The Planning Board meeting on Tuesday evening (Oct. 1) will include discussion of the final drafts of the proposed Route 28 rezoning article and the proposed stormwater management regulations (which the rezoning article relies on for protection of surface and groundwater). The board will also discuss for the first time the proposed overlay district that would add new special exception uses to the former Bittersweet parcel and a string of properties on Route 28 that run parallel to Kenney and Hodge shores.
The agenda for the evening is available here.
Earlier drafts of the articles are available here:
Notes on the October 1, 2013 Planning board meeting
The Wolfeboro Planning Board met and discussed a number of items. The Center Street/Rte 28 Mixed use Business District proposal (10th draft dated September 26, 2013) which only applies to the areas east of Trotting Track Road that are currently designated as C2 will go to a public hearing on November 19, 2013. There will be a public hearing on the Stormwater Management regulations (also as of the draft of September 2013) will go to a public hearing on October 15, 2013. There was considerable discussion and a presentation by Rob Houseman about the means to monitor compliance with the regulations once a project has been developed. It appears that management efforts for towns in New Hampshire and Maine are focused on elicit discharge and not ongoing monitoring (e.g. nutrient load monitoring). Mr. Housemen felt confident that Wolfeboro could develop a check list, modeled on check lists in existence in other NH or ME towns, which a developer would have to have completed by a qualified engineer in an ongoing fashion that would allow current town personnel to accomplish that task.
The Overlay District which would apply to the properties currently zoned Rural Residential was discussed using the draft of September 12, 2013. As an overlay district the zoning regulations of the underlying zone will hold unless specifically modified. The draft was acknowledged by Mr. Houseman as a shell to be modified. The purpose component was left unchanged except for a grammatical error.
The draft had no boundary notes. It was decided to use part of the Rte 28/Mixed Use Business District setbacks. They are rear set back (Cotton Valley Trail) 75’and front set back (Rte 28) more than 20’ and less than 40.’ The underlying Rural residential Zone has a coverage limited to 20% to which the new definition of impervious coverage would be applied.
All new uses in the Overlay District will be Special Exception uses. Those that already exist in the underlying zoning regulations were stricken from the document. The additional special exception uses that were agreed to were, business services (without photo processing), professional offices, personal services (minus laundry and dry cleaning), new bed and breakfasts, library, cultural arts facility, education institutions, restaurants, Totally stricken were inns, day care (any number of people), elderly housing, movie theaters and restaurants carry out. Mr. Houseman was to work on the exact wording of the descriptions that vary from standard town use descriptions (e.g. business serviceS except photo finishing).
No design standard modifications were made. The storm water management regulations will be the regulations to be promulgated after the October 15, 2013 public hearing. Buffer requirements with the exception of a grammatical correction were those of the Rte28 Mixed Use Business District. The Development Standards with the exception of changed the minimum roof pitch to 10/12 were those of that proposed zoning changed as well. The Other Requirements were also taken from the Rte 28 Mixed Use Business District standards and left unchanged. There was a comment that it would be desirable to present this overlay change at the 2014 town meeting. However, planning for a public forum and specific dates and any other action to make this happen were not discussed.
Going forward the Rte 28 Mixed Use Business district has a number of uses and uses by special exception which presents a concern to the lake and to the abutting residential properties. Any application for these will have to be watched carefully. The Stormwater Management regulations effectiveness and limits will ultimately depend upon the town to actually monitor and enforce the regulations. The Overlay District as discussed presents a real improvement in the permitted uses category such that potential harm to the lakes and the residential abutters has been lessened.
Representing the lakes and abutters were a dozen interested parties.
Carl Crosley
5 N Kenney Shore