GCC MEETING MINUTES
October 13, 2005
Attending: Carl Shreder, Tom Howland, Mike Birmingham, Paul Nelson, Steve Przyjemski, Laura Repplier
11 MARTEL WAY
Reps: Costy Ricci, Owner; Mary Rimmer, Rimmer Environmental Consulting; Ken Knowles, Meridian Engineering; Nancy McCann, Attorney
Mary Rimmer – Donation options were floated to Commission members via email. Option 1 – A cash contribution to the Conservation Fund or turtle study. This would be the cleanest way of contributing directly to ongoing programs needing to be supported. We could donate $5,000 to either of those. Option 2 – The Camp Denison bridge – The gravel road before the lodge has a bridge constructed with 24” pipe & telephone poles, and an earthen bank. This area experiences ongoing problems with rainstorms causing wash-out into the culvert. Option 3 - Bailey Lane Conservation Area illegal road – need to get rid of the asphalt. The applicant can grind & remove the asphalt then loam & seed that area. Can the fill be taken out? It may not be
feasible. Costy Ricci is worried that the fill is not clean but he could remove the asphalt. If there are other options we could discuss them & consider.
Carl S – Any there any other suggestions?
Steve P – Those were just random ideas developed this week.
Mary Rimmer – What is the Commission’s reaction to that approach?
Carl S – This is a little different for us. Mitigation usually relates to something next to the site in review, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be that. We want you to be assured that the Commission isn’t for sale. You can’t buy your way out of our regulations. The Camp Denison bridge is something we have been looking to address as well as the illegal road at Bailey Lane CA. Does anyone have any other thoughts?
Costy Ricci – The Bailey Lane CA road - we’re looking at a 200’ roadway x 20’ wide? Just pulling the asphalt out, looming & seeding? With a planting scheme?
Carl S – Yes, and also a trail scheme.
Mary Rimmer – Could you use the old roadway as a trail?
Carl S – That could make sense.
Costy Ricci – It would be feasible to do that. Plus $1k for plantings as well.
Steve P – It isn’t actually our land yet.
Carl S – Attorneys from both sides are working out the differences with the P&S but we’re sure it will go through or go back to court.
Tom H – You have done your homework & I like their approach but I’m still uncomfortable with the parameters of the building. This proposal is a square peg in a round hole. If you can’t make it smaller – it is 3x the size of your other site.
Costy Ricci – We’re jammed into the other site. This is 135’ x 70’. What if we make it 130’ x 70’ and propose mitigation?
Carl S – The area at the entranceway doesn’t matter so much.
Costy Ricci – We are between a rock & a hard place.
Paul N – I drew a 50’ buffer zone all round the site – a 25’ setback is no good. 50’ is the usual no-cut zone. I laid it out on the plan. We have lost 1300 sf of 50’ buffer with your proposed plan. I cut 10’ off both dimensions of the building which makes a tremendous difference to the buffer zone. (Shows plan with his amendments.)
Paul N – Then we would only have 2 triangles of buffer we’d lose.
Ken Knowles – Everything is determined by the septic. We can push the primary field back but it would only be halfway in between.
Carl S – We can’t get 50’ everywhere, no matter what given the current project size.
Steve P – The silt fence is at 25’.
Ken Knowles – You can’t put the building that close to a septic field. That would give a 12’ high retaining wall instead of 5’. We could probably get 45’ away.
Paul N – If you break up the series of infiltrators you will get close to 50’ on the Martel side of the property.
Costy Ricci – The project would be dead for me at that point – I’d lose the storage.
Paul N – You’re only losing parking spaces.
Ken Knowles – But we need those for zoning.
Carl S – Let’s look at reducing the dimensions by 5’ all around.
Costy Ricci – 53’ is the longest truck we would use. It would be best to bring the cab inside as well, but there isn’t enough room for that. But we could deal with that.
Mary Rimmer – We could plant additional trees to make up for the extra work area.
All - Long conversation re various changes to the proposed building, work areas, storage areas, position on the lot …
Costy Ricci – This proposal is probably not any larger than what we have at our current site. I don’t believe this is exactly what he said. The building is clearly much larger (X2). I believe this was only in reference to the outside storage. Though they certainly have much more asphalt parking at the proposed site.
Paul N – You would have to gerrymander the infiltration areas & outdoor storage areas but the area would then be very equivalent to the current facility.
Someone asked a question about the retaining walls here. Mike??
Mary Rimmer – The only impacts would be the ret wall. Once that is in there is no chance of any other encroachment beyond there. Once the wall in is there for good the wetland is protected.
Mike B – The wetland on the other side is the one we’re concerned with. Do we have 50’ on the S side but the rest is not. It’s not feasible to get closer to the access.
Ken Knowles – A 5’ reduction of width gives an overall reduction of 350 sf .
Carl S – You will never get 50’ everywhere.
Paul N – We worked with that, factored it in. We are looking for best achievement towards that as a goal.
All - More conversation re changes to placement & dimensions.
Costy Ricci – We can give you 5’ at the S front. We can pull it all back to that point.
Ken Knowles – That would give 35’ at the closest point, 50’ at the end of the wall.
Costy Ricci – We’d be cutting 10’ all together.
Costy Ricci indicated that they were giving up considerable from original plan.
Paul N – Your original project wasn’t buildable on this site due to numerous setback violations.
Costy Ricci – We have offered a good mitigation plan – it seems fair.
Mary Rimmer – There is minimum disturbance outside of the retaining wall. There will be no disturbance to the wetland while this is being built.
Steve P – What replanting plan are you proposing?
Mary Rimmer – There is no reason to have grass. The area would be left to go wild with conservation mix – has shrub seeds in it. We would also add smaller shrubs which would establish more easily.
Carl S – Are we still talking about mitigation if we go with this plan? It’s a bit difficult to wrap this up as the Bailey Lane land isn’t ours yet.
Paul N – I don’t think this is enough reduction of area. There are things you can do with this lot. They are not pleasant but it can be done. Not sure what this sentence fragment meant.
Nancy McCann – We are proposing what we need for the business. We can put a cost amount on the Bailey Lane project & put it in escrow.
Paul N – You won’t change your plan?
About here Costy Ricci indicated he would cut 5’ off of the West end (closest to Martel) of the project. This is the area containing the outside storage.
Nancy McCann – We can’t do that.
Carl S – Run the numbers on a finished plan so we can agree what’s on that plan. You have offered to reduce the footprint – that’s appreciated. Let Paul Nelson look at the new footprint. You may have to accept limitations on running your business.
Costy Ricci – There is only 15–16sf of storage out at our current site. We can’t get around out there. Our neighbor lets us use his back way but otherwise we couldn’t get around. On this site the trucks will be backing into the building so we can’t use it for storage. This proposed plan gives me 2 very small areas of outside storage. My current building is 70’ x 70’. My forms are in outside storage now.
Mary Rimmer – What do the other commissioners think of the proposal & mitigation?
Carl S – I would entertain it while taking a look at our concerns & seeing whether we can get a foot here & there. We won’t get 50’ all around.
Paul N – The last project that had 25’ setback was under our old bylaws so we would be setting precedent for our new bylaws with this project.
Carl S – True.
Costy Ricci – Across street from the site is an Auto Body shop within 50’.
Carl S – Yes, that was built under the old regulations, most likely just before it expired.
Mary Rimmer – There will still be variances.
About here Costi Ricci offered 7.5’ off the west side of the proposal (that closest to Martel). He agreed that they would apply this to both sides of the road. To accommodate this, the infiltration areas were to be moved around.
Carl S – We are looking for best practice. If someone has not tried to give us best practices that creates an issue. Nobody wants to follow the regulations / bylaw.
Mary Rimmer – Your regulations are very strict. You will continue to see projects that can’t comply.
Paul N – We are concerned with the cumulative effect of all these projects. Everything is presented as a project & not viewed as a part of the whole.
Mary Rimmer – This is a 9 acre lot – most of it will be protected. We are looking into a Conservation Restriction on that for an extra layer of protection for the future.
Mike B – Water shifts so much, once the area get it locked in with a Conservation Restriction it doesn’t matter where the wetland goes.
Tom Howland – If I was sure this was a good faith effort, I would be more inclined to go along.
Carl S – We’re still at the conceptual stage. We want to protect as much as we can. We won’t get 50’ everywhere. Our goal isn’t to prevent the construction of a building but to protect wetland.
Steve P – We have to see what we have talked about tonight on a plan. Show us that you are moving things away from the wetland. Include a planting plan.
Carl S – This has to be a final plan for us to vote on it.
Nancy McCann – Are we at that point? Should we spend the money to draw up a new plan? Will it be acceptable?
Either Steve or I asked for the new plans to be submitted the week of 10/9 so the ConCom would have enough time to review them and allow for another cycle of changes before being presented as the final plans.
Mike B – It would be good to have it over 29’.
MOTION to continue to Nov 17, 7:30 – Tom / Paul / Unam
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