The Planning Commission held a regular meeting on April 15, 2025, at 7:00 PM in Town Hall. The commission reviewed a development plan for an agricultural building at Lucky Foot Ranch, held a pre-application discussion for a 96-unit residential project on Post Road, and certified that two Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) applications do not conflict with the town's Comprehensive Plan. All items received positive or unanimous support.
Planning Commission meeting which began at five. We're going to call the meeting back to order to continue with the work of the evening. The next item on the agenda item 3A is the development plan review application of MPT Real Estate LLC, care of Matthew Thibodeau for a 3,606 square foot agricultural building located for Lucky Foot Ranch 1337 Gilbert Stewart Road, Cessus Flat 36 Lot 1, located in the rural residential zoning district, groundwater recharge area and scenic overlay district. I know the applicants. Engineer knows the process, so staff will walk us through first after questions. You'll have the ability to present and we may have some more questions for you after that. Okay. So again, um Jim mentioned this property which is on Gilbert Stewart Road is in our groundwater recharge area, and it's also in our scenic overlay district. So because of that, it is before you for development plan review approval. It is a relatively um small application. They're proposing about a 3,600 square foot ag building. Um they were lucky lucky to get a produce washing machine, I think, from NRCS. So they're looking to put that inside this building and then use the building for storage. Um the original application did have that they were going to do some sort of like retail component in this building, but that is not the case. I think the engineer was under the assumption that's what it was for, but it's actually just for storage in the produce washing station. Um so that's going to be inside the building. Um there is an existing curb cut off Gilbert Stewart Road, and I did send you some correspondence. I think it was yesterday or today. I've lost track of time. Um that the fire marshal did take a rig, you know, out there to see if what the access would be like, and they do have to make some changes to the entry because they couldn't get the um vehicle in and out, so they are going to have to widen it, and I think there's a little bit of a grade issue. So I did um alter one of the conditions on the cheat sheet. I'm not sure if Nicole handed it around yet, but um, because one of them was work with the fire marshal to figure it out, but he's already been out there, so um, I did um suggest a condition that they actually make those changes that they need to to satisfy the fire marshal. Um they're not seeking any waivers um or relief from the zoning ordinance. Um I'm not sure if anybody rode by, but again, it's an existing ranch. There's some crop crop areas, some existing greenhouses, a little farm stand, a parking area. That's all gonna remain um relatively similar to what it is now. I think a couple of the greenhouses will um be demolished, and then this building will um replace some of that impervious surface um that was there with the greenhouses. It's no flood zone, there's no wetlands, not in any coastal areas. Um they're not intending to add in the employees due to um this proposed building, so they're gonna continue to use a little gravel parking area that is there now. They're not suggesting or proposing any improvements to that parking area. It's gonna remain kind of as it's being used now. Um you if you did drive by, you might have noticed there is some pretty nice vegetation along Gilbert Stewart Road. Um, they are showing it on the site plan that it is um portion, you know, portions on their property as well as um within the right-of-way. There is a requirement in the ordinance that there's a 10-foot strip around the perimeter of the property. But we have a newly discovered section of the ordinance, which honestly we were not familiar with before, where an existing use um is exempt from having having to meet the landscaping requirements if it's less than 25% increase in the use of the property. So I did my best interpretation of what that would be. I kind of put a square around all the improvements on the property and estimated a square footage of what the improvements are now, which is about an acre. So then they could go up to 0.25 acres with additional um improvement without having to meet the current code. But I I actually do believe that with that strip in the front, there they have sufficient landscaping along Gilbert Stewart Road to meet it anyway. So they kind of have double um meeting that in two ways. Um let's see, they are proposing a little bit of the stormwater VMPs around the building with a trench, and then also um they do have a rain garden for their washwater. I did include in your packet that DEM and the applicant actually provided this with us. The DEM has some um protocols and standards that they use for produce washing stations, and the applicant included those um kind of protocols on the site plan, and they're um meeting those standards, and as such, if they meet those standards, they don't even need permitting for the washwater, you know, the produce washing station from DEM. But um again, they are suggesting and and proposing a rain garden anyway to accommodate the um washwater that is coming out. They submitted the materials safety. Alan I spoke to him briefly today. He didn't see any um real issues with what he reviewed. He's gonna you know let me know for sure, but he he didn't give me anything in writing before I left today. But those have already been submitted to the water department. Right now we're using portable toilets.