 And I guess we've been calling this meeting to order then. Is everyone ready? Welcome, everyone. I imagine most of you are here for the public hearing. That's an official meeting. So we'll open the meeting officially. And would you guys like to, do you want to say something about it? No? Do you want to? Sorry, I thought I said raise your hand. I've answered it. Do you guys want to present first? And then we'll ask people to speak. And then we'll open it up to any other questions that come up. I'm kind of fluid on this. All right. I tilt the screen. Hop to me. No, you can't do anything about it. You said you're going to respond to a couple of the emails you received. So why don't we start there? OK. And I think I will go. You look at the speaker. So should I stay here, or should I move? Can everybody hear me? What do you want to go to do? Do you know? I, for some reason, why the ball alone. I guess nobody likes me. But you can come and sit. I can come and sit there. OK. Oh, no. Well, we can scoot over and then you could have a little visit. That's all right. OK. From the center. Yeah. OK. In case you don't know me, I'm Jan Olson, chair of planning. With me is John. We are expecting Gary, who is also on the planning commission. Our fourth member can't be here tonight. She's got a work conflict. So I want to also thank the select board for having a public hearing in such a quick manner. We appreciate it. And I want to thank all of you for coming. And for those who had submitted questions to us prior to this email, we appreciated that. So we had some time to think about how we wanted to respond to this. We started this process, if I could start it like telling a story, back when the state in 2015 did their Shoreland Protection Act. And the Planning Commission, thinking about things, thought we would like to have our shoreland become very similar to what the State Protection Act's shoreland was. So we evaluated our maps, some of which we can see up that is on the screen, and looked very carefully at all of the lakes and all of the parcels that are around the lakes and found that probably 60% of the parcels and the structures that are around our lakes are non-compliant. None of them met a three-acre limit. There were buildings where there probably shouldn't be, and that was the history behind it. We also found a couple parcels that were in Shoreland that had no lakeshore property. And we thought that was kind of strange, too. So we thought it might be more appropriate if we were to have an overlay district similar to what the state had in their overlay district. And over the course of maybe a year and a half, I can't remember, time flies by, we wrote a draft of a proposal. And we had three informational meetings in 2017, maybe, 2018. One was at the Adamant Community Center. One was at the Maple Corner Community Center. And one was at the East Calus Rec Center. And I have to say that property owners from all of the lakes did show up and give us some feedback. And I would comment that probably the greatest positiveness in all of it was that everybody that was at those meetings did support the idea of having an overlay as opposed to a regular residential district. There was, however, continued kind of resistance to having an overlay as opposed to a three-acre Shoreland district. And so what we decided to do as a planning commission is we evaluated the permitted uses and the RV conditional uses of both the Shoreland district as it exists today. And the rural residential district as it exists today. And what we found is hardly any difference at all. Maybe no more than three different items were different. And so we took that information and said, well, we can make a rural residential as the underlying district for most, almost all of the land that goes under the Shoreland overlay. And so that's what we did. There were two exceptions to that. There are two areas where the land in the underlying district is resource recreational. That is the east or the west side of Curtis Pond owned by Patrick Malone. And all of the land around Little Mud Lake, or I think it's Little Mud Pond, up in the northeast section of Calus. We wanted to keep that land resource recreational because it has a 10th acre minimum, and thereby protecting all of that land around there. So we wanted to keep that land resource recreational. Again, that becomes very important relative to having an overlay. The other three, other exception to that, which is very minor, there were three areas where there is a little bit of the village district under that. And that is that the southern tip of Adamurk, the southern tip of Curtis Pond, and the southern tip of number 10 Pond. In those cases, the people in Adamurk has said they would reduce. They wanted to reduce their village. North Calus wanted to increase their village. And we felt there was no comment about anything about the village area south of Curtis Pond. So we just sort of left those as they are. So what's in the overlay? And this becomes, I think, extremely important. All lakes have a buffer of 100 feet. And that buffer is a vegetative buffer. As we worked through this with some members of the town, we almost called it the holy land. We want it to be kept a buffer as much as possible. Now, can you have a six foot wide trail? Absolutely. The state allows it, and we allow it. It's exempt. You can have a six foot trail in the buffer and in the upland. It's a granted. But there are other issues that are there in that buffer area. Even though the state requires registration for a new cleared area that is 100 square feet of new impervious surface located between 25 to 100 feet of the mean water level. Meaning, even though the state can allow that in the buffer zone, the planning commission felt it would be very important to have no new development in the buffer area. And you will find that in one of the standards that we have. But we also had to understand and acknowledge that there are a lot of houses, there are a lot of cottages, and there are other sheds that are already and have historically been in the buffer. And we know you're gonna have to maintain that. And so what is also built into these regs are that says any reconstruction of a structure that's currently in the buffer that is long as there's no change in height or building can be done without a permit. So we recognize that the existing structures do need maintenance. And for those who want to add to an existing structure and adding it to the back, you're gonna have to go to the DRB for conditional use review. It's adding impervious surface in a buffer zone that is to be basically 100% vegetative cover. Some people have said, is that too extreme? We take it as no. We say maybe it's a little step forward to responsible stewardship for the water quality of the lake of which this is next. For future generations. And that's where we're coming from as we developed these regulations. In the upland zone, which is the second portion, so you have your lake region, you have your buffer of 100 feet, and then you have an upland. And that's usually 150 feet so that the total shoreland overlay is 250 feet. With, of course, an exception, and we're gonna talk about that. And that exception is the eastern side of Curtis Pond, which has an overlay of 700 feet. What I'd like to really stress to you is that anything under in the upland, you can do anything in that. The underlying region and the underlying district is rural residential. And you can get a permit to do structures in that upland zone. There are several exceptions. We don't allow garden centers, extraction, or salvage yards to be built. And that's just an exclusion. Bed and breakfast goes to the DRB. And I keep pointing to her thinking she's still on DRB and she isn't. But anyway, so there are certain minor exceptions, but basically you can do a whole lot in the upland zone because the underlying region is your rural residential region. There are two couple caveats though. You cannot go beyond 10% of impervious surface in that area. That is no different than the shoreland regulations you have now. Historically, we have had 10% impervious surface and we're keeping it at 10% impervious surface in the shoreland overlay. The other difference was the ability to calculate what is cleared land in the upland area. 40% of the land that is in the upland zone, only the upland zone, 40% can be cleared. We're keeping that. That's what the state has and this is what Calis has. So if you decide that you have and you want to put a building or a structure of some kind in the upland zone, those are two of the most important caveats that you have to remember when you're doing that, the 10% impervious surface and how much of this is 40% cleared. I might say now why is, because the question was asked, why is the east side of Curtis Pond so unique that it has an 800 foot overlay? The answer to that question is one word, density. When you look at this map and you see all of those little tiny parcels, you are looking at parcels that are no bigger than 0.25 of an acre, 0.3 of an acre, 0.4 of an acre, 0.5 of an acre and on each one of them, pretty much almost every one of them, there is a cottage or a year roundhouse. For the course of the years, how much has this overpopulation created a possible problem or hindrance to quality of water? I don't know how many times sitting around other things I've heard people complain about issues of the septic area around there. So in order to, the density over the years has possibly helped in the degradation of the lake. It was our belief then as stewards for the future of the lake to have a greater amount of upland on that section where all the protective standards for proper management of your property and of the management of the standards as is advertised in the Shoreland Protection Act as stewards of that upland you extended is a measure probably to mitigate, if you will, the density on that side of the lake. I think it was John who said in one of those or maybe it was Noreen, we've loved the lake too much. And so it is. So now it's time and I would say let me put it this way too and I know some of you may not like this comment but Curtis Pond Association went out and promoted the idea that the town could help with the Curtis Pond dam. And one of the things that you mentioned in all of that was the degradation of property values on Curtis Pond if the dam was not repaired. Likewise, I would say the town is asking for almost a quid pro quo. Can you put in a little extra effort of protecting the land by having a little bit of extra upland in an effort to keep your property values up, keep the water quality up and protect it for the future generations. So that's where the Planning Commission is coming from. One of the other things that was mentioned in the emails that had come through was mowing. We have a story about mowing. When we first started this and had our meetings we initially had a fact that you would mow. If you mowed more than one time a year it was considered you could not mow anymore. And at those meetings somebody said that wasn't fair. That wasn't fair to the people that are out of state that own the cottages and they sometimes couldn't get there more than maybe every 15 months. And so we considered that possibility after that meeting and we said okay we'll go to two years and we'll give it to two years and say if you mow you can mow, maintain one mowing every two years but if you don't mow after two years after that point in time it becomes you can no longer mow. We made that a condition not only in the shrod but also a condition in 3.14 which is the protection of surface waters. But because we received this question about mowing we sought out some advice from some people in the Shoreland Protection Act. And thanks to Melanie we did get a response and I would like to share that response from the Shoreland Protection Agency relative to the question about mowing and lawns especially as it relates to the Shoreland. Their response was quote, SPA has no definition of lawn but use the definition of cleared area. Because of that I have shared with you three definitions that I think are very important. Vegetative cover, what is a lawn and what is a cleared area? And because the cleared area is what the SPA uses for their work I think it's important to know what a cleared area is. An area where existing vegetative cover soil, tree canopy, or duff has been permanently removed or altered except when managed according to the vegetation protection standards. Laura of SPA went on to state the following. Generally when we communicate to the public we consider cleared areas to be developed areas. Grass lawns, landscaped areas which includes gardens and decorative areas, maintained areas, rock outcrops, ledge and bare soil. So and think about that definition of cleared area especially as it relates to your upland area because that's where your 40% is cleared area. Occasionally the public reaches out to us about maintaining an area that was previously mowed, cleared that has since revegetated. Once a previously cleared area re-naturalizes it becomes protected vegetation. We don't have a set timeline of when something that re-naturalizes. The wetlands program may and we chose not to go to the wetlands for that definition. Typically we ask folks their maintenance schedule and if we learn that the property was routinely brush hogged once a year and then it has not been for four years we say that it has re-naturalized. It's a little bit of a judgment call but if it has fallen out of its usual routine of maintenance then it is no longer a cleared area. Given that explanation from the state and we have in our record in our proposed regs that we want the mowing to be every two years and by the way we still have people who would prefer to have no mowing at all. So this is definitely a compromise but two years if you can try to maintain your brush hogging and every once every two years where you're not gonna have a re-naturalization of your land. Now by the way, again, this is only the cleared area. What you do in your property outside of the shoreland overlay is totally whatever you wanna do. We are talking only about the overlay here. So those are the definitions. The other question that was asked was how do we all differ from the shoreland protection agency definitions? Well obviously the first one is about the roads. If you have a road that intersects either the buffer or the upland area we do expect maintenance on both sides of that road to follow the guidelines of the vegetation protection standards. The second one is we are at 10% impervious surface. The state is still at 20 but we kept it at our historical level of 10. Our cleared area has a little bit of a different measurement. It's 40% but it's 40% only of the upland area that you have and our slopes are different. The state slopes are 20%, hours are 15%. And I'm hoping that you will all understand where we're coming from. We believe it to be responsible stewardship for our future and improvement of water quality to have these kinds of standards. And that's all I have prepared in answer to the emails that we've received. And now I guess we open it up to further questions. Okay. Let me start with this. I have a process question. Sure. Can I ask it, Tom? Okay. I don't know. I came in like a little bit like a minute after. I don't know if you just, you're already talking about the process. I want to know what the role of the select board is now. I'm just not clear what happens. This is, the select board is holding this hearing. What is the select board going to do? What can the select board do? Yep. Then what happens? Following this hearing, if the select board may make changes or not, if we make substantive changes, we have to hold another hearing like this one. If we make no changes, then we have two options. Correct me if I say anything wrong here. We have two options. One is we can adopt it by majority vote of the select board. The other is, and we're intending at the moment anyway to do this one, is to warn it for a public vote by Australian ballot. And that would probably be a month following whenever we decide we're satisfied with it. So it doesn't get sent back to the planning committee? I mean, if you could send it back to the planning committee. We could send it back to them to make changes that we do. The key word is substantive changes. The key undefined word. Is that answer? Yeah, okay. So let me ask the select board first. Do you have any questions about this that you want to ask Jan or John? I have a couple of questions. So there is an upland overlay in the current regulations. We changed the name. Oh, we changed the name, okay. We're using the state name for the, so it's going to be our upland. It's going to be called silence. Guys. Can everybody hear that? That's it. Okay. And the second question is relative to the kind of extension of the upland region. Was that boundary defined by any particular land feature? Yes. It follows the age of the foot country, shape of the existing shoreland district, especially at the southern end of Curtis Road. It's based on landforms and legend stuff. Follows the age of the foot line until it gets to Camp Road. And then I arbitrarily chose Camp Road as the place to bring it back and then intersect the 250 foot. You all said Jordan? Yeah, I guess I have a comment on that. One of the observations that I have with that extension and it received some comment on why that buffer got extended and why I hear and understand what Jan was saying about the density on that side of the pond. The extension appears to largely go over onto parcels that don't have properties that are immediately on the shoreland. And so it seems a bit like extending an overlay onto parcels that haven't been over on the east end. Well, I know, but. Oh, okay, go ahead. Yeah, that's it. Finish your question. You know, and I'm gonna use the term penalize for a severe lack of other words, but it seems like that extension of that overlay is kind of disproportionately affecting parcels and property owners who are not immediately on the shoreline and had contributed to that kind of degradation. And the other conflict that I see is that those are fairly large parcels that are pretty close to a downtown or village center and should we as a community want to encourage further development in one of the village centers that could restrict development in those larger and further subdivision in those larger parcels? You're asking several questions here. So many questions. And John, help me as we talk about this. Okay, the first thing about what we do or what happens, you are right. Some of these are larger parcels, but the way the flow of water goes, where do you think it goes? Does it go up or does it go down? And so everything that is here affects eventually going down this way. And the better you have, I don't want to say control, but I understand that. So that's why we are doing it this way. Plus, this is the existing shoreline that you have now. And so we just kind of kept it there. Now, when we talk about the village area here, I can't remember exactly what your question was on that. But a restrict building and development. No, it does. Well, it could and it could. But the other thing, I think, John, the thing that is very interesting about this set of standards that we are proposing is something called river corridor, which has a lot greater effect than anything in shoreline. And I think one of the issues of river corridor is something right coming out here. We aren't allowing building in river corridor. So yeah, there is going to be not the availability to create a good commercial, if you want to call it that, village center in our designated village centers. Mainly because we have river corridor. And then the perennial issues of water and so on. And that certainly affects, I mean, yes, that is the conundrum that the planning commission has. Please, step me in your letter to the planning commission. You asked for a 1,000-foot buffer instead of an 800-foot buffer. I'm sorry, I can't hear you, John. You wrote a letter to the planning commission. I was read into the minutes. Only had a spectacular presentation. And I believe you called for a 1,000-foot buffer instead of 800-foot? No. 500 feet. Five. I said 500 feet because we had, the conservation commission had seen and looked at and studied information coming from the Department of Environmental Conservation that 500 feet is the optimal distance to protect water quality. Oh, so you wanted 500 feet everywhere. We wanted 500 feet everywhere. Yeah, that's what it was, not 1,000 feet, but it was 500 feet everywhere. Based on these studies that showed the 500 feet is the optimal distance to protect water quality. Jordan, are you all set for now? I think so. Yeah, thank you. Oh, sorry, Gabrielle. We talked a little bit at the other public hearing about the dam construction. Can you talk a little bit about how the dam renovation project would be affected by these new zoning regs? I think the answer to that is where do we have this? I know there's something, some language in here that we state-approved dam repair or replacement is exempt from review under calisoning regulations. We have nothing to do with the dam. Now, whether or not that meets the state protection tax stabilization of a shore, I have no idea. And that's going to be an SPA thing. But I think the Curtis Pond Association have applied for, I believe, from the state for shoreland protection agency, but. That's another premise. These are not, we have no, you know, a state-approved dam thing we can't touch. So your response is, you know, give it down. Okay, yes, Jordan? The Oakland region, you mentioned that there aren't very many restrictions, so to speak, just kind of extra considerations, and those specific restrictions were more kind of protections against kind of commercial operations that would be in that. Specific watershed, but you mentioned extraction, and I was wondering if that included forestry uses or approved forestry uses or. No, if you're doing forest silvery thing, that's already exempted in 1.5, as is anything, Ag. But yeah, in looking at all of that, basically every permitted use in the upland is as allowed in the underlying district. The exception is a bed and breakfast, and there you've got issues to go to the DRB. You've got parking, other things to go on, and a small-scale telecommunications facility. Some of us absolutely wanted that out, but we're keeping it in. And then, of course, any change excluding reconstruction to a non-conforming use or structure. Those go to the DRB. And in terms of the upland, those three things that are absolutely not allowed is the extraction and coring, salvage yards, and garden centers. And the reason why garden centers was mentioned because of the potentiality of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. All right. I have a quick question. Oh, you're welcome. Just to shift gears for one second, I heard corridor overlay. I couldn't figure out easily on a quick read. My recollection is it's a 50-foot wide. Is that 50 feet either side of the stream? Yes. And is it, like, follow the shore exactly or from the kind of average center of the stream, 50 and other feet? Right. Where do you get into that, which you're responding to? You're responding to your share. Yeah. We've also received several written statements. I think I'll wait to see, because I think some of you are here and may want to speak. And if you would like to read this, that's fine. So let's find out who would like to speak. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. So, Jen, you mentioned that the river, or what did you call it? The surface. River corridor. The river corridor. And the flood hazard overlay and the river corridor overlay. And the river corridor overlay is brand new. But the whole flood hazard was totally rewritten. So, when you look at a map of Calis now, we have a huge amount of wetland and we have a huge amount of river corridor. And yes. Okay, so you mentioned that those are more impactful in your mind than the shoreline stuff. And so I'm just wondering if there is some kind of a fact sheet about that or something that would help people wrap their heads around it and understand what are the top 10 effects of those new pieces of it? Help me out there. Ha ha ha. The river corridor, I don't know if we have the map up. Do you have part of that map here on this one? I don't know. Happy to answer that question. Okay, is she hill-fiddled with it while he does this? The river corridor, the reason why I say it affects most of Calis is because the rivers come, there's here through Kent, there's all of the area south of Adamant. There is a river corridor out of East Calis. There's, you can see the big orange blobs. There's one I call it that that go along the way. In addition, river corridor has something called they have these streams of which they are identified as being part of river corridor stream. They're not mapped as river corridor, but they are gauged there because of some speed of the water that it's going to the flow. I don't know. Yeah, how long? To do with the drain size of the watershed, that's like sort of a cutoff point that the state uses. And if it's, if the drainage area is above a certain pressure, I don't remember what that is, but then it's mapped to what the river really needs to satisfy its migration path both time. So that's what the river corridor really means is like where is it going to go as it moves around? And when it gets below that certain pressure hole, then it gets into the 50, 25 feet. Right. And those become those bright little red lines throughout the state, throughout our town. And those also have a 50 foot wide buffer on each side. Supposed to. Now the reason why we kept all of that going is because that is part of river corridor in order for us to get ERAF, the extra 5% emergency funding relief. And so it's become part of river corridor. Let's see. Anybody in the back row want to speak? So raise your hand. Cully, Cully, you wrote something. Norrin, I mean Norrin. Hi, my name is Norrin Ryan and I'm just speaking from the Calis Lakes and Streams community. We sent this statement in to you and I guess I'll just basically just say that we support the provisions and the changes, the amendments to the shoreland zoning as they're being proposed by the planning commission to you. The statement is smaller than that. However, Jan covered much of what I had said in the statement. I don't think it needs to be. Thank you. Anyone else in the back row? Let's go to the middle row who wants to speak. I know you do, Marge. Do you want to come up? You're welcome to come up or just speak from there, whatever you like. No, I'd like to see if we could get the map up. Which map? Of the Curtis Park. Okay. I can do that. Is anyone else here? Do you have a minute or not? I seem to. I do. You do? I can't get it. I'm gonna grab a wire. I can't get it. My gosh. Ann, interrupt to get the names of people who speak. I am between, as you go. Okay. I'll go with this map. One, one, one, one, one. That's good. That's good. That's the one that you want. Yeah. I'm Marge Sweeney and I'm going to speak. I'm going to be sent over and I'm not going to read the whole letter, but we own this piece of property here. And our concern is we're being treated differently than all the other, the most of the other people on the lakes in Calis. We, I don't, this is a big piece of property. I don't, I don't want, and so I don't, I don't understand the density issue when I see smaller ones around here that are, we're not included. So I'm not, we don't have an issue with the 250 foot for a man, but extending that, that 700 feet into a piece of property, I just don't think is, that we are being treated fairly and as the other people in the town. I don't, we, we've been managing this land. We have trails in the air, a lot of people in the town use them, and we're happy that they do. I don't want to have to worry about any time I want to do something in that piece of property. You have to go in front of a hoarder. Experiences with the Calis boards haven't been as positive as I, and I don't want to have to deal with that every time I want to put a trail up there. But you wouldn't have to march. Because you're doing, you're doing rural residential. You're doing, no, this is surely an overlap. No, but, but the upland, this, this portion, then this portion from here to here is upland. And the underlying, this is a rural residential. It doesn't have, it doesn't have the exact same rules as these properties here. Yes, you've got 40% limit, and limit of 10% per reason. Why do you have, why do you, we all know that once regulations start, that's just the next step, what will be the next step? Why are we not being treated like the rest of the, because of the intense, the intensity of the population on this side? And we understand, I understand that you think that you have a larger piece of property. I don't know what to say about that, other than what essentially does happen is the way the land and the stormwater management and erosion and potential erosion can do going flowing down towards that. And there's rivers coming out, and there's things here, and there's beaver dams up in here, and yet they're not in this piece of, you can, Chan, didn't you say there are some things that she can't do now, like for example, have an extraction facility that she could do if it weren't, if it were just in the rural residential and not in the shoreland? Well, then we'd have to go to the guidelines of what are the extractions in 4.4. There's only so much limit that you can do, but if you have an extraction, I don't care whether it's 250 or 700, but it's what you are doing is creating something that affects another going in erosion down until, I understand that, but just to respond to Marge's question, you also said she can't have a garden center, whereas she could. A business, well, yeah. So the piece of property that a next stormwater was, 50 feet away, can put a garden center in. Not that I've ever considered putting a garden center in, but you have one regulation, and then next year it's another regulation. So, and I don't see the difference between these and these down here and all of the properties that are through here. So that I just don't think would be treated the same as the other links. They don't have an extended and the rest of the curse pond. And the rest of the curse pond. If anything, there should be some more properties that aren't needed to us. So that's basically all I want to say, and I didn't know if you wanted to add anything to that. I just wanted to, you don't think I appreciate all the hard work that's gone into this, but I just would like to see consistency. I would prefer to match up with the state. I mean, now it's, you got to go to the state, and they're different, and that's the regulations. For instance, 1% versus 20%, so it's just, that's the only part of it that I don't find. I understand because that was one of the things that people first said was that they wanted it to be exactly like the state, but we had a lot of pushback on that. Yeah, no, I don't think, I understand. Can I just ask you a question related to that? Aren't there areas of like Nelson Pond and number 10 pond where there are a number of camps that means they don't have the density of population? In other words, I think in Nelson Pond, where Wilson lives, and around in there, there's not that many, and when we looked at that, yeah, they had not the intensity, not the intensity of what's on the east side. But ours respond to land, a lot of it is over 200 feet back from the water. And yet we're being penalized to use your word for having that property on the east side. And I just want to make a comment to your comment, Jan, concerning the effort on the dam that you proved the statement, no good deed goes unpunished. John, what's your statement? I just want to mention that, take a look. If you think it can be a single doubt, everything you're seeing in Crosshatch is people that weren't a residential, but now there are severe restrictions on what they can do as a property. That's the whole idea of this. So it's not like you're being singled out for something tough, everybody in the short-term is being singled out and there are restrictions on the development. Two, seven hundred feet back. What you can do between 250 and 700, I'm not sure that you could, it's rural residential, so you've got a three acre minimum. So that's the density of development that you could do there. I suppose you could do the garden center thing, we could take that out and put it that way there. And that's where this garden center came from. So I'm worried that bags of fertilizer would break open and flow into the water. In regards to what Mark is asking, do you talk about, I'm calling a little high, did you talk about just straying the 700 feet all the way around the pond? And was it discussed? Just so everybody is the same. I just wondered if the planning commission talked about that. Well, on that issue, we did, but the issue on the west side is totally, I mean, that is resource recreational and it has the largest acreage per minimum at 10 acres. So the issue was only about the eastern side of Correspond, to be honest. Why not the northern? Well, yeah, we could have made it up that way. And like John said, it was kind of an arbitrary thing that he kept it at Camp Road. That's the terraced what we have right now. That's the shoreline district now. We have to comply with the shoreline standards. And I don't have issues with that. It's putting that pink back, whenever that is. Because that restricts things we can do. This is the same thing. It's just not restricted. This is the bigger area. I don't know where you're getting it. I'll turn the pink one back on. There's the pink one. So you can see the green one. It's not better than the pink. Well, why can't we be in the green instead of the pink? That's how I'm asked. You are in the green right now. It's a little bit. And you've got the three of your minimums. You've got, in fact, right now, the distance you are allowed to construct from the wire is 150 feet. And our new radius is 100 feet. Okay. Shall we move on? Anybody else in the middle row here want to speak? Just, can you just clarify the blue? Oh, can you put that back up, John? The blue, the white and blue, which... Would you state your name for a second? I almost had it. I would have got it. I'm still collecting it all. I'm just curious, John. How is the light blue, the restrictions in the light blue area different? I recognize. Well, the light blue is what is current. And you don't have the same buffer as current. You don't have the same 40% restriction of, you won't call it restriction of clearing land. None of that is in any of the current Shoreland district. And the green is showing the current Shoreland district. So that will go away once. Yes, because the overlay is the pink. The pink overlay that March didn't like. I get it. I'll be on the part of it. I understand. Okay, it's front row. Stephanie, do you want to see it? Yeah. Go ahead. So, I'm Stephanie Kappa. And I'm here both representing the Commission of Commission and also myself personally. For both of us, the Commission and myself, we just, we think that the Planning Commission just did a magnificent job. They worked really, really hard and they were very, very open to suggestions from both of the Conservation Commission and the Lakes and Streams Committee in areas where it was initially consumed. So, the Conservation Commission totally supports these provisions. I think there's just substantial, better protection of the water quality. I think so too, although I have a few things that I don't agree with. And one of the reasons I just found the process question is that none of my concerns are big enough that I would want this not to go through. I mean, this is, you know, they're in a way, they're minor. And I don't think they're so minor, but they really are minor compared to this overall major improvement and better protection of the water quality. But I just wanted to say, the Planning Commission has heard from me several times about this. And it's just a couple of things that I just wanted to emphasize. And one of them is the issue that John just raised about the extent of the, well, now it's the overlay. I mean, right now, the zoning regulations provide a shoreland district that is 800 feet from the ponds and lakes. And so, going to 250 feet with this overlay is a major reduction in that more stringent protection that is given around the ponds and the lakes. And as I said, you know, the Planning Commission, the Conservation Commission, we had a conversation, I can't remember if it was with the Planning Commission, it's like, where did the 800 foot buffer come from, or the 800 foot shoreland district? I know we knew, it seemed very arbitrary. But it was, it was pretty arbitrary. We had it in our minutes, right? We have it in our Planning Commission minutes going back to 2016 with Larry Bush in attendance mentioning about the 800 foot. Well, so then we looked into it, we talked to people and we got this information from the Department of Environmental Conservation. They had a chart about different distances from lakes and ponds and which are the best for protecting water quality, and it was 500 feet. So I still think it should be 500 feet because it's based on science, as opposed to just a number. I remember that chart, there were different stages, it was, I think, 50 beakers, many animal species, 100 and 200, and it didn't have anything to do with water quality that I had to do with habitat. You're right, it was both, I think it was both, John. I think that as it went out, it was different species. It was different species, water quality, and that was all habitat. Yeah, you're right. But we care about the habitat and the creatures as well as the water quality. So the area around lakes and ponds and rivers and streams is critical for wildlife habitat of all sorts, anyway. The other, I just wanted to make a comment. I'm on the Development Review Board and this is about overlays. And we had an application some months ago. It was in, I think it was in the upper overlay area. And it was so confusing trying to apply two different standards. So for that reason too, as a member of the DRB, I don't want things to be any more complicated than they have to be. And I think that overlay complicates things in a way that's maybe not necessary. And then I have a, just an issue about slopes. The state, I believe allows 20% slopes, I mean. So you've gone down to 15%. And there was an issue, and I'm sure a lot of people here are aware of it, that there was a driveway bill across Nelson Ponds. And I believe it was 14% grade. I think, John, that's what you said at the time. And there was a mess and it caused a huge amount of erosion and it was really a problem because the right across the road from Nelson Ponds. And it was 14% is very steep. And it was so interesting because it gave us and me a visual picture of what a slope, a 14% slope, is I wouldn't have been able to really visualize it. But there it was and there it still is. It was somebody building a driveway that was an accessory used to a house that's along that road, Nelson Ponds road. So anyway, that is one of the reasons. And it was just an issue of curb cut. And that's one of the reasons the conservation commission spent so much time working on a new curb cut ordinance so that something like that wouldn't happen again. And so it's a little dismaying to see the shoreland zoning regulations allowing development up to 15% close to the ponds and lakes. And I just think that is not necessary. And I'm not sure why it has to be that steep. And you should all go driving along Nelson Ponds road and look up at that drive, it's 14%. And you can see how steep it is. And as I said, it was just such a visual image of what a 14% slope is. And what the potential consequences are when there's runoff and erosion, when you're that close to a lake. So those are my main things. And the whole annoying thing, you know I don't agree with you, but. And you know, I was smiling at you when I said that. No, you know, I've said it a million times. You know, if you really, the callus really cares about protecting the water quality. There's tons of studies and information about how lawns are not, or cleared areas are not adequate to protect against runoff and pollution and stuff into the lakes and ponds compared with, you know, grown up vegetation, grown up native vegetation. And you do allow a six foot path to the lakes and the ponds. And so, you know, it's not as though people's access is being taken away. But anyway, I know you're not going to change. Okay. Anybody else? Anybody? Oh, yes. So I just, I'm John Rosenblum. I own an unmapped water area. I call it Curtis Swamp. No one's ever named that. Used to be called Frog Hullo. Or two forever callus. I'm not sure why it's not mapped because it's a very, very fertile wildlife area. And it's just, I have the property that's the edge of the yellow where it starts going checkered on the south side of Curtis Swamp. Right. So you have your finger in Curtis Swamp now. So, yes. So who knows why callus goes not to map? That's what that water area, wetland, come. But maybe, well, I don't have well-named features on it. Oh, okay. So we have no, I have fairly no restrictions. I can build summits. But, oh yeah, okay. So I've never seen a restriction. It is on the maps. Jordan, thank you. Okay. I'm thinking about the long-term callus, land value of callus. It's a large extent based on our water and on our ponds and our streams. And we have an ever-increasing recreation economy here. Maple Corner is the center of a lot of recreation. There's probably 30 miles of bike and walking paths right around Maple Corner. We've been walking this since the Maple Corner. Supported by the property owners. I think they quote, you were quoting me, but I don't know if you're quoting me, but I said that Curtis Bond was being loved to death. And that's true. When I came here in 2001, you could swim in the area around the dam. Now it's all the lily paths, just about, except we're done rigorously, riot drives his boat over and over and over again to try to keep the lily paths from taking over the whole place. There's lily paths at the southern end of the pond, up to the boat access, that there's a dock there. You can see on the house that's on the very south western side that is surrounded by lily paths and can't be used anymore. When I came in 2001, that dock was still being used. So what we're watching is that Curtis Bond is filling in with lily paths. The whole top past Cummings is not just lily paths. It's actually starting to be land. And so the pond is disappearing. We're spending, we've bonded $450,000 to repair the dam. We've raised $250,000 additionally from donations of the community. This bond is super valuable. It's at least worth $650,000. We know from evaluating its impact on the grand list that it's worth millions of dollars over the course of 20 years. And we also know that the Maple Corner Store depends upon the pond for its survival. I'm the president of the board at the Maple Corner Store. Without the pond, we don't think the store would survive. The store is the cultural center of Maple Corner and West Calis. So I'm just, I'm not gonna say anything about specific rules. I'm happy that the commission has worked on this. I support adopting this plan as it is, I think adding the streams to protection is very important. And having the road crew continue to improve the runoff situation and also to maintain the runoff situation. There's places where the road crew has created settling ponds, which are now folded over flowing of silt and haven't been maintained. So we need to figure out how to do that. We need to figure out the last houses that are polluting the pond with sewage. I know of one house that had great water going into the pond up until five years ago. There may be others. We need to figure that out and solve those problems. We need to slow down the death of Curtis Pond as much as possible. It's going to die. And some of us are gonna live long enough probably to see it die. Die as a pond. I mean, that won't bother the wildlife that likes wetlands. But it will bother the economy of Calis and it will bother our grandchildren. And so we need to maintain this and we need to do things even if they're uncomfortable and convenient. We need to really take care of our ecology. So, of all of Calis, not just Curtis Pond, but all the wetlands, all the streams, and all the ponds. So that's just my statement. Thank you. Thank you. We've also got a few more letters in support. And one which expresses some concerns about mowing and asking for a different schedule. But in the interest of time, I'd like not to read them unless anybody particularly wants to hear them and I can certainly make them available to you or read it because they wrote it. We'll maybe post it on the website, Anne. We could do that. We'll post it down below. Would you like to speak? Me? Yeah. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I thought I saw you. Did you talk about the mowing situation at the Curtis Pond swimming area? We mean as part of the planning regulations? Yes, because I don't think that's mowed two times every two years. It's mowed less frequently. But I don't think they want to lose the cleared area there. The swim area for people who haven't swum there, there's a sort of a sandy beach and a grass inside. First thing is what you are doing now will you will continue to do. New regulations go into effect when there is a permit for a new application to do something. And that is the time when John as the founding administrator has only the power to enact those changes unless somebody reports to him that something is going wrong. So we did not talk about anything about the mowing of the Curtis Pond area because it's gonna continue on as it is right now. You're not doing any new development really except for building rails. But they're mowing less than every two years. Well, can it be changed? Then what? Can it be changed to mowed every two years? I don't know. I don't know who's in charge of it. The state says if you don't know in a four year period it's re-naturalizing so you've lost it then. So you either do it for two years or three years. But the question is if they don't, if they mow that swimming area every three years. Who's a day? I don't know who mows it. It's the town. If they wait three years and then mow it, three years and don't mow it then can they never mow it again? Correct. According if in fact there's some new development that. So the regulations are gonna force them to mow it more frequently than they want to. Not just them, the people who've got property along rivers, other ones, screens. These mowing standards apply to every stream in town on the site of it. Every pond, not just the shoreline protection ponds, every pond has a 50 foot buffer and if it's mowed, if you don't mow it in four years or two years while it rains. Do you want to say something? No, I mean I see the point that that does, encourage more mowing than one might do by having it required every two years versus every five years. Yeah, but by the time you got. The water is a state record, right? Yeah, and you're re-naturalizing. What you're doing is re-naturalizing and what they say the state is you've re-naturalized it, you can't mow anymore. So if you don't want to mow, I know it's a frequent mowing, but if you want to maintain it that way without it re-naturalizing the state language, then maybe we have to mow every two years. I'm not sure about area you're talking about, but I know that there's an area around the swim area that the road crew mows regularly every summer through the swimming mows. And it's already been mowed this year, hasn't it, John? Yeah. And it's mowed every, I think, two weeks all throughout the swimming season. The whole camp comfort area? I don't know what the area is. You'd have to ask somebody over at the highway department. That's what it looks like when you have it by. It looks like it's been mowed this time. So, I mean, regularly. I'm Sarah Gallagher. I'm just curious, what is, what makes two years better than the state's four years? Is it because we want to reduce over time the amount, I mean, the amount of land that's not naturalized around the pond? I'm just trying to figure out why this is. The first four is no mowing versus four pretty much. We're looking for something in between. Is there plenty of people that would like to see a total no mowing? Right. So it's like a compromise, essentially. It's what you're doing between different camps. I was just trying, trying to understand what the weather would do. It's important to make this a big issue. Right. Jen wants to make a last. Just the last pitch is that the planning commission would very much appreciate it's my board approving these. And moving this forward to a vote. There's a lot of people that it's important that the citizens vote for these amendments. And in that, I want to remind you that you are voting not just for Shrod. Look at the standards at these amendments holistically. You're voting for a lot of things that affect all of the town. It's new tables, it's updated definitions. It's things that make it much more current in addition to the Shrod, the river corridor, the revised flood hazard. And so when you're voting, you're voting for something that's for the whole town. Thank you for coming. All right, at this point, select board. We need to talk for a minute. I've outlined what we have to do. We have to decide first if we want to make any changes. And if we don't, we have to decide whether we're going to adopt it, which we could do tonight, or whether we're going to vote or vote. Maya, are you having a go at it? Yeah, I'm trying to discern are we in the select board meeting? We're still in the public hearing. Okay, my wrist hurts. Which is the select board here, I'm meeting. Anybody want to comment on it? Let's start with changes. Is that what you wanted to talk about? Me? No. Oh, I thought you raised your hand. Oh, no, no. Is anybody? Is anybody on the front page? Let me ask, does any of us want to see changes? Or are we just to look at the document as is? Yeah, Jordan, are you okay? Okay, then the next question is, do we vote on it as a select board, or do we warn it and let the town vote on it? Ask the town to vote on it. I think if we were making fewer changes as a community, and I think this is an important issue to vote on, I know there's been a lot of conversation about previous practices and what technically can be done, but this is a pretty substantive change to the regulations. If there were fewer of them, or they were more minor, more kind of like clerical, or even if it were just a single section that was just seeing some revision relative to changes in statute, I think that we warrant a select board vote or application, but given how significant it is, I think it would be appropriate to go to a town vote. Are we all in agreement on that? Anybody want to say anything different? I'll say I agree with that. All right, in that case, we have to give at least 30 days warning. We could ostensibly warn it later this week. We could handle that, couldn't we? So I think we're looking at the week of July 17 or possibly the 24th. Question. Yeah. There's no way to forego it until town meeting to avoid the extra cost of. No, if you do, we have to go back to ground one. There's some rules about when the planning commission started the process. You can't appeal that. You can't ask for. Jan? There's a September 20th deadline. We have one year from when we did our planning commission for this year. We do not pass these regulations by the one year mark after our planning commission hearing. We have to start all over again. Yeah, I don't want you to have to start over again. I'm just saying, do they not ever, you know? As far as I know, no. Because this is a process that everybody follows. It's whatever the name of it is. What is the name of the framework? But yeah, it seems to me that we have to follow that. And how much does it mean a special election or a special whatever Australian? Well, we would just do it by Australian ballot. We would have people come to the town office to vote. So it would be what? Printing up a, probably we won't get as big a turnout as we would for town meeting. So I imagine you wouldn't print up as many ballots. We won't mail them unless people ask for it. We'd mail them, as people call it, ask for them, then we'd mail them. So we wouldn't have to print that many. The expense is going to be primarily, the time of work in my time is primarily, there'll be some printing, some postage. All right. So what do you say we warn it for the week of the 17th? Is there a particular day that would be a better day? Are you talking about for an election or for another hearing? No, for an election. I think people think of elections as being on Tuesdays. So maybe. So how about the 18th? What do you think, guys? Sure. July 18th. July 18th, okay. And then does there have to be another informational hearing 15 days before that? No, not according to this sheet you gave me. Thank God. And I'm not sure whether we have to vote for this. We probably do. So let's do it. Oh, yes you do. Because that's on that little certification sheet. Oh. That select board has to vote. And we have, and I've asked that we do vote in the select board meeting for this. Okay. That I would like a copy of those minutes so that I can attach it to this thing that has to be filed. Okay. And that, oh yes, Barbara. So before you, would you make your motion? Is it possible to make a motion to have July 18th as your first priority date but set a second date in the event, Tegan? Because it's vacation time. And Tegan's not here. I don't know what her vacation schedule is. Okay. So could we say, can it be that if it's not availability, town park availability, that would be that date. If she's not available. Okay. And vote on a second date. A week later. Okay. Okay. So then I would entertain a motion to have, to hold a hearing to adopt the planning, the zoning regulations as presented to us tonight by Australian Ballot on July 18th or July 25th at the convenience of our staff. Would that have a hearing? Is that what? Did I call it a hearing? I'm sorry, I meant a vote by Australian Ballot. Sorry, Rose, you can clean that up for me. You, yeah. Okay. Would somebody make such a motion, please? So move. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. There you go. Tell me those aides again, please. Oh, congrats, yeah. July 18th for the backup of July 25th. Yes. Thank you. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, and. I guess now that you're adjourned now. Yeah. The next order of business would be to adjourn the meeting of May 25th.