Pittsfield Planning Board
Town Hall, 85 Main Street
Pittsfield, NH 03263
Minutes of Public Meeting

DATE: Thursday, October 18, 2012

AGENDA ITEM 1: Call to Order

Chair Clayton Wood called the meeting to order at 7:12 P.M.

AGENDA ITEM 2: Roll Call

Members present: Jim Pritchard (JP), secretary; Pat Heffernan (PH), vice-chair (arrived at 7:16 PM); Gerard LeDuc (GL), selectmen’s ex officio member; Bill Miskoe (BM); and Clayton Wood (CW), chair.

Members absent: Peter Dow (PD), alternate, and Larry Konopka (LK), selectmen’s ex officio alternate.

Other town officials present: Building inspector Jesse Pacheco. Selectman Paul Rogers is also present, but he is appearing as an applicant.

Members of the public appearing before the planning board: Carol Lambert, 83 Governor’s Road; Paul Rogers, 112 Catamount Road.

AGENDA ITEM ADDED: Agenda Review

CW said that he hoped that the meeting would go quickly and that members would postpone nonessential matters to the regular meeting in November. Carol Lambert is present, and the board will hear her during the public-input period if she wants to speak. CW has scheduled Paul Rogers’s application tonight, and Jeremy Charette, 211 Dowboro Road, wants a conceptual consultation, but he is not present tonight because he is not fully prepared.

AGENDA ITEM 3: Approval of Minutes of October 4, 2012

BM moved to approve the minutes as written in draft.

GL seconded the motion.

Discussion:

CW asked for the following change:

Agenda Item 5, page 4: change “CW said that matter on plat sheet 9 requires changes.” to “CW said that page 9 of CNHRPC’s report requires AHG to make changes.”

JP asked for the following changes:

Agenda Item 5, page 4: change “(See CNHRPC report page 9, bullet point 3.)” to “(See CNHRPC report page 9, bullet point 3 (the second bullet point on page 9).)”
The end of the minutes document, page 9: change “2 Town tapes.” to “one Town tape.”

Vote to approve the minutes of October 4, 2012, with the changes that CW and JP requested: carried 4 – 0 – 1. (Voting “yes”: JP, GL, BM, and CW. Voting “no”: none. Abstaining: PH.)

PH said that he abstained because his late arrival prevented him from participating in most of the minutes review.

AGENDA ITEM 4: Waiver – Extension/Change of use – Paul Rogers 30-32 Main Street, Pittsfield, NH 03263

Paul Rogers’s application for exemption from site plan review described his project as follows:

“I would like to open the existing doors between the two store fronts (30-32 Main Street) for the purpose of holding private functions. Room capacity is forty-nine (49) per room allowing a total capacity of ninety-eight (98) people. I would also like to have the opportunity to offer a Sunday breakfast buffet. At all other times, the adjoining doors will remain open for fire safety reasons and as an additional egress but not to serve meals. There will be no expansion of kitchen facilities.”

Paul Rogers said that he wanted to expand his restaurant business into a room that was previously a function hall. Paul Rogers will use that room as a function hall again. Functions will happen when the café restaurant is not open; for that reason, the expansion of use will not increase the vehicular traffic or the need for parking spaces and will not expand the kitchen.

CW asked for clarification that the functions and café uses would happen at different times.

Paul Rogers said yes.

CW asked for clarification that the doors between the two rooms still exist.

Paul Rogers said yes.

BM asked whether the fire chief had approved the expansion.

Paul Rogers said yes and that he, Paul Rogers, had installed a new fire extinguisher.

BM said that the previous restaurant, Zoya’s, had used the second room.

CW asked whether the second room’s door to the outside would be used.

Paul Rogers said that the second door was intended to be used as an exit. Paul Rogers had talked to the fire chief last night and today and had confirmed that one exit per 50 seats satisfies fire-safety requirements.

CW asked whether Jitters Café were open until 10:00 PM.

Paul Rogers said that he had done Friday nights but was not doing Friday nights this summer. Paul Rogers intends that functions will happen on only Sundays and special occasions. The added space will help fire safety because people and tables will have more distance between one another.

CW asked for confirmation that Paul Rogers was not expanding the volume of his business whenever he was open; he was only expanding the area.

Paul Rogers said yes.

JP asked building inspector Jesse Pacheco whether the board were overlooking issues that the board should be considering.

Jesse Pacheco said no. Jesse Pacheco said that he had talked to the fire chief and had confirmed that one exit satisfies fire-safety requirements, so the extra exit just improves fire safety. The door between rooms has always existed and has never been blocked.

Paul Rogers discussed other fire-safety measures that he was taking.

Jesse Pacheco clarified that Paul Rogers is arranging his door mechanisms to direct people to enter through one door and exit through the other door.

BM asked for confirmation that Paul Rogers is asking for an exemption from site plan review for an expansion of a nonresidential use.

CW said yes.

BM moved to waive site plan review for Paul Rogers’s expansion of Jitters Café.

GL seconded the motion.

Discussion:

BM said that, whenever the board grants a waiver or exemption, the board potentially creates a precedent that might encourage other people to say that they are entitled to waivers or exemptions, too. BM said that the decision should say that the waiver is for a particular reason; the waiver does not apply to anyone else who wants to expand his use.

CW said that the site plan review regulations are clear on the conditions for an exemption. Some of those conditions do not apply to this case.

JP said that Paul Rogers had copied the conditions for an exemption word for word from the site plan review regulations and that Paul Rogers had stated his reasons why his application satisfied those conditions. The board’s decision is based on those reasons and is not setting any general-purpose precedent. The board does not need to give reasons other than the reasons that Paul Rogers gave.

CW agreed that Paul Rogers’s application had addressed each of the conditions for an exemption.

Vote to approve Paul Rogers’s request for exemption from site plan review: carried 5 – 0 – 0. (Voting “yes”: JP, PH, GL, BM, and CW. Voting “no”: none. Abstaining: none.)

CW explained the 30-day appeal process of RSA 677:15.

AGENDA ITEM 5: Selectman’s Report –Gerard LeDuc, Selectman Ex Officio

GL said that the board of selectmen had asked Matt Monahan, of Central New Hampshire Regional Planning Commission, to appear before the board of selectmen and explain the class VI highway issues related to the AHG Properties application for cluster subdivision (Stagecoach Station) on the class VI highway Thompson Road. Matt Monahan will appear on October 30, 2012. Matt Monahan may also discuss bonding.

AGENDA ITEM 6: Members’ Concerns

CW said that he would inform members if anything developed with AHG.

CW said that the letter that he wrote to AHG closely followed the minutes of the planning board’s meeting on October 4, 2012. CW also sent AHG a copy of the draft minutes of October 4, 2012.

AGENDA ITEM 7: Public Input

Carol Lambert said that, according to the selectmen’s minutes of October 9, 2012, GL had called the AHG application complete. Carol Lambert asked GL to explain his statement in light of the Central New Hampshire Regional Planning Commission’s (“CNHRPC”) 11-page report on unsatisfied conditions of the 2006 special exception.

GL said that the CNHRPC report said that AHG’s application had satisfied the conditions of the planning board’s notice of decision.

Carol Lambert asked didn’t the other conditions matter?

GL said that most of the other conditions were matters for the selectmen.

Carol Lambert said that the other unsatisfied conditions made the application incomplete. Carol Lambert asked whether GL thought that AHG had to satisfy the special exception conditions that the zoning board of adjustment imposed.

GL said that he deals with only the planning board’s conditions.

BM said that CNHRPC said that the conditions under the planning board’s jurisdiction are complete. There are conditions remaining unsatisfied under the jurisdictions of the board of selectmen and the zoning board of adjustment, but, because the three boards—planning board, zoning board of adjustment, and board of selectmen—are “autonomous,” the planning board cannot require any other board to do anything.

Carol Lambert said that the planning board is the board that gives the final approval.

BM said that, at this point, the planning board has approved the AHG application. It is up to the chairman to decide whether or not all requirements have been met before he signs the plat and sends it to be recorded. BM said that he did not think that AHG’s application required another vote of the planning board.

Carol Lambert asked whether the CNHRPC report said that AHG’s application might have to have another hearing.

BM said that another hearing might be CNHRPC’s opinion, but the planning board does not have to vote again.

CW said that the board should be careful about discussing these matters in too much depth. The board must now have a dialog with the applicant in response to the CNHRPC report.

JP said that BM is interpreting the CNHRPC report when the report speaks for itself. The board should take the report on face value.

Jesse Pacheco said that he had spoken to Jeremy Charette and had advised him to go to the zoning board of adjustment before going to the planning board.

AGENDA ITEM 8: Adjournment

BM moved to adjourn the meeting.

PH seconded the motion.

Vote to adjourn the planning board meeting of October 18, 2012: carried 5 – 0 – 0. (Voting “yes”: JP, PH, GL, BM, and CW. Voting “no”: none. Abstaining: none.) The planning board meeting of October 18, 2012, is adjourned at 7:38 P.M.

Minutes approved: November 1, 2012

______________________________ _____________________
Clayton Wood, Chairman Date

I transcribed these minutes (not verbatim) on October 19, 2012, from notes that I made during the planning board meeting on October 18, 2012, and from a copy of the one Town tape that Chairman Clayton Wood made on October 19, 2012.

____________________________________________
Jim Pritchard, planning board recorder and secretary

one Town tape.