001Okay, good evening everybody. Welcome to the April 1st, 2025 meeting of the Lichfield uh planning board. Would you all please stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] Okay, we'll start with the roll call of members. Michael Carter, chair. Jared Okonnell, vice chair. Jerry Robert, secretary. Steve Dennis, electron's rep. Russell Blanchett, member. Travis Tucker, member. Thank you. Thank you. Jesse no alternate Riley member. Welcome everybody. Um with us this evening uh is Jay Manara from NRPC our circuit writer. Good evening. And we have with us Joan McKimman our planning board assistant. Um appointment of alternate members. It looks like we have a full board this
002evening. So I will not be appointing alternate members tonight. Um, public input on non-aggenda items, items not on the agenda for this evening. Anybody have any public input on non-aggenda items this evening? Okay. Hearing none, I will close public input on non-aggenda items. And we will go to number one on our uh agenda. uh a sign permit for a nine square foot sign at uh 502 Charles Bankraftoft Highway for Co-op Auto dealership. Uh wholesale car dealership. No vehicles for the business at the property. The owner of the property 502 Charles Bank Highway LLC, Linda Jacobson. Fees have been paid. The sign is not illuminated. Therefore, a butters do not need notification. Okay. Is the applicant present this evening? All right. Why don't you folks come up at the table? You can introduce yourselves to the
003board. State your name and address. And I'm Linda Jacobson. I live at 6 and Cake Drive, Lichfield. Okay. Good evening. Hi. My name is Mileo and I live at 94 Tabel Street in Manchester, New Hampshire. Okay, welcome. Um, so Joan, the fees have been paid. Um, we did not have to notify Butters for this one. Um, and um, Jay, did you have an opportunity to take a look at this uh before they have hearing? Yes. And everything looks good to you? Yes. Okay. And um I imagine there will be no regional impact regarding this. Uh so I will put that on the record. Um so I guess we have to accept this application for its completeness. Um as you heard we um have fees paid. We did not have to notify given the uh issue
004is not an illuminated sign. Um and the plans have been submitted to Jay. He has reviewed them and it seems as though they are complete. So, I would entertain a motion at this time to um uh accept the application for its completeness. I feel so moved. Okay. I have a motion by Jeremy. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Russ. Any further discussion? The placement. All right. All those in favor of motion to accept the application for this uh sign permit, please signify by saying I. I. I. Those opposed, abstained. Motion passes. What we got here? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0. Okay. So, um this is a signed permit. Um they do fall under our zoning ordinance. Um so, I guess what I'm going to have you do, folks, do is
005um maybe talk about a little bit about what you're planning to do um with the sign and um if the board has any questions, um we can address them as per the ordinance. And I believe that is the zoning ordinance 1500. Yes. Deals with signs. So, if you're looking for that information from the board's uh purview, uh that is under the zoning ordinance for the town of Blitzfield. So, okay. So, the floor is yours. Well, the sign's going to be placed in the same place as my original sign is, but below it. Okay. On the posts. So, your your current sign will stay, and then this will be just an addition to it below. That's right. Okay. And um do you have a what the size of the sign is? What the height of the
006sign is? Do you have anything like that rendering or something? I'll be um copy. Yeah. Just put it up on the board. Scroll down. So the DMV um requires the um signs to be 10 inch letters. Um yeah that that's all they are required but because of the name of my company um if the name is shorter than that um that wouldn't have been as big as 9 ft uh square feet but there's really nothing I can do to that right now but we can make it smaller if that's going to be an issue but I think um this is this is what is going to come up as um in regards to size okay the final sign will be made by Classic Signs in Amherst, New Hampshire. I've already talked to them and the
007same colors, the same colors that you have. Um, I mean, the color might be different depending on what's going on, but I don't color doesn't really matter. We're going to just talk to the sign company because we want to make sure it fits properly. Do you know what size letters your uh current sign has? I don't know off the top of my head. Yeah, it'd be useful for comparison purposes. Yeah. No, I don't know. Yeah. Hopefully, it matches, but it doesn't have to match. Well, we'll coordin we'll talk. That's why we're going to both meet with the sign company to try to make it look right. Yeah. Your sign's been there for a long time, right? 20 years. 20 years. Yep. Any issues with lighting for the sign or No. And now it just have
008to be visible from both hands. So it's going to be front and back. Okay. But so it says no vehicles for business at the property. So you're just going to be a basically it's going to be an office and you're going to be wholesaling cars. So my business is uh primarily done online. Okay. So, I'm not going to be bringing fiscal cash to the um to the premises. Got his businesses registered with the Department of Transportation. So, I just want people to like they're going to say it's a car dealership, but they're not going to see cars out there for sale. No, it's not going to look like your typical Yeah. Cuz I'm not I'm not really allowed to sell to the public. And the rental agreement will say no cars. Can I ask would
009it make sense and do in your current location where you are do um do you have a sign or no? This is a this would be a sign. Can you say that again? Sorry. um where you are currently um before you moved to this place. Um do you have a sign there now or that's the sign? This is the sign there now. This is so I sure you can I mean you just mentioned that it's going to say auto dealers or auto dealership but there's no cars there. So, I'm wondering if it makes sense um the way if I'm I'm looking currently at um the map screen of the property and what um Miss Jacobson's sign has where her name is in font and then below it um is what you do I guess. Yeah,
010certified public account in in smaller font. And I'm wondering if because it's on a main road and because you want to probably avoid confusion and people constantly pulling in and out of your driveway thinking that there might be cars either there in the front or in the back that maybe below where it says auto dealership you have in a smaller font or something that says something to the effect of wholesale only or wholesale business or I don't something that that indicates basically Don't just be driving on my left. I I can just imagine some nightmare scenario where you've got people turning in and turning out constantly thinking it's an auto dealership and you're right there at the intersection where Albuquerque comes up and I I would hate for you to kind of be looking out
011there being like, "Oh my god, what are all these people doing there?" Um, yeah, it's a it's a bit misleading, but just simply the name. I mean obviously the state requires it but uh it is misleading. Do you know do you think there'd be room to put wholesale when you meet with the we can ask just put some ask if we can put something like wholesale another word that describes it wholesale maybe we should just that becomes a problem though we can we can do that something the state want to make your sign be mandates what he should say too I mean they mandate 10in letters and the state yeah the state mandates 10in letters so we have I don't know if we can put smaller letters at all. No, they won't take that. It
012has to be same size. We'd have to check with the state to see if they'd allow smaller letters. I think because it says it right in there. They said unless the uh city the town um objects to the 10inch letters, then we can make it smaller. Oh, yeah. I don't have an issue with that being the size of of what is mandated. I just wonder if in addition to it, right below it, you can have some other lettering so that if people do kind of pull up in front of the property like, "Oh, oh, I want to go car shopping today." We're all Well, if there's room from the bottom of her sign to the to the to the surface, then maybe. But you can only have one freestanding sign per lot. Yeah. So, like
013no vehicles on site or something. Yeah. I'm not trying to complicate things. I just think that it it's a good point. You know, you do what you do, but I think the general public will have a different perception of it. If if that sign wasn't there, we would never even know the business existed there. Yeah. Exactly. Right. But the state says Yeah. That's kind of one of those things where it really it's illogical because you're not going to have if anything you'll have your own personal cars one or two or whatever, but it's not going to be a typical dealership, right? But this says, "Oh, it's a dealership, but there's not going to be any cars there." Do they require the word dealership? Yes. Okay. Oh, they do. Okay. I mean, no, they they do
014not. So, I can take that out, but that's going to cost me, you know, I have to um redo a lot of things. my bond, you know, my my registration, my So, it's because your name is Yeah. Yeah. All that auto dealership that is the formal name. Yeah. You may want something like to the effect of like I don't know like no inventory, no physical inventory, wholesale only. Something to that effect that it'll indicate to the public you don't have inventory on site. Okay. I think wholesale office is what makes sense to me. M even when you say wholesale too. A lot of people don't understand that word. They still think you sell cars there. But that has never been a problem where I am right now. No one has ever driven there to look
015for cars. But I understand this is on the road. Yeah. You know, there's like no site or no onsite sales. Yeah. It's all online. Put online sales. I mean the the DMV may not, you know, want that um additional, you know, um information there, too. Linda, did you hear what Jay said? Like no on-site sales, something to that effect. Yeah, we can do no on-site sales. No, no onsite. No on site sales. Yeah, that's a good one, too. Or we can say something like um no uh say to the public because I'm not allowed to sell to the public. So just so from the way I interpret RSA 261 that wouldn't have to be in 10inch letters. So that could be smaller because that just says um only the display the business name of the
016dealer and letters no less than 10 inches in height. So, I think any kind of additional stuff could be really small, right? Other than the direct name. That's what I was thinking. Whatever fits on there. Yeah. Okay. And what is the I guess I'm sorry. What is the makeup of the sign? Um, is that sign some from another dealership or another That's from his other location. His other location. Yeah. Out of Fight. Okay. That's What would the What would it be made of? Is it I don't know. just um is it just a metal? Yeah, metal sign. Okay, it's a metal sign. But I can use anything. I can use um plastic. I can use um Oh, I think I want to use something that's going to um be durable and last for a long
017time. Well, I'm the what I'm thinking is is the the complements the character of the zoning district and you know you know the surrounding land uses. So, just want to make sure that it fits in. Um, this building Linda already addressed that at the beginning. Um, it is her property and she said she was they're going to have a professional make the sign and they were going to try to conform to her existing look and feel. I think the quality of the makeup of the sign is more important than the material sign. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I've used classic signs for a long time for other locations I have that have signs. So my business because everything they do comes out nice. Anybody have any other questions? Jay, did you have anything you want to add?
018Uh, no. I think you know otherwise size-wise it meets the requirements. I think we know where it is. It's going to be on the existing sign, you know, structure that's out there now. Okay. No additional comments. Okay. Um All right. If there's no further, unless there's more questions from the board, um I'm going to open it this time open it up to public comment. So, uh if there's any members of the public that wish to comment on the site and application, um obviously there's no one here. So, but we have to do it for our rules. So, um at this time, I will close public input. Um and we'll bring it back to the board unless the board has any question. What would the board like to do? make a motion to approve it um
019or conditionally approve. What What would you like to do? Well, trusting Linda's judgment and having been here for a long time as a business owner and a property owner, I'm comfortable moving forward with without an exact rendering of what the site will look like because I feel that she understands what what we look for here. Um, so did you want to make a motion to Yeah. So, I'm happy to make a motion. I just wanted to preface it with that, but n that's fine. Make a motion to um to grant the signed permit for a 9- foot sign at 502 Charles Bankraftoft Highway for Koope. Is that correct? Auto dealership. A wholesale car dealership. No vehicles for the business at the property. Okay. I have a motion by uh Lisa. Do I have a second?
020A second. Have a second by Jared. Have a further discussion. All right. Take a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I. Those opposed, abstained. Motion passes. 7 0. Okay. Very good. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to town. Nice meeting you all. Put that in the Okay, moving on to the next item on the agenda, which is review of the planning board bylaws. Um, should have received copies of that, I believe. Yeah, they're in the portal. Um, I don't know if anyone had an opportunity to take a look at them, have any suggestions, any changes. This is usually the time of year when we review them. Um, see if there's anything that, you know, we'd like to change or or, you know, feel needs to be
021addressed or anything like that. So, on the agenda this evening. So, um, it may be that some of you may not have anything to address. Um, but I just put that out there. So, last year the only um question was if we wanted to modify the secretary/clerk role. Yeah, that's what I was just reading. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have any strong opinions. Okay. I think it's hard for the secretary of the board, secretary clerk of the board to make the agenda because they don't have privy to what's coming in, what the cut offs are, all that kind of thing. Yeah, that and the minutes was the two things we talked about last year, right? We could clarify that the role only applies when the board does not have from the staff. Yeah. And we can
022say if if staff uh help is present that does not apply. Well, right in the first sentence it describes that it shall be the responsibility of the secretary clerk to maintain the minutes and records of the board with the assistance of staff as may be available. I think we've covered that already. Yeah, maybe it should be reversed. Yeah, we felt last year. I mean we could maybe move that up and or bold it but I think it is covered essentially. Yeah. Prepare agenda. What about the the language in here like the secretary clerk shall prepare the agenda for regular special meetings of the board. Provide notice to members record names president meeting notes to hearings. Yeah that first sentence does only list some of the requirements. Mhm. with assistance of staff. Right. So maybe if
023you add in the um absence of staff assistance, the secretary clerk shall prepare blah blah blah. Negative in there, right? Yeah. Yeah. And we can make that small revision. Okay. All right. So what would the uh revision read? So the second sentence would begin with where it says now the secretary/clerk shall prepare. It would start with in the absence of staff assistance, the secretary/clerk shall prepare, etc., etc., etc. And then remove the first sentence, right? No. Oh, I I believe the first sentence. I think the first sentence stands well on its own. No need to change it. Second one just will clarify the negative. Yeah. Okay, that works. Typically in I know in other towns, specifically in Massachusetts, um the clerk or the secretary is usually the one that opens the meeting. So when you
024have an an agenda, they're the ones that will usually when I, you know, we do the roll call and all that stuff. That's all done by what they call the clerk of the works or the secretary. Uh secretary would also take the votes and do stuff like that. Um we don't really have that formality here. Um usually it's the chair that does it. So but just throwing it out there. That's they do it in Hudson. They do it in Hudson. Yeah, the secretary clerk actually calls the ro. Calls the role and records. So some towns still do that and then records all the votes. Would we want to You've been the chair for I think Mike I think Mike did a great job. Would you want to divide out some of what we do? I'm
025just I'm just throwing it out there. I I know that that happens in in other towns. So I figured I'd just say it. But um no um it's fine. I mean if you guys it's up to you guys. whatever you want to do. I'm f I'm, you know, happy. If we want to, we can make it an option for the secretary/clerk to do that. It may not make it a requirement. I don't have a strong opinion on that. I don't think it needs to be in writing. No, I agree. You'll step in as necessary, right? There there is the clause anyways that other duties like as specified by the chair. So, I think I think it's covered. Do we have any any presidents in town for other boards that do it that way or are
026we all doing it this way we do it currently? School board any of that stuff at all? I'm not sure what school board does. Recreation committee. Any stuff at all? Pretty much secretary. I think it's pretty much the chair. Chairs that do it on wreck. The secretary will create the agenda. Okay. Um board of selectman is uh town administrator. But I think the rest Yeah. Yeah. Well, I take that back. I know conservation has started to do used to do that or still does that I think. And usually the secretary does the vote, right? Usually takes the vote sometimes records records records it. So I know they were doing that. But anyway, you see it the most in in really small towns that don't have staff support. Yeah. So like I know in Mason the
027you know that whoever is designated actually does take the minutes. There is no one else to take the minutes. So it'll vary ain't broke. Don't fix it. Exactly. So if we just make that change then maybe can amend that I guess Joan or I think your practice is though to let it lay over till the next meeting. Okay. And then vote on it at the next meeting as amended. I thought that was like unless it was unanimous. What was that? I can't remember what it says. I think we could change it tonight if it was unanimous. Oh here somewhere. It says so somewhere. Let me go down to where that is. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, we have a nice full board tonight. Um, which is not something we have every time. So, certain things I Yes,
028you're right. If it's an if it's unanimous, you can do it tonight. Final page. Yeah. Okay. Do it. Why not? Sounds like it is. I don't like the president unless I you're otherwise. I'll make a motion to amend the bylaws per Jay's comments for sentence number two. A second. I have a motion by Jeremy. I have a second by Travis. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I. I. Those opposed, abstain. Motion passes 70. That looks motion. Well, thank you everybody. All right, wonderful. All right, next up, this is where we get to the fun part. Election of planning board officers. So, we didn't have a full board last time, so we couldn't really do much uh in terms of elections, but as we have
029passed town uh the town um meeting or or the uh the vote uh for town um we are sort of this is where the process of um whe where the board would you know if they want to elect people to certain offices is like the chair, the vice chair, secretary. Um this is the opportunity to do it and if anybody has any nominations, they can make those nominations tonight. Um so I know other boards have been doing this um in town. Um so we are um tonight have do have a full board. So as I said last meeting, this my seat is not endowed in perpetuity. So it's a disposable office. If someone wants to make a nomination for someone for chair, they can make that nomination for vice chair, whoever it is. So it's
030really the will of the board. And um with that, does anybody want to make a nomination for vice uh for our chair? I have one question. Do your bylaws specify if chair can only serve two terms unless it is a unanimous vote. No restriction. No restriction. Oh, Mike, looks good on you. Very well. It's endowed in perpetuity. Sure. You put my name on it when I die. Okay. Blaze in that chair. Yeah. Sure. All right. Well, I mean, does anybody have any nominations for chair? I uh nominate Michael Croto for chair. Second. I guess we should have asked you first if you wish to proceed. Would you accept this nomination? We can open it for discussion. How's that? So, I have a motion, a second, discussion. And I guess the answer would be I'm happy
031to stay on board if you want. So, it's not gonna Okay. All right. Well, I guess we do have a motion. Um, any further discussion? Okay, take a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I. Those opposed, abstained. I'm going to abstain. I. Motion passes 601. Okay. Congrats, Mike. Thank you. Um, vice chair. So, I'm currently vice chair. Does anyone want it? cuz I I'm I don't need to keep it, but I'm willing to keep it. Yeah. Last year we had far less members here, so Jared and I were kind of shoehorn into having to do something. So, if three I'm happy to make a motion to have Jared continue in the role of vice president. I'll second. Vice chair, vice president, whatever it's called. There we go. You
032good with that? I with that. Any further discussion about that? So, we have a motion. I made a second. Any further discussion? All right, take a vote. All those in favor of Jared becoming vice chair, please signify by saying I. I. Anybody opposed? Anybody abstain? Motion passes 601. Congratulations. And finally, uh, secretary clerk. Uh, we know Jeremy has been sort of filling that role. Um, you're still interested in doing that? Sure. I have no problem in continuing. If you guys want to have anybody else want to nominate someone to do it, I just throw it out there. Let's do it. Does anyone make a motion? All right. I'll make a motion that Jeremy Jeremy Rotoy be the uh secretary clerk. Second that. Second by Travis. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor, please
033signify by saying I. I. Those opposed, abstained. Motion passes. 601. Okay. That concludes our election process. And I guess um you can get that information to Ken Kleiner. I know she wanted that. So, and the town clerk also who's the keeper of records. So, very good. Well, congratulations everybody. Okay. Um, next item on the agenda, update on the work session items. Jay, I'll turn it over to you. Not too much of an update. Uh, two weeks was not enough turnaround time, but for our next meeting on the 15th and I believe we have no applications for that meeting. So, that'll be a full work session and we will have a draft for you. um obviously focusing on the design guidelines for the um village ultra I guess I was going to say alternative not exactly
034but the village district option in the northern commercial zone uh and I should have parking uh also of course there's more we can look at but we'll f we'll start and focus on that obviously I think it's really imperative that we focus on the design guidelines okay since the last meeting I've talked to some people that I know about what we've been working on and uh I brought up what requirements we've brainstormed and they seem to be supportive of it and some other requirements that um people brought up was some people want tonal requirements like avoiding bright [Music] colors and that seems a little harder to make a guideline for um but it could be partially left up to discussion. Could look at look at some options. Yeah. Um and one I brought up the
035fact that we're considering um adding some landscaping requirements like including trees. Like one comment was also include mature trees because the little trees um like obviously there's a limit to how big of a tree you can get but we don't want like little tiny one foot tall trees. A minimum a decent minimum size. Yeah. Yeah. Like at least the size that they recently put along that corridor. Yeah. Along Albuquerque. Like that's a pretty reasonable size. Um it's it's on the small side, but a lot bigger than a sapling. Right. Right. Those are good comments. But yeah. So, are you saying when they are installed they have to be that size or that they could grow to be a certain size? I think the main concern was the initial size because they're trees are a lot
036cheaper when they're small. So, they'll often cheap out on that. Yeah. Um, but I'm sure mature size also matters. Like there are certain places where you don't want a tree that will grow to be 100t tall. But there are some places where it would be fine. like if it's in the middle of the open space of 100 foot tall tree would be great there but we don't need that right next to the buildings obviously and another thing that was brought up was um like on the other like in ter in terms of those tonal requirements the other end of bright colors would be really dull colors um like one concern was like the McDonald's that you see popping around are very very basic boxy and gray Yeah. Um and I don't from what I've people
037I've talked to don't think that that would be within the um way what they want in Lichfield. I think they're also not realizing that the texture matters too in this case. So the painted brick is not the same as gray clapboard. So that might be a little bit of an issue they might not be referencing quite properly. So yeah, these colors referencing is to the signing or like the siding of the building itself. Yeah. Look at the McDonald's and Hudson right down the road. It's Yeah, that's pretty bad. Looks like a prison. Yeah. You don't want the midlife crisis McDonald's saturated McDonald's. At the same time, the oldfashioned McDonald's might also not fight very well either because it's bright. Yes, you look at Freeport, Maine, they have done a good job. The LLBAN has got
038a huge campus there now. And they have a McDonald's, but you would never know it was McDonald's because it's in an old house and it's really nice. Yeah. Now, was Kate on the planning or was she on ZBA? Cuz I remember planning. I remember her talking about that last maybe before she moved about uh when the gas station was going in and the look and feel and the characteristics of the building. I just looked up that McDonald's you referenced and yeah, it looks like a colonial house with a McDonald's sign on the front. There you go. I'm sure I can find some guidelines. Yeah, take a look. Yeah, lots of towns have that kind of stuff. Yeah, like a New England pallet. Exactly. I was going to say they'll reference like Sherman Williams or Ben
039Moore Bankers and stuff like that. So, I was going to say in the town that I I had been in prior to this next door, um in fact, Jay, you had shown their lookbook guide book up there and um I thought they did a pretty good job and they were pretty successful at when businesses wanted to come into town, um they would make attempts to modify their existing structures and signage to fit the lookbook that the town had on file and in many cases it still it didn't meet muster and I I would just say that no matter what you put out there as a guide you know don't hesitate if you don't like it don't don't rubber stamp it you know you should see what they went through with the gas station they didn't
040rubber stamp it. Yeah. And if and and I'll tell you most I mean most developers want to make you happy and on the little things like that and everything from I I do remember distinctly when the Taco Bell slash KFC came to town um in the in Lond KFC with the bright red um you've got the Taco Bell with the bright purple and mustard yellow, like really bright. And I'm sure you've seen buildings of those franchises that are are pretty loud. Um, and they worked very hard to satisfy the planning board with more still using their colors, but in a way that was more I don't want to say muted, but it allowed for an easier on the eye experience, more tasteful. Yeah. It was more in harmony with the community's expectations. Yeah. And it
041um they worked very hard to do that. So, I I think as long as the planning board members aren't afraid to give honest, albeit diplomatic feedback um within the guidance of whatever lookbook or guide book that you put out there, I don't I think they'll give you what you want provided it doesn't cost them an arm and a leg. Right. Okay, we'll take a stab at it and we'll see you next time. Absolutely. We'll dive right in. Okay. Well, thank you, Jay. Well, absolutely. Okay. And if people do come across anything that you think this would be great, feel free to send it to me. Can I get a mile in report? Um, next item. Uh, committee reports. Any reports from any committees? Um, we do have one, by the way. Yeah, Jeremy, you're economic
042development, right? Yes, we finally met again after a long hiatus due to scheduling conflicts over the uh holiday season. Uh it was a great meeting. We met with a a lady named Shelley uh Blackler with a company called Placer. They are a guess called more of a web- based business, but they help communities and businesses develop good, I guess, design and location habits. So, we had a long call with her and she went over because their tools are able to go ahead and justify I don't justify they use third party apps to track people's movements like us and everyone else pretty much your cell phone. Um, and they're able to track pretty much where you go. Do you go to Target here? You go to Hanford's there, whatever else it is to help us if
043we if we can come up with some cash because it's very expensive. um figure out what best to advertise in our new districts to so uh to find ways to go ahead and fill up these locations faster than you know than not essentially so we don't just have more houses and no commercial stuff at all. So it's a great little thing we did there. Um the committee in general is trying to wrap up itself. We're aiming now for hopefully June to get something to the board of selectman um to go ahead and work with here. So, we're uh getting to the tail end here, but uh doing good and hopefully something for us to have back here if we want to go ahead and review the economic development part of our ordinance too after this.
044So, was the u mixeduse village brought up in the meeting? Uh briefly, um a lot of what we're working with here, the mixers village ties in directly to what we're doing there. It's it's totally just separate things, but they tie directly together. It's shocking how close they actually are. So, yeah. And that's not all a coincidence. Yeah. Yeah. So, what was the name of the company that the lady was? Placer. P L A C E R. Yeah. They they'll geoence an area and then be able to track. Correct. Exactly. So, they were showing us pretty much like two flags on a map and they'll track data going past those flags. So, in our map, we used Albuquerque and 3A, that corner where Jacobson is pretty much. And then we used one further down 3A and
045this the the number of cars on the upper pin was so much higher. Yeah, they took so everyone cutting up aly hillrest all that stuff to get through town on the north side. It was shocking how much traffic there was. So, but which is good for us in this whole development plan because that's kind of where we want to be anyway. So, it's uh it should be a nice thing with people coming into town. So, yeah. Cool. Yeah. Nice. From board of selectman standpoint. Um, John Brunell is now chair. I am vice chair. Diane Pansky is Kevin is didn't run again, so Diane's a new member. And as far as appointments go, I've been appointed to planning board, so I'll be sticking around for at least another year. Very nice. Nice. Very good. All right.
046Um, CIP is meeting April 7th, uh, here in town hall. Um, let's see. Conservation Commission is meeting on Thursday at 6:30 here in town hall. And I have not heard anything from the lower Marramac Local River Advisory Committee. So, I think that's everything. I have anybody have anything else? Nobody here's on energy, right? No energy people. Okay. I might be. I'm on I'm on energy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Any I just got it last week. I'm trying to think of what else was energy and planning. Okay. Very good. Um, we have the approval of the March 18 minutes. Have an opportunity to take a look at those. Have any questions? any amendments to those? I caught one thing. Okay. And that was u at the bottom of page one and then continuing on to page two
047under business the home occupation application. Yep. Uh it says 18 Lauren Street. It's 18 Laurel. Yeah. I I sent that one to him. Laurel Street and I sent him um which I'm surprised you didn't get the corrected one but in the last one it says and the occupation must have at least 500 square f feet. It's limited to 500 square feet. Yeah, I was going to bring that up too. Okay, good one. And the other like one thing that might make sense for us to um modify slightly is uh the second paragraph on page five where it says as a fact that the developer's key concern is the viability of businesses to passer by to pass visibility of businesses to passer by. Yeah. Uh I think it shouldn't be stated as a fact is like
048the the board would um the board suspects that the developer's key concern is visibility of businesses to pass by. Where is that on page? Paragraph 215. Paragraph 22 starts with the developer's key concern. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you're just adding the board suspects the developer's key concern, right? Or imagine a likely key developer concern maybe, right? Concerns. Okay. We just want to make it not a right. Something that's suspected. Okay. Anybody Anybody have anything else? Does anyone want to make a motion to approve these minutes as amended? Make a motion to approve the March 18th minutes as amended. Okay. I have a motion by Russ. Do I have a second? I'll second that. Second by Jared. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor of the approval of the March 18th, 2025 minutes, please
049signify by saying I. I. I. Those opposed, anybody abstaining. I abstaining. All right. Let me see. We have seven. So 4 03. All right. Thank you. All right. Any other business this evening? Uh Joan, do you have anything? No, I do not. Jay, do you have anything? Uh, not not really. Just, you know, note for folks, anybody interested? But the next NRPC full commission meeting is the 16th, so a day after our next meeting. And the project going forward for the 10-year plan will be on that agenda for the transportation alternatives program grants will be on that agenda. uh locally coordinated plan for community transportation will be on that agenda. So a very very transportationheavy agenda for anyone interested and um we should uh we collaborated with three other regional planning commissions to hire a
050consulting firm to prepare a safe streets for all action plan. Uh so for those who are at all interested there um are grants available for safety improvements uh you know two streets and roads. Uh but in order to apply for those you have to have a safe streets for all action plan. So, we should be getting that draft this week and I'm hoping we can get that onto uh that next agenda for the commission to adopt it uh to enable the towns to apply. So, to my surprise, the notice of funding opportunity has just come out and it closes in June. So, I'm hoping we can get it adopted in April so that any interested community, including Litzfield, could apply. I say to my surprise because so many of the grants that had been put
051forward by the last administration have either been put on hold or have been rescended. So apparently this one has not been rescended at least yet. So it's out there. I raise it primarily because I know one of the things that we had talked about um was Albuquerque and potential improvements to Albuquerque. So this may be an opportunity. What about the sidewalk to continue down Pinerest too? Possibly if you can make a if you can make the safety link. Um I I think that would be key. And I I know for Albuquerque we were pretty explicit about safety concerns related to speeding, etc. So that might be one. We could look at sidewalks. We could look at something else. Uh I have not looked at the notice for funding opportunity yet. So because I just got
052it today. Um obviously once you go through that you get a sense of what it qualifies, what doesn't qualify, what kind of data do you need, do you need crash data to support it? So those are the kinds of things we'd have to look at. So you think by next meeting you might have info on whether or not that study we have is enough? Yes. Yes. So, is there any way this can coincide with our future friends Liberty Utilities bringing the line down 3A? Where are we with that, by the way? I don't know if it could. It'd be similar. You'd have to There'd have to be safety improvements proposed, you know, to address some sort of identified safety issue. So, I don't know if we could make that link or not. Is that applicable
053to a state grant though? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, it would be. Now, who would like the applicant? And I it's it's kind of hard to say, but I I think typically the way it's happened in the 10-year plan process, at least as the town puts forward the proposal, and if it's accepted and put in the 10-year plan, then DOT will say, so just as an example, we had that in the town of Wilton, they were proposing improvements to 101. That's a state route. uh once DOT said yes we agree we think this is a project that will you know be recommended to move forward then they say and we will manage it um because it's a state road and very importantly uh as happened to us with Corning road they also agree to cover the match
054with toll credits so there's no match to the town so something on 3A that's the scenario that you would hope yep would play out. Uh Albuquerque is not a state road and certainly it would be a there would be a town match certainly. So more to come. Okay. But it'd be nice to see something. It'd be nice to see if there's, you know, there's an opportunity out there. Okay. Oh, and the consulting firm that did the safety for all plan is VHB. And that's the same firm that also did the analysis in Albuquerque. So that might help. You never know. Okay. Anybody have anything else under any other business? All right. Um I do not have anything else this evening. So I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. All right. I have a motion.
055Do I have a second? Seconded. Second by Jeremy. Uh discussion. And all those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed abstained. Motion passes 700. Thank you for joining us on this April Fools and uh we will see you see you next time. Have a good evening. That was correct. You were right. Look at