[jmen24]

Originally Posted by Argie's Wife

The ZBA should be involved, in my opinion.

Quick list of why that's my opinion:
1) The use of the land is being changed. The use has not changed, it is still a recognized function that falls under the definition of a funeral home.
2) The nature of the business being conducted is being changed.This also does not require a use change before the ZBA. At most a letter would need to be written to the person responsible for such matters at the town. If I wanted to convert my showroom to a retail space, I would only have to conform to the additional parking space requirements and can add in the on street parking that currently exists in my satisfaction of that requirement.
3) The business will be adding a device (the "oven") that has to meet strict fire codes; access to the business and the abutters' buildings should be checked by the local fire dept (fire code need to be met, in other words). How fire code pertains to this building is the only building that matters. The abutters and neighbors only become involved if you are handling hazardous waste and other such items. If you neighbor changed the zoning for his lot to comercial and opened a pizza joint, you would not be responsible for increasing your fire protection to a comercial standard for the type of business.
4) The business will have a chimney that they did not have before, and the town should have some rules for appropriate roof lines, etc. Cremetorium chimneys are typically stand alone units, not the same type that you pipe a woodstove into. The heat and gases would break down a tile flue chimney, therefore a metal style chimney is used and would full under the building inspector and local fire codes for proximity to combustable materials.
5) The chimney will be in-use 12 months of the year, so smells, soot, and other considerations should be made for the abutters during the "open windows" seasons. See answer statement 3
6) The new service could increase traffic in the area; can the parking lot handle those potential increases? Is there a safe pull-out/pull-in view of the driveway and parking area? The actual use of the building wouldn't change. It would still be considered an assembly structure and would have to have met the requirements in regard to parking and loading at that time. The use has not changed, they have just added an additional service that falls under the same service heading.
(Really - why would this business want to have this new service on-site if they weren't trying to get more customers? This has to be a large initial investment for the funeral home, so they're certainly expecting it will pay off.)

7) With the potential increase in traffic for their services, can the funeral home's septic service handle that increase? Same anwser as statement 6

This is just my $0.02 as a lay-man. I'm not a builder nor am I on the ZBA, but I do know that this will have an impact on the area - that much is obvious. I certainly would not want this in my backyard unless I had assurances already that the impact on my home, the value of my home, and my quality of life would be miminal, if at all.

See my answers above in the post. AW, your opinion stands, just giving you the perspective you said that you lacked.

Unfurtunately, the time to debate whether or not this business should be allowed to practice at this location has come and gone. When the initial plan was presented prior to construction, that is when they should have stood up. For all we know the initial application could state that a cremation oven would be installed at a later date and all the provisions required for that addition were met in the initial construction of the space. All it would take is a trip to the Meredith town offices and opening the file for this property. Heck you can do that for your neighbors as well if you so choose, so this women should be making sure that she has followed the letter of the law in concern to every contruction related activity performed at her residence. The table could be quickly turned. I am sure the town would like to find a reason to stop all the complaining[/