[Music] Test test test. The Sound. [Music] What's that? We're all set to start. Okay. got home from baseball and my son my son
goes, "I want some water." He goes, "Where's your water bottle?" He goes, "I left it on the bench." So I'm like running back to the baseball field. I'm like I'm like, "I told you to go get it." He goes, "I found a baseball instead." I'm like, "Oh my god, we'll be starting in just a moment." To do something. I'm like, I trusted you. I don't know why. I found a baseball. I
didn't need my water. computer. I didn't know if you were waiting for my queue, but I already turned it on. I know. We're waiting for um for Josh Morris. Okay, great. Becky just stepped away. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we can go. Okay, we all set here. Yes.
Okay. All right. Good evening, everybody. So, uh we're here for the uh uh for public meeting of the Danver's uh planning board. Uh this tonight it's um May the 27th, Tuesday, uh 7:02 PM. And
so um thank you all for for coming. Hope you all had a good Memorial Day uh weekend. And so um why don't we begin again? Just to introduce myself, my name's uh Lewis George. I'm the I'm the chair. I'm I'm joined here today uh by
Jean Hartnett, our clerk. Uh and by our member Michael Doulus. Uh Jim Sears will be participating remotely this evening. Uh and our member Tim Spiddle will not be in attendance uh this evening and we are joined by uh Josh Morris, principal
planner with the town of Danvers. Okay. So why don't we um so why don't we begin first of all and so just for uh and I I notice we do have a number of of people in the audience. So, I just wanted to um so, you know, please please be seated.
And um just to give a a rundown in terms of what we'll be we'll be doing today, I'll be reading the um the first item on the agenda. Uh and so then following the uh following the uh reading the agenda, I'll turn things over to the applicant
who will be giving a a presentation. Then it'll come back to the uh to the members of the board if we have any questions or comments of the applicant. Uh then this is a public hearing. So we will entertain um uh you know questions or comments by members of the audience.
So just please make sure to to to raise your hand so you're recognized and you'll be asked to go to the podium, introduce yourself, um state your address for the record, uh and then direct any questions you have uh to the chair. Okay. So, why don't we uh why don't we begin then? Uh, first of all,
just before we we start, I think we just want to do I I did introduce Jim Sears, but I just want to do a quick sound check to see if he's to see if he can hear us. And we can hear him. Jim Sears, can we hear you? Josh, is is his um is his mic muted or
is it on? No. No, it's on. No, I think I can't see anything wrong on my end. Okay, I could also potentially call him on my phone and do it like that. Or we could. Yeah. So if we have a problem that way or you could also dial in the number as
well. Jim Sears, can we hear you? I can hear you fine. We can He's mute. Does he know he's muted? He's not muted. Oh, I was looking at JM. Sorry. Yeah, I took it off. Okay. Can you go and put it put his put
it near the microphone? The microphone. Jim, can we hear you now? Can we hear you now? I can I can I can hear her. I mean, okay. So, he's able to hear us. And should I call the number instead? It might be worth trying. Yeah, I think that would be worth trying.
I'll do that. What's that? Yeah, if he can if he can mute himself on the MS teams and then call the number. Okay. Okay. Thank you for your patience. Josh, can we begin the What's that? Can we begin? Yeah. I mean, um, or do we want to do we
want to wait for him to call in? Yeah, I'd like to wait for him to call in just so we can make sure that he's able to communicate. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Okay. just trying to I mean we do have a quorum so I can so we can proceed. Sure.
Okay. Well, why don't we see if you'll call? Okay. And then why don't we why don't we begin with the first item on the agenda. Okay. All right. So, we're here for a um a public hearing on 83 Elm Street and five Essex Street. It's a
request for special permits, waiverss, and site plan review submitted by MJP Properties, Inc. and Johnson Construction Management LLC for properties at 83 Elm Street, map 51, lot
250 and 5 Essex Street, map 51, lot 249, pursuant to section 18.4B, 4 B quote density bonus requirements end quote waiver from table 181 section 18.5D.5A parking reduction methods on
street parking offset section 18.13 design special permits sideyard setback street facing transparency ground floor and section 4 site plan review of the zoning bylaw request of additional waiverss pursuant to
18.6E building setback and street enclosure figure 18 and section 18.8B10 outdoor amenity space types 10 pocket park/playground table 18-9 of the zoning bylaw said properties
are in the Danvers Town Center core zoning district. The applicant is proposing a redevelopment of the properties with a mixeduse building consisting of firstf flooror commercial space and 16 residential units on the upper floors and associated site
modifications. And so I do have um uh be ready to turn things over for the to the applicant. I do have just a just a a just a a quick preliminary because we do have a member who's participating remotely. any votes we'll have to take will be by uh will need to be done by
roll call vote. Um and also I did want to uh just make a note to the applicant as you're aware we do have we are down one member uh this evening. Um and then finally I just wanted to make one note just really just at the at the outset. Um it's just just out of full
transparency. Um I happen to be a patient of the Danvers dental practice. Um, I see no real or perceived conflict here. I can act in a fair and unbiased manner, but just want to put that out there just out of full transparency.
Okay. So, turn things over to um, Attorney McCann. All right. Is this Yes, Jim can hear. Can Jim hear? Okay. Can we hear from microphone on? Can Can Jim on chat?
Yeah. Can Can we just get confirmation that Jim can hear the presentation? Yes. And can you hear me with this microphone? Yeah. Okay. Yes, I can hear you. Yes. Great. Kim Sears is now joining. Okay.
There's technology. Excellent. Next one. Next one. Next one. Next one. Okay. Okay. Ready. Yes. Thank you very much. My name is Nancy McCann. I'm here on behalf of
the applicant. And with me tonight, uh, I have a number of, uh, members of our team that I'd like to introduce. And then, Mr. Chairman, what I'd like to do is give a brief overview of the project, then turn uh the microphone over to our project engineer who will walk everyone
through the plans, our uh project architect as well. We'll make a full presentation. Then we'll come back and I'll go through the zoning um requirements that we have, and then of course we'll be ready to answer any questions uh that you may have. So,
first with me tonight we have uh remotely because he recently had surgery is uh Rob Johnson with uh Johnson Construction Management LLC, one of the applicants. Um the Johnson Construction Management LLC is um a development
company out of Stonum with many years of experience uh with mixeduse developments focusing on uh on residential mixed use and multif family. Also with me tonight is Mike Panzerero, Danver's developer with MJP Properties, Inc. Those are the
two applicants. With me tonight from our technical team is Eric Zacerson, who is the project architect, and Giovani Federo, who is the project engineer with Federo Engineering uh from Danvers.
We also have uh a landscape architect on this project, Owen Wallenburgg from MDLA registered landscape architects. He is not here this evening, but his presentation will be made by um our project architect. Um the applicants uh
have a vision and for their business with regard to uh creation of s sustainable living and livable space that enhances the quality of life for the residents and contributes positively to the community. So that's been the the
foundation for this for this project. Um and uh Josh, if you could put up slide number two just to focus everyone. Um this property is a combined development area of 83 Elm Street and 5 Essex Street
in Danvers. Um total lot area is about 24,869 square ft with um frontage on Elm Street as well as on Essex Street. If I could have slide number two. Uh the existing condition slide. The uh 83 Elm
Street is a singlestory commercial building. Uh next slide please. uh built circa 1950. Again, it's a singlestory building. It has commercial space with a dental office as well as a vacant space
now. Had been a a bank um use on the property previously, but it is once again it's vacant. Five Essex Street is a commercial parking lot that has no particular uh screenage along uh Essex Street. Um the zoning district, as the
board knows, is um part of the uh character-based zoning district um which is relatively new districts, a combination of districts for the downtown area. This property is located in the character-based zoning district
as well as specifically in the DTC core uh zoning district, which encourages housing production for a variety of household types. Uh also encourages business development uh housing production and attractive pedestrian
areas and environments uh as well as open spaces and encourages mixed use which is commercial on the first floor and residential above. That is a specific building type uh and design
type that uh the zoning district defines again as commercial on the first floor and residential above. This project began uh development last summer and uh through the development design team's efforts, we've come up with what we
think is uh and certainly a lot of meetings with planning staff and among the the design team. We're pleased to present this project tonight that we think is very well thought out and is consistent with the intent and purposes of the uh character-based zoning
district and the DTC core. as a general over uh overview of the project and you'll see all of the plans, the site plans as well as the architectural plans, but I'll just give you a general overview. We um have a uh res uh commercial component uh for uh
use on the first floor and then two upper floors which will have residential use. The existing dental practice will remain uh at the site. It will be enlarged slightly, but it will continue uh to serve the Danverse
community. We will also have a remaining portion of the first floor building which will provide some additional commercial space uh in the area where the uh the bank space was before. Um
that's uh about 2700 square ft. Um the first floor will be expanded a bit to provide some of the amenity services for the residential uses above which will include the lobby entrance, some amenity space, bike storage, mail room, etc. And
you'll see those on the floor plan um as we proceed forward with the presentation. The second and third floors will have residential use. The second floor will have eight uh residential units and the third floor will have eight residential units for a
total of 16 uh residential units. The units will raise in range in size from about 1,200 square ft to 1390 square ft. Um I'm sorry, could you repeat again? Yes. Uh the units will
range in size from about 1,200 square feet to 1390 square feet, 1,390 square ft. All of the units will be threebedroom units. It's somewhat unique
in the downtown area, providing uh much needed family housing in the downtown. uh again meeting the purpose of the DTC core which is to provide a variety of different housing types to meet the needs of different household
configurations within the downtown area. The submission package just for the record so we get this onto the the record. The submission package that we've uh presented and filed with the town includes the special permit application form, the site plan approval
application form, the filing fee which was approximately $5,000, the project narrative which is detailed overview of the project, the form W, a full uh storm water report, civil engineering uh site
plan drawings, architectural uh plan set, phototric plan and lighting cut sheets. uh the landscaping plan as well as colored renderings. That entire package has been put together. It was reviewed with planning staff prior to submission
and uh has gone through quite a thorough review at the municipal level. Uh on sheet three of the architectural plan sheet is uh plan set is actually a blowup of the zoning uh compliance chart. So that that's very
apparent. Uh there are lots of zoning requirements within the uh DTC core and the uh character-based zoning districts uh that the applicants team has uh really studied and uh
and been as compliant as possible with regard to the site constraints for this particular uh for particular project. and the project has been designed to be substantially in compliance with the requirements uh subject to several
waiverss that have been requested. I will note uh a couple of items that within the DTC core zoning district this building is permitted a 10,000 square footprint. The proposed footprint is uh
8,32. So the footprint proposed is smaller than what is permitted within this zoning district by right. The building height permitted in this zoning district by right is four stories. This building proposed is three
stories. We are providing as required open amenity space for this project. The requirement for the open amenity space for this project is 15% of the development area. We are providing an open amenity space of
31.6%. So our open amenity space is double uh the required open amenity space for the zoning district and that consists of a pocket park playground uh unit decks as well as a roof deck for the
residents. Um, parking is provided both on-site as well as uh there is parking along the street frontage and we'll go into more detail about that, but uh the 16 residential units require 24
residential parking spaces. The commercial space uh requires 16 commercial parking spaces for a total of 40 required parking spaces for this
project. We have on site 41 parking spaces. However, some of those spaces are tandem and because they are tandem, they cannot be used for commer to meet the commercial requirement. So, we have
the required number of parking spaces on site, but because uh we have more tandem spaces, uh we have um 28 of our spaces are tandem, uh we are requesting a special permit to
allow us to count, not reserve, but to count three spaces along the street frontage on Elm Street. And I believe we have n there are currently nine spaces along the frontages of of this property on Elman Essex. We're asking for a
special permit to count again not reserve but count three spaces along Elm Street for the commercial use. And I will note that there is a large u public parking lot within 500 ft of this particular project.
The design of the parking provides partial uh partially covered spaces which is a which is is a desirable amenity. We have garage doors and landscaping um that will transform the existing open
parking lot into a a very uh attractive um area where the the parking of vehicles is actually blocked from view. And that's not something that we have now. Right now you see an unbuffered open parking uh commercial parking
lot. Uh we have a landscaping plan that is really very uh lush and and robust with a large selection of native plantings, trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses. And we also have landscaping provided on the roof decks through
planters and other landscaping elements. So that is uh just a basic overview of this mixeduse development. commercial use on the first floor, 16 residential uses above. And to get you into the details of this, I will turn this over
to Giovani Federo to walk you through the uh engineering plans. Thank you, Nancy. My name is Giovani Federa. Um I'm with Federa Engineering based in Danvers, Mass. Local company. We do land surveying and civil engineering. Uh to
start off with the existing conditions, site conditions, um two parcels located at 83 Elm Street and five Essex Street. It's just north of the Elm and Essex Street intersection and lies within the Danvers Town Center
core zoning district. It currently includes a singlestory commercial building with a rear parking lot as you can see here on the site uh existing condition site plan. There are currently four on street parking spaces along Elm Street and also
four uh on street parking spaces along Essex Street. Um excuse me. Can you tell me what page you're on here in the in the plans? This is sheet. My eyes aren't that good. C2. Thank you. Yes. The site is generally flat with a low
point in the parking lot where it collects storm water and it directs to the uh municipal drainage system. The surrounding properties include a mix of residential and commercial uses consistent with downtown Danvers. Proposed conditions
uh for the proposal includes uh adding two residential stories above the existing building while ma maintaining the ground floor commercial space with a little with a little bit of expansion. Um we can go to sheet C3 I
believe. Sorry. So this yeah this is good spot right here. Um, the parking lot will be fully reconstructed, incorporated landscaping and recreational areas around the building in the parking lot. The plan
includes 41 on-site parking spaces along with 20 bicycle parking. Um, and on street parking spaces will will remain unchanged on Elm Street. So we'll remain at four on street parking spaces on Elm Street and
it will increase on Essex Street from four to five on street parking spaces. Snow storage will be within the um it'll it'll maintain onsite and will be within the open recreational space specifically in the seated patio areas
when they will not be used uh during the winter months. Um, and it'll keep a m, you know, it'll maintain a nice clear path for the walkway. Can you point to that on the on the map since you're right? Sorry. Uh, you can go to the landscaping plan. Sorry. Yeah, since
you're I know I'm kind of Since you're right there, it would be good. I think I might go back. Sorry. Right here. So, uh, as you can see, there are patio seated areas right over here. Patio
seated areas right here. This will help maintain, uh, snow storage for the walkway that's leading to the rear and to the connecting to the front. Um, and potentially maybe use a little space of the playground area, especially while
not being used in the winter months. uh that would be you know sufficient for storm um for snow storage. So uh as for storm water management there will be a subsurface infiltration system that will be and we can skip pages. I'm sorry if
we go to page sheet C4 right here. So this is the site plan with utilities. Um, so there will be a subsurface infiltration system that will be beneath the parking lot will be located right
here. That rectangular area and that will capture and infiltrate runoff with an emergency overflow connecting to the municipal drainage system. storm water system has been designed to be in full compliance with Massachusetts
storm water standards and all utility connections to the building will be upgraded as necessary to support the expanded building use and I'm going to hand it over to the architect Eric Zachrien.
Thank you. Thank you. Um can we go back a slide or two to the other site plan? I know Mr. Fedor mentioned your name. Do you mind just repeating your name for the for the record? My name is Eric Zacherson. I'm an I'm the architect for the project. My firm is Context and we uh are based out of Boston and Charles
Town. Um next slide, please. Um which way? H which way? Like oh uh sorry, keep going um to higher numbers. So down the slide. Okay, let's let's stop one. Go up one
more. Uh one. No, here. So, I want to start with kind of orienting people because I think if you're not used to looking at plans, some of this uh might be a little bit confusing. So, the existing commercial
here in gray, Elm Street, Essex Street, and uh this is where we would have the two entrances for the residential, both the car parking and bike parking uh here as well as the uh residential entry here. So, in effect, the the residence is going to be entered off of Essex
Street. The commercial spaces will be entered off of Elm Street. Once um the uh a pedestrian or guest enters the building, the there's a lobby here and a little bit of amenity space at the back of of that kind of white zone here. That's our that's our
lobby. The parking uh you would enter um we have a 20 foot wide curb cut here to have both entrance and exit next to each other. That actually gives us one extra surface, one extra street parking space, which is one of the advantages, but also organizes traffic to be in a kind of
narrower zone so that uh pedestrians have one one less uh curb cut to kind of navigate. As you enter into the car parking, we've got 13 uh full-sized commercial uh 13 full-size spaces uh for the commercial use. Um behind that we
have the 28 um residential spaces which are going to be in uh or arranged in a tandem fashion. What's probably the most confusing about this is the building covers about half of the parking lot. So, this front portion here has about a
little over 5,000 square feet of covered parking. And then in the rear here, we have 5,000 square feet of surface parking, which would be fairly typical except for the fact that we're going to surround the whole thing with a privacy fence, a six foot tall privacy fence. So, we have a surface parking lot,
efficient surface parking lot here in the rear, but it is separated from our green space. It is separated from our neighbors by a six foot tall privacy fence. Next slide. Either direction. Okay. So, and I
wanted to kind of highlight this because if you were to cut a section through the building, you would see the existing commercial is this zone over here. We're going to build the new building over the roof of the existing building because we want to try and keep the dentist office uh operational throughout the entire
process. So, that that gives us a very tall first floor here. And then we're going to have the parking here in the rear the at this zone and then the lobby in the middle and up above that two stories of residential units. So that that's just cutting right through here
so that you can see the relationship of the commercial space, the lobby space, the parking and then the two levels of residential or flat above that. Next slide. So this is our uh our typical floor. Level two and three are more or less the same except for some of the um
impacts of the aesthetic of the uh the mansered roof that I'll get into in a minute. But as Nancy had mentioned, these are um 1190 or 119 1100 um 90 square feet uh to 3 thou 1300 foot
three bed two bath units. Each of the units has an outdoor space. Each of the units has a primary suite with a walk-in closet with a onsuite bathroom and then a second bathroom which would be used obviously by the other two bedrooms, the kitchen,
the living room which are in in all cases the kitchen and living room are arranged around the uh the decks along the street faces. We've inset those decks so they're not hanging out on the sidewalk. They're they're meant to be kind of a space that both
brings light into the unit, but also space in addition to the other outdoor spaces they have, but brings some light into the unit. And then also um it it uh is is private from the street. We don't want people to have to
go out there and na and kind of navigate the street or be uh um inundated by the sounds of the street. On the rear, the decks are a little bit more pronounced. Um, and that's just because we we didn't need to bring them in. We wanted we didn't actually want them to be too
dark. And so we we pull those two out a little bit. Next slide. So, as I said, the third floor looks very much like the floor below it. Um, you're going to see the same the same layouts. The only difference is that some of these decks are a little bit impinged by the the manser, but I
think that's going to be a real feature when you're up there. It's It's going to give you a sense of where you are in in place. Next slide. And then on the very top of the building, we're going to have a uh a 1500 square foot roof deck common to the building for these uh 16 residences.
There will be uh probably a couple of organized areas. What we're showing right now is planters on uh two sides to kind of also give it a sense of privacy. We're keeping it very far off of the uh the walls so that it also kind of feels secluded and huddled in the middle and
also obviously accesses the two uh staircases and the elevator uh and a single unisex toilet up there as well to to make sure that people can enjoy the space up there. So, pretty simple little small like I said 1500 square feet just barely bigger than the units. It's not a
it's not a huge uh roof deck. It's it's meant to be large enough that two or three groups could be up here and not have to be on top of each other and be be a little bit organized into different spaces. Um, next slide. Can I we go back to the landscape quickly? Um, go back up
the other direction of the landscape before we move off of the plans. So, the way the the landscape in particular, this zone right here is organized, and as uh Nancy mentioned, this is about 4700 square ft of green
space. Back here, we're showing a a play area, and that's because we intend for this to be a family zone. So we there's a play structure, legitimate play structure with legitimate builtout play area over mulch and a seating area adjacent to that for parents to sit and
and watch and and um hopefully have that communal uh space that um as a parent we all enjoy and get to know our our other friends who are h who have kids. Next to that there's a large green zone and then
a second uh seating area back here which would be pvious pavers meant to be able to be as um Gio mentioned it would it would be our where we would store snow during the winter but during the summer it would be that other space that's on the ground in addition to the space
that's up on the roof deck. Um, we've made a taken a lot of care to make sure that this is a lot of green space up against our neighbor and and buffering for both us and our neighbor. Just a clarifying question, that's all 4,700 square feet you said for the combined space. That's this zone here.
Yes. That does not include the decks on the on each on the second floor and on the third floor. We provide about 830 feet of decks on each floor as well as the 1500 square feet on the top. That's how we when you combine all of those together, that's how we get to the 31% of our site is
covered by is is um outdoor recreational space. With that, um let's go back down past the plans. Um past this, past this, past this. Okay, so go back to Yeah. So we looked
at the other thing is this is character-based zoning and we wanted to make sure that we were thinking about kind of how this is both the end because it is kind of the last building in this particular DTC zoning how it is um to be
uh a commercial a mixeduse commercial building in this uh idealized um zoning. So, we looked at some older photos of uh of Danvers, some of uh that are kind of on on the city's website and in other historic places. Next
slide. And you see it's often there's there's always been a kind of ornamental uh nature to the the older buildings. And next slide. Even kind of this one, which I love, is is it's pristine in in its kind of jewel like quality. It's got
a ton of detail in in every direction. Where's that building here? I don't think it's standing anymore. It's on the website. Yeah. Yeah, but it's on the historic it's on on the cover of the historic web um historic Danver's website. Okay. And so
I looked I tried to look up the address, but I'm not exactly sure where it where it was. Next slide. Pharmacy. That used to be a pharmacy. Used to be a pharmacy. Okay. Thank you. So, a lot of the the current commercial
buildings have a have a certain amount of character and and quite a bit of detail into them. And so, wanted to respect that as we try and figure out like what is the character of the uh the future of of downtown Denver. So, next slide also shows a couple of buildings that I love the the mix of uses that
exists kind of in in the core and it's it's a it's a classic um uh classic mix. And then the next slide I think shows some of what's going on right now. And it it's um this is a portion of High
Street which is not far from our building. And how do we um how do we build on something that that is kind of um a little bit empty like this. So next slide. So I want to show you black and white elevations which is not a the greatest way um to really appreciate how
the impact of a building. I wanted to start with kind of how we've looked at this from a detail standpoint. First, uh, this is the Essex Street elevation and then I'm going to dwell on the Elm Street elevation a little bit, but right here you see this is the existing dentist's office and you'll notice we're
leaving the windows where they are. The idea is obvious is that we're trying to keep that space in place. There are a couple other utility windows that we actually can't utilities and doors we can't close. But how do we make this first floor feel like it is something that is cohesive all the way to the
garage doors and a couple of um translucent windows that would be in parking, but make this feel like a live and active space all along Essex. And then how do we make two stories of residential above that feel both part of the uh the whole mix and at the same
time be something that is unique. Um so this is what we are kind of sketching on Essex and then I want to flip to the next slide where I can where we'll see Elm Street here. Again this is the dentist office and then this is the current the space that uh was previously
a Bank of America. We so in the this zone here, we are not adjusting the windows. We're we're kind of building around the window structure that exists and and the number of openings and we're using that to somewhat replace the window structure
that is right now kind of a strip retail feel that the bank has. And so we're actually one of the things that Nancy mentioned is we're reducing the number of windows or the amount of glazing on this space in order to make it feel consistent across the board. And then
above that, we have a kind of very classic detailed signage band separating the the commercial space down below with the residential space up above. And up above, we're going to use clapboard type siding, 7 in 8 or 9 in Hardy board
siding to uh give you that very uh very horizontal feel. And on uh the individual bays in between these uh recessed decks, we're going to do a manered roof on the uh on the ends, but leave the center the the corner piece as
that classic commercial feeling that sits in the in the in the corner. So again, this is the the entrance or the the the address of the uh dentist's office, and we've kind of tried to work from that to create
something that feels both um classic and uh and expresses a um a larger, bigger use. Here you see the rear elevation. One of the main things I wanted to point out here is that's the privacy fence that you'd be seeing. Instead of seeing a surface lot of parking, you'd see this
six-ft tall privacy fence. You'd see some of the open air parking beh above that. You'd see the amenity again if you happen to be able to get back there into somebody else's backyard. But we want to make sure we're showing that we're not drawing a front
facade and you're going to get a box in the back. This is something that we're going to wrap this this kind of language all the way around the entire perimeter because no matter where you are in that area, you don't want to see the back of this building. you want to see something
that's been treated with love and as a front. So, next slide. So, um this is a a rendering that we had. It's a little bit older, a little bit older in that we're we're kind of exploring some different color uh schemes. Um but basically along here
you see that Essex elevation, you see the residential entrance, you see the dentist office, you see the um other portion of the dentist office and the bank uh former bank here as well as the residential zones with these residential on level two, the manser uh expression
on the ends and that that block volume that says you know this is the important intersection. This is where the these two streets meet. Next slide. So, does this not have the color options? You do. Josh, could you pull up the
email that has the color option, please? Just because I know that was something that people had asked for and I'd love to kind of also show as much as Yeah. Thank you. So, do you want to talk about the the top
picture first or would that be helpful or the b the second? Um, let's go to the second one. Uh, yeah, because that's similar. But here you get to see how we are exploring. There was some concern about the building maybe feeling too serious, too drab. And so, I'm going to
step over here because I think I'm standing in a handful of people's way. Um, I want to make we're still we're looking at something that might have a dark base and a lighter upper levels. In this case, we're showing the manser as another color option. Um, do you have a
the other slide, the other color options on this uh email as well? No, I don't think so. Okay. Apologies for that. We have we actually this was the first of three uh color studies that we were doing in the in the last presentation, but suffice to say, color is something
that we're still working on. A lot of these things we are here to receive feedback on, but we um we are still trying to make this feel like a very much like an a downtown mixeduse building that is going to kind of make
this uh intersection feel prominent and important and and well loved. So with that without the color options I I have uh additional slides like this that I can talk to open space or or other questions but I think we were
going to um hand this back to N to talk about zoning. Okay. Uh thank you Eric. That was uh that was a really um I think comprehensive presentation both by Giovani and by Eric. Uh the development team has been
working on this plan for a long time. Uh but it's a little um complicated if you're seeing it for the first time tonight. So, I think Eric's explanation was really good as to the design of the building because it is a little different in that we have that garage
feature where we have covered parking and garage doors and that enter in and then uh open air parking in the back. Um when you just look at the plan, that doesn't really pop out to you right away. That that's what's happening. Um
so uh it's again it's a a project that we think has uh reflected the intent u of the characterbased zoning in the DTC core. Uh and we've worked within the regulations as best as we can and we do have some special permit requests which
are um just that special permits in that the bylaw permits us to request for certain things uh and gives the criteria that we have to meet in order to get those special permits. So, we have a few of those and then we just have a couple
of waiverss where we've asked for certain design elements uh that are provided in the bylaw which as this board knows the downtown um character-based zoning districts are extremely detailed and um and technical
and sometimes when you get uh that level of technicality and then you try to apply it to particular uh lots uh waiverss are needed to make the the project flow. um in an acceptable way to then meet the
other uh intents of the bylaw. So uh the zoning uh approval or relief requirements that we are seeking first is the special permit and waiver for the uh for the density. We are requesting 16
residential units um for this site again eight units on each floor. We have the required parking both for the residential uh use as well as for the um the uh commercial spaces on site. Um we
have uh and truly an excessive amount of residential parking and um the open amenity space. We have more than double the required open amenity space. 15% being required and we have
31.9% open amenity space. Uh so we think the uh the density that we're requesting is uh is appropriate for this uh location. We are seeking a special permit to allow us to count three of the frontage parking spaces um toward that
commercial uh space count. And again, that's required only because we have tandem spaces uh within the layout of the design. And and part of that is dictated by the the this board doesn't typically deal with irregularly shaped
lots, but we have an irregularly shaped uh development area here um that we are working with. We are also requesting a special permit to allow uh ground floor transparency of 16% on Elm Street and
27% on Essex Street where 60% is required. And we're noting that the first floor is primarily a dentist's office. So having 60% window space on a dental office is really u is it inappropriate?
Yeah, I'll say it's inappropriate. you don't want people walking by looking in at you when you're getting your teeth filled. So, uh, as Eric explained, we're maintaining the historic windows of the first floor um for the dental office
that's going to remain and then he has uh continued that element on to the the retail space at the other end of the building. So we think it's a reasonable not only a reasonable request but also a reasonable ask given the uh the types of
uses that are that are proposed here and the existing ground floor transparency by the way does not meet the requirements of uh of the district uh anyway. So uh we're actually improving some of that situation. Uh we are
requesting a special permit to allow the sideyard setback of six feet where 15 is required. The existing building is zero setback. So uh the new uh additional section um is 6 feet off of the lot
line, but that's stepped back from where the existing building is, which is zero. It's on the lot line. Um and then we are requesting a um make sure I get all of these. The next one that's it for the special permits and then waiver we are
requesting a waiver of 10 in on the height uh without a step back. So we are at 35 ft 10 in on the height of the building and uh the bylaw has a requirement of 35 feet above that you
have to step back and we're only above by 10 in. And the reason we're above um the 35 ft by 10 in is that we're maintaining as Eric said the existing uh commercial space which is already it's
higher than a standard commercial space. We want to maintain the dental office uh and the dental office use throughout the construction. So, um, that dictates our height because it's a little bit higher. And so, we're asking for a waiver of 10
in on that height. Um, and then the last uh waiver we're requesting is to allow 13 trees within the uh playground and pocket park area where uh 23 trees would be required for a general pocket park
area. But uh again, we think this is reasonable in this case because we have playground equipment and seating areas. So adding more trees would would limit the amount of playground area that we can have. And given the residential use
here with three-bedroom units, these are going to be family units. Um it's more important to have a good area for playground rather than adding some more trees in that section. Again, we're having completely enclosed um areas and
lots of buffering. Anyway, so that's our waiver our waiver list. It's really very um very minor uh for a project of this of this site. Um Turner McCain, just a real just clarifying question just in terms of the waiver in terms of because I know it's special permit you're
seeking in terms of number of units, but you're also seeking a waiver too. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. It's a special permit and then a waiver above. Okay, understood. Um the and you have seen that type of request and granted that type of request uh both on 17 Elm as
well as Damber's hardware project. We're both very similar. Um, in order to support our special permit request, we do have to provide um a a public benefit improvement, an
eligible public benefit improvement. And those are outlined within the zoning district, zoning bylaw, as to what an eligible public benefit um improvement is. and we are satisfying that by providing an one additional u affordable
housing unit. So this project with 16 units, again they're all three-bedroom units, would under the bylaw require two affordable housing units. the applicant in support of the
special permit request is uh adding to that a whole additional unit. So that this project will bring three three-bedroom family affordable housing units to the downtown area. That's a
very significant um public benefit improvement. Uh often for uh projects we see adding a bench or adding a tree or add we're adding and bringing to the downtown area a whole additional
three-bedroom housing affordable unit. Special permit criteria is outlined uh in the bylaw in sorry in my application uh project narrative. Uh I have outlined the special permit criteria. Uh for the record I will uh I'll just list those off that the
project uh meets all of the special permit criteria under section 18. The project is cons uh consistent with the purpose of section 18 in uh general by proposing Danver Square redevelopment with a permitted mixeduse development
with uh commercial first floor residential above on-site residential and commercial parking and abundant outdoor amenity space. The second criteria as provided in this application and the presentation and the plan submitted the project is consistent with
this uh special permit eligibility requirements. Number three, the social, economic, and community needs are served by the project, um, which provides active firstf flooror commercial space, retention of an existing commercial business that's been serving the Danvers
community for many years, and expanding housing choices by providing three-bedroom units. We have adequate safety uh for traffic flow, access, parking uh is all provided. Adequate utilities and public services are
provided. We have positive impacts on pedestrian comfort and safety are provided with screened parking. Um the screened parking areas as I indicated before and you saw pictures of the existing commercial parking space is wide open. No buffering at all from the
sidewalks. um fiscal impact including impacts on municipal services, tax base and employment are positive. The business space available provides additional tax revenue as well as employment options. Uh the existing commercial office is
being retained and expanded and the commercial units will add significantly to the existing tax revenue from this property. And finally uh and most importantly, this project as designed will not result in substantial detriment to the uh character-based zoning
district or surrounding neighborhoods. In fact, this development will provide revitalization to the area, new housing units, uh that are modest in size but accommodate family housing with three bedrooms, an attractive building with open amenity rooftop space, and
employment opportunities, all of which enhance the fabric of this neighborhood. uh site plan approval is required as a separate item. It's a separate application heard together um as this entire presentation and the development
plan consisting of the architectural plans, storm water management report um and the um the engineering civil plans. um all comply with the requirements of section four of the zoning bylaw for
site plan review as well as section four of the zoning regulations with the exception of the minor uh waiverss that we've requested. Affordable housing criteria for this project. Again, two affordable housing units are required are required
to meet section 29 of the zoning bylaw. and we are providing three uh three-bedroom uh affordable housing units. Transportation mitigation fee, always my favorite to talk about. This project will generate a transportation
mitigation fee of almost $80,000 that will be paid by uh by the developer applicant. $78,627. That's based on square footage. uh and that will go into the uh transportation fund uh that the town
maintains for improvements to the downtown area. However, that uh that is deemed fit by planning staff and others who uh make those decisions with regard to that uh that fund. In addition, the water use mitigation fee will be
determined by the water department and uh that will be an additional fee associated with this project. Finally, um this is a mixeduse development. Uh residential on the upper floors, commercial on the first floor, which is
exactly what the character-based zoning and the DTC core uh intended. Um, the applicant submits that this project has been thoughtfully and thoroughly designed to meet the intent and purpose and requirements of the CBZD as well as
the DTC Corps to bring an attractive redevelopment to Danvers which will provide three-bedroom residential units, maintain a long-standing dental office, and provide a new commercial opportunity uh for uh within the vacant commercial space and provides more than twice the
required outdoor amenity space. Um, thank you for allowing us to make this full presentation and we would be happy to answer any questions. Okay, very good. Thank you for the presentation, Attorney McCann. We'll u go to the members of the board with any
uh questions that they may have. I'll start things over with um Jean. [Music] Okay. Thank you for your presentation. Um, I have a couple of comments and a
couple of questions. Um, so I love the additional affordable unit. That that's always great um for us to not even have to ask you for that. Um, it's always on our list of things we'd like to see. Um, I think another one of our asks would be
to repave both of the sidewalks on um, Essex Street and Elm Street. don't think that was proposed. Um that is not part of our proposal. Okay. Um so take that into consideration. Thank you. Um I do like
that it's only two residential stories for a total of three uh rather than the four keeping it a little bit more of a scaled back feeling. Um I had a couple of questions on the parking. So there are 28 tandem spots.
That's correct. Um and there are 16 units. So does that give 14 of the units two tandem spots and then the other two units would be just one spot on the the full parking that's covered or where are
those other two units going to be parking? So yes, the the intention is that you would have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
tandem spaces. M we could in theory sell them two per unit um up and down and then either one of the units ends up um being out here or that uh four of the spaces are split between two or three
units because can't we not split tandem spaces between units, right? We typically don't. We typically don't. Okay. And for the most part, we wanted to adhere to that, but we also didn't want to put 32 parking spaces on here.
So there'd be two per two per um unit. Okay. Required parking is you mind speaking the microphone just so people can at home can hear. The required parking spaces um is 1.5 spaces per unit. So with 16 units that comes up to
24. So some units will have two and some units may only have one space. But if you can't split, right, two tandemss that are back to back, then how how does each unit have at least one parking spot
if there are only technically 14 double spaces? So sorry, some of some of these 13 spaces here, that was my question. because of because of that some of those can be assigned to the residential as well. We have 41 spaces who are only
required 41. Sorry. Um and then some of the parking along Essex Street, it it looks like there are only two that are listed as existing. Is there more than that currently? It's just not marked. So currently there are four. Okay. But
because the current curb there are two current curb cuts. It's space, curb cut, space, cur curb cut, space, space. Two of them are existing. Some others are moved. In the end, we end up with five instead of the four that exist today. Okay. So, you don't need to count all of
the street spaces towards the commercial parking. No, just a few of them. Um, and then I had a question on the landscaping. Um, so since you are under on the trees, would it be possible to substitute out some of the shrubs or
other plantings for trees along the border? We could. As you can see, there's a long stretch here of of tree space. Uh, we're currently feel like the 13 is really a good number for this. Okay. If we were to try and put 20 in
that that stretch, they might all be much smaller trees or they might not be as kind of bigger conventional, but it right now we're stretching it along here. We could bring it all the way down here if we had to. Um, that's why we went for the waiver because we felt like
this is a good amount of trees. It's not exactly what what's required, but it within that zone. We could also eliminate some of the other amenity space if we had to and just put more trees out here. Okay. But right now, this felt like the balance that I'm okay with that. Um, and then my other
question was on the turf. Can you explain what that's for? I don't really love seeing turf. Uh, it's just this zone here. Yeah. Um, it's partly because we don't feel like putting natural grass out here is going to be a great use of that space. We imagine um an amenity in
here that is probably a health club or something to that effect. The pinch point here, this is only a sixft zone. This is a 12ft zone. It's not going to be a great space out there, but we felt like it should at least look like something green. Now, back here where we have an even narrower zone, we're using
a ornamental stone, crushed gravel or something to that effect. It felt a little harsh to put that here where because imagine bringing a mower back here or bringing it through the space. We felt like probably better to just do something green and and quiet that
doesn't require a lot of maintenance. Is that going to be like open? Is there a door out to there? There is a door. There's a door here and there's a gate here and you could come around either way and be in it. We don't imagine people are going to use it for anything. We had we had at one point talked about putting a dog run out there, but um
right now it's just it's a green space in front of the Yeah. I mean, if you don't really anticipate people using it, I'd rather see some sort of lowmaintenance ground cover or even pavers just because the turf like it tends to degrade and then um you know
like shed plastic. So, okay, that's an easy change. We I'm sure we amendable to it. Um those Yeah, I think that's all I have for now. Okay, thank you. Sounds good, Mike. Um, thank you. And I echo Jean's comments about the affordable
unit. So, thank you as well. Um, that area we're just talking about, does follow up on that while we're talking about it. Did the town have any is that the electrical room? Is that for like transformers or is that like what's exactly in the room? Is the town have any issue? Do they need access to that all or is that for building only or it just feels like it's very limited back there for access? Not sure what you're
referring to, Mike. The electrical room that's right off of that. Yeah, it's right where he's pointing. Yeah, exactly. That's just it's part of the building. So, they can get to that. You said it was pretty tight back there. So there it's there's a three-foot walkway around here. You could also come through the building if you needed to. Um there's no access through the building,
right? Through the existing commercial space. Oh, there could be. Okay. Um so that was one thing I just quickly had. And then I just because we're talking about the special permits and stuff, I I have a I'm okay with a few of the things you
talked about. The the transparency thing to me it feels extremely heavy personally. So I don't know. I guess that's just a generic comment. When you look at the rendering, I feel like it's extremely heavy on the bottom with those in and attorney McCann, you mentioned a comment where you said it was improving
the situation that's there now, but I can't imagine that's the case if there's the Bank of America building has storefront curtain wall across that whole frontage. So, is that an accurate statement or is it So, I the transparency is being reduced. We
we talked about that. So, okay, we're we're not increas we're definitely decreasing it. We're decreasing it so that this is consistent with the the dental office. I totally understand the consistency. Um I think and obviously, as we mentioned, the dental office has been there for quite some time. I don't
know when. I don't know if anyone knows off the top of their head, but we're designing for a an office that is may not always be there. We never know, I guess. And so I'm a little concerned with how heavy I mean this rendering you're looking at that you guys had up here the base of
the building looks extremely heavy. I think the dark colors obviously don't help it but I think the transparency issue is a little concerning on my end. And then I think you guys used it looks like glass garage doors which I think probably increased your transparency which Yeah. which is another thing I
just I I know it doesn't seem like the right fit for this neighborhood. I know you talked about the context of the area and stuff and I don't know that this is a planning board thing but was there somewhere that the mansard roof was derived from. I mean I live right on the street and seems a little we did see a lot of sloped roofs and we saw a lot of
um shingles and so we we used the mansard in a way to uh be less of a kind of square blocky building but no there's no direct maners on the street. There's but there are a lot of um sloped roofs and so we wanted to get somewhere in between those two. Okay. Um, yeah, I'd
be interested to hear some comments. Um, maybe and then come back, but I'm good for now. Thanks. Okay. Um, Jim Sears, let's see if we can uh if you have any questions or comments, see if we can do this without an echo.
Jim, are you there? Let me Yeah, I know. I think he was on a he's on his he had called in with his phone, though. Um, I could I could call him if uh should be the bottom one, Josh. I think because that's muted still. But down the
second Jim Sears says Oh, you think? I think so. If not, I I can move on to my questions, but I I could be wrong. I could call him. Let me just call Let me just call him. Yeah. See if Yeah, because we want to see if he has any specific questions for the for the team.
Jim Sears is now exiting. Yeah. Yes. Um we were wondering if you had any comments so far, Jim. I do. Yes. Okay. So, I guess starting from the beginning, um what was the why is the
plan for 16 threebedrooms? Why did we not consider a mix of ones and twos? Why did we go for the three all threes? I think this is kind of a application of first impression at least as far as I can remember. Normally we have a mix you
know why are we doing why are we doing all these as three bedrooms? What's the rationale? So I can I can tell you the original rationale was um that we find that generally speaking and again just to repeat that just in case people had difficulty hearing from from home I
think the question was what was the rationale for the for all 16 units being threebedroom versus a mix. Yeah. And so what we tend to see in projects uh like this is just mute. You can mute Josh. Mostly
mostly two beds, one beds and a and a couple of mixed three beds or even two beds, one bed studios, um smaller units, more more profit quickly. Um and felt like there was not there was not a lot of threebedrooms in this area being
proposed being built. And so once we initially kind of looked at that, we decided that might be a market that we wanted to adhere to that try and provide familysized units led to us kind of emphasizing playground in the in that
area. Make try and think of this as a family building. And once we did that, it just felt like to if we made uh um them all threebedroom, we were better advertising the investment in playground stuff and roof deck space and treating it like a a building that would be full
of families. Mhm. So that that's the rationale that we started with. So let's talk about that for a second. Okay. Okay. So the idea is to have 16 families and they're three
bedrooms potentially. If we had say a couple with two kids, that's four per unit. That's 64 people. Are there going to be some, you know, parameters? Could we end up with a
situation where we have three single people move in and then they end up coupling up and having six people in a unit or we have, you know, uh, a couple with three kids, two same sex, one, uh,
you know, different sex. So, I'm just worried about the density with the invitation of the 16 three-bedroom units and how that can result in, you know, impacting, you know, the public parking, the existing
parking and the play areas very close to the neighbors. So, those are concerns in that area. How do you how do you deal with that? Are you going to require, you know, are you going to limit the number of adults? Are you going to limit the number of kids? I mean, how are you
going to manage that? I'm trying to think how to respond to uh Mr. Sears's question without getting into um same-sex households and stuff that really has nothing to do with this
board. Um, these are three-bedroom units. They are intended to be family style units, whatever that family makeup happens to be. I think he was referring to children like children in a bedroom, boy. Two
boys in a bedroom, one girl in another bedroom. He wasn't referring to couples. No, like children sharing rooms. Thank you for clarifying that for me. I appreciate that because I was a little shocked. Um, okay. Um, well,
I guess I still don't know how to answer that. We don't restrict that when we talk about single family homes. We don't restrict that when we talk about two-bedroom units. We don't restrict that when we talk about a single bedroomedroom unit. And, oh, are you going to have two kids sleeping on the
floor? These are threebedroom family style units permitted under the bylaw. Okay. I have a question. Are the parking spaces going to be assigned? That might help clarify. Um because if each unit has two
or one, then it would be like overflowing onto the commercial. They would be assigned. Okay. Okay. Other questions, Jim? So if you're if you
have three single guys move in and then their significant others move in after. So now you have six adults, you've got one car for that unit, one parking space perhaps or maybe two.
So I'm just I'm just trying to figure the math on the density. Whereas when you've got when you're offering one bedrooms, two bedrooms, three bedrooms mix, you can be somewhat comfortable that it doesn't get abused and it has
nothing to do with, you know, I'm just counting bodies is what I'm talking about. cutting, you know, if if the the goal is to, you know, fill it up and, you know, we're going to not really uh care about who moves in as long as they
got the dough to pay the rent, then, you know, I'm just worried about the maximizing the the space uh and the effect on the the density of of the space. That's that's that's a
concern. So moving from that, I also just have some concern a little bit about the uh open amenity space that you're counting, you know, uh these roof decks. Do we have a fence up there that's going to prohibit people who are
maybe having a good time from wandering off the area into the AC units or the edge of the roof? Uh are they allowed to stay up there all hours of the day, all hours of the night? This is in Boston. This is in Cambridge.
This is Danverse. And it's abuing a downtown a neighborhood. So that that's a concern. Uh the color of the building. I think it looks like we're in Ireland and maybe Dublin. I think it's a little too dark. Can we maybe do a pastel,
lighten it up a bit, you know, to kind of You don't see really dark dark buildings like that in in Danver. I can't think of any. Uh, so those are my my main concerns, but I'd love to hear from um the neighbors as well. Okay,
that's it for the moment. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Jim. Okay, I have Can you just confirm the amount of units allowed before we move on? 16 is what they're asking for. What's the Sure, Attorney McKinn, just in terms of the amount of units allowed, is it 13?
Well, best question. Uh, yes. uh by right is uh is 11.4 Four by special permit is 13.7. So we call that 14. Um and we are requesting 16. So 11 by
right, 13 by special permit. You're asking for 16, correct? Okay. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Yes. Got Okay. Um I have a number of questions. Yes. Okay. So let's sort of begin with um I made a bunch of notes here. So I'll see what we can do.
Um when it comes question about the parking and in terms of the uh and sort of picking up on on a question again of of in terms of you may have multiple people living in the in a unit may have who may have a vehicle and it could even be you know family you might have a you
know a kid who has a car. So um I guess a question is in terms of so the the units will be so the parking spaces will be uh I think you even said they they would be rented. Is that right? So, someone would pay extra on top of their rent for a space. They would be
assigned. I don't think we've uh we've talked about whether you're buying them or or whatever. They would be assigned though. Got it. Okay. In terms of the um uh and this is a question also. I I think you mentioned in the application that there is a a public lot sort of
across the way on Essex Street. Do you know if there's a time if those if that's a time lot? It's not. It is. No, it's uh within 500 ft. It's the next sure spot over. It is not the bank part the bank parking lot. Is there a time? I
don't believe that there is. There's not. Okay. No. Got it. Okay. So, that would potentially provide overflow if you had someone who was Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Um, a question I had though also is in terms of the um I
have some concerns as well about the the transparency as well. sort of picking up on the comment that was made earlier about the Dennis office and and I was wondering if if other options were looked to and the reason I'm thinking of for example the CVS in downtown Danvers on Maple Street has these big large
picture windows in the front that are blacked out. I mean because that that's if you go into the store that's where the that's where the checker counter is and so those are typically closed. So, I wasn't sure if the if as far as an architectural perspective, you looked at other options such as larger windows,
but during the course of the day, maybe there are plantation shutters inside or something. So, at least from the street, it looks more open, but you are um you know, and also provides flexibility where let's say 20 years down the road, the dentist office is is no longer
there. and it makes it without having to de to do a massive rehab of the whole building that you could still use that. So somewhere in there is a question. So and yes, we spent quite a bit of time thinking about this. Um the reality is
if you if we were to leave the existing glass storefront on the bank here um and this Essex Street elevation doesn't get to 60%. Right? we we can't even if we just touched nothing, we wouldn't get there. So, we would have to take some of this face of this building off. And on
Elm uh on Essex Street, it's even harder because we've got um four windows on uh I believe it's 90 ft of length. And so, we would have to shut down the dentist office while we take off the wall. And one of the things that we've we've been
asked a number of times is can can we keep the dentist office intact as it is? So the dentist office this is a question having also you know uh having worked in a building once where they were actually building a building directly next door and this disruption you know I mean is
is it is it truly and again good this is more getting to construction sequencing is it realistic that you would be continuing the dentist office during the whole time that work is done not probably not during the whole time but for the majority of it yes and that was something that the the dentist has been
adamant that we we do our best to do is try and keep the office as it is. Um, as Nancy mentioned, probably don't want to see more windows into the dentist office. Probably don't want to take definitely don't want to take the roof off of the dentist office. And that's
the the gist of the height is we're going to build completely over the top of it. Going to peel the siding off of the outer face and run structure down as we need to around the perimeter, but to keep the inside face of that intact during the the construction. Yeah. Because I guess the question was I mean
if ultimately the dentist if there is going to be a a cease of operations for a certain point that's going to be required by either for safety or necessity purpose then you know what additional time is it to potentially carve out some additional windows along the side. I mean that may mean does that
mean it's it's you know instead of being out of commission for you know for six weeks it's out of commission for seven weeks. No, it would be quite significant if we were to take a a wall of the building off and then have to rebuild it and then rebuild all the things inside of it that were attached to that wall.
It it would be quite significant. I can't speak to that and unfortunately Rob isn't here. He's the construction manager. Okay. So again, that's a that's a concern I have in terms of whether or not and I understand you said you've looked at, but just having seen other examples where you do see a large window and again even maybe that window may not
be you can't see through it at any particular point in time, but it's still you know at least that that you know these buildings are going to be forever. So at least you know that you could have that additional transparency for the future. And to uh to that point, uh when
you look on the element street elevations, we put windows that matching that in every single space we could, including on the garage where you might have translucent windows, you might have them with a a blind behind them. Sure. Um so feel trying to be sensitive to
that. The the lobby is not a glass box. It is a box that's trying to match this language. Sure. Um but yeah, we we definitely tried to um we looked at that and then we felt that having one uh roughly one-third of it glass and the
other third be fairly opaque and then come around the corner and be opaque with a glass entrance and a glass garage just felt right. It was fighting against itself. Okay. Yeah. Again, I still just I still have some some some concerns and the and the the
the color of the the building and all I know how it's presented. And I know you're working on different color schemes and perhaps it also comes I mean I I live in a you know I live in a yellow house with green shutters so I'm more of on the light side of things but it's it's a um it just seems it does
seem awfully it does seem very very dark um to me and maybe also I'm coming from I'll I'll show my age. I remember when it was it was Danver Pharmacy and it was white. So it's a it's a uh it definitely it's there's a there's a difference there. One question I did have in terms
of the in terms of the the Myanssard, you know, roof and, you know, even walking I I walked over here tonight and I walked past the build, you know, the building and you're walking past other buildings that are, you know,
building across the street, I think, is 1839. One down the street is 1849. These are all, you know, Georgian type colonial buildings. And I was just I just wanted to to just I wanted to to note just in terms of and this is in our
our zoning um the the planning board zoning regulations uh not the bylaw but the regulations and it's like 7.5.4 and it's makes a point that again this is for new buildings. So I understand this is a a a an existing but
which you're building on top of but new buildings should be designed to reflect traditional New England village architecture such as Greek revival, Georgian colonial revival, shingle and stick. The design of buildings within CBZ, you know, character-based zoning districts should capture this varied approach to design while remaining true
to historic New England form. Architecture should be varied but compatible in scale. when complete character-based zoning districts should appear to be a 21st century New England village with roots in traditional New England architectural designs. So I just wanted to just ask in terms of because
you know how that how the Manser design sort of fits in with that and and I appreciate that it's not just a a flat roof. I know that people have been talking about that, but so there is a little more of interest to it. But I'm wondering how this fits into our, you
know, even our own zoning regulations which more contemplate a New England village which seems to have more of the peaked roofs, more of Georgian style versus Manert. The only example I can think of Manert is like the Berry Tavern and that was a 1960s type of a sort of
colonialization of the building. So, um, I appreciate the question. One of the things that as we were, as we've gone through this, when we often look back at the more commercial downtown buildings, if they were mixed use or even if they
were commercial, they tended to be pretty square um, lpped off a roof, whether it's two stories or three stories. And when I when I was looking up and down Elm Street here, I saw a lot of, um, buildings that are commercial now, but may not have been originally.
And so, um, they have a something of a obviously a gable roof, a hip roof type expression. Um, it's hard to pull that off on a large scale building, it's hard to pull that off on something that's even this wide, much less as wide as what we would need to do on along Essex
Street. And so um w when faced with that um idea of we see a lot of we see a lot of slope roof, we see a lot of shingles, how can we fit in with that? Um the manard is the the roof style that tends to give us both that that color and
texture of uh the surrounding roofs while also being um not not feeling kind of tacked on as a wider gable or um a series of um of dormers might feel within a
within a gabled or a um a traditional angled roof. Okay. Yeah. So I understand I also feel like we we have been thinking about that quite a bit as we go down home street. Okay. Also I Josh I emailed you some of the other color
studies if you want to pull those up but um suffice to say that's clearly one of the things that we're still not set on. Yeah. Like I I think that's it and I think that might sort of you know to me at least that that sort of affects sort of the the the scope of the building and
sort of the is the you know especially like the the lack of transparency on the first floor. Just that very the the dark color very almost like a like a hunter green again just seemed to me to be very um it seemed to re reemphasize the sort
of the lack of transparency. Mhm. So, if you want to pull up, so there's there's a couple that went we where we've gone very much lighter and uh obviously that's one of the easiest things in the world to to change or to work with.
Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Um and let's see if there's anything. I I I do want to hear what members of the public have to uh their questions or comments as well. [Music] Um and I guess this is just a question in terms of where we stand. This is
attorney McCann. I know that we've had um uh that we've there's been a preliminary report from engineering and so as well as I think something from electrical as well. Um yes, the electric department comments were pretty uh
standard. Uh the engineering department did come uh with a number of comments. We've been through all of those. We don't have any that we object to that we say, "Oh, we're going to have a problem with that." uh they were very technical in nature. Add a note here. What size is
the pipe there? That kind of thing. Okay. Um so there are all things that we could address. Um the response memo and then that usually goes back and forth a couple of times between our project engineer and the town engineer. But that's where we are there. But um in
looking at the comments that we received and I've seen a few over the years and those were nothing jumped out and it that that said, "Oh, we're going to have a tr a problem with that." Or they're objecting. They're saying, "Oh, no, you can't do x, y, or z." There was none of
that. It was just add notes here or there. So, we haven't had a chance to revise the plan or to respond to those comments, but we will. But we don't see a problem with any of them. Okay. All right, sounds good. Um, just before I turn things back to the public, did um
any of members have any further questions or or comments? I have one. Just to Jim's point, isn't there um some kind of regulation for the number of unrelated adults that can live in a
unit? Okay. Yes, there there there are um I Jim went on to a couple of Mr. Sears went on to a couple of other points. So, uh, I let that kind of go for the moment, but I wanted to circle back to where I started with our, uh, with my
initial comment with, with regard to this particular development team and the vision, uh, that they have is to create sustainable, livable space that enhances the quality of life for residents and contributes positively to the community.
What uh, Mr. Sears was alluding to um was creating a boarding house. Uh that is not the case here. These will be highquality, high-end residential units. Um that will be three-bedroom units, but
um and I I do object to the comment that was, well, if you can pay the rent, you'll just stuff enough people in here. That wasn't uh correct. And there's nothing part of no part of this presentation that would lead one to believe that that's this developer's intent or goal for this project. So
there are safeguards in place definitely how many unrelated persons you can have living in in a dwelling whether it's here whether it's any other part of town um or whether it's a single family home those regulations apply and and would
apply here. Okay. Any other questions before I Okay. Until we move on. Sounds good. I'd like to hear some comments. Okay. I think we're going to uh turn it over to members of the public with questions or comments. I I saw Mr. Brad Street with his hand up first.
So, so please come on to the podium and introduce yourself and and and please present your any questions through the chair. Bill Brad Street telling me, do you remember me precinct one? I happen to live on Essex Street. Just so you
know, the comment was made at the parking lot across the street. That's that's private. It's posted vehicles subject to being towed. It's posted by the bank that I think
raises a spot there. I'm not saying they can't, I don't know, rent the space out, but it's posted private property, I believe. Isn't there an adjacent town public lot? That's right following that. So the long That was what I was
referring. That's the rear road one. The rearwood one. Yes. If you're willing to walk around, that's that's your business. Uh it says three bedrooms and again I think it was talked about there were some families that
might be husband and wife and they might have six or eight kids because they like a large family. Do we have a limit on the number of family members in town? [Music]
Town staff question. What what's what's the it was unclear of what the question was? Question is in terms of a limit in terms of No, I don't believe or in terms of same as single family. I think that's a federal same as single family. It's like yeah, you're talking about a unit or how many people you could have in your family? How many people can be can
how many people could live in a how large a family can you have husband wife and offsprings there I don't think that's a that's not a local government or federal government I don't think government gets involved with that it's just a question
you're talking about three bedrooms I know you you've said about uh family members maybe aunts uncles grandparents I'm just wondering if the town has a regulation on how large a family can be. I didn't think they did, but I thought
it was at least asked. I'm I mean, you can put bunk beds in a bedroom, I suppose, but I was just curious. I'm not aware of that. My of myself, Attorney McKan, you're shaking your head vigorously.
That the town does not regulate how many children you can have. Okay. Thank you. Uh One other question. If the dentist decides after all of this time that he's going to close his businesses
and leave, is that office space subject or or can it be turned into several offices instead of just that one? I mean, is there enough space? I mean, I'm wondering if the owner of the property might like to uh maximize his cash
return. Jerry McCann, do you have a response to that in terms of I guess it's like the the adaptive reuse of the of the Sure. Yeah, this is commercial space. Um, and there are many different types of uses
that can go in commercial space. Um, within the downtown area, you have to satisfy parking requirements. Um, and sure you could have you could cut it up into two office spaces, but the amount of parking that you need is dictated by
the square footage. So you could cut it up into two spaces. It doesn't change the number of parking spaces you need. Okay. Um, and just picking up on the question, any anticipated use for the the the Bank of America location now? No, we don't have anticipated use yet.
Okay, Mr. Brad, that's it for now. Thank you. Okay. Uh gentleman in the uh Yes. Yeah. Please go to the mic. Yeah. Thank you. My name is Joe Campbell. I'm in a butter on Elm Street to the proposed
project. Um actually on two sides and I have two questions. Um, there are no elevations detailed on the drawings that show, if you would, uh, can you pull up the footprint for me? One moment.
See if you can. The existing building footprint. Yeah. Mr. Campbell, you're in the building, right? Directly. Yes. Next to it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Right there, please. You want to give him the microphone? Yeah. Is there Kane if you pass on the
microphone just to if he wants to pose his question with Okay. So this is my property as you see here. This building was constructed on the lot line which was done years ago grandfathered in.
Understood. Um, I need to know or I would like to know what the elevation of this building is going to be when it's finished because um, we've been here 20 years and I have three tenants. One of them has
been here almost 20 years. We we're concerned about what this is going to look like because right now it's a concrete wall which we're used to that but we don't know if there are going to be changes made. And also could you go back to that screen?
Uh okay. Second floor and third floor which are going to be constructed on the existing building. Um I heard someone say six foot setback on that roof. So I really want to know how far the construction is
going to be set back on that roof. Okay. You can't build right to the edge of the building, I wouldn't think. No. The second and third floor here will be um I think at the very closest they're going to be 3 ft from the edge of the of that room. You don't have to
answer that question right now. I'm I'm concerned about um a detailed elevation. Eric, it might make sense to just go to the microphone if we're going to do the back and forth like Yeah, sorry. Just just for Thank you. Yes, certainly. And just
picking up on Mr. Campbell, just just a moment, just picking up on what now in terms of the six-foot setback. So I was a little confused as well. So is that I I think um what I was pointing to is right at the the pinch point there in the that green zone. That's six feet. I
see that that's the setback there. But the portion that he's concerned about talking about uh right now is a three-foot setback. So the pre-existing non-conforming is remaining as such on the first floor. on the first floor and then above that we pull back three feet from three feet. It's pulled back three
feet. Okay. Okay. So, I'd be I'd like to see a a detailed finish elevation of what we're going to be looking at on that side of the building. Yeah. And also uh somebody mentioned something about an electrical box. Electrical room
in the back here. A room. Yes. Okay. And close building. Okay. So, obviously you can see my main concerns. We are abiding PDF on two sides. Um and also another thing I need to be concerned about is construction access to work on this side
of the building. Yeah. How are you going to do that without entering in and uh performing work on my property? So, I appreciate that that the current plan and it the um we actually with Robert uh Johnson Construction, we have a similar
project we're working on in uh Reading right now where we have it to build portion of the wall right up against the existing. The intent would be potentially to talk to you about having short-term access if we want to pretty up that wall or being able to do our
wall from within our property entirely above that. Can you show actually the um the elevation from Do you have an elevation from that side? Uh we do. It's a little bit skewed. All the elevations are a little bit skewed, but if you want to flip to number four, page 22. Number page 22.
Yeah, number four. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, right there on the left. So, bottom left, I think, is the your elevation. Right. So, th this is this is positing that you we you would let us onto your site to put siding over
the existing concrete wall if that's not acceptable. If that's if we can't work that out, then you would see the existing. This is what you're talking about. Yeah. From there, that represents siding. Yes. Okay. like hard hardy panels and um ASAC trim. All right, I think that answers my
questions for now. I mean, coordination is going to be of course of utmost importance because we have tenants and we also run a business out of that building. So, absolutely. And like I said, if we can't access it, you're going to we're going to see that existing concrete wall. It's not the end
of the world, but if we can, we'd like to continue that sighting around the perimeter. So, continue. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Other other questions members of the SE uh Nova Sim Town mean member precinct
one. Uh I happen to like the Manford roof very much. Um I actually really appreciate that the facade on Elm Street is different that it's not just the same shape over and over and over again. I
like the step back where the decks are. Um I appreciate that it's only three floors and you didn't go the four floors that you could. Um the trees I would like to see a few more trees in the um playground just because I think shade is
important in a playground or else it just gets really sorry it just gets I think just too hot for them. Yes. or the parents that are sitting around. Some shade would be nice, even if it's just along the edge of it, not necessarily in the middle, but I think it would be a
nice addition. Um, color-wise, I actually think I prefer this one just as a personal. I like the lighter on the top so that it does not seem looming over. Um, but the dark on the bottom I'm I'm fine with. Um, I think that's it.
I'm excited. I like it. Thanks. Thank you. You got a question, sir? Hi, my name is Dan Kirby. Um, I live on Cherry Street right around the corner. I've got and I'm a landlord, too. Um, I probably own 10 units, not 16. But I
have the same concern with the window frontage. I think, um, there's got to be a solution of some sort, right? Especially if that dentist office does move out three years from now. Um, and I guess the the remaining questions I have is is for the for the
um committee. Like with all this development going on, why aren't we doing condos? Like why not? Why aren't you asking why aren't we doing? But what like instead of apartments like with home ownership, people take pride in home ownership.
We're still we're still getting a tax source in property taxes. I said that. But like like why isn't the town doing more affordable condos? People take pride in home ownership.
People don't take pride in apartments. Like I can assure you with that I'm like I said I'm a landlord. Understood. But I think a number of people would disagree with you too, sir. Well, you can say that you're not a landlord. Yeah. Um and my my last statement is about the roof deck. Go ahead.
Um, you know, obviously the noise concern, is it going to be, you know, are there going to be posted times where they have to be off the roof deck? Who's going to enforce that? Um, and is are are you guys prepared to give other businesses downtown, Berry Tavern, Pub
49, so on and so forth. Can they can can they get roof decks? Like, are you gonna say no to them, but say yes to them? Mhm. I mean, I would think a roof deck would be more appropriate downtown on High Street instead of out here where there's residential
u homeowners. Mhm. So, those are just a couple of things that popped in into my mind. Okay. I'm going to pose just a question to attorney McCann just with respect to sort of timing like use of the roof deck and in terms of any sort of um any sort of restrictions in terms
of timing. Let me ask for order in the audience. It's too noisy. here. Okay. Yeah. If if if if people can just just keep keep it if they if they want to talk, just just step outside and talk. Okay. Be respectful of people who are speaking. Thank you. Um this is a very
small, as Eric said, a very small open amenity space. Um, it is a particular type of open amenity space that is specifically permitted in the DTC core, which is this roof deck idea to give
some folks some meeting space, but it's very small. And as Eric pointed out, um, it's really centered within the middle of the building. It's not along the outsides um, uh, of the the space. So we have a
couple of other uh 17 Elm um has a outdoor uh amenity space on the roof and that was certainly very wellreceived as just a a nice amenity but you can see from here how set back it is from uh
from the edges of the building. Um and of course I this question came up earlier will there will there be safeguards? Well, of course, the building code tells us what we have to put around the roof when you have a roof deck. I know a question that's asked a number of times, outdoor audio.
Um, and it wasn't asked tonight, but it will probably come up. Um, outdoor audio. Uh, I wouldn't that you could certainly put a condition on. That's certainly within your your ability to do, but this is a
just residential seating area. no more than you would put an outdoor audio restriction on homes in a single family subdivision. It's, you know, uh it's one of those things that you could regulate if you so chose.
Um but this is a type of outdoor amenity space that's called out in the bylaw as desirable and appropriate for the downtown area. Okay. Lou, can we just hold Let me just Can we just confirm the roof deck is on top of the mansard roof? Is that accurate? The mansard roof is
not acting as any sort of like facade to the roof deck, right? The roof deck is then on top of the mansard roof. And so you're not showing it in elevation. Is that accurate? We're not showing it in elevation. The manard will come up about 18 inches above. Sorry. The mansard will come up about 18
inches above the roof. The guardrail would be 42 inches above the roof. So you'd see about 3 feet of the of the I just want to confirm that. Thank you. Gotcha. Mr. Kirby, do you have anything further? Yeah. So just two other points like um you know I just have some concerns
with this roof deck. You know the town may allow it and it's not that I'm against it. I think it's more appropriate downtown. I just I I just see like a bunch of high school kids that are living in those apartments drinking beers all hours of the night upsetting the neighbors. Um,
and then my last question is, is there any sort of like elevator that's going to be built? Yes. Elevator. Okay. So, that leads me to uh the affordable the affordable um section 8 apartments. I'm assuming that
no affordable apartments, right? Okay. So, so is there is there a way that we could possibly get the senior citizens since there will be um elevators and I'm assuming handicap accessible? You know, could could we look into the
possibility of having those dedicated to senior citizens for potential tenants? Well, I don't know what the process is, right? Yeah, I know it's a threebedroom, but I'm asking for the potential tenants for those affordable units. [Music]
What's what's the process for you know looking have senior citizens? Uh the um the process of filling affordable housing um is is strict and there's a lottery process and uh senior citizens
being qualified under that process to occupy a three-bedroom what would be considered a very desirable affordable family unit. is very unlikely to happen. Yeah. And you all are are going actually, isn't it true you're going
before the affordable housing? Yes. To to discuss the project. We do not need any approval from the affordable housing folks, but we certainly wanted to um bring them up to date on this project and had actually hoped that that would have happened before we came tonight,
but their schedule changed. Um, but we we will be meeting with them as we do with uh with any project. Okay. Thank you. All right. Okay. I just like I said, I just thought it would be a good idea since there is an elevator handicap access, it might be a good idea to consider senior citizens for those three
units that they're going to be allocated. Okay. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Hello, my name is uh Ed Harrison. I live at 61 Elm Street for 40 years. And my parking lot abuts what is now the five
Essex Street parking lot. At this particular time, along that brown house that's next to the parking lot, there are full grown trees. They probably been there a hundred years. along my fence there's some more fullgrown trees. Is the intent to be taking down all those
full grown trees and planting little sticks. Guess there's a question for the applicant in terms of the in terms of the trees like like the existing I'm not a tree hugger but nobody can see me and I can't see anybody right now when those trees are all grown. Okay. And it
appears to me with the park, the landscaping area. Sure. Along that Essex Street back fence, they're taking all that down. Okay. Really? I can say the the current plan is to remove the existing trees on the property. Um, some of them are a
little bit overgrown, but some So then we all look at I got to look at that building instead of But then we will put up, as I said, that green buffer with 13 trees. I'll be long gone by the time that thing is Do you have
um I can look any questions for the chair, please? Sorry. Yeah, sorry. My question was to Could you could you state your name while you Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Tina Moody. I live over in precinct 7, I believe, on Hobart Street. Okay. And so, piggybacking off of your
question, do you have to remove those trees if they're fully grown and we're happy with the trees? Do you have to remove those for this construction? I without doing a tree survey I couldn't say but we and we could do a tree survey to to yeah confirm if if any of those trees are healthy enough to remain.
Okay. I think as a concern is raised about the about the existing trees to the extent you can look at you know uh if not you know preserve some if you know some of the trees is that Jerry McCann did you have something to add? Um yes, that's something that we uh have
often seen conditions put on that uh we the applicant can look at whether trees can be maintained and uh work with planning staff to uh preserve any trees that can remain uh because of course some of them are
not I have not looked at these trees in detail. Well, I'm not an arborist, but sometimes trees are not uh in good condition and you want to replace them with better trees and sometimes construction get hamper the roots that
are there. But um we could certainly take a condition that we could work with planning staff um to save any trees that could be saved. Okay. There's no trees though going in that new area on the site plan,
just to confirm. That's the three-foot walkway that you said. Oh, no. I think we're talking We're talking about this cell here. I believe the person who just spoke lives to the top right of that image. Correct. Right there. Existing trees are there's
existing trees all in that walkway area just to the right of where you're Yeah. That whole area, that property line has trees there. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you can't keep those trees if you're building that building. It's not possible. So there's no unless you reduce the size of the building. There's no way you're
with three feet away from the canopy of those trees. Well, the building ends here, right? Oh, that's right. The building ends here. That's the parking lot, right? Oops. Yeah, you you'd lose parking spots, though. I didn't mean to get all of those things showing up. I must have touched the screen. Okay, so
the building ends here. So that's something it's pos it's possible and maybe a condition um that we would look at these and if they could be maintained um we can maintain them. Okay. I don't
know how to get rid of what I just put up there. You hit the return. Looks like there's a return arrow. Oh, there you go. Okay. I have a comment. Yes. Go ahead. Um, so I do appreciate everything all the work you hard the hard work you did in the construction of or of the drawing of the architect stuff. I don't know
what you I don't know what the technical name is. Um, so I've been living in Damvers my entire life. My my family goes about all the way back to Rebecca Nurse. She's my grandmother generations back. So we've been in Dammers for a while. Um, I love Davis. It's a nice hometown feeling and putting more
buildings, adding more people takes away from that. So I do like the footprint. I love everything about it. However, can you just make it like one-story residential on top instead of two stories? And I do appreciate the three-bedroom um units as well. I do
like that as well. So, that was it. Is that something you want to address? No. Um it there's a lot that goes into this and I and I appreciate your comment about um appreciating the design and everything that has gone into this and
part of what goes into it is also a balancing of uh presenting a project that's not only attractive but that's also financially viable. Okay, questions. Uh I think it was Mr. Levit was just has his hand up first and
then Miss Ruguchi. Hi, uh, Noah Levit, uh, town meeting member, precinct 7. Um, I just wanted to share a couple of quick thoughts. I'm generally in support of, um, the project, although I appreciate the questions from the planning board. Um, just wanted to address a couple of
things. Um, regarding the three-bedroom, I think that's fantastic. I think we need more housing for families. Um, I work at a large employer in Danver. We have many folks who would love to live in Danverse. They have families, they can't do it. So I think it's important that we um build housing that is
accessible and affordable to families. Um I think also just like broadly our population has been pretty flat over the past I don't know the data but it's if you look at the data over the last 15 to 20 years the population has not exploded. We need housing. Um so I think
that's just something to keep in mind that making this more affordable for people to come into our community is better for the vibrancy of downtown. it's better for the long-term growth of our community. Um, regarding parking, I just sort of want to just my thoughts are it seems
like there's ample parking. Um, there's a lot on the other side. There's ample street parking. I have never had trouble finding parking anywhere in Danverse as long as I've lived here. So, I just I know people get concerned about parking, but just looking at this like it obviously meets the parking minimums,
but beyond that, I think it I don't really see any concerns there. Um, and then just finally, the roof deck. Um, this whole conversation is kind of annoying me. I'm just going to be honest. I live in a residential neighborhood. My neighbors up the street will have parties of 50 people and shoot
off fireworks. Are we going to go tell them how many people they can have in their backyard? It just seems like we're vilifying renters for no reason. I rented for 30 years before I could buy a house. I was a good tenant. I was a nice person. I think all my neighbors would
have agreed. So, I just I just want to be careful about how we're talking about people who would potentially want to come live in this community. I mean, if sure, there could be some loud drunk kids up there maybe, but I I just it seems a little misguided. It seems like we're trying to find excuses for why we
should keep people out of this town. So, I just wanted to share those comments. Thank you, M. Le Thank you, Mr. Gucci. Uh Joanne Reaguchi, town meeting member, precinct 2. Um Mr. Chair, I have a couple of questions first and then I have some comments if if that's okay.
Course. Um I I got a little confused with the garage doors for the covered spaces. How many parking spaces will be available through those garage doors for the for residents? So there there are 41. Why don't you uh could you use the microphone just so people can at
home can hear? There it is. Um so there are 41 spaces beyond the garage door. 28 of those are the tandem spaces we were talking about. 13 of those are single spaces. Those are all inside or under the building or in the surface lot in
the How many are under the building? How many of the covered or under the building? Under the building meaning it's it's under it's on the the first floor level. It's not underground. Right. Right. Yeah. That I was getting a little confused. Exactly. About 16 of them are
under the building. The rest have some portion of them outside. Um Okay. Exposed. Okay. Okay. So 16 of and those will be for residents and then some of that is for commercial and some and some is commercial as well. Yeah. The intention is that the residents are
going to park towards the back and the front spaces are going to be for the commercial and uh and tenants or employees. Okay. Um that was one of my questions. Bear with me because I have a ton of notes because this is a very detailed presentation which thank you very much for a lot to absorb. I know a
lot of work and um detail went into this and a lot of thought. So it is very much appreciated. Um one comment is I know the the board had um some concerns. I do too. The the color the the um it's too
dark. it it's a little too modern really for that corner and for that neighborhood. Maybe take a little inspiration from this building town hall. Um I know Jim says I'm going to say a remark to Jim Sears but he says it looks like you're in Dublin Jim. I lived
in Dublin. Dublin is different little prettier in Dublin. We need the Georgian doors um in from Dublin. But um so I'd like to see a softening of that building of the especially the bottom part of it.
Um whether it's the windows maybe round make them round. I don't know. I'm not a designer. I'll let you guys kind of work on that. But I um yeah, it's just something about it is just too harsh for that corner and just doesn't sit right
with me. Um, as for the um special permit for the um counting the additional street spaces, I have a concern about that because what will happen and I know the board and a few other people brought up
concerns about if you have, you know, an a a adult child living in who can drive and if there's one or two more or three cars per unit where these units are proposed to be so big. I'm afraid that that street parking will become resident
parking, which can happen. Um, this is just looking in the future, knowing what's happening. Um, also the public parking lot that's across the street. Um, you know, that would probably need to be regulated more than it is now if
that's going to be given because just knowing residents can say, "Oh, I can park here." Um yes, but that is needed for town business. This building, there's a lot of overflow parking. Um um employees park there. Um
so that town would need to be regulated a little bit. Um also, can I have order in the audience again, please? I'm trying to speak and people are speaking across. It's very difficult tonight. Thank you. While someone's speaking,
very difficult to concentrate tonight. the audience has been very rude. Um, so my concern is the town is going to have to regulate that parking lot more, which is either the meter made or the police. So that's a little bit um of
um strain on our police department. My other concern is the roof decks and it's not because it's a rental because it's because there isn't any regulations. It is a budding a neighborhood very close. This is a proposed larger unit than 17
Elm Street which you know potentially and then if you have children there is a lot of noise. Um and then who is going to regulate it? Even if people are out there after hours that then falls on residents getting annoyed. It falls upon the police department. That is another
strain upon a first responder where they could be somewhere else and they have to do a noise complaint. it is a legitimate concern. Um, so I know it enhances the
um the design of the building, but um I have real big noise compl um concerns about that about and even the individual decks for some of the units. Um I have concerns about that too. Um and one
other question by right for this area I believe we said it was 11.4 four units that they can build. That's my understanding. Yes. That's Yep. All right. So, and with special permit, I believe it's 13. It's 13. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Um, so I would
hope the board considers um not granting the special permits for the uh counting the street parking. I think um that counting those parking spaces could uh detrimentally impact the existing
commercial businesses that are already there. I think there's a salon across the street. There's a thrift shop across the street. Uh on Elm Street, I think there's another salon that is right next to the property. Um and it also impacts
residents who might have a guest over their house. There's there's been no um talk of guest spaces for these units. I know for the commercial businesses, but people have guests over, people have
parties. So, um you know, parking seems a little bit tight with this uh amount of units and um people that will be living there. Um I also ask that the special permit for the height not be granted.
Um I know it's only 10 in but um I ask and I'll give it in my explanation at the end. And also for by right I don't believe there should I think this is too big for the neighborhood. Um I think they should be
able to do the 11 units by right. We can't stop it. It's the zoning. But anything additional to that um is is is way too large. um that will help maybe solve some of the parking concerns that the board and others have. Um and sort
of my reasons behind these is the town has painstakingly updated the zoning laws a few years ago. Uh they worked very hard to get these into place in order to manage the density in the in the towns and the neighborhoods for not only the new residents that are coming
but also for the current um residents. So, I hope um the board takes um all those reasons into consideration and um maybe we need to reduce this a little bit. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Yeah. Um Miss Silva, I saw I
I see your hand up, Mr. Bradstreet, as well. Just because you spoke already, I wanted to get some folks who haven't spoken yet already. Hi, Lisa Silva, precinct 7, uh, town meeting member. I live at 26 Charles Street. Um, I live pretty close to the
project. Um, can you put the microphone down just to speak up a little? Yeah, I'm a little short, right? Um, I can't hear very well, so No, it's Thanks. Um, so I am in favor of this project. I'm thrilled to hear that this project will offer three affordable
units. Um almost 30% of the current DERS households qualify for affordable housing programs. So this is really meeting a critical need and I really appreciate it. Um like I said, I live in precinct 7,
which is adjacent to this project. Um, on a personal level, I have not heard anything but support for this project from my neighbors. People get up here a lot and talk about that nobody wants this. There are people that want this.
People in my neighborhood are excited. They're looking for ways to welcome these new residents to our town, this project, as well as Maple Square. Um, I think what people really need to realize is that not everybody lives the way that
you do. Not everybody has two or three cars in their household. I personally have one car in my household. Um, and there's just a lot of assumptions being made. Um, you know, we heard a lot of things
about what was going to happen with Maple Square. um with nearly 50% of the project occupied already there. I drive through that intersection a minimum of two but sometimes up to six to eight times a day. I have a son at the high
school back and forth all the time. Um there's been no increased traffic. I've not noticed any increased traffic at all. Um our water restrictions have actually been downgraded from a level five to a level two. So this big talk
about it's gonna, you know, overburden our water supply doesn't seem like that's happening. Um, and when I say 50% of the project is occupied, that's about 60 units that is are currently occupied.
Um, and that the schools are not scrambling to meet the needs of an influx of new students. As of today, there have been no students added to Damas Public Schools from Maple Square Project. This is the reality. So, as we
get up here and we talk about all of this stuff, the questions are great. Um, I really appreciate a lot of the questions. I'm actually going to speak to the three-bedroom units in a second, but I think we really need to understand that there is no data or facts to back
up any of these things that people are saying. Um, and we are adding, like I said, critical affordable affordable housing units that 30% I want people to think about that
30% of households in Damas right now would qualify for an affordable housing unit. Um, I also want to speak to the um the four or more unrelated people. Also, in Massachusetts, a dwelling where four
or more unrelated people reside is considered a rooming house subject to stricter regulations, and there is no reason why the residents of this project would be any less apt to adhere to this law than any other dwelling in town.
Um, there's just really a lot of demonization of these projects happening and, um, it really bothers me as you can tell. um the seven you know if seven people
are going to live in there I'm going to tell you right now seven or more person household is.7% of Danvers 007 the the biggest household in Danvers they're at 35.9% is
two people households um So that is just something that is not really anything that we need to be concerned about. And just because it's a rental property in a downtown area does
not make it any more susceptible to having people that would actually break the law living there. Um, so that being said, my only comment would be that I would hope that you would consider some two-bedroom units because one and two person households
currently make up 62% of households in Dammers and three and four person households make up 30%. So 62 + 30 is 92. So over four people households only make up 8% of Dammers. Um, so not really a concern
that six or seven people are going to be living in these units. So, you're asking that they consider some I would like I would like to see some two-bedroom units. Um, because if we're assessing the needs of the community, I really do think that two-bedroom units are the biggest need. Um, I do appreciate the
family housing. Um, but we we have single families. We have a lot of single families um in Damvers that families can live in. Um I do like the idea of some threebedrooms. I just really would love
to see a couple two-bedroom units in there. Be great. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. In front of I'm sorry if I I've not kind of you you'll be called on. I'm not. All right. Good evening. Uh, Linda
Pulkari, 179 Pine Street. Um, I just had a question about the garage coverage part. Um, how high is that? It's 14 ft high. 14 ft high. So, is that big enough for a plow truck or a tow truck or
whatever in case someone broke down in the back parking lot there? How would you get them out? similar to any parking garage. We we're not tall enough for you to tow to lift out a car. Have to be rolled out. Okay.
And um also I was just wondering about um like the fire safety aspect of this building um now that it's going to have residents. Uh I'm not sure where to direct you to direct it towards you. Sorry. Um, so now that there will be
residents on the residential side there, um, what if there is an emergency like a fire, how are they going to access that area? Um, they are they going to be able to get through, uh, that gentleman left that lived there? Um, you know, that's a driveway. So, how are they going to
access three stories from the street, which would be the D side of the building? So, the A is the front. Um, so I'm concerned about the sea side of that where it's occupied. I don't know how Let me ask the applicant about
about the fire because I I think there was some there were some comments from the fire department. So, can you can you explain what because I think there was a little bit of back and forth with the the fire departments and we know that they're not going to enter under that driveway under the garage area either. So, that only leaves two areas of
access. So, that's concerning to me. So there are um there are a number of uh issues that are both uh that are state code and that we we will deal with with the local fire department. But generally speaking, we've got access to this entire uh facade, these both of these
two facads for fire trucks. We don't count this area as as part of our access because we can't guarantee that this building will be here forever. However, there are um certain um certain standards that have to be adhered to and it it is a fully sprinkled building.
There will be two uh points of egress. Uh there will be a fire alarm system which will be interconnected with the city there. Um and the two and the two stairs are here and here. One of which has a direct access to the exterior. The other is through the lobby. Those are standard. I don't want to take any
credit for them. In addition, um, from any point, uh, the truck, the fire trucks have to be able to bring their hose, their 250 foot long hose to any point, whether it be coming around this way or coming around this way or coming
in through the building. Um, we're currently not planning anything coming through the building, but they could certainly do that if they felt that they were safe to do that. But generally speaking, we have to make sure that that we can bring a fire hose all the way around to the back of the building at grade and all the way around to here at
grade. Now, there is a special condition when you have an existing or a a zero lot line building like this and there's a possibility that they might ask to use this or come across this as a future setback. But right now, we're not planning to tear down that building. Otherwise, we would actually pull this
back three feet to make more access. But there are there are state standards that we are following and there are local standards that we will work with the fire department on. Okay. Sure. But I'm just concerned though that's a driveway back there right behind here. Yes. So
there will be cars parked there. I mean what's going to happen? And we don't we don't count that as access. The fire department figures out the access and we show them okay this is how far the 250 foot hose is going to get you. This is the back corner of the building so you can get to to So just so I can ask a clarifying question. And so it seems so
I think what you're saying is the area that is that has the the ab butter there. Um I think that was Mr. Campbell's I think that that that is pretty much a no-go zone for purpose of the I don't believe the fire department would consider that part of our access
because it's not on our property. Got it. Okay. Okay. Well, it's just a concern to me, but um you know, and I just also wanted to echo um the chair's comment about
uh a certain design that you were looking for for the building and the comment was made that um the building was too large to accommodate a certain style roof. So maybe if it were downsized a little bit, then we could
blend it in. as the chair had mentioned, he, you know, preferred the look of the building. You know what I mean? Did I say that right? Yeah. I mean, I was I was posing a question. I was posing a question in terms of concerns I had and sort of how this how the project
correlated with the zoning regulations. Right. Right. Okay. Well, so that's all. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Ask a question. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Hi, I'm Kathy Carboni from Precinct One. And I have a quick question. Uh, could
you tell me what the price points of both of these units will be per month for rent? I can't. Nancy, do you know? Nobody knows how much these cost. I guess the question I have just in terms of Money in terms of the affordable units, what is how does that work out in
terms of the percentage? which I know that that's uh it's supposed to be um you know reasonable housing for damage units. A three bedroomedroom two bath unit I imagine is very expensive. Mhm. So I was just curious if they had any
any idea or ballpark figure what they're going to be collecting for rent and if parking spots will cost money. I'm just curious how these are going to run price-wise. Okay. And who owns the building? That would be great to know
that too. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Attorney McCann, can you I can some of those. I can try to answer some of them. Um the uh the rents are are market based. So this project is going to take time to uh to build to get through the
permitting process and all of that. So I really can't speculate on what the uh the rents are going to be because that's market driven. But I can tell you that affordable units right now a threebedroom affordable unit is about
$2,300 a month and that is the is that is that an 80% or what is the it's 80%. Y so at the AMI yes yeah so that I can tell you that's ba that's set by the state. Um but the market rate units are exactly that market rate.
Okay. Very good. And I think she asked about the owner of the Oh, the property is currently owned by uh the owner of the property which is C C M
uh I have it here. The owner of the property is CIM reality LLC is the current owner of the property. Okay. Thank you. question, sir. You identify yourself and ask a question or comment. Thank you,
guys. Um, I'm Derek Whittington. I live at 11 Essex Street. Um, you know, very familiar with the property. Anything that happens there is going to affect my life and my property a great deal. Uh, I was trying to get comments in as everyone was talking. There's so much to
talk about. Um, the I'll start just what I'm thinking of that driveway with the um woman that was talking about fire access. Mhm. You couldn't fit a fire truck in that driveway without a car in it, let alone if there's residents. Mhm. I'm just going to go as it comes to me.
Okay. The tree line, it has a great tree line. If you guys take that down, you're doing a disservice to the entire neighborhood. It provides a lot of uh shade, privacy to the uh what would that be? Nine. You know, you're right on top of
nine. You're going to see into Eleven's backyard. you're going to see into my backyard. Uh, you know, all the way down the block. The they're going to be if they take that treeine down, everyone's backyards just become open air. Uh,
however many people they're going to be. 48 bedrooms, people going to their cars looking right through your backyard. The street parking, assigning street parking, it already gets tight.
um as is the dentist uses parking spots there, the bank uses parking spots there. People and it's for the commercial. It's my understanding it's for the the street parking would be just corre just just to clarify street parking is for the commercial tenants. Is that correct? Um yes and the speak
street parking is not ours and it is not reserved and it's not going to be labeled or restricted. It is the way it is now. It is public parking. What the bylaw allows us to do is to count for purposes of meeting parking
requirements. We can count parking spaces along our frontage, but we don't restrict them. They are still public parking spaces. They will continue to be public parking spaces. Thank you. So, the commercial places take them. The residents and the residents guests just
start parking further down Essex Street, further up Elm Street. you know, you're kind of that's the point I'm trying to get to. Okay. Another point I think is important as far as the um you know, they called they
they couldn't give a price point on the apartments, but they called them high-end. So, who wants to guess at what we call a high-end apartment in today's market? That's going to be four and a half grand. You know, four grand, four and a half grand. That's a lot of money, which, you know, is good or bad. Who
knows? There's only two single family homes on Essex Street. There's four two families and there's three multifamilies just on Essex Street.
The number of bedrooms, this is just me estim I don't go in people's houses. I don't, you know, I know my neighbors a little bit. We're we're essentially doubling the bedrooms of Essex Street with this building. Probably more. There's more bedrooms now if this is
done in this one building than all the Essex Street. You know, I think the parking gets tight already. The bank, their snow removal service is kind of awful. I'll also say the town's snow
removal service is kind of awful. They build the, you know, banks across the sidewalks. You end up walking in the street. You know, I've talked to the snow removal service at the bank and asked them, "Don't block the sidewalks."
Those dudes don't care about they want to plow the snow and get out of there. You know, so um you know, let me um if you give me a moment, I'll just try to think of some more things. Um Sure.
You know what? It's important to me. I'm I'm what, two properties over? Three properties over. Mhm. Another thing who says it's easy to say, "Oh, there's there's housing problem. Build more. Build more." That's the answer. But some
people say that the Airbnbs is a huge reason why that there's not affordable rents. Mhm. So, can anyone tell me if there's Airbnbs operating on Essex Street? Nobody can. Right. I don't. You're
looking. So, who says that these don't just become Airbnbs? You know the the other gentleman said homeowners care about properties, renters care less about property. Hotel
guests care even less about properties. That's just a point. Uh a property next to mine 13 expanded. I was against it of course. Same thing jamming in the
parking. Uh there's not enough parking as is. So they back up onto my property, park in the street, you know, start their garbage cans, which is
small, you know. I know I I sound like, you know, like a douche. They put their garbage cans in front of my house, which is a little thing, but it's still, you know, it's a it's a hotel and it's a rental, so they don't care.
I think home ownership is important. People take pride. You hold up, you know, that's that's my opinion. Home ownership is important. Apartment building, I'm not for apartment buildings. Um, you know, I'm sure there's a lot
more that I'll remember, but I'm just kind of uh I was watching online, you know, and Okay. I think another thing general, and I invite all you guys, you can comment and say what you want as I speak. It might be better if we could hold order while people are talking that the
crowd can like add in also because people would be talking and I would have points, right? And then now it's like, damn, I forgot my point. I know. But that's why we we Any comments have to be directed to the chair. That's why you All right. Bring a notepad. Yep. Yep. And um if I think of any more, I'm going
to try to get a second round. All right, sir. Very good. Miss King. And I see Lauren Steves had her hand up, too. And then Mr. Brad Street. Hi, I'm Carla King, precinct 8, um a
town meeting member as well as um on the board for the housing authority and chair, current chair of the affordable housing trust. Um I'm thrilled also to hear that there's three affordable units. Um I'm not as thrilled to hear that they're at 80%, I would like to see
a lower percent. I don't feel like 80% is affordable. I do think that um the figure for threebedroom at 2300 is not correct for 80%. If it is, and I'm wrong, then um I think that's that's a
that would be affordable for three-bedroom, but I don't think that's right. And I I would like to see something lower than 80% uh affordability, and that's always been my issue. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Miss Steves. Yeah.
And then Mr. Brad Street after. Good evening. Lauren Steves, um, town meeting member, precinct 3. Um, first I have a question in regarding setback zoning when it comes before planning and when it goes before ZBA and what the
difference is and when. I know the answer, but Josh, you want to? So, because because where we are. Yeah. So, in the process, do you know geography. So, because this project is
in the downtown zoning, um anything related to any request or relief that's require that's needed or require requested or needed um goes to the planning board. But if you were, for instance, in the example that you
brought up, if someone needed a sideyard setback variance that was not downtown or any of the four characterbased zoning districts, unlike, you know, this is in the Denver's downtown core, then that request or relief would be asked at the
zoning board of appeals. Gotcha. So, is it only the downtown character-based uh zoning that comes before planning board for for all for including for the for the setback issue? Yeah. Okay. And then anyone outside of the downtown correct character would go in front of
the ZBA. Right. If you're in like you know zone residential one, residential two, residential three. Yep. Got Um, if you were asking for a sideyard or or any variance, it would be with the zoning board of app zoning board of appeals and then potentially if it was a site plan review, you'd have to go to planning
board for that. Gotcha. Good to know. Um, I have a little bit of an issue with the project narrative where it says the site area is 24,864 square feet which permits 13 units by special permit. A waiver is requested to allow a total of 16
residential units. I didn't know until I was sitting here and you asked by right what are they allowed because by right they're allowed 11.5 units not the 13.5 that they made it appear to seem in this project narrative.
Okay. It's not listed in this project narrative. 11.5 isn't listed anywhere. So they're actually requesting an additional five units, not an additional three units as it appears in this project narrative. Well, it's my understanding that it's 11 by right. A
special permit is would be 13 they can request via special permit and then a waiver for the additional three on top. Right. But they don't have the special permit yet. Correct. No, they have not. Okay. So, it just it makes it seem like they they already have the 13 units. That's the way this narrative like reads
to me because I had no idea that it was 11.5 by right reading this narrative. Yeah. Um, and so I just had a few other thoughts that I wanted to share that I had written down. Sure, go ahead. Um, I appreciate that the project
includes affordable housing and green space. Those are important components and I want to recognize the effort. However, um, those benefits do not automatically justify overriding our zoning standards. We're not, you know, trading 20 trees for two extra units.
um especially in a part of town already experiencing significant development pressure. Um the zoning bylaw allows 11.5 units by right. That number wasn't chosen arbitrarily. It reflects a deliberate balance between housing growth, infrastructure capacity, and
like everyone has said, the years of of work of hard work that has gone into the thoughtful zoning um that the town has spent their time on. Um, granting a special permit to exceed the limit would should require clear compelling reason that benefits the broader community, not simply the developer. Um, I I don't see
a hardship that has been demonstrated for the need for the additional units over what they're allowed by. Wright. There is nothing about the site's shape, soil, topography that makes 11 units unworkable. Um, this is a choice by the developer to maximize yield, not a necessity imposed by the land. Um, a
special permit is not meant to accommodate financial preference. that's meant to solve problems that the zoning cannot reasonably account for and I don't think the threshold has been met. Um they're requesting a 6ft setback where 15 ft is required. Um the site of
the existing building zero setback is as justification. Um but we need we need to be careful. I understand it's a non-conforming um building that's already there and that's part of the reason that they're probably not going to tear it down is because
they know they have that non-conforming setback right now. Um this the zero foot setback exists because the building predates modern zoning. Um that makes it legally non-conforming, a situation grandfathered in but not a precedent to justify continued non-compliance. Our
current zoning laws reflect today's values and needs. respect for neighboring properties, privacy, safety, quality of life, using pre-zoning conditions to justify further reductions, weakens those standards for everyone. Um, our downtown is under immense pressure, developments booming, and
we're seeing real impacts on traffic, infrastructure, parking. If we keep approving special permits at increase density beyond what's allowed for our zoning, we're effectively rewriting the zoning code one project at a time without public debate or long-term vision. Um, so I my question would be what
precedent are we setting by allowing the excess density that our zoning doesn't permit by right? Um, so those are my thoughts. Okay. I did have a question just one of just for attorney McCann just based on one of the things you you raised just in terms of
she mentioning in terms of in terms of hardship and such. So I want to know what is you know just to explain what is what are you required to show in terms of for special permit as well as for waiver. Well you already explained about special permit. You walk through the criteria. That's right. But the but for
a waiver um a waiver does not have a hardship requirement uh associated with it. It's a um a discretionary that this board has to look at a situation and we can
request a waiver. It is the lowest bar. uh for type of relief. Mhm. Um, special permit is a use or a density that is in fact permitted, but it is permitted by
special permit process, which means we have to go through this hearing process and we have to meet the special permit requirements. And one of the uh special permit requirements under the bylaw is that we provide a public benefit improvement. And one of those items is
the additional affordable housing unit which we've uh which we've done here. So um a special permit use is not a use that's not permitted. It is in fact a use that is permitted. Um but it is permitted through a process and that's what we're going through. Um, and the
waiver again is a is just u a discretionary. When the board looks at this situation, they can see yes, it makes sense to allow the dentist's office to stay at the height that it is that you can give a waiver for 10 in. That's just within your your discretion
to do. When uh the speaker mentioned hardship, hardship has no place in in this discussion. the zoning relief that were sought doesn't involve hardship. That's a variance uh request. That's a variance request made to the board of
appeals. And for a variance, which is the highest bar, you need soil condition, shape, or topography specific to the lot uh that justifies the issuance of a variance. We're not talking about variances here. We're talking about a special permit which is
a permitted use meeting criterias which we believe we meet and waivers which are just discretionary uh as long as there is uh some sort of discussion with regard to benefit and as public interest isn't that public interest public
benefit as it relates to keeping for example the 10 in to keep the the dental office existing that existing building and to allow us to work with that existing ing building. Yeah, it's not a historic building. It's 1950s, but we want to
work with that and and build above rather than uh demolishing uh the building. Okay. Thank you. And I did want to clarify uh just one thing that uh Carla King brought up. Um she
questioned the uh the rental uh figure that I gave her and I did show this to her. I pulled this off the state's website today. Um the affordable housing uh rent for a three-bedroom unit is 2371.
Okay. Got it. And that's at the 80%. It's at 80. Very good. Okay. Um that's statewide though. This is Please don't. I'm No, it is not statewide. This is based on Danvers, which happens to be in the Boston district. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Bradstreet, you had a question. Thank you. Again, Bill Branch Street Tom precinct one. As I stated before, I live on Essex Street. I'm aware of the way the sun
goes in the morning to the afternoon. If this building is constructed, does this mean that the house that's next door might be a good part of the day in darkness or shade because the sun doesn't reach it? Is
that a concern of you out to the zoning board of appeals? Well, it would be through, but I guess the question um I guess the question's been asked for the um the applicant in terms of the sort of the shadows and such of the of the building. Is there any I would hate to
see that the house is in shadows. Okay. Most of the time. I know we've had some discussion about buildings and shadows lately. So, if there's anything you can add to that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. tell you that we have not done a shadow study on the project
because it is within all of the setbacks and other than the 10 inches within the um height in fact a story shorter than the height. So, and I'm I I mean this just kind of as fact this could be four stories and
still would not have a a setback or shadow violation in any way. So, we we haven't done a shadow study. It just there is a possibility that in an urban setting at certain points of the day some of the shadow and this is going to fall on some of the neighboring properties um but it's a story shorter
than it could be and 20 ft um from this corner and 20 feet from that corner. Okay property. Okay, got it. Thank you. Any further um questions or comments? M Graham, that's okay. Take a break if we need to.
Hi, I'm Ellen Graham. I live on 61 Lindle. I live in a mansard house and I love it. Okay. So, there are some around. Um, I had questions about the water mitigation and the traffic mitigation. Can you explain how that works?
Like, I'm going to ask the applicant to It's her It's her application. I'll try to explain that. Thank you. Um the traffic mitigation a transportation mitigation fee is in the uh zoning
regulations. It is paid based on $3 per square foot of uh net new construction. Net new y did I get that right? You were y net new construction. And so that's almost $80,000 78,000 and change for this
particular project. It will go into a fund that is held by planning department I believe um to be used at the discretion of the planning department with probably input from traffic advisory committee etc. Uh but there is
a fund which given the number of projects that have come around yeah there's probably a good amount of money in there right and we can use that on traffic things around town basically that's that's the idea right particularly particularly downtown. Yeah. Yeah. And is it approved by town meeting or does it go does planning
manage it? I believe it's kind of it's like well it comes through the planning department office right and I think and then what was it discretion well I think we would seek input from obviously the planning board and other you know folks in town who are interested it we haven't
allocated any we haven't none of the money allocation doesn't go to town meeting no no no so the allocation goes through planning board and the planning department makes that decision basically we no decisions have been made yet we haven't actually spent the money yet. So, we're still trying to We haven't had
it that long. Is that what No, it just went the downtown zoning from 2020 when it was approved and then only once we started receiving development projects. So, all these developments that everybody we do get some money back for the traffic that we're all concerned about to help mitigate the traffic.
That's the idea, right? Exactly. So, we do have some compensation for that. That was big into it. Right. And the water is that the same thing? The water's a different issue and more town. It's a town townwide thing, but I guess Attorney McCann wants to take that one.
It uh the water use mitigation fee is the result of litigation that the town of Danvers had against the D decades ago. And part of that settlement was a water use mitigation fee that is placed on um any new chain
or change of use, new new water usage. It can be a change of use. You go from a uh you you go from a a accounting office to um a coffee shop,
there's going to be a change in water usage. And the water department determines how much water you're going to use uh in that change of use uh per day. And then there is a formula for a onetime payment based on the gallons per
day times $9 I think or something like that. Um so that's who gets to spend that money. Well, that that uh money is held by the uh DPW department, not the planning department, and it goes towards um it
was originally set up uh as far as the um settlement, it was set up to allow the town to put in um water saving toilets and allowing residents to get money from the town to
do water saving um utilities, appliances. So that's kind of what it was for, but it's also I think used for other things through the DPW department, but that's where that that goes basically around water. So it's supposed to Yeah, it's the fee is based on
exactly on the water usage increase for the property. So you get credit for what historically has been going on on the site and then whatever increase. So there will be a significant water use mitigation payment associated with this project. It's called the Wump Fee
lovingly by those of us who know it and it goes into a a fund. So, the town does get some money from Yes. the developers for both water and traffic. And I and I must mention significant money for the uh building
permit fee. Okay. Also, that will go to the town. Okay. So, um I I I think it's important for us to clarify that these are private privately owned properties. Somebody was asking why isn't it condos versus
apartments, which is specifically up to the person who owns the property. Um we have a lot of properties in town that need development, redevelopment, some new usages. I mean, our downtown area really needs the help. So, though there
are some tweaking with this project, I think I like the idea of the project and I love the affordable housing piece that we're going to get three. I know it's not really affordable because they don't make it affordable. But I will say, what did you say? How many people
in town? Sorry, through you. Yes. 30% of households 30% of households have an income that would allow them to benefit from the affordable housing. I don't think people realize it. I think there's a a bad connotation of who gets
or who is available to have affordable housing. My daughter out of college, I had her go and apply for affordable housing in all the surrounding communities she wanted to. She got $1,700 in the South
Boston with a concierge with a brand new apartment with a dog and an under the underground um parking. I a lot of people would qualify for the affordable housing. Those college kids who want to come home and live with their parents could very well get some affordable
housing and not be with their parents. So I I think it's important for people to understand that though it's not as affordable as it could be or should be. Um it's really important for us to get those affordable housings whenever we can and I appreciate all the mitigation money we get as well. Thank you. Thank
you. Any more questions or comments before we have things come back to the board? Miss Nastic. Thank you. Karen Nastic. Yes. Karen Nastic, 15 Lockxley Road, 40-year resident. Um, one question. I bring the microphone down just a little bit just so we can hear
you better. Shrimp again. Thank you. Thank you. Um, when you put things on the agenda, that's all that's one reason, one way we get to know what's happening in town because we don't have the newspaper anymore. Can I ask you know this this is
a very popular location because it's you don't know it by its street name but you know it because it's over Bank of America it's over the dental office. If you had said that in the agendas it would be easier to find. So just try to make your where where the thing is that
you're be discussing when you publish the agendas. But but actually but in terms of the agenda, I mean there's a legal requirement in terms of we we provide the the address and so I'm just and the map and parcel. What's that? And the map and parcel and the map and parcel. So I think it's a little I think
it would be difficult and again just to you know to I I understand I mean it's you know to say okay this is near Murphy's or the old Danver pharmacy. You know I just think that you know in terms of in terms of agenda items I think you you need to use the address. I'm not
saying don't use the address. I'm saying make it understandable to the people who live here by by cl by saying so a person can skim and know if it pertains to them or not. I hear what you're saying. Add the
information beyond what's required. Um two um have do we have any Danverse buildings with parking underground we have any experience with? Can you address the underground parking? I think I underground um parking
underneath the underneath housing. I am not aware of any. I have been involved in projects that proposed it and then found out how difficult it is to do and how costly it is to do. This is not
parking under. Mhm. We do have situ underground. This is not parking underground. We do have this type of parking. Um elsewhere in town I can think of specifically um it's called Sophie
um over off of Route One has parking under in this way and there are a couple of others in town but not you know the where you actually go in and go underground it ends up being too expensive. Okay.
So we do have some some that work like this. Yes. Okay. So, it's not a problem. I just didn't know if it was a problem or not. So, um I think she indicated there's it's a very it's it's very it's it's expensive. Yes, I got that. Um the dental office
So, the dental office's mandate is changing the height of the building because they want to keep we want to build above the height of that and that's going to make the extra 10 inches be higher than it has to
be, right? You're asking, are you I'm just summarizing. I'm not the applicant. I'm just summarizing. Okay. So, in addition to being asked to make the building higher, also a large percentage of the parking
is going to be piggyback tandem parking. It's really inconvenient to park piggyback and communicate with your sharer the times you get to leave the house. Mhm. I think the project has
gotten real far in light of the fact that you're butdding up two sides of this poor guy who is right against this building. But all this work has been done and it's because and there's piggyback parking. you're putting um a
giant place in a surround of every every other building around it has a little peaked roof, a little nice house, and it's just too much in that area. It needs Don't bother with a third story. You've you've
put how many already in Maple Square? 130. and another 30 in the over the I I I think it's 170 apartments down between the the two that have already come up. Now they're adding now you're adding 16 more here. You don't need to add that
many store add drop it a story. I I think it's too big there and you've got a five corner walking intersection. It's a little difficult in front of the town hall. Nobody knows. You just have to make sure everybody's clear before you sort of put your foot in there.
Um, I'm worried about the the light the how dark you lose you lose ability to vis to um see people in the street with another big with a big building that we're not used to. Um
um I think that the roof deck is setting a bad precedent to allow the roof deck here and anybody else who wants a roof deck in town is going to want a roof deck if they have access to it. Mhm. I think it's a bad idea, especially
looking at the pe looking at the the little houses all around it to say a person is going to feel the ownership on a setback deck that there's 50 people that can hear your voice at 10:00 at night. I just think it's a really
irresponsible idea um for having a big overlooking building looking down on them and feeling that they have any responsibility to the families that they don't know. Um, I guess I'm just really disappointed that
that this big building is being proposed. It should be shorter. I've always thought that it one and a half one floor underneath, one and a half foot above, one and a half floors above is all Danvers needs. You've already put a giant a giant condom, a giant complex,
apartment complex, Maple Square you're I guess moving ahead with Danver's uh hardware store and I I don't think you need to do and I've off how many apartment buildings are there in Danvers already?
I'm 30. I can't answer that question. I mean I make your comment driving around and taking note of how many apartments buildings there are in Danvers and it's it's a lot. I don't I don't understand the
mentality that's pushing this so hard. One more thing that I noticed is I looked at this last big survey that we had which was 2017 and 95% of the people in 2017 loved
living in Danver. That's an incredible rate. And then if pressed to well what would you have us do? Because you didn't know what the results were going to be. So the results were, well, we could use some nicer stores downtown. That was not revitalize the
downtown. That was not a mandate to do this, to turn the town upside down and build build. Crazy. Everybody's complaining about the parking. I mean, not parking, but the the traffic in town. How I know it's like four light
cycles to get up past the Rebecca Nurse House to get across Holton Street. Um, it's and and I just don't think you should allow the dental office to change the uh flooring on that four to to make it a three-story building. Just drop it to a two one down, one and a half above
and just downsize the project. Thank you. You okay? Any further comments before we come back to the or questions before we come back to the board? I'll be quick one more time. Okay. Can you announce your Can you state your name again for the record,
please? Yeah. Derek Whittington at 11 Essex Street. Yes, sir. Um the uh the fiveway stop right in front of us is a nightmare. I'm sure you guys go through it. Uh we as a people, we can't get through it without honking at each
other and uh cursing at each other. That's just going to get worse with all all this. uh the tandem parking spots when they are moving their cars. How are they gonna they're gonna have to back up out probably out on the Essex Street,
let the person in, and then drive back in. You know, the piggyback spots if the person who's blocked in has to get out. I'm just trying to bring that up of how that's going to work. And another thing, we are uh they're talking $80,000. like
$80,000 is going to get us for the uh you know whatever it was the traffic. Yeah. $80,000 is going to get us like a traffic light and a couple stop signs. Let's be realistic what things cost nowadays. So and um you know that's all I got. Great.
Thank you. Okay, let's come on back to the um to the board. Josh, where do we stand in terms of engineering comments and those and those sort of things we have right now? Um, so it was just the memo that was in the packet. The development team
has it in hand. Um, I believe that um, we're just we were just awaiting a respon, you know, they did they did just get it last, you know, last week. Um, I think it was just I mean where we sat the development team would, you know,
um, send a revised plan set and response memo kind, you know, we do it with every project. Um, but they just got it last week. So, right. Um so we're not quite ready in terms of um Sure. Yeah. In terms of in terms of engineering. Yeah. In terms of Yeah. In terms of that memo
being, you know, satisfied. Okay. Yep. All right. Let me come back to the board in terms of um further comments or questions. Um I know we heard a lot from the the the residents. So, Jean, anything you wanted to add or
um just there was a comment that we should push for more onebedroom and twobedroom. I think that that would increase the parking requirement. Um so, not sure how great of an idea that was.
Even though it is nice to have a mix, it seems like there are a lot of projects that have two bedrooms and one bedroom. So maybe we do need the three bedrooms. Um I did have one question on the the parking the full parking spots. Can you
explain why um there's like a shaded out rectangle between full seven and full eight is like that low hanging or something that you can't fit a car there. Yeah. Accessible accessible zone. Oh, okay.
Okay. And then Oh, go ahead. Sorry. So, would those two spaces be marked as handicap? At least one of them will have a handicap in front of it. Maybe. Okay.
Don't they though with those handicap accessible spots have to have an accessible route to the entrance which they don't have with those locations? They have to be located as close as possible to the entrance to the building. Um I was actually looking at this probably for the same reason you're thinking like shouldn't this be slid
down here? Yeah, we could move this here and have just one space and it be like legitimately directly adjacent to that or we could put door here. But I do think we should probably slide that down. Yeah, I think they have to have accessible access to that main entry without going through the drive aisle. If I No, drive a flat, but it's you try
and minimize it. Jean, anything further? Um, I know there are a number of like semi- requests. How should we go about like asking if those are going to be conditions or Well, I think in Yeah, I mean just in terms of
where I'm sitting right now since I know we have engineering we're waiting you know we haven't had the full sort of back and forth we see in terms of engineering yet I would be um you know in terms of I I would and considering also the special permit might be you
know anything I think that that the site could be affect you know could affect ffect the special permit and such. So I think they kind of go together. So I would I would be interested in in sort of seeing a seeing them come seeing the applicant maybe, you know, come back and looking
at some of the the um some of the concerns that that we have. Okay. is that um my thought I'd certainly like to hear um the comments from the the board and see where we stay on stand on a few
things. However, the engineering department comments are strictly related to site plan review. Yep. Um and really we have two separate applications, two separate processes. We have the special permit waiver application and then we
have the site plan approval, right? Um and they're really separate. We're here we're hearing them together and submitted them together, but you could act on the special permits and the waiverss. um tonight if you wished separately from
the site plan approval and then we come back to deal with the engineering department comments and some of the site plan related kind of of questions that we heard tonight. One of the things that I' I've been taking my notes tonight as I always do is um
talking about the color talking about the transparencies and things like that. We can talk about that tonight. But those kind that's part of the the transparency is part of the uh special permit, right? Um but the other site
plan issues. They're two separate things. You could if you are comfortable bifurcate and do the special permit and the waiverss and then we come back and we talk about the site plan. If uh once we uh talk finish up the engineering
department comments, we can do it that way. If the board is comfortable doing that, isn't it isn't it the concern I have and I I don't want to speak from my fellow members, but the concern I have is that if let's say coming back on some of the site plan related issues and but and also the the the whole the
transparency that's not that's part of the Yes, that was part of this the uh that's not that that was part of the the waiver. Correct. Yeah. So I I'm just being I'm concerned that if you if there's a if there is a some sort of change to the over you know to the plan
set to overall change then we've we've approved a special permit that might end up being changed even just theoretically. Yeah. So could happen. Although what I saw in the engineering engineering department comments those
comments are not going to change the site plan. I know I wouldn't be I myself wouldn't be comfortable voting on it with the site plan without engineering department comments although the the board has um done that in the past but I understand that we haven't even submitted our response. So I get that
that that item site plan review and the engineering department comments would have to be continued. The question is whether we're far enough along for the board to be comfortable on the special permits and the waiverss and that's up that really is up to you. you
can bifurcate the project is my point, but you may not be ready to do that. Um, and I again I as I said when I stood up, I wanted to hear the comments because I don't know if you're f far enough along. There may be some some questions that we have to answer. Okay. Um, not to
interrupt if we wanted my if you wanted had a if you had a couple more because Jim Jim does have a Jim would like to speak again. Sure. You can go. You want Jim? Yeah. Yeah. Jim, go ahead. Hold on. Okay. That's a long phone call if you're still on the phone. He's not home. There he
is. All right. Hey, Jim. I told you I wouldn't forget you. Okay. Thank you. Just trying to kill the reverb. Yeah. Hold on. Need to take a break. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. Have him turn off his audio or mute. If
you could just turn off your audio. Um should mute his audio or mute your audio. Yeah. Yeah, we're there. Close. All right, Jim. Go ahead. Jim, you have the floor. Josh on the bottom. Microphone's on the bottom.
Yeah, I know. Jim. Yes. Um, you could you could speak. [Music] Jim. Yeah. Are we good now? It's getting a reverb. Do you mind just
turn off your audio? Just You got to turn your audio off, Jim. And then we're fine, I think. Turn off his speakers. A mut speaker. Yeah, if you have a headset, that's better. Is it better?
Yeah, I turned off my turn. Careful, you're on the live mic. Type it. Do you want to if you can maybe type if you can type the question in the chat maybe if that's okay I'll type it. All right. Why don't
we um All right, we'll circle back. We're gonna circle back. What's that? I don't Okay. Um All right, Jim. I'm gonna hang up. Just send me the comments through the chat. I I guess just like what are we trying to Are we gonna I don't have any specific comments. I guess we're voting for the special
stuff. we going to do each one? Are we going to I I myself just in terms of where I'm standing I am I am in terms of comfort level I think there's enough comments and and and there are some potential questions here. I would not
myself feel comfortable bifurcating them and rather um rather continuing both and any sort of comments or questions could you know could be addressed in particular I think we have some issues in terms of even just questions that we
have in terms of the um you know in terms of the trans the transparency the even just stuff like the the color of the building. So along with just even the even if everything was perfect, I would just I would because we I don't think we're quite
ready for the the site plan approval in terms of at least on my view in terms of having the back and forth with engineering. I'm just concerned that if let's say there was an issue with with with something that that affected it could potentially affect it could be intertwined with the special permit or
the waiver. So that's why I would I would feel more comfortable having it address having everything addressed alto together. I mean that's that's consistent with what we've done with some other projects in terms of um like Chick-fil-A um you know we had them come back but that's that's my that's my
view. Yeah. No, I don't have a problem with that because I I guess my comment was just that there's some of the special permits I don't have an issue with. there some of the things that we've done in the past, but then there's other ones such as the transparency for me that just make the building feel super heavy and um just I think there's some concerns
with that. So I I I don't think I need to go go into depth on any more of that right now, but I'd like to hear what Jim has to say. Yeah. And I have a few um I I I have some I have a few sort of questions as well as you know some some substantive comments as well. So, but Jim does did Jim you do you you you
speak your comments and then Okay, he's trying to type. I think that's fine. Okay. Um so a couple of things and just in terms of sort of takeaways in terms of hearing some of the the comments I am I do have a question about the um sort of the building transparency if there's any if there's something you can relook
at it again just out of a concern if there is you know um you know and I understand that a lot of it was sort of the the dental office you want to have everything you want a consistency with I know with but and the the dental office seems to be driving it which I I get it
but That's but if there's a an alternative to look at as well. Um that like I you know like I mentioned there was you know you have a CVS which has a which has glass but it's not but it's opaque or there's a certain something that you can still maybe you're still at
the same transparency per se but it's but at least it allows for um you know you know this building's going to be here a long time. So so that's a that's a concern I have. I do have um in terms of the
uh I know we talked about sort of the uh looking at the trees and again anything that can be done with respect to you know taking a look at sort of the the trees to the extent any of that sort of natural um you know barriers lack of is
not really the best word but any sort of you know delineation between the the buffer buffer buffer thank you it's late um so buffer offer in terms of that. I think that would be that would be be helpful as well. Um the uh in terms of the um the
affordable unit, I'm definitely very I am I am happy that you all are in terms of looking this is more in terms of comments. I'm I'm happy that this is that you're that you're proposing at the outset at an an additional affordable unit. So I think that is a good thing and I know that you know and as I think
was one of the comments was mentioned earlier. I mean this is you know you know we're also looking at you know I think there's always a concern you know this I think there's a concern about people you know coming from out of town and such but this also I think potentially the the affordable unit that
also helps people that helps people's kids that helps people who may be downsizing so I'm I am supportive of that um and in terms of renters um I've been a renter before you know I've been a renter and I was a I was a good tenant
Um, you know, I uh you know, I've I've been a renter before and someone, you know, said though, I'm not a I'm I'm not a landlord. Well, I'm not, but my my dad was a landlord and my grandfather was a was was a landlord. you know, my grandfather came from Greece and he ran a grocery store and he and he owned a
couple of houses, you know, so that's something, you know, you know, two or three family houses, you know, and that's and so that's, you know, so I understand that, but I think just to do a broad brush is really um is is not accurate and it's unfair. Um so uh and
again just you know so in going back to the um you know and going back again just to the to the construction itself and the and the um in the building I again I'd be interested in seeing a little bit more on the uh on transparency as well
as I'm interested in uh hearing as well um again just looking at that section of the zoning bylaw I brought up I think it was 7.2.4 for again just I understand talking about some of you know I and I know there's for and against on mansard
roofs um again I would I would appreciate just a second look in terms of just the um other sort of um building you know uh you know roof types and all even if it's a matter that you know just
it would make me feel better about about the project again because I'm looking at not just it's not just personal preference It's also looking at consistency with the sort of the overall zoning regulation. So that's So I So those are some of the um those are some
of the the high points. So okay, I might have a couple more if I um if if it's okay to read Jim. Yeah, please. Please read Jim's comments. Yeah. So Jim wrote, uh I'm not ready to vote yet. I believe the project is too dense and no justification for the waiver. 12 units
max. The intent of the waiver was for the Maple Street properties in High Street that did not have large parking lots attached to it. We counted the street parking spaces for drivers hardware due to the very limited parking. So that was the comment his comment. So his comment is not ready to
vote on it and concern about the he has concerns it seems like for right for the waiver request for the density um and it looks like from the parking and parking as well. Yeah. Okay. Got it.
Okay. Any further um anything further? We heard from Jim I said a few things. Jean, did you have anything further you want to add? Um no. Just like reiterating um I was looking again at the landscaping and
that outdoor space that butts against seven Essex Street that it looks like that's where all of the existing mature trees are and you're proposing to put in all all new notmature trees. So maybe if any of those could stay that would be really helpful and go a long way with
the neighbors. Um, and then again at one of my first comments was uh the redoing the sidewalks on both Essex and Elm Street.
Um, and then and if there's any way to eliminate the synthetic turf um, and just continue whatever is along that three-foot strip down into that area, that would half of us street sidewalk was just done
recently. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Thank you, Mike. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Um and the only um one thing I was going to I was going to ask as well and again this is just again uh appreciating the the additional um affordable unit but understanding as
well that you are um and again this is a you know I'm I'm just I'm I'm posing the question in terms of because of a concern in terms of density and such and because of the waiver and the special permits requested and I understand you're adding an additional affordable unit to what's already um to what's the
what's required. Would you um and again you have to answer this now, but would you be willing to consider an additional affordable unit as well? So for a total of um so rather than the three affordable units there there would to be
four again that's is something as I'm thinking in my mind looking at the the fact that it is a it's a it's a fair ask in terms of the um in terms of special permit and waiver and so looking at what is being provided in terms of public you
know good to the public. Lou, can you just confirm if the extra affordable unit is for the special permit or for the waiver? They're sort of both. They're sort of like both. It's like both. It's part of the special I believe it's denied special permit. Isn't that correct? For the special permit, we don't need to
provide u a public u benefit improvement um for the waiver. For a waiver. Yeah. Sure. Okay. But it's all part of all part of the package. So that's kind of how I view it. Yeah. So that's why that's why I was saying as
part of the package I was just again you don't have to answer it now but I'm saying if that's something unless you're willing to answer it now. I am certainly not willing to answer that now. That is a huge ask huge uh to ask for another um
unit. Um there was a request to lower below 80% too. So I don't know if um again these are things to consider. Yeah. you know to keep in you know to for your consideration to come right
backwards. Um I don't have an answer for for that now. Although I will say that it is a huge ask on top of some of these uh the other things that we've added in and some of the other payments and uh and things that we're hearing.
Um, so I will take, you know, I will take that back obviously to my client. Uh, but if we I just want to get a good feel if in fact we're we're not going to bifurcate this process and we we have some items. I want to make sure I have them all, but I also want to get a good
feeling for um for where the board stands on on some of these items because as we have to go forward with the uh the site plan back and forth with the engineering department, that's additional expense. We have to understand if we have a project, let's
just be honest. Um so we have the uh special permit um and waiver for for the density at at 16 units. Um, I've just heard the request. Could there be another unit? Um, but
uh I've heard the comments about that, but where do we stand uh on that generally? Um, meeting the needs of the downtown. Is that generally something that we're hearing is is a good thing?
Okay. Do you want to do you I I just am wondering where we're standing on on that. Um, personally, I'm okay with it, especially given that there are three family or Yeah, three bedroom units.
Sorry. Um, I I would say on that special permit, I don't I We're going back to the board comment. Okay, just just I would just like to say um she has her own personal microphone. Why can't I have my own personal microphone? Well, okay. You're
we're back to the board comment. So, I'm just making that, you know, point for people to notice. The attorney has her own microphone that she's had the entire meeting. Okay. And the residents have had to share a microphone and get your permission to
speak. I think five waivers is a huge ask. Thank you. Everyone seems like affordable housing is very important. Obviously, it's not important to them. We're back to the board. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Back to the board. Sorry. Stop making think that this is about Sir, you're out of order. You're out of order. Yeah. Okay. You are, Mike. Um I I think that's one that that special permit I kind of am on the fence about right now to be
honest. Which one? the uh the dens the special permit um about the 16 units and the um sorry waiver for 16 units and special permit for 13. Am I remembering my numbers correctly? I think that's one right now that I'm on the fence about to
be honest. I I don't think I fall on the definitely no or definitely yes. I'm definitely think the housing is important and I appreciate the affordability of it. I think right now it feels a little dense, but I think there's probably some other issues that are stemming to my feelings on that. So again, I I don't think I'm a hard no or
a hard yes on it, but I do think that's something that I am on the fence about. And myself, I tend to be more I'm I'm I'm tending to be more on the on the on the yes, not to, you know, but I'm also at the same time, I also am cognizant of
the um of the public comments and and what the neighbors are are feeling as well. So I think that's why I'm also asking about any additional sort of public benefit. So I mean I myself I think that that housing particularly the affordable piece is important. I think
this type of of of housing is um I think is ultimately good for the community. But I do um but again I I that's why you know that that additional you know ask was not said lightly in lie a comment on that like I I don't think it's a comment we need to
discuss right now but I do think it'd be important to talk about that as a board about public improvements. I think affordability is wonderful. I think it's fantastic but I also think that it benefits the one person who wins the lottery to get that affordability. And so yes it's a public realm improvement but it's not really for the entire town.
So, I don't know Josh and planning board how we do this, but it would be good to investigate different things. Like, I'm not saying a playground's the number one thing. It only benefits kids, but like it'd be interesting to talk about other options just as a town. I think it Yeah, go ahead. It's late, but there there are there are a list of there are Yeah, I
read them. I read as I was sitting here, I read them. So, there's the benches and stuff that attorney mentioned. So, I think the affordability is better than that, but I do think it ends up benefiting one family. Sure. So, just a comment, but sorry. I know it's not really what we need to talk about right now at 10:16.
Thank you. I'm just looking for um make sure we have everything uh covered for the next time. Sure. that we come. Um I'm not hearing um assuming that we address the transparency issue and the
color issue lightening up that uh that building look and and we um we can provide some additional information on that. Um I am not hearing objection to the other special permits or waiverss.
um the trees. We'll look at whether we can save some of those trees. We'll also look at uh can we take some shrubs out and put some more trees in, make that switch. Um but aside from that, I am not hearing other uh objections to the other
uh design. I would just look that's not a special but the design in terms of just as I mentioned that that part of the zoning regulations, right? We can provide that that additional information to you. But as far as the the waiverss or the other special permits, I don't think I'm hearing objection to those
provided we respond to the comments that basically transparency some of the architecture uh ideas. Uh I guess there's a concern I mean and I guess any concerns we've had I think you know that we've had some those of you know some of us have expressed some concerns about with the
the density, right? No, I understand that that's uh that that special permit seems to be the as is typical that the one that we questioned and you've put a a a request out there uh as to what we can do and um I will certainly go back
to the development team. So, um Lou, can we just confirm what the other ones were real quick just to make sure we all agree that we're okay with those other ones? Am I doing that? Yeah, that's that's a good idea. So, we have the uh the special permit and waiver on the density um the special permit to
allow us to count the parking spots some parking spaces along the street. Not reserve them, not sign them. Simply count them. Uh transparency. Yep. Um the six foot setback. There's there's two side Yeah, there's two sideyard
setbacks. There's a six and then the 13.9. Yes. the the six and it's along that side we had the the plans up where with the existing building is zero. The new is going to be step back six or 13. Six
and then 13. So so it's a sideyard setback essentially but it's a special permit. So it's two special permits related to the design in terms of the ground the ground floor transparency and then the two sideyards. Yeah. Okay. And
then the waiverss are 10 in on the height. Yeah. And uh 13 trees rather than 23 trees in the park in the playground. And our reasons for that is we want to have playground equipment and sitting areas. But maybe having heard the comments, number one, maybe we can
uh certainly accept a condition that we would work with planning staff to see if some trees could be saved, but also can we look at the the landscaping uh that has been proposed? Maybe some of the shrubs while numerous, maybe we
could do a tree instead of a shrub and that kind of thing. Uh that's it. Thank you. Yeah, just just forformational purposes um we did have a member who was absent tonight. Um he does have the ability to
watch the video and do mullins. So just in terms of um you know the board comments and questions if Tim attends the next meeting he can participate in the hearing. So and it would be three of five instead of three of four. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Right. Right.
Because that's that that's what the special permit wave would require under this downtown zoning. It would always need Right. It always require the three. Okay. Thank you. Y just for the for everyone. Okay. So term do you have enough information in terms of and both
in terms of what information that we need as well as sort of you where we are sort of falling is that I think I do just if you could give me just one moment. Sure. Um, I think we do have our direction.
So, we would ask for a continuence to your next meeting, which I believe is June 10th. Okay. Okay. Very good. So, there's a request to our for a continuence to our next meeting of June 10th. How is our um the
agenda looking for the It would um it's fairly open. So, Okay. Very good. And so we would need to I need to entertain a motion to continue the public hearing. Yep. Yep. For the special permanent site plan. So moved. Oh, do I think you what
you probably want to say? Yes. Do you mind saying sorry? Yes. I make a motion that we continue um the 83 Elm Street and 5s6 Street public hearing to our next meeting, June 10th, 2025. Second. Okay. Very good. A motion's been made uh
made by Jean and seconded by Mike. Okay. So, we're going to call for a roll call vote. Oh, he fell asleep. Roll call vote on the motion to uh to continue. Are you uh Sears?
Yes. Yes. Okay. Mike Doulis. Yes. Jean Hartnett. Yes. Yes, George. Thank you. Yes. Okay, so the motion to continue has so it has been continued to our next uh meeting of June 10th. And what else do
we have Josh in terms of anything uh anything further? I know it's a it's a late night and thank you for uh not at this time. No. Thank you members of the board and members of the public for giving us time this evening. Absolutely. Thank you. Motion to adjurnn. Yeah. Motion to adjurnn. Okay. Motion to
adjurnn has been made by Mike. Second. Second. Okay. Um uh all in favor calling roll. Mike Dulis. I. Jean Hartnip. Hi. Jim Sears. Hold on. We got to call him. Blue George. Yes.
We are adjourned. Yes. Three out of five. Good. Jim motion to adjurnn your Yes. Thank you. All right. Four to zero. Thank you. Thank you very much everybody. Have a good evening. Thank you.