Meeting called to order at 7:00pm by Brooks McCandlish, Chair.
Members Present:
Brooks McCandlish, Chair; Stephen Pierce; Denise Renk; Bill Duffy; Bob Hodges; Nathanial Bruss, Alternate; Heather Weed, Alternate
Review and Consideration of Minutes
Minutes of December 7, 2016 were approved with no corrections
Rehearing request from Heselton regarding decision to hold a rehearing regarding Junk Yard:
The Board received a couple of letters from Heselton’s attorney, one of these letter asked that Bob Hodges recuse himself due to his connection with selling a house that is abutting the property. Bob asked the Board to vote to advise on whether or not he should recuse himself. The Board voted 4-0 stating that Bob should recuse himself.
Heather Weed also asked the Board if she should recuse herself because her farm has Laurie Buchar’s attorney on retainer; the board voted that she should recuse herself 4-0 to advise her to recuse herself as well. This left the Board as a four member board and the applicant (Chuchill Heselton) was ok with proceeding with a four member board.
Brooks read through the reasons why Chuchill was requesting reconsideration of the decision to the grant a rehearing. After much discussion there was a motion to approve Chuchill’s request and deny the application for a rehearing of the original application for a special exception allowing a junkyard; there was no second. There then was a motion to deny the application and to continue with the rehearing in March, again there was no second. After further discussion among the board, there was another Motion to accept the application and to reverse the decision in December to rehear the original application. This was seconded with a vote of 3-1 meaning that the Board will go back to their original decision to grant the special exception and there will be no rehearing in March
Sign Ordinance:
Pam Bruss came as a representative from the Planning Board to talk about the changes they will be proposing to the public regarding a new sign ordinance. There will be a public information session on January 10th at 5:30 prior to the regular scheduled Planning Board meeting in the Community Center and there will also be a Public Hearing on Jan 24th, 2017 at 7:00pm at the Community Center. Pam would like to have feedback on the proposed sign ordinance from members of the ZBA by the 10th
As there was no additional business to come before the board, meeting adjourned at 8:41PM.