Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Town of North Salem Planning Board met on April 1, 2026, at 7:00 PM (in-person and via Zoom). The chair apologized for scheduling on the first night of Passover. Items included continuation of a public hearing for Hawley Woods, a pre-application discussion for the North Salem Open Land Foundation, and routine extensions and approvals.
The board discussed a zoning code amendment to allow the NSOLF to use a donated single-family home as its headquarters and maintenance facility. The current office use in an R4 residential district is not permitted. Chair Cynthia recused herself due to a conflict of interest (she is an NSOLF trustee), leaving two board members plus the planner. John Baker and Pam Poole from NSOLF described their operations: four employees, public programs (e.g., black bear lectures, yoga retreats) about twice a month, storage of maintenance equipment, and a caretaker's apartment now vacant. The board explored potential zoning changes, including a conditional use permit for conservation nonprofits, with limits on square footage, employee count, and frequency of events. The discussion will continue at the April 15 work session, when a full board will be present.
First of all, my apologies to the board and to the public. I should have tried to rearrange a different night for this meeting, being the first night of Passover. But we'll do the best we can with whom we have here, and we may carry some items over. So the first item on our agenda is the Grant Road LLC preliminary subdivision. We're just going to carry that public hearing over to the May meeting. The next item on the agenda is Hollywoods. It's a continuation of a public hearing. We have engineer with us tonight. And no Alan Pilch tonight, right? Not tonight. Okay. Would you like to give us an update on the responses that at the first public hearing with quite a few questions and the as promised, a little packet was put together with some responses from the first go around. So just a quick summary. That's correct. Peter Gregory with DTS Provident here tonight for Hawley Woods. Yes, there were several questions, maybe five or six questions that were posed to us at the last meeting. Mr. Pilch had put together responses to each of those and submitted them back in, mostly related to the distances on where the I guess some of the work was going to occur relative to some of the adjacent properties, their structures and septics. I think he was able to determine that there are significant distances between where the proposed wells for the three lots are going to be installed in comparison to the existing wells that are around. I think he discusses the impacts as a result of stormwater runoff, how it's being captured and treated on site, minimizing how much is being discharged to adjacent properties. And also in terms of the construction, where it's going to take place and the you know what the adjacent properties may see from those. And there is screening that is proposed in certain areas to minimize the impacts from what they will see in the future in terms of headlights and cars and things like that. So that was put together in writing, and if any member of the public would like see a copy of that, just contact the planning board secretary and can she can send it over to you. Also, since the last meeting, we've had a few more people contact us. You may recall we had technical difficulties last time. So I think I answered his questions by showing him his two lots and the distance of the proposed septic fields to his properties, his well, etc. Don received another email from Christina Therese, and she received an email from the town of Lewisboro that this matter is will be on their mark was on their March 17th agenda. We haven't heard anything back since then. We received a letter from the New York State Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation, which we shared with the applicant. And I received a call from one of the commissioners of the Croton Falls Fire Department. They reviewed the plans and they didn't have issues, but they did want to make sure that there was going to be a supply of water on the property. So I sent them I focused in on the plans where you are showing 10,000 gallow gallon water storage tanks for each house. And the agreement that you put together saying that the HOA or the homeowners would be responsible for keeping those tanks filled. One thing I did ask the commission and the maintenance of those tanks. And the maintenance, yes. One thing I did ask him, and this is something that you might want to think about. Um I said if the fire department was called and they had to drain one of those tanks, could they refill it? And they said that might be something that they could do. So that might be something you could work with the fire commissioners on for something like that. And then one of the uh envelopes was returned from a Brendan Price.