Good evening. This is Town of Aor Zoning Board of Appeals. Uh Wednesday, July 20th, 2022, 6 PM open session in person and remote participation meeting agenda. This meeting/hering of the AR zoning
board of appeals will be held in person at the location provided on this notice. Members of the public are welcome to attend this in-person meeting. Please note, while an option for remote attendance and/or participation via Zoom is being provided as a courtesy to the
public, the meeting/hering will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast unless otherwise required by law. Members of the public with particular interest in the specific item on this
agenda should make plans for in-person versus virtual attendance according. This meeting will be live on Zoom. Public may access proceedings by joining Zoom. meeting ID number 857-97287177 or by calling 312 6266799
for diff additional information about remote participation please contact Carly Anteneellis assistant town manager at atmayer.mma us or 978-77282 extension 100 prior to the meeting.
We'll call this meeting to order at 6:02 p.m. First item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. Make a motion to approve the agenda. Second. All in favor? Second. I by saying I. I. I.
Motion approved. Next item on the agenda, we're going to open the public hearing for the application for a comprehensive permit. Mass General Law 40B sections 20 to 23 Neighborhood of Affordable Housing, Inc.
65 Fitchburg Road, filed June 24th, 2022. Uh application materials can be found at air.mma. us/zoningboard appeals/pages proposed- comprehensive permit 40B.
All right. Uh project proponents. Um, actually, Mr. Chair, we have to read the notice. Do you have that on your It was in the packet. All right. The meeting notice. Oh, should be on the second page of the packet.
Town of air zoning board of appeals public hearing notice. Notice is hereby given the air zoning board of appeals will hold a public hearing on Wednesday July 20th 2022 at 6 p.m. at Air Town Hall, one Main Street, Air Mask on the petition of the neighborhood of
affordable housing, Inc. 143 Broad Street, East Boston, 02128, relative to an application for a comprehensive permit pursuant to Mass General Law, Chapter 40B, sections 20-23,
seeking authorization for construction of 106 rental dwelling units on the property located at 65 Fittburg Road, Aer Mass. A copy of the application is on file at the office of the town clerk town hall
one main street air mass. Any persons interested may review said petition and appear at the hearing. If special services assistance or accommodations are required to participate in this meeting, please contact the town manager's office within sufficient time
prior to the scheduled meeting time. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2022, this meeting will be conducted in person and as a courtesy via remote means in accordance with the applicable law. Please note that while an option for remote attendance and ouror
participation is being provided as a courtesy to the public and board members, the hearing will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast unless required by law. For zoom in or call information, please contact
atmirair.mma. us or call 9787728220 extension 100. Now said the same thing twice. Project proponent, please come forward. You have a
presentation. I understand we do. Yes. Our presentation this evening will probably last about 20 to 25 minutes is my anticipation. You don't I'm not we're not doing a clock. No, just to just to give everyone a heads up that managed expectations. Um good evening Mr.
Chairman, members of the board. My name is Stephanie Kefir. I'm with the law firm Small and Vaughn in from North Andover and represent the applicant the neighborhood of affordable housing or or Noah as it's known. Um with me this evening we have um members of our team
both virtually as well as in person. Um from Noah we have Phil Gy and Anukica Lambert. We have our civil engineer um Taylor Dowy from the BSC group. And virtually we have our project architect
um Frank Valdez from um Della Schaefer and Sharon Loenthal our housing consultant virtually. Um this evening um what we were hoping to do is I was just going to give an overview of um the project and how we're before the
board on this 40B application. Turn the presentation over briefly to Phil to introduce you to Noah and let him know the good work that Noah has done. Um as well as kind of the commitment and efforts that we've been working on for two years and enable to get to you to
present this project that we're very proud of. Um from there, um the BSC group will orient the board to the project site. Um give you some of the highlights of the design and the layout of it. And then Frank, our um our
project architect, will walk the board through the uh the layout, the buildings, and and kind of how the uh design approach was was arrived at and and um what we're looking at. So, just to quickly um advise the board or you've probably seen the information packet,
the property 65 Fitchburg Road is a 10 and a half acre site and what we're proposing is a redevelopment. It's currently used for landscaping business. There's a welding shop on there. There's an abandoned house. um those uses will no longer exist and we're proposing a
100% affordable housing development um to be developed in two phases as both um BSC group and and Frank will kind of walk you through so I don't want to keep repeating myself. Um just tell me when you want or you can just click this. Oh, okay. Oh, thank
you. Thank you very much. Yeah. Let me see where I am on this. Uh again, just the outline of our presentation this evening. Um and uh once we get to the end of it, we're happy to take any questions that the board may have of it have of us at this
time. This is an overview presentation. Um and and likewise, our hope is that we can kind of um work with the board and have the board identify what they see as the key issues. Um we found that in moving forward in project review of 40bs because it's a comprehensive permit the
easier in the the earlier in the process that the key issues are identified um we can work then towards um perhaps assigning topographical hearings. So both the board the public the develop the developers team come prepared to
know you know for instance the next hearing may be devoted to civil storm water wetlands issues. the one after that architectural and traffic. Um so um again we can hit that at the end of it but just to um kind of give the board an
idea of what we think tends to work and the board of course may have its own ideas and I know that the board is being um assisted this evening by attorney. Um Paul is is a great 40b consultant for boards. I've worked with him in the past. And so I think that if there's
any, you know, uh very neutral questions that you have, um you know, and you're worried about asking a developer or an applicant, Paul is is a great resource. Um my understanding is he's probably already given you a 40B training. So, um you have a sense of where that is. Um
with that said, um again, this project is being submitted under chapter 40B of the general laws. And so, um, just for everyone's so we're all on the same page, it's a comprehensive permit, meaning comprehensive as to all local permitting. It's done just through this board. And we've seen, um, the
preliminary comment letters come in from the other departments and staff, which is very helpful. Um, and I think that once we get through this preliminary hearing, um, we can build upon that and we'll provide, you know, more formal responses, um, to the extent that department and staff or the board has
questions, um, relative to that. Um again under 40B the applicant meets the preliminary criteria. So under 40B three types of entities may present an application. A public entity, a nonprofit or a limited dividend um
entity. Um Noah is it's a community development corporation, a nonprofit. It's been doing great work kind of in the greater Boston area for 30 years. Um and you got your letter from the state though, right? We did get our letter. Yes. So the so the next is that it's um
the project is um is approved for through a project eligibility um as and in November of 21 we received a project eligibility letter from DHCD. The project is being proposed um with funding through the LITC lowinccome
housing tax credit program. Um and through the project eligibility the department of housing and community development has recognized that the project is generally eligible for that. Um this it did conducted a site visit. It recognized that the site was generally appropriate that the proposed
project was generally appropriate. Now obviously those are kind of the um programmatic sides of 40B. The board itself determines you know and and raises its concerns or its questions that it has about the project design. But just so you know, the state has issued that project eligibility as of
November. Um, and then the third element obviously for a 40B is that the applicant have site control and uh, Noah has a project under a valid purchase and sale agreement. All of those materials were included within our application package. PNS was in there, a redacted copy of the
PNS. Yes. Okay. Uh with that said, um just a very brief overview again of the of the project. It's on a 10 and a half acre site, a redevelopment. Um it will be 100% affordable. Um it's proposed to be developed in two phases. The first phase
I believe is 64 total units. The second one um 42. Um and the the first phase is um proposed along the Fitchburg Road. So kind of that that'll give that a street
face to the project. Parallel. Um yes, parallel. Um and then the second phase is just a single building design. It's a fourstory. Um and it will be somewhat off behind that. Um again, both BSC and Frank can uh can walk the board more
fully through that. And um with that being said, I I don't want to be too repetitive of of what you're going to hear from our other presenters. I am going to turn this over to Phil Gippy to briefly introduce the board to Noah. Um the work that they do, the work
that they've done in getting this project to be before the zoning board this evening. There's been a lot of um a lot of work and a lot of good effort and uh the board this evening. Thank you, Stephanie. We can turn to the next one if I don't I go forward. The
other way. Okay. Yeah. So again, my name is Phil Gy. I work in Noah. They brought up affordable housing in East Boston where I've been for a long time. I had more hair a long time ago. Um I lived there for 27 years. I'm in Firmingham right now. I'm very fortunate to have a great staff. Anukica Lambert is here among others who work behind the scenes
to keep us look at our audits. We're all very good. We've done this work for a long time. We started out doing a lot of three deckers on our own neighborhood. We probably have done uh 40 buildings of rental size. We probably sold about 42 properties in the neighborhood as well. Everybody's heard about affordable housing crisis and problems. They've
been around for a long time. We know we have one here, I think. And they've been publishing this for a long time. So about 2006, we sort of stepped out of the neighborhood and started doing work collaboration with cities and towns throughout greater Boston from Hollist to Webster to North Andover to right now
in Taton and other communities. So we're very happy to now be welcomed in Bayer. We've had a great uh I think couple of years. It seems like it's gone very fast. Anyway, we've been talking with members of the town and officials to sort of get make sure we're on the right track, that we're doing the right thing,
that we're in the right place, doing something that the town wants, and that's what we call this a friendly 40b. So, we hope to again receive your comments and turn them back into something that's quite visible and useful and practical over a period of time, as Stephanie said, in two phases. So, uh the top bullet is our mission
statement. So, we don't just do affordable housing. We do a lot of work in the neighborhood, uh bringing people together. It's a very diverse community. So, we work on such things as climate change, which we're all get too familiar with. Um, I won't say more on that other than we've been around for 35 years. Sometimes people think of us, well, you
just do social services, you talk to a lot of people, who do what do you really do? But if you start adding up the value of what we do, that adds up to $600 million in people's pockets in the Commonwealth. So, when we build this give or take 30 million, uh, we'll add to that particular total and go on from
there. So when people buy houses, we do foreclosure prevention, we do financial fitness. People buy a house that gets totaled up and we add wealth and we think with the Commonwealth. So when people invest in this, the public dollars go into the project. It isn't just into my pocket. That's why we're a CDC. I get paid. I have a board of
directors. We respond to that. I don't just take the money and give it out and then we go to Bermuda for the winter. It doesn't happen. So the money that we invest and the public invest in these projects go back in to kind of fund to fund the kind of projects that I'm describing here. Yes, sir. How did we get to give or take 30 mil? Skip right
past that. Give or take 30 mil. Well, I think the project What's Sharon is here. I didn't bring the I don't have the performing number, but I think the total TDC is about Yes. So, TDC is about $30 million for both phases of the project. So, phase one um is a or sorry, excuse me, phase one is $30 million, which will
also do some site preparation for phase two. the bulk of the uh cost that we've estimated right now 30 million just for phase one which is what we're currently going through. So you keep using that TDC total development cost. Thank you.
And Phil slow down a little bit. I'm sorry. You know I get to keep that all the time and I talk fast. I know. Slow down a little bit. And when you use acronyms like TDC, please explain it. I would do that. Thank you for the reminder
that happened. In any case, uh we repeat, we've worked with many cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth and we're very glad to be working now in air with you. Um I think we we have no we have a broad clarity with what goes on in the region. So we but we do both
housing counseling and foreclosure prevention. Uh we got 100 city 110 cities and towns in the region. Uh climate change, like I said, we're all familiar with what that means. extreme temperatures. We're all out watching TV and wondering what happens. So, I think we'll try to build in resiliency and
sustainability features into this building that includes photovoltaic and Fred uh Frank uh from Demeller can to talk about those in more detail, but it's just a brief overview. I'm happy to come back and talk slower if you like. Sorry for the speed, but I know we want to get through this as well. So, with
what you want to get into the substance of what we're talking about, I think I'm going to turn over to Taylor. Thank you. Hi, Taylor Dowy with BSC Group. Uh we're site design engineers. Um if I could Can I use this please? I
can just click to go forward. There we go. So again, as uh as Stephanie mentioned, uh we're at 65 Fsburg Road. Um this is the existing site. Um, generally speaking, it's about 10 and a half acres biseected right in the middle
by a wetland systems that does contain an intermittent stream. Um, the existing uses on site, you know, it's a a mix match of a welding business, a landscaping layown yard. Um, I think there's an old house that's not that's
abandoned at the moment. Um, it's um, it could use some sprucing up to to to put it nicely. Um again, as a general overview, this seems like a very good area for development, especially with the grocery store almost
right across the street. Uh that's also showing downtown air and the train station. Um you know, I think we're only I think we're less than a mile from um uh the commuter rail there. This again, this is the existing uh
conditions plan. Uh what's in gray? That's generally speaking the landscape area. Um we looked at that, did some soils analysis. It's mostly very poor impervious conditions. All the site runoff probably doesn't have a lot of
infiltration associated with it. It just runs straight into that wetland system which is shown in green there in darker green. And then the rear of the property, um, it goes back up and I think that the culde-sac there on the right that's just off property, that's Isaac Lane if you're familiar with the
area. Again, this is um a um a 3D view of of the proposed development. Phase one that we're discussing would be these set of house of uh homes
up front along with this building and the community building. this in the back, the fourstory building, that would be part of phase two. I do have more detailed site plans to show. So, this is our our layout materials
plan. Again, it's like I said, it's two phases. Um, we have, as Stephanie mentioned, we have met with town staff over the past uh couple years, mostly via Zoom. um we've incorporated a lot of their comments already. So, we're we're you know, we feel like uh we've done
some some good leg leg work leading up um to tonight. Um we're utilizing a compact design. We had uh tighter um driveway um widths so that we could avoid the wetland buffer impacts as much as possible. Well, how does that
adversely affect traffic through the particularly larger equipment like trucks or fire? So we we have modeled emergency vehicles going through the site. Uh it does not create an adverse impact. We do have appropriate radi um on each at each intersection. Um and we
can we're happy to provide those uh diagrams to you. Um, do you uh Go ahead. Do you plan on doing any improvements to Fitchburg Road
at the You can't put that many pieces of real estate together and leave the infrastructure as it is. I mean, I would imagine you're going to have how many apartments are the first class? 60 64.
Yeah. Yeah. All things being equal, that's another 60 cars coming in and out of that road. That's that's a damn small road. So Mike, what are we are you going to do something with Fitchburg Road or you leaving it the way it is? I think I
mean we can talk to our traffic engineers about possibilities in terms of the road itself. I mean that's a a DOT control. I know it's I know it's a state road. I understand we'd have to talk to them as well. But I would think that if if you're going to affect the infrastructure as you are, there has to
be some consolation to the road. I mean, you just can't leave 60. I don't know if it's a traffic light, turn lanes, whatever the case may be. There's something that road will have to be addressed right here.
I mean, I think the best answer we can give you at the moment, Stephanie, we can get into that at traffic. We do have a traffic study that is mostly complete and we're um in the process of imminently submitting.
We'll get to it. Okay. Anyway, so I think generally speaking, this design is a environmentally speaking a vast improvement over existing conditions. We are infiltrating uh just about 100% of the rainwater that falls on the site. Um cleaning it up
before any discharge to the wetlands. Like I mentioned, we do have a greater setback to the wetlands. And I'd like to talk for just a second about that wetland system. It about half of it does contain an intermittent stream which also is um habitat listed by NHSP
for Blandings turtle. We did have our um scientists go out and do an evaluation of that and they submitted that to NHSP. It does not appear to be a good um area for Blandings turtle to either mate uh
winter over or generally just reside in. It's a very dry system. It's not wet and sloppy at all. Um, our environmental scientist is not here tonight, but at one of the future hearings, uh, we can we can have them come in and explain in greater detail what that means. But
generally speaking, from a layman's point of view, it means that they didn't find any evidence of a blinding turtle, and it's their opinion that is not a good habitat for them to survive and and operate. You said something about when you finish it, the the soil will be
different right now. You said it it's it it it runs off. Everything runs off. Nothing soaks in. And now, correct. And now we're proposing an infil infiltration systems throughout the site. How that collects the rain water into catch
basins. Okay. And and goes through underground pipes into an underground colttech recharge system. Okay. That that's how it's absorbing into the soil. We're forcing it to go underground. Okay. Thank you. Um, also on site there was a historic
hit for a um a species called climbing fern which is just off site right there. NHSP had recommended that we um we uh have a 75 ft radi away from that um from a proposed development condition. We've
respected that. They're happy with with that finding. Um we went out there and looked for any evidence of climbing firm and there is none today. So this is an old hit from years and years and years ago. Um so we're we're providing a setback off that just you know to um
to respect the previous condition. Util utility connections most of the utilities uh especially water is going out to Fitsburg Road. We do have a pump station that is collecting all the sewage on site. It's I'm pointing to it right here. And we are pumping we are we
do have one wetland crossing just with the sewer pipe that will be below ground and we're pumping it up to a manhole that's up here in the back of the property. Um happy to take any other questions um related to the site conditions. Excuse
me. Other questions sir you just mentioned about pumping water up to that manhole to the north of your map there. Excuse me. We'll take questions when the presentations are done. I was unaware, sir. Thank you.
Hold. You can hold it, though. I'm I'm I'm wondering along the same lines. It's in my backyard. Fair enough. H I'm happy to take any questions or we can turn it over to the project architect. Turn over to the project
architect. Okay. He is uh Carl, he's online. Oh, okay. Got it. And Taylor, would you be able to to switch the slides for me as I speak or No? Yep. Thank you.
So, this is just a just a general overview of some of the bullet points that I'm going to hit on the presentation. Um, we can go back to them, but I just wanted to just clearly brief them so that you can see them and go back and understand some of the components. Next,
as mentioned by Taylor, the site of the proposed residential development by Noah is approximately 1 mile from the Aer MBTA commuter rail station within the Aer Main Street Historic District. The entrance of the complex will be off of Fitchburg Road.
The front H of the development facing Fitsburg Road will be composed of five two-story residential buildings, creating a typical residential front to define the street wall as a residential development similar in context to other
streets in air and in other neighborhoods that we can find. This was a requirement and it was a discussion point that we've had uh with some of the uh other town members from the beginning. So, we wanted to showcase that. We really wanted to create a front to the
development and not have the buildings give a back to the street. Next slide. As mentioned before as well, the development will be phased with phase one being composed of five two-story
buildings, one central three three-story building and one-story community center building offering amenity spaces for the community. In total, phase one will be composed of about 64 units spread throughout the six buildings with a mix of one, two, and
three bedrooms. In this initial development, four of the units will be fully ADA accessible per the MAB requirements. There will be one bedroom that will be uh fully ADA. There will be two twobs and there will be one
three-bedroom that will be fully ADA accessible. It's a requirement of 5% that we're complying with. Next, many studies have been done to arrive to the best placement for the buildings in relationship to its context, solar
orientation views, and to create a residential community. Uh the architecture of the buildings will be used using pitch roofs at the uh at the best angle to take advantage of the southern orientation for solar panel placement. It is the intent of the development that we will be placing
solar panels on the roofs of these buildings in order to take advantage of that. The materiality of the facades will be such as to maintain a warm and elegant residential aesthetic using wood textures and a variety of cement panels both vertical and horizontal. We have
also introduced balconies to further enhance the residential feel to add eyes to the street for safety and for places for the residents to enjoy views and sunlight. What you're seeing here is an example of what we refer to as building A and building B. Building A is composed of
all one bedrooms. Building B is composed of all two bedrooms. Go next. Here you see an example as well of building C, the larger building at the bottom in blue, which is composed of most of all three bedrooms. Above you
also see a plan of the onestory community building that we are proposing. The community building really will maintain a series of uh communal spaces that will enhance the development. Uh the central mail and package area will be located here to
encourage interaction among the residents. There will be a community uh space for gathering. There will also be obviously a leasing office component to it and also be some health and fitness components associated with it. We also anticipate potentially that some of the owners uh living here, some of the
residents living here will have pets. So, we are allocating as well a small pet spy, if you will, where people can go and watch their dogs um freely when they go out on the woods and they like enjoying nature. And then we also have a a dog park.
Next, it is also important to point out at this point that the development is aiming to be a fires certified. We are designing this as a passive house component and it's 100% electric. Um,
the passive house design means that we will have an extremely energyefficient uh buildings that do not take a lot of power to heat and cool. We're very proud of this and it will be an amazing development taking advantage of these passive house components.
Next, this is a plan of phase two. As you can see, um phase two will be a single building development similar stylistically to phase one but concise that this building will be four stories, three over one construction. The first
floor will be uh have the lobby component and entry component of it, but it will also house 44 spaces of parking in within the structure. The upper three floors will have a total of 42 units. The building mass is broken up into
wings as creating two buildings to reduce the overall scale. The elevator lobby that for many minutes such as the lounge will be centrally located with large panes of glass to bring natural light into the building as well as views and to further break the mass of the two buildings. Go to next.
This is the the distribution of the units as you can see with the two wings and really bringing this middle component of light so that it gathers people as well as light and it has views towards nature. Next. And here you can see some of the
elevations as well. Phase two. You can quickly go through the units. This is just some of the unit plans. If there was any questions, we can always go back to them. Um, you can go to the landscape plans as well, Taylor. And we'll just say we have developed as well at this point a pretty developed
landscape plan in coordination with uh our consultants. We have really designed the landscape to be of a uh to not be uh overwhelming or intrusive but to really be enhancing of everything that is being done to reduce the scale as well of the
development and to add areas of gallery and to be able to uh enjoy the nature component. Almost trying to bring the natural component of its surrounding into the site as much as possible. This is uh my presentation. If there's
any questions, I am happy to answer that. And Frank, just to um give the board a little bit of context. This area here that I'm pointing to, that would be the proposed dog. That is that is correct. We have we are proposing an enclosed area for the dog park for people to have an option to bring their
dogs into the park as well. Yes. As well as a green area behind the community for part of Correct. part of a community has an outdoor uh space that will be uh programmed for people to have outdoor activities in it. And the idea of this community center is to really work as a
pin wheel for the community so that everything comes to the center and people can gather and meet there and then go back to their residences. But it's really the pin wheel uh the heart of the whole development. And then just one thing I'm going to
bring up that um I don't think we've touched on is the parking. So as Frank um referenced in his presentation, we have a combination of surface parking and some structured parking. So phase one, the the total number of parking that we're proposing is 157 parking
spaces. Um the uh the the covered parking would be developed within phase two and I believe that's 40 44 44 of of the structured parking with 20 units of surface parking in
phase two and then the balance would be constructed during phase one. Do you anticipate that being signed or or are just free-for-all? Uh we've not yet discussed that but I generally the intention would be the people that are living in the
larger building in the phase 2 would have that. So it's 42 units there, 44 spaces. So I don't know if it would be a sign, but it would be a rough equivalency. You know, we tried to we tried to distribute the parking spaces in such a way that there would be enough parking spaces parking for each of the
buildings within proximity in the surplus for visitors and people with second cars. But the intent is of the design is that there would be parking for the community for each building within proximity. Do you have fewer spots than bedrooms?
They do. Yes, we've we've we've requested a a waiver. It's in our waiver list. And um you raised a good point though and just to um we we haven't gone through that, but as part of our application, we submitted a a preliminary waiver list. And typically,
my experience is as as the hearings progress, it gets refined a little bit more. So, it's the preliminary one and we can you know, but you said 150 parking space. 157 157 for 106
actually 182 bedrooms. So that we'll work on that. Okay. I don't know where it falls statistically, but it's
like about 1.48 1.5 ratio. That's what that's what that's the way it came out. Yes. Correct. The intent of it is is that we're trying to in a lot of these developments that we've done because of the proximity to
commuter rail as well as our our history and understanding of the needs of um vehicular for affordable housing is typically about a lower demand of parking that we've seen throughout all of our developments that we've done. It
is typical of something like that that that we've seen. I don't know too many families that are not at least two cars literally. No, no. I completely not completely understandable. I think that what we're saying is that we've seen it
that in a lot of the affordable housing developments that we've done, there's typically one card per family and it comes to the idea of it's really the logistics of uh the income and just really the the facilities of the needs of the people. Um we're also trying to
be respectful of of the site and try not to add as much parking to be uh obstructive to the development of you know its surrounding and its nature. turn to more. It's a little quick. All right. Uh that concludes our formal
presentation for this evening. Um we're happy while we have a number of the project team members here if the board has any um follow-up questions that they wish to have at this time. And then otherwise again um we would just um suggest that by the end of this
evening's ma evening this evening's meeting that we um perhaps identify kind of how the board sees the key issues and then assign topical meetings moving forward. Um I don't know if the board has discussed whether or not they're going to seek peer review for anything.
Um so perhaps another topic to discuss this evening. Um, with that said, we are happy to field any questions um, the board may have. If we have any questions from the board, we'll take them now. If not, I'll open it up to the public. Uh,
go through development questions. Uh, because we, you know, we haven't really been exposed to a whole lot of that. Um, I, you know, I'm I'm looking for guidance as to what we're going to be, you know, we'll get to that. We we have
I understand. So I can't really do the questions until I know what's going to fall on this table because there's a lot of stuff in the information that probably is other boards and stuff. And so it's mostly us, right? It's all it's
all in. It's all us. We we we talk to the other the other boards. They give us their input, but it's laying on this table. And there's a little bit that goes to conservation commission under the what we under the state act. Exactly. Yes. So anything that is a
state act just a like state building code. So those local officials that administer state laws still do that under a 40B but the zoning board is the issuer of a comprehensive permit. We we have to go through the we'll go through
the the waiver list. It's quite is it 10 pages? Yeah. 10 pages. probably probably nine or 10 nine or 10 pages of a waiver list. I mean, this is things that we're going to go be going through over the next five 6 months,
I would think. This is not This is not tonight. This This is just the opening of the door. Rod, do you have any questions, Jess? Um based on what we've heard so far, we are just uh I mean one thing I want to
hear more about is so you're saying water is coming in through Fitsburg Road, but sewer would be coming in in the back area towards Isaac Lane. That's correct. Uh there there is an existing town sewer line on the back side of the property and we are
proposing a pump from the front crossing the wetland and pumping to that town line to discharge. The only other question I had pertaining to the traffic or parking that you raised was you say typically other 40bs haven't needed
a larger ratio of car or parking spaces. Is that does that apply to um 40Bs in areas like this that don't have much in the way of public transportation nearby? I would say that and our our traffic
engineer is in here today, but um the ratio of just about 1.5 is is generally in a more urbanized area, you can get lower actually um you know and and one of the benefits of this site is um it is within approximately a mile I
believe of the me rail station. Um and so it's it's not a half mile, but a mile is relatively, you know, a close distance. And so yes, um one one other point is um some of 40B projects the
requirement is only that 25% be affordable and the other 75% can be market rate. This project is 100% affordable. Um and um you know kind of the you see a a a pattern or a trend that um
when it's going to be a a more affordable project the uh the parking requirements they are dim to finish. I did run a little further west and it was um it was 100% affordable to um pretty much you know they can go gradient 80%
60% 30% and this project I'm speaking of was more the majority was 30% and they may not be a one to one for the parking um it's u again I not going to get too far out of my lane though and I'll I'll
let um Sam our traffic engineer um in a subsequent hearing um speak to the board portfolio on that. So, I don't really have questions uh at this time. I did do a brief dive into Noah. I think it was your project in
Hawkington. I like one of the things I liked was that from the site that I could tell you developed it pretty tight. And one of my big concerns as we go through this because no one in town is going to argue that we don't need affordable housing because we do. My big concern here
really is going to be the site work that you guys are proposing as it relates to the folks already with on Isaac Lane uh and John Riley a little further up. You know, this is going to be a big change for them. And so as we go through this process, I'd ask for your understanding,
you know, cooperation and patience as we go through that process because Fitsburg Road, you know, in terms of residential development, I mean, there's only a couple houses that, you know, are in here. Um, but Isaac Lane backs right up
to it. They're going to be in somebody's backyard this newund six unit development, whatever it is. So that that's my one of my big big concerns with this project. Um and again Ron I think is one of the only folks
who's done anything with 40B in the past. Is that correct? So you know I don't have much experience with this. So this will be a learning process as we go through this. So patience is going to be key. Um the one um your your point that
you make is a very good point. Um the one um kind of preliminary response I have is that the and Taylor could jump in here, but the development itself is is I think it's largely been the envelope of the already kind of disturbed site, if you will. Um, and so
by by virtue of, you know, keeping it there, but also, you know, by virtue, quite frankly, of natural environmental things, you know, we're staying away from that intermittent stream. So um to the properties that are back on rise and lay um it's going to be maintaining
pretty much that vegetative buffer that they currently have to envelop site you know say for the fact that um as we suggested that we would need to bring the sewer line down. So Taylor you can correct anything. No that's absolutely correct and it looks like Carly's
bringing up the uh the plan again. So yeah, the good news is that Isaac Lane is is definitely up on what I would consider the non-developed portion side of our property. And and again that the corner where we do abut Isaac Lane, we
are protected by that 75 ft radi of the historical climbing firm hit. Yep. That in effect is 150 ft in diameter. So what's up here? Show me where that ties in. Uh, may I push the screen or is this
right? Is this the right plan? This one. I want to know where the sewer line's going. It is just I'm going to go to the next page. This is working. Previous. You can hit those arrows on the bottom.
You pop right down on the bottom left. Thank you. There's a manhole right there. Right at the tip of the mouse. What is this property up there? Right here. Out through there. That's right up by uh
Groen School Road, right? Yes, I believe that backs up. I'd have to confirm via aerial, but I believe that backs up to Groen School Road, which is somebody's backyard. Somebody's backyard. Okay. Yeah, we have no further questions. Uh,
I'd like to open up questions from the public. You, sir, 9 John Riley Road. Um, that sewer main like behind my house. Um, I guess I really don't have any concern now where it looks like the development is not
really going to be on that stream, which would pretty much stay away from the residents back there. Um, but what about disturbance all the way back there to the to the to the sewer drain? You know, right now it's a wooded area. It's nice,
you know, it's nice and private. You come in disturb and trying to get a line up there. Going to lose a lot of trees. Some of them I'll be happy to tell you which ones to take down. Um, but you know that's one of our concerns is what's it going to look like looking on our deck after you guys have
been in there with equipment taking trees down like that. Please. So yeah, I mean the good news is that it's it's not a we're not doing a clear cut by any stretch of the imagination to install any type of utility line. It's a fairly innocuous process even through the
middle of the woods. You know, you take you have to clear your path. that may be 6 to 8 ft wide just to get the equipment through there. But generally speaking, you're talking about digging a 2ft wide trench so that you can fit the pipe into the bottom of it. And we would restore
um uh the wooded area into the natural condition. We certainly wouldn't plant trees. No, you can't plant tree on top of, you know, that's a bad idea. But but we would we would cover it up and um you know try to vegetate it with you know blow and seed basically to make it go
back to the natur. And the only other concern that I would have is you talked about um storm water being forced on the ground. Um in my experience in the last 14 years living in John Rally, that's a bad plan because that's what they did in
ours. And all the water from the top of Broen School is under the ground behind my backyard about 8 ft from that sewer line. So in the springtime, if there was fish out there, you could go fishing. I believe there's 2 ft of water out there. I believe disturbing that it's going to
make it worse. It's going to be it's going to be collect collected and distributed. It's not going to the ground, right? Explain that again. Yeah, no problem. So, I might have misunderstood. So, there we are collecting them within
catch basin space periodically throughout the site. Yeah, there are three locations of underground recharge where we're doing one is where I'm pointing to now at this area. One is here at the back and another is right here near the dog park. Those are
detained and recharged into the ground. Any overflow that is not recharged would end up within this wetland system. And the like a leech field under effect and
it's not a leech field per se like like a classic sewer system. That's what it is. as if you're underground is perforated m in and stone. It's actually an an open bottom U. I call it it's a U-shaped structure and on the bottom is 6 in of stone.
Okay. And that's sure. And then it goes to the any overflow would go to the stream that's not uh recharged into the ground and the stream actually travels in this direction. So storm it's a storm water drip. Storm water only. Yeah. So you're going to
have water coming from both directions to that stream because you would not believe the water that's behind my because of that system just didn't work in my our system. Hopefully you guys are better at what right I mean we have done all the we've
done all the calculations um the town engineer commented that um while he hasn't done a full review yet we welcome any future reviews he might do. Um we've done the soils analysis. We've done the soils analysis on the wooded uh side of
the property as well. We feel we feel pretty good about our numbers. And and also just to fill it in um do sorry when you when you did your your analysis, what time of year did you do it? Uh
storm water doesn't necessarily run by time of year. It runs by um magnitude of storm. Um, so the Massachusetts stormwater standards prescribe that you you analyze the 2, 10, and 100year uh rainfall event over a 24-hour period.
Um, so those are the storms we've analyzed. We're reducing peaks. Um, we're not sending all the water rushing to the stream at once. We're slowing it down. That's part of how the recharge system works. Um, and actually I forgot to mention, we're cleaning the water up
prior to them prior to the water being recharged through um underground storm tech units where they swirl the water into a chamber and uh as much uh TSS, total suspended solids are are deposited into the bottom of the chamber. There
will be a maintenance component in future years where they may have to get a vacuum truck out there and clean it up uh two two to four times per year. That's very typical. Um, it's not unheard of. In fact, I'd be willing to bet Noah has does it on their other sites already. Do you do test pits on
these grounds? Have you? We did do test pits. Yes, that's in the storm water report. Okay, Sam. Yes. Yes. A couple. So, two questions. One would be um on that sewer line, would you use horizontal directional drilling underground for any
portion of that to minimize clearing above or I don't I don't have a good answer for that yet. We we did think about it and and I don't I'm not ready to commit to to to doing that. It's um a lot of times you end up creating and this sounds very
weird, but you create less disturbance by doing an open cut crossing the wetland. Um, if you do an open bore uh uh directional drilling, you have a huge pit on one side and a huge pit on the other side, which is going to cause a massive loss of wooded area on on each
side in order to to get that to get that pipe jacked across. Um and then the the second question was when your storm water calculations say the existing surface is very bad for water filtration
with um all the residences. Do you anticipate an increase in water runoff or would it pretty much stay the same but just it's it's different? We call it matching peaks and and we're not truly matching peaks. We are reducing it ever so slightly. Um, just the nature of the
business, you can never 100% nail if you have six CFS going cubic feet per second. I just wondering if that might address some of your concerns that it wouldn't increase water coming into the area. But did he
answer your questions? He did. Like you said, you know, it's a leech. So when you have excessive rain and a quick melt like we did this spring, the ground's still frozen. That water's got no place to go. It just it leeches up. It doesn't leech into the ground. It
leeches up. I So that's 100% I 100% hear what you're saying. But at the same time on this developed property, I don't see how that water is not rushing directly into the wetland right now all at once and and flooding. It has been kind of
dry. Oh, this year, no question. It's been dry, especially this month. Well, we had property like last year. You could bring every other day last year. It's the same thing every year. Spring, then drought. When it rains, it doesn't. I mean, I can't grow grass in the back of my yard. It's so much water
underground. Well, that's my that's my scenario because I'm at the bottom of the culde-sac. All the water runs behind my house. It's by catch basin. It drags behind my house right to where you're going to be working. Correct me if I'm wrong. That street is significantly
higher than this development. Is that fair to say? It's not. Well, the development is where that where that sewer drain is. That's my house right there. So, all that drain water comes to that spot. That's what I'm saying. From where you're going to be working. Our
development is significantly lower than where your house is. And you can see that on the top house. Oh, correct. From from that. Yes. Yeah, you're right. I'm just saying the system in general just didn't work in that area. I'd be concerned if it's leeching
that way towards where my house is. Now you're you're pushing two different storm drain waters to one location away from properties. Well, I mean like like I said earlier, we're we're meeting the the 10 state standards and the mass storm water bylaw. We do have a
conservation filing to make um and they we'll be reviewing it as well. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. We'd probably like to see what trees would be like to be taken down. We can't we're not going to take down a fourth. There's some trees in the vicinity that might be view. So
if we're doing some work out there, maybe we can bring our clippers and take them down. We'll see. Any other public comments, questions? Yes, ma'am. Jesus Court. I'm a commissioner on the air housing authority and I just want to
make sure that you guys and I know you're probably all aware because I think you have spoken to Ken Martin with regards to the property over at Lane, but if you touch any part of Lane, it's owned by DACB. So, you have to go ahead and go through DHCP. I just want to make sure what I know you guys are probably
aware it's housing authority property. No, I I I missed part of I didn't hear what you said. is housing authority property and if any changes are going to happen there they've got to go through DHC so that's
going to be another state yes Mr. Chair. So, this is a general question probably someone's easy. Um, your normal schedule for meetings is once a month. Don't ask. Excuse me. Don't ask.
Participation is critical. Yeah. I don't think it's going to be once a month. Okay. Thank you. Uh one other question for if you don't mind on an engineering basis was there a reason that you did not use any street drainage for part of the project rather than sending it all
keeping I know how I know all about keeping it on site I installed projects just like that was there a reason that you didn't take advantage of street drainage is there no drainage to take advantage of when you say street drainage do you mean like no curbs and runoff straight no I'm talking about
connecting to system on the existing on the road system. I see what you're saying. So, generally speaking, you want to keep um um all runoff flowing in the same direction as it is now. If we decided
and that that's the mass storm water va also prescribes that if we decided that I if and I haven't even looked at it if there were catch basins or drainage within Fitchburg road and we sent all of the runoff that way there would be a potential to actually dry up that
wetland system and the stream and over time okay it could potentially be no more which is not environmentally speaking would not be a good solution. So in essence, there's an environmental benefit for keeping the runoff going in the direction that it's going right now. Yeah, generally speaking, you want to
keep everything flowing to where it is today. That's great. Thanks. Any other questions? Yes, ma'am. Sarah with the Chile Road. I just wanted to note that I was very interested in um the DPW director's
memo. I can't like summarize it and ask the questions, but um The part that I was interested in is I was interested if we're going to have to pay anything in addition to the water connection and the sewer connection. Yeah,
I looked at that too. We're looking for a waiver for the connection fees, which is a considerable amount of money. We don't have answers for that yet. Like I said earlier, we've just opened the door tonight. But is that is that I
mean that is that negotiable? I don't know. No, I mean but that's really that's what bothered me about the scope of the ZBA because we don't we don't waver fees for connections and stuff like that and that's what it's asking for. Well, you do under a comprehensive
do this is a first. Yeah. Rules change. Okay. Well, that's why that's why I looked at it and it just didn't look like it was something that was Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. Probably should hear
from Paul. Well, he's he's absolutely next on my list. Absolutely. That's that was there was no one Sarah. Did Did your question get answered? It did. Thank you. All right. Please, by all means, Paul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Paul Havy Blatnam Babeski Hav
and Silverstein out of conquered Massachusetts. I'm here tonight representing the board through a grant from Massachusetts Housing Partnership. It's their technical review program. Um just to answer that last question. In my experience with the housing appeals
committee, um they take the position that no board is required to grant waiverss of local fees in order to make a project uneconomic. Um however they do encourage boards to consider granting waiverss of some or
all fees um as necessary for a project. So that's something that's really and it is within the purview of the board to grant. I've seen numerous projects where boards have granted waiverss of local fees in one way or another. Um and it's quite often a trade-off for something
else that the board wants that is going to cost the applicant money and the board says well okay well but if you provide this then we'll wave something here. Um so I it's something you should you know keep an open mind about but recognize that it's not an absolute requirement that you grant unlike a lot
of other waivers um that have been requested by the applicant which you know for instance they're asking for use waiverss right because this is located in three different zoning districts. Well, in certain of the zoning districts, it wouldn't be allowed at all. And where in another dzoning district, it might be allowed the use by
a special permit. That would certainly render the project uneconomic if this board were not to grant those waiverss. Um, and the applicant could then take an appeal to the housing appeals committee and it would very clearly render the project uneconomic. So then the the the
board would have the burden of proving that there are legitimate issues of local concern that outweigh the regional need for affordable housing. that's an extremely high standard for a board to meet. It is very rarely done. Um so there there are different sort of
considerations depending on the the waiver the type of waiver request. Also going back to the waiver list, I was reviewing them as this hearing was ongoing. Um it's a very thorough list. It's 10 pages, but it needs to be because I will tell you for the most
part when I when I'm representing boards and I see developers come in and providing an initial waiver list, it's much shorter and it's incredibly incomplete where they're asking for blanket waiverss of, you know, your entire zoning bylaw, your entire wetlands bylaw. Um, thankfully, this
waiver is much more specific, this waiver list. Um, so I think that's it's a very good approach from this applicant to be as specific as they are. I think there may be certain areas where additional specificity may be needed, but it's too early in the process to really look too closely at that because
as Attorney Kefir has noted, it changes. Um, you know, project designs very frequently change during the course of the process. The requested waiverss change during the course of the process. Um my biggest concern for the board
tonight is to identify the areas in which it wants to conduct peer review. Um because as can you explain that please? Sure. So so the board you know it's not presumed that every single you know board of appeals in the
commonwealth of Massachusetts has sufficient expertise within its ranks to review these types of developments. So the board is allowed to retain outside consultants to assist it with its review of the material submitted by the
applicants and the applicant is required to pay money into a 53g account so that the board can retain those peerreview consultants. Um again as you noted it's a short time frame that this board has
180 days from tonight is when the board is required to close the public hearing. Um so you and that time goes really quickly. So the sooner that you identify the areas in which you want to conduct peer review and identify who you are going to retain to do that peer review,
the more quickly this process um you know gets completed and the better shape that you're going to be in. So just just having listened to some of the discussion tonight, I mean, and it civil engineering peer review is pretty much every single project that that's
done. Storm water, it sounds like, is going to be something the board's going to want to peer review. Traffic is going to be something the board's going to want to peer review. And potentially wetlands wildlife impacts. Um, you know, wildlife is not something that's always reviewed, but in this
instance, when you have a couple of different natural heritage issues involved, um, you may want to look at that. I don't know. But wetlands, you know, certainly you have a local bylaw, they are requesting waiverss from that local bylaw. You should get somebody to come in and review that and advise you,
you know, in terms of what waivers should be granted and whether or not, you know, there are specific waiverss that should not be granted. I will say a lot of the waiverss that are being requested in that waiver list aren't specifically necessary. Um and again I I
applaud the applicant for including them um because it's always better to highlight things than to to not but a lot of them are procedural waiverss. For instance, there are a number of waiverss relating to site plan review. This is a comprehensive permit. It's one-stop shopping. You do not have to go to other
boards and commissions in order to get permits under local requirements. You do not have to request waiverss of site plan review. It's it's automatically subsumed into the comprehensive permit that the board issues. Special permits. You do not have to separately request
special permits under local bylaws. Those permits are subsumed into the process. But again, it's it's very helpful to call them out. And what I like to do when I'm drafting a decision for a board is to actually keep the request in there, note that it's a
procedural request and therefore denied. And what this does is it makes the administration of the project um easier after you know after the permits issued still have to go through final um final appro final review
of final plans. Building inspector has to review issue permits. It's always helpful to know exactly what provisions have been waved, what provisions have been reviewed as not needing a waiver, but specifically with the board stating waiver was not
necessary. It's not applicable to this project. So that's again part of the process that we'll get to when we begin drafting the decision. And that's pretty much all I have unless you have any other specific questions. I I I
know that the state says that a lot of the local zoning bylaws don't apply, right? So that's not exactly how it it works. Everything applies, right? But the board of appeals on all local bylaws
is the permit granting authority. The applicant has the right to request waiverss of specific provisions if and the the applicant is not required to prove that each waiver request would render the project uneconomic if not
granted. It's whether the waiverss in the aggregate would render the project uneconomic. So you look them, you get all of the waivers, you know, that worry about what the state says that those don't apply. the unless this board grants a waiver of a specific provision
of of zoning bylaws, of your wetlands bylaws, of any other local rule or requirement, it is applicable unless the board grants a waiver. Okay? The state doesn't supersede us on anything. So the state supersedes in the sense that if you have local boards
issuing state permits such as the conservation commission under the wetlands protection act, right? Um, if this were, you know, to be on the title five system rather than on sewer, the board of health under title five, those are the board of appeals does not have jurisdiction over those issues. You
don't have jurisdiction over building permit issues. That's a state law that's being overseen by a local employee. It's only local rules and requirements that this board is is stepping into. So, if you've got a local wetlands bylaw in addition to the wetlands protection act,
you're issuing the permit under the local wetlands bylaw, but not under the wetlands protection act. Right. Go ahead, Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. Could I just ask a question, too, while we're just getting our ducks in a row here? What What would you recommend for scheduling
for the board? Typically, we meet one time a month. We're going to need more than that, I would assume. Yeah. I I don't I don't recommend more than every other week. I know, you know, that you you want more than every other week. No, I said I don't recommend more than any
other week. And I I think although you're going to want to meet, maybe not want, but you're going to feel like you need to meet more frequently, um you're also going to run into situations where the applicant is not going to be able to turn around information quickly enough
to make two meetings in a month worthwhile. So, it's it's a little bit of give and take in because it really depends on how quickly the applicant can get information submitted to the board into the peerreview consultants and and moving from there. I I I' I've heard
that the traffic um you know study is still in the works and is to be submitted soon. I don't know if it would be ready in two weeks if you would be you know planning to hold another meeting then you know whether they would be actually prepared to come to you and present any new information. So, it's it's really it's going to be something
that's going to be in some flow. I think you can try to plan for meeting every other week, but I don't think that you're going to be able to actually get to meet every other week. And in terms of uh peer reviews, um those have to go through the RF RFP
process. They don't they don't. Okay. So, you can just pick a consultant, correct? Okay. Yes. So there's only two basises for a applicant to object to a peerreview consultant that has been chosen by the board. One is whether they
have a conflict of interest. You know, if it's someone that they've previously consulted with on with regard to this specific project, that would be a conflict. They couldn't work on it or if they don't have the requisite um expertise in the particular subject matter. So if you're going to retain a traffic engineer to review the storm
water, yeah, that's a reason for objection. But we would just decide, okay, traffic study, we want to go with this company. We don't have to It's issue a proposal to You don't have to Well, it's helpful to
issue an RFP to try to get us. Exactly. And you and you want to see because the the I mean, first of all, the board should be looking at the scope, you know, of the proposed proposal. Um, and you should be looking at the cost because you don't want the regulations
state you should be working with the applicant trying to keep the cost reasonable. It shouldn't be something above and beyond what would be imposed upon a nonsubsidized housing development in the town. No, my question is we generate the RFPs and the scopes the ZBA
does. Yes. Okay. But that can be shared with the applicant and the applicant can provide some feedback on that. I I mean I'm going to presume that the town the planning board has consultants that they work with frequently. I mean I would think that that's who you're probably going to reach out in in the first
instance. Okay. I don't know the conservation you know probably has their own consultants that they work with on wetlands would too I would imagine. Yep. So I mean is that something obviously we wouldn't do that during a board meeting? We could
you know the administrative staff could handle that with consultation from like a couple members of the board so we don't have a open meeting law violation. That's always the way I recommend that it be done because otherwise if you have to wait a month to it's just it's an
unnecessary waste of time. So, what I we propose is, you know, Allan, Alicia, Dan Van Shelick, Heather, our uh conservation agent, we could have two members of this board assist us with
putting together those scopes and um the RFPs to go out, but if we have two members with us, we don't have to host a meeting, right? Basically, and you know, it's not open meeting law. We don't waste time. try to connect the dots
here. It appears to me that our focal point is going to be the the waiver list, the waiver list, the site plan. Um, you know, you're going to want to make sure that the site plan actually works, which is why you want to retain a civil engineer to review that. You want to
look at the storm water. You want to look at, you know, the the traffic certainly is is a big concern. But the storm water, is the storm water complete? Was that It is complete. Okay. Yeah. We could start there. We could uh you
could I don't think you're going to get a peerreview consultant retained and have that analysis that storm water report analyzed in any substantive matter within two weeks now. Couple months. Yeah. Yeah. At least a month I would think. So like well from from the
RFP to a result I would expect to see a couple months. Well going to hope more quickly than that. Yeah. Two months is you're letting a lot of time go. I'm I'm trying to piece together planning for this board. Howard Yes,
ma'am. I was if I may just offer if it's of interest to the board, um the applicant is happy to submit some proposed scopes for you to consider if that helps. If it seems to the board that it's a kind of an overwhelming task task how to do it, um we've all done 40B
projects in the past and happy to just submit those to Carly and Sure. be circulated for your um and and as Paul mentioned um ideally it it would be great if the um peer
reviewers could be identify you know the scope once the board decides what they want the scope to share what they've thought with with the applicant um and to have a peer reviewer lined up as as soon as possible um to get this to get this moving forward um I know the first
part there is always somewhat of a delay But I think Paul's right that that a month is reasonable. Um, and as he mentioned, once the hearing opens, the board under boarding is to conduct its work within 180 days. Um, and Noah is
very motivated to get answers to the board's questions as quickly as possible. And in part, this isn't really a a board consideration, but it's a a real world consideration. um in order for Noah to get its applications into DHCD um ideally if it can get a decision
by the board by the end of this year to get in for that schedule because what it then does for a funding schedule through the state otherwise if it doesn't it gets pushed behind there's a a yeah it could be a year so um
ju just to put out to the board that Noah is very motivated to be as responsive to the board's questions to your reviews to work it in as tight of a review window as possible. You've cut 60 days off the review.
30. No, no, it's because next month this is the end of July. So you have August, September, October, November, December. Five. Okay. So 30 days. 30 days. All right. Right. You
know, again, just just to um Right. We're just trying to avoid a potential deer in waiting. I understand what you're doing. But, you know, and again, it's if you don't get in by the end of the year, it might not make it to the table till the next year. And the way that the
LITC funding works frequently, you don't get in the first time you submit your proposal. So, it could be two years. Okay. So in practical terms, the sooner we could look at your scopes,
the better and then we can modify them based on which ones I mean I anticipate looking at the one on wetlands quite closely. I'm on the conservation commission too, but um so it's easier to add to a scope that
you already have or modify. So if it's helpful to the board, that's why we're offering to submit kind of a a framework. So So I think what the board probably should do right now is give some direction in terms of the the areas in which you want to conduct a peer review. So I had thrown out some
suggestions. Yeah. Well, I mean I again I threw out civil engineering, storm water, traffic, wetlands and wildlife. Okay. So are those four thereabouts? Yeah. Okay. Is there any other area that at this point where you think the review
is necessary? We're not far enough into this to know. Yeah, that's be quite can I saw the package that was posted on the website, but I haven't done a deep dive in there to look other than than
broad rush what it what it is. I mean, I didn't get into the nuts and bolts of it, so I can't really say what I want to look at because I just saw it actually earlier today. But but I think the the four that we named civil engineering, storm water, traffic, and wetland wildlife, that definitely will get us
started. Yeah, I I think that there are other areas that are occasionally peer-reviewed. I know architecture is sometimes the subject of a peer review. Um not sure that that's going to be necessary here. Um, there is also the
ability to peerreview a proform, but that only comes at the end of the process after a draft decision has been issued. In this instance, I'm not sure that's going to be something the board's good. Frankly, I never recommend reviewing a proformer because I don't know that it really provides the board
with any usable information. I don't see where it would that's Yeah. And when we talk about the civil peer review, break that down for me. What will what does that look like? So all of all of the civil engineering, you know, aspects of the site plan. So they're going to it's going to be a review of the site plans.
That's why that's Yeah. And so would it make sense now for the board to determine what two members could work with the town staff to get this ball rolling as far as working on scopes and and developing an RFP which
pretty much standard we have them. But I I we certainly want board participation at least you know at two members I would say. Yeah that seems that seems reasonable. Jess, you seem interested. I don't know
if it's something you have time for, but Well, I'm definitely interested in the wetlands wildlife impact. I'm not sure. And and storm water. Um I'm not sure I have the expertise for civil engineering with traffic. I see him. Put your hand
sir. Um I I think the civil engineering and storm water is probably covered by the same consultant. Um wetlands wildlife perhaps by the same as the civil engineering and storm water, but it could definitely be Yeah, it really
depends on the size of the firm. I'll do the civil engineering. The what? I'll do the civil engineering. Okay. So that will probably be civil engineering and storm water together. Yeah, those are chang the town planner. Uh the only issue that
I or potential peerreview consultant that has not been mentioned that I can see may be considered. It would be a landscape architect to consider the overall site design beyond architecture. you know it falls in the area between
engineering and uh you know the actual architecture. So landscape architecture might be a good way to review not only the landscaping but the flow and the overall design but I I don't because of the constraint nature of the site. I don't see that changing much. I'm just
putting that out as an idea. Um also I I make the offer to assist whoever with the uh the traffic consultant RFP. I've uh written several of those for the planning board uh over the last few years. And
thank you. And actually, it's through the uh traffic consultant peerreview that you will have the questions of off-site impacts come up. They will address that that issue of the off-site impacts, improvements of Fishburg Road, etc. that
may be necess necessitated by the project. All right. They should also be able to address the parking space issue. Yes. You want the same two people or can you rotate? You can rotate. Um, so I would envision this would be during
the day. We can also like whoever is going to be we could zoom you in. So it's not that you have to be here. Um, but you know the town hall team it would be primarily during the day. Um, so but we'll what what I'm what I'm planning on doing is getting a look, you know, we'll
get the scopes and then we'll break it into four teams to start. I mean, I'll be on all the teams and Mark and Allen and Alicia will be on all the teams and then um it sounds like you and Jess would want to do the um the uh storm
water and civil engineering. Again, we don't need expertise in civil engineering. We just need uh your input on the scope and the the RFP. Um and then we'll go with traffic and Mark will certainly be a big part of that, Mark Archbo. And then we'll go with the
wetlands and wildlife and we'll we'll have a good start to the project for the peer review. Sound good? Sounds good. And we've also recently issued peer reviews. Mark just did one for traffic for
Straten Hill and conservation just did a did one for um wetlands for Straten Hill as well. So we have recently done peer reviews. So that's and you've already retained the consultants on those. Yeah, we now have well one we can't get the
same consultant for because it's for here because it's BSC group. Oh okay, that makes sense. So why don't we we'll get uh started on working that you know tomorrow right away
we'll start working on this you know we'll get the scopes and then we'll start putting everything together. So what are the four areas of focus? Okay so storm water traffic civil engineering and then wetlands. Okay so Sam Jess are
on civil and I'm not on civil. No I'm doing civil. She's doing the wetlands. Okay. Well, civil and storm water are probably going to be part of the same scope. That's fine. We'll have input on storm water. Yeah. Okay. So, traffic is open. And what was the other one?
Wetlands wildlife. I mean, I'll jump into the other two with Well, Jess will do wetlands. Yeah, for sure. How about traffic? John, you want a piece of that? Sure. All right. I traffic. Yep. Okay. Great. Okay. Does that leave anything
out? I don't think so. Ron, here. What would we have for a single point of contact? Would that be you between between Carly between? It would be you between. So you're going to do all the coordination between the contractor Mhm.
In the town you will represent. Yes. And then I'll work with the town hall staff and work with you, work with Paul and Alicia and Allan and Mark will all be helping with me. So, so for all intent purposes, we're leaving the schedule
intact as it is. Yeah. So, our next meeting would be um August something. Well, when I August 17th, when I look at this, it says uh no later than 15 days from the
opening of the public hearing. Uh we have to give written notice if if we have an issue with the safe harbors, but we're not even close. Yeah. Right. Where does this get us in relation to safe harbor if this
development goes as proposed? Explain safe harbor first. Yeah. All right. So, so there are two different types of safe harbor for chapter 40b. There are the statutory safe harbors. So those are the the 10% um total housing
units which most everyone knows about. There's also the 1.5% general land area minimum. Um and then there's 3% which no one's ever tried. Then there are also regulatory safe harbors. Um so that includes like a large project exemption,
recent progress, um related application and then housing production plan. So housing and I'm presuming that's what we're looking at here is housing production plan. in safe harbor. So Alicia can speak to that. Alicia, so
um we are losing our affordable housing right now. We went from 8.6% down to 6.4% in the last four years. that has to do with a lot of our h um affordable housing was under our housing rehab
program. And they changed the regulations on the 10% um subsidized housing inventory to only include properties that had de restrictions. We even with our housing production plan, one of the things in our housing
production plan was to look for a friendly affordable housing program. And this one, one of the reasons that we've been very, you know, open in talking to this group is because they do have such a good reputation and they are bringing in
100% affordable housing, which will possibly take us over our 10%. So that is something I don't think that we would actually qualify, but I'm not the lawyer. So for for a safe harbor under the housing protection plan,
because the housing protection plan What does that do for us? So, so the housing production plan uh provides for either a one-year safe harbor if you if you approve 5% of your total housing stock in a one calendar year or a two-year safe harbor
if you approve 1% of your total housing stock within one year. My understanding is that you have not reached either of those milestones as of the date that the comprehensive permit application was filed. And that's the date in which the
is applicable, right? You look at the date that the the application is filed and if you haven't reached any of the safe harbors, doesn't matter if you go past them later. So if some if for somehow some way you wound up over 10% um while this hearing is ongoing, you couldn't use that safe harbor against
this project. Right. Okay. And if somehow and not sure that would timing wise they would be able to get in an application before them but if this project put you over 10% if somebody else were to get a project eligibility letter and submit an application before
you close this hearing and and issue a comprehensive permit then if this takes you over 10% that wouldn't be able to be used against that subsequent applicant. It's only if you are at the safe harbor as of the date that you receive a comprehensive permit application. Okay.
So in theory in 180 days if it was approved as is and we were over the 10% we would be within that safe harbor range. Correct. Except for the 180 days is to close the public hearing. Once the public hearing is closed you have 40 days to to render a decision. Okay. Um
but again, you know, we've already heard a request to try to get, you know, a little quicker on that timeline. Um Okay. So, and usually I recommend boards actually keep the hearing open, issue their, you know, review their decision during a public hearing because it
allows you to get input from the applicants. Once you close the public hearing, you can't get any more input from the applicants. No more input from the public. Um, so it's better to have actually at least initiated that process with a public hearing still open, which then allows you to actually issue your
decision much more quickly. And you know, if you were in a situation where there was another project coming in that the town felt was hostile, you're going to want to move things more quickly. Okay. Um,
so in terms of our future meetings being in person or Zoom, I know you have issues with travel sometimes. The governor extended it till March of 23, right? And as far as I'm concerned, and we'll put it on the table
right now, I just assume keep it as a uh remote. What do you think, John? If we can be as productive as in the Zoom as we can at the table, and that's fine with me. I mean, I I think that there's a lot of
work to do in just organizing a plan is how we're going to take all these different um you know, like going through the other department heads uh stuff and going through the variance list, you know, does it matter whether we're here
or at home? I don't I don't really think so. I mean, I I and that's my opinion, too. I mean, there's a there's a boatload to go through and we won't get it done here. It's that simple. What does that mean? We won't get it done here. We come in here for our ZBA
meetings and it's going to be difficult to get start comp. So, we're going to have additional meetings to address this and all these variances. I would think I as needed. Yeah, I would think. You know,
I'm I'm thinking we we're going to have more in the future months. We we still have a ZVA to run. That's true. And we will have applicants to deal with. So, I think we would want to keep this like
separate. Yeah. I I would just like to see some kind of agenda of the things we're going to address in what order based on the priority. Give me some time to go through it. I'll try to put something together. Yeah. They're going to give us a format. And if I have a format to start with because
I have to start at ground zero. So we'll be able to address it u when we get together. The whole pretense is whether or not we're going to to review or or discuss
what we're doing as a ZVA here or on a Zoom call. I'm open to the Zoom. Rod, just see how it goes. If we have to meet personally, then we'll do that. Jess, I'm I'm fine
with Zoom. Um, if we have to meet more more than once a month, which it looks like we will, Zoom makes it more easier to That's true. I don't have to worry about scheduling this room. Yeah, Mike. Yeah. I mean, Zoom is convenient. I do
I feel old-fashioned traditional to saying it, but I do like being in the room. Well, it's like it affords it affords um personal contact. I get that, but but in in this instance, I think
efficiency is going to override that. Yeah. I I mean, we're still in the midst of a pandemic. I think it's, you know, I believe we saw a lot more resident and citizen participant uh participation over the last two years because they
could do it in the job from home. Um, so I I do like the fact that we can have more residents participate. It's easier on applicants. If we see a surge in the fall, we're not scrambling at the last minute to book a room. So fine by me. Miss Whippy, did you have something you wanted to ask? Um,
I was going to ask if you think that's going to be adequate for the traffic. Um, I'm sorry. I was going to ask if you think I was going to ask how I was going to make a statement. Can I make a statement? No. No. Okay. Um, I
can't speak that. I just I um I think honestly I think everything sounds good, but my question would be um how do you make sure that the public has a little bit of access to the traffic from changes that are about to come?
All of our meetings are advertised and posted. Public access is encouraged. Okay. And if I could uh you know we have a page um on the ZBA's web page
dedicated to this project. So all studies, reviews, everything will be there as a repository. It's there now. Everything we have to date, right? To date. So my intent is to obviously keep that populated as we go through the
process. All right. Cuz honestly, it makes my life easier when someone's looking for it. I can just say it's right here on the website and it's better for all of you. You just go to one place to get all your information. So that's definitely the intent.
So our next meeting is a month. Yes. About the way it would be August 17th. Okay. That being said, um and it would be Zoom, you're saying? Yes. Okay. I saw where did I read it? I want to ask this question.
I don't know if it was in I think it was in one of the packages on the website. They have issued sets of drawings. Where are they? My office, right?
There's some here and then there's somewhere in my office. There's couple sets of drawings. There's application. I want paper copy of everything. Okay. Yeah, I can do that for you. I have it all. Thank you. Does anyone else fall on making copies? When you're talking like
11 by 17 or No, like full size plants. Yeah, full size plans. Okay. Yeah, I everyone. You know what Carly, help me out. It's all online. It's all online, but you too. Okay. Yeah. Do you guys, John? Um,
no. Because they're on the they're in the package, right? So, I can look at them here. I just want to work I work off I'm sorry. I try to work off drawings. I'm an old engineer. Same here. Yeah. Yes, ma'am. I was just going to say, if I may, we had submitted two
full size plans with the application package as well as was it 10 or 12 of the half size were distributed to the board, but it's a matter of getting hard copies to the board quickly. Um, if you just want to let us know, I'm sure
that BSC or or can um send those direct. Yeah, if you could do two sets of the fullsize plans in the of both civil and architectural. Yeah, we can do that. Awesome. Great. And then I'll get it to Jess and Sam. I won't need it for a week at least. I'm
not even going to be here. I'll be out of the state. So, one full size and one half size. Sorry. Yeah, I'm half size. Call me half size. Are you going to be involved in each of our meetings? How does this work?
Generally, that's what I would do. Yes. Okay. As schedule permitting. Yours or ours? Mine. Okay. I I sometimes have, you know, meetings on the same night that you're going to have a hearing. All right. And your um
guiding us? Yes. Okay. And I will. And do you agree with our first steps? Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And when we issuing the RFPs, we don't have to come back to the board and get everybody's agreement on it. They can
just be issued. Correct. Face value. It's standard practice for us. I mean, not this board, but other boards. So, yeah. Cuz we don't usually do that, right? So, we'll do that on a staff level, but with obviously input as we've described. Very good.
So my only other question, Sam, is we're going to meet a month from now in the inter room because we only have 180 days to do this. What What are we doing in the next month? Exactly. That's what I want. They're going to give us They're going to give me a format for a plan for
us to go forward on. She gives me that format. I will write it up and say this is what we should be doing and send it to all of us so we got an idea which way to go. Okay. So that's coming from the applicant. The applicant's given us a
format for the RFPs, the scope of services, scope services. So Paul could but that's just for those four points. Yes. Okay. Now what we should be doing is looking at the drawings, looking at the specifications, and looking at the waiver list. Exactly.
The waiver list and the town comments. Yes. Is that that's the way it should be started? That's going to be next month. Yes, I would think. Okay. And Paul, could you speak to that? Like basically what we would have on our agenda for next meeting based on where we're at
right now. It really depends on what we can get from the applicant by then. I don't know. Like I I don't think you're going to get a civil engineering or storm water review complete by then. Right. I
think traffic, if we get the report quickly enough, could I traffic tends to, you know, be something that you can get turned around more quickly. So, that would be what I would shoot for. I would leave, but I I wouldn't limit
an agenda item to just a particular topic. Okay. Um because I I find that that you wind up, you know, sometimes you have a topic that you cover, you know, in 45 minutes to an hour and at the end of you're gonna waste the rest of the night. And I think you should
leave it open, right? You know, to the to the greatest extent practical. I mean, obviously the applicant is going to want to limit the consultants that they bring with them to a particular hearing, although easier when it's Zoom than when they have to come here in person, right? Um, but I I would be
shooting for the traffic review if we can get that that information in in time. Um, is that I anticipate that we're probably going to be submitting the traffic probably by Friday, right? Maybe even tomorrow. So, um, so that should be able to be turned around by next week. And that's on us where the
traffic scope is. So, probably I've been playing in traffic all. All right. So, that will be kind of our next plan is to review the the study from the traffic study, the peer review of the traffic study. We'll just get
that turned around. So, Mark, I'll be reaching out tomorrow morning to we'll get that going. I can give you the name of a couple consultants. Yes, perfect. Yeah, we'll connect tomorrow. All right, that works good. Because that's that's really one of my my concerns is I know
you know I'm just figuring I need a flowchart of what we're going to do through this process. so that we have everything done in the time that it's supposed to get done so we're not hanging with stuff unfinished or we're trying to get three meetings in, you know, and we're meeting on
Christmas Eve. Exactly. You know, that doesn't I'm busy. Yeah. Makes it doesn't do anything for the applicant. It doesn't do anything for the board, town staff, anybody involved. So I just want to make sure that you know and with your guidance we'll go through this process
in a smooth you know transitional way not and recognize just because you cover something one night doesn't mean you're going to finish it that night right you know we we might get a you know peer review report from traffic consultants that identifies you know 10 different
things that need to be addressed so we're going to have to address traffic at another night as well which again is why you don't want to just limit it to one topic per Yes, ma'am. If I can make just one more suggestion for the next hearing. Um, assuming that we have traffic and that
only takes a limited amount of time. Um, we've received the the comment letters from Portal, the planner, whatnot. Um, typically what I find is helpful for the ZBA is for the project team to provide responses to comments. So, typically we
just repeat with the comment that a town or town staff made to the board. um and then we'll provide a response to it. So, it kind of um helps not real-time responses, but you know, pretty close to when we've seen the comment letter um be submitted to the board. So, we could
we're happy to have those submitted in advance of the August hearing that um walk through those if the board has any questions. That's very DPW had a very very detailed They did. Yeah. So, it was very it was very helpful. So, excellent. That would be great.
Good. So, as far as next steps, we would continue. Obviously, we keep the hearing open. We just continue it to a date and time certain, which we know um will be August 17th at 6 on Zoom. Yes. So, we
can just have a motion to that effect. Um, say that again, Carly. I'll motion to what? To continue. To continue the hearing. Yes, sir. I make a motion to continue the public hearing till uh August 7th 17th at 6 p.m. on Zoom. On
Zoom. Yes. Second. All in favor say I. I. All right. All right. Next item on the agenda. Thank you very much. Good night everyone. Next item on the agenda, approval of minute meeting
minutes from June 15th. Any comments? I didn't see any. Make a motion to approve the meeting minutes of uh June 15th as written. As written. Second. All
in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Yeah. All right. Great. Motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. In favor say I. I. Thank you.