##VIDEO ID:wOFcaOl-oCU## [Music] good evening everyone today is January 16 2025 the time is 6:00 p.m. and this is the acision Planning Commission this meeting is being recorded for future viewing on the town's uh YouTube page and also on cable the cable channel and we are live tonight via Zoom can I get a motion to open the clearing board meeting I make a motion to open the meeting second all in favor I can we get everybody to introduce themselves Victoria hi Victoria alaro Town planner Steve W member Mark fr SW chairman Brian damps member Rick Ellis Vice chairman uh all right next um meeting minutes from uh January 2nd uh Haley sent this to everyone uh everyone was in attendance except Rick Ellis was absent has everybody had a chance to look over the minutes from January 2nd make a motion to approve the minut is written second there we have a motion a second all in favor I I okay moving along uh correspondence you all have a packet in your folder we got an email from Wave 2 environmental Inc uh I'll just read the cover letter here to whom it may concern Wave 2 environmental Inc w2e is pleased to submit a copy of the activity and use limitations that has been recorded on behalf of the fushan river reserve and for a release of pcbs that was previously reported for the above referenced address the attached satisfies the public involvement SL notice of activities required by 310 CMR 41074 there are any questions or concern please feel free to contact us at any time so there's a big old packet you can read through evidently this company went in and cleaned up there was some tires and some junk and debris over on um where the lo oh it's cross excuse me across from uh um PJ keing that uh right that area that's the walkway area then next to the Krishna River so when you want there's some extra reading for [Music] you I mean I I don't know whether the rest of you guys are familiar with that stuff but that that's fairly standard what it all really amounts to is there's still a spot on the property excuse me excuse me can anybody everybody on Zoom please mute yourself thank you but if there's some remaining contamination there the state does not want it to be disturbed so that activity and use limitation is basically to say you don't disturb this area you know under any circumstance an es or if you do basically you've got to go back to the state and convince them that you can do it without further polluting the uh the environment and that that's kind of a simple explanation for it but it's it's pretty straightforward uh so just leave leave the ties in the ground if the state deems put don't put a shovel in the ground don't put a shovel don't put a shovel on the ground is right I mean if the state has deemed whatever is there is okay if it stays there undisturbed then just yeah don't put a shovel in in that spot and it's defined in the documents okay uh moving on uh number two hearing scheduled for this evening that will be continued as follows uh we had a public hearing continued for tonight this continued site plan review and special permit 11 uh 211 Middle Road map 23 Lot 29 29a 29b this uh public hearing has been rescheduled till February 6 2025 um I I just want to make a quick comment to everybody watching and listening uh for future reference um you may be uh notified via a um certified letter to if you're uh Within so many feet of a project to attend a public hearing these public hearings sometimes most of the times are continued it is not the proponent responsibility to notify you every time that the meeting's been continued um uh the planning board does post the agenda 3 days prior to the meeting so you can go on the town website go on the planning board to see what the agenda is just to make sure I would I would ask that people all check before coming out taking the drive out taking time out of work or whatnot to come to these meetings uh go on the the website check the the agenda for that meeting and it'll tell you whether that uh hearing is going to be heard or it will be continued again uh I prefer you do that first if for some reason you have a hard time getting through on our website you can call the plan the town planner's office um and ask and they will tell you whether that is being held or not okay next uh discussion on other topics first is approval excuse me I'm sorry we just need the motion to continue that hear oh sorry thank you motion to continue to what was it February 6th yes yes to February 6th 2025 uh the special permit for two 11 one middle worldo map 23 I've got a motion second all in favor I thank you Victoria uh next is discussion and other topics approval not required 474 Middle Road map 23 lot lot one applicant and owner Carolyn Moore Representative Steve giosa of site Tech engineering and environmental consultant Inc please introduce yourself for the record yes uh good evening for the record Steve gioso with scitec engineering um this is a uh anr approval not required plan being presented this evening uh for a 272 acre parcel of land uh located at 474 Middle Road which is right opposite morse's lane that that uh exits or intersects with Middle Road right opposite the site we're on the opposite side of Middle Road with this property um um there is an existing single family dwelling located in the northeast corner of the site um couple of other out buildings which we have depicted on the plan and the current owner of the property is looking to sell the bulk of the property but wants to retain the existing residence and the associated out buildings uh so we have created lot one as depicted on the plan it's a 60,000 ft² parcel it's got several 100 ft of Frontage so it meets the dimensional requirements um for this particular zoning um we've also maintained proper setbacks to property line with a new structure being uh with the existing structure to the new property line and we've also had uh the wetlands delineated on the site by a wetland specialist uh Chris Capone who happens to be uh actually the conservation agent for the town of West sport uh as well as a uh consultant who does Wetland delineations and as you can see lot one is a Upland parcel and the remaining land is uh got a mix of Upland and wetlands but is obviously more than the required minimum contiguous Upland area uh to constitute a lot under the zoning so uh a lot of Frontage there are two easements on the main parcel uh a the eversource U easement that runs along the western boundary of the site and New Bedford has a waterline easement that runs through the middle of the property um but again even when exclude those easement areas that remaining land has uh you know over 20 25 acres of land unrestricted by easements oh and the applicants are here tonight the the folks who are looking to purchase the remaining land so what's the setbacks for is it 25 ft and you get 28 correct yeah and this line is the property line This is somebody else's that's that's correct yeah I'm just I'm just curious the U that new bford water easement is that for the line that runs from Lake Street ponds down to through yeah it's very distinct on the property it's mounded up in this area some in some places it is yeah it's very very distinct through this particular piece yeah because it does drop off you see with the wetlands on either side it drops off so they fill that in at one point in time to Y get proper cover over the line yeah it's hard to believe that the city of newbedford still hangs on to that but right I I'm sure there there's good reasons for it but well it's tough to give up something they've had for you know a 100 Years or or more yeah I mean I've heard postive that I caved in anyway right yeah it's so old right yeah I mean they they demolish the pump house and hopefully put a plug in the line long long ago that's Conduit Street Conduit Street yeah I mean it look it kind it looks straightforward to me I mean the town planners already looked at it this area in Frontage uh you know obviously it goes with the caveat uh it would be of you to make sure that you're you're well in septic system is if there is a well on that property is U not going to be impacted by this division but that doesn't matter to us in terms of signing the plan or not signing the plan y anybody have any other questions NOP a motion to approve second all in favor hi hi hi uh Victoria you have are pleas 116 oh thank you I always do that at the end [Music] all yeah okay my offic need to be provided an email or a copy okay we'll give you both we'll get we'll get your right so much okay thank you all right good night thank you okay moving right along uh another approval not required 21 Cushing Lane map 7 lot 17b applicant and owner J homes and Rebecca H wood representative Michael Costa with Michael Michael CA and Associates Inc please introduce yourself hey uh good evening uh board members for the record my name is Michael Costa I'm a rightous kids engineer in Lance in the K and nass here representing Mr and Mrs Gomes to uh car out a retreat lot on their portion of their property at 21 cushion Lane in the town of Acushnet um retreat by law uh if my memory serves me right which the uh dimensional requirements are on the top right hand side of the plan 40 ft of Frontage maintained throughout um at least 120,000 Square ft and as you see there's a buildable box on there of 75 ft from all property lines uh the Gomes live next door they have a well and aseptic system uh um and the perk test was done probably that would be the upper southwest corner of thisw so everything will not conflict with each other as far as uh the Board of Health is concerned so we're here this evening um hoping to get the plan ofor so that they can move U forward if there are any questions I'd be happy to try to answer them for the board yeah just out just out of curiosity what was the soil like back there I'm not this area of town I haven't seen that much activity in the soils are what you would call a Paxton type uh soil they're glacial till that is Sandy uh okay I think that we achieved the perk rate of 27 in one and the other one was was considerably better but there was a higher water table in the vicinity of about 27 to 30 in if my memory servs me right so be that's fine you for me it was just like a a geology question you know I mean different different areas of town you know there's there's certain characteristics of the soil and again I just wasn't that familiar with with this area I'm sure they wouldn't do it if they couldn't get a percolation I perked this house where it is now and that was you know just at 30 minutes per inch my memory so that's another marginal area so yeah it's they're not great around there and and that's kind of the way a cusher runs there are areas that are just sand and there are areas that are glacial tilt all in that area GL just rubbed on top of right it's a ground Marine in that area there which you know basically the um glacia melted in in right in a uh in with about three three miles of ice whereas the you know different areas have outwash ples where we got the Sands and everything but that is a ground Marine that's that's this part of the world so this property belongs to the existing dwelling 21 yes sir so this is a portion of 21 their remaining lot of uh about 244 ft of Frontage they have and uh uh I'm going to say maybe 6 Acres 5.42 I think it's quite yeah 5.24 correct sorry is this is all complete Upland no Wetlands no Wetland whatever there well yeah it all runs towards the road yeah runs downhill towards the road right in in fact if you go on the backs side of this property where Clem's way is and the um the trailer park uh that was uh owned or still owned by the St armens um that top that's about the the very peak of the and that top of that Hill is awful yeah it is um and it slopes off towards uh um Cushing lane and then um in a Westerly southwesterly direction towards Main Street does that ditch run all the way behind this property there's a ditch that runs from uh 105 runs along the back of these properties I didn't see a ditch back there really and I went beyond the property um because it happened to be a deer stand out there so check that out and I came to with a clearcut almost to the property line in back of Clem's okay Trail apart Clems way uh I guess that was what Jerry's say that own that with his brother CLM who passed away before so the end of Clem's way comes to the back part of this property the the trailer park the land came all the way back if you look and go by there up on the hill you see like a little building and I think that's where the well was and there was a pretty substantial protective radius around that well um well that would be a public drinking Supply would yes it would be it's uh serves over 25 um um serves it serves it actually serves 47 which is well above the oh yeah the 15 Grace Grace number right you get so um okay questions comments concerns look straightforward to me I would make a motion that we approve the plan is submitted I have motion second we have a motion on the second all in favor all right thank you very much Mila who few seconds before quicker at the draw than he was sorry not too much business on the agenda tonight no would have had a little more but no it's been quiet yeah it's okay we'll take it we'll take it for we had a we had a real run of solar array yeah somebody was telling me that and it seems some of them worked out okay but some of them are a little bit uh Shady yeah who who knows I I I think it's really more ever Source control than anything else at this point you have to have an interconnect permit right to tie the thing into the eversource system right and become competitors for for foring uh electricity well I hope they all last a long time because you know I hit a lot of golf balls down at that time and I I really was sad to see it yeah I really was what you look down the street I used to live at Rock Street where I grew up right now I'm down at the Haven but I've got some property on Rock Street um you know my grandmother's house house still around the area where you living now Mike um there's a little area in for Haven on Scot connect called Wigan Beach and I was fortunate generally familiar with the area so I was fortunate enough to land down there mhm so cross your fingers no major hurricanes and that I put a place up once on uh a flood foundation so I hope my there those waves too they don't well well it's in a velocity zone so it's you know the lowest horizontal member is 2 ft above the uh predicted wave height so we'll see let's put it this way I don't have any flood insurance well thank you very much for your time this evening I appreciate it thank you haven't seen you guys in a while thank you are you yeah of course um my office just needs to be provided proof of recording so you can I will tell goes that I'm going to be some toal work from tomorrow morning so I'll call him as soon as I leave here and tell him what the game what the game plan is all right thank you so much no thank you thank you thank you good night good night some someday if you remind me I'll tell you a little quick story about one of Nate's sons and doing percolation test with them oh not Andy I forget I forget the guy's name I all I know is is it was a mon it was a Monday morning and he showed up and every time that machine banged he just cringed oh yeah it was it was evidently a busy weekend right if if it was Andy Andy is a little bit of a piece of work I remember n at the registry of deeds over there and uh I guess he was a former selectman too he was uh oh Nate Nate was yeah yeah and then he was uh for quite some time actually yeah anyway there's a lot of history in this town CCH thank you okay thank you very much uh all right uh moving right along uh Town Plan update Victoria yes hi so for the record Victor Bon planner um um do we have to wait even to the restroom should we wait or do we up to you well in the meantime is there is the MBTA must have a map somewhere that shows what that half mile radius is from the station I least like to visually see it that's all it's you know yes so they had last that I worked on this which it's been a bit um they had shape files which is the data you would input to like a GIS software so that's what they had at at the time so I don't have that software I think it's doable maybe that's something I can ask suret if they could just put that put that in on the map even if Sur hads got like a you know an 8 and 1/2 by 11 map that shows the radius it would it would help me visualize where in a cushion that this is going to affect yeah where's it h where is it going to affect and what what are we going to have to do to stay in compliance um and by the way you know the court case that she sent over the the Court ruled that just being able to say well we're not interested in grant money isn't going to get you out of the requirement that was the Milton case I mean it it's still going to it's still going to have well that may have that may have put it to bed but I mean you've got all the more well to-do communities in the state that there's money there to fight this tooth and nail if they so desire you I mean the Miltons the Cohasset there there well we haven't been no we're not in that no yet not yet no are we within a half mile of the station any part of town we're not I don't believe we're in a half mile radius of the station cuz I I the and it's probably about two two miles think AR we a half mile within where the tracks go well I know we would would be classified as an adjacent Community because we border a community that has a rail station mhm so that would put us in our own classification um so I can send out more information on that are we still going to have the requirement to create a multif family Zone in town if they go through cuz they I believe they would have to change something whether it's in the regulations or the law itself to add in those communities because they're specifically called out if I'm not mistaken um but yes it wouldn't be at the same level as like you know a commuter rail Community because we'd be adjacent but we'd still have our own requirement dude do we have any idea what those requirements might be at this time I can look more into it I don't know if the top of my head um I know for the community I was working in they were also a commun real Community but that was their requirement they had a minimum they had to meet minimum number of units but for other communities it was based off of like minimum what the state considers developable land area mhm so it's a little different but that might be that was also like I said a commuter rail community so it might they might do it differently for adjacent so sorry I just you know it it is going to come up relatively quickly yeah uh at this point I mean it's some of this is hard for me to wrap my head around I've been looking at a commuter rail uh construction project I swear for the last 40 or 50 years so it it and and I might be wrong at that but it's been so I don't even know what the time frame is anymore and I mean even one of the rail bridges that they put up it must be 30 years old at this point yeah yeah supposedly they're in testing stages they've been running the trains in test mode so i' like I said you know I've heard the things imminent for the last I don't know 20 to 40 years May of this year supposedly it's supposed to be they're going to be uh doing it so y they they they have to do their own test and after they do one test the state comes in does their test then they picked up the speed because it's 100 mph track oh is it really wow so they got to test it up to that point then the state comes back and it just yeah it's one test I went the new B one night and over at the Wheeling Museum and they kind of ran through that whole testing mode there wow so yeah long the testing process the safety aspect of it is well yeah I mean just besides just will the train fall off the tracks I mean all the all the intersections all the conflicts with with either people or Vehicles they've all got to be checked out all all the lights got to ding when they're supposed to Ding and go off and U switch into because that the way that whole thing is laid out it all goes over to one New Bedford for River and it just kind of all merges up to up to one spot and starts heading up North so okay we're all in attendance please continue sorry no worries so um again Victoria a far Town planner for the record um so the first update I want to give the board and the public was for the master plan um so the master plan committee MPC held um a workshop on January 9th to introduce the project timeline and we had an overview of the housing land use and economic development um in the town this was held as a workshop as opposed to a formal meeting because no members of the NPC had been sored in yet um so we are so the board of selectman held an off off night meeting but they did meet during the day um today to vote in the rest of the members um so the committee has been filled um and they will be notified of their appointments um there is a discovery Workshop event happening at the library on January 29th from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. um in addition to other Outreach events the MPC will be meeting monthly on the 2 Thursday of each month at 6: p.m. um right here in the board s's meeting room um there will be a short break in the summer to allow for sured our regional planning agency and consultant for the project to have time to write the plan um we might also schedule there was a member that was interested in holding a meeting before our next scheduled meeting to just have the committee get together and give um kind of like an overview of what happened at the work previous Workshop okay questions okay all right thank you um okay so the next point I wanted to bring up um was complete streets so I know it's been a while since um we discussed this I believe it was back in September um so at that at that meeting in September you guys did give me the go- ahead to kind of pursue this so I did submit a letter of intent to Mast do which says um that we will work on doing a complete streets policy and getting that adopted um so so in that because we submitted the letter of intent to adopt that policy within one year um it immediately allows us to apply for what's called tier 2 funding to develop what's called a prioritization plan which is basically a list of Transportation Improvement projects that are of importance to the town usually between like 15 and 20 um could be an intersection it could be areas with missing sidewalks um things like that um so the next step um is so when that funding round comes up I believe it's closer to the spring um we are free to apply for that so I can certainly do that if the board would like and then the next step for the board now um at a subsequent meeting is to start developing a draft complete streets policy and then recommending it for approval um by the board of selectman don't know if anyone has any questions on that have to send out more information about you know complete streets and maybe for the the next meeting or the meeting you guys want to discuss this I can have have some other um policies from other towns just you can guys see what it looks like yeah that would be good that would be good perfect I'd like to take uh maybe an informal vote just so we are all we all know that we're all on the same page for Victoria to continue uh with this oh I would make a motion to have Victoria uh continue the process to investigate what we have to do to get the complete Street things complete Street program in place awesome I have a motion I second that all in favor I I unanimous again just uh you were told to do it now uh all right and that's it from you correct I have one more that's okay sorry it's not packet kind of came up last minute so um sured offers what's called dlta funds District local technical assistance fund um that towns can apply for um so I was looking online at their previous Awards and some things that they do for other communities um and I saw that they've helped develop um a permitting guide and even like a business like for the business side of things too um for like development and things like that or they called it like a marketing guide um since I've been hired here I know I've heard a lot about kind of making something um that applicants can use that's user friendly you know so they know what the process is and things like that um so I think middle barell has a pretty comprehensive one I was looking at I'm not sure if that's an eligible project for DTA funds but if it is I was wondering if that's something yeah that's that would be something to pursue I mean the other the other thing once you do that then you're going to keep it updated but yeah yeah making sure it's updated I was thinking about that as well cuz one of the ones I was looking at has like contact information which you know staff changes that changes from time to time yeah so yeah I would um agree to look into that a little bit more okay and uh I mean I'm I'm all for whatever's out there for funds to help out the town um obviously we got to make sure we read theine print and and we know all the details behind it but if there's any funds out there that are available that this town can take advantage of to help us out I am all for okay thank you all right moving along uh that was the planners uh update next is other business we haven't had anything else come in in the last 48 hours excuse me our next meeting is Thursday February 6th uh gentlemen ladies anybody else have any comments questions concerns they'd like to discuss no thank you our next meeting is February 6th can I get a motion make a motion to adjourn second all in favor thank you have a good night [Music] [Music] 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