Washington Planning Board

Meeting and Public Hearing Minutes

November 5, 2019

0.0       Assembly:  6:30PM, Town Hall

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

            0.2       Alternates present: Chidester

0.3       Members and Alternates Absent: Kluk, Shifflett and Terani

0.4       Visitors: None

Hatch opened the meeting at 6:30 PM

1.0       Minutes: October 1st, Revane asked that, in 4.4, change the number of phases to finish the Old Schoolhouse to at least 2 more. Schwartz will make the change. Crandall made a motion to approve with the change, Dulac seconded the motion and all voted in favor.

)

2.0       New Business:

2.1       Land Use Law Conference - Hatch said that he and Kluk attended as well as several ZBA members. The conference was put on by NHMA and NHOSI and there were 2 tracks, one for planning and one for ZBA. Hatch said he did some of both tracks and Kluk did the planning track. He felt the morning ZBA presentation was not good but Kluk sent us a report on the planning sessions she attended. Hatch said the important takeaways for him were a new Housing Appeal Board the state has set up (this keeps people out of the state Supreme Court, there is a new tiny house bill in study and the state has adopted the newer 2015 ICC building codes (they prefer to stay 2 years behind the latest codes). These are the building codes that towns use if they don't have their own. Crandall asked about the discussion on minutes. They say you should reference only motions and decisions, not discussions. Schwartz said she could put in less detail.

2.2       Tyler Curran, doing business at Larry Poole's old location. Schwartz said the information was passed to us but we don't really have the facts. If he is doing business there he will need a permit. Revane asked if we are notified when someone goes out of business Hatch said no, we don't know. Crandall said he thinks we should contact the business owner every few years to check on the status of the business. Schwartz said she would visit Curran and get more information.

2.3       Budget for 2020 - We went through our budget from this year to determine what we will need for next year. Dulac said that UVLSRPC let him know the dues will be the same as this year. Hatch said he met with the BoS and we need to include some money for TCV for next year. They asked him to get Chidester to revise his quote for the design work so we can pay him in 2 phases. Chidester provided us a new quote of $998 for the base drawing and add different design options in color. We have enough money still in our 2019 budget to pay for this. He will do one sketch for this price and give us a digital copy also. Hatch said we need to establish what we need from Chidester for Town Meeting and the balance of $1394 will be for next year. Hatch envisions getting a driveway concept done because Ed Thayer is anxious to budget for that. We want to bring a basic concept to Town Meeting and hold a public meeting later next year to get ideas for other parts of the project. We came up with budget numbers for 2020 and they came to $5050. Crandall made a motion to approve, Dulac seconded the motion and all voted in favor. Schwartz will pass our budget numbers to the BoS.

3.0       Old Business:

3.1       LUO list priorities – Hatch continued to read through Article III starting with section 3.10 the cluster development section. In 3.10, we need to change the acreage required to 12 acres and we found one redundant section to remove.

            3.11 Screening - we need to delete "within 2 years…". Revane asked about setbacks for underground tanks, we decided we need to look at this.

            3.12 Wells – no changes needed.

            We decided we would end the review at this point and will pick it up next year with Article 4. We will decide what LUO changes to present at Town Meeting next month.

3.3       Town Center Vision project – Hatch asked that we move to 3.3 since we are already talking about the TCV matters. Crandall said that he had a meeting with Revane, Ed Thayer, Kevin Provencher, and a local DOT employee to look at the road and talk about what could be done along with the paving next summer. They did a site walk and Thayer is in agreement with DOT that they will work to improve the store side of the road and shoulder. They are going to widen the shoulder to be more walkable and work on drainage issues. Thayer will provide some labor and DOT will provide materials. They said a real crosswalk is out but they think people can cross safely by watching the traffic. The shoulder from the parking area to the store will be improved for walking. Hatch said that he thought DOT didn't have any say on what happens on the Town Common but they do, because the state road is laid out as a 4 rod road (60 feet wide) and their jurisdiction is 30 feet from the yellow line on either side. Dulac wondered if they are widening the roads, he said that state roads have a locked in budget but they recognize dangerous places where they go through towns. The UVLSRPC advises the Governor on projects that need to be done to alleviate traffic dangers in towns. Crandall said that the road is not considered dangerous (no accidents on record). Hatch said that they had very positive conversations at the meeting - in a related project, Parks & Rec are looking for estimates to rehab the playground. Hatch said Chidester should keep his first sketch broad and general. Hatch made a motion to hire Chidester for the first phase of design work for $998, Crandall seconded the motion and all voted in favor. The next TCV meeting is on November 19th at 9am at Town Hall.

3.2       RV Issue - Hatch said that last month we agreed that the board shouldn't change the RV section of the LUO. The BoS confirmed that if a petition article comes to them they would have to vet it for legality. Revane said that Garvin brought a proposal forward and we didn't feel we should make the change, Chidester made a suggestion for that section that we are still entertaining.

3.4       Old Schoolhouse project update - Revane said that the building annex is covered and weatherproofed for winter. Hatch said that Eversource is sending Margaret Dillon to do an audit of the building envelope (she did the audit for the elementary school) and Doug Waite is looking at the mechanicals (HVAC). Revane said the architect came back last week to look at things and they had a general discussion about how to treat the space. He thought we should rehab the downstairs space by going down to the studs and preserve the upstairs as much as they can historically (there is more to preserve up there, i.e. wainscoting, historic elements). Hatch said that Eversource will give options for the envelope and mechanicals and will pay incentives for meeting building code or exceeding it.

3.5       Master Plan – this is a placeholder.

3.6       CIP - Schwartz explained all the CIP requests and amounts as we reviewed the spreadsheet. Crandall asked about the Landscaping, Parking and Access project line, we decided to put in $9K for a start. Schwartz said she has to check how much money is still in the fund; there may be $4K in there that can be used for the architect's fees. There is a question about how much Parks & Rec need for their dredging and field project, Schwartz will check the amount. We agreed that the CIP is close to done; Schwartz will finish it up and pass the document to the BoS for budgeting.

3.7       ZBA Report – Hatch said they haven’t met but may have a meeting later this month if something comes up.

3.8       UVLSRPC - Dulac said that there is a big focus on workforce housing right now. He also said that Washington's center is on the cover of their publication.

3.9       Noise Ordinance: Hatch said we need to hold the public hearing for this so next month we will decide what else from the LUO discussions we want to bring to a public hearing. Town Meeting is March 10th.

4.0       Driveway Permits:

4.1       David Barkie, TM 12-69, Washington Drive, Ed checked, Hatch signed, construction as per detailed design plan, fee paid. Hatch looked at the site and saw no issues, so he used this permit application as a test case for signing the permit before a vote of the board, as we discussed last month. Everyone was ok with that.

4.2 Alfred Rubega, TM 17-8, Smith Pond Road, temporary driveway for logging, Ed looked and Hatch inspected it today. He spoke with the logger about the culvert that had been removed. The logger wasn't sure about the size needed so he needed to confer with Thayer about it. Hatch won't sign the permit until the issue is straightened out.

5.0 Mergers: None

6.0 Communications:

6.1 Intent-to-cut for Barkie, Valley Road, TM 15-14 & 15

6.2       Intent-to-cut for Rubega, Smith Pond Road, TM 17-8

7.0 Meeting date for next Planning Board meeting – December 3, 2019, at 6:30 PM at the Town Hall.

8.0 Adjournment:                       Time: 8:37PM

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

Respectfully Submitted,

Nan Schwartz