Washington Planning Board

Meeting and Public Hearing

Minutes

September 3, 2013

0.0 Assembly: 6:30PM

0.1 Members present: Cook, Crandall, Dagesse, Marshall, Schwartz

0.2 Alternates present: Kluk, Terani

0.3 Members and Alternates Absent: None

0.4 Visitors: Peter Mellen, Shawn Atkins, Martha Hamill, Sherry Hamill, Ken Eastman, Lolly Gilbert, Bob Williams, Carolyn Bullock, Everett Connor, Skip Moore

Public Hearing: Cook called the Public Hearing to order at 6:30PM.

Peter Mellen presented plans for an annexation for Martha Hamill, annexing 1 acre from TM22-59 to TM22-59-1. The lot will have approximately 146’ of frontage on Old Marlow Road and 235’ 20” on Lempster Mountain Road. Marshall asked if lot TM22-59-1 was in limbo. Mellen answered that the town owns it, it hasn’t been merged with TM22-58 (the Center Station lot) yet because this lot was recently acquired by the town. Crandall asked if the annexation property won’t be bought until Town Meeting, how can we annex it now? Mellen explained that Mrs. Hamill is closing on the sale of the rest of her property and needs to take care of this annexation to have the deeds to close with. The town has a purchase and sales agreement on the one acre piece. Marshall asked if we will still need to annex it, if we just approve of Mellen creating the lot? Schwartz said that annexation approval would be conditional on the approval for the purchase at Town Meeting. Mellen explained that annexation is a two-step process, the approval would be done tonight and the deed wouldn’t be done until after Town Meeting. Atkins asked if Hamill needs a deed for closing. Mellen said that she needs to have the deed for the remaining property that she is closing on, in late September. Marshall asked if the annexation made a non-conforming lot. Mellen answered that it makes the town lot more conforming. Marshall commented that if it doesn’t go through at Town Meeting, Hamill would be left with the 1 acre lot. Cook asked about holding a special Town Meeting. Schwartz commented that the Selectmen have stated they won’t do a special Town Meeting for this, they don’t think it is warranted. Marshall stated that the Selectmen had spoken to LGC and they said this situation didn’t qualify for a special town meeting. Mellen commented that the town is exempt from zoning ordinances so they can do what they feel is right. Cook asked what would happen if it doesn’t go through at Town Meeting? Crandall asked if we could approve it as a non-conforming lot. Kluk asked if fund-raising was a possibility to make the purchase, if the warrant article fails at Town Meeting. Atkins said we should look at this purchase as a town purchase with its benefits to the town. It might not end up being used to enlarge the fire/rescue station; the town could put something else on the lot. Marshall suggested we could approve the non-conforming lot now, based on the plat and not make it an annexation. Mellen explained that our approval tonight doesn’t cause the annexation to happen. Terani said we need a legal document saying we approve the non-conforming lot with the reasons for doing so. Mellen suggested we continue the hearing to a work session and make the decision then after we acquire such a document from the town attorney. Dagesse will contact Matt Serge (town attorney) to draft a letter to explain why we are creating the non-conforming lot, so Hamill can close on her other property sale. Kluk asked Hamill if she was comfortable with that, she said she was, but she wants to move her closing up, so we changed the first date we chose for the work session to the 12^th. Marshall made a motion to continue the public hearing to a work session to take place on Thursday, September 12^th at 3PM in the Town Hall. Schwartz seconded the motion, all voted in favor. Cook closed the public hearing at 7:03PM, to be continued at the above stated date and time.

Cook open the regular meeting at 7:04PM

1.0 Minutes: August 6, 2013 meeting.

No changes were suggested other than a typo. Terani commented that, not having been to the meeting, item 2.3 of the minutes makes it sound like the PB did something wrong and he doesn’t understand what we did wrong. He feels it is sending a bad message. Crandall said that he feels that it seems we are spending a lot of time focused on the town buildings and doesn’t think it is our business, it is the Selectmen’s job. Terani said we should reassess what was written, he would like the motion rescinded. Kluk commented that the RSAs give us the authority to plan, advise and make recommendations to the Selectmen about building projects and municipal improvements. She quoted RSA 674:1-II, which lays out the powers and duties of the Planning Board, the RSA says:


LOCAL LAND USE PLANNING AND REGULATORY POWERS

II. The planning board may from time to time report and recommend to the appropriate public officials and public agencies programs for the development of the municipality, programs for the erection of public structures, and programs for municipal improvements. Each program shall include recommendations for its financing. It shall be part of the planning board's duties to consult with and advise public officials and agencies, public utility companies, civic, educational, professional, research and other organizations, and to consult with citizens, for the purposes of protecting or carrying out of the master plan as well as for making recommendations relating to the development of the municipality.

She feels that we are not stepping out side our purview. Crandall said the motion was made and passed at the August meeting. Cook asked that we move on. Crandall motioned to approve the minutes, Marshall seconded, all voted in favor.

2.0 Old Business:

2.1 Master Plan Update – Kluk introduced the attending members of the Master Plan Update subcommittee: Carolyn Bullock, Bob Williams and Lolly Gilbert. She commented that they are a great group and we have done a lot of work in the past few weeks. We held several working meetings, since the last Planning Board meeting, and are here this evening to present the community survey, cover letter and online survey that we have worked so hard on. The documents were previously emailed to the Planning Board members so they could read through them and bring any questions to be answered and make suggestions this evening. Kluk asked for questions for the committee. Dagesse asked why are we collecting demographics? Gilbert stated that this tells us who is responding to the survey. If a certain demographic is missing from the respondents, we could follow up later with this group. Dagesse wondered about the question of how many children live with you, shouldn’t we also ask about older dependents that live with you? Kluk commented that when people put down what services they want provided, it tells us about the people responding. Dagesse said there is only one other mention of senior services in the survey. Bullock said the group did discuss this a lot and decided to ask about how many children.

Marshall said that when we started this process Christine Walker, from UVLSRPC, told us to keep it simple, he thinks there are redundant questions in the conservation section and other questions that aren’t being asked. He said 8 pages are a lot. Kluk said the committee discussed the length and wanted to include all the questions found in the last (2003) survey for comparison. It was felt, by the committee, that the last survey was not comprehensive enough. Bullock said that the new survey is categorized and visually easier to answer, easier to follow and it is pretty quick to take.

Marshall asked why we were only allowing one survey answer per household? He and his wife don’t agree on things. Kluk said the previous survey was only sent to residents and we have expanded it to include all property owners. We felt it could skew the survey to have multiple surveys answered from each household. It was suggested that we ask someone at ULSRPC if this happens in other communities. Gilbert suggested we have a small focus group take the survey and see what they think of it. Marshall said that we don’t need to think about what other towns have done we should do what is right for Washington. Kluk explained that we started with a blank page and worked off our old survey and went from there. We had several other small town surveys for comparison. We felt we were improving on the previous community survey. Crandall said he complained about the length at one of the meetings but now feels it is easier to take and visually appealing.

Cook suggested we send out two copies to all the properties with more than one owner. Kluk spoke about the keycodes and that one would be needed for each person taking the survey. We discussed splitting the names out and sending a survey out to each. We discussed stuffing two surveys in an envelope, if there are two owners. Kluk said that this would cost more in postage and printing but it could be considered. Schwartz said we would have to reflect why you were receiving two surveys in the cover letter. Marshall requested a work session because he wants to go through the survey line by line.

Williams then showed us an online version of the community survey that he had set up on Survey Monkey. He said it is anonymous, no names or IP addresses are captured in the process. It looks very similar to the paper survey and uses some drop down menus that people should understand using if they are used to computers. He said Survey Monkey tallies all the answers for us. He said it is complicated to input the paper surveys and we should urge people to do the survey online if they can and save a stamp. Everyone thought it looked great and would work nicely.

Kluk said we would like to get the survey sent out at the end of the month. Marshall suggested sending it out with the tax bills. Cook said that might be illegal. Kluk said the tax bills come out at holiday time, which isn’t a good time for people to respond to the survey.

Williams asked if we were to take the survey down to 6 or 5 pages, what would we cut? If we lose one or two questions it will not make it pages shorter. Marshall said that some questions are redundant and he has some questions that are not included. Bullock asked if he was micromanaging the committee and Marshall said it is his job to do so.

It was felt that people may not know how to answer the questions and may not have all the information to make an informed answer. Kluk said if we get answers - we get perceptions and this can tell us what people don’t know and what we have to work on. It was decided to have a working session on Wednesday, September 11^th at 2PM to go over the survey line by line and get the other input from the PB members.

2.2 Business permits – Thunder Mountain Construction - Cullen, Snell Construction & Excavation. We will move this item to the October meeting.

2.3 Review proposed Class VI Road Waiver for Guerin driveway off Old Burbank Road. The board read over the proposed language drawn up by the town attorney for the Class VI Road Waiver for the Guerin driveway off Old Burbank Road. Marshall explained that the town attorney drew this document up at our request as part of our approval of the Guerin’s driveway. He said that Guerins have made a lot of improvements to the part of Old Burbank Road that they are using including underground wiring, culverts, ditches and added gravel. Dagesse commented that we wanted the agreement specific to the property and the include reasons we did this. We had no intention of setting any precedent; this was completely specific to this situation. Everyone felt comfortable with the wording. Crandall motioned to approve the Guerin’s Class VI waiver as written, Marshall seconded, all voted in favor. Dagesse will have Cook sign the document when a clean copy comes back from the lawyer. It will then be registered at the Registry of Deeds.

2.4 CIP process, review documents, schedule mailing to department heads. Schwartz said it is time to start the CIP process again and handed out packets for everyone to review. She had a copy of the RSA concerning the CIP, a cover letter for department heads, a copy of the request form and copies of last years CIP. Cook asked about the $5000 figure mentioned on the cover letter. Schwartz explained that $5000 is the threshold that triggers a CIP request, anything under that amount can be a regular budget request. Dagesse suggested updating the CIP sheet before sending it out to include the present balances on accounts, Schwartz agreed and will work on this with Dagesse. Schwartz and Dagesse will get together on Friday to make the packets to distribute to department heads. We will need them returned for our October meeting.

3.0 New Business:

3.1 Bartevian TM15-38/Moore TM 15-156, Valley Road culvert/drainage issue. Marshall explained that we were sent a document from the Selectmen earlier that explains what has taken place so far. They discovered by looking through the RSAs that the Planning Board is responsible for this issue. The document laid out what had happened prior to this meeting. He stated the culvert is in the 40-foot right-of-way and goes onto private property. The culvert got plugged during the last 100-year storm. Gravel and water went over the Bartevian’s stonewall and continued to the Moore property. Moore claims that it contaminated his well. Moore has had conversations with the Road Agent. Schwartz stated that there is no responsibility for the town, the property owner is responsible for their culvert. Moore claims the road is graded wrong, it is sending too much water to the culvert, which can’t handle it. Marshall said the road is graded so equal amounts of water go equally down each side. Crandall said that this is a bucket of worms, we haven’t had time to talk to Thayer or look at all the materials. He went up there and isn’t sure it is a driveway culvert if it points onto the property. Marshall stated the driveway is built over the culvert. Schwartz stated, we need to schedule a site walk. Cook suggested we table the matter until the next Planning Board meeting and schedule a site walk. We scheduled a site walk for September 11^th at 1PM. Schwartz will notice for the walk.

3.2 Review UVLSRPC maps of community access to healthy food choices. We reviewed the package of maps sent by the UVLSRPC and decided that they should be updated to reflect the Washington weekly Farmer’s Market, the Eccardt Farm Store, the Chute farm stand and the Lovell Mountain Gardens farm stand as well as the General Store. Schwartz will email UVLSRPC with our added information.

4.0 Driveway permits: None

5.0 Mergers: None.

6.0 Communications:

6.1 Intent to Cut, VanPraagh, Rt. 31 N., TM11-32

6.2 NHDES, acceptance of application for septic, 576 North Main Street, TM 7-52

6.3 Letter from Selectmen regarding Bartevian/Moore Valley Road issue, see 3.1

6.4 Letter from Patricia Bartevian informing the town that her two trustees, John LaFleur and William Ely, Esq. will act on her behalf for the matters involving her property on Valley Road.

6.5 Copy of UVLSRPC regional community study of access to healthy food choices, maps

6.6 NHDES notice of acceptance of application for septic system, 696 Halfmoon Pond Road, TM12-40

6.7 NHDES notice of acceptance of application for septic system, Lempster Mountain Rd., TM7-6

6.8 NHDES notice of acceptance of application for septic system, Private way between Ashuelot and Mill Ponds, TM 14-441

7.0 Meeting date for next Planning Board meeting, October 6, 2013, at 6:30PM.

Site walk, September 11, 2013, at 1PM

Work session, September 11, 2013, at 2PM

Work session, September 12, 2013 at 3PM

8.0 Adjournment: Time 8:52PM

Motioned by Dagesse, seconded by Marshall, all voted in favor.

Respectfully Submitted,

Nan Schwartz