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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1979-06-05 GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING Held in the Town Hall Groton , N . Y . Tuesday - June 5th , 1979 as 8 * 00 P . M . PRESENT : R . Gleason - Chairman* G . Totman* D . Payne* M . Adams * G . Evans - Tompkins County Planning Board* J . MacNeil * C . Twigg* L . Raymond* J . Bell - Recording Clerk* * - Denotes those present . Mr . Gleason called the meeting to order at 8 * 15 P . M . R . Gleason; Everyone but Mary has received the minutes . Are there any additions or corrections ? Page 3 - G . Evans on paragraph 3 add : " facilities nonconforming as to building type" R . Gleason: Are there any other additions or corrections ? If not the minutes stand approved as presented . Does anybody have any reports at this time ? Is there any old business ? Any new business ? George , - -has there been anything at the County level ? G . Totman : The last few weeks and months all they have basically talked about is the Route 96 overpass . The last County Planning Board session was devoted mainly to the proposed new Route 13 and that is when Frank got bombarded by Marquis and a couple of other farmers , but basically it ' s just been other towns reporting on what they have been planning and so on . R . Gleason : Is there anything Groton ought to report on Route 13 ? G . Totman: My own honest opinion is no , because every time anyone comes up with something someone is against it . But none of them are planning to go through the Town of Groton so , there really isn ' t much point in getting involved in it because the ones that are involved someone keeps bringing something up . The farmers have a good point but this has been going on 10 - 12 years and you ' re never going to get a highway if you don ' t come up with a plan to the State . I think Frank ought to put his foot down , - -he ' s very congenial . And now I think what he is trying to do is appease those farmers in that area because basically Marquis is doing it for other farmers rather than for him - self . It ' s only going to hurt 1 or 2 people and it ' s really not that bad . - 1 - D . Payne : Don ' t they have to supply him access if they cut his land in half ? G . Evans : If you remove his access you have to provide it but so far as I know they won ' t remove any access to anyone ' s property . G . Totman : They plan to go right through that one - - that has a stone pit , gravel pit and so on . R . Gleason: If 13 is limited access then there would be a problem . Some discussion was held on this by G . Evans , G . Totman , R . Gleason and others . R . Gleason: Let ' s go on with our review . There was one thing Gary - - last time when you were reviewing the nonconforming uses . I was on the phone and later when I was reading the minutes there in the beginning there was something you said to the effect that our ordinance you thought was not quite legal in this section on nonconforming uses because the Board of Appeals can grant a variance and this may not be legal and something else here . G . Evans : Let ' s see if I can find what you ' re talking about . In your ordinance it says an existing nonconforming use can be changed to another nonconforming use with a variance from the Board of Appeals . What this means , in effect , is that the owner of a nonconforming use has legal rights that people who have a con - forming use do not have and I think this is probably not con - stitutional . What it means is that if I have a residence which is a conforming use and I go to the Board of Appeals and say I want to change this into a gas station or something Bob could not give me a permit and the Board of Appeals , according to its own rules , could not grant me a variance . However , in the ordinance it says if any property was already nonconforming - - let ' s say I had an, industrial building. and happened to be living in it and I wanted to change it around a little bit and make it a commercial - -grocery store your Board of Appeals could legally grant me a variance to do that according to your ordinance . To start with - - the owner of a nonconforming use has certain rights that owners of conforming uses do not have which is one of the pecularities of the zoning law and that is they have a sort of guaranteed monopoly - - like , for instance , using the gas station as an example if you own a gas station in an area where they are not permitted it means you aren ' t going to have any competition open up across the street - - right ? But , being a nonconforming use not only do you continue your business but you are guaranteed by the community that you will not have any close - by competitors . This I consider to be not exactly a subsidy but favoritism of a sort but to go ahead and say if you have this nonconforming use not only will you guarantee this local monopoly you also have rights before the Board of Appeals , - - I think that is going much , much too far . Do you get the point I ' m making ? R . Gleason: tYes . What I was thinking about when I read that , - - I think when we talked about buildings particularly that had a use that had long since ceased and it was a good building and it was in a zone where it couldn ' t be used for residential but only useable for some com - mercial or manufacturing activity , I think we talked about something - 2 - R . Gleason : in the Trumansburg ordinance about this and it was pointed out some flexibility should be given to allow some use of that situation . And the other part , - - I think why that was in the ordinance has to do with the fact in some cases we zoned some areas that had other uses which conceivably would need to expand or couldn ' t always remain viable and it was an attempt to allow them to continue to be viable under changing conditions . I think that ' s why that wording was in there . G . Evans : O . K . , - -I understand that situation and the point I want to make is that a variance is not the proper means to meet that need and , in fact , this situation is what gave rise to the section in the classification booklet I gave out to you which we discussed at length - - Section 342 . Let me read to you the introductory para - graph to this . Mr . Evans read this aloud : " The purpose of this . . . . . . . . . but are otherwise suitable for a non -residential activity . Permitting this . . . . . . G . Evans : And there are five listed here . (Mr . Evans read the 5 aloud ) and the suggestion I believe I made was that the items in this class of activities be permitted in otherwise residential areas with a special permit . Now a special permit is issued by the same body the Board of Appeals - - but it ' s a different animal . R . Gleason : O . K . G . Evans : So that was the intent of those categories . R . Gleason: Does anybody else have any comments ? O . K . we might as well proceed with your presentation . G . Evans : I have a list of things you decided to permit or not permit . 0 . K . in the review we did category 342 - restricted impact activities - - they have been dealt with and they are permitted with a zoning permit in medium intensity area and these have been dealt with already . So the potential problem of an existing non -residential building standing vacant because it ' s in a residential district need not trouble you because it can be taken care of through this special permit procedure . R . Gleason: 0 . K . - - another part I was concerned with , - -what happens with a building - - suppose you have an activity that is nonconforming that is in need of expanding in order to stay in business . How would we handle that ? G . Totman: If you ' re going to look at every place that needs to expand in a nonconforming area there ' s no sense in making it nonconforming . That defeats the whole ordinance . R . Gleason: I ' ll grant you that . Yet there are circumstances where we might like to do that . Particularly in the agricultural area . We have a hybrid area really and there , again , this comes back into this whole business we have been wrestling with as to where do we have businesses . - 3 - • G . Totman: As far as I ' m concerned you don ' t want to - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - agricultural use . But in other towns they just have to decide where they want things to be and some people are going to be hurt - - no question about it - - but if you keep saying we have to make exceptions for this guy and that it defeats the whole purpose in having , an ordinance . R . Gleason: I agree with you . What I ' m really getting at , - -I guess - - is are we going to have to divide this thing up a little differently ? G . Evans : More districts ? R . Gleason : More districts or some other arrangement . I thought maybe - - be - cause one of the things the Town Board wants is they want a place they can say if someone comes in - - O . K . you can go in there . As it is now they don ' t have a place . L . Raymond : You don ' t feel we have discharged that responsibility ? R . Gleason: Well , - -I ' m not sure . G . Evans : You have this medium intensity zone . R . Gleason : Yes , on Route 222 - - G . Evans : You have that and it ' s quite large and it does accommodate in- dustrial businesses . R . Gleason : True - - but the problem is nobody will sell anything up there . D . Payne : I think you ' ll find the same problem anywheres , Roger . G . Totman : That place you ' re talking about has got to be close and have access to Village water and sewage . In general businesses , - -most of them - - need that . R . Gleason : The Lewbro ' s didn ' t and then you go into another part - - that part of McLean is a business area . J . MacNeil : I still don ' t think it should be . G . Totman: The only thing in McLean is - - it ' s in the center of the Town . J . MacNeil : But the only thing left now is the Elm Tree Inn . G . Totman: That ' s true but it ' s only 1 , 000 ft . in each direction . R . Gleason : Well , - -maybe we shouldn ' t go over that right now . G . Evans : I think we ought to get clear on this , - - I wasn ' t sure whether we finished our discussion on nonconformance last time or not . If you all feel an activity ought to be able to expand it probably shouldn ' t be nonconforming in the first place . So if something really is nonconforming and you have declared it to be nonconforming in that area then you don ' t want it to expand . That ' s what you ' re saying here . If , on the other hand , looking at it from the other direction , - - if this activity is here and you would like them to be able to expand it shouldn ' t be nonconforming . - 4 - R . Gleason: This is what I wanted to bring up and I can see George point and others but I just want to be sure - - I think these all got to go to public - hearings and so on and we want to be sure we can defend what we have and answer questions that are brought up and defend our positions . We should know what we ' re talking about . L . Raymond ; You ' re implying we have not fulfilled our responsibility to the Town Board for expansion in the Town and if so I might suggest maybe we have been going about it the wrong way . Maybe what ' s causing the trouble is we have gone around full circle and now have come back to this that we haven ' t discharged it satis - factorily . G . Evans : Well , - - there are a number of different things in this general topic area happened around the county . One is in the Town of Danby they have designated no particular area for industrial development . What they have done is developed the planned unit development procedure and the idea is that any large commercial or industrial development would be handled through a PUD . R . Gleason: This , - -then ' - - maybe in our preamble we should say this is how we propose to do this . L . Raymond : As I understand it a PUD could go anywheres in the town following the procedures ? G . Evans : Right unless you stipulate otherwise . You restrict it somewhat if you say can only go in low intensity . L . Raymond : Maybe we should take a look at our PUD again and see if we are satisfied with the way it is set up . G . Evans : One of the things is the way it ' s set up you ' re not just selling land , - -you ' re selling the zoning too . This keeps prices up and sometimes people just will not buy under those elevated prices and one of the ideas behind PUD is it allows development to look around for a , good site and to exercise any ingenuity they have to find a good site and then make it fit into the community goals as appropriate . If you were to attempt to go all over the town and locate all the good industrial sites you could spend an enormous amount of time . L . Raymond : What was the term used - - was it industrial or business or commercial or what was it ? R . Gleason : I take it they were referring to most any type of development that would create jobs . L . Raymond : Then we ' re talking development . My question is does ,our PUD cover adequately all those different ranges or does it apply mostly to larger developments ? Is it flexible enough ? G . Evans : It covers the large . L . Raymond : But does it cover the smaller ? - 5 - G . Evans : The smaller things , - -I would have to review it but they would not come under PUD but under special permit . L . Raymond : This is what I ' m worried about because in a town the small businesses that provide additional jobs don ' t come from large industifes but from - - say a small garage with a couple of helpers . If so , PUD is not going to help us much . G . Totman : What they were looking for - - they have had meetings and tried to stop what you ' re talking about - - a guy moves in and has a nice big garage and then starts a used car business and the neighbors get upset because they have nice houses and the Town is making an effort to stop this sort of thing . They are looking for the sort of place where an industry or small cloth - ing factory would like to come in and they could say this is zoned and you can come in here . But the problem is - - all the time I have been on the Planning Board - - noone has wanted to come in and buy something like that . Some discussion was held on this by L . Raymond , R . Gleason , G . Totman and others . D . Payne : It looks to me - - in going through what we have done - - we have pretty much opened the door in agricultural for almost anything that wants to come in . It ' s either permitted or with a special permit so almost . any place in the Town is available for commercial or any other use in agricultural and you already have medium intensity zone which they say isn ' t enough . R . Gleason: 0 . K . L . Raymond : Yes , - - it ' s almost all special permit and since agricultural covers a good share of the Town than we have added the proviso of providing services for this sort of thing and are not to enact or institute services in agricultural districts that are going to interfere with the agricultural district . G . Totman: Just because it ' s an agricultural district doesn ' t say you can ' t have zoning . L . Raymond : But for practical purposes - - am I correct in saying you can have all these various activities in an agricultural area as far as the Town is concerned - - may not amount to anything if it ' s in an agricultural district and you can ' t provide services . What good is it then? I think we need to compare the provisions of these two . D . Payne : That takes up most of the Town so what do you have left that you can give the Town Board ? R . Gleason : Then if you allow it along Route 38 you will have problems . G . Evans : Your 222 medium intensity area is in Agricultural District No . 3 so if you were to require water and sewer you would have to do it with an impact statement . The development of these various non -residential activities in the agricultural area , I think , are presupposed on not needing public services other than - 6 - G . Evans : electricity and road access . L . Raymond : We could provide them a special permit for commercial activities that would say essentially as far as services are concerned they be self - sustaining and they would dis - pose of that on their site - - those we could allow but anything on the nature of a PUD couldn ' t be in agricultural zone if in agricultural district . G . Evans : hPUD doesn ' t necessarily mean a large - scale project . I ' ll give you an example , - -again from Danby - - outside a certain area grocery stores are not permitted so somebody buys a farm , - - they are refugees from Long Island - - and they buy a farm and want to do truck gardening and raise a lot of stuff and have their retail facilities there . They have about 165 acres of especially good land so felt they could do it so they went the PUD route . They made sure they had good set - back , - - lots of parking area , - -good visibility to the road and had plenty of land - - weren ' t crowded at all - - so in an area where otherwise a grocery store would not be permitted they had one with other activities through the PUD . Now that ' s not a large enterprise . L . Raymond : Then our special permits in the agricultural zone for commercial activities would still allow these to be established even if in an agricultural district but would have to be understood there would have to be additional steps taken in addition to the Town requirements . Do I understand you correctly ? G . Evans : If they required public water and sewer - - now if you want to impose special permit because they are in an agricultural dis - trict it seems to me that would be permitted . You could say certain activities are permitted in an agricultural district if you meet these special criteria because it ' s in an agricultural district . L . Raymond : I guess I would be inclined to go for something like that . G . Evans : That ' s something to keep in mind for that . The activity type and any subdivision that takes place the way it ' s done in an agricultural area - - these are all things worth considering and putting into the legislation if you ' re going to take a perfectly good corn field and in the center of it put in another type of activity that , to me , takes a certain amount of land use from agricultural so this might be a consideration that you might want to include in your decision criteria . L . Raymond : It seems to me that would be only fair for people that would come to the Town for that purpose they should be able to read the criteria and be aware of it . R . Gleason : I just thought it would be well to bring this up . We ought to keep this in mind - - so let ' s go on from here . G . Evans : Maybe , while we ' re talking about agricultural districts I can show you the maps I brought along showing the people that signed up . Mr . Evans spread three maps out on the table of - 7 - Agricultural Districts No . 3 and ,No . 4 and told the Board they could keep the maps for their use . G . Evans : This is the outline of the Town of Groton , - -the Village is right here - - every line is boundary line of existing Agricultural District No . 3 . Now over to the western part of the Town is a lighter outline which is the property of the people who have signed the petition for the formation of another agricultural district which will be Agricultural District No . 8 . It will be going all the way to Danby through Dryden and Caroline and on to Danby . L . Raymond : \ You mean West Groton one will go all the way to Danby ? G . Evans : Yes , G . Totman: Looking in the area in West Groton , - -what would be their advantage going to an agricultural district ? R . Gleason: Taxes . Some discussion was held on this by G . Evans , G . Totman , R . Gleason and others . G . Evans : One of the ironic features of this whole thing is that if your land is of less than top quality you stand to benefit more from the agricultural use assessment than if your land is high quality . The reason for that is when you get the assessment you are moving from County market value assessment to the State equalization and evaluation . So if you have good quality land State value and market value is about the same . If you have poor land it ' s about twice what the State evaluation is . So if you have a lot of that kind of land you really make out on the assessment -it cuts it in half . Further discussion wa& held on this by C . Twigg , R . Gleason , G . Evans and others . R . Gleason: Are there any additional comments on this ? L . Raymond : What is the status of the West Groton District ? G . Evans : It ' s officially known now as Agricultural District No . 8 . There are a number of land owners that Jim Ray , Chairman of the Advisory Committee , wants to contact personally to see if they want to sign up and after that is done - - this week or next - - will begin scheduling meetings with the Agricultural District Advisory Committee of the Board of Representatives which will meet 3 -4 times in July or August and I suspect will have firm proposal and go to a special hearing on it in September and it will most likely go into effect in January or February in plenty of time for the May 1st deadline for filing for the assessment . Any other questions about the nonconformance section? We have gone over this in a sort of fragmented way . The material that I handed out to you at the April meeting we discussed a little - 8 - G . Evans : bit at the May meeting and I would recommend adopting it as recommended to you simply because it is in - - - with what we discussed and it is clear on some points that your present ordinance is not clear on and does not have that one section that I suggested was illegal . R . Gleason: 0 . K . , - -an other comments or discussion . L . Raymond : You were concerned about the extension of business . Do you think that has been taken care of with our discussion on PUD ' s ? R . Gleason: PUD would cover anything new coming in . But can an existing business go to6a PUD if they wanted to expand ? G . Evans : Yes , they could . R . Gleason : So that would take care of that situation . L . Raymond : And you suggested special permits could also be used . G . Evans : My suggestion is if there are situations where a nonconforming activity - - what I was saying is if you want to permit it to expand shouldn ' t be nonconforming in the first place . If there is some question of impact on the area you should expand through a special permit . L . Raymond : So we have two rather overlapping types of methods we could apply here . G . Evans : Exactly . L . Raymond : Does that satisfy you , Roger ? R . Gleason: I would think so but maybe it ' s too liberal for George and some of the others . We ' re not saying absolutely do or don ' t - - just keeping a handle on things . G . Evans : Right . Now the experience has been in zoning that nonconforming activities do not go away , - - they just hang in there because of the special status you have given them . They don ' t have any competition so if you want to have any kind of control on them at all you have to have a mechanism where they can expand or change or something . G . Totman: If you ' re going to make something nonconforming in an area you don ' t want it if you want it to expand then make it conforming . My conception of a zoning ordinance is to let people know when they come in an area to buy what that area is going to be . If you let everyone pick up special permits to come in and put anything in they want to you can ' t change that in this ordinance or it doesn ' t mean anything . In the Town of Dryden they made one area exclusive - - the Ellis Hollow area - - and people were really up in arms about it but that was the fastest growing area in the Town of Dryden - 9 - G . Totman: after they knew what it was because they knew they could put up a $ 50 , 000 house and noone was going to put anything un - desirable in there . If you ' re going to have zoning people come in and want to know what an area is zoned for but if you have all kinds of permits and so on it ' s going to void the ordinance . Some discussion was held on this by L . Raymond , R . Gleason , C . Twigg , G . Totman and others . R . Gleason : Do you have more , Gary ? G . Evans : At one of ou-'- previous meetings , - -either the last one , or the one before that , we got into parking requirements and we did not come to any conclusions on this . I did an analysis on your present parking requirements and took 3 pages to write them all down and suggested an alternative in the model on the Town Board ordinance and for different parking requirements for different activity types and a third model I presented which is the one that is used in Danby is where you just have a formula you apply to every - thing . Now we talked about these and discussed their merits and de - merits but did not come to any conclusion on which way you wanted to go on it so thought maybe now you could tell me which way you want to go . J . MacNeil : Is this just on-the - street parking ? G . Evans : No , off - street parking . R . Gleason: Does anybody have any comments on this ? What ' s been your experience on the way these have worked ? G . Evans : I think they are both successful , - - in fact all three are successful . The regulations you have,.- I haven ' t heard any response of their failing but to translate your present regulation on parking into the activity and facilities type categories we are using creates some small problem . It turns out some types of activities you are permitting have no parking requirements at all . C . Twigg0 What was the formula that you used ? I remember the one for residential - - now how would you apply that formula for like a doctor ' s office or - - G . Evans : 0 . K . the way the formula goes . Let ' s say the doctor lives there and has two nurses that work for him and the floor space in his place of business there is 800 square feet -O . K . 2 parking spaces per dwelling unit plus 1 parking space per living unit plus one space for every resident plus one for each employee - - that makes total of .flour plus one parking space for every - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - space so he needs 6 parking spaces . CO Twigg : Which is nowheres near enough . - 10 - R . Gleason: In that case . G . Totman: You ' re talking about the bare: minimum now . R . Gleason: It seems as though when it comes to a doctor that might be a little shy especially using four of them for employees that only leaves two for patients . L . Raymond : Then you figure patients sometimes have to wait 3 -4 hours . Some discussion was held on this by all . G . Evans : Anyhow this just illustrates how the formula works . You can jimmy it around any way you want . R . Gleason: I like the idea but when you apply it in some cases would end up with two many parking spaces in some situations . So could you modify it and have a combination? G . Evans : Well - - R . Gleason : Or would the one like Trumansburg ' s be better ? Further discussion was held on this by all . G . Totman: What do you see wrong with what we already have ? G . Evans : Nothing except that it ' s three pages long and there are some items that are missing from it that need to be filled in . Co Twigg : So actually it doesn ' t matter which way you go , you ' re going to be insufficient under certain circumstances ? G . Evans : Yes , there ' s always going to be some slippage here . C . Twigg : I like the formula one . Seems like that would be the simplest one to translate whether it ' s us tried to do it or the people trying to understand it . L . Raymond : Could you do it with floor space and parking space ? G . Totman: That ' s the way ours is written . G . Evans : For your commercial activities now you have one for 100 sq . ft . 200 sq . ft . and 500 sq . ft . = - different amounts for different activity types . C . Twigg : Unless you had something in there for seating capacity , like in the order of a church or a doctor ' s office - - he has seating space for his patients - - whatever he thinks he is going to need . If it was a certain parking requirement per seating capacity . G . Evans : In your present - ordinance you have parking spaces one per 8 seats in a theater . C . Twigg : Well that would be alright . L . Raymond : Why couldn ' t you have both in there ? - - either - - or . Then - 11 - L . Raymond : the person applying could elect to have his parking lot whichever way he wanted to . R . Gleason: In our present ordinance we recognize different activities re - quire different amounts of parking space . Further discussion was held on this by . all . G . Evans : Maybe what you need then is the formula that is used in Trumans - burg . What ' s happened there is different commercial activities are grouped according to their parking needs , characteristics and there are 5 groups of commercial activities - - serving individuals , serving farms , serving vehicles , serving groups and serving travellers . Mr . Evans went on , to explain what each of these different activities means , and that for each of the five groups , a different formula is used . G . Evans : So the way it looks is that the parking requirements for residential facility is essentially the same as you have now or the Danby formula but when it comes to parking for non -residential activities it ' s divided up and these are dealt with individually . So that may be an appropriate mix of methods here to solve it . R . Gleason: Does that sound better to everybody ? L . Raymond : How do they adjust to different sized vehicle for space required ? Say a compact car vs . truck or things like that ? J . MacNeil : It doesn ' t say how big a parking space has to be . G . Evans : In the Danby one it does . Further discussion was held on this by all to the effect that you couldn ' t , for example , require SCM to have parking spaces for all their employees , and that there must be some way that someone could review the parking needs for particu - lar establishments . G . Evans : Your example of SCM . Let ' s say they decide they need to build a new plant employing 500 people on Route 222 . They would do that through PUD . C . Twigg : I ' m wondering if we need this for inducstrial like say the Elm Tree ? G . Evans : The bigger things are not dealt with through these formulas , - - that ' s why you have PUD . Further discussion was held on this by all . G . Totman : I think what Gary has is O . K . M . Adams : I do , too . R . Gleason : Do you think you have that , Gary ? - 12 - G . Evans : I think so , - -what I ' m going to do is use the Town Board model and the formula that I can deduce from your existing regula- tions and will concoct a new one for you . 0 . K . the next thing I had on my list is the sign regulations . I did a little analysis of your existing regulations and the pur - pose of this is to translate the existing regulations into the facility type classifications which you have adopted . The facilities ' category has seven sub -categories . The first sheet I handed out to you in the column on the right - the first one 1202 . 3 is from your existing ordinance and what it says - - in effect - - is in paragraph 1202 : 3 residential signs are permitted and the maximum size is 9 square feet . The category " special signs " are mentioned in paragraph 1202 . 1 in your present ordinance but there are no size restrictions and so on . The development sign appears in 1202 . 2 and the maximum size is 32 sq . ft . no provision for realty signs . The civic sign 1202 . 13 is 50 sq . ft . Business signs , - -there are a number of different size limits that are imposed on business signs and I ' ll tell you in a minute what those categories are . The first item is 1202 . 3 , 4 , 5 covers rooming houses and tourist homes , professional offices and 5 is home occupations - 9 sq . ft . Retail business establishment number 6 is 50 sq . ft . No . 7 Commercial Recreation 90 sq . ft . number 8 manufacturing , industrial uses 120 sq . ft . Plumbing and similar services 60 sq . ft . gas stations 32 sq , ft . and motels 100 sq . ft . These different sign limitations are intended , I presume , to satisfy the particular needs of that activity type . Now the second sheet that I gave you is an attempt to say the same things by using the format that we have been working with . The signs that are permitted for commercial activities serving in- dividuals had to be subdivided and I grouped them , as you see there category 4 , 6 , 7 and 17 each have a limit of 9 sq . ft . 1 , 2 , 3 , 5 , 8 , 11 and 18 have 50 sq . ft . and 12 has 90 sq . ft . and so on . Serving groups there was no limitation mentioned . Serving travelers 100 sq . ft . and so on so the size regulations you have certainly fit into this format just fine . I have to admit I ' m a little bit puzzled by the variety of sign sizes . Now on both of these sheets I have handed out , - -I made a little note on the first one " See proposed new activity class 333 ( 19 ) Building and Yard Service . " At a couple of previous meetings we have talked about p - - - - - - - - - - facilities and so on not fitting into the category I handed out to you so I created a new category which I will lay on you right now . C . Twigg : These Home Occupations - - that would be like hair dresser , insur - - 13 - Co Twigg : ance salesman or - - 9 sq . ft . - - that ' s plenty big . G . Evans : The item at the top Section 333 ( 8 ) used to say Construction Sales Commercial Activities and meant it to include - - this was revised by omitting " service" and at the bottom of the page Building and Yard Service Commercial Activity : installation , etc , etc . done away from place of business . New sign regulations different category of activities would have a limit of 60 sq . ft . so we would have up here , instead of 3 groupings under commercial activities we would have four . And the different sign maximum sizes would be 9 sq , ft . 50 sq . ft . 60 sq . ft . and 90 sq . ft . L . Raymond : Where would Empire Soils fit in here ? They do all their business away from their main headquarters . C . Twigg : Their office and their business are separate . Their shop probably wouldn ' t need a very big sign . It ' s not serving the public really . Some discussion was held on this by all . C . Twigg : How big is a 60 sq . ft . sign ? G . Evans : 6 foot x 10 foot . C . Twigg : That ' s a big sign . I like to be able to see a sign but a 6 x 10 that ' s too big . Some discussion was held on this by L . Raymond , C . Twigg and others . G . Totman: Are you talking about number 19 ? That ' s not in a low intensity area anyways . That ' s in a business or commercial area . You ' re not going to have that in a residential area anyways . J . MacNeil : We have to decide on it because it ' s a new category . Further discussion was held on this by G . Totman , C . Twigg , L . Raymond and others . G . Evans : One of the matters on the table right now is does Groton Planning Board want to have any input in Agricultural District No . 8 ? If so that input will have to be made this summer . L . Raymond : What input could we have ? G . Evans : You could draw a line and say this is the line we want . G . Totman : We could also recommend it to the County Board , Co Twigg : I don ' t know that it makes any difference to us where that agricultural goes . G . Totman : It really doesn ' t make that much difference . They have to meet all the County and State requirements . Some discussion was held on this and it was decided not to have any input on this as a Planning Board . - 14 - Some discussion was held as to when the next Planning Board meeting would be held and a motion was made by L . Raymond that the Planning Board not hold meetings in July and August unless it becomes necessary to do so . The motion was seconded by M . Adams and carried unanimously . C . Twigg made a motion that the meeting be ad - journed which was seconded by G . Totman and motion carried . The meeting adjourned at 10 : 10 P . M . Respect ully submitted , Jo eph ne Bell - 15 -