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board and this is the meeting regular meeting of the select board for February 11th 2025 first item on the agenda is I'd like to move that the select board go into executive session for the purpose
stated in item two of the agenda that is discussing strategy related to bargaining with Union employees which must be discussed in executive session because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the town and the chair so
declares an executive session therefore to be necessary all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Michael samnon hi Paul Warren hi David Perman I share votes I we will return to uh Open
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good evening I'm Bernard Green chair of the Brookline select board and this is the regular meeting of the select board for February 11th 2025 um let's start off with um announcements from the select for I'd like to say a couple
things to start off with the black population in Brooklyn is minuscule due to to a history of federal state and local governmental acts and acts of private citizens and businesses particularly by Banks but those few
black people who have made Brookline their home over town are true Giant Giants I have some sad news about one of those Giants and then some joyful news about another first the sad news on Thursday February 6th Brookline resident
Fletcher flash Riley Wy died at age 82 he got the nickname flash for his speed on the football field flash Wy was the first black chairman of greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and a prominent Boston lawyer business person and Civic
Act activist he graduated from the Air Force Academy was a Fullbright scholar in Paris had a master's degree in public policy from the commity school and a law degree from Harvard Law School flash ly excuse me flash Wy lived with his wife
Bena Ray in Brooklyn for many years until flash entered Hospice Care at sping Hospital in Cambridge Ben Ray Riley founded and led the partnership a nonprofit dedicated to Bringing professional of color to Boston which
their son Pratt warley now heads so it's it's really sad that uh flash Wy who you know black lawyers throughout the uh Town knew and and looked up to and and uh was mentored by uh it's very sad that
he has passed away second the joyful news beginning last Saturday and going through June 22nd 2025 the Museum of Fine Arts will be presenting an exhibit of the art of
51-year Brookline resident John Wilson the title of of the exhibit is witnessing Humanity the art of John Wilson I was privileged to have an advanced view of the exhibit and it's quite it is quite moving include one of
the mettes of the boss of the bust of Martin Luther King of which another one is here in town hall on the first floor and multiple versions of the drawing of king one iteration of which H uh hung in the old Pierce school and will be rehung
when the new Pierce is completed the exhibition also includes many other pieces that connect to Brookline including drawings and paintings of his children and their friends uh from Brooklyn his kids and and grandchildren attended the pier
school so that's very uh a strong connection uh to pierce both of these uh uh events the sad one as well as the um joyful one are relevant to our recognition of black history month
so thank you any other comments from the select board John one one um comment about someone who is well known to many of us um who have served at town meeting over the
years because he himself has served at town meeting over the years he's been very visible in Brookline um for many reasons what I did not know about um Andrew Fischer uh is that he's an author as well and he has written something called the eye and other Tales a history
of Jewish family survival and excuse me he's going to be telling stories from that book tomorrow um tomorrow February 12th 1 to 2 p.m uh at the senior center um to give you sort of the flavor of the
book um it tells stories such as uh of survivors Jan fiser who survived Stalin's labor camps Lydia zilberstein who evaded the Nazi death camps that claim most of her family only to survived two years in Siberia before
meeting Jan in Egypt and that's just two examples of many unique stories that are in um that Andrew writes about in his book so um congratulations to Andrew on um the delivery of this book to the public um and I wish everyone uh who's
interested um to call the senior center uh to register to be in the audience tomorrow when Andrew does readings from his book 1 to two uh pm and um also he'll have um sign copies of the book at that
event thank you John I didn't realize that that was our Andre our end R he might even show up tonight I don't know yeah okay uh Paul yeah thank you Bernard thank you John uh for highlighting that um I wanted to just bring to your attention The public's attention that
the uh comprehensive plan steering committee is is still actively working um and we achieved a significant uh Milestone last night um after lots of research and over 10,000 uh pieces of feedback that we got
from the community Through surveys and workshops um we have uh agreed on these six themes of the comprehensive plan um and I just want to make sure the public knows it and put it into the public record they are expanding housing options which is number one uh two is
livable neighborhoods the third is thriving commercial areas appreciate that Michael uh mobility and accessibility climate action and resilience and the last one is community well-being so this would address kind of the key public services that we need to
keep our community healthy so uh those are the six that's going to drive uh much of the work that we do uh in in the coming months and uh the research that we'll do and additional feedback to the community for their import thank you thank you any other comments or
updates okay uh we're now at public comment but before you lay out the rules let me just say something so the Washington Street project is on the agenda for later in the evening and I will allow comments from the audience on the project at that time so you should
not waste this time for your comments I propose that we set us side no more than 45 minutes to hear from the public on the design review committee's proposal I think it is important to know that although this project is a state project it is not the state that will act on
most of the concerns of our residents rather it is the town that must address most of those concerns and unless anyone on the select board objects uh I will commit the select board to making sure that the town does so so with that I see
no objection by the way uh with that uh Tiffany would you like to lay out the rules for public comment yes thank you for joining us for public comment this is an opportunity for us to hear your perspective on the issues in Brookline that matter to you each person speaking tonight is limited to 3 minutes you
don't need to use the entire time but you may if you like once 15 minutes has been met There's an opportunity at the conclusion of the select board's business for additional comments members of the public sometimes raise questions during public comment we may be able to provide a quick answer to a question but are more likely to work with staff to
get a more thorough answer and respond over email we'll let you know when you have 30 seconds remaining and when your time is up please conclude your remarks at that time if you have more to say you're welcome to send an email to board members expressing your thoughts in Greater detail any person speaking tonight must begin their comment by
identifying themselves with their full name and either their Brookline precinct number or street address the first Speaker signed up in advance is Liz Linder thank you um Liz Linder town meeting member for Precinct 4 and candidate for select board and this is about the
statement of work for public schools of Brookline audit and I encourage you to approve the statement of work for the public schools of Brookline audit the claim of financial mismanagement by a senior School official coupled with recent cost overruns and significant deficits projected in fiscal year 2026
warrant review by an independent third party the audit and recommendations to follow would be an important step to ensure confidence in the community that there is transparency and oversight to improve financial management within the school system which is one of Brooklyn's significant public resources I
appreciate the work of the Town School partnership and its collaboration with the school committee to address this and believe our best Solutions come from listening working together and a commitment to address the concerns of our residents and thank you very much thank you the next speaker is Blair
Hines thank you thank you for the record Blair Hines 745 Heath Street precinct 15 and I will be brief uh I understand that you will be hearing from the planning office
about the chesten hill commercial area and um I would like to request to the select board that this uh development of a draft zoning article include neighborhood Representatives uh the concern to date has been that the
neighborhood has only been in a reactive negative uh response to proposals that come before uh the chest Hill commercial area study committee and we would like to have a more positive role and we think that we can work um with the
understanding that uh at the same time there needs to be you know a reasonable accommodation for the adjacent residents um at least speaking for myself I'm very well aware as a planning board member of the long-term need in in this town for more commercial development in this area
so again my ask is that um a members of the the community are included in the development of draft zoning thank you thank you the next speaker is Janice con thank you very much Janice con I'm a
town meeting member in Precinct 15 and I'd like to actually follow up um Blair's comment so um this the effort of the ches commercial area study Community Advisory Group is actually a um sort of a
parallel or a companion to what was done in brookln village where they had a Brookline Village visioning group um in that group nearly everybody was either a resident of the area or um was connected to the neighborhood including the
business Community member of business community was part of that and so the community um I think had an opportunity to be heard the um Community Advisory Group that was set up for this effort in
contrast has no one from he Street which is a major part of this commercial area and I am in closest proximity to it but really there are not people who live in the area actually on this nor are is there anybody
who um represents the business community in this group and um so it's a very different in feeling effort and so um um so I wanted to just just add a little bit of perspective that um what the town
is doing now in this very in this last large commercial area in the town that has tremendous opportunities to benefit the entire town that it's not really a tabasa that we have in the community have worked with the planning board the planning department over the years in
fact over the last 25 years in developing design guidelines um The chesno Village Alliance which includes both um Brooklyn and Newton um area um as an overlay
District um also had guidelines and suggestions which were submitted to the comprehensive plan the last comprehensive plan um you know and so we've always been taking a very active and positive role in
wanting to do more and wanting to really benefit the town as a whole and um I think that part of that is also feeling like um that we have a real a real role and voice and so um 30 seconds thank you
and so um I urg um the select board I will send you these documents that show the work that we've done to date in the area and hope that um you also encourage um more of the participation and keeping um keeping the neighborhood really more
involved um in the process thank you thank you that concludes speakers who signed up in advance of the meeting if there are individuals in the room who wish to speak on an item unrelated to Washington Street you please indicate your desire to speak if you're online
please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature at this time okay there are approximately 25 individuals in the room and 20 online and no one else is indicating their desire to speak during public comment at this time thank you Tiffany okay next uh miscellaneous
calendar uh first of all I move that we vote to approve uh the minutes from February 4th 2025 unless someone has any edits or Corrections to those minutes seeing none all in favor please indicate by saying I
John vyak hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David Perman I and chair votes I jff just before you vote the rest I we did receive a request to pull 5G out in which is there and we also need to postpone 5c um we just need to take a look uh
another look at those numbers so that will come back before you so be 5B and then 5D through 5f okay um 5f I thought it's 5G 5G is the is the uh scope of the audit right okay so I was going to just pull that out and
let you speak on okay um now I next moved uh for approval of items 5B uh 5D through 5G um except
for 5 G which we're pulling out and I'd like um Chaz to uh give a presentation on on 5G which is the school department audit sure um and then we'll vote on the session on all of them okay thank you um
this is uh a process that has been ongoing since the uh public disclosure that on the public school side of the budget there is both a significant current shortfall in uh operating budget within the current fiscal year fy2 and a
larger projected shortfall in the budget for FY 26 um there is also out there um a complaint that was raised in public by a senior member of the administration regarding some of the operations there um all three of those things were causes
for concern and the school committee the select board the advisory committee all of which are constituent bodies of the Town school meeting partnership uh sorry the Town School partnership um decided that it was necessary um to
engage an outside um entity or firm to take a look at these three issues the scope of work that's in the select boards packet has been developed over the course of several meetings and back and forth with the school committee the advisory committee and the Town School partnership where there is Select board
representation the aim of this is to move expeditiously we need to move quickly on this uh so you can see the scope of work here suggests a six- week timeline um we intend to go out and get quotes from reputable um uh firms we
already have an internal list that we are working on to move forward with this so we are presenting this to the select board tonight to the school committee on Thursday night with the intention of getting quotes as soon as possible thereafter and moving expeditiously to address this I do want to say that I
think that there are a variety of issues here and I would encourage the public to while following along not necessarily to jump to one conclusion or or another I think as you can see throughout the state um there are issues with education the costs of Education uh and the
revenues not keeping up with those costs that are um distinct in many different communities the issues that affected Brockton for example and North Andover are not necessarily the conditions that are impacting Brooklyn currently although there may they may be there may be some overlap I think there are Statewide issues and there are local
issues that's the point of this operation so I would just encourage folks to let the process play out uh and get let us have a let us get a firm understanding in advance of the passing of the budget for FY 26 what's going on here and what we can do to prevent it from happening
again thank you Paul yep I just have a a quick question then a comment and thank you CH for that explanation um I do first I want to thank uh you and staff and certainly uh the Town School partnership and the audit committee and the advisory committee for coming
together and and specifically the the school committee for proactively reaching out to do this work uh recognizing that it's uh it's really important um that an independent review be done but also I think earlier as an earlier speaker had said that it's
critical that we maintain the confidence of the public that um that funds are being properly managed um and distributed in in a in a way that is not only planned for but also um uh you know meeting uh State and and uh and Federal
federal regulations that are required so I I really do appreciate um the the Town School partnership willing to step up and do this because this is not typically what it does um but in the um my question is related to in the school committee's packet for Thursday they
also have a memorandum of agreement example from North Andover yes and I was hoping maybe you could speak to why that's there and you know what what is that about and what might come next sure so in the town of North Anover
a very similar situation occurred last year um in fact it happened later in the budget process in April uh or late March I believe there was a situation in which very similarly there was a report to the school committee turns out not only are we in deficit this year but we have a
major deficit in the coming fiscal year um and as in response to that their Town Administrator had to Institute drastic budget cuts on the town side reductions in Services U hiring freezes and so forth uh and then a very similar process played out which is they brought on
outside help to determine the scope of the problem and then when that when those reports were made were brought back to them um the constituent bodies of their Town School partnership their advisory committee their select board their uh school committee entered into a binding memorandum of agreement with
each other where they said we're going to help each other out to get through this problem but as a way to ensure that we actually do that and to be rebuild the public confidence here are the things that are going to be required um and that is increased transparency increased fiscal controls um you know
mandatory training is required for individuals with purchasing UH responsibilities and again some of those things are going to be relevant here and some of them aren't but I think it's important for the community to know and you can see in the memo that I sent to the town School partnership that's where we're going here okay thank
you okay any other questions okay so with that I move approval of items five B through 5G excluding 5c um in honor of this fashion all in favor please indicate by saying I John
vak hi Michael Sandman I Paul Warren hi David Perman I sure votes I uh next looks like the agenda was changed a little bit so we have um interviews for the transportation board
next okay let's start off with uh Samuel beaker is he in the room great we're trying to make the interviews of all the candidates consistent so we're going to be asking
uh each one of the candidates uh the same question maybe with a little deviation so just be aware that that's uh going to happen so so present uh tell us a little bit about yourself and why you want to be on the transportation board sure uh my name is uh Samuel
Beaker I go by Eli um I'm a resident of Brookline for the past uh four four years um I've got an interest in transportation from the standpoint of uh basically the non-car user uh
I uh am a advid Avid cyclist um use public transportation I walk and I just want to bring that perspective to the transportation board okay well let me start off by asking you uh what do you think is the
biggest Transportation challenge facing our town or challenges facing our town and how would you like to see them addressed um I think the challenges in transportation that our town is facing or the challenges that most uh places
across the US are facing which is um balancing a traditional Reliance on cars while also looking towards our climate goals that we've set for our town um I think that you know the we
need by promoting alternative transportation uh bicycles uh you know scooters whatever it is we can find a way to make the town more accessible for everybody and also like I said work towards the climate
goals great so who would like to ask question two why don't I jump in okay John you jump in we really do have these questions written down so um you know you can deviate a little bit yeah no I I
you know I'll I'll try not to lose the sense of the question um this is comes about because you know we often hear from residents every now and then that uh maybe they feel unsafe using a crosswalk on a busy street um
that's just one example what improvements might you recommend to our street cross crosswalks and and our other infrastructure that um is of special interest to pedestrians um I think the biggest thing
that we can do is maintenance of crosswalks and sidewalks um I think especially if you like I've noticed walking around Brookline that the sidewalks are uneven cracked um and so if the sidewalks
aren't even and cracked and not accessible then the crosswalks are going to be not well-used um so I think by you know increasing how we maintain our facilities that will help the other thing that I'm a big
proponent of is the uh sidewalk bump outs that were instituted on places like Badcock Street which reduced the crossing time for pedestrians um I think things like that are very good because they also slow down cars and help them focus on you
know the intersection that they're going through thank you very much thank you uh let me just say that these questions were were offered to us by the lison staff lison to the transportation board so these weren't things that I invented so who would like to do the third
question Mike well actually as usual I have a question that's off the map here um but uh it does relate to um the third question uh which is how would you balance the needs of different community members and so forth and you've spoken a bit to that one of the things that you
mentioned is the complete the concept of complete streets which basically looks at a street and um suggest ways to uh make it safer for um pedestrians cyclists and keep vehicular traffic uh
operating at a reasonable speed um there's a problem with that sometimes uh if you attempt to look at every single Street uh that you're perhaps repaving or uh you know doing some some maintenance work on um be it's
very easy to get very over really get overwhelmed and so my my question is really how do you prioritize uh in uh uh in in your view between where you spend your time and effort and money uh and where you wait and perhaps wait to spend
it differently or less of it sure um I think priorities come through usage uh a highly used Street deserves a higher priority um as I mentioned Babcock uh which went under uh underwent this
review um that was a great use of the complete streets guidelines and uh that time you know for on contrary to the that I would say something like you know parts of like toxi don't need a complete streets
overhaul at the moment because most of the people that use that street are residents uh of that area um so I think you know again you focus on usage uh and also how that main thoroughfare that
you're looking at kind of feeds into the side streets thank you okay any other uh questions from the select David I'll ask this of everybody but just reading over your resume you worked for the Boston
transportation department yep could you describe what your role was there and what you took from that experience that you would apply here sure um so uh when I was with BTD I uh was part of the Boston bikes program um as a youth
cycling instructor so I worked uh in schools teaching kids uh bike safety how to ride a a bike if they didn't know um take took them on rides in the neighborhood uh and then some basic bike maintenance things um I think the thing
I taught took from that is that most people enjoy biking uh and they see it as a really way to really great way to get around their Community um you know I think the idea of like a bike bus if you're not
familiar where you know they have you know groups uh usually led by a teacher or a parent uh basically do a uh Convoy of bikes to school and I think that a lot of kids would love to bike to school
um but unfortunately in a lot of places that may not be feasible just because of the way the roads are set up great thank you so uh we'll be making our decision on appointments to the transportation board at a later meeting but we appreciate apprciate your application and and your presentation
here today all right thank you all he next uh Gareth Lawson so why don't you start off by telling a little bit about yourself and uh why you want to be on the transportation board certainly uh good evening I'm Gareth Lawson happy to have
the opportunity thank you for considering my my application I have a lot of respect for the transportation board and for the the work it does I'd be very excited to be a part of it um in terms of the perspectives I think that I'd bring uh I'm a parent of two high schoolers one middle schooler at Baker
school so I'm very attuned to the kind of needs of families with school age kids and and with working parents um and secondly I live in South Brookline uh you know so I think I'd bring that perspective to the to the board which I think would probably be uh I'd hope would be beneficial
um uh in terms of expertise I'm not a transportation professional I'm a scientist so I'm data driven I'm very logical my wife would say too logical annoyingly logical um but uh I do have experience working in transportation issues in the town I was on the safe
root to school task force which you may be familiar with if not it works to promote uh safe roots to school for children and promote uh modes of transportation other than um single uh uh occupant cars um and so I was on the committee the task force pardon me for
five years I co-chaired it for three years and and I think we achieved a lot in those three years I'm quite proud of the work that we did um and through that I've been exposed to a lot of the issues facing the town and I've worked with a lot of this sort of organizations the bike advisory committee The Pedestrian
advisory committee Police Department transportation division who I have a tremendous amount of respect for um uh in terms of the issu um well I guess we'll get to that in the questions let us ask questions about that so I'd be happy to be on the the committee I
also think Samuel SS terrific and I think Richard is also terrific so I think the town's going to do well out of this process great um the first question we have is what do you think of the biggest Transportation challenges facing our town and how would you like to see them addressed yeah I'm I'm going to go
with safety you know I I was at the transportation board meeting shortly after um the woman was you know tragically killed uh on Washington Street uh so I'm proud that we've gone with the vision zero and I think that that's incredibly important um you know one of the things that I promoted in uh
my neighborhood was uh the traffic calming on Beverly Road which only really happened uh after a kid got hit on a skateboard on the way to school and that sort of being reactive to safety issues is really uh frustrating and I think being proactive is the way to go I
will second everything Samuel said about you know meeting climate goals and and um increasing the use of of Transportation other than cars but but I'm going to put safety as top of my personal list so who would like to ask the second
question would you jump in John Paul no goad all right John let's not fight over it yeah exactly I can't tell we're fighing to do it or not to be the one I'm asking do you want me to ask it yeah yeah okay great so as as I did ask the
PRI prior applicant um thinking about uh crosswalks busy Street streets um heavily trafficked streets um and thinking about pedestrians uh in particular uh but not only pedestrians um what improvements do you think you
you you you would be inclined to recommend to get maximize people's safety in those situations yeah I I guess I'm going to answer by saying that I'm not a transportation expert so I I'm not going to uh make suggestions for
specific improvements I will say that the transportation division are experts and when they make recommendations I would take them seriously so at the you know when they recommended the no right on red signs for all intersections with a dedicated pedestrian phase you know if I had been on the tboard I I would have
enthusiastically voted yes um so I I guess um that's not a very not necessarily the best answer in terms of your specific question but um that I think that that's the way that the transportation board sort of functions and um I'd be you know that's fine thanks oh I guess I'll ask one so first
I do want to acknowledge that you are a specialist in codfish and you have discovered that there are actually five major population schools of codfish yeah we' always thought there was only two and now you've discovered that there's five so I just want everybody to know this guy
knows about codfish um I do I do read the stuff you know and I Google uh quite well that's great um so thank you for all your work because I happen to love codfish um so can you talk a little bit about how to balance the needs of different community members tonight we're going to have a public hearing on
complete streets for Washington Street uh there's a lot of concerns about the impact on various users and the Ben benefits for various users can you talk about how you find balance yeah I mean I'm a firm believer in the public process so I think that that's the way you know people participating in the transportation comment um and then
through you know the the sort of longer process like the Washington Street redesign um I think it's a matter of listening to all the perspectives and then you know arriving at a at a at a decision uh PA and I'm sorry my you mentioned in your uh
application that one of your uh local experiences was as co-chair your last few years on the brook line safe roots to schools uh task force and I'm wondering what you took from that experience that you would apply to the challenges ahead yeah I think that what
I enjoyed most about that was the cross pollination with the bike advisory committee The Pedestrian advisory committee you know and kind of coming up with common concerns about safety um and I think that that in terms of one of the other questions of you know what the sort of how to prioritize projects um I
think that looking to those bodies who have thought very carefully about all the issues about every last Street um you know and and set priorities I think that that is is a is a is a sensible kind of kind of way to go so I I I think that looking to the different town
bodies that have thoughts on the matter is is a is is a main thing I've taken from that that experience Mike um as you may know the Commonwealth Massachusetts does not currently allow uh speaked cameras or
red light cameras but there is some movement in the legislature towards allowing those and I wonder whether if the legislature gave local o um uh the ability to uh put up uh cameras either for Speed or red lights uh that's
something that you would support that's an interesting question I I guess that I would go into any t- board meeting uh prepared having read all the documents in front of me and uh you know come to an informed uh opinion my offthe cuff
opinion is yes I'd be in favor they did it in Toronto I'm from Canada originally they did it in Toronto some years ago it made a ton of money and was effective until a new May came in to thank you okay thank you and uh as I said to the other applicant we will be
making our decision at a later meeting thank you thank you okay next is um Richard Murphy evening everybody Richard Murphy tell me men 16 um my my wife and I we currently live
on Baker Circle fine um ironically I went to Baker School so living on Baker Circle uh I'm currently a town meeting member have been for about four plus years um on my second term so fortunate the residents of cth Brookline have kept
me in office um through that um I've kind of concentrated in two areas the environment tree canopy uh and protecting like putty him Woods for example like coach share that and the other one is uh roadway safety um I
think it's a little bit in my blood that I come from a family of police officers and my father and my uncles were all police officers in Brooklyn back in the 40s and they were like bu the book and the the rule of thought was if you're going to do something do it right and
you know or don't do it at all um so uh you know in hearing a lot of concerns from self procine we're constantly hearing crashes there's over 100 car crashes in self procine every year uh number one cause speed you know when I
talked to the Brookline police uh you know they were able to give me uh crash data for all the accidents that have happened over the last 10 years so I've gone in and evaluated as far as the roadways the main roadways in South Brook line and really kind of get some
data in order to evaluate the situation um some of you know that you know I put together a road map for roadway safety improvements from South Brookline um it did start with some high school girls who said that hey I want to be able to
ride to ride to Brookline High School and get there safely but there's no way for me to get there safely so between residents concerned about crashes and the speed of vehicles I put together a pretty con comprehensive plan that was three and a half miles of length and
through that whole process was a complete learning um in my private side uh for work um I'm a director of sales and I have been for 10 years I've worked for Campbell soups and uh uh
Buton pasta and currently uh with Rise Bakery and in the division of tabl talk but I've handled multi-million dollar companies uh such as Stop and Shop Shaws and I've developed sales strategies promotional budgets and basically
setting the strategy and u based on the data that I have and being able to take that and apply it to the roadways uh of what I hear from constituents and their concerns I thought I would I I evaluated and got feedback as far as putting
together a solid roadway plan so from that um you know I'm also on the Shar Mobility committee um I'm on the tree protection committee with Nancy hel uh and I'm on the comprehensive stearing committee right now so engagement is a
big piece uh in order to basically have a greater understanding of all the needs that are involved um I think transportation is something that I will be able to uh contribute uh a good matter uh based on my learnings and
continue learnings as we continue to communicate among all ourselves great thank you uh first question is um what do you think are the biggest Transportation challenges facing our town and how would you like to see
them addressed well the one that I've always I tell people when we talk about you the roadway designs and everything everyone starts with one thing it's the budget all right so in order to achieve any success as far as any kind of improvements the budget is really where
it's it really starts um you know the engineering department along with Aaron chuot and Amy Engles and Sam Dows uh they have been fantastic as far as um hearing what I have um and basically
trying to evaluate each roadway situation it's a matter of whether it's a complete Street situation with which is mostly I believe is you focus on the roadways if that takes place but most of the other side road roadways is just trying to keep good condition
roadways would like to take question John again John good here I go hey Richard um and as a town meeting member you may have actually experienced this I I if a number of people came to you and said you know that crosswalk at whatever the
intersection of um uh we all agree we don't feel safe using that crosswalk what kind what would be your approach to trying to address their concerns about the use of a particular crosswalk well I think the the first part is to make sure
that you hear what they're saying um take the information in being if I was on the transportation board I would consult with fellow members on the board uh evaluate visit the site um as one big piece and
probably do get my measuring tape out you know as far as evaluating it and basically I always believe that get all the data that you can whether it's from people or from physical aspects of it uh to basically give you all the options uh
as far as that and it's always in life it's always best to have options so that's would be uh my first and overall strategy well I hope this is not on the list of questions I hope I can ask a little different it's similar but okay
it's it's SAR to engagement number three but um if you could speak a little bit about the differences and it's actually great that there's two people tonight from South Brookline yes are there differences are there differ issues that
South Brook line faces with respect to uh the public way roadway safety uh Transportation issues than than North book line are there differences or I think the differences of the road design is different from north to south um if you travel
through South Brook line uh you will find most of the main roadways are all two Lan two two lanes of traffic in each Direction versus North Brookline obviously going down harbage street or you know with the exception of Beacon Street um everything else in North Brook
line is mostly a single Lane and what that creates is speed um the idea of we have posted 25 M hour speed limits but when you introduce like on Clyde and Lee Street you know which is a big challenge is a straightaway uh the idea of someone
driving 25 miles an hour honestly it's uh it's a challenge to do that it almost feels like you're in a feudal match uh as far as driving down the roadway like that um so you know I've been an advocate as far as like with the roadway study that I put together that the West
Roxer Parkway currently over where I comes off my street where I live in off of Baker is a single Lane and traffic moves along fine and the the beauty of that is you can only go as fast as the person in front of you so it's a way to
kind of put a governor on the speed limit in there by only allowing one lane and it has operated uh it runs kind of perpendicular to Grove Street for example uh and uh you know most of the accidents happening on Grove Street
versus West Rockery Parkway along that stretch of putty him Circle okay thank you so uh we want to make sure that every applicant gets to answer the same questions so I'm going to ask the final question although other people can ask special ones if you want how would you
balance the needs of different community members such as drivers pedestrians cyclists and public transit users when making Transportation decisions I think first off it's the uh you know the size of of the roadway um
you know everyone has you know there's a a a great line by mass do it says that basically every driver every passenger every pedestrian should be certain that they are going to arrive at a destination safely every time you know
so I think with that overarching theme that you know what we need to provide safety um you got to do it smart um it's got to make sense uh and not everything fits uh you know you know can't put a square peg in a round hole sometimes you
know so I think you know you have to look at what the objectives are and what the roadway allows you to do so uh David I I noticed in your application materials that you mentioned being on the shared Mobility committee
what have you taken from uh that experience that you would apply to the transportation board uh working with well first off um we we focus on uh MBTA as far as uh
Transit um the they just did a a way over station behind Pearl Street Garage uh where they're trying to where they're connecting Brookline to the sea port now uh blue bike stations as far as um other modes of transportation as far as you
know we achieve zero carbon by 2050 and uh those will be the two big things that we've been working on lately um you know bicycle Lanes do play in A Part obviously um we have just began discussions around scooters and the
challenges that are are safety challenges that are around that particular mode of transportation speed of the vehicles helmet requirement or a couple of things just a name you know great you know and then
doing that David if I may elaborate is that I've worked with uh State Rep Bill McGregor who has South Brooklyn as his area uh and we've coordinated with the city of Boston through him U and you know try to basically improve you know
bike stations are one thing that uh LIF who owns them uh is they determine the location but you have to be like within a half mile of the next blue bike station so it it it it basically calls
for more of a longer term or we're putting together what would be a master plan to try to connect West rockbury to Brighton through South Brookline so it will probably take 10 years to get there but we will have a plan great thank you and as I've said
we're going to be making our decisions at a later later select board meeting but I appreciate your application to this thank you for your time and I appreciate your consideration for me for the transportation board thank you thank you okay while Tiffany is setting up uh
I'll announce that our next item for discussion is going to be the Washington Street complete streets project I'm sorry we got the concert right conservation annual report oh okay okay was G to got it got it sorry don't
take offense my agenda was just out of order yeah thank you so much um to the select board for having us this evening I know um this annual report is a new item on our agenda and kind of a new process and we really appreciate the
opportunity to come and speak this evening so we're going to go through um really to give an update what the the conservation uh commission's mission is and then uh kind of key issues things we're working on what our role is that sounds good um do you state who you are
oh yes I am Marcus Quigley I the chair of the Conservation Commission um I've uh been on the commission for about 15 years now and a resident uh since 1998 so I've been here maybe I'm Neu to town yeah um great so let's jump in uh with
the hit the right arrow first slide oh yeah great I get to control this all right so what is the Conservation Commission um explicitly our mission is to promote and I'll just read this because it's on our website as well and I think it's important for folks to see
how we describe ourselves promote the the proactive administration of environmental laws policies open space protection and management Water Management preservation of natural features of the environment and coordination for joint action with many
Town bodies so that's a pretty big Mand I think um let me talk about some of the specifics uh in some more detail we are as Massachusetts I think is is interesting um uh at at the kind of national scale um we're a volunteer
commission um in the town that is charged with protection of Natural Resources um specifically we are the administrators um and enforcers of the state Wetland protection act on both
public and private lands um in addition we play a number of other important roles so we have um a role relative to the state we also are the administrators for the Brookline Wetland uh uh bylaw so
there's kind of two jurisdictions that on a regular basis um we're meeting about and um administering um we also play an important role in advising the town and act as a resource um I think we would actually encourage folks um to engage
with us um we have an incredible group of people with deep expertise and experience and uh longstanding um participation in the commission and uh we really are available to engineering DPW parks and
wreck um the public land owners um on a regular basis uh as a way to engage on natural resources and and wetlands issues um and open space as well um we also are the overseers of the town of
brookline's um sanctuaries I'll talk about that a little bit more um but we're actually the owners and we're responsible for making decisions um on a regular basis about um how the sanctuaries are used and how they're they're maintained we also serve a
number of explicit roles on things like the uh the CPA um the uh approval of conservation restrictions um we play a role we have a trustee on the brook Brookline conservation land trust um so there are
number of other kind of explicit roles that were incorporated into um uh throughout kind of town governance all right we have an amazing group of folks and um some of them are here this evening as well um a lot of
long-standing uh members of the commission but also some new folks as well we we're bringing up um I point out uh Sam and will in particular that have joined us in the last couple of years many folks have been on uh for 15 20 years we have some long-standing members
which is really incredible because the history um matters and uh we hope you'll you'll notice uh we are one down right now um so I would encourage um anyone um that uh knows of great candidates that have a strong background that aligns
with our um commission uh mission to um apply as soon as possible so that would be great and encourage the the select board um as well to encourage people to to join um when you walk around Brook line
the first thing that hits you is not that we have a lot of water resources and wetlands um but you also notice in our historical name muddy river that it's Central to who we are um we have a number and this is a a map from the gis Department we have a number of water resources which actually are tied
specifically to our jurisdiction so when you're looking at um uh doing development in buffer areas or in resources themselves as governed by the wetlands protection act or the bylaw um that comes under our jurisdiction and it means actually quite a few projects um
end up in in front of us um and so we uh were really proud to be able to protect these resources and they're really an incredible component of of our uh of our town um I think that uh it takes a
little bit of seeking them out and um and engaging with them to uh notice and appreciate their functions both hydrologically and from a water quality perspective so you might ask how much work is ongoing so unlike some of some
Suburban communities that have tons of development going on on a regular basis that are impacted um by uh uh the wetlands protection act and bylaws kind of a smaller number just because of the extent of our our Wetland resources um
but these numbers so there's two things on here um I think the the screen is blocking the the key a little bit the blue are notices of intent which are applications for um uh a change to an area that's governed by the Wetland
protection act and then we also get um requests for determination of applicability which are kind of like asking whether or not um the jurisdiction applies and it's a formal process as well but it's not actually applying knowing that you're explicitly impacting a um a resource so we have
quite a few of these I'll point out that um these are not kind of single meetings often they go for multiple meetings and the really interesting thing is at any one given time there are about 30 projects that are in some form of process because these are multi-year um activities so there's quite a bit of
work the um uh Alex and Rebecca the the two full-time um conservation staff uh have a lot of work to do keeping track of these 30 odd projects on a regular basis um and watching them go through the process and uh we we uh you know
eventually get those to a certificate of compliance and close those out but there's a lot of ongoing work um watching making sure that things are done in compliance with what are called the orders of conditions which are when we issue an approved um uh project uh and and uh for it to go
forward in addition to uh all all of the functions that I've described we have a central role in the open space and Recreation planning process which is something we embark on now on a seven-year cycle um we have 18 boards and I really want to call out John um we
really appreciate your participation from the select board um and I've gotten to work with you uh you know directly um as part of the um open space and Recreation plan um but this is a a fantastic process where we bring really all of the stakeholders across the
entire um town together to think about how we use our open spaces and plan um recreational activities um in our spaces so we um uh use the open space plan
essentially as the long-term guide to how we're going to um build out our town how we're going to use our spaces and how we balance um competing interests the process is one that's very engaged with community and I'll show where we
are um on the next slide here but it identifies Community needs and then puts together an action plan um and uh as part of the process to achieve the goals and objectives that are outlined um and it's it's just very participatory um so
we have a lot of listening sessions and there's a lot of opportunity for the public um to engage where we are are we in the process right now so we started on the open space and Recreation plan um last spring and it takes about a year to get
through the process um we have gone through a needs analysis which happened in the fall and we are currently uh working on goals and objectives with the ultimate uh outcome later this winter of putting an action plan in place um and
then over the next seven-year period we'll be executing on that action plan and tracking key performance indicators about where we are in achieving that plan um it was an interesting period the last seven years because as you'll notice that overlapped with covid um and
there were significant challenges um in acting on many of the things we wanted to be proactive on um and so I think it's really pretty exciting that we are uh with this plan I think moving forward with something that got held up a little bit um during uh driv During the covid
period in particular so I mentioned the nature sanctuaries these are an incredible resource around the town I first want to call out Hall's Pond sanctuary in Amy Woods um which I think everyone hopefully knows where this is um but
it's this really amazing little gem of a water resources um uh uh nature um Community like right adjacent to uh amyy Park and there's I think uh one of the most important
things is there's a very engaged community and has been for over 50 years the friends of Halls Pond um have uh twice a year um activities that are planned to go out and do things like in space invasive species removal um
planting vegetation cleaning up um and maintaining the woods so uh the community is very very involved particularly in Halls Pond and our in our other s sanctuaries so there's an annual spring and fall Community um days that are hosted and we encourage the public to engage in those
things um Dake hor sanctuary if you haven't been there it's um in South Brook line behind baker school you have to search for it a little bit but it's really uh quite a gem of a sanctuary um there are a number of
activities that are both ongoing and um that occur there on a regular basis I'd like to point out specifically um Earth a I mean you can imagine Baker schools right there it's a great resource for the kids um in the community to get involved in and then we've had eight Steward what we call stewardship Sun
days um where uh there has been volunteer maintenance of the trails so they get very it's a very wet area it gets very muddy um if you can imagine it volunteers have carried 30,000 pounds of rock um and deployed them along these Trails which really helps protect the
resources um because it keeps people on trail so they can walk in a nice kind of like a um engaged way and not get their feet muddy otherwise they go into the areas we're trying to protect so really maintaining the Trails um is is protective of uh the area and then also
I'm doing in space invasive species management too which is a big challenge in all of our resource areas um and then lastly I wanted to point out L Pond also just an amazing place it's a 30 acre area that we're responsible for but it's part of a larger Continuum that extends into
Newton of 100 acres plus um and we're we were lucky enough associated with um the uh uh the um uh I want to say Ridder cup but it's
not um the uh us openen yes this is the word I'm moving for US Open funds we were able to use the the um proceeds um that were given to the town for trail restoration that's really made a big big difference um if you go out there you'll see that the the trails are in great
shape um and that's been upgraded quite a bit I think back you know 15 20 years ago when I first came to town I go to the sanctuaries and we really made progress on making these places engaging and um and helpful to the community so there's been really there there's an
additional project it's underway which is cooperative wayfinding we're working with Newton to put signage out to give more engagement um about what's happening in those spaces um so you might ask uh that's great there's a lot going on um where
are you headed so and and let's try to conclude oh yeah great yeah um no problem um so we are in the process and we're very interested in uh in revisions to the Wetland um bylaw in Brooklyn not expanding jurisdiction but clarifying um
the application of the bylaw um we really think there's a strong opportunity for proactive promotion implementation relative to the open space plan so we'll be looking for your participation in that and the communities as well um increased support for the sanctuaries and then lastly I
think the CPA is a huge opportunity we've really just gotten started as a community using that effectively and um there's a lot of opportunities related to Wetlands conservation and and Sanctuary improvements and with that I will conclude thank you very very interesting
and and helpful any questions I went a little long so that's that's my question to ask um any questions David the question I have specific to Los Pond Sanctuary yes uh is there any consideration of extending
Trail so you could sort of do a complete 360 loop as opposed to about 270 there's a part where you have to walk up the transfer station Road in order to continue to the other side yeah I I think that I think that they so not explicitly so like we don't have a plan
in front of us to do that um but I do think there's significant opportunity to to improve particularly that area that's been developed over the last five or six years as we had kind of the improvements to the transfer station um and some of the restoration of the of the forest there that was impacted as well with the
remediation that went on um so noted we'll we'll look at that a little bit more closely too very uh Paul yeah mine's gonna be very quick first I want to say thank you for promoting Halls Pond which I can see from my home and those service days are great it's great to bring kids and they have shovels and
they can dig up plants and stuff and plant things it's a great day and there's usually a band I think John Harrison has band off um but I you talked about the number of and projects that come before you I didn't realize that could you just give
very briefly an example of a project that would come before you like what type of project yeah I I would say a typical project would be like a um residential uh um Home Development um we we actually have seen a decent amount of that in the last few years but it's
particularly spaces that um were not previously developed where there's new development that are closer and closer encroaching on wetland areas so that's pretty common um there are some that are commercial but a lot a lot fewer a lot of them are are so you would issue some
sort of finding before they could get a building permit before to go to the planning board or something like that yes that's correct um so they have to so it also happens with the town applies for the golf course or um a roadway project there's lots of different types of projects okay thank you but yeah
thank you great thank you now chest Hill commercial I'm sorry Washington oh Washington this agenda is just totally messed up to see if people my agenda right uh okay Washington Street complete
Street project be a discussion and possible vote um tonight we will first hear from DPW who will relate the decision of the transportation board uh from uh February
5th um among other things uh a decision on 25% design approved by the Washington Street design Review Committee we will then hear from the public and after deliberation the select board will vote approval or not of the Washington Street
project as presented to us both on October 29th and February 4th the select board's decision will be forwarded to mass do and mass do will hold a public hearing at which people can present additional comments
in the meantime staff uh we hope will prepare a summary of the concerns that have been expressed by the public and the select board uh including you know preparation of Brookline Village and Washington Square parking studies uh prior to 75%
design consideration of how to deal with electric bicycles of various types concerns of businesses that reducing parking uh reducing close-end parking will hurt their businesses especially those businesses that rely on quick in
andout traffic concerns of businesses for delivery options uh biker safety concerns uh particularly with respect to bikes entering inter intersections and other issues that we uh may not have uh already considered
that but that may arise out of tonight's public comments or comments sent to us in writing these are Brook Line's problems to solve um not the states so the select board will commit to ensuring that the town follows up on these and
other issues unless any member objects and I asked this earlier and no one objected so the select board will commit to making sure the town uh follows up on these uh issues that have been raised by the public so for public comments please limit your comments to three minutes uh
no slides or other visual um uh AIDS except for uh the commissioner shoot of course if she wants and it is not necessary to repeat things that have already been said so we have 45 minutes uh to to uh hear public
comments on this commissioner sh terrific uh good evening everyone uh Erin Cho Commissioner of Public Works I am here with uh the engineering and transportation team and also our Consultants from time Bond I want to thank them all for their commitment and
dedication to this project uh over the last two and a half years um they have worked tirelessly to come up with a plan that really um we think has finds balance and supports um sort of these broad uh needs of the community so in
the interest of brevity uh we have had two uh very robust uh and engaging presentations over the last week we were here uh a week ago with uh the select board to present to you the the design review committee's preferred
alternative um and we also uh discussed that embedded in that vote was um a uh requirement to include wayfinding in the project which was actually part of our design review process that that got um rolled in in addition to a parking and
curb analysis for um brookl village and just to explain what that is that is a study that um in Partnership with economic development uh looks at the commercial area uh and comprehensively at parking utilization regulations optimization and opportunities to
improve enhance clarify and communicate parking for all businesses within the commercial District so we talked about that last week um through uh some of your questions and some feedback that we received uh there was also um the
mention of Washington uh Square uh for parking analysis and an Advisory Group we took that to Transportation board the ne the following evening um they had terrific um a conversation a lot of feedback also some direction in terms of
uh what they want um us you know kind of moving forward from the concept to include as we move to 25% design and uh in their vote they included the Washington um square area and voted unanimously to recommend um advanced an
ment of the preferred alternative to the select board uh and uh recommend that you vote that and support moving that to Mast doot um with your support and a letter of support um I have provided some proposed language just for your
convenience that sort of wraps up both the um design Review Committee their vote and the transportation board's vote um both on the preferred um alternative design and the added wayf finding parking analysis so with that again I
want to thank staff and the consultant team we are here um if you have any questions but I know you're going to open this up to the public and with that um thank you very much we appreciate your time thank you uh before we go to public comment any quick questions from
the select board okay um I do have one very quick question I just want to make sure that um do we have in our packet the the motion or the recommend the language it ja has that it does both Washington Street
andil it is okay yeah I missed that yeah sorry it just we were trying to we were tinkering with it up to the last minute but we okay got yes and if you do if I if if you'd like me to come up at the end and provide that suggested language glad to do that thank you okay okay um let's start the public
comment then yes again um we'll go first starting with folks who signed up in advance if you could State your name and either Brookline precinct number or address for the record the first individual who signed up bance is Tobias uh Silman thank you my name is Toby Silman
and I'm a Brooklyn resident at 92 High Street I am a senior at Brooklyn High School a leader of the high school's clim and food Justice club and a member of the bicycle advisory committee but most importantly um I'm someone who walks and bikes on Washington Street on
a daily basis as as someone with those criteria I'd like to offer my full support for this project for the many environmental health and economic benefits it will bring to Brooklyn the project seeks to
create a fully protected bike path through Washington Square and Brooklyn Village at the expense of a few dozen parking spots this project will drastically improve road conditions for everyone bicyclists and drivers alike bicyclists will be safeguarded by a
protected elevated bike lane out of car's way pedestrians will Marvel at a refurbished sidewalk and treat canopy more people walking and biking means fewer people driving and that's good for everyone's health and safety as well as the health of our
planet however over the next several minutes you might hear some opposition into this project from the business community and I would like to address some of the points I expect them to make um there one of their arguments is that a slight parking reduction poses a
critical threat to the Brooklyn Village and Washington Square businesses which they claim outweighs the benefits of a protected bike path According to some of these individuals a small minority of bikers is bent on taking over Washington Street at the expense of businesses this is not
only untrue but dangerously ignores the safety of these business's most enthusiastic supporters Brooklyn residents bicycle use on Washington Street is already substantial though the lack of a protected bike Lan currently discourages that usage instead
encouraging excessive driving and traffic on the other hand a protected bike lane would encourage fewer people to drive more people to bike and therefore more spontaneous visits to Brooklyn's small businesses furthermore it would finally Grant students at Driscoll pierer the
high school the safe route by bike that they deserve and this will benefit thousands of young Brookline residents over the next several Generations Central to my argument in favor of the Washington Street redesign is my firm belief in the power of bicycling to solve the pressing
environmental and health issues 30 seconds rough by a car Centric world over 140 of my fellow students have expressed their agreement by signing the biking Brook line petition in support with many expressing hope that the town can finally guarantee the right to a safe sustainable commute on the other
hand Central to these business owners arguments against the project is their notion that a project such as this will be bad for business there's no credible study that shows this and there are plenty of studies from Portland State University Bloomberg and other organizations that show that protected
BS can that concludes your time good for business thank you thank you the next speaker is David kroo good evening my name is David K I live in Precinct 8 and I'm the president of biking Brookline we knew when this process started three years ago that
biking Brookline would need to convince the Brookline community that rebuilding Washington Street as a complete street with protected bike Lanes would make it a more welcoming and safer Street for all users and would also increase the
street life in the proclaimed Village in Washington Square and also so the increased business activity in both districts and we think we have persuaded the Brookline community of this this is reflected in the numerous boards and
also Town organizations that have come out in favor of the plan which has included protected bike Lanes from the Inception that includes mothers out front Brookline climate action Brook line is Toby mentioned the Brookline High School envir um food Justice and
climate Club um it includes the public health Advisory Board it also now of course includes the transportation board it also includes over 1,470 people who signed the biking Brook line petition asking for the bike Lanes on the entire Corridor um that includes
just under 12200 Brookline residents it includes the majority of the town meeting members it includes the majority of the school committee it includes over 260 residents who live in the precincts through which Washington Street runs and
that includes 70% of the town meeting members who represent those precincts it also includes as Toby mentioned over 130 Brookline High School students and over 140 Brookline residents who are over 70 years of age I am of course disappointed
that the entire business Community has not come around to support this plan at this stage but I do hope that as the town progresses with the parking study they will come to see that there is adequate parking in both business
districts particularly if we are wiser about how we use the parking resources I also hope that when they look back on the process they will acknowledge that it was fair their voices were heard many changes were made to the plan um some of
which did adversely affect other stakeholders but to meet their requirements but this was inevitable this is a road that runs through commercial districts that's also in a danly populated residential neighborhood
and that's good for business in the sense that you have thousands of people who live within walking distance to your store who can bike to your store but it also means that there are many competing demands that need to be met which don't go into building a shopping mall for
example and we think this was a well-balanced approach uh we think all needs have been met and we urge you to support the plan thank you thank you the next speaker is wner low just so we can keep things rolling
after wner will be Jerry finegan thank you very much my name is Warner Loy please forgive my voice you can tell I have a c um I'm a member of the zero admissions Advisory Board which is
endorses plan but I'm uh only speaking on my own behalf tonight as a town meeting member and a resident of Washington Square um first of all a number of months ago uh a number of my neighbors had some expressed some serious concerns about the part of the
design that was right at Washington Square and um I talked to some staff about it I won't go into the details but I was really very impressed by how responsive the staff were and um and how the issue was have been dealt with
during the hearing process and um I think overall it really convinced me that it was a very good process and one that you should be very comfortable and supporting my my second comment is more substantive which is that years ago I used to bike quite a bit in Brooklyn I
mean I've never been you know one of those serious fandex bikers but I had a whole bike um and I actually where I particularly often biked was from my home in Washington Square to town hall um you know biking was just easier as we
all know there's even right now there's not a lot of parking around here um I stopped by biking uh as I got older basically because of safety concerns and um so the reason I'm here tonight is because you know we all need
know that Washington Street needs work um and I'm supporting the design because while we do that U safety that's provided by improved bike Lanes will will make a real difference in many ways for for all of us and therefore I hope
you will support it thank you Jerry finegan after Jerry will be Tom munice hi excuse me hi Jerry finigan owner of the Washington Square tavern in Brooklyn not a very good public speaker so I wrote some stuff
down um we are do that all right I just want to say thank you for 26 years being in business in Brooklyn and the support the town is given us over the years especially with the pandemic allowing outdoor dining and
enable us to survive the worst thing that ever happened to our industry over the since I've been doing it uh I'm also an avid cyclist believe it or not and I ride bikes nearly every single day and cycling safety is very important
but I'm calling as I'm here as a business owner and a representative businesses on the corridor outdoor dining is very very important to every business every restaurant in Brooklyn removal of outdoor dining would seriously impact business in such a way
is that it will probably make it um not viable anymore it accounts for 25 to 30% of our annual business now and as a result of which we're very very proud of it and we feel that it adds to the town as as well as to our livelihood and the livelihood of our 23
staff uh removing of the number of parking spaces as well initially there was almost 50% reduction in parking spaces on the corridor it would again reduced the amount of ab ability people
to come and visit our establishments and Shop uh the narrowing of the streets makes it um harder for people to move down the streets uh the raised bike length although I approve of them and I think they're great most cyclists I know
don't do it because it's too dangerous people are walk in and out of them safer on the road um my question to the town was is there a way to start the process after the business districts make it beautiful have the have raised
bike lanes and just make the business districts business districts but um I was added to the committee the design committee when we found out about this pro project and I felt that the project was already in
place and our addition to it was just uh you know a top tip of the half 29 million $29 million is a lot of money a lot of free money to the town and it would be very important to it but
I think the damage getting that free money to the neighborhoods of Washington Square and Brookline Village will for will really impact the town but again thank you very much thank you next is Tom Eunice after that will be Bob
Allen good evening my name is Tom Eunice I live at 575 Washington Street um with my family we've been there for over 40 years we look forward to a safer Street Street safer intersections better
sidewalks but the design was built to fit the parameters of a grant not built to fit the parameters of what people need that live on Washington Street in the in the businesses there are approximately 80 residents that have
resident parking stickers to park in on Washington Street this plan doesn't even meet those needs with the amount of parking that has been taken away parking is needed for people with
Mobility problems you have service vehicles coming to people's houses you have plumbers you have people actually having guests come to their house and there's really not going to be any place for them to park the narrowing of the streets sounds nice and looks good on
paper but the amount of emergency vehicles that drive on Washington Street in the amount of times that cars need to pull over to let them buy is going to be very difficult with a narrow Street there are very few bikes that use
Washington Street I've asked the I've asked the committee before in the transportation department if they've done a study at how many bikes use it they said yes I've asked for it and I've never received it because there really aren't a lot of bikes that use Washington Street now maybe they will if
it's redes design but that's a lot of money to spend with anticipation that it might happen I'm asking the select board not to approve this I know it's very difficult because Washington Street really needs to be renovated but it's
going to hurt the residents of Washington Street and it's going to hurt the businesses we have to be careful not to fix one problem and create another problem thank you thank you Bob Allen next will be David
Gladstone Who's online Mr chair Mr Town Administrator members of the board my name is Bobby Allen I have a law of practice of 300 Washington Street right across the street I'm here representing a members of the business community in Washington Square and Brookline Village and as a business owner myself mostly I'm here to
advocate for businesses many of whom are quite frankly afraid to advocate for themselves thinking somehow going against Town Hall would be bad for their business business I've looked out the window on at Washington Street pretty much 5 days a week for the last 20 years lit literally look directly out at the
street is it perfect no we have double parking for deliveries we have a lack of crosswalks there's only one bike lane on the other side of the street it seems like Washington Street gets dug up and put back together pretty much every other year but is it broken I would say not and here's the way I assess things
first I look at safety I spoke with members of the police department who quite frankly are more concerned with the impact of the proposed changes than the existing conditions then I look at the data in The Last 5 Years there's only been 15 bike accidents on Washington Street nine involved the
motor vehicle five citations issued one of them to an ebike Rider but but I get it one one accident is too many right but why are we in a rush to do this if the data doesn't specifically say there safety concerns is it because there's too much parking on Washington Street or a dollar for 28 minutes is the town
budget so fat that we don't need the meter money anymore is it to prevent outdoor dining for the three restaurants that have provided their patrons with what they desire a fun unique Outdoor Experience our businesses clamoring to rent out space in Washington Square and Brookline Village the answer to all those questions are a big no business
needs on street parking not only for the clientele but for daily deliveries takeout orders we all want I heard earlier tonight thriving commercial districts this is what we're here for I heard you say it earlier um there was clearly a rush to get this in the pipeline I'll point out that there were
only two business owners on the commit both voted no against this proposal that has to say something to this board so my question about why is really rhetorical the reason for this project is clear there's potential for free grant money and I get it who doesn't want free money but have we taken this money at the
expense of our businesses and is it really in the best interest of the entire town the town got a mere 17 State per state funding uh for $225 million Pier school when the average SBA reimbursement is 31% almost double but
that didn't stop us from doing what we thought was right to the entire town another example the town added bike Lanes along Lee Street from Clyde as you head to rout n rather than add bike Lanes on Warren Street which is narrow would create a terrible safety hazard uh the town decided to add bike lanes that
go the wrong way down Dudley Street which is wide enough to handle a parking Lane a travel Lane and a bike lane it took signage painting and a little time to get used to but it worked these type of compromises and solutions are what we should be looking at at Washington Street rather than remove the parking in
that segment one and two on the fire station side of Washington Street we should look for safe bike detours to avoid the business districts where the road Narrows and vehicles thank you Mr Allen that concludes your time may I have 30 more seconds Mr
chair 30 thank you very much I appreciate that uh more significant bike packs would create in in could be created in the residential area between Fairbanks and School Street until you get to the Village where there'd be another opportunity to provide detours or
continue to travel and share the road as they do today this keeps vital parking in the commercial areas and it's a compromise that we do so well in Brookline at the very least if we're focusing on townwide bike paths which are we should be focusing on townwide bike paths which are becoming heated Topic in many communities I'd urge this
board that conclud to ask for a study thank you Bobby God I gave you 30 seconds for the record I used to sit on the board we never gave these quick time limits we used to listen listen to everybody I mean a lot of us spend a lot of time doing things for the town paying taxes in the town and to be shut down a
little bit I just I I know I just didn't find it very courteous I I will just add that I why don't you make sure that you get your written comments to us we do read them and they will be incorporated into the right yes thank thank you for the courtesy thank you the next speaker is David Gladstone
David I'm promoting you now thank thank you very much my name is David Gladstone I'm the board chair of the Brookline Chamber of Commerce I'm a member of the Small Business Development Committee at a long-term resident of Precinct 16 Brian Kane Transportation board chair during the transportation
vote last week commented that Brookline area businesses are asking the question why are we doing this to them his answer was we as a town are maximizing the chances to pass muster with the for State funding as a result this will call Max this will cause maximum pain and
negative impact for businesses along the complete streets route many pressures are being applied to Brookline businesses was still reeling from the effect of the meters doubling over the last year with the convenience fee economic pressures of price hikes and impact are impacting
businesses along with higher rents as a result put traffic in revenues are down many of us in opposition to the dir of parking spaces being removed as a result of this redesign have been ignored and dismissed as alarmist and over reactionary the supporters from the bike
Community claimed our information isn't true it was said two times tonight even though we have received information valid information and reports from local business districts in Cambridge and West Roxberry showing diminished foot traffic and diminished revenues as well as
business closings as a result of bike routes being put in we're being called the list over reactionary and liar the business Community was led into this design review process four meetings into the process and most of the time um
they were partially ignored of what their suggestions were they were the only two people who voted against the uh moving the design forward some of the comments we have received include that if we don't support this initiative the bikers won't patronize our business districts the
reality of the situation is that if patrons can't easily find parking they will move on to restaurants and retailers there is an ease of access many customers Drive in from outside of Brook line businesses in opposition feel being pushed to the side modalized and
ignored already three restaurants off of sale in one of these districts that are being impacted when has maximizing the town's chances to compete for money to redo our streets equates to maximizing the pain for our locally owned businesses I know that the vote tonight
will result in the go-ahead for the 25% res the design review process the select board must ensure timely parking studies now not I need about 15 more seconds please now and if it is from spaces being taken away they need to be
replaced if it's shown that they need to be replaced they need to ensure this is done another meter increase as a solution to create Extra Spaces at this time is uncalled for and unwarranted again the question is being asked why are we doing this to our small
businesses thank you thank you thank you David the next speaker is John Harris John I'm promoting you now after that will be Julian Hartman John are you there okay we'll go to Julian Hartman Julian promoting you now this is uh John just unmuted John
we'll come back to you right after this hello hi Julian hi uh so I am a resident of w 10 in Washington Square um and uh I
uh wanted to speak out in support of uh the complete streets plan um as somebody who doesn't currently bike but would be interested in biking to Brookline Village um I would say that the big reason I don't bike in Brooklyn um is
because uh of the danger of biking on um Washington Street of biking on Beacon Street I mean anybody who's been at the Beacon Street intersection a little bit know that par cars park in the bike lane um near the the math academy and um it creates very dangerous situations um I
remember eating at the Washington Square tavern um in outdoor seating and uh it's really would be much more pleasant if there was one fewer Lane of traffic or if there were um you know a protected bike lane buffer um so you know while
I'm really sympathetic towards the idea of outdoor seating in restaurants uh I feel like that um can be made to uh be in harmony with uh bike lanes and and easier access for bikers and is in fact a little bit in tension with the with the impetus to to more parking which
also kind of claims space that could be used for outdoor dining or for biking um and uh I hope that can go even further than just having a connection between um Washington Square um and Brooklyn Village and connect uh bike Lanes to um
Boston to the Fenway and to other places around the city because U bikers need destinations to go to in order to use a bike lane um and so it's really important uh not to just have one segment of the of the road um with a protected bike lane but a a whole network with uh destinations um so
living in Washington Square uh Village I do go to or Washington Square I do go to Brookline Village sometimes um and I tend to walk but uh would love to bike um and would definitely do that uh more often if there was a protected bike lane so I strongly support this project thank
you very much thank you Julian John Harris we're coming back to you now you just been promoted hello yeah hi uh there's that and here is my video I hope yes thank you uh John Harris town meeting member and coach chair of climate action
Brookline which endorses separated cycle tracks along the entire relevant length of Washington Street two quick topics both dealing with the issue of sherrow which have been proposed for a block or two in Brookline Village first a 2016 study titled titled the relative
ineffectiveness of bicycle sherrow on ridership and safety outcomes presented at the 95th annual meeting of the transportation research board quote statistical analysis suggests that BL blocks that had bike Lanes installed experienced a significantly larger
increase in bike commuters than blocks with sherrow or no infrastructure installed uh unquote a major goal of the project is to get people to choose micr Mobility rather than cars or trucks when appropriate and sherow would thwart that
in terms of safety the study said quote blocks that had only sherrow experienced a significantly smaller drop in injuries than blocks with bike Lanes or even those with no infrastructure installed this raises concerns about the
effectiveness of sherrow unquote next the mot complete streets funding program guidance updated in uh April 2024 so in current use includes Mass doots complete streets policy scoring rubric uh applications can be awarded up to 100
points in 10 categories four of which are relevant the first quote to create a comprehensive integrated connected networks for all modes ages and abilities Max 10 points second category quote directs the use of uh the latest
and best design criteria and guidelines 10 points third quote the application specifies that the policy applies to all projects for the entire right of way 15 points and finally quote makes any exceptions to the policy specific and
sets a clear procedure that requires high level approval of exceptions 10 points those four categories can count for up to 45 of a possible 10 Poss of 100 possible points to advocate for a less than Optimum complete streets
treatment in those areas even if only for a block or two when a very lengthy and responsive public process led by experienced professionals found that design-wise separated cycle tracks are possible along the entire length runs a very great risk of lowering brookline's
score in this very competitive competition so much so that we could lose on scoring alone please vote in favor of separated cycle tracks along the entire length of the Washington Street project that is in favor of the preferred alternative that is before you
today thank you thank you that concludes the speakers who signed up in advance is there anyone else in the room who wishes to speak on this item or anyone online please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature yes you can approach the podium
hi I'm Sam Klein manager of the Washington Square tavern um we've been a staple in Brookline for 26 years as Jerry said and we have 25 employees including Jerry and Alma um all 25 of
these will be negatively infected by the complete streets bicycle lane project are out door patio which would be taken down in the project goes uh brings in over $60,000 worth of tips for our front of house that's huge um for them uh
living in a city that only gets more and more expensive to live in uh not to mention the revenue the patio brings into the restaurant itself food alcohol licenses payroll have all increase since covid the patio allows us to survive these
increase um um talking to guests also that live in Brookline have come to realize many of them don't even know about the project and almost all have disagreed with the bike Lanes slowed traffic Stagg staggered deliveries reduced parking will all affect um
restaurants businesses and the people who live in Brookline we are catering to a very small portion of the population in a town where the days of weather that is suitable for riding a bike is much less than the days that aren't um
besides just the winter months many of the summer days are rainy days um it seems to me that we're taking buses and garbage trucks stopping in the middle of the street delivery drivers ease of access more difficult Uber and lifts slowing traffic and reduced parking over
logical ways to not only help the residents but the businesses that RI that people rely on as Jobs uh Connelly's Hardware is closed after 72 years because ordering something on Amazon is easier um I think you'll see
more businesses suffer because you think making something easier like riding a bike through Brook line trumps everything else thank you thank you the next speaker is Charles Osborne Charles I'm promoting you now I'm trying
to okay um getting the camera on uh yes Charles born resident um 30-year resident um at living at 74 Davis have
and my uh major concern is um the overall traffic flow as it pertains to vehicles and other forms of transportation including pedestrian and uh that looking at the uh
Washington Street re rehabil ation uh project uh it's fundamentally an engineering project and I'm surprised that I asked in previous meetings about a
formal uh traffic uh study and report and um and I got an ask that um that they do studies all the time uh but I got no uh clear answer about a traffic
study report um I was uh so then I inquired online uh addressed it to the uh project manager uh won't mention any names um and um because I don't want to get personal but
um but I did ask I did an RFI request for information about the traffic study first did they receive my request two if there is a study uh please let me know know and if there isn't as well and if
there is one please send me a link so I feel like that Engineers basically you know develop their data oftentimes scientifically and they use that as the first step for basically launching into
uh you know the uh you do the investigation then into the uh into the uh solution stage design stage I feel the project has worked worked somewhat backwards and now we're turning around now doing a parking study
um but I have heard nothing clear about the traffic study and um and I got no response to my inquiry and I'm feel reticent to even speak up about this um because I feel like the uh you know the
much of the public opinion has just been dismissed so um thank you very much thank you Charles is there anyone else in the room or online who wishes to speak on this item okay there are approximately 25
individuals in the room and 22 online and no one else is indicating their desire to speak at this time thank you okay any further discussion by the select board being
none I oh go on I don't have to be first by any means go ahead well I I'm really appreciative of the fact that so many people um have spoken on this um from every point of view and U but I'm going to speak to uh
the one group that feels the most UN represented um in this process and um I think people know where I'm coming from on this um I I do not think that this um this this street design the particulars of this street
design as they impact especially the Brooklyn Village commercial area and the Washington Square commercial area um I do not believe that it serves the um interests of our commercial districts we talk all the time about Brook Line's
weakness when it comes to the the share of our tax base that is it consists of commercial Enterprises and we talk about doing what we can to get more commercial Enterprises in the town and to support the commercial Enterprises we have and
we do a lot to support the commercial Enterprises that we have but for those reasons you would think that we would pay extra special attention when people almost unanimously um it would be an
exaggeration ever to say unanimously because there's always going to be someone but uh all you got to do is listen to the tape of this morning's small business advisory committee member which I serve on as a rep representative of the select board and you would hear
person after person after person after person whose livelihood livelihood depends on continued strong customer base for their um businesses and to
virtually to a person they would say not only do they based on their own deep experience of running businesses in Brooklyn but their their their study of the plan as presented to them uh on on
the basis of those experiences they are convinced that we have a bad plan we have a plan that advantages all the other constituency groups that have asked to be advantaged
at the expense of the commercial interests in the village and uh in Washington Square and furthermore not only are they convinced of that they're convinced that when they speak no one
listens they just don't see response and I know that there was originally a much greater number of parking spaces that were going to be removed but when the end result is that there's still about 40% of parking spaces being removed and
when the end result is one side of the Washington Street in the heart of Brooklyn Village the entire side from Kent Street to Station Street has had all of its parking spaces removed you've got a strip of stores that has thrived
not to those particular stores but stores in those locations have thrived for decades on custom customer bases which very importantly include constant daily coming and going of customers by
car and parking in front of those businesses or convenience they've lost it under this plan and they've said over and over and over and over again that's going to hurt our businesses and that part of their plea
has been ignored and to a lesser extent the pleas that have been made for other aspects of this plan as they affect the commercial areas have been ignored so we'll hope for the best from
this I'm going to vote against it um and people have said there is no study that that has been done ever that shows that bike Lanes replacing car parking in commercial districts does harm to
businesses well in a way they're right there's no study that's been done to try to come up with an answer to that question but we're going to go ahead with this project and the only way we're going to find out what happens to these
businesses as a result of this project Which business person after business person has said threatens their livelihood is to see if that happens well that's hardly a strong basis on which to proceed and it does not
represent a a a a deep effort to actually be responsive to the concerns of the business Community as so in so far as this planet is concerned and I wish it weren't so but it seems to be
so Mike so U thank you Bernard and thank you John you you've said something that I I think is absolutely correct that members some members of the business Community are convinced that we have a bad plan before us because it's going to hurt their businesses um and though they
are indeed at least in some cases convinced um with all due respect and they should know their own businesses but um I also know that uh people on bicycles stop in stores uh they they go to restaurants I uh bike out of
preference to Brookline Village and to Washington Square uh and in instead of driving a car and for that matter instead of walking or taking the tea um and uh I don't go into the store wearing a button saying I came on a bicycle but
uh that's exactly the way I got there and I think that uh when you increase the number of cyclists by making the um the roadway safer and feel safer uh there's a substantial opportunity to um
uh for businesses to capitalize on that increased traffic that's going right by the front door um by capturing some of those people as customers and in fact they will become customers because that's the way they'll choose to get to their
destination oh thank you Bernard excuse me um and first I want to say that I uh greatly appreciate every business owner uh and operator that invests in Brookline um I understand um their
challenges that they've faced over many years and challenges that they're going to face in the future um just because of changes that are naturally going to take place in addition to what we're doing um but I you know I and I greatly appreciate the chamber the Chamber of
Commerce uh David Gladstone you know um when David speaks I listen um and when the businesses speak I listen um so I I do just want to counter um this narrative that John is setting up that people aren't listening to the
businesses and that and that that the plan and the work of the the the design Review Committee and the Consultants have not been responsive um it may be possible it seems that they don't feel the businesses feel that they were responsive enough but um I've attended a
lot of the meetings I participated um in detail both in in front of uh the committee and behind the scenes um and I can tell you that there's been a lot of changes uh there's parking that was added back in up in Washington Square there was parking that was added back in between Holden and Kent Street I mean in
Station Street um and I personally although you know this I don't consider this to be a parking study you know I took a day and I knocked on just about every single business in in Brookline Village I stopped I talked to them I talk to Barbers I talked to postmen um I
talked to people that run hair salons uh shops dress shops uh working areas restaurants um and I just what John said is not what I heard not what I heard there's no demonstration that all these
people that John's talking about parking on the north side of Washington Street of walking into all those businesses what I've heard and frankly you shouldn't even take it because it's only my word we need a parking study um is that those parking spaces are often
taken up by two for two hours and the people don't go into the barber shop they're going to the tea or somewhere else so I I think um you know we need to realize that there's a lot of information being thrown around that are not facts and we do need facts um I
appreciate the work of the design Review Committee um I think it's really important this is a balancing act absolutely it's compromise as you remember I negotiated the compromise for the NBTA communities act it was a compromise the sky was falling for many
people when we did the NBTA communities act and some people voted against it and the reason they voted against it was because there was a fear they thought the world was going to end hasn't ended um and it won't end because we're going to put a a balanced protected solution
along Washington Street um bear with me Bernard I I spent quite a bit of time in the past few days walking up to Washington Square from my home um there are 18 parking spaces that are being referenced in Washington Square to be taken away I don't minimize that at all
but I want to put it into context those 18 spaces are approximately two of the 291 that are currently available so it's about N9 or 10% um I walked up to the new Driscoll School the new Driscoll school has a parking now this is a half a block off
of Washington Street there's nine or I think there's 10 spaces in a parking lot that's on school property um that's not used after 4M and it's not used on weekends um we should look this is what the parking study should do it should look at the availability of that parking
to make it available uh to Merchants uh to to customers of merchants um there's also uh I think seven or eight or 10 spaces in front of the drisle school that you can't touch during the day because they're dedicated for drop off those spaces are available after 4M and
on weekends for customers that want to go into Washington Square on the north side of tristal school there are another five or seven drop off parking spaces that are available for you to shop in Washington Square so I just want to
caution and and ask everybody to take a deep breath there's a commitment in writing I'm hoping it's going to be in the motion tonight to do three very important things as part of this project remember we're at 25% design and I and I
remind you of the chair's uh commitment that this goes to the state and then all that comes back to us and we're going to work on solving these problems before another vote that comes to us which is the 75% design so there's multiple steps here um and I assume if we can't fix
many of the things and things get more complicated we'll have a conversation at the 75% design but the commitments that I'm hearing and that I'm committed to and the reason why I'm voting in favor of it is for three reasons one there's been a commitment to do a parking study
it's called a curb study um for both Brookline Village and separately for Washington Square the reason for those studies being done is to identify replacement parking off the corridor and in and in Brookline Village there's opportunities at town hall
there's opportunities at the new pier school there's a couple of private lots and there's a bunch of uh reg uh you know parking spaces along side streets that currently don't have great policies um there's also a ton of existing parking that we're not utilizing well
it's permited it's often empty we've got EV spaces that are often empty um we've got spaces that aren't turning over quickly because it's the way that they're metered in the in the regulations that have okay thank I'm almost done Bernard almost done Park I'm almost done I'm GNA take my time because
we we have a community that's very concerned and I think they need to hear this the parking study in Brookline Village the parking study in Washington Square there will also be wayfinding design in both of those locations and the reason why is we need to be able to have customers find the parking they can't find it today and the third thing
that I've heard a commitment and I'm hoping that's going to be in there tonight is that we have a commitment to have an Advisory Group for both of those parking studies and include both residents and and abing businesses so that it's not just a datadriven solution it's also information that we can hear
qualitatively from the businesses and the abuts so that we can make sure that the policies are are in place and for that reason I think that we have sufficient um analysis and commitments to find Solutions uh for the businesses and for the neighbors and that's why I'm
supporting and I would just ask everybody to just take a deep breath we're at 25% there's a lot of road in front of us pardon it and David similar to uh Paul's sentiments we're only at the 25% Mark currently what's
going to be critical to me uh I read the letter that was uh signed by over 20 Washington Square businesses in the penultimate paragraph they mention uh quote potential compromises such as timed loading zones shared use parking
models or increased investment in public parking Solutions should be thoroughly explored before making any permanent reductions I completely agree with that I am fully committed between this point and the next time that this board is
going to be voting on this to ensure that these 18 spaces that uh would be the reduction in Washington Square are made up from spaces elsewhere in addition to Driscoll School the Russian School of Math has about eight spots uh
Beacon Orthodontics has about 30 spots on Washington Street uh there have been I I've asked the Town Administrator if we could possibly uh adopt what Cambridge has done where private Lots during their off peak hours need to
utilize their spaces for the general public and uh that's something I'm going to raise for an agenda item we have later tonight about potential select board waren articles regarding outdoor dining I completely agree that outdoor dining is really help helped our
businesses flourish I'm very committed to outdoor dining uh I'm very passionate about exploring rooftop dining uh the communities that have that it seems to be extremely popular I know that Cambridge has that and I am hopeful that there's the potential for some of our
businesses along the Washington Street Corridor to have rooftop dining available and if that's the case then there's the potential that all of our stakeholder groups that we're hearing from tonight can win from this proposal we're not quite there yet because we
don't have all the information and not all the work has been done but if we're not there by the time that we next uh vote on this then I think my opinion would change but for 25% purposes and for the commitment that I think that
many of us are making to undertake these studies and to find potential Alternatives that are workable for our businesses I'm I'm supportive at this juncture okay clarifying question sure um David has referenced the next time we vote on this do we have a next time to
vote on this my understanding it goes to the to the uh Department of Transportation right M yes then they approve it y yeah and then it comes back and the suggestion is we could vote on it and change it we have a I think
perhaps the consultant from time or Erin you you come up and talk through the timeline here yeah we can vote on it and vote it down at that point okay it's going be difficult to go down5 knowledge the plan is for um the project
at 75% to come back to the select board there and we and we I'm sorry sorry go ahead and we can vote it down but as I was telling John the chances of of us voting it down at that point are much less than at this point
our hope is that as we move so we've been working on this for over two and a half years trying to gather everyone's everyone's input and find this uncomfortable balance which we think is a fantastic project but there's some
some give and take along the entire Corridor we're hearing all of this input it will be incorporated as we move forward into advancing the 25% and so our intent is when we come back to you
we're going to have uh a lot of these items resolved for you and very clearly we'll show you what the tradeoffs are which we've tried to do to date um we'll have the parking analysis and um we look forward to working with the business community and
really trying to find that win-win for everyone and but what would happen at that time if the select board were to vote changes to it if you were to vote substantive changes then we would have to go back to mass do and see if they
were acceptable when I had anything and what we're trying what what I'm trying to do is to set up a s set up a procedure whereby the changes that are really relevant are um are done by the
town so we don't have to go back to mass do to you know to um to find parking spaces or whatever don't have to back to mass do to address concerns of the business community so um and that's what Mass do wants as well right okay so so I
mean remember this is a mass do project they set certain parameters we're within those parameters but the real issues are still Brookline issues and we have to solve them um so you gave us some language I'd like to read that language
and including some adjustments to it okay um the following I'm just reading my notes Here following vote language has been proposed but I'd like to read both votes first so that is so that it is
clear that our continued support is based on the assumption that certain issues that we address um issues that we have heard including those raised by the local business Community um and I want to make sure that we understand both
votes before we vote to approve the the um 25% design um so the votes are first to approve the Washington Street complete streets preferred design alternative as voted by the transportation board at its February 5th
2025 meeting and to advance that design to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation with a letter of support Second vote which I think we need to you know be clear that this is really the condition on which we're voting to
support is voted that the select board's continued support of the Washington Square complete Street project remains contingent upon one the inclusion of improved Wayfair finding in Brookline Village two parking curb studies in
Brookline Village in Washington Square with findings to be reviewed by the select board before submission of the 75% design Milestone three creation of Advisory Group groups for the parking slurb use studies to capture local
stakeholders perspectives and insights I'd like to add as an additional contingency as you you call it is that we expect that the town uh or we are committed to um ensuring that the town addresses the additional concerns that I
mentioned at the beginning of this public comment period particularly the concerns expressed by business owners uh and the concerns um raised by um individuals at this public comment period um and I'd also like to have a
report at some point on the progress in addressing you those issues so that you know we we see movement going forward anyone object to that no okay wait you it's just it's not clear where that second vote stops um you've got a lot of narrative that seems to me to follow
well so so the second vote involved basically four things not three things okay okay um John I I I would like to um move a third vote um and I for that purpose I asked Tiffany during this
meeting to just send the very short text of it to you so you should have it in your inbox and here it is moved that upon completion of the Washington Street complete streets project there shall be a 5-year moratorium on non-emergency
cutting Andor digging into the street with the determination of non emergency to be determined by the commissioner of Public Works okay um Paul and then I G to ask so I want I wanted to just I don't know if
you made a motion but I wanted to amend it sounds like John is amending uh your motion I wanted to suggest another amendment and then I guess we got to vote on these amendments but I wanted to say the only thing I'd like to add to your second your second list is that all
of that be done by the time it comes back to the board at the 7 5% design those studies that input their recommendations need to come to us by at the time that we are voting on The 75% okay I don't think that's inconsistent with what's there but just I think it
might I did call it an amendment um in what I sent out to you folks but I think actually it probably worked better as just a third vote yeah yeah yeah it's not inconsistent I don't think I mean um commissioner what do you think well would love a 5-year
moratorium um after we complete the work um you know I think that there are always situations that um can come up you might have a new development that needs a water line or a sewer line that you might not consider an emergency but
um you know it's part of kind of the engine of our of our community so I I do feel like um there may be situations that arise uh where we'll we'll have to sort of think deeply about it but
overall I'm generally supportive yeah I guess my concern is that um it's sort of a different issue than what we're dealing with here number one and number two there has to be some I don't know some some review and and and really understanding of whether that's even
possible fiveyear moratorium on piing up the streets you know like you said there may be situations that we haven't anticipated and and um you know what is an emergency and what's not I think it's not it's it's not right for for a vote
right now may I speak to that as an explanation many communities U do this routinely and have long lists of streets that are under the five-year moratorium and it's part of their regular practice to keep a list of the streets Under The
Five-Year moratorium and then take streets off the list under the fiveyear moratorium and to let people know when that happens lol has it uh walam has it and many other cities and towns have it and the the lists are constantly available on on their
websites if also if I could add we we generally actually do have what we call as a five-year moratorium um and with that we're talking to National Grid eversource and Verizon uh and we share our list of renovated and completed
streets but um what rich benevento just shared with me is that mtio also requires that same 5year U moratorium oh great we don't need you don't need to it's part of it's it's part of
their well actually no because what why don't we I have never seen a do list including the streets for Brookline that are under a fiveyear moratorium but we have repaired Street why don't we put that on our futures list and and see and I don't know you know get some
background information so that we can make a decision I'm cont with can make I'm sorry Mike yeah don't forget John you haven't seen list because the uh if dot has a list it only applies to streets that are um part of the state
system so Washington Street Beacon Street and so forth um side streets would never be part of that list I've never seen a DOT list didn't include dot streets in Brooklyn either well have you have have you looked I guess is the question for us it comes into play um
when utilities uh request a an occupancy permit or a permit to excavate in our roads so that is it's an internal process where we are um denying uh those
permits well yeah ber I just wanted to make sure um are you accepting as a friendly Amendment my suggestion that we add all of this is done by the 75% design I'll accept that yeah thank
you um so in terms of John's are you withdrawing that no I I'm I'm content to propose it at a future date yeah okay good yeah so that'll be on our futures list and we we'll you know you know get get background information so we really
understand um you know what we're doing so um with that I'd like to first move uh I move to approve the Washington Street complete streets preferred design alternative as voted by the transportation board at its February 5
2025 meeting and to advance that design to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation with a letter of support bearing in mind the next vote you know is that contingency language um all in favor please indicate by saying I John
vanak no okay Michael sanman I David um Paul Warren I David Perman I and chair votes I next is um I move that the select board's continued okay wait let's put this in
English Okay um I move that the select board uh condition its continued support of the Washington Street uh project uh upon one the inclusion of improved wayfinder
in Brookline Village two parking slurve use studies in Brookline Village in Washington Square with findings to be reviewed by the select board before submission of the 75% design Milestone three creation of advisory groups for
the parking curb use studies to capture local stakeholders perspectives and insights and four and let me try to get this in good English um that the uh the the town uh will address the additional
concerns that were mentioned at the beginning of this public comment period particularly the concerns expressed by business owners um and that a report will be prepared
um before the 75% design uh stage is presented to the select board uh indicating progress and addressing uh all of the foregoing issues is that good I only have one one that last one's kind
of Fuzzy Math for me Bernard because I don't know what the list is we heard we heard an now almost you know 35 40 minutes of public comment I don't know which issues are being included there um I think the parking Studies address the primary concerns about access to parking
right um but there were you know we heard issues of emergency vehicles not being able to pull over um home health aids not having access to to to par Mar are we saying you're we're addressing all those issues to the satisfaction of the well the issues that we are making
our approval contingent on are the ones that we discuss the three there and the and the uh uh additional ones that I mentioned at the beginning there will be additional comments and and issues raised that that the public raised during the public comment period that um
we we um presumably the town will also address but that separate from what we're making our vote contingent on but we we may not be able to address every single one of those issues to the satisfaction right that's my okay well
but but that you know we will I assume staff is going to put that those additional concerns in the list and and at some point you let us know what is feasible and what they're able to address does that does that sound good
to you I do also feel like it sounds a little fuzzy honestly um I think Mast doot needs a strong letter of support from the select board and with those three items we can clearly deliver on it we can come back a lot of those items we
have evaluated already the design Review Committee evaluated and there are tradeoffs and that the language for that fourth item sounds a little bit um like you might be putting us in a position where we're not going to be able to make
every single we're not going to be able to make every single person happy um with every item along the corridor it takes balance and I'm I'm just concerned about the wording that that may seem um risky to mass
doot well anything well I think we've already included a lot you have to go you you have to have a certain amount of faith that uh uh faith in the good faith of the um of the Department of Public
Works and the transportation staff to do the best that they can uh and without trying to nail down exactly what best that they can do is there will be people who as um Aon says will be uh will be
unhappy uh they'll be and some of them may not be business committee members but rather other members of other the point I'm I'm trying to to to address is you know we said we'll make a commitment as a select board to make sure the town
addresses these issues right this is not with Mass DOT this is internally and then it shouldn't be in something that goes to mass doot it should be something that we put together ourselves well this will be part of the public record they're they're watching or they're going to read it so they're you know so
I way you you sending you suggesting that both these votes go to n theot the the vote the vote to transmit is the vote to transmit this this is about to your point what we what we then do as the community after in order to and that's why it's framed as your
continued support is contingent on these things and so I think what aon's concern is that the continued support is contingent on these issues these issues are still fuzzy to us so I think you know I think the idea of us being of us providing regular updates to
the select board on the progress as it goes on the reports to and to Erin's Point some of these issues that were raised in public comment we've already addressed during the process some of which are and some of them are still in progress so maybe it is you know it's contingent upon regular updates to the
select board as design continues about where we are in you know identifying and addressing matters of public concern okay okay so you're saying that pick out
that fourth item just leave the three and well if you want to add a forth its regular updates to the select board on matters of public concern okay why don't we do that anyone object to that David has his hand up okay I I don't object to that but what I will say is that a
category that was also very important to me and my continuing support is outdoor dining exploring rooftop dining where possible um it doesn't necessarily have to be tied to this particular vote but I hope that as a board we will be committed to that not just on the
Washington Street Corridor but frankly everywhere okay I think that that that that is subsumed by the language that Chad's just just suggested reg updates okay uh and tell me what that language is so um so we'll amend the fourth item
um so your support your continued support is contingent on the three things you mentioned and regular reports to the select board uh on progress in the project uh and resolution of issues identified by the or matters of concern by the public support to the select board on um
Pro progress of the project on a resolution of matters of concern to the public yeah well just just to be clear you you've changed the words three times the last one was the one I liked when you say resolution some of them we may not be able to Res that's right right so we're getting reports on progress to address
concerns that are matters of public concern there we go we may to resolve them all that's that's fair yes okay it's going to be really interesting reading the minutes of this meeting I I apologize who's writing the minutes sorry but we are we're transcribing it so okay so let's have the first
vote uh we already had the first vote first we're on the second one and uh and everyone else voted okay so um that is what we're transmitting to mass do second vote which we're not transmitting to mass do except they can you know
watch us on zoom and and know about it um is uh I move that the select board's continued support of the Washington Street complete Street project remains contingent upon one the inclusion of improved wayfinding
in Brookline Village to parking curve use studies in Brookline Village and Washington Square with findings to be reviewed by the select board upon submission of the 75% design milestone and three uh no no and three creation of
of advisory groups for the parking SL curb use studies to capture local stakeholders perspectives and insights and four um Regular reports to the select board
on the progress of uh the project and and uh not resolution but progress of matter of concern to the public go okay all in favor please indicate by saying OD John vanak I
Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren I David Perman I and Sher votes I thank you thank you we look forward to working with the board the transportation board and the public and businesses and and please be uh be aware that the select board takes these
concerns that uh we've talked about very seriously and we expect to ensure that uh not that we have a perfect solution to all of them but that everyone's cons uh concerns and interests are taken into consideration and addressed one way or the
other okay next Chestnut Hill commercial area study I see Meredith Mooney is there good evening are you ready let me uh let me say something first you want to take a break is that what why you get yeah why don't we take a break five
minute break so people can get up and stretch their legs and and clear the room these young guys they just can't if they don't have the drugs we have right right yeah you
can I haven't done it play around with it okay I'll let you do thanks Tiffany thanks [Music]
oh [Music]
[Music] [Music] hey welcome back to the select board meeting um tonight we're now on the topic of uh ches Hill complete Street complete I'm sorry what we what are we
talking about chest on Hill commercial area study okay um before I turn it over to Meredith Mooney I'd like to say that this presentation that she'll be giving uh will be just an update by staff and
the chesten hill advisory committee which will include some of the thinking of the EAB subcommittee that has been doing a lot of work and the purpose is to keep the select board in the loop and thinking about the issues we will have to consider and this important project is
ready for action we will hear about the current iteration of the plans of the developer City realy uh but is not yet in a condition for us to think about any zoning changes to the site for the spring town meeting so the planning department will be looking to file a
zoning warrant article possibly for the fall town meeting correct correct okay uh the Pres this presentation will show some of the compromises that have been included to address concerns of various stakeholders and the cost to the town of
those compromises and the costs are fairly significant but Meredith thank you chair just great so thank you Meredith Mooney economic development director here to present an update about the chestn hill
commercial area study I can move through my first couple of sides quickly um because I think the chair covered a lot of the key points that I was going to address in those introductory slides um but I'd say the headline for tonight's update is that we will not be submitting a warrant article proposal at the end of
this month for Springtown meeting uh we need additional time to develop recommendations um that those get guidance feedback from the community Advisory Group the select board Economic Development Advisory Board housing Advisory Board um so um in short we need additional time in order to um put
together the thoughtful proposal um that's our goal uh so we are looking towards fall 2025 town meeting for uh resoning recommendations for phase one of the study and then phase two resoning recommendations in the subsequent town meeting cycle so just as
a reminder phase one of the study area is from the Newton border to Tully Street uh it includes two properties that are under different zoning schemes so you have the chest Hill Office Park um which is the large property to the left and then the parking lot along T
Street which is zoned as uh General business 2.0 so the Chestnut Hill um Office Park uh as of last year is under new ownership by city realy city realy has been very involved in the Chestnut Hill commercial area study um and over
the past several months has been presenting uh several iterations of their Redevelopment proposal and vision for the chest Hill Office Park site for the town's consideration so just uh the last select board update was in October so this is just a quick tally of sort of the key
meetings developments that have happened between um now and the last update I'll talk a little bit more about the neighborhood meeting on the following slide as well as the economic development advisory board's um ad hoc subcommittee that's helping to support the study effort the Chestnut Hill uh
commercial area study Community Advisory Group has convened five times um there have been some really excellent discussions in feedback provided about a quarter of all those meetings have been devoted to public comment um and uh Chestnut Hill one of in our most recent discussions provided a lot of helpful
feedback regarding uh the fiscal impact model that staff is working with our consultant to finalize um so rkg our project consultant has been is currently working on putting finishing touches on um fiscal impact model which is a tool that we'll be using to estimate the
revenues and costs from the towns side associated with any potential new development given the fact that one of the leading study objectives is to develop recommendations and resoning to help incentivize significant net new commercial tax growth um this tool is
going to be very important um because as we work on uh resoning framework will be able to input potential development programs into the model and get an assessment of um whether or not we'll um be trending in the right direction in
terms of uh incentivizing uh net growth um with the fiscal impacts for that resoning so uh as mentioned on the previous slide in November in response to some request that we received from the community and some of our um Community Advisory Group members uh we
hosted a hybrid neighborhood meeting which was an opportunity to listen to uh the specific concerns issues from the director Butters as well as uh the neighbors who um are most likely to be you know directly impacted by any future development of phase one of the Chestnut
Hill study so one of the critiques of our summary of the community input we received in the community engagement process that we launched um as we launched the project last spring was that it included all of the feedback that we' received and people contributed a lot of different respect uh
perspectives and um wished for outcomes in terms of uh the study recommendations and resoning this area and what we' heard from director butter some members of our community Advisory Group her town meeting members um who are hearing feedback from their constituents that there was not a clear representation of
the leading concerns um from the perspective of direct abutters and neighbors most likely to be directly impacted by Redevelopment so this meeting was an excellent opportunity to hear that directly and we also took it as a chance to document all of the key themes and leading issues um from that
meeting so there's a very helpful reference document um for those considerations so one of the um ideas or suggestions that came up during the neighborhood meeting there was a petition being circulated that was requesting that the
town as we work forward with the um developing the resoning that the town work within the existing maximum F of the Chestnut Hill Office Park site and sort of cap the potential height at four four or six um stories which raised the
question um could you potentially get something to pencil out within that existing density um for the office zoning so uh enter the uh Economic Development advisory board's ad hoc chville commercial area study subcommittee which was formed back in November to help provide staff with
additional assistance and support in um you know the anal the analysis needed to develop uh resoning recommendations so the members are listed on the slide they're George Cole Mark barer Ken Lewis and Sandy silk who's um uh with us at tonight's meeting
so all of these members are during their day jobs real estate developers involved with real estate Finance so they have a real depth of expertise have their fingers on the pulse of you know current market conditions um and have technical expertise and being able to provide uh additional analysis in terms of
assessing the financial feasibility of different um development proposals so their first task was to address the question raised during the neighborhood meeting um about you know is it could it be financially feasible to redevelop Tres Hill office park within the current
maximum density so um there is there are links included in the memo provided to the select board with the project update with the EAB subcommittee's memo their proforma model presentation that they gave to the economic development
Advisory Board giving a recap of their methodology their recommendations and then some additional considerations um I wanted to give a shout out to Ken Lewis who developed a um very impressive complex investment proforma model that they use as the tool for the basis of
their analysis um and I have been quoted that it would have cost us in the neighborhood of tens of thousands of dollars in consultant um resources in order to do the work they can in the subcommittee um generously provided to um staff in the town to help with this effort so we're very grateful for that
they ultimately concluded that um it was not financially feasible under current market conditions to redevelop the Chop site at the existing F which is 2.5 um the EAB unanimously endorsed the conclusion and um the analysis that edab
presented at their meeting last week so this is very helpful to sort of have that question um resolved and I think from the staff perspective and in setting expectations as we develop the rezoning it's likely that the maximum F will exceed 2.5 in previous updates that we've
provided to the select board we've gone into a lot more detail about uh the new nuances of City realy uh most recent proposal I don't think that's the best use of our time this evening I think um I'd like to focus a little bit more on sort of some of the trade-offs that we've observed and the issues that
continue to exist um as we've seen the the trade-off shifting so the current iteration of the city realy proposal we've got some summary slides with some excerpts um with the presentation that they presented the community Advisory Group last month in short kind of the the
highlights height is uh cap or proposed maximum height 12 stories limited to six stories along Heath Street uh and that the other key difference in the most recent iteration is that City realy eliminated the proposed new vehicular connection
between Boon Street and Heath Street um which is a top uh direct autter neighborhood concern that was um very clear and um discussed extensively at the neighborhood meeting so you know I think we're very grateful to City realy for their level of Engagement
participation in this process um they provided several different iterations for the town to consider and I think what's been really valuable is kind of seeing uh how the proposals have shifted and the trade-offs that have been involved in the evolution of the project as they try to respond to concerns that
are being brought up um and particularly the community Advisory Group response to the proposals so things that we are continue to be concerned about even with the the existing iteration is uh the impact of sort of the rec configuring
the parking and elevating a lot of that above grade the changes and limiting the site circulation and access to just Boon Street um there's still really a pronounced separation between the site and the surrounding area so we're concerned about um how do we you know
more effectively integrate the site into the surrounding area um in order to create a a better pedestrian experience and also to support uh ground floor retail more effectively there's also a very um obvious correlation in the decreased proposed density and the
amount of total commercial square footage in the project so if you um no one wants to look at a slide with a lot of numbers at at this point in the evening but I've highlighted a couple of the boxes here related to um the commercial components in particular so
if you the this slide demonstrates kind of the key variables within the proposal and how they've evolved over the recent um versions that City Realties presented and if we're looking at the commercial components I say sort of like the centerpiece commercial component is the proposed Hotel um and then uh if we're
talking about types of commercial uses that have the potential to really move the needle in terms of expanding the commercial tax base you're talking about the hotel and the medical office which was included in previous versions so as we saw the density decrease in this most recent version um medical office um
apparently did not pencil out so medical office is not contemplated in the most recent version the hotel is still there is the major commercial component uh total square footage did decrease by 15% and there was sort of a a related reduction in the um number of hotel
rooms decreased by 25% with retail uh you see that that was cut in half as well and in total in looking at the percent of the project um that's commercial it's still at just 26% and in terms of what that would
translate these changes in terms of potential tax revenue to the town you see that the um annual net new property tax decreased by 50% average hotel occupancy um which is the rooms annual rooms tax um would decrease
by about a quarter and at the bottom you also see potential um impacts to the affordable housing components of the project which if you will remember with our last update something that was um an Omission that we had lots of questions about when doing the profor analysis of
City Real's initial proposal is that we knew that they were carrying costs to provide and meet the affordable house commitments but it wasn't clear where the affordable housing was integrated into their Redevelopment program so we had clarifying questions about that city realy did go and have uh what I would
characterize as a productive initial conversation with the housing Advisory Board back in December to uh present and get some initial feedback on what their uh proposal was for meeting the affordable housing commitments and uh it it seemed like and the chair can correct
me if this is a mischaracterization of where that conversation landed but it seemed that the hab was receptive to sort of the proposed mixture of on-site affordable units for the proposed multif family and then cash and loop payments for the luxury condo component obviously as we continue to work our way through
this process we develop zoning that City realy can respond to and their um proposal changes there are going to have to be um multiple rounds of discussions with the housing Advisory Board to tackle that um but I do think that that's helpful that we at least have that initial conversation as a point of
reference to help set expectations moving forward and then the final update so as we talked about within the city realy proposal and what they're contemplating the hotel uh is kind of the the centerpiece commercial component for
that and uh which aligns well with sort of where we landed in terms of um the the market study of what we thought would be viable commercial uses for Chestnut Hill and then it also reflected some of the feedback that we' heard in the community engagement process where there seemed to be a real interest in the type of hotel that provided events
and Conference spaces people seem to think that would be um helpful from the community and provide some additional services that you know Boston College or other neighboring institutions would be interested in utilizing that being said there are certainly no comps for what city realy
is proposing which is an upscale full service hotel with event and Conference spaces with the luxury condo above certainly no no comps in Brookline even within the Boston area there aren't a really there aren't many good points of comparison so we did ask City realy to
provide some additional information about why they felt confident that this particular type of Hotel would be successful in Chestnut Hill and Brooklyn so they um were responsive to this request and they commissioned CBRE to do a market study we received that a couple of weeks ago staff is still reviewing
that so we appreciate that they were responsive to that request and we're delving into that but I'm sure that that study will be a helpful resource going forward so key issues that we are thinking deeply about as we start to put into paper and draft some uh a resoning
framework would be you know given the very clear strong Market bias towards residential over commercial and because the chestn hill Office Park represents the Redevelopment of the chestn Hill Office Park represents probably the most significant Economic Development opportunity that the town will have for
the foreseeable future as we're drafting mixed use resoning how are we are we appropriately balancing commercial and residential uses within that mixed resoning proposal um how do we mitigate the impacts of parking on the ground plane um and make sure that we're enhancing
The Pedestrian experience and how do we get people to move safely and efficiently in and around and through the study area um in a way that Fosters placemaking and Commercial area vibrancy so as I referenced next steps
um staff we've collected a lot of information um we have a lot of analysis from our consultant uh additional support from the EAB subcommittee great feedback that we received from the community Advisory Group we're starting to work on drafting the resoning framework our next meeting with the
community Advisory Group is in late March um so we're hoping that we'll be able to present sort of a draft resoning framework for uh discussion and feedback um and be able to provide a clearer set of expectations uh that city realy um and you know perhaps growth companies which is the other property
owner within the phase one study area can respond to uh and we are also working on finalizing a scope and a cost estimate for a transport Transportation study for uh the the project um which will address sort of that last key point from the previous
slide and that's update yeah Meredith could you please put the slide up that shows the entire study area uh yes thank you nope yeah that's it there so
I'm um I'm G to just share some overall thoughts on this on the project I and I will I will say first I'm growing increasingly increasingly uncomfortable and skeptical uh you should just know that um so when this was when this was
presented to the board as a study we're going to carve It Off Mike was cheering it it the whole area was to be studied and we were going to create a vision for this incredible opportunity for that entire space for a vision for the future
and that's the Chestnut Hill commercial study area um a carrot was dangled in front of us by a by an a developer that owns that self I guess that would be
Southwest parcel it was dangled in front of us look at this opportunity or maybe a hotel $9 million in revenue and we bit and we bit uh and instead of
creating a vision for the future of this incredible area a holistic Vision that uh is a once in a-lifetime Opportunity we've decided to focus on one little corner of it and we haven't talked about the
rest of it and I I'm increasingly thinking that is a mistake because how we can focus just on one area which is and we're totally responding to just a developer it's not the vision for the community it's the vision for the developer right we're
getting a spot zoning proposal and I appreciate that they that they want to do it um but I I'm just increasingly uncomfort that there is no vision for this area um and I think I um I think it's a mistake
I think we're missing an opportunity um for something very special um instead we're focusing on a corner with a developer that wants to make you know whatever they want to make um and I appreciate that they're willing to partner with the town but it's not a
vision for the town it's a vision from the developer and I just I I'm really really becoming skeptical of it that I'm skeptical of the whole approach uh frankly right now that's just my view and be honest with you Mike and I know I'm disappointing you at this
point but um more than disappointed I just I just don't get it so that's my that that's my view when the town can become a developer then we'll have the vision one way of looking so uh let me address a couple of things uh Paul um
because what you're uh what you're expressing um on the face of it is reasonable but I think you're missing a couple things it could be one is that when we first looked at this we said there really three distinct segments to this stretch um and in terms of density
and height and so forth each of those segments needs to be treated somewhat differently they need to be treated somewhat differently partly because of the ownership structure of each of them so you have the city realy site um
except for the little strip of land along tul Street that's a parking lot it's a unified site then you have across the street on Tully Street um the growth companies own a substantial amount of property and are actually trying to acquire some more um
and that is a third a second section rather that probably needs a separate treatment based on the ownership pattern there because there's one the the um um senior housing building is owned
by somebody else so you kind of look at the whole of that segment but you can look at um significant sections of it and and as they say the density there may differ from the density that you're happy with um in the westmost portion
and then the land ownership um over from um sort of the well certainly from Hammond Street over but also along the first part of sheath street is very fragmented um and there are a lot of Residential Properties there small
Residential Properties there that um are affordable uh from the perspective of the current even the current market and something that Janice has pointed out is that we don't want to lose those so while you can say there should be a a
unified Vision that unified Vision has to be um it has to be a realistic realistically proposed one section at a time that's why it's broken up in our minds into those those pieces let me finish please and I and I appreciate
that um the second thing is with regard to whose vision is this um it's really uh a challenge to come up with a vision um absent uh anybody giving you a proposal that you can respond to and to
to a very large extent we've been certainly responding initially to City Realties proposal as its as a proposal now what we have done is migrate to and as marith expressed we've migrated to saying well okay now we see what the
economics are of various kinds of development on at least on that site and really on other portions as well um we have this really good model that um Ken Lewis has put together we have a model that um our consultant has put together
uh and we have Knowledge from the EAB subcommittee that the current zoning doesn't is not Ive to viable commercial Redevelopment so the next question is well okay what kind of zoning do we want that is viable and that's where the
planning department is now so and and may I respond just for a moment and I know I just dropped a big bomb on you so um and I apologize for that but you know just it's it's it's this has been garring at me for a while um for a whole bunch of reasons well
does the explanation make any sense well I well your explanation makes sense I just don't agree with it um so I you know there's no vision there's no vision for this area there's no comprehensive broad vision for the future and you know I appreciate Sandy and the work that she
did with EAB because they actually took a step back from the proposal and they said what are the opportunities here what makes what makes economic sense what's viable and they put the proposal aside and my con and that but that's just for one corner of
of the area um again I what was presented to us as the board when we initiated this study was this incredible opportunity for a vision of the future for the commercial area and we've coed off a little corner and we're trying to
shoehorn Something in because we have a developer and I again I just I'm sharing with you that I'm extremely uncomfortable I think we are missing an opportunity for a broader bigger Bolder vision for what could be done here and we're stuck in responding to one
proposal from one developer baring what what Sandy has brought forward which I really appreciate the edep because they did they I think they put the proposal aside and said what could you do here and what's feasible but it's only for that corner um so I'm again that's that's voting on this so no I know I'm
just sharing it I'm I'm I'm very very skeptical with with the direction that and this is a very preliminary stage in the process and those are preliminary comments joh um I I approach this a little bit differently um with some different
questions I I'm not at all surprised that we're focused on this because there was a long we've waited a long time for the owners of properties um anywhere in in Chestnut Hill West to show interest
in um and and to indicate that they have the opportunity because of tenancy that are going to expire they have the opportunity to entertain an offer for their properties and then the developer
comes in and makes them an offer and consolidates um the properties and has a plan to to make a profit off of what they paid for that all of the properties that are currently in that site that
doesn't happen every day and um it does put a certain amount of uh urgency into this process because uh the developer if they get a sense that their Vision their vision for for what they own is not
going to be um acceptable to the town and they're going to lose their shirt waiting for the town to decide what it would accept um on the site they're going to look for another owner and then we'll sort of enter into this cycle which is all too familiar of um
development being stalled um the prop proper is becoming you know worth less instead of worth more while we stall so I think we're doing the right thing I I think in fact if there's anything about tonight that I'm disappointed in is that we've moved it from Fall Springtown
meeting to fall my concern um such as it is is when I look at the current uh proposal the um the way this is evolved all of a sudden it's um you know very much a residential proposal with minimal
other than residential in it you know there's a hotel wonderful um there's age restricted um housing of course that's just a different form of residential and then everything else is residential so
what happened to the long-term goal of a lively area with retail and offices um you know and lots of what they call uh uh daytime uh uh activity um you know essentially we're we're
looking at a great big complex of residential housing from which people will come and go um but not an area of lively commercial activity so I I hope that somehow this evolves back to what
the orig original excuse me excuse me of the original version of the division of um of Hotel residential and Commercial um and and and uh that's going to require some more work obviously can I uh asked merth to
go back to can you go down to um I think you've got a slide there about where we're going next and then maybe one slide before that go ahead um okay so that's actually uh John you're right uh and one of the
things that uh that we're concerned about with the last version of the city realy proposal was that they had reduced the amount of commercial space and none of that but the in the particular way that they designed it um as as Carlos who's
on the uh on the community Advisory Group uh uh pointed out the way they designed it was very likely to made make it nonviable uh and so uh we're going back to saying okay we have to make some
changes here in the zoning that we offer in order to push um whoever whoever develops City realy or anybody else to um include more commercial uh and uh integrate it better the way they had
they were doing things is in order to avoid um digging down to create uh parking spaces they were basically raising raising the whole platform and that essentially dis disengages it from the surrounding area and we didn't don't
care for that so the zoning that uh I think will emerge from this uh uh the draft zoning that will emerge this will address that really important point that you've made absolutely okay that's good a concern that I have is that some
of the earlier versions that we saw from city realy were touting 9 million in Revenue growth and there is a slide from the last uh presentation to the uh chesten Hill West committee that it
basically shows how much revenue is generated from the residential portion and how much from the commercial portion and U essentially the residential portion when you factor in increased costs from services that the town would
provide is a so basically the new residential growth almost matches one for one The increased costs that the town would bear in terms of services the commercial side is what really generates the revenue so I'm concerned about this
uh precipitous drop in anticipated Revenue where now it would be from the latest iteration I believe was about 1. 275 million in uh new growth for the town and for for one of our final Frontiers that that worries there's a
slide that shows that I think would be appropriate to show it well actually I was going to ask clarification are you talking about the um example scenario that rkg presented as part of the fiscal impact model discussion is that's correct yes so that was an example so we we intentionally didn't want to plug in any
of the city realy numbers until we had the fiscal impact model finalized um and we got a lot of great feedback in terms of the assumptions uh from members of the community Advisory Group there's a of overlap between the advisory committee and our community Advisory Group membership so there's a lot of Rich insights into the Dynamics and the
town budget so we haven't plugged in any of those numbers to the fiscal impact model to get a sense of where that actually leaves us in terms of given the residential and the commercial proposed where does that leave us for um net fiscal impact well isn't that what the rkg model was and they had numbers so it
was so the the presentation discussion at the last Community Advisory Group meeting the fiscal impct model was in draft form so Eric was just giving an example of if you were to plug in these hypothetical uh example this is what it would get through the fiscal impact
model but there was a discussion of some of the assumptions baked into that that Community Advisory Group members had some very good feedback on that we're looking to address those um to finalize the fiscal impact model so we haven't run the city realy development proposal numbers yet all right would you agree
though generally speaking that commercial tends to raise far more revenue for a town than residential yes I would say that the the complexity and what we're trying to balance is that insatiable market demand for residential we had intended to move forward with a
mixed use rezoning um for the entire study area just from a good Urban Design principle uh but you know in order to get things to pencil out as we've seen with the city realy as the economic development Advisory board subcommittee has um learned in uh reviewing their
proforma model people are going to need the res residential component in order to get something to pencil out and you're going to need some additional residential density to make the ground floor commercial in particular successful so we're looking to balance all of these factors and I think we wanted to invest in developing the
fiscal impact model um to address the question and the issue that you're raising so as we move forward and we zoning concept and we can plug in development programs that would fit into that rezoning scheme we want to be assured that we're heading in the right direction in terms of achieving the
goals of net new tax growth well Meredith uh right across the street there is tremendous commercial 100% commercial mix there's retail there's restaurants there's movie theaters
um uh furniture store it's remarkable there's no residential there they get to pencil it out hug we can't pencil it out on our side I think there are a lot of factors that go into it this is also the point of the conversation where I start looking around the room for Sandy Silkk and Ken
Lewis I would just in in terms of factors WS Development owns that entire property from Hanah Parkway to Hammond Street um they purchase the property 10 years ago uh I think just those alone certainly
have impacts on a profor analysis and what you would get to pencil out since it's my first time up here Sandy silk 124 Arlington Road speaking sorry s silk 124 Arlington Road here in my capacity as a member of EAB I'd also say that in addition to the comments about um the
timing in which um WS purchased the parcels across the street the fact that they had operating revenue for a long time on those Parcels um and essentially land banked for quite a while the the cinema site for example um there's also
a significant difference in the um geometry of those sites right those sites are deeper um there it's a bigger site overall so if you were to take on a map um and overlay the sites you're you're kind of comparing apples in a
dump truck if you're looking at the street across um if you're looking at the old Omni Foods now Wegman's Center again diff there's a lot of different pieces at play there so we we need to look you know as we look at the totality
of what of we have we also and I know you you heard this um counselor um counselor sorry Mr waren I'm the counselor here I'll refer as M I may need counseling but I'm not a counselor you
were on uh the EAB call the other day and EAB is working uh to put together a commercial Forum to actually help all of us better understand what the viability is for commercial on the office side um because you're right there's some valid
points and it's very hard to not look across the street and say what are they doing over there there's also critical mass right so there is something of they've created a shopping district a Lifestyle Center because it is a single owner and they can manage the merchandising mix and control the rent
so all those things are factors so C I think the thing that you that that I'm going to focus on what you said that they you know they they've land banked that they've had the land for a long time so there therefore they could do it economically perhaps City realy overpaid for what they got and therefore they're
trying to overbuild for what we need because that's the only way they can pencil it out and to address that point part of our analysis on kind of looking at what if you only Built under the existing zoning we actually wrote out the land value in one of those scenarios
to kind of address that question right was there any number that could have been paid to make something viable today because yes the basis matters um but it's not it's something that at least under eab's role we've been trying to
ignore that because it's not the town's job to make sure that the and I say this as a developer it is not the town's job to make sure that the developer is whole it's the town's job to make in my opinion to make sure that we are providing zoning that meets meets our
needs and so that's kind of where EAB has tried to be a guide using the expertise that the members of edap Bring to can I can I add that the um assess value is about 50% higher than what they
paid okay so they got a good deal perhap maybe maybe and just to be clear so that Sandy so you understand like I'm I'm not opposed to the the site being up zoned like that's that's not my issue here the issue is that we're we're reacting as opposed to Leading that's what's going
on for me so okay um thank you Meredith thank you and thank you Sandy so next ground floor commercial incentive welcome back that's Meredith
right again this is just a presentation and discussion of uh of uh the draft ground floor commercial incentive standards uh we're not going to be voting on this but uh this is just presenting where we are where we've gotten so far
pardon me uh in two weeks time is um because the your your uh guidance to us was to come back here present it to you have a public hearing and then go so this is this is the initial presentation and then there'll be the public hearing
perfect great so I'm back Sandy so 124 Arlington Road here in my capacity as a member of the EAB working group that worked on the ground floor commercial investment program um you may recall that we were here a few months ago in um
I believe it was July um before you so we this um by way of um just reminding everybody where we've been the ground floor commercial incentive provision was approved at town meeting um and then the
select board was given a directive to approve actually the guidelines um for implementation of the G what we refer to as the GFCI we previously came it was bifurcated into two pieces one piece for the Harvard Street zoning which was
fully approved by all of you after um presentations and conversation um and so we are back here for the second half of it which is to expand the approval to include um the GFCI across all of the commercial districts within the town um
as was approved at town meeting so it's really the guidelines for that um this is pretty straightforward in my opinion you may not think so I'll be curious but essentially what we have looked at as um did I get that right so what you're
gonna find as I go through the presentation is this is essentially just duplicating what we did for Harvard Street and matching up the rest of the Town to what the Harvard Street zoning is specifically to these commercial areas so we we're not going through the
whole um bit all the background presentation that we did before um we can come back and refresh memory if that's necessary but essentially tonight we just wanted to hit the highlights and identify where the the true change is as opposed to going back over everything
that was already approved um just as a reminder for everyone the ground floor commercial incentive um has sets a sets um guidelines for Baseline tenant improvements and uh landlords will implement those Baseline improvements or
set aside dollars to cover those improvements in exchange for doing so under the terms of the guidelines the developer May then um realize a high what I refer to as a higher level of affordability in Li of the town's 15%
inclusionary at 50% Ami the developer can provide 15% affordable units at 70% Ami so the benefit to the developer for for doing this work on the ground floor is that they get um higher rents in the
affordable units upstairs but they are still fully affordable at a different level of affordability which we also think helps um helps diversify the affordable options within the town um other things within the guidelines it
specifies minimum dimensional requirements um and this is just reminding everyone that it's not town meeting it's the select board that will approve the guidelines and the standards and guidelines are enforced by The Building Commissioner as if it's part of the zoning
bylaw um again we came before you in July and and got approval on Harvard Street the other mixed use districts were to be approved by March 1 which is why we're here at the beginning of February so just we felt it would be important to kind of highlight all the
areas in town that would be covered by this so the areas in Orange are identified as the areas that are eligible for the ground floor commercial incentive the the area of Harvard Street is already is highlighted in here as
well there's a few Oddities I'm just going to call them out um that technically qualify for mixed use zoning um over kind of in my neighborhood in South Brooklyn near Su and near the transfer station those are really industrial areas but and they are
town-owned but technically they would fall under this if those areas were ever to be redeveloped veloped um but you can see the orange areas are highlighted truly the the only amendment we're we're recommending between what
was previously approved for Harvard Street and what we're asking for approval on now is that the um for purposes of any developer wanting to utilize the GFCI the commercial space must be at least 30 feet deep the
current bylaws require 15 feet and that's for 60% of the frontage and the reason for this is we're trying to incent developers to help support a more vibrant retail experience in these commercial districts and to do so we
want to make sure that we're providing kind of Market acceptable retail space whether it's restaurant you know I'm not defining what that commercial use is but that it's it can really it will actually work as opposed to something that you might have inherited from a previous
generation project um it's a best practice Nationwide it's consistent with what we did at Harvard Street um the by the current bylaw is not really um market Standard today um and we did socialize this with several developers
several um retail operators um as well as some investors and no one expressed concern about that and then this really just kind of highlights the reciprocal benefits um again as Meredith said it's always hard to read a slide with a lot of numbers on
it but the gist is that um there is there is a differential in rent that uh a developer will receive for 70% Ami units versus 50% Ami units that's the that's the incentive for the developer that they get in exchange for this I've
referred to it as an infrastructure investment in the base building um that we believe will help incent of um a variety of retailers and more independent operators um who may have less experience with buildout to move into these types of
spaces and lastly um we know you're not voting tonight but one of the things we really want to kind of make is that we would we would recommend that the select board ratify the use of the GFCI standards across the towns mixed use districts and really kind of again
highlighting that that the real change here um for the townwide zoning is just about the equiv physical size requirements um I think Maria melli may be online she may not be but Maria has directly been kind of on the front lines
as she always is with folks pursuing zoning questions Etc um and there has been some interest already in the GFCI along Harvard Street we have nobody has kind of gone all the way through the process it's too early for that but if there are questions about where we are
and what interest there's been I just wanted to highlight that Maria is available to answer those right and I believe that's yeah that's the end right um Sandy I wonder if you could go back to the slide about the 60-foot setback it's not a 60-foot setback it's
a it's basically requiring that the commercial space be a minimum of 30 feet deep for 60% of the frontage because what we what we want to do here is make sure that these spaces are adding to our commercial districts okay I misunderstood and I'm very glad that I
that you corrected me because I was concerned about something y oh yeah I just so s you may not be Maria probably needs to answer this question but um so these are I completely agree with this this is great but would we need a a zoning change no we don't need to
submitted to no it's already been approved by town meeting so that was part of the Warren article do you remember when I thought there was another I thought Maria said there was something else in another Maria's on did we ask hi yep I'm sorry that my video is um not enabled but I I am here um could
you just clarify your question Paul yep Maria so um and I thought you answered this for me at uh when I asked this at EAB um and I thought the answer was so I asked about the 15 to 30 feet yeah and I thought the 30 the 15 feet was somewhere
else in the zoning bylaw that we would need to change because it wasn't within the NBTA zoning right so to to clarify if you look under use six and this is outside of Harvard Street you'll see in us6 that there is a requirement of the
15 ft um minimum for 60% of the frontage um we're saying just for the purposes of the GFCI you need to have the 30 feet so you don't have to go to town meeting because you're not changing the bylaw it's still 15 feet if you don't use the
incentive okay thank you that's make it clear thank you m David you have your hand up yes just regarding the change from the uh 15t depth to 30t is there any concern that that might actually discourage people from using this
incentive if they're not quite willing to fully commit to the 30 but maybe they would with 15 to 20 we don't believe so and because that was as you may recall before we came in July we had pretty well socialize this with Brokers with existing operators
with developers um and even investors right and one of the questions was do you see any I'll call it a fatal flaw in what we've proposed here um and the brokers in particular felt that you know they they want spaces that they can readily market and Lease up and they felt that the 30 feet would help make
those spaces more marketable so the sense was that this would be this is a welcome change okay any other questions let's thank you thank you for your time thanks next uh Warren articles
um and Melissa I'm sorry Melissa G is um there she is well you're gonna lead us through this uh this part of the agenda sure so
um the warrant is going to be closing on um the 20 uh sorry in two weeks warrant will be closing on a w I believe it's on a Wednesday the 26th thank you um and the
board typically has this item on their um agenda as a way to um discuss any potential warrant articles that you may be working on um that you're looking to have board sponsorship whether it be through committees or or other avenues um I'm not aware of any that the
board specifically is is going to be filing um I'm trying to keep a running list to see what we have coming in um but typically we have this item as a as a way to kind of make sure that people are aware before the warrant closes of any other work that might be going on um
in addition uh last week you uh heard from representative AO they gave the status of the home rule petitions and you have his memo in your packet that describes the status of all those home rule petitions so this was just another opportunity for the board to kind of um
close that out whether or not you want to take any further action or um whether or not you're okay with where things stand so just uh opening it up for the board okay um Paul I just I want a clarification so the refiling the uh
home rule petitions is that part of this discussion now or is that another agenda item yes this disc this discussion oh it is this discussion y okay this part of the um Warren article so I do I have a little bit of comment I guess I wasn't I
was thinking this was um something different but I did want to talk about the uh the home rule petitions and I have thought probably too much and Too Deep about this issue but I have but I do want you to know I
did spend uh time on it um and I just need to find my notes if you'll be able second actually they probably on my computer at home so here's here's the thing that I'm I'm wrestling with um there are um a number of climate
oriented articles uh that were filed um and I'm now the liazon to Zab um and each one of those I feel except for one um I feel pretty strongly that
we should probably refile them um uh for a whole host of reasons and speaking with State repo he shared with me that that the one that was about aggregating meters or something there was an aggregated meter charge um he said that the 2024 climate
bill that the state legislator P legislation passed uh passed that um it included a portion of of what was actually in that home rule petition um and so you know he thought
perhaps um it might make sense to have Zab or staff look at that to see if it should be if it needs to be changed because the state legislature already covered a portion of it so if it does need to be changed You' have to go back to town meeting but the other um the other
articles the other Zab articles um and I think we got an email from Kathleen scandin about this um I would Advocate that they be refiled um and then and I'll be honest with you I you know I didn't support the
other articles uh rent control or um the uh rank Choice voting personally and frankly I think one of two of the Zab articles I probably didn't not support but I feel on a principled basis it would be strange for me to say we should file the
Zab ones but not the other ones um the rent control and uh and rank Choice voting because I don't know I don't I don't feel like I should be in a position of picking winners and losers because I said on the board uh town meeting did vote in favor of these
things and I think we should afford them the opportunity to go to the state legislature and who am I to say no so the only one that I would suggest we maybe hold off on to and we we have time we don't have to vote all of these um is that one that has to do with a aggregated meters and see if it still
makes sense to file it as is because I think they took some action so that's my view I'm sorry Mike yeah I uh I agree I think the principle that we need to follow is the town meeting voted these and um it's our job
to listen to town meeting at least most of the time uh and certainly when it comes to uh home rule petitions uh unless the we think there's something you know um uh terribly wrong with it uh I I
think we we should follow their lead but haven't haven't these been submitted to the legislature rejected or not acted on it depends on well there's quite a long list that Tommy has put together and he tells us where something has gone and
and as a practical matter something as he says can get to a third reading and still not get anywhere because it doesn't have enough traction um so there's quite a range there there's some things that never got to you know were just set aside for study which is
another word for forget about but the ones that really had a chance were passed into lawar I had asked you know I had asked Tommy this specifically does the status mean anything the stage that it got to and he said no you shouldn't read into that the the ones
that passed p and the ones that didn't they didn't they didn't get there but you shouldn't read into that any particular acceptance or willingness of the legislature to deal with them there's a whole million reasons why they they made one way one way or the other doesn't right right David what Tommy
also told us though was that you only get to resubmit twice without going back to town me meeting so I think we certainly want to winow the list on that basis uh beyond that I agree with Paul and Mike that whether I agree or
disagree with the uh warrant article that uh led to a home Ru petition being recommended for the select board to send to the state legislature I think we need to respect the will of town meeting uh so I would support resending the home
rule petitions that are still eligible for consideration without going back to town meeting so so send them to the legislature second time right and I would only suggest Bernard that that one that Tommy said a portion of it has already was
incorporated into the climate bill in 2024 there's another some portion of it that wasn't um it wouldn't make sense to just refile the same thing because they've already taken care of it we may want to have someone look at that and of course we could vote it in a couple of weeks but someone should look at it and
find out whether it needs to be refiled or not okay if we don't know that the answer to that that at least should go we should wait we should pause that's what I'm saying that's what I'm saying which one is that it's the it's the aggregate one
is it um what's the number or how's it s285 s285 okay the warn article 23 of November 20 2022 that's 3 years
old or two and a half I guess um okay so we're going to get more information on that one so what what what other ones do you want to sub resubmit to the legislature all the ones that say that you know resubmission whatever is eligible there's everything well they're
listed there on the table in the appendix the list says I have it yeah requires select board re resubmission or something there's four or five so let's uh go uh sorry I I've been U hoping to
get ready to make a couple of suggestions um I because I I'm not uh totally on board with um all of these and I'll tell you why in a second on on a few of them um that you know I think everybody's got
the right idea which is you know why should we stand in the way of the will of town meeting but um there's a couple instances where things have changed dramatically IC Ally and there's at least one instance where the will of town meeting was very weakly expressed
wak um so uh the three that I think we can sort of do nothing about just leave it alone um uh one is uh rank Choice voting I you know I just think that that
impulse has pretty much um flagged it it uh was not not enthusiastically voted by town meeting and um I think it's one of those ones that is not going to go anywhere in the legisl and we could spare Tommy the trouble of having to um
fight for it um authorized rent stabilization uh was a very narrow vote it was like by a five vote margin and a lot has changed since that vote was taken uh and we're sort of facing
question about whether that would drive away um development from Brookline um we're facing sort of changed attitudes towards that um in some other communities uh and we're also facing some very in maybe creative is the best
word to describe um approaches to it that um weren't sort of envisioned in what town meeting voted so I think town meeting deserves a a chance to take a second look at this before we go to the legislature and say this is how Brookline feels about rent stabilization
because I think the vote was so narrow and circumstances and other ideas have come along um in a way that might change how town meeting votes when they get a second bite at the Apple so I wouldn't submit that one and then the one that's I hope isn't too controversial but I
suspect it will be I I don't think we should resubmit um impose a real estate um transfer fee um in large part because a lot of effort went into adopting um a community preservation act
for Brookline we succeeded in doing it and we always have the option of going from 1% to something higher than 1% um on the community preservation act and from a revenue perspective and from a housing incentivizing
perspective um that can get us some money much faster than fighting for a real estate transfer fee in the legislature um and I just don't see the point in burdening our our legislative delegation with fighting for something
that they're probably not going to get at this point which one's the real where's that one that one I don't think is actually eligible right now for refile it would have to go to back to town meeting well I I apologize for not making that distinction yes um we would have to be
the initiator of taking it back to town meeting again um you know I'd be you know I'd be interested uh to have the discussion if um someone else wants to take it back to town meeting but um I'm not even sure it was at our initiative
that it went to town meeting in the first place okay so uh I um first of all I think rent control is a really terrible idea uh and I voted against it in town meeting but town meeting by whatever majority by votes
vot majority is a majority I we all agreed with that in the past when it came to national elections um uh so I think as I say I think it's a terrible idea and I'll Stand I'll if it gets to a legislative committee and there's an
opportunity to testify and say that I would do that but um just the same I think we should um we should refile it with regard to real estate transfer fee versus CPA CPA is applied uniformly across the town to all of the properties a real estate transfer fee only is
collected at the point of a gain being monetized right um and so if you're looking for an opportunity to get money when people actually have it in their pockets that is the real estate transfer fee whether you agree with the idea or
not it is um a much more Progressive for lack of a better term Progressive in ter in economic terms no I'm not so sure but it's but it guys it's not on our it's not on our list tonight to do any take any action well if it's not on the list then okay I'm not looking at the list right in front of me I'm responding to
John wait I thought you said it is on the list but not well for town meeting approval you'd have we'd have to resubmit it to town it's in that category of we would have to go to town meeting and ask for approval but it it wasn't our initiative in the first place okay all right if if it's not a matter
of I'm beg you pardon if it's not a matter of something that can be resubmitted then I agree with you yeah okay so uh how do you want to deal with this why don't we go through the ones that we can resubmit and just vote do one at a time or you want to do
them as sleep do you mind if I mention one more no I guess I don't have to mention one more I mean as a perfect example of how town meeting doesn't always vote the same as the last time it looked at something and I think Tommy pointed this out when he was here um the
16-year-old vote uh was one that you know Tommy was asked to advocate for um but then it turned out when it went back back to town meeting a second time town meeting um declined to ask for it to be uh sought in the legislature so okay
time meeting can change its mind so let's let's start with warrant article 16 November 2023 authorized rent stabilization um does anyone want let's just vot who who who wants to submit that uh John do you the question
is who does anyone want to submit it to meeting the the motion is to send a local approval letter for uh uh authorizing rent stabilization article to the legislature yep move okay uh wait a minute excuse me I'm lost because I
thought we just agreed that is it which which one is this rent stabilization oh rent stabilization I'm sorry um yeah uh thank you that would go to the legislature sorry so so who wants to do that John uh no okay um Mike yes um Paul
yes David yes oh okay no um okay it's going to the legislature uh rank Choice voting uh John no U Mike I was the leaz to the
rank Choice voting committee yes Paul yes David yes and chair votes no um betterment Loan program um for the funding of electrification initiatives um
John yes um Mike yes um Paul yes um David yes and I supported this um back in the old days so I'll say yes to um authorize amendments to Brooklyn's
Community Choice aggregation plan do do we even know what these this about is this is this is is this the one that has the multiple meter charges I know hold on okay so we're holding that we and we'll get more information who's
going to get us this information are we asking Melissa to do that we can pull it okay so we we'll wait for that authorized green zoning bylaws and regulations so what what is that about before we
vote I had looked all these up and they're on my computer at home um I actually had a whole document um I don't have the language FR me but I think that three of us here have expressed that regardless of our own personal opinions regardless know anything about what the correct because town meeting town
meeting decided that they felt this should be a home R petition they made that determination despite uh admonitions that unless a home roll petition is rooted in something that's truly unique to that particular Community it's very
unlikely to pass and I'm in agreement with that sentiment and I have voted no on most of these Warren articles as an individual but by the same token from a democratic perspective I'm not comfortable saying that I'm going to ignore the will of town meeting so regardless as to what it was it's not a
democratic operation we represent our constituents and you know it's us it's for us to make our judgment as to what makes sense I have I I actually found the work I did um this afternoon I stuck it in my folder uh so article 25 uh one
article 25 was a ition for a special act regarding green zoning this article proposed authorizing the town to implement zoning bylaws and regulations aimed at promoting environmentally sustainable development practices sounds pretty
good okay John yes hi uh yes uh Mike I'm not sure this one actually means anything but yes uh Paul yes David yes and because it doesn't mean anything um okay how about this meth imposed
methane emissions we know we know article 26 was a petition for a special act regarding methane emission search charge the article proposes authorizing the town to impose a SE charge aimed at reducing methane emissions so basically there's a sir charge on your gas bill that goes
into a fund that can then be used for electrification right hey John do you you agree with that yes okay uh Mike so I I happen to think it's not a very good idea but I have to vote Yes okay Paul and I believe I voted against at the town meeting and I caught
hell for it so but I'm still gonna say yes David yes I'm gonna assert my agency and say no okay so that's uh we made those decisions all right we will have to live
with them well there's more more there's more to the list though yeah those are all the ones that you can send back yeah yeah except so we'll come back with more information about 1285 oh okay because there's this whole set of ones that we would have to go to
town meeting for yeah those those are ones that failed twice oh yeah let let's let town meeting if town if somebody wants to refile those and bring them back to the town meeting so suddenly you've changed to oh no no they if they if they want to file it this is a matter
of of of listening to what the town meeting wants to uh do and is still eligible if something's not eligible there's no I'm not particularly interested in refiling and insanity is defined by same thing over and over and expecting a different result if we go
back to Tel meting and say reauthorize the same thing to go back to the legislature I mean we can be insane once but to ask to meeting to be insane twice is it's bad being insane once does that apply to tax for low and modern income that this meeting is over
I I actually have a related question so we were docketed to also address warrant articles and potential warrant articles that the select board might take up yeah so a question that uh I have for our Town Administrator my understanding is that it is possible to uh have a bylaw
that would allow for public use of private Lots During certain designated times could you elaborate on that yes so the city of Cambridge did this but I was doing some research into it um we would be nowhere near ready to do it this town meeting unfortunately the the concept
the actual language behind that required amendments to both their zoning code and their regular Municipal ordinances and it was very much on a case-by Case basis I can circulate The Memo from their head of um Public Works to the uh their head of planning sorry to the um to the
select board but it's a fairly indepth process that required a lot of zoning work so I can't I wouldn't recommend taking up that article now given the bandwidth of the planning department um but what I can do is send that information around to the board and talk
to the planning team and see where we are on that we also have plenty of time in the sense that this is a response to the possible lock of lock loss of parking spaces that will happen for some significant period of time and I will say the other part of this is the individual lots that we control for
example the parking lot here at Town Hall the municipal Lots we don't control what the schools do but a lot of Driscoll um those are areas where we could do spot work um potentially without necessarily having to do the global but I do think that you know I do
think that that Global um concept is something that's definitely Peak Interest in the community and we want to so so how would that work would would we put meters in in it basic it basically lets private
lot own owners rent out charge out charge and rent them out similar to the arrangement that's with um um we have with the garage um in cool corner so so basically they'd be Renning them out to for example employees of businesses yes
it wouldn't be Shoppers or there'd be public parking could be public parking certain so chess we do have there are private laot owners that currently lease spaces right so I mean it's not much of a difference right it's you're leasing it for an hour this is this is the thing
is that you know when Cambridge did this there's a there's just a huge amount of zoning work that they had to undo and then redo um it's also a matter of saying of being able to the town being able to direct someone to allow this priv yeah that's different have we had
conversations with the owners of private Lots about them willingly making such Arrangements I don't know the answer to that I can ask the planning team but I think you know not yet in all probability right I think my the answer to that is probably except in specific
projects not yet has been a global conversation are there any other Warren articles that have been under early discussion so there are a couple articles that we're that one you know the big thing that's going to come up this time around that I think is going
to be helpful is with the transition to the ecode it's my hope that there's going to be one um big uh Omnibus uh correction of the bylaws um and once that under the clerk's office so the clerk's office is hopefully going to
submit that uh and once that happens and we get the ecode together I think it's going to be much easier to identify some of these things one of the things that's been on my list for a little while as a potential thing to bring back to the board is the noise bylaw um tightening
up the Noise by law there's some language in there that's vague making it a little clearer whose responsibility is to provide notice um and all of that um but other than that there aren't a lot of um there aren't issues that we identifying that need Warren articles to
correct uh and is what we typically want to do is create situations where Warren articles provide uh broad flexibility and then the um there's a narrower um there's a the the the warrant articles are broad enough to provide for
regulations and then the regulations which you implement provide for the flexibility to implement those articles I'm sorry there is one other thing that Town Council reminded me of um adopting the municipal hearing officer statute um there's an opt-in statute that allows you to appoint a formal Municipal
hearing officer to hear certain matters right now some of those things are heard by the select boards oftentimes you designate a hearing officer as you did with the Cannabis issue um it would be I think I I would recommend that the board
adopt that um um accept that uh uh M accept that uh state law um and allow you to appoint a Municipal hearing officer um on a formal basis and you know follow the state rules for that does Bo board adopt it or
seek approval of town meeting to so the bo the board would submit the article to town meeting town meeting town meeting would have to adopt it and there there is one thing that's been on on my mind and there's it would take November or next may but just general we've talked about notification yeah General
notification about stuff there's just you know how far you reach a Butters it's just and the mechanism for doing the me it's all over the so we could certainly there's opportunities for improvement I think there I think once the once the general bylaws get cleaned up this time around there's going to be
a real opportunity for us to kind of drill in as opposed to what we have now which is looking at of paper and not knowing what's been amended when it's not not a good way to do business all right okay so unless there's any uh post meeting public
comment um meeting in um Paul there's there is one thing I want to mention to you about chest Hill and