Vol. 17 No 3 Eaton, New Hampshire November 2006

Town Hall Tatler

The tax bills now come off a new program and the veterans exemption ($500 per year) is now split between the two tax bills.

The car renewal registrations are being mailed out monthly with great success. The renewal letter can only be mailed out for registrations the Clerk’s Office received a preprint for. If you do not receive a renewal letter, then something is awry with the information on your current registration. As of July we are on line and these problems can be simply fixed. If you have to come into Town Hall it is very important to bring in the old registration.

The Selectmen would like to remind those who have family graves in the cemeteries that there are regulations that need to be followed for everyone’s benefit. They are included here for reference.

1. Lots shall be numbered as on the plot plan. Each lot as plotted contains four (4) graves to be identified as A, B, C, D (i.e. lot 80;A: lot 80; B). A record shall be kept of the location of each grave as it is used.

2. It is required that a concrete vault be used for each burial.

3. The head of each grave shall be at the west end. Head stones, when used, shall be at the west end, with principal inscription on east facing side.

4. All stones shall be embedded in a concrete foundation.

5. As of 1988 the four grave lot shall be sold for $300, with the proceeds from the sale to be placed in the Cemetery Maintenance Fund. Two graves in one lot shall be $150.00, proceeds as above. One grave shall be sold for $ 100 with the proceeds as above. Deeds shall be issued by the Eaton Board of Selectmen.

6. Cemetery Trustees may adjust lot prices annually as economic conditions warrant.

7. The planting of trees and shrubs is not allowed. Only annual plants and flowers are permitted. No artificial flowers are permitted.

8. Burials are permitted only between May 1^st and November 1^st except at the discretion of the Selectmen.

Full cemetery plots are limited to four full burials. In cases of cremation, multiple urns are allowed per plot but only one headstone per plot.

People are asked to abide by these regulations.

The access to the Snowville Cemetery has becoming increasingly difficult both for car and beast. The Selectmen at the March Annual Meeting will be proposing that the road be paved.

The Zoning Board of Adjustment recently issued two decisions, both for the same party.

On September 11^th, the Board granted a Special Exception to Douglas Prescott to locate a shed within the setback from the road for property located on Conway Lake. The lots on Breezy Point are non conforming and Article V of the Zoning Ordinance permits construction within the setback provided certain conditions are met. These conditions include the requirement that no practical alternative exists and that it not adversely affect neighboring properties. All the neighbors supported the application.

On October 2^nd, the Zoning Board of Adjustment addressed another application from Douglas Prescott for the same property where he wanted to add a storage shed to the side of his house that would be within the side setback to an abutting property. The Zoning Board of Adjustment granted a Special Exception for the shed but it was conditional upon it being able to meet that side setback.

The Zoning Board of Adjustment has a Public Hearing scheduled for December 4^th. Candace Maher has applied for a Special Exception to open a arts and crafts retail store that will be accessory to her residence on Stewart Rd. The property is located in the Rural Residential District.

The Conservation Commission has been absorbed in blueberry picking, or rather how to get them picked, on Foss. There was quite a turnout at a meeting in September when all those with blueberries on Foss met with the Conservation Commission and Arthur Harvey, an organic blueberry grower from Maine, to discuss the ways and means of picking berries. Arthur Harvey will manage some of Foss, he picked the front acres this summer (2107 quarts) and mowed this fall but any creative entrepreneur interested in managing the remaining 10-12 acres should contact Marnie Cobbs (447-3877) or Rick Young (447-2282). Cherryfield is only interested in moving to mechanical picking but Arthur Harvey and crew (and the yet to be discovered entrepreneur) do it the old fashioned way - they rake ‘em in.

Set up by the Selectmen following last year’s Annual Meeting, the Shoreland Protection Ordinance Committee met nine times during the summer months and filed its final report with the Selectmen on September 18^th.

The recommendations of the Committee are as follows:

1. Adopt/incorporate the Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act (RSA 483-B) into the Eaton Zoning Ordinance.

2. The Town should further invoke the right of the Selectmen to enter property for oversight, inspection and enforcement of the Town adopted Regulations.

3. The Town Regulations should increase the number of affected waterbodies currently protected by the State Act.

a. In effect reduce the protected size, down from the State protected 10 acres, to any water body 5 acres or greater.

b. Permanent streams

i. identified on the USGS maps , and Town tax maps, or

ii. include third order streams, or

iii. include second order streams only if the established setbacks, which are too stringent for these, will be addressed for implementation.

4. A complete crosscheck of the overlap of the existing wetlands covered in the presently adopted Eaton Ordinance and any proposed Shoreland Protection, ought to be conducted.

5. There can only be one, all inclusive "Definition Section" for the entire Eaton Zoning Ordinance, and definitions should be consistent with the State Act.

Members of the Committee were Joan Kojola, John Edge, Fred Goss, Paul Hennigan, Kenneth McKenzie, Dick Fortin and John Hartman.

The report was passed on to the Planning Board. They discussed it at length at their November 15^th meeting. The gist of the discussion was a difference of opinion on whether adopting the Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act (RSA 483-B)would generate unanticipated consequences when applied to those smaller bodies of water not currently covered by the Act. The alternative proposed at the Planning Board meeting, a revision of the ordinance tabled in January (a revision that would still have to be done), was not part of the recommendations of the Shoreland Protection Ordinance Committee. The Planning Board did agree to hold a Public Hearing on December 20th on the section authorizing the Selectmen to enter property and enforce the regulations and to adopt the Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act.

Additional zoning amendment proposals that will be considered at the Public Hearing on December 20^th include the following:

1. To add the word "adversely" to Article 6 sections 6.03.04 and 6.05.04 so that they both read "Public health, safety and/or welfare are not adversely affected."

2. To add the word "unreasonably ‘ to Article 6 sections 6.03.05 and 6.05.05 so that they both read "Traffic, parking, noise and night time lighting are not unreasonably increased".

Both of these proposed amendments are housekeeping and in response to a request from the Zoning Board of Adjustment to better qualify the words "affected" and "increased" - issues that arose during discussions of applications for special exceptions for non conforming structures.

Also to be considered is an amendment that follows up on the adoption this year of the regulation limiting helicopter and aircraft landings and take offs to emergency situations.

The amendment proposed authorizes the Selectmen to permit landings and take offs to protect the health, safety and well being of the Town and defines emergency situations as those involving the fighting of fires and the evacuation of persons in life or death situations.

There is still more. Also proposed is a modification of issues relating to lots. The current Zoning Ordinance states that every lot shall have minimum frontage of 200 feet upon a State ot Town road or road built to Town standards. The proposal is to grant to the Planning Board, at its discretion, authority to waive the requirement to actually construct the road subject to a number of conditions. These include a requirement that the proposed subdivision

is a minor subdivision consisting of not more than 2 lots each over 20 acres in size. The road is to be constructed to Town specifications whenever a house is built.

The purpose of this proposal is to enable families to subdivide among themselves without incurring the costs of road construction until house construction begins.