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Minutes of Joint Planning Board/ZBA Meeting 1/2/2014 DRAFT

January 6th, 2014

TOWN OF CARROLL
PLANNING BOARD
ZONING BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT
JOINT MEETING

MINUTES

January 2, 2014

DRAFT

Members Present: Present for the Planning Board were Chairman, Donna Foster, Selectman Representative, Bonnie Moroney, and members Erik Bergum, Kenneth Mills and Dr. Evan Karpf. Present for the Zoning Board of Adjustment were Vice Chairman, David Scalley and member Joan Karpf.

Also present were William Dowling and Tara Bamford (North Country Council)

Time: At 7:00 PM, Planning Board Chairman Foster called the joint meeting to order.

The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.

Tara Bamford of North Country Council spoke. She gave two handout, 1) North Country Council’s 2013 Report and 2) a summary of their services which can be acquired on-line at the Council’s web-site.

Ms. Bamford said North Country Council (NCC) is a regional planning commission which covers 51 towns, 43 of which are members within Coos and Grafton Counties and the unincorporated places. It has a federally designated economic development program.

Ms. Bamford said, dues are a small part of the Council’s budgetary revenue and most of the money is used for mapping. The maps are then used to get federal funding to serve the towns. She said the Office of Energy and Planning (NH OEP) has block grants which started at $25,000 but has decreased to $10,000 at this time. This block grant money pays for the Planning Coordinator, the job title Ms. Bamford hold.


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Planning Board & ZBA Joint Meeting
January 2, 2014

Regarding transportation, Ms. Bamford said the federal highway money is acquired through the Department of Transportation (DOT) and this is the money that the towns receive (Highway Block Grant). The Council is responsible for seeing that each town receives what it is entitled to. This is overseen by the Transportation Advisory Committee. This Committee is made up of representatives from the towns and presently the Committee is working on a ten year transportation improvement plan. She said the DOT is also studying different plans to decide which plans must be discontinued or cancelled due to a lack of funding. She said, towns can send information regarding improvements they would like through to NCC. The NCC would apply for the funding on the town’s behalf. She said there is a formula used for determining the amount of money a town gets based on the number of miles of Class 5 roads within the town (both State and Town roads) for this State aid.

Ms. Bamford said Public Transit is one of the projects that the DOT is reviewing and it is unknown at this time what will happen with it. Also unknown, is funding for the Scenic Byways project.

Ms. Karpf asked if there is a plan for pedestrian friendly towns. Ms. Bamford said, that would start with the town’s Master Plan. The second step would be to try to get funding for a corridor study.

Ms. Bamford said, a recent addition to their “tool box” is the economic development program. She said the NCC recently took over a revolving loan fund that was failing. The NCC rescued the fund and has a committee which now oversees it.

Regarding Community Resiliency, Ms. Bamford said the Hazard Mitigation Plans and flood plain mapping, are part of this program.

Ms. Bamford said the Solid Waste Technical Assistance helps towns look at their solid waste management program. She said towns have a wide variety of plans to deals with solid waste, from curb-side pick-up to recycling. She said she did a cost analysis for 5 towns which is on the NCC web-site.

The Natural Resources Planning encompasses Innovative Land Use and also the Local Ammonoosuc River Advisory Commissions, (LAC), Ms. Bamford explained.


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Planning Board & ZBA Joint Meeting
January 2, 2014

Ms. Bamford said the Housing Needs Assessment is a required for the Master Plan. She said there is a sample on the web-site for the needs assessment and needs assistance.

Regarding Community Planning, Ms. Bamford said NCC is available for training, workshops and questions. If a town takes the lead and does most of the work on a project and NCC is just an advisor, these services are free. However, If a town wants the NCC to actually do the project, like a Master Plan, that would require a contract and fee. NCC would review an Ordinance for free since Ms. Bamford said she can do this easily as well as explain any changes.

Mr. Bergum asked about the changes to the balance sheet in the 2013 Report. He said the assets were decreased by approximately 7% and there is also a significant drop in availability of about 30%. Ms. Bamford said the change came about due to how the revolving loan program was handled. Dr. Karpf said, at the business meeting (of the NCC) he attended, it was noted that the financial position of the NCC was markedly improved going into 2014 than it was going into 2013.

Ms. Karpf asked when there is an application before the Board, does that application have to border a parcel which might cause the project to have a regional impact. Ms. Bamford said, no, it doesn’t have to be a bordering parcel that would trigger a regional impact. She said it could be a traffic or school impact that would bring about a declared development with regional impact. She said the town (board) can hire NCC as their professional planner through the project, at the applicant’s expense. She clarified this would not be for engineering oversight but just planning.

7:30 PM There being no further discussion, the joint meeting ended.

Respectfully submitted
Linda J. Dowling
Secretary
Carroll Planning Board