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This is the meeting of July 29th of the Natick Planning Board, just past seven o'clock, 7 0 4. Ms. Evans is joining us live from somewhere north or down east, as we should say. So It, I think that the career would be Dear Deer Isle in the coast of Maine. All right. Good place to be, but I'd Rather be with you guys. So, first order of business, as always is public speak. Any individual may raise an issue that is not included on the agenda,
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and it will be taken under advisement by the board. There will be no opportunity for debate during this portion of the meeting. This section is limited to 15 minutes total, and any, any individual addressing the board during the section of the agenda shall be limited to five minutes. So is there anybody here wishing to have public speak? I see someone raising their hand. Oh, Oh, Oh. Who might it be? Mr. Meyer. Yes. Meyer? Yes. So two weeks ago, I wasn't sure if we were meeting or not. So I went online to see if we had an agenda and we didn't have one Monday and Tuesday. And then it became clear to me we weren't meeting,
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but while I was looking at our meeting, the agendas, I looked next to it for the box where it says minutes. Curiously, I was very surprised. I didn't find very many. So I know it's a three step process. We have to prepare minutes, we have to vote minutes, and we have to post minutes. And open meeting law is very clear about approving minutes. They're not as clear about posting, but definitely there is a, there's a, there, there's an open meeting thing here. And just curiosity got the best of me as far, I started scrolling through in this calendar year 2026,
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we only have three sets of posted minutes. The last one was February 11th, so no minutes for the year 2025. There are only four meetings that have posted minutes. There are 22 regular meetings with no minutes. There's even four meetings in 2024. And I, I'm kind of skipping the working group ones. These are just like regular planning board meetings. So we, I, I think we're in a position where like, you know, if somebody decides to, you know, get after us on this, we're kind of exposed. So I don't, I don't know. I feel like we do from time to time, approve them.
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I don't know about the, the tech, you know, what's required to post them, but from my perspective, I'm on some other boards that meet once a month. And typically the first thing on our agenda is approve the meeting, the minutes of the previous meeting. I, I just, I just think we need to have a two step approach to, to get caught up what we need to do to get who, maybe it's the town web person to post them, but I, I think it's a better practice to start our, our meeting with an approval of minutes. I just, I just think that's good practice. This, this could, I just feel like this could definitely raise eyebrows. So I don't disagree.
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Minutes are important. I know this is, we're not supposed to be debating, but I'll say public speak and agree. I mean, I, you know, I was on the economic development committee for a number of years and yeah, there was, we were way behind on approving minutes and, and getting them in the record. So I don't know, Amanda, where we stand or, or Terry, you are probably the most seasoned in terms of getting the minutes pulled together and ready for, you know, review and approval. So I would seek your sage advice on doing
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that and ask Amanda where, where might we be on getting caught up with that. So we are behind, we will need to get caught up on that. Yeah. How many do we do? We know all of them. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Noted. We should absolutely do that. Yeah. I, I, I'm, I'm just, I just feel like it's the kind of thing where if somebody asks, we don't really have a good defense for it other than we we're supposed to do it. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Any others? Wishing to speak public speak? Anybody online? Ation? We're good. Okay. Okay.
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We'll move on to the rest of the agenda here. This is the continued public hearing for 2 73 West Central Street. So if the team wants to come on up, Amanda? Yes. Since It did come in very, very late, did you want to just let people know? Yes. Just so it's good point. Yes. So the other public hearing tonight is zero Pleasant Street for the definitive subdivision. We got very late notice from the applicant that they would like to continue that hearing to the next meeting, which is gonna be some point in August.
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We haven't set that date yet, but we will during this meeting, most likely August 19th, if we can all agree that we could move that, that meeting. So anyone here who came out tonight to hear the Zero Pleasant Street presentation or, or just hear about the project in general, that's not gonna occur tonight, and it will be continued until whatever that date might be in August. So, apologies, that was an extremely late notice from the applicant. So was anybody here for zero? Yeah. Yep. You get some time back.
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I guess time lost waiting, but time back in your, can you give your email address, Alan? Hold on. Sure. Yes, go ahead. I was gonna say, if you give your email address, we can make sure to contact you. Yeah. On the abuts notice of here Actually. Okay. Do that again. Yeah. Can we give our email address? Is that it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, 'cause we don't know when we're continuing yet. Probably August 19th, but it's not official. But continuing. Are you talking about it here or do you just be Actually happy? We are gonna have, so tonight was supposed to be the opening public hearing. Okay. And the applicant would've presented their project. We would've asked questions you as as,
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but whoever would've had the opportunity to ask them questions, it most likely would've gotten continued to the next meeting anyway, just to answer the questions we might bring up. But tonight they're not here, they're not gonna do the initial presentation. We're not gonna have an ability to query them either. So the next meeting will be sort of the official first presentation of the project. Okay. So, so thank you. Yeah. Get them, get Alan, just let's give that to Amanda and send it to Amanda and she'll be able to contact you. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay.
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And my apologies for well, taking the time. Email them. I need my pen. Do you, do you have Your pen? Yeah, please. Yes, please. I don't care. Samantha, just please reach out and email. Okay. Let's, It's rough. It's, you get notice at the last minute and people do come in and so the emails can sometimes help if it ha if it ever happens again. We can at least let people know, but definitely not. Sorry about the inconvenience of that, But thank you for reminding me. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. 2 73 West Central. Okay. Here last few weeks ago,
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some homework items that I think you've worked pretty diligently on. I see the, the record in the uploads to the, to the website. So if you plan on, you do plan on having a presentation to address some of those things, great. Take it away and then we'll be able to ask some questions, open it up to the audience, and then we will see where this goes from here. So Mr. Faye, Thank you very much. As chair members of the board for the record, my name is Jamie Faye with Ford Point Associates representing Gable's Residential on this project at 2 73 West Central Street.
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We have, you know, enjoyed the interaction with the board all along the way and the consideration of this project and felt like we've got a good dialogue going about some of the issues and concerns that you have raised. We have our entire team here tonight just in case you know, there's any issues that anybody wants to bring up that, that needs a response from the professional team. But I, I think tonight what we'd like to do is really just, I think, principally respond to the four issues that the board raised at our last meeting. We've done a lot of homework on those.
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We've filed technical responses, updated documents to address that in the record. And happy to share those with you tonight and, and talk you through and see if there are any questions or comments that we can respond to. Great. Na, help me out here, man. If the button's not working, Click I guess. All right. We're in business now. So the agenda that we wanted to go over with you tonight just includes those four items, or you know, the updated truck turning movements.
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There was concern about whether we could accommodate larger trucks than the SU 30 vehicle that we had presented to the board. The second item is the revised sidewalk design, wanting to make sure that we had a continuous sidewalk along the whole frontage of West Central Street. The actual intersection improvements. Adding a request was made to add two more crosswalks and an appropriate equipment to support those crosswalks at the intersection.
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Make it fully four way. And then finally a request to consider whether the right of way that currently exists at the entrance to the site can be reduced. So with those, we're happy to take 'em one at a time with you. And let me just start by introducing Courtney who Sak, who can address the truck turning movement study and explain the rationale behind it. Okay. Thank you Jamie. For the record, Courtney Sak from TetraTech Traffic consultant for the project. So as Jamie mentioned, in our initial filing, we looked at a
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SU 30, which is a single unit 30 based on settings from the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials or asto, is how you may have heard us refer to it. And I know Alan had requested that we take a look at a larger vehicle. And so we worked with the client to identify the largest delivery vehicle anticipated at the site, which is what we're referring to as a single unit 37. So it's an SU 37 for short and it's 37 feet long.
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And we feel that that is the, by and large, the largest vehicle that residents will use to move their belongings to and from the site, because mostly U-Haul Penske, another big named moving companies, recommend something similar to actually less than an SU 30. They typically recommend a 23 foot long single unit vehicle for a two to three bedroom home. But to be conservative, we looked at the largest. So as you can see here on this screen, the vehicle can adequately enter the site
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and we looked at the, the most difficult turn exiting the site, which is a right turn. And as you can see, it can adequately navigate that maneuver as well. So, I dunno if you want to ask questions now or if you'd like us to go through all of the slides first. Yeah, I think if, if there are any questions on that, I think happy to answer those. Let's sure. Let's take some questions on that. I just have one if you want to, but, but you have your hand up, so, okay. Peter, one quick question. As far as the size of trucks Yeah. Been seeing and personally seeing a family using these pods
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and the pods get transported on some fairly significant trucks. I mean they're significant to me, bigger than the car. Yeah. I don't know how they relate to what you've got. Those typically would be on a relatively small, smaller vehicle than this one. The 37 foot, it is fairly long. Usually you see those more for delivering to, you know, smaller grocery stores. So that what you're referring to with the pods typically arrive on a smaller, a smaller flat bed. Okay. Alright. Then The only one that came to my mind,
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thank you. Thank you. So Yep. I contacted a friend of mine who has a moving company Yeah. To ask him about what he uses. Of course, I was just early today, so it's not like I gotten this, they said, he said that they have a, a few different size vehicles. Yep. They, that biggest they have is a 26, which would be a 40 foot length. So it'd be a little bit bigger than this one. Yep. Obviously that's more of a professional moving company. And I guess through all this I've kind of wanted to make sure, we wanna make sure the size works for you guys too, right? Yeah, of course. So I kind of like what you did
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and I think of a person driving their own vehicle. We definitely want them to stay in their own lane kind of once they come out, not to have to go over the approach Might be good just to, during the design run of 40, just to make sure that you guys don't, you don't want a curb that's getting run over or something like that. Right. But I think that between that flush median, I think they could swing out a little bit more on the internal side. You probably don't have to change anything, but I think you can just, I would just double check it. I don't know if I necessarily even need to see it check
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because of the flush median. I think you're pretty much there anyways. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll definitely keep that in mind as we finalize the design moving forward. But yes, it, it should be adequate. Yeah. And Peter brought up a good point about the pods. So you know, those are usually something that's dropped off. You fill it up on your own, they take it away. I assume there's, that won't be happening at this site, right? No, No. Don't want, it's a parking lot full of pods, right? No. Okay. Yes. Has this design changed at all based off of this turn?
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Or is this exactly what we were looking at last time? There were just minor tweaks to the radi and the island just to get it to work. But very minor. Not really perceptible That corner, the building where the sidewalk is. And I know we're, we're kind of really not talking about that now, but, so it's kind of related to things. How, is that at least a five foot wide sidewalk right at that corner there? Yes. Yep. Okay. Everything was at least five feet minimum. And then the, well this will go into what Ian, Ian will talk about in a minute, but it expands out to an eight foot. Oh yeah. Just wanna make sure that this wasn't making that
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Less than, oh no, we were actually able to squeeze the five foot in for a DA co compliancy without moving any of the existing utility poles or the electrical signal cabinet. Okay. So I'm fine. We can move, move on, I guess. Andy, did you have any questions? Question thank you to the, the mountable slope. Granite curb. Was there plans to landscape that island or keep it just flush some kind of pavement treatment? What's the, what's going on there? That's Actually probably a good segue too. Yes. Right. 'cause his slide is next as well. Okay, great.
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Okay. Thank you. Yeah, good evening for the record. Ian Ram Cap wolf. So maybe just jump into the sidewalk design first and then we can talk about the median. As you remember, when we met last, we had just the easterly portion of the site with the sidewalk basically from the curb cut east towards the MBTA property with the inclusion of the four-way crosswalks and so forth. And the request to make this a continuous frontage, we now have that eight foot wide sidewalk along the entire frontage, including the westerly portion of the curb cut.
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It's an eight foot wide sidewalk. It preserves the center line of what we had before. We're also reserving space for the future, possible expansion of that to become the multi-use path. So the dashed yellow lines are the widening that can accommodate, I believe a 15 foot wide route there. So we're reserving space for that and planning the landscape accordingly. On the eastern side where that sidewalk dips back down to the curb that aligns with the existing sidewalk that goes along the frontage of the MB MBTA property. And on the westerly side, as you remember,
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there is no sidewalk west of our site. However, we bring that sidewalk back to the curb so that in the future should there be a sidewalk continuation west westerly of us, that will be a continuous condition. I think as it relates to that median, we were planning to landscape that with low lying vegetation, with the exception of the area where we have that kind of refuge zone of the crosswalk coming across. Okay. But it's a slope curb. Right. So you're gonna, is there a certain distance back before you would start planting? Yeah, we would probably have a a a a 18 inch
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or so offset from the back of the sloped curb. We haven't got into the detailed design of that just yet, but there would be some zone that would be able to accommodate occasional wheel run over there. Okay. That's my concern for the, the question. Yep. Yep. And the stop line is short of the crosswalk? Yes, correct. Okay. Okay. Questions Are you, is that your presentation? That's it, yeah. Okay. Questions? Any? No, I actually, yep, go ahead, Terry. Yep. Oh, thanks. I, I was glad to see can work, work on the
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sidewalk going forward from our last, our last discussion, our last meeting, and I'm trying to under understand that may not be, that there may be the path extended in, in points in the future. Is there anything that we can see that guarantees that what may be planned? I'd hate to see something like that kind of a gonna get kicked off to the, to the side
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of the road, no pun intended. In, in the course of the, the development plans. I just, I, I feel so strongly about how the sidewalks and pedestrian mo movement is gonna mean for this project. So just, I wanna kind of get a, a guarantee of what is expected Ultimately. Well, c yeah, certainly the development team will construct what's shown in blue there along our frontage as it relates to westerly. We don't really have control over what happens there. And on the easterly side, it does tie into an existing sidewalk. And of course we have the four way crosswalk now too.
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So you have connection to the south side of West Central in two locations. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Great. I, I'm glad, I'm just glad to see the kind of pedestrians getting Yeah. The chance to travel around anyway. Thank you. That's it. Thank you. So my, so just clarify for me again, on the eastern side where it sort of turns out, are you trying to match the sidewalk on the MBT that comes across the MBTA?
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What, what's happening with that geometry, I guess, on that side? That's correct, yes. Okay. So there's a thin line that is just about five or six feet off of where the curb line is. That's the back of the existing sidewalk. So it basically is continuous once you get to that corner. Okay. I see. That's that line on the plan lower, right? Correct. Okay. So to the west where you say bring it to the curb line, Which there isn't really a curb, as I recall. Yeah, I think it's a, it, you basically have like a, it's a goat path, right? You're, We have goats, people Walk in the dirt alongside the
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roadway if they have to walk on that side of the road, but there's no formal sidewalk there at all. I would just, I mean, and there certainly, certainly I certainly would want you to build, I've just, I wouldn't want encourage people to just dump out onto the curb, you know, with no nothing to receive it there. We could pull it back right. Little bit. Yeah. We just wanted to make the connection back to the right of way. Yeah, no, I understand. I didn't wanna just end at somebody else's fence and have you like a dead end, nowhere to go. Right. I, I understand that, that intent. I do, but I also don't want to encourage people to,
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you know, go off into the, into the street either. And, you know, the, I think I mentioned the Arsenal Street example for years. I know thinking, I think you folks had actually developed some along that corridor for years. There was like segments, you know, that deadheaded and you know, it got eventually built, but I would rather not see that come out to the curb. Allen, maybe We could just send it a couple feet short or something, just so we're not Yeah. Especially being the road. This was it. If this was a really small street or whatever, fine. You know, you send 'em to the road and they're gonna walk the road.
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Yeah. We don't want them walking in the road. Right. So Yeah, I mean obviously we don't want a fence either, so maybe we just send it just a couple feet short or so of the curb. Okay. It is gonna be awkward until we get one built over there. Yeah. But hopefully not for too long. Right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Next item. Thank you. Wanna talk about the full intersection improvements? And Courtney will be back. I'm back. Yes. So going back to your question,
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Doug, to Ian, as kind of the transition point, we put in the tentative locations for the additional crosswalk on the north leg and the west leg of the intersection, which don't exist today. And the stop bar on north leg, which is the site driveway is set in appropriate distance in accordance with the industry standard for how far back that should be. And then the start bar for West Central Street, the west leg of the intersection that just pulled back a little bit to accommodate the crosswalk there. And then the project is proposing to make the,
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the, the sidewalk ramps at the three corners that touch those new crosswalks, a DA compliant, and then as well as in design and install the pedestrian traffic signal equipment needed. So the corners of the intersection, sorry, the corners of each of the ends of the crosswalks, those will need pedestrian signal heads mounted either on existing posts or just short posts for the signal pedestrian heads facing each crosswalk. So are there any questions on that,
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Alan? Just to kind of planning in advance? Yeah. You just for a DA purposes, you'll have to make sure you do whatever is needed on the reciprocal ramp just to make sure it's a DA quality. Oh, yes, yes, Of course. Have we heard anything from DPW? Yes. Okay. On, on the improvements here. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Okay. I didn't see anything, but I could have dismissed it. I'm not the best on Google Drive. Amanda was there. So there was a, we will, we will get to this. There was a request to sort of get a quote for improvements to the intersection, which was done by Mr.
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Dimo, which we all should have gotten a copy of that. If not, I have copies here. I can put it in the packet. I did not. Okay. Put it in the packet. Okay. Thank you. Do, do you see it, Terry? No, no, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm waiting to see it. I hadn't, I hadn't seen it in the Back. Okay. So yeah, I think the conversation last time was, you know, thank you for the crosswalk on that western leg and kind of completing the whole intersection here. And then, you know, in the context of building the sidewalk
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and just improvements along the front edge and just making this your front door, I think we can all agree some of that equipment is in need of evaluation in terms of being, it being functional, modern, et cetera. So my ask last time was, take a look at the equipment, right? Is, is everything there functional? For example, there's a literally rusting pole with a, you know, pedestrian head, or not even a pedestrian. It's actually, you pointed out Alan, the signal head, which requires two. One of them is hanging over the left turn lane,
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the other one's on that rusting pole. So I'm suggesting, and part of the quote that con it came back in the last few days was what would it cost to upgrade that, that intersection, the equipment there. I'm not, not asking about a full reconstruction, it's just the equipment that's there. You know, if you're gonna be working, creating a nice project here, let's make that front door up to standard. So that's, Amanda, correct me if I'm wrong, that's what this quote does here. It covers sort of an audit of all the equipment there, the signal heads posts,
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controller cabinet stuff. It is, it's all itemized here. And it was just uploaded. It's called West Central at Kendall Street Lane Upgrades. Right, Alan, here you go. Hard copy of it. Yeah. So replacement of three, failing traffic signal foundations replacement of cabinet and controller assembly, replacement of existing post four post and bases, redo span and signals including the wire turn, buckles, handman, countdowns with housings. Three section signals, four section signals,
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LEDs hardware, that's a line item. Replace the existing ped buttons with a PS, audible install, preemption install, single, single point video detection system, wire and test. So that's all the things that, you know, our consultant or our, our vendor went out and, and looked at and provided a, a quote on this. And I think you guys have a copy of this. We got a copy or, okay. About noon time today. Okay. So it's pretty, you know, it, it's detailed. It doesn't include the soft costs. No.
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I assume, I don't know what the town would do to advance that on, on our own. I don't know. And of course it's dated today, so, you know, who knows if these prices hold tomorrow, but it's about 109,000 let's say for all that work to be done. So you have a copy of that. And we do, you know, that's I think comprehensively what I was looking for, sort of an audit of, of, you know, the intersection there. So I know you're seeing it probably for the first time Alan, but, or anybody else. But
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Just to let everybody know. So the span wire would still be a span wire like it is where you kind of have a wire go across the street. They're not planning on replacing that pole. I think tho that starts getting to be a bigger money once you start going to, you know, master arms, now you're doing a full reconstruction, now you're in the 250 range. So this is a update, well not even update, but yeah. Provide the same thing but do better. Right? Yep. And in the process here, I've, I've learned
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that the fire department is Yeah, the authority. They hear the signals in town. Yeah. The equipment and upgrades and the like. But so I think there was, this was done in conjunction with 'em. I, I think Mr. Digo reached out and got their input on this. So any questions on this? Any or any reaction from the applicant team on this? Sure. You know, I mean I, we heard your concern at the last meeting. We had a, a concern as well, but the potential cost of, depending on what the scope of
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that work was, of being significant and had, had had quite a bit of concern about the potential financial exposure on that. I don't know, Jorgen, if you want to address This, I think where we ended up, I think Jorgen Pando with Gables. No, I think, I think where we ended up and, and the, the, the nature of the proposed improvements, it's perfectly acceptable to us. I mean, happy to try to facilitate, you know, upgraded equipment. So I think that's the answer more than we thought
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for just the crosswalks. But within the scope of the project, something like company Yeah. Right. Between the pede, the pedestrian access and the, the, the new, you know, some of the new technology that we'll install. It's, it's the right right thing to do. Do you mind if use It to my ears? Yes. Andy, Do you mind if we go from try to get that done to have it incorporated in the decision as a condition? It, it is. I I'm not mistaken. I think we, we've discussed having a condition in which the applicant would agree to basically,
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you know, as long as the costs are capped at whatever that number is, essentially, you know, write a check to the town to let them have their vendor do that work. And, But it's it's currently in here. Yeah. In the latest, I think. Is that right? A Amanda just distributed it Transportation. So I think the answer is just checking. Yeah, Yeah. Didn't mean to pause words. It's, it's Not a, maybe it's not a, maybe never Your question. We're gonna try, we've discussed it, you know, like a thumb up all good except it might, you know, Black, black and white. Go ahead and put it in the conditions. I've got one in mind.
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I mean I do think, you know, 109,000, I would like to see a contingency added onto that just for the unknown 15%, 125,000. If I'm gonna suggest the condition, that's where I would go. So I do have a technical question though on the, so where the stop bar is right on the site drive approach. Do we, so it's video detection now, correct? It's not loop detected. Correct. What has to happen for, you know,
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the stop bar being moved back on West Central Street or I'm ask and the, at the site drive, it's, is it covered? Is it, So can you repeat that Please? I'm just trying to understand the extent of video detection for vehicles approaching. Any, any of those Coming out outta the site Right. Coming outta the site or you know, coming east on West Central where the stop bar is moved. Just what has to happen there. Yeah. So we aren't materially changing where the vehicles in each of the travel lanes are approaching from today.
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So we didn't anticipate needing to make any modifications to the, the equipment out there for the detection. We can redraw essentially since it's video. Yep. It's, we are virtually drawing a, a square. So the fire department actually has access to the do it in their office. That's where I was going. Okay. Yep. Okay. They know what to do. Yeah. And if we're upgrading, you know, pine Ridge will draw it where it should be too. Got It. Okay. That was my only technical question on that. Okay. Yes.
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If there's nothing else on that specific topic, we also just wanted to address your final request I think at the last meeting, which was to look at the right of way. And as you can see on this illustration, there's sort of a trapezoid where the right of way comes into the property and I think it was, I think it was mascot that did this intersection when they owned Route 1 35 and did a taking to facilitate that. And you know, looking back on it, they took more than they probably needed to.
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And so your question, you know, prompted us to, to take a look at that right of way line and see, you know, where it could be moved to while still not requiring, you know, an easement from the developer to the town to allow. 'cause you already have an easement there. So basically what we are suggesting is moving that trapezoid towards the street to somewhere around where the stop line is and that would incorporate the proposed new crosswalk, the existing and whatever future signal equipment was
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installed, you know, to stay within that right of way, but essentially discontinue the rest of it. And our attorney has looked at that issue and again, this is, this is something for you to decide to do, not for us, but if the town wanted to discontinue a portion of that trapezoid, that would be fine. It would just, you know, take it out of the right of way and essentially revert to the, the upland owner if you wanna call it the upland
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remainder remainder owner. And so that would be fine on our end and happy to support whatever you need to get that through town meeting to have it discontinued if that's what you want to do. Whatever form of agreement that is. Yeah. Whether it's a discontinuing, I mean we can't make that call here as a planning board. We can certainly point you in the right direction and get that conversation going and a hope for resolution at some point before, you know, occupancy or building permit, whatever. But the point being, you know, again, you've got site improvements within the right of way.
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Yeah. And for you, I don't think you would want to have that liability or the question of liability with the town either. If there's anything that ever happens there, maintenance, Injury, injury, snow plowing, whatever, snow, all of that. You don't want the town snow plowing to turn around. So if I can just sort of visualize what you're talking about is, you know, the side, the, the back of sidewalk extended right to that point of tangent on the east side of the trap. Yep. There you go. Yeah. All the way across. Bring it straight across to the other side. Yeah. You know, yeah.
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There'll still be a little bit of a trapezoid but not as, not as pronounced. Right. But it would be sort of following the back of the sidewalk over, you know, in front or in back of, or or You know, yeah, on the east side there's a ma arm sitting in there that's Existing. Where is that ma arm? You can see it in the Corner. It's near the sidewalk. It's okay. A little bit. So you would Right where the shared path Up a little bit north of the sidewalk That, that would remain in the right of way obviously. And then Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That to me that makes conceptual sense where that would be drawn. But again, I don't think we need to solve that here. No.
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We can be a condition of, of Approval and you wanna make sure that what whatever improvements we ultimately make in the ground on in the field are stay within the right of way. Yeah. And I believe somebody, maybe it was you, Alan, that said there was vestiges of loop detectors or other equipment there, there Probably is still in the pavement since it hasn't been repaved. 'cause it had loops up until just a couple years ago. So yeah, as you dig, you'll dig up some wires here. Yeah. They're not connected to anything anymore. So you'll be removing that stuff as you repave
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and reconstruct that intersection. So, okay. Terry, any questions on That issue? No, I mean I've, I've heard kind of reassuring points raised or made. I hope that what we are able to have kind of put into functionality is something that will really benefit the pedestrians as they, as they move around this part of the new development and the neighborhood around it.
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So I'm just, I I I've heard some good, you know, we'll have a look at that and we'll see how much it is somewhere. I just wanna make sure we, we do get to, to, to pin down a number and a scope of, of what that would mean for us. And, and if there's something that was pledged and I missed it in, in tonight's conversation, please correct me. Okay. Other questions? I have some general questions. Sure. Is that, is that The time, is that the, is
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that the conclusion of your presentation? Anything? Yeah, I, I just wanna say in response to Terry's comment, I mean I I we, we've been tried to be really clear and anything that can be put on a plan, we put on a plan. And so if you approve these plans, that's what you're gonna get. The few things that, you know, we obviously can't discontinue a street ourself. You have to do that. I think you've heard a strong commitment to $125,000, correct? That's Right. The signal equipment. So I don't know if there's anything else, Terry,
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that you feel like we've been dancing around on, but we've been trying to be Straight up. Oh, sorry. No, I think, I think having the, the 125 and the improvements that, that go with that it is important and good to hear. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a a it would be nice, but I wanna wanna make sure it's, it is a commitment. Yeah. That, that's correct. It is a commitment. It's, and it's included in the drawings and the conditions. Absolutely. Alright then. No, and, and I
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and I thank you all for taking care to do that, so thank you. Thank you very much for that. I just wanted to reinforce how important that is. Amanda, anything from your perspective? No, that was really everything. Okay. Members of the audience, any questions for the applicant team? No hands Online. Nobody online. Okay. Does that conclude the original outline of what they're gonna review with this presentation? Yes. And now we can do general. Okay. Questions and comments. So I have a sure question. Go. Go ahead. Comment. I mentioned it earlier in,
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in the testimony a few weeks ago maybe, but I'm very concerned that knowing we've got a really quite a substantial structure here. A lot of people in the apartments and a lot of people in the across the street are probably gonna want to use whatever is here that they can use. But that brings me up the first floor, you've anticipated a single tenant and I think, if I'm not mistaken, correct me if I'm wrong, that single tenant and that that was the reason for the reduced
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or minimal amount of parking available on the front and also on the west side because it was gonna be one tenant. I've seen a number of projects, best plans go a little bit astray and they don't always come out the way you anticipated it. And if we're counting on one tenant for that area and that way reason we only need this minimal amount, this amount of parking and you're gonna stick with that and there's no anticipation of anything else happening. Well that's probably pretty good.
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But I'm thinking supposing, because there are so many people in this building and we're taking out a small shopping little area that hasn't developed too well I guess over the years. But is there a need that all of these people might have that would warrant subdividing that retail area in the future if you didn't quite get the single tenant that you anticipated? Would parking be enough? Five spaces in the front, including two handicapped and then 14, I guess it is in the back
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and the right at west side. It's just troublesome to meet us. He just, if nothing else, the size of the building and the minimal, I think minimal amount of parking that goes with it. Well, a couple points. The, the single, I mean the single tenant isn't necessarily what is driving kind of parking demand. It's really the intensity of that use in that space, number one. And number two, it's kind of the reciprocal use of that space as it relates to kinda when
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peak peak periods are for the residential and some of the non-residential space. And there's a, there's a study that was done, a utilization study that was done to sort of, you know, look at that, the, the reciprocal timing and, and, and peak, peak demand periods, which is taken into consideration when, when planning the, the number, the number of parking spaces. And Courtney can talk about that in a little bit more detail, but it's really, it, it's not necessarily the single, a single user, it's it's driven by
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The square footage, I Believe. Well, it's parking demand. Well it's, it's a intensity of, of the, of the use and you know, the, again, sort of the reciprocal nature of the residential to non-residential kind of de demand flows time Of day. Yeah. Mr. Chair, if I may, so J's correct, we did a detailed parking assessment. Is your mic on by the way, Courtney? Oh, the green is the green light on the Green is on. Okay. Can you hear me now? I can hear you, but I'm just, it's not amplified but, oh, sorry. It doesn't sound amplified but go ahead, keep going.
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So we did a detailed parking assessment as part of the initial submittal for the project. And we looked at the most intensive use that would be planned for this site on a square footage basis, as Jamie had mentioned. So it, it wasn't based on the number of tenants, it was based on square footage for retail plaza. And that peaks in the middle of the day. So as drug was saying, it compliments the low point in the parking demand for the residents in the middle of the day, which drops
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to about 50% demand. And in addition to this being a transit oriented development, which generates fewer traffic for residents, there's actually a, a decent surplus, and Jorgen can speak to this in more detail, but the applicant is going to have a parking program. They will issue permits for the residents. So they have control over the parking for both the residents and the potential users of the non-residential space. I'm, I, I'm sure that the residents, that
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that wasn't my biggest concern. They've got a substantial parking garage. It's the, the question of intensity use, that's the basis on which you determine whether the parking is adequate or, or not. I think I, that's what I Heard. Yes. And we didn't take credit for the shared, the shared dynamic between the residents and the, the non-residential space. We initially looked at what would 4,000 square feet independent on its own generate for demand. And even that can be accommodated during hours
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of an anticipated hours of operation with the, the residential. And for my own brain here, when you say the intensity of the use, how do you, what do you, what do you use for intensity? Yep. So we worked with the applicant to identify potential users. So I think there have been, you know, some discussions potentially with the local library and having, you know, supplemental space, maybe some co-op space, you know, shared use like minor office space where you're, you know, someone who needs a remote work space for the day
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or somebody who's just a one or two person company and also for potential retail. And so that is the highest intensive use from a parking demand perspective of the uses they're considering. And so as a conservative measure, we analyzed that retail retail, the retail. Yes. And anything else that they're considering for potential uses would be lower traffic generators. So that's what we're referring to as the intensity of use. They don't expect this to be, you know, like a high turnover, you know, Starbucks or,
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or Dunkin Donuts. Well, I'll just write this off. The concern of to my mind, the, the proportion of this building and what's happening in it to the parking and it's, I'm un I'm uncomfortable. That's me. But I obviously you've gone through a significant amount of stuff. Yeah. And, and look, we, we, I mean, not providing enough parking for our potential residents would be fatal for us. Right. You, you, you couldn't lease apartments if you didn't have, or we didn't feel comfortable as, as op as owners
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and operators that we have enough parking. And so we do this routinely with not just, you know, it's a utilization studies where they're going to comparable properties, some that we own, some that we don't, and they're counting, you know, counting vehicles against number of bedrooms, number of units. And so it's really important, it's an important part of our, our programming and planning that we, that we get that right. We, we can't, we can't, we need to offer adequate parking. And there's a balance, right? You don't want to have too much, but it, it is important that we, you know, en engage in a utilization study
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that drives the, the unit count. Okay. Well I, I have no doubt that the residents are gonna have plenty of parking. No doubt that that would be a fundamental even in my mind it's the retail it, well it's the other use on that first floor. And that did not seem, but again, I defer to what you folks have studied and it's your building. I just didn't want Natick to have a building like that, that had so many apartments and nobody wanted to be there. Their guests couldn't park or, but they've got plenty of parking. Okay. That's it. Thank you.
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Thank you. Great. Okay. I've got a couple things, Andy. Yes. So I just want to touch base on the design review board memo that was, came out about a month ago in it, they have some requests to continue to be informed as this goes through value engineering about the various materials and so forth. And I think that is a very important backstop for us. So I I, I didn't go through the every page of the 27 page
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decision, but hopefully that's, that is in there that there is a requirement to kind of keep them posted as they requested. Not, not uncommon for Right. For for what we, what we do and, and how we engage with, you know, with local municipalities. And so AB absolutely, I think, I think there's even a, a requirement for a, you know, for like real materials to be shared Submittals and materials. Yeah. These things do change as it goes from concept Sure. To building and it, it's real important
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that they get a chance to review those actual materials and so forth. Yeah. So my second question, comment is kind of a two-parter. There was a conversation at the select board level and a former selectman, Paul Joseph, who's on the economic development committee, was kind of reviewing an economic development plan for the select board. And he kind of gave a broad overview of the many projects that are in front of town boards. And he mentioned this one and he referred to the, the public access space with, and I,
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and I believe it totaled somewhere around 4,000 square feet. Yep. And he said, you know, does the planning board have an opportunity to increase that? You know, it it from his perspective as that ec economic development and economic incubator that, that that publicly shared space should be much larger. And I was sitting watching it and I thought to myself, well I I'd love to have you guys comment on that. There's a point at which projects become unviable. If there is, I mean, you don't, you know, you get more rent from the, the housing.
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So, so part a of that question is the choice for the 4,000 square feet. I, I am not sure that we have in our bylaws, the enforcement to force you to have a configuration that way. I, I think that we, our, our job is to assess a plan and see that it complies to the, the new zoning, which is in place. But I, I would be curious and then, and then that will lead me to my second part question, but I'd be curious about the, about the, the choice to come up with that amount of square footage. Well, I, I think right, it's pretty prescriptive in, in the zoning. Yeah. And it's really intended to
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activate building frontage. Yeah. Right. That's really, really what it was intended for. That can be challenging. We've talked about this a little bit in prior meetings, is that can be challenging to really drive activity and Right. Retail in, you know, on sites where, where it's, it's it's, they're fundamentally a challenging retail location. And so, you know, we, we, it's critically important that that, that that building frontage be active and activated for a variety of reasons.
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I mean, for us it's our front door, right? I mean, for the town, it's, it's that vibrancy, it's that activity. It's that street level activity that I think can, creates a little bit of, of energy with these projects. And so, you know, we're, we're, we're trying, we're trying to be creative and, and maintain some flexibility in how that space get gets activated. We talked about co-working, we talked about the synergies of the library, we talked about grab and go markets and we're exploring all of all of the above. But what we need to make sure is that it re it, that it,
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that it feels alive, right? That it feels active. That there's some energy there. I, it, it, in a perfect world, right, there will be, there would be demand for 6,000 feet or 8,000 feet. I, I think it's gonna be challenge to, you know, as the first kind of mover in this, in this new, you know, this this new zone, it's gonna be challenging to keep it, keep it activated and, and you know, be, be creative in how we, how we program it. So I think, you know, 4,000 was very prescriptive.
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It was building frontage. And so we are working within those parameters, right? To try to, to try to, you know, live up to or fulfill that, that vision that is community engagement, active. And it's, you know, and not, and not just an empty storefront or a, you know, a nail salon. I, you know, it's, it, it really needs to be more than that. More than that to, to kind of create the, the, the brand, the, you know, the energy that's, that's envisioned here. Thank you. If I could just, just add to that a little bit 'cause I, I think George is exactly right. I mean, I, I know the question you came up with was relative
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to economic development, but I think the purpose of the zoning requiring that kind of use was, as he said, it's activation. It's, it's making sure that there's things there that people might walk to or walk around. And it's not just that 4,000, it's also, I mean the, the leasing center and the office and the common facilities of the project also create a ton of activity. People coming and going and, you know, there's a commitment to really try to work on the plaza outside to activate that
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Activate, activate plaza, right? Food trucks, the food trucks. And so, you know, you've seen plenty of ground floor retail that is kind of token retail, you know, in some of these projects that, that's e that's empty, right? It's not, it's not marketable. It doesn't, doesn't fundamentally doesn't work as retail. And so we're really trying to think outside the box again, there's some great things that we can do with the talent to engage with the town and, and, and bring that kind of community vibe, you know, into that space. And so they're the ideas that we have there, there's,
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there's, you know, look, frankly we didn't put a lot of pressure on that space to create a lot of revenue. And so that helps, right. You know, if there's not that kind of pressure that that's, but so, you know, we're, we're, we're, you know, we're gonna try to make it work within that 4,000 square feet, but that 4,000 square feet was very kind of prescriptive. Okay. Thank you. So the second part of the question is, and this has been sort of interesting to me. This is new zoning for us. It was successfully passed about a year ago. And here is our first new project and there has been virtually no public interaction.
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Very few people have been attending. Maybe they're watching the meetings later, but we don't have a lot of people in the room. We don't have a ton of people lining up to have question in line. So my prediction is that when the building comes down and you guys are underway, somebody's gonna say, what in the hell did the planning board approve? What, what did you guys do? Did they even get a permit? So there's gonna be, so I'm wonder if you might wanna speak to a future audience and just give 'em a little nutshell about a little description of, you know, how, how very few,
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if any, waivers there are to this project, how it complies to zoning and what, what, what your hopes are for, for what the project will accomplish. Because I think there might be folks that watch this six months from now to try to figure out what we've just done. And, and they might like a little summary about, about what, what we're embarking on Here. You can speak a little more broadly, but, you know, I think what's ex what's exciting about this opportunity to us is, is again, right to, to really engage around some of, some of the, some of the great things
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that are happening in the community within Natick. I, you know, I think there's some, some really, really sort of good things to, to bring into the, you know, into the programming, into the, the vibe of the building. But more broadly, there's, you know, this this vision for a much broader, larger district, which, you know, creates opportunities for, you know, the 4,000 square feet to grow at the next project. 'cause there's some co tendencies or some, some synergies
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between what's happening at the ground floor level. And so, you know, and, and at, at a density that is, is manageable and, and in our, in our view appropriate. And so, right. The, the, the, the scale, the scale and the breadth of the, the, the vision of the zone, I think sort of more broadly is what, you know, I think what, what, what will create value and, and excitement, you know, to maybe folks that would otherwise kind of think of this as a, you know, one off,
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you know, development. We're, we're, we're really hopeful that we have competition in the next several years. You know, somewhere along, along the way. That's, that'd be a good thing. That would be a good thing for, for that, for that, you know, that district. Yeah. I, I'd just add, just stepping back a little bit, I mean, the genesis of this project was really your master plan, right? And that's where it started. You had a town master plan that identified West Central Street as an area that need some rethinking, some reinvigoration. The land uses were not great. It's a long strip highway.
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There's nothing happening on it, not contributing a lot to the community. So that master plan led to, you know, your, your board, right? Putting forward, doing some studies, hiring some consultants, doing community process, developing a rezoning that's not, not just for this site, but for, you know, whatever, it's a mile of the community. And, you know, created a vision, which I think is a great vision. And you presented that at your own meetings and you presented that at town meeting
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and the town said, yeah, this is, this is the right direction. So to answer your question, I would say this project is very directly in response to what the community wanted to see in this district. And hopefully, you know, everybody will be very pleased with the Result. And, and right. I mean, as we experienced it at along Arsenal Street, it takes time. It's organic, but that's, it's kind of nice. It's natural, right? It doesn't all happen at once. And I think that framework, right, of the, of the,
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the new zone really creates an opportunity again to create a scale and a breadth that is, is is very manageable and could, you know, could be, could be pretty exciting. Thank you. Thank you. Can I add one comment? Yes. I think what I heard from Andy initially was what sounded to me like a public speak meeting. No debate, no nothing, but get the public in like at the library and something that's publicized. I don't think there's any question. The building's fine. It's, it's going to do hopefully whatever it is your,
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your experience tells you it should do. It's just the, all the people in this community are going wonder because there's a lot of construction going on there. And they'll wonder why. And maybe some of them, a lot of 'em probably will wanna sign up for an apartment and, but that comes from them knowing what on earth is happening there. And again, it's only public speak style. Nope. No, we're not changing anything. This is the project and we wanted to share it with you. That kind of a meeting that, that we, we've had a,
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the library or wherever the Sure, yeah. And, and a website. Yeah. Progress. We, we, we have a little ways to go to make sure we can get it right. Get, get this, you know, started a shovel in the ground. I mean, it's, it's financing wise, it's, it's challenging out there. But I don't disagree. I, you know, I think embracing, you know, the good, the good, the bad, right? And over communicating is, is certainly something that we can, you know, we can lean into. Could interject one a small thing.
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Yep. We were ta talking about how this ground, the ground floor is kind of like the, the front door for the, for the development. And I think maybe we, we can think a little more ambitiously and think that what is being created on the ground floor and above is actually a, a front door for Natick because we forget how many people are introduced to Natick coming on a commuter rail trip. And I think that that, that this is an opportunity
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not just for the, for the community itself, but it for an ambition of bringing more people to know, to know and love the town of Natick. Yeah. And I think, I think a lot of the, a lot of the elements that we've incorporated and that you've really have engaged with us on, we'll, you know, we'll bring out those details. We'll, you know, we'll, we'll bring out sort of some of those, you know, the, the uniqueness and the idea that we're buying into a larger vision than just this one individual project. And, and again, I mean that's, that, that investment from us
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is, is hopefully, is hopefully going to, gonna, gonna rely on future, you know, future development along, along the, you know, within the, within the zone. I, that would be, again, that would be, that would be a really, a really good thing for, for us long term. Most, most definitely. I think it, I think it offers a tremendous opportunity. Right. On that point, Thank you Terry. I I would just, you know, put a wrapper on, on this part of the conversation. I think that, you know, let's not sell the public short in terms of their attention and, and what they pay attention to or participate in.
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As you said, this was a long process. I personally want to, you know, say my appreciation to this team, you know, Mr. Faye in particular, engaging early on in the process to actually develop the zoning. There was some very thoughtful comments that helped shape what we ended up proposing and ultimately town meeting, and correct me if I'm wrong, it was, wasn't unanimous, but it was pretty overwhelming. Yes. Vote, which you know, know was great. And again, that's on the heels of MBTA zoning. We had done the downtown stuff. We really wanted this stuff to come forward way earlier
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for a number of reasons that didn't happen. But, you know, it was, I think a, a good process. You know, this project came forward. I think the first meeting we had lots of abutters come out and I, and I believe one of them actually said he was, you know, against it and then heard the presentation or heard what this was about and said he's for it. And, and off he went. So I think it's been, you know, a, a, a fairly well, you know, well received project and, and don't discount the, the Natick moms group or the Natick Speaks, all those little, you know, social media channels here.
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Trust me, my wife was part of them. And there's chatter and there's all kinds of stuff always. And, you know, being paid attention to here in this town. So I think there's a lot of excitement for this to come forward. And, and last thing I would say is economic development. In fact, I would love to have Paul come here, Amanda, at some point, and just give a, a present the same kind of presentation you did for the selectman. 'cause I only read a, a summary of it. But I would just say from my perspective as a planner, housing is economic development. So whether there's 4,000 square feet, you know,
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of something programmable as retail or civic, that's fine. Housing is economic development. There will be people living here spending money in the town, you know, creating tax base here. So let's not lose sight of that. And then as you just, you know, take away the border between Framingham and Natick for, for a moment and just see what's going on in downtown Framingham, not that far away. Lots of, you know, housing and lots of, you know, people living there wanting to find places to, to, you know, spend their money and shop. So I do think this is a pioneering project for this part
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of the corridor, and let's hope that, you know, this, this whole vision evolves over time. So, you know, that's my statement on that. So to the board, what do we want to do at this point? Are we ready to move this forward with a motion? Are we, We got some revisions that we're gonna make to the decision. Were there gonna be any modifications that we were discussing tonight? I think we could propose conditions and, you know, have those incorporated into an ultimate decision. Yes. Yeah, I don't think we should words.
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So the draft decision was more of a, I don't, not a courtesy, but sort of a outline of what it could be. I would rather spend our time creating a motion and then have the decision as usual, you know, drafted and, you know, Well the agenda says it is an application for site plan review. Yeah. In addition to compliance with aquifer protection. So it feels like the action is to approve a site plan. It, it doesn't, it does not seem to be a special permit. Did I say special permit? Well, the, no,
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the agenda does the, the agenda just says application for site plan review. Yes, that's Correct. So if that's the case, we're not voting a special permit. We are in fact approving a site plan. Yeah, correct. Yeah. Yeah. So in, in my view, the last site plan revision date was July 24. Is that what you have? Yeah. And I didn't hear of any changes to that this evening. The trapezoid conversation notwithstanding, that's more of a town issue than a site plan issue. I think so I, I would, I would be
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inclined to make a motion to approve the, the site plan that has the revision date. Seven 20, I'm sorry, there are a few plans are dated. Yeah, the 29th. Alright, Those are in the landscape. The landscape. Oh, the landscape was called as, but that was, yeah. So if we called it the package that was last revised 7 29. Yeah. 26 Bingo. What's that? I said, just said bingo. Oh, bingo. We're at the planning board meeting. Terry, that's a bingo. She's up in Maine. Just leave her alone. She's double duty. I am here doing Bingo and planning board to, okay.
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Mr. Meyer, do you want to make a Motion? So the, the motion is to approve the site plan that has the fi the most recent revision date of 7 29 26. And I so move, I will second that motion. Okay. All right. So a motion to approve seconded by Mr. Meyer, seconded by Ms. Evans to the rest of the board here. Do you want some help flushing out that motion? If Yeah, if that, if that's not enough, what, what Okay. Do conditions, Yeah, I think we should do a few things.
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That's part of it, right? Right. I mean, I think we should get a little more specific about that. So we have the, the site plan. Andy's referenced the site plan, you know, there's a case number, there's, you know, what the actual approvals are. I think we should enumerate, if not the detail, at least make in the motion findings that we need to make in terms of site plan criteria and aquifer protection district criteria. I have those written, I'm famous for now, apparently doing this, So I'm happy to Well, if
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You make a, if you, if you make an addition to my motion, I can accept it as a friendly amendment. Let me propose it. Yeah. Okay. So Andy has moved that we approve the application for case number PB 2 63 Gables residential for the redevelopment of property located at 2 73 West Central Set Application being for site plan review pursuant to section six dash DD of the NA zoning bylaw. And a determination that the project complies with the aquifer protection district requirements
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of section three a 0.5. Hopefully that's correct, Amanda, of the natick zoning bylaws. And I would propose two conditions, Andy. I would say number one, prior to the occupancy of a building permit, that the applicant make best efforts to obtain all legal rights necessary to construct, occupy, and maintain the proposed improvements within the trapezoidal shaped area of the town layout, encompassing the approach to West Central Street, the site driver approach to West Central Street, whether that be by discontinuance, conveyance, easement, license,
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lease, whatever, or other legally sufficient instrument acceptable to the town. And I would just say nothing in this decision shall be construed as requiring the town to discontinue or convey or otherwise dispose of any interest in the highway layout. Did you Say in the first sentence, did you say prior to the occupancy of the Building? Permit? Issuance. Okay. I thought you said occupancy. Yeah. Did I Yeah, It was, didn't mean it. Just a mistake. Okay. Sosu issuance. Gotcha. Alright, thank you. So that's my first one. Second one would be within 30 days of issuance of a building permit, the applicant shall make a one-time payment of $125,000
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to cover costs of improving and modernizing the traffic signal infrastructure at the intersection of West Central and Kendall Lane as necessary to accommodate the improvements shown on the approved plans. And then the amount is based on the itemized quote provided by Pine Ridge Technologies, Inc. Dated July 22nd, 2026, rounded 109 thou to $109,000 plus a 15% contingency. So that's the 125,000. That'll be my second condition. And the last one would just be, I think
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what we've gotten already in the draft is, you know, the written decision shall include such additional conditions as we normally, you know, include. Yeah, okay. I think it's important we make findings now and not just say we're gonna do them in the, in the decision. So I would say subject to the foregoing conditions that we just stated, the application satisfies the site plan review criteria set forth and section six dash DD three of the nex zoning bylaw. Do you want me to enumerate them all here, you know,
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provides the appropriate layout, et cetera, et cetera. We can just reference what those are, but In the Yeah. In in their Entirety. Let's do that in their entirety. And then under the Aquifer Protection District standards, the applicant has demonstrated compliance as well with section three dash a five, which those are the Aquifer Protection District standards. We have to, or findings we have to make, which said, the approval is based on the site plans as dated. I think the architectural plans and landscape plans updated as well, whatever those dates are. Amanda of the latest
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There is revived, gosh, reside July 29th. Okay. Whatever that is. Whatever the set plans is. And lastly, I would say that we, we moved the planning board direct the community like we've been doing direct Amanda the community and economic development staff to prepare the written decision consistent with this vote, incorporating the findings and conditions approved by the board, and authorize the chair to execute the decision on behalf of the plaintiff board following a review for consistency with the board's vote in any non-substantive revisions as necessary. So that would be my,
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I would accept that as a friendly amendment to my motion. Thank you. And seconded would still stand. Second, second stands. Okay. So I think, chairman, I just, if you could restate the discontinuance one just so that we're clear because, and Greg, Greg may want to address the mechanics of doing that. Go ahead, Sampson. Greg Samps with Sullivan. Worcester, I, yeah, that was gonna be my same request. If we could just restate the timing on that because of Prior to the issuance of the building permit and
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What was the obligation That you make best efforts to resolve that issue, either through Conti, discontinuance or license or, or something that the town can accept? So Greg's done a bit of research on this and Amanda and I met with a town manager on this. And I think collectively, we all seem to think that the right way to address the issue that you raised is for the town to discontinue a portion of that trapezoid
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and that that action requires town meeting a vote. So I think we're willing to cooperate on it. I just, I'm, I'm a little concerned about that's the spirit, the timing, that's the spirit of it. Yeah. If it's, if it's just best efforts, that's fine. But it's in the town's control to do this. Not the applicant's control too. Understood. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not trying to make an obligation. I'm saying we, we, the plaintiff board can't discontinue the roadway. Right. Nor can you So make best efforts, whatever that is Yeah. To advance that and get that resolved. That would be
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What I'm, so for example, if we were to prepare one darter and discuss the, the actual layout change, Prepare the layout plan, yes. Have that ready for the next opportunity for Italian presentation that would publish what your I, I think so would in prior to building permit, would that work from a timing perspective? I, I would, I would defer to Greg on the timing and the mechanics, but I, I think we could have that work done prior to building permit. I, I just at that point, that's our, at that point we'd be handing it off to the town.
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And so they may opt to pursue that after our improvements are completed, for instance, at which point they know, I think it would be where the Infrastructure is that should be retained by the town. It'd be better before occupancy only, because I think we need to do all that engineering work on the intersection and just make sure we got the sighting of everything before you draw that line. That's the only issue in the Prior to occupancy might be better because volatile meetings already happening basically right now. So it would throwing it out to spring, which they may already be applying for it by that point.
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So it, prior to occupancy, I, I'm, I'm fine with that. Okay. That makes sense. Yep. So I will amend that Andy to say prior to occupancy on that condition. I think that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. And Terry, you okay with that? I am. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments, questions? We're ready to vote. Okay. So on the motion of Mr. Meyer as amended, seconded by Ms. Evans. All those in favor, please Say, I think it's be roll call vote Mr. Chairman. 'cause you got a remote participant. Oh, thank you very much. You're correct. Well,
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We haven't voted yet, but yeah, we were gonna roll call. We carrie's On. I was, yeah, I was going. So let's do roll call. Yeah, thank you. May Aye not said. Aye Dear. Aye. Terry Evans. Aye, Landry. Aye. Okay. So five, nothing. Very good. Thank you. Good luck. Happy to, I'm excited to see you guys be a good citizen of this town. I really appreciate everybody's help and input. Thank you. Thank you. So you have the next thing about, do we leave the thing open? No. And well then if, if we, so let's, if, if we close it, then the next time we meet, which we have to continue now
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'cause we have to review and vote the decision. Nope, we do not have to vote. No, No. Let's make sure they close the hearing, Right? No, so we can either, I mean, technically voting, we just close the public hearing. Yeah. Let's, we we can do the motion to close public hearing. Go ahead. When do we sign the move to close The hearing? When, when do we actually sign the decision? When I, Amanda has, All right. I mean, I'm not sure I'm of a legal mind to, to parse and pick up any errors on a 27 page document, but it seems like we might wanna read through the final version.
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Oh, we will. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. We will all have a a, the chance to do that for sure. All right. And what, what format would they have if, let's say there was an some unforeseen error and a paragraph was left out or something and and the next time we get together we wanna to talk about sign it, we wouldn't have any way of really talking about that. That's correct. We have Right, the mechanism is voting the approval and in that approval is authorizing Amanda to draft the decision and for the chair to sign it.
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Oh, I mean really that's, That's what we just did. Yes. It is not what we just did. That's Yes, it's, We, no, we, we voted, we, we, we signed the, we voted, we approved the site plan. We had two friendly amendments added to, to the motion. But the, the decision is the document that I think the board, the planning board members should read through the final version. Yes. And like I said, if there's a glitch and like, I don't know, page 15 is left out. Okay. So mechanically you're all gonna see the decision And you're all gonna have a chance to weigh in on the decision.
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I'm, I'm not signing that until I know that, that we've all looked at it. But to try to get five as a practice, I want to get away from having five people having to sign the document or having another meeting to vote that that's not what we're gonna do. Voting the approval is it, that's why the motion needs to be really specific. Amanda is designated to write the decision, trusting that we, she captures everything we need to capture that decision gets reviewed by all of us and the chair signs it well and
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Done as a practical matter. There's, there's no, there's no doubt that there have been times when decisions have been written and there have been errors in them from just simple little stupid typos to, to formatting problems. And in some cases there have been conceptual issues that were actually hammered out when we met as a board to review the language and the decision. And I think, I mean, tho those, those are three instances when it would be good to have a a, a a, a venue in which we can discuss those. Because if there is an error that is baked into it,
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either something small or conceptual to not have your elected members of the planning board have a venue to, to discuss that or change it or improve it, I think could, I mean, I mean I can think of a scenario where that could be really bad. My recollection is that that's how we have done it in the past and maybe I changing we have done in the past and, and I think, yeah, I think practice is, I hear ya, you're gonna get a chance to review it. We're gonna get a chance to whatever, Scribner, whatever, if there's glaring issues, I would look to the
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economic development director and, you know, rely on her Okay. To make sure it's thorough. But, but what if what I mean this is not, this is not hypothetical. We have had cases Yeah, I know where there have been, I've, here there been decisions that needed to be discussed and through no fault of anybody there was, there was some conceptual stuff that needed to be discussed. And what I'm concerned about is if we don't have a public meeting venue anymore to avail, we we don't have the ability to discuss it. Then you're getting into where we are emailing you or Amanda, and I think you have open meeting problems.
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So I'm gonna just chair prerogative here for a second. You can't have chicken and egg, you can't have drafting a decision and then voting it or voting it and then re-looking at it and voting. You have to have a vote. And the vote has to be the direction of where, what that decision is gonna be. Well, we, we, and you have to make findings. You have to make findings and criteria and set it up that way. Once you vote a a dis, when you make a vote, you're technically closing the public hearing.
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I, well you are, I mean it's just by a matter of law, you are technically closing the public hearing. So the fact that we say, let's vote the project and then come back a week later or the next meeting and then vote the decision and keep the hearing open, that is a public meeting, open meeting law issue in my opinion. So I would much rather have vote the project, enable our professional to write the decision. We review it if we have issues. Hopefully those aren't glaring big issues to have more debate. 'cause the time to have the debate is during the public hearing before the vote.
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So hopefully it's all captured and it's in the decision that we all get to review and signed. Well, that's definitely hear what Terry has to say, but I I definitely have some comments about that. Okay. That I, I actually feel that it's appropriate and important. We got away from the having everybody review it and sign it. And I, I, I really think it is not an idle motion. I think it's something that is central to our process.
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We got away from it when, during my tenure there was a point where everybody, several people were away. We couldn't get enough signatures. And it has kind of morphed into what is what I think we're talking about now. I I think it's much more important to, for, for each of us to hold the responsibility in our, in our hands with, with our individual signatures as, as the whole but also as individual members of the board. And I think that's what, that's what I
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believe we should kind of resume. Like my motion tonight was to approve the site plan. Yep. That is not the same as approving and voting to sign the, the decision that I as a, as an elected person have to put my signature on I and For generations, procedurally there's no such thing as voting the decision. You are voting the project, you are voting approval of the project. That is what you base the decision on. There's no voting on the document. But we, I know we've done it in the past. I hear You. But the reason we've done it in the past is because there have been issues with the document case. Well listen, doing things
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that are extra statutory or perhaps in violation of open meeting does not mean it's the right thing to do. How, how, how is, how is you're closing the public hearing when you vote the project, the motion to approve the project that when you take the vote five nothing. That is it. The, the hear please, Mr. Counsel, if you are gonna opine that is when the hearing closes, you don't need, those Aren't the words that we use though. But that is the effect of that. But we but those aren't the Words, but that's the effect of it. Andy, We, we, we have used the words. Yep. And I vote, I do not to close the public hearing.
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I do not want to have another meeting to then relook at the decision and re-litigate or have anything else brought up in deliberation. That's not the point to Do that. But then answer my question, what if there is a small, medium or large error, We catch it when we review it before it gets signed. How Do we communicate that that's outside the open meeting. Now that's Fine. That's fine because That's what we just voted the, I will read it to you Back in verbatim. This is what we just voted. I further move that the planning board, direct community and economic development staff
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and town council as appropriate to prepare a written decision consistent with this vote, incorporating the findings and conditions approved by the board and authorized the chair to execute the decision on behalf of the planning board following review for consistency with the board's vote and any non-substantive revisions necessary to correct formatting, typographical errors or cross references. That's what we voted. So that gives us the ability to review it before it gets signed. I I did, I i I must have glossed over that and I did vote for that. So I'm not gonna say that we reassess it,
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but going, going forward, I am. I I'm just that Well, we'll have, we have an opportunity to work this out in the planning board rules and regulations, which we still have to adopt and procedurally we're gonna get this stuff right. Well, I, the, the, the, the, the thing I'm not harping on in some hypothetical sense, we have had concrete cases where there have been problems in the decision and they cannot be discussed outside of the open meeting. Particularly if there's a conceptual issue or a misunderstanding or something needs to be clarified. And that's my worry is that we, we can't have private emails
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where we're debating amongst ourselves. We Shouldn't and sending Well, you, it can happen though. And there should be a format that allows us, if in the case where something like that happens, we should be able to have a a a a format in which we can discuss them. I I mean I, I just can't, I, as, as a, as a, as a, as a standing member of this committee, I can't imagine giving up that, that ability to, I, I'd be very concerned about a problem one day. So Anyway, I gotcha. Point taken. Yep. And we'll, we'll work it out. We'll work it out. Okay. Thank you.
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Thank you. Thank you very much. Next item on the agenda, as we said, zero Pleasant Street. Hopefully there's no one here still for that. So Amanda, what do we do? We do need to open the public hearing, which is review the legal notice and then, so let's read Yep. Continue it to the next date. And then the dates that we were discussing were August 19th For our next regular meeting. Yeah. So we have two semi schedule, right? August 12th and August 26th. Is that, is that correct? So right now we do have August 12th and August 26th as the scheduling dates on the calendar.
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Yeah. However, there are conflicts with attendance. So that was a question of if we wanted to meet on the 19th based on the responses everyone provided, That's in Lieu of basically Both actually Right. For both meetings in August. So we, or we, So you wouldn't need to have all the meetings 'cause we originally were going to move some stuff. So you would really only need to meet once on the fifth. There would actually be nothing to continue to the 12th had a conflict with members. The 19th one member couldn't attend
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and the 26th I believe had one or two members that couldn't attend. So the 19th was the, although we'd had missing members, the least amount of members missing. What does the board wanna do? I thought the 19th was the consensus. Well not the consensus, but it's the majority was making the 19th. And let that be the only remaining meeting in August. That would be your only meeting in August. And then the calendar goes back as regular. Okay. As posted for September. Okay. So do we have consensus on that, that the 19th I'm gonna be away. So I'd have to do a Zoom thing if I can.
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So I mean I, I can't really a hundred percent say, but I'll have my computer with me. So I mean I Okay, Terry, what does this mean for the fall town meeting articles? So we were gonna discuss tonight, if everyone is good with the articles, we can actually have time for the 19th to post them for a public hearing. I have not, I'm, I guess I cannot speak to it. I have not, I had, I have not had a chance to review articles did I?
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Is there a something i I missed on the, on kind of the timing for that schedule of, of looking at through our articles. I, I, I don't think so. Would, would the intention be to have the hearing on the 19th a hearing or? Well, I, I just wanna hear do I, I just want to know even informally what it is that we are putting proposing to put before. So we were discussing that tonight, but this is, we just need to continue zero pleasant to a date. Okay. Yeah. Let's, let's, yeah, let's 19th Gets great for me.
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Okay, let's do that. So the 19th. Okay, so Alan, let's, who's the, you're the clerk, correct? Yeah. Right. Huh? I am. Yes. So let's read the public hearing notice and then we can make a motion to continue it to the 19th. Okay. Do I have to read The public hearing notice? Does he have the verbiage? Amanda? It is in the packet, but I can right now Pull it up. Where is it? Here, There we go. On Wednesday, July 29th, 2026 at 7:00 PM the planning board will hold a hybrid meeting, hybrid public hearing in Edward h Delo select board meeting
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room 13 East Central Street, Natick, mass and virtually zoom to review the application of Arthur Custom homes. Both the applicant property zero Pleasant Street Assessor's map 70 lot 14 applications, definitive subdivision as shown on the plains title, divisional definitive subdivision plan. Charles River Estates Pleasant Street Natick Mass project. The project includes the creation of five buildable lots, the construction of a new roadway and the installation of associated infrastructure. Project number is PB dash 26 dash five.
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Copy of the application can be reviewed in the community and economic development office. And on Natick OpenGov website at, I'm not gonna read the whole URL copy of the planning board meeting. Agenda can be found on the town's website@www.natickma.gov. We'll order the Natick planning board Doug Landry chair, Metro West Daily News. This notice was Metro Stanley News Wednesday, July 15th, 2026 and Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026. Okay. Thank you. Cool. Amanda, where is, I know, I know I saw it, it was emailed.
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Where is that email from the applicant Due to late time it came in? I had not downloaded it. Okay. I did send a response back requesting that they provide an additional 21 days onto the end, which is the difference between today and the 19th. If we did move that to, 'cause subdivisions do have a limited timeline. Yes. And so I hadn't heard back on that. Well I would suggest we move to continue the hearing to the 19th and Yeah. And extend the
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timeline for decision making by 21 days if the applicant the Consent of the applicant. Yeah. And if they have, if they have an objection to that take, can take it up at the public hearing. But that's what I would suggest as a motion. So if someone wants to make that motion, that'd be great. So moved motion to continue to the or or to post the hearing and continue it to the 19th? Correct. Plus The 21 days And plus 21 days for And and incorporate 21 days for the deadline in compensation for,
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what is it that that, oh, I'm, I'm coming kind of coming up with mush for language. 21 days. 21 days is fine extension due to thank the request for a continuance without testimony. Yes. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. So moved by. Moved by Ms. Evans. Is there a second? I'll second. Second did by Mr. Cloutier. All those in favor? Ill do roll call. Mr. Meyer. Meyer. Aye. Not aye. Cloutier. Aye. Ms. Evans Evans Aye. Landry Aye. Okay. All right. To the next item,
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the fall annual town meeting zoning articles. Amanda? Yep. So in your packets tonight there are a series of documents. The intent is not to have a heavy workload for the fall town meeting, but rather to kind of close up a couple items that we had been working on. So if you are in your packets tonight, it is under zoning, bylaw amendments is the folder and each one is listed as part one, part two, part three, part four. Part one has two documents. So the idea for this one is
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to actually just do some cleanup. So if you actually open the document four B section, no numeral two use districts 7 28 26. And with this one, this Is under part one? Yes. Yep. With this one it is actually the, it was more of a cleanup honestly. So which, I'm sorry, this is the three B, This is three B or four B? This is four B section. No, manum two. Got it. And I also have it on the screen. Okay.
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So unfortunately or fortunately in section Noman numeral two of the zoning bylaw when we were adopting the west central corridor, the WCC at the last town meeting, or sorry the fall town meeting of 2025, there was one section that we did miss, which is noman numeral three A one. We should have at that time deleted. As you can see that would be stricken out limited commercial lc because we did delete that. And then we should have at that same time added west central corridor WCC Article 24 fall town meeting.
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And I just have to get the date that that was specifically approved on. That is really all we need to do with this article. However, if the board wanted to take that one step further, there was this random C-section, no numeral four B for intensity regulations. And it goes on to read, delete, drive in theaters, print. This was a, it's been there for quite a long time. I don't think we need that anymore. So I propose that we delete it. What was it? It it, it just appeared to be a driving footnote.
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Drive drive-in movies, theater. Yeah. Okay. But was it like a footnote or a clar? It was actually just, it's been hanging there for quite a while. It's just a reference to it, isn't It? As part of the bylaw? Yeah. I don't know. Okay. It appears to have been there since at least 2010. Do we need a town meeting action to like remove that? It's in the bylaw. So kind of, I'm so surprised that we, that we didn't give it because we got rid of things around like the use. We also, but there was also when we were cleaning up the footnotes and the use regulations schedule,
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there was also the same footnote in one of the sections as well. So it was, it's we have these little things, they're little Easter eggs. So those are the better Safe than sorry. Yeah. Okay. And then if you wanted to take it once and then we also need to actually delete since it's no longer here, limited commercial, the description since we deleted that in its entirety. And then this is the four step, which it's a nice to have, but it doesn't have to. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
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and seven are actually currently located in three B, which is no section one. These outline these zoning districts. So it would make sense to just copy them or cut them and paste them into the actual line where it's use district descriptions rather than leaving them in section one. And What is, what is the section one? Section one is actually where our definitions are located. Oh god. Okay. And also just general information about the bylaws. So,
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So it's taking the definitions of the districts and putting them where they should be Basically. That is Right. Is that what we're Doing? That is correct, yes. That is in document three B section nomen normal one date is 7 28. Got it. 2026. Yep. Is everybody following that? Okay. So that's all we were doing there. The only changes to that one was, is the, there was a sec. It would reference like section 1 0 2 1 0 4. It was just adding the correct sections. What this also allows you to do, if you cut them and paste them and put 'em in an no no two,
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it actually lets you del to delete all of the reserves that were previously in there as well. And it does not leave a gap. So that is part one. Okay. That is again nice to have not essential. If you go back out and you go to part two in the Packet part two In the Packet. In the packet, yep. Part two has two documents and this is the final stage, but not really the final stage, but the final review cleanup of this bigger project which leads us into future projects
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of the use regulation schedule. So you have three B section, no numeral one definitions. And this document only has the definitions, which is section 200 because we are not touching anything in this. One of the previous sections in this no five or, sorry, five B use regulation schedule dated July 28th is the most current use regulation schedule with the proposed amendments. These proposed amendments are either based on information
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that we have collected since starting this project or to make it consistent where we might have used something else and in drafting it didn't get correlated over clarification purposes or in practice may not be necessary anymore. So for example, a two reserved, we no longer need this one because we do allow for one families, two families and townhouses. And this was really only allowing for the conversion in the RG and RM zoning districts.
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If you continue down like a four, this is an area of cleanup. We actually use townhouse as one word. So let's just make it one word in the table. Okay. Continuing down. Looking at the actual parking garage and parking lots, the definitions, 'cause we did them in two different phases. We did the residentials in one town meeting and then we did the commercial parking garages in a second one. Looking at all of those to make sure that they are not overlapping and conflicting with each other. And so in the definitions you will see
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that there are definitions that are revised for these dis for these, but also with name changes here to help clarify the differences. So just Tell us what those, the differences are. Yep. So if you, let me just, Just private residential parking garage versus parking Garage. You have? Yep. So a private residential parking garage is four or fewer bays. You can only have a maximum of one commercial vehicle in there. And the vehicle has a limit size. So that would be attached to a one or a two family home.
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A commercial parking garage is when it's a mixed use project, a multi-family project. 'cause that is classified as commercial or it like the Natick Mall or other mall. That would be a structured parking lot Private residential garage detached attached. Does it matter? It doesn't matter. That's just classifying what it was. Okay. And then you have parking lots that are specific for commercial uses that is not associated with a one or two family. And we call that out. And then we do call out under the commercial garages the
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different types that you could have, which are attached or they're internal, underground or podium where the building's on top of the block, the next one. And that also affects the uses continuing down retail business. And Can you stop one second? Oh yep. Totally. Can you stop at the home occupation dog kennel? Yep. I Was just gonna Say, oh yeah, sorry. I was gonna, did I go buy that one? You did Because that's, that's how we get most of our applications. Yeah. And it looks like that those are all ends now
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and under personal dog kennel. Yep. Sorry about that. That was the one I was actually looking for. Okay. So home occupation, dog kennel. It has been having discussions with the animal control officer and then also in the reviews of the planning board, et cetera. There is question as to, is this actually a good use for residential zoning districts? They do create a lot of nuisance. And also quite a few of the projects after being approved by the planning board have continued to not follow the decision of the planning board. So there's a question, even a bo even a recent project
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were permitted a certain number of dogs by the planning board. However, based on animal control and also state law, the number of dogs exceeded what the individual could actually care for. So, So this is a policy that wipes all question everything in the No though, right? Yes. Yeah. Yes. So that would Say that we don't allow home occupation dog kennels Could use, we could use, we could, let's, we could have a conversation about whether or not we want dog kennel, home occupation, dog kennels at all in the town. If we don't want them, we could do what's suggested here, which is just make
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nos across the line or delete it altogether as a use out of this schedule and out of the definitions as well. That is correct. Okay. So This does not delete dog kennels in commercial districts, which is a different avenue. You mean the Yes. Where does that, So that is further down because that is a commercial use. Got it. So those ex examples of those would be like, Mr. Nice dog, we dig your, or we dig your dog. I think it is up on Worcester Road. No, we did, yeah, we dig your dog. Okay. And those types, that's a commercial. Yep.
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Can, can I ask isn't, isn't there a change in legislation or, or in and how pets are sold or? Yeah, they're going after the, yeah, no more, no more pet shops really selling dogs, selling the animals. There is legislation in that. And there, there's also new legislation in for dog kennels that the owners actually have to go through very stringent education and review processes at both at the state level before they can even be opening, which would then, I believe it does trigger reviews
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or continuing education of current occupation. What is a personal dog kennel? A personal dog kennel is when you have, it's all of your dogs, but it's more than five. Five or more. Well it was, it was spelled out. I mean we got pretty good at, at permitting home occupation with the explanation that it is supposed to be a home business and you know, dogs going out as necessary. Do those same definitions carry over for personal dog kennel? No. A personal dog kennel. The dog, the owner of the dogs actually own all of the dogs.
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And they're not boarding any, Yeah. It seems to Me that they're just, they, they're pet on owners For, for maximum public transparency. I think this should be a standalone article. 'cause this is a, this is a, I mean we have people that do not like dogs and we have people who love dogs. And you know, this, I don't think this is a planning board policy issue. 'cause we th this is, this is a time wide discussion here. Okay? Yep. Agreed. There are some that have been cherished
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by local neighborhoods and others have been disasters and we have been in the center of both types. So I I think it really should be a, maybe as a stand. I mean it, this is not in the category of cleanup, right? Yeah. Yep. So I can take that one and I will just delete that or not delete that, but reject those and we'll add that to a different future town meeting. If you're continuing to, Well, I mean, do you wanna bring it forward as a, as a standalone? I mean, I think we need more time because if you actually are gonna take in, if it's gonna get, if we're gonna leave it, I think
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that we need to make the regulations within the bylaw a little bit more clear because what's in the definition right now is good. But it seems like as you go through, you've gone through the process and you've actually really established like what your expectations are. Maybe it would be nice to have that And is right, we've gotten good at like reviewing these, but they're painful. They're, they're terrible, they're painful and like, and the information that we don't have is the information from the animal control office. We, we don't, we don't have that. So it would be,
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and if it's, if it's the opinion of, of that particular person that, you know, of the 15 we have in town, five are good, five or, or some number is problematic and we are permitting them. It would be good to know. But IIII can, there are very few issues that are more emotional than, than dog. Dog Kens neighbors on how neighbors affect one another. So a town meeting is actually the place to hash it out. Yeah. So move that one. Cool. Just Continue.
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Yeah, I'll just, I mean I would just say again, is it appropriate for the planning board to review those kinds of uses? Is it a board of health, more of a board of health issue? Is it a select board license? I don't know. I mean is a land use issue and, and special permit with the planning board? I personally feel it's a monumental time sink. Oh, you're, you're absolute right. But we are pretty good at the site plan review, the lighting, the drop off when You, when you have the right information. Like Alan, I dunno the last one, you know,
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trying to get the plan. It was like, you know, drawn on a napkin and you know, well what is the standard we're gonna accept? Honestly, Sometimes those applications are, you know, somebody who is, is their, they're they're the single person in the house, right? And they are not experienced developers and they do draw their plan on a piece of paper. And it's up to us, I think. And I think it's one of the things the board does best is to kind of silt through that, sift through that and get the, the information that we need without, you know, causing the developer to hire an engineer
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or, or you know, the homeowner. So I mean there, there, there is a part of that that we do really well that I would like to continue to offer as kind of like a service. I don't know if the board of health would, would be as involved in in site plan review or that kind of thing. So I mean, it is a time sake, we spent hours on it. But I think to the betterment of what we do, Terry, Thank you. You know, there are 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts somewhere. There must be a a standard, I, you know, do I agree
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that, you know, there, there, there are emotional and social strong feelings about people's pets, but also what, what do other communities do? And I, and I just think it's, I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel. I actually don't think that what we've now crafted over the years is, is a bad thing. I think it it is reasonable. Is it perfect? No. Is it a time sink? Well, only if you get a lot of them. And it has been a while since we have had a problematic
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stretched out process for Ken Dog kennels. And I think we're, I think we're put putting too much angst in this and just say, here, here's what we do. This, this it, does it work reasonably? Yes. I, I'm I'm on that side that I think it's, it, it's, it's reasonable and it's simpler than a lot of the contorted demonstrations that you would get if you decided we have, you know, we have to examine something
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exhaustively in in that. That's not what our principal job is. Well I feel like the only thing that's really changed are is the input of the animal control officer. Which, which I'd like to know more about it if, if, if, if in reality it really is like there's been one problem that has been kind of irksome, I'm not sure I would want to take on, you know, these, these use changes. 'cause you talk about a time sink town meeting will, will really explore this quite deeply. So I guess what I'm just, the only thing
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that has really changed in my mind, I, I think what we have actually works fairly well, but I just don't know what the animal control officer is saying. All right, Repeat that one. A death. Okay. I think it'd be very helpful to know if it's one instance or multiple. I I don't think it's, I don't think it's ready for prime time in terms of being, being put on town meeting warrant. Yep. Okay. And then other ones just are retail. It used to be retail stores. It'd just be retail business establishment, which then is consistent with adding business to drive through retail business establishment.
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Continuing down, just removing, excluding outdoor dining because we have a definition for that. The two uses. Where is that section? If you go to FI or sorry, F 18 and F 19. These are two new uses. However we have them as defined uses in the definitions. What do you mean two new uses? Shopping mall? We, yeah, we define shopping mall but we never had it in our use table. What is a Natick Mall? Well it falls under section three 20 through 3 29.
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So I think that it would probably be a good idea. And also shopping plaza, it could also fall under a mixed use development. Hmm. But that was one. And then the other one was we define live music establishment but we never actually put it into any zoning districts. So it seems like we would wanna identify those. And it seemed predominantly like, and I could be wrong, that a live music establishment would be a good for like a Natick center Center or commercial, two industrial zoning districts and also the center gateway potentially a portion
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of the hmis and then S five and S four of the West Central corridor. Again, these are items to be discussed. It was just these are two uses that we defined but we never put them in the Use music is also at Lookout Farm as well. So there's That's an RSA. Yeah. Or BI we forget. So that's something that we would wanna look at. The next one, G eight. You might wanna just delete that.
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Use car wash and detailing center. Just to be for consideration. G 10 was really, But we have a car wash in town. Would that, wouldn't that inconvenience them if they were not concerned? So that's actually in the RS zoning district. I believe That's an Rs, they're in like a residential zoning district On Route nine. Yeah, there's places that the, do you know where the gentle movers Are? Yeah, that's residential. That's residential. And the office building
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next to it is residential. Oh it looks, I thought it's C two, right? I don't think it is. Was that movers? That's a residential zone. Yeah, Well that's, that's not, that's not an active business Either. I dunno know how, I don't, I didn't think it went up to like the Verizon building and I either, but it comes out to Route nine. Like it comes right? Yeah. It faces Route nine. I'd have to think about, you know the advantage. Could We, sorry, are we dying? Are we dying to, to come up with this? Oh C two. Okay. For For fall town meeting? Not I said the cat. No it didn't have to. It was just really getting the conversations started.
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This can wait but again it was just, we had said we were gonna do this so this is the draft of it and then it just continues down. The rest of them are pretty benign. So there's that one. And then the definitions, if you look at those, those also coincide. So To jump Yep. To Jump to part three? No, not, not yet. Oh no. So I guess some direction for you on this. I would say the cleanup, the true cleanup things, yeah we would want to do the things
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that are get a little more substantive like the dog kennel, car wash. We might wanna have a larger longer conversation about those. Is that what I'm hearing from you Terry or Andy? Yes. And I would, I would also add, I was puzzled by the discussion about shopping mall because I thought that we, it has a specific defined a definition. Yeah, It is defined. It's defined. It's just not in enumerated in the use. Right. In the youth in the table. So it's, it's in a district, right? It's allowed in a dis as the defined in a district.
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It's just not Shown in the use table. Yeah. Which is kind of odd. Yeah, I think it should be shown on the Use table. And that's the same thing with live music. It's defined but it's not in the use table. So these were just things that trying to clean it up but there's not a rush. Like I said, this is just something that we do need to finish up but it's not a rush. Number three, part three. This one you actually might want to consider. I do think, can we Get that up on the screen? Yep. I'm gonna show it right now. I was just flipping screens. Thank you. Sorry about that. Okay, so I do not propose any amendments
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to no numeral 3D which is the west central corridor. I show this in this document only for the specific reason as to, we've had a couple comments on what we call the mixed use portion of the non-residential and it was stated that the west central corridor is much more clear as to the non-residential component of a mixed use residential building. And so if you look in this section here, buildings with a residential component in S five shall dedicate at
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least 50% of the ground floor frontage facing a public way or 50% of the building's longest facade, whichever is greater to non-residential uses. The designated non-residential use space or space shall have a minimum death of 25 feet. Up to 20% of that non-residential area may be used for residential support amenities such as lobby leasing or amenity office, co-working space, community room or fitness center. And then the S four has similar language except for smaller spaces just 'cause S four was different.
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I only show this here because when we scroll down and I apologize for the scrolling and we're gonna jump to commercial or sorry, the center gateway currently in the center gateway projects with a frontage on East central North Maine or Union Street shall provide a minimum of 50% of the first floor as non-residential uses. There has been question as to what classifies a non-residential use since it is so vague. They question if parking is classified as a non-residential use or if the lobby
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and other space is for non-residential use. So the question for the board would be to consider using a portion of the language that we used in the West Central corridor, leaving it as a minimum of 50% of the first floor is non-residential. But then designating non-residential use shall have a minimum depth. We might not need that, but up to 20% of that space can be for the leasing areas, lobbies, et cetera. So it's just clarifies that and it doesn't have to be 25 feet in depth 'cause that's probably too prescriptive
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in this kind of example. 'cause these are smaller lots, but it would just be 50% and then you get the what can be of for the, So if we don't change it, If You, it's it's, it's a matter of interpreting what non-residential use is. That Is correct In the center gateway district. That Is correct. Yes. And I think this came up either at Pizza Plus or one of those sites over there that that's, that's Stones the new ownership
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and new developers are trying to figure out what, what the development options are based on this. What was interpreted as kind of a vague notion of non, you know, what does parking count as part of it? Well it doesn't say if it does or doesn't. So we, we wanna, we want to try to clarify. I think it's, I think it's a reasonable question and That's, well actually no, 'cause part, there's language that part that, that is in the bylaws that parking for the sake of just in support of a commercial use is commercial
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and not, not if it was in support of residential. Right. So there's, it does lead to confusion because multifamily is actually classified as commercial. These are things that we have to worry about all day. So this is, yeah, this is just, it was just trying to clarify. That's just something for the board to consider. And then if you were gonna do something similar, you could add that same thing for the center, or sorry, downtown mixed use. Well, this, this, And I'm, I'll just a good topic for, I'll just note.
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Go ahead, Terry. Oh, Remember when we had the issue on SP Street with the, The bridal? Yeah. The, yeah. Would've been the bridal shop. Yeah. And they were using it, it was zoned residential. They wanted to use it as, as commercial. And I, and I, so I'm, I'm just trying to understand how, like, how that would, how it would work. Not, not just whether it's multifamily or not, but, well, This is about the building.
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Yeah. I mean, that, that situation was preexisting, non-conforming. And in a residential zone. In a residential zone, yeah. Supporting a commercial. And it was surface parking, right? Yeah. So we're talking about how to, how to define non-residential space First floor. Yeah. In a building. And you're saying there's a question whether or not parking is non-resident, I mean, that's not the, well, the spirit or intent? Well, in my opinion, No, no. I know it's not this the spirit or intent, but it's how it will, it is risks being defined.
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It was already a Question. This might be a good opportunity to ask Ben Stevens to, to join a meeting when we talk about this. 'cause I mean, he's the developer and he has of what? Of, of the, of that Stones. The Stones Auto or the, it's not our, our you mean stone stones? Yeah. The, it's not called Stones anymore. Well, the Route 27 Auto The enforcement Yes. Stones. That one. Yes. That has a big, giant fence around it. Yeah. Okay. And that is now, that is under agreement. And I, I, I, I don't think I'm revealing any confidence as I think it's a public transaction, but Mr. Stevens is gonna be redeveloping it.
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And he is very, I don't think he's done a project in Center Gateway yet. And he's having some questions about how this is to be interpreted. And I think he's, he's actually a fairly knowledgeable resource to have a conversation with about how he would interpret it. And, you know, to understand, I mean, he sees some of the subtleties and nuances here from the real world's perspective. We might benefit from having a conversation about what's intended or we, we want, obviously in a zone like this, you want it to be consistent. That's the, that's the whole key. Yes. So we, we don't wanna, we don't wanna set any opportunities
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for where unintended things happen, where we have inconsistencies. So it might be a good thing to have a conversation about what, what he's thinking and, and seeing if it's cases of the zone. And this isn't only for that specific one, like the wrench. Yeah. That site. They try to neighborhood w commercial on the entire first floor as well. So it's things like that. It's just trying to get that clarification. And then we do have other projects that are right over next to Stones that are also coming forward as this. There was a question as to whether Stones and Pizza plus could be put back into the
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DM zoning district. So that would be something that For What purpose? We just did The gateway. Yeah. So you, you wouldn't have to put the commercial use on the first floor. It's, it's actually a good problem to have because it means that the, the zoning is attracting interest. These things are in play and it, and it's not uncommon to take a new zoning district and to have some tweaks in it based on real life experience. So there's prob I mean, I don't know how to have something that's, that will avail itself to go through a town meeting. I don't know what kind of article it would look like.
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And we only have one more meeting before the deadline, so don't know how to, you know, and I know that with the market, you know, time is sensitive. We just can't put this. So I don't know. Maybe it's worth having a discussion. Yeah. And maybe it's spring, maybe it's a spring zoning article. So that is another conversation I did want have with the board is there's a lot of items that at the state level are coming down. No kidding. And so there are a lot of things that we have, and I guess the question comes down to is, is there a point,
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and I know I don't like to call special town meetings, I don't wanna drag people out for more than what they have to, but is there a point where you actually have a special town meeting specifically dedicated to zoning? Although other people could add to the warrant? 'cause that's always open, but it's just where you could have that as an opportunity to one, educate people. Because some of these things that are coming down at the state level, the town has absolutely no control over. It's mandated. And so we do have to amend the bylaws to reflect those. That's, that's a, that's a very, very good idea of having something to, to kind of educate, share
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with the community. Because everybody will come away from, if you, if you, if we don't do that, everyone's gonna come away kind of not understanding what applies to them and what and why it does or doesn't apply. Yeah. And that would put you on a different schedule also from the town meeting warrant as rather than trying to get everything crammed in, Do these ZBA changes, for example, do they require zoning, native zoning changes? So we have section no numeral five A and I think it may be as well that touches on use variances
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and section six that we have to amend even section one is a section that we, in section one of the bylaw, we have to now amend that. Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. That is correct. So the, I what the senate version of the bill. Oh no, these are only what has actually passed in the budget Passed. I do. They're law Section. Yes. The amendments to section, no, or section master under Law, chapter 48, section six. Those are passed effective as of July 1st. And so isn't the variance, which is NOMEN or Section 10 of national law,
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chapter 48 has also been approved. Those were part of the budget and they were, they take effect July 1st. So could we hardship based on financial is now part of the Massachusetts law. Yes. As of July 1st, What did I, did I, did I fall asleep during April and May? When, when did this get vetted by the planning community? When did this, Who, Who was the sponsor? I mean, I, I'm spitting at the wind here, but who I, where Did, where did MMA come out on This? So I, I'm not sure of all of that. All I know is it got signed on July 1st
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and it was a surprise to a lot of people, The chair of the board included, which is okay That, And so we had to actually enforce that on Monday night at the ZBA because projects that were originally advertised for section six findings no longer needed the section six findings. Because There's, there was no an enactment date. It was immediate, Like it was actually retroactive to July 1st. Governor Healy signed it on July 7th When you, I I, I heard got wind of this. And I'm thinking, no, this, this is so,
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it's so radical. It's so, But there's other outta the blue. So there's other items that have not been passed yet that those ones were not considering. Like site plan review. Site plan review, yes. In God's backyard allowing for single, any single family zoning district to allow duplexes as of right. Also, there's one for underutilized commercial land to be utilized as residential. There's a few others. Yeah, we've been watching those, but those ones have not been passed. The only ones that have been is the section six of MGL 48
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and section 10 of MGL 40 A, which also includes electronics abut notification. Alright. So, and, and I'm, I'm assuming that all this has happened because the, the state is in a panic about the lack of housing. That is correct, yes. Yeah, So that is part three, sorry. And then part four is actually a question that's also come up with the development of projects. This would impact nomen numeral five D
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and it was actually just adding in number three Z like in zebra, we did add a new parking regulation for residential mixed use development. Oops, sorry, let me share this Residential. Yes. Yeah. So in the center gateway and there is question as to what is and is not allowed in terms of the parking requirements. Currently the only relief for the center gateway projects is for residential. Therefore all of the first floor uses are required
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to provide the minimum required off street parking for the specific uses individually in the west central corridor. Which is why the reason why we added Z at the 2025 fall town meeting, we did put a provision that mixed use residential and mixed use developments could provide information regarding a parking study to show how many parking spaces they actually need. And then it allowed the planning board to assess and evaluate and determine the number of parking spaces. So the number of parking spaces would actually be a limiting factor on what could
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or could not get built in the center gateway. And so therefore this would just be a proposal to allow projects within the center gateway and then also emphasizing downtown use when there are uses on the upper floor to provide a parking study to allow the planning board to evaluate it. It takes care of, if anything ever were to happen at the top. Those are Our, those are our mixed use districts, basically. That is, those are the three mixed use district. Yes. I mean I think that makes sense to, to me. And so I just noticed one thing when we voted
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that table one in 2024, that was to remove the automatic multiplier that if we take no action it goes up. But we Oh yeah. We made that mistake of there is no per half space. I I thought, I thought we did a cleanup where we removed that. 'cause there, where is that Andy? We under the table one. Oh yes. Yeah. We don't have any half spaces. And I thought, and it was funny 'cause we, I don't think we ever ended up taking it back to town meeting. Did we? So the little backstory was there was a time when if you,
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if you wanted to basically pay a fee in lieu of, we, we, we baked in a multiplier that if we took no action it would go up by a certain percent every year. Right. I remember. Yeah. And, and, and it was so confusing that we finally decided that we, that multiplier's not a good idea 'cause you can't keep up with it. Right. And we passed it and afterwards we realized that we passed it and we all looked at it and didn't look, realize we don't have any per half space computations. And so once it was passed and went through all these review
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and everything, we discovered it. So I think we had set a note to like, just strike that. 'cause we don't have any half space, did we? Or not? Did We We did not actually. 'cause we, I think what we were planning on revising in d in its entirety, so we had, so we could actually add that one if you were too inclined to do this one out of all of these ones. If you were only to pick one, I actually have to say this one is the most critical because we have projects like at Stones
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or at the properties across the street or even at the neighborhood wrench that park are trying to figure out how to park the first floor commercial requirements plus the residential. And there's not enough space for that. Well, I would just say conceptually, not talking about specific sites that first floor commercial close to downtown is a must have. So if there's any inclination of saying no first floor commercial on, that's a non-starter for me. Okay. You are near downtown. It needs to have a commercial continuation no matter
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what edge you're on parking as a use for first floor. No, no. That's just not in the spirit intent or anything. So if there's a way we can tighten that Yes. And then I think, you know, this is reasonable. Having a parking study and justifying how many parking spots. I mean, you, you're going, we just had this conversation just now on, on 2 73 West Central. Yeah. You tenanting your project, you don't wanna have a parking disaster. Right. So justify how many you want or need and then we can evaluate that versus a formula.
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I I think that's totally reasonable. Yeah. And even though the first floor of the downtown of excuse does not require parking, we do have a lot of buildings with upper floor uses that may not need the spaces at all times. So this would allow you to Yeah. Evaluate as needed. So, Yeah. What do you need us to do with So stuff, I think if, Does it, I'm sorry. Does it give the planning board the opportunity to use those parking studies to inform their decision? It shall, it shall be determined through the submittal
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of a parking study for review and approval. So I guess that would give the planning board the opportunity to approve what's being proposed. Yeah, yeah. It do. Are there any, are there any minimum standards past which, you know, some parking study presents and they actually said, here's our parking study based on this. We we're, we're only gonna pro we're only need to provide five parking spaces. It, it, it, this is still special permit stuff. Right. So we, we have the right to review it. I, I guess what I'm saying is this gives us the right to lower, but
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It also actually allows you to increase as well in. Okay. But it doesn't obligate us to approve something crazy 'cause it comes in in a parking study. No. Okay. No. Nope. You can, they need to provide you with what they need. So there's some examples like, like a CVS, they know exactly how many parking spaces they need on a given day. But then there's other uses that are like, here's our examples. So you could evaluate and assess based on their use, their hours, et cetera. I generally don't love subjectivity, but at the same time there is a little bit of the art to this. Yeah. Like I thought, I thought the Mors tavern solution
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with the sand dander bank was really good. That was a really clever way of kind of sharing. And so, I mean I, I do think there is a bit of a, of an art to it. So I I think that might actually be a nice addition and not too hard to explain the town meeting. So I, I think that one, if, if you're asking whether that one should be ready to go, I think it could be. Yeah. Yeah. 'cause it, we could have taken it a different approach, but I don't think that it would've actually, 'cause we've been getting a lot of questions about this is because a DM has no parking requirement for the first floor for commercial uses because the center gateway is a little bit further
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out from walkability. It seems like you would want some kind of, which allows the planning board to review it. So that's why I think adding it to the Z to allow for the evaluation actually makes more sense than no first floor. Because even with the first floor commercial projects that we see in the downtown mixed use, we have people trying to fill the spaces and they'll call us and be like, well where's the parking for this? And we're like, there's no parking because the builder didn't want it. So if the board is okay with it, we can advertise for part four.
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And if you'd like part three just to get the conversation started, we can wait on one and two for a future town, part one and part two for a future town meeting. But continue the discussion as to those pieces. We can do that. That's what Was part three. Again, I Part three was looking at the first floor and clarifying what the non-residential uses would be. And if you, even if you bring it to a, a public hearing, it doesn't mean that you have to move it forward And the public hearing is good for how long? Six months? Yeah. From the opening six months. So at least it gets you through a conversation.
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And then if you decide to wait till the spring, you just re advertise it. It's not a big deal. So. Well I I think that part three might be something that's pretty topical. So I mean at least we could schedule a public hearing for it. Okay. I think that the parking, So three and Four? I think so. Okay. And the use regulation, I mean I like all the work we've done. I hate to like, you know, there's definitely cleanup in there and some other substantive things that Yes. And you, you think you stepped out when we talked about the potential for especially town meeting to, to actually there was, I didn't realize this until of late,
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that pretty substantive changes to the zoning act got passed. It's unbelievable in terms of variances and section six findings. And we need to update our bylaw Yep. To come into compliance. So there might be a reason to do that. Yeah. And a special, it's Actually gonna help homeowners. I think home homeowners don't have to prove hardship like they used to. Well you might be smiling about that and others may not. So, No, I completely understand. I'm just, the process is gonna change and it might be a very good special town meeting to spend some time on just explaining to people what the process is that na didn't create it,
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we are responding to it. And I mean that, but that might actually be a, a very nice thing for people to learn what those changes are gonna be. So when we come back on the 19th, what are we doing? So on the 19th we can have the public hearings for part three and part four. Okay. And then you would decide, do we wanna bring it forward to a warrant or not? Okay. 'cause the warrant does close. When does that close? The 20th. The next Day. The next day. Okay. But the warrant is really only the space holder. So you can decide, yes, we wanna put that out, or you guys, or the play board might decide tonight, just put the warrant with those two items and then pull 'em off.
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But you have the day, you have the time rather than putting it on, like we can just have it teed up. And then you also have the public hearing process already started and you may be able to close the public hearing the first meeting in September, which is well before fit com. So. Okay. Would You see if Mr. Stevens might be available, either join us or even email some opinions if he's not available Yep. On, on how he's interpreting or how he sees things. I, I think that might be helpful. Sorry. I Would, I would, I would, would love to hear him kind of, is it like a kind of a round,
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round table conversation? Yeah. Okay. And also, just so you're aware in your emails you should received a memo from Karis summarizing the amendments that have passed. Yes. Did that and when did that come On? Monday night. So the 27th, around between like three and four 30. It was an email? Yes. Yep, It was a letter. Okay. Because, Because I It was just to you as the chair Terry, so, So you actually got a twice, you got a twice Terry, So Oh, well, and I, and I, I haven't seen it in part
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because I've been a little away from my Yeah. Email, although I've been looking, I'm, I'll go back and look. It was, it was sent as a, an email to my town account. Mm. I'll, I'll look for it. But weirdly it, I don't recall seeing it. But again, I've, okay. I've been kind of in and out of things the last few days And we may need a executive session at some point. Yeah. I haven't heard anything back because, but I waiting to hear. But yeah, I think we do need to have one and we
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Would get the, might we be be able to do that on the 19th as well? I can ask Karen. Okay. Yep. Okay. It's really subject to her availability. Well Terry, it was called Memo concerning July 26 40 a changes. And it was on the 27th. It came on the 27th. Okay. Thank you very much. And if for whatever reason I don't find it, I may come back to you, but I think it was just the inattention that being on, in theory being on vacation has, so, I mean, Terry, I read the letter and I, my, I was like, did I, what twilight zone was I in?
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I missed all this, but it was done through a budget fast and, And was Dutch like with, with smoke and mirrors? You know, it was just like, no, nothing to see here. How did our delegation vote? I would like, I would like to know Mr. Linsky and Mrs. Ska. I would love to know how they voted. I'm not sure. I haven't seen that, but I just know that it made it to the desk of the governor, so it was under the budget bill. Wow. Okay. Any other business? Nope. Do we, do we, do we, can we put in three and four for fall? Yeah. Do we, let's have the we Yeah,
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let's have the hearing on the 19th and we can vote that night to, and then And then let him know the next day. Yes. Okay. Yep. Cool. Okay. And if, sorry, I, I think vacation has done a, I feel like I've been Space kind of spacey tonight. And I apologize. It sounds like it's working then. You've been on point the whole night. Don't worry. Alright. Motion adjourn. Motion to adjourn by Mr. Sson. Second. Second, Mr. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you.