by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Planning Board began its meeting on January 26 with a public hearing on a minor family subdivision proposed by Raymond and Genevieve Bogucki. This would divide their 185 acre lot into one parcel of 4.9 acres containing the house and garage and another lot containing the remaining acreage. Both lots have plenty of road frontage on Hill Hollow Road.
[private]The Boguckis were not present; they were represented by Attorney Nancy Hewitt. Hewitt said they wanted to subdivide the land for estate planning purposes, to make it easier to pass the property on to their kids.
There were no comments from the public. Members of the Planning Board had no objections to the proposed subdivision. They filled out the Short Environmental Assessment form and found no adverse effects, and then they unanimously approved the subdivision.
Organizational Meeting
The Planning Board set its officers and appointments for 2015, which will remain as they were last year. Frank Sheldon continues as Chairman, and Tim Church as Vice Chairman. Chelsea Jordan will continue as Planning Board Secretary, and they will keep Stanton King as the Planning Board’s attorney and Lance Yerdon of Peak Engineering as the Planning Board’s engineering consultant.
Manufactured Homes
The Board then discussed Petersburgh’s mobile home ordinance, written in 1985, which is out of date. The requirements for installation of mobile homes as written in the 1985 ordinance do not meet current State Code, and the manufactured housing industry is very different now than it was thirty years ago so the law needs to be completely rewritten.
Planning Board Chair Frank Sheldon has begun doing research on the topic, reading HUD regulations and visiting a local purveyor of manufactured homes. The new law will reference applicable State and federal laws so it will not have to go into exhaustive detail, but it should make clear to local residents and homeowners what the requirements are for installation and occupancy of various types of manufactured homes.
Sheldon identified three types of manufactured homes which may each be treated differently – RVs, designed to travel on the roads at any moment, manufactured homes, which are designed to be left in one place for a long period of time, and modular homes, which are treated the same as regular stick built housing.
Sheldon proposed rewriting these regulations as a high priority project for the Planning Board for 2015 in consultation with the Planning Board’s attorney, Petersburgh’s Code Enforcement Officer and housing industry professionals.[/private]