CHARLOTTE PLANNING COMMISSION

Guests Signed in:

John McGinnis

Holly Callery

Nancy Sabin

Jack Clemmons

Kevin C. Kearns

Laura Cahners-Ford

Nancy Walsh

Cathe Brown

Sylvia Sprigg

Moe Harvey

Linda Radimer

1. Public Hearing to re-adopt Town Plan: Vice Chairman Ed Melby convened this part of the meeting because Chairman Al Moraska is delayed. Ed gave the background:

The Planning Commission with the assistance of many people on committees and subcommittees in town, and the able assistance of our Planner and his predecessor and another consultant, labored long and hard during the last year to get together a Town Plan which was then submitted to the Selectboard in November of 1999. The Selectboard in their wisdom have decided that they have insufficient time in which to review it in great detail so they are opting to request that we re-adopt the current Town Plan on an interim basis until they have sufficient time during the course of Spring and early Summer to make whatever changes that they feel are necessary in the Draft that was submitted to them, and then to submit it to a town vote in September of this year.

Ed said he feels disappointment in their decision but the Selectboard has made this decision. He asked Planner Dean Block if there are obstacles to re-adopting the current Town Plan. Dean said the Statute does say that there should be an updating of information. There are demographics, school population etc. and some that is based on the census which is done every ten years. Some of the various data that have been updated such the as number of building permits have not yet been incorporated into it for this public hearing.

Ed asked if this update is do-able. Dean said the current schedule may not allow for a lot of updating of information.

Nancy Walsh (representing the Conservation Commission) asked if the Planning Commission has had a chance to sit down with the Selectboard to discuss their specific reasons for wanting to delay the adoption of the new Town Plan. Ed Melby said he believes that is the Selectboard’s intention, but he thinks they also realize that a lot of us are worn down. They have taken that option, he said, and that it is theirs to take at this point with whatever help we can give them.

Jack Clemmons said he had seen Selectboard Chair Marty Illick and was assured that the Town Plan had nothing in it relative to the school. He was concerned because there is only about a page and a half that relates to the school; and in fact the fire department has more in the Town Plan than the school does.

Ed said during the work that was done on the Town Plan he had sought input on all of those segments such as the school, the museum and the library. Jeff McDonald added that the Schools and Public Buildings Committee had even met with the School Board and asked for information, but they didn’t get any submittals back from their request so they did the best they could. Ed agreed they had to labor with what they had.

Nancy Sabin said that after attending the Selectboard meeting, it doesn’t feel like there’s any process for the Selectboard to remedy the problems that they feel are in the Plan. “I don’t know,” Nancy said, “ if they are concerned with anybody else’s feelings and I don’t understand that at this late date, we don’t know what this process is going to be.”

Josie Leavitt replied that Marty Illick has sent Planning Commission members a letter: “I’ll be scheduling work sessions to consider the community input to date as a complement to the Plans over goals and strategies.” So it sounds like they are going to be working on it.

In the Charlotte News, Dave Brown noted, it appeared that it was the decision of the Planning Commission to ask for re-adoption of the current Town Plan. Ed Melby said it was unfortunate that this is the interpretation because the Selectboard Chair submitted this, even though not over the Planning Commission Chairman’s signature, over his name.

Nancy Sabin asked, if at voting time the voters opt to not re-adopt the current Town Plan, does that mean the Town of Charlotte does not have any zoning and planning? Ed said it does not mean that; it means it does not have an in-place Town Plan. (The regulations from the Bylaws are still in place.) The negatives of that is that it precludes us from the ability to write for grants and contracts which might help the Town in a variety of ways.

Jeff McDonald said in reading from the “Development and Land Use Laws” it says, “Prior to re-adoption, the Planning Commission shall review and update the information on which the Plan is based, and shall consider this information in evaluating the continuing applicability of the Plan.” This is described under “Re-adoption of Plan” and that’s what this hearing is about. We haven’t done that. We have done none of this, he said, and he would like public comment on this. Another option is to simply let the existing Plan die a natural death and then to seriously work on the Plan that we worked on and drafted.

Ed noted that Dean has indicated that there are some updating of information and data that would go with the re-adoption in March but that is, as outlined, a possible scenario. The negative to that is that we are precluded from applying for any external grants and contracts that the Town could avail itself of. Jeff said there may not be anything at risk in the current year; the Town of Shelburne went through a year process and didn’t appear to have serious problems as a result.

Jeff added that if this current Town Plan is re-adopted it is in effect for another five years unless there is a petition to go through a revision process. He voiced an admission that we really ran into the end of the schedule so it didn’t give enough time for the Selectboard to take due process on this. He suggested that it would be better to go with the draft submitted and then if necessary do the updates on that instead. Re-adopting the current, ten year old plan will run the risk that we are stuck with it for another five years.

Ed asked about the possibility of re-adopting for a finite period of time, but the statutes say otherwise; unless a special vote changes it the Plan must stay in place for five years.

Jack Clemmons verified with the Planning Commission that the regulations could not have any changes unless there is a new Town Plan. The ten year old regulations are still in place and we cannot revise these rules. If we can get the rewritten Plan to the voters by November, there will be that (almost) nine months of waiting to revise them instead of another five years. Ed added that some of the regulations are even more than ten years old; they were written in the last part of the 1980's.

Dave Brown said he doesn’t feel we should take a chance on being stuck with the old plan for five years; he would rather try for September and work on the new plan but not on the old plan. Otherwise all the work everybody has done will be gone.

Nancy Sabin asked to add something to this: “In all the different meetings that I came to, there were certain areas that, no matter what the opinions were of the people present, their opinions would not be listened to by the Selectboard. There was an unspoken realization that the written word was going to be something totally different. One example is to bring in “no-build zones” from other communities into Charlotte. This is what is called ‘off-site mitigation.’ For example somebody builds a large shopping center in Winooski and with this they use the Town of Charlotte for its protected land. Somehow, it got written into the new Town Plan by the Selectboard. And yet that person on the Selectboard who authored it wasn’t even part of the committees.”

There are other examples, and she asks if any of them realize just how many hundreds of hours that townspeople put in on this draft. Jeff said that’s his point. There is a difference of opinion about what is proposed and the Selectboard feels there isn’t enough time to hash it out. The real point of this hearing today, is whether we should re-adopt the current Plan which originated ten years ago. That has nothing to do with the work we’ve done on the new plan. Do we really want to take that to the voters and re-adopt it for five years?... and we really won’t have control, or very little unless we do a petition to open it up again. Then we may be starting from zero and we might not even be starting with the document that we’ve got right now.

Nancy Sabin said she wasn’t under the impression that the Planning Commission had a choice; she was under the impression that “the Selectboard had already made that decision for you.” Jeff said we do have a choice as far as with the Planning Commission’s options. The way he reads the law under “Re-adoption of Plans,” is that we may re-adopt the plan, but prior to any re-adoption the Planning Commission has to do these certain things. And we haven’t done those. So Jeff’s proposal is to continue the hearing and ask Dean to draft the re-write; but just let the current plan expire.

Sylvia Sprigg (having just arrived) asked if there were consequences to this, and Dean explained the things that had just been discussed.

Jeff McDonald moved to continue the hearing on re-adoption of the 1995 Town Plan on February 3, 2000. Josie Leavitt seconded the motion. Jim Donovan, having just come to the meeting, asked to abstain unless the reasons could be explained to him. Jeff explained the reasons, and said that at the time we worked on the draft of the new Town Plan to submit, we had no intention of re-adopting the old Town Plan and therefore we did nothing toward updating it. Ed asked if there were further comments from members or the audience.

The vote on the motion was taken and it was approved, 4–1 with the chairman not yet present and one member absent.

2. Review of Minutes for December 16, 1999 and January 6, 2000: Jim Donovan was the last one to vote on these minutes, and added his approval vote to the rest. Dean Bloch noticed some additional changes such as the fact that there was one less member present in the number of approval votes on one of the motions. He also suggested rewording the explanation of the description of the Thibault’s septic system which members agreed to. Al Moraska, having arrived and assumed the Chair, moved to approve the minutes of December 16, 1999 and Dave Brown seconded the motion. The motion was approved 5–0 with one member abstaining and one member absent.

January 6 minutes: The western boundary of the Wulfson property fronts on (one of the names) Dowd, rather than Dow. Jim Donovan suggested re-emphasizing the description of the restricted area that is along the edge of the conservation strip (to a total of 33+ acres). The house that could possibly interfere with a view corridor is identified by the Lot number instead of “the first house in.” A clarification that the percentage of open space that is acceptable at this time is made. The neighbor, Dan Luce, lives on the same side of the street rather than across the street.

Jim Donovan clarified a comment Ed Melby made: It is the responsibility of the Planning Commission to check the road frontage and review the building envelopes (rather than the lengthy sentence in the statement that was reported). Further on, “It was also the recommendation of the Conservation Commission that since the wildlife was on the west part of the lot it would be better to move the building envelopes closer to Dorset Street.” And Jim asked to add that “The Planning Commission agreed with this location which resulted in the building envelopes closer to Dorset Street.”

A few paragraphs down, it was Linda Hamilton rather than Linda Radimer who said some of the ways to protect the viewshed is to cluster the homes, and the rest of that paragraph is struck except to add that the presence of wildlife has greater value than the viewshed protection (according to the Conservation Commission).

A further discussion about viewpoints that were made relating to the site visit, has a sentence added at the end of that paragraph discussing the option of moving the building envelope a little bit to the south to accommodate the view. After “Planning Commission members voiced agreement that it might work,” Jim asked to add the addition, “We did voice a concern, however, that this could affect the new screening that may be added to the front of Lot 3.”

In the approval motion given by Jim Donovan for the Rose Aube Estate, it was corrected to reflect that the application is actually that of Gary Wulfson Subdivision at this time. Number 3, instead of “the building envelopes” we substitute the word “plat.”

The Ryerson/Finch discussion there is a change from “a sign” to “the sign” in the decision to accept the change of conditions.

Item #8, the discussion was of the Town Plan and not the Village Plan. The Selectboard is asking the Planning Commission to put the current Town Plan up for re-adoption.

Al Moraska moved to approve the minutes of January 6, 2000 with the changes made. Jim Donovan seconded the motion and it was approved, 6–0 with one member absent.

3. Marjorie Major / Geraldine Cohen – Sketch Plan Review for Minor Subdivision on Prindle Road: John McGinnis represented Gerry Cohen. Marjorie Major owns approximately 200 acres on Prindle Road and the intention is to split that almost in half. There is a natural tree line and swale. Marjorie had concerns about the new home that Gerry Cohen would build so the proposed building envelope ensures privacy for both.

The proposal is to build the home with between 900' to 1000' setback from Prindle Road. As part of the agreement between these individuals they would be limited to one additional lot each, but that would not be able to take place for ten years. They like the larger pieces of acreage and at the present time neither of them want to subdivide anyway, he said.

Ed Melby asked if Marjorie Major is continuing to have her beef cattle there, and John said that she does. She owns the existing house and barn.

Jeff McDonald asked whether the overall area has some forest and large pasture. Larger maps were perused for location of land features. Nancy Walsh, as a representative of the Conservation Commission, said that the wooded area is considered critical wildlife habitat so that is what we need to be mindful of. She said Linda Radimer and Dave Brown are familiar with the area.

Dave Brown said he is generally familiar with it and stated that it runs next to the A. Johnson property. The lot is apparently being split east and west and the property is close to the spot where Prindle Road has a 90° turn.

John McGinnis said both the parties want to preserve most of the property as open land and they are taking part in the Forest Stewardship program.

A site visit is recommended for Saturday, January 29^th at 9:00 a.m. Gerry Cohen will still be out of State but John McGinnis will be at the site visit.

Ed Melby moved to continue the Major / Cohen Sketch Plan Review pending the site visit, to the meeting of February 3, 2000. Dave Brown seconded the motion and it was approved, 5–0 with one absent and one not here yet.

4. Lavalette Farm / Charlotte Land Trust: Moe Harvey displayed the plans as proposed by Civil Engineers, Inc. The intent is to describe the location of the septic design on an approved project on Lot #3. The access is along the recreational easement and the purpose of this application is to identify the location. There are no structures on the property and an existing farm road and right of way are the access to it.

In the original decision the Planning Commission was supposed to approve the final plans for this. Nancy Sabin asked about the capacity. Moe explained that there are two systems; one with 900 gallon capacity and one with 1100 gallon capacity. The Land Trust reserved the 1100 gallon system and the one with the 900 gallon capacity is for the Town Hall, the Library and the Fire Station.

Jeff asked that the location of the sewer access easement and its dimensions be recorded on the plat, with the corners of the septic easement identified. Nancy Sabin said she would like to see some stakes in the ground to identify the location because when one of the engineers was down there, he did not realize that Dr. Braun owned the adjoining parcel on the north. Jeff said a similar thing had happened to him; a replacement field was incorrectly mapped for his property.

Nancy Sabin said she is concerned about whether the railroad will be using that area for a future dumping station for the railroad’s chemical toilets; it is more dangerous to the land for it to be used for disposal of chemical wastes than to use it to dispose of ordinary sewer waste.

Dean Bloch summarized for Moe, that the dimensions of the sewer easements and the access easement as well as the corners of the septic area, be shown on the map.

This was a Sketch Plan Review, so Moe has to come back again after it is warned for Site Plan Review.

5. Discussion of Village Master Plan: There was a discussion about the qualifications criteria that the Planning Commission would use to select a consultant. A proposed list of priorities for such person was also discussed to be used by the candidate selected. Dean Bloch related the places where he has submitted advertisements for the position.

6. Budget Discussion: Al Moraska received a copy of the Selectboard’s proposed budget for the Planning Commission which appears to have been slashed by $23,000 from the Planning Commission’s and Zoning Board’s requests. Much of that seems to come from the thinking that there will be no new Town Plan; however there are other issues such as the perceived disparate difference in pay raises slanted against the Planning Office compared to other town departments. The Planning Office’s legal expenses last year were $8,100 yet this year that budget is only $2,000.

Apparently the post of Deputy Health Office has been eliminated. We will have to tell Louis Cox not to take any of the duties related to that position. The memberships and manuals budget appears to lose as well, with the inability to receive up-to-date information that the department needs for research at risk. Dean Bloch said this budget would not take place until the fiscal year starting July 1^st.

Several members came up with compromise changes and Al Moraska will attend a scheduled daytime Selectboard meeting scheduled for Friday afternoon in order to at least present our ideas. Other members of both planning and zoning will probably attend the final meeting about the budgets Monday evening.

7. Holly Callery request: Dean filled in with the background. There is a subdivision modification where part of the Haight’s lot was split and proposed to be sold to the Callerys and one of the conditions stated, “It is noted that if further subdivision is sought for the 71.9 acre parcel in the future, the resulting lot shall likely be required to use a shared curb cut on the East Thompson’s Point Road.”

There is an existing right of way from Route 7 and that’s where Holly doesn’t want to restrict that, Dean said. Holly related that after speaking with her attorney, she wants to request that No. 3 of the conditions be removed or modified. She said she doesn’t believe it pertains to Howard and Jacquelyn Haight’s lot.

Holly brought out a photographic map, to explain why this is a problem. When she first bought her property from Howard and Jacquelyn Haight they drew some straight lines and bought 28 acres. There is a pretty place with the trees that she pointed out but she realized there was no access to it, so she bought an additional strip as a right of way. What she didn’t know at the time was that her right of way strip held the only area that could hold septic.

Howard wanted to sell this property next to her strip of land but found it had no septic capacity. The reason why she cannot have this deal (and without some kind of change in this condition she will not buy the parcel), is that the only access from East Thompson’s Point Road would be across a wet area or a ravine, or in another place, a pond.

Jeff McDonald said the reason that condition was put there, was in case some future person (if the land gets sold, for instance) may want to put several homes there and the Route 7 access is just not feasible for that many new homes to have access there. Holly said she envisions at the most, two homes in the future using that access. Entering into this equation is the fact that several things are beginning to happen on the Charlotte Berry Farm such as the new Little League park. What they had gotten from Clark Hinsdale, III when they sold that piece, was the right to access a highland she pointed out on the map. There is a pond there now and she would have to go across that pond. She said it is steep land and even if she goes to the expense of building a bridge, she does not want to go across that, which she sees as something to preserve as wild land. Leaving this condition as it is, she is afraid that in the future the Planning Commission will say that is the only access she can use.

Jeff said the only thing this condition says, is that it is likely and he doesn’t see that as restrictive. But Holly thinks the word “shall” in there does make it restrictive. Jeff said if she comes in with a proposal that makes sense any Planning Commission would take a fresh look at it. Holly repeated, “shall likely be required.” It does not say “will likely be requested.” Josie asked if those words were acceptable as the latter wording appears not to be quite as restrictive.

Dean reminded folks that this is not a warned hearing and Holly wanted to get a feel about what the Planning Commission wants to do before the appeal time runs out. Jeff said he doesn’t have a problem with taking the word “required” out and substituting it with the word “requested.” Jim Donovan wanted Holly to realize that the Planning Commission is thinking ahead in case a future land owner may want to put several homes there, that they could not use that access from Route 7. Holly said if she put six houses in there it could pay for that bridge (over the pond). Jim added that even though Holly’s intentions are good and they agree with her, she may not always own the property and must keep in mind that someone may want to get a bigger access through there in the future. Because of this the Planning Commission doesn’t feel that we can eliminate the condition.

Al said it appears the main objection is to the word “required.” Holly said that’s one, and the other is to the word “shall.” Discussion continued about future alternate proposals for that right of way (on Route 7) and they want to be sure to keep it limited. Jim suggested it could be changed to “will likely be requested,” or the alternative “may likely be required.” This can’t be done without an official hearing on the subject. Holly was going to make some decision as to how she was going to proceed.

8. Executive Session: Jeff McDonald moved to go into executive session to discuss issues raised by personnel. Josie Leavitt seconded the motion and it was approved, 6–0 with one member absent.

9. General Business: There was a short continued discussion concerning the “re-adoption of Plan” and Jeff said it was on page 259, “Re-Adoption of Plans.” This says, “The Plans shall expire every five years unless they are re-adopted according to these procedures.” There are some other things but it goes on: “Prior to any re-adoption the Planning Commission shall review and update the information on which the Plan is based.” And we have not done that.... “And it shall consider this information in evaluating the continuing applicability of the Plan.”

Jim put this in perspective of how he perceives Jeff’s goal to be: The Plan, if re-adopted, is good for five years and even though it may be possible to adopt something to supercede it at any time, it may happen that there would be no incentive to adopt a new one. The only way to amend it is to get a formal petition vote or to repeal it. This forces the issue; the ultimate goal is that we would rather live with no Plan in order to make sure that the new one goes in, rather than to re-adopt as an interim measure, the old Plan.

Jeff said we really shouldn’t be afraid of losing the old Plan. We went through a process and may have blown it because we weren’t able to meet our schedule, Jeff said, and he agrees with the Selectboard feeling they don’t have enough time. But we really should respect the public input and drop the old Plan and then keep pushing forward with the new one.

Jim said, “Explained that way, I agree with it much more.” Jeff said he is not saying he doesn’t care about the opinions of the Selectboard; they just didn’t have enough time and any of us would not have decided that any other way. Jim agreed; they didn’t have enough time to address the comments.

Because of this, Ed said, we can’t work on the Bylaws. Jeff agreed that’s right, but we can’t do that anyway until the new Plan is in place. Jim said we could always work on them. Jeff said we do depend on the Plan for maps but we can still roll those into approvals.

Jim suggested that we report that “We agree with the Selectboard that they need more time to work on it, but think there is a different way to do that than what they propose.” Dean said we can begin working on the Zoning regs. or the subdivision regs. but they probably wouldn’t be ready to be adopted anyway.

At 10:00 p.m. the decisions for Clemmons, Thibault, Wulfson and Ryerson were considered and with one change, signed by Chairman Al Moraska. Then Jim Donovan moved to adjourn, and Dave Brown seconded the motion. The vote was unanimous.

APPROVED BY THE CHARLOTTE PLANNING COMMISSION