This government meeting is brought to you by Eastworks and our local cable subscribers. We'll open tonight's meeting for August 6th at the U Southampton Planning Board and uh all members of present tonight, Paul Fal, Mark Darnold, Jim Lee, and
myself, Paul Demon. So, first order of business tonight, an ANR that Thomas Henkins uh submitted for 13 to 15 Cold Spring Road. I sent that uh information to you. And now that Paul's on who is a little bit
more adept in this than I am, can Paul, any way you can bring up that plan because the last time I did it, I screwed it up. Uh, let me try to get it up because every time I share the screen, I
can see it and nobody else can. Paul, is that the um Neil and Gloria Allen one? No, no, this is uh ANR for Cold Spring Road. Henkins is the name. That would have been sent before that uh
Cook Road one. Maple Street. Yeah, Maple Street. Hold on. No, the Henkins one is the ANR. The U Maple Street one is a discussion we're going to have. That was the last one I sent.
That Henkins one had to be over a week ago. Paul, hold on a second. I don't appear to have that in my Oh, hold on. [Music] I I don't appear to have that in my in
my in inbox. It would have come from the Southampton um or the planning board at Southampton or town of Southampton.org. Correct. Paul, do you have that email? Do you mind sending it to me? Maybe I could just pull it up. I've got it up on mine. Now I've got to
figure out how I can share it. Let me just So in the bottom center of your Zoom, it says share. Yep. And then select where it's up. Select. You can see one of those windows. There you go. Did anybody see? Everybody see that?
Yes. Yes. You did it. What? He did it. Time for a celebration. Let's hold a meeting here. Okay. So, here it is. And it's pretty straightforward. Um, the applicant,
Thomas Henkins, at 13 Cold Spring Road. um the plan was surveyed and everything else. What he's doing is just buying that extra lot next to him. He's not going to build on it because as you can see and probably by his email that I sent you too, there's a vernal pool
there and he's just in uh increasing his acorage uh to enjoy the uh conservation land that he's on, but he has no intention, which he probably would have very little chance to build anything on it anyway given the uh
conservation restriction. So, um, any other questions you guys, uh, feel free to ask? Any comments? The frontage is plenty. I can't quite read the small writing. Let me see if I can.
Looks like Jeez, it's moving. 14443 is the new lot and the existing is uh $129.94 plus some extra. So
So is he combining these together? Correct. Oh, that's a good thing. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have any problem with it. Mark Paul, what's the homeowner's I'm sorry?
What's the name? What's the homeowner's name again? Thomas Henkins. H I N I don't I I I was trying to zoom into the plan. I have your email, but it doesn't have that attachment on there
from nine days ago. Um, you seeing it on you're seeing it on the screen there. Okay. Yeah. So, you're basically adjoining lot 91 lot X with the other one, right? With lot 9A.
Mhm. As called out. Um, so basically it's just going to be under common ownership. So they're not Was that lot already pre? Oh, so they're carving that out. That's
why we're here for the ANR. Okay. I I don't have any questions. Seems pretty straightforward to me. Mark, I agree. Okay. That being said, uh I'll entertain a motion to endorse the plan. Um, so moved.
Second. Motion made by Mark and seconded by Jim. Any other discussion? All in favor? Paul? I. Mark. I. Jim. I. Myself. I.
Okay, great. Now, let's see if I can close out of this and get back to my other business here. Oh jeez. There we go. Oh, okay. All right. Next on the agenda, we have a building permit. And this is kind of a
formality because, and I don't know if Jim was on the board then. I don't think so, but Paul was and Mark and Dan, but it's for one Cook Road, Mark D um Mark Gerard, who we had already previously
had a um decision on a ground mount solar because it fell under the old regulations. Uh so we we approved his ground mount solar installation and now he's uh applying uh they're getting ready to construct it and they're applying for the building
per permit at one Cook Road. So um any other concerns about that? What size is it? What's that? The uh the solar the solar farm or whatever he's building. Uh it was it was under it was just under the it was just over the
minimum for small ground mount in our regs current regs. What is that 10 kW Paul? Do you recall? Yeah. Yeah. It was just over it was like 11 something. And that's what triggered uh but again
since town meeting had approved the uh the new regulations uh for having those by right it was a pretty easy process. there was there was not a lot of disturbance of land or no storm water management um required on it. So we did
issue him a decision to um approve that. Yep. Sounds reasonable. Any other discussion on that? I'm good. Mark, I'm okay. Paul
okay with it. Okay. Uh, could I have a motion then to approve the building permit for one Cook Road? So moved. Uh, Jim second. Who is that? Paul. Yes.
Motion made by Jim, seconded by Paul. All in favor? Mark? I. Paul. I. Jim. I. Myself. I next item of business is the fiscal 26
contract for Richard Harris I believe again I sent you guys that am I correct? Yes. Okay. Now, we had to adjust that because I had to check with Bradley Ocin, the town um accountant.
You know, 10 years ago or so, Jim, or whatever, we were pretty we were pretty flush with our account. I think we had over 15,000 in the revolving account um due to subdivisions and etc. And that
has slowly eroded because we haven't had that kind of development. And um most of this um what we had was all um expended on consultant fees with either Larry Smith or now Richard
Harris. So I got I got like $3,000 left. Um, I requested in the budget this year 5,000 knowing that I needed some buffer for Richard's consulting if we were going to continue with uh bylaw revisions and any other kind of
consulting we needed. I got $500. So, and he lost the zero on you. he had to uh resubmit his contract because it was I think maybe in previous years we had
uh allowed it up to like $10,000 not to expend over that. But certainly I told him I said I think you better cut it back to 2500 because I want some money there in case we do have something I got to pay for. I want a few bucks left so
he doesn't chew it all up. So, uh, his contract is reading, uh, not to exceed $3,000. 2500, I thought. Yeah. But it won't exceed 3,000 certainly because I Oh, okay.
I don't I don't I don't have it. I don't want to spend that much. So, looking and and furthermore, just to give you a little background, knowing that the town is going to at some point advertise for a uh quasi uh planning board, conservation agent, housing
authority, zoning board person. Um that hasn't been advertised yet. He sent Scott a job description before the end of the last fiscal year. And um he also put in there he was willing to um consult with this new
person going forward um if if the town um so desired. Um Scott didn't have a problem with that. But again, um if if it goes forward after in the process of hiring somebody, it's not going to come out of my till
because I don't have it. But anyway, um, in the most important things that he's working on right now, because we've done a lot of revisions in the last few years, he um, prior to the June 30th
invoice that he submitted um, last month, he had uh, done some um, work on our policies and procedures, which uh, needed some brushing up on, and he did quite a bit of work on it. In
fact, um so it's got a good head start. So I'm thinking we can't really do too much more until we get that um behind us because I I don't know how much more money we're going to have to expend going forward on any other revisions um
for this year. So, I'll entertain a motion if uh this board will accept his contract for $2500 um for the fiscal year 26. Like to make a motion to accept um
Richard Harris's contract for not to exceed $2,500 um for this fiscal year. Second motion made by Paul, seconded by Jim.
All in favor? I I Jim. Jim's eye. I myself I Okay. Next is the uh I sent you a copy of the I hope I did. I'm pretty sure I
did. Open space and recreation plan overview. It has to be updated every so many years, I guess. Um, I kind of read through it. I didn't read it verbatim, but um, it's kind of
intense. Yeah, there's a lot in it. I I was not happy having to deal with it so many years ago and and now it's back in our lab. Not that we have to go through it all. It's just that most of the uh stuff that's in there, there's a good
percentage of it, maybe 50% of it is all planning board related if something ever comes to the table. And I don't know who's going to propose it. What's your uh what's your uh feeling on that document and let it go forward as
it's written or do you want to make any kind of uh edits to it for open space? Feel free to chime in. Uh I just had one question. I don't remember where it was exactly, but about asking us to um
change the zoning to um enhance affordable housing. I thought that was the one of the things they wanted us to do was to modify the zoning and I wasn't sure I modified the the zoning for multi-
multif family I guess and with the new uh regulation by the state you know gave us is with the uh um the secondary homes um I forget the the ad what the ADL yeah ADLs I didn't know if that was something that uh we were in the process of doing. I don't remember us ever
talking about modifying the zoning for that purpose. Well, the ADUs were um that was passed in that package back in May, Mark. Right. Um I'm saying that's already been that's already been done. That's why I was wondering why it was asking us to do some additional stuff.
Okay. So, that was 2025. In the year before that, we changed the zoning to allow multifamily in in most districts. um etc. So, I'll I'll check into that.
I don't remember exactly. It was a lot of reading. Yeah. Right. Jim, I think you were on the board when that thing came through originally when we did it, right? Uh I may have, but I do not recall it for some reason. But um
but I I know the only thing we did to try to get affordable housing is exclusionary zoning which netted zero. We never got one affordable house from it. All that work we did. So um yeah, that maybe ought to be piggy back. That should be
modified. If we're going to make changes for affordable housing and we do something else, we should take we should reook at the exclusionary zoning because like I said, it never we never got one house out of it. Maybe make some changes there, right? Everybody's around. I mean, you might want to combine that
with that, but um but yeah, I don't quite remember it, but uh I started going through it. I did not finish going through it. Is this something that we have to answer now, or do we have can we wait till the next meeting before we can I can get I think he's he's got to know I forget what the email said. It said something
like he's got to know by September 25th. Maybe we have another meeting. um the first meeting in or second meeting in September to get that back to them before they send it off. They just wanted our input if there was something there.
Yeah, we could just go to the next meeting and then finalize it. I'd like to get through it. I didn't finish it. Um but u that would be great if we could. All right. Then Paul, before I ask for tableabling this and did you have any concerns or any questions on that or comments yourself?
I I just wanted to make sure that when we do look at this closely that we we take a look at potential conflicts in the goals and objectives that are listed here. um conflicts with
master plan or yeah within the document itself you know there's sections where we're trying to protect town natural lands and rural community character yet we want more housing right so it's like which one do
we want yeah double-edged sword right yeah it's like obviously I didn't read the every single detail under those particular goals but that's something that needs to be reviewed. So, it doesn't tell us that like we're speaking.
Well, that's probably a good one. It um given what Mark and Jim said, it's probably a good one to focus on that that that section about housing so we can maybe add some clarity
to it. Absolutely. I I think that's something to keep in mind given that And I'm not providing any opinion with the following statement, but we have two different
schools of thought in town where we have one group that's very focused on trying to expand our residential potential, yet there's the other one that's trying to preserve the rural nature of the community.
Obviously, that could be done with zoning and and and trying to leverage different areas to make those two goals concurrent. However, that's something we just want to make sure we're not conflicting with its statement.
Yeah. Right. All right. given that. So, somebody want to make a motion and we'll table it for further review and I'm I'm reasonably sure we'll meet the first uh Wednesday in September. And if for some reason or
other there's no agenda and he doesn't need that until like the 25th of September, I'll I'll put it off until that second meeting. But for all intents and purposes, I'll I'll schedule it for the next one, provided we have any other agenda. Somebody want to make a motion
to table for further review. So moved. Second. Motion made by Mark, seconded by Jim. All in favor? Mark? Yes. Yes. Jim? Yes.
Paul? Yes. I so for motion made to table. All right. And lastly, I sent you uh communication from the assessor's office for your review and your uh maybe
chuckling, I don't know, but I I got it yesterday and I she was u Kathleen from the assessor's office was asking me to assign an address and I'm saying I don't remember this. I how can I assign it? She says, "Well, I've got a
bill of sale here and a and a deed that was filed with the lawyer's signature and the stamp from the registry on a parcel that was sold on Maple Street." And I went through all my records for the last nine
months to a year and I found no ANR for that. And I'd say, "Well, how the hell can this happen?" So, am I all wet? uh Mark, Jim, Paul, or can can you can you sell a piece of property without surveying it and doing an ANR? And also,
uh you guys correct me if I'm wrong. Did it not make one of those lots non-conforming? Well, I I went through it and first of all, I don't understand how the Registry of Deeds can take a a a plan that has not been endorsed by a planning board. I don't understand how that can happen.
number one and number two there's a lot of buildings I looked I looked in pretty detail there's a lot of buildings on that parcel and the line goes in between so are they taking a primary residence and having secondary I don't know the you know because they it's not a formal application so we don't have all the
data and then the other thing is even if they were to create another lot I think they're in 175 ft it's residential rural area and there's not enough frontage there for two lots so I don't think we could have endorsed it anyway. So,
that's just a couple things that I looked into quickly. Exactly. Well, thank you, Mark. Your comments? No. Um, I know about selling it. I think, you know, a bank wouldn't let you do it unless you had, I think, a planning board endorsement. And I was
also not, you know, the plans, they weren't stamped. I mean, they were were not stamped by a a PE as well. They were they were noted by a PE, but it wasn't stamped and signed. I don't know if that makes a difference as well. I was surprised that a registry took them. Yeah. Paul, any comment?
Well, I I share the same concerns. Yeah. Okay. So, I talked to Kathleen today. She was going to um contact I just told her to wait. She'll call tomorrow, but but I said you've got to
contact the um property owners there and tell them there's a process to go to. But I I'm really really surprised that a an attorney that they hired, and I'm not going to mention the name, they they signed it and the registry stamped it. I
have no idea what's going on. And do we have a copy of this or is this something that we can research to see what what what specific details there are? I thought I hope in my email. If not, I'll re resend it. I thought in my email
I sent you guys the entire attachments. I got I got the entire package. I got the plan and the re, you know, the everything deeds and everything else, right? Yes. So, I don't know. Is this something that
has to go to legal? Uh because somebody should contact the registry and find out, are we missing? Is there a new regulation that we're not aware of? or did they make an error on their part and where do we go from here? Because uh that you can't let this continue with you know this if we don't do anything
and it happens again and again. I don't know. I mean correct me if I'm wrong Jim. I think isn't that the significance of the myar that's signed by the planning board and sent over to be filed at the registry? How can they do how can they do it without a a surveyed myar?
Yeah, exactly. They're supposed to also check the date. I know this with my problem I had in the past. Uh went to record a plan and you have 6 months from the time we endorse it to the time you have to record it. And uh I missed it by a week and they actually
took the endorsement but then it got cancelled. So uh they actually recorded it. Remember that? That was a long long time ago. But um but yeah, I I don't understand um how like I said how they could take that unless the rules have
changed and we don't know. But we should definitely have a conversation, I think, with the registry just to know if it's something that we're missing or is it something that they made a mistake on. Well, in in in um sympathetic with the assessors, you know, here she's they she
was presented with this paperwork and saying, "Well, so now I got to make out a new tax bill and, you know, draw up new maps or what the hell am I going by? you what have I got here to go by other than some lines drawn on a dotted line
drawn on a map by somebody? Oh, there's nothing because we would need the form, you know, the the uh all the proper data to come before us so we can make a decision. Um until they do that. Also, did you you notice Jim um doesn't
mean a lot to me, but you've been around here uh all your life that isn't there a what's that mountain road that was on? Isn't there a Little Mountain? Yeah, Little Mountain Road. It says discontinued on it. Uh that's another thing that when we have a surveyor that
gives us a map and it's stamped and all that other neat stuff, we know it's correct. But just because somebody wrote it on it, we don't know if that's correct at this point, but it's it probably is, but we don't know for sure. We need a stamp. Somebody put a stamp on a plan saying, "Yes, this is it." And
then we can hang our hat on that, I guess. But Right. Okay. Well, thank you for your input and I'll relay that to Kathleen and I guess we'll see this down the road maybe. Okay, this might have to go to the select board. I don't know if they should act on this because it's something that was
done. I I don't know. I don't know where it should go from here, but uh somebody should definitely um get involved. I don't know. It's never saw it before. Yes. Yes, Paul. Not to raise further
concerns, there's two exhibits, exhibit A and exhibit B that identify the the meats and bounds of the parcels in in in question.
Someone prepared that. So that would not have been my understanding is you need to prepare those prior to submitting to the registry of deeds. Yeah. According according to the assessor that that plan was old. There
was nothing new on it at all. Right. But if you look at the exhibit A and exhibit B, everything is dated from the late '7s, 1978. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Right. But then if you look at exhibit A and exhibit B, looks like it's fresh. Looks like
someone took it out of their Word file from modern times and printed it from a word file because it's got a path in the bottom of it that uh conveys that it's it's not, you know, something written by a
typewriter that would have been done in the 1970s. Huh. Interesting. I I wouldn't have picked up on that. I I've been watching a lot of detective shows. Yeah. That's funny. Um, but
but on a serious matter, looks like that they tried to uh skid the the process by by submitting something that doesn't seem to be proper. Unless we're all missing it. They might have submitted it and it's not there and it was done legally, but
then again, we didn't sign off on it, so we don't have record of it. Well, you're you're right. There's not enough frontage for two lots. So, we could never have proved it as far if what I can see, right? Digging into it from what I did. That's that was my first impression when I did the math on the frontage. I'm
saying this is this is wrong in a couple of different ways. So, yeah. And then, like I said earlier, there's a lot of structures on there. And if you separate primary from secondary structures, which we got in trouble, uh remember Richie Alexa got us pretty. We did that on Strong Road. We
actually separated a lot. We did an ANR from a primary to a secondary structure and he gave us a lot of grief on that. So, do we start with the board of assessors because frankly this is this is in their category 2. I don't know if this needs to be escalated to a legal review since it's clearly something
that's omitted our review of Well, I'm assuming she's when she talks to the uh the owners or the sellers of that property that she's going to put them on notice and um I'm going to tell her she they should
probably seek um legal advice on it and especially the the the counselor that signed off on it, the the deed and everything. So, maybe maybe he was unaware there wasn't a plan. I'm not sure. But um well um
what was I just going to say? Uh shoot. Yeah. Um from what I saw in the paperwork you sent me, it was told for a dollar. So it went to a family member is what it looks like. Mhm. Mhm. So the only way out of this is if the family member owns an adjacent property,
they can do something like that and then they have more frontage. But uh from what I see now, I I don't think an ANR will fly. All right. Thanks for your input. I'll call Kathleen and talk to her in the morning. Okay. Has anybody got any other um
information, committee reports or anything else you'd like to share before I call for adjournment? I have one thing to bring to the town's attention. And maybe this is something that um
we we we bring up to the to the town administrator side, but um so Mass DOT H is in a process of establishing a uh municipal planning and support uh program that they're providing
high level planning and um conceptual school level engineering services to municipalities across the state. So, this is a new program that's being rolled out is my understanding um that they have. So, where I'm going with
this is it seems like they're taking a lot more hands-on um hands-on approach at locations that municipalities might have concerns about, which can be either state
stateowned roadways, which obviously Route 10 is the entire corridor is owned by the state, but then also locations that might not be under a state jurisdiction as well. Um what would be ideal is I if if we can
start, you know, maybe looking at locations with uh the town administrator to see if there's some support we can get on assistance to study and provide potential mitigation measures or um you
know areas where there's you know safety concerns or a need to do a sidewalk evaluation or shared use path evaluation on route 10 or other things of that matter. It doesn't have to be on state roads, my understanding, but the point is this is something that we can
leverage state dollars to help us um bring more of a standard into Southampton. Um probably Randall should be on board with that too. Highway. Yeah,
I would I would imagine. Yeah. And I think that's a good suggestions. Yeah. Do you have any do you have anything uh in uh that you could send me? I'll email it to you right now so I can forward to uh Scott and Randall. I'll send it to you right now.
Good. Thanks, Paul. I'll send you a link. Yep. While he's doing that, Mark, any committee reports from you, Mark? I'm sorry. What? Any committee reports on your end? No. No.
Okay, Jim. Nope. All set, Paul? I sent it off and we're good. Yeah, I sent that off to you. Um, feel free to share that with others in in town. I'm not sure if that's being advertised, but that's something we know is coming
on a consultant side. So, that's something that the town should consider potentially get. Okay. If there's nothing else, I'll ask for adjournment. Motion. I move that we adjourn.
Motion by Mark. Do I have a second? Sorry, I'll second it. Oh, Paul got it. All in favor? I I All right. Thanks, gentlemen, uh, for coming in. Good to see everybody and, uh, enjoy the next few weeks of August
and, um, I'll keep you posted on that meeting in September.