Planning Board Minutes
Planning Board
May 21, 2019
Approved June 18, 2019
Members Present: Bruce Healey, Chair; Regina Cockerill, Howard Maurer, Bill Weiler, Richard Wright, Members; Deane Geddes, Alternate; Ken McWilliams, Advisor.
Mr. Healey called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
Mr. Healey stated Deanne Geddes will be a full voting member for tonight’s meeting, in place of Michael Beaton.
Minutes:
The Board reviewed the minutes of April 2, 2019. Corrections were made.
Ms. Cockerill made a motion to accept the minutes as corrected. Mr. Weiler seconded the motion. All were in favor.
The Board reviewed the minutes of April 16, 2019. Corrections were made.
Mr. Weiler made a motion to accept the minutes as corrected. Mr. Geddes seconded the motion. All were in favor.
7:15 p.m. – Bruce Schmidt, Vice President and General Manager of Mount Sunapee Resort/Vail Resorts – Bruce Schmidt and Linda Tibbets introduced themselves. Mr. Healey explained that the Planning Board sent them a letter inviting them to a meeting to see if they had familiarized themselves with the zoning regulations that affect the lease hold by Mount Sunapee. He explained that the Planning Board has local control and has separate regulations under site plan review that the Board uses when dealing with commercial entities. Mr. Healey explained that the Planning Board offers conceptual hearings in which the Board can hear what is involved in the project and the Board would discuss any regulations that may or may not apply.
Mr. Schmidt stated that he lives in Ludlow, VT and worked with Tim and Diane Mueller for the 36 years they were involved with Mount Sunapee and Okemo. He said he is the chair of the Selectboard in the town of Ludlow, so he is familiar with the Vermont statutes. He said that Jay Gamble has been extremely helpful in talking about things in regard to Mount Sunapee. Mr. Gamble let Mr. Schmidt know the process of coming to the Board to present at a conceptual hearing if there is an idea they would like to carry out. Mr. Schmidt said there is currently nothing on the table to do anything at this point in time. He said at this point they are doing maintenance on buildings, lifts and purchasing new sanders. Mr. Schmidt thinks that they are stewards of this park land and it is very important to them. He said it is a state park and they need to do their part to honor that, including putting up new hiking trail signs, etc. Mr. Healey asked how they did this first year. Mr. Schmidt said they did pretty well and the abundance of snow was a big help this year.
7:30 p.m. – Case 2019-005 – Conceptual Minor Subdivision – Jonah A. Coldwell & Tabitha K. Lemelin (owners) – for property located at 144 Morse Lane, Newbury NH, Tax/Map 033-251-017 – Discussion of a 2-lot subdivision – Mr. Healey showed the map of what lot was to be discussed. Mr. Healey recused himself because he is an abutter to this property. Mr. Healey handed the meeting over to Mr. Maurer. Mr. Maurer read the definition of a conceptual consultation for Mr. Coldwell and Ms. Lemelin. Ms. Lemelin explained what they would like to do with the property. They are currently renting out a trailer on this lot, and they would like to divide the lot. They originally wanted to divide the lot into three sections, but Ms. Lemelin explained after doing the density report, it showed they can actually only have two lots on this property. Mr. Coldwell said they would like to divide the property in half and put a home on each of these lots. Mr. Maurer asked if they have familiarized themselves with the zoning ordinances. Ms. Lemelin indicated that she did. Mr. Geddes asked if there are any steep slopes. Ms. Lemelin said no. Mr. Coldwell showed the steepest part of the property and where it was located. Mr. McWilliams asked about Ms. Lemelin making reference to the density report. He asked what sort of things they took into account when doing the density report. He asked if they looked at wetlands or steep slopes. Ms. Lemelin said she did not include any of that in the density report. Mr. McWilliams said that property owners are only allowed to have a certain percentage of a lot be steep or have wetlands, so it is important to include when doing the density calculations. Ms. Lemelin said she does not think there are any steep slopes or wetlands. Mr. McWilliams said this should be confirmed by a surveyor. Mr. McWilliams suggested they get a surveyor to see if there is steep slopes. Mr. McWilliams asked if they had looked at the subdivision regulations. Ms. Lemelin said she had. Mr. McWilliams said to look at section 8 under minor subdivisions and that will tell them what they need to submit. Mr. McWilliams said that if the surveyor says he feels that two lots can be made out of this lot, then they would get their materials together and submit their application for a minor subdivision. He said they will need a septic approval for both lots and the soil test results. This will be submitted to DES and then DES will review this and determine whether or not a septic system could be designed on those lots. Mr. Healey said that he wanted to point out that this lot is in the shoreland, so the shoreland regulations would apply to this lot. Mr. Geddes asked if that was a named brook. Mr. Healey said it is Morse Brook. He said the plan they receive from their surveyor should indicate that there is a 250’ protection area in the shoreland. Mr. Maurer said they will need to include these wetlands when doing the density report. Mr. Maurer reminded them that the building lots should be one contiguous acre. Mr. McWilliams explained when they come in for the hearing, the abutters will be notified and be invited to the hearing. Mr. McWilliams said the Board meets every third Tuesday of the month and their application has to be submitted 21 days ahead of time before a scheduled meeting.
Other Business:
Personal Wireless Services Facilities – Subcommittee Progress – Mr. McWilliams gave an update on the progress made by the subcommittee. He distributed five packets for the Board’s Review:
Article 17. Personal Wireless Service Facilities – Mr. McWilliams said they would revoke this article in its entirety and readopt the rewritten article.
Article 2 Definitions – New or amended definitions that have to do with the personal wireless service facilities. These definitions are based on the state RSA’s.
Amend Article 2 Definitions – Amendment to the zoning ordinance not pertaining to the personal wireless service facilities. This is to amend the Article 2 definitions for things other than the personal wireless service facilities. There were several definitions that were already there having to do with small wind energy systems so they needed to make that distinctions in those definitions and they added more information to the definition of ‘use’. It previously just referred to the business and residential district and they have expanded it to include the other two large districts in Newbury including the Blodgett Landing Cottage District and the Mount Sunapee Recreation District.
Article III. When a Site Plan Review is Required – The three amendments to the site plan review regulations including to amend Article 3, including new material for permitting personal wireless facilities, in Article 5.1 there are some clarifications on procedures applying to site plan review versus the conditional use permit for the personal wireless service facilities and finally Article 5.13 is a new section that would be procedure specific to a personal wireless service facility. He would like to note there is something called the 150 day shot clause (sp?) that states the Planning Board has 150 days from (when an application is first submitted) to give final approval including any local appeals. He said that really dictated why they ended up going with this innovative land use control putting control with the Planning Board through a conditional use permit to manage these personal wireless service facilities and keep all of the review under the Planning Board and not under the Zoning Board.
Building Regulation Amendments – One of the major changes that was made on the state level in 2012 was if you are doing a pole location, you should not have to go through the Planning Board like you do for a cell tower. The state says this is a building permit process which happens within 45 days. This was all taken from the state’s guidelines, but should be in the building regulations so the code enforcement officer has some guidance.
Mr. McWilliams said he received some help on this from Attorney Kate Miller of DTC Lawyers Mr. McWilliams also said town counsel concurred with this approach. He suggested sending both Attorney Miller and town counsel the final draft of these documents when they are done so they can give comments back.
Mr. Healey said that it would be good if all of the Board members could read these packets in the next 30 days and be prepared to discuss at the June meeting. Mr. McWilliams said they could make changes to the ordinance in October and be prepared for November and then set the hearing date in the third week of December. He also said you could schedule a public hearing a week after town meeting in March in case it does pass, they can have the hearing immediately and put into effect by April 1st.
Zoning Ordinance Amendment – Shoreland Section – 7.14 Restoration - Status – Mr. McWilliams sent an email to the Conservation Commission with a suggested schedule for them to follow. The schedule requested the next draft be due at this meeting. Mr. McWilliams has not heard anything from the Commission. Mr. Healey reminded Ms. Katheryn Holmes about Mr. McWilliams’s availability, since he will be gone from June to October. Mr. Healey said that if they wanted to include this restoration amendment in 2020, they would need the draft in by this meeting. Otherwise, it will need to be included in the 2021 meeting.
Planning Board Training - Mr. McWilliams said he would like to offer to provide some free Planning Board training to the Board members. He offered to come down early before the dates of the Planning Board meetings to meet for an hour or 1 ½ hours to hold training sessions if anyone is interested. Mr. McWilliams suggested they use the Planning Board NH Book to use as a guideline for these training sessions and people can pick what topics they want to talk about. Mr. Geddes, Ms. Cockerill and Mr. Maurer all said they would be interested. Mr. McWilliams said he will start these up in November.
Mr. Maurer made a motion to adjourn. Mr. Geddes seconded the motion. All in favor.
The meeting adjourned at 8:06 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Donna S. Long
Recording Secretary