Town of Otis
Planning Board Meeting Minutes December 11, 2023
Call to order 7:00 PM
1. Roll Call:
Mark Anthony – Chair
Hal Kobrin
Rona Knight (via zoom)
2. Approval of November 13, 2023 minutes
-no quorum, will approve at next meeting
3. Public Hearing: D&J Special Permit Modification
-request to withdraw without prejudice,
Roadblocks, dual purpose building not allowed, doesn’t work with the plan, will now need to rethink the entire project, economically just the townhouse project will not be ideal, mixed use is needed for economical, 5 units works fine but need the mixed use for retail space is desirable, not worth it to just be townhomes, cost has exponentially increase since original estimate,
We have some proposals put together for future plans, will be changing entire project and will not continue with original townhome plan.
Rona, really do need restaurants, businesses, place for retail.
Hal, understand that we can not mix the two types of permits so that’s why it can not be done under current permit, glad to hear you are not completely discouraged and looking to continue new projects.
Mark Amanti, public water source and other aspects of the project that have been done is still useable, and good work has been done that can be used in a different way, public interest in retail aspect,
Rona, great to have a place to go to for people on the water.
Mark Amanti, all is a part of D & J marina, we want to see improvements with all of that that’s why he is involved to keep Otis the way it is.
Mark Anthony, thanks for coming back to talk to us.
Motion to approve withdraw without prejudice and to end public hearing.
Mark motion to approve, Rona second, all in favor.
4. Any other business old or new.
Hal, Comment on D&J, does not want to move forward with entire project, and we see that is what is happening, glad to see he understands why we need to do all of this and what the law is and why we need to separate the two things, town home vs mixed use. Once a permit is issued it can not be altered in that way.
Mark, original design, what you could possibly develop on that property, vs plan
Hal, several owners ago, discussions on making it a little community within community.
Rona, community laid out that never got made, history of these things not working out, often due to cost, not an easy thing to do especially in Otis.
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Hal, going into the new year, we need to work on trying to work better with the selectboard, recently they did not use funding from complete streets and walked away from money without discussion with the planning board, everything was approved for this several years ago.
Rona, yes a better interface is needed, Barb is assigned to this and I believe she is going to the selectboard meetings.
Hal, tons of money out there to do infrastructure projects, we need to be ready to jump on this funding when the opportunity comes, if you don’t use money you have been given they will stop offering it.
Hal, about 3 years ago the funding was approved, plans for sidewalk were approved, selectmen are not communicating with the planning board they are making decisions on their own without working with the public bringing these issues to the planning board to have public hearings, involvement with police fire highway dept, we did all the background work to get to this point and we are not using the information and the work that has already been done, BRPC sent current round of new grant applications out.
Rona, the state came out to look at the project and was very involved. Why is Hal getting sent the information and not the planning board?
Hal, we can discuss grants with the board, exc, if we don’t take it were going to lose it, the selectboard needs to use the planning board for this.
Rona, we should focus more on the process, if we apply to something and send it to the selectboard, the planning board then needs to be at the selectboard meetings.
Hal, frustrating to do the work to get this money for the town for the selectboard to now not use it.
Mark, board needs to be more proactive with these things.
Hal, this has been presented to them continuously.
Mark, need to try to work together.
Rona, town is responsible for clearing the sidewalks, unless we are all present at the selectboard, maybe even before the grants are submitted and say do you want this are you ready to use this funding, why are we doing this work if you are not using the funds.
Hal, problem that the selectboard is not listening to the public.
Rona, what could we do to change this.
Mark, should approach the selectmen on the opportunities we have and see what they are interested in instead of doing all the work on something they are not interested in pursuing, we need to work together with them instead of just being frustrated about it,
Same as STR bylaws we did a lot of work and now it is just sitting with the selectboard since the spring and has made no progress.
Hal, they are not listening to the public or the planning board.
Rona, like marks idea, here are the projects, are you interested in backing/supporting these or not before we do all the work.
Mark, no point in getting into conflict not over anything specific, would be good to have on record what they are interested in and what they are not.
Hal, what you are suggesting we should do has already been done in the past.
Rona, need to remember the selectboard has changed since some of this has started, not all these people were involved, these new people think and feel differently, we need to start fresh as Mark is saying, we need to move forward with this board, it is a different board than we worked with before, we need to plan to get on agenda and work with them.
Hal, frustrated that money is available and going to waste.
Mark, will need to check in with town to fix zoom set up and get an upgraded account.
Having zoom option would be good to get public involvement.
5. Hal motion to adjourn 7:40 PM. Rona Second. All in favor.
Email from Building Inspector to D&J Development regarding zoning bylaws to be included in the record:
Subject: Re: D&J Development – modification request to Special Permit and Site Plan
Date:Tue, 14 Nov 2023 11:38:02 -0500
From:Larry’s new mac <bldginspotis@gmail.com>
To:Mark Amanti <mamanti@advancemfg.com>, Larry Gould <bldginspotis@gmail.com>
CC:David Donahue <info@dj-development.com>
Hi Mark,
See answers below.
Is there a bylaw in place that would affect our proposed 7 dwellings in 1 building?
The question was brought up that it may need to be 5 dwellings max?
In section 7.3 Townhouse Development, subsection 7.3.4 Number of Dwelling Units, (1.) No individual structure within a Townhouse Development shall contain more than five (5) dwelling units.
2. Is there a bylaw in place that prohibits the use of a multipurpose building? Retail/living space? Can the retail portion of this be grandfathered in as it has already been used for retail in the past?
In section 7.3.8 Relation to Other Requirements. …Where provisions of this section 7 conflict with any other provisions of the Subdivision Control Law or Zoning By-law … the provisions of this section 7 shall prevail. The Townhouse Development permit that is in place is the governing document for this property, both parcels. There is nothing in the Town house Development by-law that speaks to any kind of use except dwellings.
The by-law in Section 10.0 Definitions; Dwelling, Multi-family: A residential building designed for or occupied by three (3) but not more than six (6) families, with the number of families in residence not exceeding the number of dwelling units provided. Dwelling units within multiple family units may be owned individually or rented.
Retail, restaurant and hotel or multi-family uses are governed by the Board of Appeals in both V1 and R40 districts. An application to and issuance of a Special Permit is required. In the current case Section 7.3 governs and the retail use is not allowed.
If; You review your approved site plan showing the access to the property for the townhouse development and find a way to incorporate or separate the road, utility and infrastructure requirements using the 1341 property as a separate parcel, an application can be made to Zoning for the desired project. This will also require the Planning Board to review your changes to the site plan to either amend, if they find that the changes are appropriate to the current development permit, or to require a new application for a townhouse development permit. A third possibility is to present a subdivision plan to the appropriate boards, Planning, Zoning, Board of Health to incorporate all of the parts of your program.
Each of the uses you are requesting requires a Public Water Supply and monitoring, and an approved waste plan that meets the requirements of all of the uses.
The ability to have a mixed use occupancy in a building is directly related to the exact uses and building construction type. Discussions about the possibilities have been ongoing but final plans and clarity of the non-residential uses have not been defined. As this develops clarity of the requirements for the construction can be on going.
Thank you,
Larry