[6:33] Okay, welcome folks. We're going to get started with our planning board meeting here. Oh, is that working now?

[6:41] Let's start off the meeting with Pledge of Allegiance.

[7:10] Okay. Let's start off with a quick roll call. We've got Sean Holshauser.

[7:18] Ideally, a Weber. Okay. Chris Buyers. Here. It's me. Sanford Peabody here.

[7:28] Okay, and then Ben Smith typically joins us from Northwood Planning, but this is Asher and on your last name, Asher.

[7:36] Make sure it mics on.

[7:39] Green light.

[7:41] Just commit to it.

[7:44] And let it go.

[7:46] Asher, Saville, Northstar Planning.

[7:48] Great, thanks.

[7:50] Thank you.

[7:51] Okay, we actually have no minutes to approve or other business.

[7:57] The only thing in our agenda is a hearing for York Ridge phase two.

[8:03] And I just want to point out that we don't have York Ridge phase two listed as old business,

[8:08] which means that we won't be discussing the application in depth.

[8:14] And part of the reason for that is because we are still waiting on information from town staff to supplement our review.

[8:23] So part of the reason why that's taken so long is that we've had personnel changes in the code office or code officer quit last week and we are also out of a code enforcement assistant but I'm assured that we have.

[8:37] Okay, I'm sure I'm assured that these positions are being filled so just we're also a bit delayed in our process here and so that's why we just want to make sure that we have all the information available to us for.

[8:51] or a more in-depth discussion when we get to York Ridge Phase II under old business.

[8:56] So for tonight, it'll just be the public hearing.

[9:00] Any questions about that from board members?

[9:04] All right, so I'll open the public hearing at this time.

[9:10] And just as a note, if you're speaking, I don't see a huge crowd here, so we're going to be

[9:15] somewhat flexible in the amount of time that you're speaking.

[9:19] but try to keep it succinct, try to tell us exactly what your comments are.

[9:23] If you hear somebody that spoke before you, that you're agreeing with, you could simply state that.

[9:31] Just so we don't have too much repetitive testimony.

[9:34] Yeah.

[9:35] It's a public hearing.

[9:36] I just want to assure the public that I reviewed last time that we met about your grid in this appeal on virtual platforms that I wasn't here.

[9:44] Oh, right on.

[9:45] And also read through what the ZBA said.

[9:48] So I'm up to date, I'm aware of all that

[9:50] just to be transparent.

[9:52] Okay, thanks a deal, I forgot to point that out.

[9:55] So with that, I'll open public hearing.

[9:57] And if you're going too long,

[9:58] I might just have to kind of wave my hand

[10:00] and say we've got to wrap it up.

[10:02] But otherwise, I think this is a fairly small group.

[10:05] All right, if you have something to say, now is your time.

[10:09] Also, if you come up to the mic,

[10:10] make sure that the green light is on the microphone

[10:13] And that you're speaking close to it like I am or like I am now come

[10:19] on if you have something to say

[10:33] My name is Michael Brown and I live in the phase one York Ridge development and

[10:40] I took

[10:42] Title to the property

[10:44] The house was completed

[10:45] in March of 2022 and

[10:50] here we are

[10:52] September

[10:53] 2026

[10:53] projects and that phase one project has not been completed.

[11:00] My neighbor from across the street had, like, severe flooding right from the beginning,

[11:09] and it was only within the last month that Grover did anything to address it.

[11:17] And I guess my question is, well, I won't ask the question, I'll make a statement as

[11:26] I'm not comfortable at all trusting Grover to do what he promises.

[11:32] And I'm very much against the Phase 2 project.

[11:38] Thank you.

[11:41] Okay, thanks.

[11:51] Leon Mitchell, I live, I'm wander our way, next to phase one.

[12:00] I'm not quite sure I followed Chris what you were talking about, my understanding was this was a public hearing about the, like a follow-up to the appeal.

[12:11] But I had done, is that not what this is?

[12:14] The

[12:17] application is still the York Ridge Phase 2 application and so your appeal was to our preliminary approval of York Ridge Phase 2, so that is the application, but the remand was to look at Phase 1, so it's fine to talk about Phase 1, but we wouldn't list it's the Phase 1 public hearing because it's really the public hearing about the Phase 2 application, right?

[12:44] All right, so the point of my appeal was about following the rules, not just the approved

[12:54] plan for phase one, though that's important, but the rules in general, because not all

[12:59] of the violations were about the approved plan.

[13:05] I'm not going to bother reiterating information about my buffer or rather the lack of one you've

[13:11] all heard a million times.

[13:12] Yes, you know where I stand on that.

[13:16] You have my appeal application, so you know about all of the other code violations.

[13:21] I suppose if you haven't read it by now, you won't.

[13:24] As Sean suggested, at the last meeting, if you want to know what the zoning board of appeals

[13:30] wanted investigated, look at the appeal.

[13:35] That seems pretty obvious to me.

[13:39] Anyway, since the appeal was granted, the violations in and regarding phase one have continued.

[13:47] After five years of complaints, the developer was finally supposedly fixing some of the problems.

[13:53] Not so much to do the right thing for phase one people, but so that he could move on to phase two.

[14:00] And in doing that, he did unpermitted work against the express order of code enforcement officer.

[14:09] And according to that code enforcement officer, the work was not backed up by any kind of engineering plan that he could see.

[14:16] And nothing to do with the approved plans for phase one, which is why he said not to do it.

[14:23] So how many codes is that in violation of?

[14:27] This most recent former code officer also uncovered what seems that Mr. Grover has failed

[14:33] to pay into the required escrow accounts for Phase 1, if not other projects as well.

[14:40] I know these escrow's for the quality guarantees were a big deal during discussions of Phase 2,

[14:45] which why when he doesn't seem to pay them anyway.

[14:49] On top of that, and the other things mentioned, there's repeated failure to provide proper

[14:54] notice for this public hearing, which will not nearly as important as the other code violations.

[15:00] Employees are just sort of goes to the lack of respect for the rules, the people in the town, the code office, and this board. The whole point of code 5.a, which is what 5.8.a, which is what my appeal is based on, is to stop people like this continuing to do the same violations over and over again. And yet instead of actually trying to do better, it just keeps adding on to the violations.

[15:30] We've just lost our fourth code officer since this project was started.

[15:36] How many code officers are we going to lose because of the grovers?

[15:41] Rather than hold Mr. Grover accountable, the code officer was told to back off, which is why he left.

[15:48] How much does that cost the town and continually seeking new code officers, new code officer assistance?

[15:56] I submitted a FOIA request about four months ago for information about complaints about

[16:01] Mr. Grover and his companies to see what other issues there are besides this project, which

[16:06] kind of goes along with the 5.8.a.

[16:09] I've not received any reply other than that they received it.

[16:13] The law states only that the information be disclosed in a reasonable time.

[16:18] But no one seems inclined to tell me what that means or ever disclose any information.

[16:24] The former town manager told me three months.

[16:28] The current town manager said, nah, we'll get around to it maybe someday, maybe not.

[16:41] Thanks, anybody else?

[16:59] Okay, with that, I'm going to close public here.

[17:09] We're not having any big discussion here, but anybody have any initial comments, things

[17:15] that we want to make clear.

[17:18] Again, we're trying not to get into this as old business, but just something that we can

[17:22] reply to quickly.

[17:27] Okay.

[17:28] All right.

[17:30] That's a short meeting.

[17:31] That's all we have on our agenda tonight.

[17:34] So I make a motion, I guess, that we, well, yes, actually, I'm going to make a motion

[17:42] that we continue the public hearing actually through the next meeting.

[17:46] I know I hit the gavel, but I'd like to just at least keep this open when we have this

[17:53] for open- old business.

[17:56] I have a question at the next meeting.

[18:00] We're hoping to have more information from the town about evaluating.

[18:04] Yeah.

[18:05] Is there, I guess everybody quits and no one can come and talk about anything.

[18:09] So I don't know if there's anybody else in the town who can speak about some of the more recent activity?

[18:15] I think it's more to provide the public with the ability to review those documents and then comment on them,

[18:23] in a kind of come back up even the same people that spoke that they could speak again.

[18:32] So we're not really working with like new information at this point.

[18:35] So that's why I wanted to provide the public hearing

[18:38] opportunity to have that new information in hand.

[18:41] Do you have a question, Lee Annabelle?

[18:47] I am curious.

[18:49] I was told that the Kent Whitten, the former code officer,

[18:52] had submitted a letter that he wanted read as part of this public

[18:56] testimony for the public hearing.

[18:57] I don't have a letter from him.

[19:00] Really?

[19:01] I don't have a letter.

[19:07] He's welcomed us to submit a letter even now, though, like.

[19:11] Yeah, he actually told me yesterday that he sent a letter to Chris and specifically requested that it be part of the public hearing.

[19:19] Kent is no longer with the town and I certainly am not in a position to discuss personnel matters.

[19:27] Well, it's not a personnel matter.

[19:29] It's he had concerns about the project and the appeal and the work that's being done in phase one.

[19:35] Yeah.

[19:38] Yeah, he sent it to me but told me that he sent it to me.

[19:41] Okay, I'm just going to be clear.

[19:44] We don't have a letter that I am able to present as materials to this application right

[19:52] now.

[19:52] Even if you sent me something yesterday, that would not necessarily be something that

[19:56] we would be discussing today.

[19:58] There are deadlines to submit something, can't no longer work to the town.

[20:02] And so I'm not really able to speak to whether or not that email that can't sent me is something

[20:06] that we can discuss here or not.

[20:09] Okay, this is just sort of a point in general, then I guess.

[20:14] If some, does the member of the public sends something to the ward?

[20:19] They do generally read it, if it's requested as part of the.

[20:22] Sure, we may read it and if we have time, if it's sent to us the day before we may not have time to read that.

[20:29] That's why we have deadlines for submittals to be provided in ahead of a planning board meeting.

[20:35] Okay.

[20:36] And that's in order for it to be added to the packet, but if you sent us an email, we

[20:42] may not necessarily be discussing that email, but it's correspondence nonetheless that we

[20:45] could receive.

[20:47] Okay.

[20:49] I just want to remind folks that Kent no longer works to the town, and so communicating

[20:53] with Kent and the code enforcement capacity probably would not be like efficient or appropriate.

[20:58] My

[21:04] question, I was just wondering if we would get more information from the town and let's

[21:08] like what, or hope, and if there is anybody in the town currently who can speak to like,

[21:12] it's not really even about staffing, but more so to speak about like what's been happening

[21:16] as of late at your coverage, where the town's concerned.

[21:20] Yeah.

[21:20] That makes sense.

[21:21] Yeah, I think we ultimately will need to re-engage it, if there's a new code enforcement officer

[21:27] in that position, then we'll need to re-engage them on getting their letter to help support their

[21:34] findings.

[21:36] Okay,

[21:41] so I guess I'm just going to make a motion that we continue the public hearing to York Ridge phase two to a future meeting to be determined.

[21:52] I don't know if we have a date yet to bring this up, but just to a future meeting.

[21:56] So do I have a second?

[22:02] Okay, thanks.

[22:03] Any discussion?

[22:05] All those in favor?

[22:08] Great.

[22:11] I make a motion that we adjourn.

[22:15] One question. When is our next meeting? I just want to make sure it's

[22:19] them following like the holiday or that's going to be an issue for attendance.

[22:22] Sure. Um, October 13th.

[22:26] Is that right?

[22:27] It's the next one. Okay. Is it a holiday?

[22:30] 12th is a holiday is Columbus Day.

[22:32] Oh, good for every, but I just want to make sure that we have a

[22:35] quarantine. For, yeah, I guess for the, are we, I'm available?

[22:39] Are you guys, are you not available?

[22:41] I will be coming back.

[22:42] I think from vacation on Sundays, hopefully it won't be an issue.

[22:47] You're not going to get stuck like you'd.

[22:48] Yeah, I won't get stuck again, hopefully.

[22:51] Okay.

[22:51] All right.

[22:52] Sean, you're available.

[22:53] Okay.

[22:54] All right.

[22:56] Senator, you're welcome.

[22:57] I'm available.

[22:58] I'll be there.

[22:59] Okay.

[22:59] Great.

[23:00] Good question.

[23:01] Okay.

[23:01] We have a motion on the table to adjourn.

[23:03] Do I have a second?

[23:04] Second.

[23:05] Okay.

[23:07] Any discussion?

[23:09] Okay.

[23:10] All those in favor?

[23:10] All right, thanks.

Planning Board Meeting

Transcript