June 24, 2014 Minutes


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									<h1 class="entry-title">June 24, 2014 Minutes</h1>
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					<p> 	Pittsfield Planning Board<br />
	Town Hall, 85 Main Street<br />
	Pittsfield, NH 03263<br />
	Minutes of Public Meeting	</p>
<p>DATE:  Tuesday, June 24, 2014</p>
<p>AGENDA ITEM 1:  Call to Order</p>
<p>Chair Clayton Wood called the meeting to order at 7:00 P.M.</p>
<p>AGENDA ITEM 2:  Roll Call</p>
<p>Planning board members present:<br />
Clayton Wood (CW), planning board member and chair;<br />
Pat Heffernan (PH), planning board member and vice-chair;<br />
Jim Pritchard (JP), planning board member and secretary;<br />
Bill Miskoe (BM), planning board member; and<br />
Gerard LeDuc (GL), selectmen’s ex officio alternate planning board member.</p>
<p>Planning board members absent:<br />
Eric Nilsson (EN), selectmen’s ex officio planning board member.</p>
<p>The planning board has no alternates at this time.</p>
<p>Other town officials present:  None.</p>
<p>Members of the public appearing before the planning board:  None.</p>
<p>“Members of the public appearing before the planning board” includes only members of the public who spoke to the board.  It does not include members of the public who were present but who did not speak to the board.</p>
<p>AGENDA ITEM 3:  Agenda Review</p>
<p>CW read the purpose of tonight’s meeting as stated in the board’s letter to the applicant and abutters to the Rustic Crust project at 31 Barnstead Road (NH Route 107):</p>
<p>“On June 19, 2014, the Pittsfield Planning Board received a formal request to reconsider its decision on June 5, 2014, approving the Rustic Crust site plan.  A copy of the request to reconsider is enclosed.  The board will meet on Tuesday, June 24, 2014, 7:00 PM, at the town hall, 85 Main Street, Pittsfield, NH 03263, to consider the request.</p>
<p>“The request to reconsider says that the board erred in approving the site plan because Rustic Crust proposes a bakery in the Light Industrial/Commercial District and because such uses must have a special exception under the zoning ordinance.  Such an error is purely administrative, and, for that reason, (1) this notice is a courtesy not required by law, and (2) the board will not be required to hear public input as part of the board’s review and deliberation.”</p>
<p>CW said that the board had no plans for any business other than the Klitzs’ request to reconsider the board’s approval of the Rustic Crust site plan.</p>
<p>AGENDA ITEM 4:  Consideration of Brian and Daryal Klitz’s request to reconsider the planning board’s approval of the Rustic Crust site plan at 31 Barnstead Road (NH Route 107)</p>
<p>CW explained the procedure that the board would follow.  CW said that he had talked to building inspector Jesse Pacheco, Matt Monahan of Central New Hampshire Regional Planning Commission, and an attorney at the New Hampshire Municipal Association (formerly known as the New Hampshire Local Government Center).  The New Hampshire Municipal Association (NHMA) says that tonight’s meeting is lawful and that the decision-making process is lawful.  The planning board does not normally reconsider its decisions, but the board does have the authority to do so.  (74 Cox Street v. Nashua, 156 N.H. 228, 931 A.2d 1194 (2007).)  CW said that the attorney from the NHMA had recommended using Robert’s Rules of Order to decide which board members can move to approve the Klitzs’ request to reconsider the approval of the site plan.  Under Robert’s Rules of Order, only a board member who voted to approve the site plan can move to approve the Klitzs’ request to reconsider.  CW said that JP abstained from the vote and so cannot move to approve the Klitzs’ request, but that JP can vote on any motion that another board member makes.  CW said that tonight’s meeting is not a public hearing and that the board will not hear from the applicant or the abutter.  CW said that the board will address only the issue raised in the Klitzs’ appeal:  whether Rustic Crust needs a special exception because the Rustic Crust building is a bakery in the Light Industrial/Commercial District.  CW said that Rustic Crust claims that their building is not a bakery.  CW said that the planning board has jurisdiction to decide the application of the zoning ordinance in this matter.  CW explained that approving the Klitzs’ request would vacate the board’s decision of June 5, 2014, and that denying or ignoring the Klitzs’ request would leave the board’s decision of June 5, 2014, standing.</p>
<p>BM moved to deny the Klitzs’ request to reconsider the board’s approval of Rustic Crust’s site plan because Rustic Crust has never presented itself to the town as a bakery.</p>
<p>GL seconded the motion.</p>
<p>JP said that he had looked up the word “bakery” in the zoning ordinance (article 3):</p>
<p>“BAKERY:  A place for the baking and/or selling of bakery goods.”</p>
<p>JP said that he had looked up the word “bakery” and “bread” in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged:</p>
<p>“bakery : a place in which baked products (as bread, cakes, cookies) are made”</p>
<p>“bread : a food made of a dough of flour or meal from grain with added liquid, shortening, and a leavening agent, the dough being kneaded, shaped, allowed to rise, and baked”</p>
<p>JP said that he had gone to Rustic Crust’s web site (http://www.rusticcrust.com/news.html), which says,</p>
<p>“Rustic Crust is a New Hampshire based bakery specializing in all natural, Old World crusts and flatbreads&#8230;”</p>
<p>JP said that Rustic Crust clearly meets the definition of “bakery.”  JP said that Rustic Crust probably never had said (to the town) that it is a bakery, but Rustic Crust’s failure to tell the town that it is a bakery does not exempt Rustic Crust from the zoning ordinance use classification.  JP said that, where the board is clearly wrong, if the board is intransigent, then the board will waste taxpayer money, the board will waste the applicant’s time and money, the board will waste the abutter’s money, the board will look stupid, and the board will lose.</p>
<p>BM said that Rustic Crust is a food factory that is a light manufacturing industry that stores, processes, packages, freezes, and distributes food.  Among their operations is baking.  Rustic Crust also probably processes job applications, but this part of their business does not make Rustic Crust an employment agency.  Rustic Crust has never presented itself as a bakery where a person could buy a cupcake at retail.  They are just running ovens.  A person who is heat treating metal is also running an oven and is also baking.  “This is silly.  This is just spiteful, I think.”</p>
<p>JP said that the definition of “bakery” is clear that selling is not a necessary part of the bakery use.  JP repeated the zoning ordinance definition of “bakery,” with emphasis on “or”:  “A place for the baking and/OR selling of bakery goods.”  Furthermore, the definition does not say that the selling, if existing, must be at retail.  JP said that the smart thing for the board to do would be to recognize that it made a minor error and send Rustic Crust to the zoning board of adjustment (ZBA), and the question will become moot.</p>
<p>BM said that the problem with JP’s suggestion is that it would delay Rustic Crust.  BM said that the proper place and time to raise the Klitzs’ objection was at the ZBA when Rustic Crust was applying for a variance.  The Klitzs did not raise their objection at that time.  Rustic Crust is trying to keep their business going, to rebuild, and to meet customer demand.  “I see absolutely no merit to this claim for reconsideration.  I don’t know who it benefits.  It just seems spiteful to me.”</p>
<p>PH said that he agreed with BM.  What Rustic Crust says on its web site is advertising.  Rustic Crust could advertise itself as a casino.  “The fact that they are heat treating some food product, I don’t think that qualifies them as a bakery.  If they were heating treating or annealing aluminum, could you call that a bakery?  It just doesn’t make any sense to me, where this thing has popped up.  So, I’m on board with Bill.  I just think that this term ‘bakery’ is a really, really farfetched stretch.”</p>
<p>JP referred to BM’s statement that the Klitzs should have raised their objection at the ZBA.  JP said that the ZBA would have been the wrong forum and that the planning board is the proper forum.  JP referred to BM’s objection that granting the Klitzs’ request would slow Rustic Crust’s project.  JP said that he had experience with litigation such as is before the board now, and JP predicted that the Klitzs’ would file an administrative appeal to the ZBA if the planning board decides that Rustic Crust is not a bakery.  Then the ZBA will decide whether Rustic Crust is a bakery.  Because Rustic Crust is baking bread-like products, it meets the definition of a bakery.  JP referred to PH’s statement that Rustic Crust could be annealing aluminum, and JP pointed out that Rustic Crust is not, in fact, annealing aluminum; Rustic Crust is making pizza crust and flatbread.  Rustic Crust is a bakery, and, if the planning board is intransigent, then the board will invite an administrative appeal, which will stay the board’s decision anyway.  Correcting the error as soon as possible is the best way to expedite the Rustic Crust project.  Of course, if the board is simply trying to avoid admitting a mistake, then the board will deny the Klitzs’ request.  JP said that comparing pizza crust and flatbread—foods made of dough—with aluminum, which is not a food, is not appropriate.</p>
<p>GL said that the board had not erred in approving the Rustic Crust site plan.  GL agreed with PH and BM in that to call Rustic Crust’s building a bakery “is a stretch.”  GL said that Rustic Crust’s building is in the Light Industrial/Commercial District.  The process that Rustic Crust uses for its business is an industrial-type process.</p>
<p>BM said that the board did not err because Rustic Crust did not present itself as a bakery.  If the board considers whether Rustic Crust is a bakery, then other uses that Rustic Crust is doing might also come under scrutiny.</p>
<p>PH asked CW to call for a vote.</p>
<p>Vote to deny the Klitzs’ request to reconsider the board’s approval of Rustic Crust’s site plan because Rustic Crust has never presented itself to the town as a bakery:  carried 4 &#8211; 1 &#8211; 0.  (Voting “yes”:  PH, CW, BM, and GL.  Voting “no”:  JP.  Abstaining:  none.)</p>
<p>AGENDA ITEM 10:  Adjournment</p>
<p>CW declared the meeting finished at 7:18 PM.</p>
<p>Minutes approved:  July 10, 2014</p>
<p>______________________________ _____________________<br />
Clayton Wood, Chairman		Date</p>
<p>I transcribed these minutes (not verbatim) on June 29, 2014, from notes that I made during the planning board meeting on June 24, 2014, and from a copy that Chairman Clayton Wood made on June 25, 2014, of the town’s digital recording of the meeting.</p>
<p>____________________________________________<br />
Jim Pritchard, planning board recorder and secretary</p>
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