North Yarmouth Planning Board Continues York Ridge Phase 2 Hearing

[4:13] Speaker A (unidentified): Sounds good, okay. [6:33] Chris Byers: welcome folks we're gonna get started with our planning board meeting here oh is that working now let's start off the meeting with pledge of allegiance okay let's start off with a quick roll call we've got sean holshouser here idealia weber here okay chris byers here that's me sanford peabody here okay and then ben smith typically joins us from northwood planning but this is asher i don't know your last name asher yes make sure mike's on green light just commit to it push and then let it go There you go, Asher Savelle, North Star Planning. Great, thanks. Thank you. Okay, we actually have no minutes to approve or other business. The only thing on our agenda is a hearing for York Ridge Phase Two, and I just want to point out that we don't have York Ridge Phase Two listed as old business, which means that we won't be discussing the application in depth, and part of the reason for that is because we are still waiting on information from town staff to supplement our review. Part of the reason why that's taken so long is that we've had personnel changes in the code office. Our code officer quit last week, and we are also out of a code enforcement assistant, but I'm assured that we have, okay, I'm sure, I'm assured that these positions are being filled. So just, we're, we're also, you know, a bit delayed in our process here, and so that's why we just want to make sure that we have all the information available to us for a more in-depth discussion when we get to York Ridge Phase 2 under old business. So for tonight, it'll just be the public hearing. Any questions about that from board members? All right, so I'll open the public hearing at this time, and just as a note, if you're speaking, I don't see a huge crowd here, so we're gonna be somewhat flexible in the amount of time that you're speaking, but try to keep it succinct, try to tell us exactly what your comments are. If you hear somebody that spoke before you that you're agreeing with, you could simply state that, just that we don't have too much repetitive testimony. Yeah, it's at the [9:36] Speaker A (unidentified): public hearing I just want to assure the public that I reviewed last time that we met about york ridge in this appeal and on virtual platforms i wasn't here oh right on yeah and also read through what the zba said so i 'm up to date i'm aware of all that just to [9:51] Chris Byers: Be transparent. Okay, thanks to Dealer for pointing that out. Certainly with that I'll open public hearing. And if you're going too long I might just have to kind of wave my hand and say we got to wrap it up. But otherwise I think this is a fairly small group. All right, if you have something to say now is your time. Also if you come up to the mic make sure that the green light is on the microphone and that you're speaking close to it like I am or like I am now. Come on if you have something to say. [10:33] Michael Brown: My name is Michael Brown and I live in the phase one York Ridge development and I took the title to the property. The house was completed in March of 2022. And here we are, September 2026, and that phase one project has not been completed. My neighbor from across the street had like severe flooding right from the beginning. And it was only within the last month that Grover did anything to address it. And I guess my question is, well I won't ask a question I'll make a statement, is I'm not comfortable at all trusting Grover to do what he promises and I'm very much against the phase two project. Thank you. Okay thanks. [11:51] Leanne Mitchell: Leanne Mitchell I live a wanderer away. Next to phase one I'm not quite sure. I followed Chris what you were talking about. My understanding was this was in a public, this was a public hearing about the like a follow-up to the appeal. But I had done is that not what this is. The [12:17] Chris Byers: application is still the York Ridge phase two application. And so your appeal was to our preliminary approval of Yorkridge phase 2 so that is the application but the remand was to look at phase 1 so it's fine to talk about phase 1 but we wouldn't list it's the phase 1 public hearing because it's really the public hearing about the phase 2 application right. Okay yep all right so [12:48] Leanne Mitchell: So the point of my appeal was about following the rules, not just the approved plan for phase one, though that's important, but the rules in general, because not all of the violations were about the approved plan. I'm not going to bother reiterating information about my buffer, or rather the lack of one. You've all heard it a million times. You know where I stand on that. You have my appeal application, so you know about all the other code violations. I suppose if you haven't read it by now, you won't. As Sean suggested at the last meeting, if you want to know what the Zoning Board of Appeals wanted investigated, look at the appeal. That seems pretty obvious to me. Anyway, since the appeal was granted, the violations in and regarding Phase 1 have continued. Continued. After five years of complaints, the developer was finally supposedly fixing some of the problems. Not so much to do the right thing for phase one people, but so that he could move on to phase two. And in doing that, he did unpermitted work against the express order of code enforcement officer. And according to that code enforcement officer, the work was not backed up by any kind of engineering plan that he could see. It had nothing to do with the approved plans for Phase 1, which is why he said not to do it. So how many codes is that in violation of? This most recent former code officer also uncovered what seems that Mr. Grover has failed to pay into the required escrow accounts for Phase 1, if not other projects as well. I know these escrows for the quality guarantees were a big deal during discussions of Phase 2, which, why, when he doesn't seem to pay them anyway. On top of that, and the other things mentioned, there's repeated failure to provide proper notice for this public hearing, which, while not nearly as important as the other code violations, implies or just sort of goes to the lack of respect for the rules, the people in the town, the code office, and this board. The whole point of code 5.a, which is what 5.8 point a, which is what my appeal was based on, is to stop people like this continuing to the same violations over and over again. And yet instead of actually trying to do better, he just keeps adding on to the violations. We've just lost our fourth code officer since this project was started. How many code officers are we going to lose because of the Grovers? Rather than hold Mr. Grover accountable, the code officer was told to back off, which is why he left. How much does that cost the town in continually seeking new code officers, new code office assistants? Assistance. I submitted a FOIA request about four months ago for information about complaints about Mr. Grover and his companies to see what other issues there are besides this project, which kind of goes along with the 5.8.a. I've not received any reply other than that they received it. The law states only that the information be disclosed in a reasonable time, but no one seems inclined to tell me what that means or ever disclose any information. The former town manager told me three months the current town manager said nah we'll get around to it maybe someday maybe not thanks. [16:41] Chris Byers: Anybody else okay with that? I'm gonna close public hearing. We're not having any big discussion here, but anybody have any initial just comments things that we want to make clear? Again we're trying not to get into this as old business, but just something that we can reply to quickly. Okay, all right, that's a short meeting, that's all we have on our agenda tonight. So I make a motion I guess that we well oh yes actually I'm going to make a motion that we continue the public hearing actually through the next meeting. I know I hit the gavel, but I'd like to just at least keep this open when we have this for open old business. [17:56] Speaker A (unidentified): I have a question at the next meeting we're hoping to have more information from the town about evaluating. Yeah, is there I guess everybody quit so no one can come and talk about anything thing. So I don't know if there's anybody else in the town who can speak about some of the more [18:14] Chris Byers: recent activity. I think it's more to provide the public with the ability to review those documents and then comment on them in a kind of come back up if even the same people that spoke that they could speak again. Okay. So we're not really working with like new information at this point, so that's why I wanted to provide the public hearing opportunity to have that new information in hand so I'm [18:48] Leanne Mitchell: curious I was told that the Kent Witten the former code officer had submitted a letter that he wanted read as part of this public testimony for the I don't I don't have a letter from him. [19:00] Chris Byers: Really I don't have a letter he's [19:08] Speaker A (unidentified): welcome to submit a letter even now. [19:11] Leanne Mitchell: Yeah, he actually told me yesterday that he sent a letter to Chris and specifically requested that it be part of the public hearing. [19:19] Chris Byers: Kent is no longer with the town, and I certainly am not in a position to discuss personnel matters. [19:26] Leanne Mitchell: Well, it's not a personnel matter. He had concerns about the project and the appeal and the work that's being done in Phase 1. [Chris Byers: Yeah. Yeah.] He sent it to me but told me that he sent okay I'm just gonna be [19:43] Chris Byers: Clear, we don't have a letter that I am able to present as materials to this application right now. Even if you sent me something yesterday, that would not necessarily be something that we would be discussing today. There are deadlines to submit something. Kent no longer works for the town, and so I'm not really able to speak to whether or not that email that Kent sent me is something that we [20:06] Leanne Mitchell: can discuss here or not. Okay, this is just sort of a point in general then, I guess, if some, just a member of the public sends something to the board, don't they do generally read it as if it's [20:21] Chris Byers: requested as part of the sure we may read it and if we have if we have time if it's sent to us the day before we may not have time to read that 's why we have deadlines for submittals to be provided in you know ahead of a planning board meeting okay and there's that's in order for it to be added to the packet but if you sent us an email we may not necessarily be discussing that email but it's correspondence nonetheless that we could receive okay I just want to remind folks that Kent no longer works the town, and so communicating with Kent in the code enforcement capacity probably would not be like efficient or appropriate. It, my [21:04] Speaker A (unidentified): question, I was just wondering if we would get more information from the town, and that's like what our hope was, and if there is anybody in the town currently who can speak to, like, it's not really even about staffing, but more so just about, like, what's been happening as of late at York Bridge where the town's concerned, yep, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think we ultimately [21:22] Chris Byers: will need to re-engage it. If there's a new code enforcement officer in that position, then we'll need to re-engage them on getting their letter to help support their findings. So, yep. Okay, so I guess I'm just going to make a motion that we continue the public hearing to York Ridge Phase Two to a future meeting to be determined. I don't know if we have a date yet to bring this up, but just to a future meeting. So do I have a second? Okay, thanks. Any discussion? All those in favor? Great. I make a motion that we adjourn. [22:15] Speaker A (unidentified): One question. When is our next meeting? I just want to make sure it doesn't fall on like the holiday or that's going to be an issue for attendance. [22:22] Chris Byers: Sure. October 13th. Is that right? Next one. Okay. Is it a holiday? Both as a holiday as Columbus Day. [22:33] Speaker A (unidentified): Good for everybody. I just want to make sure that we have a quorum in there. [22:36] Chris Byers: For, yeah, I guess for the, are we, I'm available, are you not available? I will [22:41] Speaker A (unidentified): Be coming back I think from vacation on Sunday, so hopefully it won't be an issue. [22:46] Chris Byers: Okay, you're not gonna get stuck like you all right Sean, I'm available, okay, all right, okay, great, good question, okay, we have a motion on the table to adjourn, do I have second, any discussion, okay, all those in favor, all right, thanks.