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Planning Board

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The Planning Board is a seven member lay committee, appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the City Council, that is charged with administering the City's site plan regulations, conditional use regulations, subdivision regulations, and with overseeing the development of a Comprehensive Plan. Members serve a three year term. The Chairperson of the Board is chosen by the Board each year in January.

See the most recent Planning Board Agenda.

MEMBERS (2008) Cynthia Chadwick-Granger Stephen Dupuis Donald Girouard, Co-Chair Sandra Guay, Esq. Rene Ittenbach Roger Johnson Neil Shuster, Chair

The Board meets the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at 5:30 p.m. in the City Hall Conference Room.

In most cases, site plans are projects that are permitted in a particular zone, but that require a new building to be built, or result in a large amount of said disturbance. In an Industrial District, the threshold is 10,000 s.f. of new building space, while in a business district, anything over 1,000 s.f. of new building requires review. The intent of site plan review is to make sure that a project's adverse impacts are minimized. These impacts could include soil erosion or sedimentation into streams, controlling increased stormwater flows, proper buffers from roads, neighbors, natural areas and residences.

Conditional uses are uses that are fairly appropriate in a particular zone, but that may cause some increased impacts. For instance, a new retail building in a business zone is a permitted use. However, an auto repair garage is a conditional use, because of the potential for increased impacts, such as noise, odor, pollution, etc. Each zone has conditional uses that must go to the Planning Board before being implemented.

Subdivsions take place when a piece of land is split into three or more smaller pieces, or when a building is converted to three or more dwelling units. These require formal plans to be drawn by an engineer or surveyor that show where the new property lines will be. In the case where a new road is to be built, the drainage system has to be designed by an engineer, and reviewed by our engineer, to ensure that the road is designed and ultimately built the correct way.

Another aspect of subdivisions is open space preservation. In all subdivisions, a portion of the parcel has to be set aside as open space. This helps to ensure that not all land is built on, and that appropriate buffers are maintained along wetlands and streams.

For information regarding the application process, whether you might need a permit from the Board, or Planning Board schedules, please give us a call at 282-3487.