Monterey Planning Board
February 8, 2007
Minutes of the Meeting
Members Present: Brian Puntin, Cindy Hoogs, Janet Cathcart, Maggie Leonard, Stephen Rose
The Planning Board meeting of February 22nd has been moved to February 15th.
The Minutes from 1/25/07 were amended and approved.
The budget request form from the Finance Committee was worked on.
The Select Board has asked the PB to consider having a separate special town meeting for zoning issues in June instead of in May. The May annual town meeting is when the town budget is discussed and approved.
The PB overall felt that this should be open to discussion and not yet come to a decision. Partial impetus of this was that the zoning issues to be brought up are small in nature except for the Common Driveway (CD) issue, and even this topic may not take much time. Another concern was that many people may find it hard to participate in two separate meetings.
Cindy Hoogs made the point that after the town public hearing the PB would have a better idea of whether the CD bylaw changes are provocative enough to warrant a separate time.
Maggie Leonard reported that Melissa Noe responded to the letter from the PB. Melissa said that it would be a rather difficult task to determine which building requests from the previous five years had been denied a permit. Maggie explained that we did not expect Melissa to pursue such a task, and the PB had been hoping for simpler means.
Maggie also reported that the letter to Jerry Scully concerning dock lot control still hasn’t been answered. Jerry is currently in the process of retiring. Janet Cathcart felt that we should wait until the next Town Counsel is in place before pursuing this line of thought further.
Brian Puntin presented his 2nd draft of CD bylaws. Many changes were proposed.
The PB needs not go to the fire department to check to see if the CD is sufficient for emergency vehicles because the minimum requirements will live up to that.
Stephen Rose offered that a copy of the CD permit be sent to the police chief. Maggie and Janet disagreed. Stephen pointed out that West Stockbridge required the police chief to be included. W.S. stated that the PB shall consider the views of the police department. Maggie pointed out that currently the police do not receive any permit requests. The decision was then made to not require a copy be sent.
Maggie felt the point that a CD does not constitute frontage should be very explicit in the bylaws. Town acceptance of a CD does not make it a town accepted road.
Maggie pointed out that subdivision control says that dead-end roads can’t be longer than 500 feet. Of course, that deals with roads that create frontage. CDs will most often be dead-end roads, but they won’t be creating frontage, and therefore they are allowed to be longer. Also, the dead-end must end in a certain way. Must have a turn-around with outside diameter of at least a hundred feet.
Maggie wondered if 16 feet is a large enough width for the road. Brian pointed out that no vehicle on the road has a width more than 7', otherwise you need a wide load sign. Further, he said, there are roads in town that don’t allow for people to pass that in the winter you can’t worry about getting stuck in the ditch.
Janet wondered if for a four lot or less should the cul-de-sac be required. Cindy said definitely on a five to eight lot as they are dealing with a lot more traffic. Maggie offered that is a perfectly good thing to ask Maynard about.
CD Signage discussion on whether the road name is used as an address or not. Brian pointed out that current residents on CDs do use it as their town address.
Brian offered to draft a CD permit application form. This led to thoughts on the protocol for paper flow. How many forms are necessary? If a permit is accepted, what is returned to the applicant?
Brian questioned why a CD permit application should go to the building commissioner. When the applicant goes to the commissioner he can show the approved CD permit at that point.
Maggie put forth the question, "Where should the CD information go [in the bylaws]?" Definitions will have to go into section two and the bulk of it will go into section 7, general regulations. 7C - first signs and parking requirements and then CDs, everything else will be pushed along.
Janet, Cindy, and Maggie met with BRPC. Out of that meeting came the Master Plan Committee Structure and a public flyer, the latter having been presented to the attendees of the first community conversation on the night of February 13.
Janet brought up the question of what will happen when Maggie is no longer the chair of the PB. Will she continue on as the Master Plan Advisory Committee (MPAC) chair? Janet's suggestion was that the new chair of the PB will become chair of the MPAC with Maggie staying on as co-chair. Maggie returned that she would be fine with whatever decision people make. After further discussion most people felt that Maggie continuing as chair of the MPAC is acceptable after she is no longer the PB chair.
Maggie brought up the Community Conversation scheduled for Tuesday the 13th at 6:30pm; what flyers to put up, what to talk about, and what papers to hand out.
Meeting adjourned at 8:45.
Respectfully,
Jason Dunlop
Planning Board Secretary
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