Meadowsweet

Town Planning Commission meeting tonight.  First on the agenda was to OK two building permits.  One permit showed the proposed shed would be three feet within town road setback limits.  The Planning Commission chairman called up the property owner and said we were considering his request and if he agreed to set back the shed by three more feet from the road we would recommend the board approve.  Otherwise it wouldn't go forward.  The owner, unsurprisingly, readily agreed to the change and we recommended it to the Town Board w/ that proviso.  After finishing w/ both permits we went on to discuss the Town Board's request for a Noise Ordinance.  I'd had problems researching that one.  There were plenty of noise ordinances from other places in the state but I didn't think they really applied to a rural area where we live.  When it gets close to hunting season I can hear rifles being shot over and over all during the day: hunters sighting in their rifles.  During a snowy winter's night I can hear the whine of packs of snowmobiles traveling along the trail to the west of me.  A farmer has a contraption that sounds like a cannon.  It is set to go off randomly during the spring to scare geese away from newly planted fields.  These sounds may annoy me a little but I accept them as part of rural living and I don't think anyone here would want them penalized.   The reason for the request was specifically to limit the hum data centers emit.  The group suggested specific limits and we will write it up as a component of a larger ordinance governing data centers.   The next item on the agenda was a request for an automatic moratorium on any new large commercial businesses.  After looking through state laws, I didn't think such an ordinance is legal.  The group suggested looking again so will try using different verbiage.   The last item was the definition of a 'structure'.  That one was easy.  I looked up our zoning ordinance and it lists a number of definitions including what the Town considers a 'structure'.  Turned out to be exactly was the Town Board was looking for.   Tonight I think we actually earned our $25/meeting fee.