so we will get as far as we can by ooh oh jeez I'm magnified [Applause] je it is I'm not used to being audio in the room too not a problem but um all right so
I'm ready for us to rock and roll is zoom all set yep great we all good to go silence means yes all right guys all good all right right good evening everyone and Welcome to our Monday February 10th 2025 meeting
of the lunenberg planning board we are here in beautiful Town Hall upstairs in the meeting room if you want to join us tonight you can come on down uh we have friendly faces in the audience already you can also uh I'm assuming you're if you're watching us on uh Facebook or on public access if you want to join in you can always go to the town website use
the agenda and get the zoom link from there there and join us via Zoom now this meeting is of course being recorded as we do every meeting so now you know that is everything I believe we're required to say and looking forward to a meeting tonight with that if someone wants to lead us in the pledge before we get going that's [Music] great I pledge allegiance to the flag
United United States of America to the for stands Nation indivisible lice okay um before we get uh I'm just going to let everyone know that we're going to push as far as we can through the agenda
until until about 6:30 at 6:30 we do have a guest joining us uh to help the playing board with some upcoming bylaws and so we'll shift to that and then get back to the an anr's public hearings wherever else we are with that um okay is there any public comment if you're on Zoom you can always go ahead and use that hand raised feature to let us know you want to speak
seeing none alrighty chair and director's reports Mr chair I really have nothing this evening I talk a little bit about the uh zoning workshops but you covered it we have a guest she is Katie pagee from DCR there are the people from the state that are requesting these updates to the flip plane map so she's going to be here by Zoom at 6:30 available to you to answer
any of your questions on that state mandate okay great great thank you um and for those who are here as well what we'll do is we'll hear from Miss pige yes yeah from Miss pige at the time there may be some board discussion on
we should pause the meeting or is this just something to be aware of what's it it's back up hang just give me two second let back out right not a problem
have a lot of free time on their hands after the holidays are over it's true I mean three ghosts of uh three ghosts of Christmas past present future plus Marley you guys should be good I'll let you know if it happens again but I'm going to be texting some people figuring it out but you're all set okay thank you I appreciate it all right that's exciting hopefully the uh for those at home the audio cut
out briefly there was a tech an unidentified technical issue we're assuming it won't happen again but the uh wonderful folks in the AV Booth are making sure it won't happen again um okay let's go on to approval not required an anrs the wonderfully odd aspect of Massachusetts Le and 215 Sunset Lane
thank you members of the board Greg Roy with Dillon Roy I'm representing the applicant this evening at 2:15 Sunset Lane I think this can be pretty brief so I'll try to do it quickly um I've highlighted in blue and red on this plan which you don't have on your copy but um we're essentially proposing a land
swap between 215 which is the applicant and 205 which is the property on the corner of Sunset Lane and robs Hill Road the um 205 would give up the blue triangle which is nominally 900 square ft I didn't memorize the number but it's something less than 1,000 square ft um two they would convey that to 215 and 215 would convey an uh a triangle of different shape but equal size back to
205 which is shown in red so the land areas would stay the same the properties are in the outlying zoning District they require 80,000 ft they both will they both have 880,000 sare ft now they have prerequisite Frontage and they will both remain uh with the prerequisite area in Frontage after the land swap is complete I think that's all no new building Lots being created it's just a land swap between two building lots that currently
exist all all righty yeah that to me that seems straightforward but I uh I'm going to turn to the board and say hey Bard what questions do we have what comments do we have what was the impetus for this Frontage access um 215 is looking to get access to their lot and it's easier much easier to do it uh through the blue triangle uh so we're looking to to get and you cannot access through an easement uh at least that's been the
zoning determination by The Building Commissioner so um they worked uh through the process to get the land swap that doesn't sound right but not our job Mr chair it's kind of tiny I can I know and see what's going on but do do any of the board members need to see a closer look have the the map brought up to you to see no we do have we do have the the file in our I mean the file in our files that's probably better words but um okay
but that's a good point um and that's worth in general it's never a problem for us to ask to CC any of the documentation especially when there's a difference or when it can be hard just to parse digitally um yeah absolutely all right I just colored it so it' be easier no I I same plan just color I super appreciate that because I was looking at the little triangles and process yeah yeah yeah and oh sometimes it's it nowood yeah all
right so is another question if I may the the second lot is it 2 205 and 215 correct 215 there's there's no there's no building on that lot right now not currently but there is one proposed so robs Hill okay so this it's a big big hill um if you drive down Rob's Hill and you look up to the left as you're driving down excuse me if you drive down Sunset and you look up to the left it's a pretty significant grade so we've been
working with the applicant and um the best way in is through that blue triang the triangle that we um the triangle area we looked at doing it through an easement we asked the Building Commissioner he said no and uh so we're now they've worked together and they're uh they're proposing the land swap so the lot has the required Frontage yes today it has it and it does so the frontage for for the subject lot
is on Sunset Lane hold on I believe it's a about 107 ft today and we'll be expanding that because we'll be essentially adding more Frontage on that with that blue triangle that I'm showing another 59 right okay and then there's no issue with the frontage for 105 because it has you know plenty of Frontage along both Sunset Lane and however you measure it Sunset Lane or robs Hill hundreds and hundred
hundreds of feet of Frontage yeah got so so this is what I'm thinking of I think it is so before that a couple years ago that came before us and we said we anr it and it was it was not accessible I think a previous engineer asked you to approve a shared driveway that did not split the property line at the time it was old rules you didn't have your special permit process for the common driveway at the time and you did not grant that well the shared was off of
robs Hill Road that's right okay and you didn't that so this is a reaction to that and in a way we're we're look we're we're looking to dve access not through the frontage great no hard feelings y I want to be clear all right okay other questions from the board okay um in that instance we could have a
motion such as a motion to endorse the anr for 215 Sunset Lane uh so moved second moved and seconded all in favor I I wonderful great than Ry we're all set come back time to pick it up we can uh we can sign the myars you we have the
myars right I believe so so I was pulling it out yeah so we can it's up to you if you want to sign it now we can to do you have a second I have a second but you have a busy agenda I'm happy to pick this up tomorrow if you okay then we can then we'll do it tomorrow that's that's you're across the street no problem yeah okay pretty all right um keep on going next up the anr 4171 Arbor Street adjacent to 155 Arbor
Street good evening Brian maret MCC engineering um this is the property that we've uh been pering with the board now for several months so we've received our Stone water perment we received conservation approval we received the zoning variants um or a special permit for a um a zoning variance or relief from the lot wood through the building um so now we're just in the last stages here to
get the lot lines approved so we can um start construction out there so this this anr plan is the first that we need uh it's the small parcel that we are taking or one 55 arbit Street is giving to 171 um so we can have our acquired Frontage once this is signed then the we have the other anr plan done but we needed the book and page numbers of this plan in order to
find finalize the next plan so we'll have the final anr plan on on the agenda for the next meeting and that's the last piece we need okay great just in terms of what we're looking at here quickly I I see we've got parcel a b and c yes what what's going where so parcel a is the 17,000 foot piece in the back side of the property that's being transferred to
John rad not at uh 55 Arbor Street and then parcel B is the uh I call it Sliver that radn not is giving to the adjacent parcel and that's required for us to get the uh required Frontage for us to do the uh the lot subdivision for the common driveways that we we got approve through you guys okay all right questions or comments from the the
board okay hearing none can I just get a I don't want to feel I don't want us to feel shorted on this but I'm not surprised either there's no questions but are we good for a motion okay in that case we could have a motion to approve the anr for sorry to
endorse because we don't approve approval is not required go figure to endorse the anr for 171 Arbor Street uh motion to endorse an anr for 171 Arbor Street I will second moved and seconded uh all in favor I I I that was easy good rock your roll and like I said we'll be back at the next meeting for the last yep uh do you have more before
us tonight or is this it and do you want do you want us to get the myar signed now if you could though okay that's great not a problem at [Music] all come on me want my pen anyway [Music]
and do you have [Applause] a and the and the date is the 10th right yes two yeah and there clear 10
I bring this up almost every time we have an anr but uh for those watching at home it might seem weird that we're approving something called approval not required but what it really is is we're not approving it we're endorsing it we're there's a set of requirements that an anr has to meet and if it meets those we're required to endorse it it's very simple you'll sometimes hear us ask questions not directly related to that
that that doesn't affect whether or not we approve but it does sometimes um and you really see that tonight but sometimes we ask questions just to make sure that the applicant isn't creating a real problem for themselves unknowingly uh that's happened in the past and that's unfortunate for everybody so we try to be a help there great thank you thank you we have it is
6177 we have um at 6:30 a guest coming in we have two public hearings but I'm betting we're not expecting either of these to be on the real short side I would say not not um do we want to dive into third uh cuz I hate to start a public hearing then
stop that that's not going to help us process info we can talk uh if you like Mr chair pleasure of the board about the um Adu Bogue that's what I was thinking I thought that might be a good thing to dive into briefly yeah it's a brief matter uh just an update for the board the state once again's throwing us a curveball in a slider and so wait since our last meeting since our last meeting when I gave you the track and I told you this is it gone through it we looked at
the the one from last fall that you reviewed and approved to town meeting made all the corrections it looks like it's good to go it's covered everything and then they changed the rules somewhat dramatically at the end of last week so little bit of a a rewrite think hack and slash mhm and some of the local control is has been gutted the best word I could use to describe it we didn't have anything in
the way I don't want to be but we didn't have much in the way of local control to start with in there did we you know we didn't but we uh and this is permissible um up until last week but uh we had a special permit requirement for an additional Adu for a second Adu for a second Adu and some setback requirements for adus from lot lines from the ab Butters lot lines mhm those are gone so now it's just back to Bare Bones buite
by right Throw It Up 5 feet from a property line people going to die in a fire who cares that's essentially where they are with the and then this is of course State's requirements so anything inconsistent with that would not pass AG the Attorney General's review so we're a little bit uh shocked but you know we got to look at
it and talk to Town Council and I don't think we have a lot of options left but I will be giving you a revised one to reflect this latest guidance from the state and I will still stay on track for annual town meeting but it doesn't look like we're going to have much ability to to keep those um Protections in that we had hoped for so that's kind of the latest and not so greatest news on that but um we got a
month talk about it a little bit more um and and you can think about it I mean it you know there are issues here including the board's right to express itself and whether or not this is consistent with the interests of the town get that on record but um in the meantime that's what we're looking at here okay I have a couple questions about logistics and town meeting uh on the local level but I don't want that to Short change first and anything we else
we have about that Adu shift because I'm hazarding there might be opinions or thoughts and I don't want to cut that off by all means yeah I mean I this is a law that's currently effective didn't it go into effect February 2nd it's in effect right now so we have to accept Adu applications under this law right now so
even though still evolving it's yes so I think that's just a good example of how look how we have no control as a local community over that zoning change in fact it's you know it seems and and I think we need to be very clear to the public as we discuss this you know moving forward that we are not amending our current bylaw the state is stepping in and in whole replacing
our bylaw is that correct well we were we were hopefully going to amend their bylaw but now they're saying we can't even do that yeah for people at home and just wondering what is what's all this like Adu stuff what are they talking about um accessory dwelling units the ability under our zoning you know up until now for you to go to the zba and request a special permit to add an apartment an in-law apartment an accessory dwelling unit apartment a living or dwelling unit um onto your
existing single family house and so there was a process for that and your Butters were notified and so forth so everybody was protected and the state you know it's no surprise to anyone that uh they're aggressively pursuing the production of housing in any form possible they've decided as a policy matter to bring that right into the backyard of local municipalities and their bylaws
in terms of home RO control so um yeah that that that is you know we had it it was on our books there was a process a special permit was required now that's all gone just by right now on a technical level we will be amending our bylaw but it's worth understanding that we will be amending our bylaw to what the state requires under
duress um I think it's also interesting to note uh and I mean interesting really as a neutral phrase but because I I don't like the state coming down on us I get the need for more housing regardless lunenberg had to my understanding before this one of the more permissive Adu um bylaws that I was aware of in that we
didn't require that um an accessory dwelling unit you could have an in-law we call them in-law apartments but that often come that terminology comes from the idea that they were often in many towns approved only for relatives and that's less of a case I mean now we didn't have that requirement we allowed it largely by right to start with um all right I do see that Miss
Pate is here so I could move us on to our next topic unless is others on the Adu tonight and my question about about uh annual town meeting can easily wait till later okay so that is us talking in our zoning Workshop about accessory dwelling units um and for those watching at home
if we're ever using a lot of terminology that you just really don't get and it's you feel it's important that you do cuz we throw around a lot of acronyms up here adus anrs that are second nature to us it's okay to raise your hand and say hey could you define that that isn't we want the public to get what we're talking about um all right so I'm going to move us to our uh flood plan plane map
updates M Pate is here to join us and um Gris I don't know what else you want to say on it but we're looking forward to having a better understanding of what the expectations are here why this is going on because we're not experts thankfully we have one yeah I think that's a a good introduction to Miss P she's been great just rolling out all this information to planning staff so that we can try and better inform you on
this but she is sort of the um the master of all uh you know trades here on this issue so I'll hand it over to her to explain what's going on with this okay can you all hear me okay is my audio working yep perfect perfect perfect just wanted to make sure I've been having audio issues earlier today um anyway my name is Katie paid I'm a flood plane management specialist within dcr's flood Hazard Management program and we are the State Coordinating Office
of the national flood insurance program in the state of Massachusetts um so the reason that I have reached out to lunenberg is that um you are part of the national River Watershed and FEMA is currently in the process of updating the flood insurance rate maps for the Nashville River Watershed so if you're wondering kind of where this plays in um so communities um like lunenberg are members are it's a voluntary members of the national flood insurance program it's not a mandatory program though communities we have 351 across the state
state of Massachusetts that participate there's communities across the entire country that participate and the way that program works is that when the community joins the program they adopt and enforce regulations um for those areas on the flood insurance rate maps and then in return flood insurance is made available to anyone in the community property owners renters business owners whether they're in the flood plane or not um so just is a little background information lunenberg joed the program back in 1982 that is actually the last time that
you had flood insurance rate Maps updated so they're very outdated these new maps will be much more accurate of what your 100-year flood plane actually looks like in the community um but so as part of this process FEMA is updating the maps um those maps are becoming effective in July of this year so in July of 2025 and so in order for the community to um remaining good standing within the program kind of two different things need to happen both with your local
flood plan regulations first is that the community needs to adopt the new effective map of those dates so that will be that July date um of this year versus the current date is that 1982 day and the second thing is um the community needs to um at least adopt the the minimum standards of the program and those are all laid out in our Mass model bylaw now I haven't been around forever so I don't know there's certainly reasons why communities didn't have these already in their bylaws you are not the only Community like that in fact
fact I would say the majority of communities did not previously have all these minimum requirements adopted locally um but they FEMA is requiring that communities adopt those moving forward now these are not new things these are things that have been in federal code since the program was established in the late 80s communities have been doing this all along it's just that female wants these adopted locally because how often are we all looking at the federal code right we're looking at our local code so they want them adopted locally so that my really high overview
I can certainly answer any questions um maybe I spurred more questions than I did answers so please let me know if I can clarify anything as well all right I feel like I have a few questions but I want to turn to the board first um what questions do we have about about this process about um I mean my big question is going to be
I get the why is because things have been updated and Miss P please talk right over me if and interrupt me if I say something wrong I we we we take protocols seriously enough so interrupt me if I say something incorrect please um I guess one question I'm going to have is like I get the why is because things have been updated and we're supposed to but um
I think I'm going to want to understand what this changes for the town as we do it and based on that if my other question is going to be how do we sell it because and that may be the change is irrelevant but if it's a big change for Citizens We're going to need to understand because whatever we do still has to get approved by town meeting um
what other questions do we expect to be asking if we can lay out questions a little bit ahead ahead of time that might help m p give us not that we can't have on the Fly questions but that might help her give us a more complete view at once yeah I'm not sure if she touched upon it but anyone that's affected by it are they notified okay that's a that'll be a direct one are people notified Miss P of the change if it
impacts them somehow how does that work yep so there's kind of two different Avenues where that happens so as far as if they're so the whole let me back up so with the program mentioned it's the community responsibility I'm sorry I am going to interrupt you one second I apologize is it possible for the audio Booth to increase the volume of M Pate in here a little bit or from Zoom just up um I'm a little hard of hearing and it's a little difficult for me but I does it help if I put this like this is
that louder on your end yes that is actually okay okay weird that's okay I don't mind looking weird so you can hear me that's a good trade-off um so there's kind there's two different Avenues here so first let's back up so as I mentioned when the community enrolled in the program you agree to adopt and enforce local regulations so now in Massachusetts those are located in three different places they're located in State Building Code which is mandatory the community is already doing that they're located in the wetlands protection act again mandatory you're
already doing that and then the remainder which is actually a very small portion of those is located in your local flood plane bylaws and so those local flood plane bylaws apply to anywhere in the community on those flood insurance rate Maps as being in the flood plane so the fact that now there may be properties that um were either not in the flood plane before and now they're newly mapped in the flood plane there may be flood um I'm sorry properties in the flood plane that were um in the flood plane before and now they're not in the flood plane or you're
going to have properties who were always in the flood plane and they're still in the flood plane or they were not in the flood plane and they're still not in the flood plane so as far as any requirements in your local regulation State Building Code Wetlands protection act if somebody is now newly mapped into the flood plane that's ultimately the community's responsibility to let them know um now at the same time there's mandatory purchase requirements that are tied to properties in the flood plane so if anybody has any federal assistance or I should say federally backed Federal
assistance um on their property so the most common of that is a federally backed mortgage but it could certainly also be any type of lean loan um any Disaster Assistance that's federally backed um if they're located in the flood plane on this flood insurance rate map they're required for the length of that federal aid or any um ties to that to have flood insurance for the life of that that Aid or that mortgage for example so if there was a property that was not in the flood plane and now all of a sudden they will be in the flood plane um as far far as their mortgage
goes and having that fed um flood insurance that would be up to the lender to notify that property owner so the community is not really getting involved as far as that mandatory flood um flood insurance purchase requirement goes where the community is more involved is implementing those regulations from State Building go Wetland protection act and then at the local level and your local flood plane regulations does that help clarify that great wonderful thank you so much um you can still hear too right I didn't
go out during that I'm sorry you can still hear me okay yes yeah though this is great thank you so I think that must dovetail into how you sell it like if if we do not adopt it it seems to me that people would no longer be eligible for flood insurance so it's another you know favorite word of you know the state of you know it's it's mandatory you have to adopt it essentially is that correct that is true um so if the
community was to not adopt um the minimum requirements in the model bylaw and also not adopt this new map date you're at risk of being suspended from the program soon as those maps go into effect in July um FEMA is the entity that ultimately determines if you have a compliant bylaw or not so it's not the state um but FEMA is the one that would actually make that determination um and so if that were to happen then potentially anybody who currently has a flood insurance policy through the national flood insurance program would
not be able to renew that policy and nobody would be able to create a new policy through the national flood insurance program um there is private insurance flood insurance policies available that are out there um General understanding is those are much more expensive and you're much more at the whim of you know the insurance provider can um change those at any time versus um like the federal flood insurance if you were to have one claim 10 claims 100 claims they couldn't you know for example drop or change your policy because of the number of claims you
okay no that makes sense thank you um I a quick question please please Katie have you seen the new maps I I think they just got completed for Lunenburg or most of lunenberg have you maybe maybe it's not a fair question but did did you notice any substantial changes from the prior I mean I know there are but so I have not personally gone through and looked at your your
current maps from 1980 compared to the new maps that are going into effect um I did download all of your new maps earlier today to look at just to see you know what kind of flood plane you had and and you do have some significant flood plane and flood way um in the community um but I did not directly compare that to the 1982 Maps um one thing to note about these Maps is that they besides the fact that they're just more accurate because they're newer they're also much more um like user friendly to use in my opinion um you
know have aerial photography behind it they're also available digitally so you can view them on all like the gis viewers versus having a little white paper map with lines drawn on it as well so um sometimes communities when you have these these older maps from the 80s it's kind of hard du that comparison it's better just to look at the new maps um and and determine you know where the flood plane is of course you could always refer back to um you know the building official in your community or the conservation agent who' be more familiar with where those flood planes are on those
um the current map from the eight okay thank you okay so just thinking ahead it sounds like it may be who us to put together a graphic showing the changes as soon as possible yeah just that will help us communicate to the community what's changing yeah um I mean just because I maps are hard for many people K that's go that's all obviously going to be available in the map viewer and those links that you sent
us to yep Y and I Cano them again but everything is already publicly available those Maps can be downloaded by anybody who has internet so so I I'll start working on that to make sure as soon as that's available we get it out there thank you so i' like to question that specific thing yeah I'm looking at Mr mappa Right now the mass G digital mass.gov I'm looking at FEMA National flood Hazard layer polygons I'm seeing flood hazards in towns and gron Shirley
and Lancaster but I don't see anything in lunenberg so I can tell you that um the answer to that so that is because um your current map is from the 1980s and it's not digitally available um so the currently you you've never had mapping on mass mapper it's never been on that National flood Hazard layer because it's never been digitalized by FEMA um but once these new maps go into effect in July those new maps will be available digitally on um on like mass mapper and the national F Hazard layer what you can
do now to view them is you can actually download the PDF of the map panels if you guys have access to GIS you can download the gis like the shape files for them um and then FEMA also has another viewer called the flood map changes viewer and this is where you can view those preliminary maps on the same type of viewer as like what you're looking at on M maper it's just not on those final eyes because the maps aren't effective yet till July so they won't be on those like mass mapper and that National flood Hazard layer until
they're officially effective on that effective date excellent thank you I'll work getting that that stuff to you as soon as it's no more or less available in Liberty form great thank you um golly it's nice having an expert in the room who can answer these things real quick very much appreciate it um and okay I mean I golly I think most of my questions have actually been answered to at this point because we have just
thinking it through we're going to have the map we can figure ourselves what the changes are we have the model bylaw that with the requirements we have to hit and uh yeah do we what other questions do we have on this I want to have more I want I want to feel like I need to know more because
we have access to miss Pate but um well next steps Mr chair yeah please is that I'll get this map information and I'll take the actual bylaw and put it in draft form okay now you have all this guidance it's just a big document explaining everything and it's very thorough but I will produce the actual draft zoning Amendment Katie wants to look at it first they need to review it and approve it to make sure it conforms
um so I'll probably have that in about two weeks okay and we and the uh warrant closes March 17th so that's your timeline right there we got a couple more meetings okay all right down great um in that case if we're all set I'm going to say thank you to miss P because we don't need her for the rest and she can go back to the rest of her life then um last thing I wanted to share is while we were talking about insurance I pulled up all the the um the publicly information on insurance through
National flood insurance program and lunenberg has 19 policies in place um with the total coverage of about $55 million just for reference and that's publicly available I can send that information um and follow up to Chris thank you uh I I'll actually ask one more question uh you're the expert is there anything I should be asking you right now that we haven't um no no um you a lot of the questions you're asking are very IAL of questions
especially communities that have not had new flood maps in a long time I personally think it's a really exciting thing because it means that now you can regulate a map that are actually accurate you know aren't you know 40 years old um and hopefully they're much easier and also can be used much more moving forward it's just even a planning tool in the community because they're going to just be so much more accessible um just being digital versus having like a white background with arbitrary lines on it so great thank you so much really appreciate your time tonight it was a
big help for all of us Katie I'll be talking to you soon obviously thank you absolutely any questions happy to help out anytime all right thank you byebye and thank you Chris for setting that up yes thank you very much she's great so that was helpful um now a quick follow-up question I have to kind of round out this topic for now [Music] um how do we and this is all the local
now how do we get I mean the warrant's closed for Town bodies I expressed to the previous Town manager to the interim Town manager's office so irrelevant now I expressed um discontent shall we say about the idea about the uh what felt like a very late game change in the warrant in when we had to get warrant articles in
um as we kind of discussed at our last meeting because that's info we need like six months in advance not a month and a half in advance um what how do we get things on the warrant article now that it's closed to internal Town bodies it has to be a citizen petition from one of us or something I don't know the details there well there's um in terms of the pro the overall process thank
there was this initial submission that was needed and that was when we you know remember when we had the zoning workshop at the last meeting the placeholder language was required by mhm um February 1st and so we got that in oh threw something together and got it in so that you guys wouldn't get any heat and it would just you know make it easier to proceed but the actual warrant language in the form that goes into the warrant
that is the meat and the bones and that is due by March 177 so we've got over a month to get this right or for me to get it right so that you're satisfied it's the right thing and then that's when the warrant closes nothing else can come in all of this other talk about it would have to be a Citizens petition that's just a placeholder language the initial you're sort of reserving this space on
the billboard for now to develop the warrant language that'll come later so we have flexibility here but now here's an example where the state's got a moving Target for us on the Adu and you know the Golden Rule with that placeholder language is you have to stay in the four corners of the intent of the language and now I don't know if we actually do so what all I can say to you is let's move forward with the actual draft motions that will be in the
preliminary warrant that are due on March 17th get them where you guys are satisfied it's the right thing for the town and you're comfortable with them and we'll make that deadline on the 17th what happens after that it's it's really you know we have to have the public hearing we have to do all the other required things under the statute but we've got a I think a month and a half to really try to get this right in the
warrant all right thank you does that make sense no okay um I am frustrated bordering angry this is my Angry voice um not with you not even with any one person in particular it it's certainly not with you you'd be mad at me but um but no there's you can be mad at the state yeah no that these things have come Fast and Furious and um and now
it's the the requirements are changing that's compressing everything for we've got moving requirements and moving deadlines from the state we have last minute shifting deadlines locally for getting things in and then having to stay in the four corners for the warrant article I get that that was done because we have a new town manager who's now working
and to try to ease that transition but it puts boards like ours in a a very unfortunate position would be the Catholic charitable phrase that I would choose to use another one would be it oh wow I almost just flat out set of word you can't see on TV okay um we have jobs to do
and we have a lot of jobs I got up in front of the town and said hey the planning board wants to work on solar I did that over a year ago we haven't had the opportunity to look at solar because they keep throwing things at us that is work we have to do except I I what I don't understand is why why do and I'm sure there's background legal things going on but why does a national policy change if it's something we have to
do is it then something we have to waste our time on and I say waste because if it has to happen it should be constructed at the federal level so we don't have to deal with it because we have we need to do the business of running this town as opposed to the business of dancing and jumping through hoops that may well be needed but if they're mandatory let's remove us from that equation enough that we can
actually make improvements for the citizenry rather than I mean I get that the flood I accept the flood maps are Improvement it's accurate data it's necessary but why do we need to have a hand in it if we don't actually have a hand in it if all we can do is look at it and say okay anyway my apologies we have people friends who are here
to we have applicants let's get them up here um let's move on wait unless there a big objection I'd like to move on to public hearings and let's hit 494 electric AV and for those at home this is a continuation of a long running public hearing um and so we don't need to open the public hearing or anything like that
all right uh for the record Chris Anderson with handing and Engineering here on behalf of DNA lunenberg LC uh this project was brought before the board I'm say a few months ago now um so just to bring the board back up to speed of what about the project is um it's the intent of the applicant to construct a new parking lot to service an existing
restaurant facility as well as modifying the existing parking um in front of the structure as well in addition to constructing a additional uh retail commercial space on the property um we were before the board a few meetings ago uh received quite a bit of comment and concern raised by the various uh abuts as well as uh Town departments uh so just to go over the general changes that we've made thus far um it'll be a little
bit more advantageous uh one of the primary concerns was storm water runoff um the existing uh accessory structure on the adjacent to the restaurant uh did have a gutter that was kind of overflowing and got to ating properties uh we're intending to capture that and redirect it into the storm water system so that it flow is effectively quote unquote discontinued from Overland flow um in addition to that we did have peer review uh performed on the um overall project uh by Graves engineering
uh we did finally get the peer review letter um earlier today um and effectively relative to all storm water and hydrology calculations that are all set um but just to go over everything again uh effectively we're capturing everything uh the mass majority of the runoff from the uh proposed impervious areas uh treating it and directing it towards one of two uh detention or infiltration basins on the property for Peak rate mitigation as well as uh storm water treatment
um one of the few other major concerns that were raised at the previous hearings was relative to parking impacts and traffic input coming into the Pierce AV section of the site um as such we have pulled back the parking um immediately against Pier AV so now we're maintaining the appropriate offset um Bo remember we're requesting a waiver ultimately uh we found that it's more advantageous to the overall neighborhood to remove that so we meet the setback
requirements and beneficially to that as well there's no more Vehicles directly facing uh the abing properties AC cross Pierce a if you will um we're maintaining still the solid wall fence along the entire side of the property on that portion of the area as well as doing some additional Evergreen planting along the fill slope to help kind of break up that solid wall fence if you will um in addition to that uh we have relocated the proposed uh dumpster pad from its current location which is kind
of floating if you will in the corner of the building and it's being located to the opposite side of Pierce have so that it's shielded appropriately it's protected from View and it's easily accessible as well um we did also take a look at a couple of uh access points um going into the parking lot um I believe one of the comments raised by uh Mr Riley was incorporating some dividers to help designate traffic Lanes uh We've Incorporated that as well as well as additional
uh striping and Landscape barriers to help designate a a designated pedestrian travel path uh from the parking lot area to the actual restaurant facility itself um in addition to that a couple additional Landscaping features as well were Incorporated um and we've addressed a couple the mass majority of the comments raised by the various Town departments um I'll note that we did get uh a order of conditions from the Conservation Commission relative to work within their are area uh which was
limited to effectively just a storm water basin so um that portion of the site has been approved by them uh with an order conditions um and I apologize there was a couple CH quite a few changes that were made uh just to address comments um and I think the last outstanding item from a uh Town Department perspective was the fire department uh we provided what's called an E1 hp95 truck if you will for everybody
else in the world that's just a large ladder truck it's the uh city of worcesters design template uh for vehicle turnings Maneuvers uh lunberg doesn't have a vehicle that large they have quite a little bit smaller of one um so one of the comments that was raised by the fire department was providing a turning maneuver for that specific vehicle um the board might remember we were before on another subject matter and that question was raised and we head it back and forth the fire department is just requesting us to
provide that information um this vehicle that lunberg has is a little bit smaller so it can easily accommodate the Turning Maneuvers that the larger vehicle can make so uh supplemental information can be provided um if the board would like as well for that uh but we'll definitely provide it for the fire department as part of the building permit process um I think uh with that being said those were the primary changes to the site
plan um if there's any questions from the board I'll be more than happy to answer them okay I'm going to turn for questions from the board and then I'll open for public comment but I want to handle board things first and then we'll go from there just kind of set and for everyone order of operations what questions do we have please Mr McLoud I think I remember some residents having concerns about Vehicles accessing the property through the neighbor hoods coming from
whm so uh the predominant mode of traffic if you will for the the actual tenants or the restaurant use is from Electric AV um the few handful of cars that might come down the side roads as minimal at best so it's not the primary concern um I do know that there was a concern raised by the abutters relative to access a long pier have um right now Pier have uh for a lack of better term
is kind of chaotic in this area there's no defined uh edge of P traveled path no striping traffic control features it's very wild westish if you will in this area um by performing the proposed modifications that we're uh suggesting we're going to be setting up proper turning and uh curb radi into the site so it's all Granite so it's a defined travel path we removing the current parking situation
that's currently in the area it's parking is everywhere so people don't know where to go that's the primary issue that's currently happening on the site um by eliminating the uh free parking if you will in the area and uh putting it in a Define location as well as providing traffic marking Center Line Stripes as well as stop bars stop signage all that kind of fun stuff it's helping control the traffic better in order to make sure that people do the appropriate turning Maneuvers to get back onto electric
a and on that on that topic this is to my I just want to make sure that the statements I'm making are correct that my understanding is correct really this increases the parking available for ill Forno correct um I don't think there's anything but I want to ask are there any changes
there's no changes to the capacity for Il Forno with this correct correct there is no change in the capacity of the site or the restaurant use itself I will note the only thing that's happening to the restaurant facility itself is that we're incorporating a canopy between the two shs for Environmental Protections if you will so people don't get rained on when they're walking between the two buildings mhm as well as reinstating a patio that was there a couple months ago that was removed at the request of the building department so uh besides that
the buildings are going to remain intact um and the capacity of those structures is going to remain as is so for you it's reinstating a patio that was there for us this is effective we haven't done a plan with the patio or anything correct correct okay great I just want to make sure we're all on the I want to make sure when I say we you us the public that we all have the same thing so it seems to
me like this would eliminate well hopefully eliminate some of the on street parking issues that we've seen on piav previously correct okay it will definitely alleviate that issue that's out there right now great all right I know we've heard about that in the past as well I'm just trying to make sure I I have a lot of things I want to make sure aren't just assumptions on my part that are actually correct okay other questions please yeah so I I
think that the um you know the issue if I remember correctly of the neighbor neighbor Neighbors or at least one neighbor being concerned of drawing traffic through whum Road from whum Road through say like Elizabeth Street or Wallace Park you know would draw it would draw people to and from the restaurant through those neighborhoods which would actually not be my primary concern it certainly is a concern but all of those traffic controls and everything you described are essentially focused right
on the area where the pedestrians would be Crossing correct so by the nature of the development we're not proposing any further improvements along piav except right where the Turning Maneuvers are occurring so my my concern is cars coming queuing up as you would say in your in your in your realm as as they as they're exiting the property going out onto electric AV queuing up there say you know even one car but two which I
think would be a pretty common occurrence you know coupled with vehicles queuing up on electric AV waiting to enter into Pierce um I think anybody that is now channeled where you're channeling the pedestrians will be walking in between the vehicles that are queed up on Pierce possibly putting them at risk of someone darting from Electric AV onto Pierce and being that that the operator of that vehicle on electric AV would would have their view
uh impacted by the the vehicles queed on uh Pierce and would possibly likely not see The Pedestrian that could be Crossing between the vehicles maybe even on the crosswalk but maybe if you know if you could Envision somebody crossing the street outside of the crosswalk would add even more of a threat to the to pedestrians and it seems to me that that's that's precisely one of the things that be trying to avoid by having a uh parking lot across the street from
a restaurant which I understand that the the uh ownership or control of peers is still as far as far as I know is still uh being researched but uh I do overall I think it addresses a lot of issues of of as as it relates to parking I think it's it's moving you know far superior than the current uh the current situation particularly with the the Landscaping um that's been you know added to the front of the restaurant I think over overall it's a it's a great Improvement but we can't do that at the
um you know the extreme um threat to pedestrians that's understood and we we we see where you're coming from with that uh I think an alternative approach is to um CU right now there's no we are not showing any proposed signage dictating that there is a crosswalk so it is unfortunately not the intent to be blind but it is right now uh a solution to that would be to start incorporating pedestrian crossing signs uh so that when V vles do make that turn into Pier
uh Pierce AV if you will they're brought to the attention that there is a crosswalk there and that that keep an eye on it like any other crosswalk in you know the state the country if you will bringing something to their attention uh that plus with the crosswalk painting on this road that also helps quite a bit as well so I think um incorporating a traffic sign or a series of traffic signs in that area both coming Northbound and southbound along Electric have uh could alleviate
that concern and those all sound excellent I think what the fact that where that crosswalk is in conjunction to you know the proximity to Electric a Pierce and the entrance to that parking lot there's just you know I use that analogy of someone darting in from um you know and just assuming all weather conditions are ideal this could even be broad daylight no glare nothing I think you know someone darts in or even just comes in at a normal rate that you know all those
warning signs just really gives no area of response time I mean that is right in the thick of it I mean it's it's right there it's not 100 yards down the road or you know or or even just it's right there so you know and not having it just seems to me and this you know obviously would go beyond you know probably what the bylaws allow you know you'd certainly need some kind of variance but it just seems like that the the two part
you know the proposed retail complex and the then that parking lot if those were connected and they you know had one sole access uh e you know egress from Electric AV um it it just in that and having that entrance exit further down Say closer you know I think it went towards the retail building away from Pierce seems like a logical uh location and again I realize it's not that simple you know dealing with the government never is but if you come in there and
then you park in the the the general parking lot and you're channeling all your pedestrians towards uh electric AV onto a a sidewalk essentially over to the crosswalk against Pierce you've already you know um uh removed vast majority of if you know well all the traffic that would be dedicated to the restaurant so it just you know I I realize that that you know illogical but that seems to make the most sense
um I was going to say almost the exact same as you um to me it doesn't make sense to have an entrance right there on Pierce to that parking lot cuz not only are you residents going down Pierce yes but also people coming in right off of Electric Avenue having to make a quick left into the parking lot you're going to have an issue with traffic on Electric Avenue for people slowing down and turning in and then having to wait what if there's somebody waiting at the parking lot and you're completely
correct all of the pedestrians are going to be funneling right there across the entryway so it's going to slow even more and for me that just doesn't look safe 100% not safe it makes more sense to have an entrance off of Electric Avenue like you said and then have The Pedestrian crosswalk be on its own thing so that way the people going through the crosswalk they're only going to have to deal with residents going up Pierce or if people need to turn around it's less
of a chance of of any kind of accident if that entrance is off of electric at least that's how I see it so um one thing I want to I I want to call out and part of this is my opinion CU I'm not an engineer and I can't give like facts on this um I it seems that this design and I get the concerns and I may share them I don't know yet I'm chewing it all
over um what I like about it is we talk about the Landscaping in front of Il Forno but what we're really looking at there is right now that is all wide open to Electric which is super duper unsafe to have effectively no points of Entry entry onto electric I mean or like
infinite points of Entry right if unless the parking lot's full people are going to pull in anywhere in there that's a less predictable traffic pattern it also creates not only for car onar collisions but for any pedestrians walking on electric on that side it creates a threat along the entire length of the parking lot um limiting entry in front of Il Forno
negates a lot of that now what I do want to know is I'm assuming that the two part that you have the re the parking lot for the retail space and the separate El Forno parking lot and I assume that that was all intentional decisions because I mean decisions are intentional by default I'm curious what the reasoning is we we've heard some concerns from the board help us understand sure uh so relative
to the commercial PAAD site one of the reasons why we went with that configuration if you will for like a better term is to try to keep it separate so that the retails component not mixing with the restaurant component uh that fire access is a straight Loop rad and people can make turning Maneuvers very well um we try to avoid connecting directly to Electric AV only because electric AV is steadily busy uh
we don't want to have any additional turning Maneuvers going in and out of the site in that area especially so close to pierce a um in addition to that it's also more of a functionality component to the site uh relative to the restaurant use uh because the parking is disconnected if you will um from the Restaurant Locust um creating a second or a exclusively only electric AB connection would potentially limit the site extensively only because as if you were
to think about it if you were driving to the al Forno restaurant and the redesigned parking lot is full you would just keep going unfortunately um this way when people come to El Forno they see that it's full or the parking lot front of the building is full they can easily make the turn and get into the parking lot so they can still um go to the restaurant itself that was the intent behind going off of Pierce uh AV rather than exclusively only
electric um that would be our primary concern with eliminating pier and its entirety um I think an investigation might be warranted um about restricting piav to an in out or in only so that people can still maintain that flow pattern they can go to the restaurant they see the main parking lots uh full they can go into the secondary and they can still go to the restaurant itself um that would limit electric G to exit only
um it's kind of achieves what you're trying to talk about um but it just it adds another turning maneuver into electric gap which is what we're truly trying to avoid just because I drive this road all day um I live in the Hampshire so I drive by the site constantly and it's not super busy but it's a good steady busy and we're just trying to avoid as many curb Cuts along that road as possible well I think that example of an operator traveling down electric AV
scoping out the parking lot in front of the restaurant realizing it's full and then determining to turn into the the main parking lot is exactly the type of distracted driver that I'd be concerned with that may hit a pedestrian I feel like there must be best practices for this like there Mr cheriff if I may they're generally called slipon aisles
slip on slip off aisles and CVS has one and we've talked a little bit about it what's the consideration there for for having sort of a dedicated rightand Lane where people could slip off electric and then queue before they reach the entrance so those kind to CVS and they have one yeah and CVS um has a much higher flow traffic flow generation than these kinds
of developments would have that's the primary component to that so you've got the room and um you know it's looks like it's in the public way that we accommodate that we would certainly do that that seems to be the best practice solution I'm I think would fit here but and so you're talking about a dedicated rightand turn lane yeah could you just point on there where I think I get it I just want to make
sure T into it wor youate for theic starting here or starting back here and just have a slip that I slip that it's yeah decelerating lane or accelerating Lan yeah technical ter um I also think I I'm catching myself doing this so I'm I'm going to bring it up I have no clue if others are or not
but I keep in my mind assuming this is going to be a traffic increase and it shouldn't be not until they apply for increased capacity which is exactly what they're going to do can I express a frustration with that too sure this is just in general not about the plan or anything this was one of the first things I witnessed as the a planning board member from start to
finish and call it naivity but like when the additional building was proposed it was no problem we have enough parking you know we're not going to need to come back at you know for any additional parking it was it was written no problem and now we're back here and it's not enough parking they need additional parking I understand the law and I understand the law says that it's their property they can develop it as such if they need more parking I understand that
but it's frustrating when we had so many citizens come and say this is a really big issue for us already and now we're just kind of adding to their frustrations with this so I I feel for the citizens and I you know I'm just disappointed because I feel like we got kind of Bamboozled when it came to the parking I might be wrong that's just my opinion Y no that's fine I'll give them a chance to respond
if they wish they don't have to because P business etc etc but it's already approved so it's yeah if you want me to that's fine okay um yeah I guess I just I would just like to hear you know why it why the you know entrance even if it was a dedicated parking lot if they weren't connected to the proposed uh retail building why the entrance couldn't be you know off of electric AB still closer to you know fur
further um towards the proposed retail building you know i' need to have a better understanding of why that can't happen uh before I could you know try to wrap my head around um this plan and then my other question is I I I know I'm still struggling with the whole idea of peerreview and that this did in fact have a peer review is any of that review done for specific to
pedestrian traffic like there seems to be a lot of focus on storm water uh which of course is important but uh you know human beings are are quite important to me and I'm just wondering if that much uh that amount of scrutiny that was applied to the storm water was applied to pedestrians um I can't speak to what uh Graves engineering specifically centered around I know they did review engineering comments um I would defer to
Graves engineering I don't want to speak on their behalf relative to that um relative to trying to shift entryways closer to or Pierce AV if you will uh that's more of a strictly um motor vehicle operation perspective you need time to make decisions can you make it can you pull out of the site without getting hit by a truck or a car that's why we try to separate driveways as as much as human as possible especially from roadways because
roadways intersections are generally the more traffic producing activities points uh so um in order for us to make sure we had enough offset we would have to try to drag that entryway as far as humanly possible from Piera just so that there is sufficient time for a driver to make a decision on how they want to proceed which I think would give them more time if if it was if the entrance was dedicated to Electric C and I and I will apologize because I am the liaison
to the EDC and I know there's a gentleman even here that made some comments of trying to make lunenberg uh you know more business friendly so I you know I I make these comments with that in mind that we we do need to be business friendly and and encourage improvements to existing B you know businesses as well as um you know attracting new businesses but you know that that here here lies the balance of you know trying to be you know um compliant and and you know
be easy on existing businesses but that you know the the areas that I've I've expressed concerns are you know still still remain uh and I'm not I'm not convinced yet that um there's there's not something better I'm kind of a general question and it's got a lot to do with all this it if I remember correctly when this was was first shown to us and when we first got the oh my God moment when
pi have might actually not be the towns if Pi have is in fact the towns and it is in fact a right of way would this development of a parking lot across the street from ilforno be allowed by our loing um it to my having been in some conversations for this I'm going to you can tell me if I get it wrong okay I want to see if I got it right if the town oh and I'm got some questions about the the piav thing for
on our end too um if the T if piav is in towns then this would not this parking would not by default be compatible with our current parking bylaw there is all I was looking for I'm sorry that's all I was looking for okay there's I think a people can always apply I believe even under that bylaw but I could be wrong on
that and say hey this might not meet the kind the kind of the classic pre-existing non-conforming right this gets us closer to conforming instead of having people parking on the street they would be parking in a safer place and they could apply and then it would be up to us to decide if that were the case am I did I present that correctly nice I like to feel like I know what I'm talking talking about is so rare in life can I
ask can I ask Chris please yeah go ahead so if in fact this was a public way and um the BW says that they couldn't do the parking would there be any avoidance of I mean would they even be able to make the application would we be able to say that's okay we'll allow it this time no no okay so I would recommend as I think I did the first time we heard this is that we put off all this discussion in planning board about something that may or may not even work
because of a legal issue the problem we're finding is we've asked Town Council and we're just not getting any kind of response that says no so it it appears given that they've made the effort that they've made the legal argument that the town doesn't own it we the town own us then is to say but we do and here's the process and we went through everything properly and it appears we didn't so what would be the what would be the
what would be the problem with Town Council saying no they're correct and not even having a battle about it why not just say that they're correct and let's move forward that's what we're trying to get one way or the other we haven't gotten it why are we wasting our time in this planning board then waiting for a legal decision from somebody else that we have no authority over that's a good question I I think I asked it the first time this was presented to us as well it's always been a good question so we're still Town Council still hasn't give us given
us aen Town council's gotten everything that he's identified that he needs to sort of you know do that analysis title fee examination and everything the applicants provided it we just we haven't gotten anything Town Council hasn't responded so what I the way I interpret that is absent something in writing that's definitive if the town doesn't present an argument there is no argument Town doesn't have one when is the next when
is town council's next office hours tomorrow I think do we know if this free slots available there is what time I know I'll be here I can meet you I mean like but I I know we have to sign up ahead of time yeah I'd have to look at the um calendar I don't know if I can pull it up here I'll try and pull it up okay cuz I'd like to sit down with Town Council in face to face and say we're in the same room give me something because I think I have
a slot for noon that I can I'll gladly give you let me double check I think that would be super now the only reason I bring this up and I'm not against this development whatsoever I'm against breaking the rules and I'm against delaying things and I'm against putting us against the corner trying to make decisions on what about this what about that and well if it wasn't even an available option in the first place then why are we considering it second of all if it is their property then that that's going to lead to other questions to the to the
abuts the residents in the neighborhood and and it seems like any kind of a oneway this way that way something or else they're going to be forcing traffic to use piav in those small side streets um they were already putting two new curb cuts and um there's two new curb Cuts there and they're using two existing curb cuts and they're they are improving the front of the ill Forno restaurant by by by removing that unrest red Frontage that's good however I think
all these comments made about turning movements and pedestrian movements are extremely valid and if it's their land then they don't need to have a driveway connecting the parking lot to the the building they could have sidewalks connecting that that would eliminate any traffic coming in and out off a piav except for the existing parking and that way the if the existing parkings C that they just pass it they Park in the Overflow you could split the driveways
to the retail and the parking area uh very easily and they could be quite autonomous they're just next to each other in the same curb cut so to speak Mr chair through you to the board if I may on that yeah please to the issue of the peer reviewer Graves is not a traffic inine they're not a full house peer review ah service so they focus on and they do a very good job on storm water design and uh that kind of thing but this is why you sometimes want
another peer riewer available who either has in-house Traffic Engineers to evaluate traffic aspects of an application uh or you just have somebody available you know directly and there are you know people that that that are available for that I could certainly get you a couple names for consideration if it's that important and the board's got some really good suggestions on how to mitigate this but
that's generally what would would happen with an application like this my experience the peer reviewer would assign in-house or they would get a traffic peer reviewer to do that portion of the application because I feel like we've had that in the P we've had traffic in peer review in the past larger project if this was a shopping center I'm pretty sure the peer review that traffic analysis would part of the required studies it is um and if it is a
shopping center which I think the last has that been determine that it is or it is not with 6,000 ft the building Commissioners comments the last meeting we had about the retail component the retail component adds 6,000 ft of retail area and parking area so that it qualifies as a shopping center in our bylaw oh yeah he not just a parking lot Shopping Center yeah we made that
determination quite a while ago okay I don't know if it was about this but yeah so wouldn't a traffic analysis be a basis a basic requirement of of of generally speaking sure so we're not we're not stretching it at all okay um so I'm going to back this up for one second I just want to because I have to clear my brain a little I where is office hours or uh Town Council Office hours the library library okay great and
it's I have 12:40 oh 12:40 I have a 12:50 meeting tomorrow although I do see in 11:40 and 12 that are both just open so dude could you grab me at 1140 it that would be amazing thank you that would um I will and hopefully that will help all of us because if Town count Council giving us a definitive
answer could help move this forward one way or another somehow and um do we feel that a site visit would be helpful to see the lay of the land and the roads and everything together and be able to discuss it in place have we not well been to the site we're not supposed to deliberate on a site visit but we can if we we we've done it before we have but we set it up as a meeting where less
four board members what's that or you have less and four board members at the site at any point in time then it's not yeah less it have to be four four yeah I believe it's four now our Quorum is three so we'd have to have I have a double check with Town Council but umw but we could have I mean we have the ability to post a meeting and be there and discuss and talk things over we don't have to but that is a
choice we could have to look at it if we post the meeting right yeah yeah no post a meeting with an abundance of caution I could do that for you your covered and then we could go there look it over the applicant could walk us through the lay of the land there and we could talk it and it's not an issue it's a posted meeting we can talk about it while there rather than going well I remember seeing remember seeing um is that something that the
board would find beneficial I'm getting some notes okay yeah is that something the applicant would would find sure excellent okay we can set that up like I mean we don't have to do that this minute but let's get that set up um and I think that will help with some of this if we're okay with it I'd like to turn to the public and get public comments because that that would
certainly for me impact a lot of my thoughts on this yeah I was just not unclear where that conversation relative to the traffic engineer landed fair I think you're right um let's I didn't know if that was going to be a you know if if they felt it was necessary after the site visit I just didn't know I mean I I think it sounded like you know being kind of pessimistic about the the peer review I kind of like that one kind of you know I think I'm comfy with
the with us deciding beforehand or I don't care if we decide before or after I feel like the applicant might have an opinion because that could be an additional fee but it also could impact timeline so I'm kind of cool saying hey looks like we might want a traffic review how do you want like how do you want to handle this is that comfy for us hey looks like what might need a tra what we might need a traffic review how
would you like to handle this we could do a before or after a site visit again it it advantages either way for you um so the so typically a traffic review if you will has a traffic study to review yeah which has not truly been done in a formal fashion for this site yet yeah so I think uh best course of action would be let's go to the
sidewalk um we'll talk to I'll talk with the applicant figure out how we want to proceed relative to traffic impacts um and then at the if we as long as we post it at the uh the sidewalk on the the town calendar and everything like that we can make that decision there I think that gives us a little bit of time to digest all the comments and concerns uh that were raised tonight relative to traffic turning and Maneuvers and entryways and everything like that so we can have something to look at if you will while on site so you can see what
we're looking at on the ground versus what's on paper great uh I'm going to turn to the public now because I'd like to hear their thoughts and we have many members of the public who are here great Mr McDonald come on up all right my here hi Dave McDonald 155 Road in lunenberg thank you guys for everything uh Glenn I I like your comments and
safety is number one for any project you do but if you look at the project the way it is now and what was there before the uh capies restaurant it's always been a restaurant so it's not a change of use uh but if you look at some other businesses in town I'm glad you're not going to do the same mistakes as what they did with the Chinese restaurant where you it's a nightmare going in there but they do have that exit going on onto was that electric AV on rout 13 which is a great thing and those are new in the uh industry as far as traffic controls or whatever which would look
good on electric a uh if you can make a right-hand turn coming out of there that's that saves a lot of traffic and so on but if you look at the entrance or as it is now there is a line of site and that's always important because we had the problem up on towns and Harbor Road and mumis road so we changed that intersection to make it safer so what I'm asking is I like what you're doing it's it's a good thing uh but and I don't know how many months you guys been working on this sounds like it been a long time but you made the the smartest
remarks tonight if you guys agree upon an entrance and you're going to do a site visit I'd highly recommend you have Bill Bernard from the DPW who worked for DOT who who's an engineer in the traffic cudy he he can help you right off the bat you probably get an answer so the question I have or or or U the the suggestion I have is you're going to do a sidewalk bring bill but if you're happy with this and then the lawyers say it's okay you want to modify it bill
would help you with that making the adjustments but you can get it done sooner than than later you you don't want another whm uh the the lakefront property where you have a restaurant and you got AC cross the street that is also very busy I know this area I used to live on whm road and I know the traffic and I know the neighbors but your uh Al foros has already done major improvements on drainage to help the town and I know that because I was the uh chairman of the Sewer Commission so a lot of improvements have been made and I
and I'm really pleased at what you're doing but I think it could be done easier if you guys agree upon and and you're lawyer if you sit there and the lawyer says yeah we don't care do what you want is this acceptable to you after you do the walkth through I guess is what I'm saying do you have any am I coming across the right way so yeah but but I I I just got to thank you for what you do but look at it as far as if you're going in there and TR it go home tonight just take the left and the right and and again I like his opinion about
the direct line going into electric a so thank you guys and good luck thank you um I like the idea of inviting Mr Bernard to join us yeah we're getting nods so as we plan this could we invite invite Mr Bernard to join us for the S sidewalk so that so that he's there at what is a sidewalk but it's a meeting s sidewalk right whatever we call that as a meeting he can advise as well from his
perspective we have a subject matter expert sitting there let's make use and that would also help us hopefully move things along so we can be as sensitive as we can be to the applicant's time yeah and I'm a big fan of the mo of the marrier so where it's actually a meeting anyway if we extended that invitation to the uh police and fire that's a good idea yeah they may or not
want to but there's no harm in saying we're doing this if you want yeah great please Mr McDonald you wel if you're going to speak it has to be at the microphone I know we can hear you but our friends out on YouTube uh next week cannot Dave McDonald Island Road I would recommend the fire department more than the police fire department and we just had a fire down there on wh road that we're at on Sunday um that they would be interested
about the vehicle size and and all that but especially the Turning radiuses that's where all the equipment's got to go so the police department but it's up to you guys but the more the marrier I agree mhm great I see no harm in extending the invitation and if they feel that their opinion is not helpful that is that's good knowledge actually then we know I just think it would be important if you went particularly with the the three uh
department heads there just a little background of why exactly would appreciate their presence there MH not just a hey we're meeting here because they'll easily just kind of fall off the radar but if it's Public Safety pedestrian yeah I think that's a fair we we want to tell them why we're inviting them because otherwise because they're invited to this meeting you know by default yeah no I think you rais a good point saying here here is a concern if you feel that your presence would be help we would actually we would like them yeah we'
like it if you're if your if you feel your presence would be helpful we would like you there I mean I think I'd go as far as to use the word request to use the word request okay request I'm comfy with that all right great other public comment if you're on and I see Mr P is getting up but if you're out there on Zoom land and you have a p you're going to want public comment go ahead and just toss that hand up at any point so we know you can use
that hand rais feature Mr PE please tell us who you are uh I'm Bob peas and I live at 11 winter Green Court um I'm I go to Al foros probably two three times a year and I always like it there but that's not why I'm here I'm here because I really believe that this town has to do more to um help its present businesses uh um you know I've heard talk tonight about a traffic study uh La I haven't heard
anything tonight that shows that there's going to be an increase in traffic you know due to what's what's being proposed here um and I think that you know usually a traffic study happens when there's going to be an increase in traffic not it's it's about uh traffic studies you know are because what's going to be the volume where it's going to come from um in my I've lived in lunenberg for 15 years now before that I
lived in Hein Connecticut for 32 years and while I was there I was on the Planning and Zoning commission for six years and when we did uh traffic there uh I heard some people talk tonight about why didn't you access this parking lot from Electric Avenue and back I don't know how they do it in Massachusetts but Connecticut the do really discouraged curb Cuts close to each other you know like out of Pierce Avenue and out of the
parking lot you know onto uh a road you know where the traffic's going by you know very rapidly um and I think that um uh you know there's been a lot of also concerns expressed tonight about uh you know people will be Crossing you know near Electric Avenue well where are crosswalks typically crosswalks typically we are at intersections uh you know right right there and so I I would
urge you to go in the direction of you know crosswalk signage and stuff and maybe you know the the turn lane that was suggested um uh I think that's what I have to say um you know I really do believe that you know the board has an an ethical and moral obligation to work with its present businesses you know to help them achieve and see you know how can you
work within your regulations to help them achieve the goals that they're trying to achieve thank you very much thank you Mr pce other public comment okay anything else from the board at this time I I did find their comments helpful I mean it's good it's good insight to hear the the you know different differing views and I think that you
know it's good to have that going into the you know the the site visit and uh you know I don't disagree I like I had stated I think it's very important that we not only you know attract businesses to town but you know you know cherish the ones that we do have um no I'm in a position where I am less concerned about the
um about the crosswalk Etc than uh some than some of the other members of the board uh you'll need to unlock your iPhone first I will unlock my iPhone when I want thank you you'll need to turn on Lo um yeah I'm an Android guy sorry um I think I think a s well talk will be helpful for our understanding um I
personally agree with Mr P in that I don't see the need for a traffic study but I get the idea of wanting someone who reviews plans for pedestrian safety to review it but I also think a lot of this we need to understand the questions I have remaining are one from town County okay is this not really our Ro two assuming it isn't which I I'm
suspecting will be the case but I want those words from the lawyer rather than or guess at the words from the lawyer I want to know what that means because if we don't own the road but it's a road I I'm left with a million questions logis L and I mean to understand what that translates to in
reality um I think once we have all that answered we have a site visit I'm hoping a lot of this will feel more straightforward to us and will'll be able to pinpoint our needs and our concerns very precisely to help the applicant meet those needs yeah just echoing one of the comments from the the public um I think Mr Mr Allison did probably have the most you know logical comments overall in the
sense that if that is in fact if piav is their property and they were able to incorporate that into their into their property make it their property incorporate it into the the parking lot thereby isolating the neighborhoods from their property uh that it would be a win-win and that you know they could then then all of a sudden that entrance is now onto electric AV and you know so back to his point where you know we need to know they need to know everybody
needs to know who owns Pierce so again giving Mr Allison the credit for you know best comment and the other question would be no matter who owns Pierce what or if the applicant owns Pierce thre what can they do with it I don't know that answer either because I don't know what it means when something's been aode for over 100 years but it wasn't um and that's just
laws they're confusing i' like to say another possibly unsettling thing to some people is that this is the planning board the town of lunenberg and it's it's it's it's it's to protect the citizens of the town of lunenberg now now everybody gets all up in arms when I'm hard on a contractor when they're developing a piece of property so that they can get done as cheaply and quickly as possible to turn it around around and sell it and bye-bye gone this is not that case I totally understand
that however there is an entire neighborhood back there of people who were scared less when when this came up mhm and and you could see it when it came out those are the people that this planning board is charged with taking care of protecting those are the people not the lawyers not the engineers not the businesses necessarily I mean I'm not I'm not trying to talk against business I'm simply trying to state fact that this is for the people of the town of
lunenberg this group that's what we're here for that's what we're elected by right now we have edcs we have all these other groups but this is the planning board we oversee site development site design site plans you know we look out for the public safety and Welfare and benefit so I know some people are not going to like anything that comes out of my mouth I know some people are not going like it because it sounds weird to them or whatever
but I I I I hate to say it I've been doing this for a long time and and I'm fairly knowledgeable about the topics that we discuss and I don't usually just say things just to be heard um I think that the first comment that was brought up was very valid I think it was followed up by another member and and I waited to hear it play out and I think that for the reasons that I stated and for the other reasons that were stated and also the reasons that that you stated I think we need to clear this issue up with Pierce a before we move
forward with design and layout of anything because given the result of whether it's the towns or it's not the towns that's going to change a lot of things and not just for this business or this proposed business or this proposed Shopping Center or whatever I mean there's a lot of people that are impacted by this and hardly any of them are here in this room right now yeah um I will say I've tried to do
some I have tried to do some diligence in ter it's not really due diligence because it's not required of our role but I I've tried to do some follow up on what does it mean if the town doesn't own the road and that has been hard information to come by because I'm also aware that what we are where this is being talked about we have no control over it but we're still the plac that's being discussed the public forum right therefore people are going to come to us and say what does it mean it's another
reason it shouldn't be talked about here until it's figured out l in my mind and I get that I think the applicant would argue um and I don't mean to put words in your Collective mouths that their case is very clear and I think it may well be I really I'm not thrilled that we haven't gotten a concise answer on this from
Town Council when it seems for for our board is extremely important hopefully we can get that tomorrow I will pass whatever info I get I will pass on to the rest of the board not for discussion but just as facts obtained from Town Council so we go into an eventual s sidewalk with that knowledge in can discuss it at that time as well because it won't be a site walk site walk it
will be a meeting on site um yeah and again if you are a member if you are someone who is impacted by this and you have concerns that I I know there's been lighting changes and other things made to the plan to meet resident needs in the area if you are a resident in that area and you still have concerns and we're not addressing them we need you to speak up that's true
for any project we need you to speak up and let us know so do please come to the meeting do send us emails um let us know because that's the info we need to make informed decisions yeah I was just basically just going to ask would it be prudent maybe when we posted that meeting for the site visit if it indicated that we may have a discussion I guess depending on the outcome of your meeting with um Town Council of you know uh Pierce because
you know if if there's if if there's no if we still are walking in the dark like we are now then I would think part of the conversation like it seems like they could be proposing to you know take over peon would be in that same position of we don't know if you can or can't so if part of that meeting we we disclosed that we were going to talk about um you know encompassing Pierce that that would put people on notice of what that what that discussion
is to to with the neighbors I mean maybe they would hate that hate having that isolation but I mean they have plenty of access to whum road but we can certainly uh it has to have an agenda we can include that as I would just put it as a sub bullet yeah in that section on the agenda so people see it are aware I'm guessing they will be anyway but we'll figure that all all right okay please please attorney the applic
just say it all right at the microphone the applicant um thank you again for hearing us tonight I guess Mr sham I just ask maybe through the planner if you get some kind of an answer from Town Council tomorrow I would just appreciate if it gets shared and some because again we've we've been here we've been here in good faith and again sir we we we done our research we did an opinion letter and um I don't want to get into the legal Mumble jumo if you will but we
can't deny anybody access the this road shows on a plan okay so the people have access to pierce okay it's a little bit of a legal anonym this town has accepted Pierce F so the town's responsible for it it's just the underpinning the the legal fee was never taken by the town so again I think I was see maybe two or three meetings ago this is not the first time I've dealt with this issue I've dealt with other towns it is a little bit unique but it's not unheard of and I think matter of fact you and I maybe had a discussion about it at one point in
time oh yeah yeah I've seen it so we can't to you know I can't I'm not legal counsel to anybody other than my client but we can't deny anybody access the people can come up and down Pier s it's it shows on a plan they have a right to use it no and to the record I Mr chair if I may I would say the applicant is is really going above and beyond to make available their information my my abstract has actually reached out to Town Council so so again Mr chairman again I know
there's privilege and non-privileged and I don't need to give you legal advice but if he says yay or nay that's not really privileged whatever isn't legal advice but I will make I will not be the one sending that email I will make sure Chris is the one sending that email because he's the one who knows what he's doing and I know exactly enough to be very dangerous fair enough so what I'll do is I I'll reach out to you some point point tomorrow midf afternoon and if we got an answer we have an answer I'll be there okay it thank you folks that's all
I have thank you thank you so much all right um oh we need to uh continue I guess the continuation would be to the whatever meeting we decide but we don't have that yet do we need to commit to that meeting we have to continue to a date C yeah so if we wanted to do this at the
so do we have to continue to the S sidewalk and does that mean we have to figure the site walk now before we leave I would not if if I may I would not want to have a meeting at the site walk for anything other than the site walk I agree I don't I would continue to one of your scheduled meetings as the date certain okay okay I'm that doesn't preclude you from scheduling a site walk I'll and talking about this project at the site walk while we're doing it that's all allowed then I just
want to make I want to make sure we're covered yeah so just um not a lawyer but every other City Town Department board commission I've ever done work with you can have a sidewalk schedule it if you want and at that point there could be the Liberation yes you can have a sidewalk and not not have deliberation it' be a fat Gathering conversation so you can ask typically
how it goes is I show you where the site is I show you X Y and Z and you leave it at that so just to I know there's concern that's pretty much how sidewalks my career have ever gone I hear that my here's the thing I want to make sure we can do okay we're having a lot of discussion about what would this be like and I want us to have the freedom to say
I want Mr McLoud to be able to say Well when I'm standing here it really looks to me like this doesn't work for some reason and I want to be able to stand there and say I agree or are you sure because I have this other interpretation and I'd like us to be able to do that in the moment when we're looking at it rather than playing me mem is fallible like memory human memory it turns out is absolute trash if you ever want to do
the uh read the research on it it's fascinating our brains are very good at tricking us into thinking they work well um Mr chair I can just tell you my experience what I've always done and has worked fine is uh you continue to a date certain on your regular schedule and that at the same time that night you schedule a site meeting to be posted because there may be deliberation so you do both you're concerned that okay we
schedule this site meeting and then we go there we deliberate nobody knows about it uh following this I want to make sure we can talk while we're there and I want to make sure that schedule both tonight I would say okay and you may have people that don't know their schedule and it and so you know sometimes it's a a moving Target but case law and statute has said you're well within your rights schedule
a fact finding site visit okay the applicant or not um at any time with other members or not and to discuss the facts of of the application I can get you some reference on that if you I I've have heard every word you said and I not fully processing it I apologize what are we doing here so we can move forward effectively you're continuing to
a date certain on your regular schedule you're definitely doing that okay you're also asking the board when would you like to schedule the site visit one are people available and we're doing Chris you will post this meeting because there may be deliberation okay and we do we have to do that part now or can we do that after the meeting so we're not taking up time if it has to be now it has to be now I would say to be safe it would be you'd have to be now because all that always that danger
that some deliberation will go on outside of the Public's knowledge yeah oh I just meant about sit down after the meeting and figure our schedules I'm fine we can do that now okay great so first let's get this on our next meeting um motion to continue public hearing for 494 Electric Avenue to the February 24th uh meeting at 6:05 I will second moved and seconded
all in favor I great so we know we're that next um I have a fairly flexible schedule in terms of availability when there's daylight when can we meet that is accessible for the for the board and then we can see if we is if that works for the applicant as
well um I also have a relatively flexible schedule if we were looking at cuz we could do next week that'd be fine that that's Mr PE do you have a Mr chair I I I Bob PE Green Court I was chair of the Conservation Commission for 3 years we do a site walk for every single hearing we do um and I spent a fair amount of time discussing the the ins and outs of
sidewalks with Adam CA and you know they're not a public meeting they're an exemption to uh the open meeting law you know you can't do deliberation you can't take votes uh but you know but as you know as he said you know you go it's a fact finding Mission you know and there's dis discussion I think you're on very Solid Ground just take and you know decide whenever you decide when you're going to do the S sidewalk I and we never decide when site
walks are going to be in open meeting on the Conservation Commission and we've always been on very Solid Ground I hope that's okay I know I appreciate that Mr P if we can talk to each other and discuss I'm fine with just a standard sidewalk I just want to make sure we can actually talk to each other and it's not oh I'm I see you know we've learned this and then Tim and I are each having different thoughts we have to hold on to until our meeting when we're not on site I
want to be able to have that freedom of discussion and I want it to be legal if we can do that during a s sidewalk so much the better Mr pce just said can't deliberate and my understanding of your example was that would be deliberation mhm there a gray area there right area of course but I'm always been on the air on the side of air air on the side of caution always that's always been me but I'm not the guy getting paid for it and I'm not the guy looking at losing my job over some or being
reprimanded or whatever it's just and and I agree we should have gotten response from Town Council right and hopefully we'll get some tomorrow and you know maybe maybe the S sidewalk rules are different for conservation versus planning board we don't know that either I mean like they are a little bit I would just do both as you know an abundance of caution okay do both and if it's a small logistical challenge tonight just it it it's well worth it
all right let's do a quick when can we in that case our hired professional says here's when we says do it this way we'll do it that way looking at next week largely free is school vacation week so um great if there's no particular conflicts dur if we can all be flexible we can
turn to the applicant and say hey what works for you go ahead M chair he's closed on Mondays that would probably be the best day because then you're not dealing with you know his his employees people coming in off seems like that would make the most sense uh the only issue would be Monday is President's Day and I'm assuming you don't work President's Day yeah I be okay region of the state that that's going to being the federal holiday is going to be an issue for
us soe would you be okay doing it the same Monday as the meeting I that almost makes more sense I I don't have a problem with that at all uh myself usually works best does that does Monday the 24th work for MH great no that doesn't work for me um if we can get four of us are you
that's fine okay great fine with that all right so let's aim for Monday the 24th what time you uh I am going to if no one's going to suggest anything I'm going to suggest 1 p.m. out of by pulling a number out of thin a how does that work for everybody I it does work well I I I get to throw another wrench
in here we get we're going to have we have a foot of snow almost already we're going to have at least another foot in the next week so are we going to be able to see what we want to see I feel like we will myself okay I'm not worried about like it's all going to get redone so I'm mostly worried about the road and sight lines and what it and seeing everything myself if you if there's other concerns you know one is also fine but
later like if it was a five with you know increased traffic and stuff might give us a a good snapshot of what's going on and if there are you know snowbanks and stuff it's they're going to be there in the future as well yeah I I'll reach out to Graves and see if they can refer to a traffic engineer okay start that does that make sense my concern things on five would be daylight I don't think we're quite guaranteeing light then would you want to bump to four sure
yeah I'm hoping does for okay got a thumbs up from the applicant does for work for I just want to make check with your team too make sure that works for yall okay sure great sense on the peer review traffic I don't want to leave that without right but one thought before I lose it too is you know just acknowledging that that is a Monday where they're not open there's a Monday where the what
they're not open on Mondays is that so we wouldn't be seeing traffic you know business traffic no but we'd be but that leaves us free to walk and see and lets us see the overall but I think like you know and I'm not this is fine but I'm just saying like 5 o' on a Friday you'd see what the you know oh I see you're thinking that it would be better because yeah I mean I don't want to further complicate it but I'm just acknowledging that there is a deficiency with a Monday because they're not open and not only that if we make it at for
we're going to be limiting ourselves to no more than an hour or maybe more because we have to be back here for 6:00 meeting M I'm hearing you I I think I get what you're saying you want to see what it feels like in the thick of things I am open but I'd like us just to at some point just pick something like and I and I'm also not opposed to everyone just doing an individual I mean I've been there several times so I'm very comfortable with what's going on
there so I don't I'm willing to do that the site visit I don't want to be but I think you know I would continue to keep going as you know as you know although like you said it's not our due diligence I you know in in in respect for the business and their request I do go through I have gone through their several times and we'll do it again so again I I don't know that this you know it's particularly cumbersome to do a organized site visit where I personally am comfortable with individual visits
okay um we can also do Tuesdays or um Wednesdays at least the building will be occupied to some extent so you can kind of see where the traffic's doing a little bit better obviously it's not going to be super super pee time like Friday afternoon or Friday night um but it'll at least give you some kind of idea of how the site's kind of functioning now um and at least at that point we can kind of point out from the Civil engineering's perspective what what we
see on a regular basis okay what about you know I didn't like five because of daylight but I'm hearing your concern and if we're going to do it for traffic what about Wednesday the 19th at 5:00 p.m. that is next week it's before our next meeting we that will give us an idea of what it looks like under operation does that work for us yeah perfect is that good for okay love it Wednesday the
19th at 5:00 p.m. great okay I just want if I don't get on my calendar now it will never exist I
know me all right um so I think we are all set then thank folks thank you great thank you thank you good night good night Mr chair yes just I had cut him short you were mentioning about the traffic survey or something you I'll reach out to Graves and see if they can refer someone even though they don't that's what we had thrown back back at them and they had indicated they that they um were happy
not they were happy to wait until the site visit yeah let's hold off until the site visit that way um so I know what you're trying I know what the board's looking for in a traffic study not study not a traffic study but to am I all wet like if if someone who actually is that's their their business like again that's the advantage of the like the police and fire chief there if they say like oh no no no that's going to weigh heavily on
me same thing if someone that actually has you know specific certifications and that said nope this is fine I'd be like well okay nope and um grave Graves engineering does what we do also and we do the sight layout walking paths and all that kind of fun stuff you won't NE they won't necessarily get into the knitting gritty for a traffic study yeah like trips generated timing all that kind of stuff but they will look at that on they've done it for other projects of ours uh so
that's something definitely in their wheelhouse um definitely I've defer to Jeff Walsh over there he'll I can't speak for him but he can at least direct you in the right path a lot better okay great sounds like we're on sounds like we're on the same page yep so we'll wait till the uh s sidewalk to make a formal decision on that front we'll gather some additional information and talk internally and then at that time we'll we can all get make a formal decision if you will love it all right I think we're
good thank you one more one more one you know it's there DPW closes at 3:30 oh and I don't think he lives very close DPW like we can reach out to as well what's that we can reach out to DPW and just confirm that from a traffic perspective and a site layout perspective are they okay just wanted to make okay specifically to that concern I know he did raise concern about utility and stuff but we can we'll reach out
through to him again and say hey specific to the site are you okay with this or you have any other concerns at least it's on record yeah just remind him to put it on Open go yeah I'm going to reach through portal go for that thanks okay sounds would that be for the applicants engineer or for our L news director to reach out to our DPW both uh I can talk to him but it's best if they talk directly to him and then
okay what's the issue how's it being asked about what's where do they going to um do to do address it that kind of thing does he agree the assumptions yep okay great cool all right thank you okay next public hearing woo 213 electric EV storm water management permit this is a new one right believe
this this is a new one right new one is new okay that's what I thought all right uh the lunenberg planning board will hold a public hearing on February 10th 2025 it's wrong in the posting just so you know says 2024 what is it that's wrong in the posting the wrong year it's 2024 we're 2025 now for the 213 like what mhm oh okay it's right in the header but
it's wrong in the second sentence yep just just putting it should be fine eyes should be fine right I didn't catch it when I reviewed it I can keep going though right yeah okay uh the lunenberg planning board will hold a public hearing on February 10th 2025 at 6:05 p.m. Town Hall 17 Main Street lunenberg Mass to hear and review an application for storm water management permit pursuant to 2004-1 D of the code of the town of lunenberg by Redbird Construction
Incorporated for one two family dwelling unit per lot with Associated driveways grading and utilities the subject property information the location is 181 1889 195 213 and 221 Electric Avenue assessor map 78 parcel number 7 7172 66 and 73 owner is redb Bird
Construction Incorporated at 497 Lancaster Street in lemonster Mass 01453 you can view the materials online at lunenberg ma. portal. opengov docomo the planning office at C Riley lunenberg ma.gov or lonnell lunenberg ma.gov or in person at the planning office at 960 Mass Avenue in lunenberg Mass great take it away my name is Dan
Shen I'm here with Haley Ward um just for the sake of time I know you guys still have a busy agenda I'm just going to kind of go through this pretty quickly I'd be more than happy to answer any technical question you guys may have afterwards so what I have over here is I have a simplified version of the drawings which you see shade and green is after construction that will be as a vegetative landscape most likely grass in most areas and the gray there is obviously driveways and then the brown there is for the buildings um to speak specifically for stone Water Management
um the driveways are all generally pitched towards um separate rain Gardens not really shown too well on that drawing there uh with also a proposed filter strip Edge on along the side um we also include some clay dams this is just to try to help um promote the water to go to the Rain Gardens and not just run all the way down the stone filter strip to Electric a and you see this kind of similarly p pattern through all five Lots um just to be full transparent we've also submitted nois to the Conservation Commission for 213 and 221
Electric Avenue we've only gone to them for uh 2113 at this point and so far we're just waiting on going for a site visit once the snow kind of clears um so with that I'll turn it back to you guys and be happy to answer any questions okay and we do have a peer review from graves on this as well correct correct okay that looks like it came through on the 8 I haven't I apologize I haven't had a chance to review Graves yet so I'm giving a quick look see so I'm fully I
can give you a brief overview like I'm sorry I can give you a brief overview if you like from if you're so pretty much Graves didn't really have too much comments on it the biggest thing here is just confirmatory test pits none of the no test pits have been done for the rain Gardens yet and as part as mass D storm water standards as well as your own personal bylaws you need to demonstrate that you have two foot offset the groundwater from the uh Bas and bottom so that would be the only thing that's really outstanding besides that they had some um suggestions on placement for the clay dams to just kind of really help
promote everything shedding towards it as well as some just Clarity on leaders just to make sure that during construction they're constructed properly that's a very brief overview of what they can you do those adjustments on the clay DS yeah we could do that great and so what's the one outstanding item from it then so that would just be for test pits test pits okay all right and you are super concise try to make it
helpful um when can you do the test pits can you uh so with this time of the year I really don't know I'll have to talk to the applicant on that uh I know he's in a rush to kind of get this thing started so if I tell him that we probably need to do some test bits it'd be probably quick to turn around uh the biggest thing that just from my perspective from a concern would just be the frost barrier I know digging in that kind of standard can sometimes really be tough to dig so it depends on the machines he has um but based on his operation I would suspect within the next couple of
weeks um it may be best to kind of at least wait till after the conservation commission's site walk just so they don't see a bunch of disturbed are and then start asking a lot of questions but I'd be more than happy to talk that over with the applicant as well as you guys as things kind of progress okay great questions from the board at this point so just for clarification did they just preemptively do the the uh peer review on this one without being asked this is the way to troll it yep so
that that that's a model that that I like you know when the when the applicant themselves elects to spend their own money as opposed to us spending their money I I think that's that's a nice touch great um other questions or comments from the board um one comment is that since they're all duplexes and it it it looks like you may have done the uh storm Water Analysis for individual lot per lot yep just so
that you don't have an drainage components for each for two different duplexes corre you're going to need a um some kind of an agreement between the homeowners about maintenance because it will be need recorded on the deed absolutely understood mhm uh just to provide a little bit more background just the stormw analysis as well we did also consider a significant amount of runon just based on where the site is located everything kind of really does slope down towards this site so we include all that as well as part of the
analysis yeah I haven't had a chance to review the um Opera the operation and maintenance plan operations is not a word um the operation maintenance plan that's okay that's just the standard that doesn't have anything about the duplexes and well I guess it dep I mean it's a suplex uh I guess they would only need the shared if they're looking to sell
them a separate units correct if it's a condex effectively I cuz otherwise they're individual rain Gard why wouldn't they be single families if they didn't intend to sell them separately yeah I know I think that's a fair point going for the condex thing here is the yep okay great yeah that makes sense okay wonderful so oh see a bunch of questions now we have a good idea what's going on um waiting on the test pits and and homeowners agreement I I've
always in my experience we get that document to review yeah and we need the before things are so just so you know that basic template sure so do the soil test pits get over to you guys and get over to Graves engineering to do the review is that my understanding correctly okay yep and the again the homeowner documents too so that that shared maintenance whatever that whatever that form it takes is also um we know that it's been done
absolutely and so it's set for the uh future owners uh this is a public hearing is there any public comment I see we have no one else in the room and one friend on Zoom uh our friend on Zoom go ahead and use that handwave feature if that if you want to speak and that doesn't work for you go ahead and turn on your video or wave your hand or something but seeing none I'm assuming there's no public comment okay um great with nothing else we could
sounds like we could continue to a date certain when when's good for you I guess the next available meeting to that F Well you have uh because you said you wanted to wait on the test pits till concom that would be the 19th so when's your next available meeting is that also the 19th 24th 24th I think that should be fine that should give us a significant amount of time it's a Wednesday you can get that to me I can have a draft decision for the
board to W that'd be Banger and if you want we can even push out to your first available in March which uh I think either way is okay whichever is better for you let's just do the first available in March that way it gives us plenty of time we can get everything over and recording and stuff like that love it and that would be March 10th March 10th okay so we could for example have a motion to oh I don't have the address in yes I do motion to continue public hearing for 213 Electric Avenue to the March 10th meeting at 6:05
p.m. I will second moved in seconded all in favor I I it thank you guys very much have a great rest of day thank you thank you an engineering Report with very few comments a concise presentation and they already great yeah nicely done be still my heart all right first maybe that's what
happens to Whitman Bingham when it gets renamed okay great looking at our agenda that wraps our public hearings we've done our zoning Workshop too Bangarang we're moving decisions this Jerry I have decisions for you okay for good rich stre and Sunny Hill yep and
um all kinds of trouble with uh getting things on and off various online loud Beast application so the decisions are there a good Rich they're in not assigned SharePoint Ah that's what that is okay try to name them looks like it names them anyway apologies no worries as streem much as they should be um and I've got two sets of each decision okay
so the decision for decisions for Goodrich are at the top of our SharePoint it says agenda item unassigned to so we've got those that's a stor water and a c driveway which you proved at the last of course and with the standard conditions and special conditions applicable and
okay did that happen thank all right we've got can't get away with anything around here we've got hard copies if someone wants them we've got the digital copies on the SharePoint as well to look at and then we can sign if we're good just give a quick look see you're going to notice memorable clad the header's gone
because I just could for some reason I just could not get it to get your name right I have no excuse easy to change my name so I said you know what it's gone you were in the cloud it's not material to the the decision you know it doesn't need to be there so yeah everything we do has to be line it's a nightmare but I couldn't headers
formatting you might notice some formatting irregularities in there it's just because I couldn't get it right it would auto correct to wrong it's something we're working with but everything's there I have a random question that has more to do with just I see the yeah take it please sorry um because I see so it's as M brener asked for a motion to approve waivers yeah t Wilner so
moved uh my only question would be uh I've been doing that to make life easier for others yeah is that I assume that's cool that that doesn't create any extra that's absolutely cool you shouldn't be the one actually making I shouldn't make the motion but it's cool if I say hey the motion could be this absolutely great I just want to make sure that that was it's it's good that it's you know best practice that you do don't upon doing something right love
one of the ways that you of many that you Excel actually
[Music] okay um 8:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. yeah great a question yeah so and teici why for a single family residential house do you have to comply with the Eda what is
it Americans would so standard condition number three on the 255 Sunny Hill I believe right it's a single family house why would they have to comply with Eda I don't know it's our standard condition in yeah Tak in each of our standard conditions because we just decided I just if it does if if it doesn't make any sense to you I don't think it should be in there but yeah I I don't I don't think it's bad that it is in there just just I don't think we
should continue that if it's not for a reason are do buildings not have to be built to a I thought even single family homes had to be built to Ada standards no not everybody is that way no oh no okay no not full ad you're right no never mind I think there's specific things like railings on steps building code you have to con yeah no you're right no I I get the I'm teasing
them out my mind because you don't need ramp access for example yeah what I think because the board's talked about having to update uh standard conditions is I'll get a draft together maybe not at the next meeting but the meeting after of common driveway standard conditions storm water standard conditions and site plan review we have now and maybe suggest some some Redline changes and then you can look and you can see what makes sense what should be
taken out let's update them I think that makes a lot of sense okay UMES I'm sorry I have a question another no please does this mention something about recording on the deed the requirements for maintenance there no which one is this storm water permit yeah I uh there's language in there in the storm water standard conditions I believe that's what we agreed upon although
yeah as third to last I was looking at that today well do we need a special condition you had a lot of you know I was watching the video I remember Alison had a lot of questions about that so I think that was proper and right we agreed yes sufficient that's that recording on then there was one that didn't have it so I added that in as a special condition and the board
talked about that oh because I can't add a special condition that you don't you know it's obviously just what you motion about so I'm searching for Deed on the 560 good Rich Street um storm water and and I don't see the word deed anywhere in there but maybe I'm I'm just using my control F so
maybe the only occurrence is 10 then I'm not even getting it on 10 so that's a my search is failing yeah it only works if you're in like print uh the decision shall be recorded with a registry of deeds we don't have so we do need need the thing about recording the uh maintenance in the deed on the yes okay
yeah number one under special conditions a a legal framework must be provided for continuing maintenance of common areas such as the homeowners association to be recorded on all properties Deeds hereen which one is that uh 560 the uh cdsp that's for goodr so I think that was the one where you motioned based on the conversation that specific special condition for that purpose I don't think it should be a special
condition for storm water yeah and then we talked about that so that's one where it should be a standard condition standard right I mean not just me I think we need to agree on that though yeah no that was so that would be one primary change that we so I thought that was part of our standard conditions before that was something we've there's the atams the Adam Bernie standard conditions that can't be found yes I think they were yeah yes but no longer can be found
so yeah we're again this is uh just Mr Harris's standard conditions oh as of last summer there's a totally which we discussed assumed all the latest zoning regulations okay okay so that fell off I where Mr Harris got those nobody knows uh see I thought he was using our we haven't been able to to find that trail no I see I thought I get it I mean
in the moment I don't think we had any reason to think he was using different than the standard conditions we' used for quite some time beforehand so that's they were definitely different uh yeah I I don't think that was [Applause] it is what it is I I mean I'm not happy but it's
life the they're good standard conditions that and there was an issue of uh hours of construction mhm and those Mr Harris's versions have that yeah in all three yeah different types of Permitting when we revisit we've traditionally left the exact hours blank and then determined as like our standard conditions had the hours blank and we
would specify when we made the decision the hours and we all like we had our we usually do X but I can think of when they were doing the work for the um for the autism school downtown because it's on a uh because of where it was in relation to the schools and bu is going by and pedestrian pedestrian traffic we actually for example in that case gave different hours because what would you I
don't like we shifted earlier because that worked for the applicant and letting them start earlier in the day wasn't going to disturb any residential and it was going to mean they weren't um having construction vehicles arriving when bus and stuff when buses were coming through okay um I mean yeah that makes total sense yeah and and we've had others where we've put but I think what we did before we used to have those blank and every
time drawing from the memory banks when we made a decision we'd say with all standard conditions construction hours blah blah and blah blah so you would remember that yeah so that was because otherwise they were BL conditions just make your life easier so you don't forget something or fine we could do that too we just want to be aware that that that's some of us May have habits that are less useful and it forced us to think about it but if we just make a point of thinking didn't you just tell us how bad
we are at it what's that told us earlier in the meeting how bad our brains are at telling us we think oh no we're off the human brain is look is the most amazing thing on the planet and it's also amazing that it functions and that we have coherent thought based on how much it strings together the uh the understanding of memory is wild it's really neat so I'd like to just
just dot the te here so the Goodrich right 560 Goodrich was a common driveway with storm water controls so that's why we specified that it needed to have the the the deed the uh agreement between the common owners and the common driveway as well as the common stormm water yeah now 255 Sunny Hill single family house no commonality at all but it still has to have the maintenance
requirements recorded on the deed as do the good richd Street they need to have they need to have an agreement between the homeowners on the driveway agreement on on the storm water controls and they both have to have recorded on their deed uh maintenance agreements on the that's an interesting point I mean so you've got your Authority Under the the regulations let storm water in this case and if they don't maintain it it's a violation of the
permit violation of your permitting Authority right but when they sell it the next guy that buys it as we've seen they don't that's the reason to make sure you have a recorded on that's the reason for the deed yes because otherwise it was um I didn't know yeah I didn't know I had to do this and maintained P we were trying to Future proof and acknowledge that all the storm
water stuff is new and you and people can say well it's not really new we've been doing it for X years people can go 20 plus years without buying a house and yeah INF get monkey business with things that are mitted in deed recordings though what's that anr we're having a hell of a time with assessors on anrs because when they recorded the Deeds aren't updated to go with the approved anr what so you have all these
inconsistencies between the recorded deed and the recorded a and I is that the a failure at the registry or yes like I mean I mean is that people not reporting it actually people now seeing a little loophole here to be you know lawyers and I don't want to blame lawyers but so somebody on the the applicant end yep so yeah what I would say is
um you know notification we require recording of decisions in the registry anyone buying a property that that should be caught mhm with their title exam and you know but you can never have too much notification there's nothing wrong with just putting it in the decisions it's put in the decision is so does that need more language to that effect um well so
the 255 Sunny Hill had no language about Recreation of Maintenance all right so let's hold off and I'll make that adjustment on that one okay CU did you motion and vote that we've not motioned anything yet oh Oh you mean at the you already in the past okay yeah now you're looking at the decision if you don't see the decision reflects what you no I sorry was I'm pretty sure we all said we approved the with standard conditions yes right so yeah we all agreed we all
voted on it um and then Goodrich they do have the thing about the homeowners association because of the common driveway but uh probably not about recording the maintenance requirements and then you'd also the homeon Association is also going to have to include the storm water unless they did that lot yeah we talked about this this is a tricky gray area
where there standard language about the need for common maintenance there's a standard condition in the storm water but not the common driveway it's where do we it's you know your best to just cover all your bases let me if you want to hold want me to hold off and add that stuff I'll add it because this is a time where you the board can say our intent was yeah motion
improved it subject to you need to look at a draft decision to know that it reflects what the intent of your motion vote was and we were all under yeah and we were under the standing that that as long as you don't say the applicant shall provide me chocolate cover donuts for the rest of my life yeah no and that was something that has we have done we could try that but you wouldn't get away with it that was something that was on our standard conditions and apparently stopped being used without our knowledge
so like without our full without being brought to our attention that was a full shift so like the whole yeah you look confused by what I said let me get that back into there let me find what you're talking about get it back in there and then have the staff for the next meeting so you have enough time to see it great say yes that's it okay I like that that works and then so
future reference we're going to need to do the same way with those duplexes on individual Lots right yep Homeowners Association of course so there's going to but then it's recorded on the deed itself so they're going to have to have maintenance requirements for both D for both units of the duplex and then they're also going to have to have a homeowners to maintain the storm water mhm it's kind of crappy way to do it but
it's it's my understanding of well it won't get done if if they don't do it it won't get done nobody Town doesn't even have the right somebody complains and says this is a huge problem over there you got to get down there and fix that town can't come on somebody's private property if they don't have the authority all right so this is one of the fastest growing communities in in in America is that true in America or definitely in New England definitely in Massachusetts in Massachusetts where I think the fastest are okay well we've had our heads up our butts for decades
when we've been experiencing some severe growth there's been a lot of things that have gone unnoticed underlooked oversaw uh just missed and you know the storm water permit are a perfect example Adam got here in 2015 he said we had a storm water regulation since 2008 and he helped us have our first storm order hearing okay so that's yeah that's odd and and I'm not pointing fingers at this point I am simply saying that if we don't record
stuff and and keep it consistent and have standards they're going to go away and some people like that absolutely true well people will take advantage of it exactly yeah exactly so I think I have my mission here all right thank you good I hope that help no excellent thank you Mr Allison very good points board discussions master plan
um so Tim I know you tried to get the board to meet yeah and they couldn't there's continues to be a problem despite it being a charter for the first Thursday of every month there are still people who for one reason or another are unavailable um I had created a poll to try I haven't published it yet to reach out to all the current members of the board to see if there is a better
day you know like a first Wednesday or second or whatever um that would be a better option for meeting days um but yeah at this point I still haven't been able to get a meeting together okay and now you didn't send did you send the poll yet or no I haven't I haven't published the poll yet okay um they might say they want a bunch of
meetings but we really only need two more meetings with for the I mean review the final draft and the acceptance of the final draft I would love more from them I I'd love tons of input um how can I ask how many people showed up um I I received enough uh notices that people weren't going to be available that I I didn't uh
post a meeting so if you don't post then you can't believe it on corm because it wasn't posted sure I I was I was sick and tired of showing up and not having Corum I get you I get you it's frustrating I know we spent four or five years on this board with four people we I think we all mhm um and and yeah so can we reduce it some more it's not on the agenda but I think it would be
within our preview would it not um yes so after the last meeting I got an email uh ostensibly blaming the board's problems on other other um departments who hadn't shown up I am not well enough coordinated to know who these people are that um what boards it are that haven't been showing up um I could try
and determine that better and we could see about cutting spots but I don't have all I have at the moment is somebody pointing fingers saying these are the people that are at fault and I don't know enough myself to be comfortable to say these are the spots we should be be cutting and you're the deao chair cuz you were Vice chair before Josie s
down and when did Josie step down how many months ago uh before the summer when we went on Hiatus during the summer yeah yeah like five or six months yeah yep and the idea was unacceptable there was a summer Hiatus anyway and the goal was to pick up afterwards and that hasn't material who was the master plan at that point was it like percentage done where was it uh first set of surveys uh more than the first second set of surveys okay how many survey I
don't remember how many survey number wasse all but the most recent had survey had been done the most recent survey um was in the planning stages by that group okay and then the inability to meet is what caused it to go out in the state it was with other discussion yeah yeah um
for could you bring us for our meeting in two weeks um and this requires a little leg work sure but like your assessment of here are the groups that have been attending yeah here the groups that or the representatives that have not been attending sure um or aren't responding I mean you could also just put it out to
the email and see who responds as well yeah but a clear recommendation on this is who basically these are the groups that are engaged yeah these are the groups that are not engaging I'd like it if you could also reach out to them and verify that this is the case sure and then BAS Bas on that data we can make a concrete decision at our next meeting trim now hopefully you can have a
meeting before then anyway but if you can't you can't and if we can't get a recommend if the committee cannot meet then you will be able to have a concrete recommendation of here's who's engaged who isn't so we can make a decision right or if the group can meet they can have that discussion and make that recommendation to us which would be personally that would be my preference you yeah I don't want it to
be from on high trimming I'd rather the tree itself shed branches that weren't working out for it sure and again then once the committee is functioning we can hand it more to the committee again which is good yeah for getting the citizen voices heard which is the whole point of this um does that work as a plan for us I I hate to go two more weeks but I don't think we have any data to act of
not we have yeah info you asked the question how many more meetings are there of that group mm was the answer two that's all we technically all we really need is two more for review of the final draft okay and then recommendation of the draft okay and that's regardless of the contract that we have with them right M what about the contract to my
understanding we are fine with contract I can verify with Ry I mean could it could it could it include more than two more meetings yes yes it can no um we need two meetings minimum minimum minimum how many more would be better for them to engage as much as they the committee wants to engage I guess my question is contractually with with the with the Consultants how many more meetings can we have 20K is a balance 20 oh $20,000
worth me yeah okay for the meetings meeting runs about 2k so 6 8 10 maybe yeah the Consultants also frankly don't have to be there for every right so that's so so if they're not there it doesn't cost 2K no okay and so how much longer chronologically how how many how
many more months are they wanting to stay on that hook is there a drop dead date in the contract I well from what I hear and I don't have it it it's actually Julie did distribute it and I'll have to look at it but the understanding is it's already expired so they're working on yeah on just you know the continuation of the existing contract okay that was which happens frequently that's what I was looking
for everyone's playing ball they would like us to wrap up we'd like us to wrap up and so all the modules are finished we talked but last time I thought we said there was one more module to be finished I mean I I don't know it's got to be wrapped up before town meeting they have asked it they have gotten the data they're going to get they would like some input from the committee if
they can't get it they will move forward anyway we have a call scheduled tomorrow so I can get I can get more concrete answers tomorrow which doesn't help us tonight doesn't help us for two I've I've got a full implementation chapter now you what I'm sorry the full implementation draft implementation chapter I don't think I got that okay maybe I didn't okay well I can share okay I I may I may have missed it um I'll share it with the board because you
you should have at this point but it so it's time to we have enough to complete this MH draft let's say worst case scenario we have enough to complete this draft I could finish it give you a pretty good document so there so worst case scenario if there are no more public meetings of the subcommittee are we still able to get the final copy from the consultants and and have it be
official yes is as official as it is with the bailed subcommittee remember you guys vote on it you are the authority exactly okay you're the only ones to vote on it to make it legal and and okay so finding in to the state official so best practices to then report about it to the town meeting get everybody's you want to do that right but you guys are the authority so just because we paid for it doesn't mean we
have to present it I mean we could continue having public hearings as a planning board regardless of the sub committee mhm right just something to think about see I was thinking that we were up against the wall and that's why I was so adamant last meeting about let's get off our ass and do something about this regardless if it's the right thing let's try to do something and that's why I was so adamant about it last meeting and and I I hadn't thought it's becoming a larger
issue MH now we need we need to move forward we are we up against the wall no do we still need to move forward at a good Pace yes and it doesn't seem like there's more we can do tonight as frustrating as that is you don't have to do another one for 10 years I
want track record yeah I say like no town does 10 years at least not that I've heard of it'd be nice if they did but uh I understand why people find this process difficult because it is um all right I'm going to move us on it is 10 minutes of nine AB budding Community notices is there anything we
need tonight um nothing crazy um uh there was three notices from Fitchburg um two of them were uh notice of decision for U multif family conversions one was eight units one was 16 um making use of like semi existing space one of them was like the second and third floor of the building um and then another is an upcoming public hearing on February 25th um for mixed use renovation one unit commercial and 17 residential um and I don't think
any of these were particularly close to the town line or anything so okay great and I mean all of a size and scope that isn't really going to impact us so okay committee reports master plan steering committee we've just talked about open space committee uh we will be meeting on Wednesday and that property 100 towns in um Harbor will be coming up as on the agenda but that's about it
okay Municipal Building design committee I was not able to make the last meeting however they made their presentation or there was a presentation made to the select board the next day which was this past past Tuesday MH um uh I believe it was an hour and a half I watched it it was a good presentation it was more than I remember seeing them give us as the committee but it would included you know further comments from last and it was it
was very detailed in depth and it was multidisiplinary they had five four or five different disciplines sitting uh at at the table uh presenting it at the select board meeting um if you haven't seen it I'd encourage you to watch that to get uh most updated information um and you know to continue on my non-attended committee report uh it was not well received on Facebook
so the yeah no I sorry I was getting I was getting lost in my own thought about Trends and Facebook comments and yeah no it was posted by the town of lunberg and it was posted by numerous other individuals and groups and numerous lengthy very aggravated conversations and I yeah I stayed out of it
I it is I feel like it is rare in conversations like that that I see the names of people who I otherwise see engaged in town government yeah and that's always frustrating for me because if you're going to have an opinion let's have one while it's really easy to tear down the work of others mhm that is basically no effort building is harder um
but to each their own so cap go ahead oh I I can give you a little bit of details from that presentation if you'd like uh sure I mean yeah so that was that was a three-building thing that that included this building right the town hall the town so the current Town Hall will become the town meeting space right with with meeting spaces above and below um the Ritter Memorial will stay the Ritter Memorial with its 65 addition that boxy thing with the windows in the
front that'll be occupied by the school uh resource resources well according to the plan the resources that they're not able to have at the schools right um various school programs that Massachusetts requires and whatnot and then the annex which is the new portion of the building will have a basement a 14t ex foot excavation for a basement for pack they have specific height requirements and whatnot and as well the
um it would be a twostory above grade um so first story would be primarily the interactions on a daily basis the the most common citizen interactions is going to be on the first floor the new building and then the second floor will be the less interacted uh with uh other Town f offices and um and it was it was it was a very there was a lot of a lot of joint
discussion and communication and whatnot had because a lot of the end resulting spaces had been sat down and actually drawn up by various departments and department heads and and and individuals I know that um that building and and um the building and planning I believe had uh some some drawings some sketches uh conservation I think had some um there was a lot of uh good input and I think I think the resulting was good the final
cost was like 2.6 million to renovate the town hall 2 million to renovate the Ritter and like 6 million 6 million plus almost 7 million I think for the new building uh attached to the Ritter which brings us up to a a a subtotal of like 133 14 million and then of course there was all these other crappy things added on to it and and of course municipals have to pay for
villing wage so I think the final price tag was $22 is million so if we present that that's what we're going to be asking for Town yeah that's a lot less awful I'm going to be honest that's a lot less awful than I thought it would be you I was you haven't seen the Facebook yet I've looked some at the Facebook but that is I was expecting a price tag double that well there's a whole lot of omissions on that too by the way a lot of it's a pretty number got it okay A
little bit of wishful thinking going on no no no uh remediation was included um yeah we know we know that's expensive um no remediation it's got It's got parking for the town hall and they're separated by like 300 ft and I think there's going to be like uh seven or eight spots near near the building I I'm surprised remediation wasn't included but I'm not an architect planner or whoever does this in in the
pricing in the pricing in the in the yeah right all right uh I navigate away from our agenda if someone's looking at it they can say who's next if not I'll be there in one second capital planning yeah Capital planning thank you um we met last week yeah last week and uh just to really it was to go over maybe a couple weeks ago
it was right before uh the interim Town manager left and so would have been a couple weeks ago and we basically um went over his Rec because you know the capital planning committee makes a recommendation to the town manager Town manager then puts forward the Capital planning priorities taking the recommendations into account but making some shifts um there were some
further some of the voting we did was based on numbers that wound up not coming through totally accurately that continues to be a point of frustration in capital planning and something we'd like to address and I'm trying to find a way to address but it's hard getting accurate estimates we we've had multiple cases where um where frankly the we get an estimate and it's off by a I mean a
factor of 100% or more yeah [Music] um we're catching those quicker like like the Departments are catching those quicker and going oh wait in this case we could do some further talk that basically boiled down to well we kind of voted this assuming certain values and there was some discussion and a vote um for some like re rep
reprioritization now that that's out of the way we can start looking at The Five-Year Plan we talked about that but we also need to give some time for our new town manager to get her feet under her and um get to know the town so that we are having that discussion collaboratively rather than us kind of just assuming things and but the intent is to keep working in that
direction all right Economic Development Committee uh we have not met since our last meeting easy storm water task force uh next meeting is next Thursday cool massachusett Regional Planning Commission uh we met last week I forgot my notes at home but I will say a a couple of things I remember um there was some hubub about the new Administration stopping federal funds um for mrpc in their various projects um it
seems as though it's been rescinded at this point it's got I got an email this afternoon that they should be okay uh but the mrpc is worried because if said Cuts go through that means no projects will be done on roads for towns or for you know any any anything that the mrpc has their hand in uh and they would also have to lay off uh many of their staff right now it's on the back burner so we'll see as of this
afternoon they're doing okay um we were supposed to have a presentation from Senator Eldridge is that his name Eldridge I think um that's been postponed till next month he's going to be speaking about um nishoba Valley and what they're doing there as far as the hospital and the new emergency room that they want to build a standalone emergency room it's just an idea but nothing is uh set in stone and
the only other thing I'm remembering is uh there is a new route uh for Mart uh because of nooba Valley closing they are now offering free rides through June to Emerson Hospital um they're only picking up in I believe it's a Shirley and Harvard uh but if there's anybody out there who needs a ride doesn't want to go all the way to Emerson a shley in Harvard you can find all the information on Mart um and timing and everything so
that's about it great thank you um yeah I had thought about the federal funds affecting I didn't think about it either until I got the email but there's a lot of federal transportation funds that we rely on to keep our roads could be interesting all right massachusett joint Transportation committee uh we are meeting this Wednesday okay minutes
approval I've got three sets for you there let me know if they don't open up correctly um hoping they do should go directly to the word document itself yes okay and that's at the bottom of our SharePoint I wasn't here for the December 9th one so okay now you are so as a reminder you are allowed to vote you say certainly
choose to abstain sure but you are we are legally allowed to vote on minutes that we were if we were not at the meeting um I had not I had not reviewed the them when I went in earlier they they weren't they I think they went up late so I didn't get a chance to review them
if you're done reviewing could you just give me a thumbs up so I know that you are comfortable that you've reviewed whether or not you're comfortable is a different thing that's a vote but if you're done reviewing give me an
indicator because I don't know where people are in that process I'm I'm done reviewing I'm halfway through the first one yeah no that's fine willing to take a couple extra minutes for us to get through it now so the agent so the minutes can be official and out there in the
wild the problem with long curly hair and a beard in mustache is they're kind of like velcro you've got hooks you've got loops and then I move and I realize that there's something just stuck here the wor I thought it was you couldn't keep the ladies uh it's a secondary problem yeah yeah my uh I grew a when I grew my beard many years ago many many years ago my wife
hated it she wasn't even my wife yet and um then at one point I talked about shaving it and she hated that too I'm like oh you don't like change I understand that we can handle it and then with the cancer I lost the beard for a while and yeah yeah you know she was right I need a beard I saw what Mr Allison looked like clean shaven for the first time when I was delving back into some old old you know like 20 something don't lie that
man was born with a be it's been a long time me off guard who's that U turns out I'm one of the few people who looks older without his beard like beards people always go oh beards make you look old no no no no again again 10 years like that it's really impressive I like my beard never had a beard I do it yeah join in the the
team all right let's see we still have some people diligently reading got another thumbs up um why while the board is reading I'm going to move us oh oh was that oh no while the board's reading I'm going to move us on to meeting schedule because this is just something I say out loud
that doesn't require the attention of others because I do want to remind us that the board meets at 6: PM unless other uh 6: p.m. here at the town hall meeting room upstairs unless otherwise specified for example if we were meeting on site somewhere uh see previously in the meeting um upcoming meetings include February 24th and March
10th I do have the myar for the other this even oh let's pass that and sign too while we're at it get some and if you're watching it home this is exciting I [Applause] know one of my kids was asking me if planing board work is exciting and I really was trying to explain it super depends on what you find
exciting yeah it's a loaded question yeah I'm like do I find it exciting yes does your mother find it exciting the way she falls asleep when I explain it to her I assume not um exciting separation enriching en uh I like solving problems I'm I'm a real simple dude if it's like hey exciting there's work to get done and
you can maybe fix some things I I get that that keeps me awake happy yeah you just get has anybody had a phone conversation with the new AI new far I I I I called someplace to make reservations and and I had to interrupt them and they wouldn't stop talking and oh oh yeah no I get that yeah oh so I get a lot of spam messages
with that too but I was before it was quite full AI I had no idea I couldn't possibly have told the difference until I actually made the realization that wow yep no SC kind a scary yep okay I am going uh I would encourage us to because we have a member who may or may not choose to excuse themselves I'm
going to encourage us to do motions individually for example if there was a motion to approve the M minutes for our December 9th 2024 meeting so moved second moved and seconded all in favor I I I all opposed and do we have to ask for an exstension for it to be official no oh okay all
right okay um Mo uh was there a motion to approve the minutes for our January 13th 2025 meeting so moved second moved and seconded all in favor I great that's unanimous um and minutes approval for January 27th 2025 so moved second moved and seconded all in favor all right is there public comment
there's no public board comments concerns yep oh all three of oh wow I just I'll just go back to the whole the Adu comment or um conversations uh and the the implication that that the um the the state is stepping in and taking uh essentially taking control from from the local governments um and it's you know it's
indicative of a government that's it's uh that runs the people rather than the people running the government if you look no further with the budget concerns that the uh well the town as a whole but certainly specific to the school funding we have the adus that they're you know in in themselves as well as the MBTA communities act where the state is stepping in and with a cookie cutter approach just applying these these
bylaws to all the all the communities specifically MBTA is 177 communities but the Adu is every every community in the state so um the um I'm trying to read my notes um but it it comes down to it's it's convenient to to refer to the state as coming in and making these mandates on us but really what it is is those who we have elected to govern us are you know
not really responding at all to the the sentiment of the voters and it goes back to my comment where the the you know the government is is is running us and I I feel as though they're really not responsive to the the concerns of the the electorate and you know it goes with the um you know spefic specifically again with the the MBTA communities Act and the the Adu as well as the overall funding and regulations that the state continually uh um puts on the towns with
like un unfunded mandates yet it to me from the outside looking in it looks like the state you know does not work under this the same Financial constraints that the the towns do so the the you know those who we have elected to represent us need to represent us better and bring the appropriate funding and support to the communities that's it no fair I always find an interesting point you know I've
been in a worked in two communities that actually pass building moratoriums they got so mad at the state that they're like okay this is what we can do them I feel like it's easy to forget a town budgets like a household budgets has to the federal government kind of by default has to at least in the current format I
don't want to get into like really nitty-gritty can't budget like a house it's a very different process states are somewhere in between I I always wonder if that is a disconnect if it's easy to forget when you have more ability to slush and more ability to into play I wonder if that is one of the causes of Disconnect I have no idea I just wish I wish I knew what it was I agree I don't think so because most of the politicians
the local state and federal level they all have families they all know what it takes they might have a larger account but they all have the same decisions and they probably don't make the same crap ass decisions for them and their families as they do for the rest of us yeah probably outside what we can control as a local the planning board but I no point taken and to that point I am keeping my eye open for the next open for the next uh office hours held by our state reps I plan on going I I think
it's uh maybe we can it's pretty soon I don't want to say it's tomorrow I have emailed them as well like I did indicate uh I saw one come a couple weeks ago I didn't have a chance I was not in a position to respond to it and find a then but it's a week from tomorrow the 18th it's it's it's been posted like in the lunenberg adult activity center but next next uh on the
18th um is representative Scarsdale I have it here as I would confirm this but at 11:30 a.m. at the lunenberg adult Activity Center which I have gone before and I plan to go again and and I emailed her indicating the same okay if they're still taking people I will email and try to get to that because this is a point I want to make and it's what I said before uh about these things keep coming down from on high and I think they probably work fine
if you're a bigger municipality with more flexibility they're eating up our limited time and resources so we can't do other work that needs to get done but I already spoke my piece on that and and that that go that speaks to my point of them controlling us and not us having the in to control them and I just use a specific example of the um question one as it goes to the the auditing um the citizens overwhelmingly voted to have
the state a um auditor conduct an audit and they you know the legislator is pushing back and so there's a direct you know voice of the people saying hey this is what we would like and they're going up whatever it's you maybe they're Justified maybe it's a technicality what what have you but it's that that's not very respons responsive to the voice of the people yet they have all these regulations like you indicated that Force the towns to incur exorbitant you know costs and you know and I'll use a
specific example again back to the schools I did watch their most well I'm not sure if I watched a recent school committee meeting where um member beardmore was very very articulate and and gave a specific examples of push back which I agree with and I sent him a quick um email saying I appreciated his his advocacy CU I I I feel the same way but I mean he he used spe specific example of how they've been working with
the state delegation relative to the Chapter 70 funding and redoing that that um that model and with the the latest legisl submissions none of the contingency had signed on to any kind of Bill revamping Chapter 70 uh funding recalculation so it's it's just super frustrating and and and nothing I've met uh I've only specifically met um representative
Scarsdale and a super nice super nice lady however as I explain to her my concern is exactly as I've stated and that there seems to be a bit of an echo chamber and there could probably be uh room for an alternative voice Fair um Mr Allison oh I'm going to I'm I'm going to wait what's that I'm going to wait she had something she wanted oh mine's very quick I just want to thank Miss Aubrey who works for our select
board she's the admin there she's handling the MMP caucus this week uh so thank you I appreciate you Annie I I hope people thank her more often because she's the best that's it yeah and he School the best yeah any any with was a very good administrator for us for a short period until she got taken by the town manager great to Great to she was great for helping onboard me and stuff she was awesome and she was also a gift
horse for bringing us Logan yeah so my my my comments uh we talked about them at the beginning the annual town meeting articles uh and I think I think I think I was thinking about something else when it was mentioned but I think somebody said something about within the four corner uh we were told that we had to have it submitted by before last meeting is that what he said is that what he made his s February 1st what's ridiculous I mean often times they don't even open the
damn warrant yeah until mid-February mhm and then they gave us like two or 3 weeks to submit articles ridiculous told right around the turn of the year but that wasn't no where we normally have sorry I cut you off I apologize but where we normally have 6 months it's by the way no well plan board never would have sponsored an this Adu bylaw it's just totally cont it's it's a
mandate it's contrary to local planning and home rule you making me nervous getting closer to I know I am getting closer that's a mobile mic you know you don't there's an electrical cord that's going to stop me I'll get electrocuted but I won't fall to way down but Mr Allison please go on Okay so um within the four corners and and that was I think he was referring to um the change in the Adu right so our BW that we put forward so the state changes it on us so
now we're not within our own Four Corners so is that going to null and void our our placeholder maybe and okay so I think that was already I think you already brought that up but so the the acceptance of of Warren articles is closed now is that is that what I understand it was closed February 1st it is closed to internal town like town government so citizen petitions citizen petitions okay
that was I was going to just piss him on about that if that was not the case um minutes for S sidewalk oh if we do post a meeting for uh a s sidewalk we're going to have to have minutes for that too so just another thing to think about yeah right um that's all I wrote down so apparently that's I had to say all right well friends oh my computer might even turn on that's it that's all she wrote so
thank you for joining us for the February 10th 2025 lunenberg planning board meeting adjourning yeah you got oh we have have a motion to adjourn don't we so moved I said the words all in favor I oh that thank God that's unanimous everyone have a wonderful night uh I love you all but please find something more exciting to do with your time never have a good night everybody