APPROVED
Town of Fitzwilliam
Planning Board Meeting
November 17, 2009
Members present: Terry Silverman, Suzanne Gray, Robin Haynes, Jason Hill, Mac Landy, John Tommila, and Carlotta Pini, alternate
Others present: Nancy Carney, Deputy Fire Chief, Dorothy Zug, Chair, NRI Subcommittee, David and Barbara Green, Rick Brackett and Peter Throop, Monadnock Conservancy, Carol Ogilvie, consultant.
Call to Order: 7:00 PM
Pete Throop is with the Monadnock Conservancy Community Conservation Partnership program and is working with Dorothy Zug and the Conservation Commission to develop an open space plan for Fitzwilliam. He was a planner with the City of Keene and taught land use planning at Antioch. He said conservation of open space and growth and development are complementary processes. The Board watched a presentation entitled Land Use Planning to Support Community Quality of Life, an overview of the challenges of planning for growth, conservation and economic development. A successful master planning process requires community awareness, education and consensus around community values and needs, natural and cultural resources, the vision for the future, land use goals, and implementation action plan.
Left alone, land use will depend on individual land owner decisions and the current regulations and zoning ordinances. While local, long time land owners may reflect the community values and make decisions based on that knowledge, other landowners may not.
Throop outlined questions to consider: What makes our town special? Are some resources more important than others or more threatened than others? Are some resources more pristine than others and should they be prioritized for protection? Are there areas where multiple natural resources overlap and should they be prioritized? Where are the core developed areas? What are the town’s development needs and desires?
He said that over time, whatever ordinance is in place, the town will be built out eventually. Now is the time to influence how that development will happen. Using GIS, he demonstrated the power of the program to help the Board visualize some of these issues. The Board viewed various map layers and overlays to get an idea of how wetlands, steep slopes, conservation land, water resources, forest and farmland soils, wildlife and natural resources overlap. This knowledge informs decisions about areas to protect and areas that may be developed. Throop said developers will look to the prime agricultural soils for building because site development is least costly there. The town may want to consider protecting these lands for future food production. Forest soils are prevalent in Fitzwilliam and they are
good for forest regeneration and harvesting trees. The uplands near water resources are important to protect water quality and wildlife habitat. The town has two forest areas that are rare in this area; pockets of lowland spruce/fir forests, and hardwood forests at the higher elevations. There are several marsh complexes that are rare. There are pockets of rare and endangered species as well.
The town has large blocks of unfragmented land at this time, which is important for maintaining wildlife. But development pressure will change that in the future. Fragmentation is most apparent along town roads.
Throop pointed out that one of the things that makes Fitzwilliam attractive is the opportunity for recreation, which affects the quality of life in town. Gray suggested the Board may want to identify viewsheds in town. Protection of these resources is a community education process to reach common ground on how to do it. Tommila feels neither conservation nor development decisions can be made using a broad brush, every tract has to be treated as unique. Throop agreed saying conservation takes a willing landowner as well as a community desire to protect land. He said towns may offer incentives to landowners to protect their land; you have to talk with landowners. He said the Planning Board, with the town, can set the framework and then individual landowners decide.
Carol Ogilvie, with the Office of Community Development in Peterborough, is also a consultant on municipal development issues. The Board is considering working with her on the future land use section of the master plan.
Ogilvie complimented the Board on work already done in preparation for the Master Plan revision. She and the Board had a brief discussion about the challenges of setting future land use policies, agreeing that an overall future land use plan to guide ordinances that will insure Fitzwilliam retains its rural character and quality of life is the goal of the revision.
Pini said the Board was reluctant to plan for future development because no one wants to pick property to be developed. Ogilvie said a future land use plan has to consider existing development, current zoning ordinances and entrenched situations. She suggested considering the resources to be protected as a starting place, rather than the places to be developed, adding it’s a trade off and to succeed every action must be documented as to the public benefit – decisions must answer the question what do we want to protect and why. The Board began suggesting items to consider protecting: Class VI roads, lakes and water sources, farmlands, watersheds, environmentally sensitive areas, large tracts of land, etc.
Ogilvie talked about visualizing density – what would the town look like if it was more densely developed. Create zoning districts to reflect what you want and don’t want, create performance standards for site plan reviews to minimize visual impact. Add flexibility to regulations, add conditional use permitting to ordinances, and require impact analyses and mitigation.
Ogilvie will prepare a proposal for the Board’s consideration.
Minutes. The Board reviewed minutes of the November 3, 2009 meeting. Landy moved, Haynes seconded and the Board approved the minutes as written.
Esper café. Silverman clarified that Ms. Esper did not have to obtain a special exception for the barber shop and therefore sending her to the ZBA for an SE for the café may not be necessary. He suggested inviting her to another meeting to present the floor plan and parking plan.
Nancy Carney said the fire department want to insure the safety of the site for several reasons. Ms. Esper continues to provide service through the state to an individual with special needs, she is operating one business already and state requirements call for specific types of exits and alarms, care during hours of operation, etc. Carney would like to see a floor plan that shows table arrangements in the kitchen since there is a large wood stove in the center of the space. She’s like to insure exits are shoveled in the winter.
Pini thinks the minimum necessary is a site plan review given there will be two home businesses in this historic home. Landy raised the issue of parking, especially during the winter, at the last meeting. There was consensus on the Board that a minor site plan review I necessary. Staff will notify Ms. Esper.
Mulcahey subdivision. Silverman distributed an estimate prepared by Rick Van de Poll for work relative to the wetlands and hydrology of the Mulcahey subdivision property. The estimate was obtained because the Board had expressed interest in engaging an independent wetlands expert to help them analyze the property for development. The Monadnock Conservancy suggested names, and Mr. Van de Poll was the first to respond. Silverman proposed and the Board agreed to offer this estimate to Mr. Mulcahey, through Paul Grasewicz, engineer on this project for his consideration. It will be taken up at the public hearing, which was continued from the November 3, 2009 meeting to the December 1, 2009 meeting at 7:15 PM.
In answer to a question posed by Tommila, Silverman said the voluntary merger for the Wenniger properties has been corrected and will be registered with the Cheshire County Registry of Deeds this week. The subdivision plan has been corrected too, but is being held by the surveyor until issues with the owners have been resolved. The corrections to the plan were for numbering lots only, no substantive changes were necessary.
Silverman and Haynes signed the corrected Wenniger Voluntary Merger, and the Fitzwilliam Green Subdivision mylar, noting that conditions have been met.
The meeting adjourned at 9:30 PM.
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