Speaker 1: All right. Welcome everybody. We're getting used to this new technology in here and figuring out where to look when this is the N Conservation Commission. Happy New Year to everybody. January 15th. This is our one meeting in January. Our next meeting will be the first Thursday in February, which is February five. Yes. Okay. So first item on the agenda is of, is a certificate of compliance for Seven Lantern Lane. Claire, you indicated you did a final site walk on the in December. Yes. Everything appears to be buttoned up. Yes. Speaker 2: And we do have the property owner on if there are any questions for the commission, but if folks recall this was a
minor edition project adjacent to the, the Charles River down on Lantern Lane. The site is fully stabilized. Grass has grown back in, as built, has been received, as well as the request for certificate of compliance form. And all of the project conditions have been met and complied with. Speaker 1: Do we have a letter or the language that indicates from the engineer that indicates things were built in compliance? I don't see it in the folder. Speaker 2: It was on the, Oh, nope. This one did not include it on the as-built plan.
Yeah, that is my apologies. I will get the letter. If the commission is comfortable issuing it, I'm happy to reach out to the engineering firm and get that statement as we did request that. And I do, Philip, I know you're online here. Yeah. So a accompanying the as-built plan should have been a statement of certification, and that, that was my apologies for not catching that, that was not submitted. I can reach out to would the appropriate person to reach out to be, I'm sorry, I just need to remember Michael. Speaker 3: Yeah, Michael. Okay.
Michael can spearhead that and I'll make sure that, you know, I'll, I'll reach out to Michael and the engineer as well, just to get, make sure people are focused on it. Speaker 2: Yeah, I know everything was coming in during the holiday season, so I, I know that that definitely puts a twist on things. Speaker 1: Yeah. So long as, so long as we get that in the file and as so long as it, Speaker 2: And I can wait to issue the COC until I have that letter in hand if the commission is comfortable with Speaker 1: That. Yeah. Why don't we, why don't we do that? I mean, but, but if we take a vote this evening, we are issuing the COC. Speaker 2: Yes. Well, we have 21 days to issue the COC. Speaker 1: So 21 days to get the letter in hand. Yes.
For the paperwork. Yes. Okay. Okay. Are people comfortable with, with voting, I mean, it looks like a relatively straightforward project. Sites buttoned up works complete, Speaker 2: And we do have the stamped as-built plan, so stamped Speaker 1: As-built plan. Are you guys comfortable with, with us voting to issue the CFC assuming that, that we get that letter in hand from the, from the engineer? Yes. Yes. All right. Hearing that, so we'll make a motion then to issue the certificate of compliance for seven Lantern Lane. Motion to issue. Thanks, Jim. Seconded. Second. Thank you, George. Any further discussion on that? Those in those in the room, David? Yes. Excellent. All right. Done. Thank you, Phil.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I appreciate everyone, and we'll get that letter to you as soon as Speaker 1: Possible. Sounds good. All right. Next set on the agenda. Okay. Have a good evening. Speaker 3: Thank you. Speaker 1: Bye. Next, next item on the agenda, five Auburn Street. Welcome back, guys. Hello. Happy New Year. Yeah. Alright, so we've, you know, we're just kind of continuing, continuing the discussion. We'd love to hear any kind of updates from, from your side. I understand you got a couple of slides that you wanna show if, if, if that's right. Yes. Speaker 4: Yes. We have a, a few slides and I, Dave Eken, our consultant is here, and I think he's gonna screen share to get them up.
And hello again. I think you know me. My name is Sharon Small, I'm the director of real estate at Metro West. I'm here with Dana Ello, our civil engineer, and we also have Chelsea Gayler here with us in the room. And a few folks on Zoom, I'll just run through. We have Brad Holmes, our wetlands expert on Zoom, or we should, we've got Mark Tcio, our attorney, Rebecca Beand, or Landscape Architect, Dave Bacon, our development consultant. And Metro West does have a new executive director, Barney Heath, as of this week. And I think he may also have just hopped on to listen in. So, great. He's here on this.
Speaker 1: Sounds good. Why don't you take it away and then we'll kind of, you know, address some of the loose ends that we've still got out there. Speaker 4: Great. Okay, thanks. So these are just a few slides of Dave. You can go to the next slide. We're keeping the development primer up. I think everyone knows the development. 32 units and two buildings, all affordable development, including the historic preservation of the school. We're putting in some storm water management, the invasive species man management, site improvements. And now we're also talking about doing this adjacent offsite storm water management in Auburn Street that we talked about at the last hearing.
So we have a couple short slides with updates just to go into a few of these. Dave, if you could go to the next one. So some, some, some updates from the last hearing. So we had forgotten a request to just add some detail about the yearly vegetation management plan, terms of what, what's done when. So we have submitted a slightly updated vegetation management plan and Brad's on the zoom to go into that more in detail. We also had a request to provide more detail on the landscape plan. So we submitted an updated landscape planting plan. We also promised at the last hearing to provide some more detail on the stormwater
mitigation in Auburn Street. We submitted that as well. And keeping on the agenda as the continued discussion about the duration of mitigation. So we have a couple slides on each of these, but that's the overview. So if we can go to the next slide. This is very hard to read, but hopefully folks on the commission at least have in their folders, they may not have had time to look at it, the updates to the vegetation management plan, just to add some more detail about what's done when throughout the year. And I'm gonna pause there, and like I said, Brad should be on the Zoom if folks have
questions about that or wanna go through that in more detail. Speaker 2: And, and just to note, the slides that are being presented now, as well as the updated vegetation management plan are in the Google Drive folder for the project accessible both to the commission and the public. Speaker 5: Very good evening, members of commission, Brad Holmes with ECR. I'll just brief what we've added to the vegetation management plan with some more detail on the timeline. The, as you know, we have a five year proposed, five year management detailed in this vegetation management plan. And we brought, provided some more detail about the timing
and, and monitoring and reporting with the five-year plan can certainly go into each detail, but that's, that's what we've added to beef up what we had before. Speaker 1: Would you mind giving us an overview of just, you know, a greatest hit, some highlights from this in terms of Sure. The changes or additions that's been made since the previous version, Speaker 5: There really haven't been any changes. It's been additions. So year one is the, is the, is the big year, right? That's the year that the knot weed and then invasives are treated, identified, treated
with herbicide cut and removed. And then year two, now we're into really the, the maintenance phase. Year two, there'll be some ongoing management. There'll be some of the growth that needs to be retouched with herbicide. And that is detailed there. Timing when, when, when the seeding would be done in the spring, you know, fall review to, to add the plantings a report. And then year three through five is fairly similar because, you know, at that point we're hopefully have the
invasives under control and it's, and you know, it's, it's more of maintenance activity, kind of scouting for pests, removing pests, following the approved methodology, you know, touching up any areas that need some spot receding replacement of dead plants, if any. And then submit a report, you know, as we go to year four and year five, they'll hopefully be less replacement of plantings and spot receding and removal of invasives so that, you know,
at year five we're probably at like 99.5% control and the, you know, ongoing management will, will achieve the a hundred percent. That's, that's the goal. So I won't go through each detail and read 'em off unless you'd like to, but that's the, the greatest hits of the management plan. Speaker 1: Great, thank you. Brad. Any questions from the commission on this topic Here? Speaker 6: I have one Speaker 1: Please. David. Speaker 6: Yeah, in each of the, I just want to confirm that in each of the five years, if and when the knotweed resurfaces, you will
hit it again, you know, the cut and cut and swipe or whatever it's called during the entire five year period, you aggressively monitor and treat during that time timeframe, correct? Speaker 5: That's correct. So after, you know, after the, you say year three onward, the knotweed that would be anticipated to reoccur would be new shoots. So hopefully those would be able to be hand pulled and placed in trash bags and disposed of if there's, if they couldn't be hand pulled, they would be treated with herbicide following the methodology.
Right. But it's really just some colonizing shoots that would be coming up beyond that initial event. Speaker 6: And then I had a sep separate question on the same topic, but in the, in the agenda for Jennifer today, under the staff notes from 11 six meeting the, we asked, the staff asked, have any conversations been had with the budding property owners regarding management of not weed on adjacent partners par parcels to limit future potential impacts to the mitigation area?
Your answer is that vegetation management is not proposed on a budding properties. Is does that mean you guys are not proposing to manage other properties, which I understand, or is it, does that mean that you spoke to the neighbors and they are not going to do any management themselves? Speaker 5: I myself haven't spoken to, to neighbors. I think there were some that were on the, the meeting when we had a zoom before, nobody has reached out to us to inquire about, you know, could they do that on their properties. Speaker 6: I, I think what we're suggesting, David, Speaker 2: We reach out, jump in. So that was, the applicant has not reached out
to the neighbors and are not currently proposing any management on a budding properties. Speaker 4: I could say we do, you know, we have had conversations with some of the neighbors. If the Conservation commission was asking us just to give them information about any actions on their properties or anything like that, then we could certainly do that kind of thing. I don't if well, Speaker 2: You're not proposing any actions on their, but Speaker 4: We're not proposing actions on their properties. Yeah. Speaker 6: Okay. Speaker 1: So Brad, a question to you, the, my a fundamental concern that I have is around the proposed
sunset of management of knotweed on the site for, for the mitigation area. You know, based on your experience, if you have a parcel that has not weed on either side of it and there is no, and a and then a parcel in the middle that has no knotweed or where, where where the knotweed has been, has been treated, how long would it take for that knotweed to come to encroach back from the abutting properties onto the site? Speaker 5: Well, the knotweed loves disturbed soil, so you know, any area that has bare soil
and has the opportunity to allow for knotweed is gonna be attractive to knotweed. So that would be, there would be a quicker growth of knotweed if we had bare areas, our proposal, you know, after the knotweed is treated, we're gonna be revegetating. So the, the goal would be that we have full vegetative cover so that it's not as attractive to have a regrowth of not weed. There will be encroaching or new shoots over time that will try to get in.
And if it, if it's left for an extended period of time, not weed will get reestablished. Will it get as dense it is as it is now? No, because the intent would be that the other areas are, are, are vegetated with native species so that it wouldn't have the ability to be as dense. But that's, that's a concern and that's part of the management plan is the scouting and the removal of the, any of the new growth that comes in. Speaker 1: But that management and scouting of the new growth is under what's currently proposed is limited to five years. Correct?
Speaker 5: Correct. Okay. Speaker 1: Other questions? Okay, we are waiting for the additional detail on the stormwater, the engineer drawings for the stormwater. Speaker 2: So there, there is a slide that's been prepared. Dana has submitted preliminary plans that are being gone over by the engineering division. I think Bill McDowell was able to provide you some initial, had a couple of questions he did, but we have not received final stamped materials associated with the additional mitigation. Speaker 7: That's correct. We wanted to make sure that the, you know, what we had submitted so far worked for the, for bill and, you know, and for the, the commission. Okay.
Speaker 1: Why don't we go through that? Sure. Speaker 7: That's, so this, this slide, Dave kind of walked through it briefly in my absence at the last hearing, but in the meantime I've kind of looked at it a little more closely. I've identified a limit of, excuse me, a limit of pavement where there's high points out on Elliot Street and that's kind of all pitching towards Auburn Street. I've, I've, yeah, terminated the, the calculation area at the, the limit of the right of way. You know, some of those driveways may be contributing additional, but I didn't include that. I just kind of cut it off at the, the right of way.
So if we look at that, that's a total of 14,500 square feet, plus or minus of untreated pavement that that is currently contributing storm water that flows directly into the, the Charles River, excuse me. The, there's no pretreatment, there's no hooded catch basins. I'm not even sure they're deep sump. So right now there's really very little treatment coming down there. What we're proposing is to incorporate a new first defense water quality unit just beyond the limit of pavement at the bottom of Auburn Street.
It's actually been set up so that there's a little bit of a low point away from the edge of pavement. So water kind of flows backwards from the edge of pavement towards the two last catch basins on Auburn Street. What we've done is proposed some Cape Cod berm there. So it's, it's mountable, it, it, you know, it, it shouldn't interfere with plowing, but it will keep water. You know, it'll make sure that that water is going back to towards those catch basins. We're also proposing a slight raising of the, the corner closest to the flagpole there, just to bring it up a little bit to make sure we have a good positive pitch towards that, that closest catch basin.
This will make sure that we capture all of the, the runoff from Auburn Street and this will direct it into the proposed first offense, four HC water quality unit that will be installed just off the, the edge of pavement at the end of Auburn Street. This will provide total suspended solids removal there, they've been evaluated by the New Jersey DOT to provide a minimum of 50% TSS removal. It, you know, depending on the flow into it, it probably provides greater than that. But at a very minimum, they've been certified to provide a,
a minimum of 50% total suspended solids removal for, for still and water. So we went through and just looked at the sizing to make sure we had the right unit in there. So that's kind of that calculation on the, the bottom right there. That kind of goes through the, the proposed area that, that's contributing to it. I went a little bit higher. I had the 14,910 square feet that included a little bit of driveway, just so it's gonna be a little bit oversized just to make sure we're actually accounting for everything that, that's going into the, the system itself, excuse me,
with the, the 14,910 square feet. The maximum or the, the, the proposed flow rate will be 0.41 CFS and the flow rate that, that the first defense four HC can handle is 1.5 CFS and a maximum flow rate of 18 CFS. So we're well into that. It'll provide approximately 1,243 cubic feet of, of water quality volume as a result of this installation and this system being incorporated. So it basically, it, it'll treat the, the storm right now there's no treatment for the stormwater.
It'll, it'll provide 50% at a minimum 50% TSS removal and it also incorporates a fairly substantial volume of oil storage capacity. It's 191 gallons for this model. So any, you know, if any gas tank or any oil hydro hydraulic fluids end up in the roadway and end up in the system, it'll be able to separate that from the, the water that's leaving the system and then that can easily be removed. This has been re reviewed by Bill McDowell. He's used similar type units throughout the town.
He's not specifically f familiar with the, the first defense unit, but they're all very similar and it does it, it's easily clean with a, a vector truck, which he indicated that the, the town does have. So that's something that he would be able to work with. He, as far as I know, he seems comfortable with it. He just asked one question of, of what the internal workings are made of just confirming it was plastic. I, I did confirm that to him. I did reach out to the manufacturer just to get some more information on that. I haven't received that yet, but they did indicate it was a good sturdy injection molded plastic that, you know, is it, it'll stand up.
I I haven't heard of any issues with it. We've been using it for many years now, so they seem to work very well. Towns seem to like them. They're easy to maintain. So it's, it seems like a, a good fit for something like this. Speaker 1: So. Well, Speaker 8: Where, where's the outfall? Speaker 7: The outfall is where it currently is. So if you, if you, if you look at the flagpole and go straight up from there, you can Speaker 9: Update the best Speaker 7: Yeah. Color Speaker 9: Is trying to sort of draw a line there right down you here. Correct. Speaker 7: That's where the, the water quality unit is, I believe.
Oh. And then if you go to the right of that, there's the outfall, it's almost directly above the, the flagpole. So it's kind of a triangle. Speaker 2: I'm just gonna stand up and do a quick little finger point here. So this is the proposed water quality Defense unit. This is the outlet pipe. So the current outlet sits approximately just inside that 25 foot no disturb zone. That's where the existing outlet pipe is located. Speaker 8: It just flows down the bank. Yep, Speaker 7: That's correct. Speaker 1: So I think it, I certainly appreciate the, the added, the added mitigation. I'm a little ha have you, have you worked on a project
before where asphalt covered area square footage is counted as part of mitigation? I'm skeptical of the math. Yeah. Around this, you know, that it's, I mean it's asphalt and it stays asphalt Sure. That it's, so to counter it as, as part of the mitigation area feels generous to me. I mean I, you know, granted adding this is additional, I would argue is additional mitigation. That's off site of your parcel. I get that. Yeah. The math feels a little funny to me.
Speaker 7: I guess if you look at it, you know, so we have used it in, I can think of at least one other project in, in Hanover. We had an existing Speaker 1: Where it was accepted as mitigation. Speaker 7: Yes. It was, I'm trying to think the exact, it's been a few years. But basically it was a, a similar situation, riverfront area, developing a new industrial building. It's an old industrial site, so there's a lot that could use cleaning up. So they, they allowed us to treat some, some parking lot, which we didn't have to as far away in the, a different part of the site. We, we weren't affecting it, but they allowed us to treat
that stormwater, the, the stormwater from that portion of the parking lot. And that counted towards, you know, because, you know, if you think about, you know, what could happen, what could damage the resource areas that's on the pavement typically, and it's flowing in, that's where, you know, that's where the trucks are parked. That's where, in this case it was an industrial use, that's where they store materials. Sure. There was a lot of stuff going on there. So we surrounded it again, with, with curbing just to make sure that it was contained. It always ended up in the system that we were proposing and that allowed anything that was happening in that area.
Now it was contained and it was something that could be, if, if a spill happened, it could be cleaned up and it, whereas before then they have had spills happen. It just flows right into the wetland Speaker 1: Research. I certainly get the mitigating benefits and that it, it, it is an improvement, no doubt about it. But if the law says, you know, you gotta be two to one square footage, for example. Sure. You know, just hypothetically to be able to then say, you know, this whole parking lot now counts as mitigated area because in what you're, the project that you're actually doing to mitigated is 20 square feet. You know, I mean it's, it just, I mean I've, I've,
I haven't seen in 20 something years on the commission of, you know, we've never had a project where area that remained paved was counted as mitigated. You know, never say never, you know, yeah. See all kinds of new stuff all the time. But anyway, you know, if, if you had any documentation on that handover project, I'd be curious to see that. Just to understand that better and to see how it was formulated there. Speaker 2: Dana, just doing some digging while you were speaking, was this the university sports complex project in Hanover? Speaker 7: No, it was SRC medical. SRC medical. I'm trying to think.
We, the university sports was a large, Speaker 2: I was just looking at the Merrill Engineering project catalog. I was seeing if I could pull up any additional information about it. Speaker 1: It's pretty good. You're on it. Speaker 2: That's the, the benefit of me not driving the presentation means I can do all sorts of, Speaker 7: I can, I can see how we, we summarized it. It was one of, it was a similar situation where we were trying to come up with ways to provide mitigation and that was one of the, that was one of the, we also created a, a meadow habitat area and a couple other things. But one of them, one of them specifically was on the backside of the building, there was some,
some stormwater management that was proposed there that kind of, it cleaned up some, some invasives I think actually. And then it also provided the, the stormwater mitigation for that. Okay. That area. Speaker 1: Yeah, please. You wanna come up to the microphone so we can hear you Mark. Speaker 10: I think this might be helpful. Mark Arnold with our, So Mark Arnold with Goddard Consulting, I just said, I, I think this might be helpful for the applicant is actually it's under 10 58 5G. There is this, there on the regulations do state that when the, the applicant can proposed mitigation and,
and it says basically, or an equivalent level of environmental protection where square footage is not a relative measure. And we've used this in towns where we need provided stormwater mitigation where you can't measure the square footage impact that stormwater treatment provides to benefit a wetland resource area. And so there's a, there's, there's a, there's a discretionary level there of an improvement of a stormwater measure that it's hard to, you can't always quantify it, but it is an ex, it is an environmental measure that actually can be more valuable than converting on
to restoration area or something else. So the regulations do say that you can do that, even if square footage isn't necessarily a relative measure to that. So under redevelopment it is allowed for mitigation. And we've used that before, so I figured that might be useful for Fair. Speaker 1: Appreciate that. Speaker 10: This question is, there actually is, I believe it is there. So hopefully Speaker 1: It's helpful. Thanks. Other questions from the commission on what's in front of us here? Speaker 11: I guess for me it's just the devil in the details. You know, what is the existing vegetation there? How much is gonna be disturbed?
We just talked about the opportunity for Japanese knot weed to explore into areas that are disturbed. How is, you know, how are we assuring that what this mitigation doesn't exacerbate already problematic situation, just eyeballing it. It looks like it's proposed to be within 75 feet of the Charles River. Am I, am I off on that or somewhat close or Speaker 1: What's gonna be within 75 feet, Mike? This Speaker 11: Proposed first defense? Mm,
Speaker 2: It is within the inner a hundred feet of the riverfront area. Yes. Speaker 11: You know, so, you know, I think some of this is around what are we looking at ex you know, right now I know where the pavement ends proposed. First offense does not appear to be in pavement. Am I, am I on the right track there? Speaker 7: That's correct, yes. Okay. It's so it's, it's collecting all of the pavement and it's down, down gradient downstream of it. So it makes sure we, we can treat all of that from off. Speaker 11: Sure. So yeah, I think it's about process of, you know, we're having a structure constructed
inside a hundred feet. I would argue it's 75 feet pretty close. Are we losing tree cover there? Are we, you know, so are we, are we kind of horse trading here with mitigation? So are we removing native vegetation for 14,000 square feet? Are we, you know, are we creating opportunity to, you know, the benefits of what you're proposing? I obviously see and I recognize and I support, but I think I also don't want to see more disturbance
in an area that is currently, we're trying to protect Speaker 7: Mr. Chair if I can. So the erosion control in that area is set on the existing tree line. So we haven't adjusted the, the erosion control very much. We, we did go a little bit closer to the, the shagos just to make sure we have enough firm around it, but we're maintaining the existing tree line with that erosion control line. So we shouldn't be altering or disturbing any vegetation that's there. It's, it's just a, a cleared area currently. And may, I think there may be a little bit of grass and weeds and things like that down there. I think the, the ri mow it,
but I don't, I don't think it's anything developed or habitat or anything like that. Speaker 1: Other questions, I, I'm just gonna come back to what I was asking about earlier. I mean, I, I remain unconvinced around the time boundaries on the management of the invasive stuff. You know, I mean, for me it feels just knowing not weed, seeing it how quickly it grows. That even a 99.9% eradication that's maintained for five years within a couple of years, a few years
after that stops, it's gonna come right back. And 10 years out, we would have a, what was mitigated would no longer be mitigated. And for me, mitigation has always been, you know, there, yes, there is a clause in there that says, you know, three years or five years. But that's to make sure that what is intended to be a permanent mitigation is, has survived, has is growing strongly. I mean, the analogy that I use is that it's kind of like us, you know, us committing to mow the lawn for a few years
and then stop mowing the lawn because that's what it is. I mean, we're in the, we're in the knotweed farming business now. You know, it's, and I, I, as you know, and with that being the primary proposed mitigation that's being proposed, you know, will get a temporary benefit. And that just, that doesn't fly for me. You know, it just doesn't, the point of mitigation is to, is to introduce a permanent surviving benefit to offset the impacts that are happening in the river fund area.
And this is not permanent. And so I just can't, IIII can't get behind that. As in, as a matter of principle. I mean, that's not the way the law was written. That's not what the intention was, is to have something that's a fleeting, a fleeting benefit to the community, to the, to the site that'll then be left, left to go back to how it was before. I mean, if, if, you know, if there was a commitment to manage it in perpetuity and to have this just be part of the o and m and the way that the bylaws written is that it, it can be just folded into the, into the o and m and,
but it's something that has to be done. I mean, o and m has to be managed. I'd be a lot more open to it. But the fact, you know, I mean we're kind of at loggerheads here and, and I understand why. I mean, it's, it's a maintenance, it's a maintenance thing, it's a cost and all of that. But if that is the primary way that we're mitigating the impact, then we got then I, and, and, and there's and there's not a willingness for maybe understandable reasons, business model wise or whatever to, to do that in perpetuity. Then we gotta find other mitigation, something that's really permanent there. 'cause I just don't think, I just don't think that, Speaker 5: If I may add, yes, the Brad Holmes here
speak on behalf of the vegetation management plan. If we were only proposing the eradication of the knotweed and that was it, and then the, and then letting it stand and then leaving it, would it go back to where it is now eventually or likely. But we're not just proposing eradication of knotweed, we're proposing once it's, once it's eradicated, there's a full revegetation effort with native plants and seed mixes so that you have a native plant community.
What we're talking about is a colonizing ch of knotweed that could enter the area to be managed. That occurs everywhere, whether it's, you know, pre knotweed or any other property you have the, the, the potential for invasives to get into an area. So I don't, I don't think it's something that we're just that, that it's just a knot wheat and we walk away, it's gonna be vegetated with a native plant community and in any area, any property will need, you know,
ongoing maintenance and monitoring as we have talked about. Speaker 1: Well ongoing mean, the way that it's currently framed though, Brad, is that at the, you know, the ongoing maintenance sunsets after five years, I mean once you know one, once, the way that we typically set these up is that the three to five year survival clause really is just to make sure everything takes and it's gonna grow. But the knotweed management itself mean if you could show me, you know, empirical data that not weed, that that vegetation, that the vegetation
that you're proposing will outcompete not weed over the long term, then I'm happy to see that and can be can and can be convinced otherwise. But you see not weed just kind of penetrating everywhere and it's not, and it's not just disturbed soils. I mean, you see it certainly lawns, you know, and, and other places where you just see this stuff come up in all kinds of places. Flower beds. I mean, it, it, it's very invasive. And so, I mean, if you have, if you have data and I'm, I'm, I'm not trying to be flip here, but, but if you have data that that shows that it,
it'll out compete that that, that the native plantings will outcompete the knotweed, you know, I'd be interested to see that. It may reduce my skepticism a bit, but right now I'm wholly unconvinced that managing knotweed for five years and then knot managing knotweed will not res I'm, I'm, I'm not convinced that it won't, I'm getting all my tenses or whatever screwed up here. Quadruple negative. I'm not sure. I'm not sure it'll work. I mean, I, I think knotweed will come back and it will come back fairly quickly. And the mitigation that's been, that's been sweated over
and maintained for five years will, will, will be lost. And so I'd need to see some data to be convinced otherwise for me to get behind this, this as the, as the primary mitigation effort, you know, the community, the, the Charles, the site, you know, deserves mitigation that will last in perpetuity and will be there for the long term. That's why we're doing it. It's a, you know, it's a challenging site and for all the reasons we've talked about. Speaker 4: If, if I may I have a question. Yeah. You know, I think one of the reasons we've been, you know, we've stuck so far to the three to five years is
that we have our consultant team and, and that's kind of what they've done and all. And that they see as the standard and what they've done in a lot of sites. And none of them have ever seen a requirement for perpetual, you know, ongoing action of, of the kind you're asking, although I recognize why you're asking it. So we were just wondering, is there a point that you see that's meaningful beyond five years? Like is there a point between five years and forever that's meaningful to you? And maybe the answer is no, but I I think we wanted to kind of pose that question as part of the conversation.
Speaker 1: So long as there is not a comprehensive effort to mitigate not weed over a fairly wide radius from this site, I, the answer is no. But, you know, I don't think there's a, you know, it will come back and that, that's why I, you've been hearing skepticism from me for a while around the knotweed invasives management as being the primary mitigation activity on this site is 'cause I know how hard it is to manage that. And we, we see it all the time all across town sites
where it just, you know, it's, it's a beast. I mean, it just, it's very hard to eradicate. It takes long-term management and if you have a limited 50 yard wide or whatever the dimensions is site that's got knotweed on both sides, it will be very quick to come back in. And then that's why, you know, I think it's, it's having that as, you know, outside of a perpetual maintenance requirement. You know, that's why I think this is, you know, that, that, that's putting a lot of the eggs in, in a basket. That's hard. It, it's difficult. Speaker 2: Matt, could I make a quick, so I think that,
and please feel free to correct me all the commission if, if I'm going a little off base here, I don't necessarily think the commission is looking for the detail and and level of management that's currently being proposed. I think what they're looking for is an annual inspection requirement and spot treatment as needed to again, ensure that that mitigated area is remaining in its mitigated state, which is part of the language of the regulations is in ensuring that that mitigation area remains in its mitigated state. I I I would agree that I think that the fact that there are abutting not weed populations
and the fact that this is on the Charles River, which is a, a large water body that carries a large seed bank with it, the, the knotweed will continue to be a problem, even if it's a minor problem. But if it's not managed when it's a minor problem, it will return to being a major problem. Speaker 1: And, and, and maybe that's, that's, I mean, for your purposes, you know, I think Claire is right. I mean that having it be part of the annual inspection and then treatment on an as needed basis might be, it certainly wouldn't be as heavy a lift as the orig
as the initial effort. Certainly not. But I think for this to, to hold and to may stay in its mitigated state, there's gotta be something like that, you know, some kind of commitment, some kind of, you know, teeth that says this, you know, this has to be done in order for the town and the resource area to get the benefits of the mitigation that you're proposing over the long term. Speaker 11: I mean, there's also a substantial area of mitigation that is behind a building that is going to see large amounts
of human impact and like the idea that this vegetation might become established, but in the long term is that system that is constructed there is mitigation behind the building with foot traffic, dogs, whatever going to withstand the population that is currently is being proposed for this development. And you know, I know how much I know in my yard where there's five people
that live in the house and a couple of dogs and we tear the crap outta the backyard with just five people. So, you know, it is just, I'm trying to wrap my head around some of the points around mitigation and this idea that we're supposed to be doing something to in inherently improve the riverfront because inherently there's a large structure being proposed in the riverfront. And you know, as I've said and stated previously, I, some of the math just isn't working for me.
And I appreciate other brains coming up with this idea that, you know, square footage doesn't necessarily need to be exact and and so forth. And I respect that it's just, you know, this is also the Charles River and is, is structurally the foundation to this town and it's an important resource, not just because it's a river, but it's culturally important to this town's inherent foundation. And I think we need to do better, especially for any type of work within this
area in the riverfront. Speaker 2: To Mike's point about the mitigation area behind the building, I know you guys do have a slide prepared about that area as well along with Rebecca on the call. I don't know if now would be an appropriate time to Sure. Dive into that so we can really round out the mitigation conversation. Yep. Speaker 6: Actually, I'm sorry, before we go to that. Oh yep. Can I ask that we just quickly show that slide that had the Yes. That one right there. What? Go back the five year plan. The five year plan slide? Yes. That slide right there. I'm trying to understand the difference between what Matt
and I would look for in terms of long term, essentially perpetuity treatment for knotweed and what clear you were proposing. 'cause I think what you're proposing clear or, or positing is something like what years three, four and five look like in perpetuity Speaker 2: Of the vegetation management plan as it's proposed is that the management during years three to five will still include potentially multiple monitoring visits as well as that treatment with herbicides.
I I think that potentially past year five, there may be years where no treatment is necessary. So I I I think that the language that I was positing i, if the commission feels this is appropriate is essentially as part of the larger operation and maintenance plan for the site, a requirement for an annual inspection of the proposed mitigation areas and that inspection report provided to the commission and then treatment as needed can be conducted if not wheat is found in those areas. So it would just be the, the one annual inspection.
Did that answer your question, David? Speaker 6: Yes. Okay. And I think if that annual inspection was done, say in the summer before the ideal treatment time, I could see that working. Speaker 1: Claire, when you, when you say annual inspection, I mean it's an, it's annual, just to make sure I'm clear on this annual inspection plus necessary action to remove any invasives that are spotted as part of that inspection, right? Exactly, Speaker 6: Yes. Which happened in the early fall, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. And so the, the, the, you know, treatment as needed,
I, I'm thinking of, sorry, my brain is in condition wording mode. So the, the way that I would word a condition is, you know, areas posited as mitigation shall be inspected on an annual basis. If we wanna include specific dates, we can include specific dates by when the inspection report needs to be provided. And then if the commission would like, the treatment can occur as soon as the inspection occurs so that it can be managed or we can word it so that the report comes to the conservation office, it's reviewed and then if determined necessary, the proposed treatment methods can be
administratively approved or something like that. I, I think that there can be a lot of different ways to word that language, but yes, I, I think it would be the removal of the knotweed as found is the key part of it. Speaker 1: Right. And the presumption will be that, that the plant stock, I mean here we've got up to, you know, year five, you know, replace dead plant stock if necessary. I mean, the presumption that with a five, especially a five year runway is that after five years, you know, plants would be established, you know, and plants are gonna die at some point and all.
And so that's, I don't, for me it's really, it's the invasives management part of it. 'cause I just, I remain convinced that, that this is something that needs to be managed in perpetuity or else we're gonna lose the mitigating benefits of it. So if you guys could just kind of think about this, chew on it, you know, I believe that the, and and in our conversations with counsel that the wording of the bylaw provides room for this and provides, provides us with the right to, to request that as part of a condition. So why don't, why don't you kind of think about that
and then we can, we can address that again later. Speaker 11: Can I get more detail about this equivalent level of environmental protection? I'd like to see, you know, how that's applied in real life. Speaker 1: This is about, this is talking about this, the, the, the area of correct of street that from the storm water runoff and the kind of decoupling square feet from Speaker 11: Yeah. And if, and, and because if we're not going down that path, it then becomes an intellectual conversation about if,
if square footage is not a relevant measure, then is the storm water protection somehow making that 200 foot riverfront with a new building proposed in it? I, I, I guess I'm just trying to, like, there has to be some way to calculate the environmental protection that's being, you know, kind of traded if there's, if we can't use square footage, what, what is the measure? What is the equivalent protection? Speaker 1: I think the, the way the laws is written and this, what, what Mark Arnold was getting at, you know, is that it says so at a ratio in square feet of at least two
to one, a mitigation area to area of alteration or, or at a ratio in square feet of at least two to one, a mitigation area to area of alteration, not conformed to the criteria or an equivalent level of environmental protection where square footage is not a relevant measure. I think what that, what that's doing is the, the way the law is written is that that's giving regulating authorities the opportunity to kind of decouple square footage and to say, Hey, but we're getting a lot of benefit. And to use it up, leave it up to the judgment of the, of the regulating authority to make a call to say, yeah,
this is a clear benefit. And so we're we'll accept that Speaker 8: Would perpetual care other than not, we meet that criteria. Speaker 1: Well, I mean in this, in this context, we're talking about it in the, in the context of the proposed additional mitigation of the stormwater of the stormwater treatment that they're proposing at the end of five Auburn. And it's just, you know, and I was expressing concern around, you know, the math of including the square footage of the street as mitigated area and what Mark Arnold was, was brought up, which i, I think is relevant is that it, it,
the way the law is written is that it gives us the latitude to say it doesn't have to be two to one square feet because this proposed mitigation they're offering around the stormwater handling at the end of the street, you know, we're good with that. We think the benefit of that is, is significant. And so it gives us the room to be able to accept that in lieu of, and the exact math Speaker 11: And I, but that plus perpetual care would, Speaker 2: I think that's what the commission is trying to determine at Speaker 1: This, right? You know, that, that, that's the question here.
And that's where the applicants need to kind of do some thinking around if, if that's a, you know, the perpetual part of it, I think is where we're, where we're buttoning heads and you know, and that's where I'm asking you guys to just kind of think about that and talk about that. And then, and then, you know, again, where the back to Claire's point where the perpetual thing is a monitoring and a treatment if necessary, that's that, you know, that's, that's that it's just not so, so that we maintain that mitigated area in perpetuity.
Speaker 11: But I, I have a problem with this specific statement because inherently if we take it at face value in my pers from my perspective is that it's requiring an alternative as analysis real realistically, which is not allowed under that. So like, and maybe I'm going too deep into the, you know, kind of philosophy of this act, but it's in, from my perspective, it seems to be in direct conflict with that,
that wording is in direct conflict with, you know, inherently what we're reviewing this project under. And you know, so I'm gonna have to use alternative analysis to understand if I'm not using a measurement of square footage, I have to use some sort of analysis to look at the standards that are inherently in front of us about this development that are, we've already talked about, you know, meetings ago about the whole this, you know, the different values that this act is supposed to be protecting. Speaker 5: If I may add to, to that point,
the riverfront redevelopment standards were developed to have some flexibility because they couldn't issue a new law in 1996 and have all these properties that properties that were developed in the riverfront and have them to a strict standard of the no adverse impact or like, you know, undeveloped riverfront. So there's a lot of flexibility written into the redevelopment standards and the mitigation portions of the redevelopment, you know, allow for some thinking, some, some out of the box opportunities as,
as Mr. Arnold just kind of described. That's why they they don't have you to a specific square footage if it, if it's not applicable there. There's flexibility there. Speaker 11: I find you on that. I a hundred percent we need flexibility with any regulation. But what I'm trying to get at is, is there, you know, we're looking at an equivalency which requires some sort of alternative analysis. Am I am mistaken in that? Speaker 1: I think it's a, I understand where you're going. I mean the, the, you know, early in the process we kind
of make a determination as to whether this is new development or redevelopment, right? And then when we make the determin, you know, and if, if we decide that it's new development, then, then there's alternatives, analyses which are defined in the law that we have to do, you know, is this the right location for the building? Could we do the same thing here there, whatever, if we decide that, that it's a redevelopment under 5 85, then it outlines a process here. And what this specifically is addressing, you know, is when an applicant proposes mitigation either on onsite in
the riverfront area within the same general area of the river basin alteration may be allowed, notwithstanding the criteria three 10 CMR, 5 85, c, d, or e at a ratio and square feet of at least two to one of mitigation area to area of alteration, not to the area of alteration, not conforming to the criteria or an equivalent level of environmental protection where square footage is not a relevant measure. And the way I read that is, is as, as Brad was saying, and I think Mark was saying, is that it's, that's just giving us, it's letting us decide
as to whether the, the, what they're proposing doesn't need to meet Speaker 2: A square footage, Speaker 1: A square footage requirement. Because we, in our judgment, do we think that the benefit that it brings is appro an appropriate level of mitigation? Speaker 2: And I think that maybe when the final stormwater materials come in and those calculations regarding total suspended solids and those types of things, maybe that will help the commission determine what that equivalent environmental benefit is. But if there are other materials that you think might be helpful in regard to that,
Speaker 11: But wouldn't we need to look under the scope of, of the, of, you know, it's not just about storm water, right? I mean we're, oh yeah, we'd have to look back at what we, what we kind of got to this meeting. You know, we've gone through an arduous journey here and I appreciate the efforts and times of the applicant as well as the commission. You know, we've gone through months of this conversation and it seems if I utilize that wording, I need to now go back and review habitat.
I gotta review, you know, water quality and carbon and, and all the things that are inherently tied to the, the, the act to determine whether or not there's an, in my mind, there's equivalency without having square footage, Speaker 1: Meaning equivalency of the area that they're proposing to manage for invasives to the benefit that this, the storm water treatment Speaker 11: For the road, is that improving habitat, wildlife habitat? Is it improving, you know, all the things that we've gotten
to this point, these conversations, it seems like I have to now open up that can of worms and review that if I'm mistaken in that then I, I'm, I'm, I'm probably misinformed, but I'm just trying to understand how am I gonna get to an equivalency. Speaker 1: So I think that it's, I mean the way I'm thinking about it is that the square footage of mitigation that's been proposed in terms of the invasives that's on the table, that's kind of the core part of the mitigation plan here. And you know, we could, we could, you know, quibble around the exact square footage count,
but what they proposed is close to the two to one, if not meeting it, depending on exactly how you interpret the laws close to the two to one requirement and what the a and, and so, okay, that's, that's good. We we're talking about the timeline, you know, how long do they have to manage that mitigation area and that's, that that's gonna be part of it no matter what, what the applicant has done is come forward and said, Hey, in addition to this, we're gonna add this additional benefit of the stormwater management. Speaker 11: So an approach could be that the roadway mitigation clearly isn't going to meet all the purposes outlined in the act.
However I can, I'm just thinking out loud. Yep. I can utilize what is being presented to me, the information and such that inherently, although it doesn't address some of the purpose outlined in the act, the overarching benefit of that mitigation is, is a positive, Speaker 1: It sweetens the pot Speaker 11: Positive to the riverfront. Yeah, Speaker 1: It, it, yeah, yeah, exactly. That is Speaker 8: Protective of the fisheries, right? Because now we're, we're not, we're cleaning the street.
There are no, we're not compelled to, to do that. I mean, I would say the town might be compelled to do that as the town, right Speaker 1: On its own. I mean, if, if all the applicant was proposing was the storm water management at the end of Auburn Street, I mean it wouldn't, you know, we'd be, we'd be talking a lot in a lot more detail about all the stuff that I think is going on in your head right now. For me it's a, it's a pot, it's a pot sweetener. 'cause we've got this core element of the invasive management as part of it, and we gotta come to agreement on what exactly that management looks like plus this
and, you know, and so it's, so it's not either or. Speaker 11: Okay. Speaker 1: Is that, is that fair? Speaker 7: Yeah, and I would, I would just add that I, I think this, this proposal will actually, it'll, it'll address a lot of the, the, the different performance standards in, in the act, you know, water quality habitat right now there's, there's no treatment for the storm water that's, that, that's flowing through the, the river, the, the little bit of riverfront area there between the end of the, the outfall and the river itself. That's not gonna help the habitat. Right? So once we treat that and we we're removing 50% at a minimum
of the, the total suspended solids we're removing any oils, any hydrocarbons that's gonna do nothing but substantially improve that habitat area, the groundwater recharge, you know, all of that. Speaker 1: Okay. Other, other questions from the commission right now Speaker 2: There's also that final slide about the Oh yeah. Mitigation area. Landscape plan changes. Speaker 12: Thanks Claire. Hi everyone, I'm Rebecca Bhan. I'm the landscape architect on the project and I think I know that Dana and the team have been covering for me explaining our proposed landscaping
behind the building in the riverfront area. And I think that there was maybe the whole set, my drawings were not included specifically in us at the beginning. So now we've added some information. We met with Claire recently to kind of go over everything and in that large green area that's hatched in kind of a honeycomb behind the building, but we did have some foundation plantings proposed, but we've gone ahead and added about a hundred woody shrubs that are highlighted in a darker green, those little circles and clarified the bowing edge.
I heard the comment on the last hearing about what happens when you have deep foot high golden rod in your window. I think to prevent any kind of concerns like that, were showing a swath initiated hatch around the building that would get mowed more with more frequency probably about monthly just to keep the really woody materials down. So that fire maintenance, being able to walk back and, you know, clean windows and things like that could happen easily. And then these sh chubby materials would give just more framework to that area while we're waiting for the meadow to really take shape.
The proposed seed mix is a conservation area mix that Claire and the commissioner are probably very familiar with that would also contain grasses, forests, and woody shrub materials over time. So you'd have this great mix of native plants framed by the foundation plantings, which are also native and drought tolerant. And then these additional materials that are highlighted in the little chart up on the top left of the plan that weren't on the, the original submission. We also added some notes about long-term maintenance for this area as well underneath that seed mix area.
Just kind of clarifying that this, you know, when it would probably only need annual mowing or so, just depending on how much really woody shr material you wanted to see coming. So that fill that middle area, this, this would be between the building and the existing fence line. Speaker 2: Think a, a full set of updated materials. I do think that this language should be included. The mowing language for this area should certainly be included in the o and m plan. 'cause obviously the future landscapers aren't necessarily gonna be looking at this plan sheet. Yep, yep. Speaker 12: And I did also call out like a steel edge on that north side or plan top of plan side.
Just that landscapers would kind of see that Dana and I have talked about doing maybe some small signage there too, just to say, conservation area, do not mow. Yes. There. So the other side ends with the driveway or the, the paved access area. So it's easier to know where your limits are there. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 8: And that area is intended to be recreational use for the residents or not? Speaker 1: Would it be? No. Speaker 8: So they wouldn't, people, as Mike says, people would be attracted
to go back there and just Speaker 1: Walk dogs. Speaker 8: Yeah, walk dogs and negate the mitigation. Yeah. There's a fence. Speaker 12: No, I think we've maintained that giant lawn out at the street to be more of the open space recreation area. We also have the smaller lawn right in front of the building. There aren't any doors on this backside of the building. So to the extent that, you know, when you're taking a dog out to potty break or you just bring them out to front, I'm not sure we even allow dogs. So that's for Sharon to clarify. Speaker 4: We, we will allow dogs. Speaker 1: Okay. You will allow dogs to Speaker 4: In the building.
Yes. Speaker 1: Great. Thanks Rebecca. Appreciate that. Thank you. Other, other questions? I mean, so the, you know, so in, in terms of next steps and all, and I'm gonna see if there's other questions from, from the public or anyone else currently, but it's to continue the discussion around the, the vegetation management, the invasive management. It's to get the further detail on the calcs, right. And the, and the technical specs. Speaker 2: Yeah. I think for the stormwater and I, I will also do some digging into that hint over project just to provide the commission with those materials.
I'm happy to reach out to their agent to, to get those materials. Speaker 1: Council from, from the town is also providing us with some, there's some, some additional information that she'll be providing us. And we had a good conversation with her on Tuesday about some of this. I Speaker 2: I do believe she connected directly with the applicant's counsel. I don't know if, if we're gonna be receiving anything in writing, but I Yes, I know that the teams have connected. Speaker 1: Okay. But we don't know what Speaker 8: She said. Speaker 2: Well, so Matt and I had a meeting with Caris and we sort of talked through what was gonna be discussed. I, we haven't received any formal response from applicant's counsel yet, but she, she
and I did have a follow up call after the fact as well. And, and what was discussed was what Matt and I discussed during the, Speaker 1: The meeting. Yeah. Generally, I mean, generally she, she supports, you know, her, her opinion is that the way the law is written supports would support us in the sense of Speaker 13: Requiring a perpetual maintenance of the mitigation area. You know, or there's, there, there's the way the law's written would allow us to put that requirement in there. Speaker 14: I, I guess I'm, I'm a little more, I guess concerned with, and I appreciate there's a ton of work that's gone into this, right? We, like Mike said, we've been going at this a long time,
but that whole thing is going in the riverfront about, and that's not the, the riverfront boundary is there to not go into. Well, and so, no, well my question is this, it says may the con, con con may Yes. Allow this happen. And I think we've got a real, I think we've got a real tough decision. I I, I've been wrestling with this and you know, and it's, you know, hey we're gonna get to the square footage of math, which, but that to me was, has been kind of disturbing. Right. That just shows you the extent of this project,
how difficult it has been to get the math to work right. 'cause that it's, there's definitely, you know, there was, we, we said it's like 21,000, I think they said it was 15,000. Speaker 2: Right. So 21,000 is my interpretation of, of what the commission could request as, as a minimum, as, as sort of a, I'm trying to pick the right word here as an appropriate mitigation amount. What is currently proposed by the applicant is just under 16,000 square feet of mitigation area. Not including the additional benefit of the stormwater management cor
Speaker 14: Correct. But it was based on doing some polygons or whatever measurement. Yes. Right. I find that a little confusing about, okay, there's the, the original 1588, does that get countered or not? 'cause I believe that's being altered. We're not using the same asphalt that's there already. Speaker 2: I I can upload a, a breakdown sheet that was very helpful in working through that for the commission and, and the public to look over. I think it's very helpful in sort of framing that, how the math works out. At least from my Speaker 14: Perspective, the math didn't, you know,
it still hasn't settled down. Right, right. We still don't. That's correct. Right. And then, okay, now we put the Auburn Street thing in that, and like you say, I see it as a park sweetener to kind of get rid of that fuzzy math that we, we were talking about down here, right. That is it 21, is it 15? It doesn't matter now 'cause we've got more over on the Auburn Street side. Okay. So great. We've got all this mitigation, right. And then ho ho you know, the perpetuity issue, hopefully that gets, you know, worked out by civil. So then, and we still get back to,
it's a giant project all in the riverfront. I guess I was hoping to hear from quote case studies of, have there been other examples I'd like to know on the Charles River, it would be nice to know, but where an entire building has gone into the riverfront boundary or are we setting a precedent? Is this the first time? Speaker 2: So there, there have been new structures permitted in the riverfront area in both Natick and other communities along the Charles I, I know this specifically 'cause I worked in another community that was surrounded by the Charles River.
Speaker 14: 100% the whole building is in the riverfront. Speaker 2: Yes. That, that is the reason that the redevelopment regulations were proposed in the first place is, is an understanding that there are, I don't wanna say unavoidable, but in some communities it would be a great restriction on private landowner rights to fully restrict, I I think back to my prior community of Newton, which is, you know, three sides is the Charles River. And so if all of that riverfront area was restricted, especially given the existing development
that exists in those areas, it could be considered a, a unlawful taking of land, eminent domain taking by either the state or, or the local government. So what I will say is that every riverfront area project is unique. And that's part of the reason why I think these discussions are so ongoing is because the case law that is available does have some evidence of, of these types of continuing conditions being recommended by DEP. But there is no case law example that is a clear, here's our, you know, golden ticket for demonstrating X, y, z.
That's part of the conversations that, that Matt and I have been having with Caris is, you know, there are, you know, pieces here or there. I think that as you brought up the, the may language in the regulations does give the commission discretion, which is I think why we're sort of having this negotiation process about the mitigation. And, and I think that what the commission is trying to determine at the base level is, is the mitigation that is provided sufficient in the commission's mind, is it sufficient to preserve and improve the functions
and values of the resource area when balanced with the proposed new construction. Speaker 15: Okay. Speaker 2: But yes, this is definitely, it's, there is very, unfortunately, I think there is no clear cut answer when it comes to riverfront area because of that discretionary language within the regulations. Speaker 11: I mean that's really gets to the equivalent like applying some sort of equivalency test. And I think, you know, to kind of build on, I'm not trying to pile on the applicant by any stretch, but to kind of just kind of reiterate, you know, Jim's point is that we tend
to lean very heavily on engineered solutions for this project and many others. And I very in, I infrequently see here within our commission, even though it states it very clearly in our bylaw, our storm water bylaw, that, you know, why isn't there a bioremediation construct on this? Like why do we need to use plastic storm water devices? Is, can't we find other, especially in the riverfront, you know, we're engineering this riverfront inherently that is, you know, whether we agree
or not right now, the state of it is, is that it performs some functionality for the, for the, for the riverfront and it's grass state whether we agree that it has any wildlife value or not. I disagree that on the analysis that it has zero wildlife habitat value, but that doesn't really matter. But why isn't there some sort of, you know, non engineered solution to stormwater AP approach. Speaker 7: I'd be happy to answer that. So this goes back to your original concern about impacting, you know,
taking trees down and impacting the area when looking at the end of the road. There, there, there is some open space and we could look at that, but during the ZBA process, we heard from the neighbor there that they maintain that land, it's got the flag pole, there was a lot of opposition, anything going on there. So we hesitated on that. I think to put the system that's required to treat the 14,000 square feet of imperial, oh it's actually larger than it's closer to 15,000 square feet. You know, it's gotta be five to 7% of that. So it, it turns into a fairly substantial area that's required at the bottom there that
starts rubbing people the wrong, you know, it's, it would be a little more uphill sledding I think with our, our neighbors on some of it. Speaker 11: Well we understand, Speaker 7: But we have incorporated those throughout the site. In other locations there are three bio retention or two bio retention areas, but they're picking up three different tributary areas. So that is something we did incorporate on the overall site plan. It just didn't seem like it might be appropriate in this, in this instance where we're trying to minimize the area and the impacts. Thank you. Sure. Speaker 12: And I just, if I may as the non-engineer on the project team that we did talk about for the stormwater management on the site
to do like a surface basin or something to, you know, not have a plastic structure like we are doing the treatment underground and the storage under the parking lot record, have progress, take that whole lawn area at the front and turn that into a storm water basin and impact the roots of the trees and things. So I think, you know, the combination of, you know, a chamber system and now this water quality as the supplemental benefit, I think, you know, we are, as Dana just mentioned, we're doing the bio retention areas as well. But so we're, we're combining all
of the best management practices for the site. Speaker 1: Okay. Other questions? Claire, do you see any, I don't see any questions in any of the, we Speaker 2: Do have three hands raised. Sorry, with this view we don't, yeah, I can't see, we don't as good of a view actually. I might be able to change that. Speaker 1: Let's see. Speaker 2: No, I think maybe because all three of the folks with their hands raised don't have their video on. Let me see if I can change that. Speaker 1: If you know, would, would you just just call, call on them in order? Speaker 2: Yes. So Catherine, I know you had your hand raised first,
so I I I would love to invite you to unmute and, and feel free to ask your questions. I'm Speaker 16: Unmuted. Thank you. And for the record, I had raised my hand before Matt, you spoke about JA Denise, not wood. I would like to add a few thoughts. I agree with everything you expressed and thank you for those thoughts. It's kind of laughable in my mind to think of not addressing the adjacent properties Japanese knotweed problem because it can travel up to 40 feet underground horizontally of course. And it can come up through pavement. I have this image in my head of Sisyphus,
that character from Greek mythology who is sentenced I guess to a lifetime of forever rolling a giant boulder uphill to the top of a hill, only to have it roll back down, at which point he would have to start again. And that's how I see this problem Japanese knotweed is it's going to laugh at native plants. It will not be, I think about cockroaches too because I think I heard that cockroaches would survive nuclear war and I'm pretty sure Japanese knotweed could too. That's how tough it is. It's just gonna laugh at native plants. And I know that from dealing
with the problem in my own yard, so to say that native plants will be a substitute and will plant native plants and the Japanese knotweed will go away and will have live happily ever after is I think somewhat naive. And I understand the optimism of those people that want this project to move forward and quickly, but I actually appreciate the realism of this committee and the tough questions and concerns because it's not a five year plan. Even I, I started addressing it in my own yard. It was coming from my neighbor's yard 20 years ago
and still periodically it will pop up and you can't just spot treat it because it goes down to a RM underground and it may have traveled 15 or 20 feet to get there. And so yeah, I'm concerned and I'm glad the committee is concerned and yeah, I guess that's just all I'll say, but I remain concerned. Speaker 1: Thank you Catherine. Next? Speaker 17: Yes, Marco Kto five Water Street. I just wanted to address some questions regarding the issues
that are brought up with the landscape planning. I understand that the, the landscape plan that was just shown is, is not the final, but it doesn't show any, any kind of planting or activity in the front yard, which everyone in the neighborhood in the town knows suffers badly from erosion, even in its limited use state and will suffer from a great deal more erosion if a hundred people are using it as their sole recreation area, especially since they can't walk their dogs in the back of the building because the back of the building is too close to the river
and to the wetlands boundary and separately. But related, I'm concerned that the landscape plan that was offered tonight still shows part of the building in the 40 foot no build zone and still shows that they're going to do plantings within small portions of the 25 foot wetlands boundary, no disturb zone. And I'm assuming that's going to be corrected in the final designs that we'll be looking at if this ever comes up to a vote. And the last thing about what was brought up
during the landscape plan, it was suggested that, well one thing that does work that doesn't involve plastic and doesn't take up even more open space in that flagpole area and doesn't poke the bear, as the chair said, one alternative would have been that would've been workable was to have a surface water impoundment in the front area. But of course the, the front lawn looks like it does because this was a requirement of the, of getting past the ZBA and was necessary to get their support for this project.
So if this project needs to have a surface water empowerment to deal with storm water because the proposed mitigation is inadequate or has too much plastic as the, the member said, if it needs to go into an area where it's prohibited because of what another board said, it doesn't mean that we have to accept the bad solution. It means that the site plan we've been given overall is not appropriate for this parcel and doesn't work if you have to either stick it to the ZBA
or stick it to the con com to get this built. That's not how projects work. They have to meet the requirements of both the ZBA and the con com at the same time. And if they're not doing that, it's because the project is inappropriate and I know there's a lot of questions they might not get answered all at once. Thank you. Speaker 1: A couple of things Marco, just to, you know, thanks for your questions. The plan, the plan that we're looking at here on the screen does not show the building within the 40 foot set back, unless I'm mistaken. Speaker 2: No, I'm just getting the plan pulled up right here. So the 40 foot, the
Speaker 17: Landscape plan in particular Claire Yeah. The Speaker 2: Land, so I'm happy to pull that up as well. Speaker 1: Yeah, the land, the landscape plan, you know, I mean, you know, the, the way the law is written is that the commission can allow activity within the 40 foot and also within the 25 foot zone, all depending on what it is. We have latitude to do that. And if it was the judgment of the commission that the proposed landscaping would bring an overall benefit for whatever reason, then it's entirely permitable within that. So it's not a prohibition, an outright prohibition on activity within those zones.
But those are zones of special concern where the, where the, the way the law is written is we can, if we so choose, prohibit activity within those, you know, activities of various types within those zones, but we, we can allow it if we think it, it brought benefit, for example, a mitigation plan, you know, would be allowed to be, you know, within the 25 foot zone if we so chose. Speaker 2: And I think I've realized where the confusion is maybe coming in the, the highlighted path that will be mowed with more regular frequency does fall within the 40 foot no
build zone It does, which is identified by this green line that my cursor is moving over right now. But the building itself, well, well close to the 40 foot no build zone, certainly it, Speaker 1: It's close, Speaker 2: You know, feet close. It is technically outside of that boundary. Marco, you are correct, there is a, a number of plantings proposed not only on the hillside but also in this rear area behind the building within that 25 foot no disturb zone. But, but as Matt mentioned, it is under the commission's authority to allow that. Yeah, Speaker 17: Well it sounds like before you guys can have a vote
and put signatures on this, that's the sort of thing that requires a detailed landscape plan that people can actually see and understand what they're voting on. Is that fair? Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I would, I would argue that what has been put in front of us con you know, constitutes a detailed landscape plan. We have planting lists, we have locations of plants and you know, in our practice that's, those are the kinds of plans that we use to make decisions. Is there, is there a, a different version that you're thinking of, Marco? Speaker 17: It sounds like the scale that we're looking at is,
is just too large to really understand what kind of variance the applicant is asking for variance. So it, it seems reasonable that we could ask that we can see more detail because, you know, this is the, the the where these boundaries are is only a tiny fraction of the entire site plan because it's just so long. So the, the the in the error introduced by this kind of scale just doesn't seem appropriate. I think we can do a lot better and I know that other people's plans just
for private homes does a lot better than this. Speaker 1: Yep, fair enough. Point taken, Speaker 2: Marco, were there any additional, did you feel like that answered your questions? Were there any additional comments you were hoping to make Speaker 17: That, that answered the question about the encroachments into the 40 foot and the 25 foot zones, but it doesn't answer what the plan is in the front for erosion prevention in the front lawn area, which already erodes very badly and becomes very packed down because of the, the limited traffic that's there. I mean, at the moment it's really just the,
it's just the church that only meets once week on Saturdays that's using that regularly. Obviously with a hundred plus people and their dogs, it's gonna require significant management to not make it look like a a, a mud pit at Woodstock. Speaker 1: Rebecca, can you speak to any, any, what the plan is for the front? I mean as someone noted, forgive me, I forget who, but you know, there was protracted negotiations with ZBA and I'm sure the historical commission was in involved in that as well. What are the plans at a high level in the front of the building? Ah, Speaker 12: Right, so at a high level you can see, well the plan's not up anymore.
Sorry, it's on my other screen, the red line. There are erosion controls in place around the limit of work. I think we'll have to assess that, sorry I'm listening in two hearings at the same time too. But if the lawn is disturbed in, in an unfortunate state, when we get there, when we start construction, we have notes on the plan to repair anything disturbed. But it sounds like if it's always an issue, maybe we need to assess that at the beginning and you know, it might need more than just repair while we're done or as we proceed
through the construction process. But we are proposing just some hedge materials. It seemed really important as we went through the neighbor meetings and zoning process to the community that we maintained the view of the lawn, the view of the historic building. So that was where we went with this. Like that's what really informed a lot of the site plan decisions. So, you know, like we could've just put the whole big building on the lawn and we didn't, we've really been striving to protect those trees and protect that view border. But I understand what you're saying about that, what the lawn is has been an issue historically and that, you know, we can certainly discuss that of
how it's reseeded sauted maintained over time. Speaker 4: Just to add to that, Rebecca, is it fair to say that at if at the end of construction the lawn looks like a mosh pit from Woodstock that we will be replant receding it and making sure it's a lawn? Yes. Not Speaker 12: A mud pit? Yes, definitely. Yep. There's already a note on the plan. Anything disturbed would be loaned and receded, you know, and we can say, you know, if it needs to be soughted for instant gratification, like that's always something that we consider so.
Speaker 1: Great. Thanks Rebecca. Speaker 17: And the last part of that chairman was that the, the, the keeping Auburn Street at its current width, it sounds like this is an important driver of the medication mitigation. So I'm, I'm assuming that in the final document that it would be contingent upon not widening Auburn Street, which obviously brings in all kinds of other issues in the state will have their own thoughts about what kind of stormwater management would be required if the, if the street were widened
and if the, the Commonwealth is already going to require stormwater management for a wider Auburn Street. That obviously doesn't count as mitigation for this proposal. And the obvious solution seems to be to make the approval by the con com contingent on not widening Auburn. Speaker 1: Is there any plan to widen Auburn Street? No. Speaker 2: So Marco, the stormwater management that was being discussed today for the Auburn Street corridor would be an, a proposed improvement over the existing town drainage system. Speaker 17: Understood. I totally get that in the street. But what I'm suggesting is that there are agencies
beyond ComCom that have an interest and if these, if, if the Commonwealth requires or if there are public safety reasons for widening Auburn Street that come up, then obviously it's very difficult to use mitigating the current configuration as, as part of the, the mitigation for building and the riverfront. And so it seems like an easy solution is to make the ComCom approval contingent upon not widening Auburn Street. And if it's not gonna be widened, then it's an easy thing to put into the plan. Speaker 1: Yeah, the, the, the applicant has stated unequivocally
that, that that's not the plan is to, the plan is not to widen. Not to widen Auburn Street Speaker 2: And any proposed changes to an approved project require written submission to the commission to determine whether or not an amended approval is required for the work. Speaker 1: Right. It would reopen the process essentially. Yes. Speaker 17: Alright, well thank you Speaker 11: For your answer. Outside entity, you know, widening of a road would require Speaker 2: Permitting under DPW as well. Yeah, Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. We would get another bite at that Apple. Yeah. Speaker 2: Rita, I believe you were the next person to have your hand raised for this project. Speaker 18: Yes, that's correct. Rita Martins, I've been listening
to not only ComCom but other boards in discussion in regards to five Auburn and, you know, not really happy with the project. Aside from that, you know, some people have made a joke about that. We are keep discussing just we're talking about weed, but we're not talking about just regular weed, knock weed Japanese, no weed in England is banned from certain buildings being ba built on land. Not only because it's an in invasive and its most aggressive plants, although it doesn't eat through concrete,
it makes a structure, it weakens the structure. And al also having two, we you only have one 2.3 of an acre. If you're talking about the lot across the street that's being sold, that's five to seven acres. That would be a different story. But you're putting 40,000 square feet on a small lot that could possibly be weakened. And I'm not so sure if the lady that is doing the hardscape, if she has any expertise, because it's not just a five year plan, it could be five
to 10 years planned to rid uhe to irrigate the, you know, eradicate, sorry for the word eradicate, not weed. So it's not just a short term and with all of these questions, then it comes to the financial part. We're talking about a project that they're asking for 23 million for funding. Who's gonna be funding all of these future mitigations that they have to then keep upkeep in the next five to 10 years. And that's what I'd say I, I, I'm, I'm a little, I'm upset
with myself, been in Natick for often on for 28 years and I'm really upset that I haven't really paid attention to all of these things that it's happening in town. We already have projects that have vacancies that are not being filled. So I don't see a sense. I'm also not the 1% earner here in town, so I've never had to use affordable housing in my last 28 years living in this town because we just learn how to work hard. So it's kind of, we already have vacancies and now we're, we're trying to approve a project that
for 32 more units. So I hope this board can use maybe some guidance from England since they don't allow buildings to be built on lot with knotweed because of weakening the structure. So I hope this board could take a little look in more into depth. I know Matt and other folks on board has been raising really good questions. I hope you guys can take a little bit more sometimes to, to see if this is something that really a project that you guys want and, and that area specifically.
And also setting a precedent that if I buy something on Elliot Street that's two acres now I can put, you know, however big of a house in front of the river if there's guidance for that. So I hope that this board will not continue with this project. Speaker 1: Thank you Rita. Appreciate your comments. Speaker 18: Thanks. Speaker 2: And then Wayne, are you the last person that I saw who had their hand raised at the moment? Speaker 19: Yes. Can you hear me? Speaker 1: Yes, yes, clearly. Okay. Speaker 19: Yes again, and, and thanks to the commission for considering everything so carefully, the, the one question I had relates
to the perpetual mitigation process, if indeed there's a change in the ownership, if MWCD for some reason decides to sell or if there's a change in management company that ends up with this, is that something that gets written into the deed so that will continue beyond whoever the owner is? So all new owners will end up having to maintain that agreement? Speaker 1: Yes, the condition would be attached to the property, not the property owner. Speaker 19: Great, thank you. Speaker 1: Anyone else?
Alright, so, oh Speaker 2: Wait, I'm sorry, Matt, there was one additional person. Reginald Lee? Speaker 19: Yes, good evening. Good Speaker 1: Evening. Can you hear me? Speaker 19: Can you hear me? Reginald Lee zero. Michael Terrace, precinct 10 town meeting member, vice chair of the Affordable Natick Affordable Housing Trust fund. I have a couple questions and you know, clearly I'll preface this with I I am supporter individually as well as I can assure you, the native affordable housing trust is a supportive of, of the continued support of this pro, of this project and are supportive of the, of the,
what we see of the strong mitigation activities proposed as part of the pursuit of the notice of intent and stormwater permit. A question maybe you or the commission could help me with. Do you know of any activities the town of Natick has pursued to address and not weed ephesian evasive species on the on five Auburn Street? Speaker 1: I am not aware of any activities. So, sorry Ms. Lee. The, the question is, are we aware of
not weed mitigation efforts by the town on five Auburn Street specifically? Correct? Speaker 19: Correct. Speaker 1: No, I'm not aware of any. Speaker 19: Second question is, does the commission have any jurisdiction over existing landowners with regard to the mitigation of knotweed along the, the, the banks of the river Charles? Speaker 1: We have jurisdiction where when a property owner proposes a project that triggers review under the Wetlands Protection Act, the NAT bylaws or the Rivers Act, then that gives us the opportunity
to provide input and the opportunity to impose conditions under which the project can proceed. And this is an opportunity for us to, especially because the applicant is proposing to manage invasives as a mitigating activity which is required under the law, then we have the opportunity and the authority to negotiate the terms and the type and how that mitigating activity takes place. So this is absolutely jurisdictional for us
and we, you know, whether it's a a public entity, whether it's a private entity, whether it's a public private partnership, whether it's a private homeowner activities that are subject under any of these relevant acts, give us then the opportunity to have input and impose requirements around mitigating activities or other, other conditions that we wanna impose on the project. Speaker 19: I completely understand it was just from a function of trying to, and I I and I, you know, I think the, the collaboration
and what I've heard over a series of meetings of, of between the commission and the applicant is, you know, is, is a, is a positive one. And I think it's trying to get to a situation of yes. And I, I alluded that it seems sad that in my mind that, you know, you only who are, and you've me mentioned and certain of members of the commission have indicated how important this, you know, the riverbank is to the town and to culture. It seems somewhat frustrating. It must be frustrating for you as a commission that
until someone brings an application you can't do anything about such a, a problem. It seems really sad in that regard. And I'd just like to commend the commission and the applicant to work for working together and I hope they continue to work together to allow this important project for the town of Natick to go forward. And, you know, we've had a, a series of decisions made in the town of the past 12 to 18 months where the town has, is expressed a, a, a, a decision that they would like
to see this project going forward. Whether that's the select board, whether that's the ZBA and whether that's the town meeting with regard to the de the appropriation of CPA funds. I'd hope you continue to do that so that we we get to Yes. And move the project forward. So thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Elise. Speaker 2: Those are all of the hands raised online. Speaker 1: Great. Any further questions At this point in time? I think, you know, we've got a continued conversation around the mitigation activities. We've got some technical detail coming
coming from the applicant on this. And so if we're clear on that, then why don't we go ahead and continue this to our next meeting and we'll, we'll pick it up at that point. Speaker 2: I I do just want to note, just 'cause it was on your guys' slides, the applicant team ha has requested the commission start drafting an order of conditions. I just wanted to bring that up before we vote to continue. Does the commission feel like we are in a place where conditions to be drafted? Do we wanna wait until we get these additional materials at the next meeting and then start drafting condition? Just wanna check in on where we feel like we're at. Speaker 1: I mean I'm fine with preemptively starting to craft conditions.
I wanna make clear that if that takes place, that is certainly not an indication of where my vote will land on this. Nor I think the vote of the commission on this, that is not a, you know, this is not a predetermined outcome. I think there are some fairly thorny questions that remain. If that might save us a little bit of time at some point, if we get to that point, great. Go for it. Okay. But it's, I really, I really want to be clear that this is, you know, my mind is not made up as to how I'm gonna vote on this. It really depends on subsequent conversations
and I think that may be true for the commission as a whole. So Speaker 2: I can even draft two versions Speaker 1: Fine. You know, go for it. Other questions? We good? Alright. Anything thought? One more thing to say. What Claire said is what I was gonna say. Oh, okay. No thank you. Okay. Alright. With that would someone make a a motion to continue this, this until February 5th, please? So moved. Thank you George. Is that seconded? Seconded. Thank you Jim. Any further? Any further discussion? All in the room, David? Yes. Okay. Continue to February five. Thank you. Thank you.
Really appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Speaker 2: As we move into the next discussion, I do want to note that there were some revised materials submitted earlier this afternoon by the applicant for 52 Everett. Those are available in the project folder. So some of the staff notes have been addressed in those revised materials. Speaker 1: Okay, great. Mr. Stevens, how are you? I'm great, how are you? Good. Great. Do you wanna just give us a voiceover update where things stand? Sure. Speaker 20: Once again, this is the, it's an open space cluster at 52 Everett Street. It's a seven acre parcel, about 2.9 is disturbed
and the balance land is going into open space. One of, there's one acre of wetland. We've gone back and forth. I'm gonna kind of break this up into a couple items. The final stormwater design, if you will, I think is fairly set set in stone. A couple revisions through And you mean final conditions? The final system post construction? Yes. Yep. Yes. The post construction completed system kind of bounced around a little bit with the Bill McDowell, our engineers and Claire. And I think we've got that fairly well established.
At our last meeting we talked a little bit about construction sequencing and erosion control during the process. Now once again, we're outside of wetland jurisdiction, but we wanted to be sure that from a construction sequencing exposed soils, we were had sort of a contingency plan and a belt and suspenders plan, if you will. So to that end, we did do some further communication with Claire and there was a couple of the recent comments we, let me back up a little bit. So if you will, the, the plan you're seeing up there is our
construction sequencing plan. And if you, it's a little hard to read, but the, the con the bottom of the plan is it shows the cult tech system, which are the final system, that big system on the left handles all the roadway drainage, roof drainage, it handles all the drainage for the site. Post completion, if you will, the smaller Caltech system to the right is essentially acting as a sub drain because there's a lot of sort of the front
of the site has excellent soils, very, very gravely soils, no groundwater. We were down about 25 feet. The back of the lot is a little bit more like the soil condition at windy low tends to trap the water a little bit, a little more fines. So we have a, a subra, if you will, running along that back stone wall. And that sub drain does nothing but collect groundwater to that front Caltech system on the right, the small one that is not collecting roof runoff, road runoff, nothing.
It is just, it is a sub drain system. So the large Caltech field on the left is, is doing all the heavy lifting for the impervious area once we're done. So then we sort of wanted to address how do we handle runoff during construction. And you'll see we had conversations with Claire and with Bill about building a temporary basin but not having that on top of, of the exi where the Caltech were to be built. Not wanting to risk potentially damaging the good soils
that exist there now. So during construction you're gonna have that long basin, about 130 feet, 150 feet long. And that will stay as an active construction detention basin for phase one, which is the left side of the plan. So buildings A, B, C and the cul-de-sac which will be built this summer. That basin will catch and collect all the disturbed areas from the construction site during that phase of construction as well as there's another temporary basin on the right side
between the house and that basin. Neither one of those cult techs will be installed this summer. The intent would be build the units, build the road, put the infrastructure in, put the water and sewer sometime early spring 2027, pave the road. Your roofs are in gutters and and roof leaders, your pavement's done, your collection systems are complete. You then build the Caltech field out front, then you landscape everything at that point that temporary basin doesn't exist anymore but presumably you've now managed to put 60
or 70% of the site in stable condition, pavement, roof collection, grass, full landscape, so on and so forth. Speaker 1: So the sediment basins, that's, that's simply just sheet flow, Speaker 20: Right? That's just a basin? Yes. That's just what's coming off the site and we didn't want any silty soils from the back to contaminate where we would be building the calex later. So we kind of put both of them out there for now. We don't wanna put the calex in early and then have 'em contaminated. Right. So they really have to, knowing what we know now, knowing what we know now. So we wanna put the calex in
and then immediately landscape be and pave if you will. And that would be at the, at the early start of the growing season. Next year at that point we're into next spring 2027 we start phase two and phase three we have a lot less open area. We have a lot less runoff problems. We could still have our temporary basin down there and at some point we'll put that sub drain Caltech in on the right side. But we also wanted the belt suspenders and you know, whatever super belt.
So what we decided to do was, and this is part of the recent comments we got from Claire originally we had the loom, you might wanna zoom out a little bit, Claire, I had the loom stockpile up there and I had a extra basin next to it down below to pump out two if we needed to. If the two basins down below somehow were inundated or we're getting a, that crazy summer of 2023 maybe where it was three inches
and it was three inches and it was three inch, three inches. So we wanted a temporary basin. So we're gonna construct that third temporary basin on top of where the foundations for buildings F1 and F two are. You see 'em in that corner, they're slabs, they're not even full foundations. So we'll use that area and leave that area as a potential pump out basin as we put the rest of the site together. So we relocated that so we weren't actually building that basin on land that would be open space.
So it's going to be on land that we are going to have to disturb no matter what. And we relocated this, the loom stockpile closer to this, to our edge of work if you will. And where the loom stockpile is now being proposed is actually an area that is filled, filled with the invasives is. So it'll probably be all disturbed 'cause we're gonna have to pull out all the invasives, which probably that'll be machine work there. That's a lot of the heavy vines. So once we will remove the invasives through to the roots, put the loom in there as to strip the properties seed
and protect the loom pile because that's what'll be sitting there for at least a year before it gets to, you know, used again if you will. So that was the final round of information that you got today. And we did update one other plan to show Clara looked, asked for storm snow storage. So we updated one more sheet for snow storage and this is a detail sheet that was updated. Yeah. So that is now one of our pages. We put most of our storm storage will be in the cul-de-sac,
the center grassy area. We don't feel the need to truck it off. We shouldn't, shouldn't be a problem Speaker 1: At what stage, Ben, would you do the drainage system around phase three that then goes into the lower right cultech? When does that go in? Does that go in when you start putting slabs and foundations in? Speaker 20: No, it's kind of, we're in a unique situation 'cause right now buildings D and e which are up on the back edge. Yep. They have to be shown as slabs at this point until we can prove that the groundwater system we install
Speaker 1: Works Speaker 20: Works and then we go back to the board of health with next winter. We'll have to analyze the groundwater in a high season. So February or March show that data to the board of health. So that sub drain system will be installed all the way around the right hand around the top and the right hand side of the property. It won't be installed into the Caltech, it'll be installed into that open Speaker 1: That new basin. Yes. Speaker 20: Yeah. But then we can see how effective it is during the high groundwater season. 'cause we'd like to do full foundations back there. But until we get that data we really Okay can't
Speaker 1: Nothing else of the plan rep, whether it's a slab or a full foundation, nothing else. Footprint doesn't change. It's all the same. It's all the Speaker 20: Same. This is just, yeah. And that's the only reason how deep Speaker 1: You Speaker 20: Dig. Yes. And that's the only reason for that sub drain is to potentially have full foundations back there as opposed to slabs. Speaker 2: I did already write myself a note to condition that those interim approvals get forwarded to our office. Speaker 20: Yeah. Speaker 1: Cool. Okay. Speaker 20: And then I think Bruce added one, you have a third, we added a new detail sheet only
because one of the, what he's done on that detail sheet is show if we have to use the third basin and if we have to introduce flock because of turbidity, this is exactly what we did at Windermere Lane. We constructed a sort of a dissipation trench with a pipe, the flock logs. Now we, we did it all at wind deme lane and never had to use it 'cause it stopped raining as much. But Speaker 2: Well stop raining kind of Speaker 20: At all. If that happens, we'll have a dis dissipation trench built
with basically a a, a jute swale with cross silt sacks. But then you pump the water up slowly and Bruce has designed this all into sort of a 12 inch drain pipe and then you have your flock logs in the 12 dwelling. So you're slowly running the water past the flock logs, putting in the small basin and mixing it and then let it run down the trench through silt logs until it goes into that third basin on the top of the hill. So I think we're be more than covered. Speaker 2: And I have, I have not yet provided these materials I got this afternoon to Bill
and John for their review, but I will get them over to them tomorrow. Okay. Though, I, I don't expect there will be any significant changes in the comments that you were received previously, given that most of the changes have been addressing staff. Speaker 1: So in, so in terms of process, you're gonna get these, these materials over to Bill and John just to make sure they sign off on that. I mean, and should we wait to take further action until we get a final letter back from them that they're good with this? Speaker 2: I think if the commission is comfortable, we don't need to necessarily close the hearing tonight,
but I can certainly start drafting conditions for a closing issue at the next hearing. I like, as I said, I don't expect all these changes have been addressing comments from the engineering division and myself. So I don't expect any significant concerns from Bill and John, but given that they are professional engineers and I am not, I always like to get their check in on these kinds of large scale systems. Speaker 1: Got it. And then this, there's a bullet under additional staff, you know, from you about, about the viability of the proposed pumping and dewatering system being proposed on the open space parcel. So Speaker 2: That was the previous plan. Exactly. Speaker 1: And, and and that is the pulling that basin forward
and out of the open space. Yeah, Speaker 2: I'll just pull up that plan set just so that folks can see the, the difference between the two. So this was the plan set that was submitted right initially that shows that that additional basin and the stockpiling area, not within the buffer zone, but certainly closer to the wetland and the, and the jurisdictional area. And then the revised plans pull those within either the development area or inside the proposed access tra material transport from the Windlow site. Speaker 1: Okay. So any further questions from the commission,
let's get those materials over to Bill and John. I'd be comfortable with the idea of drafting conditions and is, is that okay with commission that we can then review at our next meeting where is not, Speaker 11: Oh boy, why would you do that? And, Speaker 2: And just to address it. 'cause I know Ron, he's Speaker 1: Our resident provocateur, Speaker 2: Ron is also on the call. We did receive some additional detail in the invasive species management plan. Great. I think per some of the comments at the last meeting, providing a bit more detail on times of year for applications and also noting after the third year
of invasive species treatment is completed, spot treatments can be completed once yearly, noting the time of year when they should occur to address any new populations as needed. So this, the language would look similar to what's included in the wayside. Graystone, HOA or Yep. I don't know exactly the covenant documents regarding inspection and invasive species management as needed within the open space parcel. Speaker 1: Okay. So Speaker 11: May I ask Speaker 1: It? Oh yeah, of course. Speaker 11: So thanks for that really nice plan Ben. Is, is there any potential of getting material in from Windermere?
Like are you gonna be trucking, are you just gonna be only using Everett Street to kind of Speaker 20: No, it's actually on there. There's right next see that little, Speaker 2: So this, there's a set of erosion. Speaker 11: I thought that was a topographic index line, but maybe not. So there's Speaker 2: A little call out. There is a little call out for it, but it's hard to read. So temporary material transport. Okay. So that was one of my prior comments. I we had talked about that on the site visit and now it is shown on the plans. Okay. So there is that additional erosion control Speaker 11: Area did, did goes through 21 or whatever 19 or that Speaker 2: Would be 21 and 23 technically. Speaker 20: Okay. And that would be the first year after, after we landscaped next 20 spring 2027
and half pavement that we won't be tracking mud on Everett. Okay. You know. We'll, Speaker 11: And then the other question I have is just, and and you may have already addressed this and and I I just forgot, was around the open space lot will be a, will be deeded to, to, Speaker 2: It'll be conservation restriction. Speaker 11: Okay. And it will be held in. Who will, who will hold that or I would, who will, Speaker 20: Okay. I'd love to give it to the town but the town won't take it. Okay. So we're paying taxes all over town right now on land that have, have deed restrictions on 'em. Speaker 2: Well, well, so the, the language specifically for the,
under the updated cluster bylaws that it doesn't need to be under a conservation restriction, which is required to be held by either the Conservation commission or in a land trust or land nonprofit. So I think that when we get to that point in the process, in order to comply with that permit regulation, I think you, Amanda and I can sit down in terms of, Speaker 20: Is that new? Speaker 2: So that was the updated cluster bylaw. So I, this didn't necessarily apply to wayside Graystone because that was a combination of two projects under an old and a new bylaw. But that is also did apply to the 2 16, 2 18 South Main Street cluster
development that was approved Speaker 11: Last year. And that would happen at when would the CR be fi at the, at the time of completion of the project or Speaker 2: So I did ask that question to Amanda. I believe it is a part of a requirement of the sort of closeout performance bond release process with the planning board. Speaker 11: And then my last kind of dumb question is, is about the encroachment and and is that being handled? Is that being handled because it, it sounds like there is some asphalt involved in the encroachment that would be on the open space ENC encroachment where Mike
on the abutters storage grating and driveway encroachment. Ah, and I'm Speaker 20: Just wonder, oh, he's got a Yeah, his fence. Speaker 11: Okay. I'm just kind of wondering, you know, about CRS and pavement and Speaker 20: Yeah, it's just a fence and I had a conversation with him that I'd be happy to put his, reset his fence. Speaker 11: Yeah, I I just maybe take out anything to do with, I, I don't want to drive the bus, but maybe take any language about that there's, you know, asphalt in the encroachment maybe because, 'cause that probably won't work well at cr.
So you suggested to him that you'll move his fence off of your property, Speaker 20: Correct? Yes, we will put the prop fence where it belongs. Awesome. Speaker 2: It seems like a win-win. Speaker 20: I just have a, I mean my only experience with the CR was 10 years ago and it was Speaker 11: Not fun. Speaker 20: The state looked at me and said, we're not taking your stupid acre land. Don't waste our time. So maybe have they changed so Speaker 2: That, I don't know that that requirement comes under the planning board jurisdiction. So I I think we should set up a Speaker 20: Meeting. Has it been done recently? Because I tried to do it in Sudbury and they refuse to take it. They're like, we don't want two acre parcels of land. Yeah.
The state wouldn't, wouldn't hold a CR Speaker 11: Though, but they approve it, have capital Speaker 20: Z, capital R, they have to approve it. And Speaker 2: So that's what the discussions with you, me and Amanda come in. If it's not feasible then a deed restriction could be consider we're, Speaker 20: We're fine with that. Speaker 2: I just, but certainly there will be be some sort of permanent protection. But, Speaker 1: But why, I mean this will be addressed later. I mean if you put a conservation restriction on a piece of the, on a big piece of the property, then someone just simply has to hold it and agree to maintain it. No, it Speaker 11: Has to be signed off by the Speaker 1: Secretary. Well, no, I mean, but but it's signed off for approval
but then someone has to hold that cr Correct. Speaker 11: And usually I think if the municipality holds it, usually the sec I, I don't wanna speak for government. Speaker 2: That has been my experience in the past is that generally if the town is the one holding the or city, whichever that may be, municipality be. So I think those are, I think the, I don't necessarily believe that there would be conditions in this permit related to that aspect. No, Speaker 1: That's a planning board Speaker 2: Beyond the, the management of the open space parcel under the wetlands. Speaker 20: We just had a man to put conservation restriction and or deed, you know, deed restriction acceptable to the town of Natick.
Okay. Because of, I literally had a, I ran to a stone wall. Yeah. Where the state would say we don't, we're not putting our name on this, don't you know. Oh, Speaker 1: Interesting. Speaker 20: Because it's too small. If it was a hundred acres they'd be okay. Speaker 1: So you couldn't put a, you can't put a CR on Speaker 20: Not a capital C, not a capital R. As far as the state, I Speaker 2: Think there is a a, you know, demonstrating that there's a benefit to the conservation. But I think that that's probably a lot of politicking unfortunately. Speaker 1: Alright, so it sounds like we're in good shape to Speaker 2: Jim. Did you have a question? Yeah, sorry, sorry. Speaker 20: Just Speaker 14: The open space work, is that done after con phase three? When's that done?
Speaker 20: Well, the only Speaker 14: And all that Speaker 20: We'll do the invasive, the invasive will will happen first off the bat right away because we'll wanna stay after 'em for the two or three years that we're out there. And then once we remove the loom pile and reseed everything, most of that trail is, is a cut, it is just a field cut, right. If you will probably we will where we remove the invasives underneath the tree line, we'll just probably Ron will direct us on reseeding it and maintaining it so we can monitor for two or three years
before we're outta the picture. But most of that trail, I think when we get done we'll be cut into a grass, if you will. Speaker 14: Okay, great. Thanks. Speaker 1: Alright, so with that, why don't we continue this to Feb five. Claire, why don't you get on drafting conditions for this? Speaker 2: Absolutely. And I, I draft a determination of applicability as well, but I think Speaker 1: That at the same time, yep. Speaker 2: The majority of this is gonna be the storm water Speaker 1: Permit. Okay. Ron, is there anything from the RDA side of this that, that we need to talk about tonight? I mean it's pretty straightforward I think. Speaker 21: Yeah, no I think Claire covered most of it. All the invasive, the updates
and sequencing plan that we put in there. So that should, that should have covered it. Everything. Speaker 1: Anything else? Alright, so I'm gonna make a motion to continue this to February five moved. Thank you Jeff. Is that seconded? Second. Thank you Michael. Any further discussion on that? Those in favor David? Thank you. Did we lose David? Speaker 2: We did. I think just briefly. I know he told me he had to step away for a minute. I'm not sure how much of that he's heard. Speaker 1: David, are you good to continue this to Feb five? Yes. Great. Thank you. Alright, continue to Feb five. Okay.
Next item on the agenda. So Speaker 2: I say if we wanna push that to do Speaker 1: Exactly, so let's talk about Magnolia and the violation issue at Magnolia. And so you can just is a courtesy so we don't have to keep these guys around round. Mark welcome. And, and, and thanks for that input earlier. Appreciate that. Speaker 22: Hey, my pleasure. I'm just gonna let George Connors know. Oh he's on now? Speaker 2: Yes, I think that I do. I saw him Speaker 22: Look at that. Let him into that. He's, he was paying attention right at the last minute. Alright, Claire, Speaker 1: Just wanna give us an update where things st stand. Yes. Speaker 2: I'm just getting some materials pulled up on screen share
and then I'm happy to dive into it. So I did provide to the applicant team a, a restoration mitigation plan for the area. It does provide, you know, a summary of, of the work that was done based on what was discussed at the last meeting and notes what the original approved mitigation plantings included, and then provide some additional mitigation steps and planting requirements. Mark did have some responses back to the comments that I've included in my staff notes.
I had noted that a, a fence should be installed along that rear macro line. The, the original permit conditions did include some sort of demarcation along that boundary. The applicant has requested bounds with a two foot reveal every 20 to 25 feet instead of a fence. I don't have any strong preference one way or the other, but, so that determination rests with the commission what they feel is most appropriate. I had requested some soil testing in order to, in inform the amendment process, the applicant has requested
the bringing in of loam with the addition of scarification in the areas of the lot that currently do not have any vegetation growth, which I'm just sort of lightly highlighting with my cursor here. And then aeration in the existing areas that have regrown grass. The additional mitigation plantings would just be installed into the existing grass. And both of those would be to address soil compaction likely from previous work as well as potentially the equipment access during the most recent clearing. I did not include any language about this in my plan, but they have rightly, I think,
requested watering allowance be built into the, the mitigation plan. And Mark did note that they're working to do 2010 to 20% over planting of the requested number of plants, both under, under the revised mitigation plan in order to make, Speaker 1: When you say 10 to 20% over the request, over the required mitigation, Speaker 22: It's a protected buffer for us to make sure we meet your percentages. Still meet. Yeah. So if, if, 'cause for example, if you, if you require 80% survival and we plan a hundred percent Got it. We have to hope we don't lose more than 20%. But if we plant 10 to 20% more, we give ourselves a 30
to 40% buffer on a die off. Got it. It gives us better odds to make sure we close this out faster. So it's kind of like a, you know, you put your, you can put, you can put some money. It's like an insurance policy. Yeah, Speaker 1: I totally get it. Speaker 22: So that's, so that's basically, I I I, I just wanted to let her know that we are thinking about that. It's not, we, we don't want it to be a requirement, but we're, we're, we're thinking that way. And, and just so you know, we, we, the soil, we, she, she mentioned the soil testing. We did recommend that we actually use a soil oil that actually gets tested before we bring it in to make sure it actually is good quality. So that was the, our, our compromise was,
rather than testing the soil, trying to bring in complex amendments, because we know the area got stripped and pretty much ripped apart. We were suggesting just bringing in a soil that is a high quality loom that's actually tested from UMass Amherst. There's actually New England specialty soils. They make like your bioretention soils and stuff like that. Sure. They, they test their soils, they run them out to the lab and they make sure they mix them right. And so my recommendation was just to bring in basically a good hor, a good planting soil. A it's basically like a, a, a good hand and restoration planting soil, basically not quite bio
Speaker 1: Makes, Speaker 22: That was our, that was our compromise. Rather than doing testing and then amendments and hoping that testing and the amendments worked. It's like we've just bring in the right soil. It's just Speaker 1: Process. Makes, makes sense to me. I mean, people, we can comment, I mean, just, but, but back to the, the planting. I mean, originally we had proposed, or what we had conditioned a number of plantings that had, that had assumed an amount of, of vegetative, of, of vegetation that would remain Speaker 22: Yes. There,
Speaker 1: All of the vegetation was, was taken out. And so is the, the mitigation or the, the remedy for the violation is that now taking, providing back to that number of plantings that we had originally required, plus that, that would get us up to what would have remained had that not been, because, you know, the whole intention was to provide Speaker 22: It's both. There's additional planting, she's requiring additional plantings beyond what we're supposed to do already Speaker 1: Initially Yes. Speaker 2: And an overs seeding of a conservation scene,
actually the same one that five Auburn Street is proposing that has a mix of grasses, herbaceous plants, and shrubby material. Okay. So what I tried to do was approach it in a way where we're getting some immediate vegetative cover in as well as a seed mix that will continue to build up a healthy understory as those trees continue to mature. Speaker 1: The original, the original intent in these conversations around this particular development was to provide a screening function for people on the lake to screen them from this new development. Yep. That's there. Speaker 22: Yep. Speaker 1: And so I just wanna make sure
that we're still gonna achieve that with what's being proposed that will still get to where we had intended to be. Yeah. Speaker 2: I I, and I was curious, the species that I recommended in, in a mix with the white oak, red maple, and spruce that were originally proposed, the, the recommended species that I have proposed is American basswood, which is a quite a large growth tree when, when fully mature that I think would provide good screening from both the lake and I 90 as sort of a benefit. It also has the benefit of being a keystone species in Massachusetts, so could help contribute
to a really healthy ecosystem. Mike, I didn't know if Speaker 1: You had any Yeah, I was gonna ask thoughts about Speaker 2: That specific species in this location. I'm not as, Speaker 11: No, I mean, there's some beautiful basswood up at the Murphy School Speaker 2: Site that's, I knew there were others in town, so, so I thought that might be a good Oh, Speaker 11: Cool. Yeah. And it's, it's really important, you know, not only pollinator, there's, it makes delicious honey. Oh. And it's also, you know, if you like, if you like caterpillars, the the leaves are heavily fed on by caterpillars.
Is that Especially monarch. Speaker 1: Okay. So it's, so we're not in, in kind of inviting a gypsy moth problem. Oh, no, Speaker 11: No, no. It's a, it's a wonderful, you know, as you know, Claire's very thoughtful in her approach to species selection that, you know, I, I don't Great. I, I think the one question I have in this, and I, and I don't want to really, 'cause what you propose is wonderful, and thank you for, for that. Do you see any possibility of us being held to the fire about storm water
and two to one replacement? Right? So how many six inch trees were out there that were removed in this area? Do you see any, like, well, you didn't make them do two to ones on this. I, I I know you were over planting it. Speaker 22: Well, just to, and just to remember the vegeta, I i, we, the vegetation that was there was, was native, was not native. It was invasive, which is Speaker 2: Technically exempted. But, but there is still, Speaker 22: It, it, it's, it's, it was, it's, I mean you, there's exemptions for doing maintenance, et cetera. But here's the thing. It was supposed
to be vegetated in a way that the commission was expecting it to be vegetated. So therefore we need to vegetate it back. Correct. And so the, so I, I think we are being held to that in a way that we are planting back trees. We are planting back shrubs, which was really not there. I mean, it was just, it was just trees at that point. There weren't, there was, there was an understory cover in this area. So now we're gonna get the herbaceous layer actually robustly, which you saw in the photographs. The herbaceous layer though was awful. Speaker 11: I mean, it has really nothing to do with what you're proposing. Yeah. It's about defendable space. Speaker 1: I think that if, if long Speaker 11: As we're comfortable, I, I just don't want to be like somebody
Speaker 1: No, I, I, I'd be, you know, all all, I totally understand where you're coming from and I appreciate the, the, the foresight, the heads up on that. Yep. You know, but I do think though that what is being proposed is Speaker 11: Totally Speaker 1: Def you know, totally all, all, all of these are gonna be handled on a case by case basis. What's being proposed is totally defensible. Correct. In terms of the, you know, what was removed, how much is being put back, the intention of what, you know, what we intended when we conditioned the project originally, it sounds like we're gonna accomplish that a hundred percent. And so I, I don't,
Speaker 11: Probably even better, Speaker 1: Probably even better. So I'm, I'm, I'm comfortable with it, you know, and I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd go to the mat with someone on who's, who's challenging that. Speaker 11: I think that's good. Well, somebody's gotta go to the match. Someone's gotta, Jeff's gotta go to the mattresses. Go to the Speaker 1: Mattress. I think Jim's the biggest one here. Speaker 11: That's Speaker 1: True. He's our leg breaker. Speaker 2: Just a question of the commission, and Matt and I chatted about this a little bit in terms of how we want to address enforcing this mitigation plan. So currently the project is permitted primarily under a major stormwater permit because all the work within the wetlands jurisdiction
would've fallen under the exemption that the commission authorized for invasive species management by a license professional. There was additional clearing work done with within the a hundred foot buffer zone. Does the commission want to issue an enforcement order as well? Do we feel the amended stormwater permit is sufficient? Do we wanna do both? I, I just wanna get the commission's thoughts on how, Speaker 1: How to handle this. Yeah. I mean, I would, you know, based on the dev, the, the applicant, the property, the developers, you know, cooperation with us
and willingness to put forth a plan that makes sense and to accept some of our conditions, I don't feel a, a need to, you know, to capture this as a vi, as a vial, as an enforcement order. Great. Okay. You know, I think, you know, if if it happened again or if a project he was working on it happened again, we'd probably want to codify it as a, as a violation in an enforcement order. I'm comfortable with leaving it as a, as an amendment as is the one, the one thing I want to come back to though is that Claire had originally proposed that there be a fence. Oh Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: The bounding along the back and the applicant has asked for it not to be a fence,
but to be bounds Speaker 2: With a two foot reveal. With Speaker 1: A two foot reveal with placards. With, with, with, you know, with with. Sure. Yes. Speaker 22: The placards on it. Placards are Speaker 1: Fine. What I wanna make sure is, is that, you know, the fence very clearly DeMars this as, as kind of not no go, but sort of, Speaker 2: Or the bounding in this case. Speaker 1: Well, well, but you know, the bounding allows unfettered access back there. Unfettered access, you know, and where it's not out of the realm of possibility that someone could say, Hey, I want to extend my backyard.
But I think that the bounds, I mean these would be set at what, Speaker 22: 2020 to 25 feet. So it's pretty frequent 20 to 25 feet. So there's gonna be feet, two foot, yeah. Two foot Speaker 1: Reveal. So two foot reveal. These are, these are stone bounds, Speaker 22: Stone or concrete. Okay. So Speaker 1: Stone or concrete. Yeah. Speaker 2: I think the commission could also potentially look for, like, would you guys be open to some temporary fencing while those Speaker 22: S are established? And, and we probably, and I I, I would tell the applicant to put up some tort of temporary fencing or additional stakes or something it with a caution tape to let it take. Because again, we're gonna be, we're gonna be watching this for two years and I think the commission,
and I'm gonna let the applicant know that, well the commission will be very, very much pushing back the additional monitoring if a mower goes beyond this line. Because part of, oh, certainly part of the restoration is to make sure that, that, that feel that that area behind it gets robust enough to create a, a visual line with the bounds that there's a lawn and then there's clearly a meadow vegetational change, which it, even after the winter in the springtime, you can see a meadow's grasses are longer because they were never cut in the fall. Right. Would, so that's, that's what I would be, that's my,
my goal would be to make sure that we get to that point of, of doing that. Because I'd wanna make sure there's a, it's, it's visually if the bounce weren't there, could you tell there's a grass vegetational change? And that's what we wanna establish as well. And, and the bounds are your extra, are your, your mark your Speaker 1: Visual. We will, if if a mower goes back there, we will lose our minds. Speaker 22: I know, I know. That's that. Yeah, I would too. So, you Speaker 23: Know, it's the riding line mow. Speaker 1: Yeah. May Speaker 24: I interject? Orange construction fencing will cross that line for the duration of the two, two year period. Speaker 1: I think that would be a good, a good start.
And then if, if you could communicate to your client kind of the significance and importance of Yep. Of respecting those bounds. Yep. And that, and then it's just very clearly marks so, so future homeowners. Yep. When they see it, it's, it's a no mo you know, they can walk back there certainly if they'd like ticks. Yep. But you know, it's a no mo zone to be left alone. Yep. They know they can walk down to the lake if they want, they can do whatever. Yep. But it's not to be Yep. Maintained in any way. Speaker 2: So I think I can amend the written mitigation narrative. I can do an, a small amendment on the annotated plan sheet
that I did too to note, you know, bounding rather than required fence and get that sent over to the applicant with, with the appropriate amendment documentation. I Speaker 1: Think that's right. Are we good? Yeah, Speaker 23: That'd be amending the storm water and a water a two year fence and then it comes down and balance go up. Is that where we Speaker 1: Are? Probably the balance Speaker 22: Go up immediately. Yeah. Speaker 2: As part of the initial Speaker 1: Disturbance. Yeah. Yeah. I would do it immediately just to get home, you know, because you'll sell the houses before. I mean, the houses aren't sold already. Speaker 22: I don't even know. Yeah. Well yeah, we, we we're, we're we, we are hoping that we could get certificate occupancies allowed
so we could get the houses on the market. Right now they're not in the market. Okay. Speaker 2: So that was the last thing that I wanted to check in with the commission. Currently, I have not signed off on cos for any of the properties while this discussion was occurring. The houses themselves and the stormwater infrastructure already have all been constructed in compliance with, this was the issue that we were dealing with. Okay. So if the commission is comfortable, I can sign off on the cos with the understanding that the major stormwater permit does still hold teeth, enforceable teeth. Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and I would like, I would like to see the bounds go up as soon as, as soon like when the house go on the market or
before closing or whatever. Okay, sure. Just so that when people move in, they see 'em. Yep. Speaker 22: Yeah, we can definitely, yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll expedite that and Okay. And we'll communicate with Claire that we're, of the, the steps that we're taking, whether for the first step we George out there getting it surveyed so that they, we know where to put the markers and then getting them installed. But now I'm sure George's team can jump on getting that first step, which is getting them staked. Speaker 1: And then any, is there a placard in the garage for these shop? Correct. Speaker 2: No, this was not a notice of intent filing. Okay. Just the story. Yeah. 'cause the, the invasive species management work
under the authority that the commission has granted for administrative approvals because it was being done, proposed to be done by a licensed professional. Right. Is technically an exemption under, under our regulations. But that is why I wanted to make sure about the papering of this process to make sure that I'm, I'm following the commission's desires. Speaker 23: Should, should we inspect before the fence comes down? Speaker 2: Oh yes. Speaker 1: There'll absolutely be inspections. I, Speaker 2: I believe that there are, you know, monitoring reports and inspections every Speaker 22: Six, every six months. Basically the spring and fall inspections. By, by basically probably by us.
We'll be documenting, making sure. Yeah. And so part of our, again, that's part, part of our knowing that knowing what we have for two years, knowing we have a percent requirement. Whenever I have a percent requirement, I always ask the applicant to plant just because it makes it easier at the end. Smart. Rather than, than the hassle. And so, and usually, and, and usually they're, they're comfortable with planting a few more just to, it also makes it look nicer. Speaker 2: Okay. Tends to save everybody money in the long run. Speaker 1: Further questions Mark. Thank you George. Thank you. So we need to vote on an amended order of conditions. Speaker 2: Amended stormwater permit. Speaker 1: Amended stormwater permit. Okay. Would someone make a motion to approve the stormwater permit
amendments as discussed with respect to these additional actions? Thank you. George Movement was made by George. Is that seconded? Seconded. Thank you Jim. Any further discussion? Thoughts? Alright, those in favor in the room, David? Yes. Great, mark. Thank you George. Thank you George. George Bolt? No, no, he's i'll. I'll leave. I'll leave. He's on the other screen. I'm leaving Speaker 22: You virtually and in person. Speaker 1: Excellent. Thank you gentlemen. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks. Alright, next item on the agenda is this is the Piri pond. Connector Boardwalk, Speaker 2: Yes. No DEP file number yet. So we will have to continue to the next meeting,
but I think think that is also a benefit to make sure the public can be engaged if they would like to Speaker 1: Be engaged. Do we have anybody on the call that who may be interested in this? Speaker 2: The only other person on the call is Carrie, so I, I assumed that he was on for Magnolia versus Great. Speaker 1: Thank you Carrie. Alright, so lemme just go ahead and formally open this for our own, own own entertainment. So in accordance with the Wetlands Protection Act and Natick's local wetlands file, article 79, the NA Conservation Commission hold a public hearing on a notice of intent filed by Claire Relli of the town of Natick for property located at Zero Bradford Road and Map 14 lot 78. The proposal is to construct a floating boardwalk
to connect two trail systems within Pickle Pond conservation area, including site prep, box stair construction, gangway installation, and the restoration of disturbed areas. Alright, so we're, I think we're all familiar with what this project is. Speaker 2: Yes. And I, and I apol I I kept the staff notes pretty minimal on this one, considering the length of the staff notes on some of my previous agenda items. Also, given the fact that I wrote the narrative, I hoped it would be a little less necessary to, Speaker 1: If you were finding problems with your own work, I'd be concerned. Speaker 2: Exactly. But I do wanna know if the commission has any concerns or critiques or comments regarding the project
and the narrative as proposed. Just to, I'm gonna run through the site photos 'cause I think that might be the best way to just sort of overview this site. We're starting on the northern side of Piri Pond. So this is the wellhead access road off of Huron Drive. For the folks who are out building the Island Bridge. Very familiar with this location. Access from the northern side of the pond will be limited only to the equipment necessary for the stairway construction and vegetation clearing, which will be fairly minor in terms of equipment needs. The trail connectivity as we move through this area
does tend to be a little bit more narrow and a little bit more sort of topographically challenging than the south side access. The area in front of the wellhead will be allowed for, you know, vehicle parking and equipment unloading to minimize, you know, any truck access. Further down if there is a need for additional equipment unloading the closed wellhead monitoring location can be used in other very level area. Then we just move through the trail system as we walk from, from the wellhead to the project location. So I'm tracing with my cursor, but the, the trail itself is fairly clear
and in this area is very well compacted. These, these are well used trails. This is one of the tighter, the tightest access point I actually think along this northern side because of how the slope comes down. So there may be a need for, you know, additional fencing or erosion controls along this stretch just to really protect that hillside. There is some, some very small saplings that, that may need to come out just to facilitate equipment access. But nothing over six inches is proposed beyond one tree that, that I'll show in just a moment. This is another tighter point of access.
This dead stump will likely be removed to facilitate that equipment access. But just cut, flush, no stump grinding. And then now we reach, so the tree that has to be removed is, is this one here? If folks can see where my cursor is, it's, it's a 12 inch tree that is just sort of unavoidable because of the slopes. It does need to be removed so that equipment ca we can construct the width of the stairs essentially. So as we move to, we're now at the top of the slope. The yellow arrow indicates the rough start of where the,
the trail improvements and cribbing box stairs will begin. We are now at the bottom of that slope looking up. So the yellow arrow is marking that existing trail corridor, the alignment that the stairs will follow. And the orange line shows a, a rough demarcation of, of where vegetation clearing will occur. The vegetation clearing has been minimized to the maximum extent practicable because most of the vegetation we're dealing with here it is native wetlands and upland vegetation. There is a very robust restoration plan, but in order to have the width needed
to construct the staircase provided, we do need to clear some of the vegetation in this area. Speaker 1: How wide is the staircase Speaker 2: Going in? The, the staircase is three feet wide going down. So the minimal width allowed under the fag recommendations, which are the forest and trail accessibility guidelines. Speaker 1: And that's, and that the, the, the stairs will be constructed out of pressure treat, Speaker 2: Yes, pressure treated logs secured with a rebar and with a gravel sub base. There's a detail provided on the plan sheet that I'll jump to after this. So we're still on the north side of the pond. Just looking at the sort of other side of the hill where
that existing trail is and where that vegetation clearing will occur. This tree will not be removed. There's a small piece of deadwood that standing deadwood that might be removed. But this larger mature tree will be protected throughout construction through the tree protection details that are provided on the plan sheet. This is just a slightly clearer view of that existing trail corridor through the vegetation to demonstrate the sort of non vegetative supporting trail corridor. That there is foot traffic in this area that, that keeps the vegetation from encroaching. And now we're just looking from that northern bottom
of slope across the open water to the southern side of the pond. There are some hummocks that will need to be cleared primarily closer to the solid ground as we get further out and the floating boardwalk starts versus the gangway, the hummocks will be less impactful. It's really just to ensure that there's nothing that's gonna be growing up underneath the gangway that may result in it lifting off of the, the floating boardwalk. Speaker 1: So when you, you talked about equipment coming down. Yes. What is the equipment?
Speaker 2: So it's, it's gonna be a small equipment, a mini skid steer, a low ground pressure equipment. The reality is that the boxers will be constructed by hand essentially. Right? It's just the vegetation clearing in the initial earth removal to get the staircase corridor cleared. And there's very minimal, because we're doing box stairs, there's not a lot of earth removal that occurs. So likely it will be a, a small mini excavator or a skid steer with an excavator Speaker 1: Attached. You'll show us details of the box stairs? Yes. Speaker 2: I'll, I'll jump to that on the plan sheet. Okay. And we are now jumping to the south side of the pond.
This is the trailhead access off of Harwood Road on the south side of the pond. The majority of this lawn area that's visible is under the care and custody of the conservation commission. The trail itself is sort of tucked back into this area here. Even if I had gotten closer and taken a picture, you can't really see it because it drops off quite quickly. So this is slightly down the trail looking up at the access pathway. Speaker 1: And that's actually the house where we had some issues Speaker 2: With the fence encroachment? Yes. The defense encroachment, yes. This is that house right here.
So this trail is quite wide. 12 to 15 feet, you know, as it varies along the curve. And it is used for, for vehicle access, not on a regular basis, but vehicle access does happen there. For boat launching and things like that. Local Speaker 1: Locals drive their trucks down there, Speaker 2: Locals drive their trucks down there. And the slope of the trail in this location, obviously it varies across the length of the slope, but it's between eight and 10%. So a little bit on the steeper side, but nothing that is not travel able by the, the equipment that we'd be looking for. As we move down closer to the pond, the trail does lessen out in terms of steepness, we're
between the sort of five and 8% as we move along this stretch. The trail width remains quite wide and this section of trail is, is primarily cobbles and gravel. There, there's almost no top soil along this trail alignment in part because of erosion coming down the hillside. And in part because of the, the amount of foot traffic that this area sees. The, Speaker 1: And that's something we might want to address at some point as Speaker 2: Well. I think especially after this equipment is moving through there and we have an opportunity to look at restoration, I think potentially like A-C-P-A-A funded project could be a good option. I will note the pond has been getting quite a bit
of use this winter with the freeze from kids playing hockey and, and some ice fishing and things like that. This is the boat launch area at the base of the hill, what's sort of affectionately referred to as the beach. It's certainly not a beach by any definition, but this, the next two photos sort of show that level flat area as it approaches the water. This is where the floating boardwalk segments would be launched in order to be floated into place in the open water stretch that you can see. They'll Speaker 1: Be floated, they'll be floated across here. And then this is where the bridge goes out in the distance, right?
Yep. Over there. Cool. Yeah, it's really neat, really beautiful parcel. Speaker 2: And we are now moving into the sort of trail connection from that level boat launch area. There's actually two different paths that the, the equipment can take, but access is about eight feet wide along both of them. So plenty of room for equipment. We're moving along that trail corridor, as you can see towards the project location. This side of the pond, the trails do get a little bit less foot traffic, but it is definitely still a regularly used parcel. I actually think it gets used more in the winter than it does in the summer by the folks who are,
are taking advantage of the frozen pond. Continuing to move along the trail access, I just wanna call out, there are some areas along the trails where there's, there's fallen deadwood that might need to be relocated or removed from the site in order to facilitate access. But as I mentioned, there's only one tree that is proposed for removal from the project. Continuing along the equipment access pathway, we approach that sort of top of slope. You can see that northern point over in the distance. This bench will be stored dur throughout the duration of construction and, and relocated once the project is complete.
Speaker 1: We know the, do we know the providence of that bench? Speaker 2: Absolutely not. It appeared one day and we'll make sure it stays safe during construction and pop it back down at the end of the day. So, Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like it's not Speaker 2: Anchored into the ground, it's just Speaker 1: Not made of like someone's dead ashes or Speaker 2: No, it appears to be aluminum and wood so it's fairly light as well. So I I think somebody just walked in with it. Speaker 1: Just put it there. Yep. Speaker 2: Okay. So the bench right here folks can see it is just off to the edge of the photo. There's a, a survey nail that, that was flagged in the field. And this is the yellow arrow indicates the sort
of approximate top of the staircase for the southern side of Speaker 1: That was an existing survey nail or one they put? Speaker 2: No, that was an existing survey nail. It was buried. They found it with a metal detector. Yep. And so looking at where that stairway alignment will go again, you can see there is an existing footpath. Folks do walk down right to the water's edge and at this time of year they walk up from the water's edge as well. And again, those orange lines trying to show a rough demarcation of vegetation clearing. We're approaching the bottom of the slope now continuing to move down the hill. And now we are at the bottom
of the slope looking at the two sort of hillside on either side of the trail corridor. These photos were intended to try to demonstrate the extent of greenbriar growth in this area. So Greenbriar also known as cat briar is technically a native species, but it is what we at least I refer to as a nuisance species in terms of it, it grows quite densely. It can be quite aggressive and it is very thorny and the thorns are, are no joke having been caught on them plenty myself. So on the southern side of the pond, along with the
required vegetation clearing, there is also proposed additional green briar removal from that area by hand. So not, not clear cutting, just removing that vine material from the remaining sort of underbrush to try to maintain a, a clear passageway for the new trail. So we're not constantly cutting the green briar back from the, the trail corridor, but it's Speaker 1: Just physical removal. We don't have to do any, there's no no, Speaker 2: No, no, no in herbicides or anything like that. And, and just so folks can see, the reason that it's called green briar in part is because it vines do remain green throughout much of the year.
So all that sort of green tinged growth is all that green briar vine much more on the, on the south side than on the north side. And this is now looking again across the vegetation to the, the north side of the pond where we'll, we'll have to do some more vegetation clearing. A lot of this that we're seeing again is that green briar growth, but there are more sedges on this side that would need to be removed in order to facilitate the gangway construction. That is the end of the site photos. So I will just jump over to the plan set.
I'm gonna scroll down to the details to focus on those first and then jump back up to the planting plan. But the box box sta detail is right here. So all of the trail segments that we are proposing are designed to meet the fag guidelines to the extent feasible so that it is a width recommendation, handrail recommendations, the amount of stairs you have in a row before you have a landing. We really have tried the topography in this area does prohibit an a DA accessible connection, but we've tried to make this feature as accessible as possible.
So they are pressure treated timbers that are, are anchored with rebar on a, on a gravel base. And then it's a galvanized steel handrail to prevent degradation, splinters, those types of things. And the trail leading up to, and the landings within the staircase will be a a, a crushed stone base that require, it will require minimal refreshing over the years as sort of erosion and foot traffic, but we'll have minimal maintenance needs and,
and given the access that DPW has to the site, I don't, I don't imagine it will be an issue for our stewards to, to maintain that. Just to move on to an additional detail. So the next detail that I wanted to show was the gangway detail. So we have the end of this, the timber stairs here. This is the proposed landing structure that I'll get into in just a moment. But the, the gangway will connect to that landing structure with a piano hinge so the gangway itself can be lifted if there is ever a need to, to prohibit access to the boardwalk if there's a safety concern,
a large flooding event, things like that. But for the most part it'll remain down and connected to those floating floating boardwalk sections. And this will also have aluminum handrails that comply with the fag guidelines, the landing platform. It is the one point that I want to, to bring up very clearly. This is our one potential point of impact with the bordering land subject to flooding, as is noted in the narrative. And in a memo provided by Sam Otis, the updated FEMA maps that went into effect last summer
changed the flood zone in this area from 500 year flood zone to a hundred year flood zone. So we went from, from non-jurisdictional flood zone to jurisdictional flood zone because it is a zone A, there's no defined base flood elevation. So we had a firm go out and, and do a study based on the existing outlet limitations, generalized high water marks to determine what the estimated flood elevation would be. And it is estimated that we would not be impacting the bordering land subject
to flooding within the flood elevation. However, as, as is noted with this note on the detail, confirm height of cribbing in the field, depending on the finalized field conditions, there may be a small encroachment into the bordering land subject to flooding. But as is attempted to be indicated with the arrow on the detail here, this is not a closed structure. It it's a, a platform structure. So water will be able to pass underneath it. It's just the actual posts themselves would potentially take up a very small amount of flood storage.
I have noted that on the NOI form it's estimated to be less than 10 square feet of potential impact. I think even that is quite an extensive amount of impact for what's being proposed. But I've also included notes in the narrative that should final field confirmation determine that there have been impacts to the bordering land subject to flooding, we would come back to the commission to permit that compensatory storage as required. Moving onto the floating boardwalk, these they're interlocking sections. So here here's the detail of the individual section.
So the sections themselves lock into each other to provide flexibility but also stability and the sort of surfacing of them. It, it's a, a composite material. They would have aluminum handrails and they are secured with pyramid bottom anchors. So this is a fairly standard method of of anchoring docks and and peers in the research that I did and in what was recommended by the, the floating dock company. This does tend to be one of the less invasive me,
less invasive methods of anchoring this type of system. They're designed that they're just dropped in and because of the pyramid shape they sort of settle themselves into that bottom of the pond. There are two anchors for each section of boardwalk. So between the entire project, I would need to check the narrative to make sure I get the number exactly right. But I believe that there are 18 anchors that would be installed total, which results in 51.72 square feet
of land under waterways and water bodies impacts. So when we're looking at the entire extent of the project, it is a fairly minimal result. And I'm just gonna scroll down. I would really encourage folks to read the narrative. I tried to include as much detail, I tried to write a narrative that I would like to receive as a conservation agent, but I, I do, I am very much a proponent of the more eyes on something the better. And if there are errors in this or, or grammar, even grammar errors, I, I would certainly love to have those addressed before the commission is issuing any permits.
So yes, that is sort of my big overview of the, the construction phase. To jump briefly into restoration plantings, I made it very clear to the, the landscape architect on the project that restoration needed to be a primary component of the project, not an afterthought. So we did work to establish a, a restoration planting plan, a, a shrubby material along the newly constructed stairways as well as tubing plantings to be installed along the bank and wetland edge to help re reestablish any
of the wetlands vegetation that's being impacted through construction. Again, we, we really have minimized to the extent practicable. I know that these plan sheets are a little dense, so if anyone would like things separated out, please let me know. But I'm just trying to show the limit. So you can see that the limit of the vegetation clearing we're, and the plan sheet orientation is very confusing. I'm on the north side of the pond right now, so the vegetation clearing is limited to the pathway of the stairs. And you can see there's a small box that extends right around where that landing cord landing
platform would be constructed. So there are, you know, pretty significant portions of the hillside on either side of the staircase that will not have the vegetation disturbed. Tree protection is proposed to be installed. Folks can see the, the demarcation on the plan sheets. This is that one 12 inch tree that needs to be removed, as you guys can see with the slope. It's the only really level area. If we came over to the side here, we'd be removing two trees. So this was sort of determined to be the path of, you know, quote unquote least resistance. There are various demarcations that'll be happening in the
field prior to work starting. There's a limit of work that's identified that'll be flagged in the field by myself prior to any site access. And then the erosion control limits will be laid within that limit of work by the selected contractor, which obviously will then be reviewed through a pre-construction site visit by myself after the fact. There is also not on this plan sheet, I believe on the next plan sheet there is orange snow fencing being proposed surrounding the work area at each point just to limit public any public safety hazards related
to the construction process. And I think I have hopefully babbled on enough, but I wanna make sure that I can answer any questions that the commission might have, take any notes about any additional information the commission might be looking for. All of the above. Speaker 1: This is great. Very exciting. We just, the connectivity that this is gonna provide at some point I would like to see a, a loop around the island. Yes. You know, from the island. And then we can take some of the helical screw stuff that we've been doing to get to the, to the island bridge, you know, with the Island bridge. Do that on the other side. And then you could do a trail all the way around Piro Pond. Yeah. All the way there'd be glorious.
But this is, this has been on our list for a long time to, to get this done. One question I have is around, I mean, is around a butter notification. I'm a little surprised that there's no one from the neighborhood on this. So on the call here Speaker 2: Yes. So a better notification under the regulations is not required for this project because of the size of the parcel that it's occurring on. Fair, fair. What did occur was notification was sent out to a number of the neighbors who had reached out to me for sharing and distributing in the neighborhood. It was also sent out, there's a project website on the website that folks can sign up for immediate alerts to.
And this agenda was sent out to everyone signed up to that alert list. Okay. I don't, I had requested one of the neighbors post it on the neighborhood Facebook page. I don't know if that happened or not. Okay. But I think partially because we don't have a DEP file number, I can certainly make maybe a more concerted effort to get, I had a one of the abutters reach out to me when they received the agenda saying I thought this project was a done deal. What can I do to make sure that this gets done? Yeah. And so I did reassure him that the project is occurring, that we have to go through this permitting step before any, any of the work can occur.
Speaker 1: If you could just make sure, I just wanna Yep. You know, I just wanna minimize people think, oh my God, this is happening. I mean, 'cause it's, it's, you know, it's a big deal. It's gonna change some of the viewscape of pick pond I think in a good way. I mean it'll just, you know, the, the connectivity I think will bring, just bring such great value. We could have people from, you know, from from Weathersfield who can now walk over to Oak Oakdale. Right? Yes. I think that's, I like that. There you go. Oakdale, you know, and, and East school and just all that. I mean it's really, really an amazing connection. I think. Speaker 11: What color is it gonna be, Claire or have we already talked about color?
Speaker 2: So it is my understanding based on the specs that we just talked about with oc, which is the company that makes the floating boardwalks, that the platforms itself will be sort of a neutral brown color. Great. And then the aluminum handrails will be a sort of a reflective silver color. Speaker 11: Yeah. I mean that was my only complaint about the Franklin one was the white I, Speaker 2: Yeah. No, and that was one of the requests that we did, I think based on the commission's review of some of those materials we had requested. Speaker 11: I guess my friends in Franklin, of course Speaker 1: We Speaker 2: Love bli. Speaker 11: I do bra love. Speaker 1: Cool. So we don't have a de file number so we can't close anything correct here tonight.
So this is it. So why don't you, if you could do that just one last ping to the, to the neighborhood. Absolutely. And just kind of give him, give him a chance at this. Speaker 2: I know David just got back from vacation on, on Monday, so that might be why he's not here tonight. Speaker 1: So let's let, let's do that. Any questions guys? Speaker 14: Is there a contractor? Speaker 2: So once we have the permitting secured, I have been working with Brian Leblanc. This is the town's chief procurement officer. So we're working on getting the bid documentation ready so that way once the permits are issued, we can finalize those plan sets and get the bid released ribbon Speaker 11: Cutting or we got a ribbon Speaker 1: Cut absolutely schedule.
Speaker 14: So a easy dock will give all the specs like for how, you know, the tension on all those? Speaker 2: Yes. And and likely what will happen is the contract will likely be awarded to the firm that's gonna be doing the box stairs and the landing platforms. And then OC would be subcontracted as the dock supplier. Good. Okay. So because Easy Doc wouldn't be the one constructing all the other work in order to avoid us having two separate bids. Speaker 1: But is Easy Dock, are they the ones who would come and float the segments out there and attach 'em? Yes, Speaker 2: They're stacked. They would be fully
subcontracted for, for that installation. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 14: And, and there might even be annual, you know, a check on the tensioning and Oh, certainly. Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean we have a, a very robust steward group that manages this parcel and that they're very quick to report anything that that is Yeah. Sort of out amiss. So I imagine that once this gets installed, we can have like a little bit of a training with them about what to look out for with the floating boardwalk. Yeah. Speaker 14: And then my last one was, yeah, that, that gang plank there. Yes. I was just thinking as a kid, you know, that I couldn't wait to
Speaker 1: We'll lock it down. Yeah. I Speaker 2: I I am sure there are ways to secure it, to keep it from being messed with, but I will, I'll reach out to the company about that. Speaker 1: You were a hell of a kid. Trouble me. Trouble me gang fight when, when Jim got out of reform school, you know, he was very successful in life. Speaker 11: Does someone really discharge for nursery school? Speaker 1: All right, excellent. This all sounds great. So we'll make a motion to continue this to February five. Motion to continue. Thank you Jim. Is that seconded? So thank you Jeff. Any further discussion? Those in favor, David? Yes. Thank you sir. Alright, that Adur,
that concludes the public hearings part of our meeting. Yes. Two 14 North Main Street. Speaker 2: Yes. So we had briefly discussed this at Speaker 1: The, the the fan and retirement home. Exactly. Speaker 2: So we, we had briefly discussed this at our last meeting. I, I had a draft comment letter and the commission was gonna review the materials in a little more detail to determine what, if anything we wanted to include in that comment letter. There is not wetlands jurisdiction associated with this project. It is, is simply under our major stormwater permit regulations. The, the body, the applicants will be required to come
before this body for that permitting process. What I will say is that national development, who's the, the applicant on this project did do quite a bit of preliminary back and forth with myself and Bill McDowell on the stormwater management design. They have really put a focus on, on low impact development principles and are maintaining the, the full wooded area that exists at the rear of the lot. There's currently no proposed disturbance of that, that tree line. So just wanted to make sure that if the commission had anything that jumped out to them when they were reviewing the plans, that we got those in the comment letter. If not, I'll sort of throw in some
of my usual comments related to stormwater management systems. Mostly related to, you know, making sure that all of the required materials are provided in the permit application and noting that the abutter notification is the responsibility of the applicant. 'cause that is something that I come across on a pretty regular basis of folks thinking that the town takes care of that. But if there were any other specific comments? Speaker 1: Not really. I mean the, I mean, not, not for me, I mean the, the, it's a big project. The site doesn't give access to state parkland or anything like that behind it. So there's no real kind of open space. I mean there's, you know, anything
Speaker 2: There's wildlife open space benefit, but not necessarily public access connectivity. Speaker 1: I think, I think all my comments would just be around, you know, low impact development stuff. I think to Mike's point earlier tonight, you know, any kind of, kind of, you know, biotreatment kind of features anything, especially with the proximity to the lake. I mean it's probably, as the crow flies it's probably, you know, less than a hundred meters to the lake. Something like that I think. Speaker 11: Yeah, just get a handle on that, on that drift from the cleaner. I, I know this is a ways away from that,
but I have, we haven't, I haven't looked at that drift in a while or I haven't. I remember we had a fairly good map of that during the, Speaker 1: You mean across the street from, from the pizza place? Correct. And you know, and down, was it Mako Road? No, what what's the road that goes to the roads that goes to Wilson? Yeah, Speaker 2: Rutledge. Speaker 1: Rutledge. Well it's Rutledge but then across, across the street. But across the street, yes, Speaker 2: Across the street's. Meko. Speaker 1: Yeah. Mako. And that goes back to the Mary Bunker. Yeah, Mary Bunker. I remember it just being like a lot bigger when they
presented that drift analysis to us. Where that let let's, let's review that. You know, maybe let's review that at the next meeting and just kind of just put some eyeballs on it. So is it Speaker 8: Taking all that property there? Speaker 1: It's not, no, it's, it's what, what's it separated by? Speaker 2: Actually I've got the map up here. It's not, Speaker 1: It's not separated by all that much. Speaker 8: Yeah, it's like there's a radio house Speaker 1: There. Yeah. Speaker 2: Right. So here's the map. So this is Meko Road, there's Rutledge, this is the 9 27 Plaza. This is the Dunkin Donuts. And these are the properties that are being proposed for redevelopment. Speaker 1: But this building is gonna remain. Yes. Yep.
Speaker 2: Yes. One this building remains. One of the existing buildings is gonna remain under Lou Franci's ownership and management and is not a part of the proposed development. Are these two Speaker 1: Ones on the front of the street part of it? Are they gonna be taken out? Let Speaker 2: Me just pull up Speaker 8: The p Yeah, that the pediatrics office, the P is empty. Yeah, it's empty. Right. So Speaker 1: It's empty now. So is that gonna be done? Oh, that's going, Speaker 2: I'm just pulling, I'm just pulling up the plan set right here. The Speaker 8: Other one has like the, the coin guy in Speaker 2: It. So here's the existing set of buildings. I'm gonna zoom in. Here's the existing set of buildings and then I'm just gonna scroll down to the proposed site conditions.
So it is just that square building. Speaker 1: Everything else goes Speaker 2: This square building, everything else is going. Yes. So it's Speaker 1: Pretty close to that plume the house. So this it is, it Speaker 8: Is that house goes that the building like right there. These two are going, these Speaker 2: Two are going. Yes. Speaker 8: And that you, this is Speaker 2: Where, this one here Methadone clinic Speaker 1: Or so in there, there is but then, but then the plume is here. Speaker 8: Yeah, there's a coin guy in Speaker 1: It. You know, there there's, there's monitoring wells all Speaker 2: There are quite a number of them. Yes. Yeah. Speaker 1: 'cause there was, was it a dry cleaner that was using? Yeah, the dry cleaner used to just dump. Speaker 8: What about the houses on the corner? Are those going as part of the, on the other side?
Route nine? No, there was that house on Speaker 2: The lake, the fire on Speaker 8: Side that was perpetually empty. If you go to the back way to the square Speaker 2: Pizza place left. So this, this house is proposed to be removed. Speaker 1: So that's the brick house right there. That was right next door. Speaker 8: There's the brick house, but then there's that, that's Speaker 1: The fire's the one that burned, right? That's the one that burned. Speaker 8: Yeah. And then they, but it's been empty for like 10 years. Oh Speaker 1: Yeah. Hold on. Whoops. Speaker 2: So this one, Speaker 1: Oh, I wish Fanon was still there. I know. So that's going, that goes, that's the house that burned. Speaker 8: Does that go as part of the Speaker 1: And that's going too? Oh yeah. That's going, that's staying. That's Speaker 2: This one is staying, that Speaker 1: One stayed,
Speaker 8: But bricklin's, no one's moved into it in 10 years. It's been empty for, Speaker 2: So this is that house and then the, the, the burned house is this one right here. Speaker 8: I figured that that was going as part of the 9 27 Speaker 11: Issue spending Speaker 1: Times. Well, well but you know, one thing we need to keep in mind about this though is that these plans here, when you overlay these plans with the 9 27 plans, they don't align. Right? Oh boy. You know, this road is, this is not what the 9 27, this is current condition. Speaker 2: So there has been coordination between, who did I just say was the developer on this national development?
Thank you and DOT on the 9 27 project. Right. Speaker 1: But just but these plans don't show that yet. Speaker 2: Yes. Because they don't have as-built plans of what was actually constructed. Right. So they chose to over, Speaker 1: That was the first thing that jumped out at me was I was just like, holy crap, this whole thing's gonna change with, with the 9 27 project. I was curious because that flow and they may change the configuration of the driveways. Speaker 2: There was a lot of back and forth with DOT about trying, they really wanted both of these entrances. And I know DOT was trying to push only for one.
So I, I believe that if there are gonna be changes, it might be a loss of one of those access points potentially versus additional driveways. Speaker 1: So I think but that Speaker 14: It's showing this I'm just that that White House. Yeah, that Speaker 2: So that's the wrong side. Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no. Oh, Jim was just saying though that this, Speaker 14: It used to be years ago it was a radio place this in, but you say it's this, it's good. Speaker 1: But this is, this is that long skinny building. So that one Speaker 14: May, so that may be steady. Oh Speaker 1: Right. This is the pediatrician's office here. That's gone.
That's gone. Okay. Speaker 8: So the this one may stay. Yeah, may stay. Yeah. Because Speaker 1: Well that may stay and then p Yeah, Speaker 2: Because that, that is a separate parcel. Speaker 11: Still get my baseball cards. Right. Speaker 14: And the plume is like, yeah, that's, Speaker 11: You gotta watch about the plume Jim Speaker 14: Who, who's monitoring that for, Speaker 1: It's a Speaker 2: Super technically Mary Bunker is town owned property, but the town was not the release party. So I don't actually know. Yeah. And mass Speaker 14: Ep it. Speaker 2: So this site, unfortunately I, 'cause I did look, does not show up in the mass DEP
21 E records. Oh boy. At least as far as they're digitalized. Digitized. But that is something that I am looking into more also at the request of DOT with some of the, the 9 27 work. Speaker 11: That was the, we talked about that when they were doing the route Speaker 1: 27 upgrades. The Speaker 2: Drainage, well Speaker 8: Both Route 20 when they were updating the parking lot. Rent, stop and shop. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah you're right. That was the initial one. And then the Speaker 11: Twice Speaker 1: Building 19, what happened to building Speaker 11: All the good old days? You be seeing that what happened to SPACs. Speaker 2: So if the commission is comfortable with me just issuing a, a gen general letter
with the notes about low impact development as well as potential soil contamination. Noted, Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 11: But soil Speaker 1: Contamination great. Would be great. Speaker 11: Good. Thank you. Speaker 1: Alright. Speaker 2: Charles River Watershed folks might have seen this email that came into the ComCom email account. So Charles River Watershed Association is looking for various individuals, organizations and boards to sign on to this letter regarding potential impacts of CSOs or combined sewer overflows on the Charles River. Have you Speaker 1: Guys been, been following the, the, the dialogue over around, there's Speaker 2: Been a lot of dialogue about it, Speaker 1: About this and so was it, is it EPA?
No. Who is it who's asking for the change in designation? Speaker 2: I, I believe that it is coming from, from the federal level of EPA is where these changes are sort of trickling down from. And Speaker 1: What, what people are freaking out about is that basically they're changing the designation then it pre, it conceivably loosens the restrictions around how much and when sewage. Sewage can go into the Charles, they're, they're saying the proponents of this are saying that it's not gonna result in more pollution, but it,
but it's making it technically possible and it's kind of easing off a little bit on the pressure Yep. For them to eliminate outflows. Speaker 25: Well, let's go into, it'll go into Boston Harbor and that's a sanctuary city. Speaker 1: The, they're, they're, they're starting to shellfish in Boston Harbor now. Yeah, that's right. Speaker 2: But yes, I, I think that this is certainly a step in a backwards direction from the progress that has been made in Boston Harbor and the Charles River since, you know, the seventies, Speaker 1: Eighties. So, so there as, I mean, I, you know, I think, I mean we as a commission could sign onto a letter that just opposes this Sure.
And just encourages them to maintain the current designation kind of thing. Claire, do you wanna draft up a letter? So Speaker 2: There, there was a draft letter that was provided by CRWA that, that just other communities you can see are just signing on to this letter. So if the commission is comfortable, I can just put, you know, Matthew Gardner or even myself, you know, as Claire and Deley. Speaker 25: There's telephone number on that. Speaker 1: No, don't put George's stuff. Speaker 2: But, so there, there is a draft letter. It's pretty generic template letter of support. Speaker 1: You know, why don't you put both of us on it. Okay. You know, and then, and then with, with your guys' approval,
we'll just have that on there just to indicate our outrage. I think Speaker 2: Especially given that that Natick doesn't have any CSOs, I think it is a nice gesture for us to sort of show support on this. Agreed. Speaker 1: Good. Okay. Speaker 2: Next. So this was an interesting one. I had not seen this type of letter come through before. Central Mass mosquito control project is requesting our approval to do work on a piece of property that is owned by the commission. So I'm gonna just scroll down to the map so that way we can, and actually I'm gonna open up the downloaded version of it.
Did I download it? Of course not, but I can't rotate the screen from the regular version. Okay. Speaker 25: That was done from one of their drones. Speaker 2: So what they're essentially proposing, there's a small stream corridor that traverses zero front street, which is a parcel that the commission owns down in South Natick, sort of near, near the Leach Lane and Brook Street area and central mass mosquito control, if I had to guess in response to requests from abutting property owners are looking to go out and do some stream clearing. So the removal of fallen vegetation and debris just
Speaker 1: To increase flow. Speaker 2: Yeah. Just to increase flow, reduce stagnation in that stream corridor. So they're proposing this work on a number of properties, including private properties that are abutting us, that would require those landowners approval. And I need to switch my screen so that we're looking at the beach Speaker 26: Thing with that house project. Speaker 1: With that new project is going in. Speaker 2: That's actually this, this lot right here. Speaker 26: Muddy thing in the back. That muddy. Speaker 11: Hey Speaker 2: It's, and so, I mean this is resource area. This is extend of the commission's property where that clearing is proposed to occur.
So we own this sort of large interior parcel. It, the clearing work is only proposed within the stream channel. This work would not extend into the wetland areas. The one thing that sort of raised concerns on my end in regards to the proposal was how they proposed to deal with the items that were being removed from the stream. This language, you know, all brush that is cut will be neatly piled on site. Those words raise little red flags in my head. So I did reach out to Katrina Proctor who's the, the contact at central mass mosquito control. There is an opportunity on the form, and I actually, since we're all here, I'll grab my, the form
so that Matt can just sign it if commission approves. But we can put comments on the form. And Katrina just recommended that we request a site visit prior to the work occurring with the work team to discuss what is and isn't appropriate on the Speaker 11: Site. Is this a government entity? Who is this? Speaker 2: So central mass mosquito control is a regional entity. Each of the regions in Massachusetts have a mosquito control project. They are the entity that's noted in the regulations that is exempt from, from our requirements order for the purposes of mosquito mosquito control. They don't
Speaker 25: They Speaker 1: Contraras Contraras George? Speaker 25: No, but theys they do the flyovers and you or they go down the street and spray you. Yeah, they Speaker 2: Do do the spraying and things like that. Exactly. Speaker 11: That's back in the seventies and eighties. And Speaker 1: You'd play in the DDT shower and just kind of enjoy it. Come, Speaker 2: But so the Speaker 1: Both briefly and then go get back to playing. I'm just gonna grab that in principle. You got nose Speaker 11: And door. I remember, I remember those days. You know, I, I wasn't around in the, you know, twenties, thirties and forties, but I Speaker 1: Remember, Speaker 11: I do remember the big gun in there shooting,
you know, the malathion or whatever chemical they were shooting out of there. Agent orange. Oh my gosh. Oh Speaker 25: Goodness. Yeah. They'd say, you know, you'd put, you'd let them know you don't want it in your yard. Yeah. But your neighbors Speaker 1: Right. You're still surrounded by it. So, Speaker 2: Oh, I get in front of the mic before I start Speaker 25: Talking about, you wonder why all the birds were dead. Speaker 1: Are, are people in principle generally comfortable with this? Speaker 2: It does note that all the work will occur by hand. There's no, no plan for, Speaker 1: We can't say, we can't say no. Right. Speaker 25: But they're gonna neatly pile all the things they cut where Speaker 2: On the site. And that's why We'll, we'll have that meeting to discuss
how and where that's appropriate. I did request that they take it off offsite. They did refuse that request. Speaker 1: They did refuse it. Yes. Can Speaker 25: It be, or they say let it dry and you can burn it out. Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good idea. Oh, outside the no disturbed Speaker 1: Materials outside of the outside 20, outside of 25 feet just Speaker 8: Doesn't fall back in. I mean, yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 11: Just, you know, I don't, maybe I'm making it Speaker 1: Hard on, so outside of at least 25 feet from the, from the, Speaker 2: The stream Speaker 1: Corridor stream part of it Speaker 11: Or whatever, Speaker 25: I would put it right in the but's yards. Speaker 11: I feel like aspiring to career. Speaker 1: But besides that though, everyone's good. Yep. Alright.
No, I'll go ahead and sign it. Speaker 11: The chloro. Speaker 1: Alright. Anything else? Speaker 2: Oh, the, I'm sorry. There was one last thing that I just wanted to update the commission about. We just had, we had our feedback call with EEA regarding those grant programs that we were looking into. EEA did recommend that we not necessarily restrict ourselves from submitting applications just because we have a priority pro. The parks improvement project is our priority for MVP funding. They recommended that we just self-identify in our narrative that that is our priority project for funding. But that we submit all of our projects for consideration. Great. But we won't be penalized by submitting Okay.
Applications against ourself. Great. Cool. Speaker 8: Over at Coolidge Hill? Yes. That dog over there, this is a pretty Big pine. Speaker 2: Is that now? Is it Timothy Coolidge Hill? Yeah. So we are aware of that. It has been reported to Art Goode. He is trying to work to get a time to clear the parking lot lot. There's Speaker 8: Actually, there's a Speaker 2: Couple of, so that he can bring in the equipment needed to remove the tree. That's a beaver. But it has been notified to Art Heim. That is school committee property. So it's on art to manage. Speaker 8: Did did that come down in the wind stone in this, on December 19th? It Speaker 2: Was reported by to the stewards.
I want to say right before Christmas. So likely, yes. Probably. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 11: That's a big wood Speaker 8: Blow. I, I was in my living room when that I heard it sounded like something hit my house. And I think that was the downdraft. 'cause then my wife and I went out for errands. I ended up down at the Dairy Mott and I look up, look up Pond Street. Wow. And there was a, oh yeah. 50 foot oak tree that fell. A pine tree that fell down. That broke Not, didn't up by the roots. It broke. Yeah. That's about a couple feet for Speaker 25: The base's. What's surprising because usually when it's the pines,
they come up and get this big circle. But this, but this looks like someone just whacked Speaker 8: It. Well it was, it was that that yeah, that microburst. Yeah. I mean, I thought something literally, I thought a wrecking wall in my house. That's, it was, no, there was no trees down, but, oh, Speaker 2: It's a cap. Matt. Speaker 8: It took power down right up to my house. Two, two or three days Tucker to cemetery. Oh yeah. And palm was out. 'cause that thing came down and pulled a pole. Crashed transformer. Wow. Speaker 2: That's Jillian lives down in South Natick.
And she got disrupted by that tree that came down on Glen Street and took down a range of power lines. Apparently she didn't know where one of her kids was. 'cause the bus couldn't get through. Oh no. My goodness. And so there was like a whole bit of a, like, trying to figure out where the kids are getting dropped off. Scenario over Speaker 8: By the, over by the, the dog park. Oh, we Speaker 2: Should, we should motion to adjourn Maybe. We should, Speaker 1: Yeah. Motion to adjourn. Thank you Jim. Is that seconded? Thank you Jeff. Any further discussion on that? Those in favor, David. David. See you man. Speaker 8: Thank you. Thanks David.