Planning Board Minutes

PB Minutes of 10-3-24

October 3rd, 2024

Town of Carroll Planning Board
Meeting Minutes
October 3, 2024
5:00 PM

“These minutes of the Town of Carroll Planning Board have been recorded by its secretary. Though believed to be accurate and correct, they are subject to additions, deletions, and corrections by the Planning Board at its next meeting when the Board votes its final approval of the minutes. They are being made available at this time to conform to the requirements of New Hampshire RSA 91-A:2.”

Planning Board Members Present: Alex Foti, Austin Alvarez, Jules Marquis, Ryan Peffer, Paula Murphy

Public Present: Fire Chief Jeff Duncan, Police Chief Tadd bailey, Carol Alvarez, John Greer, Mark Vander-Heyden, Greg Dorsey, Evan Karpf, Kevin Leonard, Soner Tunay, Ed Talbot, Mary Carter

Minutes Taken By: Steffanie Apostle

Item #1: The meeting was called to order by Alex Foti at 5:00pm

Item #2: Pledge of Allegiance

Item #3: Attendance taken; Quorum Met
• John Greer was there as a private citizen

Item #4: Approval of Minutes – September 5, 2024
Austin Alvarez had (1) correction to the meeting minutes. On page 8 in the 1st paragraph, we should remove the word “then” and just start with the word “meeting”
Alex Foti & Ryan Peffer recused themselves from approval of meeting minutes as they were not there. Jules Marquis made a motion to approve the minutes as amended and Austin Alvarez seconded the motion. Motion was approved

Item #5: Mark & Greg Dorsey Lot Line Adjustment Consult – 57 Michaels Way
Mark Vander-Heyden introduced himself as the surveyor for Mark & Greg Dorsey. Mark Vander-Heyden was present with Greg Dorsey. Mark Vander-Heyden presented drawings with the requested lot line adjustments to the Planning Board. There were (4) parcels involved; (2) were Mark Dorsey’s and (2) were Greg Dorsey’s. These lots are in LLC’s. These parcels were created by a 2003 Palmer Group subdivision and subsequently they were sold and developed to the Dorsey Brothers. There is a vacant lot but (3) out of (4) of the parcels have houses on them.
Mark Vander-Heyden said in the course of Greg Dorsey doing his due diligence to get his permits and plans of his parcel, some boundary work was done and it was realized that a boundary line went right across the parcel (Red Line) so Greg Dorsey pursued and purchased the property from the Palmer Group and did a voluntary merger to merge both parcels and now Greg Dorsey would like to do some lot line adjustments.
Mark Vander-Heyden then spoke about Mark Dorsey’s lot. They are rebuilding the cabin that burned down on that property which has frontage but his other lot does not so Mark would like to adjust some his lot lines to allow frontage on both properties to the river.
Alex Foti confirmed with Mark Vander-Heyden that the lot line adjustment for Mark Dorsey was not changing any of the total acreage but just the shape and Mark Vander-Heyden confirmed that.
Mark Vander-Heyden then spoke about another parcel of land that was Greg Dorsey’s that was originally (1) piece but due to the river moving and changing its course it has naturally subdivided the land and Greg Dorsey would like to convey that subdivided piece of parcel to Mark Dorsey. Mark Vander-Heyden had spoken to Franco from carter graphics about how they could handle the situation and Franco said they could either leave it as is or it could be assigned a separate tax number.
Austin Alvarez & Paula Murphy both inquired about access to the separated lot
Mark Vander-Heyden said they would need to Kayak down the river that it is a unique situation but it is still a parcel of land
Alex Foti asked the board if they had any other questions
Mark Vander-Heyden then asked what they should do about the land
Alex Foti said it would be a matter of what the Town wants to do. Alex Foti wasn’t sure it would make sense to separate the parcel because you can’t do anything it
Jules Marquis asked if that would be legal to keep them as one parcel because they no longer touch
Mark Vander-Heyden said it was the river that made the subdivision, it was a unique situation
Jules Marquis said they may want to call it (2) parcels because they are now separated
Mark Vander-Heyden said that was kind of what Franco had said, assign it a new tax number.
Jules Marquis asked of the water reached the houses during the flooding
Mark Vander-Heyden said the water did not reach the houses as they are up very high. Mark Vander-Heyden did not put the flood lines on the drawing as that is more Zoning, but on the map the lines are 5-foot contours each and its about 20 feet high.
Austin Alvarez asked if the application was submitted
Steffanie Apostle said it was
Mark Vander-Heyden said the notices had gone out for a formal hearing
Austin Alvarez said the next meeting on 11/7/24 would just be a quick review
Mark Vander-Heyden said the other thing he wanted to make clear was everyone had been notified and the next meeting was just a continuation
Alex Foti said that the current meeting was just a consult, the next meeting will be the hearing. Alex Foti asked Steffanie Apostle if the notices that were sent out where for the current meeting or the next meeting
Steffanie Apostle said the notices went out for the current meeting because she thought it was a 10-day window and not 21-days because it didn’t have to go in the paper. Steffanie Apostle asked if she should resend the notices with the next meeting date
Alex Foti said she should resend them
Austin Alvarez asked Mark Vander-Heyden if he anticipated any changes on the application
Mark Vander-Heyden said he did not

Item #6: Evan Karpf Consult – Change of Use 529 Route 3 South
Alex Foti said he thought that this was an application and not a consult
Steffanie Apostle said it is an application but the same situation as the others, we hadn’t met the 21-day deadline so they will all be consults tonight.
Alex Foti recused himself from the consult as he is an abutter to the property. Vice Chairman Austin Alvarez took over the meeting for this consult
Evan Karpf presented a drawing of the footprint of the building. Evan Karpf had outlined in red the section of the property he would be talking about. The area had been used as a medical office and Evan Karpf wants to change it into an apartment. It has a 2-hour fire barrier that was designed and built to specifications of the State Fire Marshall so its actually considered a separate individual unit. All of the other spaces in the building are apartments so Evan Karpf is just asking for a change of use from a medical office to an apartment.
Austin Alvarez asked him what it was Zoned as
Evan Karpf said residential business
Austin Alvarez asked if the other apartments were going to stay the same
Evan Karpf said they will be staying as is. Evan Karpf said we were not seeing the current design of the other apartments on this drawing but they were all approved already. If you were looking at the building to the far left both of those units #1 & #2 are 1-bedroom apartments that were approved. The next one would be #3 and that is a single apartment. Units #4 & #5 are 1 apartment. This one would be #11, #6 & #7 and had been previously used as a medical office. #8 is 1 apartment, #9 & #10 is one apartment and upstairs is a 3-bedroom apartment. Evan Karpf said the unit in question has 3 egresses but would still need to be approved by the Fire Chief and Building Inspector.
Austin Alvarez asked Evan Karpf if he had consulted with the Fire Chief yet
Evan Karpf said he had not yet but seeing that it had a 2-hour fire barrier makes it a separate building by fire code. The design had been done years ago and was designed by the State Fire Marshall for the medical office
Austin Alvarez asked if the board had any questions
Jules Marquis said it looked straight forward
Evan Karpf said it wasn’t any different from the other apartments that were already approved. All of the apartments have a 2-hour fire barrier from the roof down to the crawl space
Austin Alvarez asked if he had put in a site plan
Evan Karpf said that there was no change in footprint. It just needs approval and then he can go to the Building Inspector & Fire Chief
Austin Alvarez asked Evan Karpf if he had any questions
Evan Karpf said he did not and he would be back next month, everything was copasetic
Paula Murphy asked if the septic was adequate enough for the apartments
Evan Karpf said the septic was actually over built for the building. If you were looking at the building all the way to the right there was a fairly new very large septic system that he had to put in to meet the medical practice and then in the back to the left side is another septic system so the septic systems were far greater than what he needs for that building and they are maintained and pumped regularly.
Austin Alvarez said if there were no other questions at the next meeting the site plan will be up for the boards review and if it is complete at that meeting there would be a follow up meeting for the public hearing and approval of the application.
Evan Karpf asked if he should leave the drawings or take them back and bring them to the next meeting. Evan Karpf took the drawings and left (1) with Steffanie Apostle and thanked the board for their time

Item #7: Jules Marquis Consult – Site Plan Review
Jules Marquis presented to the board a Site Plan review of the Ammonoosuc River Campground. Jules Marquis said there had never been a Site Plan for the campground so he wanted to get one done and get all the property lines done at the same time so he could put some cabins in at the campground.
Alex Foti asked if anything else was changing
Jules Marquis said that everything on the Site Plan is already existing. Jules reviewed the Site Plan with them and where the current tents and sites were. The cabin Jules marquis wants to put in will be 14 feet by 20 feet with a porch that was 5.5 feet by 20 feet.
Austin Alvarez asked about the comfort station on the Site Plan
Jules Marquis said that was a bathroom for the campground. Jules Marquis said that some time in the next year he would be applying to put in for (4) different cabins, he may not do all (4) but wants to put in for them so he can get that squared away
Paula Murphy asked if there was going to be any running water in the cabin
Jules Marquis said there would be no water or septic for the cabin, it would be electricity only so if a camper wanted to plug a T.V in or WIFI they would have power to do so.
The board said it looked pretty straight forward and to come back for the 11/7/24 meeting for approval.

Item #8: All Other Business
Austin Alvarez said he had presented the 2025 budget to the Selectboard. It was pretty much the same budget as 2024 but they added to 2025 the remaining balance of the Master Planning to be encumbered into 2025. As of now there was about $28,000 left but there could be some bills before the end of the year.
***
Alex Foti said it was that time of year to start thinking about amendments for 2024 so we are not thinking about them in November with only a few days to finalize them. Alex Foti said he had made a few notes throughout the year of things that have come up in the meeting and writes them down. Alex had (4) things he thought should be addressed.
1) The option of adding a second residence on a single lot to increase density of housing
2) Currently Bretton Woods does not allow campgrounds even though they have one
3) Residential Business & Industrial do not allow kennels
4) Guidelines for what maximum occupancy in a unit should be
Jules Marquis had also written down a few things he thinks should be addressed.
1) He would like to add more clarification on the definition of garage such as: A building with garage doors used for automotive and miscellaneous storage. If at any time sleeping space or a food prep area is added to an existing garage or included in a new garage the space becomes a primary or secondary dwelling and must be treated as such with the planning board. (Not to include microwave or coffee pot. Possibly change food prep to kitchen area)
2) Property setbacks. This was something that bothered Jules and is very confusing to people because there are so many of them and it becomes foggy which is the front of the property which is the back of the property. Jules Marquis was talking to his son in law in Florida who has been a building inspector for 45 years and has been a building inspector for 5 or 6 towns and he said that setbacks were created in the 20’s & 30’s because of fires. Houses were burning down because fire trucks couldn’t get between buildings so the purpose was to strictly designate an area for fire trucks to get through. They are 15-foot setbacks regardless. Jules said that a person with a 1-acre lot can’t build on 1/3 of their property and they are paying taxes on it so he feels it would be fairer to reduce our setbacks so people can use more of their property. Jules Marquis would like the setbacks to all be 15 feet except for road sides which will be 25 feet for Town roads and on Route 3 a setback will depend on area as they vary from place to place (check with state)
Alex Foti asked Steffanie Apostle to add discussion of Zoning Board Amendments to the next meeting agenda.
***
Austin Alvarez said he was contacted by Omni and they were planning to come to the next Planning Board meeting to meet and discuss future plans
Alex Foti said he had to recuse himself from their last meeting but they are supposed to come back every year to discuss future plans.
Jules Marquis asked what they were coming to discuss
Alex Foti said the bubble “Temporary Building” They had come for a 5-year extension and the Board voted on a 1-year extension
Austin Alvarez said he didn’t believe there would be an application it was just an informational meeting to discuss the bubble. They have a new manager Steve Janicek who wants to put in more charging stations
***
Jules Marquis said he would like to re-write what was put in the ordinances about wetlands
Austin Alvarez said the Planning Board hadn’t approved it but the voters did
Jules Marquis said for a 10-acre lot there is a 100-foot setback and before it was 50 feet. Jules Marquis said that if you have wetlands on your property, you should be able to harvest a certain percentage of trees that are a certain size so you can get something out of your property. Not being able to touch it at all is kind of ridiculous because the property becomes useless. There is a section of Jules Marquis campground he cleared out roots and all and in 3 years there are 20-foot trees. Jules Marquis agrees we need to leave some stuff but not being able to remove anything just hurts the landowner.
Alex Foti said that was going to be a bit of a battle because many people will not see it that way
Jules Marquis said there needs to be guidelines to keep some stuff but it has become too extreme and he will work on writing something up.
***
Austin Alvarez brought up the Master Planning Survey and the Community Engagement that was on 9/25. Austin Alvarez was at the Community Engagement and said they had different tables set up for different parts of the Town and they asked for suggestions on development. Austin Alvarez said it was interesting.
Austin Alvarez asked how many surveys had been filled out
Steffanie Apostle said that North Country Council told her about 25 of them. They were going to keep the survey open through the end of the month and try to get a younger age group response
Jules Marquis said that there are no younger people
Steffanie Apostle said she didn’t even know where the younger people would hang out, there is no movie theater or bowling alley or anything like that
Jules Marquis said that was because everyone here is elderly
Steffanie Apostle said that at one of the first North Country Council meetings they were told that Carroll had the highest number of elderly people
Paula Murphy said there are no young people here because there is nowhere to live.
***
Paula Murphy then asked for an update on the Short-Term Rental letters
Steffanie Apostle said that the letters had been signed off from the Selectboard and will be going out shortly
Alex Foti asked what letters
Steffanie Apostle said they were letters to register rentals with contact info and to do a life safety inspection
Alex Foti said that was not what was approved by the Town last year; it did not include inspections
Paula Murphy said it was just to get a roster
Alex Foti said it was just supposed to be bare minimum
Jules Marquis said he thought that it did include life safety inspection every 3 years
Alex Foti said that was not what was approved
John Greer said the warrant article was approved
Alex Foti said it was approved but that’s not what was in the warrant article. There had been an explicit discussion and it was just so we have an address and phone number for contact info and that was made very clear to the Town and now we were like just kidding, it’s not going to be good
Jules Marquis said the one he originally wrote up had inspections in it
Alex Foti said the original one did but then legal pulled it out
Jules Marquis said that was right because of turmoil with the State
Alex Foti said it also had to do with other Towns losing court cases
Jules Marquis said we needed to look at what the actual Warrant Article said that was approved
Alex Foti said the Zoning Ordinances are not updated to reflect that and the selectboard can’t just do things, they need to follow a process which is the voters approve a certain language then the language gets incorporated into the Zoning Ordinance which is the law and then you can enforce them. We are skipping the whole middle step
Jules Marquis asked who changes the ordinances
Alex Foti said Legal
Jules Marquis asked if what they send back to us gets implemented into the ordinance
Alex Foti said the language that was approved at the Town meeting needs to be incorporated into a new version of our Ordinances, then that gets approved by the Planning Board which makes it effective and then we can start doing stuff
Steffanie Apostle said she would not mail out any letters until a final decision was made
Alex Foti said there were other articles approved like not requiring inspection if you were not changing the foot print
Jules Marquis said that wasn’t legal so we had to pull it because the language was contradictory to the State
Alex Foti asked if there was a motion to adjourn, Austin Alvarez made the motion and Jules seconded it.
***
Alex Foti asked if Echo Lake would fall under a non-public meeting
Jules Marquis said if it involves personnel
John Greer said it would have to be personnel, legal, contracts or reputation
A decision was made to vote and reopen the meeting to a public meeting by the Planning Board
Alex Foti introduced Kevin Leonard and said that Kevin Leonard was the Town’s engineer and was here to give us an update on Echo Lake and address concerns
Kevin Leonard said he was there to update the board as there have been a lot of moving pieces and scenarios. Kevin Leonard started off with confirming that there was a meeting with Echo Lake the next day Friday 10/4/24. After a summer of Horizons Engineering chasing around for an AOT (Alteration of Terrain) permit which wasn’t going to originally apply to Phase I but AOT made the determination that was not accurate and wanted it for Phase I also; Horizons has now received their AOT permit for both Phase I & Phase II. AOT also said that work in Phase I should be put in now so Horizons Engineering is able to resume their work and they are pushing to complete the AOT work which is completion of the fire ponds, (2) of which they are rebuilding from existing ponds for drain criteria along with trying to complete a punch list. Kevin Leonard did receive a review letter from Cathy Conway at Horizons Engineering that he had not fully digested yet but was able to quickly read through. There were some things such as Cathy Conway can’t as-built the fire ponds yet because they are not completed and some other big wig items that are relying on construction being complete which made sense to Kevin Leonard. The one thing that was concerning to Kevin Leonard was in the original as-built the finished grade of the road was lower than what the design was supposed to be; and by more than it should be and Kevin Leonard did not understand why. Cathy Conway has revised her plans saying there was a survey error so now the elevations are closer. Kevin Leonard’s rule of thumb for road construction is not trying to build within the ½ inch but it should be within 1-2 inches and if you do road construction carefully you can achieve this within an inch or so.
Alex Foti asked how much the roads were off
Kevin Leonard said in the latest letter Cathy Conway summarizes the deviation and the max is .48 which is nearly 6 inches; some of them are very close and then there are others that are over the 2-inch mark. 2 inches is .16 ft and her numbers are 2, .2, .03, .19, .18, .22, .25 and so on. In Kevin Leonard’s opinion some of those measurements are greater than what he would like to see and more importantly if the road is low, it means we didn’t get all the gravel we were supposed to. The built condition for the gravel was done by forensic analysis. Kevin Leonard thinks for a corrective action we should have more gravel brought in to make the road higher. This has been an ongoing issue between Kevin Leonard and Cathy Conway since the beginning of summer. Last week Cathy Conway had said she didn’t know why the roads were off so much and Kevin Leonard was scratching his head as to why Cathy Conway presented a plan in June that was prepared with all these deviations and didn’t get to the bottom of it and figure out why it happened and what was going on. Cathy Conway agreed that it was concerning and she dug into it a little deeper and now Cathy Conway has provided a revised plan which has improved the deviations but there are still some in places greater than what Kevin Leonard thinks the Town should be accepting.
Jules Marquis asked if in the future they decide they want to pave the roads it will bring the road up a few inches and are they going to need to remove the extra gravel brought in
Kevin Leonard said that the spec of the road would just be higher and that DOT is making them pave the first 50-75 feet. The paving DOT is requiring along with the culverts is on the punch list
Jules Marquis asked if they ended up putting fabric under the road
Kevin Leonard said that was not a condition of Phase I that it was a condition of Phase II which has not started.
Alex Foti said he believed it was supposed to be in key spots
Jules Marquis said he thought it was the whole road that he had brought it up and Cathy Conway had agreed that they would do the whole road for Phase II
Alex Foti said they would need to look at the approval because his recollection was it was in key spots
Kevin Leonard said that Cathy Conway was resisting the specifications along with the underdrainage. With these subjects Cathy Conway didn’t want to say “They should go here or here” and in Kevin Leonard’s mind there is general criteria where you would automatically put it in and you may specify it with specific stations and then have a statement that says “we will revisit it at the time of construction to see if there are any other areas that may require it.” The way it shook out with the approval was that Cathy Conway didn’t want to specify where but she agreed that North Point Engineering during construction in collaboration with the Highway Department would specify where it goes.
Jules Marquis said he could remember the night they talked about it and either Greg Hogan or Scott Sonia said they would put it everywhere. Jules Marquis said he has yet to see it on a plan after that so that was why he was inquiring about it
Kevin Leonard said he was on his 10th technical review letter for Phase II and Cathy Conway says a lot of things but execution is not her best field and that could be a compilation of things such as there is another engineer working on the project also and while Cathy Conway is the base of the project, she has someone else doing a lot of the work. On a couple occasions Cathy Conway has asked Kevin Leonard to do a conference call with her designer and herself to review a few things and try to streamline with AOT, wetlands and himself but the execution has not been met. Kevin Leonard said it was rare to have this many technical reviews on a project of this nature. From what Kevin Leonard understands they are pushing for a Certificate of Occupancy and he knows this is an ongoing subject. There are buildings that are close to being done and there is a lot of money tied up and they want to get them sold. Going back to the original pre-construction meeting at the time Dave Scalley was on the Selectboard and the building Inspector and was kind of like the glue between the Boards and was a point of contact for Kevin Leonard while they were working through that. At the original pre-construction meeting the understanding was it would be all infrastructure associated with the subdivision, roads, drainage and as-builts and then Northpoint would sign off on it and they would get their Certificate of Occupancy.
Kevin Leonard said he was not playing attorney but he was somewhat surprised because the State has a law called “build or bond” so in this case there is a bond in place for the whole sum and theoretically they could ask for a reduction as they make more improvements which they have never asked for and they have made all kinds of progress. Because of the AOT stuff they had expanded what was needed but the value of money the Town has between the gap exceeds what is left. Kevin Leonard was surprised they hadn’t pushed harder and then he urged the Board to talk to counsel. The Attorney for Syed and Echo Lake is Andrew Sullivan and he can be persistent about things and from Kevin Leonard’s perspective if the work is bonded, Kevin Leonard wasn’t sure the Town could put off the Certificate of Occupancy because of a partially built road, if it was safe so Kevin Leonard again said to speak to counsel before the Town rendered their opinion.
Kevin Leonard said Cathy Conway is being pressured and a month ago she gave Kevin Leonard and as-built and said to him everything looked fine, even though in Kevin Leonard’s opinion it did not look fine. Cathy Conway said the project was substantially complete and they should be able to get the Certificate of Occupancy now and was talking like she would be at the Building Inspectors door asking for one. Kevin Leonard did not know the status of the structures themselves, there may be bits and pieces not completed. Kevin Leonard said Phase II is going to come into play now that they have gotten their AOT approval. One of the conditions for Phase II was that it satisfies Kevin Leonard’s concerns. That list of concerns is dwindling but there is still a minor list left that Cathy Conway is working towards. Some of these conditions have to do with the Fire Chief and Kevin Leonard has been in communications with the Fire Chief to make sure they are not missing anything.
Kevin Leonard said one of his concerns that has been in all his review letters was when they bring in Phase II and make it part of the same association the current legal documents only mention Phase I. Kevin Leonard did not want someone buying a house with the understanding its only Phase I big when the reality of it is its Phase I & II big. They need to reconcile all their legal documents so people know what they are buying into, what the dues are, that there are fire ponds involved that the association is responsible for. If you look at Phase I documents that information is not in there. Kevin Leonard said Phase I is advancing and they are pushing the work and by Kevin Leonard’s sense he believes it would be before winter and they are going to say we are done we want to sell the houses which in his opinion was fine but the legal documents need to catch up with that. The HOA (Home Owners Association) has grown and has more responsibility and more moving parts and those have not been submitted yet. In August Cathy Conway and Andrew Sullivan came in with a realtor to change this over to condominiums and remove all lot lines so now we have subdivisions and rights-of-way by the HOA with (3) simple lots and duplexes. There has been discussion about who is going to occupy them and as soon as someone owns something like that State law protects them and the Planning Board can not prohibit ownership. The example Kevin Leonard used was if he were to buy one of these lots and then he decides he wanted to do it as a condo with his neighbor there is a process the Planning Board needs to act on but they can not block it. What they are asking for now is to remove all of the lot lines and say it is the same type of structure and units
Austin Alvarez said that it would technically now be twice the number of units as they would be sold individually
Kevin Leonard said we were told they were going to submit for September and be at this meeting to talk about it. That submission has not happened so we don’t know if that is happening or not.
Austin Alvarez said that they said it would take 3 months to get approval from the Attorney General
Kevin Leonard said he felt the last meeting was a conceptual consultation and the Town was right to say if that’s what you want to do it’s your prerogative but you would want a Site Plan and Sub-Division Plan which Kevin Leonard thought was right to do because it is a different thing. If they do pursue that it goes back to what we were talking about, if you are selling unit #1 you need all of the infrastructure and framework to be in place. Trying to say it is the same project with a different formality plays it off as there was no input from the Planning Board. Kevin Leonard said he had not dug into and studied how it fits into the Town Ordinances for that type of development but your usually thinking of things differently. They should be thinking about common dumpsters and recreational areas. In a planned community usually architectural standard. They were downplaying the Planning Board role.
Austin Alvarez said that you need to identify common areas and they didn’t have any of that. They have 52 units and they need to define what’s the common area that is owned jointly by everyone.
Kevin Leonard said that just because they have the number they have doesn’t mean when you plug it into your calculations of Zoning Ordinances you are going to yield the same number. You may or you may not, its not as simple as it’s the same thing; its different.
Austin Alvarez asked if it was still phased or not. As of now its Phase I & Phase II but how will that relate to the condo’s
Alex Foti said condo documents for Phase I need to reflect Phase II. The Declaration for Condominiums need to specify overall ownership structure and what can and can not be done. There are condo documents for Bretton Woods that say we might develop an additional 20 lots, that was 30 years ago and hasn’t happened, but when you buy into it you have the right to review these documents and have the right to know what the condo association may or may not do.
Austin Alvarez said at the last meeting they said it would take them 3 months for the Attorney General so that takes them to November
Steffanie Apostle said that they were still planning on submitting the documents for this meeting to have at least the application approved but they have not.
Kevin Leonard said you can’t expect the Attorney General to approve this until they have a plan that shows what they are going to do. They could have the plan and just not have showed it to anyone but the plans that we have seen are not what they are talking about.
Alex Foti said the Site Plan itself is where the buildings are but it needs to now identify common areas
Paula Murphy said she wants to find out about the septic. She looked at some of the applications and they have not submitted applications for every lot and if they have, they haven’t all been approved. A couple of the applications have been approved with the caveat should these be turned to condominiums that there were some things that have to be done differently. Paula Murphy did not know what those were but there was a sentence put in specifically stating that there are requirements that may have to change if they convert to condo’s and they need to know what those were before they submitted for approval.
Kevin Leonard said he didn’t think that Andy is able to start that 3-month Attorney General process until he has a set of plans that explain what they are doing, and if they haven’t submitted them to the Town, he didn’t think they have started the process with the Attorney General. Kevin Leonard said he wanted the Town to understand the push that they are now in to complete Phase I.
Paula Murphy asked if they were still in the process of building more houses
Kevin Leonard said he believed either 3 or 4 are partially up and they are working on the guts of them. They are modular so they don’t come complete and there is work to be done inside such as plumbing, electrical, heating and things of that nature.
Austin Alvarez said that was what Dave Scalley said at the last meeting, he said he had looked at them and they are pretty far along with that. Austin Alvarez said it seemed to him what they were doing was trying to get far enough along so that they can sell those units as condos with twice as many units as they were going to sell before.
Kevin Leonard said if they are trying to do it in the context of the bigger project, they can’t do that. They need to navigate the Town with a site plan and the Attorney General process. If they are going to say ok we are not going to do that we want to sell them like we were planning in Phase I they need to deal with the legal side of Phase I & Phase II combined before they can sell so we are not creating a problem with what these people are buying into.
Austin Alvarez said his understanding of what they wanted to do, they have approvals for Phase I and were conditionally approved for Phase II so they wanted the physical infrastructure good for the condo conversion. Austin Alvarez said he didn’t see any big problems with that but that they need a Site Plan and a Sub-division Plan for how they are going to do it as condominiums.
Paula Murphy said she didn’t see how they could continue to move forward until something concrete comes before the Board because either they are going to be doing condominiums or duplexes and there are issues one way or another. If they don’t have their mind made up, how do they continue to move forward? Are they going to come again and say we are going to do condominiums once its all built because that will create a big problem with the Department of Health.
Kevin Leonard said they are going to have to pick a path. Syed has a lot of money tied up in the site work, engineering, and putting structures up. Most developer would be ringing our throat to get the sale going.
Paula Murphy said she hopes Syed wasn’t ill advised
Austin Alvarez said that last time Syed was here he was looking to get the sales going and he assumed it was financial
Paula Muphy understood but said the Towns hands were tied
Alex Foti said it takes time to do condominiums
Kevin Leonard said he just wanted to walk the Town through and explain that even if they are staying with the same scenario they are in, they have complicated the simple scenario with Phase II stuff and from his point of view they need to resolve the whole project with legal documents before they sell. Kevin Leonard said all of this information was in his review letters he had been sending. In preparation for the meeting on Friday Kevin Leonard would try to review Cathy Conway’s latest as-built and have responses for her. Most of the things are; we are closer but he still thinks there are issues that need to be part of her scope of work to complete. Kevin Leonard said he believed the contractor would be back Monday
Alex Foti asked if it was to do things Kevin Leonard has asked
Kevin Leonard said he believes it was to build the fire ponds but he would know more after the next days meeting as the contractor will be there for that which was Kevin Leonard’s suggestion because there has been all this back and forth and occasionally, he gets a call from the contractor who doesn’t seem to be in the loop of what’s going on and doesn’t understand all of it as he doesn’t talk to Cathy Conway much.
Alex Foti asked if the ponds were also phased
Kevin Leonard said no and that there were multiple ponds.
Alex Foti said he thought there were (2) ponds for Phase I and (2) ponds for Phase II. Alex Foti said from his perspective that Kevin Leonard may be able to help them with what they can do to close off Phase I and sell a couple houses.
Kevin Leonard said there were multiple things that needed to be built that have not been and areas that needed to paved that were not paved in addition to adding a culvert
Alex Foti said all 4 ponds need to be completed for Phase I
Kevin Leonard said yes and they are ramping up work to get them completed
Austin Alvarez asked where do we go next
Kevin Leonard said they were having the meeting tomorrow and he can send a review of what was discussed. Kevin Leonard wanted to make sure they knew what had to be done and that they have a schedule. These are not normal retention basins they have 4-bays and he didn’t think the contractor had done them before.
Alex Foti asked what makes them different
Kevin Leonard said the have bio filter media which is a recipe of different ingredients put together to service the filter and pulls out hydrocarbons and things you don’t want in ground water. One of the tricks of that is you need a certain K-Sat value which is a fancy term for infiltration rate, so you need to kind of play with recipes to get a proper K-sat so its not too fast or too slow which can be a little tricky but can be done. They have an insitu field testing to make sure the product put in meets specifications. Some of the ponds are in wooded areas so some clearing will need to be done and one pond backs up to a lot that Scott Sonia is concerned about because they have to cross over a Town main water line to get to where they need to build it. Cathy Conway eventually succumbed to the idea that there needs to be easements through the private lots to these ponds that are going to be owned by the association so she has shown these easements but Kevin Leonard did not know if these easements had been prepared and given to counsel and approved. The easements might not apply if they all of a sudden take away all of the lot lines and make them condominiums so they need to decide what they are doing and what they are doing will affect what’s needed. Kevin Leonard was going to explain this to them at the meeting on Friday and if they wanted to get stuff selling, they need to complete the path on what is approved and start and complete the path for the alternate.
Steffanie Apostle asked if they took away the lot lines will they still need to drive over the main water line to get to the pond
Kevin Leonard said they do so they will still need to protect the water line which is something Cathy Conway is resisting committing to. Kevin Leonard said he explained to Cathy Conway that the Town and the Water Department have concerns and they have easement rights there so we need to satisfy them and talk to them and that has not happened. Scott Sonia said he was planning on attending Friday’s meeting and Kevin Leonard was sure he would advocate for his interest on that.
Jules Marquis said he was talking to Scott Sonia earlier and Scott Sonia has said there is one water line under one of the foundations and his plan was to have them buy a cement rig to go underneath that you can run your pipe through so if they needed to change the water line they can.
Kevin Leonard said hopefully that is a conversation that progresses tomorrow, if they put the effort into this, they can get it done by winter.
Paula Murphy asked how can you get a Certificate of Occupancy if they haven’t decided what they were doing
Alex Foti said they certainly can’t get it without condo documents
Kevin Leonard said the documents need to accommodate the bigger picture now
Austin Alvarez said the Board almost didn’t have anything to present to legal, they need something like an application or something else they could present to legal.
Kevin Leonard said when legal was involved with Phase I they were struggling to understand it and that was probably the way it was presented to them, so he had to explain the big picture to them and he thinks that may happen again
Paula Murphy said it was a big project that needs to be done right so they need to decide what they are doing
Kevin Leonard thanked the board for having him and letting him explain what was going on and what his concerns were
Austin Alvarez made a motion to adjourn and Jules Marquis seconded it all were in favor meeting was adjourned