one two three check T nothing that we're on joining us for 6 o' 20 board meeting we're in spacious police station come on down I think we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance priance stes of America to the for stands naice thank you 600 bus Bill be um so we have no new but minutes of the April 4th meeting the drop has been hosted we very the reason we can I mention one thing though I did have a chance to read it and it looks like the sequence of events is turned around it's um uh it's the one that talks about um I'll talk you about it but the sequencing is out of border I'll take a okay okay uh and you said no bills correct correct all right we have a an issue before us um that I wanted to address from a planning board standpoint it has to do with code of conduct of um lady board members not only towards each other but towards the applicants who Us in 2008 the select board and act to their code of conduct uh they they expect everyone in the time uh here to we have a copy of what our code of conduct should be um uh I want to go back to the meeting we had on the last on April 4th was it 4th oh it sounds seems like so long ago and address some of the things that came up in that meeting that were un conable or offensive to not only myself but I think the rest of the board um we have a letter that we wrote that we would like to read as public record U we also have a letter from the attorney for uh Sanctuary Peter journey I do not want to read it uh it's available it was sent to the town uh expressing their a and concern about how that meeting was run and I want to uh uh address the issues that were presented there and make sure that moving forward we don't have meetings like that again so I said we wrote a letter and I think we should probably read it which sure so this was U prepared on the behalf of the four planning board members um that were subject to their comments at the last me um I want to remind you all that the to of little and though it says I it really is referring to I want to remind you all that the town of Littleton through the board of selectman adopted a code of conduct and ethics on November 17 2008 pursuant to masteral laws chapter 268a section 23 C the code of ethics requires among other things that all members of a board shall remember that they represent the town of Littleton at all times treat all members of the board with respect despite differences of opinion conduct themselves so as to maintain public confidence in their local government and in the performance of the public trust at our last meeting a heated discussion ensued concerning the application of sanctuary during that discussion one of the board members made the comment why do my peers protect Sanctuary maybe one day we'll find out the clear intention of that statement lacking any foundation or proof was to suggest to the public that fellow board members might be guilty of their proper influence members of this planning board take great offense to such an insinuation each of the members on this board takes their duties as elected officials seriously and with great attention to the information provided by applicants before the board as well as all the Butter's concerns we are insulted and harmed by this public and unfounded accusation and we were requested an apology the statement reflects malevolent poor judgment by the board member who made it not only for maligning the character of decent elected volunteers but also for putting putting the board in a light that erodes the public confidence in the work of this board further during the same hearing the same board member called the applicant a liar and personally attack the applicant and its legal representative exposing the town and this board to potential legal action for character assault and defamation that also violated code of ethics obligation to conduct oneself to maintain public confidence in local government I call for an apology on the record but I would like to remind all of the board members that applicants before us are due courtesy and respect they are not to be made called or bullied we may differ in our opinions as board members but we are each entitled to a vote without accusation or disparagement by our fellow board members when we disagree we are first and foremost ambassadors for the town of Litton and we owe it to the public to conduct a professional responsible and deliberative hearing without animosity toward one other one another or toward the applicant before us and that's the comments us so and following up on that um like I said we have a letter from birds and Lon requesting a public apology which I think they are owed and also just the conduct moving forward we we're not going to tolerate um that kind of um abuse by a fellow board member not only that but also trying to take over and we're supposed to be doing what's best for the town not what each individual thinks is best or anything El it's what's best for the town as a whole um our opinions are our opinions they shouldn't shape what goes on at the town we should take in the information de decipher it and make what we think is the best judgments putting the P at risk like you did for the potential of a lawsuit for the potential of just trying to show how we we try to work with everyone else I think was put us in a very bad light and I just I I don't think I speak for myself I think I speak for all of us we're not going to put up with that bad behavior is bad behavior and we're not going to put up with it so uh we expect U an apology to the board members and to the applicant from you and uh moving forward we're not going to tolerate that kind of behavior I think I speak to all of us are you in agreement with L yes I am Jeff yes and I spoke with bar before he left he said at the very least he felt apology was over to not only us but the applicant as well for the for your behavior at the last meeting say something give you a moment to say something then we're gonna move on I have nothing further to say about that topic um I would agree that the planning board should adopt a code of conduct and ethics that the now sign so I look forward to no no no time out here we all live by our codes you did not you chair no I'm no Mr chair no I have been Bing plenty no absolutely not especially in the last couple of months so like I said I have nothing further to say and you I have nothing to say the applicant receiv a special permit they need to move on not no Mark Mark I think she's I think Miss hou has made it very evident she has no intent apologizing to the board members or to the applicants so let's just let it rest and let's just move on okay moving forward we'll we'll deal with it as we deal with let they want to do than you uh I'm G take things out of order real quick because our consultant Emily needs to get out of here as quick as possible coach so can we do the MBTA Community thing right off the bat and then we'll we'll deal with 245 f if everyone's okay with that you you okay you ask me to do it aren't you okay no I'm fine with that I just wanted to to judge this so thank you very much Mr chair members of the board Mr a continued public hearing need to do anything about so technically it's not a public hearing because notice was not properly given the L son never did publish the no that they confirmed so we're going to have to re advertise we have read advertised um the public heing for May 2nd um but since it was posted as a continued hearing I would suggest that we go forward with the conversation tonight an informal discussion about it oh just move forward with the conversation it's just recent just the yes two days ago we figed out the notes okay we have an audience suggest so for the record Emily inis of inis Associates uh we are the consultant that has been assisting the board of the town with um finding a compliant path for the NBTA communities act I want to thank the board for um allowing me to appr some actually double book tonight with another mvta communities uh um as we approach town meeting there's a lot of these meetings so thank you for your flexibility um I do have the presentation that we would be using for town meeting you have seen 99% of it um I think the uh only changes are we did add a list you just want to keep flipping through tomorrow and I'll stop stop there um we did add a list talking about the things that the um planning board has been doing uh in order to have these conversations in your regular public forum we also have the workshop of March and the follow-up public survey and it says public hearing because this was done before uh I heard about the the L Sun but clearly you are continuing to have these public discussions public the one that we' posted is going to be May 1st is now um Thursday May 2nd Thursday May 2nd at 6:15 and in the 103 yeah okay so I will add that to that slide um and just note that the select board and the finance committee has also followed your V to recommend this article you want to start Ping forward a little bit more so you've seen the information none of this has changed about what littleton's requirements are the zoning the King Street Village common um talked about that at the last meeting um there's the map of the parcels so your two-part strategy with this area is really providing most of your unit capacity in most of your acreage but uh we do still need if it's required that you have something within the station area which is a half mile radius so more if flip forward so those are the puzzle pieces um that uh we have for um the the King Street Village common area and you can see we're almost at the 50 acres we're well above well above the L units per acre what that allows us to do is in in listening to the board and listening to the community at March 19th meeting is dried down as much as possible the density around the station area to be responsive to um you know the existing development pattern in that area and neighborhood s if you want to flip over please um there are some minor adjustments to King Street com I think we've talked about them uh before uh rounding down for the affordability requirement and um bringing the criteria for wetlands and flood plan regulation and the aqua and Water Resource District in as site plan review criteria under your um site plan review rather than as a special permit special permit me Authority is not going to be allowed by hlc but you have free to be move the criteria to site and ready up next please so part two is the littleon station area we've talked about this in the past if you want to jump forward slide so this is just um zooming in on the area so if you can see the parcels that we're discussing 305 and 295 Foster Street um we've identified it by block and L map number next s please um this is the proposed zoning it's the zoning that's in the draft article the only real change here is when we did the last Model that you saw 295 Foster and 305 Foster had different um maximum dwelling units per acre in the test uh we made them the same for this um and the reason is that way you don't have to have um uh two separate subdistricts in the in the zoning um for Littleton station it's just one subdistrict that covers both uh and you can see separately how the two of those work together you've got more than enough Acres you need to overt um the other thing is the last Model you saw 305 Foster because we had modeled it separately as a 10 acre there was a very small parcel that was attached to it I think it was 215 tailored we removed that yes so it's just 305 Foster that's why the Acres will look different 295 Foster and we just changed the maximum dwelling units for acre next slide um the zoning it's a new overlay District uh for the two Parcels so the base uh underlying zoning the industrial uh zoning remains IA um we're allowing multif family Al are right based on the dimensional standards you saw but there are additional dimensional standards such as setbacks um we heard concern about uh buildings maybe being too big uh so we limited the building size to no more than 12 bu um dwelling units per building um in an effort to bring the scale down understanding that there would be more than one building pilot that again gets du to the compliance requirements established the site plan review process specific to this overlay and development standards for the planning board's review and it allows the planning board do uh add design guidelines at a later date and then we added the 10% affordability at 80% area medium income next slide please so this is the key um uh slide for you all is to see how 295 and 305 Foster as you V it was your last meeting work with the King Street common and the village common you're well above your 50 acres you're well above your units again that's mostly coming from the existing zoning at King Street and Village Comm we're not changing that zoning at all um when plugged into the compliance model it essentially you know reports out um an estimate of the unit capacity based on the existing zoning uh F the changes with the two I mentioned earlier two 295 and 305 Foster you put them together and you get that you can see the original um density for K Street Village common was about 23 units per acre we've now brought it to 16.76% station area meet your units within the station area and more importantly because in some of the pre-approval letters when hlc has been looking at the compliance models they have in some cases reduced the unit capacity which therefore reduces the the density we have a cushion here so when this goes to hlc if they say no we we we think compliance model should go a different way and we've seen that you do have room U for them to reduce something with without uh having to come back to NAA so and again that compliance model is that mathematical exercise to give an estimate of unit capacity doesn't necessarily mean um it doesn't necessar it's not a straight line relationship to what could be built on the site and that I believe is the last SL yes great what I have any questions or concerns even though this is just an we'll be doing this again I have a couple comments um compliance mod yes I have had comments from people going well I can do the math myself and this these numbers don't you know add up what's you know right what's the story so the compliance model um uh takes information from two main sources the First Source is a geographic information database GS system um and the database was created by the state and it has certain specific layers in it so has parcel layers but it also has a layer called excluded land and a layer called sensitive land and excluded land uh you can't model the unit capacity on that land so if you're taking a parcel of say 10 acres and applying the um 15 dwell units per acre you would expect to see 150 units but if you've got excluded land within that um you can't model the excluded land so two of that's excluded that's not included so 15 units per acre is going to be on the the eight units rather than the 10 so that's throwing a lot of people off um the other thing and it's not an issue as much in Littleton but some communities have districts where they've got rights of life within the district that's also a model with excluded land so I've seen people take out parcels and say well I've got five Parcels here and your Math's not adding up when I look at the total District it's because you have to include the right of way but that's not been an issue for me so part of it is that excluded land that's going to throw it off if they're just if they're just looking at the Assessor's Database or the online GIS and pulling numbers that they won't have the um layer that has the excluded land calculation when that information is brought into the model it's brought in on a single worksheet um and uh the information from the gis is just copied into that worksheet and the formulas automatically appli to it the second section of information is the zoning criteria and that is pulled from either your existing zoning as we did with King Street Village common um or it's from the tests that we did so it's a community say hey I'd like the parcel size to be this I'd like the parking to be that I'd like the height to be this and those iterations that we did was us inputting um uh various scenarios and to see what would work and what wouldn't um the checklist sets used there asks for a lot of different types of information because communities historically use a lot of different controls to um um um either create an incentive for or reduce the amount of development of a lot not all of those controls fit into a model so I've had people well the setbacks do this and the setbacks do that and so you can't get this the setbacks don't actually feed into the model calculation and there's a couple of others like that um there's there's a mathematical reason that they don't but the upshot is that somebody who's maybe sketching something out on a parcel themselves they're not necessarily going to get what's into the model because it it's not working the way they expect um so so we've get gotten people who like oh did a fit study and it should be this but it's not that so it's important to remember that the model was a way for hlc to be able to estimate across 177 cities and towns with multiple zoning districts like each a general capacity to understand whether or not the zoning applies but there's so much that goes into the model topography um is one uh the parcel shape which is not something that can be modeled is another uh for example there's so much that goes into it that could reduce the amount that actually goes on a lot so it's important to understand that and then there's all the other development factors like financing where the what the market demand is where we are in Market cycle whether or not there's even people in the area who can build it um a developer capacity for a building unit so there's a lot that goes into lack of production there that's a key issue for the model in terms of why somebody looking at the parcels might not get the same result next numbers um one other so when you looked at the um and I and I know you're creating a uh I'm number that well part of the 550 K is a number we have permitted them so many units and they are intending to build those units the additional site uh the old YC River Site 80 units how did that how did that come out I mean it's advantageous to us because of our you know and I understand that right but at town meeting people will look at I go oh my god there are going to be 80 units on that that site what do we say right so again it's the message is if I plug these parameters in and that's what that's what it comes out with the model is designed so so the model looked at that site it's a simple Square site doesn't even matter it's a square so I think that's an important thing it just starts off with how many square feet are on the site right it translates the acres to square feet so how many square feet is and then actually it is a rectangle so let's let's do the rectang angle right first thing it does it takes off excluded land so you can't build on that then it takes off open space calculation can't build on that then it takes off parking uh can't build on that and that leaves the box and the box is the building footprint you multiply by the building footprint by the number of stories now you've got the building volume you divide that building volume by a thousand that's your number of units so you were aggressive on that but once again in myew yes great I mean we've already had developer presentation there's nowhere near 80 units going to be built on the site uh but for the purposes of this the state analysis it gets our density it enables our density to be lower on the other STS should say exactly and that that was one of the key reasons I think um as as I understand the request that to us to add the village common to King Street is you know if you put those together what does that look like in terms of unit capacity and density does that allow us to drive down and the answer is yes it did allow you to drive down and that was the goal so um I'd say it's it's working in your favor but to your point and I think this is where hlc in in the pre-approval letters that I've seen in some communities they're saying we see that's what the model tells you but we're a little concerned that it's not going to get to that level so that's why I say having a cushion um yes it's always possible to go back to town meeting but it's much easier if town meeting passes it an hlc says you know this works so our hope is that this is kind when we send this to the govern's office is that it's going to be like for lack of a better word the way the V by they came back with tweaks to it we didn't have to go to town meetings we got tweaks to it we fixed it and then we're in compliance so that's what you're trying to do right exactly close as possible so that what goes to town meeting is maybe there's a letter that says we should reduce that or there's a change here but it's not anything that requires you to go back to town that is the goal just once so back to numbers yes we ended up on the designated Parcels uh at this in the stationary with 181 we were you know we were trying to get to 150 yes and is that reflective of the actual size of the parcels or so that became out of what I call a stress test so what I did was I I had the two Parcels in the the compliance model I said it'd be really helpful we could have them both at the same dwelling units per a the Restriction they're quite large Parcels uh 10 acres 30 Acres the model tends to be a little high on that you know if I if I take if I had taken that six dwelling units per acre restriction off I don't think anybody would have liked that um uh including potentially hlc there were a lot of units so the question becomes okay how do we get it as low as possible so at six dwelling units per acre if I went down to five because I wanted it to be full numbers five was too low um I don't I'd have to go back and see which ones I tested but five was too low so six was the lowest restriction I could get that didn't dip them below 149 units and then the rest is the mouth of the the parcels themselves so and I am happy through you're gonna be doing this a town meeting I mean just think about that I I can I can show it to you know Tom meeting live if they want to see it but it's not it's not person not interested in that but there may be people who are and you know if the board thinks maybe not showing the model live but I could break out so here the inputs here the outputs so people can see that if that's of use to town meeting I want to you know knowing Town meetings time I want to be protective of their time but I also want to make sure they have more information we could also issue the same thing as an FAQ I found with the model that sometimes it's more confusing than helpful yeah absolutely if it's if it's useful I'm happy to provide that information uh we did at the previous uh the previous the workshop that we did and your meeting after that we did provide you with the stress test that was the the parcels that were in blue and then green and it showed okay if you drop the units per acre the units per acre by one it doesn't work anymore so it was that same sort of stress test one more number question of course the two Parcels have different uh men allowed du all hum paror there's the same now yes I made them the same because otherwise you would have had to do each as a separate subdistrict and that okay I don't think it was reflected on your slide could you go back to that you back to the zoning one yeah there you go they're both at six now well one says 6.7 and one says no that's the result okay explain okay so the result of oh I see yeah it's it's under proposed oh okay that's the okay so that's I'm looking at the Tex so in terms of a slide maybe that's not the best I don't have to put them next to each other I was trying to reduce the number of yeah but then we're looking at the table okay yes okay and then when that's translated into the um zoning bylaw proposal itself it's it's six it's six in bylaw yes and I have a quick question on this particular slide so what you were referencing earlier about the excluded lands and doing the math at 295 Foster Street um that um has a couple of Acres that are excluded I believe because of the Wetland so I I could make the map work and then I remember the excluded so so when you submit this to um uh the state you use the 20.2 not the excluded they then take that out so what the state gets that's an excellent question the state gets the compliance model fully filled out there's some extraneous information that haven't put in yet because it wasn't required they get the compliance model they get the gis shape files so they can reproduce exactly what we're looking at and they get the zoning um and there's application letters and um other narrative materials that are required that talks about why you did what you did but their goal our goal for them is they should be able to reproduce exactly what we did when they did the Z in so they'll see all of those numbers anybody else any any other question yes name please for read okay address my question is you may have covered this before but can you go over the guidelines one more time the number of units required oh yes maybe a definition of 10% % what do you mean by y yeah keep going keep going keep going keep going so all right so these are the numerical requirements um the minimum land area is 50 acres I think as I was turned this way more of you came in so my apologies the minimum land area required is 50 acres um there's a number of Acres within the station are is 10 so that's 20% uh minimum contiguous District size we don't talk about this but just so you know the King Street Village common together as one District more than meets it but you either have you have to have 50% of the total District size so your minimum is 25 if you of them have 50 acres you have more than that a little bit more than that but you're fine uh minimum unit capacity is 750 units and I'll stop here and say that hlc has site online that has all of this information including how they derived these calculations uh but the minimum capacity is 750 20% to G 150 units and then the minimum density requirements to 152 units per acre the 80% um uh 10% comes from the affordability so you the the town rather is not required to have requirement for affordable units many towns are choosing to do so so hlc has provided um that you could have 10% of units affordable at 80% of Ami if you want a deeper level of affordability or a higher percentage you have to do something called economic feasibility analysis and that analysis is designed to show whether or not your Town's Market can support that deeper level before Dev so would it be 10% of 900 or 10% of 1294 for within the station area because the total units you're getting it's more than 1,200 right H yes uh we clarified This was um a topic before the special town meeting uh in November what I I believe I said this special town meeting we had it in the fact sheet that was a total number of units hlc has since clarified that it's based on the minimum not the total so the 10% uh for the or the 20% for the acres is based on the 50 acres not the total number of Acres the 20% for the units it's based on 750 units not the total number of units so can I on behalf of the planning board the issue would be not an abstract number but the actual proposal before us whatever number and we don't and we anticipate that these numbers may not be achieved by Any Given project but any given project would have to have 10% afford I guess I'm talking about the Amendments that is going to be proposed and the language I'm very clear on that I believe it is I don't know what we think should be yes based on the total the the count versus the actual unit y um so well we we refer to our inclusionary which is which is what that's about so um this process has had the benefit of our consultant and I always feel like we've had a wonderful Advocate because Emily did work um with the state on developing the compliance model so when there is a question she knows the answer inside and out um we've had Town Council um supporting the process all the way through um drafting uh the proposed zoning bylaw Amendment we have gone through it and uh times yes and hlc the executive office of Housing and liable communities has been responsive when we've had questions so if I don't know the answer um I'm reaching out to them as well um there are a number of resources online as um uh pre-adoption letters that I mentioned earlier so that's good I just want to make sure that it's clear to the town FES who will be coming to the town meeting thank you thank you for the question anything else we're gonna well I want to say Emy I'm not sure I should thank you for your work on on you know this whole thing I it's quite something but anyway well I as I said I hope it is useful to the town and if uh as you think as we approach town meeting if there's any other information we think we should be giving to town meeting I appreciate hearing that through through Marin and we still we have time to we have another crack at this no but there's another question mark I have some questions on the actual bylaw language on um section 173 d253 um e it says the maximum perious service is 50% that should probably be qualified to say per what is it per acre per lot per those are lot Dimensions so it's per lot because the other things were're talking about per acre earlier um I have another question on F it says the maximum density shall be six dwelling units per acre but then you show that you can build a 12 unit building so how do you build a 12 unit building if you can only put six on one acre because most of these lots are greater than one acre but this says six units per acre so no matter how you divide if a 12 unit building has is going to be larger than an acre oh I see I see what you're asking so if you have a two acre parcel for example which you don't in this case the smallest is 10 but say you have a two acre parcel you're allowed six tring units per acre you would be able to have one building of 12 units or you could have smaller buildings and I think that was the key but the way it's worded is it says six per acre it doesn't say six average per lot average just six units per acre for lot um so for example um the King Street common district has density of up to 20 units per acre okay it doesn't I calculated across the en okay and then in your picture you showed with the that had that little by chart that said you did the six units one said 6.7 and the other one said six so that's 6 seven doesn't drive with this six when take out the right that's the difference of the results of the model on bar on the right hand side and what's in the zoning is on the left hand side we'll make that more clear yeah I'll add that but when you add so when you add those up at 181 are you saying that what what you there's still 181 yeah 20.2 divided by 121 divided by 20.2 it's not back back to your point um so the what you have there is the total number of Acres yep the density is calculated on What's called the density denominator and the density denominator is the total number of Acres less the excluded land right I'm not showing that up there right but this right so when you see sorry sorry let me just finish so when you see 16 dwelling units per acre it's not 121 divided by 20.2 It's 121 divided by the density denominator which I'm not showing up there and it's it's less than that I can I can put I understand that so you're saying the density denominator is less than 20.2 but that then gives you more than six units per acre but this says six units per acre here correct so you're not agreeing with each other no though yes those two numbers don't agree that is correct however your zoning limits it to six dwelling units per acre your zoning doesn't refer to the excluded land that's something that only to the compliance model so the compliance model is taking out the excluded land and showing you that it's 6.71 units per acre without that excluded land but if somebody came to build on this their requirement is six units per acre and the six units per acre is going to be on the 20.2 so I I'm just trying I am fine with all of this right right I just want to make sure that when we go to town meeting it passes right so that we need to make sure the language and the understanding is crisp so that people don't I mean if I picked up on this in the quick reading then other people are going to have these same questions so we need to be ready to answer them and I mean the impervious one is an easy fix to add a qualification to it these other ones we're going to have to just be really clear that we have the right answers to because it's not clear to me the way it's worded what you're saying and what it's worded don't necessarily match I did the very one of the very first presentations I did this to this board I had sort of different colors for different components of the model I'm wondering maybe if I reconstituted those and and added that up let me think about that because I I see exactly what you're saying and why is much easier to sell than town meeting that's maybe we should call it buildable land we keep calling it I don't think because it's what can be built on but that that that would be a higher dueling unit per acre I would think that there 12 let let me let Mar let me sort of take a crack at it and pass it by you and maybe it gets passed back by the board with a slide that explains the numbers I think I think that would be a wise hearing your questions hearing what's all already been brought up I think that would be a wise thing to do but back to your original comment about the 12 unit building my you know my understanding of this zoning bylaw in all of our zonings we have a parcel the entire parcel has six units in acre but that's an aggregate there might be parts of the parcel that has 12 unit buildings on but they could certainly it doesn't say that you can't well we maybe maybe it does say that I don't think so but doesn't say that you can put a 12 unit building on one acre but you know I I understand you would be able to do that so and and and it is a good point I'm glad you brought it up so if you've got well around the 9.9 up to 10 because the math is easier right it's one acre zoning so you could have somebody subdivide that into to 10 acres right each acre would be allowed to have six units so they're not putting up a 12 unit building they're putting up you know two threes or you know a two and a four or whatever um the only time get a 12 unit building is if you have more than one acre in that parcel and the intent was to keep the scale of the buildings much lower I think certainly what we heard in the first part of the conversation last spring and summer was that people did not want the really big buildings so that I'm agreeing with all of that it's just the way it's worded it doesn't the two seem to be in conflict with each other so we'll look at that thank you thank you thank you so I had a comment um based off of the questions that were just Pass based off of what Mr y said earlier around the numbers being able to get this CL need be able to answer folks question so I have a suggestion that suggestion is what if you created the presentation that you plan to give what if you did a dry run with a half dozen residents who haven't been engaged and get their feedback on the presentation because if they are fol from you know all around town that have not been engaged in this process that might be a good opportunity to be able to get feedback that would be helpful for for the town meeting so I offer that up as as a suggestion um the second thing I wanted to highlight for everybody um I guess I have a question are we going to go through the bylaw because I had a couple questions as well why don't we I was going to say since it's not a public we're doing it informal why don't we do it at the public are we suggest we start now I'd love to hear questions now so we are able to answer them public time so finishing up on what I just started saying about the pre presentation idea um I do appreciate the fact that the state put together these um FAQs that you attach at the back of the byla I think that's really helpful um something else that I saw online was that um our neighbor conquered put together something as well for their residents and that is is something else that could be helpful as a guide for our residents to be able to understand some of these intricacies because as you know some people want all the detail other people don't want any detail now I can't but um it is available and I can forward it tomorrow and in case that is also something you might want to consider doing great thank you and we can talk about you know is there a dryw opportunity about like that idea some questions than you go ahead go first so the the byock questions that that I have um 173 255g is design guidelines and my question is um when and how would we do this if not now I heard the reticence of our last meeting around trying to add in design guidelines so what would that look like in other words would there be a time frame would we have to wait until this is approved I'm just trying to get a sense of when those design guidelines could be that would be up to the board to schedule when you work on those but it doesn't require a town meeting vo and and I thought it was the intention to use the guidelines developed for the 4r right right right yeah which were nice yes and so we' be going through those again yeah okay so it is up to us I didn't know if there was a deadline by which we had to have them completed or anything um my next question is 173 2558 the waivers um I just really had Harford about this particular item in in the proposed byw and here so it reads upon the request of the applicant is subject to compliance with the compliance guidelines the S time review Authority which is this board May Wave by majority about the requirements of this section and the section is site design oh excuse me not site I'm sorry the section is um General performance standards and criteria and it just really causes concern that we would just wave that and um so given the fact that that's not in the mbti guidelines I don't know where that came from it's in the sample zoning um pretty much close to that same org in Sample zoning I it in there um it it should be under I think it's the section in the sample zoning is development standards G development standards should be the last one in that so I'll tell you the intent of it and then the the board can can obviously discuss what they want to do about it but and looking at some of these um guidelines and it's it's something I've done in other zoning is sometimes you get a site with really weird boundaries really weird topography strange relationship to other you know do cut things up a little bit differently sometimes and the waiver is a chance for the board and the applicant to be able to work together to a better design solution for something you know maybe there's there's a reason that one of these can't happen most of these are pretty standard so I'm not seeing it used a lot for these but there's maybe um some of the connections for example that might be uh a little bit more of an issue so it's in there it can't be used just by you know the applicant can't walk up and say um I don't like the way the standard reads so you have to agree to this that doesn't work it also doesn't allow the planning board to say e we don't really like your design um and we think this is a better one and we must use it it requires a negotiation but I can certainly see that there's uh there are some boards that are not using it so I think that's up to the planning board whether they want it or not but I'm pretty sure it's it's some development standards I'm pretty sure it's G so be yeah and in in the town's experience um when we don't have when we haven't included the ability for waivers in a development process um that's when we get into sticky situations where it could be a better development if only the board could do exp and this allows uh for that flexibility um the one I was think of is in order to save the tree in front of the Y SE that's going to be a waiter so it's something could be as simple as that and as a former planning board member I certainly ran into situations where our hands were tied and if we could have just provided some additional flexibility we could have gotten better projects but we've had so and there's always the you know it's they have to they have to persuade a majority board you know it's not like you ask for a waiver and you get it there' have to be some criteria to I I have to say from personal experience I was still with this today with another town another city and uh where the the letter of the bylaw just doesn't didn't apply to this particular site you know was historic building it was blah blah blah da d da and you show the zoning officer the building commissioner or something oh that looks great but it doesn't follow the bylaw and what does follow the my LW does not look great right right but I think there is one important piece to this is that it does not allow a waiver to the dimensional standards so the poor you know an applicant can't come in and say well I see your height restriction of Two and a Half stories but really I want to give you a fivestory building you don't have the ability to weave that because that's a dimensional requirement not and I think that I'm glad you brought this up because I think that's really important for the public to know I've had questions from other communities where people come up and say well doesn't as a right mean that they can build whatever they want the answer is absolutely not has to meet the zoning so you don't have the right as a to wave the dimensional standard so what else would it not allow you to wave it just it's just um 173 255 which is the general performance standards and criteria so that se yeah anything outside of that section and it does include the standards that the board a finding that the board has to make in order to prent to Brand right so it doesn't weigh density it doesn't weigh parking it doesn't weigh height it doesn't weigh that back absolutely question thank you so but there is a process with variance from someone can apply for a variance the normal Zing will for um through the CBA would still apply on that it's not absolute do you have experience with because state law is pretty strict and even though we're maybe more flexible than most it wouldn't I I can't see how would it appli to one of these projects anyone else yes M Houston I have a question unrelated to what you guys was talking about um Rob Houston buiness Jennifer Street it goes back to this slide actually my question is the the confusion of this slide is that you're showing compliance with those two things my you question is a just a philosophical question it it is if we're trying to Market this and sell it to get it past at the town meeting the real question I have is how deep do you go into proving to the town that you are in compliance with the state law in other words I don't know whether the 6.7 versus the 6 is relevant to our meeting in town meeting that's all I'm trying to say I don't want my suggestion would be you don't go overboard trying to convince the town that our zoning bylaw is in compliance with the state and they will appr we are trusting our board present us with a bylaw that will get past mate right so I don't I I'm concerned that the more we try and prove to people we're in compliance the more confusing you get because we end up with puzzle pieces that look like that because I don't think that's even necessary what about actually Martin you get number 15 what about that one that basically says if you put them all together at once I think that's SC the yeah I'm I agree with at the end of the day why do we care right what what I care about actually is in an overlay District whether or not the underlying zoning or the the the what's been approved for King Street common is actually going to be limiting so that they can't come back later and build up to that that's what my concern is as it being an over okay understood and if you if you present that that's what that that's why I now have that concern right because you're showing me that they could he's right the kingst street common shouldn't be really be into into this discussion at all other than the fact that we're gaining 600 units from King Street com leave at that we need another 150 and this is where we're putting at King Street all by itself Works let's not go too far with King Street com it's already approved something's going to happen over there we still have um uh issues that we're dealing with through form base and everything else we get 600 we get the benefit 600 units there we need 750 we need 150 that's all we're looking at it's going to be 181 because of the way the the the zoning works and everything else so we're trying to we're trying to keep in compliance with the state leave with that rather than the lack of a better way of putting it it's like the hot dog principle we like hot dogs but we don't want to know what's in question I could but anyway that was my proposal is is is to just make it simpler and not try to prove to us that you've done your job the second question I have is is you you've talked about wanting to keep it in full numbers at five or six is I'm just curious when we're dealing with Parcels we're dealing with right we're not dealing with one acre Parcels or five AC we have a 10 acre parcel and a 20 par my question is why can't you do BU and half um so I did I can't remember all the iterations I did uh you're absolutely right we could I was trying to keep the numbers simple by having them round numbers so you simplified in simplified in one way but not the other so I think we need to retap our presentation now Marin I'm only asking that because well that that is a question I could see come up for purposes of getting that number down to below one power um so I I would suggest that six is going to be a lot easier to in review and enforce than a fraction and and you maybe you could be right because I guess a landowner could sell their property and split it up and all sorts of things happen later so yes in theory all of those could be split into individual one acre lots and and developed that way the other reason is I did want a little bit because these are the the the math is a little bit less precise with these large lots and I did want a little bit of room just on the Littleton because we're not changing the Zoning for King Street and um The Village common on dimensionals that's that's what the model spits out for the um the zoning there I did want to have a little bit of a con perectly reasonable and you might even go so far as just I don't want to put word in your mouth but you might go so far as to say I anticipate right I mean because that is a that is a Poss not just a possibility probably a likelihood that the state's going to knock it down right and I again this is all i'll trying to help you and how you frame your presentation I appreciate I want to piggy back on Rob's point because as a planner and applying to the state you have to include all this information on the street conf but but from a town meeting point of view that's a done deal we have 600 units we're lucky that we had previously approve that or else we'd be you know then we would have to go into detail about all the sudden so you know and maybe you keep some slides that have more detail apart you know have it have a an auxiliary slide deck if you feel like you know the discussion is going a certain direction but I will it will confuse people okay they're seeing all these numbers they're seeing they'll see 1,233 units and their heads Will explod and um any yeah okay anyone else have any questions hi okay thank you great thank you very much so we'll see you on May 2nd at no so that's that's quite we'll talk to that later but the we'll redo the reen notice and rehold the public hearing on May 2nd at 6:15 in room 103 the town offices and can we have that as long as short as okay sure maybe we'll do a dry run for Tom meeting since it's only a couple days after that great thank you thank you all thank okay we're back to and thank you for indulging US during us go far our we have a 605 informal discussion of 245 fost streate thank you again for all your time this is a an informal presentation uh it's meant to inform you of the studies we are making with the development of the 34 Acres of 245 Foster Street thank you Emily thank you um the first uh development option that you see here uh is for industrial Redevelopment uh industrial Redevelopment in Greater Boston is probably the strongest sector of the real estate market and there are two major uh components one is pretty well known to you it would be uh warehousing companies like Amazon DHL UPS the other is probably far into you a lot it was foreign to me U and your proximity to devans uh makes this startlingly appealing to someone like uh our company uh what's happening is the generation of companies that we hope would develop to deal with energy and climate change are develop it so if you go over to Devin there's a company called Commonwealth Fusion it's building a major facility it is hoped that it is the innovator in Fusion technology if you go into Somerville there's company called form energy and uh they build long duration batteries for utilities problem with energy is storing it and they think they've figured out how to store it these companies uh need um uh with what to call Advanced Technology manufacturing facilities they are not in the in the existing stock of the industrial usually not in the existing stock of industrial R&B R&D buildings like the IBM campus wouldn't qualify they use usually need enormous amounts of power uh a typical one is 8,000 amps we know of one user in wubber that we're working with it's 20,000 amps this is going to be a big issue by the way if we want these companies because the grid is not equipped to do this that's the other matter um they need very tall buildings on the ground floor very robust these companies are uh moving things around that are enormous in some cases uh uh sister companies or robotics uh and GMP right now we calculate there are 9 million square feet of such requirements extent in the market they usually have to be built they usually are very difficult to retrofit uh of that 7 million only 2 million are Life Sciences companies uh they are uh drug manufacturing facilities most lab business is dead and gone for probably the next 10 years this um there are two models that encounter on Industrial Development one is a very large footprint particularly for a warehouse although um some you have a company here by the way that is one of the more fascinating it's called lab n called lab n modular it's the first company I've seen to actually produce modular units whether it'll be successful or not they're building in Somerville they use structural steel and concrete which you would not think of as modular pieces their buildings probably about 300,000 Square F feet in fact I think they're located right right down the road um and I've been in in their facility and that's the kind of thing that's happening now companies need enormous uh buildings uh they often will be you know a 300,000 foot building um the warehouses often can be that uh so that is the dominant uh TR that's there's only two uh financeable uh products in real estate in Greater Boston today one is that and the industrial particularly this form the other is multif family housing you can't finance and you will not be able to finance I don't think for quite sometime Office Buildings hotels retail buildings um I left uh the first or second largest contractor in New England a few hours ago and uh basically their inventory is empty uh which by the way is a collateral piece of damage that we're going to have to look at because the construction is going to suffer major layoffs um so that's the that's one option um and we've hired Jacobs Engineering to help us this we're building one of these in wubber at the Anderson Regional Transportation Center it's 183,000 feet it's 42 feet tall why is it 42 feet tall because that's what it takes uh give you an example a robotics firm really doesn't want to fly its test rounds outside what they want to do is Monitor it with sensors they want to film it and that needs a 40 foot tall place for a buch of Greater bus and they can't fly it outside without FAA approval so they'd rather have it indoors and you find this in industry and after industry heavy duty power hungry tall floors um and by the way very very hungry for young Talent which is a huge problem uh so we've got Jacobs on the engineering side um uh one of Boston's pre industrial Brokers this guy named David stubblebine I asked him to be here tonight he can't but the other major broker houses such as cman and Wakefield this is a very viable option and one uh given the disfavor of the Town towards uh multif family at the station I suspect this is the emerging for us uh we we think this is a great site we're going to go ahead under any circumstances and if our original game plan isn't something the town uh likes then that's fine uh go ahead to the second one uh this is um a uh one of the things is that we've been approached much more than we ever were before uh being a large multif family Builder a lot of uh uh senior companies particularly from out of state have approached us and said you know what can we do most of them up until now have had unrealistic expectations of what it takes to get something done in terms of land cost land availability and so you'll find them a lot in the Southshore of course but you'll find them sprinkled around here that's changing People call it the silver tsunami and what they mean is at some point guys like me are going to actually have to give up and go someplace to live because they can't take care of themselves um and that's true uh the Baby Boomers are sticking it out in their housing but I don't know how long they can stick it out so there's enormous demand this shows the site's capacity for 100% uh senior living it uh does include and this is kind of a uh an examination point this shows uh several buildings that are independent living and these are uh sometimes called age restricted although uh your zoning doesn't specifically but these are buildings that are people you know 55 and older um but people who are healthy and independent living and um and and don't need any particular assistance the eshap building is uh a care building there are three levels of care assisted living nursing care and Memory Care memory care unfortunately is a very fast growing segment so this is an integrated 100% senior development so this uh I don't know how much it really uses the MBTA um but it would be I think it's you know these are very attractive the the the problems of trying to step out of owned homes keep getting larger because usually the people who own those homes have favorable mortgage terms and it's really hard to unlock that and say I'm going to go get a smaller house that cost same amount of money and I'm still going to get a mortgage yet so the option of rental or condominium some of these could be Condominiums uh for that population is growing in popularity most of the time a lot of the time it's a six to n month population with three months South of the Border it often looks for design in the units that does AOW um kids their kids grandkids or their adult kids to come uh uh come and visit I just moved into not unlike development like this and we have two guest rooms one is a guest room and the other is called Jack's room he'll be here twice three times a year he's in New York but that's jackville of course he's the baby and the boy so he gets he gets prerogatives and that actually shows up that's what people really want so this is what it would look like on a fully integrated senior build um we have hired a consultant called Health Trust and um that is a national consulting firm that consolidates all the data and analyzes this and we've hired uh a national firm that specializes in senior uh care and Senior operations and that's called Walker and DL uh and so they're looking into this in a parallel track with our industrial investigation go ahead yes oh this is just 100% independent Senor living so it's a variation on the other one I I tend to think that in in this direction if it were to be uh totally dedicated to seniors that it it would be something where we would try to do an age in place option where uh it's AG in place where there is a mixture of Independent Living not assisted then a mix of other things that is s sort of the logic um it's not clearing me how well the the two ends of the industry participate together but you know that's something we're we're digging into now but the site works fine for that um it's completely effective just as it would be with a component of of nursing care and Memory Care um okay um this is an intergenerational campus it uh devotes 10 acres to the MBTA communities uh this is conventional multif family uh and then it devotes the balance to senior living it could be Senior Living um as an independent living or it could be a senior living still with a age in place Memory Care Nursing component uh that's a refinement that we're we're going to have to look at um you can see also in these slides that we look at townhouse type development on the option of the front 4 Acres those could be rentals or Condominiums and they could lean seniors and other things other things could be done that has not been the main body of our our our study our study has been on the industrial option and on what can be done with the site as a senior option if the town prefers not to put uh its MBTA communities component here the one thing I like about this uh particularly is that um the the population between age say 55 and 75 kind of dislikes this option nowadays and the reason is um they're really not thrilled about being surrounded by their age peers you know they want to do more than pickle ball they want to go to a brewery and um the idea here is that we would more deliberately plant it than you see here so that there would be independent amenities for the seniors including potentially the age in Place nursing care but but there would be shared amenities as well now the seniors definitely like to have an in-house INB building food option and the 24 to 44 year old population could care less about that um seniors may want to have um not a full kitchen maybe something less than a full kitchen um whereas uh younger people cooking is a part of the lifestyle um both want dogs so the nature trail here and a dog Park are are essential um part of these studies for residential development have to look at how you handle waste water you see up there that there is a Wastewater component um actually it's not labeled uh and that has to be carefully placed in terms of uh handling Wastewater from the Wastewater station development so uh that's a great option uh we would definitely uh prioritize this option if the town uh was to look at this as the MBTA community's uh piece by the way I I I guess I'm venturing beyond my my mission here but the figures that are being thrown about of 1,00 2 100 11,00 units um that those are just sort of calculation numbers they have really nothing to do with reality um if over the next 10 years you executed 600 units of mapole and 150 unit units here I very much doubt whether you'd be executing many more elsewhere uh it's just not the capacity of of the areas the sites don't work there's compete competition for the sites it's not you know go back when I enter the industry you never come out and look at a site say gee this is a great industrial site no it's a great senior housing site no it's a great multif family site we don't have any land and you may look around and say you think you have land but you actually don't there's not a lot of land and the issues complicating land like uh wetlands uh infrastructure sewer water and other things are very substantial so you know I think this is a fairly uh realistic portrayal of where you where you're headed it's um it's uh it it's not a couple thousand units um and in fact I think that uhu unfortunately because of today's financing markets going to be a a PLL in terms of the time it will take to execute uh any of these multif family projects the um the returns that the financing industry now requires are just like home mortgages you know at one point you could sign a home mortgage at sub three and now you can't get a home mortgage at much like sub six it's identical to that and in Boston the ability to build these projects with our labor force with the cost of land the cost of infrastructure it's almost impossible to meet those numbers um we will eventually someday uh and that's what we do so and we're particularly good at it we uh have managed to get around the financing markets a couple of times the last couple years we got the 440 units in Wakefield that's a joint venture with the largest uh owner of housing stock in the nation Equity residential um but it's heavy lifting so we we love this option uh and we love the industrial option too we'd love to work with you on this if we are given the privilege of doing so thank you any questions and concerns ni great thank you yes sir quick question uh I just want to flip this around which of the industries which of the industry sectors show the greatest promise for employment hiring in the next five years the the sectors that I was speaking about um there uh the the broker real estate brokers call different things no leave the seniors out for obvious reason no so you're just so you're citing those as examples of high employment Industries well I don't know that we have high employment Industries any keep going uh but the higher employment Industries are are the ones that are emerging to tackle new serious problems climate change problems energy energy storage metal fabrication metal fabrication is one one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions Greening concrete concrete manufacturing is one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions in in the planet and which kind of irritates me because when I go in to talk with people about commuter not in this site but in other sites where we have to build a garage to serve the cars and someone says you need two or three cars per unit well we're just wasting concrete not waste money it's also wasting carbon emissions but there are different companies that are tackling uh these there's some competitors usually you'll find three or four in a field you'll find Bill Gates in the top Venture Capital people their employment levels vary and I I don't I know that like form energy which is the long duration battery company in Somerville they have 300,000 square feet now they have a fairly Hefty Workforce but I'm not sure what the workforce would be say to support a robotics testing facility some of the testers are going to be robotics themselves so employ the the uh the key thing about those Industries is that's where economic future LS if you are right now a municipal leader I'm not speaking to Littleton but may maybe like Boston I don't know where your tax money is going to come from next year uh I built a building in Newton and it was for a while it may still be the most valuable building on 128 it's next to Riverside Station it's a reconstruction the Jordan Marsh warehouse It's 500,000 sare ft and um Alexandria bought it for 245 million 2 years ago and sold it last year for 107 million so life sciences is eroding they're also offloading a lot of functions so that they're narrowing down we just got to get this the scientists together we can do this other stuff remote we can farm this out and subcontracting so the companies were talking about the emerging companies the reason we're here is that because the the people that fuel those companies are all 24 to 34 and they're leaving they're leaving because they can't afford the housing you may have seen it in the glob today they're just leaving uh was about 1,000 a week that's why they're bothering with this that's why they're bothering you because there's no place to house if you're older there's a way you're going to get house you know whether it's senior housing own your home affordable housing is getting a lot of money from the federal and the state but if you're and if you earn more than 200,000 a year you'll find a place but if you're a young nurse and you're earning 110 for the household you know if you go into the massel you ask the nurses where they live it's Salem and it's Rochester and it's they come in at off hours we just don't have the H that's what this is all about I mean whether that weighs into your consideration or not it's up to you but this is why they bothering this and uh as to how this particular scheme goes over with them I don't know because what they need to do is get some housing built and 65% of these younger people can't buy house they rent and I know cheap for them to rent well they don't have the equity they can't cut the mortgage my daughter lives in Salem I thought that would be pretty coste effective she went out to buy a house it was $600,000 she said Dad this is real rough I don't know if I can afford the mortgage I said I'll teach you how to do it adjustable we got through all that she called back says I can't bid so can't B so the broker said they got 21 offer that or above the asking price Som all cash they can't so they leave and with hybrid remote work makes it easier now you can live in North Carolina and you can work for State Street B so that's that's the problem thank you okay so maren just to just to clarify too or to confirm I guess um this site is currently zoned industrial so the only two options that could currently be built here are one and two correct so it would be the industrial and then the Assisted Living see Senior senior housing could you also do okay so even Independent Living yeah as long as it's senior okay just but but the last one obviously could not be because that would require the a zoning CH to get the zoning by which we already yeah I just wanted to make sure we could be zon to the town houses we could be Z the residential for that we wouldn't have to take that to no not well yeah we have to but we could res Zone it not right right okay so I just wanted to clarify for anybody listening that something yeah thank you thank you all right so we'll continue to April 2nd I mean May 2nd 6:15 okay thank you thank you all MO