 |
ANTRIM PLANNING BOARD
Regular Meeting
October 4th, 2018 MINUTES
Members & Planning Staff Present:
Janet McEwen (Chair), William Bryk (Member), John Robertson (Ex-Officio), Bob Holmes (Member), Mary Allen (Member), Lynne Rosansky (Member), Carol Ogilvie (Planning Consultant); and Ashley Brudnick-Destromp (Assistant to Land Use Boards)
Members Absent: Steve MacDonald (Alternate), Chris Condon (Vice Chair), Jeanne Cahoon (Alternate)
Others Present:
CTO: Chair McEwen called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM.
I. Minutes
Minutes from September 20th, 2018
- Motion: Mr. Bryk made a motion to review the minutes, Ms. Allen second the motion.
Discussion: Mr. Bryke made a motion to approve the minutes as amended by the planning assistant, Mr. Robertson second the motion. Mr. Holmes recused himself in the voting due to his absence on September 20th, 2018. By a voice vote, the minutes for September 20th, 2018 were approved as amended.
II. CIP Update
- Ms. Brudnick-Destromp gave the CIP committee update. The committee met with the Highway Department, and all is left is the Rec Department. The Rec Department cannot meet with them until the week of October 22nd, therefore they will do ½ a presentation on October 18th, and the other ½ on November 1st. This was due to scheduling conflicts.
III. Planning Assistant Report
- Ms. Brudnick-Destromp gave the planning assistant report. There was a gentleman that was interested in doing a used car dealership on Concord Street, but once he was informed he would need a site plan review and an abutters notification, he changed his mind.
- She also mentioned a younger couple who had purchased a back lot, over near Ashleigh Drive and how they were looking to put a driveway in attached to the already existing cul-de-sac by purchasing an additional piece of land to add to the lot. After consulting with Dario Carrara, Ms. Ogilvie, and the Chair, it was determined they would not be able to receive a building permit because the private road is not complete at this time.
IV. Master Plan Samples & Discussion
- Chair McEwen stated she would like to pass off the organization of the Master Plan back to Carol, as she has more expertise in it. The chair mentioned 20/20, and the workshops that took place during the 20/20 process. The chair suggested a small group tackle this, and asked Mr. Holmes if he would like to be a part of that group where he has a lot of knowledge on the Master Plan. Mr. Holmes stated he would like to discuss what was found on other towns Master Plans first and review the original Master Plan prior to moving forward. Ms. Ogilvie and Chair McEwen are both willing to be on this subcommittee as well, but would like one or two more people tops to be on it.
- Ms. Ogilvie stated the two immediate concerns are the Vision statement and the Land Use. She thinks an introductory paragraph with the existing Vision statement will work. Ms. Ogilvie said the land use would take more work, because they need to verify that the recommendations will still make sense, and if so, re-affirm those recommendations. If no longer make sense, then there will need to be public outreach to get that updated. All that would be a part of the subcommittee’s discretion.
- Mr. Holmes would love to be on the subcommittee, but would not be able to start until the 3rd or 4th of November, if that is okay. Chair McEwen and Ms Ogilive said that would be fine. Mr. Bryk is also willing to be on the committee.
- Ms. Rosansky mentioned that the Vision statement should be small, and that we should stick to the Vision statement that was already voted on. Chair McEwen and Ms. Rosanksy got into a discussion about why the Vision statement should get touched, as opposed to leaving it alone, and were on opposing sides. Mr. Holmes suggested the board continue on.
V.Homework Assignment
- Chair McEwen brought into discussion the homework assignment, and how reviewing other town’s websites has proven to her that Antrim’s website needs to be re done and modernized.
- The board went around and one at a time stated the names of the towns that they had viewed the website, as well as the master plan on the website. (Reviewing the Master Plan was added to the homework assignment by email after that last meeting.) They then gave their opinions on the website as well as the master plan.
- Before Mr. Robertson started with his assignment, Mr. Holmes stated that three towns whose websites were above and beyond were all Civic Plus websites. It was discussed by the board and brought up how Antrim’s current website is also done by Civic Plus.
- Mr. Robertson looked at Hillsborough, the first thing that caught his attention was that it was not a static home page, it scrolled through several pictures. As he went through the website, one of the things he noticed was the way the departments were arranged, and that the meeting calendars were much more up to date. He also noted how easy to read the font was because of size and color. Photos of department heads and selectman, made a big difference. He liked how easy it was to navigate.
- Mr. Holmes stated his favorite website was Woodstock, and how it had a full screen beautiful photo on the homepage. Bradford’s website he liked the least. They had a black and white photo of the town seal for the homepage. Bradford had 86 options on their front page, and he had to scroll down 2x to get to the bottom. He also noted that not all of the link options worked either. Woodstock used Civic Plus for their website, and they had 6 big red buttons that were easy to see sitting back, and worked well on a touch screen. Mr. Robertson said he noticed the same thing on the ones he reviewed, and like that you could literally sit back to read them as well.
- Mr. Robertson stated we should have Civic Plus come in for a presentation on how much it would cost to re do the website with the features the board wants on it. The Chair agreed that was a good idea, Civic plus does our current website, but it is out of date because we haven’t asked them to do anything to update it, and we do not know the cost. Mr. Robertson is going to let the Selectmen know on Tuesday nights meeting that this is a discussion that we are currently having, and something we need to consider.
- Mr. Bryk chose the city of Franklin, which is one of the smallest cities of NH with under 9.000 people. Mr Bryk liked the horizontal band on the top of the page with labels like “Government,” “Attractions,” Ect. Planning Board is under “Government”. There is a 196 page document of a Master plan from 2005, and the Vision statement is 73 pages long. Franklin has been working on their 2017 Master Plan since 2014. There are 3 draft paragraphs on there for this plan, but it doesn’t look like it will be finished in the near future. The website seems structured on the home page, but then once you navigate through, there is too much text. The website was, in general, easy to navigate.
- Ms. Rosansky chose the town of Deering. She was impressed by Deering’s website, it looked nice, feels current, and their Master Plan had a nice graphic layout on the first page of it to create an almost virtual looking index with what is in the body of their Master Plan. They did their Vision statement in one page, and it was in bullets by chapter with one sentence for each bullet. This was a great contrast compared to the town of Nelson and their website. Their whole website was basically 3 pages, town election results, and town budget.
- Chair McEwen had Hancock and Stoddard. Hancock was the first one she discussed; she liked the categories being on the top with a drop down menu option, as well as the photos. The contact information was clear for each department. There was a calendar on each page, which was nice but not necessary to have on every single page. The search component was not helpful with finding the Master Plan itself, but the data was there, and the research and meeting minutes were all there, but she could not find the actual Master plan itself. Not sure if it is because the Master Plan is currently being redone, or if it was error on her part. Stoddard had nice font, nice color, easy to get more information. They had all the contacts for the departments, and she thought overall it was a good website for a small town. They did have their Master Plan on there, it was not too
long, and she printed it out for reference.
- Ms. Allen chose Dublin and Peterborough. Dublin’s website home page had text broken up between sentences on the home page. All the information on the Planning Department was from 2012, and the Master Plan was done in 2017. It was hard to navigate through the text, in terms of where they are in the Vision statement, and the highest employment discussion is the education there. The front page took her 15 minutes just to get to the Planning Board. They put every single comment from every town member who filled out a survey on there for their Vision Statement. Peterborough’s website she liked. It didn’t have dramatic pictures on it, which she thought would be nice, she had printed out the land use plan which is 29 pages and it’s very well written. Ms. Ogilvie actually had written it personally, and Ms. Allen told Ms. Ogilvie that it was really well
done and written. They used a lot of maps so you could see by color where each zone was, and it made her have a real sense of the town. The maps were very easily readable. She was impressed about how clear it was, and the font they used made it pleasant to read.
- Ms. Brudnick-Destromp read Mr. Condon’s bullet points from his homework assignment on his behalf. Mr. Condon had chosen Bennington. The slideshow on the website had almost no people, making the town look “dead”, the layout was fairly clean and not busy. Overall it wasn’t anything impressive, but there was some good information on there, as well as a link to the town of Antrim.
- Chair McEwen said to throw out the ones that they did not like at all. Ms. Brudnick-Destromp will keep the ones that they do like, so when we get to the point where we need to look at choices, we have them to reference.
- The Chair referenced Kristin Bixby’s previous email about re-doing the website. Mr. Holmes had a copy of it, and Ms. Brudnick-Destromp made copies and distributed them. The information is to be reviewed and discussed at the next meeting.
Website Update/Business Inventory
- Chair McEwen said there has been no movement on business inventory. A discussion ensued led by Mr. Robertson about how some people have at home business that might not be registered with the state, but the town people know of it. Mr. Robertson stated there are 120 business that they found in Antrim, but there are most likely more. Ms. Brudnick-Destromp and Chair McEwen also mentioned of Facebook might be beneficial in helping get the word out that we are looking to re do the business inventory for the town. Ms. Brudnick-Destromp stated how since she is new to the town, she has used the “People of Antrim and Bennington,” Facebook to help her find people of all trades, and to know where to go for specific goods. Ms. Brudnick-Destromp mentioned maybe eventually putting some sort of add on there, something on the lines of “Do you have a business? Do you
have a friend that has a business? Send us your information so we can add you to the towns business inventory.” Ms. Rosansky also agreed that was a good idea. Something to be discussed further.
Other Business
- Chair McEwen addressed attendance and how it is important to maintain attendance in order to keep up with what is going on. Ms. Rosansky mentioned it might be easier if board members are allowed to conference call in to listen to meetings and participate if they were not physically able to be at Town Hall. Ms. Brudnick-Destromp also stated that was a good idea, as some members email her that they wish to be there but cannot physically come even though they are available time wise. Chair McEwen agreed it is something we should consider and look into. Ms. Brudnick-Destromp will look into finding out if there is the proper conference call machine available already for this.
Meeting Adjourned: ~ Mr. Bryk moved to adjourn at 8:13pm, Ms. Rosansky second that motion.
By a voice vote, all were in favor.
Respectfully Submitted,
Ashley Brudnick-Destromp
Assistant to Land Use Boards
| |
