Planning Board meeting minutes February 28th, 2008
Meeting to order: 7:10 P.M.
Meeting adjourned: 8:36 P.M.
Members Present: Cindy Hoogs, co-chair; Brian Puntin, co-chair; Maggie Leonard; Stephen Rose
Public Present: David Hellmann (Attorney), Dana Bixby (Architect)
· Special Permit request- Doug and Julie Neu are requesting a special permit for property purchased on Bidwell Road. They are seeking to tear down and existing 800 ft cottage and replace it with a year round cottage. The project is currently non- conforming. The cottage is 15.45 feet from the road with 194 feet of frontage and .47 acres. To amend this they purchased the adjoining piece of land, which is .197 acres. With the addition of the new lot the frontage is increased to 238 feet and as a result makes the lot conforming. The position of the new structure will be moved back from where the suggested tear down is currently located a total of 25 feet. The
total lot coverage will be 5%. The new structure will consist of two stories with a walk out basement. The first floor will be 830 square feet. There will be 1500 square feet of hard surface total. The height of the structure will be approximately 20 feet and the existing three bedroom septic will still be used. Although the planning board does not see a problem with the plan at this time they express their wishes to discuss it and then write their finding. David Hellmann requested that the board make a strong recommendation to grant the special permit as he sees this helping out his process with the other boards that are also involved in the process. Cindy recommended that they approve the proposal and that the board will write the findings and forward it along to David.
· Previous meeting minutes- The January 10th meeting minutes were approved as written. The January 24th meeting minutes were approved as written.
· Seven Stones- Cindy has to recluse herself on any topics concerning the Seven Stones property due to a conflict of interest. She has taken the appropriate steps and filed a letter with the town clerk accordingly. Seven Stones is proposing to open a children’s camp for the summer. An email was sent to their attorney David Lazane as well as an email to interdepartmental secretary Melissa Noe to inform all involved parties that the planning board will not have a quorum for this topic and as a result no decision can me made before March 6th.
· Mail- A letter was received from town resident Michael Storch that he is no longer available to fill one of the vacant seats on the planning board. Various solicitations were received. A notice from the town of Great Barrington regarding a public hearing concerning Cumberland Farms as well as local hotels was received.
· Vacancies on the Planning Board- The selectman decided that it was best to wait until after the upcoming elections to fill any vacant spots currently with the Planning Board. The question came up as to whether or not the board should return to being a five-member board rather than a seven-member board. Cindy sent a letter to Jeremiah Pollard questioning the legalities of this move. The board is currently waiting for his reply. With a board of five members a quorum would then become three instead of five.
· Public Hearing- The Planning Board will hold a public hearing regarding the common driveway bylaw on March 27th at 7:00 p.m. The hearing will be announced in the Berkshire Record for two consecutive weeks prior to the hearing, March 7th and March 14th.
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