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Planning Board
Town of Greenfield
APPROVED Meeting Minutes
Recorded by Janice Pack
August 8, 2016
Members Present: Paul Renaud, Ken Paulsen, Robert Marshall, Angelique Moon
Meeting Opened: 7:01 PM
Minutes: The minutes were read by PRenaud, and 2 changes were made. AMoon motioned to accept the minutes as amended. This was seconded by KPaulsen, and all were in favor.
Mail: SWRPC Commission Highlights newsletter dated July 2016
Kokals application for Lot Line Adjustment & 2-Lot Subdivision (includes check #2563 for $370, list of abutters and labels, and 4 sets of drawings)
An email from Catherine Shaw regarding the new deed changing ownership of the Kokal property
A flyer from the NH Timberland Owners Association
A postcard from the NH SFI-SIC regarding an upcoming event
Old Business – PRenaud spoke to Lisa Murphy regarding the Master Plan. PRenaud asked RMarshall if a new contract had to be drawn up to do an entirely new chapter. RMarshall wasn’t sure. PRenaud said it should be able to be done by the end of the year, and cost about $1500. RMarshall said that one of the reasons we hadn’t done a Natural Resources chapter was because the Natural Resources inventory had not been done, and there would be a cost associated with that. PRenaud said that ConComm was moving forward with that, and if we had money left over in the budget, we could help them. LMurphy said that by putting in a Natural Resources chapter and an Energy chapter, the town would be in a better position to get grants. This could be a joint project between this Board, ConComm, EDAC and
the Select Board. As we move along with the Energy chapter, we’ll look at the Solar Energy ordinance. LMurphy told PRenaud that she had brought in a box with all new binders that had the updated chapters and maps in them. RMarshall showed the Board the box of binders, which do have five chapters inside, but they are not the updated ones.
The Accessory Dwelling Units law (ADU) is mandated by the state, and we do need to make some changes to comply with this. Will have more details on this later. In the Zoning Ordinance, under Section III Districts, A. 2f, a change needs to be made – Business District is incorrectly referred to as the Center Village District. On page 7 the Lakeside Village District should be how the Center Village District ordinance was before the changes were made. This needs to be changed as we intended to make changes in the Center Village District but not the Lakeside Village District. PRenaud will make these changes.
Event Tracking Form: We reviewed 2 suggested forms; the basic difference being 1 page or 2. It was decided that we need to add some instructions, such as “events greater than 25 people need at least 14 days’ notice” for Police preparation, and any other preparations that the Town may need to make. AMoon suggested that we take the opportunity to include other instructions, such as information regarding permits and reminders of the offsite caterers’ notification. PRenaud said that the offsite caterers’ form is not something we would be enforcing, and AMoon said it could still be a reminder that one was needed. The Board decided if it were a small event, a minimum of 5 business days would be required. AMoon drew up an Instruction Sheet that could be used to make it easier for someone submitting the
Event Facility Record and Tracking Form to be in compliance. In discussing the process, it was felt ideally that it should be done online.
RMarshall said that the information requested on the Form were really things that the business owner was tracking as part of their day to day business. He asked if we had changed our plan on how and what we were tracking. AMoon said that in collaboration with the Police Department, this form was developed to make sure that they had the information they needed to successfully manage the safety of the event.
RMarshall asked who was going to do this. He said that the Select Board has already voted to redesign the Town website. They are about to make some changes to make it easier for the citizens to interact with the Town, so the timing may be really good. Back to the process, since Catherine Shaw is the starting point for the physical forms currently in use, PRenaud will talk to her about this form, too. Until the website is able to accept this form, they need to be done in paper form. The form can go to CShaw who can give us the original, and make copies for Mike Borden and Brian Giammarino. It was decided to adopt KPaulsen’s format, which was one page, and to include the instruction page as well. PRenaud will speak to CShaw about this.
PRenaud asked about the submission numbers and the sequencing thereof, and if we still wanted to have these. AMoon felt that we couldn’t really implement that until the form was online, and until that time, we would have to add any numbers by hand. For now, we could just eliminate that.
Moving on to the Subdivision Regulations and the Site Plan Review, PRenaud had a list of things that he wanted to go over. The Board began with a review of the Subdivision Regulations and after discussion, several updates and changes were suggested, including:
- Section III.C: Completed applications shall be filed with the Office Manager during regular business hours at the Town Office.
- Section III.D: Change 144 hours to 5 business days for any formal notification to the applicant
- Section III.K.2: Add “Planning Board Secretary” under signatures
- Section III.K.2: “shall be paid in advance” was questioned, as there is really no way for the applicant to know all of the costs up front. There are application fees and approval fees. It was suggested to change “shall” to “may” but after review of RSA676:4 Id1 the decision was made to stay with “shall”.
- Section III.L.4: “No individuals shall visit property under review” was discussed (#4) and the Board decided to ask the Municipal Association what their opinion was.
- Under M.3, “when the applicant has failed to specify” RSA 676:4a I(c) was reviewed, and PRenaud asked all to review it further. It was suggested to add “or the successor to the applicant”.
- Under M.4, 4 years is actually 5 now.
- In section IIIG on conditional approval, it says if the applicant does not comply with the conditions of the approval within 6 months (page 3) the approval is considered null and void. This appears to be a discrepancy or contradiction with Section III.M RSA 674:39 (to revoke conditional approval when a time period is not specified) was reviewed. PRenaud said that you can’t have open ended conditional approvals. There needs to be a reasonable amount of time given for compliance or the applicant should come back before the Board. It was decided to review M #3 and decide how to deal with the discrepancy, and return to this at the meeting September 12th. PRenaud will ask for Legal opinion on if you fail to comply with conditional approval, is the time limit 2 years?
- Subdivision Application page 1 “applications are filed with the Planning Board – change “filed with” to “submitted to”.
- On the fee table, we would not know how much it would cost to get a consultant or technical review, so that should not be included in the upfront application fee. A “preliminary consultant assessment” would be different from an engineering study. Change the advertising fee from $50 to “as incurred”.
- In the Site Plan Review, Section VII is no longer being considered in the application review phase; we are considering it in the deliberation phase. Add to the end of the first sentence in Section V.A.4: “…based on Sections I and II of the Site Plan Review checklist.” This is stated in our Rules of Procedure.
- Section V.A.5: Change 90 days to 65 days to concur with the RSA. (RSA 676:4 V(c)). Also change RSA reference from 646:4 to 676:4.
- Section VI: Copies shall be sent within 72 hours – change to 5 business days.
- Should the language regarding Site Walks from the Subdivision Regulations be copied and put under Procedure? It was agreed that it should be, and then it was discussed where the best place was to put it. It was decided to insert as B under Section V.
- Section XII.D: change 4 years to 5 years as previously discussed. Section XII.C: Get legal opinion as in item #8 above.
- Under Scope of Review PRenaud is proposing adding 2 more items. He will email these to the members for review. He is also considering adding a section for activities not subject to Site Plan Review. Discussion to be continue at the September 12th meeting.
A motion to adjourn was made by RMarshall, and seconded by KPaulsen Meeting Adjourned: 9:50PM
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