Planning Commission Meeting Minutes: February 10, 2014

Meeting Location: Newfane Town Hall                                       

Meeting Date: February 10, 2014

____________________________________________________________

Attendees:                           Ed Druke, George Friend, Tristam Johnson, Merle Tessier, Pat Weisbrich

Absent:                                  None

DRB Attendees:                   None

Zoning Admin.:                     Merle Tessier

Public attendees:                None

Discussion Items and Actions

  1. Meeting called to order: 7:03 p.m. Attendees as noted above.
  2. Review and Approve Minutes:
    1. Minutes from meeting held on 1/17/2014 were reviewed for accuracy. A motion was made to approve the minutes as submitted. Motion approved.
  3. Review Agenda: Motion was made to approve the Agenda. Motion approved.
  4. Old Business
    1. Preparation for mailing of Newfane Town By-Laws.

¨       The complete definition for conditional use was omitted prior to printing of the final version of the By-Laws. The full definition was manually pasted into the definitions section of each copy of the By-Laws.

¨       Tristam proposed the creation of a cover letter that clearly defined the

  1. Statement of purpose
  2. Geographic areas affected
  3. Table of contents
  4. Description of where the full text could be examined

¨       Pat obtained check to pay for postage for mailing and committed to mailing the By-Laws packet to contiguous towns when the cover letter was printed.

¨       George proposed a motion to prepare a six page summary cover letter for mailing to the contiguous towns and regulatory agencies, the same letter for posting, and a newspaper publication of date, time, place and purpose of the meeting. Motion Approved

  1. New Business
    1. Status of the NewfaneTown Plan (TP)

¨       The Town Plans has been adopted and certified and will need approval from the Windham Regional Commission  (WRC) in order for the put Newfane in a position to access state grant money.

¨       At this point, WRC has indicated it would reject the Town Plan and provided a lengthy list of things that needed correction, editing and updating. This leaves the Planning Commission with the decision to either:

  1.  withdraw the current TP and work on a revised version
  2. Continue with the process, expecting rejection from the WRC, and continue working through revision of the TP under the guidance of the WRC.

¨       Subsequent to a lengthy discussion regarding how to proceed, it was decided we, as the Planning Commission, did not fully understand the ramifications of following either of the above decision paths. A motion was proposed invite the WRC and the Selectboard to a joint meeting to discuss this with the expressed goal of determining how to proceed. Motion Approved.

¨       Tristam volunteered to contact both the Selectboard and the WRC to schedule this meeting.

  1. Next meeting:       Monday, February 24, 2014, 7:00pm, NewfaneTown Hall.
  2. Adjournment:  A motion was made to adjourn the meeting at 8:58 p.m.
    Motion approved

Respectfully submitted,

Pat Weisbrich