner cruise.

3.8       Noise Ordinance – Schwartz had sent a version of a new noise ordinance for us to consider. She said she looked at 9 other towns and many of them had similar language so she used those to write this version. Hatch asked for comments. Dulac said that snowmobiles are ridden at night across Millen Pond and he felt we should change the hours for them, perhaps to midnight. Crandall likes this version. Kluk felt the hours should be adjusted to 10PM to 7AM for all days. Kluk feels this version doesn’t deal with daytime noise and we should consider looking at Goshen’s ordinance to help with this. She will send it to Schwartz. Chidester noticed that under the emergency work exception that it only covers the town doing emergency work and he felt it should cover homeowners too, all agreed. Kluk thought the penalties should match what we have now, all agreed. Terani thought we should specifically mention Jake brakes under 6.c. Schwartz will do some editing and we will review it next month.

3.9       Building Permit – Revane went over some suggestions he had for the updated Building Permit. There were a few wording edits and the need to add drip edges and bumpouts to the setback section. We discussed the square footage section and changes to the chart to make that section clearer. Kluk thought we might need to add another table to calculate the square footage for the fees. We discussed adding that temporary sanitation needs to be required during construction and Schwartz will add that. Schwartz and Kluk will work on another version to pass on to the BoS.

4.0 Driveway Permits:

4.1       Steve Whitney, Beaver Brook Road, TM 20-185, permanent driveway for residence, Ed checked, no culvert needed, Andrew checked the site and the fee was paid. Crandall made a motion to approve, Dulac seconded and all voted in favor.

4.2       J. Sampson, 3964 East Washington Road, TM 16-105, permanent driveway for residence, Ed checked and a culvert is required, Schwartz checked the site and the fee was paid. Schwartz said this is a second driveway for the lot, which is permitted by the LUO. She noticed the applicant didn’t sign the application. Crandall made a motion to approve pending the signature, Dulac seconded and all voted in favor.

5.0      Mergers: None

6.0 Communications:

            6.1       Business Permit application from Erik Shifflett for farm business.

7.0 Meeting date for next Planning Board meeting – June 4, 2019, at 6:30 PM, at the Town Hall. Hatch said that because of his job any public hearings will have to happen at 6:30PM or later from now on, all agreed.

8.0 Adjournment:                       Time: 8:40 PM

            Motioned by Dulac, seconded by Crandall, all voted in favor.

Respectfully Submitted,

Nan Schwartz