The Walpole Planning Board agreed at its May 10 meeting to add a second monthly meeting to its agenda that would focus exclusively on broader planning issues and needs than the usual monthly meeting can. This second monthly meeting is set for the fourth Tuesday of the month at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall through 2005.
I applaud these volunteer public servants for their willingness to devote even more time to our town!
At my request, Mel Schupack, who attended Tuesday evening's first "working meeting" of the town Planning Board, shared his notes with me. While we may be able to post the official minutes of the meeting after they are prepared and approved, I thought it worthwhile to get these informal notes out quickly so Walpoleans could know what topics were discussed and to begin thinking about them.
Mel said, "It was, I thought, a very useful session. Eric Merklein chaired it as Jeff Miller and David Edkins, the chairman and vice chairman respectively, were away on business and vacation.
Pam Azlinger, a Planning Board Alternate who previously had been active on the Warner, NH Planning Board for many years including, I believe, some time as Chair, I thought contributed a good deal.
The items on the agenda and what stuck with me were:
1) They generally agreed to re-establish rules of procedure for the Board.
2) The need to revision of subdivision regulation as the regs state 4 lots or less, while RS (Revised Statute) 676:4 pg 415 gives it now as 3. The
idea was for creating a subcommittee to review that, application procedures and compliance hearings as well. The motion to do so carried.
3) Class VI/Private Road Issues - required by RS674:41. Motion to appoint a subcommittee to study these issues passed.
4) Master Plan Update - in order to do a capital improvements update, the master plan needs to be updated as much has changed in the town since it was done. The Board will form a committee to tackle this and will seek volunteers from the community. (I'll be one of those.)
5) Capital Improvements Plan (and the need to consult with Southwest Regional Planning Commission (SWRPC) to see what progress has been made on their study of the data.) The need for this has to do with being able to anticipate future needs based on both the current town
infrastructure and projections about additional changes that will require more capital in the future. (SWRPC can help with the projections.) One of the
important things this might provide would be to develop a 10-year capital fund plan, updated each year perhaps, to budget each year for the funds (in reserves) that will become needed and to avoid
sudden needs (and taxes) when something major has to be spent.
6) Growth management - where does the Walpole Today (WT) petition stand? John Hansel reported that WT had dropped the request for this in view of the revision in the Site Review Ordinance providing for impact studies. There was considerable discussion and some doubt if those revisions
would actually allow control of something like the Berkshire Development plan for a 55,000 square foot supermarket. The Planning Board will look at this and perhaps consult with the SWRPC. As part of one of these discussions I handed out a list of concerns the Walpole Tomorrow Fact Finding group had, and I attach it below. There was also some
discussion of how to define "not being a regional economic center". I gave Eric a copy of an ordinance from a small town in Cal. that I thought did this in an ordinance. (Available by email as a PDF attachment if anyone is interested.)
7) Zoning Amendments for 2006? Consider re-zoning in some districts? Concern with lot sizes, uses etc. that perhaps need to be improved for
some districts. (Currently the requirements in both Rural-Agricultural and Timberland districts are the same as in Residential A.) There was some discussion about if an increase in lot size requirements or some other means might be considered with the Town.
8) The need to fill 2 more alternate positions, possibly a North Walpole rep. or a Zoning Board member.
9) The need to improve regular meeting procedures according to Robert's Rule of Order and to structure future agendas to reflect the Rules. There was quite a bit of discussion about how to improve the regular meetings. It was suggested that the alternates should sit at the table with the members and have name signs in front of everyone indicating their position with the Board as well. Pam Azlinger, with my enthusiastic support, recommended that there be an agenda published at least a week in advance of the meeting and to have it posted in various places including at www.TheWalpolean.com. (I emphasized the need for that.) There was
also mention of having a large town map put up at meetings so that locations being discussed could be located for the audience. There was some discussion about getting some map(s) on which the parcel lines could be superimposed.
All of this is from the printed agenda Eric handed out and from my probably selective memory, such as it is, of the discussion."
Submitted by Mel Schupack
__________________________
Appendix Memo to Walpole Planning Board from Fact Finding Subcommittee of Walpole Tomorrow
We want to thank the Planning Board for setting up a series of work meetings open to the public to explore how the town might best guide future growth and the possible changes in ordinances that might help achieve this. The Walpole Tomorrow group has been discussing it as well and we would like to show a brief outline of some areas of our concern.
Among the issues we would like to see explored:
A) The town’s master land-use plan clearly states that this small, rural town should not become a regional economic center. There are ways of developing this principle into specific zoning ordinances. There is at least one excellent example from another town where this has been done.
B) There are various economic studies showing that large chain businesses export out of a host community a much larger portion of their revenue than do locally owned businesses. Chain retailers also often cost more in town services than they pay in taxes, which is far less often true of locally owned businesses.
C) The master plan suggests the adoption of a scenic overlay district. While the existence of such a district may be implied in the current site review impact requirements, we hope the board will explore the possibility of expressly defining such a district and its boundaries as part of the zoning ordinance. Towns such as Bennington, Vermont, have adopted design standards; Keene has adopted architectural and visual appearance standards as part of their development guidelines. We also hope the board will consider adopting similar standards in Walpole.
D) The master plan calls for support of our existing agricultural economy. We would like to explore how the planning process and zoning ordinances can assist in this.
E) We applaud the site plan’s requirement that studies of potential impacts be paid for by developers. We hope the board also will consider requiring these studies to be performed by independent experts acceptable to the Planning Board.
F) We believe the protections afforded our rural agricultural and timberland areas need to be reviewed and analyzed.
G) The need for affordable housing that will not alter the integrity of the town might be explored. (Cluster development requiring surrounding green space and landscaping as one example.)
H) We applaud the Board’s support and work with the Walpole Conservation Commission in the commission’s efforts to define a "green infrastructure" plan that could be adopted as part of the master plan and implemented in zoning and site plan review ordinances. The commission’s green infrastructure plan could be an effective way of addressing the master plan’s call for the adoption of a river corridor protection overlay district and a natural resource protection district.
The master plan states that it is "only an advisory document that must rely on action by the Town to effectively implement the recommendations". The planning board has made some initial progress in addressing the issues raised in the master plan, but there is still much that we feel is needed in order to implement the master plan. The Walpole Tomorrow group is very concerned about protecting the integrity of our town while guiding our town’s future growth. We look forward to the opportunity to explore these and other issues in an ongoing dialogue with the board.
Chuck Bingaman
