NEW SCOTLAND — A decision is on the horizon for Cynthia Elliott who wants to run a tree farm and party pavilion on the Brownrigg Road property where she lives.

The extended public hearing on Elliott’s application for a special-use permit was closed Tuesday night. But the town’s planning board elected to wait another month before deciding whether or not to grant the permit.

A local surveyor and former planning board member, Elliott applied in 2015, as Triple S Farm, for a permit to allow her to sell wreaths, boughs, and trees at the farm’s existing pavilion in the winter and, in the off-season, to hold banquets in the facility.

Neighbors near the venue have complained about traffic, noise, harm from drunk drivers, and decreased property values. Many of those supporting Elliott’s plan have spoken of the need for both business and open space in New Scotland.

On Tuesday night, Elliott’s lawyer, David Everett with Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, told the planning board there have been seven engineering reviews of the project and there have been eight independent government agencies who have looked at the proposal. He named the county planning commission, which reviewed it twice; the local fire department; the county’s department of public works; the town’s highway department; the county’s health department; and the planning board itself.

“None of them had an issue,” said Everett.

He also said hundreds and hundreds of pages have been submitted over the course of more than a year.

“It’s time to make a decision,” Everett concluded.

Following Everett’s remarks, the planning board’s chairman, Charles Voss, made a motion to close the public hearing, to which the other four board members agreed.

“We have a lot to consider,” said Voss, saying he would like to take advantage of the “62-day window” to make a decision on Elliott’s application. Noting “a lot of complexities and moving parts,” Voss recommended the board take 30 days to review the project and come to a decision at its next meeting, on April 4.

“We have hundreds of pages to review,” said board member Daniel Leinung, noting the board had received many letters, too.

Thirty days, he concluded, would be “useful to gather our thoughts.”

The other board members agreed.

Elliott asked the board for her “marching orders” and went on to say she would provide a site plan with two-foot contours, as requested, as well as a cut sheet on lighting fixtures for the venue.

Voss told the board members that, under the state’s Open Meetings Law, they could not as a group discuss the project but that members who felt the need could individually consult with Crystal Peck, the planning board’s attorney, if they had any questions relating to the law.

“Certainly everybody has a lot of material to digest,” Elliott told The Enterprise after the board had closed the public hearing and agreed t decide on her application in a month.

As most of the 50 onlookers cleared out, she said, “I want to proceed properly. I want the board to have an opportunity to reach their best decision.”

Elliott’s property is in a residential-agricultural zone in which a long list of uses are permitted, including airports, motels, and clinics as well as “restaurants and taverns.” A restaurant is defined, in part, as a place that prepares meals for consumption on the premises or off.

Elliott has said she would host a maximum of 15 events a year from mid-May to mid-October, each with no more than 200 guests. All events will end by 11 p.m. to comply with the town’s 2006 noise ordinance, she said. Elliott has also said the event site on the 55-acre parcel is shielded by trees.

She has hosted family weddings and celebrations at the pavilion and said the gatherings would be “exclusive,” not “paper plate and paper cup” affairs. With the turnaround on preparing linens, for example, she would not do more than one event a week, she has said.

After the hearing on Elliot’s proposal, a dozen onlookers remained in the gallery to hear more routine cases. Robert Bolduc applied for two special-use permits to build two ponds — one for himself and one for his father, Steve Bolduc, both on Rock City Road. Public hearings will be held at the April meeting.

In old business, James Olsen went over plans he has refined to build self-storage units behind the Stewart’s convenience store and gas station on Route 85. The property is zoned commercial and a special-use permit is needed for a lot-line adjustment of the two parcels owned by himself and Robin Olsen. Also, an application submitted by David Moreau for a 19-lot residential subdivision on roughly 50 acres on Youmans Road was on the agenda.

Updated on March 15, 2017: Details were added about the cases the planning board heard following Cynthia Elliott's case.