Waterville Planning Board Approves Site Plan Revisions and Food Truck Regulations

[0:02] Planning Board Chair: Good to go. All right. Good evening, everybody Welcome to the portable planning board meeting We're gonna start with the approval of minutes of the August 25th 2026 planning board meeting. I'll make motion to approve. I'll second any discussion All those in favor any abstentions next disclosure of conflict of interest does anybody have anything that they want to discuss or disclose on the items that are on tonight's agenda okay moving on kv cap real estate is requesting approval for revisions to the previous approved previously approved site plan for apartments at 52 king street this review is in accordance with section 9.4 of the Subdivision and Site Plan Review Ordinance. Mr. Allen. The [1:17] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): Hudson Engineers. And this is the revised site plan. I think you see it. The changes we're proposing at this time is down at the south end of the building. They had some money left over in the budget, and had requested putting in a small outdoor pavilion. This will be an open-sided pavilion right down here. It's sort of at the base of the hill, and nobody's missing. Yeah, let me get you a hand towel. Okay. Let's do that. [2:27] Planning Board Chair: Well, here, go ahead and take it. Turn on my mic and you just talk really loud. [2:39] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): I can send from over there. All set? Okay. So this is 52 King Street down in the south end, and they're coming along really well on the building. I took a site visit down there a couple weeks ago and they've got most of the building up and they're working on the interior. But one thing that they're proposing to do is adding a small pavilion down on the south end here. It'll be an open-sided picnic area or something like that. And then at the south end of that is a sort of a deck of pavers that will be, and I have some pictures here that kind of show what that's going to look like. This is the pavilion here, and you can see the building, the existing or the newly constructed building here. It'll have like a round walkway that walks out to it. This is the parking area out in front of the building, which has the solar panel over some of the parking spaces. And then this is sort of the reverse angle, looking from the parking lot, and you can see the pavilion over here, sort of nestled in at the base of the hill. I believe it's like 18 by 24. I'm not sure. or it might be on the plan and Ann had brought up a concern that there was a who's going to be closer to the neighbors originally we had it located over here closer to an existing offense but at her suggestion we decided to move it over here toward the base of the hill which is probably a better location simply because it's going to create more wind shadowing from the hillside and the trees I don't see a dimension on it but I believe it's something about 18 by [5:05] Planning Board Chair: 24 and then with the pavers it looks like it would be about 30 feet total yes yeah and it looks like those are the distances from the buildings yeah [5:17] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): Those are the distances for homes. These ones going are up a very steep hill. Yeah, these guys will never even see it there. Right? The biggest impact would be on the Rancourt and Katerra properties down here. [5:37] Planning Board Chair: And there's a fence right there. [5:39] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): Yes, we've got a fence on the property line. This one's about 123 feet to the Katerra property, and that's to the house. It's a little closer to the garage, but that's sort of inconsequential. The same, it's a little bit closer, 93 feet to the corner of the Rancourt home here. but again there's there's some great difference in there with that there's a small berm and a barrier at the top of that or a fence and the only other change that they're proposing at this time is back on in front of the building here we had proposed some EV charging electric vehicle charging stations down here working with the electricians and the this is a newly evolving thing how to do electric charging and handicapped parking how do you merge those together yeah so they talked with Main Street Housing Authority and this is the new standards a 12 foot wide parking space and at least a three-foot aisle next to it so this little indent in the zoom in here a bit more this will be a little sort of a cutout of the in the curb next to the sidewalk and that's where the charger will be the charger has two heads that will reach out to different vehicles one will go to the handicap space here and the second one will reach over here. It has a long enough cable that it'll reach to the far side of the vehicle in here because a lot of times the vehicle's back in and the charger is on the driver's side, at least on Teslas. The second one is just going to be up here. These will be for regular parking spots, and these have the same sort of arrangement with 18-foot cables. going out to charge, so that's a slight difference. Those are level two. I'm assuming yes. Yeah, okay, so that's that's all we're asking for tonight, is just those changes. Any questions from [8:10] Planning Board Chair: the board? I [8:14] Public commenter: yeah, I actually have a question. Since I use chargers, oh sorry, I have a question since I have an EV, so for the handicapped spot, I hadn't considered that before, but so sometimes there's signage that says EV parking only, and so is that handicapped space going to be used by both gas cars or is it exclusively for the EV, [8:47] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): because then I think they would be labeled EV parking only? Yeah, okay, with you know, the understanding that everybody's going to use them eventually, probably? Yeah, well, I'm guessing that's [8:58] Planning Board Chair: also why there's the 23 foot charging cable there to reach all the way around. That's actually going to the normally abled parking spot over here, right? But it could also be another parking spot to the left of the handicap spot; it would reach there as well over to here. Yeah, very easily, it [9:19] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): could. Yeah, so depending on the configuration of the vehicle that parks here [9:26] Public commenter: so it's, I guess, that my main question about the handicap space is that a dedicated EV handicap space or is that part of the overall count for the required number of hand? Because somebody could conceivably be parking there all the time so that nobody else has access to the, you know, handicapped space for charging. [9:48] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): Yeah, we actually have enough handicapped spaces down here to meet the code. There are five spaces down here. Plus, this is a dedicated EV. Because it's 12 foot wide, assuming your car backs in. And then you've got a three foot aisle that the person could get out and roll back to get to the charger. And plug it into the car. [10:10] Public commenter: Yeah, but it's dedicated for charging only. Yes. Yeah, thank you. [10:16] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): And there'll be signage to that effect, I believe, as well. Any other questions? [10:28] Planning Board Chair: Anyone from the public have any questions? [10:36] Nicholas Rancourt: My name's Nicholas Rancourt. [10:38] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): I'm one of the abutters. [10:40] Planning Board Chair: You mentioned there's a fence there. Is that a fence you guys are going to be constructing as part of the project? Yes. [10:46] Nicholas Rancourt: Okay. And are there gonna be quiet hours, like so nobody's being rowdy late at night or [10:58] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): I believe they will have some signs posted, but I think there's all that's also in the tenant agreement is that they'll. I can't be sure though, but [11:19] Planning Board Chair: yeah please I can call like there are rules in the city and such if you have a problem and the neighbors are loud you can call the authorities not that you will i don't think you'll need to but just in case just to allay any concerns okay thank [11:38] Hudson Engineers (applicant's engineer): you and do you know [11:41] Planning Board Chair: off the top of your head the what hours 9 p.m to 7 a.m yeah yep so i think even like the waterville creates like concerts and stuff have to get a special permit to go past nine and there's all sorts of ordinances like that's yeah anybody else anything else [Bao (Colby student): okay] I will entertain a motion to either well approve or deny the request I'll make a motion to approve second any further discussion okay all those in favor all right Thank You Jeff the next is a planning board discussion item City Council is requesting planning board recommendation concerning adding food truck park regulations to the zoning ordinance to implement the mobile or temporary food vendors ordinance we met at our last meeting and had some discussions we made some adjustments to the ordinance and I believe the one item that we had asked to be reviewed by the city engineer was the parking lot construction material andy did give some good feedback there i don't know if everyone got a chance to read that but with the construction material to say that parking lots must be constructed on a base of a minimum of eight inches of main dot type D gravel with surfaces of either four inches of recycled bitumus asphalt or four inches of crushed stone or three inches of hut I'm saying it wrong the two minutes pavement but you know I know that there was some concern he's not here tonight to give his opinion on it and i didn't see anything from him but i think that was really the only open item that we were waiting on so does anybody have any additional comments or concerns around what we were provided by the city engineer i [14:45] Nicholas Rancourt: think that andy mcpherson's recommendation was sound i think particularly the crushed stone it's nice to have an option of stone versus rolled pavement or asphalt i think picking one of those whatever the cheapest option for the food truck park gives them some flexibility i think it's a good idea both for in terms of runoff and for keeping down dust which has been a concern i just i think it's a good idea yeah included in there in the regulation [15:22] Planning Board Chair: yep i agree with that as well i just brought up the concern the last meeting that having the food trucks parks like making it mandatory for them to pave with asphalt would based on like their business model probably wouldn't be feasible in a lot of situations but giving them the option of the crushed stone to eliminate the dust and I think that's a much better option I thought the engineer provided great information on that great any other comments or discussion on this item in general no and There's, I guess technically, there's one person left from the public. Any thoughts on this? That mic's still there? Okay. [16:56] Bao (Colby student): Oh, there we go. My name is Bao. I'm currently just a student at Colby. Okay. And I'm just handing the meeting just to, first of all, participate more with the board. But in terms of the regulation for the parking lot, I'm just curious about drainage and runoff and changes in seasons and how that would just affect the drainage of using crushed stones and so on in snowier season and how that change could also impact the runoff of the land surface itself. [17:32] Planning Board Chair: Yeah, that was the big reason that we wanted to get input from the city engineer was for both runoff and for dust control, which is why he put those requirements in there specifically. Specifically so. And there's also, there's also a section in here that specifically talks about any mitigation of runoff would need to be handled. I think that's in the nuisance, yeah, that's in the nuisance issues. So there is a section that talks about that as well. And it was brought up in the last meeting. And I just think it's really cool kind of technology that they've been able to make asphalt now that is not impervious so you don't necessarily have to have catch basins with asphalt anymore if you get the right asphalt. So yeah. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I [18:42] Nicholas Rancourt: would also add that 's the city engineer's recommendation is sort of a minimum spec i both to keep the cost down if you're putting in a new parking lot you typically have to lay it dig it out put a geotextile fabric roughly 12 inches of crushed stone varying sizes and then you'd probably put four inches of hot rolled asphalt on top yeah so this is a real minimum specification just so you can roll on it and not disturb the ground underneath and have runoff issues yep okay [19:16] Planning Board Chair: Thank you for participating in the municipal. Government, that's great. Yeah, any other discussion? If not, I entertain a motion. Again, we're sending a recommendation back to City Council. I'll make the motion for the recommendation. I'll second. Okay, all those in favor? Okay, so we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting, but nobody's allowed to leave until we sign the site plans.