001e e e yeah you guys can allow me to un myself so I'm you should be all set okay are and are live good evening everybody um it is Tuesday November 12th uh 5:00 pm here at Town Hall my name is Michael Herbert I am the town manager here in the town of Ashland and uh I'd like to welcome you here in the audience uh which is standing room only I say somewhat sarcastically and those of you on zoom and watching on cable like to welcome you to our special town meeting forum for our special town meeting that's going to happen next Tuesday uh on November 19th so with us today is um our assistant Town manager Jen ball um and again uh what this is is an opportunity for us to just run through
002the different warrant articles that are going to be on on the agenda for next Tuesday uh at 7:00 p.m. starting at Ashland High School give you a little bit of information uh about what's going on in and then if you have any questions uh we'll do our best to answer them right now um right here and if we don't our hope is to have that information for you in advance of town meeting so we might ask for your email address or ask you to get in contact with us afterwards but if not we would definitely have them at town meeting itself so um and that's the agenda for tonight pretty uh pretty lowkey pretty informal uh if you're here and planning on asking some questions on the MBTA artic I do believe our planning board
003chair is hoping to join us tonight out in the audience and um so I'm sure if there's something that we couldn't answer that she she could very well answer as well so um Jen anything you wanted to add leading up to this no okay all right so so we'll just uh go ahead and jump right in uh starting with article one and uh so article one well let me back up a little bit if you want to know the articles uh if you go to if those of you in the audience we have a copy of the warrant here with the Articles uh so feel free to grab one of those but uh you can also go to our website and go to the special town meeting section and uh you'll see a copy of
004the warrant and so that has the warrant the warrant articles it also has uh the potential motions um for each of the Articles as well as a recommendation by our finance committee um so our finance committee has met reviewed all the Articles and made recommendations as is their uh responsibility under the town Charter uh so yes so now we'll go ahead and jump in and get started and we'll start off um this town meeting with article number one which is an appropriation of free cash and free cash um is uh really kind of a misnomer uh because essentially all it is is at the end of the year um the balance that's left in accounts after you take in all the revenue and after you um basically allocate or excuse me account for all your
005expenses and uh typically just like like in your household budget you're going to have a balance at the end of the at the end of the month after you take your money in and the money goes out or hopefully you do uh just like towns hopefully you have a balance at the at the end of the year and so what we do is we actually appropriate the free cash that we have each year according to certain Financial policies that we've established and uh so you'll see what that uh what those accounts are and what that uh prescribed function is in the warrant article itself so you know the first thing that we do with our free cash appropriation is we put enough money into our general stabilization fund which is our rainy day fund we
006put in just enough money to maintain that at 10% of our revenues and so that's important the reason we want to maintain that 10% Target is because that's something that the bond rating agencies look look at they really like to see 10% in reserves um in a um in a municipality's budget and so because of that that helps them look more favorably upon us and gives us a higher Bond rating So currently we're at Tri AAA and we've been triaa for U for eight years now which is the highest that you can get and actually um there's only 250 commun ities in the United States that are actually at rated AAA by standard and fours um and so what does that mean for you taxpayers so it means so the higher a bond rating we
007have the less it costs us to borrow meaning we get more favorable interest rates which means it's the less we have to pay in interest on our debt service and so that's savings that uh we can utilize to pay for services or um or you know provide savings to the taxpayers as well so we're according to our free cash policy under article number one we're going to transfer $50,000 into that General stabilization fund so the next account is what we call our OPB trust fund and opep stands for other post-employment benefits so that's really kind of a fancy way of saying retiree health insurance uh which is something that we have have to account for and we have to account for it on our books now and so before before like prior to I believe
008it was 20 years ago communities didn't have to necessarily account for this on their books it was just a liability that wasn't um identified um it wasn't planned for um wasn't allocated for and so the new accounting standards um changed that and said that communities had to start accounting for it and so one of the ways that we accounted for it is we established this opep trust fund uh and we fund that through a couple of different ways so the first is obviously through free cash and then the second is each year as we bring on new employees we fund their annual opep contribution uh throughout the throughout the year and it's worked out well for us um when we started this I guess exercise in 2015 2016 we had um a funded ratio of
009zero meaning that our liability compared to the assets that we had uh we had no assets towards our liability and we had a rather large liability it was around 45 million and so nowadays our liability is larger um it's around 60 million but the assets that we have has grown as well and so we're at about 8 million maybe 9 million after we put this amount in there and so actually our funded ratio is now 12% so we've gone from 0o to 12% so that's a long way of saying our plan is working um next we have a special education state stabilization fund and so this is to help us with out a district special education costs um and so again according to our free cash policies we C we put a certain amount into
010that and that equates to $210,000 this year and then finally um we have money that goes towards capital or uh one-time expenses and so the remainder or the balance of this is U going towards towards capital so this year in total we have a free cash balance of two almost 2.8 million which is pretty healthy um we had some unexpected Revenue come in over the course of the year that we had not anticipated and so that's why it's so high but uh anyway that's uh the free cash transfer uh any questions uh from our audience here live or any questions from people in um in Zoom yeah if you just want to use your raise raise hand feature um that would probably be easiest give people a few minutes if not you can certainly just
011come on the screen and just wave your hand that's the oldfashioned way all right going going gone and we will move to article number two which is a budget amendment um so this is to see if at the town will vote to raise or appropriate or transfer available funds um to make adjustments to article two of the annual town meeting which was May 2024 which was the fiscal year 2025 budget and um what we are looking at doing is making an adjustment in the capital outlay appropriation so increasing that by a million 33,000 and so it goes from that total appropriation goes from 2 point almost $2.7 million to $3.7 million and so why are we doing that well try to make it to make it as simple as possible um we were planning on
012spending our full allocation of arpa funds um a certain way um and that didn't necessarily wasn't going to work out and so by doing this we're actually able to capture the uh all of our arpa funds by this deadline that's been imposed upon on us by the federal government of December 31st 2024 and so people are probably wondering okay what's arpa please forgive me I'm used to like acronyms and everything and a lot of people aren't so sometimes I'll remember in the middle like not everybody knows what ARA means and that's American Rescue plan act funds um and so that was a specific appropriation that was given to the town uh from the federal government a few years ago and we had certain deadlines that we had to expend that money by or at least
013plan to have that money expended by and so the first deadline we had to have a plan in place by December 31st 20124 and so like I said earlier this allows us to fully capture uh those remaining arpa funds uh in order to do it by the deadline so um any questions uh regarding article two all right moving right along um article three property tax exemptions so um Ashland is unique in that it uses um a law called chapter 41 C and a half which allows uh residents who meet certain age and income requirements it gives them the ability to um get a uh a reduction on their TA or an exemption from a portion of their taxes uh so about I don't know 2015 so almost 10 years ago it was at $500 and
014it stayed at $500 since the program started which was about eight years uh prior to that and so what we've gradually tried to do over the years is we've gradually tried to increase that especially as inflation has increased and as taxes have have gone up and so what uh what that equates to now is a 12% which was what 1,28 so a , uh 1,28 um so that's the exemption amount so again you have to meet certain income and age requirements there's a couple of other requirements as well um and so if you feel like this is something that you would qualify for uh I would encourage you to reach out to the assessor's office and they can give you more information and show you how to apply um but this is a this is
015a good program um obviously for seniors who are on fixed incomes and those who um might need a little extra financial assistance from the town in order to um to pay their property taxes so um I'll pause right there and ask if there's any questions so far yes David do you happen to know what the eligibility requirements are for that in case anybody listening in might benefit yeah so David has asked what are the eligibility requirements for that and um I'm going to give you my best recollection David so I believe you have to be 65 unless we do have it in the folder um so I believe we do have to I didn't think we did okay so yeah you have to be um aged 65 as of July 1st um you have to
016show proof of ownership and occupancy within the home for a certain period of years um I believe it's five within the last 5 years um so the income sources and this is all income sources um can't uh total more than um uh 69,000 and so you'll have to provide documentation showing that obviously your tax returns and any other information the assessor requires but um Ashland is a little bit different in that it only looks at income and you have to be below that $69,000 income level a lot of communities that have a program like this they actually use the 41c not the 41c and a half model which also takes into account assets so Ashland is different in that it only looks at income it doesn't look at assets so good question Dave any other
017questions regarding um the property tax exemption okay moving right along don't you love it when these things go quick quickly it's like I mean it's I expect town meeting to go this smoothly as well too right it did once during yeah for sure um article four is a simply a correction of a prior um warrant article that allowed the town to accept a gift of property from um an organization known as the Hopkin area land trust and it was ENT essentially a transcription error on our part and so all of this does it doesn't add any more property that we're that we're taking on or or change it or reduce the amount it just simply corrects an error that we had with the um map number uh to be specific uh so I would not
018expect any questions on that but um I'd certainly open it up and and pause right here okay seeing none we'll move to article five which is um an authorization to to borrow funds to replace uh a section of water M and uh so what this amount is is again to pay for the cost of you know not only the construction but the engineering and design of I mean we have it listed for various water main projects but specifically we're looking at the inter with this one we're looking at the um intersection of Fountain Street and E in Union Street so 135 um and so obviously we need to um if if you're familiar with all the water main brakes that happen in town we've got an aging uh water main infrastructure meaning a lot of
019these pipes that were put in are original to when they were originally put in and um so you know there's obviously a useful useful life associated with those um in many cases they far exceeded their useful life and so we start to see a lot of these watermate braks and you know if you're talking about a specific uh type of pipe uh like as best as concrete you know once you get a break there it just kind of like starts traveling down the line and you're always chasing brakes so the best thing to do is to um when you can look at replacing them and so also when you're replacing water mains that's when you should look at doing some of your roadway repairs or maybe adding different roadway infrastructure or sidewalks or um Ada
020accessibility options and so that's actually what we're looking at doing here on Fountain Street in 135 um is to replace the water M actually install u a new Loop type system which uh will allow us if we do have a water main brake in certain parts of the town be able to shut off um water in a way that doesn't affect as many homeowners while we repair those water main brakes and then also um helps us to do some of the paving work um and then also putting some cross walks um including some signage uh as well as basically some handicap ramps on um on the corners of that intersection as well so that's what uh this project will do and uh again I'll pause to see if anybody has any questions related to this
021project I think Tim Tim how are you my friend pretty good uh just a quick question how what what's the length of water M that would be replaced under this project I was care about how much water man you can buy for a million dollars let see give me one second here I should have that um uh 1,700 feet Tim oh wow okay Y is that mostly on 13 is that go up how far up Mountain speed does that go or is it go up over the bridge or wasn't sure where exactly yeah partially the bridge um and I whatever 1700 feet equals to how's yeah it's a decent distance okay okay yeah um I do think it's going to go all the way see on the East Union side it goes all the way
022to the public safety building if I'm oh okay all right so that makes sense that makes sense before and then com back thank you oh you're welcome okay any other questions yes ma'am so the question is will that money be coming from the capital account so that um that money will be coming from the capital account in the water Enterprise fund so that's a good question the other capital account that we were talking about is what's known as the J general fund and so we the general fund pays for most of the expenses that you know of related to town government like police schools things like that so we do have separate Enterprise funds which pays for certain activities um water water is an Enterprise fund sew an Enterprise fund they each have their Associated
023capital accounts as well we also have a trash Enterprise fund a cable Enterprise fund and a Fields Enterprise fund and a storm waterer Enterprise fund so uh but that's a good question this money would be coming out of the water Enterprise fund thank you all right I'll move to um article six um which is actually a uh warrant article put forward by the community preservation committee to fund a uh feasibility study in conjunction with the city of Framingham um to restore was comp Pond and if you're familiar with was comp Pond you will know that over the last few years it's really been actually it's it's been more than a few years it's been a while gets overrun with algae um you know other types of U of invasive species that really make that Waterway
024kind of unusable um certainly from a recreational aspect um and so wasum Pond also has some specific um I guess you could say uh what's the best way to put this like specific ific um Flora Flora species that um are could be considered endangered or the state has a very strong interest in protecting um and ensuring that um it doesn't go away and so it's not it's a long way of saying that you we can't just go in there um to wash aen Pond and just hit it with you know normal chemicals or you know treatment methods that you would typically utilize um in some other waterways like you see with the reservoir or something to that effect so you have to use you have to go through this feasibility study and um look at
025different methods different treatment methods and so that is what this funding is designed to do to help fund that study again it's uh with a partnership with Framingham Framingham let see most of like wasum is in framingham's borders uh certain portion of it is in ashlands and I believe it's we're paying for 25% Jen um so 25% of that study and so the hope is you know we'll get a study uh that tells us you know what would be the proper treatment method that'll will allow us to again hopefully make that uh Pond a little bit more usable than it is currently so again I'll pause for any questions all right um article seven um is uh accepting a new uh bylaw related to blight um or the definition of blight um so I can
026just say historically this is something that uh we in the town at least the town Administration have have thought about and looked at from you know a couple of different ways uh we thought about bringing it forward a few years ago uh made the decision ultimately not to do that and um but what's been happening recently is we've just been getting a lot of complaints and a lot of observations been made by our health director and our Building Commissioner uh SL building inspector um that you know bring to question some of the health and and safety concerns of some of these properties so we're not just necessarily looking at this from an a static standpoint although if you read this you know it it looks very aesthetically focused um there is a public health and
027a public safety component as part of this um you know if you have Tall Grass if you have a lot of trash in your yard and everything it leads to rodents um which can be incredibly damaging um especially rats um and so again you know like so if you look at this it's pretty easy to look at it through the lens of oh this is like an aesthetic type of um type of uh bylaw I guess you could say or an aesthetic lens that we're looking at this through um but uh it it's really not it's really more geared towards public health and Public Safety and so what this bylaw does first of all it defines what blight is what that means it articulates who is the enforcement um officer or who are the enforcement
028officers uh in charge of administering this bylaw it also provides for basically an appeal mechanism and and a mechanism for um you know how things need to be repaired or how they can be put back into compliance and if a a homeowner or business owner can't do that right away there's the ability for them to submit a plan um that would uh obviously would need to be reviewed and approved um but would uh basically set us on the course of U achieving compliance um in these situations um and then also for those properties that are vacant or foreclosed um or foreclosed and vacant I should say um is also provides the ability to establish essentially a database for the town um and so there is a fee charged with that but it's so we can
029maintain a database of okay who owns the property who's the contact person in case we do have some issues with it I don't expect this list to be very very long we're fortunate in that we don't have a lot of properties that would um basically uh qualify for this uh but it is another tool that we see in our toolkit that we can utilize to um basically promote health and safety here within the town so um any questions regarding that regarding article 7 yes ma'am yeah the question is how many properties uh do I think um that we that would qualify for this um I don't know I don't know we we haven't so this is It's a good question and it gives me an opportunity to kind of explain like the so given our
030staffing levels and given kind of what needs to be done I don't expect a lot of this work to be done pro actively so I don't anticipate our health director or Building Commissioner to be going out and searching for properties that would uh that would qualify under this um that does mean that it will primarily be complaint driven um which has you know some of its own pitfalls associated with it you know you don't you don't want to have something like this become weaponized and uh you know if you have neighbor disputes you don't want you know our Building Commissioner and health director spending their time time you know trying to arbitrate those uh through the uh again through the through the the blight bylaw so um yeah thank you for asking that gives me
031a chance to explain a little bit of that any other questions toate field complains the to yeah so the question is is um so the purpose of the by law is to is identify the properties and you know provide an Avenue for for resources if you will to to be um you know to be utilized to to basically bring them into compliance and I would say that's that's partially right um obviously it's a way to um basically identify these properties like you said um but then it's also provides a kind of a framework for accountability and an Avenue if you will to get those again those properties brought back into compliance but mainly it's going to be on uh the responsibility of the homeowner and uh not and the business owner not necessarily the responsibility
032of the town now if the town has a hard time gaining compliance you know um you know there is the possibility that the town could step in and basically use more of a heavy-handed approach but again that's something that we we don't want to utilize we um we look at these things they're not Revenue generators they're not meant to um you know to make the town money or anything anything like that I mean the fees that would be charged I I doubt they would actually cover what it would cost to um administer something like this it's really to bring the properties back into compliance and help help people bring it back into compliance so again we don't have those health and safety issues that that we're concerned about okay I'll move on to article wow
033we've only got two more left um and I'm talking quite a bit so I mean this could this could Bode for a real quick town meeting folks you know um so and then we get to article8 which is a um new zoning by law to establish um MBTA Community zoning so um gosh uh just by a show of hands here in the audience and anybody who wants to use their raised hand feature at home uh who who has heard of MBTA communities all right well I'm surprised I'm surprised more people aren't raising their hands um or maybe everybody's just shot guy or they don't know where the raised hand feature is um yeah Joan I was about to say if you're if you're not raising your hand I know I know we got some technical
034difficulties here um okay here everybody now now we're starting to see more people so NBTA communities um zoning is basically a law that passed passed by the state legislature which requires communities that have an MBTA stop or are adjacent to an MB MBTA stop it requires those communities to Zone as of right multif family developments um within you have to capture a certain number and it has to be within a certain acreage um has to meet some other parameters as well and again this is changing the zoning to allowing these properties to be built as of right and um which is very very different than the way many communities have it set up now if there is the possibility of building like multif family uh buildings which are you know when we say multif family
035that's like apartment complexes or condo complexes um typically what happens in a community is it's done through what we call a special permit so just to kind of give you a little bit of background uh there's various levels of review Associated to a project if you will like a development project or a building project based on what is said in the zoning and what is being proposed so if you're looking at building a single family home on a property that is um zoned for single family relatively easy right you go in you just pull a building permit The Building Commissioner looks make sure you're meeting all the setback requirements that are outlined in the zoning that's it you have the ability to to build that house okay under the zoning um if it's a larger
036project you have to do something called site plan review even if things meet the zoning so you have a larger project and let's just say it is a multif family project I'm trying to remember the exact zones where that is allowed just through site plan review um let's just say it's like 10 or 15 units right and it meets the zoning meaning it it doesn't necessarily need a special permit um you still have to go through what's known as site plan plan review which gives the planning board and other you know relative relevant um uh departments if you will the opportunity to look at the project and mitigate any kind of concerns that might come up with regards to things like storm water or infrastructure or things of that nature so there's still a review
037process you can't deny the project um but it does give you the ability to condition the project uh reasonably and then you have like what's the next step is you have something called special permit and so that's um a lot more uh gives the planning board a lot more discretionary ability to um approve a project or approve it with conditions or even deny a project um so what you would see is a project would be allowed by the zoning but only through a special permit and so again that's a much more rigorous set of review with a lot more objective or excuse me subjective criteria based on who the planning board is at the time again so they would have the ability to review it and utilize their judgment as to what they think is
038um is best or appropriate and so like I said most districts in Ashland um that have multi-fam developments are done so through a special permit and so NBTA communities what that does is it actually removes that requirement and in these certain zones um it basically says that can be done as a right they would need to be done through a site plan review process so that's kind of the framework within which we're working under okay and so what our planning board and our select board has done as well as our planning director and our assistant planner is um basically they have worked to find a way to um minimize I I will have to say minimize the real impact this could have in term terms of building additional units and the reason why is because
039Ashland has already built or permitted a significant number of multif family units over the last 10 15 20 years and uh unfortunately that wasn't taken into account when this law was passed this law was passed as kind of a one-sized fits-all approach it doesn't matter you know if a community has been proactive in building housing or if they've been very adamant against or adamant in building no housing it didn't take any of that into account and so you know I think it's fair to say I don't want to necessarily speak for other people um you know on our boards and committees but I do think it it's pretty fair to say that we felt like we had done our fair share and that this was kind of in a way punishing us if you will
040um and so the thought was and and the basically the uh the approach was okay some of these things that have been built how can can we go back and reone those um under the NBTA communities law in order to be in compliance with the with the new law but doesn't necessarily mean that something new is going to be built I mean Sirrus Apartments was just built in 2016 2017 even if we rezone that under the density that's required here uh under the new law it's very unlikely somebody's going to go there and knock it down and build something new I don't even know if they could build something it's maybe a couple units an acre built Big it's just the math doesn't work uh for a developer to do that so I think um
041a small working group that we had which consisted of uh Trisha Kendall from our planning board and Joe manani from the select board as well as Peter matchak our planning director and Alvaro Esparza our assistant planner I think they did a really good job of evaluating all the options and finding a way to basically Zone certain areas around town in a way that's going to be the least impactful to the town and I think that's what a lot of communities um that have to comply with this are struggling with so I have to give kudos to them um so I'll pause right here I think think that's about as good an explanation as I'm going to be able to give U but let's just see if there's any questions out there you want to let
042Tim go first yeah thank you um my my hopefully it'll be a quick question um does the proposed the changes you made to include the areas where the proposed 40b developments are are they uh part of the reason zoned area so that they will they will count against this um you know we are so fortunate to be joined by by our planning board chair Trisha Kendall um and uh Trisha why don't you she literally just walked in you want to have a seat and just kind of get settled and um so Tim has asked the question we're at MBTA communities take a deep breath it's been good so far it's been relatively quick we're we're just saying you know town meeting is going to be a breeze if this is any indication you know how
043things are going um but the question from Tim was were any of the um the two or the two uh 40b projects do does any of the MBTA zoning Encompass locations where those projects are proposed um just one of them is the mic on um the at 10 to 60 Main Street we are using the Acres there as part of the um the MBTA overlay District the other one we are not using okay is there a reason why it wasn't included or is it just was a where it is wasn't sure why yeah we looked at both sites and it was one of the reasons that we decided um at Springtown meeting to postpone doing the MBT ta um bylaw sorry I'm still catching my bre that's okay that's okay um while we postponed it
044until the fall is because right when we had created the last bylaw um within a few weeks before that the 240 BS kind of popped on the scene and um so 10 to 60 main um what the project that they're proposing there has a much higher density than what we are going to be proposing for the MBTA right so they have it proposed at like um 36 or something like that and we're proposing it at 15 on the other site however um the density is um is very close so we we were looking for areas that um let's see how can I explain this for the other 40b project the one across from the high school the density that it's being proposed at is very close to the density the lowest density we can do
045for MBTA so what we didn't want to do is to have a developer say um oh I'm going to pull out of this 40b and I'm going to do um I'm going to do uh MBTA zoning instead because then I don't have to go through the 40b process and I don't have to offer 25% affordable I can only offer 10 so if we figured if we're going to have a project there of about the same size we would rather have that project be 25% affordable than have it be 10% affordable so we decided not to include the site across from the high school but we are including the site from 10 to 60 Main Street because we're setting the um we're setting the density so low on Main Street half the density that's being proposed
046by the 40b that it it likely just isn't economically feasible to even build something there at 50 you per acre does that make sense sense okay thank you it answers my question Jo oh Joan yes jonan Friday onshore Road um I've I've spoken you know several times about MBTA so I'm not going to repeat myself but something new has come up this week um where Milbury just um voted it down and there's been some concern with some of the towns about water because we are in such a drought and Ashlin certainly is has its own issues with water um I'm just wondering if there's an opportunity to push this off a little bit later I know that that the the date is December um but and see how this plays out with some of the
047other towns and with the with the drought and see if there are any options there um I guess my understanding is that we're not allowed to deny something because of water which makes makes no sense since we can't live without it but um I just wonder if there's a chance to do a special town meeting maybe late in December to finalize things after we see how all of this plays out thank you yeah thanks Joan you know I'm not um I'm not familiar with milbury's you know specific situation um you know you know I I will say a couple of things uh so first of all uh just because they deny it at town meeting doesn't necessarily mean that um you know there's not going to be consequences uh for them in the future and
048so you know obviously we you know the the state has kind of outlined you know what those consequences would be um and uh that would uh that well you know that would have to play out after the beginning of the year after the deadline has passed of um you know having MBTA compliant zoning in place by the end of the year the second is you know I believe you're going to have to have data right to support anything like that and um I know that we um that we typically use the fact that you know we go into water bands or water restrictions um as as a way of saying that we don't necessarily have enough water and I think you could you know you could look at that you could make the case based
049on that again that that that framework um but I think if you actually look at our water usage on a it's actually gone down over the last 10 or 15 years and you know logically people are like well wait you know we've know we we know we've built more um how can it be that water usage is actually going down and if you start looking at just what has been implemented in terms of water uh saving features in things just low flow flow toilets or or showers you know things like that I think you know those have obviously made a huge difference um you know given as dry and I think this is the driest year on record uh it's either the warmest or the driest and we really didn't hit water restrictions until gosh
050the late fall and even then it was kind of like at the point where um water restrictions almost didn't really make sense in terms of outdoor watering because it was it was almost past the temperatures had gotten to the point where it wasn't necessary or wasn't really necessary so you know I think if we were going to adopt something like that we'd have to be able to show it with data and I'm just I'm not sure I'm not convinced that that's there yet thank you and believe it's mikolai yeah I have a question so under 40b that would allow the 1050 main to have a higher density yeah so yeah so the 40b what's being proposed under 40b is actually a higher density than what the MBTA zoning law would require but that's that's that's
051good to kind of build more and what about just res Zone in the whole Pleasant Street between the station because many of those uh single family homes could just be replaced with a multi family I think people who live there would gladly kind of sell out and um have their property being replaced by multif family yeah um I think in in terms of um the working group and I was one of a me a four person working group that kind of looked at all these issues one of the things we were trying to be very careful of is um is not usurping the comprehensive plan process that we have in place so um the comprehensive plan process is obviously still on ongoing the um town has invested a great deal into it and we didn't
052want to make decisions for the town that really should come out of of the comprehensive plan which really involves a much larger group I think there's 29 people on that committee a a lot of community um feedback for every step of the way and we don't have that written or voted on or it's just kind of right in the middle of things so the working group didn't want to make decisions for the town of Ashland we wanted those decisions to come out of the residents and through the comprehensive plan process so what we were trying to do was to find a solution what we were charged with really by the select board and the planning board is to find a way that Ashen can comply um with minimal impact um and um so that so
053that we wouldn't lose out on the grants that are available and and we decided we really just wanted to let the major decisions be in the hands of the comprehensive plan and if we need to we can rezone when that process is complete so another so we weren't looking at Pleasant Street we weren't we weren't we were trying to find areas that were already built and we really minimized the amount of acreage that we that we um used on Pleasant Street um Trisha is I believe like on our website there's probably kind of a map with um the locations where the proposed zoning is yeah I haven't actually looked at the website recently but there is um I think through the planning department um web page there is a whole page there about MBTA and
054I I believe that it's kept very up to dat so I I think those the things both um the zoning map and the bylaw you know should be there as well as our whole process and various forums and things like that okay um yeah we had a couple oh that that you mean the grants that if if we yeah I don't have a list in front of me they're they're um you might have more information on it but um yeah but there if if we if we don't comply then there's a group of grants that Ashland has utilized in the past that we wouldn't be able to but memorizing that is not part of my warehouse that list and and plus that you know whenever uh you know the state changes their Grant programs um
055you know on on a somewhat consistent basis but uh basically any anything related to infrastructure work or um you know Community Development work would be off the table um so I I'll give you a couple specific examples so the town has utilized a grant program called the massworks program um to do a number of upgrades uh throughout town so um like the first one that we had received um so that helped pay for the Reconstruction of the MBTA AIS road which is now Memorial Drive that allowed us to put Utilities in there and and build that multimodal path now that was tied to Cirrus Apartments but that also um was a big factor in the YMCA choosing to locate their new Regional facility here the fact that we had utilities there that Grant also paid
056for um the supplemental water connection to the MW so if we do hit an emergency situation we now have the ability to basically just turn on a spigot and um you know we have access to to water through the town of Southboro that was a $2 million project um it helped fund part of the Riverwalk um a couple of other projects and then the other massworks Grant we got which was 3 million to help redo our downtown so $3 million was paid for through a massworks grant um so that's one one big program that we wouldn't be eligible for anymore I I do think a list of those grants is I I think available through the MBTA website through the state and also we're putting together frequently asked questions um hand out for town meeting
057and we're going to we have a list of them that are going to be on there as well so any other questions yeah okay so let me just make sure I I understand the question so you're not able to draw a comparison between what 10 to 60 that the mill building site would look like okay um under the proposed zoning versus what's being proposed as part of the 40b project and then how would either of those relate to what is being built on Chestnut Street so you're looking kind of like for a frame of reference yes right okay so what is being proposed uh under the 40b law is um for the site is 250 units um and it's a four and five-story building from the street so if you're looking at it from the
058street um it would be four stories and in the back there's like an extra story that goes on top of that um and again 25% of the units would be affordable and uh you know they would keep basically the original um uh 10 Main Street the original building and then keep the facade of the second one um which is 30 Main Street um you know basically the the second building from if you're looking at it from the left um and MBTA the MBTA zoning um is 15 units an acre yeah um at at the excuse me for the slide presentation that we're putting together for town meeting there will be some things that'll make it a little bit easier to compare so the um um the 100 Chestnut Street building that is going up is
059about uh 30 units an acre and um now granted that that has some uh commercial as a point of it so it has 30 units an acre of residential but the whole first floor is not residential the whole that so if you were only counting residential it would come down a floor right um but that's 30 units an acre what they're proposing in at 10 to 60 Main Street as a 40b project again which is has nothing to do with MBTA zoning that I believe is what they're proposing is 35 or 36 units an acre so what we have down there is 15 units an acre which is the lowest we can go um and that is more analogous to Cirrus Apartments if you've driven up there that's about at 14 units an acre um
060but it also has some area around those buildings there's obviously not a line on the ground that where where nothing is right so it's more different buildings kind of floating in a site so that's about 14 units an acre and that's all res all residential so trying to visualize this it yeah it it doesn't um it doesn't always equate to stories right what the units per acre doesn't always equate to stories it right it doesn't now in this case now in this case um MBTA zoning has to follow the way the way we have written it um we are giving them a we are giving a density per site right so for MBTA oh sorry for 10 to 60 Main Street the density we're assigning it under MBTA is 15 units an acre but every
061everything else has to come from the underlying zoning because MBTA is an overlay District it's just trying to govern a certain things so we're saying 15 units an acre but under that sits the zoning called add ashin downtown district and that regulation specifies that buildings have to be three stories or or below right but that's MBTA the 40b project is completely different and outside of the control of NBTA the 40b project doesn't have to follow those underlying regulations the way MBTA does so that's why the 40b can say no we're not going to follow those regulations we're going to make the building higher so that's why we believe that the the zoning we're putting on MBTA is is very light zoning relative to what's being proposed by 40b but we don't have control of 40b
062does that help a l well the 40b has applied to the state but that has nothing to do with town meeting yeah the MBTA zoning is something with the working group what we decided to do is as you know Ashland has been producing housing we have some of it being built right now right so the working group was trying to say you know we have been doing housing we're going to use the things that we have been doing to count toward MBTA so that was kind of our strategy um in in going in going in the direction we did and that's why we wanted to use 10 to 60 main we did not look to use it at Springtown meeting but on Fall town meeting we have a 40b looking at that property so we
063said we might as well use it in ours because it's it seems to be going down that road anyway does that help yeah so the chart that's there the numbers um basically refer to the underlying zoning that they have to maintain um or to in the case of 100 Chestnut Street the building that's that's there and proposed that we're trying to always propose something lesser or smaller in MBTA um as far as the uh as far as the restrictions go if we can B and C are if I remembering correctly are the downtown zoning districts yes so that would be I think the the first one is Pleasant Street which would be where connect church and burnhams is that little strip and the other one is 10 to 60 Main Street those are both in
064the same zoning yeah I think you know probably just for anybody I zoning can be so confusing and when you start talking about things like 40b and MBTA so they just gosh even when you don't have that stuff it can be confusing but I have heard since these convers these 40b conversations are happening at the same time of NBTA communities I think the tendency is to basically um you know maybe confuse the two things it's so easy to do and I think probably the simplest way to look at it is um so a town has zoning right that that has to help regulate development and NBTA communities is a mandate imposed Upon Us by the state to change our zoning a certain way to to basically meet what the state feels um are important important
065goals right 40b has been allowed for decades now and what 40b does is it allows a developer to actually supersede zoning that is that awn town has whether it's been imposed by the state or whether it happens organically when a town 40b process allows a developer to supersede that and not abide by it as long as what they do is they build 20 to 25% of their units are deemed affordable so that's probably the the simplest way I can kind of make the distinction between the two so you could very well see in the future a community that has an MBTA zoning District right and you could see a developer say you know what this is not good enough for me this density I want to go in and I want to do a 40b
066on top of that um instead of doing the NBTA zoning I think you will probably see that a lot for communities that aren't protected from 40b and there's certain things that you can do but um that's probably the best way I can I can kind of explain kind of the bigger picture about it you're welcome so um yeah good discussion on that one I I expect it to um I expect to have similar discussions at town meeting you know it's just it's it is it's a it's an important topic but zoning by its nature can be very confusing um and we all know how much we love State mandates so did I say okay um anyway uh moving on and I don't see any other questions related to um article 8 so I'll move on
067to some good news how about that we'll go with article 9 and um article actually I shouldn't say that because I mentioned it before before you were here Trisha but I really do think that this working group has done really a great job of finding like I said before a way to basically meet this mandate by the state with as little impact to Ashland as possible because it does I mean again as I mentioned before we have built a lot of housing Trisha mentioned that how do we get credit for that essentially and I think this what that proposal really does do that takes takes advantage of that and helps us get credit um so again moving on to uh I think what's really good news we go from development on one end to article
0689 which is um purchasing a piece of land to keep it as open space and uh so this is a piece of property um that the town has you know been aware of and had had its eyes on for a while so if those of you are familiar with the um United Church of Christ property that is you know you see it predominantly on the intersection of Salem end and Badger Road in Framingham as you're coming into town Edward's house and where Pilgrim Day Camp is so if you go down Mader Myrtle Street you know a lot of that property as you're coming south into Ashland onto your right is UCC proper property and a good chunk of that is in Ashland actually 50 something acres and so it extends um from there all the
069way basically where you see um Winter Street uh intersect with Myrtle Street you know where it's blocked off um it's got the gate it goes up Myrtle Street and it it goes up towards the Framingham line in total it's 53 Acres 52 53 Acres um and the church is at a place where it is looking at um a lot of its property and seeing what the best use of that property is and whether they should hold on to it or not and they made the decision that they uh wanted to divest of of that particular property and fortunately they were really um willing to um engage with the town in a meaningful discussion about us purchasing it um and so we we're also really really fortunate in that we had um Rob St Jermaine from
070our town Forest committee uh really kind of take the lead on um basically uh working with the church and then also working with subury Valley trustees which is the local conservation organization um and you know working you know with myself to really come uh to an agreement with the church to buy this piece of property um so again 52 53 Acres pristine Woodland I mean it is an unbelievable piece of property um and the purchase price is a very reasonable $1.4 million so 50 something acres for $1.4 million I think that in itself is uh a very good deal if you look at a per acre cost and you look at what some what we bought open space for before um the church had an appraisal that you know if they had developed it which
071was certainly a possibility on part of it um they could have gotten close to $2.8 or $3 million but um they felt like it was more in line with their mission to come to an agreement with the town so again uh that gives you an outline of where the property is what the purchase price is I think the exciting thing is that we have the ability to um even though it's 1.4 million we have the ability to uh work with Sudbury Valley trustees and they have committed to holding the conservation restriction on the property so M make sure that it maintains its open space um qualifications if you will but then they're also going to pay pay us $250,000 to um to buy this property as well usually it's the other way around if you're
072having somebody hold the conservation restriction you usually pay them um but they've agreed to pay $250,000 towards the purchase price so that knocks um our cost down from 1.4 million to 1, 150,000 Plus in addition to that we've already applied for one Grant we could potentially apply for other grants that could reduce our cost exposure further by um $600,000 so we could potentially be getting this piece of property for around 500 $600,000 um in terms of Ashland money which is just um you know it's it's a really really good value and again this piece of property would be added to the town Forest that ABS the Town Forest now a lot of people don't realize like a lot of things that we think of as the Town Forest are still private property like you know
073it's just wooded right now and we've fortunately we've made a few saves over the years in terms of the Nicko property and being able to purchase that that was 35 Acres that was going to be developed um you know a couple pieces off of organ Road um and then this one here I mean I think if you add it all up if this uh purchase goes through we will have added almost 100 acres to the town forest in in like the last eight years so um you know what we do talk a lot about housing even before MBTA communities we've talked a lot about housing and housing being built and um obviously there's uh there's there's a need for it but then there's also some fatigue associated with it um understood but you know we're
074trying to balance things as well so we're trying to to buy open space and you know we've bought not including this we will have maintained or preserved either through purchases or things like deed restrictions over 300 acres over the last 10 years so we've really tried to balance it out and I'm really really I'm really happy about about this one um so this permanently open space yeah permanent it cannot be built on so it doesn't matter if there's a 40b so that's that's that's the great thing about owning properties and deed restrictions is that 40b allows a developer to supersede zoning but land ownership and land and deeds that run with the land and restrictions that run with the land those aren't that's not zoning so you can't supersede those so oh Tim yes sir
075Tim you're full of questions today I love it thank you uh I think this is a great idea um I do and just to as I say we have but U one of the parcels um uh that's under under consideration here the question I had had to do more with the connection to the existing Town Forest because the way I see it it looks like the this property there's still a a gap I believe between these properties and the rest of the the Town Forest property except kind of at the corner of my property and and uh the existing Town Forest so yeah Tim I think you know probably your main connection would be the power line Trail right um you know the power line that runs through it um yeah there there are some
076other trails that run kind of back um you know through that area over to pick up the the trail near the witches caves runs through that right runs through that property that uh somebody else owns and I guess the question is is there ever is there any worry that that person's going to not allow people to they already are but you know to not cross that property or is there any possibility that sometime in the future we can acquire that also um I think uh that that is actively being worked upon and um I do think you know there's a way first all I think the piece of property that you're talking about it would be landlocked under this that one that that long skinny one that's yeah but that also AB buts my Pro
077that one you know there's the the church property that property and the Town Forest all come together at a corner of my property yeah so yeah I I Tim all I all I can say is I know um I know that land owner is aware of our interest and um you know I I can say that uh the person hasn't necess neily shut the door on things well and and the other thing is that there over the years I mean there have been there are trails that go through that property and and nobody's there's there aren't any signs or you know there's no posting there there are some other areas where we cross into private property where there's more they seem to be more restrictions you know that's it I I hope it continues because
078and and this is even independent of you know the power line there's some other trails that go what I'll call my side of the power line that that run through there that you to connect with that existing Trail off Winter Street and get over onto the main Town Forest Trails yeah I mean there's one that runs from that um from the Ed that Eastern Edge kind of runs behind Winter Street that that property that we're owning that runs up behind you know Wood Ridge I know exactly what you're talking about yeah so yeah no it's gorgeous back you know I think this is a great idea you know we for years were you know fearful of somebody developing all this property behind us so this is this is a great it's tough land but you
079know some if you know somebody really wanted to develop there they probably could figure out a way to do it right right so I'm going to put you down as a as a yes vote oh I'm definitely yes and I'll be there to say that but no it's a great I think it's a great idea awesome awesome great any other questions great well um let's see that does it uh for this edition of um our special town meeting or town meeting Forum God how many of these have we done now this is like 15 yeah we've done a few of them um gosh they I don't know we've been here for a while so so we have done quite a few of them but uh you know we find these helpful uh for us hopefully
080you find it helpful yourself um to get a little bit more information and places to find information uh again hopefully you know this has been helpful for you um Jen thank you Trisha thank you for for coming in at just the right time you got perfect timing um and uh for all of you out there I hope to see you at town meeting again it's next Tuesday um on the 19th starts at 700 pm. at the high school uh in the High School auditorium uh for those of you with little kiddos we do have a babysitting available that's going to be U part of our Recreation department and um who are going to be running that so you know if you are worried about taking care of the kids and feeling like that might be
081uh an impediment to you going we've got you covered there um again oh wait oh Chuck and Lynn did you I tell you I should have just I should have just cut it short right there right Chuck and Len lids Do you know that you are oh not we're unmuted you're unmuted now okay you know just as a matter of of and this goes to an earlier discussion but uh I bet I don't know why you have we have Enterprise funds and I bet 90% of the people who are in the who are listening don't either can you explain why we what the what the purpose of that is Chuck how many warrant articles have we done since since we talked about enterpr you've been waiting this whole time for that one okay so the
082question is why do you have Enterprise funds um so entprise funds allow you to basically identify what the Massachusetts Department of Revenue calls specific business activities and so it allows you to tie certain revenues related specific or specifically related to those expenditures so you pay your property taxes um that goes to support anything and everything basically um well like I mentioned before things like the school department things like health insurance uh for employees police and fire it's really hard to tie one specific activity done by a department or one specific you know uh expense to that Revenue line so what an Enterprise fund allows you to do is it allows you to basically set a budget and says okay this is what it's going to take to run our our water department and these are
083the fees that we need to charge to run it and so you know that the fees that you're going to be paying when you pay your water bill are going to nothing else except to pay and support those water operation expenditures same thing with the sewer fund so it's a way it's an account it's a way of accounting that allows you to isolate certain business activities and ensure that the revenue that you have said is going to go for those activities actually goes and pays for those activities so it it provides for more transparency essentially doesn't it also restrict the the uh Town manager's ability to efficiently run the um town no not necessarily Chuck I mean I I My Philosophy is I love flexibility um so you know Enterprise funds to that um you
084know if you look at it only through that type of philosophical um lens if you will is uh yeah it would be countered to that but no Enterprise funds serve a very very good purpose I think um so before we had the water and sewer Enterprise fund we would have water and sewer charges but they would go into the general fund under local receipts so yeah the town manager at the time had a lot more flexibility as to you know hey I'm going to take you know 50% of your water bill and use it to support my Police Department um and that flexibility uh for a manager is certainly welcome but again I do I think just from a good government perspective you know it probably it's probably good to have those isolated activities where
085you can provide a little bit more transparency okay thank you m thanks I appreciate it so all right on that note um I think we're going to call it tonight again hope to see you next Tuesday and uh until then I hope you all have a great week and um gosh I don't know I was about to say stay warm but I don't know if it's going to stay cold um the way things are going but anyway thank you for coming thank you for being here online and in the audience thanks have a good night e