Speaker 1: Recording in progress at seven oh four. Call the meeting to order. The first order of business is public speak. Or actually I should start with the explanation as to what we are recording. This meeting is being recorded. Is being broadcast on native PEIs to comment? For those of you who are not in the room to comment or ask a question, use the raise your hand function. If you're on a phone, press star nine. An individual wishing to speak during public speak or during a public hearing must first display their first
and last name on the screen before their microphone can be unmuted. To make changes in your name as it appears on the screen in Zoom, click on participants. To open the participants menu. Hover your cursor over your entry and click on more. Click on read, name and tape. Type in your first and last name. We have a, a pretty full agenda tonight and we have our first time working with our new audio visual system. So be kind. We're still kind of getting the wrong of it. So we, I'm going to start by making a request. If, if anyone has public speak,
any individual may raise an issue that's not included on the agenda and it will be taken up under advisement by the board. There'll be no opportunity for debate during this portion of the meeting. This section of the agenda is limited to 15 minutes and any individual addressing the board during this section of the agenda shall be limited in five minutes. Is there anyone who wishes to be to speak in public speak? Is there anyone Speaker 2: Virtually? Yes. And Andrew Mcla. McCullough. McCullough? Yep.
Speaker 1: Alright, Mr. McCullough, Speaker 2: They just have to unmute. Speaker 1: If you can unmute and make sure you're well. We know your name now, but yeah. Speaker 3: Thank you. Can you hear Speaker 1: Me? We can. Thank you so Speaker 3: Much. Speaker 1: State your piece. Speaker 3: Yes. Hello, this is Andrew Ula. I'm chair of a statewide ballot petition committee called Legalized Starter Homes. I was invited to seek to, or well I, after some back and forth, I, I took the initiative to,
to speak because of a correspondence I had with Andy Meyer in this past week. So thank you to Mr. Meyer for making me aware of the opportunity to speak. This is a statewide ballot petition that we are pushing for that would make it legal to build single family homes on smaller lots than are typically allowed in most Massachusetts suburbs today. As long as the lot is served by public sewer and water services and has 50 feet of street frontage, the exact new threshold for the lot size is 5,000 square feet. About the size of an NBA basketball court.
We believe that because land is so expensive in much, much of Massachusetts, allowing homes on smaller lots will reduce the cost of homes for buyers. Make it to that developers don't have to build giant McMansions just to justify the cost of assembling so much land. Massachusetts is the hardest state in the country for young adults to buy a home. The middle class is shrinking in Massachusetts because the cost of housing has exploded in the last 10 or 15 years. Seniors, especially in the suburbs, are trapped in their homes because they don't have somewhere nearby to downsize. And as a result, a record number of Massachusetts residents,
especially young adults, ages 25 to 35 or so are leaving, hurting our economy and separating families. So we think that anyone who needs a small low maintenance, relatively low cost home, especially young families, downsizing seniors and first time home buyers of all ages will benefit immensely from, from this petition moving forward. And also small business owners who will have an easier time attracting and retaining employees in the local area who will in turn have an easier time finding and affording a home. So I invite anyone interested in this petition to
visit our website, www.legalizecharterhomes.com. If you're interested in contacting me or anyone else in the campaign committee, there is kind information there as well. Thank you for having me tonight and I look forward to continuing to move this initiative forward and help make it easier for a new generation of homeowners to, you know, help improve our communities in Massachusetts. Speaker 4: Great. Thank you very much for, for coming to public speak here. So thank you. Now moving forward, the heart of the agenda, the first order of business, do we want
to take the start with the calendar or Speaker 1: You have it in that order or we have it in the agenda. Speaker 2: It would be preferable in case things do need to be continued just so we know what dates we are continuing it Speaker 4: To then I think it's, it's fairly straightforward. I know we've talked Speaker 2: Through it informally. Yep. Calendar was prepared. Taking into consideration any state and federal holidays, any religious holidays that we typically do not meet on any school closures and any other holidays that may fall during the week such as Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Trying to avoid meeting those weeks just 'cause they're high volume travel weeks. So you, the agenda, we worked our best to avoid conflicts with the select board schedule, but there are a few where it does occur, but we do have the opportunity, opportunity to use the school committee room at that time. Speaker 1: Alright. So the fact that it says conflict doesn't mean it, the meeting wouldn't happen but it may. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just noting that there is a conflict. Okay. Speaker 1: Great. Any questions to the board? Speaker 5: Looks like you asked us to pick a day in July and a day in August rather than that at five total, so, damn.
Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 2: So you can leave it as is and then as we get closer, depending on what the work schedule is, maybe drop a meeting or two Speaker 1: You're, Speaker 5: I'll make a motion. We approve the draft 2026 planning board meeting agenda, a meeting date list. Speaker 1: Very good. And I, Mr. Nason has joined us, so Speaker 5: I'll second it. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 4: Motion made and Speaker 1: Seconded. Peter, I know you're the, that you came in Speaker 4: Just a little late. Do you have anything you wanna say
Speaker 1: Regarding Speaker 4: The calendar that we're Speaker 1: No, not at the time. Nope. Alright. Speaker 2: And Mr. Landry is also here. Speaker 1: Oh good. You're right. This is a little harder to get you turning around. Alright, and so Mr. Landry, anything that you, that you have to say regarding the schedule is presented? No. Okay. So Speaker 4: With a motion made and seconded to approve all of us in favor say aye Speaker 5: May Aye Dear Aye. Aye. Mr. Aye. Speaker 1: Aye Speaker 4: Evans. Aye Speaker 1: That is unanimous. Thank
Speaker 4: You very much. Moving on then to the next, are the first of our, in this case continued Speaker 1: Public hearings as the, as Speaker 4: Published at five Speaker 1: Lake Shore Road. This is not, we have opened this previously Speaker 2: So you were gonna re add a new one because of the one citation in there. So I did provide the legal notice that does need to re and then we would just merge it all together. It was just a procedural to make sure that everything was just as clear as possible. Yep. Okay. Speaker 1: Before Speaker 6: You start, sorry, this is Doug.
I will be recusing myself for this petition and I will rejoin when this hearing is over tonight. Speaker 4: Wonderful. Thank you very much. Speaker 5: Yeah, I was gonna invite you on up while I'm reading this. On Wednesday, January 14th, 2026 at 7:00 PM the planning board will hold a hybrid public hearing in the Gilot meeting room 13 East Central Street Natick and virtually over Zoom. To review the application of national development properties are five Lakeshore Road 2 0 8 North Main Street, two 12 North Main Street, two 14 North Main Street, two 18 North Main Street and two 20 North Main Street.
Application. Updated application for special permanent assisted living residence and site plan review project construction and operation of an assisted living residence facility along with associated site improvements, project number PB 25 18. A copy of the application can be reviewed in the Community and Economic Development Office and the and on Natick's open gov website per order. Natick planning board, Terry Evans chair, Speaker 4: Attorney Garger ahead, you're here representing the applicant. Speaker 7: Yes. Good evening Madam Chair, members of the board for the record, again, I'm Ka Catherine Garrahan
from Bowditch and Dewey. Along again with Katie Britt Snyder, national Development and, and we are also here with Kristen Hook of Benchmark Senior Living, Frank Holmes of Lagan for Civil Engineering in Stormwater. And also with us from Landon is Michael Wicki for landscaping. So we thank you for meeting with us again. We wanted to start with updates since we met with you with the on December 3rd for the opening of this hearing. And if we could go to the, the next slide please.
Since that time the team met with mast DOT regarding the status of of the access permit. On December 11th, the team held a neighborhood meeting with the Lakeshore neighborhood to get feedback and answer questions. That was on December 7th and the team is, sorry I should say January 7th. Oh January 7th. Apologies and is organizing follow up individual meetings at, at individual homes to assess existing trees with a tree arborist and in particular is having ongoing collaboration with the owners of number one, number seven
and number 11 Lake Shore. On updates to departmental comments in the portal is further communication from the fire department, which was dated January 8th regarding emergency call volumes. They had asked us to produce numbers and estimates, which we did and the fire department stated in the communication that's in the portal that the call volume projection projections provided to them seemed reasonable. We also met earlier today with Mr. McDowell of DPW.
He had questions on the DOT process and he will review storm water, storm water application to the conservation commission, which is about to be filed for a February hearing. During our meeting, Mr. McDowell stated that he felt the soils are good at the site and that the site will in infiltrate well the, in the design team moved along with some modest changes to the site plans to accommodate feedback you provided to us at your last meeting as well as feedback from Abutters
and we'll walk through those roughly seven or so changes with you tonight and we'll afterwards finalize the plans if you agree with the changes. Although we don't expect layout changes due to conservation or DOT review, we wanted to raise with you a potential condition to your decision if you wish that the applicant receive all approvals and that any required field changes be reflected in as-built plants. Also, I will mention before moving on that for your information
that we anticipate filing the a and r application, which we mentioned to you last time very shortly. So, and with that I will hand off to Katie. Speaker 8: Hi everyone. Thanks Kathy. Nice to see you all. Katie Snyder with national development. Just building off of what Kathy mentioned, we did have a nice productive meeting with DOT. We are far from finished with that coordination collaboration effort. We have filed our access permit. We had filed our access permit prior to our, you know, our hearing in earlier December,
but they did give us a couple notables that we wanted to just provide to you. They mentioned that the, with their overall construction plan that they're through the 75% design set that has been approved. You may all know this, but I just wanted to share and that they expect the a hundred percent construction documents to be finalized in August of 2026. This was an update to us because prior updates they had provided to us earlier in 2025 suggested that they would be a little further along. So it seems like there's a slight change from what they'd updated us on in 2025.
But with respect to the main entrance signal at the main entrance to our site and the shared with the stop and shop retail center, they anticipate having the sort of fabrication of the, the signal infrastructure ready to go in August. And then they also plan to have a temporary signal essentially from that time September of 2026 till December of 2027 for a little over a year. And then their target completion for that signal is December of 2027. So it, it actually, if things continue to progress
with our proposal and our proposed construction timelines, that signal intersection will be under construction at the same time that our project will be under construction. So not that it will work out nicely 'cause that's, it'll be, you know, sticky out there, but it'll be nice to kind of be working at the same time and in tandem with them. So as I mentioned, our access permit has been filed. We actually received late, late breaking feedback this afternoon from DOT. We haven't, we haven't received a confirmation that our access permit has been accepted, but we hope to hear back from them hopefully next week.
They left a message for Frank today and said they, they haven't made any progress yet, but that they will give us an update soon. So we will continue reaching out to them if you have any connections, don't be Speaker 5: Surprised if you don't get any indication. Traditionally, ma t usually waits till after the local approvals Sure. Are are met before they actually at least, at least before they sign it at least. Right, right. They might have discussions. This is a little unique that they have the construction project going on. Right. I think in the past they probably had ones that there were changes after they approved it.
They don't like that they want to be Speaker 8: The last one. Right. Then they have to resign. You know, they've been a little hesitant to affirm to anything. 'cause you're right, they, they're kind of waiting for us, but Speaker 5: For the most part their changes aren't gonna be Yeah. Usually significant. You know, they're Yep. As long as you're following their guidelines. Speaker 8: Exactly. And you know, we ha I mean the conversations have been productive. You know, we're just really looking to widen our, that main entry point for, we think it's safer, we think it's a more productive entrance with a little bit of widening. So we understand we'll have to do some coordination with them and likely we'll have to do some additional design work effectively on their
behalf to, to get that signal coordinated. Did I miss anything Frank? Nope, I think we got it. Okay. And if there's any questions, I did include just a before and after. I know that there was some questions about what the curb cuts look like before their work is done and thereafter it's included in the set as well. But if there's any questions on that, we can certainly circle back. Amanda, if you could go two slides ahead to the next Yeah, keep going. There we go. And I also, you know, I didn't really wanna start with operational questions like trash enclosures, but I figured I would knock it out and just
'cause I know it was a big important question and I wanted to address it. So there was a couple of comments not only from the planning board but also from members of the community. The concerns that we heard were, will there be a lot of trucks coming through to provide, you know, you know, we obviously will have an active building here with, we have food service that is needed, we have linens, things like that will need to be delivered. The loading area is on the west side of the, the building. I've kind of put a red circle there just to highlight where the, where the trash enclosure is
currently contemplated. So one, some updates I just wanna provide. So as it relates to trash, excuse me, the trash enclosure is right now up very tight to the building and actually is almost an alcove. It's probably not a great architectural term, but I've included two images just to try to help describe this a little bit more closely. So the plan view shows that trash enclosure with the two doors, there's actually going to be a door from the building into the trash enclosure. So there won't be people coming out and around
and back in, they'll have direct access into that trash enclosure. The gate will cut, you know, there'll probably be like an eight foot gate or so, six to eight foot gate. And then the building is actually designed such that the second floor comes over the trash enclosure. So it really does a nice job of kind of pull, keeping the trash close to our facility. It's not inside the building, it's not our preference to have the trash in the building, but we've kept it as close to the building as we can and really are screening it nicely. So from an architectural layout perspective, this is our preferred layout.
I also spent a lot of time speaking with some potential trash operators and also working with Benchmark to understand the facility's needs. For this facility. We're anticipating three pick pickups a week, and in working with the trash operator, that pickup would be about a 10 minute turnaround time. They would come in, they do need the ability to use that small leg of, of pavement to come in and back into the, in, in, towards the dumpsters. They anticipate about 10 seconds of time
that the backup alarms would beep. So three times a week for 10 seconds. In terms of the backup alarms beeping, this is anecdotal, but he did mention that some of the technologies they have include cameras now and they're able to potentially not have backup alarms. So he, he actually services our office in, in Newton. So in, we would be considering using him here and you know, they, there was the possibility that they might not be able to have backup alarms at all, but that's anecdotal and I just wanted to mention that technology is always evolving. And then additionally wanted to just mention
that we would limit the hours for pickup. I I think some of the comments we heard in the past, especially from the neighborhood, is that trash pickups seem to be occurring potentially off hours. So we would keep it, you know, within the typical workday working hour timeframe, other deliveries will come up. So again, this, this facility cannot accommodate large trucks. So these are smaller box trucks, so all other deliveries will come around the entire facility and pull alongside the building. So they'll use the side door there won't be backing up for those deliveries. So it'll be a slightly quieter operation
for those other additional daily deliveries. They expect one or two trucks potentially a day move-ins. Just in case folks were curious, the move-ins for the residents themselves will all be through the front door on the opposite side of the building. You can go to the next slide, Leanna. This gets us to our six or seven additional adjustments to the site plan. Frank's gonna take a few minutes to walk us through those. Speaker 9: Thank you. So again, Frank Holmes with, is your mic on? Oh, is this on? Green light would shine if it's on the green. Light is on. Okay, great.
Okay, so I'm going to go over some of the changes that we've made to the site plan that were made in response to, to both things that we heard from the board at first hearing, but also from the abutters and the neighbors and neighborhood in general. So I'll just run through them really quickly here and they're all numbered on the plan, but then we're gonna talk about them in a little bit more detail. The first is that we revise the parking so that we no longer need the waiver of less than 10 feet from the parking to the property line.
And I'll talk about that in a little bit more detail. We've extended the guardrail along the, the south side of the parking lot adjacent to the Abutters property line. We've lowered the, the height of the lighting on site to, to 12 feet and we'll talk about that in a little bit more detail as well. We provided some additional pedestrian access near the front of the building out to the signalize intersection with a sidewalk that goes out to North Main Street. We've made some changes to the, to the stormwater and,
and most notably to the Bioretention basin on the west side of the site. And we've added an additional fire hydrant the rear of the building. And, and then lastly, some additional landscape planting that Mike no wiki will will talk about in addition to the lighting. Go to the next slide please. So here we're seeing the adjustments to the parking and as I noted, we adjusted the layout so that we no longer are requesting the, the waiver for less than 10 feet to the property line. We did that mainly by incorporating compact spaces
on, on both the south and the north side of the building in that rear area. That's, that's created on the plan more adjacent to the building. We also needed to eliminate three parking spaces at the corner of, I'll say the corner of the parking lot area, kind of where the arrow is, is pointing to. And as Mike will talk about, that has allowed us to add some additional planting in that area well as well. But in order to maintain the, the number of day one spaces,
we, we have replaced those three lost parking spaces in, in the area where we have some banked parking. We we're going to build three of those on day one. So we wanted to maintain the number of those day one spaces at at 96. And, and that's, that's what we've done here. So the number of banks parking spaces gets reduced by three accordingly and that the office parking, there were no changes to that at all. Next slide please. Speaker 10: I Speaker 5: Just have a question. You mentioned about the assisted living parking versus office.
Are they going to be signed or anything like that? Or is it gonna kinda be shared for whoever wants to use whatever Speaker 8: They'll be? They'll, so the nice thing about these two uses is they are complimentary at times. So for example, on the weekends if there's a holiday, when there's more visitors to the assisted living, there's oftentimes less workers in the, in the offices. So we've been working closely with the current owner who will retain ownership of the office to kind of work through a shared program. We haven't defined an exact signage program yet,
but the intention is that, you know, the proximate spaces to the assisted living will be the assisted living spaces and then the obviously the proximate spaces to the office will. So there could be some sharing in the back lot. Speaker 5: Okay. I like that approach. Yeah. And I don't think we'd necessarily have to sign it. Yep. But sometimes, yep. You know, one tenant wants one thing and they Right, Speaker 8: Right. Okay. Right. But the, the nice thing is I think we do have adequate parking across both uses. So, you know, it's not like one short and one's not. So I think we have nice, a nice balance between the two uses with the ability to share when we need to.
Speaker 9: Okay. So the next slide we're looking at here is an adjustment that we've made to the guardrail on the site. And, and we've done that, you know, really mainly as a, as safety caution. And, and it's one of the things that we, you know, heard from some of the abutters. They would like some sort of barrier between the parking and the property line. So the guard rail previously, you know, only extended for the first several parking spaces along that southern property line. And what we've done on the revised plans is extend it all
the way to the end of the parking lot. Next slide please. This slide actually, if we could come back to when, when Mike speaks about planting, you'll talk about the lighting as well. Okay. This next slide is showing the additional pedestrian connections that we made. What we're looking at here are, are two sidewalks that have been added to the plan. It will, and we've added a crosswalk across the main driveway that will allow pedestrians to, to access the site from North Main Street and, and vice versa. And we also added a parking lot on the eastern side of
what will be office parking to allow those users to also get out to, to route 27 from the parking lot. Next slide please. This slide that we're looking at here illustrates some changes to the stormwater and most notably, as I mentioned previously, we adjusted some of the limits of the stormwater basin at, at the, at the north end of the buyer retention basin, which is the, the area shaded in blue at, at the top of the slide. So there are two lines shown there.
The, the red line was the original limit of grading from the original design. And then, you know, we have the new limit of the grading noted there. And what we did is shortened the basin. We didn't extend it to the south closer to the abutters, but we, we shortened it on the northern end. And the reason that we did that, we, you know, after doing the original design, we had a surveyors stake out that limit of grading it was gonna result in, in, you know, needing to take down a significant number of trees.
And although we were going to replant, you know, that area with new trees, we thought it best to to, to leave that area alone. And so we revised the design to accomplish that and, and sort of accompanying that change, we have a little less ability for storm water to go to that basin. So we have some of the roof drainage from the building being piped out to the, to the rear area of the site. So there'll just be a pipe end. Some of the roof drains will flow overland.
There are two significant depressions at the rear of the property that have, you know, more than adequate ability to, to take that, that roof water. And so those two changes went hand in hand. Otherwise the, the, the drainage scheme is pretty much the same. Okay, next slide please. And that's, this next slide just illustrates that that, you know, the, the p grates are all reduced to all of the design points and we're also providing in excess
of the amount of groundwater recharge, the, the water quality volume infiltrating still a hundred percent of the stormwater on site and providing TSS and phosphorus removal in excess of the standards. Next slide please. This slide is just showing the location of a new hydrant that was added at the rear of the site. So it's the water is shown in blue at the rear of the property and that was the co a comment
that we heard at the last hearing that we have adjusted for. And I think those are the site plan changes that I was gonna speak to Mike Noki. Will, if we could circle back to the lighting slide and he'll talk about planting and landscaping as well. Speaker 10: Thank you. You Speaker 9: Michael Niki, landscape architect with Lagan Speaker 10: Is you Mike on? Yes. Speaker 9: Mike Niki, landscape architect with Lagan. Is that better? Speaker 10: Thank you. Alright, Speaker 9: So with this slide shows is the fencing along the south property line.
So the red line represents a six foot solid floor fence that screens the department from the neighbors. And we also added the blue line, which is also a board fence with but with two feet of, of lattice topper, which is a little more residential in in nature. There we're also showing a gate for, for maintenance and access to that portion just south of the gate. Next slide. So here you see the two fence types that we're proposing.
The six foot solid cedar fence, which is shown in red as well as the blue fence, which is a four foot board fence with a two foot lattice topper. Speaker 8: And Mike, I just wanna jump in for a second. So we are been starting dialogues with some of the members and residents of Lakeshore. This is an initial concept. We think it works nicely with the neighborhood. Kind of creates the sense that the parcel, the remaining parcel that's up against Lake shore is residential and feeling it's got new landscaping going in
the original scheme. Had that red line going all the way out to Lake Shore with no blue line. We were just kind of creating a weird space. So we kind of re-envisioned it, thought that it would feel like it's more part of the neighborhood on that side. And of course open to additional thoughts and considerations there, but we just intend to plant it and then kind of create that fence so it feels a little bit more like it's part of the neighborhood. Speaker 9: And one more thing just to kind of imagine where the blue fence is being placed. It's essentially exactly where the current fence is today.
Speaker 10: Will, will the part outside of the blue fence be maintained? Speaker 8: It'll be maintained by us, yes. Yes. It'll, it'll have, you know, some lawn area, some plantings. Obviously there was an existing home there that we'll be taking down as part of the project. So we wanted to replace it with something that felt natural and as we thought about it further, having a fence go all the way out to the street to the sidewalk didn't feel like the right solution. So of course we're open to further conversations with the neighborhood or with the planning board on this matter. But this is kind of our first thought on how to make it feel right.
Speaker 10: You go my Speaker 9: Next slide please. So planting plan, it hasn't changed too much aside from what we're proposing along the south property line. So between the parking and the residences, now that we have more space, the 10 foot buffer minimum, we can incorporate much more screen plantings. So the darker circles represent evergreen trees, no AEs, I might add Juniper, American, holly Pine, some areas which basically screen in addition
to the fence view from the parking lot the neighbor's houses. We've also, as Katie previously mentioned, included more planting where five lake shore is currently now to make that just, you know, bring the concept of the wooded area back into that point. The site, if you go back to the lighting Speaker 10: Three, four, Speaker 9: So previously the, the dots basically on the perimeter of the parking areas, the, the roadways, internal roadways were all 20 feet high.
So what we've done is we're able to change those 20 foot light fixtures to either 15 or 12 foot fixtures. And I'd like to highlight that all of the fixtures on the south side and the four between the parking lot and the retention basins, those are 12 now. So they're even lower than 50. So we, we did have to add a few more in the select areas just to meet safety standards, but it all works pretty well in our opinion. And Photometrically Speaker 8: Also added some shields. Speaker 9: Oh right. Yep. They were, they were always there.
But in the, in the bottom right corner you can see the difference photometrically with and without shields the, the two images on the bottom right, those have shields, but if they didn't the two just above, it's definitely adding more spill behind the pole. Speaker 10: Thank you. Speaker 8: I think that's all of our updates to the plan. I think that's everything we have for you tonight. Alright, so far. Let's Speaker 1: Do a quick check in with members of the board and then I'll see if there are questions from members of the
Speaker 5: Sure, I'll, I guess I'll start question about the guardrails. So is that gonna Sure the, all the, the yards next to you, they're all level, right? So that guardrail iss not to protect anything, right? It's just keeps somebody from going through fence or Speaker 8: It's just an added precaution. We heard from some of the neighbors that, you know, it'd be nice to have just some assurance that if someone hits the gas instead of, or puts it in drive instead of reverse if they're in that parking space that there's just a little added protection in that zone. So we sort of leverage the current design
that already there's a small grading site wall on that corner and so we're just gonna extend that metal guardrail and just bring it along the back edge of the, the property line. Speaker 5: Now that's always gonna be on your side of the fence. Yes. Yes. So I guess visually, pardon me was saying it. Geez, they're not the Yeah. Most attractive. No. You know, could you do like a cedar rail, a cedar fence Sure. Or something like that. But I guess it's on your Speaker 8: Side so it's on our side and we'll keep it, you know, we want it to look nice too. So we'll probably upgrade it from like a typical, you know, heavy metal kind of guardrail, but we'll make sure it's got some strength to it.
Speaker 5: Okay. Well there are a lot of, yeah, a lot of options. Product especially Speaker 8: Out there, Speaker 5: You're not dealing with high speed Right, Speaker 8: Right. Speaker 5: Vehicles. Yep. And maybe this was along the site. Let's see the, if you're looking at a site plan, basically the left and bottom, there's a dark black line. What is that again? On a lot of these ar on these. Speaker 8: Oh, the, is this the, Speaker 10: This? Speaker 5: Yes. Speaker 8: That's representing the, the grading and we have some additional small retaining walls that are helping create the grade for the, the building pad.
Speaker 5: Okay. So that is going to be, you know, about how tall is that gonna be? Speaker 8: Are you looking at the, I don't know if Amanda, if you can go to the site plan, go to the front of the deck. Speaker 10: Let's see, Speaker 8: Go to slide three and the PowerPoint. So site plan that we can refer to? Speaker 9: Yeah. At it, at its highest point, it's a little over three feet. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 9: At, at the corner is where it's highest. And then from the corner to the two ends it's two to to zero. And Speaker 5: It's gonna be like a stone wall or something like that or Speaker 9: Yeah, we think it probably a modular block wall.
It's not gonna really see it from the site 'cause it's a fill wall. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 9: And, and, and the neighbors won't see it because we're gonna have a fence there. Yeah. So no one's really gonna see the wall. So we'll probably do like a versa lock type modular block wall. Speaker 5: Okay. Now two other comments. I, I, well I guess maybe three. I really appreciate seeing the sidewalk extended to the property line. I think that'll be very helpful. I would, I think the crosswalks look a little narrow. I'd want at least eight feet wide, anything narrower and they just kind of get lost and the yellow line
on the entrance drive should be a double, double yellow line. There's no single yellow line in the uniform vehicle code doesn't mean anything. Got it. Speaker 10: Great. Speaker 5: You good? That's it that I have right now Andy. Thank you. I appreciate all the improvements based on feedback. You guys are always very responsive. So thank you for that. I have one question sort of a, about the landscaping on Lakeshore Drive. I, I appreciate that. Where folks are gonna still be living there. There's a very generous buffer between the residences in this project
and specifically at the front of Lake Shore. And as you go down and I think the neighbors are gonna appreciate that. The one thing I'm all I'm trying to envision in my mind as you drive down Lake Shore Drive and you hit the actual piece of this property that hits Lake Shore, it seems to be very, very well landscaped, almost forested. And I'm just wondering if that might be a case. I'd be very curious to hear what the neighbors think. Will that almost feel strange to drive down Lake Shore and go from residential, residential, residential and then like forest and then back to residential.
Okay. I'm just wondering if that might be a case Yep. Where it might look better if it was a little more yard like Sure. You know, if I might just fit into the composition of the neighborhood a little bit more that way. I appreciate that. Well back, you're gonna have a cedar fence with lattice on top and a gate and I, that's probably appropriate. I just wanna make sure that whatever we come up with is definitely part of the landscape. Sure. So that it's not like we just let that go to hell and everything behind the fences is well forgotten about. Right? Yes, exactly. So, and I'd be curious, as, you know, I I sort of advocated
for trying to activate that space a little bit more in the neighborhood and also in the property behind this. And honestly what I heard is that the immediate neighbors anyway didn't really want that. They really just wanted to be left alone. So I I I heard that loudly and clearly. So that's something I'd like, I think you're even saying that's kind of open for discussion. So I'd be curious to hear how people would like to treat that piece of Lakeshore. Sure. And then I feel like the south face of the building and the west face of the building aren't really gonna be seen. I think they're gonna be fairly well screened.
The one face that we will see the most of is the east face of the building. And a lot of times in assisted living, the sides of the buildings aren't treated very, they're treated in a very bland manner. It's like nobody cares what the side of the building looks like. Sure. But in this case, the side of the building is gonna be probably one of the more, probably maybe the most visible angle Sure. On 27. So I'm curious, I wanna make sure that that's treated. I know it's not the lobby, I know it's not the entrance, but that will be the face that most people see as they pass by. And that will not be screened.
I mean there's just a little bit of modest landscaping there, so I just wanna make sure that that particular face is really appealing open. It does not look like the side of the building. Speaker 8: It, it doesn't, it feels very much like it's part of the front door. Okay. The architecture really does stay consistent in a lot of ways as you go around the building in terms of how the treatment of it. We do have some renderings that start to show that. And we also have elevation drawings in the set that show just again that sort of architecture there. But we've, it's important to us obviously
'cause this is the front door. People drive by this, we wanna have, it's part of the marketing and the branding so it, it will feel like it's part of the building. We can provide more renderings. That's helpful. Speaker 5: Page of your deck kind of shows a a yeah. A 3D image and I can kind of see the Yep. A little bit. The face that I'm looking at. Yep. And it sounds like you've got it covered, but we just wanna make sure that that doesn't look like the side of the Speaker 8: Yes. It won't. Speaker 5: And I believe that's all I have for now. Thank you. Okay, great. Speaker 1: Thank you Peter. Speaker 11: Thank you. Just a quick follow up on the last discussion
about the look of the building. Yes. A building has four sides generally, but the function and the, the look of the building is, is not necessarily it, it shouldn't be forgotten. And I think you've mentioned that it's got to be, it's still one building. There are going to be people whose only walk that they might take during the day might be around the building. And so it should keep the, the, the look and I'm sure the architects are thinking of that, but sometimes it can slip a little bit and become a side or a back. And there isn't, as far as I'm concerned,
functionally maybe the trucks go back one place. But it's, it's up for grabs. Everyone's gonna look at it any from any direction I think. I'm not sure what the outcome was on the pickup of trash, a time pickup, but I would like to suggest there is a, if there isn't already to be a fixed time, not before, not after probably that type of thing for pickup the dumpsters. I don't know what kind they are. My preference would be where those dumpsters are that you
feed them from as a compactor from the inside of the building and not have to go outside with trash. And that's where all the mess usually gets. The trash usually gets on the ground is from the building to the compact to the dumpster. I don't know how these are, if these have a big trap door on top metal and they come down there, they're noisy. I don't even know. I, I assume of course that there's clearance for them to put the, the lid up and not hit the floor above. That would be quite obvious. I'm sure I would
like, on future planning, I, I'd like to see more, a little bit more of the adjacent properties both on this side of the street and also even across the street where we've got some drives. We've got roadways, we're gonna have entry into the par, into the mall, across the street. And I don't know, is that directly across the street from the present? What she's showing now is the entry on the north side, excuse me, on the, the north side of northwest northeast corner. That drive there. Is that the one that's there now?
That's almost different. Yes. Speaker 8: Yes. We, we do actually have some images and Amanda, I can help look over your shoulder if you don't mind. Yeah, totally. Just 'cause I know we have 'em Speaker 10: From the last meeting. Speaker 11: Okay. As long. Yeah. I just, Speaker 10: I like to Sorry. Yeah, Speaker 11: You Speaker 10: Me, Speaker 5: I think they're just gonna pull up some different renderings, Peter. Speaker 11: Okay great. Speaker 10: The old one. No, this is the old one too. Okay. So show this one. Yeah, we can show that it doesn't quite do it but I think we can speak to it. This lemme show. Oh that's actually a good call. Sorry. Apologies. One minute. Find it sec. Oh
here, it's there. It's, oh wait, which one did you want the green one when you walked away it here? This one. Oh that one. Okay. Yep. Perfect. Speaker 8: We're not short on slides in the background there. So we're gonna pull up, this just starts to try to describe a little bit more, and we provided this at the last meeting. You have to zoom out a little bit. You can see the, the network of the route nine interchange with 27 and you can start to see the stop and shop sort of retail center.
That's what I call it. The stop and shop center. It's got a different name but you can see that we share that intersection with the retailer and with 27 right now our driveway is, the existing driveway that is there is pretty narrow. And so part of what we're working with DOT on is widening that and that's what's reflected in the plans and the proposal we, we have in front of you. Speaker 11: It's obviously the same control light and that and so on. I can see that it is. Alright well
we're down that corner. I am not quite clear. I is that entry or that drive I assume to get in terms of the facility of building, that's a two-way it goes in and turns to the left. Yes. And it comes out the same way. Speaker 8: You can go in and out and we expect that basically 80%, maybe more of the exiting traffic, we'll use that as well. That is gonna be the main point of entry and exit for any user coming in and out of the, whether they're going to the office building or to the assisted living.
It's the easiest way to get, you know, into the route nine network. Speaker 11: Yeah. Is now it, it just is the way it's drawn. Maybe I'm just not reading it quite right, but the in appears to be wider than the out is that, I'm sure it's not, but it appears that way in the drawing there. See there's an island in between the entry and exit drives. Speaker 8: I, I can sort of see what you're seeing. I think the, the property line, if you're looking at the property line, that's not the curb line.
The the curb line. It's a little hard to read on these site plans. But the intention and the design layout has the entry and the exit the same width. Speaker 11: It's just a Speaker 8: Perception of Yeah. It's just, there's a lot of lines on this play page. So, and we can, we can provide a zoomed in look if, if we need to cut zero in on it. Speaker 11: Well at some point you'll have a little more detail and we'll see these areas I'm sure with the ability to enlarge them and give us a whole, it'll explain a lot.
One thing, the last thing on my list, and I mentioned it last last time, it's the, the space for the memory care unit. The Yes in the interior exterior space, that courtyard. I, I just am concerned that there's a three story building all around the people right there if they're in that space and having been gone through a number of these facilities, the memory care specifically, I just think that's gonna be nice.
There won't be any wind or anything, but it's so very closed in. I think it, it, it bothers me to see people think of people sitting in there all day, even though they might not be even inclined to go anywhere or else, but it just Speaker 8: Yep. Speaker 11: Just psychologically I guess I don't wanna say psychologically that's, that's not my business. Although some people would say maybe it is. Okay. That's that, that's it for me. I think Speaker 8: I just wanted to, and just on that topic, I did wanna highlight for you that we do have two outdoor secure locations
for the memory care residence. So not only will they be able to access the courtyard, which will be easier access for them 'cause it's enclosed and it's, you know, proximate to the, all the sort of amenity spaces within that living space. But there is also an area that we've created on the west side, sort of towards the back, an additional space for being outside, putting, you know, being able to put, have sun on your face and that's outside of the, what we like to call the donut hole. You're outside the building and different, you know, different shading
occurs on that side of the building. So we've included that in the plan and thinking about what you're thinking about. Speaker 11: But they have direct access from there right into the little courtyard. Speaker 8: That's right. There's a door and there's an, so it's an additional outdoor amenity space at the ground plane there. All the memory care units are on the first floor. So we wanted to keep access to the outdoors on the first floor. So we've done the courtyard and then we have the, the west area there. You can sort of, you can see it on the plan just adjacent to the parking area. Not on, Speaker 11: Not on what's up on the screen, but that's all right.
Speaker 8: Oh, we can switch the screen. Yeah, if you can go back to the site plan now you have a million sheets. Speaker 11: No, that's all right. That's all right. Okay. I'm, I'm all set. Thank you. We're still early on and I think you're doing a, a, a nice job. I think it's gonna be a, a nice project. Speaker 4: Alright, thank you Peter. Now I, I promised that that Speaker 11: I see, I think I see it on that one there that just Yep. Box a little oval in it. Speaker 8: Yes, that's it. Speaker 11: Okay. Very good. We're Speaker 4: Good. Speaker 11: Very good. Alright. And I, and the enclosure, the enclosure around that would be what
Speaker 8: I, I don't know the exact height of the fence. There is something that's prescribed. It's probably eight feet, but I can double check that statistic. But they just wanna ensure that folks don't elope from the, from the enclosure that they're kept safe. They Speaker 1: Can see the outdoors. Speaker 8: Right. They can kind of see nature Speaker 1: But not necessarily just Speaker 8: Into it. Exactly. Katie, I Speaker 9: Think that's corrected is eight feet. Yep. And not that I'm the architect, but that, that's a regulatory requirement for the, for the memory care. It's a requirement to have it be eight feet high. Speaker 11: Okay. That that's fine.
I'm, I'm wondering, I just, I'm thinking of the, your part, psychological part of it all. It's still that that gets to be a really narrow little space. But maybe just examine how else you can enclose at eight feet at an eight foot height without having to necessarily be a solid fence. Sure. Something that will meet code. Speaker 8: Sure. Speaker 11: Alright. Thank you again. Speaker 8: And I can answer a few more comments on the trash if you'd like me to go there. I'm happy to, but you wanna do yours first? Speaker 1: Sure. Let Speaker 8: Me see what Speaker 1: Know Peter, I just want, would like to see what some
of the folks who are here Sure. And some of whom may have questions about the trash, but Sure. I'd like to to to get some of this out and if you, if we still find ourselves kind of missing information on the trash, we can come back to that. So I, what I'll do is I call it the, or I think we call it like the lighthouse sweep, you know, it's going from one side of the room to the other. And then I will pause to see if there is our, our folks who are joining us online. So I'll start, if just raise a hand, I will do my best to describe and point to you lady glasses.
Come up to the podium. Just give us your name and, and is yours, Speaker 11: Did you give address too? Or Speaker 1: It would be helpful? Paula Ser on 18 Lake Shore Road. Okay, thank you. So we say that we have a time limit as, as the evening goes on and I just caution you say something and then the next person says, oh, that was the point I wanted to make. Don't feel like you have to repeat the point.
You can say something simple, but you want everyone back to you. So it looks like there's and a driveway on Lake Shore Road, an access is there, Speaker 8: There there's no driveway or vehicular access to Lake Sre. So there Speaker 1: Have any trash trucks coming in? No. From Lake Shore Road or, or deliveries? Speaker 8: That's correct. All of the vehicular access is off of North Main Street. We have the main entry point that we were pointing to and then we have a secondary access point,
but it's all off of North Main Street, so everything will be coming and going from that. Speaker 1: And I saw there was something about bicycle racks. Can you speak to that? Speaker 8: There's a few bicycle racks that are approximate to the building. I believe, I'm Speaker 1: Trying to remember. I mean, is that in link with the trail rail for some Speaker 8: Reason? Oh no, it's, it's really to serve the building If, and someone of the employees that works in the facility rode their bike to work, they could park there and, you know, leave their bike proximate to our front door. But there's not many, I mean, it'd probably accommodate for less than a handful of bikes.
Speaker 1: And lastly, heightened noise of air conditioning units. Sure, Speaker 8: Good question. So we we're only in the early schematic phase of our architecture design, but as part of that, as we advance our, you know, mechanical analysis of the, of the building, there will be some rooftop units that we will screen for and, you know, keep, you know, sort of away from the pr the edge of the, the roof. So we're starting, we're in the early stages of that now and we'll have all, all of those units screened. Speaker 1: Wonderful. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Cut. Moving forward, gentlemen in the blue.
Speaker 9: Good evening. Tim Barrows. I'm number 11. Lake Shore. One of the three most affected, I guess I just want to point out the, we've had plenty of discussions with them and they've, they've listened to us in regards to like the trash where with the dumpsters using plastic lids as opposed to metal lids. So there's not much banging things of that nature. So a lot of your concerns, the neighbors kind of met with them as well. And that area that's currently number five, lake shore,
that's gonna be knocked down. My mother's at number seven. We would prefer with the kind of the plans that they have higher trees, more of a secluded help keep the noise down, help keep the peering eyes, you know, they don't really want it to be like a park to hang out because the, they're old buffer zones. So the side of my mother's house, which is number seven, is only 10 feet away from that property line. So if you treat it more like a yard, you'll have more people that are when they're walking up and down the street. So the, the, the trees
that they have in their design plans currently is more what we want and we like the, the revised plans that they've done. And lastly, I just want to just let the board know that Katie, Marie and Frank have been wonderful to the, the neighborhood reaching out, making good communication and making sure our concerns are heard. They've been great. Speaker 1: That's very good to hear. Moving across the center, towards the center of the wall. Do you wanna say Speaker 8: Something? Oh no, no. I just said something in my, sorry.
Speaker 1: Okay. Any on on this side? This in the back with the light blue shirt. Speaker 12: Thank you. Speaker 10: Leaving address. Speaker 12: Steve Sheen five Mcgon Road. So I'm plan north of butter and we have not had much contact with national development. I feel like we got left out somehow. You've talked to once. I believe early on our biggest concern we're, we're supportive of the project. We think it's gonna be a better look for Natick, but we are gonna see the construction happening in a big way. Understand it's not our property, there's not much I can do about it, but the bioswale that's in there was our biggest concern and we had heard that that was not happening anymore
and so thankful that you pulled the, the line back quite a bit. But it's still taking down quite a few trees in an area that we had then foxes reared there. Hawks Eagles, great horn dos are their home. So yeah, I would love to see if you could consider below grade bioretention basins that we see in a lot of construction projects versus the open air bioswale. Don't know if that's been considered yet, Speaker 10: Actually. Speaker 1: Is there any information on that we, Speaker 8: We can share? We can jump to the stormwater plan and just kind of walk you through it with a little more detail if that's helpful.
Yeah, we don't wanna, if you have more comments by Speaker 12: Yeah, the other comment I think was related to that there's like a line going north, plan North out of there. You don't know what that is Speaker 8: On the, on the proposed plans. Yeah, that was the new plan. Yep. First related to storm water was the, looks like it on the storm water. Okay. Why don't we, why don't we pull that up? Is that okay to pull that up? That'd be great. Okay. Here Speaker 10: And Speaker 12: Then while we're pulling that up, the HVC system got me thinking no PTECH units on this job. We're thinking about rooftop units Speaker 8: For the brand. Is that a brand you Speaker 12: No, it's like the window air conditioner unit. Speaker 8: Oh no, no. We're we haven't, we haven't designed it yet, but we are, we're in the process of getting that kicked off.
Okay. Speaker 12: Much lower. We prefer rooftop units. Rooftop. Speaker 8: That's likely where we're ahead. Sorry Amanda, do you wanna share Speaker 10: The sharing right now? Oh no, I'll share her. You can go to the screen and then we'll her, Speaker 8: That's just that screen. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Speaker 10: Do you wanna just touch on the Speaker 8: Basics of our stormwater analysis? Speaker 9: So what we're looking at here is, is the, the basic elements of the stormwater management system highlighted in different colors. So the, the blue is the surface by retention basins, Speaker 10: Excuse me. Speaker 9: And the purple is subsurface detention
and infiltration systems in the green or catch basins and the sort of bed circle are part of the separators. So they're also like catch basins, but they're removing total suspended solids. So, you know, as, as we talked about, as you pointed out sir, we did shift the, the bio retention basin a a bit to the south to save about 20 trees. We had them staked out in the field and now did a field check on the original design and pulled that back in an attempt to, you know,
keep the trees that are along the back property line. We still do have a a, the part of the reason I should say that we have the buyer retention basins and we have them in the back and we also have one near the front entrance is because it is in, in the towns stormwater bylaw that we incorporate low impact development and in those kinds of surface elements and not have everything just be in underground structures. So, you know, we're trying to strike a balance between
what the town's requirements are, you know, but also, you know, concerns of, of the neighborhood and of the letters. So, Speaker 8: And I just wanna add, so I know when I connected with your wife, I think in, it was April of 2025, a long time ago, and we were out much further off. It's actually off the page, it's in the three acres behind. So we, we did do some analysis of the soils there to kind of understand the infiltration back there, but then we, at that point, we, we realized how much of an impact it was gonna have to the wooded area.
This, you know, we, we spoke, I spoke with your wife and back then. And so everything that we've done is really pulled it closer to where we're redeveloping the site that basin is in, I think it's encroaching on some green space right now, but there's a few less trees to take down. So we really tried to keep it close. And then the latest tweak from our presentation in December to, to now is what Frank is referring to in that red line. We're pulling everything closer, so we're really working hard to, there's a significant number of trees that are, that's your property line right there.
So we want, we wanted to, yeah, we wanted to keep a lot of the mature trees there. So we walked it, we flagged it, and then we tried to pull everything away from that edge. So, and happy to meet and walk through it with you if it's helpful. Just, you know, sometimes it's just helpful to see it. We could do that as Speaker 9: Well. And to answer your other question, the line going out to the back, it's, I i, it's what I mentioned previously, you know, part of making that basin a little bit smaller is that it's got a little bit less capacity. That line is taking a, a portion of the roof drains
and directing it to the back. There are, there are two significant depressions in the back of the property. Speaker 8: The natural basin Speaker 9: Closer to the western property Speaker 12: Plan north. Speaker 9: Yeah. Plan north. Exactly. Is Speaker 12: That just an open air culvert type thing? Speaker 9: Yeah, it would be a, a pipe discharge, you know, onto the surface. There's a, there's a existing low area, almost like a natural swale, you know, leads to one of those big depressions and then the, that depression overflows into another much larger depression.
The capacity of those, the volume of those is significantly in excess of, you know, what's needed to, to even for like the a hundred year storm for the roof drains that would be directing that and wouldn't be clearing any trees, you know, for that drainage path except just to put that pipe in. But it doesn't extend much beyond the, the page here where the fiber tension is Speaker 12: The 400 euro old trees. Speaker 9: Yeah. And, and we could, you know, field adjust that to, to, you know, minimize impact on trees.
But you know, what we envision there is, you know, what might be a, you know, 10 or 15 foot line and you know, there might would be a few trees that would need to be taken down, but it's kind of right in the middle of the property, so we wouldn't be taking down trees on either side for that. Speaker 8: And you might have mentioned this, Frank, but the, the purple squares, those are the subsurface systems, correct? Yes. So we have a combination of both. And most of the water right, is going through, if you look at the capacities, it's mostly going into the subsurface Speaker 9: System. That's correct. Yep. Speaker 12: So since the parking's being expanded plan north Yep.
You couldn't extend the bio, the below grade one versus the open air to, to get rid of all that development of what's, I don't think ever been developed before for Speaker 9: Yeah, I can, it's, you know, we maybe could, but the towns we're also need to comply with the, with the town's storm water bylaw that requires that you incorporate, you know, some low impact development. So we, we we're striking a balance with this design to, to address the, the town's bylaw as well. Speaker 12: I would I guess ask that the town consider
that they're expanding parking. That's an area right there to put below grade basins versus basically scraping and creating a large depression and moving soil in an, in an undisturbed location. It's, it's pretty natural there. Good. Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you. So moving on, this last part of the audience today. Is there anyone else who has comments here that you'd like to make? Wasn't sure if I saw a hand. Okay. Do we have anybody online?
Speaker 2: I do not see any hands raised, but if anyone online does wanna speak, they should raise their hands. Now. Speaker 1: May I ask one more question? Please go ahead. The electrical Lake Shore Road has a transformer that's, I don't know, old or something. And it, you know, oftentimes it, it blows up and everybody around us has electricity and we do not. How will this be powered? Where will it be powered in, you know, new transformer new?
Speaker 8: So the site currently has electrical service. Obviously there's existing facilities there. We do have some, there's some overhead power lines actually that go onto the property. Those will come down and then we will provide a new electric service. Everything's coming from by way of electric is coming from North Main Street, so we'll run a new, we'll take down those overhead lines, which will be a nice benefit to not having those anymore. And then we'll ride, run a new feed underground to a new service to the, to the Speaker 1: Existing facility. Peter Speaker 11: One follow up on the mechanical rooftop
mechanical equipment. Two things to consider, and that's visibility and noise and both are very important and both have a variety of ways of looking at them, which I'll, of course you'll folks will look at that, but keep in mind too, the noise very often has direction to it and in one direction it might be a bit noisier than another and for whatever value, that kid is a tight little site in some respects. But just keep that in mind, please.
I, I'll be looking at the elevations and as in what they're looking like, not not just the elevation but ground level perspective and see what we can and cannot see in these, in this equipment. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Anything further for this evening? I think we heard Speaker 8: A lot of good comments, so, we'll, Speaker 1: And, and I actually, I'm struck by how much collaboration you see between the neighborhood
and it's, it's the best way to build things or not the best way to go forward. Do we want to set up kind of a what, what we need done to get to our next meeting? Any among us filling next steps that, that you think are next? Speaker 5: It seems like there's still a lot, a bit of plan work to do. Speaker 1: Thank you. How,
what do you think is reasonable in terms of Speaker 8: Sure. Speaker 1: Take pushing forward everything that we kind of heard about this evening. Speaker 8: I think we've got, we have a number of comments we heard we are about to also file for our major storm water permit. That filing will happen next week and then will be before the conservation commission and Right. We don't have the exact date yet, but we're looking to some, some date in gen and excuse me, February. So in tandem with that we can address, I think there's a couple of questions regarding trash, some studies on the mechanical units, on the rooftop.
We obviously heard some feedback with regards to the basins and storm water and I think maybe perhaps in tandem with our conservation filing we can look at that again. We have, we have looked at, I will just mention we have looked at the storm water very extensively for well over a year. So like Frank mentioned, we were trying to find this right balance, but we can, we can certainly, we heard a comment tonight, we'll look at it again and see if there's some, you know, pushing and pulling to how we can accommodate that. But I do think we're down to kind of the small strokes outside of, you know, looking at the rooftop units, storm water, trash.
I don't know if there was other things I didn't mention in that statement, but we're pretty close. Speaker 1: So our, our next meetings coming up. We have the 28th sure. Of, of January and I don't know, but February we have the 11th and the 25th. Speaker 8: We might be ready on the 28th. I mean we've, we've done a lot. We've been working on this project for two years so we know a lot about what's out there. If we could aim for that, that would be wonderful and Speaker 1: Sooner and done is good. Okay. Speaker 8: That works for us. Speaker 1: Do we wanna say February 11?
Speaker 8: Well the 28th, I mean I think we can, we can accommodate a two week or January 20. Yep. January 28th. I think we can Speaker 5: Move to continue to January 28th. Do that. I'll second that. Okay. Speaker 1: Motion and second it to continue to January 28th. All in favor Speaker 5: Meyer? Aye Speaker 1: Peter, you have to say your name, not aye. Thank you Evans. Aye Speaker 5: Who your Aye. Speaker 1: Alright, A couple weeks. Speaker 8: Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 5: Next up it looks like a joint meeting of the native planning board and the tree warden public hearing notice on Wednesday,
Jan 2014, 2026 at seven the planning board will hold a hybrid meeting in the OT meeting room located at 13 East Central Street, Natick, mass Live and via Zoom. To review the application of trust development, the applicant has applied for a modification of ACE Road per Massachusetts General Law Chapter 40 and a public shade tree per mass General law 87 for the removal of five public shade trees. Two Colorado spruce, two Norway maples, one crab apple measuring a total of 60 inches diameter breast height.
The properties are located at 52 Everett Street, 56 Everett Street, 66 Everett Street, 70 Everett Street. And the property is located within the residential single DRSB zoning district. A copy of the application can be reviewed in the Community and Economic Development Office. And on Natick's OpenGov website, the virtual meeting link will be located on the post agenda per order. Terry Evans Chair, Natick Planning Board. Speaker 13: Good evening Speaker 5: Suggestion. Speaker 14: I'm Ben Stevens from Press Development. I'm here with Matthew Stevens and Mark is also here. I think he just needs to be added into the,
Speaker 2: Sorry about that. No problem. And then if the tree warden could also open, do you do anything to open your, declare the meeting open or something? Speaker 13: What time is it? 8 7 8 16. Arthur Kine tree warden for the town in Natick Open the chapter 87 public hearing. Eight 16. Objection. Thank you. Speaker 14: If you recall, we talked about doing this is related to the 52 average street project and completion of an offsite sidewalk from the end of Windermere Lane to the start
of the 52 Everett property line. And at which point we'll be doing a sidewalk as it relates to that project across the front edge of 52 Everett. So there are, we did walk the site with Bill McDowell. We talked a little bit about the sidewalk placement. The road's very narrow right there. So we had some discussions back on, back and forth on the best location for the sidewalk. There's no changing in the driveway entrances needed. There's no stone walls that need to be dealt with. So this is just a matter of working around some
of the existing trees as best we can. And there are, I believe four, four and a half trees total that we cannot work around. They're sort of right in the town overlay, which is not that wide. Maybe five or six feet at that point from the edge of sidewalk, from the edge of pavement. And so those four or five trees are on our filing for the scenic road to be removed. They are on substantially on town property. And we're here to discuss,
and I did meet with the, there are four driveways, but effectively three property owners affected by these trees. One, the first property owner to the East 56 Everett had some trees I think planted when their house was built. And we can work around those, we can be in front of those according to Bill. It seems to make more sense. So there's actually no trees on 56 that need to be removed. There's a dead tree on 66, which is the newer house that was built there. There's a 20 inch maple with sort of a,
a hijacked little crab growing outta the back of it that that property owner had already planned to remove. And it's straddling the property line so that tree would be removed. And there are two spruce trees in front of 70 Everett Street. I think Mr. Brown is here. 1814 inch and a 19 inch that we don't really have a choice on. So those trees would have to go. I did receive the list from Mr. Goodine on the appropriate replacement trees. I have talked to. Speaker 5: Excuse me, can I just jump in? Do we have a, a map or documentation we can follow along with? Speaker 2: You should have it, there's a site map
Speaker 10: In our, Speaker 2: I can show it on the screen too if that would be helpful. Speaker 5: Well we have, we have two Speaker 2: Revised site plan. So it's under zb, sorry PB 25 19. Speaker 5: 25 19. Okay. And then it's under site plan. It Speaker 2: Should be under site plan, site plan 52. Speaker 5: And what, what pages of that are the, are these trees shown? Speaker 6: Amanda, it would be helpful though to show it for the public. Speaker 10: Yes, it would. Yes it would. Thank you. Speaker 2: Yep. It's just the one sheeter. Speaker 5: Okay, well the site plan is a, like a seven sheeter. Yep.
Speaker 2: There was another one in there. 2 9 88. Sidewalk, Speaker 5: Sidewalk. There we go. That's W one. Try that. Okay. That's what I'm looking for. Speaker 2: And I will share that on the screen behind you. Speaker 5: Go on. Thank you. Appreciate Speaker 14: It. So substantially that's the intent of our hearing. Like I said, no stonewalls to be removed. We're not changing driveway locations, so it doesn't appear to be a lot of, there's some grading that'll be associated. We'll have to pull these stumps out, especially the spruce trees. And we would work with Mr. Goodine on appropriate replacements. We do do have the list and I would probably consult
with each pro with each homeowner to see if they have a preference and then clear that with Mr. Heim before we do the replacement plantings after sidewalk is complete. And that's pretty much the essence of our application. Speaker 5: Do we have a copy of the document that shows what the specified replacements are? Speaker 14: I did not submit that. He, he shared it with me. It's quite a list. Speaker 1: Mr. Goodine, do you have that list? Speaker 13: I don't have it with me today. No, Speaker 1: But, but it is available if we, if that would be helpful for,
for the community economic development office to have come into this list. Speaker 5: Well, just for my own pre pretend I'm an idiot. I know that's hard. But like why do these trees have to come down and are they being replaced with the same species or different, like what's going on here if you don't mind. Speaker 14: We have about six feet from the edge of pavement to, and you probably, if you went on GIS Natick, GIS 70 Everett Street, you'll see there's two large spruce that straddled the property line. So their root systems, if we did a five foot sidewalk in
front of 70 right now, we would be ripping all their roots out of the tree and probably taking three inches of the, the street side of that tree out so that tree's not gonna survive and it would destroy the sidewalk. Anyhow. So in discussions with Bill, we, at first we're gonna put the sidewalk back, but that would mean more tree removal. So we're keeping the sidewalk, as you see on that plan, is essentially adjacent to a curb we have to put in. So we're gonna be putting an asphalt curb in at the current edge of the pavement of Everett Street.
And then we're doing a five foot sidewalk behind that curb, which we, the minimum number of trees we need to take out is what we're here for Those, those four trees. Speaker 5: Can I keep asking? Yes, please. So like let's say you take down a 20 inch maple and a crab and a 14 inch, 19 inch spruce, are they replaced in the same location? Speaker 14: We would actually, when we do street trees now, we always end up, we used to put 'em in the town right of way. Now they're all on private property. That policy was about 10 or 15 years old. So we would replace these, put the sidewalk in,
and then plant the tree behind the sidewalk. Speaker 1: And I take it that that's to keep you from putting in a tree that then is going the roots for which are gonna disrupt the sidewalk and create a collision. Speaker 14: Correct. And also they're technically private property trees at that point and they're out of the right of way. And they're not, especially Everett is not very wide here. It's probably about 22 feet of pavement. So the point was we started doing subdivisions, I think Mark Ello and we no more in the right of way. We had to be at least five feet behind
the town property line for that purpose alone that we wouldn't grow into sidewalks and streets and sight lines and everything else. Speaker 5: And again, pardon my ignorance, but assuming that they're well planted and they establish do, is there like a two year or a three year period just to make sure that they make it? And does, does the property only have a choice? Like if, if, if somebody didn't want that species of tree and wanted another one, is that negotiable? I'm not. Maybe I ask Mr. Heim now.
Speaker 14: That's, that's, Speaker 13: Yeah. So I would say when I provide guidance on tree planting and tree species, it's mostly provide tree species not to plant and more leave it up to the, to the homeowner to decide what trees that they would like. It also depends on what's readily available at nurseries. So to not lock someone into those trees, this is not something that's, you know, being done by public works. It's more of a, a private entity here for the, for the sidewalk. So that agreement with the homeowner and that conversation
and that that that burden, that risk would be with, with the petitioner here. Speaker 5: And you would follow dig safe and all that stuff 'cause but essentially it is on somebody's private property. Speaker 14: Yep. Speaker 5: And they have to, I assume, give you permission and then they will end up owning the tree. It's health maintenance and all that stuff going forward. Your hands are kind of done once it's planted. Do we ever run a case where the tree dies and then it's like, well you owe me a new tree or does that, what would happen under circumstance like that? Speaker 14: Honestly this is a little new for me because this is a scenic road replacement.
This is not a subdivision tree requirement. This is not a special permit tree requirement. This is not even a, the new storm water major stormwater tree replacement requirement. This is a scenic road and it's not a requirement. I'm just sort of pointing out that we did have conversations with the property owners and if they want replacement trees out front, we will plant them. If they don't, I don't think it's a req, it's certainly not a requirement of the bylaws. I read the bylaws. The bylaws not in, unfortunately the bylaws not
in your code. It's not in there. So you have to go to the state code and I, if I'm, I think I have that right. So I, there's no guidelines that were sort of established beyond the state requirement. Yeah, there's not native requirements if you will. So, Speaker 5: Well it is a scenic road, it's a pretty road. We have new development. I think we wanna make it as palatable as possible. So I appreciate that We are kind of in this little bit of a gray area so I, I appreciate that we have a chance to kind of talk through it. I'll reserve any more dumb questions that I have,
but I'd really be interested to make sure that the property owners who I'm assuming are here really understand that these are gonna be theirs and I think they get some input into what the variety of tree is. So I just wanna make sure there are any questions we get those answered to. Speaker 1: Thank you. Is there a, i I guess to you, are there species that we stress not be planted because they're invasive or Speaker 13: Correct? So not so much invasive 'cause there is a, a state plant invasive list that makes those, that those plantings
unlawful in Massachusetts. Really just trying to avoid things that are not on that list that have been shown to have some issues with climate change and invasive pest pressure. So anything ash, I'm sure we've all heard of emerald D bore, that's a very poor choice. Wouldn't necessarily recommend larger white pines. There's some needle cast diseases for those and we have a lot of maple so I always just try to emphasize not red maple, everybody seems to have red maple. So just try to promote diversity. And that's a conversation with also the nursery on what's,
what's available and also the desired traits that a homeowner would want out of their tree. Small bium, large wildlife, fall color. I mean those choices are endless. So, Speaker 1: But but principally to work on the what not to but not, not to plant rather than being directive. Speaker 13: Correct. If it's on private property, you know, my role here as tree warden is not not available to dictate what happens on private property. It's only to record the objections
for the five public shade tree removals in that law. Chapter 87 does not require a, a replant but it's always an option with the conversation with the homeowner Speaker 1: Question Speaker 5: I guess maybe more things, if we could talk about, can you, I guess describe the condition of those existing five trees? I think looks like from street view they are all over the place as far as health. Speaker 13: Yeah I can do that for you. So in front of number 70, those two spruce trees, I did record those in poor condition with low vigor with
what we call poor tree architecture, which is just the branching or or the stems. Then they both have possible needle cast disease. There's a lot of needles and a lot of thinning on those trees. One of 'em is what we would call a co-dominant stem, which is, you know, two stems growing as a Y and generally that's poor tree architecture, especially for a spruce tree. You would expect one single stem there in front of number 66. The Norway maple pour tree architecture, again significant storm damage from that tree.
There's essentially no canopy due to that storm damage and likely suspected a decay or wound on the stem. And we consider that one in poor condition. I don't believe the grab apple was part of the original piece, but I did include it. 'cause the state law requires me to, if I'm not able to determine by record or monument, I must assume that it's within the public way so it's easier to assume it is and be told otherwise rather than the opposite. So same thing there. Port architecture is likely significant
root damage from the sidewalk construction. So rated that one as poor condition as well. And the last one was 56, that's a number 56 Norway Maple would rate that poor in terms of its vigor, poor creek architecture again and the cavity is suspected Speaker 10: On that tree as well. Speaker 5: And I guess, I guess my only other question, maybe you've kind of already answered this, so there's no set number of trees yet and or caliper of trees, that's kind of gonna be something that you're still working out with the, the homeowners?
Yeah. Or total caliper or whatever. Speaker 14: And we, and I, I told both homeowners that I typically, my nursery stock is usually two and a half to three and a half caliper depending on what, when, where spring's always better. If they were looking for maybe a tighter tree like a a, you know, a grab apple or something, maybe they would want something that was more on shape than it was on size. But I was gonna go one-to-one and then have a conversation with them, you know, what type of tree we were gonna go for and what we could find.
But almost everything we get is two and a half plus. Speaker 10: Okay. Peter, any anything from you? Any questions? Nothing me Thank you. Is Doug back with us? Yeah, he's been here. Okay. I, I mean I guess I have more Speaker 6: Procedural questions, Terry, what to do and what's, I guess, what's the intention tonight with this petition, the joint petition? Are we voting on it tonight? I guess what's the general, what are we doing with this petition tonight? Speaker 1: Well I will, I'll say that we were presented
with the challenge of trying to determine steps forward. But I think, I'm trying to think if we, we didn't really have, it doesn't meet the necessary, all of the necessary standards for a street or for a ums road, scenic road. Thank you. So when, I guess I'm, I'm looking to you, when, when kind of,
when does the scenic road hearing end, what does it need to be proving at at this point? Especially when the question is the scenic road is, Speaker 2: So there's two parts of this one. So the trees removal is part one and then the other part of it would be if they were removing stonewall or other feature that was manmade that seemed historically significant Speaker 1: And that, so Speaker 2: We do not have the stone wall, so therefore the installation of a sidewalk along a public street would not be unprecedented. It's just do we allow for the trees
to be removed out of the public way. Speaker 13: And if I'm, if, Speaker 6: If I could just interject that, I mean, I mean isn't the public shade tree part of this is really the tree warden's authority and own authority. It doesn't need any planning board approval. He, he can act alone and approve it on his own. If it's okay if the scenic road piece, so what are we doing with the scenic road piece of this? Is there something that we are evaluating in terms
of scenic road impact, like you said, Speaker 1: Where you may have an issue with the stone wall being removed there in this instance, that's not, that's not a concern, that's not a component. So I'm not sure it leaves us with anything else other than to declare that there are, there are no obstructions in terms of Speaker 2: So you would fall back the scenic road? Yeah, so you fall back on chapter 40, section 15 C, which basically summarizes that
since we do not have our own regulations, it allows Massachusetts cities and town to regulate road with significant tree or stone wall as scenic, protecting these features from alteration during repairs, maintenance or new development requiring the planning board approval and public hearing for any work that involves cutting trees or damaging walls. So since there are no walls, you would just be basically agreeing with the tree warden for the removal of the trees. Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 2: But he is the commissioner Oh, the tree warden, which is then master general law chapter 87.
Speaker 13: Correct. Our, our pathways split a little bit. So the, the main purpose of mass Massachusetts general law chapter 87. So we also consider a little backup trying to cram in a law from 1899 to make it fit in today's way things work today. So the main purpose of our, our, my hearing under chapter 87 is to record objections to the removal of those trees. Those are objections or objections must be made in writing prior to or at the public hearing. That's my main purpose here is to listen
and record those objections. If objections are received, I cannot authorize or remove the trees that are objected to. That can be appealed by the petitioner to the select board, which is ultimately the roadway commissioners. Speaker 1: So, which then turns the corner to what our next step is. And that is to open, open the question to members of the public who are here today and asking if anyone who is here has a, a concern or objection to specific
trees that are potentially isolated for removal. So I'd say if I'm gonna start at this end, gonna do a sweep, gentleman standing. So let's start with you and just let us have your name and Speaker 15: David Brown, 70 Everett Street. I'm very comfortable with what I'm hearing being done. I'm curious as to the timing and, and I'm sure there'll be some discussion with the homeowners as to just how we're gonna go about dealing with replacement.
We have a mailbox in the middle of this thing we've got, there's also a drain, I dunno what they call it, a storm drain that comes down the corner of our property and I believe connects to the town sewer system. I don't know whether what's being done is gonna affect that in any way. It's kind of clogged up to begin with. So we are okay as long as the communication keeps going the way it has been. Okay, Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thank you for taking the time to come out tonight. Is
Speaker 16: There anyone else who would like to sidewalk? Yes. I'm actually concerned about the need to actually put the sidewalk in with Sorry, could we just get your name and address? Danette Ryan Howard and I'm 32. Everett a little further down the street. Thank you very much. I'm concerned about the need for the sidewalk. I had passed walking down at my property, looking at where the property line was. Where do the sidewalk stop? How long are they gonna make them go? Are they planning to just deputy sidewalk the whole length of the street, so
Speaker 14: Understanding Speaker 16: Of the, the street. Speaker 14: Sure. Actually the, the sidewalk just goes, we don't have the right to do the sidewalk anywhere except this particular section. So the end of Windermere Lane to the base of cottage where cottage and Everett hit and then we're doing a crosswalk. The intent was that Windermere, the new Windermere lane and anyone along this area could then walk up the sidewalk and cross cottage and walk north, which they can't do now. So nothing down your end. Speaker 16: So it's not a town requirement that the sidewalk be there.
You just decided to connect two pieces Speaker 14: Together. We had a discussion regarding the project at 52 Everett Street and we are also the developers at the Windham Air Project. So it's a natural connection that came up in that discussion. So this is just kind of fell out of that. It's being done as part of that project. It's not being done as a town project, it's not being done as a a street project. It's just being done as it relates to the new development at 52 Everett connecting to the existing development at Windy near lane. Speaker 16: Okay. The other question I have is,
this is a scenic road currently it is tree lined. The trees on the south side of the street right now are the only ones providing any shade to that street because there are power lines running down the north side and every source comes along and chops all the trees off all the time. You are gonna be taking out some very tall conover and one of the Norway, one Norway may not, not the other one is relatively tall. So you will be taking all the shade off that part of the street. Speaker 14: They are, would not Speaker 16: Be replaced in my lifetime by a new tree. Speaker 14: Yeah, there is the, quite honestly the best shade is at
that large pine tree, which is at Mr. Brown, the corner of Mr. Brown and Mr. Flynn's house. And yes, those are taller spruce. They're sort of right across from Everett Terrace. Yes Speaker 16: They are. Yeah. Speaker 14: Okay. Speaker 16: And so there's, there's no opportunity for trees anywhere else 'cause you are across from a street and you're across from wires and Speaker 14: There's Right, we're the north side, we can replace them and we, we will replace them just behind where they are now. But it will take some time. Speaker 1: But that is, that is the plan.
Speaker 16: I I'm just concerned about the nature of the street and the fact that it's gonna take a very, very long time to get it back and there's no opportunity on the other side. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. And having this as, as recorded for the tree Morton to have for the record, is there anybody else wishing to speak? Speaker 2: Is there anybody online that wishes to speak? They need to raise their hand out, Speaker 5: Walter, while they're doing that and since we are having a public hearing and since it is a scenic road and since we do already have a plan here, I, I feel a little funny just saying, okay, go take care of it.
Like no action by our board. I, is there a way that we could once, once the varieties of trees are specified, is there a way that we could at least receive like an updated site plan? 'cause now I'm a, I'm a bit more confused than I was. I think I'm okay with the trees. But if the sidewalk is really only from wind tomere to Everett with the crossing, this plan doesn't show the crossing and it does show the proposed sidewalk going down to like 56 Everett, which I don't think you're proposing. Speaker 14: No, you gotta marry the two projects. Right.
You at where this project, this plan ends is the start of the 52 Everett townhouse project where we already agreed to do a continuous sidewalk on the frontage. Speaker 5: Well I'm just wondering if we couldn't just for documentation purposes, have the one thing that we're agreeing on, sort of set in a revised plan, even if it's a marriage of both projects, at least we just have something, some paperwork to go on. Speaker 14: I think Amanda put that in the decision for the other, put this in the decision for the other project. So this is being referenced,
this extension plan I think is being referenced in the decision. Remember there's a line in there about it. It can be stronger, it can be I'm fine adding it and you do have tree language in the other project, which can be brought to these bond three year replacement, so on and so forth. So Speaker 5: I'm just assuming some night in the future we're gonna forget about all this and it'd be nice to have a document just showing what we all agreed on. Speaker 16: We'll, we'll have a documentation. The minutes of this meeting
Speaker 5: I have to go through. Yeah, yeah. I I I appreciate that. I that is true. We will have, but I just think let's, you know, we're taking the time for the public hearing, it's a scenic route, all those things. Let's just go ahead and, you know, sort of notate on a plan what the, what the plan is. Are, are you almost thinking of having this as a supplement to the plan set? Yeah, I, I'm, I guess I'm not proposing a new survey or anything. I just, you know, we have this thing in front of us that does show the trees that are to be removed. It does not list the trees that are to be installed.
If there was a way to, as Mr. TRAs said, sort of marry both projects together to know, you know, where the, to get like a final view of what the plan is overall incorporating both projects. It, I just think it would be very helpful and we could even vote to like approve that or incorporate or do a finding that we, you know, something. But I just, I just think it just might be nice. And again, I'm open to other ideas of, of other ways to sort of like permanently record what we're, what we're approving here. I just thought updating excitement record Speaker 16: In part of our decision. Speaker 14: We have a, well we have, we also have it in, in the main decision for the other on page seven we have the
applicant will be installing a DA compliance sidewalk on the portion of the property furniture, which will connect to the new sidewalk system on Windermere Lane. Now maybe we could augment that paragraph. That's page seven. So Speaker 2: What I can do is we're in the two things we'll provide one letter of statement because this does expand across other people's properties. So we would wanna make sure that that was part of like a, just a document. But on page four of the planning board's decision, I would add this sheet as SW one proposed sidewalk plan. In addition to the actual list of site plan sheets
in the findings, we would just put an additional finding, noting that the public hearing took place what occurred here. And then we would also adds W one, which is a sidewalk plan into the conditions, noting the condition and adding a condition that it will be comply. The applicant is, will carry out the work necessary for the, in installation of the sidewalk along Everett Street. So we can capture all that. Okay.
And then we'll just create a one pager just so it, because this does incorporate three or four parcels outside of the actual decision. Speaker 16: And if I may, just to raising, sorry, I'm just curious. And if, wait, can I just get you to come up to them? I, I I thought the planning on 52 Everett Street was not yet approved. Is that correct? Or has it been approved Speaker 2: 50? Speaker 16: We have not signed, we Speaker 1: Have not, not signed the filing Speaker 2: Decision. And you haven't voted it either? We have not Speaker 5: Voted Speaker 16: No connecting pieces. One that's approved and one that's not approved is, isn't that premature? Speaker 5: It's next on our agenda and it and it looks like it.
We are, we're we're, we are kind of wrapping that one up. So I don't, I don't think it's premature. I think the timing's pretty good actually. We do, but you're correct. We have not voted yet. And we do, we, it is on our agenda next. Just to follow up, when do you think the neighbors would anticipate, anticipate having a conversation with you about tree select? Is that in the springtime? Like when the nurseries let you know it's available? Yeah, Speaker 14: Yeah. We'll most likely we would do this in April of this year. Okay. When we have our most stock. And then we can do that part, we can continue that part
of the sidewalk, get the trees in. So we're available, we're on site for the next two or three years if we need to. We have water bags and usually we do that for trees like this. Unless each, each homeowner has irrigation, I'm not quite sure. Speaker 5: So, and you're committing to be in touch with them, they don't have to chase you down? Absolutely. Speaker 14: Yeah. Okay. We wouldn't do a thing without coordinating timing and tree selection in which I will make sure we confirm back with Mr. Heim before we do that as well. Okay, Speaker 1: Thanks. So, so with that Amanda, for the
in effect, this is our, our part of the, the public hearing. The public safety public hearing. So with that, it's not that we are meant to take a vote, but we are simply meant to mark that the matter was discussed, comments of the public taken, Speaker 2: I believe since it is a public hearing, that you would want to take a vote that you accept that basically that there are not modifications to the scenic road since there are no stone walls being removed, are of his work in terms
of trees. And Speaker 1: That Speaker 2: Would be captured in a one page document. Be like I said, 'cause it has four parcels that are outside of this decision, but then referenced within the 52 Everett Street decision to ensure that the work agreed on is worked. Speaker 1: That Speaker 2: Makes any sense. Speaker 1: Which sounds like something that you hammer into a fairly decent decision to vote. Speaker 5: I'd repeat that but I can't remember. That was so, so moved. Speaker 2: It's Mass General Law chapter 40, section 15 C,
which requires the planning board to hold the public hearing for the review of the modification or removal of a stonewall or trees. And therefore the planning board does not find any modification to the scenic road that would be detrimental to the scenic nature Speaker 1: Of the roadway. What she said, and I'm sorry, did you make that as motion? Speaker 5: Like, so moved. Speaker 1: Okay, a second. Thank you. Further discussion. All those in favor say aye. Speaker 5: Aye. Speaker 1: Aye.
Speaker 5: Doug, I don't think Doug knows that you're pointing at him. Speaker 1: That's true. Aye. Speaker 5: Include your aye Speaker 1: Evans. Aye. And with that I'll entertain a motion to Peter. Speaker 5: Did Peter vote? Oh, Speaker 1: Do you know? Got a different Speaker 5: Tv. Peter can, did you vote yes on that? You're muted by the way, buddy. Speaker 1: For the, for the record. This is the hardest place to see because Thank Speaker 5: You. Yeah. Everything's behind you. Speaker 1: Everything is by us. So, so thank you. Yes. I voted I Okay, thank you. And then a motion to close the public hearing.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So now we're not closing all of 52, we're just closing. Speaker 1: No, this is for the Speaker 5: Sha tree warden public hearing notice. Well, Speaker 6: We're closing, we're closing the scenic road portion of this hearing. I think the tree warden needs to close the public tree piece of it. I, I motion to close the Scenic Road public hearing. I Speaker 1: Second second from Peter who's behind me somewhere. So all of those in favor? I roll call vote. Speaker 5: My aye. Speaker 1: Aye Evans. Aye.
And not in Speaker 10: Thank you. Speaker 13: Alright. And having not received any objections in writing prior to or at, I will also close the chapter 87 public hearing scene. None. Speaker 10: Alright, Speaker 1: So then we view it gracefully into Speaker 10: Part of copy, the Speaker 1: Special permit. Speaker 14: Do a quick update. We have filed a major stone water permit. Open the hearing with the conservation commission.
Had a couple of drafts go back and forth on the system itself. Town engineer weighed in. We now have pretty much a 99% Plan set if you will. There was one minor request made by conservation commission to, it has to do with some of the construction sequencing on one of our plans, which we're having our meeting with 'em tomorrow, which I assume will be their final, our final meeting with them because everything else is in agreement. It's all underground recharge. It was mostly about construction,
construction management policies, not the overall project itself. It was out to sequence various things to make sure we didn't end up with any run off, so on and so forth. And Amanda did send us a draft decision. We had time to, and Mark Kavla is on. We reviewed it with the man that we sent our comments back. I think there was some final things that got resolved today. A couple of typos I saw. But beyond that, that also was about a 98% document at this point. Speaker 1: And, and I apologize for getting my comments.
Speaker 14: That's fine. Speaker 1: So Amanda, Speaker 2: So we did incorporate the comments that we received. There were one, I didn't realize that there were two existing residential dwellings on the site. Was that correct? Mark? Oh, you're muted. You're Speaker 14: Muted. Speaker 17: Yes. Yeah, that was a clarification that we, it does have Speaker 18: Notifications with respect to the fee and lie payments. Speaker 2: So the decision does have several modifications. We will incorporate, as I previously stated, the scenic road modifications in terms of like the procedures, the findings,
the conditions in addition to those site plans that we had received. And then moving forward, the only thing I needed for clarification purposes is what was the final waivers that we were requesting? I think there was just a list and I think we eliminated the need for a couple. It was just, I think we still had the increase in the number of units. Speaker 14: That's it. Yeah. Speaker 2: Okay. So I will make that update. It was just the increase in the number of units which was allowed by the board. Speaker 1: That's right. And the, the justification itself is also,
Speaker 2: Yep. So I'll make sure that that's updated as well in there. So I will add the finding regarding the justification for the waiver and then making sure that that, that that is reflected in the conditions. Speaker 1: And so will that wrap things up in the, you're ready to be signing the final document. So Speaker 2: You would need to vote. You haven't voted the project yet. So you would need to vote the project in the decision. And then just because I do need to make those modifications that if the board could authorize you as a chair to sign the decision for everybody.
Just so everyone doesn't have to come back down Speaker 1: In the middle of winter in the snow. Speaker 2: It's not, it's tomorrow's supposed to be 50. I know. So Speaker 1: I Speaker 18: Do have one request and it relates to the density calculation and the waiver. And if you recall we had fairly intense discussions about the bylaw and the ability of the board to, to waive criteria and it requires a four fifths vote as the special permit. Does I, I think implicit in the special permit approval will be approval of the waiver. But I think the decision should clearly indicate
a two stage vote. One on the waiver itself by the four fifths majority and then one on the special permit. Correct. Speaker 6: Yeah. And I think, I think the draft decision, at least I saw does, does have that. Is that correct Amanda? Speaker 2: So you would just need to where it says for the first waiver it says waivers for and you would just basically state what Mark just stated where it says insert it was for the increase in the density calculation.
Speaker 6: So And that's the only waiver, correct? Speaker 2: That is correct. Speaker 6: So I'll make that motion Speaker 1: Waiver On the waiver. On Speaker 6: The waiver, yes. Speaker 1: And second. Speaker 5: Second. Speaker 1: Alright, further discussion. All those in favor say aye by name Speaker 6: Land aye Speaker 5: Meyer Aye. Speaker 1: Evans Aye. Speaker 6: Not tonight. Speaker 5: Aye. And then I think for the special permit and site plan review, we should reference the final revision date, which I have as January 8 26. Speaker 14: Correct. Now I think the only, yes, January's fine.
Speaker 5: Okay. And so with that being the revision date on the plans that I move approval for the special permit including site plan review Speaker 1: And second Speaker 6: Second. Speaker 1: Alright, further discussion. I Speaker 5: Guess can I just ask, I guess one question. There was a DPW letter that came out. Did the latest site plan incorporate all of his recommendations? Speaker 14: What date? Speaker 5: I think it was December 13th Speaker 14: Or something like that. Yeah, there's a, there's actually a January letter or a December 30th letter, which we have everything.
Okay. So, 'cause he just gave it to the conservation so they could close their stormwater tomorrow. Speaker 1: So Speaker 2: I don't think we have a copy of that. We only have the December 12th one Speaker 14: He posted it. It's posted on the stormwater permit. Not, Speaker 2: Not in ours. Speaker 14: Not in yours. So we, Speaker 1: We should have it in, Speaker 14: We can switch it over if we need, Speaker 1: But Speaker 2: I can bring it over. So if the board's okay with adding it in. Speaker 1: And then my question is, is it okay if I sign this on behalf of the board? Is Speaker 5: That usually a separate vote?
Speaker 2: Yes. But you do need to finish that one 'cause we haven't had roll call on Speaker 1: The actual project. Yes. So is there a motion to Speaker 2: Yeah we have Andy making the motion. Doug seconding the motion. Speaker 1: Okay. Oh, but not, not familiar honor Speaker 2: With the addition of the Speaker 1: Conversation. So, alright. With the motion made and seconded. All of those in favor? Speaker 5: My aye Speaker 1: Aye. Speaker 6: Aye. Land Aye Speaker 1: Evans. Aye Speaker 5: Then I'll make a motion to permit the chair
to sign the decision on behalf of the board. Speaker 1: Second. Okay. Okay. Motion Nate. And seconded All those in favor by name Speaker 5: Mayor Aye. Speaker 1: Move your aye. Speaker 6: Aye Land Aye Speaker 1: Evans. Aye. And is there a motion to close the public hearing? Speaker 5: Yeah, I think we can So move we close the public hearing. Speaker 1: I'll second that one Second. Motion made and seconded. All those in favor Speaker 5: Mayor? Aye who? Aye. Speaker 1: Peter Speaker 6: Aye. Speaker 1: Evan's. Aye. Alright. Hard day's work. Speaker 14: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 5: All right, next up we have a notice of a public hearing on Wednesday, January 14th, 2026 at 7:00 PM the planning board will hold a public hearing in the OT meeting room at 13 East Central Street, Natick Mass. To review the application of Allison Ner the applicant. The applicant proposed to operate a dog kennel and overnight boarding as a home occupation. The application is a special permit for home occupation dog kennel property 17 Church Street project number DK P-D-K-P-B 25 dash one. A copy of the application can be reviewed in the Community
and Economic Development office and on natick's open, excuse me, gov website per order of the Natick planning board. Terry Evans chair. Speaker 1: Thank you. And I, I will just say when, when I was asked about this particular public hearing, if it was going to be kind of a, a long wait for it and I'm sorry it was even longer than I thought it might be. Speaker 19: You learned to breathe. Speaker 1: So if you could, good evening, if you would just introduce yourself. Speaker 19: Good evening people of the board. My name's Allison Brener. Yes.
A tricky last name to pronounce. It's okay, I get it all the time. So I am looking to get a kennel license for my property. I have been a dog walker for 25 plus years. I've been doing overnights also at my first started at people's homes. I now do extended days where dogs come to my house between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM play times, walks, socialization, all that kind of stuff.
I have dogs who are with me who come Monday to Friday. They some who come one day a week, some who do two to three. It's always the same group of dogs. They're all really great friends at this point. I, and I would like to be able to officially have cow license so I can going Speaker 1: Very good. Speaker 2: One thing to note in the planning board. So the application was recently updated to basically hopefully capture the information
that the planning board typically does ask or request for the application, which is the reason why we do have a different numbering system. And so everything that has been provided by the applicant is in your packets but also available. So hopefully it does capture the information that you are requesting for these projects. Speaker 1: Okay, good. So if you can, is there anything in particular that we should know about, about your project beyond your, your introduction? Yeah, Speaker 19: So for mine is more like the amount of
the dogs who I would like to have at my house. I mean, given there are some dogs who, like I said, every day, some who are only a couple times a week if one dog might need to change, I would like to be able to have them be able to change due to if they have a grooming appointment, a vet appointment for some reason they can't come on their normal day, be able to switch to a different day. I would like to be able to have, and then like some dogs are, if one parent is away and the other parent is at work, they need to be able
to have the dog or dogs come to me. I have some, typically my families are one dog per household. Some have two, some have three. The three are ones who do overnights for me. And then I wanna keep the number between five and six. On the rare occasion it might get to seven for overnight care. I don't wanna have, I'm not planning on having more than six, but that's only because with my families who have three, some who have two, I wanna be able to have those, like two families be able
to have the dogs commingle with each other. Again, like the dogs, all the dogs who come to my house have known each other for years. So yes. That's Speaker 1: Okay. And and I, I appreciate the, the information that's mapped out in the application. So you, you talk a bit about your experience. Yep. Speaker 19: So yeah, so again, like I've been walking dogs for 25 years throughout. I sort of fell into it with a babysitting client where I started when I was a, I think like first or second year at Mass Bay Community College.
They're like, oh well if you can't take care of her son because of my work schedule, oh, why need you come take care of our dogs? And I'm like, okay. 'cause it was a little more flexible, a little more easy and then business just go from there. I have clients again like I've had for years and I've had families where I started with parents then inherited their children who are now adults. And I've been doing over overnight care either, when I first started it was at the client's house where I would do the individual house
and stay at their house. But then I started having dogs come and stay at my house. Speaker 1: So it it kind of built up into a business. Yes. Have, have you had issues that have come up in the course of your puppy oversight? Have you, have you had problems, complaints, and or issues in with others in the neighborhood? Speaker 19: I, I have not heard anything. I have two neighbors who are here tonight. One who I actually, they're both Speaker 1: Smiling. So, Speaker 19: Which is like what I like one,
I actually take care of their dog. And the other person I, when I moved into my house, gosh, almost or we March 8th will be, I bought March of 2008. I knew his dogs. So it's all dog people. I've not had complaints directed towards me. Speaker 1: And are you are applying for the license now because someone said you really need to to be, be licensed if you're going to do this. Speaker 19: Well there was an issue with some dogs
who were at my house and the one dog who caused the issue not welcome back at my house. That person was understanding and it was, I took the dog who got injured to the emergency vet, filled out the proper paperwork. Their owner actually called the animal control officer and that started stuff. Speaker 1: So, and, and and that's what that brings you Speaker 19: Here. Yes. Speaker 5: So a little history, we have had plenty of applications in front of us
and we never really had a good way to permit these. So about five or six years ago, we sort of figured this out and we consider these home operations like home businesses. If you were to have a little accounting business or a maybe like you cut people's hair or something like that, it's something that would be in your home that would go through a special permit, which is kind of an elevated review and it's sort of a process where it's, it's a little bit subjective.
So that's why we have, we have all these questions 'cause they're all based on experience. Yeah. So part of the home operation, of course you're not an accountant where you're quietly sitting at a desk. These are dogs. Yeah. And the, the dogs have to be let out. Yep. The, the key is they have to be let out in a way that is as home business-like as possible. In other words, they cannot be outside 24 hours a day. And certainly they must be supervised. And in some cases we've done these special permits when it's been really contentious where even kind of put a schedule of
when the dog gets dropped off, when they get picked up, how many hours a day are they going to be outside? So, and that actually just reminding myself of the list of horrible public hearings we've had, do we have any doubts about how this was noticed? Did all your neighbors get notifications of these? By the way, are we pretty confident that that happened? Speaker 2: To the best of my knowledge, that is Speaker 1: Everyone I see several hands up in the air. Speaker 5: Okay. That's a very important thing that neighbors get a notice that this is happening so that they can, you know, have their feedback. Yeah. So we approach this with the idea
that knowing full well these are live animals, but it really is supposed to be operate in a way that is similar to a home business in order to provide minimal disturbance to your neighbors. Yep. I think it really, there was no magic number. Like here under the application it says total number of dogs, 12, you're proposing that it might be more like six or seven. We, we never really found that there was a magic number of dogs. If you, I had two terriers a long time ago, and when they went outside they could do enough barking to,
to just drive everybody crazy. So two dogs can make a lot of noise. 10 dogs that are well managed by a professional can be quiet as can be. So it's not like there's a magic number of dogs. It's how they're cared for. Yep. So part of it is recognizing what you're really applying for and being sort of the kind of person who might be described as a dog person that matches the dogs well, supervises them well, has a lot of oversight, pays attention because we are really trying to allow for a way to run a business that will create minimal disturbance for your neighbors.
It's a balance and it, and, and it all makes sense. And of course as a licensed kennel operator, you would have to get all the necessary paperwork, check all the, the tests, all the documentation that dogs need. So I, yeah, we, we had somebody before who got an application who really wasn't doing that and they ended up under a pretty serious review. So we are, we are assuming that you're knowledgeable and that you're up to speed and all the requirements and all the paperwork to look after dogs or to, or to bring dogs in. So I, I'll just ask. Yeah. Do you consider yourself a dog person?
And are you up to speed with all the requirements that goes into taking in boarding dogs, all the, the paperwork and registration requirements, et cetera? Speaker 19: So I am very much of a dog person. Even though when I was four, given it was dead of summer in this area, I had a dog bite me. Still very much of a dog person. Okay. I make sure that I have all of the rabies certificates, the town license updates for their dog license. I have done the CPR training for taking care of, in case of an emergency.
And I am getting up to speed on, 'cause I know the laws have been changing, getting up to speed on all of that kind of stuff. Okay. Speaker 5: Do you, I I I'm looking at the layout that you submitted. Is there a driveway for people to pull in or do they kind of park on the street? I Speaker 19: Actually, when I have the dogs come to my house, 99% of the time they, I'm the one who goes and picks them up. Okay. And brings 'em back to my house. Okay. On the occasion, people will bring their dogs to me and they'll park on B Street since there's no parking in
front of my house on Church Street, unless they park on the even side. Speaker 5: And it says you've got a thousand square feet inside the house for the dogs. Speaker 19: Yes. Yes. So they're three different rooms in my house. Yep. That I've gated off that they're not allowed to go in. And then, so it's about a thousand square feet. Okay. So it's my dining room, my kitchen, what I call my great room, and then my master bedroom Speaker 5: That the dogs don't go in. Speaker 19: Those are the rooms that they do go in, do Speaker 5: Go in. Okay. Would, do you have a set number?
'cause like the application says 12 and you mentioned maybe six or seven or eight. Do you have a set number that you'd like to like formalize? Speaker 19: I would like to do the 12 because that will be able to do the dogs who come to me during the week who do the, like what I call the extended day. So the eight to four. And then have the room to be able to have the overnight dogs who their parents come with me. I actually have a letter from one of my clients, if you guys would like it, who instead
of bringing them back and forth from my house to stay at my house during the night and then bring 'em back to their house during the day, be able to have them stay at my house with the other dogs. Speaker 5: 12. Seems like a lot. How, how often would you say you would have 12 dogs under your care? It, how and can you predict? It's Speaker 19: Maybe one, one week a year if that, Speaker 5: But typically more like 5, 6, 7, 8 Speaker 19: More, more between six and nine. If, I mean, nine is definitely top for me,
but it'd be definitely be on the, the lower range. Speaker 5: Do you, do you strap 'em all up and take 'em for dog walks or do they mostly just stay in your yard? So when they Speaker 19: Have, so, so what they do is I usually will take them on morning walks and then afternoon walks. So after pickup and then before drop off, I have a couple of different areas in the different towns where I do different walks. And then for those who can, I will bring them on like midday walks, depending on what time they get dropped off. Otherwise they will be at my house and play in the yard.
Speaker 5: And how many hours a day would they be in your yard sort of running around exercising, et cetera? Because that's kind of the key question. 'cause they really, it's not really, it's not really designed to just have them outside all day long. It's supposed to be like for necessary relief. A little run around and then really back inside with the idea of kind of keeping things quiet. Speaker 19: Yeah. So usually when I have them go out, it's half an hour tops just so they can stretch their legs. Right. They can do their business, they can run around a little bit and then I bring them on back in
to make sure that they all are comfy, cozy and Speaker 5: They go back. And how many times a day would you do that? Speaker 19: I would probably say maybe six or seven times. Okay. Because I do also do, again, like I do walks as well in different towns. Yep. So there are various times, so like when we get back from our morning walk, I will usually have them go into the yard, do a little more stretching, bring them in, we'll have a morning, relax, and then I'll put them out again before I leave for whatever walks I have to go to.
I could be gone for an hour. I could be gone for three depending on where my walks are. Speaker 5: But you wouldn't leave them outside on the super eight? No. Okay. No. And just a couple more things. Probably not after say like 10:00 PM and not before in terms of taking the dogs out. Leaving 'em outside. We'd probably want, you know, everything to be inside by, you know, 10 o'clock or so. And, and then maybe not and you know, not like at four in the morning or anything. Oh gosh. Yeah. But you know, like six, 7:00 AM or something. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 19: Usually it's my sort of last call will be
10 at the very latest. Okay. 'cause I like to get into bed early. Okay. And then usually I'm typically up around six. So then they'll go out, they'll do their business, come in, have their breakfast if they're staying with me. Yep. Go back out, do whatever necessary that they have to, and then come back in. Speaker 5: Thank you. And these, these questions all come from learning the hard way, trust me. Yep. And then in terms of like a dog poop management, I, I didn't get a chance to read what you wrote, but obviously well tell, tell me what the, what the plan is
for, for keeping everything nice and clean. Yep. Speaker 19: So I use, I have a company scoop it up who'll come once a week, typically on Wednesdays. And they come and do what I haven't picked up. And I have a private trash company come and collect stuff. Speaker 5: Is it grassy yard or grass? Yard. Okay. Okay. So once a week. Oh, that's for pickup. That's for pickup. But you're still Speaker 19: Yeah, I'm still going through the yard. Okay. During the day. Is is that Michael Adams? No, Michael Adams is the guy who did the site plan. Okay.
Speaker 5: That's a lot of questions, but like I said, these are all learned hard ways. Speaker 19: So No, trust me, I get it. I Speaker 5: Appreciate the Speaker 19: Patience and I mean, again, like it's one of those things when I started doing the dog walking, I myself laughed because I'm like, who on earth does dog walking? This was 25 years ago. 'cause it wasn't a big thing. Now there are so many companies who are out there and it's just, it's hard. And it's definitely a learning experience. Speaker 5: Well some people who have been opposed to these things are, you know, they, they have very strong feelings. But the truth is having, you know, a nice
a dog service in your neighborhood, I know from personal experience is, is really helpful. So it's not a matter of questioning that. It, it really is just a question of the functionality of it. And sometimes we will put into these things like a one period, like a one year review just, just to make sure that everything goes okay and if something goes wrong, we can we'll have a time to review it. It, it, it really is just trying to create a situation where this all operates, you know, as smoothly as possible for your business and for your neighbors. Speaker 19: Thank you. Speaker 1: Can I ask, have you ever had any complaints from neighbors about,
about noise or some, anything egregious? No. So, okay. Ellen, I have other Speaker 5: Questions. I'm just kind of curious a little bit more of the operation 'cause it seemed a little unique. You said you go out and you pick up the dogs. Yes. So you, do you pick 'em up then take them for a walk somewhere and then kind of bring 'em to your house afterwards? Is that kind of the way it goes? Yes, Speaker 19: Because the dogs who I take care of don't all live in ick. Yep. They're sort of scattered around. So bulk of them live and need 'em. So you shall do pickups.
I'll go pick them up. They have their assigned seating in my car. Yeah. They all, no, I'm, I even have pictures of two dogs of people who are actually here for support, who they're snuggling together in my car in the front seat. Yeah. And so what I'll do is I'll go pick them up from their homes, usually between seven 20 ish and 8:00 AM Then I'll take them to wherever I decide to walk that morning, put 'em back in my car and then just bring 'em over to my house. Speaker 5: Okay. And so if, if you have dogs
that you've been kind of watching overnight, they're just kind of hanging out in your house during this time or do they go for another ride with you or Speaker 19: They usually just hang out at my house. Speaker 5: Okay. Indoors. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So you don't leave the house while dogs are outside in the yard, correct? No. Okay. Speaker 19: Yeah. Make sure I do a proper head count, make sure everyone is inside and in their favorite spots in my house. Yeah. Yeah. And those spots change. Speaker 5: Yeah, of course. The, I was just kinda looking at the site plan.
The, it showed the, there was a patio is a patio or a deck in there. So generally I, I see that you get a six foot high fence kind of surrounds, I think the area where the dogs are, maybe it's four feet closer to the concrete pavers. It says it shows a wood deck. Now is that high? Speaker 19: That's blocked off Speaker 5: So dogs cannot, so the deck is, is high essentially, right? Yep. It looks like there's a big tree, so I couldn't look at street view to think so dogs are not able to get out. Right. Okay.
And that, how do you access that backyard? Is that through the stairs directly on the back? Speaker 19: So coming out through my house, there are stairs that go down into my yard. Yep. And then there's a gate between my deck and my garage that they can go in. Speaker 5: Okay. And do you have lights outside for that area? Speaker 19: I, I do have, well I have a light that's attached to my garage, but then I have a brighter light that is right outside my French doors, right outside the doors leaning out.
And that's on a switch. Okay. So late at night, first thing in the morning, I'll turn the light on so they can see to go down, go to the bathroom and then come back up. And then once everyone is in, I will turn that light off. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 1: And thank you for not having one of those motion. Well you know what sensitive, I, I have a neighbor with one of those and I can tell you anytime small animals, Speaker 19: Technically I do have a motion light, but I don't think my neighbor would be very happy that it shines into his bedroom. So I, I've had it shut off ever since I put that light on.
Speaker 5: So one thing I I, 'cause I've only been here for one of these kennels before I'd kind of just request if you could just, you could use the magic markers. I don't need anything engineered. If you could just identify on the plan just where the lights are, kind of like the direction they, they show. 'cause I think, you know, I think when I look at these, the biggest things are where are people parking when they're dropping off. Yep. Where, what kind of fence goes around, you know, to make sure the dogs are not getting out. And then you know where the lights are to, you know,
make sure you can see the dogs, make sure they're hopefully not shining in, in neighbor's yards. Yeah. And again, now magic marker's fine, you know, well Speaker 19: Here's my question. What color Speaker 5: Doesn't matter to me? You write a label on it and say, say you know, floodlight or whatever. Okay. Yeah, Speaker 19: We'll definitely do that and we'll get that to you guys. Speaker 1: And you know, I was thinking because Andy and I have probably both been doing our hearings for more time than we can count if neighbors are unhappy, you discover it very quickly. Yes. So, and the fact that you have been doing
what you've been doing informally and has appears to not have raised any hackles. Oh Speaker 5: Actually I, that reminds me, I did have one more question. How many dogs are you currently kind of watching? I guess Speaker 19: So right now I have three dogs at my house. Okay. Just 'cause their mother is off having fun in Australia. I'm like, I would like to be there right now. Yeah. So I have them right now. So they are doing overnights and then I bring them back to their house and need 'em during the day and I go do visits. Right now I am doing four. Okay. And then one I adjusted
and would like for him to come back 'cause I can tell that he really misses his friends. Speaker 1: Okay. And Speaker 5: Does that count any dogs that you own? Speaker 19: Oh, you guys are gonna kill me for saying this. I don't own a dog. I take care of everyone else's Speaker 5: Dog. That's fine. Believe it or not. 'cause I think you get up to four of your own dogs before you have to get a Ken. So anyway, that, that kind of simplifies. Speaker 19: I mean I, I would love to have dogs of my own. There's actually one who will, a couple who I've said that if anything were to ever happen to the owners.
Not that I, I'm wishing that upon anyone, I'm really not. Then I would be very happy to take those dogs as my own Speaker 1: And she would be very happy to go to. So, I, I, yes. Oh, sorry. Wherever you are. Speaker 11: Yeah. I'm not, I wonder if the applicant has any ratio of staff to dog quantity that they work with. 'cause I haven't heard anything about any staff that might be working with you if you're getting 12 dogs or, or, or maybe three or whatever.
Do the, have staff and when, Speaker 19: So I am the only one who does it. I do not have any staff who helps me. My mom had helped me. She unfortunately died eight years ago. And for me, I just, I have trust issues because these dogs are family members to me. So it's a matter of who I can trust to help and be at my house. So I am currently the only one who is doing it. Speaker 11: And leading dogs at your home alone, when you are doing some somewhere else, that's fine
with the owners of the dogs and, and there's nothing about safety or anything that's a concern? Speaker 19: Nothing. I mean for the, those dogs who need to, I will put them in crates or put them in my bedroom. But I have full trust in these dogs who I've had for as long as I have. I don't have any issues with anything happening with them. Speaker 1: Alright. Anything further from board members? Speaker 5: Did Doug already comment? Speaker 1: Doug, did you have anything to say? Speaker 6: No, I think Andy is our designated dog hearing whisperer himself.
He does quite a good job. So, no, no other class. Speaker 1: So in which case, Speaker 5: Let's hear from the public if they Speaker 1: Have any, is there anyone who's come to the hearing tonight who there's something they want to add? And I'll start over there. I'll do my my house sweep. Just let us have your name and address. Breed of dog. Speaker 15: My name is Earl Fay and I'm a resident of 21 Moore Street, which is one street over from this lady. And I was kind of, I didn't know what was going on at all
until the postcard came from your board and we didn't know anything about what's happening. We have in my, I've lived in Moore Street over 70 years. In the last 10 I think we've tripled the amount of dog walkers in our neighborhood. But when you were asking the questions about her, the only thing that I've experienced, everybody in our neighborhood thinks that you are the owner of the mall. We have no idea that this was happening at all. So we just took it and you know, will tolerate it. It's part of having a dog or an animal at home.
And I don't have any problem with this. I think you've done a fine job, but I will say there would, there have been two or three times when the dogs get so loud in the morning that we'd be out having breakfast and we'd have to go in 'cause we can't talk. But I understand what you're doing. I think the level that you're at, I think eight is plenty. And the reason why I did come, I didn't know whether they were gonna be housed outside or how they were handled or what's going on. So you got me a little more at ease with what's going on and I take my hat off to you. I have parakeets and what I love. Okay.
I thank you for bringing this up and to know what's going on and I think we can tolerate what we've seen so far. Speaker 19: You ever need a dog fix? Just, you know where I live? Speaker 15: House. Speaker 1: So anyone else? Yes. Okay. I told would not be Speaker 16: Too, my name is Pat Magne. I live at Six Lookout Farm Road and Allison's been my dog walker and dog care day daycare for, since she was a puppy and she's now seven years old. And I can't stress enough how
knowledgeable she is and how caring and how meticulous she is about everything they're doing. And she takes pictures of the dogs cuddle up together and my dog practically jumps outta my arms when Allison comes. You know, she just can't say enough about how much she likes Allison and what good care she takes of her. I a hundred percent behind. Speaker 15: Thank you. Speaker 19: And sir, Speaker 15: My name is Jeff McDonald. I live next to my neighbor Allison. No offense, I oppose the overnights.
I've heard the dogs bark over and over for, I've lived in my house for 30 years. I've heard them barking every day and some the last two weeks haven't heard a dog. Haven't seen a dog. So I just don't agree with having, I thought you might have had a dog license already, but I've never complained to you. I'm a dog person, you know. Yeah. I've had plenty of dogs, but I oppose it. I've hear 'em all the time and I don't like to get woken up at five 30 in the morning with a barking dog on a Saturday or a Sunday, unfortunately.
I'm sorry. You know. Yeah. You've been a great neighbor. Don't take me around, don't take it. But when I got that notice, I was like, you don't have a dog license, you don't have a boarding license. 'cause I see the dogs there all the time. Five 30 in the morning, I see her leaving in the morning 'cause I leave right after you. So I just haven't seen her in the last two weeks. The neighbor Annmarie behind me, she's like, I'm so glad I don't hear those dogs barking anymore. I'm like, I don't know what happened. So I just suppose it, Unfortunately I've been in my house for 30 years, I've heard dogs barking Saturdays, Sundays, I'm late to bed.
I get up every day, I go to work. So here I am stating my case. That's all I got. Speaker 5: I, I think it's one of the good reasons to have a public hearing and to have a license. Yep. Because this is a much better format than trying to me too solve it on the street corner. I would really be curious to know what your reaction is to the comments that both gentlemen made about the barking of dogs disturbing them. Speaker 19: I, I definitely try and keep the dogs as quiet as possible. They will, when they first go out, they will bark.
I mean, given when I bring 'em out first thing in the morning, I'm definitely very much aware that, Speaker 5: Is it five 30 in the mornings? Speaker 19: Very rare on the occasion. It might be five 30 if someone will need to go out and go to the bathroom. But again, like I dogs are gonna bark on the occasion. And I mean it's definitely one of those things where you can't always necessarily stop it. I'm definitely aware because of the neighborhood versus living
in an area where there is much more woods, much more space. Again, I try and keep it as quiet as I can, but knowing that definitely gonna be much more careful I Speaker 5: Think. Well, like I said, when we set this thing up with this home occupation, we, we've had permits in the past where we literally spec out, you know, these times when the dogs can go outside for, you know Yeah.
Their natural activity. And I feel like it's a, it's a, it's, it's a bit of an intrusive decision to write down literally, you know, when you're dealing with a live creature eight 30 to nine Absolutely. When it might need to be eight. Yeah. So I I I kinda hate to micromanage it, but just in your honest opinion, if it was, if, if you were operating under a maximum of eight dogs, do you think that that would give you the opportunity to do it and to have fewer periods of, of barking
or, you know, I'm just wondering if we could maybe come up with some kind of a, an approval and maybe review it after six months or eight months to see, you know, again, invite the, the neighbors in, see how it's going. Yeah. If it's been real quiet and he said, I think I could really, I'd love to get, maybe revise it for like, maybe a couple more dogs. I mean, maybe we'd have that track record, but I, I just based on the anecdotal evidence we've heard right here, i i I take it at face value that you're very good with dogs and very caring
and I also, I get the, see the sense that the dogs sometimes bark to the disturbance of your neighbors and I wanna try to balance that so everything works out. So it really would be, I think, really incumbent on you to pay a lot of attention to how much noise they make. Yeah. But I, I'm just kind of wondering if maybe starting with like eight might allow for that. But I'd like your opinion on that. I, I'm kind of, kind of improvising here. Yeah. Speaker 19: I mean, eight is doable. That is something that I can do and I'll make sure micromanage, I'll make sure
that the noise level, obviously between certain hours is definitely kept down. That's something that can definitely be worked on. Speaker 5: I'm just throwing that out there. I, I don't think there is a magic number like I said earlier, but I, I really would like to, I mean, I think your neighbors are enjoying, I, I assume you may have stopped your business for a couple weeks. Speaker 19: I went down in numbers Okay. With it. And the dogs are again, also try not to do as much overnights. So it's definitely been quieter in that sense. But yeah,
Speaker 5: That's the goal. That's the goal. I'd, I'd be happy to hear what other people think. Yeah, I mean this is the only, the second one since I've been on the board. The first one I think they, abutted conservation land was a huge lot and it was, you know, pretty easy. And I think their numbers were actually a bit lower. I can't remember what they were asking. I think it might've been in that seven, eight range. This is a little different in that it's just a really mu much denser neighborhood. So I think we just need to be cognizant of that. And I think, you know, definitely people say good stuff about you with the dogs. We just wanna make sure Yep. The noise is, is manageable.
So I think as far as the number and then maybe the number overnight and then the schedule, I think that's, Speaker 1: Yeah, I, I, I see the schedule and kind of when it, when it first out, you know the to Speaker 5: Yeah. Obviously if a dog's whimpering at the door, you might have planned for it to be eight o'clock, but it Yeah. It doesn't always go that way. But, you know, there's sometimes ways to Yeah. Encourage a different schedule, you know, Speaker 2: And there is one person online, but they don't have their hands up. But if they would like to comment, they should raise their hand.
Speaker 1: Alright. So if, if the, the person who's online with their hand raised would like a chance to comment, this is your chance. Unmute and put your name on your screen. Be happy to hear what you have to say. We, they Speaker 2: Need to raise their hand. They haven't Speaker 1: Raised it. Oh, they haven't raised it. Okay. Sorry. One person in the audience. Speaker 2: Just one person just wanted to make sure that we get the pro opportunity. Speaker 5: Well that is kind of a good sign. Usually if it is a problem, we really hear about it. And so I, I do kind of count the people in the room
and online and we've had times when the room has been too capacity over these things. So the fact that we are relatively low in numbers I think does say something. I, I think I would, I would probably look towards some kind of a timing thing. Like last call, 10 o'clock morning call. Not, not before six or seven and five 30 is too early. It strikes me. Yeah. Particularly on Saturday or Sunday. So I might say 6 30, 7 o'clock or something. I, I think we do have other decisions that we can pull on Yes. That go through the lighting and,
but I, I guess I'm leaning towards maybe eight with a, with a one year review. Speaker 1: Max Speaker 5: Of eight. Max of eight with a one year review. Just so that if neighbors do know that now it is official business and I don't know, they suddenly decide to start writing lots of letters and it's substantial comments that we can actually have. We can look at it together. 'cause you look to me like you're willing to work Yes. With your neighbors. So I, I think that's a good place to start. Okay. Speaker 1: Can and understanding this, the, the, you can't always
keep a dog inside. No. Yeah. However, just as a, as a broad practice to, to try to give the neighborhood a little, we Speaker 5: Want this to be the same amount of disturbance as like a tailor shop. And I, and I know that's not realistic, but it, that is kind of the goal of the home occupation. That it's, that it is a home, a home in-home occupation. Yeah. But of course it is live animals. I know that. So I got a, so the barking, that's really just, that's when the dogs are just out running around the yard. Like if you take them for a walk, are they quiet Speaker 19: For the most part? Unless they see someone on the walk
and they wanna say hello. Okay. And then they, when they know I am pulling back in 'cause I lock my car, they hear my car locking and so then they get excited 'cause they know I'm back home. Okay. On Dun Park. Speaker 5: I was just thinking, you know, obviously the dogs still need to use the restroom or whatever. I know my dog Yeah. If I'm on a walk never says a peep. But then sometimes if I just let him out, I let her out. She feels like she has to have a conversation apparently with whatever dog can hear. You know, it's completely different whether or not she's on the leash or not.
So yeah, it could just be another way to kind of manage. 'cause obviously they need to Yep. Need to go. They need to go. So motion maybe, Speaker 1: Or Speaker 5: Do we need more information? Speaker 1: It may be kind of a probationary thing of seeing what, what they have for a period, do it for a six month period and, and see how, how it goes. I Speaker 5: I could say a year, maybe could Speaker 1: Be a year, but something that has an an end to it so that yeah, there's, there's a chance to be, to kind of test it. Okay. And Speaker 5: So may maybe we could kind
of put our parameters in a decision and when we meet next we can review the decision and then vote. Take the vote then I, I would say Amanda, for the parameters I would look for would be a, a one year period. Eight dogs between the hours of 10 and six 30. Speaker 1: Is that in terms of silence, Speaker 5: In terms of like having the dogs like not outside between 10:00 PM and say six 30 in the morning. Yep. And that's seven days a week. Speaker 19: Yep. That's definitely manual. Speaker 5: Okay. And if all goes well, we can meet again in a year
and just, you know, take away the, the time period. Just that it, it's just your permanent, you know. Okay. So maybe that's, Speaker 1: I think that's reasonable. Speaker 5: Okay. So maybe we could draft that and then when we meet next we can review it, vote the decision, or you know, vote the public hearing and then vote the decision. Our Speaker 1: Next meeting's the, on the 28th. So just two weeks from Speaker 20: Tonight. Okay. Well I need to come back for that. Speaker 5: I would just in case there's a question. Okay. You know, it should, it, it won't be as long as this. Okay. We're just gonna review the decision.
Take a vote, sign it. So I Speaker 20: Actually wanted to say something as in a butter. I, my name is Helen Schuler and I live right next door to Allison and we share a fence. So I would know if it was disturbing and I have to say it's not, we look out our porch into the backyard where she has her, her dogs, they're delightful. She's always out there with them. It has not, I've been there almost 10 years. It has not been a problem. It has there, I have not felt any noise problem as her closest neighbor.
Speaker 5: IIII appreciate that. How, how often? Just to ask how often, how many hours a day would you say they're out? Speaker 20: You know what, sometimes I'll look over in the morning and they're out there, but they're not out there more than two, three hours a day. Speaker 5: And that's spread out and Speaker 20: That's spread out over the course of the day. Speaker 5: I, I mean that I I I know dogs, that's a reasonable number. But at the same time we're trying to, you know, equate this with like, you know, like a quiet home business. So it, it, I I know, I know it's not the same as running an accountant business. I, I obviously, but the idea is to try to be as much
of a quiet home business as possible. But I, you know, and honestly one person's noise is not another person. So it's totally subjective. But I do appreciate hearing. Speaker 20: I just wanted, as her closest neighbor, it's just been a delightful neighbor and not loud, not a lot of bark. Right. Thank you very Speaker 5: Much. Thank you. Thank you for that input. Speaker 15: I'm our other closest neighbor as well. Okay. I live on the other side of the driveway. Speaker 5: Noted in, in a year. We would, I would love to hear if anything's changed too when we, if we, if this Speaker 15: Comes, I would love to, you know, I'm a dog person. Don't get me. I've always had a dog,
lost my dog a few years ago. A rental by a car right in front of my house. So now I have another one. My son just got a new black chocolate lab, so kind of happy. He lives in Framingham. So I just, I've always assumed she had a license to have dogs. 'cause I've heard 'em at night. I've heard 'em during the day. Saturdays, Sundays. You know, I work every day of my life. Yep. I wanna have a little peace and quiet on Saturday and Sunday. Speaker 5: Understandable. Because it Speaker 15: Doesn't happen. Yeah. You know, and if she could hear me young through the, my house, she'd probably hand me,
but I, I'm yelling at myself, I guess. Speaker 5: Well Speaker 15: I might be yelling through the wall, but she's not handing Speaker 5: Me this, this is a good format for this. And we do appreciate your input and the, and the idea is to improve that and, and, and to, so that, Speaker 1: I mean, Speaker 15: She's been a great neighbor, don't get me wrong. Yeah. I need some on all hands. Like the weekends, stuff like that. Speaker 1: It's Speaker 5: Bothersome. Fair enough. Speaker 1: That's Speaker 15: All I'm saying. Yeah. She's been a great neighbor. Don't get me wrong. Speaker 5: Duly normal. Allison. Speaker 1: Good luck. No Speaker 15: Bad hot fiance. Nothing. You know, I great neighbors. So the dogs Speaker 1: From the other hand.
Speaker 5: So we'll make a motion to continue this to January 28th. Speaker 1: Motion. Thank you. I Speaker 5: Somebody, Peter, Peter saying that. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 5: My aye in favor. Aye. Speaker 1: I Speaker 5: Keep my or I keep Speaker 1: Pointing to the picture. Peter, so, and Alan you said your aye and Okay and Evan's. Aye. So we will continue this on the 28th. Thank you honey. Thank you. Speaker 5: By the way, we have a dog living with us now. My daughter has a dog and we go to the dog park for the first time. Yep. What?
Speaker 1: See I have a Speaker 5: Cat. What an awesome. It's good. But I grew up with cats. My dog can't stand. It can't go. It's too overwhelming. It's not fun. Yes. This particular guy is, we've got her, she was a smaller dog Speaker 1: And she was she side the road. She's more like a, she has some trust. Some trust issues. Speaker 16: Oh my God. What you said about the dogs on barking, her walks are out of the neighborhood. Yeah, Speaker 1: Totally. Speaker 5: Well I was thinking like, you know, if they, if they needed to use the restroom, oh that's, you know, that's why I said you can't, you can't
always schedule when they need to go. Trust me, I, I have a dog and sometimes she looks at me, I'm like, do we have to go now? But obviously it's quieter then than if she's running around. Speaker 16: I you Speaker 21: She drives up to Speaker 1: Yeah he's like I have to hold his Speaker 5: Back. Excited. Yeah. Hard. Speaker 1: Don't you love me? We have had this room filled with people fighting mean. Really? Yes. Well angry. So this was a joy compared they cut these, are they two dogs? Not. Okay. Speaker 5: And what's the one on the right? What kind of dog is that?
This one? Yeah, she's Speaker 1: A multi Speaker 5: Ffo. Okay. Turns Speaker 21: She comes drop off and Grace will come in and visit me. 'cause she loves me Speaker 16: Too. I know Speaker 5: I have a sheicon or Oh yeah. Speaker 16: And I'm including me in that. Yeah, I know. It's unfortunate. Speaker 5: My dog's a sheicon or a Zon, so it looks a little bit like that, but it kind of like a teddy bear. Oh. Speaker 16: And they're so affectionate. I think. Speaker 1: Anyone what? Don't we Speaker 16: Sorry, Speaker 1: After the meeting, you adjourn Speaker 5: The meeting. I think Doug's wondering. We get Speaker 1: Motion to adjourn. Speaker 5: I'll second that. Speaker 1: I was asking.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah. Motion to adjourn. Second. Speaker 1: All those in favor Peter? Aye. Aye.