December 14, 2021 | Town Admin TOWN OF SUTTON Pillsbury Memorial Hall 93 Main Street Sutton Mills, NH 03221 PLANNING BOARD Draft Meeting Minutes for Tuesday December 14, 2021, at 7:00 p.m. Chair Wells called the meeting to order at 7:00pm and took roll. ROLL: Roger Wells (Chair), Chuck Bolduc, Glenn Pogust, Christine Fletcher, David Hill, Peter Blakeman ABSENT: Dane Headley OTHERS PRESENT: Peter Stanley (Land Use Coordinator), Kristy Heath (Recording Secretary), Barbara Hoffman, Priscilla West, Gary Watkins, Emily Wilmott, Shawn Lilibarte, Gary Fitzgerald In the absence of Roger Wells, who arrived late, Vice-Chair Glenn Pogust called the meeting to order at 7:00pm and took roll. There was a quorum. PUBLIC HEARINGS: Peacock Hill Road, LLC, Formal Application for a 7-lot Cluster Subdivision. Continued Public Hearing Jock Belanger, surveyor for Peacock Hill Road, LLC was there to represent the applicant. He said that Peacock Hill Road, LLC wanted to continue their hearing until the February meeting. It was moved by Peter Blakeman and seconded by Christine Fletcher to adjourn the hearing for the Peacock Hill Road, LLC until the Planning Board meeting scheduled for February 8th 2022. The motion was approved unanimously. Priscilla West, 17 Prescott Lane, New London was requesting a site plan review for her Sutton property, which is the old Sutton Mills general store building. The bottom floor of the building has been used as a commercial space in the past and she would like to convert it to a residential space. The septic will allow for an additional one-bedroom residence. Priscilla said she would like to request the following waivers: for listing the location and size and for the lighting. There are two lights on the side of the front door and they will stay the same for the storm water management plan; nothing will change outside at all to provide the topography in 2’ intervals; there will be no change to the landscape for the utility plan; there will be no changes to the utilities Priscilla said when she applied to the ZBA in August of 2018 there were some approvals but since she is changing the space to residential, she has had to bring things up to code. They could retrofit the entire building with a sprinkler system or to do a fire barrier between the first and second floors. She has chosen to install a sprinkler system throughout the building. The people she has hired to do this work have spoken with Sutton’s Fire Chief Cochran to understand the requirements for the town. Chief Cochran spoke with the State Fire Marshall, who approves of the plan. The final plan is yet to come but the details have been figured out and the chief is OK with what has been suggested. Peter Stanley said the 2018 variance approval for a multifamily dwelling had conditions needed to be met: sign off in writing from fire chief on fire protection issues; sign off from DES to comply with septic issues. Both of those things have been met at this point. The applicant will have the final approval for the sprinkler system when the town receives the design. Chair Wells arrived at about 7:10pm. Priscilla said the septic issues were resolved that day at 4:15pm. She replaced the system in December of 2019. It is a Clean Solutions system and it was designed by Bob Stewart. Bob worked with DES and asked them to reconsider the bedrooms in the house. Currently there are two bedrooms in the cottage next to the main building, a 3-bedroom apartment upstairs, and a 2- bedroom apartment in the back. The septic also had some allowance for the commercial space. If they took away what was allowed for the commercial space and change it to residential, the capacity would have been too much. She asked that DES consider the two bedroom be considered a one-bedroom apartment, as it is very small and always rented to a single person. The new apartment will be a one-bedroom apartment as well. DES sent their approval that day that this will suffice for the septic. Priscilla summarized the approval from DES: They have approved an amended septic plan. As it was submitted years ago, they put an amendment stamp on it and the adjusted load on the septic system. There was also a letter that was provided by someone at the subsurface systems bureau. Peter Stanley said Priscilla had come in with an application for another variance. Some work had already been accomplished in the downstairs where they wished to convert commercial into residential living space. He contacted town counsel to determine if the two-year condition applied in this case or not. (if the variance is not executed in 2 years, the variance goes away). It was decided that she was still within the timeframe of starting and completing the work. There was some discussion on load and how many people can live in the apartments. Glenn said that the septic is only approved based on the number of bedrooms, not the amount of people. It is not the town’s purview to monitor this. Chair Wells said if the septic failed, the health officer would take responsibility and get in touch with DES. Chuck asked how the sprinkler system work with a well. Priscilla said she had to pay extra for some tanks and a pump system to be installed. It was moved by David Hill and seconded by Christine Fletcher to open the public hearing on the pending site plan review. The motion was approved unanimously. There were no comments. It was moved by David Hill and seconded by Christine Fletcher to close the public comment portion of the hearing. The motion was approved unanimously. It was moved by Christine Fletcher and seconded by David Hill to waive article VIII-1I regarding lighting. The motion was approved unanimously. The waiver is granted. It was moved by Christine Fletcher and seconded by Peter Blakeman to waive article VIII – 1M regarding the stormwater management plan. The motion was approved unanimously. The waiver is granted. It was moved by Christine Fletcher and seconded by Chuck Bolduc to waive article VIII – 1N regarding providing topography of the area to the Town. The motion was approved unanimously The waiver is granted. It was moved by Christine Fletcher and seconded by Peter Blakeman to waive article VIII – 1O regarding the provision of a utility plan. The motion was approved unanimously. Chair Wells asked Priscilla to explain the parking area on the map. She said the parking area in front of the cottage can fit about six cars. Another parking lot parallel to Grist Mill Street fits about five to six cars. Peter suggested that asking tenants to park head-in to this area works best and the area should be striped once/year. The parking area on the left had traditionally been used for the commercial space. She would imagine that the same amount of parking would be needed for a couple who are renting a 1-bedroom apartment. Peter Blakeman said he recalled that in the past, the owners of the building had attempted to make the apartments into condos and one tenant was afraid that there wasn’t enough parking for them. Priscilla recalled that this was about 15 years ago and she didn’t remember anyone being worried about parking. Peter said that this was because he knew the tenant personally and she had voiced that concern to her. He said that the applicant needed to make sure that there would be sufficient parking. Chair Wells said that it would behoove the owners of the building to put up some parking signs explaining that the parking is reserved for certain apartments. Chuck said he didn’t really want to see a lot of parking signage up in the village. Glenn suggested that if parking space wasn’t a problem with the renters and the owners, they may not need signs. David suggested putting small signs on the building that says “private parking only.” This may look better than a bunch of signs on posts. Peter Blakeman said it might be useful to at least have the parking areas defined on a plan somewhere so their tenants know that they have spots available for them. Priscilla said that when tenants come in, she tells them where their parking area is. She said there haven’t really been any issues. There were no further questions. It was moved by David Hill and seconded by Roger Wells to accept the application for the Site Plan Review contingent upon there being two 1-bedroom apartments, one 3-bedroom apartment, and one two-bedroom cottage per the approved amended septic approval and that the fire chief signs off on the final fire suppression plan. The motion was approved unanimously. ADMINISTRATIVE: Approval of Draft November 9, 2021, Meeting Minutes. It was moved by Christine Fletcher and seconded by Chuck Bolduc to approve the minutes of November 9, 2021 as circulated. The motion was approved unanimously. Master Plan Chair Wells asked if anyone got a copy of the latest draft of the plan from the Regional Planning Commission. He asked how people felt about it. Glenn said the maps have been re-orientated to go N to S and have been color-coded in a better way for easier reading. Chair Wells wondered what board members thought about announcing the plan in the Intertown Record. He would like to meet with the 10 groups they met with initially to review what the Planning Board has come up with. He and Glenn will ask to have a few minutes of these various groups’ regularly-scheduled meetings to review the document and solicit suggestions. Chuck suggested the map should have a North arrow and a scale. Glenn suggested everyone download the most current version and review the document. They are at a point where they are just about done. Christine said she found a few typos. It was suggested that a draft version should be put on the website and that they have a dozen copies printed for the town office for people to review it before the public hearing. Chair Wells said meeting with the groups may take a couple months and would begin after the new year. Any changes they decided upon would be made, and then the draft could be posted and advertised. The public hearing may be in February but no one knows what the date would be. There is no vote needed by the public to pass the master plan; the Planning Board votes to pass it. There was discussion about zoning ordinance changes (proposed) and how many would be included in the 2023 ballot. They want to make the cluster subdivision changes a priority. Close behind would be the villages and also what is to happen at Exit 10. Chair Wells said that once the master plan has been passed, he would like to encourage the Board of Selectmen to assemble and fund an economic development committee. Chair Wells thought that the new Master Plan was a good opportunity to make some good changes in the town. Peter Stanley said people are starting to build high-end homes around Sutton’s water bodies. That is how the neighboring towns make a lot of revenue in taxes. Chair Wells said that they want to stress that they are a friendly community; they want people to live here who also volunteer here and are invested in the community. This doesn’t always happen with part-time residents. With no other business, Chair Wells called for a motion to adjourn. It was moved Roger Wells and seconded by and Christine Fletcher to adjourn. The motion was approved unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 8:08pm. Respectfully submitted, Kristy Heath, Recording Secretary Town of Sutton