Speaker 1: All right folks. Welcome Zada Conservation Commission. Today is February 19th, second meeting of February, and then our next meeting will be that first Thursday in March, which is March five. So let's go ahead and open the public hearings. First item on the agenda is a continuation of five Auburn Street. So come on up. Speaker 2: Matt, do you just wanna repeat what we're doing right now? The audio was not turned on. Speaker 1: The audio is what is not, is Speaker 2: Now turned Speaker 1: On. Oh, the audio is now turned on. Ah, okay. Welcome to Conserv Conservation Commission today. Good evening. So any, anybody watching your home,
please keep yourselves on mute until your particular agenda item comes up. But first item in the agenda is five Auburn Street. And so, you know, we've had a lot of conversations over the past weeks and all that. Is there any, any new updates, anything from your side that, that needs to be shared? That's, I'm not trying to put you on the spot or anything, just wanted to check in. Speaker 3: Hello again. I, I'm sure on small. I'm a director of real estate at Metro West. Welcome. Nice to see you all again. Very briefly, we resubmitted one document with the clarification that Claire was looking for the Speaker 2: Stormwater operation
and maintenance plan, clarifying the first offense unit. Good. Yep. Speaker 3: And we just submitted like some summary memos, restating what we had already said previously about some of the square footage discussions we've had men. That's about it. So we're looking forward to talking about the order of conditions we've had some back and forth about, and hopefully wrap up the public hearing and potentially keep the project moving towards the vote. Great, Speaker 1: Thanks. So, to the commission, you know, we've spent a long time talking about this and just want to give people the opportunity
to raise any additional questions that have come up since we've, you know, last met and do that. I'm gonna see if there's any additional questions or comments from the public. Jeff Speaker 2: Also just joined. Speaker 1: Great. Excellent. So to see if there's any additional, you know, questions from the commission, questions for, or comments from the public. And then we can see where we're at if we're at a place where we want to close the public hearing. And then we can talk about taking a vote to issue or not and order of conditions for the project. Does that make sense? Great.
So any questions from the commission here in the room for this based on where we're at, what we've learned? Anything, Chris? Jeff, anything from your side? No, Speaker 4: Nothing. Speaker 1: Chris, thank you for joining. I know you're on holidays, but appreciate you taking the time and incurring the wrath of your family. I owe you a beer. Alright, any, any further questions on any from anybody on this? All right, is there any questions or comments from the public or stakeholders in this process? Who would like to say anything at this point in the process?
Speaker 2: If folks online are looking to make comment, I do ask that you use the raise hand function, which can be found under the more option on your toolbar or you're also welcome to come off camera and physically raise your hand Speaker 1: Seeing anything. Speaker 2: No, and I, I see one a butter, the butter who sent the letter to the commission earlier this evening, but no one else and I don't believe anyone in the room. Speaker 1: Alright, hearing that there's no comments or questions, are we at a place to close the public hearing on this? And if that's the case and someone wants to make a motion, please feel free to do so at this point.
Gonna bite motion to close the hearing. Okay. Is that seconded? Seconded that you Chris? Yeah. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. Yeah. Loud and clear. I just, your mug is behind me so I have to turn around when I hear people speak. Okay. So motion on the table from, from Jim, seconded by by Chris to close the public hearing. Is there any further discussion on that? Alright, hearing none those in favor in the, Speaker 2: Just to clarify the voting for the record and for the applicant team, George did not missed more meetings than is allowed under open meeting law. So will not be voting on the public hearing tonight.
We do have two comm or we have one commissioner if a vote to issue happens tonight. We have one commissioner who will need to sign a Mullen certificate. He has watched the meetings, but in order to vote, he'll need to sign that. If any discussions continue, David Howe, who's not in attendance tonight, would need to also sign a mullen certificate. Speaker 1: Yep. Alright. So Jim made the motion to close a public hearing seconded by Chris. There's no further discussion in that. All those in the room in favor of closing the public hearing, please raise your hand. Jim. Chris? Yes. Jeff? Yes. Alright, that's everybody. Public hearing's closed on that.
So we have two options in front of us. We can issue an order of conditions on this. We can not issue an order of conditions or issue a denial on this. And I'd like to, we're prepared either, you know, either way for how it's gonna come out. Anybody have any comments or cases to be made things, things that you'd like to, to say about this? You can also just go ahead and make a motion to, well, we would need to go through the orders of conditions and then we could make a motion to issue or not the orders and conditions. Speaker 2: Okay. And just because the conversations have been pretty focused on the notice of intent process,
there is also a major stormwater permit that would need to We Speaker 1: Would do two separate votes. Exactly. Yep. Yep. Okay. So any, any discussion on the orders of conditions, comments, questions, concerns we could have clear? Walk us through the two options. One is straightforward. It's essentially a, a, you know, there's two, if, if what the commission does wants to do is a denial, there's two denials under the storm water and, and or the, the Wetlands Act. Or we could issue orders and conditions under both as well. Okay. So any any comments, questions on that?
Why don't we go ahead and then walk through let's, I think the denial conditions are straightforward. You know, it's a, you know, we would, there's, we would be wordsmithing involved, but if we're gonna issue orders and conditions, I think we should spend some time thinking about and talking about the wetlands and the storm water conditions that, that we would put in place. Yes. Speaker 2: And I did not have a draft of storm water per, but I have our template and we can wordsmith some. Speaker 1: Right. Okay. So would you Claire, walk us through the order of conditions or the proposed order of conditions for under the Protection Act, Natick bylaw, knowing
that you guys have had a chance to take a look at it, you provided some feedback on it, so I think there's no surprises there. It's basically what you have seen already, but Speaker 5: Chair Gardner, good evening. Your my name is Adam Broski, as you know, I'm an environmental attorney working with the applicant. And yes, we've been exchanging drafts. We can only have not focused on the denial and so we have no comments on that. We believe the project meets the performance standards or can otherwise be permitted. So we did not offer any suggestions on conditions with respect to denial. Okay. Speaker 1: There is a, you know, a different way that we could handle
that we've done in other cases is that we could essentially take a straw full now just to see where people's heads are at and then we could focus on those conditions that are, you know, the ones that are germane to where the commission stands on this, if you guys would prefer to do it that way. I'm, I'm, I'm open to whatever input or ideas that you have on that. Everybody wanna take it? Okay. So why don't we, why don't we go through the wetlands conditions and, and we can go from there.
Absolutely. And see where people's heads are at. Speaker 2: So starting at the top of our order of conditions, we have our standard owner applicant and representative information. I know that there was a note about adding in some language to the existing conditions, but because the site owner is identified as the town of a right above, it didn't feel necessary. The approved project summary will be added. I think everyone is very well aware of what the proposed work is and the final approved plans. Now that we have that revised long-term pollution prevention plan, I'll get those documents added.
I do need to add one additional hearing of February 19th, 2026. I believe the information received. So this order of conditions is a little bit more bulky than some of the orders of conditions that we've issued in the past. Really trying to make sure that our decision is as thorough and well thought out as possible. So included within the findings as a timeline of the review, noting when the notice of intent was filed, when the legal ad was published, the public hearing schedule, including continuations, the commission site visit, any meetings that occurred
without a quorum present outside of the open public meetings, which included one meeting with the chair and myself. One meeting with myself, the town engineer, assistant town engineer, and then one meeting with myself and the projects landscape architect. Then we go into the dates that comments were provided from either the commission or myself to the applicant team. Also providing a summary of what those were. And then a summary
and timeline of the revised material submissions following the original notice of intent approval. And I believe the only thing that would need to be added here is the letters of opinion that were provided recently. I'm just gonna highlight that in green so that I remember to add in all of the relevant texts that goes with that. And then we move into the findings of fact, specifically if the commission were to vote to issue a denial. So the proposed project is denied, consists of renovation of an existing building on site construction of a new multi-unit residential building associated parking area, improvements and expansion, hardscaping landscaping drainage and vegetation management.
And noting the areas in which the jurisdictional areas that the site is subject to. Noting that the commission has found that this project does not sufficiently comply with the performance standards. I think specifically, especially when this language was being originally drafted, the, the large concern was regarding the mitigation package. I then walk through each of the performance standards under 10.585 providing specific detail about the project. And based on my, you know, understanding
of the commission's conversations and concerns why the project has or has not met the performance standards, the primary language does fall into the 10.58 G performance area summary. There was some discussion at the last meeting about square footage versus equivalent environmental protection where square footage is not an applicable measure. So the language goes back and forth between talking about what the potential square footage requirements were, how the project did not meet the two to one square footage requirement. If the commission does feel that this is accurate, that the,
you know, stormwater treatment in Auburn Street is not sufficient to provide equivalent environmental protection to the remaining or equivalent to the remaining square footage of mitigation necessary, there's available space for the commission to add in additional reasons why they might feel a denial is appropriate for this particular decision. And then it provides a summary statement at the end that very much just reiterates what was said at the beginning. There are four conditions associated with the denial. Obviously if we're not approving a project, we don't need
to condition the work that would be occurring under the project. So the first, and arguably the most important condition is that no work is permitted within the jurisdictional wetland areas of five Auburn Street under this order of conditions. The other conditions are, are part of our usual general requirements, which just note about, you know, changes to the project site and the ability to enter to evaluate compliance with this order of conditions. Moving into the, oh, actually I, I suppose I should pause there and see if the commission a if,
if folks have had a chance to review this language. There have been some small edits since my discussions with Caris earlier, but for this section specifically, most of those have been removals or, or strikethroughs of text. Again, most of this language and these points have been pulled from the prior commissions discussions. I've tried to represent some of the concerns that the commission has voiced as accurately as possible as we move into the findings of fact for an approval this might shock folks, but it's essentially just the opposite of the denial findings of fact. The, the first paragraph is identical with the exception
of it says approved rather than denied. The second paragraph notes that the project does sufficiently comply and noting the improvements that are being proposed as part of the mitigation package. Note the language in this section has come from the commission's discussions as well, but is also coming from the applicant's materials regarding their beliefs on, on how this project meets the performance standards. Should the commission agree, then we move into, again an outlining of all of the performance standards under 10.585 and how the project meets those performance standards.
These conditions, again, if you look through the denial findings of fact and the approval, they are very similar. Just opposite, again, the big differences fall into that 10.58 G line. Again, there is available space and should be added Additional reasons why the commission feels that the project should either be approved or denied based on all the final materials that have been received. And lastly, there was just some back and forth with town council on this last note about the
operation and maintenance of the offsite stormwater treatment. Just clarifying the language that was there originally was intended for the draft format. This language has now been formalized in a manner that would be appropriate for an issued order of conditions. And then we move into the conditions for a potential approval. Our three general conditions remain the same and then we move into conditions prior to construction if the commission finds it acceptable. I'm just gonna scroll down to where we start seeing edits rather than walking through every specific condition, especially those that are fairly standard when it comes
to this particular type of work. So just the first edit is to our standard pre-construction meeting condition. Just adding in the requirements to both install and then inspect the tree protection that is being proposed on the site as well as confirming the placement of any erosion controls needed within the Auburn Street right of way. The silt sacs are all called out on the plan sheets, but with the additional drainage work, if there are any additional erosion controls needed, those would be determined at that point in time. Condition 15 is a, a new special condition, which is
that a separate pre-construction site visit is required with the project engineer, specifically site supervisor, conservation agent and Natick town engineer prior to any of the proposed stormwater treatment work in the Auburn Street right of way. And that's just to ensure that a any, you know, permits being required for tapping into the town system are appropriately pulled, if any are required. I, based on the engineering divisions review, it doesn't appear that any permits would be required, but the pre-construction site visit will just ensure that all requirements are met in regards to that drainage system work.
Prior to the work within the inner 100 feet of the riverfront area or any of the local bylaw buffers, all work areas shall be staked and a site visit with the conservation agent shall be scheduled to review. Additional erosion controls may be required to support this work. And I know that there was a comment from the applicant team regarding the removal of the local bylaw buffer language from this section as they or not jurisdictional for this project. The language in this location was intended to be a location reference on the plan sheets because there is some work specifically the new foundation drain construction that will be outside
of the a hundred foot buffer zone. But within those local interior buffers and prior discussions with the applicant team and, and Dana specifically noted that tho that that area will be walked and field located to minimize any disturbance condition 17. A copy of the issued NIP DS permit shall be provided to the conservation agent prior to the start of construction. This is a pretty standard condition for the projects that we permit requiring NIP DS permitting. Invasive Species management shall be conducted by a qualified professional details on the proposed person or firm performing the Invasive Species Management. As noted, the approved vegetation management plan shall be
provided to the conservation agent and condition 19 documentation from the NA engineering division approving construction of the water Quality Unit for the Auburn Street drainage system. Outfall shall be provided prior to the start of construction of the drainage infrastructure off site. This documentation shall also clarify the permanent ownership and maintenance of the approved structure through an easement or other appropriate methodology. Should the town be responsible for ongoing maintenance? So again, because this device will be installed on the parcel of five Auburn Street,
but be part of the town's street drainage system, the details regarding access and long-term maintenance do need to be finalized with the town engineer. So this condition is noting that that needs to be clarified before the start of that construction of that drainage system condition 20 Applicant shall ensure that the project complies with all requirements of the Massachusetts Department of Environment Environmental Protection and or Natick Board of Health slash Health Department in regard to the underground storage tank. Removal documentation shall be
provided to the conservation agent if the ENC case tank is to remain on site. It's amazing how many typos Google and Word don't catch. Speaker 6: Yes. Yeah. What what's the need of that last sentence? That confuses me? 'cause I thought the Board of Health was clear. Speaker 2: Yeah, so the permitting for that process will be gone through similar to how you get building permits after we go through this process. So that is depending on the, the board of health technically has final jurisdiction over that matter based on the town's policies and the state requirements. So the board of Health in theory,
could allow the case case tank to remain. So again, that language just sort of covers us in either regard. Speaker 6: Okay, thanks. Speaker 2: Conditions 21 through 31 are all part of our standard conditions and the language has not been amended in any manner. Condition 32, again, using the, the local buffers as as a locational determination rather than a jurisdictional area. No equipment shall enter the 25 foot no disturb zone as shown on the approved plans. Work done in areas that may impact the 25 foot no disturb
zone shall be done by hand or with mechanical hand tools. If work requires additional equipment, the applicant shall contact the conservation agent to determine if additional any additional erosion control protections or compaction measures are required prior to any work proceeding. Compaction prevention measures. Condition 33 is in regard to snow removal. We do include a standard condition about snow removal. The language of this has just been edited slightly to specifically note the detention basins on the site,
which are not allowed for snow storage within them. And then also just noting that snow should be disposed of offsite or within the lawn areas outside of the commission's jurisdictional areas, wetlands, jurisdictional areas. Condition 34 is just the striking of the reference to the natick wetlands bylaws that is not jurisdictional for the 40 B project. Condition 35. And this is something that we discussed during prior hearings, which is should fence removal be required to accommodate any portion of the construction process? Fence panels for removal shall be flagged.
A site visit shall then be scheduled with the conservation agent to review sequence for proposed work and fence replacement. So this is the fence along the back edge of the lawn at the top of the slope. Condition 36. Upon completion of all utility infrastructure removal and drainage construction within the vegetated hillside, these areas shall be stabilized using approved seed mix and approved seed mix. A site visit shall be scheduled with conservation agent within seven days of completion of this work to review additional stabilization measures may be required. Condition 37 following necessary site work equipment access
to the area between the fence and the new building shall be limited to the maximum extent possible to avoid soil compaction in the mitigation area. So again, this is the existing lawn area that is gonna be behind the newly constructed building and is qualified as mitigation area with naturalized planting. Proposed condition 38. This is not part of our standard template, but is our standard stormwater system inspection condition. This is really a belt and suspenders because this condition lives more permanently in the
stormwater permit that would be issued. Condition 39 is part of our standard and is also supported by the plan notes on the landscaping plan sheet that has been provided by the applicant Team Condition 40, all species shall be installed per the approved landscaping plans, including, but not limited to species number of plantings and size of plantings. Any changes to the overall site landscaping shall be provided in writing for review and approval prior to the installation of any plant material on site planting within mitigation areas. And any mulch spreading following plant installation shall be done by hand. Any changes to the proposed mitigation area?
Landscaping shall be provided in writing to the Conservation commission to determine if any amendments to the permit are required. So just to clarify, 40 A is overall site landscaping. So that includes landscaping that is within wetlands jurisdiction, but not being proposed as mitigation. 40 C refers specifically to the mitigation aerial landscaping condition 40 D. All landscape plantings within the riverfront area, but not associated with a mitigation area must survive at 80% after two years or growing seasons, whichever is shorter. And then this is a area
where there was a comment from the applicant that the, we can discuss mitigation area plantings where invasive species management is not proposed shall survive at a hundred percent after two years or growing seasons, whichever is shorter with our sort of standard set of conditions regarding planting replacements and how that would impact the survival requirement. Staff had drafted a hundred percent, the applicant did request that this be reduced to 80%. Town council did support that 80% is appropriate. Given that a hundred percent planting survival is very unlikely. I I do agree, you know, I, I sort of went to the max
'cause it's always easier to pull back. But if the commission is comfortable, I'm happy to amend that to 80%. Speaker 1: I think. I think from a, yeah, from a pragmatic perspective, 80% would make sense. Okay. Speaker 2: Condition 41 annual reports for the invasive species management work shall include photos of areas managed prior to and following treatment each year. And details regarding success of installed native plantings once that process initiates. 42. Should additional stabilization beyond seed mix be necessary within the mitigation areas, the applicant shall provide a written proposal for stabilization for review
and approval by the conservation agent. Condition 43. This is one of our standard conditions, but the applicant requested in town council believes it's appropriate given the commission's jurisdiction that the language regarding die within two years of the start of construction be removed. The language does remain that if any trees not approved for removal have been demonstrably harmed by construction activities, they shall be replaced at a ratio of two to one with native kaling, native canopy saplings. This does still retain the commission's ability to enforce additional replacement plantings
for trees not approved for removal. Considering the timeline of the project, the loss of the two years doesn't make a substantial difference from my perspective in terms of enforcement capability, but the commission is, should discuss. Condition 44 remains the same. This language was amended, but simply to note that herbicide application may occur in accordance with the approved vegetation management plan. Speaker 1: Is there an issue with the, you know, the, the first sentence there kind of contradicts the second one to a certain extent. I mean, it, it, it, it, Speaker 2: So pesticides and fertilizers
and then the second sentence refers to herbicides. Speaker 1: Okay. Fair Speaker 2: Condition 45 is another one where there was a request from the applicant. No certificate of occupancy shall be approved by, or shall be approved unless the request receives the written approval of the conservation agent. Again, because of the timing of this project and the planting survival requirements, a certificate of compliance would like be very unlikely to be issued prior to a certificate of occupancy. At least I hope for everybody's sake when it comes to construction timing and costs. So that language was removed, but an additional sentence that was added, which is
that no certificate of occupancy may release the perpetual conditions of maintenance as set forth in the vegetation management plan or the requirement to maintain site stormwater systems. The applicant team had requested language, he was it here. And also in a prior condition regarding the issuance of partial certificates of compliance. I did include a comment noting that at least my experience with this commission is that partial COCs are generally not the preferred methodology for managing these types of projects, especially given the ongoing
planting survival requirements. So that is something the commission should discuss upon finishing the review condition 46, this is again an amendment of our standard marking condition. This notes that the applicant shall permanently mark the edge of the mitigation area with metal edging and markers, which are shown on the approved plans to ensure no inadvertent encroachment into the wetland mitigation areas or buffer zone. The markers shall be approved by the commission. The applicant shall instruct agents to explain these markers to buyers less ease. And these markers shall remain in place in perpetuity.
Additional markers shall be placed along the end of Auburn Street at the limit of existing disturbance to ensure no dumping occurs. I haven't seen much historic evidence of dumping at that location, but as somebody who lives in a neighborhood with conservation areas, I do see people dumping condition 47. Once the site is stabilized, a site visit shall be scheduled with the conservation agent to review. If approved for removal, all erosion controls shall be removed and properly disposed of utilizing the least invasive means possible. Condition 48 is the closeout material requirements.
We have our three standard requirements, the WPA Form eight A as-built plan and the statement of compliance. There's also the inclusion of a statement from the approved invasive Species management personnel providing a summary of the five years of management detailed. Also noting that this can be provided in the final annual report required under the initial five years rather than as a separate document. And then a copy of the final operation and maintenance plan for the property, including but limited to Snow Management. And that is just if there are any changes to that plan
during the construction process or as part of the Nip DS permitting process. The final section was a recommendation recommended addition from town council, which is just noting that no certificate of compliance may release the perpetual conditions of maintenance as set forth in the vegetation management plan or the requirement to maintain site stormwater systems. Annual report records, sorry. Condition 49 annual report. Records for mitigation area inspection shall be kept on record by the applicant or applicable future owners for a minimum of five years to ensure the history of site management can be reviewed
by the commission or agent. Again, all of those reports also need to be sent to us. This is just additional belts and suspenders to make sure that those, that documentation is not lost or misplaced. Condition 50 should treatment be required following the annual inspection of the mitigation areas for invasive species, A report of the treatment performed shall be provided to the conservation agent for the record. So this is again in the ongoing perpetual maintenance and monitoring. If treat, we are not requiring annual reporting be submitted.
If they're just going out and saying yes, there's no invasives. But after the initial five years, if any treatment is required, reports must be provided to the commission for that year. Should treatment not be required? The annual inspection report can just be kept for the applicant's records versus just submitting it to the town, moving into our perpetual conditions, removing the language and this will actually be a change to our standard conditions moving forward. Based on council's review, she's apparently hasn't spent a lot of time looking at this particular document, but the,
and shall be referred to in all future deeds to this property, just that specific language is being removed, folks will see some additional language further down. Condition 51 is the mirror of the earlier pesticide fertilizer and herbicide condition. The markers and riverfront area mitigation demarcation described above shall remain prominently visible in perpetuity. Condition 53 pursuant to three 10 CMR, 10.58, 5G, F, or G. No further alteration within the restore within the restoration or mitigation areas except a as may be required
to maintain the area in its restored or mitigated state shall be allowed further. Excuse me further, there shall be no additional alterations of areas under Conservation Commission jurisdiction without required review and permits. These conditions shall survive the expiration of the order of conditions and shall be included as a continuing condition in perpetuity on the certificate of compliance condition 54 annual inspections and, and treatment as needed following the recommendations in the vegetation management plan shall be continued within approved mitigation areas on a continuing basis in accordance with the approved documentation condition.
55 annual operation and maintenance requirements for storm water management systems shall be completed on a continuing basis. The sentence here was removed because the order of conditions refers to the perpetual conditions refers to the site itself and the, the proposals and systems that are being approved on the site 56. This OOC shall apply to any successor in control or successor in interest of the property described in the notice of intent and accompanying plans. These obligations shall be expressed in covenants in all deeds with copies
of this OOC included as an attachment. So this will be the moving forward, the a permanent revision to this standard condition as well to replace that earlier language that was struck. And then finally, no new disturbance including leaflet or dumping disturbance, vegeta vegetation, et cetera, is allowed within 25 feet from all wetland resource area boundaries. No new structures are allowed within 40 feet from all wetland resource area boundaries. Owner shall contact conservation agent to conduct any additional disturbance and work outside of the scope of this order of conditions. I know that was a lot. Yeah. Speaker 1: Questions from the commission on this. Any points
that we wanna revisit, we wanna look at? I think it's captured basically the, the, the condition in perpetuity around the invasives that we spent so long talking about that's captured in the vegetation management plan, which is then, then the adherence to the vegetation management plan is one of the perpetual conditions. Exactly. I mean that's the chain of chain of command there. Yep. Okay. Good questions from anybody here on this? Chris? Jeff, you good? Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean the perpetuity thing was the biggest one I was interested in, so I I think that's well addressed here.
Speaker 1: Okay. And does, does this reflect, was there anything different from what, is there anything different than what Claire just talked through that is different from what you remembered? Or is, is, or is this in alignment with what Speaker 5: You've discussed? Well, thank you Sure. Regard. First of all, I want to thank Ms. Relli and Attorney North for quickly turning around changes. We did not have a chance to do the last turn on the final comments. They were coming in very late this afternoon. Sure. We're incredibly grateful. We just want you to understand that, that this could be put together and,
and I think we worked to resolve most of the major issues. We have a handful of additional comments and concerns that if you can gimme a moment I'd like to address please. Okay. Speaker 1: I mean, another option, just to be clear, I mean, another option is that, you know, we could meet again in two weeks, you know, and go through and, and you know, we could give a kind of a straw poll so you get a sense of where we're going and meet again in two weeks to issue a final, final if, if that would be of preference to you. Speaker 5: Or we can, I think chair, granted if there's any chance that we can complete this task tonight and the commission can issue, I thought that'd your answer in order of approving the
project, we would appreciate the opportunity. I'm not gonna belabor this. It's no worries. It's complicated. So the first is, is the question as to who is going to maintain that stormwater structure? Our position is, is that's going to be part of the municipal storm water system. We would presume that the, that the, the town would want to control maintenance of that. So when they, they vacuum out the catch basins in Auburn Street, they'll also vacuum out this structure on their schedule.
And so that's why the, the applicant's preference was that that be an issue for the town. We don't think that it's a, a a a a significant additional activity for the town, but again, the applicant has agreed to, to purchase and install that structure. So we thought that was a reasonable way of, of managing maintenance of that going forward. So, Speaker 1: So we, we can't speak for DPW in terms of what they're willing to take on Claire, have you had conversations with DPW on that or is that, so Speaker 2: As part of the meeting that we had with the town engineer,
assistant town engineer, and the project engineer, it was discussed that the equipment needed for the maintenance of this type of system is a vector truck, which the town does have as part of our maintenance vehicle fleet. However, again, the reason that the condition language was included as it was, is that that has not been finalized with the town as if it's gonna become part of the town's system for maintenance. There would need to be an easement granted to provide the town access onto the property to perform necessary maintenance. Speaker 1: So, so how, how would we, I mean, if, if,
if we're gonna vote just hypothetically, if we're gonna vote on an order of conditions that includes that, how do we frame that so that we've got the security that it's gonna be maintained? I mean, that, that's what I care about. I don't care who does it. Speaker 2: And then so the, someone needs to maintain it. The condition that was drafted, and I'm gonna give folks a little bit of whiplash scrolling as fast as I do on the screen right now, but, so condition 19 regarding documentation, approving the construction and outlining the responsibilities of permanent ownership and maintenance has to be provided prior to the start of construction of that system.
And obviously if Speaker 1: Those, so we're punting it to the applicant in the town to sort it out so long as it's maintained Speaker 2: To a certain extent, obviously the commission retains the ability, if there is a, a failing of coming together between the applicant then nearing division, I don't expect that there would be. But then obviously at that point, we are at a point where there is gonna be a potential change in the proposed project. Either that or the applicant would have to take on maintenance responsibilities. At which point I think that there would likely be a pause and a conversation between the town and the applicant.
But I'm happy to flesh out any additional language that would make the commission feel more comfortable. Speaker 1: I think this, this captures it in, in my opinion, and I agree. Just again, speaking pragmatic, we're trying to be pragmatic about it. There would be a meeting of the minds at some point. Yep. So, okay, Speaker 5: Thank you. Just generally, and I'm, I'm looking at condition number 16. The, the reason why we struck reference to the local bylaw, 40 foot no build and 25 foot no disturbance. 'cause those are waived as part of the comprehensive
permit approval. I, I have no issue with, with the, you know, the suggestion that they remain for purposes of location but not jurisdiction and, and we have every confidence in Ms. Relli if for some reason Ms. Relli is no longer the agent in two years, we just wanna make clear that perhaps a, a sentence or two a sentence that says that these are identified for locational purposes but not jurisdictional just clarifies that because otherwise it would get, I think, confusing, sir, for someone new coming in.
So just a suggestion. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 5: With respect to, and, and, and that's repeated in several places, but if we put that as, as one sentence, I don't think we need to do that in, in all of the references in special condition, or excuse me, condition number 33. There's a statement that during snow removal, snow shall be, shall not be pushed into a piled in any jurisdictional wetland. We had suggested the word vegetated because I believe we do have a proposed snow storage area within the riverfront area. The riverfront area is a jurisdictional wetland, it's
Speaker 2: Jurisdictional wetland resource area. So I I, okay, I I understand where that edit language was coming from. If the commission is comfortable, I can amend the language to be piled in any jurisdictional vegetated or isolated Speaker 5: Or accept or accept wetlands riverfront area. Again, we just, we do have snow storage in, in the RFA, Speaker 2: The vegetated or isolated wetland to clarify that it refers to, Speaker 5: Well, I presume you don't want snow in the actual vegetated wetlands. That, that's, that's what our thinking was. Thank you for acknowledging an 80% survival that we appreciate that condition.
Number 45 concerns the certificate of occupancy. And again, I, I had a, a robust conversation with Attorney North regarding that. My view of the world is that the Conservation Commission can't condition a certificate of occupancy, which is governed by the building code, exclusive jurisdiction of the building commissioner. But the, and, and again, we have every confidence in, in delegating this to Ms. Relli, our concern is, you know, what happens if she's no longer the agent? So we suggest maybe a slight modification of that language
because we have strict time requirements for construction of the building and obtaining the co. And I, I know that Mr. Akins here, and, and Ms. Small knows this better than me, but for financing purposes, this has gotta get done within two years of, of a effective date. So once that building is complete, we're gonna be requesting the certificate of occupancy. If there's other work that has to be done that we still need to do as part of the project, we have to complete that again within the time period provided within the order.
So the suggestion was simply to clarify, and, and this is my suggested language, that no certificate of occupancy shall be approved unless the request received the written approval of the conservation agent. Once the building is substantially completed in conformance with the orders of conditions. Just a recognition that when we're done with the building, that we can apply for the co even if we have some additional work. And of course we're gonna need a certificate of compliance to document that all of the work's done in compliance with the order of conditions. So it's a, a business issue.
We're recognizing that the, the commission wants to have a say in the issuance of the co and I thought that might be a reasonable accommodation. Speaker 1: So the scenario, so, so what you want to avoid is a situation where all of this stuff that's being required under the order of conditions, that that all doesn't have to be completed by the time you get a co Speaker 5: Correct. Given the fact that you don't issue partial certificates of compliance. Right. We're not done with this project until five years of the, of the, of the vegetation management plan. We can't wait five years to get a co. Of course, of Speaker 1: Course.
I get it. Makes sense. Speaker 5: Thank Speaker 1: You. Any, any questions on that? And Speaker 5: Does it, does that wording change work Speaker 2: That Yes, I essentially just typed exactly what you said. So, Speaker 5: Yeah. And again, just a recognition that once the building's done, we can move forward the co Okay. Upon review and approval of the agent. Speaker 2: And then just to clarify, the applicant team, the way that the online permitting system Yes. Is I am a part of the co sign this stuff and so it's me or whoever may be in this position. I'm hoping it'll still be me, but that's where that sort of process language comes Speaker 5: From as well. I, I'm suggesting not to get Ms. Rid, get rid of Ms. Relli.
It's been fabulous to work with on this. She's quite capable and talented. Two issues, the special condition in perpetuity. Number 56, just a practical issue, the language with copies of this order of condition included as an attachment. So the order of condition is, is separately recorded in the chain of title for the property as we've discussed, it's in the chain of title. I spoke to my title attorney. I most registries are not gonna allow us to attach a permit
to a deed. So the attachments to a deed are typically the property description. So we don't think that we can actually do that. What we can offer is if, if it's helpful, we can record the order of conditions sequentially after the recording of the deed. So that if you look at the registry of deed, you see the, you see that the deed, you see the orders of conditions. Regardless, the order of conditions is recorded in the chain of title and that's a mechanical issue. Speaker 8: Why couldn't it be issued as an exhibit? Speaker 5: I I'm told that the, again, I'm not a title attorney,
which is why I spoke to our title attorney. He, he says that most registers are very specific about what you can attach to certain documents, deeds, or in particular that the only exhibits that, that he has seen registry allow you to attach as, as an exhibit is the meets and bounds description. Usually a property description. Speaker 8: I've seen baseline documentation as an exhibit. I've seen numbers of things that are not a meets and bounds description. Speaker 5: So all I can say Mr. Down is I'm not a title attorney. I have Speaker 8: Reviewed neither am i Speaker 5: Hundreds of deeds.
I've never seen an order of conditions attached as an exhibit to a deed. Speaker 8: Okay. Speaker 5: Again, we're accomplishing the same thing, which is, is it's in the chain of title and if you want it to be prominent after the deed, I, we can sequentially record that. I we can instruct the closing Speaker 8: Line is referenced in the deed. Speaker 5: It's not referenced in the deed. The, there are no references in, in the deed. It's referenced in the order of conditions. The order of conditions is referenced in, in the, when, when you search for it by either applicant or a property owner.
It, it's, it's, it's, it's searchable in the registry database. Speaker 8: Sure. But it does never shows up in a search. You understand that Speaker 5: Actually, that's not my experience. I spent a great deal of time Okay. Chasing certificates of compliance for orders of conditions in title reports where there's no certificate of compliance. Okay. We can have a discussion about that. So that's, we do a lot of that. A frantic call from a closing attorney that happens all the time closing tomorrow. Yes, it does. I've got an order of conditions from, from 1989. We need a certificate of compliance tomorrow. Ms.
Relli probably sees it all the time. I do indeed. So they do show up in title reports. Speaker 1: So, so, so how do we resolve this? I mean, you Speaker 5: Know, Speaker 2: I was going to suggest, so one thing that I see pretty regularly included is, is site plans associated with deeds. And I'm wondering if the, there's a potential, obviously we have a landscape plan that very clearly demarcates the mitigation areas that have been identified, other site features and things like that. Would it be appropriate, allowable comfortable to the commission instead of the order of conditions?
It's, you know, an approved plot plan, clearly identifying mitigation areas. I I Speaker 5: Think we, I I think we have the same problem. It becomes a cloud on title then the title attorney's looking at this saying why is this attached to the deed? What we could do is if you don't typically record the plan of record for an order of conditions, but we could, I guess try and record the plan of record with the order of conditions if that helps. I, I assume we can do that. It's not typically done. I think I have to check with the, the, the conveyancing attorneys. I
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is one that I'm a little stu stump stumped on in this particular moment. Again, I can tell Speaker 5: You it gets very difficult times if you do things that the registry doesn't typically see. And, and if it's, fortunately this is not registered land, that's another whole conversation. So again, I I ated this question, which is why I asked the question. The people who do this in our office, Speaker 2: What I will say is that that condition language was provided to me by Caris. So this might be, we may have to continue to the fifth
to get, again, I am also not a title attorney to get town counsel's opinion on that particular item. Speaker 5: Yeah, I I did email when she emailed me at 5 21. I, I emailed her before Speaker 2: Being in the car. Speaker 5: Yeah. I, the we were and saying, Hey car, I think this is a problem. I I don't know what her response or whether you received a response. Speaker 2: No, I I Speaker 5: I can, I can check to see if she ever responded. I, I don't think so. I checked before we started. Speaker 2: I think my other question is, I, when the deed is being recorded for the new owners, I'm just like running through the visual of a deed in my head right now.
There's, you know, I transfer x, y, Z to x, y, Z for x, y, z value. These are the meets and bounds as shown on plan of record x, Y, ZX, YZ. Speaker 5: Sometimes, sometimes there's a plan of record, sometimes it's just a meets and bounds. Speaker 2: And that's, that's what I'm, I'm wondering is can we establish a plan of record based on the project plans for the site, either the approved plans or an as-built plan in order to accomplish a similar goal as what this language is hoping for. Speaker 8: There should be something in the deed to inherently
Speaker 1: Reference this perpetuity piece. Speaker 5: So again, and, and, and, and Attorney North agreed with me entirely by, by having it in the order recording the order, making sure in the certificate of compliance that it recognizes it as a perpetual condition. And there's additional language in here that was added to make sure that that always sticks. We thought that that was the reasonable way of addressing that issue within how this is normally dealt with, both on the wetland side, but from a conveyance side. So that's why there's additional language in here that you,
you can't, you can't wave, you know, the, this, it's always gonna be perpetual. I'm trying to find the, the actual provision that was put in here. Speaker 1: I mean, I think the issue here is, you know, it's not a debate as to whether the conditions are perpetual or that, you know, anything like that. It's just really how do we make sure that that is as visible as possible? You know, when and if the property changes hands and there's title searches and all that, that this stuff is front and center, right. So that people are aware of that requirement. That's, that's the issue here. Speaker 5: My, my, my, all I can do is my experience with commercial transactions,
and this is a commercial project and not in a single family project, is that there's a heightened level of scrutiny with respect to title issues. Typically in a commercial purchase sale agreement, there's a process for title objections that actually requires, you know, the, the, the buyers to, to research, to title provided title objections and then requires the, the, the, the seller entity Yeah. To, to address those things. It's much more stringently regulated for a commercial project. Speaker 1: So can we, can we resolve this here this evening?
I mean, can we come to a place where we're, we're in alignment and we can, if, if it's the pleasure of the board to vote, we can vote on something where it's, or do we need to get counsel's opinion on this at this point? Speaker 2: That's alright. I, I was also just checking to see if there had been any response on my no additional messages from Kara's. So what, what I will, what I'll say is this, the special conditions in perpetuity as far as I have experienced and been made aware based on my interpretation of the regulations and, and the way that these permits work, if
a special condition in perpetuity is not included in the originally issued order of conditions or an subsequent amended order of conditions, it cannot be added into the certificate of compliance at the end of the project. So my concern is, if we are not getting this language sorted prior to the issuance of an order of conditions, it would then require the applicant come back for an amended permit to fix that language, which I don't think so. We gotta Speaker 1: Get it right. Speaker 2: Anyone is looking to do because it requires a better notification and all of that jazz again. Speaker 5: And, and just to be clear, I I think that you're covered, we're just talking about how to record this thing.
So, and here's the language that that attorney North put in, just to make sure it's paragraph 48. Subparagraph f no certificate of compliance may release the perpetual condition of maintenance as set forth in the vegetative management plan or the requirement to maintain site, the site stormwater systems. So the, the, the law is basically if, if, if there's a perpetual condition in the orders and it's not reflected in the certificate of compliance, well, you know, then the applicant's relieved of that because it's gotta be in the compliance
to doubly make sure that that never happens. There's an expressed provision in the sort of conditions that prevents that from ever happening. So Attorney North was like doubling down on making sure that Sure. That, that that's a perpetual condition. So, and again, I I'm just raising a, a recording issue based upon, it's an unusual request, so that's why I rented up the flagpole. Lastly, and, and, and, and maybe I just need some clarification. The last condition is 57. We had suggested deleting that first sentence and,
and it's been put back in no new disturbance including leaf litter, dumping disturbance vegetation is allowed within 25 feet from all wetland resource area boundaries. We originally struck that because it was referenced to the 25 foot no alteration zone, which is waived. Speaker 2: So it's waived in regard to the 40 B project, but any future applications would not receive that same waiver. Speaker 5: Understood. But, but the order of conditions is for this project. So this only would relate to new work for this project. Not, I don't know if they wanted to build something, which
Speaker 1: In theory would require a separate permitting process, is kind of your point. Speaker 5: Right. So the other, the other issue is 25 feet from all wetland resource area boundaries. That language is correct. One wetland resource areas Yes. Is riverfront area. Riverfront area doesn't have a buffer zone and you can't regulate 25 feet from the edge of the riverfront area. So Speaker 9: Does that edit all it Speaker 2: 25 feet from the delineated bordering the shade of wetland boundary? Speaker 5: Does that work for you? Speaker 9: It's that, that's, that is clear. It's from the wetland, right?
Speaker 5: That works. That's the, the bordering bit wetland at the bottom of the slope where we're going to be doing our invasives. Yeah, Speaker 9: Yeah, that works then. Speaker 2: And I'm just reflecting that language in the 40 feet as well. Speaker 5: So I, I think that's it. That's it. So I think we've reached agreement except for how we're gonna record the order conditions. Speaker 1: Okay. So let's, let's come back to that one in a, in a second. Any further comments on this? Chris? Jeff, any comments, questions from you? None from me. Okay. So, so hearing then,
acknowledging that there is this outstanding issue, I'm wondering if, you know us kind of seeing where we're at, I mean, you know, we could, someone could make a motion to issue this order of conditions as discussed. Oh, well Speaker 2: This order of conditions is both an approval and a denial. So I would need one additional word in that Speaker 1: Motion. Fair? Yes. Fair. That would be really confusing. Yeah. So someone could make a motion to issue the approval order of conditions and then we can have a
conversation around whether, you know, whether this finalizing this language that we need to do this now or that we're comfortable with the language. We have a discussion about that or issuing a denial. I think that's kind of where we're at. Yep. Right now, Speaker 2: I, I will note that once the commission votes to issue the order of conditions, it puts us on the 21 day clock to get that document issued. So I just wanted to, for the record, make everybody aware of the timelines. Speaker 1: Whenever we do that, it's gonna start the clock. Speaker 2: Exactly What, what I, Speaker 1: Are you just concerned that if we have
to tweak this language here that we were just talking about, about the recording issue, Speaker 2: What I'm not too concerned about that if the commission is comfortable a, as part of the motion authorizing town counsel to approve the appropriate language in regard to legal recording requirements, Speaker 1: I think we could, we could make does Speaker 2: That language make sense to you, Adam, in terms of Speaker 5: If, if you give, give us an opportunity simply to wordsmith that? Oh Speaker 2: Yes. I I, Speaker 5: I'm, I'm happy to work with a attorney nor we worked together for years and, and I'm sure we can come up with some Okay.
She, she obviously didn't get my email expressing the, the, it's a mechanical concern. Like understood. If we can't do that, then I have to come back for an amendment, which Speaker 1: We don't wanna do, we don't Speaker 5: Want to do. And, and, and, and, and just to clarify, the 21 days runs for the date of the close of the public hearing. So you've closed the public hearing. Speaker 1: We've already closed the public hearing. Speaker 2: Yes, you're correct. Thank you, Adam. Speaker 5: That clock is, we started ticking, but we have, I'm sure we can work this out hopefully tomorrow. Final language if everyone's comfortable with it, whatever that the final language is, you could theoretically,
you know, issue and sign an an order. Speaker 1: I'd be, I mean I'd be comfortable with that in the sense that I think that the conditions in perpetuity, you know, that requirement is all embedded within this for me, you know, like you said, it, it's, it's, it's a mechanical question. It's a visibility question to have it more prominently what you were saying, Mike, to have it more prominently, you know, visible there. I get that. You know, and if Kara can squeeze that and make that happen or wants to, you know, feels that that's important, I'd be fine with it. Yeah. Speaker 8: I wanna see somebody who's doing a title search,
Speaker 1: See that, Speaker 8: Take a deep breath and say, oh, this is interesting. Right. Maybe I should have a conversation. Speaker 1: Right. And is it your concern that if it's not attached to the title and in your experience, that if it's not attached to the title, they might not see that Speaker 2: What, what I'll note, and Mike, I don't mean to cut you off, is no, and Adam, you may have experienced this as well. The way that the registry records documents has varied throughout time. I occasionally orders and certificates are attached to property deeds. It's sort of in the registry records,
as in when you click on something in file, it shows up as associated documents. Right. Speaker 5: It's in, it's in the, the database. And as I said, we could record sequentially instruct the closing lawyer. After you record the deed, you can record the order of conditions so that if you're looking at everything chronologically, you see the deed, you see the order of conditions. I have every confidence that, that someone performing a title search for this project, for a commercial project is going, is going to see understood that order of conditions. And, and to your point, Mr. Downey will ask questions regarding it. That's why we're working so hard to make sure
that the conditions are workable, we can satisfy them and most importantly, get a certificate of compliance, which is what the title attorney's gonna want to see. But I, I just don't want to create a understood title headache. Speaker 1: Okay. With that. Speaker 10: Well, Mac, I have a, I have a procedural question, please. So, it seems to me that if the vote to approve the order of conditions doesn't pass, that, that's essentially a denial of the permit. Speaker 8: Yes. Speaker 1: If the vote to issue the order of conditions doesn't, right? Yeah. Right. Oh, sure. I mean, then it would kind of, it mean that it's a,
it's essentially a denial, right? Then I guess that is true. I, yeah. Okay. I, I'd like, I'd like to do this as cleanly as possible. And so that if, if this particular issue about the deed, about how this is registered, if that's the thing that results in not approving the order of conditions, then I think it's worth us waiting and getting that language hammered out before we do, you know, before we do it. You know, I don't think that would make sense. I mean, if that's the issue, if there's other more fundamental issues, then that's, it is what it is. Speaker 5: And again, Chuck, I think it's a very minor issue.
I mean, you could vote to approve it with that language Right. In that condition. And then we have to deal with it if, if, if there's a problem. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 5: But I'd like to avoid that if at all possible. Speaker 1: Agreed. Understood. Okay. So with that, someone like to make a motion, make a motion to pepper. So how about someone make a motion of some sort? I don't want silence. Speaker 11: Okay. I'm just gonna stop the share. Speaker 1: Anybody, Speaker 2: I will start playing the Jeopardy music if necessary. Yes. Oh Speaker 1: Boy. No, not really. So, but what, what's this motion for, again,
the, the motion would be to issue the order of conditions as discussed Speaker 11: I to the Speaker 1: Approved for the approved Speaker 11: Got it. Speaker 2: Okay. With the authorization for perpetual condition 56 to be finalized in coordination with town council. Yep. Speaker 11: Okay. Alright. Motion. Motion. Speaker 1: Jim made the motion to issue the order of conditions as discussed with item 56, condition 56 being discussed with town council. Is that seconded? Someone's got a second. It, Speaker 11: I'll second it. Speaker 1: Thanks, Chris. All right. Anybody wanna make their case? Talk about it? Now's the time for discussion.
Speaker 2: And just so folks know, this is the time when I will be taking notes to add into that section of the findings. Obviously there's been some things discussed today. I, Speaker 1: I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll start. And in terms, just in terms of, of comments, I mean, I, you know, I, I approach this conversation and approach this vote with a personal understanding and commitment to the value of affordable housing in this community. But we gotta address it. There's no, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And I look forward to playing a role in participating in future conversations about how that can, how that can happen.
I haven't loved this process. And the reason for that is, is this is a project that's cited up against one of Natick's, probably most valuable natural resources, the Charles River. And I have a hard time getting past, like, the fact that we were handed essentially a fully baked project with very little wiggle room in terms of negotiation discussion before it was brought in front of us, you know? And so we had to do, kind of make do with
what was handed to us. And I think that does that approach, in my mind, does, you know, the, the issue of affordable housing in this community a disservice? I think, I think it makes it harder. I think it makes people more suspicious of the process. I think that's something we gotta think about. I want to thank you guys for being, you know, really legit kind of partners in these conversations that we've been having. You know, I think our conversations have been constructive. We haven't agreed on everything.
I think we've squeezed stuff out that you don't see the reason for it. I think it's, you know, it, it's been a process, but you guys have been constructive partners in this. There's been moments when we've been chided, you know, patronized somewhat, you know, told that, you know, we should just kind of go ahead and approve this. We've had, you know, ruffled feathers or whatever. I mean, this is complicated stuff. We're charged with upholding laws, you know, and it's, and, and as we've all seen there, you know, there's a lot of gray area here, you know, area, areas
where there's not case law. And I'd, I'd appreciate as part of the process that all aspects of it from the historic district, from the ZBA planning board, select board, all that, that all of these processes are given their due attention. And at one point someone said, you know, this needs to be, you know, we need to think holistically. And that's, in fact, exactly what I'm asking for is that we think holistically about these things and the natural resources of this community aren't something, aren't an afterthought, a slam dunk, a rubber stamp, just go ahead and approve this.
And that's what it felt like to me because of the engagement that we've had and the conversations that we've had for me personally, we, we've gotten this to a point where I'm, I'm, I'm gonna vote to approve it and, and, and issue order conditions. You know, I mean, I think I'm, I'm, I'm grateful for those conversations. I mean, you guys, you know, there's credit owed to you in, in terms of the, at least in the process that we've had here, I haven't been privy to any of the other processes, as I was just saying, you know, I think you guys have done a good job and,
and, and I'm grateful for that. So I'm gonna vote to approve this, these motions and vote in favor of issuing the order of conditions, and really look forward to working with the town administration and others so that the next project that comes up, and I hope there's more, we can handle it a little bit more cleanly. That's, that's my statement. Anybody else have any discussion on this? Speaker 10: Yeah, Matt, I'll, I'll, I'll chime in. Thanks. That was you. I, I think that you're, you know, you're the, you chair for a reason. This has been a great difficult That's fine. No, I know. Yeah. I, this has been a very, very difficult
for me personally too, because one, I believe that the, that the requirements have to set out the pathway to Yes. Right. I do believe that. What I didn't, a lot of things I didn't like about this process too was, you know, whether it was intended or not. And there were some people who, you know, who spoke for this project, for the affordable housing aspect of the project that I have served with and other things that I respect. And, and I believe that their intent is, is honest and true, but that it did, there was some sounding like
that this was just the final step in the process that was a foregone conclusion because a project at this location on this resource wrapped in this reason should be enough just to swing the pendulum to that side. But the, you know, but there was, you know, there was a, there was an aspect of regulation that was used to deny Us, which didn't happen in other parts of the process,
the ability to look at an alternative. And, and I think that, I think that we should have been allowed to have that, that, that that approach to come and say, Hey, we, we know we're gonna file under this, but let's just have an honest discussion about some alternatives, at least at this level. We were denied that that was the applicant's right. To exercise that. But then further on in the process, an expectation that objective decisions
of the board should just be Acceptable, right? We, that we should just vacate our ability to make some objective decisions, you know, like we had about the restoration areas and whether the improvements to the street. Although I think are, you know, I've seen that a a a lot of people in our community have put up their own money in other projects to fix infrastructure as part of their projects that, you know, that, that we should just accept that too. And, and I, and I couldn't get over that.
I can't get over that. I don't think that that brings us all away, you know, across the line to approval. I was, you know, at the beginning, you know, the looking at the banks of the Charles and saying, we're going to restore that. We're gonna get rid of the knotweed. I was like, that's, that's compelling. Then we got really wrapped around the axle. It looks like we're wanting to do it to help get it across, but really we don't wanna commit to a long term. So then that kind of took the, the shine off of that approach for me. And, and then ultimately, you know, whether,
you know, putting something on the, you know, in that area, on the banks of the Charles results in a net improvement. I, I don't think so. I just, you know, in my heart I say, no, it does not. And you know, and I'm trying to look at this objectively, you know, and not what's being built there. But for me, it's a, you know, I have to be objective when people come before, and it's, it's not well by denying that you're denying people affordable housing. That that's not our, our jurisdiction is not to vote on affordable housing. Our jurisdiction is to vote on brick
and mortar facilities in resource areas, regardless of how they're really going to be used. Because then we would be saying, well, it's okay because it's this, but if someone wanted to go there and, and just build a regular facility for people to live in, that we would somehow say, no, you know, we'll do it if it was affordable, but not, if it's not so, And for those reasons, I, my vote is no. Speaker 12: Okay. Speaker 8: Others, I guess I'm up. That's it, man. So I appreciate
Matt's thoughtfulness and, and the approach to this process. I, I think it's been, it's been a wonderful learning experience for me. It's, it's, it's also been a, a really important time to reflect on, on a few things. And, you know, succinctly, you know, where, where Jeff and I come together on a few things is, is around, you know, this isn't a vote on community housing. And, you know, my vote, my vote to deny
this is not a vote to deny community housing projects. What it is, is a vote that the applicant has not met the riverfront performance. It has failed to demonstrate improvement over existing conditions. It's failed to provide sufficient mitigation at the required two to one ratio. And it resulted in that increase of degraded riverfront. And, you know, I look at the historical aspect of this property, and I find it wonderfully, you know,
enriching to know that the architect and the builder of the Elliot school had the thoughtfulness to stay out of the riverfront with that building because they recognized the importance of that resource. It is a foundation to this town. It is emblematic to everything that this town represents, that's the original town center to this community. It's the heart of this community. And to take that wonderful Elliot school
and the forethought to leave that space open adjacent to the river and to now put a building in that open space, I, again, it just doesn't result in anything more than just degrading a riverfront area that's inherently was kept in the open space since the Elliot school was constructed purposely, I would argue. So, you know, from my perspective, you know, there's a couple of things. Is is just that in terms of,
you know, my, my position on it is, is that I think the analysis and some of the, kind of the moving goalpost of this process, and I would be a little bit more maybe stronger worded than Matt with regard to the internal siloed approach to projects here in town. This is now a second project that has come in front of this commission that has occurred behind doors with no engagement with this commission that inherently has put us into a position where
the decision making has become very, very difficult because there's no ability to evaluate it because everything is already fully baked when it shows up. So I would encourage the elders here in town, the folks that are in charge of this permitting process across all the different boards and committees to maybe break out of a siloed approach and start communicating. So these projects are a little bit more community based and less predetermined decisions that come in front of
the last commission or board or committee to kind of have to rubber stamp it, as Matt would say. And that's, that's really all I have to, to comment on. Speaker 13: Okay. Jim, not to put you on the spot. Yeah, Speaker 6: But I will. I thought there was somebody else. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Thank, thank everybody for all their comments. Incredibly difficult decision on this. I, I've gone back and forth and, and, you know, went through all the material yet again and, you know, and we, and we can't ignore, there were a lot
of comments from the public too, right? I mean, basically, and I know a lot of them, you know, from right around Auburn Street, which, you know, I, I understand, but really, it, it's a, it's a very big project going in a small space. And that, that's the thing that's kind of got me now in terms of affordable housing. I, hey, I'm, I'm definitely for affordable housing. I, I tried to do something different and just say, well, hey, whatever building's going in there, has there been enough to go through? But going through all those regulations,
there's clear as mud, right? I mean, bottom line, what, what I got down to is that, you know, we've never really came to an agreement on, let's say the two to one mitigation, and we got into the equivalent state, right? So by the way, it was great stuff to go in there and, you know, attack the knot we'd, and then to add on this water quality unit. So in fact, you know, there, there are things that I think they were trying to address and trying to make things better. And then you go through what, you know, what were the eight key things?
And you know, we, we talked a lot about wildlife habitat and preventing pollution and, and, you know, fisheries and, and all that. I, I, I agree the process was, that's not what we wanted. But, and, and I'll be honest with you, I, I came to this meeting still not knowing a hundred percent what my decision was gonna be. And that's why I, I, it's, it's interesting that, you know, we had both a denial and an acceptance, right? And then we had the whole thing on mitigation that we couldn't agree on the math on that. So it, it actually comes down to the individuals
of a con comm. And since it's, you know, public meetings, this is the first time we're hearing anybody's opinions on this, right? Where it's, it's not a board decision, shall I say. It's almost an individual decision. So, but I I, I will say after going through all of it, I mean it, especially going back, I mean, this I think was 23, I saw documents on this, right? So this project's been going on and on and on and on. And I, I think the information has been out there, you know, whether we acted on it or not, I, you know, I don't know.
But it's, it's, I, I don't know, it just seems, you know, again, I don't agree with the process, but I, I, I, I'm gonna have to say, I, I, I'm, I'd approve moving forward with the, all the work that's gone into it. Okay. Speaker 1: Chris, you got anything? Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I do. I mean, I, as, as everyone said, I mean, honestly, I didn't come into this really knowing exactly where I was gonna fall. I, I didn't like the process too. And I think that, I think that if you were to ask me
where I would prefer to have a unit that size with that purpose, it would be on the other side of the Elliott School building or closer to the street or someplace that wasn't impacting the Charles. Do I think the athletic field or the activity field was a good use of that adjacent property? Probably not degrade. That would be considered degraded. But I think that it's not, it's not what, I mean, it would be nice to have that be a park, you know,
and have that be available to the public, or at least residents of that building on the other side. But I think that all in all, by looking at what they've done, regardless of the process, regardless of the, the way in which I feel like we've been treated through the process as kind of a rubber stamp, they've met, they've met the criteria that I think they need to, to gain approval. So I reluctantly approve that. Can I do that?
I guess I approve, I would vote, approve. That's it. Speaker 1: Thanks everyone for being put on the spot and, and kind of sharing the thought process behind. It's really helpful. I mean, especially in a, in a, in a challenging, challenging set of circumstances, a challenging decision. So there is a motion on the table to, to issue the order of conditions as discussed. That motion was made by Jim, seconded by Chris. Any further discussion on it? Alright, so those in favor of issuing the order
of conditions as discussed, the Speaker 2: Approval Speaker 1: Order of conditions, the, the appro, the approval order of conditions as discussed here in the room. Chris? Yes. Jeff, you're a no. And who, who opposes that? You know, it's so rare that we actually have contested votes in this, in this commission. We tend to really talk things out. So I'll take Jeff and Chris and Mike as nose please. Is that right? Thank you Jeff. No. Alright, so let it show that it's three to two to one to and, and one, one abstaining to issue the order
of conditions as discussed. We'll get the language and clarified with Caris so we can get that taken care of. And this is, this is the, the wetlands language. Speaker 2: Yes, I did. Thankfully. We're about to jump into a major storm water permit review. Do we want to vote to close that hearing and then I can do a real quick Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do that. So we need to also close the storm water part of this. So would someone make a motion to close the storm water permit hearing for this? Close the storm water. Thank you, Jim. Is that seconded? Second. Thank you Chris. Any further discussion on that?
Those in favor, Chris? Jeff? Yes. Yes. Alright, so that's closed. Claire, walk us through the storm water. Speaker 2: Yes, so I am a little bit of a wizard and did, thankfully I had all this information. So it was just copying and pasting it into a draft stormwater permit. Obviously there's quite a number of things that need to be filled in. I currently have the approved box checked. There are also disapproved boxes. I do think that generally the stormwater management component of this project and that that jurisdiction has been less controversial in terms of the applicant's meeting of the,
the requirements of those regulations. Our standard conditions are noted. Conditions one through 15, condition 16 is highlighted. It is part of our standard order of conditions. But it's that the operation and maintenance plan shall be recorded at the registry of deeds and be an ongoing requirement of, this is not the correct language 'cause this is not the right permit project. An ongoing condition. Again, this is reflected in the order of conditions as well. In terms of the maintenance of the systems being an ongoing requirement. As the applicant has not seen any of this
as I'm just pulling it together, is there a concern about recording that operation, essentially the long-term pollution prevention plan as, as a one of the documents? No, Speaker 1: That's, that's a typical requirement. Speaker 2: Yep. Yep. Just wanted to double check. All vegetation proposed to be planted must be native non-invasive species, which the, the proposed landscaping plan addresses. These are the inspection requirements. There is just some additional inspection that's noted in this. The grading inspection is essentially just, it's the same as the final compliance inspection for the certificate of compliance.
It just has slightly different terminology. Finally, the closeout requirements, the closeout requirements are an as-built plan and a letter from a professional engineer. So nothing above what is being required under the wetlands closeout requirements. Oh, this language needs to go away. The special conditions, a lot of these I just copied straight from the wetlands permit as they also apply, maybe apply even more so under this jurisdiction, which is the condition regarding the underground storage tank. Oh, sorry, this is the condition regarding the stormwater system in for Auburn Street.
And let me, I can zoom in a little bit on that. So it's hopefully easier to read. So again, this is the exact same language that was we just reviewed in the order of conditions. I've just copied it into this permit. Tree protection is to be installed around all trees to be saved as per the approved plans. Tree protection shall be inspected as part of the pre-work site visit, which again, is also reflected in the order of conditions. Pre-construction site visit requirements as most of the trees to remain on site are technically outside of the wetlands jurisdiction. I thought it was also appropriate to include that here. This condition is in regard to the underground storage tank,
which as noted by the applicant, is outside of the wetlands jurisdiction. So would again, maybe more appropriately fall under this jurisdiction. The project shall comply with all required conditions of the order of conditions that was just reviewed. This again is the language. I'm just gonna highlight that the intent is for this to be the same language as the order of conditions in regards to tree replacement. If tree not approved for removal die or are demonstrably harmed by construction activities, I will just confirm that that language matches what's in the order of conditions. And then finally, annual operation
and maintenance requirements for stormwater systems. It, sorry, that removed did not get copied over, shall be completed on a continuing basis. So again, just rere reflecting the conditions of, of the order. Speaker 1: So we could do a couple things. Yes. I mean my sense is that counsel will probably want to spend a little bit of time looking at this, making sure that it's because you haven't seen this yet, right? That that's correct. Chair come in. Yeah, what we could do, I mean, so we could vote it now. I don't know any lawyer, should we, we put, you know, we could put this, vote this in two weeks time.
You could do it, you know, we could take a straw poll here just to see if it's just basically an, an administrative, you know, everyone's good with it, let's do it. But once you've had a chance to review it, your preference, Speaker 2: I guess it seems hard. Speaker 5: If, if I may make a suggestion, please. I know that you other business if, if I can just get a copy of it and review it in the back of the room with the clients. Speaker 1: I mean, if you're comfortable with that, that's fine. Can we come back, come back to do, Speaker 5: Do it Speaker 1: Tonight? We could do that. Speaker 5: I think just Speaker 2: Take this out of order and Speaker 1: Then Speaker 5: Yeah. Yes. And, and and I was at some point we were going to need to thank you.
I just have one clarifying question, which is that I believe Mr. Bain is not abstaining. He's not eligible to vote and is therefore not part of the quorum. We have a quorum of five and so we have three affirmative votes. That's, I just wanna clarify on the record, I very much Speaker 2: Appreciate Speaker 5: That. That's fair. Thank you. That's fair. Alright, thank you. Yeah. Speaker 1: So, okay, so why don't you do that? So, so why don't we, why don't we kind of recess this for now. Table this for now. We'll come back in a little bit later once you've got a chance to take a look at it. Clear. If you could send that to them. Let's move on in the agenda and keep, keep going through our business
and then we'll, we'll go from there. Speaker 2: I believe I sent it to everyone in the room here right now as well as Dana, just so he had a copy of it. Okay, Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay, so let's, let's, let's move ahead in the agenda then next time. The agenda is, I've got two 14 North Main Street. Welcome. Good evening. So we, I believe we closed the public hearing on this last week. Did we close it or Speaker 2: Did we We did not, we did not close it. We did choose to leave it open in order to review this without starting a clock on ourselves. Good. Speaker 1: Okay. Any, any updates, any changes, any things
that we've, you know, since our last our last get together, any significant changes to the plans? Yep. Speaker 14: No sir. Frank Holmes from Lang Engineering. Great. And yeah, we have made no changes to the plans, so yeah. Spoke with Claire earlier. Don't have anything to present tonight. We were just here. Speaker 1: Great. Any, any questions from the commission? 'cause then we could start, you know, we could close the public hearing on this. We've reviewed all the plans, taking a look at 'em, we've had chances to go through 'em and ask all our questions. So we could do that. And then just go through the order conditions and go from there. Would that work for you? Speaker 14: Sounds good. Speaker 1: Okay. Any questions from the commission on the project
before we some Presumably someone makes a motion to close the public hearing here? Further questions? No. No. Okay. We do have, just let the minutes reflect that Chris dropped. Chris Speaker 2: Is still on. He just turned his video off. Oh, okay. I will, I'm, I'm watching to record when he drops off. Speaker 1: Okay. Got it. Good. So any further questions from the commission on this? Alright, hearing none someone make a motion to close the public hearing on two 14 North Main Street. So moved. Oh, sorry. Thank you Mike. Is that seconded? Thank you George. Any further discussion on that? Those in favor in the room. Close that. Chris.
Jeff, excellent. Closed Yes. Order of conditions. Claire, you wanna walk us through what you got? Speaker 2: Absolutely. Speaker 1: So this is gonna be called the Fan's Retirement Home. I love it. Speaker 2: Okay. So starting up at the top of our permit, there are obviously a number of addresses that are impacted by the property that have been outlined here. Just clarifying that the two 20 North Main Street building is, is to remain. These dates will be added in after today. Documentation has all been referenced including the site plans, the landscaping plan, the stormwater management report,
and the operation and maintenance plan. I believe that we are all voting for this project to be approved based on prior discussions. Our standard, just to note this has all been reviewed by the applicant. I will, I'm just gonna scroll down through our standard conditions to condition 11, which is one of our standard conditions regarding any changes to the plans requiring written submission for review and determination. If an amended permit is needed, the applicant team just had some concerns given the extent of building on this project. If there were non-material
or I guess non-jurisdictional under the stormwater bylaw changes that may get roped into that particular condition. Just to ensure that it's clear for their team and any contractors that are being hired. The language has been amended to read prior written approval from the Conservation Commission or a designated representative of the stormwater review team shall be required for material modifications to the approved stormwater management design. Material modifications are those that reduce storage volume, increased peak discharge rates, reduce treatment performance, alter drainage areas modify the function
of stormwater control measures or limits of site grading. Minor field adjustments that do not affect compliance with the, with permit performance standards may be implemented without prior approval. Provided that they're certified by the engineer of record and incorporated into the final as-built plans. Any material modifications may be determined to require an amended stormwater permit. So this was a, in mine and Frank's discussion earlier, if the rim of a catch basin needs to be field adjusted by two inches, they have the ability to make that change without needing to come back to us. Does the commission have any concerns with
that modification of that language? Speaker 1: No. Speaker 2: Wonderful. The remainder of our conditions remain the, the standard including that the operation and maintenance plan shall be recorded at the registry of deeds. Continuing through the same requirements for closeout as-built plan and statement of certification from professional engineer. The special conditions that have been proposed for this project include prior to the start of any land disturbing activities, including the installation of erosion controls. The applicant shall provide the final contact information for the selected contractor on the project condition 22 prior to the start of any land disturbing activities, methods,
and means for construction of the stormwater management infrastructure shall be provided. This may be included in the required NIP DS permit documentation submittal rather than a separate document condition. 23 prior to the start of any land disturbing activities on site, a copy of the issued NIP DS permit for the site, including the final stormwater pollution prevention plan, shall be provided to the conservation office condition 24 as part of the pre-construction site preparation, eg. Erosion control installation trees proposed for removal to construct the bio retention basin and roof drain outlet shall be marked by the applicant.
Team trees marked for removal shall be reviewed by conservation staff during the pre-construction site visit. And finally that the final inspection will include review of all plantings. Speaker 1: Okay sir, does it work for you? Speaker 14: They do. We have no issues. We've been reviewing it for the past week with Mr. Rundell and we're happy with the conditions. Speaker 1: Great. Any further questions or comments from the commission on this? Nope. Alright. Hearing on so, so make an issue, someone make a motion to issue this order of conditions for the storm water permit. No. Moved. Thank you Chris. Is that seconded?
Thank you George. Any further discussion on that? Those in the room? Chris? Yes. Jeff? Yes. Excellent. Done. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you Frank. Look forward to it. Speaker 2: Just so you are aware, I am out of office the next three days. You guys will have this permit from me on Wednesday. Okay. Perfect. Speaker 1: Thank you again. Super. Thank you. Alright, next item on the agenda is the pond connector boardwalk though. Did Speaker 2: We want Speaker 1: Oh yeah, our that was fast. Speaker 2: Just to note for the record, the applicant team for five Auburn Street is returning to finalize the discussions
regarding the major stormwater permit Speaker 1: Chair. Gar, we had no concerns regarding the conditions with the one change that Ms. Rendell is, that's a very straightforward answer. So Speaker 3: Also could you please add a space between Metro and West in Metro West Collaborative development. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Great. Speaker 1: Fair. Alright, so we've got order conditions lined up. Happy to any, any further questions from the commission on this. Happy to entertain a motion to issue the storm water permit as discussed motion. Thank you. Jim. Is that seconded? Seconded. Thank you Jeff. Any further discussion on that statements? Alright, those in favor in the room we got, we got three.
Chris? Yes. And Jeff? Yes. Stormwater permit's. Done. Okay. Thank you folks. Thank you very much for all your efforts. I appreciate your efforts. Yeah, let us know how it goes. Speaker 2: Thank you. Just so you guys are aware, I just noted this to the prior applicant. I'm out of office for the next three days. I will get these materials over to Caris tomorrow morning while I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my plane. And hopeful we can get all this resolved Wednesday next week when I'm back in the office. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Enjoy your holiday. Great. Thank you folks. Alright,
Speaker 2: Are we gonna do a little out order? Speaker 1: Oh, for Speaker 2: CRT Modera. Speaker 1: CRT Modera. Yes. Mr. Ostroff. Welcome. Coming out of your retirement rocker. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It's welcome. Thank you so much, Speaker 15: Mr. Chairman. Josh Ostroff. I'm here in my capacity as president of the Board of the Friends of Natick Trails and I'm with a fellow board member, Jan Henderson and Scott Langren, who is volunteering as a landscape architect for this. I have a presentation and I was going to join the Zoom and then share, or, or I've got a better idea.
Let's leave the file sharing to a confident qualified staff member. So I'm not gonna join the Zoom. Great. So to recap, last summer I was here and got the commission's general support for the idea of using the, a sliver of land that the Conservation Commission bought almost 20 years ago. We would traverse that with a path that would be an accessible connection between the rail trail and the Madera development. So I'm gonna quickly go through a, this presentation
that is for benefit of folks watching is linked from your agenda through a Google Drive document. Thank you to, to Claire for putting that up. So let's just advance this. So as, as it says, this would be an accessible path of travel with the native garden seating area and historical panel as amenities for the public. And it actually occupies a, crosses three properties, 82 North Main Street, where, as you can see in the illustration of the left, there's a walkway that was constructed about 10 years ago that terminates at about the property line and then,
and then a pathway that crosses your property that I think George and, and the chair were on the commission when it was acquired a long time ago. And then on land under the select boards authority, the constituent rail trail. So, and the reason this needs to be done is that Madera built their property in 2016 after a lengthy permitting process. Sound familiar? And, and they had an access path that went up to their boundary but did not go onto town property. It was constructed at a grade that would've made sense if the rail trail had been paved at
the then top of the, of the material there. But the requirements for constructing a rail trail on abandoned railroad bread had to come up about a foot or two. So the geometry no longer worked. MAs DOT was not going to construct this for their own reasons. So it was left to the town. I had worked with Madera over the years and they were un I think, understandably hesitant to pay to build something on town property. Let's continue. So the benefits are several. First, it would provide accessible access, safe
and accessible access to multifamily dwelling and dwelling. The former paperboard site where with 150 apartments and for all the reasons that accessibility is good, it would be a, you know, a safe connection as opposed to the snow covered dangerous landscape on town property that we see now. We would continue to establish the native gardens that we are doing on con con property along the rail trail and elsewhere. And I want to give a shout out to Jan and Claire for their work on this. The friends of native trails has worked to have as much, you know, try to beat back the invasives
and establish native plantings, which I think is admirable. But that's a long time work. We would also look for interpretive signage to note the historical context of the area and, and have a seating area can never have too much seating and benches for people to gather. This is suggested as a CPA project and, and could be submitted by the friends of NA trails, preferably by a town agency. But that's something that we will discuss a little downstream. We'll be meeting with the select board in a couple of weeks. Why is it preferable to be done by a town agency?
Well, a few few reasons and thank you for that question. First is you're not really paying anyone's project overhead fair. Secondly, it is being constructed on town land and best that is under, you know, a town umbrella. But if, if it can't happen, you know, and I'm in my typical style, relentless about this having been at it for a few years, hope we get it done within a couple of years. So it's just, you know, I think it's cleanest if it's, you know, bid out and overseen by DPW. But I know how busy they're, and this is something that we at font are,
are enthusiastic about. So if we need to carry the mantle, then we'll do that. It would go through our fiscal sponsor. We're not our own 5 0 1 C3, we go with another organization. So that adds like 10% of the costs there 'cause they've gotta pay their bills. So, but that's all, it's, it is, it's a discussion. We'll see if the select board or administration want to, you know, be the project champion. I know project management takes a lot of time, so they may prefer to have somebody else do it continuing.
So this is something that we would put into a letter of interest to be submitted in the coming month or two. And I think that's something for the CPA committee, CPC to determine what qualifies and what doesn't. But we look at this as preserving outdoor recreation and rehabil rehabilitation and restoration. So we are helping to preserve recreational amenity, making it accessible, rehabilitating and restoring the asset by creating this native garden.
There's open space to the project, but it's, it's pretty tiny, but it is also visible and it serves an important purpose as it recharge and habitat. So we would also, as I mentioned before, include some interpreter signage. It's just a point of interest. There are 11, soon to be 13 of these signs along the trail. They're interesting to people and they help tell the story of the land, the ecology, the culture, the industry, transportation and natick. And I think they provide an important benefit. So we would seek to include that, even though I don't think the historical signage would qualify it for CPA.
It would just be a, a feature of the project. Continuing please. So as I said, you know, that's our, our mission as a font. We may be tweaking that in the coming months. We've reviewed the concept with administration over the past couple of years, and we would look as we are seeking to get from you a vote to authorize the use of the land. So that's more just bureaucratic speak. In the last paragraph basically just says what I said before, that we'd love to be under a town umbrella, but if it's under font, then that's something
that the font could, could undertake. Subject, we need to get board approval. So I don't wanna make this sound like a, that's, that's a done deal. And this just tells more of the story of, of Madera Natick, how it was built in 2016, the old paper bar paperboard site 11 mechanic, as you may recall, that was acquired by C from CSX almost 20 years ago to provide parking access to the rail trail. And after a lot of work that finally is, as you know, you control that, that property.
So continuing. So I want to thank Scott for working on a concept sketch that Madera provided to us and Dre cleaning it up a little bit. We've used this sketch to obtain construction quotes that are part of our, you'll see that at a very high level. And everything else about it is pretty straightforward. But this is really a concept. It's not a final design. I don't know how much more into design we would get as we go through the CPA process, but that's something to discuss with the CPC after we submit a letter of interest.
And it is hopefully approved for submission Continuing, I just want to cite that the town's ambassador plan from a few years ago on which the board participated talks about the importance of transportation improvements, particularly a multimodal access and public transit walking, biking and ride sharing and open space connectivity and improvements that really kind of marry those together. So that is, to the extent we can encourage sidewalks and bike lanes and bike trails, walking trails, crossing signals and so forth, that's to the better.
And just to highlight there, just within the past couple of weeks, finally, the MVTA station is now connected to the rail trail. And so we can really get, it just makes it easier for the hundreds of people that use the, the trail on a given day to have more, more convenient access. But I think it's worth noting that the accessibility improvements of the MBTA station to serve natick all people in Natick, that's a benefit that should not end just because the town has not seen fit to make this modest infrastructure improvement to make the connection to one of its largest accessible.
Then finally, as population ages, investing in staff and facilities and staff that will give service to residents needs. And that I think is, is only meaningful and that we want to make sure that we are being mindful of the needs for, for people to age in place and to have infrastructure that meets people of all ages and abilities, which, which this would do. So just as an FYI, the, you know, approximate budget we see in, in their neighborhood of 36,000 in change. Fortunately, like we already own events that was donated,
the historical panel was already provided, but we need the design and fabrication of a pedestal to mount it. So some of those are ballparks plantings. This is probably a good point to say that whatever the, where our ask tonight, which I'll get to in a minute, is really just for having our ability to make, use the land that if this is done on your land and on the select board's land, we fully expect to work closely with the ComCom to make sure that any conditions you have about plantings
or you know, land disturbance are fully honored, likewise with other town agencies. So this really is at the conceptual level, but to do that letter of interest, we do need the, your permission to at least, you know, plan for it using the land. Next please. So timeline, you know, concept, the idea goes back many years concept development just in the past couple of years. And we're looking ahead to construction a year from this coming spring. And between now and then there's the CPA process, the proposal submission, and the public hearings that go along
with that review by the committee hearings and approvals, which include time meeting process in the fall and procurement and permitting. We are not certain, I'm, I'm I'm told unlikely to be permitting fees, but you know, the budget could allow for that. I don't think that's gonna be a major expense. And just continuing with a couple more quick slides, this is just where we're at now reviewing with you with select board public works who are supportive with Mill Creek to see whether they can, for example, would love to ask them to handle snow and ice removal in the winter without using any, you know,
salt or chemicals on it. Just because that would take, they're clearing their walkway anyway and we wanna minimize the demands and expectations of public works and then determining who's on the project team other elements in the letter of interest. And then the last slide is just to nail down what we're asking. I sent along a, a template for a letter that would basically say we would we, the Conservation commission approve the use of the land, you know, for this application. We would be grateful if you wanted to be a participant in the project team.
But that's, you know, I recognize, oh, thank you would like, maybe it would make sense for your staff person to do that, but she's got a role to play with the CPA unless that's changed. So I think unfortunately not so yeah. So yeah, maybe just wear one hat at a time, but if a member of the commission were interested, we'd certainly welcome that. And then back to the other slide, please. You, you, you'll notice Mr. Chairman, I did not forge your signature. I would like credit for that. It's out there. Yeah. Okay. And then we would determine what kinds of permits and approvals are needed. But let's say it's next summer, fall, winter, when we come
to a final design, we'd sit down with you or staff and, and ask for your input, but no surprises is a, Speaker 16: When you say request the commission to be a participant in the CPA submission, what does that mean? Speaker 15: So one part of the, part of the team, part of the effort in putting forward a CPA request is who's on the project team. Okay. So we would seek to have anyone that was interested from a relevant town agency, you know, public Works Conservation Commission if a select board member wanted to do that, any anyone who, who saw it,
who could add to that. And then that would include us friends of Native Trails and Scott, and potentially someone from Madera, you know, mill Creek, their parent company. May half a dozen or so, people not making it unwieldy and it's not a public committee where you have to worry about posting meetings, but who exactly is bringing this forward for consideration. But did Speaker 1: I know there were some, some questions that maybe we can revisit or talk about? You Speaker 2: Know, so this is where request to be a part of the project team rather than the lead project Propell. Speaker 15: Yeah. Thank you for that clarification. Speaker 1: That, that that's where I was Speaker 15: Going.
Yes, yes. We understand. 'cause because we did email about this within the past couple of weeks, that it's not your preference to be the, the applicant because this is not something you've normally done. It may set a concerning precedent and is only using like 400 square feet of your land. Right. Give or take. If it was something different or something more ambitious, then perhaps you would be, but it, it, it's really fine. Okay. But I, we're shopping for someone to do it because I don't want it to be the default that an external,
you know, the, the font does it. The font does it. Yeah. However, if that's how it has to be, then you know, we'll go to the board. Yeah. And I do wanna be clear on this proposing this, but I I'm not sitting here saying the friends of data trails have approved Understood. To submit this. So that is Yeah. Just to be clear about that. Okay. Speaker 1: Any questions? Speaker 17: Yeah, that picture, the actual picture you had is open water there. Were you planning on having a walkway? Speaker 15: Well, it's open water meaning snow. Speaker 2: Oh no, I think George is referring to the photo with the puddle in it. You get back
Speaker 15: To, oh, Speaker 17: That one. That's open water. Speaker 2: George, George, I think well below the threshold for isolated land subject to flooding. Speaker 17: No, but I was just thinking construc construction wise, would you want to have a wooden, so Speaker 2: The, the grade will be raised slightly as the the path snakes, but Speaker 17: I just like to give my hard time. Speaker 15: Yes. Mom, George is bothering me. Speaker 1: George acting up again. Speaker 15: No, thank you for asking that question because th this is a very poorly maintained, very,
this is a desire line. This is, you know, that actually some, through a volunteer effort, we laid down some stone dust because it was all just mud before. But by no means is that intended to be like a, a, a solution. It's an interim and the drainage is, is obviously not great, but that's the kind of stuff that we need to make sure fix the topography is working. Yeah, right. I, I wanna make sure that I provide any of my teammates that are here if I've anything needs to be. Speaker 1: Yeah. Any technical questions about it? Mike, you got anything? No, you good?
Great, great proposal, Jim? Nope. Jeff, you good? Speaker 2: Good to go. Speaker 1: Okay. So Speaker 2: I think the language that Josh drafted is, is very committal without being a hundred percent, we are throwing our full selves behind this. No, I Speaker 1: Think it's good. So would you just go back to the ask slide? The, the slide before? Speaker 2: Sorry, they're two separate. Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 2: It'll just take a second to Speaker 15: I think it's the very last page. Speaker 1: Yeah. And so basically it's to permission CPA liaison, I mean, to, to,
to participate in some way in the, in in the process. Speaker 2: Yeah. So the letter at this time is, it says, supports this proposal and will participate in its development and implementation. So not necessarily sign sealed, deliver part of the project team, but I think if the, I think that the commission should be more than willing to commit to involvement on a, I agree. Public recreational infrastructure improvement. Speaker 1: So, so would someone make a motion authorizing me to sign this letter and to give them Thank you George.
Bingo. Is that seconded? Speaker 15: Seconded, seconded. Speaker 1: Thank you Jim. Any further discussion on that? Those in the room? Jeff? Yes. Thank you. Speaker 15: That was hard Speaker 1: Through Speaker 2: The ringer. Keep you for another hour and a half if you guys want to tie with Auburn Street. Speaker 15: I wanna thank my teammates. Yeah, thanks guys. And honestly, if, if there's anything you wanted to add, I don't want to Speaker 1: Think we Alright. A lovely amenity. Speaker 15: Yeah, appreciate it. Let's see what we can do. Super. Thanks for your partnership. Thanks guys. Speaker 1: Appreciate Speaker 15: Your time and if you want to, so we're gonna
indicate that the con com is a participant. We won't say whether it's George or not George. Speaker 1: Not at this point. Speaker 15: We will sort that out. It'll, we have time. We'll be in Speaker 1: Touch. Yeah, we'll be in touch. Alright, Speaker 15: Thank you so much. Thanks guys. Speaker 1: Alright, back to the, so continuation. Let's do the order of conditions for pick pond. Boardwalk. Yes. Is there anyone in the public online? Is there anyone else? Nobody. Okay. So would someone make a motion to close the public hearing on the pick Pond Boardwalk project? Thank you George. So moved. Thank you George. Jeff, as a second on that, any further discussion on that?
Closing the room, Jeff? Yes. Okay. Public hearings closed on that. Yes. Let's talk about the order of conditions. Claire. Speaker 2: Yes. So I, I'm hoping folks will gimme a little bit of grace. The findings of fact on this permit are a little hefty because DEP has a lot of thoughts about trail projects and their requirements to meet all performance standards for resource areas, even when they present a public benefit improvement. I think this project has done a really fantastic job of meeting all the performance standards. But I have written a finding if you just say so yourself.
I have written a findings of fact that will hopefully make it very clear as DEP reviews how the, the commission and, and the town has put this project together. So just the, the summary statement, which is that the commission has determined that the proposed floating, floating boardwalk and trail improvements will not result in the loss of wetland resource areas or significantly alter the wetland functional performance. Wow. Clearly I spent too much time on five Auburn Street, not this one. The Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Regulations. Hold back up for one second. Yes. Significantly
altered the wet the wetlands functional performance. Yep. Okay, thank you. The Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Regulations identify performance standards for work located within state jurisdictional areas. And I have noted all of the jurisdictional areas below. I'm not gonna read the regulations, I'm just gonna read my statements in regards to how the projects meet those performance standards. But starting with Inland Bank, proposed work is designed to limit impacts to the bank. But some activities anticipated include hand removal of nuisance vegetation, vegetation clearing and grubbing,
and the landing construction to connect the stairs to the gangway work. Impacting bank includes landing construction, gangway installation. The landings will result in disturbance mostly through vegetation clearing of the bank, which is proposed to be restored through native tubing, plantings, and restoration seed mix. Some minor soil disturbance may occur during the construction of the landing, but all areas will be restored and re-vegetated. The gangway itself is raised over the bank and will have no direct impact on the bank performance standards. No work will be performed that will decrease the physical stability of the bank. The landing is proposed
to be set slightly back from the bank and the proposed gangway will sit over the bank with no contact. ERO controls proposed along the delineated bank to ensure the areas remain stable and restoration plantings are proposed to ensure stability provided by vegetative cover is reestablished. No work will impact the water carrying capacity of the bank. The landing instruction is designed to ensure there is no loss of water carrying capacity of the bank maintenance activities will have no effect, positive or negative on the ba on will have no effect on the bank's ability to provide groundwater or surface water quality protection.
Erosion control measures are proposed to protect water quality during work. During the work period. Wildlife will be minorly disrupted. Removal of existing vegetation will occur in a small area of bank. However, no long-term adverse impacts to wildlife habitat are anticipated as restoration plantings are proposed to ensure there is no loss of wildlife habitat benefit under final conditions. Yeah, just, Speaker 16: Just go back up to the, the Yes please. The no work. The last sentence of that fourth, the no work will be performed. Bullet, yes. The last sentence there.
So erosion controls are bank to ensure areas remain stable and restoration plantings are proposed to ensure stability, the Speaker 2: Stability provided by vegetative cover is reestablished. Speaker 16: Good. Okay. Speaker 2: Thank you. I really do appreciate the, I feel like I could read this six times and still miss That's fine. The summarizing statement is just all of that in one sentence. Again, I know it's very repetitive, but I'm really trying to hammer home how we're meeting these performance standards and hope everyone can knock on wood that maybe the trail limited project category will get released in the next round of edits. We're now moving into bordering vegetated wetland.
So to start, only minimal work is proposed within the limits of BVW on site and consist this consists of landing construction to connect the stairs to the gangway and the removal of some wetland vegetation. The total area of BVW within the project area is limited to a small section of delineated wetland, upland of the delineated bank due to the slopes of the surrounding area. There's limited BVW in this location and the landscape is primarily characterized by an upland slope leading down to the bank, identifying
as being annual high water limit. Again, DEP brought up concerns about the vegetation removal, but their concerns are related to the in water vegetation removal, which is technically land under water bodies and waterways, not BVW because it is down gradient of the identified bank. The proposed work within the BVW is limited to an impact area of 135 square feet on the northern side of the pond. BVW mapped on the southern edge of the pond is outside the limit of work area restoration plantings, including wetland plants, are proposed within disturbed areas, with the exception
of the area that will fall under the gang plank gangway is what I've been using everywhere else. And the landing location less than 50 square feet. Additional planting areas have been identified within the BVW to ensure one one-to-one restoration of BVW area. Again, that 135 square feet and that 135 square feet is called out in the plan sheet. The hydraulic connection to the adjacent waterway will remain unrestricted. Oh, apologies. I, I skipped down a couple. The proposed impacts to BVW are unavoidable due to the nature of the proposed work. Restoration is proposed within the same horizontal
and vertical extent of the disturbed areas as and restoration of disturbed BVW will occur in the same location as the disturbed BVW restoration. Within disturbed BVW will total 135 square feet to meet the one-to-one restoration requirement. Along with additional restoration plantings and the surrounding upland, the hydraulic connection to the adjacent waterway will remain unrestricted and the disturbed BBW area will be seated with an appropriate seed mixture to ensure dense herbaceous plant cover within two growing seasons with required monitoring and reported noted in the below conditions.
And just noting that all general performance standards will be met again. A similar summarizing statement at the bottom of that one. Finally, land underwater bodies and waterways. Approximately 200 square feet of aquatic and semi-aquatic vegetation is required to be removed from within the LUWW. This impact is unavoidable due to the nature of the proposed work and the project purpose. And due to the significant wetland and land, underwater bodies and waterway areas over 160 acres surrounding the project area, the commission has determined that the proposed work will not result in any loss
of said land to provide important wildlife habitat functions. If the commission agrees with said statement that I've provided, additional work within the LUWW includes the placement of the anchors for the floating boardwalk structure. The shape and small footprint of the proposed anchors means that there's no impact to the water carrying capacity of the channel. The majority of the anchor mass will settle into the sediment of the bottom, at the bottom of the water body. Proposed anchors will not impact the ability of land underwater. I'm just gonna shorten it to provide groundwater
or surface water quality protection and the type of anchor pyramid was selected to minimize any impacts to the ability for the land to provide important wildlife habitat functions, including breeding habitat, escape cover, and food production. So again, if you guys go through the site photos that I provided for the project, there is some vegetation that will have to be removed. There is a condition later that all of that removal work has to occur under the supervision of myself or the landscape architect for the project to ensure that only the necessary vegetation is removed, bordering land subject to flooding.
Thankfully, actually, the identification of our flood elevation at 1 34 0.4 means that all of our proposed work in terms of construction and land disturbance, is outside above that flood elevation. So the only work within the flood elevation is the actual floating boardwalk itself. And because of its design, it is designed to move with changes in water height rather than remain stagnant in one place. So the proposed work within the BLSF area with a base flood elevation of 1 34 0.4 as determined per the regulatory requirements, will not result in the loss
of flood storage and is designed to minimize any obstructions or blockages to flood waters. Compensatory flood storage is not required based on the design of the floating boardwalk gangway and stairs. The proposed landing structure falls above the determined flood zone elevation and the raised gangway will not fall within the a hundred year flood zone. No work is proposed, no work proposed will restrict flows through the identified floodplain and restoration is proposed for disturbed areas which are identified above base flood elevation to ensure no impacts to wildlife habitat and function. And the revised plans that Kyle provided do now show that floodplain elevation
that was determined riverfront area. This one certainly has quite a number of points regarding to it because we are reviewing this project under 10.584, not redevelopment. So if folks read through the narrative, I, I did provide a, a brief alternatives analysis for this project. The, the nice thing is that there aren't many alternatives to exactly what we're proposing. So, and the fact that we had quotes that reviewed a number
of different potential design options and construction types, I think really helped in that process. So the town did explore a number of alternatives for the proposed trail connection, including alternate methods of construction and access points project purposes to construct a recreational connection between two existing trail systems over an open stretch of water. There are no methods of connection between the two trail systems that do not require an open water crossing. Alternate access points to connect the trails results in additional wetlands disturbance over the proposed project. As the open water pond is surrounded almost entirely
by bordering vegetated wetland. The selected project location results in the minimum level of disturbance. Alternate types of connections, traditional peer supported boardwalk and prefabricated boardwalk at the selected crossing location were quoted at significantly increased costs when compared to the floating boardwalk structure and would result in additional disturbance of LUWW due to the number of piers that would be required to span the length of the proposed connection. For the folks in the room who helped out with the island bridge, you know, we're sort of every eight, eight to 10 feet roughly installing a pi.
So for 195 feet of boardwalk, okay, Speaker 17: You could have put two zip lines in one Speaker 2: George. We didn't consider zip lines chairlift. There we go. That might be more disturbance though the quoted costs from the original pricing were included. These increased costs are prohibitive as the project is fully supported by grant funding and appropriated mitigation funds. While the alternate boardwalk styles would also accomplish project purpose, the increased cost and additional wetlands disturbing disturbance associated with construction of alternate types of connection
result in the floating boardwalk being the most financially reasonable and result in the least amount of wetlands impact Alternatives explored were limited to the parcels under the care and custody of the Natick Conservation Commission in the pick pond Sanko area. As the trail systems to be connected are specific to this location, again all of that language is coming right out of the alternatives analysis requirements within the regulations. Scrolling down to the second section for riverfront area, total impacts to RFA are roughly 5,600 square feet. But almost all of these are temporary impacts.
The only permanent impacts to the RFA include the constructed crib, stairs landing, and portions of the gangway. All other riverfront area land disturbed will be restored through native plantings. Vegetative buffers shall be retained to the extent feasible through the erosion control placement and limit retained to the extent thank you and limit of work flagging proposed. Additional plantings shall be installed along with conservation seed mix application to ensure all temporarily impacted areas are restored to a hundred percent vegetative cover. The permanent impacts are only slightly larger than the existing trail pathway, which does not support vegetation
as no impervious area is proposed. No stormwater management infrastructure is proposed beyond best practice for trail construction. Final grading will be such that runoff follows existing drainage patterns and no additional runoff will be generated as a result of the proposed work. Gravel and stone dust used for stair construction will be permeable. No binders proposed and will allow for storm water that falls on the stairs to infiltrate and place vegetation along either side of the proposed stairs will reduce erosion potential under final conditions. The proposed work does not impair wildlife habitat functions of the riverfront areas as all areas surrounding the new trail connection will be restored
with native buffer zone and wetland vegetation. And finally, erosion controls are proposed around all areas of disturbance and shall be inspected on a regular basis. And then I include a rather token paragraph about the buffer zone, which doesn't have any direct performance standards, but just noting that the commission has determined that the work within the 25 foot no disturbed zone does propose a benefit through the, the creation of the new trail connection. Super. I'm just gonna scroll through our, I did note that the Inland bank should also be flagged along
with the wetland prior to work starting just because inland bank is the primary resource area that, that we're gonna be dealing with prior to the commencement of the RO control installation. A site walk shall be scheduled with this elected contractor and the conservation agent to locate the limit of work in the field and mark it in such a manner that it is clearly visible. This walk can also be used to mark out areas of vegetation removal final method and means for site access. Equipment parking and boardwalk launching shall be provided by the selected contractor to the conservation agent for review and approval. Any material revisions
to the approved plans may require an amended order of conditions prior to the start of work. I have included tree protection in what's to be reviewed at the pre-construction site visit. I have struck the snow removal condition. I have added that the removal of aquatic vegetation within the land, underwater bodies and waterways resource area shall be coordinated with the conservation agent to ensure work is appropriately supervised. Only vegetation required for the installation of the gangway and boardwalk sections is approved for removal. Removal shall occur through the cutting of vegetation and hand removal of cut material and any sediment above the water surface.
So noting that we're not taking anything more than we need to, 29, which is the installation of landscape and restoration plans, as shown on the approved plans, shall occur under the supervision of the agent or landscape architect associated with the project to ensure the one-to-one restoration of areas within the de delineated bordering vegetated wetland. I've proposed to strike three conditions from our after construction related to a certificate of occupancy which would not apply, and then the marking of the, the site as it is all owned by the commission.
I imagine that no one is gonna be, I I would hope nobody is gonna be, we don't need performing more. Don't placards. Exactly. This is the one thing that I did wanna talk about with the commission in terms of closeout procedures to be absolutely frank, the project did not budget for an as-built plan and that is a hindsight is 2020 moment. So we can use the conservation budget to complete an as-built plan, especially if we get the increased budget that has been requested from town meeting or if the commission is comfortable with it, cite photos, documenting, documenting the final conditions can be provided. I think
Speaker 1: That's fine Speaker 2: Along with a statement specifically from the registered landscape architect regarding compliance. 'cause we, we have not had a professional engineer involved in the project, but I wanted to make sure the commission was comfortable with that. Speaker 1: Yep, I think that's fine. Good. Are you good with that, Mike? Yeah. Okay. Yep. Speaker 2: And that's it. I did, I I did strike the perpetual condition related to markers to reflect that those earlier conditions were also struck that the commission is comfortable, this is the order that has been drafted. Speaker 6: Cool. So in the wintertime, the intent is not to, we
Speaker 2: Do not do any snow Speaker 6: Removal. Snow some, yeah. I'm just curious what, what happens to the freeze in place? Yeah, Speaker 2: So it it's designed to freeze in place. It's okay, good. They leave the one in Marlborough on Lake Williams in place all winter long. Okay. Though, because of the length and the issues that they found in the past, they do raise the gangways in the winter to prevent access. Okay. The one in Franklin remains open year round. I think that the commission could make a determination on a, on an annual basis on what seems appropriate. Speaker 1: Think the Marlboro is so long. Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's also a much deeper water
body that they're in. So I think that it could be determined by the commission, you know, if it's a particularly icy or and we're concerned or if we have had experiences of folks Right. Yeah. Throwing things off the boardwalk. We could, we could consider that. Absolutely. The great thing is it's our infrastructure, so we you can do we set the rules. Speaker 1: Cool. Okay. Alright. Any questions? Nope. Some motion issue. This order of conditions. Motion issue. Thank you, Jim. Is that seconded? Thank you George. Discussion. Those in favor, Jeff? Speaker 10: Yes. Speaker 1: Thank you. Alright. Minutes. September 11th.
Jeff, did you have a chance to go through those? Speaker 10: Yeah, I, I I did not. I was all, I was committed all day Speaker 1: Today. Let's, let's punt those to our next one. Speaker 10: Sorry. Speaker 1: No, that's fine. All good. Beaver Solutions annual maintenance invoice from our Trails maintenance account 1392. This is just the annual maintenance. They'll go out and check it and yeah, so that the Speaker 2: Invoice itself is in the invoices folder in the drive if folks would like to look at it. But it's essentially we get charged for the maintenance of the four structures that we have in place with Beaver Solutions. We do get a discount because we have four installations with them.
They did include some notes in this year's maintenance report, which is at the countryside. Fencing is likely gonna need some repairs this year. The cost of those repairs is covered under this main annual maintenance plan plan that we would be paying for. And they did note that the Oak Street flow leveler is working quite well since the multi inlet established. And if folks drive up Oak Street, you can see that open water on the Jennings Pond side, which is the number one indication that things are still working the way that they should be. Okay, Speaker 1: Great. Someone make a motion to approve the invoice for 13 $1,392 from the Trails maintenance
account to pay Beaver Solutions. So thank you George. Is that seconded? Second. Thank you Mike. Further discussion? Those in favor, Jeff? Speaker 10: Yes. Speaker 1: We've got Trails and Forest Stewardship Committee. Reappointments. Do we like Doug Renick? I think Speaker 2: So. Neither Doug or David here tonight, but are both requesting reappointment. Speaker 1: How about, how about Doug and not date? No, I like David too. Yeah, he's excellent. Okay, so we'll make a motion to reappoint Doug and David to the Trails and Ford Stewardship Committee. So moved. Thank you Mike. Seconded by Jim. Seconded further discussion. Those in favor, Jeff?
Yes. Thank you sir. Yes. Speaker 2: And I did realize there's one general business that ended up on the annotated agenda that I had intended to remove. It's removed from the posted agenda. We don't have any letters of support to discuss tonight. Speaker 1: We're done. Awesome. Speaker 2: I just wanna give folks one last, last reminder. It's last week to register for a EC. If you're interested, just gimme a shout annual environmental conference for MACC. Speaker 1: And would, what are Speaker 10: The dates? That's Speaker 1: Out at Holy Cross. It's, Speaker 2: Yeah, it's out at Holy Cross and the conferences is Saturday the 28th. So not this Saturday, but the following Saturday. Cool. Speaker 1: We'll be there Speaker 2: As will I. Are you?
Speaker 1: Of Speaker 2: Course. Mike's Speaker 1: Always there. Come by the table. Excellent folks. Thank you. You know the five Auburn Street, we got through it. Yeah. Very grateful for you guys. You know this. It's hairy. You know this hairy one. Jim did it. Way to go. Jim, are we adjourned now? Speaker 2: Well, no, we need to take that motion vote and then I will turn everything off. Alright. Speaker 1: So make a motion to adjourn. Thank you, George. That's seconded. Seconded. Thank you Jim. All those in favor, Jeff? Thank you buddy. Yes. Okay, now you turned it off.